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July 31, 2019
Those activities may create connections, strengthen affinities and even conceive friendships. But only “meaningful work together” develops the kinds of relationships that will endure into uncharted territory.
ministry together is how God makes a congregation into a corps that is ready to continually bring the gospel in new ways to a changing world.
the goal of the Christian faith is not simply to become more loving community but to be a community of people who participate in God’s mission to heal the world by reestablishing his loving reign “on earth as it is in heaven.”
The most critical attribute a congregation must have to thrive in uncharted territory is a healthy organizational culture.
Organizational culture, as defined by John Kotter, is the “group norms of behavior and the underlying shared values that help keep those norms in place.”
In short, organizational culture is “the way we do things around here.”
organizational culture is usually set by the founders of the group and reinforced through success.
these become part of the DNA of the church only when they are so resiliently present that they happen automatically, by default, because all aspects of the organizational life reflexively support and reinforce them.
No matter how much power and authority you perceive resides in your title or position, no matter how eloquently you articulate the call of God and the needs of the world, no matter how well you strategize, plan and pray, the actual behaviors of the congregation—the default functioning, the organizational DNA—dominate in times of stress and change.
“Today’s problems are from yesterday’s solutions.”
“After working on strategy for 20 years, I can say this: culture will trump strategy, every time. The best strategic idea means nothing in isolation. If the strategy conflicts with how a group of people already believe, behave or make decisions it will fail.”
three critical elements in the leader’s own functioning for contributing to a healthy organizational culture: clarity, embodiment and love.
shared values are the organization.
the primary work of technical leadership is clarifying and reinforcing shared values.
It is a great paradox that love is not only the key to establishing and maintaining a healthy culture but is also the critical ingredient for changing a culture.
What if the behaviors of the leaders have created a culture of entitlement rather than discipleship?
“You don’t change by looking in the mirror; you change by encountering differences.”
“You change the DNA of any living organism through birthing something new. The new birth won’t be all you or all them but a new creation, a new living culture that is a combination of the past and the future you represent. But you have to communicate that you really love them, or they will never let you close enough to them to take in the different perspective, experiences and vision that you bring.
When leaders are perceived as technically competent, they gain credibility in the eyes of their followers. When they are perceived as relationally congruent, trust is established. When credibility and trust are mobilized to create a healthy organizational culture, then we are ready to embrace the thrilling and daunting task of entering uncharted territory.
Adaptive leadership is about “letting go, learning as we go, and keeping going.”
adaptive work pays attention to the deeper underlying causes that keep a group perilously perched in a state of inaction.
This mode of leading raises up and sheds light on the competing values that keep a group stuck in the status quo. For churches, competing values like caring for longtime members versus reaching out to the unchurched, assuring excellence in ministry programming versus increasing participation with more volunteers, giving pay raises to staff versus bringing on a new hire, assuring control and unity versus collaboration and innovation entail conflict about things of equal or near equal value.
What will we lose if we have to choose one of these values over the other? What must we be willing to let go?
When the tried-and-true solutions to our
problems don’t work, we get stuck.
This is when the transformational leader mobilizes a group toward the growth they will need in order to face the disorientation and find the capacity to reframe their shared identity in a new expression of their shared mission.
ask questions that reveal competing values and gaps in values and actions
raise up the deeper issues at work in a community explore and confront resistance and sabotage learn and change without sacrificing personal or organizational fidelity
help the congregation make hard, often painful decisions to effectively fulfill their mis...
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we were talking about it, because it was the only thing we knew how to do.
when we get to moments of deep disorientation, we often try to reorient around old ways of doing things. We go back to what we know how to do.
We keep canoeing even though there is no river.
we cling to the previously held assumptions as long as possible.
This is who we are, we say. If we stop being about this, we stop being.
At the heart of every leadership challenge beat deeper identity questions that demand answers.
In adaptive leadership, reframing is another way of talking about the shift in values, expectations, attitudes or habits of behavior necessary to face our most difficult challenges.
A reframe, while vital, isn’t enough to bring the deep, systemic changes necessary.
if your group is addressing a new challenge with an old solution, relying on a best practice or implementing the plan of a resident expert, then the solution is a technical one, not adaptive.
When a leader and a people together resist the anxiety that would lead to throwing in the towel or relying on the quick fix, but instead look more deeply—recommitting to core values, reframing strategy and relying on learning—this enables them to gain
the just-in-time experience necessary to keep the expedition going.
At the heart of adaptive leadership for the church is this conviction: The church is the body of Christ. It is a living organism, a vibrant system.
But leadership vision is often more about seeing clearly what is even more than what will be.
“The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality.”
This system definition is assumed in the working definition of leadership we are using here: Energizing a community of people toward their own transformation in order to accomplish a shared mission in the face of a changing world.
different people connect to the code of different churches: “Code is like a magnet in that it attracts people who resonate with it and are eager to be part of a similarly committed community.”10
This whole discussion about DNA, code and systems thinking is a way to understand the nature of the challenge we face in adaptive leadership.
the core questions and the potential new solutions are always systemic issues that require the body to adapt in a way consistent to its DNA or code.
Your members will resist any change that is in conflict with the church’s code. But they will also resist change if they don’t perceive that leaders are intentionally preserving the church’s code. By discovering and preserving your church’s code, you will give your members a sense of safety so that they will be more open to change.
People will be more open to change if they know that you understand and value who they are—even if they are not conscious of their own connection to the code.11
“must never change”?
