Church Management

WHEN YOU have a great mission, approach the attainment of it consciously and skillfully and do not leave success to chance.

That happens to be the definition that Frederick W. Taylor gave to management back in the 1880's. He is reputed to be the father of what we call "professional" or "scientific" management. He defined it as a conscious, orderly approach to the performance of management's responsibility as contrasted with a hit-or-miss-day-in - and - day - out - leave - it -to - chance approach. That was his definition. Then along came Elton Mayo in the early 1900's, and he added a word. He said, "It is a conscious, orderly, human approach to the performance of management's responsibility."

I would like to point out that in my opinion now is the greatest challenge in history for good leadership and good management that we have ever experienced. If we are to find our way out of the present state of chaos and confusion, it is going to take skilled leadership and skilled management, and we can no longer leave things to chance. We can no longer have amateurs in positions of responsibility for the attainment of important missions. Second, I would like to describe to you what my concept of skilled leadership is and what it involves.

So first let us turn our attention to why I think this is a time when we can no longer leave leadership in the hands of amateurs. In my opinion the past twenty years have been characterized as a period of dehumanization. The past twenty years have seen the greatest technological and materialistic advancement that the world has ever experienced. We know what has happened materially. We know that in this country our-gross national product has more than tripled. We know that personal income has far more than doubled. We know what has happened to our standard of living. I can recall when the political slogan was "a milk bottle on every porch." Then I recall when it was "a chicken in every pot." I recall when it became "an automobile in every garage." Now it's become "a television in every room." I think the next one is going to be "two cars for every college student." There has been the development of more technical know-how and skill in the last twenty years than in all the previous history of mankind.

Look at what has happened to the speed of mankind. First, man walked. Then he ran. Then he got on the back of an animal. He cut down a tree and took the heart out of it and he got himself a paddle, he put a sail on it and finally he put steam in it. And in the year 1950 he could travel at the fantastic speed of 740 miles an hour. From the beginning of history to 1950, 740 miles an hour! And he now travels at more than 27,000 miles an hour.

The last twenty years have seen the greatest material and technological development ever. We have come to the point where man has been reduced to a number on a computer card, and he is fed up with it. And if you are wondering what is happening on our college campuses, in our ghettos, on our streets, between our nations; if you are wondering about the confusion and irrationality and reaction and revolution of people they are fed up with the dehumanization that this world has master-minded during the last twenty years. And they have told us they have had enough.

That means that, in my opinion, the next twenty years will be the greatest period of humanization that the world has ever seen. To correct some of those difficulties that exist today, we will require very, very skillful leadership.

We are in the greatest leader ship vacuum ever seen. Leader ship isn't created out of the kind of experience we have been having in this world in the past twenty years. And yet these conditions have brought about a situation that demands leadership and statesmanship, and it is beginning to show up.

It is showing up among our young people. We nave neglected our youth, and they are products of the abdication of adult leader ship. We haven't had time for our young people in the past twenty years. They are products of television as a baby-sitter and of the peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich. But they see the challenge, they see the responsibilities. They are determined to do something about it. And out of this generation is going to come greater leadership and greater statesmen than we have had in the last quarter of a century.

A Clear Concept Essential

Now let me share with you what that means. It is important, I believe, that a manager, a leader, have a very clear mental concept of exactly what leader ship is. You ask a doctor what medicine is, and there comes into the front of his mind a very clear concept of what medicine is. You ask a preacher, you ask a teacher, you ask an engineer, you ask any professional who is skilled in his profession, what his profession is, and he has a very clear mental concept that he has spent many years in developing.

And so managers and leaders must have a very clear concept of what management is if they are to perform and measure up to the attainment of the mission for which they are responsible. Why?

When I studied psychology in college I learned from the books and the professors that one can not do what one does not think. There is up in the front of the brain a screen, and an image has to be flashed on that screen. Then that is transmitted to the control nerves at the back of the brain. And from there it goes to our fingers and our toes and our tongues, and we do, and we say what the brain tells us we want to do or say.

