Books: September 20, 1985

Bringing Out the Best in People: How to Enjoy Helping Others Excel, by Alan Loy McGinnis (Augsburg, 1985, 191 pp.; $12.95, cloth; $3.95, paper). Reviewed by David Neff. Interview conducted by David Neff and Gregg Lewis.

The principles of motivation are nothing new, says Alan Loy McGinnis, author of Bringing Out the Best in People. When business leaders asked him for help in motivating employees, he chose not to rely on current research by cognitive psychologists. Instead, McGinnis ransacked the biographies of great leaders from Alexander the Great to Peter Ueberroth to discover what makes people perform.

Here are 12 rules he formulated from his reading and observation:

• Expect the best from the people you lead.

• Make a thorough study of the other person’s needs.

• Establish high standards for excellence.

• Create an environment where failure is not fatal.

• If they are going anywhere near where you want to go, climb on other people’s bandwagons.

• Employ models to encourage success.

• Recognize and applaud achievement.

• Employ a mixture of positive and negative reinforcement.

• Appeal sparingly to the competitive urge.

• Place a premium on collaboration.

• Build into the group an allowance for storms.

• Take steps to keep your own motivation high.

McGinnis expands on these principles in chapters broken into short, easy-to-read segments. Perhaps these short segments are designed for the busy executive: a noble goal. But the brevity of the segments and the boldness of their headings give the book a disjointed appearance. The book lacks the feeling of a cohesive argument developing ineluctably from point to point. It rather feels like a series of illustrations of equal importance to be read in any order one wishes.

Books on motivation—particularly those written for business people—fall often into the manipulation mode: motivation as human robotics, getting what you want from people by pushing the right buttons. Happily, McGinnis views motivation as a way to help the people we work to motivate develop their own potential.

Teens Want To Talk

Five Cries of Parents, by Merton P. Strommen and A. Irene Strommen (Harper, 1985, 212 pp.; $13.95). Reviewed by Kristine Tomasik, youth educator and author.

If Merton and Irene Strommen say there is a lot of crying going on in the family, they ought to know. They have the data to prove it.

Merton Strommen, a Minnesota-based researcher and Lutheran minister, already noted for his incisive Five Cries of Youth (1974), has just completed another study, coauthored by his educator/counselor wife, Irene. Published as Five Cries of Parents, the book’s database includes thousands of young teens in grades five through nine—and their parents. The study is unprecedented in size of sample, but still represents primarily church-oriented young teens. However, “care has been taken to find corroborative data based on samples of the general public.” (And the authors’ own 37-year parenting track record includes 22 years as parents of five teenage sons.)

Five Cries of Parents presents both encouraging and alarming findings. The good news is, young teens want to talk to their parents—and about practically the same things the parents want to discuss with their kids: faith, moral issues (including sexual morality), family closeness.

The bad news is, nobody is quite sure how to start the conversation. “I wish I could talk to my folks about some of my problems,” lamented many of the 2,000 youth in a presurvey. “I wish I could talk with my teenager about the things troubling him,” echoed the parents. The image is of two lonely parties eyeing each other longingly from opposite ends of the hall.

Furthermore, contrary to popular mythology, young teens do value their parents’ input—above peer input. Although it declined slightly over the five grades, at no point did parental influence become less important to the teens than peer influence. If this seems unbelievable, remember: the data is for fifth- to ninth-graders only.

Yet just at this point, when young teens are still wanting their parents’ warmth, parents suddenly and mysteriously pull away. Their nurturing—expressions of verbal and physical affection toward their young teen—declines by almost half over the five-year span. They become more autocratic. And all too often, parents don’t get along with each other, either.

Into this familial stand-off comes what may well prove to be the next parents’ bible, right up there with the works of Haim Ginott, James Dobson, and Thomas Gordon. Five Cries of Parents offers a wise, wry, and above all, useful blend of insight and practical help. In addition to their own research, the Strommens draw on an impressive and eclectic array of contemporary youth and family authorities. Don’t be surprised to see names like Erik Erikson, Dolores Curran, Lawrence Kohlberg, and Carol Gilligan cited along with Lawrence Richards, Edith Schaeffer, Karen Mains, and Wayne Rice. The result is a superb synthesis, seen through Christian eyes, of some of the most important developmental theorists of our time.

Understanding And Intimacy

What are the five cries, and what parental responses do the Strommens suggest to meet them?

First is the cry for understanding. The Strommens assert that parents must understand themselves before they attempt to understand their teen. Parents must be aware of how undealt-with issues from their own pasts can affect their present relationship with their teen, caution the authors.

