Core Practices:

• Encourage a more competitive organizational environment to increase watchfulness and reduce resistance to change.
• Implement results-oriented, decentralized management practices to support creativity and initiative.

Synergies:

• Engage stakeholders in devising a coherent shared value system.
• Use stakeholder choice as an adaptability mechanism.
• Use a distributed approach that support grassroots innovation.

Tensions:

• Be mindful not to create a culture in which traditional social work is seen as a dead-end, undermining social staff morale.

Synergies:

• Conduct ongoing market research to inform responses to emerging trends and opportunities.
• Use business performance monitoring and information management practices to improve risk analysis and implementation strategies.

Tensions:

• Be aware that temporary setbacks and risks inherent to the “trial and error” process central to research and innovation will trigger pressure to come back to a low-risk, more predicable charity mindset.

Synergies:

• Take into consideration the inherently restricted nature of particular resources.
• Increase your focus on client needs instead of funder needs.

Tensions:

• Be aware that increased requirements for financial returns might have a counter-effect on building a more flexible culture.