Most of the people who persist in the wilderness leave nothing behind but bleached bones.
When a strategy or an action doesn’t seem to be working, the rule is, “If at first you don’t succeed, try once more. Then do something else.” The first time around, a new strategy very often doesn’t work. Then one must sit down and ask what has been learned. Maybe the service isn’t quite right. Try to improve it, to change it, and make another major effort. Maybe, though I am reluctant to encourage this, you might make a third effort. After that, go to work where the results are. There is only so much time and so many resources, and there is so much work to be done.
There are exceptions. You can see some great achievements where people labored in the wilderness for twenty-five years. But these examples are very rare. Most of the people who persist in the wilderness leave nothing behind but bleached bones. There are also true believers who are dedicated to a cause where success, failure, and results are irrelevant, and we need such people. They are our conscience. But very few of them achieve. Maybe their rewards are in Heaven. But that’s not sure either. “There is no joy in Heaven over empty churches,” Saint Augustine wrote sixteen hundred years ago to one of his monks who busily built churches all over the desert. So, if you have no results, try a second time. Then look at it carefully and move on to something else.
ACTION POINT: If at first you don’t succeed, sit down and ask what you have learned. Improved your approach and try once more. Maybe make a third effort. Then do something else.
Managing the Non-Profit Organization
* Source: The Daily Drucker by Peter F. Drucker