The Hsu’s Views

I ran across this blog entry from the UK called Safe Space.  It is a great read on the need for innovators in the church. He includes a few principles for encouraging entrepreneurs.

I’d read it just to ponder the quotes that he’s highlighted.

In, “Surfing the Edge of Chaos,” the authors Pascale, Millemann, and Gioja discuss the forces that move and shape large and massively complicated organizations (otherwise known as Complex Adaptive Systems.) The forces, known as attractors, are three (or four depending on who you read.) They are:

1. Point attractors – found mostly in the inanimate world, this lures systems to a stable place of rest, or death. This attractor is like the pendulum where each successive swing leads to a final rest at the lowest spot. In the business world, a monopoly is a point attractor. Once a company controls the market, whether telephones (AT&T) or photographic film (Kodak) stillness, lack of vitality, or even death might well describe its orientation toward innovation and change.
2. Cycle attractors – move systems into loops of predictable but dynamic patterns. The attendance at sporting events is dependent on the success of the team. When they are winning, attendance and ticket sales are up and vice versa.
3. Strange attractors – of most interest to complexity theorists. They are called strange because there is a hard to describe nature about what they are, how they work and most importantly, they bring systems to the edge of chaos where organizations are more likely able to adapt and innovate.

As applied to spiritual movements, point attractors may be the tendency of large entities to move toward death, or worse institutionalization, which is simply a living death. Cycle attractors might be seen in the cycles of revival and awakening that the church has experienced over two millennia.

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I ran across this in the May 2007 Wired magazine interview with Eric Schmidt. Toward the end of the interview he is asked, “Google’s revenue and employee head count have tripled in the last two years. How do you keep from becoming too bureaucratic or too chaotic?”

I was interested in this answer because the Wired Magazine editor asked the question with the assumption that Google should be run with a dynamic tension between bureaucratic and chaotic.

The reply:

It’s a constant problem. We analyze this every day, and our conclusion is that the best model is still small teams running as fast as they can and tolerating a certain lack of cohesion. Attempts to provide too much order dries out the creativity. What’s needed in a properly functioning corporation [or organism, movement] is a balance between creativity and order.

But we’ve reined in certain things. For example, we don’t tolerate the kind of “Hey, I want to have my own database and have a good time” behavior that was effective for us in the past.

I was struck by the notion of small team running fast, and the need to embrace a degree of incohesion, lest too much order would kill creativity. How do you think about a citywide movement of the body of Christ that would spur innovation toward transformation?

I finally finished the paper, “Campus Crusade’s Adaptive Challenge“that will wrap up my writing for my current BGU class. Here is a description of what I tried to do.

“This paper will attempt to show that in the midst of the massive shift in current culture, Campus Crusade for Christ, along with the church in North America faces an adaptive challenge, necessitating leadership that might feel more radical than many would feel comfortable with. I will propose that in identifying who Campus Crusade “is,” we should focus on the apostolic impulse that resides in our DNA, and not merely our organizational values and proven strategies. Finally, I will also draw some observations from a recent trip to India that will offer suggestions as to how Campus Crusade should be approaching the gospel transformation in cities that now characterizes a global priority of Campus Crusade.”

Your comments, as always, are welcome.

(The comments below are from a paper I’m currently working on… and need to finish really soon.)

From my limited vantage point, I can say that Campus Crusade has been actively engaging the issues of organizational change for at least the last decade. We have talked for years about the danger of becoming an institution instead of a movement. We have also been trying to address the organizational inefficiencies that allow our various ministries to operate largely independent of each other. Recently, the transition of leadership from Dr. Bright to Dr. Douglas has spurred many healthy conversations amongst our own leadership and with other mission organizations.

As Campus Crusade prepares to move into a new era of ministry, in a world which is rapidly changing, we must not only ask if the proposed solutions will work, but whether our approach toward leadership is correct. From all appearances I would say we are approaching this change from Heifetz’s “operational leadership” stance. It seems as if we acknowledge the challenge before our ministry, and our approach is to look back to our tried and true strategies of increasing organizational efficiency and attempt to reorganize or restructure ourselves to health. However, if we are in an adaptive challenge, we may unknowingly be choosing to “die” instead of “adapting” on the order that is necessary to move us into this new era.

Adaptive Leadership for Campus Crusade
What would adaptive leadership look like within Campus Crusade? Adaptive leaders are people that can help transition the organization by moving it to the “edge of chaos.” This is the point of uncomfortable tension where an organization knows it must innovate, and when change is most conducive. Hirsh is helpful here:
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I’ve been trolling the footnotes of Hirsch’s book and ran across this article on the networked organization, offered by Dee Hock of Visa (the credit card) fame. Hock writes:

“All organizations are merely conceptual embodiments of a very old, very basic idea — the idea of community. They can be no more or less than the sum of the beliefs of the people drawn to them; of their character, judgments, acts, and efforts,” Hock says. “An organization’s success has enormously more to do with clarity of a shared purpose, common principles and strength of belief in them than to assets, expertise, operating ability, or management competence, important as they may be.”

