New Management Needed

Years ago before anyone called me their pastor, I was assigned a ministry team of about 15 people to manage. I was excited, and diligently prepared for our weekly meetings. I wanted to manage them responsibly and with integrity. But after several months, something wasn’t working.

A third of the group hated me and quit attending our meetings. A third of them loved me. The other third was undecided. Not an ideal ratio. I was blindsided because I felt like I had done a sterling job as a manager; but I felt that I had failed somewhere. So I began to study management again with a more sensitive spirit.

I found that the word “manage” originally referred to training horses The French word manège means a school for teaching horsemanship and training horses. Rather dehumanizing when it comes to people. I had an epiphany: Though I was prepared, organized, and communicated clearly, I treated my team more like horses than people. People aren’t horses, or things, that we can simply “manage”.

Whatever our context—a ministry group, a corporate department, a congregation, a small business staff, a medical team, or a class or faculty—we must remind ourselves that every individual is a soul designed to exhibit the image and ingenuity of God.

A six-gun, lasso, and hearty “giddyap” just won’t work for most people. They need a different kind of “management.”

Industry and information

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the Industrial Revolution transformed America’s predominantly agricultural economy into an industrial one. Factories were built to house new machines where assembly lines facilitated processing and production more efficiently than ever conceived before. The Industrial Age made many workers expendable, and the machine-driven industry eventually cut 90 percent of agricultural jobs.

We must remind ourselves that every individual is a soul designed to exhibit the image and ingenuity of God.

Late 20th-century innovations in digitalization and communication, along with the development of the modern computer and the internet have hastily pushed us over another divide. Our knowledge-oriented economy is often called the Information Age. Furthermore, a growing percentage of our nation’s production sector has been organized offshore. Countless rickety barns and vacant factories whisper a testimony of two bygone eras. Farming and industrial production always will be needed, but the emergent players dominating the new economy are companies that have been birthed or overhauled with Information Age evolutions in mind.

As products and processes and design and development have changed radically, so have people, their priorities, their options, and their mobility. In the Industrial era, the administrative objective was optimizing the output of manual workers who followed orders from above. “Knowledge workers” didn’t play predominant roles within the organization. Peter Drucker says: “Today, however, the large knowledge organization is the central reality. Modern society is a society of large organized institutions. In every one of them, including the armed services, the center of gravity has shifted to the knowledge workers, the man who puts to work what he has between his ears rather than the brawn of his muscles or the skill of his hands.”

Spreading out

I made a lot of mistakes during the first few years after my wife and I launched our new church. But in hindsight, I did one thing right on target. I spread the work of ministry out.

Many churches and companies have retained management philosophies rooted in the Industrial model, where people are viewed as machine cogs at best, disposable at worst

As soon as possible after our grand opening, I gathered the few people we had into ministry teams that would carry out facets of ministry that initially my wife and I did all by ourselves. I divided everything we were doing—which was far more than Jen and I ever could sustain—into crews and bite-sized chunks. As People’s Church has grown, we’ve expanded this multiple team-ministry concept to integrate more people and more work. Today around 98 percent of our church membership serves on at least one ministry team—and many on two or more.

We’re approaching our seven-year church anniversary and I can’t imagine how we could have undertaken so much without these teams—and I can’t fathom how I would have even survived. I naturally don’t receive any esteem or feeling of superiority that might come from accomplishing all that is achieved by our ministries, because I’m not doing all the work! Others rightfully deserve the merit and I want them to have it all to themselves. Like Harry Truman said: “It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.”

Nevertheless, many churches and companies have retained management philosophies rooted in the Industrial model, where people are viewed as machine cogs at best, disposable at worst—and where employees are liabilities and equipment an asset. The new economy and current culture not only demands a different breed of workers, but also a new class of managers who understand that they cannot tap the talent, creativity, and genius of knowledge-workers while functioning on factory-based ideologies. It’s like trying to navigate Facebook on a Commodore 64.

