The Leader and the Vision

Part of my Lenten discipline this year is a study of the Rule of Benedict. I am seeking to integrate the teachings of this 6th century communal rule book with my understanding of leadership in present day congregational life. Sr. Joan Chittister at Monastery of the Heart is my guide on this Lenten journey.

Here is the marvelous nugget from today’s reflection on Chapter 3 (Summoning the Community for Counsel).

“The Abbott (leader) does not need to know the truth,
but the abbott (leader) needs to be able to recognize the truth,
and enable the community to speak its truth
and foster the integration of truth.”

I think this is the essence of spiritual leadership in all faith communities! I’m going to be reflecting on this one for a long time.

The Village Elders

All congregations are faced with decisions that can be made by a small leadership body (the governing board, the staff team, a committee) and decisions that must be taken on by the collective body. In the small to medium sized congregation, when full congregational decision making is required, a church-wide meeting is scheduled and a significant percentage of total membership shows up.  In the large congregation, leaders are continually frustrated by the small percentage of members that turn out for a “y’all come” meeting. It’s not unusual for a congregation with membership exceeding 2000 to have only 120 people show up for a congregational meeting where important decisions are being made.  Why is this? I believe that the answer has something to do with group threshold limits, and the number of people who identify themselves as the “village elders” at any point in time. Let me explain.

The full leadership body of the church is a self identified group of leaders who feel “responsible” for the overall well being of the congregation.  This typically includes members of the staff team and board members. It also includes an inner ring of leaders who are not currently serving in either of those capacities, but still feel a strong sense of leadership responsibility for the church. This group informally functions as the “village elder” body, keeping a watchful eye on the direction of the congregation.  It’s not an officially appointed body, and membership seems to self adjust over time. However, the size of the group always remains rather constant; somewhere between 75-150 people.  This seems to hold true regardless of the size of the total membership body.

Why doesn’t the informal leadership group ever grow larger than this number, even in the very large congregation?  Humans are known to have a cognitive upper limit to the average number of individuals with whom they can form cohesive personal relationships. That limit, known as Dunbar’s Number, is around 150 people.  Having enough memory space to remember people’s names and faces is not enough to manage 150 relationships. It is about integrating and managing information about the constantly changing relationships between individuals within a group.  When a group grows larger than 150 people, members of the group lose their ability to track relationships, and the group loses its capacity to function well as a community.

I would argue that in the large congregation the leadership body is always subconsciously reforming itself around the Dunbar limit. The leadership body must be able to think of itself in some cogent way as members of a single community. This requires that people know one another well enough to communicate around important congregational issues.  In response to this natural group dynamic, leaders are continually stepping into the informal village elder group and removing themselves from the village elder group, based on life circumstances.

In a medium sized congregation, if 150 people show up for a congregational gathering it represents a significant percentage of the membership body. In the large church it may represent less than 10% of membership.  The small percentage may be interpreted as a sign of apathy, but it’s really just the village elder system organizing itself to fulfill an important leadership role on behalf of the congregation.

How does this compare to your lived experience?

Photo Credit:  The Earth Tribe

The Ultimatum

Put yourself in this senior pastor’s shoes. You’ve had some supervisory challenges with your Minister of Music over the past two years, but she’s a person that you value having on your team. Let’s call this employee Connie.  Connie is a brilliantly gifted musician and widely respected within the local musical community. She is liked and admired by the congregation. She is not a good team player. She repeatedly fails to show up for staff meetings and she doesn’t work well with you or others in the planning of worship. The choir members respect her, but she hasn’t been effective at creating a sense of community within the choirs.  You’ve had several conversations with her about her lack of team orientation, but she doesn’t seem to be improving.

Yesterday Connie asked to meet with you after staff meeting. She began the meeting by saying that the stress of the job is doing her in. Specifically, she can’t take “the continual hounding about being a team player”. She wants to be left alone to run the choirs the way that she sees fit; after all she is the musical expert on the staff team.  After talking about her frustrations Connie issues this ultimatum. “I will not participate in staff meetings any more. They are a waste of my time. I also want to be able to make all musical choices, including hymn selection, without the oversight or input of any other members on the team, including you. Finally, I want you to quit bugging me about approaching the development of the choir from a community perspective. We are musicians plain and simple, and the community building stuff is just getting in the way.  You have thirty days to think about this request. If you do not agree to these conditions of my employment, I am finished here.”   

