Immediately prior to the hiring of the new CEO, Switchboard experienced the deaths of two staff members - one sudden, the other after a long illness.  These passings bookended the departures of several senior and other key staff members.  Until the new CEO came on board, staff were compelled to keep things afloat albeit without direction.  The transition time for the new leader was marked with budgetary and staff issues and yet another staff death.  Shortly after her arrival, the organization became involved with SPEC; it is a fair assessment that staff and volunteers were shell-shocked.  It is also true that Switchboard was not always "on mission."   Communications about challenges, obstacles and programming may have occurred at the management level but did not always "trickle down" leaving many confused.

 Externally, the community had questions about the changes at Switchboard.  What had happened to the former leaders?  How would the new CEO interact with outside providers?  What were the Board's objectives?  To some degree during this time, Switchboard disappeared from community involvement and huddled to deal with its own internal issues.  This was regarded as a red flag to some and signaled the end; to others, it indicated instability, non-accountability and poor quality.

To address SPEC, a Transformation ["T"] Team of selected staff representatives at various levels from different departments was created.  T-Team members created ground rules and share in the facilitation responsibilities.  The group meets at least once a month and frequently more.  Various issues have been discussed and some have been addressed.  Recently, the T-Team has lost three key members who left Switchboard. 

It is fair to say that the T-Team has had mixed results.  Most agree the discussions and planning have been motivating and have resulted in decisions as to how to move the organization forward.  However, most also feel that that T-Team is now stagnant.  In fact, reaching decisions is not the group's strength - the T-Team has been unable to agree whether and/or when to replace the departed team members.  Another issue is that a very few members seem to think the T-Team process replaces the organization's entire decision-making process.  Still others noted that employing the SPECS philosophy allows many to work together to make Switchboard shine but is at the cost of acknowledging individual achievement.  Finally, the loss of funding and resulting program and staff cuts has been distractions, obstacles and demotivations to fulfilling the SPECS commitment.

The future of SPECS in the organization appears uncertain.  Extreme time constraints and funding issues make the commitment difficult.  It is clear that if we are to continue with SPECs, our T-Team must be reinvigorated and embark on a project that will have tangible results.  We have agreed to take a hiatus of sorts until we are presented with the data collected by Dr. Ora Prilleltensky and her team.