Amen to the first point! What I didn't write about in my original post (since it was already so long) was that just mentioning "hospice care" for organizations has elicited nervous and uncomfortable laughter - from third parties! Just the concept seems to make folks uncomfortable even when their organization is not in such a place! I do wonder about being perceived as an angel of (organizational) death or the Dr. Kevorkian of nonprofits.

I think normalizing the conversation in the best of times – so it’s part of our vocabulary in all times – would help. I think it’s our role to say things that we ourselves may be uncomfortable saying and/or that others are uncomfortable hearing. Often, there’s a sense of relief when one person breaks that ice too. There’s an acknowledgement that this matters and that we take it seriously. It requires courage on all our parts, and integrity, and authenticity. I would argue those are – or should be – practices in the non-profit sector in all things. There’s a great little book on this called The Thin Book of Naming Elephants: How to Surface Undiscussables for Greater Organizational Success. I recommend it.

Also, using the _meta_phor of the Phoenix can help too. Which brings me to your second point.

I absolutely agree that life cycle stage models are limiting, and imply inevitable outcomes, and linear, sequential, chronological processes that aren’t always true. For me, this model is useful – to a point. I don't take this one so literally – I see the change processes as iterative and cyclical, not linear and progressive. There are trends and momentum that move things around and can move things towards specific outcomes, but there is also a lot of randomness and unpredictability. Creativity means there are choice points along the way. Reality means we have a lot less control than we like to think.

Using a Phoenix _meta_phor with a life cycle model allows for the life cycle model to be more palatable "when the end is near" (as the Phoenix is, after all, a symbol of resurrection). It also corrects that drawback – the implication that there are only limited inevitable outcomes that you reference above. Using the Phoenix _meta_phor could look like what I described in my first posting: taking the kernel, the best of the old organization, and figuring out how to give it new life (in that case, by moving it into another nonprofit organization). It's about the cycle of life, death, and rebirth. It's an accessible _meta_phor too since you don't have to buy into religious concepts of resurrection or rebirth, you can simply look at how seeds of new plants grown from the decay of rotting old ones. I recast it as a life cycle model _base_d in the natural world, the seasons, and the Phoenix collapses the seasons of Winter and Spring and, most importantly, the transition from Winter to Spring.

I'm very much enjoying this conversation.