LEADERSHIP vs MANAGEMENT & Why every leader needs to have a manager and Steve Jobs’ success at Apple was because he realized it.

by Chris Matyszczyk, Inc. Magazine, 5/26/20.

Being a manager… The very word conjures a sense of keeping things together, getting by and generally making a system work.

Being a leader, on the other hand, now that’s the apogee of rockstarism.

…I’ve been bathing in a commentary, published in the Academy of Management Journal, by INSEAD’s Associate Professor of Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior, Gianpiero Petriglieri.

…Petriglieri explains how research has clearly shown the diminished impression of management:

To be a manager is to be useful, but dispensable. It is no protection against anxiety in the workplace. In many such places, in fact, wanting to be a manager is a questionable aspiration if it is one at all. It is like wanting to be a dinosaur in an age where leaders have the disruptive impact of meteorites.

This has caused a skewing that is surely evident in the way so many organizations are run today. Says Petriglieri:

Preach passion above competence, influence above stewardship, and soon you will find much passion for influence and little competent stewardship at the top of corporations and countries.

Too often, leadership becomes a game of self-aggrandizement, power and stock options. More troubling is the fact that the obsession with leadership has led to a sense that you must act like a leader (whatever that means) to succeed or get funded.

Somehow, says Petriglieri, we pick leaders in a hurry and managers at our leisure. In each case, we’re asking the question What Can You Do For Me?

We’re human. We’re irrational. Or, as Petriglieri puts it:

We want evidence and excitement, data and dreams.

Yet instead of trying to find all those things in one, we separate the more rational traits from the emotional ones.

Oh, he looks and feels like a leader. Let’s pick him.

Petriglieri worries that leaders and managers are now seen as antagonistic, rather than complementary:

Splitting leadership from management and arguing for the superior value of one, in other words, is like asking whether the brain or the heart is most important. Which one would you rather give up?

The truth, says Petriglieri, is that a balance between leadership and management is simply harder to build.

He’d like to see a different sort of organization:

Institutions where we can get along or argue well, passion is held, reasons are heard, and managing and leading abound instead of their caricatures — the managers and leaders.

How many times do so-called leaders breeze in, make everyone feel good — for a short while — and then disappear to their next exalted position? Which all leads me to Steve Jobs. One of the greatest leaders of our time, so we’re told. Surely, then, he’d appoint another great leader to replace him.Instead, he appointed the ultimate so-called manager, Tim Cook.Perhaps Jobs appreciated that as his company got bigger and ever more global, certain skills of absolute competence were essential.It’s a vital lesson for today’s exceptionally disturbed and fractured world. Fine words and a fine image are not enough.I’ve often thought it’s more possible for managers to grow into leaders than for leaders to embrace true consequential competence.How do you think Cook’s been as a leader? Remarkably good, as well as remarkably competent, if you ask m

DELEGATION & How to Delegate Using a Simple Questionnaire & a 7-Step Process

The Best Managers Share Authority. Now It Teaches Them to Delegate Using This 7-Step Process by Michael Schneider, Inc. Magazine, 7/22/19.

The best Google managers empower their teams and do not micromanage.

This idea came in at number two on Google’s top 10 list of effective manager traits. If you haven’t heard the story, Google in an effort to prove that bosses weren’t necessary, ended up finding the exact opposite — managers not only matter, but they can significantly influence the performance of their teams. But, they didn’t stop there. After realizing that managers were important, they embarked on a quest to uncover all the behaviors that made some more effective than others. The initiative became known as Project Oxygen…

To help its managers determine the work that they should delegate, Google asks leaders to:

Look at the goals. What is the end-game and what does the team need to do to achieve its goals. Break down the work and identify parts that can be delegated.
Look at yourself. In which areas do you have strengths and responsibilities, and what should you delegate?
Recognize the right person for the work. Take a look at your team’s skills and ask yourself who has clear strengths in the areas you want to delegate. Use your employees like “chess pieces” and strategically assign work that plays to their abilities. In the process, you’ll not only empower but also increase the overall productivity of the team.

