Organisations (and people) need to rediscover the art of serving #dmingml

In recent years I have observed that perhaps the biggest concern for organisations is when their focus has changed from serving a need to serving themselves. On a large level we have seen this occur with the collapse of large coporations such as Tyco International and the Enron Corporation. Down to smaller organisations we have read of reports revealing fraud among a small number of charities and community organisations.

Admittedly, the idea of service is different depending on the organisational context. For example, for profit organisations, 'service' has more to do with meeting a need that they have identified in the market place with a product or service. They either create, acquire, import or distribute something to meet that need. In the not-for-profit (NFP) context, 'service' usually equates to delivering a product or service for the betterment of others, without the need for shareholders to make a profit from it. While I realise these definitions are somewhat brief and simplistic, they are adequate for this discussion.

One of the key challenges I find in having embarked on a course of study, is applying it. Reading widely, being open to having long held assumptions be challenged, and trying to synthesise key learnings from group discussions and a wide range of critical reading with leadership reflections over the last 19 years or so.

In recent weeks, I have been challenged by Bryant L Myers. His outstanding book called, Walking With the Poor, takes a look at transformational principles of development and how we define the poor and the non-poor. At the heart of his thesis is the belief that the problem of poverty is relational, not institutional per se. And while many people and organisations are motivated to serve the poor, many do so in a way that serves their own needs and goals over the ones that need serving the most.

The next book I read was by Max Weber called, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Not the most riveting read, but worthwhile nonetheless. Basically, Weber looks at the historical context from which capitalism arose, and how it was linked to a person's religious affiliation. Over time, a substantial theological shift occured where people began to see that the accumulation of wealth was a sign of God's blessing. Unfortunately, what emerged from this was a justification for accumuting more wealth irrespective of how that was acquired, and yes, even at the expense of others and the negative impact on communities (aka the Industrial Revolution).

The third book for this term was authored by Karl Polanyi, called The Great Transformation: the Political and Economic Origins of our Time. Polanyi saw that a free, self-regulated economic market would ultimately lead to political and social collapse. Now while it can be argued that free markets have resulted in tremendous societal progress, we have only to consider recent examples of how when there are inadequate regulations and controls the consequences can be quite dire - the U.S, Ireland, Greece, and so on. While we want free markets and the ability to trade and make money without government intervention or the introduction of what we perceive as unfair taxes, when the system fails we are quick to want the government to intervene and rescue us. Of course I am generalising. However, there can be no argument that a significant strata of the population in these countries have been negatively impacted by the unrestrained (and unregulated) economic greed of a much smaller percentage of those populations. Now, I am not against capitalism, nor am I in favor of it per se. But clearly, without appropriate regulations and interventions, Polanyi's views reveal some insight about unrestrained greed and consumerism.

Where am I going with all this? I'd like to weave in some thoughts from another book I am reading as I research the importance of virtues in leadership and how they are often overlooked at the expense of a leadership competencies, capabilities, style, etc. I think we can all bear witness to having seen that even the most competent and charistmatic leader can make a mess of things, if there is an absence virtue(s).

The book by Robert K. Greenleaf called, Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power & Greatness, provides some key insights that seek to transform not only global capitalism, but also leadership in each of society's institutions, including government, education, health, churches and businesses, with the goal of serving the needs of humanity.

Ultimately, it is focused on a commitment to a vision that can only be achieved by giving authority to those who are being served by the vision, and serving the needs of colleagues who are stewards of the resources being used to fulfill that vision. Kent Keith, CEO of the Greenleaf Center, and author of The Case for Servant Leadership, identifies seven key practices of servant leaders:

1. Self-awarenes
2. Listening
3. Changing the pyramid
4. Developing your colleagues
5. Coaching not controlling
6. Unleashing the energy and intelligence of others
7. Foresight

Unlike leadership approaches with a top-down hierarchical style, servant leadership emphasises collaboration, trust, empathy and the ethical use of power.

Jesus Christ is often talked about as a great teacher, a healer, a prophet. What is often overlooked, ignored or rejected is his claim to be the Son of God, and his commitment to "serve, rather than be served." His legitimate power and greatness was found in sacrifice and service.

Here is my closing thought posed in a question? I wonder what it would be like if all of our major institutions and their respective leaders pursued greatness built on a foundation of sacrifice and service?

Idealistic? Absolutely.

How does a parent talk to their kids about drugs?

Who's Talking to Your Kids About Drugs & Alcohol if You're Not? I had the privilege a number of months back recording a radio broadcast about my book "Talking Smack". Today it was aired by Focus on the Family as an encouragement to parents by giving them the tools they need. If you're interested, go to the media player at www.focusonthefamily.com

A healthy conscience does not separate the ends from the means #dmingml

I have been reading and reflecting on numerous texts in preparation for this term's academic essay (in relation to my Doctorate on Global Missional Leadership) where I am exploring if there is a relationship between virtues and leadership behavior, and if so, what is the nature of that relationship, and what virtues may be considered universal and able to be transferred across cultures?