Shifting our language

Several years ago I was speaking near Fort Wayne, Indiana. Carl, a kind and bright-minded man in his 80s, hosted my wife and me in his home. He spun yarns about his family, home, career, and what retirement had been like.

Carl was initially hired as a janitor at an international tech company, and worked himself up to a lucrative management position. For years he drove thousands of miles supervising the labor force at 13 locations and retired after 43 years feeling fulfilled. I mentioned that I had been studying the subject of management and asked if he’d share how he’d seen corporate management evolve during his lifetime. His eyes lit up. We had a long conversation, but Carl’s bottom line was this:

“The goal of a manager isn’t to prove he’s the boss, but to prove he’s a co-laborer. Many managers are afraid to lose their superiority. Anytime a manager is thinking about his own superiority, he’s in the wrong boat. You don’t demand authority; you gain authority by earning respect.”

People aren’t mere moving parts, but souls with incalculable value and eternal destiny. Don’t consign people to an expense on the P&L statement.

Stewardship doesn’t just apply to money or time, but also to the human resources God has entrusted to you. You are a steward of those placed in your care and they are the living testimony of your leadership. When the Queen of Sheba paid King Solomon a visit, she was amazed at how sharply his employees were dressed and how happy they seemed to be (1 Kings 10:8). Those contented and cared-for people were evidence of a great boss.

People aren’t mere moving parts, but souls with incalculable value and eternal destiny. Don’t consign people to an expense on the P&L statement. People have bodies, souls, minds, and spirits; everyone on your staff was designed by their Creator, and Jesus Christ gave His body and blood for every one of them.

But for many of us, this change requires a shift in thinking, and a shift in the language we use to talk about leading ministry teams. Here’s a list of terms that contrast Information Age management ethos with Industrial Era understanding:

Contribute vs. control Though management methods will vary with the circumstances, if you have the right people on your bus, you can focus on contributing to them and with them, and not on controlling them.

Mentor vs. manager Smart, skilled, and self-motivated people won’t need to be forced into compliance, and team members who fit this kind of description will appreciate a mentor who can guide them to a new level of accomplishment.

Compliments vs. criticism Criticism is sometimes necessary, but can also be the easy or lazy way out. Both criticism and compliments are required tools, but carry compliments in both hands always, and pick up criticism only when necessary.

Desire vs. demand If you recruit people who have a drive for excellence, you won’t have to drive them rigorously. (It’s always easier to tame a tiger than fire up a slug.)

Integrate vs. implement One afternoon a college student asked me how I “implement” my wife in my ministry. I replied, “There’s a fundamental fault implied by your question. People aren’t implemented; they’re integrated.”

Influence vs. impress Don’t feel the need to prove you’re the boss; if you are, it’ll be apparent. Forget about impressing people and, instead, focus on making an impact. Creatively inspire and instruct your team to reach their potential.

Inform vs. innuendo Be tactful, but clear and direct. Don’t play mind games and cast innuendos. No one likes to play guessing games at work, except for game show hosts.

Availability vs. avoidance The elusive ivory tower denizen is especially unattractive (even repulsive) to savvy and cynical young people. They want to work for an individual with a personality, not an aloof icon. In the end untouchability can breed more contempt than familiarity.

Collaborators vs. followers Santa’s elves are “followers”—many little people who work for a big man. However, “collaboration” connotes many little people who work together for a big cause. Big difference.

People vs. things Don’t control people—traffic is controlled. Don’t move people—pawns are moved. Don’t use people—tools are used. Don’t drive people—cars are driven. And don’t handle people—baggage is handled.

Remember that people aren’t horses, things, or paperwork—items to be processed, filed or tossed out. People are divinely designed receptacles of the love of God. None of us appreciates being treated like a checker board piece, be it in the marketplace or the church-place. And you just can’t expect your team to give blood, sweat and tears, and the extra mile, too, if you make them feel as disposable as an empty box of staples.

Rocco Dapice is a writer, speaker, and founding pastor of People’s Church in Westchester County, New York.