The Management Guru and the “Brethren”
by Lawrence Downing
By Lawrence Downing, October 17, 2013
I read with interest that management guru Gary Hamel has been invited by General Conference leadership to assist them and other church administrators strategic planning. This invitation brought to mind another occasion when Neal C. Wilson, then president of the General Conference, invited another management guru, Prof. Paul Cone, Ph.D., to evaluate the GC management process and offer his suggestions.
After extensive evaluation and interviews with personnel on all levels of the organization, Paul submitted his findings to President Wilson. His conclusions and recommendations included the following:
Leadership Skills: Administrators must develop and exercise the following skills: Conceptual, Analytical, Human, Management of the Conversion and Transformation Process.*
“Executive skills,” he continued, “are applied primarily to the strategic planning function where effectiveness is dependent upon: Scanning and forecasting the external environment, finding opportunities to serve (services and markets), and adapting to threats and constraints. Resource allocations which promote the mission, priorities and performance. A cohesive organization system and structures which provide synergism. Good representation and satisfaction of constituencies (good communication and performance.) A demanding but fair performance evaluation system (including independent audit). Administrative climate for growth and innovation. The human resource is the only resource which can become more valuable over time—leaders provide the climate for growth, innovation, and performance. A reputation for and an example of fairness and commitment.”
In another section, Dr. Cone addressed organizational structure.
“Changes in the environment demand changes in strategy and the organization structure. We need to mold the church into a system which is best suited to the environment. We need to study, besides Scripture and theology, management and organization which meet the needs of our environment. To be effective in a turbulent environment requires identifying the mission, organization structure change, programs which relate to specific environments, good methods and sound resource deployment.
“Every organization must not only adapt to environment change but seek renewal. All organizations go through life cycle stages and reach a declining stage unless changes (primarily leadership and organization) occur to generate renewal.”
“Although the chief aim of the church is spiritual in nature, it is God’s church—not the administrators. Church leaders are too often content with ‘business as usual’ or even superficial work. Instead of building organizations to grow, most church leaders patch up weak points, fight fires when they break out and drift in to ‘paths of least resistance.” Sincerity or praying is not enogh. Most churches wast an incredible amount of resources, especially human resources (paid and volunteer,) time (especially in committee meetings), and ineffective effort (poor or no priorities.)
Addressing the church organization levels, Prof. Cone wrote, “The administrative home for the local church should be the local conference—this might be likened to the territorial division….Functional staff should be located here—not at the region nor at headquarters.”
In addressing the matter of denominational headquarters, Paul observed, “This is the legal corporation for the denomination where top leaders serve. Their function is primarily strategic planning, but not operating. Operating administration should be left to the local conference. Functional staff should be very lean and service the needs of headquarter leaders—not the field.”
Paul’s recommendations related to the Office of the President included the following: This office “…will contain the president who will be in charge of strategic planning for the denomination, along with two or more regional vice presidents who will be responsible for liaison with the regions. This way the president’s span of control will be reduced to a workable number.
It is recommended that a Strategic Planning Committee (which is really a permanent task force…) be chaired by the president. Those on the committee should be line personnel—the regional vice presidents. This satisfies the requirement that the people who will be implementing should be involved in saying exactly what that plan should be….The purpose of this committee is to keep the work of the church coordinated and integrate, monitor performance, and make any necessary adjustments to plan or performance.”
Addressing the operational functions of the church organization, Paul made these recommendations: “The same person should never be the president and the chairman of the board, unless it is a family-owned company. Open communication in board meetings is hindered when the president is the chairman, because he is the leader of about half of the board members (in the case of the current structure, the chairman is leader for most of the board members.) When the board chairman and the chief executive (president in this case) are one and the same, it confuses two different jobs and weakens the role of its directors.”
The report contained significant other recommendations and observations that Dr. Cone presented to President Wilson and the GC committee. At the conclusion of his presentation, Paul reported the following response: “At the end, the denomination’s president stood and expressed appreciation but said, ‘You are from the corporate world, and you don’t understand that your ideas will not work in a church.’ End of conversation and of any prospect for constructive change.”
Here’s the question: Will Mr. Hamel’s presentation and the response from the GC administration be de je vue all over again? Time will tell.
*The quoted material comes from a 1998 Ministry magazine article co-authored by Downing and Dr. Cone.
Probably the Number One reason why the membership in North America is increasingly suspicious of church leadership is the history of managerial incompetence by leadership and deflection of that criticism by remarks such as the one you quoted from Neal Wilson.
Corporations often hire consultants to show them how they can improve. Most often the action is "window dressing" that produces little or no result because the recommendations are overcome by the corporate culture, disbelief in the ability to change, fear of what impacts will result from implementing the changes, etc. Basically, the older the business or organization, the greater the ability of the corporate culture and operating structures to resist change.
