National Association of Colored People Change Project
HR587 Managing Organizational Change
December 14, 2011

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) – The mission of the NAACP is to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination. The NAACP is broken up into local branches which pay a per-capita to the national organization.
I belong to the Chicago Westside Branch NAACP and have served as 2nd Vice-President, and as an executive board member of the branch. I am currently an executive board member due to my role as chair of the Armed Services and Veterans Affairs committee.
When I first joined the organization back in 2000 I noticed that the organization was starting to lose its relevance. The analogy I like to use is that of an old church. The members of this old church were coming to church every Sunday and preaching to themselves how people needed to find God. The church was a beacon in the community but as the core members started to get older they just came together every Sunday year after year. The members started dying, here and there, one by one, with no new infusion of youthful members that could go out into the community so that the church could remain a relevant difference maker in the community.
This is what was beginning to happen to the NAACP back in 2000. The 64 members that comprised the National Board of Directors did not or were not willing to mentor new, younger leaders who could bring fresh ideas and relevancy to an organization whose main ideals when it was founded was to end racial inequality. The book in Chapter 6 talks about a “lack of conviction that change is need” (Palmer, Dunford & Akin, 2010, p. 165).
Also with the election of President Barak Obama as the first African-American President of the United States there is a sense that the NAACP no longer has a purpose continuing to be an organization. The organization was founded on February 12, 1909 in response to the illegal practices of lynching and the 1908 race riot that occurred in Springfield, Illinois.
Piggybacking on the Niagara Movement, the NAACP’s state goal was, “to secure for all people the rights guaranteed in the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the United States Constitution, which promised an end to slavery, the equal protection of the law, and universal adult male suffrage, respectively” ("NAACP 100 years," 2011)
The change in the hierarchy began in 2005 when Bruce Gordon former Head of the Retail Markets Division of Verizon was unanimously selected as the President of the NAACP. He had come from a corporate background while the Presidents and Board Chairs before him had all been active in the civil rights movement. Gordon’s organizational style clashed with the board members who wanted to dictate policy. They wanted his role to be as a Caretaker while Gordon saw his role as a Director and/or Navigator. As President, Gordon wanted to change the culture by focusing the organization on economic discrimination and corporate partnerships. He also wanted the National office of the NAACP to run more efficiently so he began to invest in technology solutions to streamline operations and the business processes. These wholesale changes did not go over well with a board that knew nothing about how a business is run nor did they understand what technology could do to make the organization run more efficiently.
A similar situation that authors Arndt and Bigelow pointed to were,”impression management practices that were utilized by a group of not-for-profit hospitals in Massachusetts. These organizations moved from an institutionalized hospital structure to a diversified corporate structure. Arndt and Bigelow point to how adopting the new structure sent a signal that the hospital was interested in nontraditional activities and, as a result, introduced uncertainty in terms of how this would be received by its stakeholders” (Palmer, Dunford & Akin, 2010, p. 339).
Gordon had not communicated his vision to the NAACP National Board of Directors effectively. He wanted the organization to move from a social justice organization into a social services organization. In addition, the business culture that the former head of the retail market division of Verizon came from clashed with the non-profit civil rights workers that ran the local community branch offices.
The change that was implemented by the former president was two-fold. First he put the NAACP’s presence on the internet and on social media and blogs. This helped the organization to draw new younger members who had not heard from the organization in this fashion. By reaching out in the media that the younger generation uses, he helped the civil rights organization seem in tune to 21st century technology.
Another change implemented by Gordon was his ability to forge alliances with corporate America. His former standing as a corporate businessman opened the door for corporate sponsors to donate to the NAACP in record numbers. Unfortunately others in the organization saw this as “getting in bed with the enemy” while Gordon saw this as trying to keep the organization from losing money.
