Institutional Intelligence

How to Build an Effective Organization

Gordon T. Smith

• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9780830891801
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Workplace Culture
• Index: Business

Institutions matter. They give us an opportunity to have an influence for the common good that far outlasts us. But we often assume that institutions are at cross-purposes with dynamic communities, with personal vocational calling, and with core human values. We view them somewhat cynically as, perhaps, a necessary evil. Institutions, far from that, remain essential to human flourishing. They are the very means by which communities thrive, individual vocations are fulfilled, and society is changed for the good. As a result, we all need to learn how to work effectively within institutions. That is just what Gordon Smith provides. He unpacks the core of institutional intelligence—the wisdom of working effectively within an organization. At the same time, he shows how team leaders, directors, executives, board members, key stakeholders, and employees can avoid what is often their greatest source of stress on the job—working with the institutional character of their organizations. Focusing on the non-profit sector, Smith unlocks the essential elements of how institutions function in a productive, healthy manner. Church staff, educators, and those in service agencies can all thrive by understanding these dynamics instead of fighting against them. By developing this essential vocational capacity, we and those around us can not only fulfill ourselves but also a mission that is larger than we are.

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THE MEANING OF INSTITUTIONS

Institutions matter. Vibrant institutions—effective organizations—are essential to our personal lives and to the common good. Thus they merit our time and attention. And because institutions matter, we need to learn how to work with them and work within them. If organizations are going to be effective and if we are going to thrive within them, we need to foster institutional intelligence.

But we live in an era with a pervasive ambivalence about institutions. This might not be as much the case in the East—in Asia, for example—but in the West the very word institution has a negative ring to it for so many. It is not a happy day, for example, when someone is “institutionalized.” It is often assumed that institutions and institutional thinking are at cross-purposes with dynamic communities, with personal vocational calling, and with core human values. One world-renowned founder of an organization that provides homes for people with mental disabilities once insisted in an interview that it was his original vision to establish communities rather than institutions. There is plenty to admire in this mission, but I was struck that this comment reflects a common assumption: institutions don’t foster community; institutional thinking, he suggests, is contrary to communal values and commitments.

Similarly, faculty in academic institutions tend to view the institutional character of their colleges and universities somewhat cynically—as, perhaps, a necessary evil. They might accept that there is an institutional character to the place in which they work, but often they view it as essential to their own vocations to actually polarize the work and calling of the faculty from the infrastructure that is the “institution” and, by definition, those who exercise authority within the academy, particularly the so-called bureaucrats. They tend to speak somewhat tongue-in-cheek of colleagues who have become administrators as having gone over to the “dark side.”

Then also, church leaders often look upon the administrative side of their work—essentially the organizational and institutional dimensions of congregational life—as a distraction from true spiritual leadership and ministry. Here too the language of “community” is often viewed as the defining vision of what it means to be a church: religious leadership should focus on teaching, preaching, presiding, and offering spiritual direction. Sometimes what it typically called administration is viewed as a problem, an obstacle to true religious leadership and pastoral care. The most influential pastoral theologian of our generation, Eugene Petersen—as just one example, but an influential example—does not at any point in his key contributions to the vocation of pastoral ministry consider or speak to what it means to work with the board, the denominational bodies, the finances and the budget, and the other institutional aspects of congregational life.

And yet for so many pastors, the biggest challenges and greatest source of stress will come precisely at this point: the institutional character of congregations, particularly matters of governance, board effectiveness, and their working relationship with the board. Yes, of course, a congregation is not merely an institution. But could it be that a local church will never thrive without attention to the institutional dimension of congregational life?

Then also, those who work in nonprofit agencies often stress the need for flat organizational structures that, it is argued, foster collaboration and personal empowerment, all with a view of downplaying the institutional or organizational character of the agency. Again, all this assumes that institutional identity and character is somehow inherently suspect and by its very nature, contra good work and what it means to live and work in community. And the word institution is often linked with the word power with the assumption that power and organizational hierarchy are somehow contrary to vital and effective organizations.

