THE STRATEGY FOR LEADERSHIP

The Anatomy of an Organization

For just as we have many members in one body and all
the members do not have the same function, so we, who are
many, are one body in Christ, and individually
members one of another.

Romans 12:4, 5

Has anyone ever asked you to describe your organization?
How would you reply? With this questions, we expect that our
questions will get a different picture. If we were asked to explain
why we have our kind of organization, many of us would
immediately start depending it and tell the reasons why?


Definition and Origins:

What is an organization? How does it come into being? How
should we think about it? Lets begin at the basics and then see if
we can work our way back to Christian models.

Organizations have to do with people. An organization occurs
any time two or more people agree to carry out a task together.
They may do this on the basis of some well-established precedent.
Two people who agree to play tennis together in a sense of
forming an organization. They have both learned the rules and
have somewhat identical expectations as to what is to occur.
When two people get together to cut firewood, the same type of
things occurs. Here there may be less experience on which to
build, but there is a basic understanding that there is a task to
perform and an assumption that the two people have an idea as to
how this task is to be carried out. Moving further, two or more
individual may come together without having a clear idea of what it
is then want to accomplish or how they are going to go about it.
They may have nothing more than a felt need that they believe
should be met. A need may be within either individuals or their
world.

Organizations begin with and involve people. True, we can organize
machinery or other things. But organizing humans is a different matter!

Organizations are usually bounded by time. In other words, they have a
beginning and an ending in history.

Organizations are formed around a purpose. Whether the purpose is
despicable or lofty, unless there is an understanding of why the organization
is formed, it is difficult for it to come into being. Another way of saying this is
that organizations come into being to accomplish something. The aim may
be fellowship, in which there is nothing more than th3 desire for mutual
enhancement. Or the purpose may be a task, something that needs to be
done but is outside the needs of individuals in the organization.

Organization tend to be complex obviously, the larger the more complex.
It is human relations that make them so. Every time an individual is added to
an organization, the number of possible relationships grows dramatically.
Consider an organization made up0 of two people. There is must one
relationship. On other hand, an organization made up of three people will
reflect three relationships. Four people can form six potential relationships.

Organizations come into being in the midst of a larger system. They are
always related to and/or influenced by their environment or culture. This is
important to note.

A Structural Hierarchy

There are many different ways of describing an organization. Most of us
are familiar with organization charts and diagrams. Here is a series of boxes
and lines that are supposed to mean something. But is this a description of
lines of communication within an organization? Does it show lines of authority
or responsibility? What does it really mean? Some of us think or organizations
as hierarchical structures mad up of people in different positions.

An Enabling Environment

As we have struggled to find some picture or model of a organization that
might be universal to different kinds of organizations, the idea of seeing the
organization as an environment appears to be useful. When we talk about our
environment we mean all of the things around us. We might be concerned with
the quality of the air we breathe, the school our children attend, the
neighborhood we live in. When we talk about living in a poor environment, we
mean that there is something there which makes our life less than it should be.
When we talk about a good environment, we mean something that will make
us more effective people. Thus we believe that the idea of an enabling
environment is a good way to begin a description of an organization.

Notice that the shape of the organization in this model is not
structured. Rather, its boundary is roughly defined by the
organizations purposes and goals. This definition refers to (1)
geographical limitations; (2) community within which the work will
take place; (3) kind of activities to be engaged in; (4) what we are
not going to do (certain objectives are excluded from vision); (5)
changes which the organization is attempting to bring about. It
follows, that the clearer the purposes and the goals, the more likely
it is that the organization will have a comprehensive picture of
where it has been, where it is, and where it is going.

Motivated and skilled people. Within this boundary of purposes
and goals, an effective organization needs a number of elements.
The first of these calls for motivated and skilled people How do
we find these motivated and skilled individuals? Suffice it so say
here that the organization that is clear to its purposes and goals
will tend to attract people who are already motivated. Of course, it
is also true that those people who disagree with stated purposes
and goals will be motivated not to joint he organization
which is just fine! A successful organization needs more than
motivated members. It needs people with adequate skills. If the
people are not skilled enough o carry out the task which has been
presented to them, it really makes little difference how strongly they
are motivated or how well they are led.

Adequate resources. In addition to motivated and skilled people, an
organization needs adequate resources to carry out the task ad to
meet the personal needs of the individuals involved. These resources
may be in the form of funds, buildings, equipment, facilities, and so on.

