Four typical organisational responses to recession

by Patrick Nash, Chief Executive, Connect Assist

Despite challenging economic circumstances, and the inevitable reductions in financial resources that this will mean for charities and organisations that provide support and advice services, we firmly believe that opportunity exists. As someone who has seen recessionary times previously in my third sector career, I'm afraid to say that not everyone shares my optimisitic outlook.

So, if you want to be one of the organisations that turns adversity into opportunity, the first thing to do is to have a little look at the organisational psychology that recessions throw up. In my time, I've observed four typical responses:

• Survival Thinking: if this is your organisation, you'll be hearing things like "We need to batten down the hatches." This is typically a precursor to an organisaton contracting both in size, and in the reach of their services.
• Victim Thinking: an organistion of this kind will be allowing themselves to indulge in "Isn't what is being done to us awful" responses.
• Ostrich Thinking: this one doesn't need much explanation, it's those who carry on regardless - "If we just concentrate on what we're doing, it will all come out right in the end".
• Entrepreneurial Thinking: these are the ones to watch, and they'll be asking "What's the opportunity?"

I'm sure that you can see that we're all human, and will almost certainly find ourselves in all these modes of thinking in challenging times. And, I'm also sure that you can easily identify the healthiest state of mind, both for you as an individual, for your organisation and for the people who need the help that your services provide.

Identifying the mindset of your key team, or working on finding their entrepreneurial spark, is certainly an essential first step in responding to the challenges of recession.

So, is your organisation an ostrich or an entrepreneur?

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Connect Assist runs professional helplines and web systems for charities and organisations that help people to make positive life changes that last. Services include:

• Transformational Helplines providing professional help and support day and night
• Engagement Systems that create lasting relationships with the people that you help
• Feedback & Insight that enables you to adapt quickly to changing needs