What is your response?  Would your response change if I told you that Connie is an African American and 58 years old?  (You are Anglo-American; your congregation is 90% white and seeking to become more diverse). Does it make a difference that you’ve also had two other really difficult staff terminations in the past year?

Dealing with a staff ultimatum is easy if the staff member is a problem employee that you’ve been trying to figure out how to terminate. In fact, it’s a gift. You simple thank the employee for their service and show them the door.  But when the ultimatum is issued by someone like Connie, it’s more difficult. You don’t want the employee to leave, but she does have certain shortcomings that can’t be ignored. You don’t want the risk of a bad departure, particularly one that is skirting around the issues of ageism and racism.  

Situations like this one make me grateful to be a consultant. I admire those of you on the frontline, trying to deal with real life, while I sit on the sidelines and offer commentary.  For what it’s worth, here’s my take on the general approach to a situation like this one.

1. Yielding to an ultimatum is almost always a bad idea. It’s a set up for subsequent manipulation and hostage holding. General rule of thumb: don’t ever accept the demands of an ultimatum as presented (unless you are blatantly wrong about the situation and the employee’s demands are entirely justified.)
2. If the employment situation is one that you want to maintain, find a creative way to invite the employee away from the line they have drawn in the sand. You can do this with a few good techniques:

• Invite the employee back into conversation and seek first to listen and truly understand; see if you can identify the root cause of the frustration that caused them to become positional in the first place.
• Affirm their value in the congregation in a way that is genuine and honest.
• Unpack the various elements of their ultimatum. Identify: what is this about, what is this not about, which parts of the situation can be changed, which parts of the situation cannot be changed?
• Make distinctions between what the employee is able to do (skill), willing to do (motivation) and has the opportunity to do (environment).
• Invite the employee to join with you in thinking creatively about alternatives other than resignation. What other solutions exist that don’t involve the ultimatum?
• Emphasize the mutuality of what you are both seeking to preserve. What do you mutually value in the situation that ought to be preserved?

    3.   At the end of the day, if they will not back away from the ultimatum, prepare for letting them go and prepare for the damage control that you’re going to need to do in the congregation as they depart.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this one. Weigh in.

Photo Credit: war.tix

Failed Strategy Execution

I’m frequently asked to consult with strategic planning teams as they formulate their process for self study and strategy formation.  In my first meeting with church planners some version of this question inevitably surfaces. “What assurances can you give us that we will actually execute the strategy that we claim during this self study period?”  Following the question is typically a long recital of the congregation’s past failures in executing strategy. Congregations are pretty good at having conversations about planning. They are not as good at executing the strategies that they plan. Why is that?

Strategy formation is one thing. Strategy execution is another. Here’s my “top seven” list explaining why large congregations fail at strategy execution.

