Have you ever been to a really good conference? I’m talking about the kind where you have pages of notes and ideas to bring back to your team. Even better, a few coworkers also attended and you spend the trip home discussing your takeaways.

Like any good leader, you know that change should come with a plan and that the stakeholders must buy in. You decide on the most important change and work out how you’ll roll it out. During a meeting with key volunteers, you explain what the change will accomplish and why it will help your cause. People nod in agreement.

Well, most people…

One of your longtime volunteers doesn’t look convinced. In fact, she looks downright skeptical. She speaks up and says she prefers the old way of doing things. When you ask why (pretty much knowing what she’s about to say), she utters 7 of the scariest words any church or nonprofit will ever hear:

“That’s the way we’ve always done it.”

😱😱 <cue bloodcurdling scream>

Now, before you come at me with pitchforks, please understand that I’m talking about processes and systems, not meaningful traditions. Don’t go changing things that make your organization feel like home for those who participate.

What to Consider About Outdated Processes

Let’s look at things from the perspective of your longtime volunteer. We’ll call her Gladys. She’s been around a long time. In fact, she may have come up with the very thing you’re about to change. She might see the proposed change as criticism of something she worked hard to create.

Here are a few questions you can ask Gladys, and you should listen to her responses with an open mind. As a leader, you’ll get a much better reaction than simply telling her to get over it.

What Problem Were You Originally Trying to Solve?

They say necessity is the mother of invention. The process in question originally served to overcome a roadblock of some sort. What problem did the team encounter that created the need for this process?

Gladys may have insight you hadn’t considered.

What Has Changed Since The Process Was Created?

Do you have resources available that didn’t exist before? Will those resources make the process easier or more efficient? As a volunteer and not an employee, Gladys may not know everything you do. Gently fill her in on what has changed since the original process came about.

If your organization’s size, staff, mission, or scope have changed, that may also mean the time has come to update some processes.

Does the Current Process Still Serve Us?

Your processes should serve your people, not the other way around.

If processes that once served you well have become more cumbersome than helpful, you have outdated processes. At the end of the day, your organization’s processes should help you advance your mission, whatever that happens to be.

If you do make vision casting part of your culture, and you absolutely should, your team should never lose sight of why you do what you do.

Explain to Gladys how the new process will further the mission of the organization. Does it help connect with an audience that you’ve had a hard time reaching? Does it free up administrative time so you have more time to help people?

Don’t just expect your team to buy in because you say so. Help them learn to care about why the change is being considered.

Updating Outdated Processes – A True Story

I recently worked with Homeward, an organization that helps unhoused people in the Richmond area. One problem we addressed was file management. Their director expressed a lot of frustration with not being able to find things on their server. The files were kind of a mess, every department (and sometimes every individual) had their own way of naming files, and there were occasionally multiple versions of the same file by different people.

The first thing I did was discover how things got this way. Like so many others, COVID had forced them out of their office and online. They hastily set up an online document system that they could all reach from home. That solved the current problem. As it grew over the years, however, it became unruly and slowly got out of hand.

I met with staff members and had them fill out a survey estimating how much time they lost searching for files. Across the organization, they were losing a full day every week just trying to find and organize what they needed. I shared my findings at a staff meeting, along with a quote someone had said during our meeting: “Every hour spent looking for a file is one where we could be helping an unhoused person.”

Suddenly, even those the director had deemed “resistant to change” were ready to jump on board.

Over time, each department had a hand in building the new system. After all, they knew what they needed way better than I did. I just facilitated the process of building it in a way that brought everyone together and then conducted a training on the new system.

Next Time You Hear Those Seven Scary Words…

It would be tempting to tell a volunteer like Gladys just to get over the change because you’ve made a decision. I don’t know a single leader who hasn’t wanted to do that at some point. Instead, do a little digging and find out what’s behind the resistance. Have a discussion that helps everyone (including you) land on the same page.

If you’re wondering whether your organization has some outdated processes, I have a tool that could help. My free 5-Minute Nonprofit Systems Leak Finder can help both nonprofit organizations and churches spot something that takes time or effort you could be using elsewhere.

Work as a team on those outdated processes, and keep swimming along!