Rest assured, though, that the urge to have these discussions is still on my heart and I will, at the right time, pick them up again.

This is one of my all time favorite images. I first saw it about 12 years ago when I attended a lecture on using powerpoint in ministry. This was a sample image that was presented on how pictures can make a point so much better than words at times. I know the image speaks for itself, but when you consider the type of work that a bullfighter should be about it becomes very hilarious.

Now, I imagine there are some good reasons for the bullfighter to be waving his cape at the chicken, and I’m sure that at the time it made a lot of sense for this bullfighter to engage in this kind of activity. But at the moment this picture was snapped, the bullfighter appears to making poor use of his resources.

Churches do this all the time. Frequently we don’t mean to, it just happens. Like the bullfighter, a stray issue or person comes shooting across our field and we respond. Once we get that chicken taken care of, another one comes running. Then another… and another… and another… and so on. Some churches never accomplish anything because they are so busy fighting chickens rather than bulls.

Bullfighters are equipped to fight bulls. Big, scary, strong animals with sharp horns on their heads. They’re not supposed to be fighting chickens. But how many church leaderships spend all their time fighting chickens when they’re equipped and called to handle the big, scary, strong issues instead?

Some day when I learn to use photoshop better, I’m going to shop a chicken into the middle of a heated elders meeting. That would be a fun graphic to use in the future.

I had one of those epiphany-type experiences the other day, but first I have to give you some background information to help it make sense. I have better vision than my wife does. In this case, when I say vision I mean literal eyesight. I didn’t understand this at first and used to get rather frustrated with her at times (I’m sorry!) when I could see something that she couldn’t. I just assumed she wasn’t paying attention to the same things I was.

The reality of how odd I am when it comes to vision really hit home this week when I went to my every-two-year eye exam. Not only do I have great vision without correction, I have what is known as 20/10 vision. That means whatever the average person can see from 10 feet away, I can actually see from 20 feet away. I’m super human when it comes to vision! The thing is, I didn’t know that what I experienced was any more than what everyone else saw. In the years before GPS systems helped me navigate to unknown locations, I remember very clearly (no pun intended) getting upset with my wife when she couldn’t read the street signs from the same distance I could. By the time she could read the sign to tell me when to turn, I’d already passed it.

Having better vision than others is a real burden!

Now for the metaphor. This is for all of my fellow preacher types and others that are trying to lead from the second chair. Having better vision is a burden. Other people can’t see things as clearly as you can, and it frustrates you. Things that seem so obvious and so clear to you take others much longer to warm up to. The ‘right’ answer for the church or organization is simple to you, but others seem to struggle with it or get distracted by unimportant things. It’s frustrating and down right aggravating. I know, I’ve been there.

But I’ll tell you what the solution ISN’T. The solution isn’t to get upset at them because they don’t see things the way you do. Similar to eyesight, leadership vision is not something that people can will themselves to improve on. It’s a trait that must be developed over time with willingness and a desire to see more clearly. If you REALLY want to discourage someone from taking the necessary risks to see more clearly, just go ahead and get frustrated with them that they can’t see. That will help. That’s sarcasm, by the way.

Having better vision than others is a real burden. It is a burden on multiple levels. First, it is a burden to adjust your pace to match that of those who can’t see as well. When my wife gave me directions while I drove, I had to slow down to give her more time to see the signs. It took longer, but it was much safer that I keep my eyes on the road and let her read the street signs. That brings us to the second burden. It is a burden to keep your eyes on the things that are important while others squint and blink and try to get their vision into focus. It feels like busy-work… or perhaps like you’ve given leadership up to people who can’t see as clearly as you can. What you’re really doing, though, is allowing them to come along for the ride. It’s community building at it’s finest. You keep the car on the road while others practice seeing. The final burden that we’ll talk about is the burden of caring for the other person while you deal with seeing better than them. In comparison to your superior vision, their average vision is a disability. You have a responsibility to make sure that they reach their destination safely and happily. Any other arrival is a failure… no matter how good of time you make.

The one I’ve posted below by Seth Godin is probably my favorite so far. Excellent discussion on things that are “broken”, meaning that they don’t work well or like they should.

There are TONS of implications for church, especially the “I’m Not A Fish” principle. So much church stuff is designed for non-members by people who haven’t been non-members in a very, very long time.

Watch the video. You’ll like it.

The graph above demonstrates the proposal made by Blake and Mouton regarding the concern for people vs. the concern for production. In their original publication, they added grid lines for both axes numbering 1 through 9. This was to facilitate the understanding that there were various places on the Managerial Grid that people could fall. In their book they mention that 9 grid lines gives you a possible 81 different points to plot on the grid. In actuality, there are nearly infinite combinations between levels of concern for both people and production.