1. Claiming too many strategic priorities.  Look over your congregation’s latest strategic plan. How many initiatives does the plan include? If it’s more than 2-3, it’s too many! Many large congregations create plans that cover the full distance between their present reality and the church that they hope to be when the full reign of God arrives on earth. In five short years they aim to close the gap between their present reality and a vision of their best selves. When leadership claims too many strategic priorities they may as well decide not to do any of them. Too many claimed priorities allow every leader (staff and lay) to pursue whatever they feel most passionate about in the moment, all under the guise of having fulfilled the strategic plan. The congregation loses focus when this happens. 
2. Not learning to say NO. This reason for failure is closely linked to the first. Once a leadership team has identified their priorities they need to learn to say NO to good ideas that just aren’t in alignment with the claimed direction. This is really hard for large congregations to do. Good ideas and the capacity to bring them to fruition abound.  We want to honor the spontaneity of what may be a Holy Spirit moment. We want to embrace a vision of empowered lay leadership. The challenge is to create a planning process that honors the movement of the Holy Spirit in the plan itself, and honors the passions of the laity in the formation of the plan. If we engage an effective planning process we can feel more comfortable with our “No” because there is a more urgent “Yes” within the plan.
3. Housing the ownership of the plan someplace other than the governing board.  The governing body of the church is the only body that can effectively own and oversee the plan. A committee of the board can’t really do it on the board’s behalf, because the committee doesn’t have the decision making authority of the full board. The board engages in decision making that takes the congregation away from its strategic focus because they are not as fully immersed in the plan as the committee is. The staff team can’t do it. It’s the job of the staff team to operationalize/manage the plan, but not to provide oversight. The senior clergy leader must have firm ownership of the plan but her role doesn’t have the scope of leadership authority to keep the entire congregation focused. This task belongs to the board. 
4. Absence of articulated goals, strategies and metrics. Many congregations, as they formulate their strategic plans, pay a great deal of attention to defining the identity of the congregation in the form of a mission statement, vision statement, core values and strategic priorities. They pay lesser attention to translating that strategy into operational goals that can be observed, evaluated and measured in some meaningful way. If the plan hasn’t been “operationalized” it’s likely to fail. The plan needs to be detailed enough so that all of leadership has a shared understanding of “what we will look like if we have executed our strategy effectively.” 
5. Failing to incorporate the strategic priorities into the performance goals of staff members.  Each member of the staff team should have perfect clarity about what their role is in the execution of the strategic plan in any given year. The collective performance goals of the staff team, if accomplished, should significantly advance the plan.  Staff members should not be allowed to set their own performance goals without consideration of the strategic priorities of the congregation. 
6. Failure to sunset programs that no longer fulfill the congregation’s mission.  I’ve never engaged a planning process in a large congregation that didn’t surface a need/desire for more programming.  Large congregations love programming and they are always convinced that the way to be more effective in engaging their mission is to offer more/better programs.  Staff teams in large congregations are dying for want of some good program pruning. There is an outer limit to how many programs any given congregation can support with resources and/or participants.  Leaders need to develop a discipline for deciding which programs will end in service to emergent programs that better serve the missional identity of the congregation. 
7. Failure to allocate resources in accordance with the plan.  In addition to carefully focusing the resource capacity of the staff team, leaders also need to focus the capacity of operating budgets, building usage and administrative support. The day to day decision making that is driven by an operating budget, the allocation of admin staff, and the scheduled use of the building should reflect the strategic priorities identified in the plan. If there isn’t alignment at this level, the plan is likely to fail.

Photo Credit: Greg See at flickr.com

Staff Triangulation

One of the hardest things for staff teams to figure out is how to handle complaints brought to them about other members of the staff team. Sometimes the complaints are brought by members of the congregation and sometimes they are brought by other team members. We call this process triangulation. Person A has a strained relationship with Person B and instead of working out the tension of the relationship directly with B, Person A goes to Person C to complain or vent about Person B. Person C listens to A and becomes engaged in the tension between A and B, so that now Person C begins to develop a strained relationship with B. The more triangulation that develops within a staff team, the higher the level of tension and conflict within the team. In a healthy team environment staff members always encourage direct communication between others and never foster anonymous feedback or complaints.

Let’s look at a typical example. A congregation member approaches the associate pastor to complain about something that the pastor mentioned in her sermon last Sunday that offended the congregation member. The associate pastor has to figure out how to handle himself with regard to the complaint. Does he listen to the parishioner’s complaint in the interest of being attentive and available? And if so, what does he do with the complaint after he receives it, especially if the congregant wants to protect her identity? How does he have a meaningful conversation with the senior pastor about the complaint without being able to mention the name of the person who registered the complaint? “Hey Amanda, people are saying…”  This is not particularly helpful feedback.

So, what is the appropriate response of the associate when the congregant first comes to him in an attempt to get the associate engaged in the congregant’s unhappiness with the pastor? I recommend that staff team members adopt the following protocol for handling complaints brought to them about other staff team members.

Step 1: Say to the complainant, “Have you gone directly to _______ to discuss your concern?”  If the person indicates that they couldn’t possibly confront the person with whom they have issue, or that they have tried and have not been successful, then go on to step 2.