What is often most effective at causing change in an older operating culture is the general realization of failure and threat to existence. There is nothing quite so stimulating as recognizing that you must change or find other work to stimulate change. Unfortunately, when that threat is realized people often become defensive and accusations begin flying charging cause for the failure with the result that the change needed to enable survival never gets implemented. So, at a minimum, the church will pay the consultant for his services and store the report in the circular file. Doing this will preserve all the problems, allow the mistrust of leadership to keep growing and increase the general long-term threat to the potential effectiveness of the church.
Paul Cone's recommendations sound like a lot of consultant speak to me. It's a very top-down, bureaucrat driven model. I am greatly surprised that anyone would task the President of the G.C. with primary responsibility for strategic planning. That function may or may not fit within the skill sets that a president brings to the job. I see the president's job in any corporation as primarily executive. Hire the right people to implement vision, as conceived by the BOD, and mission, as developed by proven quality strategic planners. And when that corporation is a church, don't expect much movement, because church movement doesn't happen and grow at the systemic, institutional level where consultants feed and thrive.
I would also tend to question an uncorroborated statement by Paul Cone regarding the response he received from Neal Wilson. I'm not saying it didn't happen. But with as many people as must have been present when the statement was made, it seems like there ought to be someone else who can confirm that it was made before we accept it as factual. Furthermore, it seems to me that it would be most inappropriate for the consultant to report statements or actions by his clients in a private committee meeting, without permission. Such a disclosure would lead me to question the integrity and motivations of the consultant. And I can readily suspect that a consultant, whose services were not retained to implement his brilliant strategy, might feel a bit miffed and inclined to emotionally embellish what was actually said.
The reality is that consultants know who hires and pays them, and they know who builds or destroys their reputations. So what they usually come up with is not very critical of the top level management that hires them. In fact, hiring consultants is often a wonderful way for executives of a corporation to make themselves look visionary and capable. I have often suspected – and Paul Cone's recommendations certainly confirm that suspicion – that consultants have programmed into their computers default fields full of platitudes and slogans that can be cut, pasted, and modified to fit any corporate setting. Can you imagine a consultant hired by management of a company coming in and saying, "Leadership is dysfunctional and ill-equipped to lead this company; it needs to go."? More often, the consultant works closely with top leadership, and his recommendations will at best result in "new wine for old wineskins."
So Larry, in my opinion, even if Neal Wilson had expressed glowing admiration for Paul Cone's recommendations, and even if those recommendations had been structurally implemented, nothing would have changed. Nor do I think Gary Hamel's efforts will produce meaningful change, regardless of how seriously they are taken. Why? Because systemic changes will not produce meaningful change as long as mindsets, interpersonal dynamics, and culture within an institution do not change. As long as SDAs look toward Washington D.C. to see how God is working and leading, the future of the institutional Church is very dim.
i agree totally with William re: his analysis, and also think Nathan has a good understanding of contracted Consultants from outside the hierarchy culture. When this occurs it is that management is seeking approval for their excellent shepherdering of the enterprise, from an outside team of experts, when the hierarchy is under attack from within. It is to deflect and avert the problem areas, usually giving some notice of the recommendations, and state we are studying the areas highlighted, and if feasible, fine tune the organization. We will comment further as necessary—–as William said, as they enter the report into the circularfiling cabinet. This end result is of course known by the hierarchy before they issue the contract, and the cost is worth it, to gain time as the heat will assume something constructive was accomplished. There has been some new strategty thathas been effective recently by malcontents, utilizing the insider "Whistle Blower" intelligence reporting of wrong doing by management, causing great consternation of embarrassment, and hefty payouts and penalties. Not certain if this would happen in a Church organization, as the Rank and File usually give the dog a good name, so as not to bring negative attention to the church at large. Cover up is the game.
It reminds me of years ago when working for Life & Health, the editor's office brought in a Christian consulting firm that could have made the magazine a top seller at the time when health magazines were just getting popular. But an R&H administrator didn't want to make the initial investment (and possibly didn't want to deal with nonSDAs). They let the magazine nearly die, and it stayed small for many years. The consultants felt it could have been on newstands everywhere.
For the last few years they are looking good, but with so many other health magazines out there, circulation is low and the subs are more expensive than others.
Ella,
How interesting that you worked at at Life & Health! I don't recall if I ever wrote anything for that magazine, but I did several articles for the retitled version, Vibrant Life. I have fond memories of doing one about the fitness program used by the Dallas Cowboys. Visiting their training camp and meeting some of the players was a real thrill for me.
Being short-sighted has cost the church a number of great opportunities. Remember the old Five-Day Plan to Stop Smoking? It was the best program of its kind for many years, but has long since been surpassed by competitors. Where the church once was recognized for effectiveness it has faded into irrelevance.