When the Stakes Are High: Centering People in Tough Nonprofit Leadership Moments with Melissa Kessler
9/9/2025
“What is important to track in the chaos, is how you are making [layoff decisions].
Announcing those decisions and helping people through those decisions really does impact what’s going to happen next in the organization.”
In episode 131 of Nonprofit Mission: Impact, Carol Hamilton and Melissa Kessler explore the intersection of communications and organization development, particularly in moments of crisis, transition and change. They talk about
how internal communications can either reinforce or undermine values, strategy, and humanity within an organization.
how to navigate layoffs, restructuring, or organizational shifts with humanity
why how we communicate is just as important as what we decide.
Episode highlights:
💬 “It’s a Communications Problem” – Or Is It?
[00:09:27] – Many organizational challenges are labeled as “communications issues,” but Melissa reframes these as deeper systemic and leadership problems that can't be solved by PR alone.
🔁 Communications Is Change
[00:12:29] – Every act of communication is an act of change—it shapes expectations, impacts behavior, and signals values, especially during transitions.
💔 Communicating Layoffs with Humanity
[00:14:30 – Through real-world examples, Melissa explains how the process of communicating difficult news like layoffs affects not just those leaving but also those who remain.
🧠 Leaders Are Always Ahead of the Curve
[00:18:24] – There is a timing disconnect between leadership decision-making and staff awareness, and why leaders must remember that others haven’t had the same time to process.
🔄 Defining “Internal” vs. “External” in Complex Systems
[00:19:32] – Especially in associations and nonprofits, boundaries between internal and external audiences are blurry—raising important questions about transparency and inclusion.
🧩 Communication Is Not Strategy
[00:20:57] – Communication is a tactic, not a strategy, and it must ladder up to clear goals and organizational alignment.
💬 Who Gets Told What—And When
[00:22:55] – Determining the focus on the organization - that then needs to be communicated is not a comms task—it’s a leadership and systems design decision.
⚠️ Managing With Compassion Through Uncertainty
[00:24:54] – When facing difficult decisions like layoffs, leaders must ask: “Who do I want to be in this moment?” Melissa shares practical and values-centered guidance.
👥 The Impact on Those Who Remain
[00:30:15] – Handling transitions poorly creates organizational trauma and reduces effectiveness; the hallway chatter and informal networks fill in when formal communications fall short.
🌅 Ending Well: The Missing Ritual
[00:33:15] – There is an absence of guidance around ending projects, teams, or organizations—and how grief, appreciation, and closure are critical.
🪦 Organizational Death and Grief
[00:35:55] – Melissa shares her attempts to write about “organizational death” and how poorly we, as a culture, handle endings—both individually and institutionally.
🧘♀️ Leading in Chaos: Self-Care Is Strategic
[00:42:15] – A team member once told Melissa, “I see you take care of yourself.” That insight led to a discussion on how leaders need to prioritize their own capacity and well-being.
📝 Your Crisis Plan Should Include Snacks
[00:44:04] – On a lighter note, Melissa shares her crisis comms checklist—complete with “order food”—as a reminder that basic needs and thoughtful planning go a long way during upheaval.
Guest Bio:
Melissa George Kessler is a consultant and executive coach working in the areas of strategy and organization effectiveness through her independent practice, Organizations + Communications, and with partner firms. She began her career as a reporter and editor; later ran the communications shops for two agriculture associations; and has worked extensively in trade policy and education. Over a 20 year career, Melissa has done work with non-profit and private-sector partners throughout the urban and rural United States and in Asia, Africa and Latin America. She also has spoken at various OD conferences and is the author of a book chapter on communications and strategic change. Melissa splits her time between her hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the national capital area.
Important Links and Resources:
Organizations + Communications LLC
The Workplace Psychological Contract Is Broken. Here’s How to Fix It
Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes
Related Episodes:
Episode 124: Embodied leadership for nonprofits
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Carol Hamilton: My guest today on nonprofit Mission Impact is Melissa Kessler. Melissa and I explore the intersection of communications and organization development, particularly in moments of crisis transition and change. We explore how internal communications can reinforce or undermine values, strategy, and humanity within an organization.
How to navigate layoffs, restructuring, or organizational shifts with humanity. Why it's so critical to talk about the wider impacts of hard decisions and why how we communicate is just as important as what we actually decide. Nonprofit leaders are dealing with so much right now. Threats and challenges are coming at you with mounting speed.
