Phases of Organizational Growth

by Darcy L. Watkins

I find it fascinating to reflect on the process a church goes through as it transitions from a small "ma & pa shop" to a larger work involving independent people (i.e. not all friends and relatives of the pastor) working together as a team. It takes a lot of patience to endure through this since we are close to the people involved. This sounds harsh, but it seems that a church goes through phases of organizational growth which parallel a person's growth. It's not that we want to blame people for the silly things that happen. What we are talking about here is the collective maturity of an organization (not the maturity of individuals or even the sum total of the maturity of individuals in an organization).

Infancy - the church is entirely run by a single family. No documented policies.
Pre-adolescence - the leader acknowledges that team leadership is needed and starts to preach it, however it doesn't properly materialize:
- the leader doesn't know how to properly delegate.
- the people don't know how to take on responsibility.
- delegation usually goes from just family to now include friends and a few well trusted supporters and their families.
- Documented policies (if at all) are from the leader setting out guidelines for the irrelevant details and not addressing objectives. For example, no goals related to worship as an experience, but say lots of rules for dress code, pre-service prayer attendance, what time to show up before the service and perhaps even a minimum quota for old hymns.
Adolescence - the leader still doesn't know how to delegate, but does it because he has to, so he appoints a few people to take up certain areas he doesn't understand well and he totally abdicates all responsibility for these to those persons. He is busy doing something else himself. All is fine and peaceful until something goes wrong or people complain to the leader. He seems irritated for being interrupted from his work. He feels personally responsible the same way as if he did the ministry himself, perhaps even embarrased about it. The leader reacts and starts interfering recklessly. The people affected are frustrated because they never know what the leader really wants, and in their eyes, every now and then interference comes in out of the blue for no apparent reason. They eventually even dread phone calls from the leader since the only time they hear from him is to be chewed out for something that has gone wrong. Documented policies are of two types. The first are the same as pre-adolescence from the leader. The second are those used by the people running the ministries. They document their own plans, but keep it to themselves because no one else understands the point of it.
Young Adult - the leader can delegate now. People know how to take on responsibility. Programs left to themselves generally will perpetuate. Some will flourish, others will struggle but survive. No one clearly understands the inconsistencies although successes / failures no longer necessarily line up with those which are lead by the family and friends of the leader versus those which aren't. "Vision" is still the exclusive domain of the leader. On a wholesale scale, the leader "pontificates" visionary statements (many which aren't really visionary in nature but are just preconceived notions and "copycat" ideals). He expects all to jump on board and radically change everything at once over night. There is little or no two-way dialogue in forming policy objectives. Bad decisions are made. Working programs are often terminated to the surprise and resentment of those involved to make room for new programs. Programs struggling along are promoted even though there is usually lack of interest. New programs are started. There is some correlation between adjustments in programs and visionary statements, however this is not recognized by all. There is dissension because people don't agree with what is happening mainly because they haven't been allowed to participate in objective setting so there is not much "buy in". This is especially the case with those who have had their programs cancelled for no apparent good reason. The leader doesn't understand the lack of enthusiasm. Regarding documented policies, just add written versions of the "pontificated" visionary statements to what was there before, (along with the previous edition of wholesale "pontificated" visionary statements, and the few editions preceding that too). Actually, there may be more. Certain areas of ministry will be better developed and maybe even approaching "mature adult". Others may still be at the "adolescent" stage. This will be reflected in documented policies being stronger in certain areas and totally lacking in other areas.
Mature Adult - the leadership operates as a team. The process of developing policy objectives is initiated in a visionary manner from the top down through the organization. This is responded to back up the chain in a more concrete manner by those to whom ministry responsibility is delegated. From this, policy objectives are generated, reviewed, agreed to and documented. The result is well communicated to all. Everyone feels like they are part of the vision and buy into it with no problem. Organizational structure and program implementation is derived from objectives and vision rather than the other way around. The process is continued to fine tune and adjust objectives after evaluation of the effectiveness of programs implemented. Changes to programs reflect adjustments to objectives or are the result of assessment of the effectiveness of the program. Changes are limited in scope, rarely ever widespread let alone wholesale. There are always a few changes related to new opportunities and developments and a few related to improving the effectiveness of existing program implementations. All ministries are well documented and these documents are regularly revised as part of ongoing evaluation and adjustment to the policy objectives. These documents are also useful for training new leaders and for reference.

In the above there seems to be a smooth logical succession among the phases except that from young adult to mature adult, you go from disharmony to complete harmony. Well what happens between young-adult and mature-adult? If we compare this with a person's growth, this is the time when you get married and have kids. Your whole routine gets upset and then you are forced to get your "act" together, but then you also grow a relationship with your spouse and the two of you do it together. It is the same in the church. A crisis will hit and there will either be a change in leadership (which hopefully releases both the outgoing leader and the church to respectively learn and grow), or the people and the leader have to work things out together.

Please don't misunderstand the jist of this. From all appearances and sarcastic way I've written this, it seems that the leader is either rotten or stupid. That is not the case. He is merely contributing his part to the collective immaturity of the organization. I recall hearing people criticize a certain leader years ago regarding his inability to delegate, and thought to myself, "With people like you yakking like this behind the leader's back, I'd have a hard time delegating too".

It is so easy to criticize, and it is so easy to lose sight of the fact that many in spiritual leadership have taken quite a lifestyle sacrifice for the sake of the Gospel. For most, it is a misunderstood and lonely trek involving highs and lows. Every leader is good at something, and not so good at other things. Usually they have to start it alone, but in time as things grow, they have to learn to rely on others to help them forge ahead. Recognizing the timing isn't always so easy especially when Bible education institutes seldom ever include organizational leadership training in curriculum, and if they do, are the instructors really qualified to teach it?

As you reflect on all this also consider the following:

If you create a virtual organization of entities, roles and positions and then seek out to recruit people to fill these, you have a recipe for disaster no matter how perfectly designed the organization layout is. Heck the "perfect" org chart can be from God Himself and you can still screw up the implementation.
You start with those who you trust, who you recognize have calling and anointing and then you make the positions and organization around them. You empower them to do the same. You can still have your "perfect" organization chart hidden somewhere to consult with from time to time, but let God develop it and raise up the people to see it fulfilled. Let it be a prophetic visionary device you can rejoice over as you see each part be fulfilled by God. Don't force it.
The apparent paradox is that on one hand you want to develop the ministry and position based on the anointing and the calling of the individual, but on the other hand, you want the ministry to be documented so that you can achive independence with handling the position from handling the person who fills the position. Why do that? The answer is that from within that ministry, the next leader should rise up. The documentation facilitates training and transfer of the position to the next leader. As soon as this doesn't happen, unless God brings someone in from another source, maybe it's time for that position to be relegated back to the "invisible" state (like other ministries on that "perfect" org chart which haven't yet come into season).

Faithfulness is a must for any candidate to be appointed to delegated leadership positions since there must always be a relationship of trust involved. Why do you think family and friends come first in the logical progression of things? The relationship and trust is already there! Eventually you have to trust the judgement of those you trust, and then that of those trusted by those you trust. Eventually, to some extent, you have to trust a process that you and others have set in place, but most importantly, trust the Holy Spirit and ensure that He guides the steps.

I always say that family and friends can add to the effectiveness of a person's ministry, but when the person reaches the point where he/she can reliably empower those who are niether family nor friends, this multiplies the effectiveness of that person's ministry.

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