In fact, the Strommens suggest, the same adolescent agenda facing the young teen might be worthwhile for parents to take on, too. The authors present an acronym, AFFIRMS, to summarize the seven goals of adolescence. For example: A—achievement realized; F—friends gained; F—feelings understood; I—identity established; and so on.

In the midst of all this development, the adolescent usually has a hard time explaining himself to his parents. Said one girl of the beneficial side effects of taking the Strommen survey, “Not until I saw the words did I know what some of my feelings were.” In the face of such inchoateness, parents are too easily tempted to give up. “What’s she trying to say, anyway?” they wonder.

There is a need, observe the Strommens, for parents to learn how to listen. Not a particularly new thought—but amidst the plethora of active-listening advice on the market today, Five Cries of Parents outlines a succinct, jargon-free listening technique—one of the most helpful summations this reviewer has seen.

The second cry is for a close family. The Strommens’ study shows that adolescents raised in families characterized by nurturance, warmth, and cohesiveness are “most likely to adopt high moral standards, develop the ability to make and keep friends, embrace a religious faith, and involve themselves in helping activities.” These young teens are also “significantly less likely” to become involved in “drug use, premarital sexual activity, and other antisocial and alienating behaviors.” Yet the same data reveal that over half (53 percent) of the young adolescents spend less than 30 minutes a day with their fathers, and 44 percent spend less than 30 minutes a day with their mothers. And at least half the parents leaned toward a damaging, autocratic style of discipline.

To ameliorate the problem of too little time together, the Strommens uphold the ideal of the family table, family planning meetings, and family vacations. And they stress a democratic style of discipline, illustrated by insightful anecdotes like this: “My friend and I took our family boat without asking permission of our parents, and I was grounded for a month. I became rebellious because I felt it was too strong a punishment. My parents, when they saw my reaction, lowered the punishment. I think this was very important. Parents need to be flexible when the situation warrants it.”

Quality Of Faith

A third cry, for moral behavior, and a fourth cry, for a shared faith, reflect the Strommens’ ever-present concern for the quality of faith. “Morality,” they stress, “can be a life of responsible caring for others that is motivated by a personal faith.” However, the Strommens found two different types of faith among their respondents. One they characterize as “liberating,” a faith that emphasizes God’s unconditional love and forgiveness, and understands that salvation is a gift—not something earned. The other is “restricting” faith, stressing limits, controls, guidelines, and discipline. In one of the most eye-opening data tables in the book, the authors demonstrate that “adolescents who view religion as restricting are linked to a number of undesirable characteristics.” Alcohol use, racial prejudice, sexism, and antisocial behaviors are only a few. So are low self-esteem, failure to internalize moral standards, and a lower achievement drive.

Stressing a need to be verbal about a shared, “liberating” faith, the Strommens call for a return to “old-fashioned” family devotions.

The final cry is a cry for help—outside help in time of crisis. The authors urge parents to feel no qualms about the need to seek professional help occasionally. “You can’t go it alone,” is their message, and they applaud evidence that respondents in their survey would seek outside help, particularly from the clergy.

All in all, Five Cries of Parents presents an exciting challenge to parents of young teens: now is the time to communicate with your fifth- through ninth-grader. One wishes the same kind of current data were available on older adolescents.

To read Five Cries of Parents is to see enfleshed the meaning of Ephesians 6:4: “[Parents], do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord” (NIV). Perhaps the only danger for a parent reading this book is to be overwhelmed by the excellence of the parenting models described. It may be easy to despair—either because of the parenting one has been giving, or was given. But take heart, say the Strommens in closing. “We have found that ‘He is faithful who promised,’ ” they assert. “He does intervene in the life of a family, to reshape values, attitudes, and relationships, and to unite members in a bond of love.”

Great Parents

Grandparents/Grandchildren: The Vital Connection, by Arthur Komhaber, M.D., and Kenneth L. Woodward (Transaction Books, 1985, 279 pp.; $9.95, paper). Reviewed by David Neff, associate editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

“The only time Freud was known to have shed tears was upon the death of his grandson, Heinerle Rudolph,” report the authors of Grandparents/Grandchildren. Heinerle’s death caused Freud’s first known depression. And three years later he told a friend that he had been unable to enjoy life since the boy died. But strangely, Freud—and all his professional progeny—continued to analyze the formation and distortion of the human psyche in terms of the parent-child relationship, and to ignore totally the powerful emotional ties between grandparent and grandchild.

Not only theories of personality, but most studies of aging have ignored the grandparent-grandchild connection. To fill that gap, Transaction Books has brought out a new edition of this ground-breaking study based on in-depth interviews with 300 grandchildren and as many grandparents. “The bond between grandparents and grandchildren,” Kornhaber and Woodward conclude, “is second in emotional power and influence only to the relationship between children and parents.”

