Reading the Room: How to Know If Your System Can Change

Beloved,

I lasted two months as the Executive Director of an arts council before I realized the doors were already closing. I just didn’t know it yet.

When I arrived, I could see what needed to happen. The finances were in crisis and the president was new too, which meant neither of us fully grasped what we were walking into. We needed to raise $98,000 to keep operations running. That’s a BIG ask, serious work of fundraising, board engagement, a genuine shift in how the organization showed up.

I said all of this in meetings. I outlined what it would take. I was ready.

Then one of the board members looked at me and said, “We can’t raise $98,000.” I could hear exhaustion. Defeat. They weren’t being cruel, they were overwhelmed. And in that moment, I understood I wasn’t in a system that lacked capacity, they had run out of energy to try.

I started to understand the pattern. The EDs before me had struggled too. They came in without all the experience the role demanded, and the board, already stretched and exhausted, didn’t have the bandwidth to mentor them through it. Everyone was doing their best. But best intentions aren’t enough when the system doesn’t have what it needs to support people.

The organization had built a system where one person was expected to be the answer to everything. And when that person inevitably couldn’t be, the organization folded.

I had to make a choice: continue the pattern, or break it. Breaking it meant walking away. It meant letting the organization face what it actually was, a system that wasn’t able to do the work required to change.

It was painful. I felt like failure. I cried. I avoided talking to people locally because they might ask me what happened. Leaving was the only honest thing to do, even if it wouldn’t survive after me.

Here’s what I learned about reading a room:

A system that can genuinely change looks different. People say, “How can we?” instead of “We can’t.” There’s a willingness to do hard things, even when it’s uncomfortable. There’s shared responsibility, people carry things together, not one person carrying everything. And there’s honesty about what’s actually happening.

A system that’s stuck often looks like this: People say we don’t have the capacity when what they really mean is we’ve already given everything we have. There’s a pattern of leaders struggling or leaving. The burden lands on one person to hold it all together. Everyone acts surprised when that person eventually can’t anymore.

If you’re in religious work, you know what this looks like.

You can read the room by asking yourself some hard questions:

Are you carrying something your system should be carrying? Is there a pattern of ministers or religious professionals before you who struggled or left? Do people say “we can’t” when what they really mean is “we’ve already exhausted ourselves”? When something breaks, does everyone expect you to fix it?

If you’re answering yes to these questions, you’re not in a system that can change. You’re in a system that’s stuck. And no amount of your effort is going to unstick it.

The painful truth is this: A system has to be willing to change itself. You can’t do it for them. And trying to will cost you everything.

The arts council doors closed after I left. It hurt to watch. But it was honest. It was real. And it was the only way that organization could finally see itself clearly.

Sometimes the most faithful thing you can do is stop trying to save a system that’s already exhausted itself.

This week, notice the room you’re in.

Are people willing to do hard things? Is the burden shared or concentrated on you? What would it look like if this system actually changed? And more importantly: what would it cost you to keep trying to change it alone?

With you in love,

Rev. JeKaren