Combating the Societal Disease of Our Time

Norman Lear is credited with saying "Short-term thinking is the societal disease of our time." The corporate world has been sick with this disease for a long time and it is clear the disease has spread to other bodies in life: politics, entertainment and even the church. Perhaps you have seen the ramifications of being sick with this disease? We are feverishly addicted to the quarterly reports. We check the and and down of the sock market daily. We look to medication that can claims to change our lives thirty days. Content longer than three minutes is too long

We break up writing so to order lower the pressure of committing to read an entire paragraph. 

Photo by William Iven on Unsplash

Organizations infected with short-termism infect the members of that organization. Short-termism then spreads and the epidemic is upon us. We know the cure to break the fever, but ain't nobody have time for that.

Rather than prescribing new practices such as breathing or meditation, rather I offer up something that was recently taught to me. I cannot recall where it came from nor the more articulate way it is described, but it is the idea that we are only 10 people away from Jesus. 

The idea is that your life is really about 200 years rather than just the 70ish we think of. How do you get to impact 200 years?  Simply add three numbers.

• The age of oldest person who knew you were born +
• The number of years you live +
• The death age of the youngest person who knew you when you die

This simple equation of impact means that the life impact of Jesus is not 2000 years away but only ten people away.

Short termism can be addressed by shifting how we think about the world. The monthly, quarterly or even annual reports are too short term. The Spirit of God has a different scale. Our little short term reports would be laughable if they were not so damaging to our bodies. 

The Absurd Leadership of Jesus

Stated by Albert Einstein (not pictured)

Jesus is a unique person who did things differently. Christians identify Jesus as the perfect Love of God incarnate, so surely what he does is something we should imitate. The ever illusive search for best leadership practices leads some to consider if Jesus had any leadership practices that may be helpful. I am not the first to engage in this practice, there are many others who have done this. However, let me offer just a few leadership tactics from Jesus for your consideration.

1. Communication is key. So, do not speak directly but speak in parables where your followers do not understand you. This way you can ensure maximum confusion and misunderstanding on what the mission of the cause is. 
2. Get the right people on the bus. Be sure they will abandon and disavow ever being a part of the movement. 
3. Put Judas in charge of the money. The person you may have the most reason to distrust and the one person who garners the most suspicion of the group, yes put that person in charge of the money.
4. Build an organization around an idea that no one wants. Picking up your cross and following the Crucified One does not test well in focus groups.   
5. Mentoring is invaluable. Be sure to locate the leader wearing camel's hair and eating locus by the river. Ask that one to mentor you.

The absurd leadership of Jesus is something not often discussed in leadership circles. But Jesus was not always the best leader by today's standards. If a leader today did much of what Jesus did then we may call into question the sanity of that leader. 

Jesus is much more complicated that just a list of "best practices," and to reduce Jesus to such a thing belittles the mission of his life, death and resurrection. Additionally, church leaders who look to Jesus for their leadership model may be on the wrong end of the institutional/organizational goals and values.

There are many leadership teachers out there who all teach a fine model of leadership: Jim Collins, Seth Godin, John C. Maxwell, Gretchen Rubin and whoever is currently on the best seller lists. All of these leadership styles sell because they are are reasonable and sensible. 

Jesus is absurd. Which may be why he has to call us.

Indispensable: What Leaders (or Pastors) Really Matter

Gautam Mukunda's 2012 book, Indispensable: When Leaders Really Matter explores the "filtering" process to identify leaders within an organization. Specifically Mukunda argues that those who make it through the filtering process could be called "modal" leaders - the variance of decisions made within modal leaders is very small, thus modal leaders are interchangeable. That is if a pool of people make it through the filtering process then that pool of people (no modal leaders) will make very similar decisions even if there is only one job to contend for. Modal leaders are consistently on the spectrum between "bad" and "good". This mans they are rarely horrible, conversely it also means they are rarely game changing excellent leaders.

Photo by Joseph Pearson on Unsplash

In my way of thinking, modal leaders are leaders who will consistently give you a single base hit. Every now and again, the modal leader will do something flashy to get to the base, but they are only getting to first base. Even rarer, the modal leader may hit a double but conditions really have to be right.

However, Babe Ruth was not a modal baseball player. He was a high risk/high reward player: hitting home runs or striking out. Mukunda identifies these high risk/high reward leaders as "extreme" leaders. Because of their risk, extreme leaders in an organization often are people who for various reasons skit the filtering process. Mukunda says there are many ways you can skirt the process: money, celebrity, legacy, etc. Often we hear of successful extreme leaders, but extreme leaders are risky and most organizations are interested in mitigating risk not amplifying it. 

The United Methodist Church is an organization that has a very stringent filtering process. Most clergy have a high school degree, a four year bachelors degree, a four year graduate degree and then a two (or more) years of residency. Put another way, the youngest someone can be an elder in full connection in the UMC is 28 years old (do keep that in mind when thinking about how few clergy are under 35 years old, you can only be in that category for seven years.)

This stringent filtering process means that the UMC is full of modal leaders. I am a modal leader. Modal leaders are solid but of course we have our limits and when an organization asks modal leaders to function as non-modal (aka: extreme) it is an uphill climb. Truthfully, if modal clergy were extreme clergy then they, more than likely, would not have been ordained to begin with.