Dealing With Personal and Organizational Conflicts in a Nonprofit Organization
by Douglas LaBier
The Nonprofit Agenda, Washington Council of Agencies, March/April 1997
- A social justice advocacy organization is stung by accusations raised by some of its staff that the leadership doesn't "walk the walk" when it comes to racial and sex bias. Accusations are raised that the organization's mission has become too diffuse, and anger and resentment build.
- A public interest research organization discovers that shared staff commitment to consumer protection does not preclude conflicts in staff relationships or complaints about management practices. 'We all believe in what we are doing," says the Director. "We shouldn't be having these kinds of problems."
- A social service organization is faced with apparent emotional conflicts of one staff member. Increasing amounts of management time are spent trying to deal with the person's declining perform-ance, absenteeism, and behavior toward co-workers. The Execu-tive Director is unsure how to deal with this, and asks "How do we balance compassion with the needs of our agency, in situations like these?"
Sound familiar? Many nonprofit organizations today are carrying out their public interest or social service missions within a workplace and cultural en-vironment which gives rise to problems like these. They reflect an increasingly common, interwoven mixture of personal and organizational conflicts. Know-ing what helps -and what does not -- is critical to maintaining internal and ex-ternal success for nonprofits today.
Several new circumstances contribute to this blend of personal and organiza-tional conflicts. First, nonprofit organizations face increasing competition for shrinking financial support, and operate within a political and social culture often hostile ' to their mission. As a result, nonprofits feel increasingly pres-sured to utilize management and fiscal practices from the for-profit realm. Such strategies can be helpful, even necessary. But they also can create new, confusing conflicts, both for the organization – attempting to remain true to its mission and values; and for staff – attracted to the organization's ideals, but also motivated by career and personal goals which may conflict with these ideals.
And that is just part of the problem. Nonprofits often assume that because they are committed to socially useful missions, they are immune to staff or management conflicts, or to conflicts about career values. They are wrong. No organization today is immune to forces within the larger society, of which every workplace is a part.
Consequently, people who believe in economic or social justice want to be treated justly by their bosses. People who are beyond young adulthood years become concerned about meaning and purpose, and seek greater integration between their work and nonwork lives. Women expect equality and respect to be practiced on the job, not just talked about as principles. And men and women alike are conflicted about our prevailing careerist definition of "suc-cess," and their financial future.
All of these issues directly affect a person's mental health, relationships, and creative energy in the workplace, often more so in nonprofit organizations, because of the ideals embodied in their purpose and mission. flow can a non-profit do this?
What Does Not Help
Successful dealing with these problems requires simultaneous actions that build organizational success, support positive individual development, and in-tegrate external mission with internal conduct. In tile vernacular, it requires learning to "walk the walk" at all levels.
But one response likely to fail is hiring it traditional organizational consultant, or simply referring a troubled person to any mental health practitioner. Be-cause the problems I am describing tend to be interwoven, piecemeal efforts are not effective. More importantly, most management. and organizational consultants don't share the same values with nonprofits, especially those en-gaged in progressive or advocacy-oriented causes. Inevitably, this produces a clash between recommendations and the organization's values, and gives rise to new resentments over charges of diffuse mission, or "selling out."
And when a person is overtly troubled on the job, most psychotherapists are unable to distinguish conflicts that are a situational response to the workplace from those originating within the person, independent of work. This blind spot has consequences for how effective the treatment will be. When I began studying the link between careers and emotional conflict 20 years ago, this lack of understanding was the norm. Today, unfortunately, it is not much bet-ter. Most therapists still lack sufficient understanding and training about how the workplace culture, conventional values, and gender attitudes interact with and affect a person's emotional issues – exacerbating old ones, masking con-flicts, or creating new ones.
In short, neither traditional "OD" consultants nor most psychotherapists pos-sess the blended expertise and experience necessary for dealing with this mixture of organizational and personal conflicts.
What Does Help
Overall, in our work with nonprofit organizations the Center for Adult Devel-opment has found that the first step to dealing with these problems is simple in principle, but hard to practice: Ongoing self-examination by leaders and man-agers regarding the degree of gap between one's values and ideals embodied in the mission, and those embodied in how one actually relates and manages within the organization.
Many nonprofits ignore this gap, or think it is irrelevant. Then they are sur-prised by accusations of a contradiction between their relationships or man-agement practices, and their progressive mission in the outside world.
So, the first step is the most obvious but the most important: become aware of these issues, As in most realms of life, awareness of the source of problems call stimulate new ideas and effective actions. Some actions that help are:
- First, embrace the reality that adult men and women seek greater inte-gration in their lives, especially between their work and non-work lives. They want to reduce their own gaps between private, inner ideals and outward, public behavior. Overall, they seek a greater sense of meaning and purpose. Our research shows that these, in fact, are the key challenges for adulthood. In the workplace they show themselves as a desire for, respect and recogni-tion, teamwork, and creativity. They also show themselves through repudia-tion of arrogance, authoritarianism, and insensitivity oil the part of managers -- even when they share the same ideals and ideology. There are many horror stories about nonprofits whose values embodied in their missions are com-pletely at odds with the tyrannical behavior of their leaders, who would easily qualify for Fortune magazine's listing of "Worst Bosses in America."
- When your organization decides it needs outside help, seek someone who shares similar perspectives and values regarding your organization's ide-als in particular, or nonprofit activity in general. Such people do exist, but you have to look for them. Don't be reluctant to inquire about the person's values, perspectives, and sensitivity to your nonprofit mission; or about his or her ex-perience and savvy about the linkage between personal and organizational conflicts. Remember, much conflict within nonprofits results from failure to "walk the walk" internally, so replicating the problem at the outset will not re-solve it.
- Stay aware of the fact that success requires management and organiza-tional practices that are both humanly and organizationally effective. Both are necessary, and must occur within a socially responsible and ethical context, as well. All efforts to deal with management, staff relationship, and personal con-flict issues must be rooted in this integrated perspective, or they are bound to recur.
The conflicts increasingly common today require that nonprofits give more than lip service to addressing both the needs of people and the realities of or-ganizational life. The Center has found that the most successfully functioning nonprofits support their staff to balance and integrate work commitments with an It outside" life. They also link organizational decisions with an understand-ing of the needs and strengths of its members. They know that such practices help bring out the best in both the organization and individuals. Nonprofit or-ganizations face the challenge of practicing their own ideals inside the organi-zation, not just outside. After all, throughout life, whether at the office or at home, our internal and external conduct -the "personal" and the "political" -- are really one and the same.