Sabotaging Change

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Whenever one is trying to initiate change there will be resistance. Some resistance will be rather benign. Other resistance will be conscious or subconscious sabotage. Suppose you have announced to your co-workers that you are going to try to lose twenty-five pounds of excess weight. Everybody in the office knows you are especially fond of jelly filled rolls. You can usually resist all other donuts and rolls, but jelly-filled are particularly irresistible. It is an office tradition for one of the staff members to stop at the local bakery and to pick up a dozen donuts and rolls. Nobody else in the office is fond of jelly-filled rolls. Yet, every Friday, there are two jelly filled rolls in the box when the staff gathers for a morning break. Quite without thought the purchaser of the pastries is sabotaging your weight lose goal.

I am the kind of person who likes to talk through an idea before beginning to take steps toward initiating a change. In one congregation I served I would often go to the secretary’s office to engage her in such conversations. She was a member of the congregation and a very capable secretary. She would politely listen to me spin out my idea. Often she would ask some excellent questions about it. I did wonder, a few times, when I would introduce an idea at a session meeting, why there were already some who seemed to know about the idea in advance. One day a member of the congregation stopped by the office for a chat. He said, “The other night when you brought up your idea for the stewardship campaign to the session, I sat there and realized I had heard about that a few weeks ago. Do you realize your secretary tells her husband about your conversations, and he talks about them at the golf course in the Nineteenth Hole?” Intentional or not, I was being sabotaged.

The next time the secretary was in the office, I went in to talk with her. We had the usual chit-chat about families and pets and such. Then I said to her, “I am disturbed to learn your share our conversations about ideas I am working on with your husband and he then shares them in the Nineteenth Hole when the men’s league plays. I feel you are sabotaging me, before the idea is full blown and I am ready to take it to the session. It needs to stop, or we’ll not be able to work together anymore.” Needless to say, that did not go over very well. When I left her office, she immediately wrote a letter of resignation. She stated as the reason that “I had yelled at her.” The letter was sent to every member of the session. Maybe I could have handled it differently.

John C. Norcross, PhD, writes in response to the question, “What should I do if someone is sabotaging my efforts to change?” Dr. Norcross suggests, Based on research and experience, we know that it helps to address the potential saboteurs from the get-go. That’s addressing, not confronting, mind you. (https://www.sharecare.com/health/wellness-healthy-living/what-do-sabotaging-efforts-change) That is all well and good if one anticipates not just the possibility but the probability of sabotage and deals with it proactively as Dr. Norcross suggests.

In later years, while still preferring to talk through ideas, I learned to go to whoever I was going to discuss an idea, and began the conversation saying, “I have an idea running around in my head. I would like your feedback on it, but this has to be limited to just the two of us.” In most cases, that seemed to work.

Initiating Change

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How do you go about initiating changed? Some may seek to initiate change with the “royal decree.” The formal, or titular leader, may simply make a declaration that the old way will cease and a new way will commence. “As of tomorrow we will no longer use the latest version of the iPhone and must use landline phones.” That is one way to initiate, but what preparation was made to ensure everybody in the organization understood the reason for the change and had landline accessibility. Cell phones have become so ubiquitous why revert to landlines? There would be a great deal of organizational anxiety, and resistance (active and passive).

Some may seek to initiate change using the maxim, “Rub raw the sores of social discontent.”  What are people dissatisfied with, angry about, and fearful of? To initiate change one keeps reminding people of their dissatisfaction, anger and fear while magnifying it to ever greater heights. Keep pounding home how bad things are and paint a picture of how good things could be. In the current political environment and the U.S.A. presidential campaign, some are maximizing their message around dissatisfaction, anger and fear.

The strategy is to rouse the populace to the point of “revolution.” That is the way of Karl Marx and Saul Alinsky. In some ways it is the model I was taught by my professor Hal Wareheim and (in my view) is used, in a modified form, by consultant Del Poling (http://delpoling.com/ministry_services.html)

in his Leading Congregations Through Major Change. It is also the means used by disgruntled congregation members when trying to get rid of the minister. Keep telling the stories of what you, and others, do not like about the pastor’s service until greater and greater numbers begin to adopt your dissatisfaction or come up with their own. The more logs which are thrown on the fire the hotter it gets. The solution is clear, get rid of the pastor and everything will be right, again.

Consultant Alan Hirsch proposes another way (http://www.alanhirsch.org/). In his blog entry Stir Up Holy Discontent Hirsch states,

Questing is the result of holy discontent, and more often than not, as in all genuine renewal movements, they are the result of the Holy Spirit working directly in our lives. And behind every good quest lies at least one really good question—we do well to heed Einstein’s advice to a young admirer when he said, “The important thing is to not stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence.”

(http://www.alanhirsch.org/blog//cultivating-learning-and-innovation-iv-stir-up-holy-discontent)

What is God calling us to be and do? What will expand the realm of God in our community? What would things be like if we sought a more peaceful means of resolving our differences? How might we improve our educational endeavors, from cradle to grave, for our members? What else could we do to proclaim and demonstrate the good news of the Gospel?

