Managing and Leading Nonprofit Organizations

8Effective Change Management

As we turn to explore the question of managing change within nonprofit organizations, I have to confess that we're embarking on a topic that can stand easily on its own as a separate book. Despite this, the topic is so important from my perspective that I would be remiss if I didn't dedicate a chapter to this topic. Change within nonprofit organizations is something that is ever present, and nonprofit leaders and managers must have some tools in their toolbox in order to assure their success as they work to serve the agency's mission.

What is so interesting to me is the way in which change, ever present in our organizational work, becomes something that is so resisted in our day‐to‐day efforts. I have a friend from the north country of New Hampshire who always says, in his quintessential Coos County accent, “Paul, I don' mind change if it doesn't mattah.” I cannot help but laugh when he says this. This statement is funny because of the truth found within it. As human beings we are generally interested to hear new ideas and will even nod our heads in agreement until we start to realize that the new idea will mean that something we have always done one way will now have to be done another way. “Wait a minute … you mean I'll have to do what?” Remember, as human beings we are hard‐wired for predictability and stasis as a way to manage the perils and unpredictability in our environment. Routine comes quickly to us, and to change what we do means we must ...