It’s a changing world.  There are new challenges to face, and leaders must be able to discern not only how to navigate change, but how to do so in a way that keeps the church/organization/business moving through the “change waters” with her!

The Change-Resistant Saboteur

Here are some scenarios that saboteurs love:

• “We’ve never tried that before!”  This one is a pretty obvious one; when faced with new opportunities, it is natural to retreat to the well known path.  Brave leaders cannot be afraid of new efforts.
• “We tried that and it didn’t work!”  This one is a little less obvious than the first.  It’s not always wise to scratch a tried and failed situation off the list.  Maybe the right kind of team wasn’t there to see it happen.  Perhaps you are at a place now to do it right!
• “The Mountain To Die On” – Sabs love this one, because we end up making a process, event, or ministry a non-negotiable.  Why is this so bad?  Our clarity for evaluation goes out the window.  A big value for many companies these days is excellence – not a bad value on it’s own.  However, if we evaluate a ministry by the value of excellence (when it truly might need to change) it can really be misleading!  Especially if we leave out words like, oh, effectiveness.  In other words, I can do things that don’t really matter with excellence!

There are other scenarios as well – saboteurs are opportunists!  I’ll leave you with a couple tricky spots to avoid:

1. Becoming obsessed with change:  Change can be such a healthy thing for an organization that we often equate change with progress.  And for progress to happen, we must change.  But I have seen leaders too often fall in love with change, which makes for schizophrenic ministries, new every year… or at least after every conference or book.  Which inevitably leads to burned-out teams, confused team leaders, and lots of money and time spent.  Change has to be approached with discernment, weighing the changes with the lens of the groups’ mission.

2. Only embracing changes that you initiate:  Can you really embrace and accept change?  Or do you only love change when it’s your idea?  A good litmus test:  When someone offers a change idea that you would not normally think of or appreciate, is your response resistance?  Do you shoot it down right away?  Learn to process and think through each idea for its own merit, and change will be your ally.

Thoughts?