Spiritual Leadership During Times of Change

1
Spiritual Leadership During Times of Change

• Dr. Richard McCorry

2
Leading Change

• INTRODUCTIONS

3
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.
4
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.
• To provide the church leader with some tools to
  help them positively move their churches through
  change.
• To give us a way to encounter the presence of God
  in the midst of transition and change.

5
(No Transcript)
6
(No Transcript)
7
(No Transcript)
8
(No Transcript)
9
(No Transcript)
10
(No Transcript)
11
(No Transcript)
12
(No Transcript)
13
(No Transcript)
14
Dancing with Change
Change Responsiveness Survey
15
Dancing with Change
16
Early Adaptors
Never Change
Slow Adaptors
17
Change Resistance

• To lower resistance to change
• Increase dissatisfaction with status quo
• Provide significant vision

18
Are You Comfortable Where You Are?
CHANGE WHERE YOU ARE SITTING. NOW!
19
How Do You Feel When You Are Told To Change
Quickly But Do Not Know Why?
Change Imposed is Change Opposed
20
Change Resistance

• To lower resistance to change
• Increase dissatisfaction with status quo
• Provide significant vision
• Dont surprise people.
• Provide doable next steps

21
Change Leader

• Motivating strategies leaders use to lower
  resistance to change (the Four Ps)
• 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

22
Change Leader

• Personal preparation for leader of change
  initiative
• listening for Gods voice
• rest and recharge, mentally and physically
• practice spiritual disciplines
• revisit Gods mission for the church
• conduct honest self-assessment
• personal accountability - i.e., spiritual
  direction
• proactively address problems
• find the right pace

23
Change Leader

• Key Challenge
• Carving out the time necessary to discern Gods
  voice and living with the tension that creates.

24
Leading Change

• Best Practices

25
Change Process

• Guiding principles
• 1. Confront reality
• 2. Identify and confront strategic levers
• 3. Build a powerful mandate for change
• 4. Establish a reasonable scope
• Involve the target group in the change
• Identify stakeholders

26
Change Process

• Guiding principles
• 7. Communicate well
• 8. Measure results
• 9. Involve God faith
• 10. Consider training needed
• 11. Plan your work and work your plan
• 12. Put it all together

27
One Change Process
Heart Prayer Assemble Dream Team Vision
Head Create Tension Plan Change Plan Transition
Hands Communication Implementation Follow Through
28
Dream Team

• Ideal qualities
• 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

29
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.

30
Dream Team

• Identify your Dream Team

31
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 peoples vision for the community but Gods
  vision for the community.
• Seek input
• Determine what is negotiable and what is
  non-negotiable - separate form from essence.
• Write first draft

32
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

33
Vision

• What might the vision statement
• for your parish look like?

34
Vision

• Evaluating a vision statement
• It has heart
• It provides a picture of desire
• It provides a way out of todays discomforts
• It is full of hope
• It provides a reason for unity
• It provides Gods direction
• It is powerful

35
Creative Tension

• Creating energy for change
• Contrasting Gods ideal with an accurate
  assessment of reality

36
Creative Tension

• Measuring current effectiveness
• Traditional attendance money
• Non-Traditional excellence customer
  satisfaction
• 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
• 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?

37
Creative Tension

• Processes that sustain creative tension
• acknowledge that tension is necessary
• allow others to share the tension
• develop conflict management skills
• continue to clarify the vision
• take care of yourself

38
Plan Change

• Improvement plan considerations
• Who will we serve?
• What will we need?
• What ministry and administrative processes will
  we need?
• What people and reward system will we need?
• What structure/facilities/technology will we
  need?
• How will we measure our progress? Reward what
  you measure

39
Plan Change

• Improvement plan considerations
• Measuring considerations
• Relevance
• Reliability
• Availability
• Accountability
• For major changes - begin incrementally and
  respect readiness

40
Plan Transition

• Plan Transition
• What steps are necessary to get from where we are
  to where we want to be?
• 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.

41
Plan Transition

• Plan Transition
• Transition time provides
• Opportunity for growth
• Opportunity to confront issues of
• Power
• Control
• Selfishness
• Letting go of the past
• Personal preferences
• Mourning loss of comfort

42
Communication

• What needs to be communicated?
• 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.

43
Communication

• Steps and considerations
• Pace the rate at which people can absorb new
  information.
• Personality - different learning style
• Develop an explicit communication strategy

44
Communication

• Steps and considerations
• Be creative communication about change requires
  more than just a sermon and bulletin article
  consider
• Small group discussion
• Drama
• Music
• Special newsletter(s)
• Video
• Web site

45
Communication

• Steps and considerations
• 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.

46
Implementation
A specific set of coordinated, high leveraged
activities which move the parish toward the
realization of Gods 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.
47
Implementation

• 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

48
Implementation

• 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.

49
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

50
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

51
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

52
Implementation

• The Rollout checklist for any change initiative
• Adopting the new thing
• Celebrating victories using momentum
• Doing it again the learning church

53
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 Gods
vision overshadows fears of continuous change.
54
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

55
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.

56
One Change Process
Heart Prayer Assemble Dream Team Vision
Head Create Tension Plan Change Plan Transition
Hands Communication Implementation Follow Through
57
New Wineskins

• Jesus The Quintessential Change Agent

58
New Wineskins

• Spiritual tools Jesus used to adapt to
  changes around him
• . Prayer Solitude (Mt 1416, Lk 516, Jn 615)
• . Compassion (Mt 1414)
• . Obedience - the agony in the garden (Mt 2639)
• . Had intimates

59
New Wineskins

• Spiritual tools Jesus used to lead change
• . Started by preparing himself submitted to
  John's baptism (Mt 33-17) and then immediately
  afterwards went off into the desert alone for
  forty days (Mt 41-10).
• . 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 peoples attention for teaching
  e.g., encounter with the Samaritan woman at the
  well (Jn 47-26)

60
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 41-11)
• - Unavoidable - with the religious authorities
  of the day (Mk 27, 216)
• - Essential - with his disciples, opportunities
  to teach (Mk 934, 1042-45)
• - Incidental - those he avoided because they had
  nothing to do with his mission (Mk 321, Lk 429).

61
Seven Rules of Change

1. People act out of self interest
2. People are not inherently antichange, most will
   embrace change which has a positive meaning for
   them.
3. People thrive when challenged but wilt under
   negative pressure
4. People believe what they see - actions speak
   louder than words
5. People are different - there is no one size fits
   all answer to change.
6. To bring about effective long term change - 1st
   visualize what you want to accomplish then live
   this visualization until it becomes a reality.
7. Change begins with an act of the imagination -
   until you engage the imagination, no important
   change can occur.