(Please read "church" to include "synagogue.")
This post is about how to increase church membership, over the long and medium haul. Doing so, I believe, inevitably will require churches to attract the Millennial generation—at least some of them—into membership. (Millennials are people born 1982 through 2004.)
In light of that goal, for most mainstream churches, the following, interesting article (quoted for review purposes) is relevant:
"When Growth Stalls", Matthew S. Olson, Derek van Bever, Seth Verry, 2008-March
adapted from the book:
Stall Points: Most Companies Stop Growing—Yours Doesn't Have To, Matthew S. Olson, Derek van Bever, 2008-April
Although truth often is our adversary, it's also our friend (of course). Only by keeping abreast of it, can we securely craft a winning strategy. Please don't feel that this post merely adds insult to injury!
ARTICLE EXTRACTS BEGIN
[A] growth stall [is] a crisis that can hit even the most exemplary organizations. [Characteristic] is the stall's suddenness. [M]ost organizations actually accelerate into a stall, experiencing unprecedented progress along key measures[,] just before growth rates tumble. When the momentum is lost, it's as if the props have been knocked out[,] from under their corporate strategy....Typically, few on the senior team see the stall coming; core performance metrics often fail to register trouble on the horizon.
As part of our ongoing research into growth, the Corporate Executive Board recently completed a comprehensive analysis of the growth experiences of some 500 leading corporations in the past half century, focusing particularly on "stall points"—our term for the start of [long-term] reversals in company growth fortunes[.] The study revealed patterns in the incidence, costs, and root causes of growth stalls.
[T]he vast majority of stall factors result from a choice[,] about strategy or organizational design. They are, in other words, controllable by management. Further, even within this broad realm, nearly half of all root causes fall into one of four categories: premium-position captivity, innovation management breakdown, premature core abandonment, and talent bench shortfall.
In this article we'll offer advice for avoiding these hazards, drawing from practices currently in use at large, high-growth companies[,] to foresee possible stalls and [to] head them off. More generally[,] we will explore why management is so often blindsided by these events. As we will show, a large number of global companies may at this moment be perilously close to their own stall points. Knowing how to avoid growth stalls begins with understanding their causes. Let's look at each of the four categories[:]
When a Premium Position Backfires
By far the largest category of factors responsible for serious...stalls is what we have labeled premium-position captivity: the inability of a firm to respond effectively...to a significant shift in customer valuation of product features.
We use the term "captivity" because it suggests how management teams can be hemmed in by a long history of success. A company that solidly occupies a premium market position remains insulated longer than its competitors against evolution in the external environment. It has less reason to doubt its business model, which has historically provided a competitive advantage, and once it perceives the crisis, it changes too little[,] too late. When the towering strengths of a firm are transformed into towering weaknesses, it's a cruel reversal.
In documenting premium-position captivity in leading enterprises, we saw a cycle of disdain, denial, and rationalization that kept many management teams from responding meaningfully to market changes.
In [some] cases,...organizations...simply don't recognize the importance of an emerging...customer preference in their core markets. They continue to place their bets on product or service attributes that are in decline, while disruptive entrants emphasizing different, underrecognized features gain ground.
Easiest to spot in marketing data are pockets of rapid market share loss, particularly in narrow customer segments, and increasing resistance among key customers[.]
When it comes to management attitudes, your ears may pick up the strongest clues: Listen closely to the tone in the executive suite when conversation turns to upstart competitors or to successful rivals that are viewed as less capable. Is it acceptable, or routine, to dismiss them as unworthy? Do your processes for gathering intelligence about your competitors ignore some of these market participants because of their...perceived lack of quality? Indulging in such behavior is common, but it's a luxury that no market leader can afford.
When Innovation Management Breaks Down
The second most frequent cause of growth stalls is what we call innovation management breakdown: some chronic problem in managing the internal business processes for updating existing products and services and creating new ones. We saw manifestations of this at every major stage along the activity chain of product innovation, from basic research and development to product commercialization.
Where...growth stalls could be attributed to innovation breakdown, the problems emphatically did not center on individual product launch failures[.] By contrast, the [long-term] growth stalls we identified were attributable to systemic inefficiencies or dysfunctions. [W]hen things go wrong here—at the heart of these organizations' most important business process—extremely serious, multiyear problems result.
As we looked at the variety of ways in which problems in the innovation management process can eventually produce major...stalls, we were struck by the fragility of this chain of activities, and by how vulnerable the whole process is to management decisions made to achieve perfectly valid corporate goals.
When a Core Business Is Abandoned
The third major cause of...stalls is premature core abandonment: the failure to fully exploit growth opportunities in the existing core business.
The two most common mistakes we saw in this category were [1.] believing that one's core markets are saturated[;] and [2.] viewing operational impediments in the core business model as a signal to move on to new, presumably easier competitive terrain.
Just as interesting as getting it wrong on core business growth prospects is the tendency of executive teams to simply give up on apparently intractable problems in their core businesses.
Of all the red flags signaling stall risk, one of the most obvious is management's use of the term "mature" to refer to any of its product lines, business units, or divisions....Established businesses should be managed against significant revenue and earnings goals, and business leaders should actively explore the potential of new business models to rejuvenate even the most "mature" businesses.
