Transcript No Slide Title

Spiritual Leadership
During Times of Change
Dr. Richard McCorry
Leading Change
INTRODUCTIONS
“There is nothing more difficult to plan, more
doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to
manage than the creation of a new order of things
. . .Whenever his enemies
have the ability to attack
the innovator, they do so
with the passion of
partisans, while the others
defend him sluggishly, so that the innovator and
his party alike are vulnerable.”
Niccolo Machiavelli. 1469-1527.
Program Hopes
1. To identify better where each of us is personally
with regard to change and its effects.
2. Provide us with a new and positive way of
looking at change so it works to our advantage.
3. To provide the church leader with some tools to
help them positively move their churches through
change.
4. To give us a way to encounter the presence of
God in the midst of transition and change.
Dancing with Change
Change
Responsiveness
Survey
Dancing with Change
Responsiveness to Change
Early Adaptors 10%
Slow Adaptors
10% Never Change
80%
Change Resistance
• To lower resistance to change
– Increase dissatisfaction with
status quo
– Provide significant vision
Are You Comfortable Where You Are?
CHANGE WHERE YOU
ARE SITTING.
NOW!
Change Quickly
Preferably in
ne Minute
How Do You Feel
When You Are
Told To Change Quickly
But Do Not Know Why?
Change Imposed is Change Opposed
Change Resistance
• To lower resistance to change
– Increase dissatisfaction with
status quo
– Provide significant vision
– Don’t surprise people.
– Provide doable next steps
Change Leader
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Motivating strategies leaders use to lower
resistance to change (the Four P’s)
– Pummel - do this or die - short term and for
emergencies only
– Pamper - do whatever you feel like doing not leadership - only minimal changes rarely last
– Push - fear and pain oriented - do this or the
ministry will die - moderate long term
change
– Pull - do this and achieve your dreams
Change Leader
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Personal preparation for leader of change
initiative:
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listening for God’s voice
rest and recharge, mentally and physically
practice spiritual disciplines
revisit God’s mission for the church
conduct honest self-assessment
personal accountability - i.e., spiritual direction
proactively address problems
find the right pace
Change Leader
Key Challenge
Carving out the time necessary to
discern God’s voice and living with
the tension that creates.
Leading Change
Best Practices
Change Process
Guiding principles:
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Confront reality
Identify and confront strategic levers
Build a powerful mandate for change
Establish a reasonable scope
Involve the target group in the change
Identify stakeholders
Change Process
Guiding principles:
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Communicate well
Measure results
Involve God & faith
Consider training needed
Plan your work and work your plan
Put it all together
One Change Process
Heart
Head
Hands
Prayer
Assemble Dream Team
Vision
Create Tension
Plan Change
Plan Transition
Communication
Implementation
Follow Through
Dream Team
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Ideal qualities:
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Diversity
Standing in the church
Spiritual maturity
Ability to make meaningful contributions
Willing to support right changes
Appropriate staff representation
Generally should be builder, progressives,
and creators with moderate and above
levels of influence
Dream Team
 Address decision making and leadership
issues up front
 Provide necessary training
 Take time to build community
 Have each member describe their hopes
and dreams.
 Key challenge - creating an environment
in which challenge and diversity leads to
collaboration and commitment.
Dream Team
Identify your Dream Team
Vision
Process steps for determining vision
 Find the right setting - i.e., a retreat, this should not be
treated as just another meeting.
 Pray
 Start from the right perspective - this is not the people’s
vision for the community but God’s vision for the
community.
 Seek input
 Determine what is negotiable and what is nonnegotiable - separate form from essence.
 Write first draft
Vision
Process steps for determining vision
 Write first draft
 Consider blind spots – consider outside consultant to
help with this
 Engage in a dialogue about the vision.
 Seek private feedback.
 Revise/second draft
 Obtain public feedback
 Develop consensus
Vision
What might the vision statement
for your parish look like?
Vision
Evaluating a vision statement
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It has heart
It provides a picture of desire
It provides a way out of today’s discomforts
It is full of hope
It provides a reason for unity
It provides God’s direction
It is powerful
Creative Tension
 Creating energy for change
 Contrasting God’s ideal with an
accurate assessment of reality
Creative Tension
Measuring current effectiveness:
1. Traditional: attendance & money
2. Non-Traditional: excellence & customer satisfaction
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Surveys - event feedback
Interviewing newcomers and regulars
Focus groups
Ministry inventory - list all events, programs and meetings,
compare with list of church values, and rate each on this
scale of five:
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Not vital, consider eliminating
Is this really needed?
Needs to be made more effective?
Good program, can it be improved?
What else can we do that is this effective?
Creative Tension
Processes that sustain creative tension
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acknowledge that tension is necessary
allow others to share the tension
develop conflict management skills
continue to clarify the vision
take care of yourself
Plan Change
Improvement plan considerations
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Who will we serve?
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What will we need?
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What ministry and administrative processes will we
need?
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What people and reward system will we need?
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What structure/facilities/technology will we need?
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How will we measure our progress? Reward what you
measure
Plan Change
Improvement plan considerations
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Measuring considerations
† Relevance
† Reliability
† Availability
† Accountability
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For major changes - begin incrementally and respect
readiness
Plan Transition
Plan Transition
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What steps are necessary to get from where we are to
where we want to be?
