Funding is tight, targets are hard to meet, and clients are demanding more from you. Emotions and stress are running high. You meet as a team to find a solution and, if you are like many, you might make the wrong decisions. Why? Your emotions are getting in the way of rational decisions. Welcome to the anxious nonprofit organization. In this edition of Lessons Learned we explore anxiety in the nonprofit organization with the author of The Anxious Organization: Why Smart Companies Do Dumb Things, Jeffrey A. Miller. Enjoy!
CharityVillage: What does it mean to be an “anxious” organization?
Jeffrey Miller: In the broadest sense, it means that the organization is alive and responding to itself and its environment. Anxiety is a natural part of life. It’s part of our fear response, which constitutes our first line of defense against predators and other dangers. Organizations experience anxiety around internal issues as well as those that lie on the outside. The outside threats are often clear and menacing, e.g., heightened competition, a downswing in the economy, regulatory restrictions. The threats from within are typically less easily named – and therefore less discussable – but perhaps even more strongly felt. Think of the difficulties presented by changes in ownership or leadership, or more subtly, the stress-provoking confusion of frequent changes in direction or strategy.
CV: What unique anxieties do not-for-profit organizations face?
JM: Though not entirely unique, I see two major realms of anxiety that challenge not-for-profit organizations. The first is the higher degree of dependence they experience in obtaining and deploying resources, both fiscal and human. Like for-profit enterprises, not-for-profits are accountable to the rational processes that govern all business: keeping records and managing budgets; developing leaders; developing procedures and protocols; reaching out to their constituencies; delivering their unique products or services. What’s different in many not-for-profit organizations is the degree to which emotional process drives decision-making. I spent the early part of my career as an executive in not-for-profit fundraising organizations and I can remember instances in which top leadership, coming from a dependency-based mentality of self-deprivation, failed to invest adequately in information management systems or experienced personnel that could have paid for themselves many times over in increased productivity. Dependency-based relationships are anxious relationships. When anxiety is high, creativity, flexibility and critical thinking become difficult, if not impossible.
Another area of anxiety that appears greater in not-for-profits stems from the difficulty of remaining clear on core identity and mission while striving to meet a sweeping array of expectations presented by members, volunteers, donors and beneficiaries. A for-profit business has a clear, quid pro quo value proposition: “You need this; I provide it to you; we both profit.” Of course, emotional issues arise in the process of doing business, but they are generally rooted in getting clearly identified work done. Not-for-profit organizations, in addition to their core functions of promoting industries, providing health care, education, social justice, spiritual fulfillment and the like, meet a much broader set of needs for their constituents. They are relied upon for social connection, status attainment, and emotional gratification, even for providing meaning to everyday life – all needs based in the emotional system. When clarity is lost and the emotional system is allowed to dominate a not-for-profit organization, the resulting anxiety can sap its energy, leaving it less capable of understanding and pursuing and attaining its essential purposes.
CV: My guess is a lot of people will blame an executive director or manager for most problems. Does the leader have the ultimate responsibility for controlling anxiety in the workplace?
JM: I wrote The Anxious Organization to bring to light the fact that everybody in an organized environment has an opportunity to take responsibility for managing anxiety – their own and, consequently that of those around them. Anxiety is as contagious as the worst macro-virus. You can see it spread just by watching for changes in facial expressions, body language and tone of voice. You’ll see its effects in how problems are defined, how decisions are made, and how blaming and finger pointing get activated to root out and punish or excise the “problem person”. The good news is that calm is equally contagious. Even one relatively calmer person in an anxious system provides a physiological and emotional relief to those around them, allowing for more thought-based functioning. If the calmer person is the boss, the effect will be that much greater. Of course, the opposite holds true as well: if the boss doesn’t manage his or her anxiety effectively, it can be rampant in the organization.
CV: You write in your book, “If you ever do find an anxiety-free workplace, my recommendation would be to start sending out resumes at once.” What about the flip side? When is the level of organizational anxiety out of control and not fixable?
