Change becomes everyday business:
Change consulting in the non-profit sector

How does a major change process move from the project to control structure without losing drive? Consulting case of a non-profit organisation in the context of Neuwaldegg’s change management consulting.

An Austrian non-profit orga­ni­sa­tion in the middle of a change process. This orga­ni­sa­tion with a long history and tradi­tion has been working on its future viabi­lity for several years: by stream­li­ning bran­ches, redu­cing costs, deve­lo­ping growth stra­te­gies and inno­vating the range and prac­tice.
We accom­pany the change from the begin­ning. The project struc­ture that has been working since then is coming to an end. Now the trans­for­ma­tional change is to be trans­ferred into the control struc­ture. The concern: loss of inno­va­tion and slip­ping back into old patterns.

Change becomes everyday business

The aim of the new control archi­tec­ture is to trans­form the change into “ever­yday busi­ness” and send the signal to the orga­ni­sa­tion that the change has arrived within the struc­ture. It is not just the core team and stee­ring group, as well as the teams in the projects who should be respon­sible for driving and moni­to­ring change but all the stra­tegic and opera­tional stee­ring commit­tees within the orga­ni­sa­tion. However, the power of the project struc­ture should not be lost when it becomes “ever­yday busi­ness”. Hence the ques­tion of a disrupter who constantly brings ideas from outside into the system on the one hand, and of new meeting formats for the commit­tees to keep an eye on the indi­ca­tors for change in a change cockpit on the other hand.

Finding the “disrupter”

With a small team from the orga­ni­sa­tion respon­sible for stra­tegy (programmes), struc­ture and processes (commu­ni­ca­tion chan­nels) and personnel issues, we trans­late the control archi­tec­ture to the exis­ting commit­tees in repeated cycles and develop the appro­priate meeting formats. The tran­si­tion to the new struc­ture and solu­tion rituals from the project struc­ture are also planned. We decide against another committee for the disrup­tive effect – inno­va­tion is also directly linked to day-to-day busi­ness and projects. The divi­sion respon­sible for inno­va­tion assumes the role of networ­king external initia­tors and produc­tive disrup­tive ener­gies from outside directly into projects and depart­ments on specific topics.

Language is the decisive factor

The key in this project is not to find modern terms and formats but a connec­tion to the centu­ries-old tradi­tion and ther­e­fore the organisation’s ability to survive, which nevert­heless carries the momentum for change. As a result, it is also possible to estab­lish agile meeting formats – even if they are not called that.
The co-crea­tive deve­lo­p­ment (consultants/clients) in repeated cycles ensures that the solu­tions are sustainable and compatible.

Franziska Fink

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