And in this context, it is not uncommon for religious communities to stress the need for servant leadership as though this means that no one exercises authority and that there is no executive decision making. Vital organizations, it is suggested, are flat—no hierarchy, no boss, no executive—where decisions are made by consensus because the organization is more like a family than an institution.

But is there another way to think about institutions? Can we perhaps actually recognize that institutions are essential to human flourishing? Rather than see them as a problem or as a necessary evil, can we appreciate instead that institutions are the very means by which communities thrive, individual vocations are fulfilled, and society is changed for the good? Can we consider that we are all enriched and we all flourish when we invest in sustainable institutions? And more, could it not be that we all need to learn how to work effectively within an institution and that we can view this capacity as a good thing—as vital part of our personal development? Could it be that institutional intelligence—the wisdom of working effectively within an organization—is an essential vocational capacity for each of us?

Many of us who think this way about institutions have at some point come across the little classic by Hugh Heclo, On Thinking Institutionally. Heclo observes this:

Humans flourish through attachments to authoritative communities, not as totally unencumbered selves. Because institutional thinking goes beyond merely contingent, instrumental attachments, it takes daily life down to a deeper level than some passing parade of personal moods and feelings. By its nature, institutional thinking tends to cultivate belonging and a common life.1

In like fashion, James Davison Hunter insists that ideas are just ideas until institutions are established; he stresses that to change history, one has to get beyond ideas to institutions.2 Ideas—even great ideas—are only going to make a difference when they are embodied, given a social structure, within a dynamic and effective institution.3 Thus Hunter insists that we need to find ways “to create conditions in the structures of social life we inhabit that are conducive to the flourishing of all.”4 He speaks of how “in each occupation, vocation, or profession, leaders need to look for opportunities to form networks and mobilize resources including symbolic capital, financial capital, social capital, and administrative capital in common purposes, . . . creating structures that incarnate blessing, beauty, meaningfulness, and purpose not just for the benefit of believers but for the good of all.”5

In other words, institutions give us an opportunity and a mechanism, a means, to invest in something much larger than ourselves and to make a contribution that we would never be able to make individually and on our own. We invest in something—a means, a system, an entity—that will outlast us. When we invest in institutions and learn to work with institutions in partnership and in synergy with others—committing time, energy, and resources into something that matters to us and to others, working together with others to create the conditions in which institutions can flourish—the opportunity emerges for something very important to us to happen.

THE CHARACTER OF INSTITUTIONS

An institution is a social structure that leverages wisdom, talent and resources toward a common cause or purpose. More specifically, it is a means, an architecture—specifically a social architecture—by which we can pursue a shared and greater good together. Just as a soul cannot exist except as embodied, there is no community, no vision, no mission without institutions. The idea, the vision, will not happen, will not make a difference until and unless it is housed in an institution.

Thus James K. A. Smith suggests that while we do not need to romanticize institutions—we can and do recognize their limits—we also do not need to demonize them.6 Rather, we tend them—and his use of the word tend is so apt—we tend them with all their limitations, for they are the means by which we do something significant together. Smith words it well when he writes this:

Institutions are durable, communal ways that we can act in concert with our neighbors to achieve penultimate goods. So, instead of thinking about institutions as big, hulking, static behemoths, think of institutions as dynamic, social enactment. Try to imagine “institutions” as spheres of action. Institutions are not just something that we build; they’re something that we do.7

The point at issue, then, is not whether we have institutions or not. Rather, the question is whether we will invest in them and know how to make them effective. They are always imperfect because people are imperfect. And yet they outlive us, and to the degree that we get them right, good things—indeed, very good things—happen.