I talked about this in the last episode about how the sector itself is under attack, and with our current moment of crisis and transition, you're likely being faced with lots of really hard decisions, perhaps SoFi's choice, types of decisions. Decisions you definitely don't want to have to make. And the truth is many organizations are currently contracting how their or their leaders manage those.
How their leaders manage those contractions will have an impact long after the last severance payment is made. And as Melissa notes, if you want people to feel like they're working in a place that is fundamentally human, you need to act fundamentally human. Who do you want to be at this moment? I feel like each of us is grappling with this question every day these days.
And as we are in this moment of tremendous change and dislocation, I'm struck by how much our US culture loves beginnings. We love to start things. We celebrate startup culture in the entrepreneurial spirit, including in the nonprofit sector. We love to talk about scaling. We always want the growth chart to be moving up to the right as Melissa Quips.
But endings happen. Goodbyes happen. Projects, end teams, end teammates leave. Jobs end all for a multitude of reasons. And even at organizations' end, some will wind down and shut their doors. Others will keep their mission going with a strategic alliance or merging into another organization or other types of adaptations, and some will shrink, but keep going.
Either way, there's loss, there's disruption, and there are a lot of feelings. This will not be the same. Things will not be the same regardless of the exact path that's taken. Now the question is how might we make these endings? A good ending, a good goodbye. When I worked with a small organization facing this exact challenge, I helped them identify what motivated them to originally get involved, to think about what they'd learned by being part of the group, what they appreciated about each person that they had worked with, and then what did they wanna take with them as they moved into their new adventures.
What rituals might be helpful to help everyone process the emotions around those transitions? What might we learn from grief rituals to help us move through these experiences, even from death doulas? What has helped you navigate these in the past, whether it's on a personal level or with your team or within your organization?
And then how can you apply that from, how can you apply what you've learned from those situations to what you're experiencing now? In our conversation, Melissa and I explore this and much more.
Melissa, welcome to Nonprofit Mission Impact.
Melissa Kessler: Thank you so much. Good to be with you, Carol.
Carol: So I'd like to start each conversation with what drew you to the work that you do. What would you describe as your motivation or your why?
Melissa: That's a really interesting question. I mean, the proximate answer is the 2008 Farm Bill, which I'm guessing that most of you most of the people listening to this have no idea what that is. But traditionally the US has passed an enormous piece of legislation that includes farm policy and nutrition assistance. Lots and lots of things. And I happened to work in agriculture. I was working in communications at the time. I had been a reporter and it's a huge multi-year process, and I just became very intrigued about how conversations were happening and not happening, and decisions were being made and not made.
And we would say something in a room and then go outside the room and say something else, and like. All of that. I was like, that is super interesting. I wanna know what that is. And it took me, I would say probably a year of doing informational interviews to really land on. What that even might be called.
And I ended up applying to a bunch of graduate programs in conflict resolution and organization development. And ultimately went to the American University program and organization development knowing very little about what OD is. And that's of course , how we met and how we've met many mutual friends and, that's, that's the basis of why we're here. I mean, how kind of looking at systems and how they work and how that intersects with individuals and how they work and how , kind of people talk to each other, exchange information, make decisions, take action going forward. All of that is my current domain, but it's a big mailage of a whole bunch of things from policy and comms and OD world.
Carol: . . I remember when I first kind of stumbled upon the field of organization development, it was, and, and I'm not remembering exactly how, but somehow I was reading something and it listed a set of values that were kind of inherent to the field. And I read through them and I was like, oh my God, these line up almost, except for one, maybe. To my faith community of Unitarian Universalism where the, the, what used to be the principles were like in total alignment. I was like, okay, well this is a field that I can get behind. But I
Melissa: I remember,
Carol: We were talking and you said, " I just figured out that I was. Most people are concerned about what, what are we doing?
Melissa: .
Carol: Hopefully sometimes the why. But you realized that you were more and more interested in the how and that I definitely resonated with, so
Melissa: So you, you talked about kind your background
Carol: communications and then discovering
Melissa: organization
Carol: and you're now kind of working at the
Melissa: intersection
Carol: two
Melissa: those two fields and I've often,
Carol: I
Melissa: I feel like a lot sometimes when I say, well things are working in the station.
Carol: They tend to blame communications
Melissa: .
Carol: , not that we have an organization or a systems problem or something else, but we have a communications problem. What do you think about when you hear people say something like that?