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How much time should we take to implement these
changes – general rule: the greater the change the
longer the time necessary for people to adapt to the
change. Also, larger organizations take longer to
change than smaller ones.
Plan Transition
Plan Transition
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Transition time provides:
– Opportunity for growth
– Opportunity to confront issues of:
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Power
Control
Selfishness
Letting go of the past
Personal preferences
Mourning loss of comfort
Communication
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What needs to be communicated?
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The vision - under communicating is one of
the major causes of a plan failing.
The current assessment of reality - People
need to know the reason(s) behind
change.
The change plan.
The transition plan.
Status updates.
Communication
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Steps and considerations
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Pace – the rate at which people can
absorb new information.
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Personality - different learning style
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Develop an explicit communication
strategy
Communication
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Steps and considerations
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Be creative – communication about change
requires more than just a sermon and
bulletin article – consider:
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Small group discussion
Drama
Music
Special newsletter(s)
Video
Web site
Communication
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Steps and considerations
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Use the dream team for this too.
Develop a unique vocabulary which has
special meaning for your parish.
Repeat, repeat, repeat
Seek feedback to see if the communication
is getting through.
Answering questions that people have.
Implementation
A specific set of coordinated, high
leveraged activities which move the parish
toward the realization of God’s plan.
Key challenge - coordinating multiple,
concurrent action plans and achieving the
right pace for the process, in consideration
of resource limitations, congregational
attitudes, and urgency.
Implementation
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Considerations
a. Be clear about priorities
b. Plan before acting
c. Treat each new initiative as an
experiment.
d. Measure, measure, measure
e. align gifts with needs
Implementation
1.
Considerations
f. Support those responsible for new
initiatives by empowering change
leaders - cultivate a broader base of
committed leaders and remove the
barriers that would prevent them from
serving effectively.
Implementation
The Rollout checklist for any change
initiative:
 Assess readiness
 Create a change-receptive culture
 Confront reality/sell the problem
 Teach values underlying
improvements
 Make spiritual preparation
Implementation
The Rollout checklist for any change
initiative:
 Pray
 Nurture
 Develop the improvement team
and implement the transition and
change plan
 Celebrate the past; say good-bye
Implementation
The Rollout checklist for any change
initiative:
 Count down to the kickoff; start
 Weeding - dealing with conflict
 Fertilizing - persevering;
troubleshooting
 Watering - testimonials; early
success stories
Implementation
The Rollout checklist for any change
initiative:
 Adopting the new thing
 Celebrating victories; using
momentum
 Doing it again; the learning
church
Follow Through
Total integration of the change into
the organizational and congregational
life of the church.
Key challenge - creating an
environment where widespread
commitment to follow God’s vision
overshadows fears of continuous
change.
Follow Through
Steps and considerations
 Recast the vision
 Celebrate victories
 Identify and implement new high
leverage action plans
 Align existing ministries with the
vision
 Establish internal monitoring posts
Follow Through
Steps and considerations
 Address specific pockets of resistance
 Continue monitoring the outside
community
 Define an ongoing role for the dream
team
 Never stop – promote a culture of
continuous improvement and
excellence. Perfection is the ideal we
strive towards.
One Change Process
Heart
Head
Hands
Prayer
Assemble Dream Team
Vision
Create Tension
Plan Change
Plan Transition
Communication
Implementation
Follow Through
New Wineskins
Jesus: The
Quintessential
Change Agent
New Wineskins
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Spiritual tools Jesus used to
adapt to changes around him:
Prayer & Solitude (Mt 14:16, Lk 5:16,
Jn 6:15)
Compassion (Mt 14:14)
Obedience - the agony in the garden
(Mt 26:39)
Had intimates
New Wineskins
Spiritual tools Jesus used to lead change:
. Started by preparing himself [submitted to
John's baptism (Mt 3:3-17) and then immediately
afterwards went off into the desert alone for forty
days (Mt 4:1-10)].
. Brought together a small group and began teaching
them how to take over when he was gone.
. Broke with the accepted customs of his day in
order to get people’s attention for teaching [e.g.,
encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well
(Jn 4:7-26)]
New Wineskins
Spiritual tools Jesus used to lead change:
Taught large groups using parables (metaphors).
Creatively used conflict as a way of teaching.
- Fundamental - with the devil (Mt 4:1-11)
- Unavoidable - with the religious authorities of
the day (Mk 2:7, 2:16)
- Essential - with his disciples, opportunities to
teach (Mk 9:34, 10:42-45)
- Incidental - those he avoided because they had
nothing to do with his mission (Mk 3:21, Lk 4:29).
Seven Rules of Change
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People act out of self interest
People are not inherently antichange, most will embrace
change which has a positive meaning for them.
People thrive when challenged but wilt under negative
pressure
People believe what they see - actions speak louder than
words
People are different - there is no “one size fits all” answer
to change.
To bring about effective long term change - 1st visualize
what youwant to accomplish then live this visualization
until it becomes a reality.
Change begins with an act of the imagination - until you
engage the imagination, no important change can occur.