If you want to address matters of poverty, invest time and energy in an institution that gets at the underlying causes and responds deeply and effectively to the problem. If you have a dream to educate a generation, dream on, I say, if you are not willing to invest in an academic institution that will actually make the dream happen. If as a church you want to have a long-term impact on the lives of individuals, families, a community, and the lives of those in that community, then you must consider the institutional character of congregational life. Do not be naive or utopian about your dream; rather, attend to the nitty-gritty of what makes the church an effective agency of substantive change. If you want to deeply affect the way that a community or a city think about and understand and embrace the arts, then it will be schools of art and art galleries and studios and artists’ guilds—institutions, each of them—that ultimately alter the social landscape. And when I am taken into the ER with a crisis, I want a dynamic, powerful, and effective institution that is able to respond to my immediate and very urgent need. At that point, I am not wanting creative and critical thinking about great medical care. Rather, like many others in such situations, we are looking for a hospital—an institution—made up of people who do not merely have good ideas and are very competent at responding to medical crises. I am looking to be admitted into a hospital with a vision for excellence in health care that has been translated into effective systems transcending the ideas or competence of any one person. I am not saying that good ideas do not matter. Of course not. I am not saying that critical thinking and creative thinking are not crucial. Rather, we need clear and creative thinking that is housed within institutions that deliver on the very best of this clear and creative thinking.

We need institutions that protect communities: police forces, fire departments, and the military. We need institutions by which we are governed, civic institutions on a municipal and national level. It is stunningly naive to be anti-government; without government institutions civilization does not happen. It would be “every man” for himself or herself. To govern a society—a city, a province, or a nation-state—you need institutions that work. And then also there is no great art, learning, or human achievement—commercial, religious, intellectual, or otherwise—without institutions. If you want to hear Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in all of its power, wonder, and grandeur, the only way will be if an orchestra—an institution—mounts it.

In none of these cases do we merely need someone with a good idea. We need people who have invested in and know how to sustain effective, vital institutions made up of people, at all levels of the institution, who know how to think institutionally. They get it; they know what it takes for a good idea to actually make a difference. They have institutional intelligence.

As a university president, I live with the daily awareness of the potential of institutions of higher education. And I am convinced that we need such institutions—public and private, including those such as the one I lead, that embody the core values of the Christian intellectual and spiritual tradition. Since the Christian intellectual and spiritual tradition matters to me, I am eager to see it lived out within an institution. As a reader you no doubt have your own defining values and commitments, a vision for what matters to you. The only way this will find concrete, tangible, and long-term expression in society or community—in our world—is if you learn how to work with others and form a society—a guild, a school, a hospital, an art gallery, a church, that is, an institution—that will bring together the strengths and abilities of a variety of people who can work together over a sustained period of time toward a common end.

In this regard, we need to persuade a younger generation of Christian leaders that investing in institutions makes sense. They can be creative, strategic, and even revolutionary and not assume that in so doing, they have to be anti-institutional. Indeed, if they are going to have a lasting impact on the church and on society, they need to think institutionally and invest time and energy in institutions, especially institutions they believe in. But for that, two things are needed: to affirm that institutions matter and, further, to identify what it means to think and act with institutional intelligence.

I say to those in their twenties and thirties, you can try to make it on your own, as a freelance worker or contractor, as a stand-alone agent. And those who make such attempt as often as not do so because they have become cynical about institutions, and perhaps have been hurt by institutions. And there might be good reasons for us to appreciate their circumstances.

We might be impressed by the pioneer missionary, not part of a mission agency, perhaps, independently striving to change the world. Or we might be taken with the individual blogger who is valiantly profiling some recurring wrong, a prophet alone in the wilderness. Or we might be moved by the clever entrepreneurs or inventors who emerge from their back rooms with revolutionary ideas. And yet if the impact of the blogger is going to take and truly alter our society—the church, the community, the politics that shape our shared lives—eventually those ideas need to find expression within the core values of an institution if they are going to make a difference and truly come up against the very thing the blogger is protesting. And the inventor? Here as well, the brilliant idea, if it is going to go anywhere at all, needs ...