You have spent time checking out your own cognitive road map, assumptions about leadership and being a “change agent.” You understand the significance of multiple realities and perceptions. Masterfully and sometimes with plain dumb luck you have sidestepped several potholes in joining and establishing trust with members of your congregation. You are now ready to place your “fingerprint” on the next phase of the change process.
Former School Psychologist, current Pastor and Church Consultant Betsy Waters has developed a tool for assessing and locating your leaders in three areas regarding change and redevelopment. They are Personal Energy and Commitment, Levels of Urgency and Tolerance for Risk. Often in my consulting work, I will find leadership that has solid scores on every facet except for risk tolerance. When change results in conflict or the loss of church friends, folk can begin to lose courage and seek to pull the plug on change efforts. If your leadership scores are substantially low in all three areas, then your leadership needs to create an awareness of “more pain and dissatisfaction” or co-create a more compelling vision of the future.
My mentors over at Options for Change created the following formula (www.optionsforchange.com).
Former School Psychologist, current Pastor and Church Consultant Betsy Waters has developed a tool for assessing and locating your leaders in three areas regarding change and redevelopment. They are Personal Energy and Commitment, Levels of Urgency and Tolerance for Risk. Often in my consulting work, I will find leadership that has solid scores on every facet except for risk tolerance. When change results in conflict or the loss of church friends, folk can begin to lose courage and seek to pull the plug on change efforts. If your leadership scores are substantially low in all three areas, then your leadership needs to create an awareness of “more pain and dissatisfaction” or co-create a more compelling vision of the future.
My mentors over at Options for Change created the following formula (www.optionsforchange.com).
C = D x V x F x S > R
Lasting change equals dissatisfactions with the present, times leadership future vision, times engaging first steps, times sustaining support systems, and all of the previously stated must be greater than the resistance to change.
This formula frames the issue of motivation and the change process. Human beings are motivated by pleasure and pain. Provided with enough pain, a person will be motivated to change in order to avoid high levels of dissatisfaction. The hope of a compelling future with meaning, connection and pleasure is a motivational source with magnetic pulling power. Pain (how it is) pushes us to a process of envisioning how things can be different. Meaning and pleasure creates a pull forward into the imagined and dreamed of future (how it can be).
In my first church, a family had been received from a Vietnam refugee camp a decade plus before my arrival. They arranged for low income housing through their church owned property. Over the years the house fell into disrepair. A stream ran through the basement and the kitchen sink was emptying directly into it (failing septic system). After inspecting the house, it was clear that we had a problem. As I was walking through the house, it was apparent that these years of property neglect and deferred maintenance had created unacceptable living conditions. Out of gratitude and a rent of $150 per month, the family wasn't about to become a squeaky wheel.
Conversations had to be engaged concerning these conditions. Taking a “one up” posture of influence and creating a crisis with a “take no prisoners” approach could have been attempted. Labels could have been used like “slum landlords” and “benign neglect.” My strategy of influence was more incremental and a side-by-side posture of influence (making observation and engaging in dialogue).
This formula frames the issue of motivation and the change process. Human beings are motivated by pleasure and pain. Provided with enough pain, a person will be motivated to change in order to avoid high levels of dissatisfaction. The hope of a compelling future with meaning, connection and pleasure is a motivational source with magnetic pulling power. Pain (how it is) pushes us to a process of envisioning how things can be different. Meaning and pleasure creates a pull forward into the imagined and dreamed of future (how it can be).
In my first church, a family had been received from a Vietnam refugee camp a decade plus before my arrival. They arranged for low income housing through their church owned property. Over the years the house fell into disrepair. A stream ran through the basement and the kitchen sink was emptying directly into it (failing septic system). After inspecting the house, it was clear that we had a problem. As I was walking through the house, it was apparent that these years of property neglect and deferred maintenance had created unacceptable living conditions. Out of gratitude and a rent of $150 per month, the family wasn't about to become a squeaky wheel.
Conversations had to be engaged concerning these conditions. Taking a “one up” posture of influence and creating a crisis with a “take no prisoners” approach could have been attempted. Labels could have been used like “slum landlords” and “benign neglect.” My strategy of influence was more incremental and a side-by-side posture of influence (making observation and engaging in dialogue).
My leadership “spotlight” shined on this issue through sermons, newsletters, individual and board meeting conversations. I intentionally avoided using language of blame and invited folk to view the situation through the lens of assessment and mission (how it is and what it could be). Within a year we had helped facilitate a process where the family was able to move out and purchase their own home in the community. In that time we had to face the hard and unpopular process of letting go of the known connection of landlords/rescuers to a yet to be defined relationship.
This approach avoided a potential escalation of conflict and polarization. However, in different circumstances a crisis induction intervention may have been necessary. In my model of “creating change” there is a belief that every move and strategy has both elements of constraint and strength. The goal is to be aware of both sides of any attempt to create influence.
Coming up next: Change Strategy, Congregational Culture and Alignment.
This approach avoided a potential escalation of conflict and polarization. However, in different circumstances a crisis induction intervention may have been necessary. In my model of “creating change” there is a belief that every move and strategy has both elements of constraint and strength. The goal is to be aware of both sides of any attempt to create influence.
Coming up next: Change Strategy, Congregational Culture and Alignment.
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