Melissa: I mean, I think it's incredibly apt, right? And actually my consulting practice , which is I'm a solopreneur, so a small consulting practice is named organizations and communications, LLC, which is like the least creative possible name, but also pretty much hits it right on the head, right?
Because. One of my first observations in this field, and again, I came into your story about, , the values aligning with your faith community is very interesting. 'cause I really did not know what I was getting into and I remember very clearly flipping forward in the book and reading the value section to like, check out and make sure I was in the right place.
, I was like, whoops. Better figure that out. But it, I mean, I was so interested in the how, and that's what it was presenting, and I think that part of that was driven by, as I got into studying organizations and systems, it was just very clear to me that people present with organization problems are actually often communications problems.
Maybe not necessarily formal written PR communications problems, but they are problems with how information is developed, articulated, transmitted, received, et cetera, et cetera. And on the flip side, there are a lot of communication problems. I mean, I ran comms departments for 15 years and most of the challenges in that work really went back to do we know what we're trying to do?
Are we clear on our goal? Are we clear on our strategy? Are we aligned about that? Have we articulated a plan that people can understand and get behind? Which are all organization issues? Your communications department cannot fix that. And in many organizations, frankly, large and small. stuff rolls downhill, right?
And so when you have to write a press release, put up a website, craft a statement, at the end of the day, someone has to do that. It's often the communicators when there is an absence of clear and strong leadership and clear and strong strategy. So, , I kind of laugh that communicators have an outside impact on the world because at the end of the day, they've gotta tell something to somebody else.
And so if there is not a message. They make up the message and often that's making up policy, strategy, direction, , lots of things that probably should be discussed elsewhere in the organization. So I have found in my work, like e extracting those from each other is. It is almost impossible.
I think because of my background, a lot of people who come to me and who I work with have a little of column A, a little of column B and part of the work that I do is trying to help them see how they're related, right? How, how you're communicating is actually a change process. When you are communicating, you are inciting change of some kind.
And so being very clear about how you're doing that matters throughout the system, not just. In the PR department or the comms department.
Carol: So when you said communications is a change, a change process, can you say more about that?
Melissa: . . So I think there are different views of change, right? And this is, this is something, , I'm guessing your listeners could nerd out on it for a very long time. But like, how do we conceptualize change? What is it? How does it work? How do we incentivize change? And when we think about communications, we are.
We are putting information into a system, right? And we're extracting information from a system. So if we say corporation A is announcing a policy, right? Like we are, we are taking some action to go from here to there just by announcing it, we are setting up an expectation that something is going to happen, right?
And in fact, something is happening by merely saying, okay, we're going to do this or that. On the internal side, a lot of times people look at staff surveys and focus groups and kind of corporate communications internally. A lot of that's happening right now because so many organizations are internally in quite a lot of shifts in some cases,, , pretty serious challenges.
And so how we are constructing those conversations if we are even consciously constructing those conversations, that is. Engagement in change, right? I think people don't think about it. They think, oh, the change is going to be, we are reducing our staff by 10%. They don't think that part of the change is how they decide that, how they announce that, how they help people process through that.
And in fact, , again, they're inextricable. And so one of the things I do a lot with clients is trying to help people see very much to your point, like how things are done. Is as important as what is ultimately done in terms of effectiveness. Certainly if nothing else.
Carol: Can you gimme an example of, of that kind of thing where , a, a decision is made. People think that's what the change is, but
Melissa: Right.
Carol: more to it.
Melissa: . I mean, I'm thinking right now I have many friends and colleagues, as I'm sure , you and many people listening to this would, who are in organizations that have lost contracts or are having change in how I. Kind of their work is structured and many times that involves layoffs and furloughs and that type of thing.
I'm thinking just specifically of a couple friends who, one in a small, very small organization, one in a very large, 20,000 people organization, that's, that's a reality. Like that is what is happening. And hearing from them how those decisions are being made and then how they're being communicated is just utterly fascinating to me.
Because you think, these are organizations that have done very small and very large amounts of work to try to articulate their values and try to run the place in a certain way and something like that. I think it is probably worthwhile in that it's hard to track in the chaos, right? But it is important to track in the chaos how you are making those decisions.
Announcing those decisions and helping people through those decisions really does impact what's going to happen next in the organization. How well is this place going to function? How are we going to be able to fulfill the client's work? We cried. We have eventually grown or eventually wind down as an organization.
Like each of those steps along the way has an impact. It is both how the decision is being made, but also how you are helping people absorb that information.
