While creating my new website and uploading articles I had written I came across the book review of Nonprofit Lifecycles: Stage-Based Wisdom for Nonprofit Capacity by Susan Kenny Stevens. This is one of my favorite books because it uses a methodology taken from social work. Usually I apply it to analyzing organizational development but now as I reflect on my ReGenXer life and how so many of my friends are also going through life changes I can see the social application of Kenny Steven's Lifecycle theory.
Kenny Stevens states that organizations go through lifecycle stages that are categorized as: Idea, Start-up, Growth, Maturity, Decline, Turnaround, and Terminal. In fact, each function of the organization also goes through these stages - financial management, governance, client services, publications, membership, etc. The steepest portions of the curve are the two ends - Idea and Terminal. The apex is Maturity. Turnaround is the critical stage at which it is determined if the organization or function can be brought back around to Growth or should be Terminated.
I'm telling you all this as a backdrop to my own life, which interestingly seems to be paralleling the lifecycles of so many of my closest friends. We are in relationships and employment that has hit the Decline stage. Perhaps it is a late 30s or early 40s stage that everyone hits (mid-life? mid-career?) or possibly it has something to do with ReGenXers, our lifestyles or even our career paths? Maybe it is the impact of globalization? We hit that Decline and do everything we can to Turnaround the relationship or employment. Some of us get stuck there for a long time - because of obligations and the ripple impact of our looming choice. Perhaps in previous generations people would have stayed at Decline and never hit Terminal. Not us, we make changes no matter how unconventional, impactful and challenging.
Something about ReGenXers encourages us to look inside and find a Turnaround in parallel with Terminal. We end our marriages, leave our jobs, move to different countries, find new ways to build support networks and start over. We are fearless about this process, even if it is incredibly painful. Is it that we have a strong need to for self-actualization?
So here I am Turning around again and I am not alone. Friends and family connected electronically across the planet gently offer each other support as we develop new Ideas and move into new Start-ups. We nurture each other's Growth and intertwine our lives.
Showing posts with label susan kenney stevens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label susan kenney stevens. Show all posts
May 10, 2008
August 8, 2006
Book Review: Nonprofit Lifecycles
Nonprofit Lifecycles: Stage-Based Wisdom for Nonprofit Capacity
By Susan Kenny Stevens, Ph.D with a foreword by Paul C. Light and Published by Stagewise Enterprises, Inc. - March 2002
Winner of the Alliance for Nonprofit Management's Terry McAdam Book Award for most valuable nonprofit book published in 2002.
Review by Amy Kweskin, Research Fellow, Americans for the Arts
Nonprofit Lifecycle: Stage-Based Wisdom for Nonprofit Capacity uses easy to understand developmental and organizational theory to guide in evaluating the health and evolution of any organization's capacity functions. The most valuable feature of this workbook-style text is Susan Kenny Stevens' illustration of Nonprofit Lifecycle Capacity Placement. Clearly articulated, easy to communicate and endlessly applicable this diagram-based methodology can be used to chart the evolution of all aspects of organization and program development.
The organizational lifecycle, like the human lifecycle, begins at conception and ends in death. Stevens frames these stages as Idea, Start-up, Growth, Maturity, Decline, Turnaround, and Terminal. Pinpointing the evolutionary stage of key organizational functions allows for board and staff to identify the health (capacity) of the organization. These functions include Programs, Management, Governance, Financial Resources, and Administrative Systems. You need not be limited to these areas. The model is endlessly adaptable and can be used by board and staff with equal effectiveness for addressing any management capacity issue.
I used Stevens' model in a Board Leadership Training program to explain organizational lifecycles to a group of corporate executives and they found it extremely useful. It became our template for discussing a variety of organizational capacity development scenarios. Additionally, I used it with a class of undergraduate arts administration students to address leadership development and their own career evolution.
Charting the current stage of each capacity building function allows the organization to conduct its own situation analysis. The process jump starts strategic planning and enables organizations to proactively engage management services. Stevens clearly identifies the diagnostic characteristics and performance outcomes in each stage allowing for goals to be articulated and benchmarks to be set with measurable charting of progress. Using this text empowers organizational stakeholders to objectively evaluate the vitality of the organization. It also is one of the few resources that candidly addresses organizational decline and termination.
By Susan Kenny Stevens, Ph.D with a foreword by Paul C. Light and Published by Stagewise Enterprises, Inc. - March 2002
Winner of the Alliance for Nonprofit Management's Terry McAdam Book Award for most valuable nonprofit book published in 2002.
Review by Amy Kweskin, Research Fellow, Americans for the Arts
Nonprofit Lifecycle: Stage-Based Wisdom for Nonprofit Capacity uses easy to understand developmental and organizational theory to guide in evaluating the health and evolution of any organization's capacity functions. The most valuable feature of this workbook-style text is Susan Kenny Stevens' illustration of Nonprofit Lifecycle Capacity Placement. Clearly articulated, easy to communicate and endlessly applicable this diagram-based methodology can be used to chart the evolution of all aspects of organization and program development.
The organizational lifecycle, like the human lifecycle, begins at conception and ends in death. Stevens frames these stages as Idea, Start-up, Growth, Maturity, Decline, Turnaround, and Terminal. Pinpointing the evolutionary stage of key organizational functions allows for board and staff to identify the health (capacity) of the organization. These functions include Programs, Management, Governance, Financial Resources, and Administrative Systems. You need not be limited to these areas. The model is endlessly adaptable and can be used by board and staff with equal effectiveness for addressing any management capacity issue.
I used Stevens' model in a Board Leadership Training program to explain organizational lifecycles to a group of corporate executives and they found it extremely useful. It became our template for discussing a variety of organizational capacity development scenarios. Additionally, I used it with a class of undergraduate arts administration students to address leadership development and their own career evolution.
Charting the current stage of each capacity building function allows the organization to conduct its own situation analysis. The process jump starts strategic planning and enables organizations to proactively engage management services. Stevens clearly identifies the diagnostic characteristics and performance outcomes in each stage allowing for goals to be articulated and benchmarks to be set with measurable charting of progress. Using this text empowers organizational stakeholders to objectively evaluate the vitality of the organization. It also is one of the few resources that candidly addresses organizational decline and termination.
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