When there is not adequate organizational clarity

If there is one thing that many organizations lack it is crystal clear clarity about who they are, what they want to accomplish and how they are going to get there. This is especially true of non-profits and ministries as the profit motive is not the driving factor. In fact, clarity is the glue that holds the organization together as it grows. In my consulting with numerous non-profits I have observed four related consequences of poor or no organizational clarity.

Conflict
I am speaking here of conflict between leaders and departments. Why? Because a lack of clarity from the top results in leaders one level below creating their own clarity and going in their own direction. When there is a vacuum, someone will fill it. The problem is that we fill it with our version of clarity rather than a shared version of clarity, find ourselves at odds with one another, create silos and find ourselves fighting over direction, finances, resources and strategy.

Relational disconnect
This conflict creates relational disconnect and we often assume that the conflict is a result of people with bad motives or who are not team players. More likely the disconnect is a result of the senior leader not developing a shared clarity about who the organization is and how it will get to where it wants to go. The relational disconnects are a result of poor leadership at the very top of the organization.

Lack of alignment
In this situation, senior leaders and departments are not aligned with one another. Each may be doing good things but often they are working at cross currents with each other. If each were an arrow, the arrows would be pointing in different directions rather than all in the same general direction. This lack of alignment creates conflict and relational disconnect and is deeply frustrating to good leaders who often leave if the situation is not solved. 

Dispersed energy and compromised impact
Because the arrows are not pointed in the same direction and departments and leaders are working at cross purposes with one another the energy and impact of the organization is severely compromised. In fact, leaders are often trying to negotiate issues within the organization rather than focusing on the mission of the organization. There is nothing more distracting and discouraging to people who have bought into a mission than to be fighting intermural wars when they could be delivering on the mission.

Organizational clarity matters...a lot. 

Life interruptions of hard times

One of the inescapable truths about God is that He does not see life from our point of view or what is best for us from our vantage point. Nowhere is this more evident than in our desire for a life of ease and comfort and His not uncommon "interruptions" that bring with them hardship, suffering and challenges that test our coping abilities. We often question His inscrutable ways as we wish our hardships away. Sometimes He seems to hear our prayers and other times the hardships seem to be the new normal and the circumstances of our lives do not change. And it misses a crucial point which CS Lewis in his wise way reminds us. "The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one's 'own,' or 'real' life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one's real life -- the life God is sending one day by day." God is never surprised by our circumstances. Nor does He always see our "negative" circumstances as such. Often He sees them as opportunities for our own growth so that in an inversion of what the world counts as good, He sees the hard as opportunities for our greatest growth and therefore greatest good. Given this, those negative circumstances that we see as life interruptions are often the richest life we will ever live as it drives us closest to God. If we will see it as such and if we will embrace what God has sent and trust Him in its midst.
Consider these words of James regarding such life interruptions: Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing (James 1:2-4)."

It is good to pray for resolution of the hard situations we face. It is also good to embrace what God wants to do in our lives through it. And finally it is good to trust Him fully in its midst. This is life lived in followership of Jesus.