Political scientist Ronald Walters suggests that, “dependency on corporate support has moved the organization away from its historic commitment to social welfare, as supporters are able to interject their own priorities as a “cost of doing business” with the NAACP”. He also questioned “how much money can the NAACP take from corporations and still hold them accountable” (Dreyfuss 2001). With the organizational culture, under the leadership of Gordon, moving more toward business processes and efficiency, the NAACP was able to implement improvements that local branched were able to quantify.
One of the complaints, we as local branches had was not getting membership cards back from the national office after we sent in a renewal or new membership. It would be a two to three month turnaround time after we turned in the money for a renewal/new member to receive their updated membership card. This would make the people who turned in their money feel like the local branches were holding onto their money without seeing some type of proof that they were actually dues paying members.
Gordon streamlined this process that had slowed down the receiving of membership cards to the local branches. He also implemented electronic “Action Alerts” that would automatically go out to members on issues supported by the National Office. By sending out the alerts it would let members and potential members know what issues the NAACP were targeting. It also let members know that there money was being spent on issues and not just on national office staff.
I believe the Burke-Litwin model would be a good starting point in diagnosing the change needed with the NAACP. The reason I chose this model as the basis for change is due to the fact that the external environment more so than any other factor influences and dictates the change. I also like how this model breaks down the transactional dynamics, which represent the National Board of Directors and the transformational dynamics which represent the President of the NAACP. I would use the Board Self-Assessment Questionnaire by The Corporate Fund which is” comprised of many of the state's most generous corporations, which pool a portion of their charitable dollars to focus entirely on improving the overall management and effectiveness of New Hampshire's nonprofits” (Corporate 2007). The organization knew that it needed to implement changes bases on the technology that afforded it the opportunity to be more efficient in its business practices.
The Burke-Litwin model, which is a top down model, was given its direction by President Gordon, but internal factors, the National Board of Directors, and the culture of the organization will play a part in whether or not this change will be successful.
When I became active in my local branch, the Chicago Westside Branch NAACP, back in 2000 the branch had just gotten a computer but it was not even setup – it was still in the box. The branch tracked its members by index cards written out by the secretary of the branch. I did not think this system was very efficient in tracking who are members were and when their memberships would expire, so I created an electronic database to store membership information so that mailing labels could be created, expiration notices would be mailed and we would be able to keep track of the number of active members in our unit.
The change management model I believed that Gordon as President of the NAACP took was the Nine-Phase Change Process Model. He took the lead and created a

vision of the direction he wanted to take the organization. He assessed the needs, and realized that the NAACP needed to 1) change its business process and 2) look for new revenues of cash by courting corporate sponsors. These tasks were accomplished by giving the organization an internet presence and by incorporating 21st century technology to improve business processes. He was able to quantify his success in the number of new members who had joined and the number of new corporate sponsors who had donated their time and money. The changes that Gordon had initiated had actually pulled the organization out of debt, but there was a strong resistance to change that he either did not know about or that he just choose to ignore. The resistance to change that arose during Gordon’s administration was written about in the article, Creating earthquakes to change organizational mindsets when the authors wrote, “Identity beliefs are critical to consider when implementing fundamental change because organizational identity is what individuals believe is central, distinctive, and enduring about their organization. These beliefs are especially resistant to change because they are embedded within members’ most basic assumptions about the organization's character” (Palmer, Dunford & Akin, 2010, p. 164). The article further mentions that,” active resistance occurs when a change is interpreted as directly in conflict with key elements of the organizational identity” (Palmer, Dunford & Akin, 2010, p. 164). The core members who had fought and struggled alongside and with the NAACP were not willing to change the core values of the organization or its mission as a social justice organization. They were too attached to the established organizational culture and identity to accept the radical