I am currently reading called, Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power & Greatness by Robert K. Greenleaf. In this book, Greenleaf reveals that Ghandi taught there are seven things that will destroy us:

1. Wealth without work
2. Pleasure without conscience
3. Knowledge without character
4. Commerce without morality
5. Science without humanity
6. Worship without sacrifice
7. Politics without principle

As Greenleaf points out, it is interesting that each one of these admirable ends can be falsely attained. 

I wonder what Ghandi would say today? Would these seven still be the same ones he would say have the potential to destroy us?

While we may be unable to control outcomes from these seven in relation to how others live and lead, we can allow their wisdom and truth to permeate our thinking and influence us towards making the right choices.

Do you agree with these seven? Would you add anymore that may have emerged after Ghandi's time?

 

Not to be missed! Contrasting the health and wealth of nations #dmingml

Discovered an incredible site today as a result of conducting a search on some of the work of Hans Rosling.

As part of my Doctoral program at GFU, I have been part of numerous discussions on economics, politics and the benefits and negative aspects of capitalism, the rise of poverty and how it is sustained, transformational principles of development, community engagement, etc. Of course, these are not merely academic in nature, but have pushed us to a point where each of us contemplates our own situations and how we might apply the insights we glean to those contexts.

Books written by Weber and Polanyi have been challenging reads for me, and have reminded me of how easy it is to simply go along with changing shifts and trends in our culture without understanding their origins and what factors existed in our culture that allowed those things to either develop or decline. Without appreciating this, I am not sure we can adequately understand how we should respond to (and in some cases, resist) their implications for society today. For example, I am comfortable with the concept of capitalism, but uncomfortable with capitalism that is not regulated and leads to unrestrained greed and abuse that is derogatory to individuals and communities. We have seen the impact of this on life expectancy, education, health, wealth, etc.

Now, let me introduce Hans Rosling. He is a Swedish doctor, academic, statitician and public speaker, with multiple talks and videos available on You Tube. He is also the Professor of International health at Karolinska Institute and Director of the Gapminder Foundation, which developed the Trendalyzer.

I have included a link to a graph (as seen on some amazing presentation technology that shows how long people live and how much money they earn over a period of 200 years. There are other dynamic graphs available that also contrast countries and regions throughout history as it relates to:

• Life Expectancy
• Health
• Wealth
• Education
• Unemployment
• Many more....

Click the play button to watch in 4 minutes how 200 countries have developed in 200 years.

http://www.gapminder.org/

When did we start expecting government to support our consumerist lifestyle? #dmingml

Just finished my 2am lecture on Polanyi and a robust discussion on the pros and cons of capitalism, free markets, the role of government, and what happens when free markets are not well regulated and instead consumed by personal greed, a sense of entitlement, and growing debt, all of which undermines 'healthy' capitalism and creates an unhealthy reliance on the government for welfare and support when it collapses.

Let me try and understand this -

1. Free markets and capitalism help the world go round in an economic sense

2. We consume more and buy more, and discover there is good debt and bad debt

3. Good debt is when we borrow more money to invest than we currently own to make money on what doesn't really belong to us

4. Good debt hopefully yields us a return that enables us to spend more, feeding a sense of entitlement and basis for financial security

5. When the market collapses due to unrestrained consumerism and greed, we expect the government to rescue us from having lived beyond our means (notwithstanding the importance of protecting the economically vulnerable most impacted by our consumerism)

6. Now more than ever we have a growing reliance on the restoration of our free markets and economic system to cover our debts and our societal responsibility to provide for the vulnerable and poor

7. We want to rise above all of this and become financially independent, and once again find we are trapped or at least heavily influenced by our consumerist and investment decisions

8. We have pledged allegiance once more to our free market economic system that will never fail us

I think I get it :) forgive me. It's now 4am and I'm going back to sleep to dream of something less stressful.

What about the working poor? Asked my wife. #dmingml

In my last blog (Part 1) where I reviewed Max Weber’s book, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, I briefly looked at how capitalism emerged and how within the Protestant expression of faith, it came to be closely linked to calling. Weber describes how during this period the notion of ‘work’ transitioned from being merely assigned to the physical or secular world to having a stronger spiritual significance. People began to see work as a calling, and therefore, their commitment to it as having spiritual ramifications for themselves, although not so much for others yet.

  As with all blogs, in order to make them interesting and more likely to be read, you can’t help but leave some things out. In this case, I had indicated that in the West, we had moved beyond those days where people worked in atrocious conditions for merely a pittance. By saying this, I was not saying that capitalism had changed its stripes and become everybody’s economic saviour, merely that we had perhaps become more civilised in the way employers treated their employees. Of course, we can’t make blanket statements like this and know it to be true everywhere. This is what my wife was getting at. She thought my comment was too narrow and ignored an obvious downside to capitalism that we saw overtly during our last 7 years living in the U.S.