Questions are expansive, open, seeking a multiplicity of possibilities. Questions stir the imagination. Questions are non-judgmental. Questions are egalitarian, rather than the imposition of a solution from the “king on the mountain.” As Hamlet says to Horatio, There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. (Hamlet (1.5.167-8)

CHANGE AND TRANSITION

I am in the midst of reading The Way of Transition: Embracing Life’s Most Difficult Moments, William Bridges (Perseus Publishing, Cambridge, Mass, 2001). In it, so far, he has been relating the changes and transitions in his life during his wife’s dealing with cancer and her death. Bridges alternates his narrative with chapters drawing out his learning about change and transition. The narrative pulls at one’s heart string as we walk with him and Mondi, especially as her death draws closer and finally occurs. For Bridges and Mondi, there was considerable time for anticipating and preparing for the change which would be occasioned by her death. Not everyone has that has that excruciating luxury.

As I was reading, I could not help think about the difference between change and transition as they are related to the life of a pastor and congregation. We may spend intentional time, prior to the change, trying to help the congregation, and our self, prepare for the proposed change. The session (church board) acts to make a change. It could be changing the church school curriculum, worship times, relocation of the place of the congregation, or anything else. This week worship is held at 11:00. Next week worship be held at 9:00. The change happens.

How do we deal with the transition, the adaption, to the change? The rhythm of Sunday morning to which all have long been accustomed is disrupted. The air conditioning or heating of the worship space has to be adjusted for the comfort of the worshipers. Parents with young children have to get up earlier and awaken the kids earlier so all can get to worship on time. For some medication times have to be adjusted. It is not uncommon to hear remarks such as, “I didn’t like the idea when I first heard about it. I don’t like it now. I feel like my whole Sunday routine has been taken away. It just doesn’t feel right.” “I’ve had to give up lunch with my friends. Now we have to do brunch. It just doesn’t feel right.”

The process of transition is the inner emotional work of letting go of what was and moving toward the acceptance of what is coming to be. Transitions take time to make the trip from the past to the future which is becoming. Last winter my wife and I had to make the hard decision of putting down our 12 year old cat. He was very sick and was not going to get well. One day he was with us and the next day he wasn’t. Many mornings went by before I stopped looking for him on the top step waiting for us to come down stairs and fix his breakfast. We gave away most of the stuff and equipment we had accumulated, yet we kept expecting him to jump up on Nancy’s lap or my desk in the evening. It took us weeks to come to terms that Misha was gone. The tapestry of our life had to be unknotted and strings pulled out to move into life in his absence.

It is important to realize that just because a change has been announced or happens everybody immediately is not going to be on board and living comfortably with the new situation. It takes time for many to go through the processing of letting go and taking hold. We need to work as hard, or harder, helping people while they go through the transition as in planning and enacting the change.

Pastoral Transitions

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A significant interest and focus of mine is the various transitions experienced by those who serve in a pastoral role. How do we engage, navigate, and reflect upon these transitions for a more fruitful future ministry? As a pastoral coach, walking with pastors through that engagement, navigation and reflection for future fruitful ministry is the core of what I offer to pastors.

A recent Google search for “pastoral transitions” found that most sites deal with the transitions of entry and exit. While these are the bookend transitions in pastoral ministry they are not the only transitions pastors encounter. Transitioning from the “honeymoon” to more realistically seeing and being seen by the congregation is significant. Transitioning through the first conflict often sets the tone and style for future ministry. Membership increases and decreases are sometime subtle and sometime dramatic. Either way they present a transition from what was to what is and to what may be. The loss of a significant financial supporter forces a difficult transition. The congregation’s edifice being destroyed is a traumatic transition.

Many pastoral transitions are faced for the first time by neophyte pastors. While local denominational staff and area colleagues may be able to provide immediate support neither have the time to provide consistent and longer term support for the pastor engaging, navigating and reflecting on the transitions for future fruitful ministry. This is not a disparaging of local denominational staff nor of area colleagues. It is a simple fact of life.

Thanks to the relative ease of cross-continental relocation for ministers, the transition of moving from one culture to another can be difficult. Imagine the cultural transition experienced, even by a seasoned pastor, in moving from a metropolitan area to a rural area or vice-versa. How about moving from a congregation with an annual average attendance of 70 to a congregation with an attendance of 250? It is not as easy as some may suspect.

Every day is a transition from yesterday to today. Every day brings new challenges and opportunities. Every day our relationships with other people are in transition, either evolving of devolving. Every day a pastor’s well planned tasks for the day can change with the next phone call or the next person encountered on the street.

Think of the transitions faced by the disciples. One day they were going about their daily routines, and the next Jesus called them to follow him. One day they were settled the next day they were itinerating throughout Galilee. One day they were gathered around Jesus and the next they were sent out two by two. One evening they were gathered at supper with Jesus and by the next evening He had been crucified and buried. One day they were a confident band, the next evening they were fearfully huddled behind closed and locked doors. Within a year they were no longer gathering in the close community they had enjoyed to being scattered as individual evangelists.

Jesus promised them a new companion, the Paraclete, to comfort, teach and embolden them. In Christian theology the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, comes alongside as an advocate or counselor. As pastors engage, navigate and reflect upon transitions for future fruitful ministry, a coach can be an instrument of the Paraclete. Pastors do not have to engage, navigate and reflect upon transitions alone. The probability of future fruitful ministry is enhanced by engaging a coach.

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