All Congregations Face Problems – Leaders Differentiate the Healthy From the Pathological

There are two kinds of problems in a congregation – healthy problems and unhealthy problems.  Understanding the difference is the responsibility of leadership.

Healthy problems propel congregations into recognizing a changing need or environment so that they pay attention to structural changes and development of their people. Healthy problems include: over confidence by the founding pastor who sees herself as indispensable; eagerness – high energy; evangelism orientation without a corresponding discipleship process; seeking new ways to serve the community; growth beyond the ability to deliver; insufficient cost controls; insufficiently disciplined staff meetings; and inconsistent salary administration. If you work in or attend a fast growing congregation, you probably have experienced all of these normal problems.

Unhealthy problems indicate that leaders have ignored needed change.  Unhealthy problems include: arrogance; lack of focus – energy too thinly spread; no boundaries on what to do; pressing for more growth despite inability to deliver quality care; no cost controls; no staff meetings – no communication; and grossly under paid or over paid employees.  These problems show that the congregation has lost its bearing and is adrift.

Even dynamic congregations can lose the drive of their mission when mission looses focus and clarity. The shift of focus is subtle because management strategies included in budgeting, cost reduction, rightsizing, or structural realignment can undermine and distract leaders from the true driver of their success – their mission.

Dynamism in a congregation is situational, it is not guaranteed. It is possible for a congregation to become malformed and enter a period of decline and thus act like an aging organization shortly after it is started. When early aging occurs, simplicity (the earmark of a vibrant congregation) gets lost in complexity as the people in the congregation struggle to explain the gap between their actions and their ideals or to explain how their actions fulfill the mission.

Dynamism induces simplicity as the earmark of a highly reproducible structure.  This kind of simplicity was described by Rainer and Geiger as, “…a straight forward and strategic process that moves people through the stages of spiritual growth.”[1] This definition is important to think about.  Simplicity is not the absence of complex situations – this misnomer only causes frustration.  Complexity and growth go together. Simplicity is the ability of the congregation or Christian organization to support a direct line of action between its mission and its target in the midst of an ever-growing complexity of networks and stakeholders. When this kind of simplicity is lost activity around the mission becomes as congested as a Los Angeles freeway at rush hour.

So how is a simple and dynamic structure developed?  Start with a blueprint i.e., define how the congregation will bring people to spiritual maturity i.e., start with your mission.  Then remove congestion to build movement. Design what you do in alignment with a spiritual maturation process and your core values. Then recruit people to the process to help others grow in Christ. Use the same process in every aspect of how you minister to the community. Then practice your focus, say “no” to almost everything. People are drawn to momentum, but not every opportunity that emerges is something to be pursued as an institutional response. Recall Jesus’ response to the disciples request that he expand his work in Capernaum.  The crowds sought after more but Jesus stayed focused. At the disciple’s request to engage Jesus’ new found recognition Jesus said, “Let us go somewhere else to the towns nearby, in order that I may preach there also; for that is what I came out for.”[2]

When you align your congregation around the purpose it is supposed to be about, you not only keep it simple you also end up launching new ministry because of your focus.  Again, look at who Jesus said “no” to. What were the results?  How many others besides the twelve did Jesus commission to ministry in the New Testament?  Look at Matthew 8:19-22; Mark 5:18-20; John 5:10-17; and John 9:1-41 where Jesus did not inhibit the man from following in the crowd or restrict him from talking. The fact that each of these people immediately engaged in ministry points to the discipleship emphasis of Jesus i.e., act on what you know.  It is as people acted on what they knew that Jesus then followed up to help develop their content. Notice that Jesus did not recruit any of these emerging ministers to the twelve.

We often get it backwards, wanting people to have all right content but who often have no idea how to put it to work and then insisting that all ministry happen through the programs authorized by the staff. It is important to see that any time we organize, no matter what spiritual label we put on it, we pull people together toward a common goal and create tension.  Tension develops between the organization we create and the mission we seek to engage.  The reason tension emerges is that organizations work with four primary drives: self-preservation, growth, effectiveness, and efficiency. A leader’s tension between how they define the work of the gospel and what consumes their time emerges when the organization asserts its drives and imposes its needs on the mission of the congregation. Instead, organization must subsume its drives to the mission it was designed to facilitate as a means of moving people together toward that mission.

Organizations are not people so how does this inversion occur?[3] Organizations become inverted when the people running the organization use its structures and processes to amplify their own drives for power, prestige, and pleasure not serving others.

Organizations invert when its leaders hide in structures and processes to avoid having to take responsibility to serve.  This happens when lead pastors or executive pastors or CEOs hide in their offices each day, running new efficiency studies to wring more money out of the operation and not asking what people experience when they meet the congregation. It happens in congregations when the pastor gets lost in the internal aspects of the congregation and tries to make things more effective (read relevant) or more efficient (read removing objections to the latest trend he/she wants to try) and not taking the time to know the questions people are asking about God.