What Blake and Mouton found, though, was that even though there were nearly infinite possible distributions along these axes, the ranges near the corners of the grid in addition to the mid-point on the grid revealed five general categories that people will typically fall into. Since Blake and Mouton focused on management in their work, their descriptions are similarly managerial focused. I’ve reproduced their grid interpretations in the chart below.

What I find fascinating about the grid as proposed by Blake and Mouton is they way they carefully described the less desirable manifestations in a way that minimized negative language. It’s pretty clear that a managerial style that is concerned for neither people nor production will not produce favorable results. In the same way, focusing concerns on only people or production will produce limited results.

In a setting like a church, where the lines between people and production sometimes blur, how do we see evidence of Blake and Mouton’s dual concern model?

Do those two terms sound like the don’t go together well? What is it about the idea of “church” that makes us uncomfortable with terms like “revenue”, “marketing”, or “production”? I’ve felt the twinge that comes from the apparent incompatibility of those concepts, but the truth of the matter is that those aspects of churches exist whether we want to admit it or not. In my experience, the more aware of those aspects of our churches we are the better job we do in managing them. The reverse is also true: the less aware of those aspects of our churches we are the worse job we do in managing them.

I would argue that a majority of purpose/production related conflicts that exist in churches originate with a lack of clarity over the purpose of the church.  I promise to not get all purpose-driven on you, but clearly communicating the purpose for a church is essential to the health of the church. Considering the Dual C0ncern Model introduced in the previous post, church leaders must know the purpose of the church in order to effectively use the managerial grid in their leadership efforts. Without a clearly defined and communicated purpose, the only aspect of the grid that remains is the people side. When people are allowed to act as they see fit without some purpose/production aspect to guide them, all kinds of craziness ensues.

In the absence of a clearly define purpose, each individual is left to interpret for his or herself what the purpose is. Since this interpretation is a complex mix of preferences, experiences, traditions, and what they learned from the History Channel, those interpretations are as varied as the individuals themselves. Since individuals define their relationship to the organization through the fulfillment of purpose, these interpretations can become very ingrained and very personal. When two opposing interpretations collide, instead of just a collision of interpretations you have a collision of ingrained and personal interpretations.

Once we get past the initial sting of incompatibility between church and business, one of the most healthy exercises a church can go through is to ask and assess the question “What do we produce?” This helps to cut through the fog of purpose/mission statements and gets to the core of what the church is really about. It also avoids the “What do we want to be?” question and allows us to assess the church as it really is. Additionally, it allows us to compare the production of the church to the purpose of the church as made in scripture: Are we producing disciples?

So, what do churches produce? What does your church produce?

In their 1964 worked entitled The Managerial Grid, Robert Blake and Jane Srygley Mouton identified two constants in any organization: purpose and people. These two constants form the axes of the “Managerial Grid” that they propose within this work. On one side of the grid is a concern for purpose of the organization. Whatever the organization, there is always a purpose behind it. That purpose may not be clearly stated or even known to the members of the organization, but there is always a purpose. Clearly, the purpose of a church is different from that of a for-profit organization, but the purposes are there.

Identifying the purpose of an organization is important because it brings us to a measurable and tangible aspect of the organization: production. Every organization, even churches, has a product that they generate. What types of products do churches produce? Ideally, one would answer that question with “disciples”. However, more than likely the typical church’s true products are things like worship services, fellowship opportunities, and social welfare programs. Whatever the products of the church, the purpose/production side of the managerial grid focuses on this aspect.

On the other side of the managerial grid is the concern for people. Every organization needs people. For-profit enterprises need both employees and customers. Churches need members, prospects, and people to serve. Without a steady stream of new people in each category, the organization eventually dies. While some organizations can make people feel worthless, people are an essential component to the health of any organization. The mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual health of the people in an organization has a direct connection to the health of the organization as well. That is why leaders must take into consideration the well being of the people while they consider the purpose/production side of the organization as well.

But to what extent? Which is more important, purpose or people? If you have to choose, which do you go with? And what are the ramifications of that choice?

The fact of the matter is that people are concerned about somethings, and that level of care is translated into the many decisions that we make every day. For example, how do you determine when to answer your cell phone? When there’s nothing going on, you’re more likely to answer your phone than if you are in the middle of a meeting. Why? Because at various times you are more or less concerned with the phone call. But what if it is your wife or mother calling? Do you interrupt your meeting to take the call then? In that case, your concern is not based on the phone call as much as it is based on your concern for whom is calling.