Carol: And what would you say people can do in that process of helping people absorb it?
Melissa: Well, I think acknowledging that that is a thing is probably step one, right? Which I think to you and me is maybe pretty obvious, I think to a lot of folks. Probably isn't all that obvious. But , we are all humans here, right? Like we're humans having a human experience, we have a lot of technology that helps us.
But ultimately at the end of the day, organizations are still made up of humans doing work together and recognizing that those kinds of human experiences of loss are a threat. And, and subsequently gain an opportunity like those have to be attended to in the process. And so I think that ties back to the change question of, , even the people who are staying in systems, they are in change, right?
Because they are going to have a different experience tomorrow than they did today, even if their work remains. Stable. And then when you think about , kind of how you are talking about that as an organization, you have worked to set up a culture and values, I hope. Certainly. At whatever level of consciousness there is a culture and values.
And , this is a moment to display that or not. This is a moment to live into that or not. And I think it's a really, really hard moment for leaders in those types of situations. To be frank, I think the flip side of it, like new opportunities and growth are sort of a similar deal. There's a lot happening at one time at the leadership level.
It's probably been happening for a while. So the information has been absorbed differently than at different levels of hierarchy in the organization. But that is the beginning of something, right? Like how you're setting it up. We need to let people go or we get a new opportunity we're gonna pursue.
We're changing strategies. How you set that up really does impact how it rolls out over time, how people feel about it, how enrolled they are in that project, whether they wanna participate and be there or not, whether they're gonna be there and not participate. That's also an option.
Carol: , I think that point of the, the leaders who've been debating, deliberating, trying to make, trying to figure out the way forward, have been working on this information for a while,
Melissa: Mm-hmm.
Carol: , people throughout the organization may have already been worrying about it.
Melissa: Sure.
Carol: see, what's on the horizon as well.
And, and so, but they don't know for sure. And
Melissa: And so.
Carol: Just a higher level of uncertainty. And so everybody may be, , in their little groups having little conversations about what they think might happen, but they don't really know because they're not the ones making the decision.
So that the leaders remember that. , they've had a while to work with this and maybe it, , in, in some cases it's not a while. It's, it's, it's pretty quick. But they're still ahead of the curve.
Melissa: Yes.
Carol: still ahead of everyone else. And so , I think when people talk about
Melissa: Having,
Carol: problems,
Melissa: it's usually about,
Carol: internal things
Melissa: .
Carol: information flows or, .
Whether people are consciously constructing conversations or just having them, whether they've, whether, I mean, every, every organization has a culture, but have they articulated that? Have they actually named what their values are? All those kinds of things.
Melissa: , something I have found that just absolutely fascinates me. But , in the 15 years or so I've been doing this, I think it's becoming more and more of a consideration how you draw the bounds around internal versus external. I. Right. So I worked in associations and I worked in agriculture.
Agriculture is very diffuse, associations tend to be operating in a pretty broad ecosystem, and so drawing the boundaries around what is internal and what is external. Very challenging to do, and you think, oh, that's gotta be easier for the local pizza place or General Electric. But in this world, I'm not so sure it is.
I mean, we have just a lot of broad systemic impacts, weather, trade, policy, , the broader economy, finance, like all of these things that are pushing on businesses and organizations of all kinds. And so when we think about like, , we're talking about communications in terms of. Leaders to individuals or with teams or between teams or between departments.
But at some point a lot of that also interacts with what we would call traditionally the outside environment. But it really isn't the outside environment and it is part of the work. And so I think that's, it's like, , four dimensional chess and I think that's, that's pretty interesting. It's pretty challenging.
I think it does speak to the need for pretty clear awareness of what it is we're trying to accomplish. One of the things, I mean, we've been talking for 15 minutes. I haven't managed to say this, which is sort of amazing, but like communication is a tactic. It is not a goal, it is not a strategy.
It could be, , a goal or strategy within some larger plan, but communications activities that people are undertaking, I am going to put something on a Facebook post. We are having a focus group, like those are tactics. That alone, it needs that, that serves some broader thing and it needs to ladder up to some broader goal and perspective about the world.
And I think that's even more important to have clarity about in a world where boundaries are just very permeable and very diffuse.
Carol: , the point you make about associations being pretty diffused. I think nonprofits in general because of their structures, they're, they're like layers of inside and outside,
Melissa: Mm-hmm.
