Think Twice
Succeeding as an organization rises and falls on its values. In my organization, our covenant is our pledge to serve every member with the highest levels of integrity, fairness, courtesy, respect, and gratitude; delivered with unparalleled responsiveness, expertise, efficiency, and accuracy. This directly impacts the bottom line, and it boils down to the way we choose to manage our organization or church.
One simple method to achieve this is an initiative called Think Twice, which asks us to think carefully about two components to nurture an organization: Stakeholders and Stewardship.
Think Stakeholders
Invite and expand: Are your family members, associates, neighbors, and friends familiar with your involvement and ways in which you serve? Grow your network. Consider ways to meet their needs.
Model core values: Be a living example and active participant in the organization, demonstrating how you want everyone else to represent the larger body.
Servant leadership: Serve the stakeholders by taking an interest in their lives, which, in turn, can bless and benefit you as a leader. Meeting needs and desires opens doors that would otherwise stay closed without the thoughtful investment in others.
Think intently about your stakeholders—those within the organization and those outside. What are their needs and wants? What issues and situations are relevant to them? How are they treated? How well are they served? Are you listening to their needs and looking for opportunities to meet them?
Reflecting on our own experiences as a member, participant, and team member—whether good, bad, or neutral—often helps us to more clearly determine the best path to travel. As an example, reflect on your best and worst experiences as a team member in an organization. Consider the characteristics of your best experiences and those of your worst. Perhaps you recall embarrassment and ridicule, or warm smiles and recognition. Maybe you remember long hours with little leadership support, or fulfilling experiences with supportive management.
What can you do within your organization to make sure that stakeholders’ interaction with your team that would land it on their “best” list? Managing your organization well begins with assessing how it treats the people that give it viability. I suggest that leaders do this brainstorming exercise with their teams to raise their level of customer awareness and service for which we hope in our organization or church.
Think Stewardship
Stewardship refers to the best use of our time, talents, and resources. Leaders regularly assess ways that they can be good stewards of their resources both personally and corporately. What do we mean by “stewardship”? Stewardship refers to the best use of our time, talents, and resources.
There are three ways we can practice stewardship in the way we serve our organization.
Be responsible for organizational funds: Reviewing the budget to trim excess expense, tempering food purchases at meetings, adjusting the A/C in buildings when unused, keeping some services in-house vs. sub-contracting the work, spreading responsibilities vs. hiring new staff.
Know your organization: We should constantly be striving to improve the services we provide by learning all we can about our stakeholders and communities. As we internally improve the organization, the outgoing product will benefit exponentially.
Hold each other accountable: Each team member helps to hold the organization together. Feedback, course-correction, and honest conversations are needed to avoid costly errors and to maintain fruitfulness.
Winston Churchill once said, “The price of greatness is responsibility.” Responsible use of resources directly impacts our credibility as an organization, our financial performance, and value. In short, give intentional thought to your stakeholders and your stewardship. The whole boat floats on those two components. Evaluating the current course of action and pivoting efforts with the backing of your team will ensure great impact and longer-lasting results.
What elements of Think Twice could you integrate in your organization?