…Google has broken down the process into these seven steps:

1. Give an overview of the work.

Discuss the scope and significance of the project. Tell your employee why you selected them and the impact that the work has on the business.

2. Describe the details of the new reasonability.

Discuss your desired outcome and clarify expectations. Tell the employee what you expect, but not how to do it. It’s essential to give them the autonomy and freedom to learn and grow from the experience — not just follow orders.

3. Solicit questions, reactions, and suggestions.

The conversation should be a two-way street. Remember, the ultimate goal is to put your employee in the driver seat. Make sure they have all the information they need to assume ownership, accountability, and meet expectations.

4. Listen to the delegatee’s comments and respond empathetically.

This is new and uncharted territory for your employee. Ease their anxiety and create a psychologically safe environment where the employee feels comfortable voicing concerns, discussing hesitations, and coming to you for help.

5. Share how this impacts the team.

So employees understand the importance of their work and prioritize accordingly, make sure that you connect the dots and explain how the task supports other team initiatives.

6. Be encouraging.

Employees won’t take full responsibility until you encourage them to. Make sure they understand that you’re trusting them to deliver results.

7. Establish checkpoints, results, deadlines, and ways to monitor progress.

Although they have the autonomy, make sure employees know the critical milestones they need to hit and what success look like to gauge progress.

Delegating isn’t the easiest thing to do. But, you have to look at it as an investment in your employees. They learn, and you pick up more bandwidth to tackle other things — everyone wins.

MANAGEMENT & Leadership: The difference according to Harvard prof. John Kotter

Commentary by Dr. Whitesel. The following is a helpful synopsis on this relationship penned by one of my LEAD 600 students:

John Kotter (2012, p. 71) includes six characteristics or “-abilities” for an effective vision. It is to be

Imaginable: Conveys a picture of what the future will look like.
Desirable: Appeals to the long-term interests of employees, customers, stockholders, and others who have a stake in the enterprise
Feasible: Comprises realistic, attainable goals.
Focused: Is clear enough to provide guidance in decision making
Flexible: Is general enough to allow individual initiative and alternative responses in light of changing conditions
Communicable: Is easy to communicate; can be successfully explained within five minutes

Kotter (2012) also notes that a vision is only one element in a larger system that includes strategies, plans, and budgets (p. 70). I like how he diagrams it (p. 71):

ViewAttachment?fileId=52654

This may be a good framework to use for anchoring vision in the context of our Leadership and Management Growth plans.

Grace & Peace, Larry

Kotter, J. (2012). Leading Change. [Kindle DX eBook version]. Retrieved from www.amazon.com

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LEADERSHIP & “It is about vision, but management is about solving problems”

by Bob Whitesel D.Min., Ph.D., 9/22/17.

I ask my students the difference between leadership and management. Here are some quotes I’ve used to describe my thinking:

“Leadership can be more prestigious, more exciting and more visionary. But management, that’s about solving problems”

“Management is what’s missing in our ministry leaders.”

“If you get kicked out of a church, it’s usually not because of bad theology or even poor leadership … but because of bad management.”

“Leadership is about vision, but management is about solving problems.”

MANAGEMENT & 8 Differences Between Strong & Weak Managers, Told Through Cartoons #ForbesMagazine

by John Youshaei, Forbes Magazine, 7/13/17.

1. Strong Managers Focus On Progress; Weak Managers Focus On Process

cartoon from EveryVowel.com

Yes, you need some process to keep employees in check. But when you have too much, you kill creativity. This is what ultimately drives the success of any organization. Don’t destroy it. Don’t be afraid to adjust or remove processes to help your team push the envelope. Encouraging progress, not process, is essential for your company’s long term growth…

3. Strong Managers Compete With Themselves; Weak Managers Compete With Others

cartoon from EveryVowel.com

4. Strong Managers Work For A Cause; Weak Managers Work For Applause

cartoon from EveryVowel.com

6. Strong Managers Respect Your Time; Weak Managers Waste It

cartoon from EveryVowel.com

cartoons humor comic

MANAGEMENT & 3 Management Styles That Belong In The Past

Commentary by Dr. Whitesel: Research cited in this article describes facts I utilized to write the book “ORGANIX: Signs of Leadership in a Changing Church” (Abingdon Press). For more about how leaders must apply management differently today with younger people, see excerpts from “ORGANIX” on this .wiki after reading the article.

