Growth’s Counterintuitive First Step

What do you do when you’re trying to grow your ministry?  Read a book?  Go to a conference?  Hire a consultant?  Brainstorm?

According to Peter Drucker, “The first step in a growth policy is not to decide where and how to grow.  It is to decide what to abandon (Inside Drucker’s Brain, p. 101).”

Peter Drucker had a lot to say about purposeful abandonment.  In my view, it was one of his most important ideas.  The essence of the idea is that “planned, purposeful abandonment of the old and of the unrewarding is a prerequisite to successful pursuit of the new and highly promising.  Above all, abandonment is the key to innovation—both because it frees the necessary resources and because it stimulates the search for the new that will replace the old (Managing for Results, p. 143).”  See also, Purposeful Abandonment: Prerequisite to Innovation.

Do you see where purposeful abandonment fits in a growth initiative?  Drucker would say that before you plan a new thing, a new strategy, you should be thinking about what should be eliminated.

Is that what happens in your world?  Does anything ever get eliminated?  Or do you just add the new program or strategy to the old list?  See also, Narrowing the Focus Leads to a Church OF Groups and Small Group Ministry Roadblock #2: A Bloated Belong and Become Menu.

Remember.  “The first step in a growth policy is not to decide where and how to grow.  It is to decide what to abandon.”

What do you think?  Want to argue?  You can click here to jump into the conversation.