Step 2: Say, “May I go with you to speak with _______ and help you get your concerns addressed?” If the person says yes, then by all means go and help mediate a direct conversation. If the person indicates that they are hesitant to have the direct conversation, even with your involvement, then go on to step 3.

Step 3: Say, “May I go to speak with ________ on your behalf, with your name attached?” If the person says no to this offer then gracefully remove yourself from the conversation. There is nothing further that you can do that would be helpful to the scenario. Further conversation in the interest of letting the person vent their feelings is really just gossip and not productive for you or the complainant. They are not seriously interested in getting the situation resolved.

This simple 3 step process has been very helpful to many staff teams that I’ve worked with. Obviously, before you enter into the 3 step process you need to listen to discern something about the severity of the issue. If the issue involves potential abuse or harm to the complainant or another, you want to pursue a different kind of process. Similarly, if you are the supervisor of the person that they are complaining about you may or may not want to use this approach. But if the complainant is trying to engage you (a bystander) into their tension with another person, resolve the conversation as quickly as possible. Participation in gossip about another member of your staff team (triangulation) is never a helpful role for a staff team member to play.

Photo Credit: The Tidal Rabbit at flickr.com

Building Staff Collegiality

I hope that you’ll consider joining me at this upcoming Alban sponsored 2 1/2 day event on Building Staff Collegiality

April  27, 2010 – April  29, 2010
Lake Junaluska Conference & Retreat Center , Lake Junaluska, North Carolina

Facilitator: Susan Beaumont

The seminar is scheduled to begin at noon with lunch on the first day and end after lunch on the last day.

A healthy staff team is at the heart of every thriving congregation.  Building the collegiality needed for staff teamwork 

• Requires the dedication of each staff member to live into their own calling. 
• Challenges all members of the staff team to learn to live out their personal vocations in concert with the attempts of their colleagues to do the same. 
• Calls upon special skill sets from the “head of staff” to create a collaborative and productive culture

 

Participants in this highly effective seminar will examine the characteristics of a healthy team, learn how a staff progresses through stages of team development, and identify where groups tend to get stuck.  You’ll be introduced to 30 markers of healthy staff team culture, specific approaches to managing team conflict, building accountability into team performance, and crafting effective staff meetings.

• Each participant will complete a team role self assessment prior to the seminar and will receive a comprehensive profile of their team role preferences. 
• This seminar will use a variety of learning strategies, including interactive lectures, experiential exercises, small-group conversations, and case-study work. 
• The seminar is designed for heads of staff, executive pastors, department heads, or anyone who is interested in learning how to foster healthier staff team culture.

The Shadow Side of Collaboration

I’m working in a congregation that has one of the most remarkably collaborative staff teams that I have encountered. Every member of the team is eager, willing and able to help every other member of the team. There are no artificial boundaries between the important spiritual work of some staff members and the more mundane administrative tasks of others. All work done in the interest of the congregation is equally valued. Everyone pitches in where needed, and no one bad mouths any other member of the team. Even in the midst of a staffing assessment, where members were interviewed one on one and guaranteed anonymity, the staff members didn’t speak negatively of one another. There are no turf wars. Sounds like nirvana, or does it?

As I spent more time with this team I began to notice several disturbing phenomenon. Staff members collectively reported spending more than a quarter of their time interfacing with one another. It takes time to be highly collaborative and this team began to realize that they are sometimes investing in relationships with one another to the detriment of their individual ministries.  It also became evident, as I watched this team, that their boundaries with one another were so porous that individual performance management was virtually non-existent. In other words, people helped one another so frequently that it had become impossible to identify and hold poor performers accountable for problems in their area of responsibility. This staff team seemed particularly exhausted to me. With no solid role boundaries in place, everyone was responsible for everything and the team ran itself ragged trying to maintain excellence in every area of ministry, not just their own.

Every area of performance strength on a staff team has a potential shadow side. Over-reliance on any performance competency generally leads to under-reliance on other needed competencies and the shadow side begins to emerge. Too much team collaboration is not necessarily a good thing.

Photo Credit: From Quevillon at Flickr.com