Daryl's Blog

I send a monthly bulletin out to around 10,000 subscribers, trying to keep them up to date with what's going on in the voluntary sector, and generally help them be more effective. Nevertheless I'm aware that most of what I write about is at least one level removed from the core activity of what they are there to do, whether it's making and selling something, building a church, working with homeless people etc.

The danger is simply this: too much emphasis on activities that are one level removed from your core activity can ultimately cause an organisation to fail. (This is why small businesses are very keen for the government to make a bonfire of some of the enormous quantities of red tape that has tied up so much of their resources.)

Some examples. A charity needs a new mission or vision statement with many happy hours spent consulting people inside and outside gathering their views. This results in a dynamic statement but what has really been achieved. If you have a good product or service, you don't need a mission statement. Budgets are important but instead of spending weeks nailing down a budget you might get better results by going out and growing your organisation.

I have seen too many organisations that have almost become ends in themselves and have lost sight of what they were created for. Struggling organisations can go through more leadership and organisational models than you can shake a stick at. Of course health and safety, risk and HR and all the bureaucratic stuff that descends on us from on high is important but these things must be our servants not our masters. H & S is important; but get it looked at, put a system in place and move on.

Remember these simple rules:

1. Stick to the fundamentals; if you don't know what they are, shut down until you do. A charity set up a shop to make money for the charity. A year later most of the human resources were being diverted into the shop and the work of the charity was getting neglected. A church decided it wants to run the best cafe in town. It does, but the leaders and trustees spend more time talking about the wonderfully run cafe than the work of the church which is to preach the gospel.

2. Organisations with good products and services and effective people usually do well.

3. Be consistent. And resist the urge to tinker. What you end up with is often no more effective than what you had before.

4 Most of the one off activities that are one step removed take care of themselves if you are doing a good job with your people and your outputs.

5. Learn from the world of commerce. One year every secretary and PA in the bank I worked for was redeployed onto other duties; cashiering, switchboard etc. Managers had to learn to type rather than dictate. Think how much time and money that one simple action saved. (It did cause a number of managers to retire early which saved even more.)

This year as never before activities must be trimmed back and resources used wisely. Go through your organisation, look at all the activities. What can be chopped back without hitting the frontline? More than you might think. As I've said before; this year there'll be winners and there will be losers. Make sure yours is a team of winners.