MANAGEMENT & These 3 Management Styles Belong In The Past

by Paolo Gallo, Forbes Magazine, 2/3/16.

What assumptions am I making, that I’m not aware I am making, that give me what I see?

This powerful question, taken from Benjamin Zander’s book, The Art of Possibility, has been stuck in my mind for a while. Traditional management thinking is based around three fundamental assumptions.

First, that organizations need a top-down approach to strategy and objective setting;
Second, that the role of management and human resources is to measure/control what is being done to achieve objectives and to provide the corresponding incentives for performance or non-performance; and
Third, that monetary incentives motivate people.

Accepting these assumptions, grounded in a dogmatic approach,

means that CEOs and executives decide on behalf of people,
managers control and HR professionals develop complex systems to measure performance,
incentives and consequences.

Sounds like the same old story of carrot and sticks.

Beyond Carrots And Sticks

Yet scientific evidence has proven that what motivates knowledge workers is not longer carrots and sticks.

Take for example Daniel H. Pink’s book, Drive, which makes the case that autonomy, a sense of purpose and mastery are the real motivating factors, in addition – in my view – to a sense of fairness and trust.

Despite such breakthroughs in understanding human behavior, most organizations have still not changed their management systems or thinking accordingly. The problem is that we are using the management tools of the first industrial revolution, while we are entering the fourth industrial revolution. It’s the equivalent of still using a gramophone to listen to music. I suppose it is easier to change a smart phone than a mental model.

Even the fabled “20% time” granted by Google, Facebook, LinkedIn and other Silicon Valley giants – originally designed to give knowledge workers greater job satisfaction, allowing them to use company time to tinker around with new ideas – is only change at the margins. In Google’s case it is now being discontinued, with others possibly following suite.

Overwhelmingly, even in the most innovative industries with the most “knowledge workers,” we tend to manage using the same methods that were put in place to keep tabs on factory workers during the industrial revolution.

Overcoming Resistance To Change

I would like to share a story which illustrates how we can move beyond our old, hopelessly out-of-date assumptions.

In 2012, when Professor Klaus Schwab, who founded the World Economic Forum some 41 years earlier, had the idea of disrupting his organization with a new model of community management, better suited for the Millennial generation, he met the same reaction from management that every leader faces when implementing change: resistance.

Like others who walked the road of change management before him, he set up a “skunk works,” an isolated team under his leadership, to make change happen.

Professor Schwab’s premise was simple: with half of the world’s population under the age of 27, we need a new and different way of engaging young people with decision-makers to shape their common future.

MANAGEMENT & It is Not Just Necessary, But Must be Carefully Studied Too #Barth

by Bob Whitesel D.Min., Ph.D., 12/12/15.

Karl Barth once said, “Only rarely, and then very carefully, can the church’s ordained leaders take their cues from secular leadership.”

And, that is exactly what lead me to studying management and the church.

I found so many well intentioned lay people trying to bring secular management principles into a spiritual organization. Now, any organization needs to be managed, even a spiritual. But, lessons for managing her must be drawn from the study of church examples, and not just have secular principles imposed upon the church. You must to look careful at churches and study them to see which principles apply, and which don’t.

That is why to this day I have a very active consulting practice where I am visiting and studying a different church almost every weekend.

And, thus is also why i have written 12 books, including book, “Growth by Accident, Death By Planning.” This book among others was my way of saying what Barth said: that secular leadership principles, if not carefully used, will lead to “death by planning” :-O

MANAGEMENT HISTORY & Why Pastors Lack Management Skills, More Than Leadership Skills

by Bob Whitesel D.Min., Ph.D., 8/24/15.

