An Army led … or an organization managed? PART TWO

This concept of organisation as animate was epitomized most in the Natural Church Development (NCD) model of Christian Schwartz. Schwartz makes very clear that the bionomic (machine) model of church life is not the way God intended churches to operate, and that although it may produce favourable results in the short term, in time it becomes counterproductive and breaks down. Schwartz advocates that a more biblical model of organizational church life can be seen in the organic model which recognizes that the corporate church is a living, breathing organism and not a machine.

In the command and control model, people move up the corporate ladder through compliance and by embracing institutional distinctives - the traditional yes-man approach. They exercise power from a distance and are comfortable with the lack of collegiality that typically pervades hierarchical organizations. In contrast, structures in the network model are circular rather than pyramidal. Those who emerge as leaders are comfortable being at the centre rather than the top; they prefer building consensus rather than issuing orders, and place a low value on symbolic perks often prized in hierarchical models, such as office space, titles and reserved parking spots. People are able to focus on what needs to be done rather than on who has the authority to do it.

What the majority of people truly desire from their work is not financial rewards, but the opportunity to contribute meaningfully to something important and significant. A corollary of this is that if an organization is incapable of making people feel part of something that truly matters, it will have to pay them more in order to keep them.

Employees in the network are regarded not as simple cogs in a giant machine, but as equals, no matter what their position, title, rank or paycheque. Their value is based on their ability to bring ideas to the table and their ability to help realize these ideas. Approval is granted those who are best able to express their individual talents and to those with strongly held views, rather than to those who conform to the common institutional standard. There are those in every organization who, by virtue of their personality, natural leadership skills and the trust they inspire, wield a personal authority, influence and even power greater than their official position, rank or title might indicate; in a traditional, hierarchical structure such entrepreneurial thinkers are often perceived as threats, disruptive links in the great chain of command. In the network model, such people are prized.

The command and control model neither cultivates consultation nor disseminates significant decision-making power to the lower ranks of the organization. In such a model many upper echelon personnel are out of touch with front line action and so consequently do not truly understand what it is like “on the ground” or “in the trenches”. As Alberto Moravia points out, illiteracy is still a problem in most, not so much in the traditional sense, but in their being unable to read the times. “The ratio of illiterates to literates is unchanged from a century ago, but now the illiterates can read and write.” No longer confined to the rank and file, today they permeate every organizational level. Because of this, as Leonard Sweet observes in his recent book SoulTsumani, “Church hierarchies and bureaucracies are catastrophically wrong

about a remarkably high proportion of the most important issues with which they deal.”

Network structures push decision-making power outward, toward the edges of the organization, to the front lines. They encourage the formation of new routes of communication. The network is thereby able to carve paths enabling the organization to adapt much more rapidly to a constantly evolving and rapidly changing world. Intel head Jim Zurn illustrates the point by contrasting an aircraft carrier with a school of fish. In organizations with a top-down management approach “You turn the wheel and it sort of turns … real … slow. We’re more like a school of fish. A school might have tens of thousands of fish in it, but they can change together, instantaneously, and go in a new direction.”

Such networks allow organizations to become highly manoeuverable by empowering individuals to exercise competence without regard to formal job description. Built on a model of trust, networks recognize, affirm and free up employee expertise and talents in order to keep up with our rapidly changing world.

Unlike the days of Henry Ford when assembly line workers could be replaced and quickly trained to perform any given job, today’s employees often bring with them years of specialized training and experience. Consequently, many organizations annually spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in the ongoing training and development of these same employees. In the networking model, expertise is given significantly more value over positional power: the independence and natural talents and giftedness of individuals throughout every level of the system are recognized as the greatest strength of the organization. This paradigm shift is reflected in many of the commercials we see today, where companies highlight less their products and more their employees’ talents, expertise and dedication.

FROM MANAGER TO LEADER

In her book The Web of Inclusion Sally Helgesen quotes Cindy, an employee and key leader at Intel Corporation. “Most organizations say they want strong people, but they don’t know what to do with them. What they’re really looking for is people who’ll go along. They think go-along types will be better at teamwork, but this isn’t true, because people who don’t have strong beliefs don’t have that much to contribute. They lack a sense of urgency, of commitment. Here at Intel, there’s a mystique around individualists, people who are very vocal and verbal, people with strong opinions about how to get things done. These are the only kind of people who’ll fight for a project, do whatever’s necessary to get it through. Intel looks for that kind of person in the first place. Then also, they know how to keep them. They understand that strong individuals need to be left alone, need to work the way they want to, instead of always being questioned or forced to give an accounting. When you’re free, you can move quickly, which is a great incentive to assertive people. In my experience, assertive people won’t stick around if they don’t feel free to move.”

In The Salvation Army we have struggled to retain many key leaders, and often done a poor job of cultivating those who do stay. Our hierarchical model looks for ‘go along’ types and consequently attracts more people with a managerial mindset rather than the naturally entrepreneurial leader. We do not know how to deal with outspoken, assertive leaders. As a result, often those individualists with whom we have been blessed either slowly suffocate or simply leave. And many of those we could be attracting look elsewhere.

If we truly desire to ‘understand the times and know what to do’ we must be willing to reinvent ourselves. We must be prepared to foster an environment which draws and cultivates more aggressive, catalytic leaders. We must learn how to empower them and celebrate their value to the movement.

Leonard Sweet in SoulTsunami put it this way. “The church is missing the boat on what it means to be a leader. Our problem is not a need for leadership to add sanity and order to an insane, irrational system. The church is bursting at the seams with rationality, decency, order, dignity, and predictability. What it needs is the holy intoxications of foolishness, humour, craziness, outrageousness, creative disorder, and passion.”

At its heart the command and control model cultivates bosses and managers, while the network model cultivates leadership. The hierarchical organization is over- managed and under-led with too many bosses and not enough true leaders.

In his book, On Becoming a Leader, Warren Bennis includes a comparison of management and leadership profiles. Much of the following comparison flows out of his writings.

In a nutshell, the fundamental difference between leader and manager is that leaders master their context, while managers surrender to it:

•                while the manager administrates, the leader innovates

•                the manager maintains, the leader develops

•                the manager focuses on systems and structures, the leader on people

•                managers rely on control, leaders inspire trust

•                the manager has a short-range view, the leader a long-term perspective

•                managers ask how and when, leaders what and why

•                managers have their eyes focused on the bottom line, leaders on the horizon

•                managers are deductive, leaders inductive

•                managers imitate, leaders originate

•                managers accept the status quo, leaders challenge it

•                while the manager is the classic ‘good soldier’, the leader is his own person

•                managers are reactive, leaders proactive

•                while managers do things right, leaders do the right thing

•                managers focus on efficiency, leaders on effectiveness

•                managers are rigid, leaders flexible

•                managers embrace rules, leaders embrace risk

•                while managers use their common sense, leaders use their imagination

•                managers avoid failure, leaders embrace it.