Carol: Maybe you think about it. , the board, the, the, the leadership team as kind of in the center, if you wanna think of it as consensual circles, but , then staff, but then. Most organizations have some sort of volunteer enrollment where people are doing diff or intersecting with the organization in different ways. It may be very long term, it may be, , just a one-off. But that kind of, it brings so many more people into what might be thought of as the organization or is thought of as
Melissa: Mm-hmm.
Carol: So it is, , and, and people with different levels of understanding of what, what's going on and all of that. So I think that is one of the things that makes it less easy to say, this is where we end.
Melissa: Totally. . And I think back.
Carol: that it's supposed to be, , the whole purpose of a nonprofit and, and why they get that tax status is that they're supposed to be doing some social
Melissa: Right.
Carol: larger community.
Melissa: . . And I think back to the question of what is a communications issue and what is an organization issue? Who do we tell, what, when? In what order? In what format? In what level of detail? That is not me. In my opinion, a communications question is an organization question. That is, how do we conceptualize the relationship between these pieces of our little system and how do we articulate that and align around that and make sure people are okay with that because.
, if member A thinks they should be getting all of the information and the board doesn't think that, then you, , you gotta work that out somehow. Or have conflict, I guess. And so like that, that's how I ended up here in this conversation with you is like, okay, that's, that's a really valid set of conversations.
That is not something the people who are writing our press release should be resolving. Oftentimes they are resolving it, and that's an interesting conundrum, but that is a weakness in leadership and strategy and execution. , that's not, that's not about what's in the press release.
Carol: . . And going back to what we were talking about before,, , people are facing, I was just talking to somebody yesterday who, , they're, they're kind of waiting in this waiting period or are we going to be renewed in a federal grant? , we can't get information. We've got several people who are, , on staff that are fully funded by this. What do we do? How do we prepare? We may have to be, , we've already had to lay off a person. We may have to do more. And I think we've all heard it. Kind of the worst case scenario of how people have been informed that they're, , no longer have a job where either an email or, oh, everyone got a text message or something like that.
But what are some of the things you would have leaders think about when they're, when they're facing these kinds of challenges?
Melissa: , I mean I unfortunately not necessarily in this situation, but in my career have been around a lot of that, a lot of needing to let people go, , for cause and not, I. Right. And I think, , the first thing I would say is think about the wider impact. , this is going to, and listen, I think there's, there's a lot of conversation to be had here about, especially in the US what job loss means and what that does to an individual kind of in terms of their societal position, their financial position.
Their kind of sense of self. Like there is, there is a lot of conversation to be had there and how our economy is broadly structured and has changed over time. So those impacts have differed, right, differed for different groups, different sectors, et cetera. So that's a different podcast. We can do that one later.
As a friend of mine might say , that's a beer and tears conversation. But I think, , very acutely when you realize that some member of the team needs to not be in this organization anymore for whatever reason. Being very clear, like, how do you want to handle that? Like who, who do you want to be in that moment is really where I would ask leaders to start with.
Because there are HR implications or legal implications. There are financial implications. And I think it's just very important to realize that those are pieces of advice, right? A lawyer can tell you what the law says. An HR professional can tell you what the law basically says and what best practices say.
Your accountant can tell you what your money says but you are the person who has to take all of that together and make a decision that is the function of leadership. And I think there's something to be said that if you want people to feel like they are working in a place that is fundamentally human, you need to act fundamentally human.
And , that's a value question. I think it's very hard to stay in touch with that in moments of crisis. But I do think it's very important and I've seen it done well and I've seen it done not so well. And it has impacts. I, I also think you've gotta think about the broader system, right?
So like, if you're in a situation where you need to let somebody go, like the scenario you're describing or like a lot of somebody's go, I mean, we need, I had a client I talked to sort of on an emergency basis, I. And he needed to, , basically fire 1200 people on Monday, and this was a Friday, right?
He's like, how are you? How, and the conversation was how do you decide how to do that, right? Like, what's the logic model if there is such a thing in such a terrible situation behind how you do that? And he was wrestling with that himself, , as the person who ultimately had to sign off on this, and I think recognizing that that is, like, there's nobody not impacted in this type of situation. The person making the decision, the people who are advising that person, the person who is departing, or the people who are departing, the people who are left. I mean, letting there be space for grieving change, like the change process of someone entering or exiting a group.
It makes it a new group. I mean, that's a fundamental thing. About group dynamics. And I think being clear about that and not just looking past it, like, oh, it doesn't matter. Some of the weirder situations I've been in and around personally and , I'm hearing about now are people who are in larger systems that are sufficiently large.
