Increasing Employee Engagement in Times of Change: A Case Study of How A Non-Profit Built a Strategic Plan During Leadership Transition

Sarah Crass and the leadership team at Medical Teams International were at a crossroads. They had started getting input from across their non-profit in order to create a new strategic plan. But then they entered an unexpected season of leadership transition, including an interim CEO stepping in during a search for a new CEO.  

They had two choices: either stop getting input for the strategic plan, and risk losing employee engagement and momentum, or continue investing staff time in creating the new plan and risk that a new CEO might dismiss the plan in favor of their own vision. 

Investing in Employee Engagement

As Chief of Staff at the multinational NGO, Crass knows that leadership transitions are a critical time for employee engagement and retention. The team factored that need for engagement into their decision: they decided to diverge from traditional wisdom that says the best way forward under interim leadership is to maintain the status quo. Instead, they would continue to invest in a wide-and-deep employee input process to shape their new strategic vision. The positive ramifications of that choice led Crass to share some best practices for employee engagement and building strategic plans in times of leadership transitions.

Go Wide and Deep to Engage Employees in a Strategic Plan

Each of Medical Teams International’s nearly 4,000 employees across the globe were asked to participate in an after-action review on the previous strategic plan and in a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis. Then they formed more than 40 staff working groups around the globe and included people from every program and every department. These groups gave input on the non-profit’s distinctives, geographies, approaches, and barriers. Groups were intentionally small (6-10 people) so that they could have deep, facilitated conversations.The findings from those groups were brought to the larger program teams for validation and refinement.

“40 working groups takes a lot of staff time and attention,” Crass acknowledged. Through the process, Crass checked in with the participants to make sure it wasn’t too much alongside the other demands of humanitarian work. The response from participants was clear: “Don’t stop now. We’re having fun. We see results coming forward.”

This wide-and-deep process paid big dividends that made it worth it, though. As Crass said, “Staff were able to see their own contributions in the updated strategic plan. Staff are more confident in our forward direction because they were able to be part of that discernment.”

Employee Engagement Can Be Surprisingly Fun

“Designing wide engagement brought new voices to the table and highlighted how strong our ‘bench’ really is,” Crass said. “We were hearing voices that we hadn’t heard yet and having strategy conversations we hadn’t heard before. We started looking for who might be some of the emerging leaders and catalysts in the organization that might have flown under the radar before. New leaders emerged through this methodology, which was pretty great.” 

Employee engagement and knowledge sharing are “not only valuable but also a lot of fun, and you see amazing sparks of connection and excitement coming out of your staff,” Crass shared. Inviting input also uncovers untapped potential. “You have people in your organization with their primary role and knowledge–but often there is a secondary knowledge that is untapped, and if you invite them to the table, that emerges.” 

Measuring Employee Engagement in Times of Transition

Part of Medical Teams International’s best practices is an annual employee engagement survey. The timing of the last survey overlapped with the leadership transition announcements. The survey validated the leadership team’s concerns that staff were nervous about the changes and future direction of the organization.  

However, Crass noted that a temperature-check survey 6 months later showed “significant improvements and positive feedback in employee engagement.” A big reason for the improvement was the wide-and-deep input process: “Staff tied the strategy work – in addition to focused attention on leadership communication – to the improvement.”

About Medical Teams International: 

Medical Teams International is a faith-based, non-governmental organization that delivers life-saving medical care to people in crisis. Their international work includes refugee medical care, disaster response, and material and child health. In the United States they provide mobile health care clinics in both urban and rural areas. In 2023, Medical Teams International served over 4 million people in 27 different countries. This work is motivated by their desire to love like Jesus by boldly breaking barriers to health and restoring wholeness in a hurting world. 

About Sarah Crass: 

Sarah Crass (MPH, Maternal and Child Health/Health Education) is the Chief of Staff at Medical Teams International. She is a certified Knowledge Management Expert with 15 years of experience within international organizations. At Medical Teams International, Crass is responsible for managing the executive office; strategy management and annual planning; oversight of policy development; and leadership engagement. 

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This FREE online event is designed for ministry leaders seeking practical tools, spiritual wisdom, and renewed strength to lead faithfully when your church community faces deep differences.
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(scroll down and click agree) Full attendance and participation during all sessions are expected to complete the program. Please consider the schedule closely to ensure you will be able to participate in the virtual meetings, and block off your calendar to ensure your attendance. Should you have an emergency (illness, situations out of your control) that will impact your participation please email transforming@theseattleschool.edu Time commitment: Two hours one day per month for 8 months, dates to be determined by majority of registrants' availability and adjusted as needed during the first group meeting. Your feedback is immensely valuable! As an essential component of your participation in this program, we ask that you provide us with your honest, candid, and timely feedback in program surveys and conversations, and consider providing reviews or testimonials of the program for promotional use. 2. Code of Conduct The Center for Transforming Engagement strives for intentionality in the ways we relate to one another - how we as a team relate to each other, how we relate to participants, and how we hope participants will relate to us and one another. To that end, we hold cultural norms about the ways we interact with one another. Your participation in this program is contingent on your agreement to abide by these cultural norms. Confidentiality. For growth to happen, we all need to be able to share about the deeper challenges we face. To provide that atmosphere of openness and support, you commit to not sharing personal information that is shared in program meetings. Curiosity. In our interactions with each other and our communities, we practice the humility of not-knowing that is required to listen and discover. Respect differences. Be aware of different cultural and characterological ways of communicating, and invite others’ voices. Respect theological differences: the river of Christian orthodoxy is wide, and while the streams of that river are distinct, they are not inherently better or worse. Even if you can’t respect the belief, treat the person with respect. You are invited to be a whole person, with both thoughts and feelings. We value both thoughts and feelings as valuable pieces of information that inform one another, and inform our learning and discerning together. Presence. Be in the here and now (not mentally somewhere or some time else), with the people who are sharing their time and stories with you. Eliminate any distractions possible. 3. Fair Use Policy All program content, recordings, and materials are the intellectual property of The Seattle School and may not be presented, distributed, or replicated. The Seattle School retains the copyright for all recorded content. Some print materials (PDFs, worksheets, journal prompts, etc.) will be licensed under Creative Commons: Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike. Those materials will be available for download on our website, and may be used as long as the following conditions are met: (1) attribute to the Center for Transforming Engagement even if remixed/modified; (2) do not use for commercial (paid) purposes; and (3) anything you make that remixes or builds upon this material, you must also distribute under Creative Commons. More information on this license is available at creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/