Too much complexity is like the mold in your church's basement: it starts quietly, spreads quickly and once it takes hold is hard to eradicate.
I recently made the unpleasant discovery of mold growing in the crawl space under my house. Since the house was built only a few years ago, I found myself wondering how this could have happened in such a short amount of time. A single spore growing in the dank, dark space under my house is of no immediate concern to me. However, when given enough time and when fueled by the humid Tennessee climate, that seemingly innocent little organism grew into something I could no longer ignore.
The first clue was the dank, musty smell that began drifting up from the air vent that connects to the crawl space. I probably dismissed it the first few times I noticed it but when that smell became more frequent and more intense, it was impossible to ignore. Beyond the simple discomfort of the smell, mold can also cause serious respiratory issues and other health problems. If left untreated, certain types of toxic mold can actually cause death in some extreme cases. All of that from something that was literally growing right beneath my feet.
In the same way mold was quietly infecting our household, there may be a condition that is silently and slowly eating away at the organizational health of your church. This silent enemy in your church basement has a name: complexity. It begins at first in seemingly innocent ways. Maybe the team doesn’t respond like they used to when a new opportunity in front of them. Maybe the budget seems tighter than it should be and ministry dollars just don’t have the same impact as they used to. Once it takes hold, it spreads quickly. Before long, the church seems mired in a swamp of conflicting strategies and ideas and struggling to support it all with staff, volunteers and budget. Your most loyal staff will keep their head down and continue on with their work but your most gifted leaders will begin to detect the slight smell of decline in the air. If left unchecked, complexity can eventually grow to dominate the entire organization… and keep it from the mission God has called it to fulfill.
Complexity creeps in over time when new ministries are started faster than existing ministries are ended. The irony is that the more innovative your organization is in starting new initiatives or ministries, the more intentional or aggressive you need to be about ending existing ones that no longer serve their purpose. Otherwise, you’ll eventually become too bloated and complicated to continue innovating all.
Complexity also creeps in over time when outdated systems and structures are allowed to continue slowing everything down. It could be as simple as obsolete software or as significant as a broken governance structure. Whenever unnecessary layers, redundant staff or outdated systems are allowed to continue, you are giving complexity an opportunity. Like a clogged artery, the flow of resources is blocked or slowed from getting to where the body needs it most. Like drying cement, it becomes more fortified and harder to remove the longer it is allowed to remain in place. Like a thick fog, limited visibility makes it difficult to measure or even see what’s going on inside.
Here are two ways that complexity is slowly killing your church: 1. Complexity is expensive. Some business owners are critical of overly-burdensome government regulation because it functions like a tax. Keeping up with all the rules will stifle innovation, decrease efficiency and drive up costs. In the same way, complexity is like a tax on your church because it makes everything more expensive. Outdated systems and structures are allowed to remain in place which creates bureaucracy and slows staff productivity. Ineffective ministries are allowed to continue which siphons resources and volunteers away from areas that would make better use. Yet because overly complex organizations resist change and are difficult to evaluate, you may in fact be paying staff and funding ministries without any way to determine if any of it moves the needle on your church’s mission.
2. Complexity does not scale. There is a certain amount of structure needed for any organization to function but excessive or unnecessary structure actually becomes a barrier to healthy growth. There is a paradox about organizations that is odd but true: healthy growth will not continue to increase unless the amount of complexity begins to decrease. In other words, we must become less complex as we grow, not more. Otherwise, the time spent tending and feeding the status quo crowds out everything else. Focusing on the present comes at the expense of dreaming and planning for the future. Without the capacity for nimble decision making and strategic pivots to new opportunities, the church will miss the chance to have a greater gospel impact. An organization will never have healthy growth beyond the ability of its internal structure to support that growth.
2 ways that complexity is slowing killing your church: 1) Complexity is expensive. It drives down productivity and drives up costs. 2) Complexity does not scale. It keeps you too focused on present problems instead of future growth.
What is the solution?
If complexity is to your church what toxic mold is to my home, what do you do about it? Once it has creeped in and you discover it’s under your feet, how do you solve the problem of complexity? If you assume that the solution to complexity is simplicity, you’re only half right. The solution to complexity is not simplicity, but clarity.
Organization clarity is achieved when the leadership does the hard work of defining where the organization is going and how it plans to get there. When that is effectively communicated to the entire team, they are equipped and empowered to carry out the mission with confidence. Simplicity is a result of, and is driven by, that organizational clarity because anything that doesn’t contribute to the accomplishment of that mission is much easier to identify (and remove!).
I’ve seen churches make the mistake of pursuing a multisite strategy without the organizational clarity it requires to be successful. Since multisite is an inherently complex undertaking, a church should never launch its first multisite campus without first gaining clarity about what it is they are trying to replicate. For churches that already have clarity about their direction and strategy, multisite is a force multiplier in terms of ministry impact. For those who don’t, the new campus will be at risk of collapsing under the weight of being overly complex as it tries to adopt the full gamut of ministries, systems and structures that it doesn’t really need to be successful.
Churches that are well-led are those that have gained organizational clarity about where they are going and how they will get there. This allows them to resist the temptation to allow ineffective ministries to linger and languish as they gobble up resources that should be deployed elsewhere. For those instances where a ministry should be ended, clarity also helps in providing a compelling picture of where the church is going and an alternative place to serve that aligns with that direction. This will help to soften the blow for those volunteers who are impacted by the decision. But even better, clarity allows the church to resist the urge to launch that ministry in the first place because it isn’t going to align with the mission or contribute to the accomplishment of the strategy. In the end, a clarified mission will help to produce a simplified organization. Complexity does not scale, but clarity does.
Here are some questions to ask that may help to reduce or avoid complexity in pursuit of clarity:
Is there freedom for your team to ask why something is done a certain way or is it just understood and expected that they do it?
When was the last time a major system or process was overhauled? Do you run your systems and processes or do your systems and processes run you?
Do you have an intentional process of evaluating the effectiveness of your ministries?
Are there certain ministries that are not susceptible to being measured or certain people who not allowed to be questioned? If so, is that special protected status due to effectiveness? Or is it simply because of nostalgia?
Was there a time when you realized the church where you serve was struggling under too much complexity? What was something you did to address it? I would love to hear what you're learning. Send a quick note to mv@michaelvolbeda.com.
Comentarios