When Talent Comes Up Short
Our fourth major category is talent bench shortfall: a lack of leaders and staff with the skills and capabilities required for strategy execution.
Few companies formally monitor the balance in the executive team[,] between company lifers and newer hires who offer fresh perspectives and approaches. Furthermore, large companies have a fairly poor track record on incorporating new voices into senior management....And management development programs all too often focus on replicating the skill sets of the current leadership, rather than on developing the novel skills and perspectives that tomorrow's leaders will need[, in order] to overcome evolving challenges.
We have identified a simple way to ensure balance in the senior executive ranks...Our analysis...suggests that the sweet spot for external talent is somewhere between 10% and 30% of senior management.
When What You Know Is No Longer So
One culprit in all our case studies was management's failure to bring the underlying assumptions that drive company strategy into line with changes in the external environment—whether because of a lack of awareness that the gap existed or was widening, or because of faulty prioritization.
The lack of awareness is particularly vexing, because it is so insidious. Strategic assumptions begin life as observations about customers, competitors, or technologies that arise from direct experience. They are then enshrined in the strategic plan and translated into operational guidance. Eventually they harden into orthodoxy. This explains why, when we examine individual case studies, we so often find that those assumptions the team has held the longest[,] or the most deeply[,] are the likeliest to be its undoing. Some beliefs have come to appear so obvious that it is no longer politic to debate them.
Articulating and Testing Strategic Assumptions
What could the company's senior managers have seen in their markets, in their competitors' behavior, in their own internal practices, that might have alerted them to an impending stall? We looked at our detailed case histories for warning signs before the stall point that perhaps hadn't received the scrutiny they deserved, and uncovered 50 red flags, all rooted in the real experience of the companies we studied. Our 20/20 hindsight may enable you to spot signs faster in your own organization[:]
Red Flags for Growth Stalls
Below is a sampling of red flags....To the extent that your senior team and high-potential managers see these as areas for concern, you may be headed for a free fall[:]
Our core assumptions about the marketplace[,] and...our strategy[,] are not written down[;]
We haven't revisited our market definition boundaries, and [also] therefore our list of current and emerging competitors, in several years[;]
We haven't refreshed our working definition of our core market, and [also] therefore our understanding of our market share, in several years[; and]
We test only infrequently for shifts in key customer groups' valuation of our product/service attributes.
Also included in our tool kit are four practices[,] drawn from those [which] we've seen management teams use. The first two are effective in making strategic assumptions explicit, and the latter two are designed to test those assumptions[,] for ongoing relevance and accuracy[:]
Commission a core-belief identification squad
This practice is simple to execute and involves calling on a diverse, cross-functional working group to go hunting for the firm's most deeply held assumptions about itself and the industry in which it operates....The best-functioning squads include a significant share of younger, newer employees, who are less likely to be invested in current orthodoxies.
Their efforts are most fruitful when the team is prepared to raise thorny issues and challenge entrenched beliefs, using methods ranging from reality checks—["] What industry are we in? Who are our customers? ["]—to more provocative explorations: ["] What 10 [ (ten) ] things would you never hear customers say about our business? Which firms have succeeded by breaking the established 'rules' of the industry? What conventions did they overturn? ["]
One leading...company told us that it had used this practice to kick off an inquiry into long-term growth pathways[,] and to challenge conventions that had taken hold through the years.
Conduct a premortem strategic analysis
Many leaders have found it useful to charge teams with developing competing visions of the future success—or failure—of the company[,] as it would be reported in a business periodical five years hence....By seeing which issues the scenarios have in common, leadership teams can identify the subset of core beliefs that should be most closely examined and monitored.
Appoint a shadow cabinet
[as in the British Parliamentary system, in order "to discuss alternatives to current strategy(,) and (to) look for red flag indicators." — per comment:
"Learning from Failure—the Competitive Advantage of Silicon Valley", Ian D. Griffin, 2009-March]
[B]ecause senior executives are usually most attached to the assumptions underlying current strategy[,] they find the fresh perspectives offered by this creditable, well-informed constituency extremely valuable.
Invite a venture capitalist to your [periodic] strategy review
An effective way to bring an external perspective to bear on strategy assumptions is to ask a qualified venture capitalist to sit in on...strategy and investment reviews and probe for potential weaknesses. The benefits for...managers come...generally from the practical, payback-focused lens that the VC brings to the review.
[ (Instead of a venture capitalist, more appropriate for a church may be an outside expert.) ]
Renewing Competence in Strategy
What gives force to our advocacy is that growth stalls can have dire consequences: They bring down even the most admired companies; they exact a sizable financial and human toll; and their impact may be permanent. After a stall sets in, the odds against recovery rise dramatically with the passage of time.
Compounding this urgency, all signs point to an increasing risk of stalls in the near future. Of particular concern today is the shrinking half-life of established business models. The importance of spotting change[,] early enough to react in time[,] is rising exponentially. The practices we outline here create that early-warning capability. As critical, they make the strategy conversation ongoing[.]
Whatever other concerns are on the strategy agenda, guarding against growth stalls should be at the top. The tools we offer will enable the executive team to continually test the accuracy of its worldview and to flag any flawed assumptions that might trigger a stall[,] if they go uncorrected.
END OF ARTICLE EXTRACTS
Copyright (c) 2018 Mark D. Blackwell.