People are being let go and nobody knows. Like, they just don't show up at a meeting one day and you think, my God, like, I understand how that happens. I understand the lawyers told you how to do that. And is that how you wanna be running this place? Is that the impression you want your remaining staff who know they very well may be next to have, what does that do to your effectiveness?
I mean, even if you don't care about morale, right? I would make the argument you should, but even if you don't think about your effectiveness, what are people gonna do for you when. People they've worked with are just gone like in the night. Right. And you may be able to find 'em, you may not. So all of this kind of rolls into, I think, balancing the financial and legal realities with your humanity.
And organizations and individuals do that in different ways. I think some people really are not interested in that. And that's their perspective. Right? And hopefully everyone in the system realizes that, but a lot of people, I think, really do care and it's hard to care in these moments because it requires vulnerability.
It requires opening yourself up to something, but that's gonna be there whether you acknowledge it or not, you can't avoid it. .
Carol: , I think
Melissa: I think it
Carol: sometimes
Melissa: feels,
Carol: Right? To
Melissa: .
Carol: On and I, I think the point around, , who's left and what they're focused on I. Given how you handle the situation, whether there's, , the, the grieving, the, the per, maybe they've lost a good friend at work.
Maybe they've or the fact, , if you, if you just show up and you don't
Melissa: Dunno.
Carol: is gone and
Melissa: Mm-hmm.
Carol: gone. You think, well, clearly they don't care about that person because
Melissa: ,
Carol: Even give us, , it just demonstrates it, it communicates something right.
Melissa: It does.
Carol: communicating, it communicates something and people make meaning of that.
And then it's like, okay , am I next? And just all that anxiety. And so a lot of energy then goes to all those conversations in the hallway and
Melissa: Yep.
Carol: and out in the parking lot and or, , on. Private chats or whatever of, , who's gonna be next and how is this all really, what have you heard?
And, and a lot less to the actual work to be done.
Melissa: Right. And I, and I think it's, it's, we're in such an interesting situation right now because we have, like, a lot of teams are changing, but also simultaneously the work is changing. It's not, , and so like, how do you do it? Hold both of those, balance both of those. How do you talk about both of those?
And I think, again, we're in a time of extreme pressure, so I think a lot of people are like, I don't have time for that. , it's just like, I gotta get people off my books so we can make payroll in two weeks. And that's super real. I mean, there's no, putting that aside, I do think taking enough time to think through.
Okay. What is a way that we talk about this that aligns with our values? How do we create space or ask others, , in the system to create space for at least sort of processing this, right? Because we're in this big change process, we're gonna be processing this for a very long time. Like, let's not joke around about that.
Right? But at least for now, . Make enough meaning of it to your point, that we can continue doing whatever it is we're here to do. And that's, that's the moment I worry about. , as we're recording this, the beginning of summer in 2025, is that like we're gonna be six months, a year, two years?
Down the road. And there are gonna be organizations, systems, entire industries that are so shaken they can't actually do a whole lot. Like they can't get to the place of, okay, now what is our goal? Like given the new environment, what should we be working on? I don't think people are gonna be able to get there for a while.
I especially think we're still feeling a lot from COVID. Right. And it's, it's just been rough. A decade.
Carol: . . actually what some of the things that you were talking about made me remember actually my practicum project from
Melissa: Oh my. Okay.
Carol: Our degree program where I was working with a team was a very small nonprofit. And the leader knew that the funding was ending. He was gonna have to basically shut down the organization or put it in kind of hibernation mode. and he had
Melissa: Had not
Carol: told the
Melissa: the,
Carol: Like, I knew this, but they didn't know it. I jumped way ahead. I was, , new in this and I was
Melissa: I was like, okay, we need to help
Carol: say
Melissa: say
Carol: to each other. And
Melissa: What was interesting to me in that process.
Carol: One was his hesitance to actually be honest with 'em, number
Melissa: .
Carol: was when I was looking for resources like, okay, how do we help teams say goodbye? There's almost nothing.
Melissa: .
Carol: Then, I mean, now it's. 10 years later. So maybe there's more now. There's tons and
Melissa: And.
Carol: and tons of information about how you start things, how you start a team, how you start a project well, but so little on how you end things and how to have a good ending. and so, , what we did do, although it's. unfortunately caught some people by
Melissa: by,
Carol: So I
Melissa: I,
Carol: up being the messenger,
Melissa: which was not the right thing to
Carol: but, you
Melissa: , I, them
Carol: Basically appreciate each other. What did they learn from being part of this process? What did they do, , what were they gonna take away into their next thing?