How might this apply to re-thinking of church at a metro level? As we gather gather younger leaders of the church in San Diego, a central question we are seeking to address is “What does Kingdom look like in San Diego?” How does the body of Christ come together in some fashion, such that our relationships enable a synergistic increase in the rate and impact of Kingdom transformation?

It seems clear that we should pursue, or allow, depending on your frame of reference a more organic, networked approach rather than the command and control approach. But if there isn’t someone or something dictating the strategy and implementation, what coordinates the activity?

I read Hock’s comments to suggest that a networked, organic approach to thinking about church in San Diego will be more successful if we clear about what our shared purpose is (Kingdom?), have common principles (”We are better together,” “Dependence upon God,” etc.?), and strength of belief in them. This approach will be better than “focusing on assets, expertise, operating ability, or management competence.”

In “The Forgotten Ways,” Hirsch notes that many ministries and churches have a “systems story” or paradigm of operating that tends toward institutionalizing itself rather than free itself to be the movement of God that the church should be.  Without recognizing this paradigm, we make changes by reorganizing, restructuring, or changing processes, none of which will truly produce the change required because our systems story has not changed.  He writes:

Church consultant Bill Easum is right when he notes that “following jesus into the mission field is either impossible or extremely difficult for the vast majority of congregations in the Western world because of one thing: they have a systems story that will not allow them to take the first step out of the institution into the mission field, even though the mission field is just outside the door of the congregation.

He goes on to note that every organization is built upon “an underlying systems story” He points out that “this is not a belief system. It is the continually repeated life story that determines how an organization feels, thinks, and thus acts. This systems story determines the way an organization behaves, no matter how the organizational chart is drawn. It’s the primary template that shapes all other things. Restructure the organization and leave the systems story in place, and nothing changes within the organization. It’s futuile trying to revitalize the church, or a denomination, without first changing the system.”

This makes so much sense to me. One of the critical paradigm or systems story that is in place within so many churches and organizations like Campus Crusade is the institutional and mechanical worldview, or what Easum calls the “Command and Control, Stifling Story.” Hirsch comments:

This view is particularly marked when you recognize how different the predominant forms of church are from the apostolic modes. The movement that Jesus initiated was an organic people movement; it was never meant to be a religious institution. p. 54

We need to tell a new story.  Or, if we are coming from a institution, we need to figure out how to rewrite that systems story, at least the part that organizes and leads by command and control if there is any truth to movements being organic entities. In what ways do we function such that our structures are equally fluid, viral and organic as movement are?  I’m not sure, but it will look different. I’m sure of that. I’m also pretty sure it will make me (and others Moderns) anxious.

Having defined in Part One, the adaptive challenge set before our 40\40 group I would suggest that our leadership approach should be adaptive as opposed to organizational. What do I mean? I love how Hirsch explains it below.

Adaptive vs. Organizational Leadership
The kind of leadership required in an adaptive challenge must also be adaptive. These are terms coined by Harvard’s Ronald Heifetz between “technical (operational) leadership” and “adaptive” leadership.” (as quoted by Hirsch on. p. 255)

“The former entails the exercise of authority and is an entirely appropriate response in conditions of relative equilibrium. Operational leadership works best when the problems faced can be dealt with by drawing upon a pre-existing repertoire. Operational leadership goes hand in hand with the tenets of social engineering. A solution is devised from above and rolled out through the ranks. If an organization is in crisis; if downsizing, restructuring, or reducing costs is called for; if sharpened execution is the key to success then operational leadership is probably the best bet.” (Pascale, Millemann, and Gioja, Surfing the Edge of Chaos, 39.)

Hirsch observes that this describes our normal approach to church leadership during our recent history given our focus on church growth, pastoral care, management, technique and programs. I think this describes the first fifty years of my own ministry, “Campus Crusade for Christ.” If things don’t work, either work harder, or make adjustments to our strategies. It is increasingly curious to me that we like to think of ourselves as a movement, but we strap a command, control, and an operational leadership approach to it.  Movements are more like living systems.

“In living systems problems arise, however, when a species (or organization) misapplies a traditional solution to an adaptive problem. in this situation, the current repertoire of solutions is inadequate or just plain wrong. In nature, the alpha male silverback mountain gorilla draws its troop together in a tight circle and behaves aggressively toward rival males or other natural threats. This traditional solution works effectively — unless the troop is facing poachers armed with guns, tranquilizer darts and capture nets.”

The gorilla faces an adaptive problem, “unless they learn to adapt to the new threat and find new responses, they are history.” (Hirsch, 256) Perhaps, I hope, you see where I’m going. Our 40\40 group of younger leaders need to figure out how to adapt and create new responses (proactively) to the threat/opportunity before the church in San Diego today.

I’m thinking we need to figure out how to be the adaptive leadership that the church in San Diego needs today. Hirsch suggest that as leaders, we need to be able to move people and organizations into adaptive modes, pushing them to the edge of chaos where conditions are ripe for change and innovation.

The same conversation should be had within Campus Crusade. Do we recognize that we are facing an adaptive challenge requiring innovation. I suspect that operational leadership is part of our “DNA.” We are prone to drawing from a “pre-set repertoire” (perhaps we call it “transferrability”) and addressing challenges with “sharpened execution.”