JM: This is a great question, and not an easy one to grapple with. Though a situation may not appear fixable, it always remains changeable. That is to say, things may never get a lot better, but they may improve to the point that tolerating them becomes easier. This is a highly personal assessment and decision. Some of us shrug off pressure and anxiety more easily than others. Those of us for whom repelling anxiety doesn’t come naturally, myself included, can learn to become calmer. The first step is to become aware of the anxiety, to name it. Next is to ask yourself, “How am I likely to react and respond when I’m anxious like this?” and “How would I like NOT to respond at this moment?” When we are calmer, we can come up with plans for managing the moment and the situation. It’s about managing self, not the other person. In a greater state of calm, we can assess and balance the pros and cons of being part of the organization. It’s a perfectly legitimate decision to seek a calmer work environment, be that in a different department or another enterprise entirely.
CV: When not-for-profit organizations get government funding, they have to spend it in a specific amount of time, leading to a lot of stress. My greatest concern for them is hiring the wrong people and starting new programs on a weak foundation. How do you calm the anxiety when you know timelines and budgets are so tight and unforgiving?
JM: The instance you cite – extreme time pressure – is another classic anxiety trigger. As I mentioned previously, the best way I know to calm anxiety is to ask, “How am I contributing to it?” and act accordingly. However, like a fish trying to see the water it swims in, it’s not always easy to see our own part in things. Here’s a trio of questions that might bring it into clearer light:
- What could I do to make things worse?
- What would it take on my part to not make things worse?
- What would get in my way of not doing whatever would make things worse?
For an interesting group exercise, have each person consider these three questions carefully and write out the answers. A trusted member could then compile and circulate the results anonymously. In any discussion that may ensue, it would be important to prohibit any public guessing of who said what. Separating the “who” from the “what” would allow all participants to think more critically and productively about self. As for hiring the wrong people, anxiety plays a big part in this, too. Instead of hiring solely for “who” a person is (often an emotionally-based assessment), you might try using interviewing techniques that assess how capable and experienced the candidate is at engaging in key behaviours that spell out success for the venture (rationally-based assessment).
CV: You state that if we don’t act from a place of anxiety, we will contribute to a more calm organization. What can people do right now that will facilitate this?
JM: Breathe and think. It’s a fact that when we are anxious, we breathe irregularly, and sometimes we stop completely. As anxiety floods us, a shift of energy among the regions of the brain steps up activity in its more primitive, emotion-based divisions, such as the stem and mid-section. At the same time, the prefrontal cortex (right behind the forehead), the seat of memory, logic, and the ability to anticipate consequences of behavioural choices, becomes de-energized. This results in an increased level of automatic, programmed responses, reducing the likelihood of using our best judgment or acting in the best interest of ourselves and others. By merely reminding ourselves to breathe, we rebalance the brain’s energy, reactivating the thinking process. When we think more (and not ruminating anxiously over things), we become calmer. As we become calmer, we think more.
CV: What are your best lessons learned about reducing organizational anxiety?
JM: The most valuable thing I know about organizational anxiety is that anyone, irrespective of their position in the pecking order, can be the starting point for ratcheting it down. When one person manages their anxiety even a bit better, the entire group will benefit from it. We may not be able to predict exactly what will happen differently, but it’s an observable phenomenon that when one person moves from reactivity to thought and intentionality, others will find themselves freer to do the same. Since anxiety is a protective life force, we wouldn’t want to eliminate it completely. The goal is a better balance between our emotional and rational resources.
Jeffrey A. Miller, MSW, is a family therapist, management consultant and coach to top executives in corporate and not-for-profit settings. His specialty is helping anxious organizations to function more effectively and with less emotional wear-and-tear on those who work for them. He can be reached at jmiller@anxiousorg.com or visit his website at www.anxiousorg.com.
Teresa Ierullo helps Canadian nonprofit organizations be bold enough to ask themselves the tough questions and to unearth the right direction for community-based programs and projects. For more information and strategies visit www.justthefacts.ca.