Only 5 percent of the children in the study had regular close contact with grandparents. But those few children revealed the important roles grandparents play in the lives of children: the nexus of family connections, teachers, caretakers and feeders, negotiators between children and their parents, same-sex role models, historians, and determinants of how the young feel about the old in society. The few children who had regular, intimate contact with grandparents had these roles filled in a personal and deeply caring manner.

Children with no regular grandparental contact had those same needs filled—but in an impersonal and institutionalized manner. Their caretakers were day-care centers. Their feeders were fast-food restaurants. And Hollywood determined their feelings about old people through stereotypes of grandparents and in-laws.

The children who had little or no contact with grandparents were not pleased with the arrangement. Through words and projective drawings, they expressed anger, frustration, and grief over their separation. They couldn’t understand, for example, why grandpa had to retire and move to the sun belt. In their childish logic, they concluded that they must have committed some egregious sin that drove him away. And divorce separates a child not, only from a parent, but from that parent’s parents as well. “I’m still their grandchild,” cries the child. “Why won’t they see me any more?”

Other grandparents, without reason of retirement or family rupture, fail to play the role of Great Parent. The children feel guilt. But the children are not at fault. Instead, the authors point out, today’s grandparents have bought into and institutionalized a “new social contract”—our national misunderstanding that individualism and independence are the highest virtues. Thus grandparents don’t want to meddle in the lives of their married children and, above all, they wish to be physically and financially independent in retirement. Children are expected to get their educations and move out. And husbands and wives give individual needs precedence over marital commitments.

The new social contract’s undesirable side effects have included the breakdown of the three-generational family and the isolation of children from grandparents. Grandparents seemed to accept their isolation from their descendants as normal. “Times have changed,” they said. Even when they realized their unhappiness living only among other active oldsters, they felt they could do nothing about it. Moving back home to become caretakers and companions for their grandchildren was unthinkable.

It is not unthinkable, say Kornhaber and Woodward. Today’s grandparents can rebuild the family pyramid, reestablishing the vital connections between the generations, and once again become the guardians of the young. Reversing the trend will ameliorate other side effects of the new social contract: the stresses of single-parent and two-career families where the raising of the young and the winning of the bread seem to be mutually exclusive enterprises. “Today’s grandparents created the new social contract,” write Kornhaber and Woodward, “and they can break it.”

CHRISTIANITY TODAY TALKS TO Alan Loy McGinnis

What are the most neglected principles of motivation among church leaders who work with volunteers?

They are afraid to throw down the gauntlet and summon people to sacrifice the way our Lord did. John Gardner said: “The best kept secret in America today is that people would rather work hard for something they believe in than enjoy a pampered idleness.”

Because we’re working with volunteers, we’re afraid they’re going to quit or lose enthusiasm, and so we’re too gentle.

The enemy of motivation is not laziness—it’s boredom. If we offer people a cause, something challenging, something that requires sacrifice, then they’re a lot more likely to join that bandwagon and stay on it than they are if we pussyfoot around.

We have seen church staff situations ranging from the very hierarchical to the incredibly laid back. What are the best ways to motivate team ministries?

Some of the most effective people in the Christian community are not dynamic personalities. They may not be good public speakers, but they know how to build a team spirit. Building this atmosphere so that people are drawn to the cause and to the feeling that exists in the organization is most effective. That way, if the senior minister moves on, nothing is really destroyed.

Very different management styles will work—if effectively done—depending almost entirely on the attitude of the understudy. What compounds that problem, of course, is that most of us are not very good associates because we are looking for opportunities to be in front.

Two churches sponsored refugee families. Church A was more affluent, but found the fund raising very difficult. They had to hold fried-chicken suppers and car washes to raise the necessary money.

Church B, which was less affluent, didn’t do a single fund-raising event. They simply contacted donors and got the money they needed rapidly. What happened motivation-ally in those two situations?

Isn’t it weird that in some churches, where their time is so valuable, they’re only making $1.50 an hour on fried chicken, and that they would resort to those techniques instead of just forking over the money? There is something about highly placed, highly educated, affluent people: they consider themselves independent thinkers, and they’re not readily influenced by what others think.

Affluent people are always the hardest to motivate. Do you know of a rich church that really gets on fire?

Blue-collar, middle-class, or lower middle-class people are much easier to motivate than upper-class people.

Upper-income people are in positions of power. They are used to directing other people, and they are not easily directed themselves.

And there is something about money that causes us to become hardened, sinful, and suspicious.

Whatever else our Lord may have meant about passing through the eye of a needle, he was talking about the psychology of affluence.

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