  Even in today’s developed world, there are people living in poverty and for various reasons (aptly defined by Bryant Myers in his book, Walking With the Poor) kept in poverty and prevented from climbing out of it. Cultural or not, there were times when we expressed alarm to our American friends that people could work long hours and be paid very little for that, or that some could not afford appropriate healthcare, or food, or education. In response to our concerns, we were often told that’s how the system worked and that it was an employers right to make money. Somehow, there was a disconnect between the right of employers and shareholders to make a profit and the responsibility to adequately honour the efforts of the workers.  One only has to scrap the surface of the health debate in the U.S to understand how the spirit of capitalism has destroyed the hopes and dreams of millions of families with children living without adequate healthcare cover. While we hate to admit it, essentially the premise for many of our arguments (and therefore our policies) are shaped around stereotypes that have emerged from our limited personal experiences and what we define as the ‘haves’, the ‘elite’ the ‘non-poor’ and the ‘have nots’ or the ‘poor.’

  Having reached this point, I have only a brief space to account for Part 2 in Weber’s book, where he highlights the emergence of asceticism and the theological contributions of Calvinism, Pietism, Methodism, the Quakers, and various sects growing out of the Baptist movement. Wealth resulting from capitalism was seen as a blessing and a curse. It was a natural consequence of people working with the belief that their work was now spiritual and their fruitfulness was proof of God’s blessing (“proving one’s faith in worldly activity”). Their works and worldly activity would not bring about an individual’s salvation, but certainly it would act as proof of their salvation. Unfortunately, this led many into the trappings of material accumulation and justifying it regardless of the cost it took to acquire it (usually at the expense of the labourers and the community).

  It was in this context that asceticism developed and changed. Over time it moved from an asceticism that led to the gain of personal wealth and individual freedom, to wanting to be free from how capitalism and material wealth led to sin and a departure from the Christian life. Ultimately, it became an attempt to crawl back from the edges of unrestrained capitalism and accumulation of wealth that led to spiritual complacency, to a healthier view of how the spiritual and physical realms of life should be balanced. Sadly, this created a different set of problems where deeply religious people separated themselves from the world to the degree that they lost the ability to engage the world and all of its issues. They lost sight of where God truly desired for them to be, and that was to know the Light and to be light to those spiritually lost, providing hope and healing to a broken world.

It’s strange, that this battle is still being fought today. Capitalism and consumerism arguably present one of the biggest challenges to the Church in the West in living out the intent of the gospels.

Ultimately greed and the unbridled individual pursuit of wealth comes all too frequently at the expense of many others #dmingml

The last time I opened a book that looked at the relationship between the emerging Protestant ethic and capitalism was in my Sociology 101 class in 1987 – a mere 24 years ago! Now in 2011, I find myself analysing this relationship in Max Weber’s book, The Protestant Ethic & the Spirit of Capitalism.

  In Part I, Weber essentially argues that there is a close relationship between the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. He looks at the historical context in which capitalism was conceived, and argues that capitalism grew out of a person’s religious affiliation and social status, and that primarily there was a greater proportion of business leaders, owners of capital and higher skilled labourers who were Protestant rather than Catholic. Weber analyses the reasons he perceives are behind this, including the notion that had emerged from the Reformation where ‘work’ was given a higher status and afforded spiritual legitimacy. In essence it had been transformed from a secular or worldly pursuit to now being related to someone’s religious calling, as “an expression of virtue and proficiency.”

  Capitalism had arrived, and it came to dominate people’s lives, certainly in an economic sense now that it was seen as much more than merely a worldly pursuit. Unfortunately, this gave rise to a new development, for as Weber points out, people became consumed with the making of money as the ultimate purpose of life. Economic acquisition was no longer subordinated to man as the means for the satisfaction of his material needs.

  There are certainly some healthy discussions to be had and questions to be asked about capitalism, and for now, I would like to analyse what Weber calls the spirit of capitalism and take a look at it through a modern day lens. For many, capitalism has increased people’s ability to meet their physical, social and intellectual needs. It has brought about the accumulation of material assets, including essential shelter, transport, time saving gadgets and personal technology that have made our lives much easier (although not always simpler). However, capitalism has not always proven friendly to every person. We only have to look back to the Industrial Revolution in England and Europe where adults and children were forced to work extremely long hours in atrocious conditions for only a pittance, all in the name of capitalism and progress. It allowed these workers to barely provide for the basic needs of their families, while the business owners increased their own profits and margins. While those days may be long gone in the Western world, we only need to cast our thoughts back to some of the underpinning causes of the recent global financial crisis, to understand that ultimately greed and the unbridled individual pursuit of wealth comes all too frequently at the expense of many others and in different ways, such as increasing unemployment, higher costs and government taxes, mortgage foreclosures, bankruptcies, and so on.

  Things would undoubtedly be different if we had maintained a purer sense of calling to our work and seeing it not only as exercising our God-given talents and opportunities, but also as a responsibility and contributor to the welfare of our communities. Most of us don’t begrudge someone else earning a higher income or working harder to achieve a level of success, or even putting in some extra effort with the goal of purchasing something they have wanted for a long time. Cross the line however, to pursuing this objective at the financial, physical or social expense of others, then we have made the needs of others in our communities subservient to our individual pursuit of wealth. Herein lies a very real problem even in today’s modern world. In reality, as we delve into the historical roots of capitalism and its relationship to Protestantism we discover that it is not so much relational as it is individualistic, albeit, individualistic with significant relational repercussions.