Exodus International to shut its doors

Interesting article on a group that worked with helping individuals with same sex attraction leave the homosexual lifestyle as it closes its doors.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57590238/exodus-international-controversial-ministry-offering-alternative-to-homosexuality-to-shut-doors/

You heard what? Communicating well

I am often amazed at what people "hear" compared to what I thought we "said." It is a challenge in any organization (the church being one of the most complex) to communicate in a way that people actually understand what we are trying to communicate. It is not that people don't listen. It is that there are many messages competing for people's attention and the more complex the organization the more attention there needs to be to what and how we communicate.

Organizational trust is very much tied into good communication. When people understand where their leaders are taking them and what is important to the organization trust grows. When they do not, trust diminishes.

The first and most important job of any leader is to clarify for the organization who it is, where it is going and how they are going to get there. Indeed, one of the greatest frustrations of congregations and ministry organizations is the absence of clarity on these critical issues. Congregations and ministries become restless and unhappy in the absence of clarity. They are less concerned about what the direction is than they are about knowing the direction.

Good leaders ask several questions regarding communication on a regular basis.

One: They ask, "What do people need to know?"

People need to know with clarity the mission of the organization, the non-negotiable guiding principles, the culture you desire to create and the central ministry focus (what you do day in and day out to accomplish your mission). They also need to know any key directional changes that you are making (surprises are not welcome). And they need to know where you as a leader want to take the ministry.

Two: They ask "How do I communicate simply and clearly?"

Here is the rule: The more simply and clearly I can communicate what I communicate the better it will be heard. Leaders think carefully before they communicate so that their message is most likely to be heard and understood. Simple and clear communication wins every time. Complex messages will not be understood or are often misunderstood.

That is why I lead from a sandbox where the four sides of the sandbox represent the four most important things those in our organization need to know and live out (The book, Leading From the Sandbox explains the paradigm). Everyone can remember the four sides of our sandbox and if they do, they remember the four most important things for our organization.

This raises a second issue. When leaders do not communicate simply and clearly and when they do not communicate the same thing over and over, clarity is lost to confusion. Good leaders communicate the same key messages over and over and over with the same vocabulary so that the very vocabulary used becomes the vocabulary or short hand of the organization. Ambiguity fosters confusion. Simple clarity fosters understanding.

The greatest leaders are those who can communicate complexity with simplicity! It is a skill that can be learned but it takes the discipline of figuring out how to communicate the complexity of your ministry with simplicity. And then stick to it.

Three: they ask: "How can I know if they understood what we said?"

This is a very important question. Good leaders never simply assume that everyone understood what was communicated. Often people hear the message but make their own assumptions about what it means in the framework of how they view the organization. Especially, when leaders are bringing change they need to ensure that people really understand.

There is a simple way to ascertain the level of understanding. Good leaders find forums to dialogue with various staff teams on a regular basis where they again communicate with simple clarity those things the organization needs to know. Then they engage in dialogue, asking questions, answering questions, talking through the implications of what has been communicated.

Through dialogue leaders are able to understand where they are not being understood and therefore hone their message for greater clarity. They are able to clarify what is not clear and they pick up on areas where their people are having a difficult time grasping concepts or ideas.

Through extensive dialogue like this all over the world, I have a fairly good grasp on which issues in our sandbox are well understood and which are fuzzy. That gives me valuable information on where I need to continue to clarify and help simplify complexity.

Leaders communicate well when they are clear, when they simplify complexity, when they consistently communicate the same simple messages and when they dialogue with their people to ascertain what the level of understanding is. And, they never take communication for granted. It will either help them or hurt them in what they are seeking to do.

The faith of a child

It was about 25 years ago and Yellowstone National Forest had been burning for months leaving vast tracts of land barren and charred. My son and I were driving in Northern Minnesota and he was agonizing over that fire. Suddenly he folded his little hands squeezed shut his eyes and prayed, "Jesus would you stop the fire?" That night it snowed in Yellowstone and the fire was extinguished.

Coincidence? I won't attempt to answer that question but Jon knew in his heart that God could do anything He chose to do and in his innocence and faith he simply asked God to stop this enormous fire and God did.

Jesus loved the faith of children because it is so simple compared to the sophisticated faith of adults - so sophisticated that we often do not believe that God could or would do those things that we might ask for. Our innocence and simple faith has been lost, replaced by our complex ideas of who God is and how He acts. And as a result our prayers are often prayers of greater unbelief (He won't answer this) than they are prayer of simple faith and belief.

