Organizations progress through various stages of growth and development, spurred on by changing visions of what they can do and be in the world. Religious communities are no different.

Most begin by attempting to meet the needs of a handful of people. Later stages of growth are driven by transitions in clergy, changing demographics, differing visions of what members want clergy to be, and community and societal trends that place different demands on religious communities and the people that serve them. Each stage requires religious communities to alter themselves, sometimes slightly, and other times more fundamentally. Clergy and professional staff may need to reshape their work. They may need to create radically different programs and services. Lay leaders may need to become more involved, or involved in different ways, in the spiritual practices and the day-to-day leadership of their religious communities. Each extended moment of organizational growth requires people to alter what they do and how they do it in order to respond to changing needs and environments.

This is not an easy task. It involves journeys into unknown areas, as religious community members and leaders create programs, structures, and practices unlike those they have lived with in the past. Like all organizations in transition, religious communities may get stuck in the process. Leaders may have difficulty involving others in developing visions that represent the diverse interests of their congregants. Rabbis and lay leaders may have different, conflicting visions that remain difficult to reconcile. Staff members may hang onto ways of working that undermine the growth process. Certain issues may keep surfacing, never getting resolved. Decision-making processes may be slow and cumbersome, frustrating people, or may be too quick and heavy-handed, alienating still others. Parts of the congregation may be difficult to engage, leaving change projects in the hand of just a few. Each of these is a sign that a change and development process is stuck, halted in ways that, left unaddressed, prevent people from completing the journeys of religious community transformation and growth.

Organizations that are stuck in such ways often benefit from outside facilitation and consultation. External change agents are often able to raise complicated issues and bring people together to resolve them. They are perceived as neutral, without particular agendas or histories that tend to constrain religious community leaders and members from collaborating as well as they might. Eitzah consultants act as external change agents, creating partnerships with professional and lay leaders to create and pursue visions for religious community development. We bring to this work a deep understanding of both the nature of religious communities and congregational life, and the nature and techniques of organizational change and development.

Areas of Consultation

Eitzah consultants work with religious community leaders on the variety of issues raised during the course of congregational life and change. Areas that are particularly appropriate for consultation include the following:

• Strategy development and implementation. Enable leaders to develop visions to guide religious community growth, based on input from various constituencies, and devise action plans for pursuing visions.
• Program evaluations and planning. Develop and facilitate process for members to examine the array of religious community programs, evaluate their effectiveness and fit with current and future needs, and plan for future program development.
• Managing conflict. Work with leaders to identify underlying issues in conflicts within or between lay leaders, clergy, staff and congregants; develop and facilitate conflict management processes that transform conflict situations into opportunities for individual, team, and religious community development.
• Board development. Work with lay leader board and executive committees to develop effective decision-making processes, committee structures, relations with clergy and staff, and leadership development and succession processes.
• Leadership training. Develop and implement leadership skill-building workshops for rabbis and lay leaders, separately and together, and provide individual feedback and coaching.
• Staff assessment and team building. Work with professional leaders to assess staff in relation to task performance, develop performance goals and plans, and build and maintain effective staff teams.
• Clergy transitions. Facilitate the transitions of rabbis and cantors, by working with lay leaders (to assess congregational needs, reflect on historical patterns of clergy-lay relations, develop selection criteria and processes, facilitate decision-making processes); individual clergy (to assess personal needs and visions, conditions for personal success, and managing transitions); and new clergy-religious community matches (to facilitate transition process and relationship development).
• Changing institutional cultures and practices. Enable professional and lay leaders to examine aspects of their religious community cultures and practices that are desirable or dysfunctional in terms of desired goals, and help develop and implement change strategies.

How We Work

We believe in partnering with religious community leaders and members to guide development processes, with various kinds of support from us—suggestions based on our expertise and experience, facilitation of meetings, training workshops, and other types of resources. When organization members feel worked with in such ways, rather than simply directed what to do, they are likely to own the change process and engage it in wholeheartedly. The consultation process involves the development of partnerships between Eitzah consultants and sponsoring professional or lay leaders. Our consultants will work with leaders to develop and facilitate the appropriate structures—workshops, retreats, interviews, feedback sessions, large group meetings—that best enable religious community leaders and members to work through important issues.

While the consultation process varies according to what specific congregations require, there are some common elements to our work. These include the following general steps:

• Initial telephone consultation. Eitzah consultants talk with religious community leaders about the needs, issues, and goals for their congregations, and determine whether consultation seems an appropriate process.
• Project development work. A lead consultant works with religious community leaders to determine the scope of the project, assess the potential for change, the appropriate people to include in the process, costs, and other resource issues.
• Diagnostic work. Once religious community leaders approve projects, Eitzah consultants gather the information necessary for them to develop a complete understanding of situations and issues.
• Feedback. Consultants conduct sessions with relevant religious community leaders and members in which they provide feedback, based on their diagnostic work, and suggest steps toward resolving issues and pursuing goals.
• Change team process. Consultants work with religious community leaders to identify appropriate representatives of key constituencies to work together as the primary change team. This team becomes responsible for developing solutions, pilot programs, and action plans, and for soliciting feedback from others. Eitzah consultants facilitate the work of change teams.
• Action plan implementation. Change team members, with support from consultants and relevant professional and lay leaders, implement action plans and monitor change and development processes.
• Evaluation of results. Consultants gather information from relevant religious community members, leaders, and staff in order to evaluate the results of the change and development process.
• Project report. Eitzah consultants develop brief project reports that summarize the work completed and insights about particular religious community process and practices learned during the course of the work.

Professional and lay leaders interested in exploring the possibility of working with Eitzah consultants should contact a Center co-director for more information.