Missing Voices

The pastor raided his stash of granola bars and took a package of his favorites—banana, almond and chocolate (crunchy, not chewy).  He texted his secretary about his plans and whereabouts and headed out the back door.  Three laps were about a mile, and it was a beautiful, sunny day.  Conditions were perfect for a bit of reflective practice.

“What am I missing?” he asked himself.  He had learned through hard experience that when he was anxious, angry and agitated, there was usually something he could do to move things forward.  All he needed was to unblock the reflection pipeline, and the ideas would start to flow again.

“Who else needs to be at the table?” he wondered aloud.  It was an old process question, but a good one.  He had learned the question in his days of working with community organizers in a small, open-country congregation in western Iowa.  Those were the days of organizing a county-wide domestic violence shelter and program—the first of its kind in that region.  One of the organizers noticed that it was mostly men who were doing the talking.  Thus, the question that broke the process open.

“Who’s missing from this conversation?” the organizer asked.  Once the question was asked, the answer became painfully obvious.  There was no voice for the victims themselves.  The pastor and a few others recruited some brave, strong women to be those voices.  Some had been victims themselves.  Others had sufferers in their families.  Once they were at the table, the whole conversation took off, and a new organization was born.

The pastor had marveled at the power of that simple question.  “Who’s not here?”  He walked and relaxed into reflection.  He focused on his steps.  He chewed the granola bar.  He listened to his own breathing.

“It’s time to bring in the team on this one,” he thought to himself.

“The Team” was his secretary, the full-time director of worship and music, the part-time director of Christian education and the custodian, Old Jack.  He had recruited and hired all the members of that staff team, except for Jack.  But Jack’s loyalty and reliability ran just as deep as that of all the other members.  They were in many ways his “church within the church,” his real community and the primary reason for his effectiveness.

Many congregations buy into the movie-star model of parish pastors.  They believe that if they get the right leader, then all else will be wonderful.  This is the “great man” theory of history, and in such congregations the ideal image is still usually that of a man.  In practice, however, that theory of history, and of pastoral leadership, is fatally flawed.  Such leadership fantasies usually saddle congregations with gigantic egos and the problems of public narcissism.

There is a simple test for this issue.  As congregations interview prospective pastoral leaders, the call committee can simply track the ratio of “I” to “we” and “me” to “us” in the interviews.  If a candidate uses “I” and “me” the majority of the time, the congregation should seek a healthier candidate to interview.

Even in professions that seem driven by superstars, it is the team that spells success or failure.  Robert Huckman and Gary Pisano studied surgeons to see if they improved with repeated practice of their skills.  What they discovered was that repeated practice by itself produced no measurable improvement in surgical skills.  What did produce measurable improvement was repeated work with a quality team.  As the team leader developed more comfort with other capable team members, the quality of the practice improved and fewer patients died.  It was the team that mattered.

Boris Groysberg tested similar assumptions with stock analysts.  He expected that the best analysts would do equally as well when they moved from one firm to another.  That assumption was mistaken.  In fact, when the best analysts moved, their performance on average dropped significantly.  The only exceptions were those analysts who brought their support teams with them.  (These examples are cited in Adam Grant’s fine new book, Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success).

The pastor knew that it was his team, as much as anything, that had made him effective over the last seven years.  He clearly needed their help now.

He got back to the church building and walked in the front door.  Martha was at the welcome desk, working on the congregation’s web page updates.  Martha was the director of Parish Ministries—the real “boss” of the congregation.  The pastor knew he could depend on her for his life if necessary.

“Martha, do you have a minute or two?”  She saved her work and nodded.  When the pastor made that request, it usually turned into an hour or two.  “Let’s sit in my office and chat,” she said with a smile.

“Martha, I need to talk with you about Phil,” the pastor began.

“Oh, you mean our gay house guest who’s having the faux affair with the ex-con and mass murderer who’s on the run from the law?”  She smiled and waited for his reply.

Of course Martha knew everything!  How could he have thought otherwise?  The church “secretary” is almost always at the hub of the church information/gossip network.  People were constantly rolling through, trolling for rumors and pumping Martha for information. 

The previous director had been more than happy to participate in that process.  That was one of the reasons the pastor had worked so carefully to assist her into a gracious and grateful retirement.  No information, regardless of how privileged and confidential, was safe in the building with the previous secretary.

Martha was different.  Nothing got in or out of her “fortress of solitude” unless she was sure it was appropriate.  She had a wonderful gift for saying “That’s none of your business” and having people thank her for the privilege of hearing that rejection.  She received all sorts of information that she passed on to the rest of the team.  She had saved them all from numerous errors and embarrassments.  She was worth her weight in gold, frankincense and myrrh.  But then, who needs three wise men when Martha is on the job?

“All right, my friend,” the pastor smiled.  “Tell me what you know.”

“I thought you would never ask,” she purred.