Making Room For Everybody

Are you making the best use of the talents, energy, and passion of the people in your organization? According to the #1 entry level job site, at least 18% of all recent college grads are underemployed. And, while the data compiled by researchers at The Career Key shows the number one thing people look for in a job is "the kind of work that makes the best use of one's abilities and gives one a feeling of accomplishment," Wayne Hochwarter, a professor of management at Florida State University, reports "it is clear that employee-employer relations are at one of the lowest points in history." But for-profit companies are not the only organizations filled with too many people whose gifts are taken for granted.

Writing in a recent USA Today article, D Michael Lindsay reports that more than half - 60% - of the high profile Evangelicals he interviewed over a five year period (including 100 CEOs and business executives, hollywood types and sports stars, and 2 U.S. presidents) are not connected to a local congregation. Instead, they are connected to each other through elite Bible study & fellowship groups and exercise service & stewardship through large, faith-based nonprofit organizations. Although this trend is especially evident among Evangelicals, Lindsay adds that mainline and liberal denominations are experiencing the same phenomenon, which has been growing since the 1950's. 

Why are these powerful, well-connected, highly-capable people abandoning their local churches and denominations? According to Lindsay's research:

Executives and politicians are often distressed by the way churches are run. James Unruh, who served as the chief executive of Unisys, was also at one time an elder at his Presbyterian church in California. He has since decided he will never serve again. He couldn't stand the inefficiency of church meetings, a common refrain among those I interviewed.               

"It's very frustrating to be patient and not to try to run things because that's what you're doing all day in your business," Unruh told me. Others described local congregations as "inefficient," "unproductive" and "focused on the wrong things." 

Now I am going to ask the obvious question: Why wouldn't we ask them to "run things?" Why wouldn't we expect them to share their expertise, their perspective, their skill, their energy, and their wisdom for the sake of getting things done?

The fact is that if we're not making room for these people, we're not making room for anybody. 

I'll never forget the woman - who had a PhD in counseling and years of leadership experience in a variety of nonprofit & education institutions - but who told me that, even after having volunteered to do whatever she could to be helpful in the congregation she had recently joined, was never asked to do more than bring cookies to the Sunday morning coffee hour.

I have long argued that nothing is killing our churches faster than our unhealthy and seemingly unshakable addiction to clericalism. In other words, in too many places, too many of us keep acting like the pastor (or the bishop or the seminary professor or whoever is holding the highest "office") is the smartest person in the room and the only one whose work really matters.

When we do this, our collective "work" suffers. And we chase off those whose gifts could really make a difference. 

Are you making room in your organization for the gifts that everyone brings? If not, what's stopping you? 

(Thanks to my friend, Debbie Terry, of The Nash Group, for pointing out this USA Today article!)