When at about four I invited Jesus to come into my heart and forgive my sin, I had no doubts that He had done just that. When I prayed for his help I knew that He would help. In my innocence I simply believed promises I knew to be true and that He was who He said He was. It was a wonderful, simple, profound, faith unclouded by doubts and all my rationalist thinking.

Jesus said, "Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 18:3). He desires that our faith be simple and profound, simply believing His promises and His forgiveness and His presence.

As a theologian, I know many nuances of theology. As a follower of Jesus I desire to have the innocent, simple, profound, believing faith of a child. These are not antithetical to one another. In fact, they are the trust of a child to a father.

Agreeing and disagreeing agreeably

Healthy relationships, healthy leadership and healthy teams are built on a culture of high trust and a culture of high trust requires the ability to engage in honest dialogue about important ministry and missional issues.

Honest dialogue, however, requires the ability to agree and disagree with those we work with without our agreement or disagreement affecting our relationship. In fact, in a healthy organization or team, honest dialogue is always of high value and encouraged because it is in the give and take of ideas, options and alternatives that a team will come to the best solutions.

In a healthy organization, opinions and ideas are seen as neutral, designed to get the team or organization to the best solution.

As neutral, they are not good or bad, they are simply puzzle pieces on the table that may or may not fit the final picture but which need to be considered. Because they are neutral entities, it is not necessary to see disagreement as bad or a challenge to us because we are simply trying to fit the puzzle pieces together in the best configuration. Thus it is not about me or you but about which solution is best for the team and its mission.

Where this breaks down is where a team member so holds their solution or idea as the right one that it is no longer a neutral option but becomes to them to only right option. Someone who must get their own way displays unhealthy emotional intelligence (EQ) and they infuse what should be a neutral option for the group to consider into a more charged issue of what is right (my way) or wrong (the other way). Once this dynamic occurs, trust is damaged for the give and take of options is no longer possible without a fight over right and wrong, rather than over different options.

This often happens on church boards where individuals with strong convictions insist that their way is the right way and what should be an agreeable discussion of options becomes instead a conflictual discussion of options where their is no way to resolve the issue without conflict because someone has drawn hard and fast lines that must either be followed or the conflict will continue.

In these cases, whether on a team or a board, what should be a discussion of neutral ideas and issues designed to get you to the best solution has instead been hijacked by an individual (well meaning or not) who has a personal agenda. Personal agendas hurt group process and decision making because there is no longer the ability to dispassionately discuss ideas and issues. They have now been infused with what is "right" or "wrong."

Those who believe that honest dialogue toward shared solutions means that they can fight for their personal agenda (the way it should be) misunderstand what healthy dialogue looks like. In fact, unless they can grow in their understanding of the give and take of ideas and issues toward a common solution, they do not belong on a team or a board because their agendas will sabotage the process, and damage trust because there is no longer a way to agree and disagree agreeably.

Remember, in a healthy organization, options and ideas are seen as neutral, designed to get the team or organization to the best solution. They are pieces of a puzzle that may or may not end up in the final picture and should be seen as valid options without being infused by personal agendas. Where a team member cannot do that, they don't belong on the team!

When one is hemmed up by their job

It is a common problem in the workplace: leaders who micromanage and control, leaving good people feeling disempowered, hemmed in and not trusted. Consider these true scenarios:

• A supervisor tells their staff that every email they send must be copied to them so they know "everything" that goes on
• Staff members know that most of their planning will be revised by their leader
• Nothing can happen without the approval of the supervisor
• Last minute changes to ministry plans by a leader continually complicate the life of a staff member
• Leaders change their minds from week to week on strategy leaving staff members unsure of where they need to go
• Staff members are publicly criticized for decisions they have made
• There is an unspoken rule that staff cannot speak their minds on issues they feel strongly about if their opinion is not in sync with their leader
• Staff are given responsibility but not the authority to do what they need to do

Actions like the above violate good people who are not released to use their full potential. They also convey an attitude of mistrust (why else would one need to control or micromanage). Lack of trust translates into major dysfunction on teams and within ministries.

There are many leaders who believe that to lead means to tell people what to do and how to do it. What they don't understand is that people may do what they ask but out of fear rather than out of trust. Those who respond out of fear rarely have great respect for their supervisor.

