A Blackfish Success Story:
Bringing Councils Together
– Fragmented groups were hindering opportunities for the girls
– We reorganized their government system & merged multiple councils into one
– Effective communication achieved positive transformation for leaders & girls
UNIFICATION:
Merge A Fragmented Mess
The Problem:
Imagine gathering together thousands of giggling girls into a quiet, peaceful group without name-calling or hair-pulling. Now back up a step. No, not for your safety, though that’s not a bad idea. Back up to see a bigger picture. The challenge of pulling together the leadership of multiple groups of these girls into one united council.
What they wanted was equal rights for all girls in the organization, regardless of geographic proximity to the top leaders and teams. In other words, they wanted every girl in the state to have the same chances, opportunity, and quality of marshmallows by the campfire, regardless of where they lived or what group they belonged to. Think about how to do that for a minute. On one hand you have multiple groups of territorial leaders who like to do things their own way. On the other hand is the desire to consolidate these leaders, volunteers and girls under a single, cohesive umbrella. This wasn’t a task for the weak or the weary. It was a job for Blackfish.
What Blackfish Did:
First we found a neutral site. We completely reworked their government structure for nine different committees, and developed thorough cross-marketing and cross-communication plans across the board. When the merge was unveiled to the public, it was a beautiful thing; the entire panel of committee chairs spoke with one voice. Every member knew the answer to every question. Any chaos in the crowd dissolved into calm confidence.
It took some doing, and some creative problem-solving, to pull it all together smoothly. Their core business was recruiting long-term, unpaid, relationally charged volunteers and troop leaders – not reaching the girls, but reaching the people who reach the girls. Through the transformation, we were able to retain all the local leaders. Serving people is all about protecting relationships, and we wanted to keep those relationships intact. We did a remarkable job of accomplishing this too – this merge has been listed as one of their top realignments in the country.
