The Power of the Well-Orchestrated Existential Crisis

Why are we here? Why do we exist? These are the questions of the existential crisis.

Many people and organizations avoid these questions because they can be scary to confront. We fear spiraling into despair, lack of meaning, or irrelevance. It is much more comfortable to cruise along in the status quo, oblivious to these questions and their implications.

Yet as a leader, existential questions are fundamental. If you cannot articulate why you are here – why your organization exists and what purpose you serve, you risk spiraling into despair and oblivion anyway. Without a clear raison d’etre (reason for existence), both strategy and execution will break down – and great relationships go down the tubes as well.

Part of the leader’s job is to actually force these questions. It is better to confront these questions now – but in a well-orchestrated manner.

Well-orchestrated does not mean manipulative – but it means being prepared to consider new alternatives in a way that respects stakeholder relationships. It also means presenting a well-considered plan to move forward.

Here’s a specific example. A good friend of mine serves as the president of the PTA (Parent-Teacher Association) for his children’s school. This school is small and located in a rural area.

Like many PTAs, this PTA depends on the efforts of parent volunteers to be successful – and it has been struggling to recruit officers to fulfill the required PTA roles. Several individuals are highly committed to specific initiatives and programs, but no one is interested or committed to serving as an officer.

So at a recent PTA meeting, my friend (the PTA president) raised the question: “Why does this group really exist? What is our purpose?”

The answer, after some discussion: “Our real purpose is to raise money to supplement the school budget. That’s pretty much it.”

“If that is the case,” my friend asked his PTA, “Do we really need all of the overhead of a formal PTA? Do we really need to pay dues to the state and national organizations?” The PTA could see how the state and national organizations provide a lot of benefit, but this PTA lacked the organizational capacity to take advantage of it.

So how could my friend orchestrate the crisis in his PTA, which represented an unstable yet decisive turning point? Here are a series of crucial steps he needed to take:

• Help people acknowledge the frustration of the current state, where the PTA is struggling to recruit officers.
  

• Engage the group in a dialogue about goals: “What do we really want to accomplish? What is most important?”

Note: These questions get at existence but may be less threatening than approaching it head-on.

• Based on the answers: “Ok, if these are our goals, does our current structure support achieving these goals?”

• At that point, he needed to be ready with a plan, since often people will have no capacity to envision a different structure.

My friend suggested that the PTA examine some alternatives and he helped them explore these from different angles. During this exploration, it was crucial that he allowed the status quo to remain on the table, giving people permission to say no.

He told the PTA, “Well, we can keep the same structure, but here are a couple of alternatives. Let me explain them and we can consider if they would work and how they might look.” During this review, he sometimes took a negative approach – looking for reasons why various options wouldn’t work. “I’m not sure if this would work, but what if we looked at becoming a booster club. We could just focus on raising money and supporting the programs we want – and not have to deal with the administrative requirements of being a PTA.”

This option would mean that they would have to dissolve the PTA. Fear arose here since this option had implications – for example, would the PTA owe money to the national PTA? My friend needed to anticipate these issues and be ready to allay fears – and he did.

A core requirement for “orchestrating an existential crisis” is that the leader must be willing to transcend the desire for personal power – to lead even when it means making his position obsolete. In the case of my friend, he was brave enough to dissolve the PTA. The group chose to become a booster club – and he lost his presidency.

This local PTA may seem like a trivial example, but the same issue plays out in organizations of all shapes and sizes. It is easy to get so complacent in the current structure, that we miss or avoid the opportunity to take a fresh look at why we are here and what structure will really serve our purpose.

The leader’s job is to help people and teams deal with these problems as the environment changes. You have to understand as a leader that you’re dealing with people’s fear. The art is to lead the “existential crisis” in a positive way that makes people feel safe, provides options, and sets the basis to realign strategy and structure to support your organization’s purpose.