Blue Moods

A neighbor was talking about how depressed her teenaged daughter was;  how hard it was to do anything, and how powerless she felt. And maybe her daughter is depressed—but I am always wary of labels.  As the child of a woman who had been diagnosed as “clinically depressed,” and who had watched my mother as she was zonked out on pills and who sat in the doctor’s office as she went through electric shock therapy and drove home with my father and whoever it was inhabiting my mother’s body, I can’t help but wonder if my mother’s life would have been better had she not be so labeled. But labels stick and invade. Indeed, for years, I would think that I was often depressed.  And then I read Andrew Solomon’s books on depression, and realized that that was something I have never, ever truly been.

I stopped thinking about depression and named my blue moods what they were:  Unhappinesses, discontent, general blah-ness.  And that made things so much easier to work with.  I could make myself less unhappy; I could turn discontent into contentment.  I was no longer at the mercy of something outside of myself.

None of this is to say that depression (or other things) are not real.  The young (and not so young anymore) adults who live in the group home around the corner from me definitely live with a variety of intellectual disabilities.  But they are also full of joy, sometimes sadness, funny, friendly, argumentative.  In short, they are above all people, living their lives in the best ways they can.  And in the end, that is what we all should be aspiring to.

Nonprofits-and those of us who work for and volunteer with then—do best when focused on their strengths and how they can build on those to be more purposeful and intentional in what they are doing.  I am often asked what my ideal client looks like.  After 14 years of consulting, I finally know the answer:  Those organizations and individuals who, while acknowledging there are things they cannot do, put all their energy and effort into accomplishing what they can.  I love working with those organizations and with those people.  The more we consider what we can do, the more we actually can get done.

It was this discovery that made me start doing strategic planning using an appreciative inquiry lens.  Rather than work to identify what to fix, we look to what is already successful (even if we define success very loosely), and how we can build on that.  And because we are looking at things from a positive point of view, I find that there is more honesty about what could be improved and fewer statements declaring, “We tried that and it didn’t work.”

In today’s world, a little sunshine goes a very long way.

For too long, too many nonprofits bemoan the things that aren’t working.  The boards who don’t fundraise, the grants that don’t get granted, the donors who don’t donate, the staff who don’t do their jobs.  Yet if we look at what they ARE doing, and IS working, the picture changes, the options become more interesting.

As we are at what I can only hope is the beginning of the end of the pandemic, it’s an amazing time to consider what actually worked this past 18 months.  What was better?  What improved?  Before we jump back to make things the way they were (and yes, of course, we can make a movie or write a song…..), let’s consider the way they could be.  Should be.  

My daughter, who has three children, and a two-working-parents household, has loved the ability to be there for her kids and to get her work done.  “Better,” she says, “than in the office.  I didn’t have to deal with everyone else’s dramas.”  She doesn’t want to work at home full time, but two or three days a week would be heaven.  I understand.  For my part, while I miss the face-to-face interactions, I have loved not driving all over creation for one-hour meetings.  This past year has helped me to be more efficient and to be able to provide my clients with more for much less of a fee.  Not driving means not having hours of “dead” time.  While I’m happy to do face to face trainings, workshops, retreats (though I have found zoom to be effective for many situations), I am unwilling to drive for 45 minutes for a one hour meeting, and then more than an hour back.  Not to mention my gratitude that I haven’t had to find the closest Starbucks to while away 35 minutes before my next meeting.  New proposals state that most meetings will take place on the phone, via zoom or other video conferencing, or there will be a premium to pay for my driving time.

In The Atlantic this week, happiness columnist (yes, there is such a thing—though I am not sure why) Arthur C. Brooks advises that you write out a list of the things you want to keep in the new normal—and those you want to leave behind.  While I’m iffy about happiness columnists, I think this is a great idea for nonprofits to consider what they should look like as we go forward.  And to collect data as to why what you want to do makes sense.

You don’t, of course, really need the data to convince yourself, but if my clients are any indication, you may need it to convince your board members that, yes, really, it’s fine for staff to only come into the office 2 or 3 days a week.