Leadership: You Can’t Problem Solve your Way to Success
Problem-solving is like building demolition--you are trying to take something away. Creating is like architecture, trying to make something new. Moving away from a negative reality is not a vision. Robert Fritz
Gregg’s Reflection
The problems facing mainline denominational churches are legion. As I work with leaders in churches, I often find them in a problem-solving mode. The motivation for change is the perception of the negative: Budget problems, declining worship attendance, shifting neighborhood demographics, trouble attracting the younger generation, conflict in the church, worship wars.
Declining churches face a stark choice of paying for the building or paying a decent salary to the pastors. I've seen this happen firsthand, and when I related it to my friend Dave Daubert, who had charge of Redeveloping churches for the ELCA, he said, "When it comes down to paying the pastors or paying for the building, the pastors always lose." He'd seen many stories like this.
The fallacy of strategy without vision
I consulted with a large congregation in conflict. At the second meeting, the Long Range Planning Committee attended. They were in the midst of creating strategies and plans, but there was no vision in place. They did not like to hear me point that out, and went on their merry way. The situation blew up later in the year, and the pastor left. Now they are in transition, lost hundreds in worship, and are beginning a process to discern a vision for the future.
A litany of problems moves congregations to action. "We need a strategy," leaders assert. So, they implement change to solve a problem. "Let's start a new worship service," is a common response, and then the worship war starts. Anyone who has tried exercise or diet plans knows that it's rarely enough just to want to move away from a negative reality of being overweight.
In a course called Creating What Matters, my friend and mentor Robert Fritz described it this way:
Problem-solving is like building demolition--you are trying to take something away. Creating is like architecture, trying to make something new. Moving away from a negative situation is not a vision.
Have you made the fundamental choice to live a healthy life? In so doing, you will readily adopt secondary decisions that are negative, like diet or exercise, in service of creating a healthy life.
We will choose negative choices that are moving us closer to a compelling vision, but we rarely choose them for their own sake.
Living in a zone of tolerable conflict
I spent 25 years working in a family business. For the first 15 years, my brother and I worked with our father in an organization built around problem-solving. (See my post on Structural Tension/Structural Conflict.) My father was a great problem-solver, and I learned it well from him. We did not have any coherent policies across the organization. We had an incredible number of procedures that were written to solve a particular problem. Many were not consistent with each other. When you just keep writing new procedures to address each problem as it arises, you have a bunch of band aids stuck on top of each other, none of them addressing core issues, so wounds fester.
Fritz talks about our tendency to live in a zone of tolerable conflict. When something pushes us out of that zone, we address the problem. However, we don't solve it, we just work on it until it gets a little better, then the next problem crops up, and our attention moves on to It. Underlying problems are never solved, just tolerated. Since many churches have decided, consciously or unconsciously, to avoid conflict, we sweep things under the rug where they just fester until they boil over.
What do we want to create?
So, the promising question we can ask, the right question is, "What do we want to create together?" As we begin to think in this way, we can architect our way to a better future. When our father died in 1990, we were a 35-year-old company that had been on a plateau for many years. We did no planning, and our attempts to hold talks with our father over long-range strategy were painful. He was a firefighter, who came in to the office and spent his day reacting to what happened, never looking to the future. Sure, we made some strategic decisions, opening new branches and taking on different suppliers. We were like a car dealer for heavy construction equipment. Overall, we just reacted to the circumstances that unfolded, never looking over the horizon to anticipate the future.
After his death, our first step was to put together an annual plan and a budgeting process to support it. Two years later, we did our first visioning process in the company. Within three years, we had doubled the size of the business and accomplished the vision we set out. After another round of visioning, we started a new equipment rental business. Within five years, we had grown the 38th largest rental business in the country. By 1999, we had quadrupled the size of the business, after 15 years on plateau, and public companies came calling.
We found organizing a new business around a vision and creating a new culture to be vastly easier than turning around the culture in the old business our father started. Despite all our best efforts to restructure and create a new culture, within three years after selling the rental business, the old business collapsed. We found ourselves stuck in a mature industry with suppliers who were not up to the changes needed to stay relevant.
Synods as Firefighters
I have observed this same behavior in our Lutheran Synods over the years. Bishops are so over-scheduled and under-resourced that they seem to spend much time in firefighting mode, reacting to the latest church in conflict, to the latest pastoral misconduct.