change that Gordon wanted to implement. As a Director image of change, Gordon’s image of change outcome was that his intended change would occur based on normative – re-educative strategy. “This intended change outcome strategy assumes that changes occur when people dispense with their old, normative orientations and gain commitment to new ones” (Chin and Benne, p. 23). His intended change strategy was that his way would be successful, and it was, but again the culture of the organization and its deep roots in the civil rights struggle was an obstacle that Gordon did not think would be a barrier to his strategy of change. My view of the change strategy of the former president of the NAACP was correct. The organization had to implement those changes in its business practice in order to survive. The problem was that he tried to implement too radical a change in an organization that was resistant to a large scale disruptive change. According to the authors of our text, “First-order, incremental change “may involve adjustments in systems, processes, or structures, but it does not involve fundamental change in strategy, core values, or corporate identity.” First-order changes maintain and develop the organization: they are changes designed, almost paradoxically, to support organizational continuity and order” (Palmer, Dunford & Akin, 2010, p. 86). If he would have just used incremental steps in implementing his changes, he may have had a better chance of getting his message across to the local branches and the National Board of Directors. I believe his strategy would have been better if he would have took on the role as a Navigator as an image of change manager. As a Navigator he would have still been able to respond to internal and external pressures, but he also would have been more aware of the different competing interests from within the organization. It also would have allowed him to have a different perspective on resistance to change. As a Navigator image of change manager he would have expected a resistance to change from those who had grown up and fought in the struggle for civil rights. The change manager in this role would know and expect that that there are different interests; 1) because of the size of the National Board of Director, 2) because of the geographical diversity of the people who make up the Board. Being that they (National Board of Directors) represent every state in the nation, some of the states struggles (especially in the northern half of the state) were not as racially charged as the southern states. And by being a Navigator he would not necessarily overcome their resistance to change but know that it existed and try to minimize its impact on the changes he wanted to implement. While dissecting this case study project and reading about different managers solution to change, I reflected on Robert Reisner’s four hard lessons that apply to an organization looking to implement a major change initiative: * Don’t miss your opportunity, * Connect change initiatives to your core business, * Don’t mistake incremental improvements for strategic transformation, * Be realistic about your limits and pace of change (Palmer, Dunford & Akin, 2010, p. 359).
I believe if Gordon had taken a look at any of these four lessons that his change initiative could have been successful in continuing to move the NAACP toward a second-order discontinuous change. The organization has changed a lot since Gordon has left, but the change has been slower and less dramatic.
The current President Benjamin Todd Jealous has been transforming the NAACP, but in a much more methodical way that is more of the Coach image of managing change. To give an example, Jealous has implemented blogs that allow more impact from grassroots members. Instead of being lead from the National Office, a lot of units have pushed for issues that affect their local areas and have received National support for those local issues. He has also kept the lines of communication open for local units, staff and the National Board of Directors. He is basically the figurehead mouthpiece for the organization. And as long as he is seen as effective in his managing style he will remain the president for a long time.

References: (25 Pts)
Burke, W. & Litwin, G. (1992). A causal model of organizational performance and change. Journal of Management, 18(3), 523-545. Retrieved from http://documents.reflectlearn.org/Offline OA Models and Frameworks/BurkeLitwin_ACausalModelofOrganizationalPerformance.pdf
Chin, R., and Benne, K. D. (1976). General strategies for effecting changes in human systems. In The planning of change, 3rd ed., ed. by W. G. Bennis, K. D. Benne, and K. E. Corey, 22–45. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Corporate Fund. (2007). (n.d.). Retrieved November 13, 2011 from http://www.thecorporatefund.org/default.asp
Dreyfuss, Robert. 2001. Till Earth and Heaven Ring: The NAACP is Back and Plans on Being Heard. The Nation, July 23, 11.
Naacp 100 years of history. (2011, December 06). Retrieved from http://www.naacp.org/pages/naacp-history
(n.d.). Retrieved November 11, 2011from http://www.nhnonprofits.org/boardselfassessment.cfm
Palmer, I., Dunford, R., & Akin, G. (2010). Managing organizational change, a multiple perspectives approach. McGraw-Hill/Irwin.