Hard work is necessary to achieve success for any organization, but focusing on work alone is a mistake.
Work is ethic-driven behavior. An ethic is a value or philosophy that informs behavior.
A work ethic compels a person to labor, but labor does not ensure progress. Just like a loyalty ethic may compel a person to stay married but staying married does not ensure a healthy marriage.
For a nonprofit organization the cause is so great, and the needs are so many that it seems sensible to champion the merits of work alone. But in order for work to achieve sustainable progress it has to be systematized.
Two Reasons to Systematize Work
1. Work drifts towards misguided effort
Some organizations expend effort like they are mowing the lawn blindfolded. The mower is working but the effort is misguided due to a lacking system.
Human effort has to be systematized or it runs the risk of being misguided. A system is work intentionally organized.
A system gives people an intentional path and keeps them from “blindly” expending energy.
2. Work creates more work
Work is like an appetite, it is never satisfied. For this reason work seems to always create more work.
It’s easy for faith-based organizations to act as if work is their mission. “We exist to Work”
Good systems keep people focused on the intended outcomes of work and not on the merits of activity alone.