If Campus Crusade is facing an adaptive challenge, perhaps our organizational posture needs to be adaptive, and we should re-evaluate just what constitutes our DNA. Why preserve elements of operational leadership when innovation is the need of the hour?

There is so much more in this book.

Shameless plug warning!!!
Buy it here and 3% goes toward my book buying budget.

Links:

Short review of “Surfing the Edge of Chaos” including key principles.

Another one by MIT Sloan Management Review.

Intro:
On my way to New York, I couldn’t decide which book to read from my growing “to read soon pile.” I finally decided on “The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church” by Alan Hirsch. As I began reading, it became clear that this book was a divine gift to me with my current burden in ministry.

Many of you know that I have been burdened to gather together the sharpest younger leaders of the church in San Diego. We don’t have a good name yet, but we are working with “40 Under 40″ (forty leaders under the age of forty - abbreviated as “40\40.”) The Lord brought a great group of about 25 leaders to explore the question: “How does the church in San Diego work together to see see the reality of God’s Kingdom increasingly manifested in San Diego?”

What should our group be? How can it be an asset to the cause of Christ? In what ways can our diverse groups work together that makes our individual ministries better because of our focus on the city?

You can see in earlier posts that I’ve been wrestling with what approach to leadership would be best suited to this emerging “meta-movement.” Terms like distributed, organic, and Starfish were coming tantalizingly close to something that I would want to run with.. but there was something more.

That is where the book comes in. I think Hirsch’s work is precisely scratching the proverbial “itch,” meeting the precise need, and offering guidance on the question that lies before our group.

I offer a few thoughts from the addendum of the book entitled, “A Crash Course in Chaos.” Essentially, the addendum covers the complex adaptive systems theories that I’ve been blogging on recently (what a coincidence!).

Adaptive Challenge
First a definition:

“A concept deriving from chaos theory. Adaptive challenges are situations in which a living system faces the challenge to find a new reality. Adaptive challenges come from two possible sources: a situation of (1) significant threat or (2) compelling opportunity. The threat poses an “adapt or die” scenario on the organism or organization. The compelling opportunity might simply come as “the food is better in the next valley… let’s move!” type scenario. Adaptive challenges set the context for innovation and adaptation. (Italics mine.)

The parallels for the church in the West is unavoidable. We are in a time of such significant change that both a threat and a compelling opportunity present itself. That is what our 40\40 group should be about. How do we find new ways of relating, partnering, and learning that will allow us to lead the church in this new and radically different world? This is the adaptive challenge before us.

What kind of leadership will be required? How might this be some direction for our 40\40 group? Read on in Part two.

If you’ve been following my train of thought the last couple of weeks, you will have noticed that it has covered a bunch of things that seem totally unrelated. Well, here comes some more. I stumbled across a powerpoint presentation by Rex Miller, author of “The Millennium Matrix.” (anyone read it yet?) I don’t know if it’s any good, but there was an interesting slide in the presentation talking about Leveraging The Meta Long Tail.

“Long Tail” is a phrase coined by Chris Anderson in a 2004 Wired Magazine article that noted statistically, that in the case of many things like books, a few titles would sell in enormous quantities, but that the vast majority of books would sell only very few. The distribution on a scale would look like the one in the accompanying image.

Amazon, due to the low cost of operations, they could sell some of the more obscure titles and still make a small profit. The collective volume on these titles in less demand was significant, and as the graphic shows, there is more potential sales in the long tail of forgotten, non-blockbuster items together (micromarkets), than sales in the major markets.

I heard a piece on National Public Radio about how Netflix is trying to do the same thing with the more obscure films from indie festivals. Their low cost of doing business can make a large number of titles available to a broad audience.

I’m not sure what any of this has to do with the church, but my mind is racing. Are there any parallels with megachurches and the house church movement? Perhaps in thinking about a meta-movement of the body of Christ, we can realize a “growth market” in all the smaller, distributed, niche markets of the emerging church. Perhaps they, when networked in some fashion, become a more significant player than the megachurches in town. (I’m not trying to disparage the large churches as much as wonder about what if any application can be drawn from this principle.)

This blog suggests that non-profits can and are benefitting from the “long tail.” Paul Jones writes:

Welcome to the wonderful world of long tail economics, where abundance not scarcity is the ruling paradigm and where niche markets can be the most profitable markets.

What’s the application to nonprofits and cause marketing? I’m still cogitating on that. Certainly, there’s been an explosion of nonprofit registrations with the IRS in the last 10 years. With somewhere north of 1.5 million nonprofit charities in the States the need for context and filtering has never been greater.

You could make a pretty good argument that Kiva.org, which enables you to pick a third-world business to support with a micro-loan, is the long tail of philanthropy.

Long tail economics has also made it possible for nonprofits to promote their mission and programming to a broader audience than ever before.

Is there a way, that all the niche markets of the church, emerging church, church plants, parachurch ministries can utilitize networking and collaboration strategies such that our mission and programming gets to a broader audience than ever before?