We will manage our hospitals, we will manage our churches, we will manage our schools and our colleges, we will manage our missions and our businesses in accordance with the mental image that is in the front of our minds as to how they should be managed plus the will to take the action that the mind tells us should be taken.

Let us share with you briefly the second part of what I have to say, which is this: What kind of image should be in the mind of a manager or leader? Let me share with you the image that is in the front of my mind. I don't ask you to accept this image. I use it merely as an illustration. When someone says "management" to me this is what flashes on the screen in the front of my mind. There are three big Roman numerals I can see them clearly. The first Roman numeral says, "The Nature of Management." The second Roman numeral says, "The Processes of Management." And the third one says, "The Character in Management." So my mental image of management is "What It Is"; "How It Works"; and "How to Put Character Into It."

The Nature of Management

Management Makes Things Happen. A manager has to have tingling through his body a realization that the world is going to be different because he is in it. What impact is he making upon the world? He is not a person who waits for the future. He makes the future.

Real managers are not wasting time complaining about the present. They are developing plans for the future. They want to make the future. They want to create. They want to get something done.

The last part of this concept is that managers make things happen through other people. Management is trying to get somebody else to do something. When you are doing something yourself you are not managing. Trying to get somebody else to do what you want him to do, and do it well, and do it willingly, is human development.

So management is making things happen through the efforts of other people by devoting your life to the improvement of their lives. Those of us who are in positions of management must vibrate from the tops of our heads to the bottoms of our feet with the realization of that responsibility.

The Processes of Management

What are the processes by which you get people to follow you? Leadership requires followership!

First, Take an inventory of where you are. What are we now? What is this church? How strong is this church? What are its assets? What are its liabilities? Let us take a good look at these factors.

Second, What do you want people to do? This is objective. What are your objectives? What are you trying to attain? What is your mission, what is your purpose, what is your reason for existence? What do you want to be? How big do you want to be? What service do you want to render? To whom? What is the future? A good practitioner of management can see the future just as clearly as he can see the present.

You say, "How ridiculous can you be?" All right, let's see. Somebody buys a vacant lot. There is nothing on it but weeds. So he gets an architect to draw a picture of the house he wants. Now he sees the house on the lot just as clearly as if it were there. This is the end result you want.

Third, What kind of people and how many do you need to get you there? What organization is required? In what relationships do you want these people to work?

Next we ask, What physical resources do they need to do what you want them to do? This involves money, materials, tools, plant, et cetera.

This leads to How well should they do it? What is the standard of perfection? This is very essential. Some of us are now watching football. Can you imagine the coach saying to the star halfback, "Get out there this afternoon and get that ball and run as far as you can. Don't pay any attention to the goal line or the goal post. See how far downtown you can get. Just run farther than you did last week."

Well that is the way a lot of us manage. We get the boys together on Monday morning and say, "Beat last week, beat last month, beat last year, beat, beat, beat" till somebody says, "What's par on this hole anyhow?"

People can do much better when they have standards. And so we ought to tell people what par is. I don't care what the job is. Par can be determined, and the leader can establish standards of excellence.

The next step I see-is. this, Re view progress against standards. Now it becomes coaching. Let's look at the movies. Let's review Saturday's game. Let's draw the pictures on the blackboard. "Now, Harry, here is what you were supposed to do, and look what you did." Along with this, we need to develop a program of teaching, coaching, drilling so you can do better next week. This is the helpful, the develop mental process. What is the gap between what you were supposed to do and what you are doing? And how can we close the gap?

The last question is What are you willing to pay for it? Pay includes nonfinancial, as well as financial, incentives. The ribbon on the coat. The medal on the chest. Whatever you want to call it. The college letter on the sweater. What are the nonfinancial and the financial rewards? People need them. They need recognition for work well done.

So the processes of management that I see are: first, an inventory of where we are; second, a plan as to where we want to go; third, a statement of the organization of people we require; and fourth, the physical resources required.