Sometimes seminary students have a negative view of the term  “management” because in their minds it has been linked with inflexibility and control. As a result, seminarians often eschew learning management skills.

But it has been my (oft quoted) observation that, “Pastors more often are kicked out of a church because of poor management skills, than because of poor leadership skills.”

To understand how management got a “bad reputation” that it does not deserve, let’s look the history of management.

The historical beginnings of the “management” movement.

Management as an academic discipline began with a mechanical engineer named Frederick Taylor who invented the term “scientific management” (“The Principles of Scientific Management,” New York: Harper & Row, 1913). Now, because it was a “science” it seemed legit to study in universities and the field of management was born. Today, management degrees (e.g. MBA, MSM, etc.) are some of the most popular degrees in graduate school.

But, many people, this professor included, have problems with Taylor’s “scientific management.”

Not because it is scientific, or even because it is management, but because of what it soon became. You see, Taylor put the company before the person. He famously intoned “the worker must be trimmed to fit the job” (quoted by Daniel Boorstin, “The Americans: The Democratic Experience, New York: Vintage, 1974, 363). To legitimize this he conducted time and motion studies to show how jobs could be better performed. Of course, business managers were elated at this science, that could prove that by manipulating people, jobs can be done faster and more efficiency (oftentimes however at the expense of the workers self-worth and dignity).

The Rise of “Tactical” AND “Strategic” Management

Not surprisingly, many critics arose who criticized Taylor’s approach (an approach when came to be known as Theory X). The critics said that Theory X did not fully appreciate the worker (it didn’t), that it de-motivated the worker (it did) and that it was too inflexible (it is).

The later point, that it was too inflexible, was championed by Henry Mintzberg in a great book called “The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning” (New York: The Free Press, 1994). Some wrongly misconstrue that Mintzberg was saying strategic planning was wrong. He wasn’t. But what he was arguing is that in Theory X management is seen as being too inflexible, too lock-step, too rigid.

He suggested that “planners” need to be both “right-brained planners” who learn procedures and processes (who I call “tactical leaders”); as well as “left-brained planners” who (Mintzberg p. 394, quoting Quinn) are “wild birds … (who) range throughout the organization stimulating offbeat approaches to issues” (who I call “strategic leaders”)

This approach to management, flexible, innovative and integrated (across several disciplines), is very helpful for the church. Because it utilizes right-brained planners (tactical leaders) and left-brained planners (strategic leaders), I have called this STO leadership (where O represents the “operational, team-orientated leader).

To foster innovation you need both strategic leaders (who can see the vision) and also tactical leaders (who can plan out the innovation). And, I have observed in my church case study research that innovation is very important for church growth (I even wrote a chapter about “Innovation” that I observed at Solomon’s Porch church in Minneapolis). In fact, you can find a chart that compares “Innovation” and “institutionalism” on ChurchHealth.wiki

I want to stress the importance of this flexible, inter-disciplinary management. Postmodern management scholars such as Mary Jo Hatch and Haridimos Tsoukas see management as having to do with the ability to plan flexible tactics, address conflict, recruit volunteers and alter management styles as an organization grows. In fact, in my consulting I have found that among pastors, leadership principles are usually rather well understood, but that pastors are weak in management principles.

I say all of this to ensure that as you study management and leadership, you do not dismiss the former in lieu of the latter. A holistic understanding of both leadership and management is critical for today’s church leader. And in my case study research, I have found management skills missing more in pastors than leadership skills.

MULTIPLICATION & 40 Business Books Every Entrepreneur Should Read Before Setting up a Startup #BusinessNewsDaily

Commentary by Dr. Whitesel: “Having coached many, many church plants, I’ve discovered their mistakes were often made due to a lack of basic business and management skills. This list of business books will provide the business foundation that ministry entrepreneurs need. Business News Daily put together this list of 40 books after asking management professionals what every entrepreneur should read. You will find many of these are recommended readings for my Doctor of Ministry cohorts.”

