Here be quicksand: adventures in the third sector

I’ve seen my fair share of the inside of organisations. My adventurer’s map has taken me from the exhausting pace of advertising agencies, deep into other dimensions of academia, jostling differing government agencies, behind shiny facades of those who are industry darlings and to far-flung places where foreign culture challenged my values and broadened my perspective. However, I seem to have come across some quicksand on the map hiding in the third sector, and all my childhood instincts now taunt me with the chant ‘can’t go under it, can’t go over it, you’ll have to go through it’.

The third sector is a largely misunderstood destination on the map I suspect. Those in the private sector scoff as they retell urban legends of inefficiencies or tut with a bemused sense of pity like a sibling who’s older and wiser. Some of these types join boards as a badge of honour and others a genuine desire to contribute only to be confronted by the pace of action, the emotional effort required to gain momentum and the uncertainty of success. While some of the urban legends may have a grain of truth, the quicksand is certainly real. It’s source varied and complex in causal factors.

From discussions with others in the sector, it seems many of these organisations act as a coalition with a joint party line and competing factions. Each faction with a valid mission, moving independently within the bounds of their party. Therefore, action is undertaken by jostling for attention, coercing, lobbying and consensus building, both internally and externally. In the private sector, I’ve yet to come across it to this extent, however aligned their top line mission is, even in global consultancies where revenue creation aligns as much as it drives internal competition and action.

Social missions are overwhelmingly huge, this is not new to me. But when emotions and genuine passion lead, scope can be unrealistically wide and so measures of success can come and go. It’s within these types of missions that readiness for change takes significantly more time and energy than you can foresee. Agencies that breeze in and out, provided with carefully constructed problem statements that await shiny solutions, don’t see the emotional energy it took to get there or sustain their project in the organisation. That’s not because of lack of capability or inefficiencies but because you’re dealing with an entirely different type of organisation, and rationalising with private sector norms won’t show you the way.

Action is a tricky thing, indeed evidenced outcomes even more difficult. Complexity paralysis and evidence overload obscure the path, sifting your way through piles of reports to find the ‘what will we do on Monday’ moment means you will take steps that you are not completely sure.

Yet we must consider the genuine concern and reality of experimentation when people’s lives are at stake and balance it against a default risk-averse mode of overthinking and evidence-hunting (while money burns a fire to keep us warm at night in our sense of duty).

These obstacles are set against a need (or desire) to maintain the current services with their day-to-day challenges of delivery, thwarted by a cultural and practical disconnect between strategy and implementation. The age-old argument continues to morph and raises its head time and time again, how can you consider spending on research, developing improved or radically different services while frontline staff deal with immense difficulties in business-as-usual? Genuine understanding, joined up ways of working, shared learning, cross-sector alliances and actionable small wins can create the momentum needed.

In my observations, those hardened ‘lifers’ wade through the quicksand, a steady gaze upon the prize, surrendering to the ‘inconveniences’ that come with a culture of lack, buoyed by a higher purpose. Although I wonder how will they ever find a better way through if they can no longer see the processes, embedded ways of working and organisational culture that keeps them from reaching the other side?

Those who are savvy, find small projects and allies that they use to build support and pull themselves through, as and when they can. For some who eventually tire, decide to leave or dip out momentarily for a new adventure with a hope that a change of environment and a new challenge re-energises them. For others, their adaptive and innovative behaviours create a movement that enables positive change and propels everyone forward.

I think what keeps people coming back is a burning purpose and eternal hope that this adventure with it’s somewhat difficult (and often beautiful) view, will see us reach the other side.

And so in my current adventure, I look for answers, feeling ill equipped to find a way through the quicksand. Here are some lessons I’m learning and tactics I continue to borrow and test.

• Building relationships takes longer, invest in this and find allies to nurture change.
• Ask why, keep asking why and don’t lose that childish curiosity.
• Consensus is useful, but 100% consensus is not needed or useful.
• Results through others is an art that you must hone your skills for everyday.
• Question ‘the way it’s done around here’ with unapologetic naivety.
• Get out and understand the front line challenges, head office reality distortion creates immovable barriers.
• Move beyond typical modes of communication to creating and nurturing safe environments for radically candid conversations.
• Use stories to enable change, capture learning and systematically track change.
• However ambitious or significant your mission; small, scalable experiments are crucial to creating change, anything else is a risk you can’t afford.
• Help craft clarity out of complexity, others crave it, and it can deliver value quickly.
• Not everyone is ok with ambiguity, create transition moments and objects that help others through these stages.
• Take breaks and have fun, the emotional output required is high.
• Solo working is your enemy, build trusted working teams within teams and across organisational barriers.
• Busyness is a continuous state, be actively on the lookout for creative ways you might circumvent that state for others.
• Purpose sustains you, but sometimes you might have to let something meaningful and important go so that you can keep travelling in a forward direction.

Got some advice and wise words to share? Or just want another ally, do say reach out and say hello.