The CEO job is to be disliked.

Much of what we call “change management” is a way for the CEO to avoid being disliked. 

This week, I talk with Jenn Petersen at World Hope International on The Nonprofit CEO Podcast. She was thinking about doing something scary: eliminating their only source of recurring revenue, a child-sponsorship program.

"I would say we knew for sure within six months of doing our research that this needed to happen, and then we knew that it was going to take a solid six to nine months to actually implement that change. And then I've even heard people say it can be an 18-month really transition for the whole thing."

Why 18 months? It’s often just someone parroting something someone else said, without a real consideration of why it might take so long. 

(I’m often shocked at how slow our sector moves compared to others. Nonprofits are sometimes content to coast in third or even second gear. And some are only idling.) 

Another CEO told me about an occasion when they were walking through a five-year plan, and someone asked, 

“If we know what we’re gonna do in year four, why don’t we do it this year?”

Indeed. Nothing was making them take five years for that plan. One simple question dramatically accelerated the organization toward the outcomes they sought. 

Why is this sort of imagination so rare? Yes, it can be uncomfortable, but isn’t it worth it to do what we exist to do that much sooner? 

I often think about this in the context of March 2020. Because of the “unprecedented” conditions, everyone could “pivot” much more quickly than they imagined. We did this personally, as well as in our families, congregations, and, yes, our nonprofit organizations. You had the same staff, the same board, the same resources. You just didn’t need permission from anyone to make changes, even dramatic ones. Rather, COVID made it clear that change was needed. Everyone knew it, and they were able to roll with tremendous upheaval. 

Recently, Jonathan Reckford of Habitat for Humanity got me thinking about this, about why we move slowly. Our conversation had me thinking about how the key dynamic impeding change is not others’ tolerance for change. Rather, it is the CEO’s capacity for being disliked, for disappointing people.