If you are in the spot of being hemmed in what do you do? The first suggestion is the hardest but it is to be candid with your supervisor by telling them that when they exhibit certain behaviors it makes you feel like.... and describe the feeling. In the best case scenario, you are talking to someone who is reasonable and does not understand how their actions affect you. Help them understand how you feel when they hem you in and what you would prefer their response to be

It often takes one courageous individual to carefully but honestly put an issue on the table so that the "elephant in the room" is named and therefore cannot live in the dark anymore.

It is often helpful to read as a team, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni. It can stimulate honest dialogue around issues that confront the team and hopefully bring some necessary change.

There are some leaders who will not listen, do not understand and whose narcissistic tendencies (yes even in ministry) simply continue to cause pain. Those who disagree are marginalized and find themselves without any influence whatsoever. It is a painful place to be.

My advice in that case? Leave when you can for the sake of your own emotional and ministry health. Find a leader who is empowering and healthy and you will feel like the walls that hemmed you in are gone. I spent time with one who did just that this week and it has made all the difference in the world for them. Life is too short to work for unempowering leaders who control, micromanage or marginalize good people.

The glue that holds good teams together

It is a fun game: how many cards can we stack on top of another until the house of cards comes down.

In real life, it is more serious - for leaders and team leaders. The measure of our leadership is not what happens when we are leading but what happens when we leave. Does what we built hang together and continue to flourish or does it come apart like a house of cards?

Some leaders build their team or organization on the force of their personality but once they are gone the glue is gone - the cards fall. Other, wiser leaders build their team or organization on values and principles and good people. When they are gone, the values, principles and good people remain and the organization or team continues strong. These leaders have not built a house of cards but a team of strength.

If you are a leader here is a question you should ask. If I disappeared today, what would happen? Would the direction and effectiveness continue in spite of my absence or would it flounder and come apart? In too many cases the reality is the latter rather than the former.

True team and organizational strength is built on a commonly held mission, set of guiding principles, central ministry focus and a carefully built culture that is held, believed in and practiced by everyone. It is in their bones, not just in their leader because their leader has brought alignment around beliefs and practices not around their personality or authority. One builds true long term stability while the other builds temporary but weak alignment.

The mission clarifies what you are about. The guiding principles clarify how you go about doing what you are about. The central ministry focus clarifies what you must do day in and day out to succeed and the culture clarifies the ethos that you are committed to creating. These are the four most important questions every leader answers for their team or organization and they are the glue that holds people together for maximum alignment and ministry passion.

Missional glue is far more powerful than the glue of one's personality - especially if one wants to build something that has influence beyond their time in leadership. It is also a sign of a humble leader when they build around a set of principles and values and a clear mission, rather than themselves. After all it is not about us but the mission God has entrusted to us. 

If you want help in building a ministry based on those principles that will last, read Leading From the Sandbox. It contains the secrets of clarifying those things that are most important for your team or organization. It will take you from a house of cards to a house intentionally built to last.

The leadership discipline of paying attention

It was a few years ago that an American submarine off of Hawaii managed to blow to the surface and smash into a Japanese fishing boat. Note to self: before surfacing, put up the periscope and look around! Carefully!

Healthy leaders pay close attention to what is going on around them. They regularly look around, ask questions, look in the closets and drawers as it were to understand the climate, mood, realities and issues that their team or organization faces.

Not to do so is to invite unhappy surprises! A pastor realizes one day that his staff have gone south on him and he has a coup on his hands (it happens). An organizational leader finds out that members of their board are unhappy. A team leader realizes that a staff member is undermining him or her in an unhealthy way. Or, something is going on that has the potential to create a crisis - like the submarine taking out the hull of the fishing vessel.

Organizational or team culture requires vigilance and care. Leaders who ignore threats to the culture are likely to pay a price for their lack of attention. The submarine captain lost his job!

I have watched leaders ignore significant staff discontent or lack of alignment because they didn't want to face an unpleasant reality. In the end they lost leadership capital because it was obvious to staff that their leader was not dealing with real issues in the organization that needed attention.

Some leaders are so self absorbed that they are clueless to what is actually going on around them. Then they feel betrayed when they realize that a collision has occurred. If they had been looking around and paying attention, they would not have been surprised.

Wise leaders ask questions and look for honest feedback in order to understand where people are at. Leaders who are threatened by honest feedback don't and find out what is going on the hard way.

Organizational culture and health is one of the primary responsibilities of leaders. But you have to look around and know what is on the water! Keep your periscope up and avoid surprises.