I'm writing this looking out my office window at the quickly dwindling snow piles here in Madison. Hard to believe a little over a week ago we had a major blizzard with nearly 20 inches of snow followed by extreme cold with temperatures around minus 12. Now our temperatures are in the 40s and last night it didn't even get below freezing! And that's nothing compared to the folks in Texas and Oklahoma (and many other places) where they've had temperature extremes approaching 100 degrees. All this gets me thinking about that "change" thing.
Let's look at some of the change we have endured in our organizations:
- Bush era budgets proposed CSBG at $0 (not to mention a few other cuts)
- The first 2 years of the Obama administration and ARRA brought more money than we could spend (at least for some programs)
- Our economy brought more people in need knocking on our door looking for help
Seems to me we had some organizational blizzards and deep freezes followed by some thaws. Somehow, though, we endured, found a way, and served the people who needed serving (after all, our only reason for existing is that mission we have). The bottom line is, we got through it. And, we will get through this time as well.
Now, this brings me to the "Fear" thing. We've had many calls in the last week expressing fear that the worst is coming, our organization doesn't know what to do, and doom awaits. As an old Science Fiction fan and reader of Frank Herbert's classic Dune series, I can only think of one quote: "Fear is the mind killer." To me, this meant that if I simply fear the worst, I can't act to preserve the best.
This is the time for our organizations to look at the best of what they do and create the strategies and actions to preserve the best. We know change is coming and that change will involve less funding. We can't fear this. Better, we should look at this as an opportunity to strengthen our organizations commitment to mission through improving both our efficiency and effectiveness.
We are prepared to help you do this and over the next several weeks will be rolling out a 5 part webinar series which will give you tools to manage the change that is coming. We will focus on how to implement strategic thinking and keep your team positively focused, how to take a hard look at your expenses and your people costs, how to look at your funding sources and maximize the value you receive, and finally how to tie all of this together in to an action program. We are also preparing a toolkit that includes checklists and ideas to help you implement your action steps. Please watch your e-mail for dates and times.
I strongly believe this is the time for action. Let me leave you with a quote from Franklin Delano Roosevelt's first inaugural address:
"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."
Let's use this opportunity to advance our programs.