Communication. The glue that holds all of this together is good
communication. It is necessary for the individuals within the
organization to know what others are doing, to be able to
communicate about the changes that will be taking place, and to be
able to inform each other and the outside world as to where they
intend to go.

Structure. Finally, there is a need for some kind of structure: a definition of
the people relationships that exist and an assignment of roles. Notice
that if an organization is made p of motivated, skilled people who know
what the organization is trying to accomplish and how to accomplish it
and if these people are given adequate resources with which to carry out
a given task, and if there exists strong communication between them it
is highly like that they will indeed accomplish the task. In order to do
this, they will go about assigning different roles within the organization.
A structure will emerge. Structure in this sense is how we go about
describing relationships. Unfortunately, such descriptions tend to be
two-dimensional, and very seldom will such a description actually
encompass all of the different things that make up an organization.
Neglected maybe such things as the responsibility of each person, the
authority given to different individuals, the relationship between the
various tasks, the personal relationships between individuals, and the
lines of communication needed to carry out the task.

What about our organization?

As you think about the anatomy of your own organization, ask yourself
these questions:

Do we have clear purposes and goals?
Are the people who make up the membership motivated towards those
purposes and goals, and do they have the skills for accomplishing them?
Are there adequate resources for us to work toward our goals? Do we
have the necessary funds, energies, facilities, and buildings to do what
we are trying to do with the people who are trying to do it?
Is there a system which permits good communication flow between the
different members of the organization? Are we so arranged that we can
tell where we have been, where we are, and where we are heading?
Is all of this put together in a structure which really makes this an
enabling environment? In other words, does our structure really reflect
our purposes and goals, the type of people on our staff, the different
resources we are using, and the communication system needed to do
what God wants us to do?
This is an attempt, then, to describe the organizations environment, one
which we hope is enabling. But organizations are dynamic. They keep
shifting and changing and moving with history.

The Four Directional Tension

The organization is seen as being in continuous tension as it is pulled in
four directions.

The first quadrant represents history. Organizations are children of what
has gone on in the past. How much of a task they have already accomplished
will have a great influence on the present and future actions of the organization.
Some organizations will have a very short view of history Others will have a
longer view. At the same time, the organization is in tension, because of its
commitments. Its commitments may be made up of such diverse things as the
mortgage on the building, statements that it has made to its staff or its
members, or dedication to a certain style. The commitments ca have both
negative and positive effects. On the positive side, one would expect to hear
comments such as We have to do that. Were committed to it! negatively, we
might hear such remarks as: We cant do that when were committed to this.

The present situation or circumstances within which the organization finds
itself will tend to pull it in another direction. The present situation is made up of
not only the broad geographical location of the organization, but also the skills
and philosophy of the members, the present resources available to the
organization, and a wide variety of other circumstances.

In tension with the quadrant of the organizations history are its
goals. At least, there should be a tension here, for the organization that
does not have strong goals will tend to be strong out between its present
commitment and situation and pulled into its past. Goals are concepts of
the future which keep the organization in creative tension. The absence
of any of these dimensions will make the organization lopsided.

If we understand organizations as being defined by their purposes
and goals (rather than seeing them as givens within which needs are
met), we can put aside many of our traditional ideas about organizations.
We are then able to move on to a new understanding of what God might
have us do or be. As we relate to one another for a common purpose,
we can understand what kind of organization God wants us to build.

The Organizational Growth Cycle

But they that wait upon the lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings as eagles;
they shall run, and not be weary, and they shall walk, and not faint
Isaiah 40:31


Organizations, like individuals, tend to have growth cycles.
We have shown a typical organizational cycle from the viewpoint
of the leader. This cycle begins when an individual (or a group of
people) gathers others around a common purpose or goal. The
individual or group decides that there is a need to be met.

The cycle in action

Purpose and goal setting. Something should be done. There are
many things that we might be able to do. Which ones should we
do? Which ones are Gods best goals for us? Specifically what is
it hat we want to see done? This is goal setting.

