Week 15 of 52. Welcome to Drucker Mondays, a 52-week journey through the new book, A Year with Peter Drucker: 52 Weeks of Coaching for Leadership Effectiveness, by Joseph A. Maciariello. Each Monday, we'll feature a Drucker fan and his or her favorite snippet from the week's topic. (Subscribe on this page.) Dan Busby is our guest writer today.
Week 15: Sustaining the Spirit of an Organization
THE BIG IDEA FROM THE BOOK: How do we create organizations with a high spirit of performance, where common people perform at an uncommon level? We do it by introducing a disturbing element—a person who seeks to change the culture and practices to prevent bureaucratic behavior from setting in.
DAN BUSBY’S FAVORITE DRUCKER INSIGHTS from Week 14, pages 118-123:
• To shake thing up in your organization requires “somebody who is free enough from the day-to-day managing to do this.”
• To create “organizations with a high spirit of performance” requires someone “who is the energy and the conscience” of the organization.
• “An organization with the spirit of performance is one led by executives who are committed to getting the right things done (effectiveness) and doing the right thing (efficiency).”
• “The disturbing element in an organization consists of one or more leaders who prod people to develop, improve, innovate, and sustain the spirit of the organization.”
DAN BUSBY'S COLOR COMMENTARY:
Peter Drucker was ahead of his time in understanding the importance of overcoming bureaucracy, deterioration, and decay—something that challenges nonprofit ministries today.
Quenching the entrepreneurial spirit is a key reason why we see few nonprofit ministries move from mid-range to large organizations. Plus, there seems to be a “glass ceiling” at $2 million in annual revenues for ministries, blocking organizational progress.
THIS WEEK’S QUOTES & COMMENTARY BY DAN BUSBY:
Dan Busby is the president of ECFA, Winchester, Virginia. Dan’s heart is to see churches and ministries give the world the right impression of Jesus Christ. He is also the author of the just-released book, Trust: The Firm Foundation for Kingdom Fruitfulness, and other books.
TO-DO TODAY:
• Is there someone on your team who serves as a disturbing element to sustain the spirit of the organization?
• Does that person have the time to continually shake things up in the organization?
• Do you and your staff have the one absolute requirement to lead—the one quality that you bring with you and cannot be expected to acquire later on? Integrity!
NEXT MONDAY:
On April 20, 2015, we will begin a five-week segment on “Navigating a Society in Transition” with Week 16’s topic, “Our Problems in the United States Are Social Problems.”
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