What did they appreciate but from each person? So, and, and
Melissa: appreciate.
Carol: All that. They didn't appreciate the fact that.
Melissa: You told them they were?
Carol: it
Melissa: .
Carol: wrong order
Melissa: Oops.
Carol: Oops.
Melissa: I mean, it happens back to practicum projects. That's so interesting. 'cause my practicum project was also involved in the time we were doing it, it became clear they were losing funding and so the whole thing shifted pretty dramatically. I should go back and read the report and see what I find, but , I mean, I, I think you're speaking to like.
We don't like, but think about our wider, again, talking mainly privately probably to us audience. Although I think our work culture has spread far and wide. Like we don't,
Carol: Yes.
Melissa: We don't end things well. I mean the US is like an up into the right. Place, right? Like, we wanna go out there and achieve and grow and build.
Every quarter needs to be better than the last. And we're just not in that moment. Right? And I think that's back to like, I, I mean, I don't know the person you were working with in that situation, but I can imagine like, it's really hard to say like, oh no, actually right now. We're contracting, we're changing in a way that's going to make us smaller, even though we know right now.
That's what a lot of organizations need to look in the eye. Because that is what's happening. And it's not that their mission goes away, it's that the structure through which the mission is being fulfilled is dramatically changing, joyfully or not. And so the more aware you can be of that, the better.
But you gotta be able to like, absorb it and take it. And that's really hard, and I think that's where, , people who do the work we do at this moment, that is probably our best use is to support people who are in just vast and in some cases incredibly tragic changes in handling that. I have a friend, a friend, and I took a shot a few years ago at writing an article about organizational death.
And we did not manage to conclude this piece. Mainly I think we didn't know how right. But we were both in situations and organizations where like,
Carol: I was
Melissa: , exactly. Like where I was in a situation where it's like we just need to pull the plug and like we couldn't do it. And he was in a situation where I think he had watched an organization basically shut itself down and like to merge with another. I forget the details, but I keep thinking we should probably go back to that.
'cause it's what's happening. But again, you gotta have something like that. Space mentally to even think about, okay, how do we die? Well? And most people don't wanna think about that.
Carol: No, I mean
Melissa: I mean,
Carol: I, I've been thinking at the individual level, there are people now who are, , have the role of being a death doula.
Melissa: .
Carol: I'm like, okay, well maybe organizations need because I've always thought that our role is kind of like we're a midwife in some ways to some things. And so, or doula, so. What, what I
Melissa: I wonder what.
Carol: learn from how people help individuals prepare for the end versus an organization.
Melissa: , it
Carol: but it would be
Melissa: would be interesting
Carol: to
Melissa: to look well and back to something we were talking about earlier, , and how when you came into od you noticed the values align so much with your faith community. I think there are other places in life beyond organizational life where that's a little bit more advanced.
Right. In terms of thinking. And obviously , spirituality is one of them. But I, I'll tell you, that's where, I mean, looking towards a ritual, looking towards grief practices, like those are things that have helped me over time, move through career transitions very explicitly. , it's like I am going to consciously set up leaving a job or leaving a community or leaving a role in order to.
Feel closed about it and that, I mean, that's something I personally have come to feel very powerfully about, but I think probably is something in our work that requires a little more attention. I mean, that's the moment we're in. .
Carol: it makes me think that, , a lot of times, like in the, in reporting and in the news, there's a lot of focus on when, when there's a recession or, , and there's, there's broader things going on now, but I mean, there always are, but, there is so much attention on those individual transitions and so little attention on the group.
Melissa: Mm-hmm.
Carol: , a whole group of people, either a team or what, whatever it might be. The fact that that kind of mirrors our culture as well, since we are so focused on the individual versus the wider, the wider structures.
Melissa: . Again, I think there's a whole podcast in there somewhere about how it'd be really interesting to talk to some people who do that work, but I mean, , I think we're in this strange place now where some people really see us at a place of beginning, like we are in. Like a new world. Right.
And a lot of people feel like we're in a place of ending and we know, I mean, that's like Bridges transitions, right? Which is behind me somewhere on this bookshelf. Like, it's like every beginning is an ending and every ending is a beginning. And so we are experiencing those simultaneously while we're also in pretty intense change.