Read the list at … http://mostread.in/40-business-books-every-entrepreneur-should-read-before-setting-up-a-startup/

EMPLOYEE PROBLEMS & Why Compassion Is a Better Managerial Tactic than Toughness

Commentary by Dr. Whitesel; “What do you do with that underperforming student? Or perhaps they are an underperforming employee? Research shows that compassion and curiosity are the best ways to help them get back on the effectiveness track. So, rather than increasing the severity of your punishment, take an interest in what they are going through and show compassion. Research shows that when employees feel you have empathy they will work harder towards shared goals. Read this Harvard Business Review article to review the research.”

MANAGEMENT & For Catholic seminarians, some Wawa-inspired management training #PhiladelphiaInquirer

By Harold Brubaker, Philadelphia Inquirer Staff Writer, Monday, April 27, 2015, 9:01 PM

Running a Wawa store and managing a Roman Catholic parish might not seem to have much in common.

But last week, a group of St. Charles Borromeo Seminary students, a year from being ordained as priests, had the last of five management-training sessions inspired by a program that St. Joseph’s University professors developed for the convenience-store chain.

For the seminarians, the Thursday management classes at St. Joseph’s Haub School of Business were in sharp contrast to the philosophy and theology classes that are central to their formation as priests.

“None of us entered the seminary to be administrators,” said Stephan Isaac, one of the 11 attending the session last week.

But Isaac, who is from the Diocese of Allentown, added that he knew having the skills needed to run a parish smoothly – especially in dealings with the committees of parishioners who help guide it – was not a luxury for a pastor: “It’s a necessity.”

MANAGEMENT & What to Do If Your Boss Is a Control Freak

Commentary by Dr. Whitesel: “Having a boss that feels he/she is the expert and should approve or modify everything you do, can be frustrating (I know ;-). But author Karen Dillon gives four helpful steps to working with a boss who she describes as a control freak. The four tactics are:

Manage your boss’s insecurities. In other words, he (she) has worries too. Try to see it from their perspective.
Don’t fight it. If you openly rebel, you lose influence.
Scrutinize yourself. Have you contributed to the problem? What could you do differently?
Look ahead. Focus on the future and things will usually start to improve.

Read the article (it begins below and continues with a link to the original Harvard Business Review article).”

What to Do If Your Boss Is a Control Freak

by Karen Dillon, Harvard Business Review, 12/23/14.

dec14_22_80992314

…Despite what you may think, the root of his micromanaging is probably not that your boss is a jerk or that he feels threatened by you. Rather, his actions might be explained by factors that have little to do with you, such as a poor understanding of his role as manager, micromanaging bosses of his own, a lack of motivation to question how he’s always done things, or personal insecurity.

That said, it can be hard to cut your boss some slack when he isn’t cutting you any. His harping about every small misstep you take can feel overwhelmingly personal. The good news is that you don’t have to resign yourself to being nit-picked to death. You may not be able to change your boss, says Carol Walker, a principal at Prepared to Lead, a leadership development consulting firm. But you do have some control. “You have more power to improve the situation than you probably realize,’” Walker says. You aren’t likely to turn things around with one great conversation or one burst of high performance. But you can, little by little, own and direct a process that will enable your boss to start trusting you more and monitoring you less. Here’s how.

1. Manage his insecurity

Form an educated guess about where your boss’s sensitivities lie. If you believe, for example, that he’s intimidated by his boss, think of ways you can alleviate that pressure, such as running reports to better prepare him for meetings with his manager. Or perhaps he’s afraid that people don’t perceive him as essential, and he’s on a tear to prove how much you and others need him. Dispel his fears, advises Dorie Clark, author of Reinventing You: Define Your Brand, Imagine Your Future. Show him that you value his guidance. Bring him any news you hear, and take your ideas to him before sharing them with others. As your boss begins to trust that you’ll come to him without prompting, he may loosen his grip…

