Hard Choices and Right Questions for a New Age

President Obama’s theme of hard choices and right questions in his inaugural address resonate with a concern I have right now for the associations and nonprofits Signature i seeks to serve.

Obama took us to task for “our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age.” He reflected that “there are some who question the scale of our ambitions, who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans.” And because the “cynics fail to understand that the ground has shifted beneath them,” we are not asking the right questions to judge whether a choice will get us the outcomes we desire—a government that serves families, an economy that shares prosperity, and security that rests on human rights and justice.

This recession has forced many organizations to cut staff, programs and services, and too many executives and boards are making these decisions in a way that is more expedient than strategic. They have scaled down their ambitions for the future and are now thinking and playing small because they believe they have no other choice.

Too few are asking the right questions that will both preserve their identity and still prepare them for a meaningful future. They are taking past budgets and practices as the baseline from which they are now forced to retreat instead of calling a timeout to regroup around this question: what does this new age require of us?

In the midst of challenges and changes, what must stay true about your organization? This is your core identity—a powerful mix of purpose and values.

What is the most important work you can do to close the gap between our world as it is now and the world as it should be? This is your vision—a compelling image of outcomes worth seeking.

Where are the greatest number of your members and stakeholders engaged in your organization? See this energy for what it is—your community telling you through how they spend their time and money what matters most to them. Where you find engagement, you will find your value proposition.

Given all the choices you could make as an organization, which investments in people, programs and services get results? Which only drain away precious energy that can be used more effectively on a different and perhaps new initiative? Evaluate what you are doing and accept what you learn.

This series of questions may not make hard choices any easier. In organizations, the past can have a powerful constituency that wants to hold onto a view of the world that cannot be preserved through percentage cuts, no matter how large.

Cutbacks without a strong sense of direction seldom get you where you want to be. Our collective ability to ask the right questions and our courage to act on those choices will transform our organizations and get us where we need to be in a new age.