Well articulated Vision and a clear look at Reality, the elements of Structural Tension
In 1999, our ELCA Southeastern Synod revisioned itself as the "Great Commission Synod." Sadly, over the last decade, I never saw the Bishop align the resources of the Synod around discipleship and mission. We talked Great Commission, but never really put legs under the idea. So, a great vision is not enough. First, the vision must clearly describe an outcome, not a process. It must give the people a destination to seek. Many confuse mission and vision. Mission describes process, where vision describes an outcome.
The other critical element is an unflinching look at reality. You must know your starting point, if you are going to navigate towards a new vision. If you aren't clear about your starting point, you will never design effective strategies for achieving the vision. Once you have articulated a clear vision, and established a starting point in current reality, the contrast will create strong structural tension which will move you forward.
The current reality will show where the gaps are and highlight the work needed to reach the vision. This process is the core of visionary leadership. The key element in a church setting is that God is the author of the vision. Through discernment and prayer, we seek to find God's leading into the future He calls us to live out in our Christian community. This moves us beyond problem-solving and into the wonderful world of creating a future together.
Join me for a deep dive into creating instead of problem-solving. Blessings.
Journaling Prompts
When have I been stuck in problem-solving mode instead of focusing on a vision for the future? What do I sense God is calling me (or our church) to create rather than simply fix? Where do I see “band-aid solutions” in my life or ministry? What underlying issues might need a deeper look? How can I define a clear vision—an outcome, not a process—that energizes and inspires action? Do I have the courage to face my current reality honestly, or am I tempted to sweep things under the rug?
Scripture
Where there is no vision, the people perish; but blessed is the one who heeds wisdom’s instruction.
Proverbs 29:18. Rick Warren said, “Without vision, the people find another parish.”
See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.
Isaiah 43:19
Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’
Luke 14:28-30
But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:13-14
Ancient Writing
Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are.
St. Augustine, Sermons, 311.8
The ship that is built to cross the sea must have both a good pilot and a fixed course, lest it be driven aimlessly by the winds.
Gregory the Great, Moralia in Job, Book VI
The end is the principle of all intentional acts, because the intention of the end is the first principle in practical matters.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I-II, Q. 1, A. 1
Modern Writing
Fundamental Choice is a stand you take in life—a commitment to a state of being, such as being healthy, free, true to yourself, creative, or the predominant creative force in your own life.
Robert Fritz, Your Life As Art (1994), Chapter on Fundamental Choices
Until the fundamental choice is made, the person tends to be caught in reaction. After it is made, life becomes an expression of that choice.
Robert Fritz, The Path of Least Resistance for Managers (1999), Chapter 3
Problem-solving is like building demolition--you are trying to take something away. Creating is like architecture, trying to make something new. Moving away from a negative reality is not a vision.
Robert Fritz, Creating What Matters teaching
People will not leave the zone of tolerable conflict unless it is either intolerable or they have a vision that draws them forward.
Robert Fritz, The Path of Least Resistance for Managers, p. 36.
The zone of tolerable conflict is the state in which the conflict in your life is bearable but uncomfortable, so you put up with it rather than change.
Robert Fritz, The Path of Least Resistance for Managers, p. 36.
Most organizations are in the zone of tolerable conflict. They have problems, but not problems bad enough to cause fundamental change. When conflict is bearable, people tend to adapt to it rather than resolve it. They manage the conflict but do not eliminate it.
Robert Fritz, The Path of Least Resistance for Managers, p. 37.
The most dangerous place is not where there is a crisis, but where there is a tolerable level of discomfort. That’s where people lose energy and creativity, because they learn to live with the problem instead of solving it.
Robert Fritz, The Path of Least Resistance for Managers, Chapter 3.
Good is the enemy of great. And that is one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great. We don’t have great schools, principally because we have good schools. We don’t have great churches, principally because we have good churches.
Jim Collins, Good to Great
Most churches are built to solve problems rather than to create disciples.
Mike Breen, Building a Discipling Culture
Nothing happens until someone has a vision! The greatest contribution you can make to your church is to clarify and communicate the vision.
Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Church, p. 76
Where there is no vision, the people wander around aimlessly.
Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Church, p. 77, paraphrasing Proverbs 29:18