MANAGEMENT & Renowned theologian Archbishop of Canterbury sends bishops to business school for more education #WesleySem

Commentary by Dr. Whitesel: “About 10 years ago the current president of Indiana Wesleyan University, Dr. David Wright, asked me to put together a book in which business school professors would adapt their subject matter for church leaders. I recruited some of the best professors teaching in our IWU MBA program and asked them, ‘Write a chapter about what church leaders need to know about your subject.’ The result was two books. The Church Leaders’ MBA: What business professors wish church leaders knew about management was published by Ohio Christian University Press. And, Foundations of Church Administration was published by Beacon Hill publishers. Read this article about how in England the Archbishop of Canterbury also realizes that pastors are weak in management and is now encouraging them to take similar training. It should be no surprise that the first course chosen by Dr. Wright for our IWU Masters of Arts in (Ministry) Leadership was nonprofit management.”

Business school bishops,
by C. S-W, The Economist Magazine, Jan 21st 2015,

The Church of England encourages its clergy to get some management education

JUSTIN WELBY (pictured), the Archbishop of Canterbury, is a renowned theologian. But the head of the Church of England is not your ordinary church chief; he has brought extraordinary changes to the way his clergy manage their worshippers. At first glance, the archbishop’s curriculum vitae might appear to focus more on things pecuniary than pious. He spent over a decade working in the oil industry, half at the executive level. Though Mr Welby does not hold an MBA, he believes that there are benefits to bringing boardroom practices into religion, and as such supports a proposal to send 36 bishops and deans on a mini-MBA course run by INSEAD, that will begin in April…

Sending bishops to business school will kickstart a ‘culture change for the leadership of the church,’ the report says.

TRANSFORMATION & The 8 Steps to Transforming Your Organization

by John Kotter, Harvard Business Review, 1/10/07.

8 Steps to Transforming Your Organization

1. Establishing a Sense of Urgency. Examining market and competitive realitiesIdentifying and discussing crises, potential crises, or major opportunities.

2. Forming a Powerful Guiding Coalition. Assembling a group with enough power to lead the change effortEncouraging the group to work together as a team.

3. Creating a Vision. Creating a vision to help direct the change effortDeveloping strategies for achieving that vision.

4. Communicating the Vision. Using every vehicle possible to communicate the new vision and strategies. Teaching new behaviors by the example of the guiding coalition.

5. Empowering Others to Act on the Vision. Getting rid of obstacles to change. Changing systems or structures that seriously undermine the vision. Encouraging risk taking and nontraditional ideas, activities, and actions.

6. Planning for and Creating Short-Term Wins. Planning for visible performance improvements. Creating those improvements. Recognizing and rewarding employees involved in the improvements.

7. Using increased credibility to change systems, structures, and policies that don’t fit the vision. Hiring, promoting, and developing employees who can implement the vision. Reinvigorating the process with new projects, themes, and change agents.

8. Institutionalizing New Approaches. Articulating the connections between the new behaviors and corporate success. Developing the means to ensure leadership development and succession.

INNOVATION & How To REFOCUS a Ministry That Has Outlived Its Usefulness #ChurchCureBook

CUR_xE T = Tackle Needs by Refocusing or Creating Ministry Programs.

Article by Bob Whitesel, excerpted from CURE FOR THE COMMON CHURCH: God’s Plan to Restore Church Health (2012), pp. 42-56 (download the chapter below):

Cure T stands for “tackle needs by refocusing, creating or ending ministry” and the term “tackle” is fitting for this may require the most energy of the three cures in this chapter. As we saw earlier long histories and good fellowship often cause a church to focus on congregational needs in lieu of non-churchgoer needs. Thus, churchgoers often focus on ministries they enjoy doing even when these programs are no longer meeting the needs of non-churchgoers. As a result, Cure T is absolutely critical for church health. Therefore, be aware that three tactics will be needed:

Refocusing: Some of a church’s programs will need to be refocused to better meet the needs of non-churchgoers.
Creating: Some programs will need to be created to meet the needs of non-churchgoers.