And next come standards of excellence; a review of performance; help to reach the standard; and then reward if you do. These are the simple processes of managing anything--hospitals, churches, schools--you name it.

But as somebody has said, "Adolph Hitler could do that."

Putting Character Into Management

How do you make a leader out of a manager? What is the difference between a mechanical Hitler and an inspirational Churchill? Let us assume that the mediocre manager and the inspired leader both have the basic requirements to even be on the job. They are honest. They are technically qualified. They are industrious. They have the basic qualifications to be in a management job. What does the inspired leader have that the mediocre manager does not?

First. He has a record of attainment. He was editor of the college paper. He was president of his class. He has a record of having inspired other people to attain the objective that has been determined should be attained.

Second. He has a mission. He has an inspiring, contagious mission that goes beyond the making of the almighty buck. If he is making shoes he wants to make a quality of shoe, a style of shoe that makes it possible for more people to have that kind of shoe than otherwise could have them.

If he is a school teacher he is interested in seeing to it that the subject matter he teaches is merely the medium through which he reaches the life and the character of the student. His mission is student development. It is not teaching mathematics. The inspired leader has a mission.

Third. He practices consultative supervision. His objectives are determined with the people who have to attain them. You tell me to do something, and I am not going to try very hard. If I do what you tell me to do I am making a hero out of you. But if I determine with you what should be accomplished, I am committed to its accomplishment be cause it is as much my objective as it is yours. If leaders have one big sin it is that they do not sit down and talk enough with their people. How can you be resourceful enough, how can you be strong enough to have all the answers to all problems? A real leader knows and believes that there is more knowledge and more skill and more creativity and more initiative within the people who are following him than he has. His job is to coordinate it and capitalize upon it and have his people participate in the determination of the goals; the determination of how to attain those goals; the determination of how well we are doing and how we can do better.

Engineers one day stood on the banks of the Allegheny River after a flood in Pittsburgh, wanting to know how to get some great big bulk tanks back up the river that had floated down during the flood. Engineers, vice-presidents, all kinds of brains finally decided the only thing to do was to take them apart, take them up the river, and put them together again. A truck driver asked, "Do you mind if I make a suggestion?" "Not at all." "How did they get down here?" Some body said, "They floated down in the flood." He said, "Why don't you take them back the same way?" And they built a dike, filled it with water, and floated them back. We can learn a lot from the man doing the job if we'll just listen.

Fourth. The inspired leader is intellectually mature. Intellectual maturity means that you have deep convictions on the basic is sues that affect your life. When you are asked what your convictions are, you are willing to stand up and be counted. You are not one of the silent majority. You have deep convictions. That is half of being intellectually mature.

The other half is that your mind is trained to change those convictions that are not based on a "Thus saith the Lord" when new truth makes such change appropriate. My ulcers begin to flutter during every political campaign, when voters insist that candidates tell what they are going to do after they are elected. Any political candidate who will tell you without qualification, what he is going to do after he is in office, is not intellectually mature. The last difference between a mediocre manager and a leader is this: The inspired leader is emotionally stable.

What does that mean? That means that the gap between what you believe and what you do is very small. There is a gap in everybody's life between what he or she believes and what he or she does. But the wider that gap gets, the more the neurosis increases and mental illness sets in, until it is insanity. Therefore, you must be conscious of the gap, and you must discipline yourself to keep it as small as possible. You cannot do that without a philosophy of life. You must have a well-thought-through, well-organized philosophy that outlines your convictions.

That is the difference that God made between a human and a dumb animal. He gave man the power to judge between right and wrong. So you have experience and you learn, and this gives you beliefs that you shape into a philosophy that gives you a guide line against which you can make your judgments. Then you have the respect of your people. You have followership, which leadership requires.

In our missions, in our hospitals, on our campuses, in business, in medicine whatever you happen to be in, make up your mind to go about it in an orderly, skillful way. You will soon have a record of achievement, you'll have a mission, you can't help but consult with your people. You will have intellectual maturity that you will sense and appreciate. But more than all of that, you will be able to live with yourself.