Hodgkinson adds another perspective to creating a dynamic organization that is particularly helpful to those leaders who inherit organizations or congregations that they must rejuvenate.  To help sift through the haze of complexity, Hodgkinson offers a series of insightful questions that pastors should ask about their congregations.[4]

1.       Is the organization unjustified in its basic purpose?  Can it describe its basic purpose?
2.       Is the organization unjustified in its complexity of ancillary purposes?
3.       Should the organization grow? Consolidate? Reduce? Is the growth pattern valid and defensible?
4.       What are the latent functions of the organizational effort and are they valid and defensible?
5.       What, so far as reasonable analysis can reveal, is the shape of the non-quantitative cost benefit account? Is the quality of organizational life adequate under its constraints?
6.       What consistency exists between the answers to these value questions and the core commitments/assumptions of the leader asking them?

These questions can be a source of hope and vision or a source of intimidation and threat. The emotion experienced when these questions are reviewed is itself a reason to stop and reflect.  Ask yourself what emotion you experience and why?  This practice of self-awareness may lead you back to the question Jesus asked James and John – are you willing to drink the same cup Jesus drank?

So, what problems is your congregation facing?  Are they healthy or unhealthy? Will you exercise the courage and faith to discuss these problems or hide and hope they will go away or that someone else will deal with them?

References:

[1] Thom S. Rainer and  Eric Geiger. Simple Church: Returning to God’s Process for Making Disciples (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing, 2006), 60.

[2] Mark1:38 (NASB)

[3] Christian A. Schwarz. Natural Church Development: A Guide to Eight Essential Qualities of Healthy Churches (Carol Stream, IL: Church Smart Resources, 1996), 62-65. Schwarz’s discussion of a technocratic versus biotic approach to congregational life is another similar way to assess the tension that occurs in the organization of the church.

[4] Christopher Hodgkinson. Educational Leadership: The Moral Art (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1991), 109-110.

Entrepreneurs – Listen Up, It May Be Time to Hire Differently

A friend of mine recently called and needed to blow off some steam. His organization grew out of a passion discovered by accident. He jumped on his passion, started a nonprofit, and the organization took off.  “We are at $2 million in budget and I have figured out that I don’t have the right people. A consultant waltzed in and told me to hire an administrator at a six figure salary immediately – lives depend on what we do.  I am not sure I can jeopardize our programs by putting out that kind of salary.  I don’t want to be in the place of hiring someone and then letting them go in six months because our revenue projections were not quite right.”

Sound familiar? This founder’s story is not unlike any other founder who has experienced the exhilaration of watching their blood, sweat, and tears turn into a vibrant, howbeit, gangly organization.  At the same time the founder experiences a sense of legitimization and affirmation in the risk they engaged they also face burnout in trying to keep things moving in the right direction. Their original employees don’t have the skills and competencies needed to keep up with the new demands for structure and systems. If left unaddressed the founder ends up feeling like all they are doing is chasing their tail.

Business entrepreneurs, non-profit founders, and church planters all go through this very predictable stage of organizational development. It is important to recognize that founders are simultaneously their organization’s greatest asset and greatest liability!  Founder’s who use an excessively autocratic style become toxic to their own organizations creating the pathologies that ultimately deal a death-blow to the organization. In a fast growing organization like that of my friend the crucial question is, “Will you mentor future leaders in your organization?”

The challenge is making the time. The hardest transition for a founder has two aspects. First, a founder must learn to delegate activity so that there is enough of a margin to spend time developing others.   Second, the founder must recognize when it is time to hire a different kind of person.

Delegating effectively is not simply handing off tasks.  Why? Fast growing organizations typically run with time coefficients that are driven by ego not planning.  “I want this done yesterday” is the predictable demand. The result of this ego driven time coefficient is that delegation occurs on a bungee cord and delivery and service suffers.  Every task that is not accomplished at light speed is pulled back by the increasingly irritated founder. Add to this that no one can do the task correctly. How do founders escape this trap? There are three critical skills every leader must develop: define your working values, be consistent in delegation, and recognize when you need a new kind of employee.

First, name the values from which you actually work. Take the time to name what is important in how tasks get done. For example: I value cost effectiveness, excellence, and ambiance. I want those around me to be attentive to all three when they make purchasing decisions not just one or two. I value teamwork, assertiveness, and responsibility. When people go to work around me I expect them to give me their best insights and their best work. I can’t see everything in the market place and I don’t possess omniscience. However, early in my career these values were implicit and not explicitly a part of my thinking. As a result I became frustrated with the performance of my employees whose work had to be redone because they failed to meet my expectations i.e., my values. Write out your values and talk with your team about them and show them how core values inform daily decisions about how tasks are done.  For more information see http://wp.me/pYuoc-dL.