Refocusing & Creating Ministries: The A-B-C-D Approach

The key to refocusing or creating ministry is to:

Assemble both canvassers and ministry leaders.

The goal is to compile a master list of needs and draw connections to existing ministries or create new ministries that could meet those needs.
A convener (i.e. chairperson) should be selected. This will usually be a staff person or the leader of the canvassers. She or he will oversee the A-B-C-D steps.
Convene both canvassers and church ministry leaders as soon as possible after the canvassing. Some churches will conduct their canvass on Sunday or Saturday morning and then meet that afternoon. This can allow leaders to consider the results while the conversations are fresh in their minds

Brainstorm a master list of needs.

When the canvassers convene after their canvass, everyone shares the needs jotted down.
From these lists they create a master list of needs (i.e. those that reoccur with the most frequency on the canvassers’ personal lists).
Combine similar needs into categories.
Column 2 of Figure 2.8 illustrates how a master list of needs might be categorized from the sample in Figure 2.7.

Correlate needs to ministries the church offers or can start.

Just as you brainstormed a master list of categories, now it is time to brainstorm a list of ministries you can refocus or launch to meet needs in each category.
Put these ministry ideas in Column 3 of Figure 2.8.

Distribute your list of refocused or created ministries (Figure 2.8) to church leaders.

Send this list to all department heads and ministry leaders.
Ask them to look over your suggestions in the right column of Figure 2.8 and add their own.
Ask them to report back in 30 days with their responses of how their ministry can be refocused to better meet community needs.
The report will be received by the staff person or convener who oversees the canvass.

To see the Figures and read the rest of the chapter, download the chapter (not for public distribution) by clicking here: BOOK ©Whitesel EXCERPT – CURE Chpt 2 HOW OUT

(And, if you enjoyed this chapter, please support the publisher and author by purchasing a copy. Thank you.)

INNOVATION & How To END a Ministry That Has Outlived Its Usefulness #ChurchCureBook

CUR_xE T = Tackle Needs by Ending Ministry Programs.

Article by Bob Whitesel, excerpted from CURE FOR THE COMMON CHURCH: God’s Plan to Restore Church Health (2012), pp. 42-56 (download the chapter below):

Ending Ministry: 3 Guidelines

As noted, some ministries may need to be ended. This is especially important when volunteers need to be redeployed into ministries that better meet the needs of non-churchgoers.

One example comes from a client church. This church had a group of ladies that meet Wednesday afternoons to knit quilts, which they then sold to raise funds for missionaries. The missionaries were appreciative, but the efforts raised little funds. The ladies mostly enjoyed the fellowship and felt they were supporting outreach. A canvas of the community found that many of the two-wage residents needed after school child care. Armed with this information, the leader of the canvass asked the Wednesday knitting group to consider hosting a play and tutor time from 3-5:30 pm once a month (the time during which they typically knitted). Community residents and children so enjoyed these afternoons with their newly adopted “grandmas” (and the senior ladies enjoyed it, too) that this ministry soon replaced the weekly knitting circle.

Still, there are three criteria that must be met when ending ministry and redeploying volunteer skills.

Guideline 1: Redeploy People. Volunteers involved in a ministry that is ending must clearly see a redeployment for their skills and fellowship. The knitting circle became an afterschool team of surrogate “grandmas.” At first the knitting circle was hesitant, but once they saw that their skills and fellowship would be preserved, they relinquished one ministry to launch another.
Guideline 2: Move slowly. Most people will need time to process the end of their ministry as well as the value of diverting their skills. One of the key lessons of research into church change is that leaders often doom the change process by proceeding too quickly (i.e. not giving congregants enough time to grapple with the change).[i]
Guideline 3: ADD if you can’t subtract. If you can’t end it, leave it and add something else. Some people are so wrapped up in their ministry that they cannot envision ever doing anything else. While it might not be the most desirable tactic, if ending a ministry is causing too much division or grief it is best to leave the ministry and launch something new. Many a church leader has become bogged down trying to end something, when that energy might have been better spent launching something new.