Planning. Having established what it is we want to accomplish, we
then set about figuring how we might accomplish our goals. We
go about the business of planning. This is usually carried out on
an intellectual level without any apparent action on our part. True,
many people may just start acting without doing any planning. But
in reality they are planning (or correcting as they act. However, in
almost every case we go through some mental exercise of
deciding how we will reach the goals, choosing between different
alternatives, and deciding on means and methods.
Action. The next step for the leadership is to manage subsequent
events, to begin to take action. There may be a number of things
that we need to do before we can actually set about reaching
toward the goal. For instance, we may have to gather some
resources together. In management parlance this might be called
organizing but it is seldom thought of in this way by new
organizations. To put it another way, the individuals involved have
little self-awareness as an organization, at this point. But an
organization has come into being just by the fact that a number of
individuals have agreed to accomplish a particular goal.

Correction. In the midst of managing action thee will come a need
for correction. Things seldom turn out the way we have imagined
them. Someone has said that the chance of something going
wrong far outnumber the chances of things going right. Therefore,
we need to recognize that where plans and/or actions are not
helping us to achieve our goals, we must make new plans or
change our actions. In practice, his correcting goes on all of the
time.

Evaluation. Before the organization ca move on toward reacting and
enlarging its growth cycle by modifying its purposes and its goals, it must
undergo evaluation of the entire process, to see whether the initial
purposes and goals are been met. This process of evaluation is probably
the most important step in the life and growth of any organization. As we
shall see, a failure here can have major consequences down the road

We have purposely shown this process as a circle or cycle, a
recurring or repetitive process. In the ideal situation, the organization
begins with purposes, goals through the cycle to discover better
purposes, set more effective goals, establish clearer priorities, do better
planning, do a better job of managing, and then goes on with the
reevaluation.

Note too, that this model takes into account both short and the long-
range lives of the organization. It pictures what happens to the total
organization as well as to one particular part of the organization. You have
to decide where this goal fits into the priority of al the other goals that you
have to carry out and then allow enough time for it. It is necessary to
make specific plans about how you re going to find the right people, how
many people you re going to need, and what kind of instructions you re
going to have to give them. Then, after you have recruited them, you
need to manage the program by making sure that they are actually there
ach day, that back-up people are available, and that their questions are
answer
The Power of Goals
As a leader the goals is very powerful for you to know your
directions.

Goals give a sense o direction and purpose. They tell workers
where the organization is going and help them to see where they
fit. If you dont know where youre going, any road will take you
there. Perhaps it is better said in the words of the prophet Amos:
Ca two walk together, except they be agreed?

Goals give us the power to live in the present. We cant really
make any decisions about the future. We are not even sure who
will be alive at any given time in the future. But if we know the kind
of desirable future that we want, we can make decisions today
which are more like to being us into that future. Goals
statements of faith about the future help us to do that.

Goals promote enthusiasm and strong organizational life. When
people know that they are working together for the common good,
there is an increased sense of fellowship. It is much easier to build
fellowship around a task that people are accomplishing together
than it is to build fellowship for fellowships sake.

Goals help us to operate more effectively. They dont necessary help us to
operate more efficiently, since we may change our goals and therefore
have the change the way we work. But they do emphasize effectiveness.
One definition of a problem is a deviation from a goal. The assumption
is that if there is no goal from which to deviate, we really dont have a
problem. Goals tell us where to put our energies.

Goals help us to evaluate our program. This also increase our
effectiveness. If we dont know how far we have come, how can we
know whether we have arrived?

Goals force us to plan ahead. They help us to look at the future and not
focus our attention on the past. Remember our model of an organization
pulled in four different directions by its history, situation, commitments,
and goals?

Goals help us to communicate within the organization. They tell us where
we are going and how we are doing. Have you every said to yourself I
wonder whos responsible for that!? Evidently you didnt have a clear
picture of what had the assigned responsibility for that particular goal.
This is why its important that different departments and sections be
organized around goals rather than around task.

Goals give people a clear understanding of what is expected.
This help the individual to see how he or she is doing. This is the
whole concept behind management by objectives. The exciting
thing about having a goal is seeing ourselves moving toward it. If
the members of an organization are not given specific goals, they
have no way of knowing whether or not they are being successful

Goals help to reduce needless conflict and duplication of effort.
Too often, when goals are unclear, two people may be doing the
same thing without knowing it. We have also all run into the
response of Oh, I thought that was your responsibility! Goals
therefore reduce the needless misunderstanding which results from
having unclear aims.

Goals take the emphasis off activity and place it on output. It not
how much we do (activity) that counts, but what we get done
(output)( The organization which focuses on all the good things it
does, rather than the goals it accomplishes, is on the road to
failure.