We're in that neutral zone between beginnings and endings. And I think we just like feeling all of it. And so, , a big question on my mind, and again, my big interest is like, how do individuals impact systems, right? How do leaders communicate in a broader way? Things out there in an effective way.
How do small groups of people make decisions for many, many, many people? But acknowledging, okay, we're at different places in this process has gotta be a first step. I mean, that just is the case. Like it or don't like it.
Carol: . . And , I think another podcast would be to come back to what you were saying before, if you don't think people are ready to kind of. Really understand what the, the strategy is through this or make decisions about it because we're in this neutral, I
Melissa: I mean, I do
Carol: ,
Melissa: appreciate.
Carol: who are like, , in this falling apart.
Let's imagine what we want
Melissa: Yes.
Carol: The other side.
Melissa: . I think that's very, for lack of a better way of putting it, like energetically. But I think it's also important to recognize that. There's always beginnings and endings to living together. And so , to the extent you can honor that for people and people will come at it so differently, like people will, I mean, human variety, like human meaning making just blows my mind every time, right?
Like the variety of things people will come up with given the same information. I mean, that's just utterly fascinating, but. Back to, , our broader theme of communicating in organizations and systems. Like, you gotta know that whatever you say is gonna hit people in different ways. And so craft your messages in mind, craft your ways of delivering those messages with that in mind.
But also be prepared to manage. The, for lack of a better word, like fallout from that. Right? Some people are gonna be tragically sad if a friend of theirs is laid off. Some people are going to, , just keep it moving and doing the work, and that's how they see it. I. And so much of that is wrapped up in personal experience, culture, expectations.
I think even in this, the space of loss, like people's individual spirituality, people's individual experiences, trauma, et cetera, and , that's, that's where mass communications become very complicated. Right, because you're, it is by definition not unique.
Carol: hear it.
Melissa: Exactly. You cannot control those interpretations, and it's not.
It is by definition a group phenomena.
Carol: Well, given all that and given all that complexity,
Melissa: .
Carol: What's, what's one thing that you would say to leaders right now as they're, as they're facing these kinds of challenges, as , one, one thing that you would ask them or invite them to do or consider.
Melissa: . I mean, thinking about that, I really, I was in a job that was very chaotic for a long time. And that, again, maybe a different conversation for a different day. But I had someone working in my team and she said to me something we were talking about like schedule and busyness and whatever, and she said, I see you take care of yourself.
And I was like, uh oh , like, what does that mean? And it really stuck with me because I thought about it and I was like. She was like, no, no, no, I see you that you do. And I thought, that is so interesting because when I thought about it, I was like, what she meant was when I needed lunch, I went and got lunch.
I may not have gotten lunch the minute I needed it, but there was a snack in my drawer, , when I needed to, like, really, I needed to go home and work on something, like I would do it when I needed, , just peace and quiet, I'd shut my door. And that was not always popular. But I think understanding like, I mean, going way down to basics.
Basic human level needs. Having some sense of what really matters to you as a leader feels really important because in the melee, in the chaos, I think people do get lost and you can end up not taking care of your own, like physical self, but also not taking care of relationships and your mental health and other things that once that stuff starts to fall away, you have bigger problems.
Like you, you cannot possibly. Manage a chaotic environment. Under those circumstances. So for years and years I did like crisis management, crisis communications. And in my list of instructions, which I would say maybe this is like tangible tip number two or whatever, but like if you don't have already like a basic written crisis plan, like you should just on a piece of paper because we know that humans in moments of surprise, especially like we don't know how we'll react, it's not exactly predictable.
But you will not be thinking clearly. So for years and years, I kept a post-it on the inside of one of my cabinet fronts that said, do these things in this order. And so it's like if something wild happened, I could pull out my post-it and like literally just go through my list. And that was enough to get me to a stable state.
But one of those things was always ordering food. If you have to put, well, you, if you have to put a group in a room to figure out something acutely. You don't have that much time until people start getting hungry and peckish and hangry and all of those words we have. And if you, , it's like taking care of that human need that can be done in five minutes on your phone or asking someone to go out and do it or whatever, and then cross that off the list.
You, you've built capacity. I think that's probably the headline for this moment is anywhere you can build some capacity, you should do it. Because you're gonna need it.
Carol: . . Absolutely. Well, thank
Melissa: Thanks so much.
Carol: Thanks
Melissa: Welcome.
Carol: Nonprofit Mission Impact.
Melissa: Thank you for having me. This has been very intriguing.
Carol: I.
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