Fill in Figure 2.9 to ensure you meet all three guidelines when ending a ministry.

Remember, ending ministry may be the most difficult and thorny task you undertake in growing a church O.U.T. But remember, if ending a ministry becomes too problematic, it is best to begin something new.

To see the Figures and read the rest of the chapter, download the chapter (not for public distribution) by clicking here: BOOK ©Whitesel EXCERPT – CURE Chpt 2 HOW OUT

(And, if you enjoyed this chapter, please support the publisher and author by purchasing a copy. Thank you.)

[i] For more on why leaders must go slower than they wish when implementing change, see “Go Slowly, Build Consensus and Succeed” in Bob Whitesel, Preparing for Change Reaction: How To Introduce Change in Your Church (Indianapolis: Wesleyan Publishing House, 2007), pp. 151-169 and Staying Power: Why People Leave the Church Over Change And What You Can Do About It (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2002).

#FlintFirst

LEADERS and MANAGERS & What Is The Difference (Part 2) by John Kotter

Commentary by Dr. Whitesel: “One of the first exercises in my leadership course is to have students study the difference between leadership and management. As this article by John Kotter points out, both are required in a successful leader. Yet students seem to prefer studying leadership and overlook the critical ability to put leadership ideas into action by developing management skills too. Here in another seminal article on the importance of leadership and management, John Kotter not only talks about the difference but also how good leaders must develop both.”

MANAGEMENT & What Peter Drucker Knew About 2020 #ORGANIXbook #HarvardBusinessReview

Commentary by Dr. Whitesel: “Peter Drucker said that every hundred years or so society reinvents itself due to some new innovation. The shift to an electronic, information society is apparently what he foresaw. Read this article to understand important shifts such as:

1) embrace employee autonomy,
2) build a learning organization,
3) actively prune what is past its time,
4) create a sense of purpose
5) and remember be more mindful of those left behind.”

For details, read Rick Wartzman’s overview in HBR.

LEADERS and MANAGERS & What Is the Difference?

Commentary by Dr. Whitesel: “This seminal article explains the difference between leaders and managers … and why you need both. Based upon 80,000 interviews with managers and leaders by the Gallup organization, this research shows leadership deals with setting the vision, while management is helping people develop so they can work together and reach that vision. The church has a lot of leaders – but few managers, so that there’s a lot of visions – without clear plans to attain them. Below are several quotes that define the difference between leadership and management.”

LEADERS: “Great leaders discover what is universal and capitalize on it. Their job is to rally people towards a better future. Leaders can succeed in this only when they can cut through differences of race, sex, age, nationality and personality, and using stories and celebrated heroes, tap into those very few needs we all share.”

MANAGERS: “Managers will succeed only when they can identify and deploy the differences among people, challenging each employee to excel in his or her own way.”

You can be BOTH: “That doesn’t mean a leader can’t be a manager or vice a versa. But to excel at one or both you must be aware of the very different skills each role requires…”

Click on the thumbnails to begin reading…

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CHANGE & Kotter’s 8 Steps to Transforming Your Organization

Commentary by Dr. Whitesel: This is Kotter’s seminal 1995 article and #InfoGraphic on change and the best overview of this Harvard professor’s change methods. There are some weaknesses that have subsequently been discovered, such as the importance of also using a story or narrative to make the change occur (see Scott Wicher’s work). And Kotter does not take into account the power of organizational culture (see Mary Jo Hatch for more on this). But this is still the best introduction to John Kotter’s popular change methods. See especially the attached multi-step infographic.”

Speaking hashtags: #CaribbeanGraduateSchoolofTheology #6:15-2016

ChurchLeadership.wiki

A Wiki- on Church Health & Growth Curated by Bob Whitesel D.Min. Ph.D.

Tag Archives for management

LEADERSHIP vs MANAGEMENT & Why every leader needs to have a manager and Steve Jobs’ success at Apple was because he realized it.