I rarely use Chris Brogan's content on my blog because I'm assuming you already know about him. But if you do not, I HIGHLY recommend subscribing to his blog!
He shared a gem in terms of how crucial the middle of an organization is in producing change.
"Essentially, it’s this: someone in the middle tier of the organization comes to us and asks about a project, maybe something like content marketing or community management. We talk with them, discuss their goals, make sure there’s some kind of alignment, determine if we both see eye to eye on the loot it’ll take to get the job done, and then we initiate a project. Here’s what we see happen more often than not.
The middle-level person has a faint blessing from someone on high, but a vague one. They have enough power to convince the folks lower in the hierarchy to go along with this. We work to make that middle-level person successful, and to make the experience for the folks a bit further down the hierarchy feel like it’s a good project and that they’re participating.
Then what happens is that someone higher up almost always gets excited about what the person has accomplished, and gets into it, wants to champion it, and throws some more fuel on the fire.
The middle-down, middle-up approach. That seems to be how we’re getting it done."
Has anyone seen this process work in ministry? I'm guessing there have to be some great case studies.
photo courtesy of flowersophy
