• Hi, I’m Brad Abare

  I'm a make-it-happen guy working with big idea people. I design teams and orchestrate strategy so that great ideas I believe in get done.
  
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Last week one of the Foursquare veeps sent me an email with a PDF attachment of an article written by Josh Packard, an assistant professor of sociology at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas. It’s a seven page summary about some research Packard has done on the Emerging Church. Despite Jamaica’s sincere intrigue, I’ve never taken any considerable interest in conversations about this subject mostly because it doesn’t interest me so much. Nonetheless, there were arguments that Packard makes about institutionalization that got my attention.

Packard points out that “routines are dangerous for groups and people which value diversity in individual expression.” In other words, routine can be the enemy of innovation. The more routine takes root, the more groups of people become institutionalized.

The cause of this institutionalization is varied, arising from such diverse sources as government regulations (e.g., mandated organizational components of filing as an official 501(c)3 nonprofit, tax exempt, organization), internal norms and habits developed during professional training (e.g., seminary), and mimicry of perceived success (e.g., utilizing ministry models such as A Purpose Driven Church).

Although Packard is making his case in the context of the church, the reality is that the danger of institutionalization is not confined to the church. It can suck the life out of businesses, schools, government and any other place that people congregate.

Packard goes on to suggest that resistance is the antidote to routine:

• The members of an organization must consciously resist institutionalization in
  order for the resistance to be prolonged and successful.

• Successful resistance involves avoiding routines, not creating a new model.
• The role of [senior leaders] must be limited for successful resistance.

I’m already somewhat wired to resist the notion of routine, but this idea of disrupting institutionalization is something I get really fired up about, especially when the outcomes can be so significant.

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