Focus and Adaptability During
Challenging Times
By Paula J. Kelly
Community Wealth
Vanguard asked two executives—Mora Segal and Steve Reinemund—to
share their thoughts about the interplay between focus and adaptability.
These two leaders consider focus and adaptability from varied
perspectives. Mora Segal, Chief Strategy Officer of College Summit,
encourages innovation as the organization continues to grow to meet a
national need. Steve Reinemund, Dean of Business and Professor of
Leadership and Strategy at Wake Forest University, draws on his 30-plus
years in business to share best practices with leaders and to help young
people unleash their passions in their vocations.
One
clear theme emerged during our discussions: change requires a balance
between managing the circumstances of the short term and maintaining the
organization’s long-term focus and commitment. Assessing, mining, and
investing in organizational capacity can help leaders to achieve
this balance. An idea that arose several times was the importance of
gathering and listening to feedback from all corners of the
organization.
Another recurring theme was that innovation is vital and must be allowed
to flourish at every level of the organization. As Mora Segal pointed
out, “It’s important to encourage everyone to come up with good ideas
based on what they’re learning . . . . You want everyone to show focus
and rigor. We could go from good to great if we were able to encourage
that.” Changes must happen not just because they are great ideas, but
also because they are a great fit for the organization or address a
crisis well.
According to Steve Reinemund, “One well-known leader in the current
administration was quoted as saying, ‘You never want to let a good
crisis go without action.’ Oftentimes crisis or upheaval or change
causes an organization to rethink their objectives and either to
recommit to what they’re doing or to appropriately adjust to the
changing times. A good leader needs to be able to—pretty much on the run
and on a regular basis—assess whether the change the organization is
facing is a change that requires an adjustment of the objective or a
redefinition or a reemphasis.”
Here are a few more hints for managing the interplay between focus and
adaptability:
Stay Focused and
Consistent
An
organization can stay focused on its mission through various means, even
during particularly challenging times. As Reinemund said, “It starts
with having the right, well-articulated vision and mission. If the
vision and mission are not well thought out and appropriately
articulated, and repeated often, then it’s very hard to keep people
aligned against those objectives. . . . Oftentimes leaders get tired of
hearing themselves talk about it, but the people who you’re leading
don’t get tired of hearing about it. It’s important that they
consistently hear the same message.”
Seek Change
For
some organizations, adapting to increase impact entails a series of
small changes that further refine their focus on mission, such as
letting go of low-impact projects to refocus on high-impact projects.
For others, adapting means completely reworking the organization’s
mission and approach while maintaining what is already working well.
This type of shift requires intensive planning and a long-term vision in
order to avoid destabilizing the community’s bedrock organizations,
while opening the door for new organizations to flourish.
Adapt with Care
Many organizations experience a struggle between staying focused on
their mission and adapting to new circumstances, which may include a
reduction in funding, shifting economic landscape, changing marketplace,
or gain or loss of staff. While circumstances may make some reactive
shifts unavoidable, organizations can minimize the impact of outside
events by conducting long-range planning that takes into account the
inevitable bumps in the road.
Focus and adaptability are often in tension, but may not necessarily be
opposing forces. In fact, Reinemund believes that mission focus and
adaptability are one and the same: “If you’re not adaptable in today’s
workplace to changing times, then it’s likely that you’re going to be
outmaneuvered by your competition. But adaptability doesn’t mean
adaptability of everything; it means adaptability to the marketplace,
but not to the basic principles of what’s right and wrong, and the basic
principles of respect for the individual and for the way you manage your
company.”
Make Sound
Decisions
While adaptability requires careful consideration, at some point an
organization must make choices and put the resultant changes into
action. Mora Segal described College Summit’s clarity around
decision-making: “Decisiveness is a particular skill we have, compared
to other nonprofits. It comes from senior leaders, and has to do with
the quality of our board and our ability to focus. . . . It works
top-down and bottom-up, but historically has been more on the innovation
side and less on the process side. We’ve had to learn how to make those
choices about what to pursue or not. Many organizations struggle,
because there might be a quick decision at the top and they want to
decide fast. But the effect of a 10-degree turn by a leader is a
large-degree change at the bottom, so that is something we pay a lot of
attention to.”
Communicate,
Communicate, Communicate
You
can’t achieve your mission if it is not clearly—and
frequently—articulated to your staff, the people you serve, and the
community. As Reinemund stated, “Particularly in a heavily
people-intensive organization, communication is absolutely essential to
achieving the mission because if people don’t buy into what the
objective is, don’t understand why it’s being emphasized, and aren’t
getting regular feedback as to how the organization is achieving their
objectives, the chances of achieving the goal are certainly minimized. .
. I like to say, ‘If you don’t think you’re overcommunicating, you
haven’t communicated enough.’”
Take Time to
Think
A
major barrier for organizations that seek to reassess their mission
focus and adapt accordingly is carving out time for the necessary deep
thinking. As Segal pointed out, “Innovation comes from talking to peers
and colleagues, and engaging outside of your own box. That is always
hard to do with day-to-day work.” Other executives have created this
space for reflection by taking a sabbatical or serving as a loaned
executive at a local nonprofit or community partnership, allowing them
to see the communities they serve with new eyes.
Conclusion
Focus and adaptability need not create friction within an organization;
in fact, the two can feed one another to increase impact. The key is to
build a strong foundation so that your organization can focus and
adapt. As Segal said, “The
healthiest organizations are so good at
process and so respectful of people that they think of innovation as a
process and respect that to be innovative, you must be structurally
sound.”
Although change can be difficult to effect, change is essential for
organizations to remain vibrant and thrive in the rapidly changing
21st-century marketplace. Strategic partnerships also are essential,
because public and private money will always ebb and flow. Organizations
must work together and learn from each other as they build sustainable
enterprises and relationships to create impact in their communities.
Read additional excerpts from the interview with
Steve Reinemund.
Paula J. Kelly is a
freelance writer and editor based in Reston, Virginia. You can reach her
at
paulajkelly@gmail.com.
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