Those decisions communicate specifically about your level of concern to other people. And other people get the message. When you return a call and say “I’m sorry, I was talking to someone else.” you are saying to that person that you are concerned about them and their needs at least as much as you were the person you were talking to, just not enough to end the other conversation and take their call. Or perhaps when you’re talking to someone and get another call on the other line and you say “I’m sorry, I have to take that call.” You have communicated that the other person and their needs is of greater concern to you than person you were previously speaking with.

This isn’t all bad. In fact, I chose my banker recently because of the concern that was expressed by his statements to me. He was on the losing side of a competition for my home refinance and was speaking with me on the phone, got momentarily distracted, and then said, “I’m sorry, I have to call back in a few minutes. My son is calling on the other line.” Good choice! Family takes precedence over work any day.

But what about when the choice is between you and someone else? What are you communicating when you take the last donut from the break room when you know others want it? What statement are you making when you decide to not let the other driver get over in front of you? Who are you most concerned with when you take the single parking place in the front of the lot, forcing other drivers to park hundreds of feet away?

When it comes to a head-to-head choice like that one, how does your decision communicate the level of concern you have for others… or for yourself?

Shortly after my arrival, one of the tanker sergeants stopped by my room and said in a loud, entertain-the-other-tankers voice, “You know what NBC stands for, don’t ya? No Body Cares!” He laughed a loud, guffawing laugh before I could poing out that “No Body” was actually “Nobody”, but his point was well made.

A few nights ago I was out visiting our church group at summer camp and was in a conversation with someone about why I wouldn’t share details of a recent surgery I’d had. People mean well, but I wanted to maintain some semblance of privacy. I’ve been reading a lot lately about the sociological phenomenon of the “third place”. I’m sure I’ll discuss third place more in the future, but the synopsis is pretty simple: almost everyone has three geographical/social places they identify with. The first is home, the second is work or school, and the third is the place they go for social connectedness and community.

I was explaining to this individual that, for most people, there is a clear demarkation between these three groups but this same demarkation didn’t exist for ministers. Home, work, church all run together. That’s why I have to be super private about things that I really want to keep close to myself.

As I was beginning to make this point, which I thought to be brilliant and well applied, someone else listening in to the conversation made a dismissive remark about what I was about to share. I don’t remember the details, but the point was very clear: they didn’t care.

I don’t share this for sympathy but rather to share a genuine revelation I’ve had. For the last twenty years I’ve found myself fascinated with things that no one else seems to care about. I get excited about process and organization. I’m a dedicated student of organizational health and growth. I’m much more interested in finding the root cause of problems and addressing them there than I am in just putting a band-aid over the issue. I want to know why people do what they do in different scenarios and I want to talk about it and discuss it.

What’s the problem with that? No Body Cares.

For a few days I’ve really labored over a minor identity crisis in dealing with the fact that nobody cares about the things that I find most important in life and church. But I’ve come to a liberating conclusion: I Care. I care about these things because I’m convinced that an understanding of them makes people’s lives better. I care because I’ve seen how empowering and encouraging healthy organizations can be. I care.

And so much of this site may end up being leadership stuff that many don’t care about. For those that need this information and can’t find it elsewhere, I care enough to continue developing this material. I’m going to have lots of fun working on this, and I hope that you will enjoy reading along with the journey.

It is common practice in the conservative Christian community to surround ourselves with people who think like us, both spiritually, politically,  and socially. Some of that happens naturally because of people are most comfortable around people that they are more similar to. This is a variant of the Law of Attraction of Homogeneous Species. Some of this also occurs as a direct result of choices and beliefs we hold as humans (this is where the implications of LAHS deviate). If we don’t approve of a denomination’s interpretation on a given topic, we will exclude ourselves from them. Actually, if we don’t approve of another church within our same denomination, we exclude ourselves from them. We only hang out with people that are ‘good enough’ people. We only go places that are ‘appropriate’ for Christians. We even draw lines that intermingle political preferences and spiritual beliefs: good Christians are Republicans and shouldn’t interact with people that hold beliefs of the Democratic party.

The problem with this is that when we shield ourselves from people based on whether we agree with them or not or whether we approve of them or not, we are doing the same thing described in this TED talk. This talk is concerned with the idea that being shielded from ideas we differ with is bad for us as individuals and is therefore bad for us globally. For Christians and churches the concern should go the other direction. If we build a bubble of agreement around ourselves, we not only keep people with whom we disagree out but we remove our ability to engage them and influence them with our ideas and beliefs. Since this is the core purpose of the Church, we completely undermine our ability to fulfill any of the Great Commission.