Second, be consistent in your delegation. This requires that you understand the levels of delegation and use these levels specifically to (a) carry out more work and (b) develop the capabilities and capacities of your current team.  Avoid the three cardinal sins of poor delegation: (1) Over management – delegation on a bungee cord.  This results in stunted skill development and poor decision-making down line. (2) Under management i.e., sloppy delegation without boundaries – also possesses a fuzzy scope. This results in frustration. (3) Scapegoat or Surprise accountability – you did not know the assignment was yours until just before it is due. This results in anger. Remember to match individual follow-through ability with the tasks being delegated. Remember the less competent an employee is the more directive you need to be.  Conversely the more competent the employee becomes the more supportive you need to be. Expect your team’s competency to increase.

So, what are the critical components of good delegation? (1) Delegate to clear outcomes and expectations. Use specific verbs for outcomes: plan, implement, or report. (2) Delegate to clearly defined time frames. Timeframes must be realistic to the task. (3) Delegate using the appropriate level of delegation i.e., proper to the skills of the volunteer or staff member to whom you plan to assign the task for example:

• Level 1: Measure and report back or Research and report findings
• Level 2: Research and present options based on findings
• Level 3: Research, recommend a response and report back before doing
• Level 4: Act and report on the results
• Level 5: Act with no further communication

Third, recognize when to take the leap and hire that administrative professional. Fast growing organizations share a common behavior.  They are opportunity driven and not driving opportunities. This means becoming less intuitive in how the organization is run and more systematic. What indicates that it is time to hire that professional manager?  Is your organization rapidly growing and is it characterized by: Self confidence – Founder indispensable; Eagerness – High energy; Sales v Marketing orientation; Seeking what else to do; Sales beyond the ability to deliver; Insufficient cost controls; Insufficiently disciplined staff meetings; No consistent salary administration; Leader surrounded by claqueurs; Increasingly remote leadership; Leader’s inflated expectations; Unclear communication; Hope for miracles; Unclear responsibilities; Internal disintegration; and a Workable people-centric organizational structure? Then you are at the turning point.

My friend above was a little surprised to hear me agree with the consultant he rejected. “You do need to hire a capable administrative person,” I said. “Everything you have described to me fits the profile of an organization that is moving toward its own adolescence. If you don’t begin to make the shift now, your organization will become toxic and you will burn out.”

My friend is about to begin a powerful and difficult journey. There is more to this transition than simply finding the right person for the job. That is important. But, for the founder the transition means three big changes.

First, a different kind of leader is needed, one who can bring systems, policies, and administration to the organization. This requires a different set of skills and way of seeing the organization. The organization does not need someone like the founder it needs someone who can complement the founder’s style knowing that the two perspectives will conflict at times. The manager cannot be stronger than the founder but must be able to disagree and engage in the kind of fierce conversations needed to bring about a new level of operational discipline.

Second, recognize that the organization will experience goal displacement i.e., a shift from more is better to better is more occurs. Accounting functions begin to look at profitability and long-term funding rather than only the sales or donations generated.  In for profit organizations pricing and product lines become more predictable and profit is as important as cash flow. Founders generally think that cash flow equals success when in fact the company may be going broke. This is equally as true for nonprofits who have yet to integrate operational controls to decide whether their administrative and program dollars exist in a healthy ratio.

Third, recognize that conflict during this period of change is predictable and normal. During this period a temporary loss of vision may occur – that is normal. A shift occurs that makes the organization sovereign rather than the founder sovereign.  Policies are made then challenged.  The point is that the organization becomes a reproducible system it has the ability of moving to a new level of effectiveness in its mission.

What can go wrong?  In this critical transition failure looks like a loss of mutual respect and trust among those who have formal and informal control of the decision-making process.[1] The temptation is to return to a time when the company was smaller and flexible. The founder can fire the new manager. Yet if this occurs the organization does not revert to the past level of fun. Instead, it enters a time of uncertainty and self-doubt.  The other risk is that the organization my lose its sense of mission and purpose and engender an environment of rule following in which the entrepreneurial drive disappears entirely.

If you understand your core values, if you exercise good delegation, if you recognize the need to diversify the leadership of your organization and develop leaders in every function of the organization, then you are in a good place to take the next step and move to a different level of success in what your organization intends to carry out. And so, my friend has begun his journey to a different way of working.  How about you?

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[1] Ichak Adizes. Corporate Lifecycles: How and Why Corporations Grow and Die and What to Do About It. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1988), 48-55.  Adizes’ book is a must read for Founders in all types of organizations.  The more his concept is understood the easier it is to predict organizational transitions and apply the right organizational strategies at the right time.