I saw this on Tony Morgan’s Blog, http://tonymorganlive.com, this morning and felt that it was a good perspctive on organizational health. In order to move an organization forward, it must be healthy. As Jim Collins notes in Good to Great, you must get the right people on the bus, and the wrong people off the bus in order to become a great organization.  Tony’s post focuses on concepts from The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business by Patrick Lencioni.

I have copied Tony’s full post below, you can read the post here: http://tonymorganlive.com/2012/12/18/10-symptoms-of-an-unhealthy-organization/

10 SYMPTOMS OF AN UNHEALTHY ORGANIZATION

1. Inattention to Organizational Health — “The single greatest advantage any company can achieve is organizational health. Yet it is ignored by most leaders even though it is simple, free, and available to anyone who wants it.” [In churches, there is so much focus on the Sunday service experience that we neglect the health of the ministry organization where relationships and discipleship really happen.]
2. Adrenaline Addiction — “Unfortunately, many of the leaders I’ve worked with suffer from a chronic case of adrenaline addiction, seemingly hooked on the daily rush of activity and firefighting within their organizations. It’s as though they’re afraid to slow down and deal with issues that are critical but don’t seem particularly urgent.” [This is a common trait of senior pastors as well.]
3. Leadership Team Disunity – “If an organization is led by a team that is not behaviorally unified, there is no chance that it will become healthy.” [This is why I've focused the last several months on writing about healthy senior leadership team. See my eBook, How to Take the Lid Off Your Church.]
4. Artificial Harmony — “Nowhere does this tendency toward artificial harmony show itself more than in mission-driven nonprofit organizations, most notably churches. People who work in those organizations tend to have a misguided idea that they cannot be frustrated or disagreeable with one another. What they’re doing is confusing being nice with being kind.” [We need more healthy conflict in churches.]
5. Prioritizing Consensus – “When leadership teams wait for consensus before taking action, they usually end up with decisions that are made too late and are mildly disagreeable to everyone. This is a recipe for mediocrity and frustration.” [Read my post on the "5 Reasons Why Consensus Sucks."]
6. Not Answering the Key Questions — Six critical questions: 1. Why do we exist? 2. How do we behave? 3. What do we do? 4. How will we succeed? 5. What is most important, right now? 6. Who must do what? [These are the core questions we address in the StratOp process I facilitate for organizations.]
7. Being All Things to All People — “The mistake those leaders made was trying to be all things to all people, which led them to make their values statements as broad and inclusive as possible.” [You may have a long list of values, but are they the core values that distinguish you from other churches and non-profit organizations?]
8. Poor Vision Casting — “Great leaders see themselves as Chief Reminding Officers as much as anything else… Many leaders fail to overcommunicate because they get bored saying the same things over and over again.” [This is related to the "adrenaline addiction" listed above.]
9. Hiring the Wrong People — “Bringing the right people into an organization, and keeping the wrong ones out, is as important as any activity that a leadership team must oversee.” [The church can demonstrate grace and mercy to all people without hiring them and paying them money to be a poor fit on the team.]
10. Ineffective Meetings — “If someone were to offer me one single piece of evidence to evaluate the health of an organization, I would not ask to see its financial statements, review its product line, or even talk to its employees or customers; I would want to observe the leadership team during a meeting.” [The best model for meetings is found in Patrick Lencioni's book Death by Meeting.]

For the past several years, Park Cities has been on a missional shift, a shift from being an internally focused church towards a church becoming more external focused.

We want to be others focused.

We want to be a church that exists for those we haven’t met yet.

We also want to be not the best church in the city, but the best church for the city.

The end product is making disciples of Jesus.

In order to take those steps, this translates to clarifying core values and a constant focus on mission.

On a smaller scale, we have worked in our missions efforts to concentrate our work around our ministry wheel.

This is how we view missions at PCBC.

The ministry wheel was launched in 2009 when we began to deepen missional life in the church. Out of the ministry wheel we discovered over the past three years what PCBC does well, this became our core values:

Compassion- This is work that usually begins our work with a people group. This may be orphan work, helping with clean water, medical clinics, food distribution, microloans, improving housing, etc. These ministries have served to show the love of Christ to many and to give us a foundation for lasting relationships with the people.

Evangelism and Church Planting- We have been very purposeful about sharing the gospel wherever we go. We are utterly committed to seeing people come to faith in Christ. We have used the Jesus Film, large crusade gatherings, local church partners, one on one evangelism, and other tools to spread the good news of Christ. We have also had a passion for seeing reproducing churches established that can plant other churches. We do not want new believers to stand alone, but to live out their faith in community…in a church.

Education/Leadership Training- For many years now Park Cities has been deeply involved in the training of leaders for the church. This has included providing seminary training for Pastors, discipleship tools for growing believers, encouragement and training for House Church leaders, and language specific discipleship materials (books, software, computers, etc.) We have supported seminaries in the USA and globally. We have also provided training seminars for church planters, Pastors, and students who feel God is calling them to ministry.

With the core values in place, we’ll adjust our scorecard to reflect how we are doing. These metrics will help frame conversations on partnerships and where we feel the Lord is leading us to be involved. Those conversations might lead to ending of relationships and moving on to a new work.

Choosing to end a relationship requires courageous decision making. Will everyone agree with you or stand with you when you make that choice? More next blog entry.

In order for business as mission to prosper, the leader must understand that their vocation is a matter of calling for ministry and service, just as a minister is called to serve a local church.

Gene Edward Veith Jr., describes in his book, God at Work, vocation is not something we choose, it is something we are called (47). Veith Jr. writes, “instead of “what job shall I choose?” the question becomes “what is God calling me to do?” Our vocation is not something we choose for ourselves. It is something to which we are called” (47).
If the worker/boss is able to understand his calling, then the business will proceed as mission. The worker/boss will use his career to have an impact for Christ. Undoubtedly, the first calling of a Christian businessman is to Christ himself, the second calling is to a particular vocation (Nelson 16).

Veith Jr. writes Christians are engaged in the world through their vocations, and that is how a positive influence will take place on culture and affect the direction of business (67). It is through the day-to-day work environment evangelism and mission will take place and happen effectively (Veith Jr. 67).

The thought that through vocation evangelism takes place harkens back to an earlier point, the church is a group of people already deployed. Therefore, Christian businessmen are deployed in a specific organization already as missionaries. This is a key principle to explaining the missional church; the church is in all spectrums of society including business. Reggie McNeal describes this belief in the forward of To Transform a City, “This means that everywhere you and I are, the church is present. We are as much the church on Monday at work as we are anytime we gather with other followers of Jesus for designated church stuff” (11).
The miracle about the church being everywhere including the workplace is businessmen have more mission opportunities than pastors, due to workplace interaction with people from a variety of life situations. Gene Edward Veith Jr. describes this interaction in God at Work:

[...] in the work place, non-Christians and Christians work together and get to know each other. Occasions for witnessing and inviting a colleague to church come up in natural ways—over the water cooler or during a coffee break, discussing a disaster like the World Trade Center attack or a failing marriage, or in times of joy such as the birth a child. Christians penetrating their world in vocations have access to more non-believers than a pastor does. (67-68)

Sources:

Nelson, Tom. Work Matters: Connecting Sunday Worship to Monday Work. Wheaton:
Crossway, 2011. Print.
Swanson, Eric, and Sam Williams. To Transform A City. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010. Print.
Veith Jr., Gene Edward. God at Work. Wheaton: Crossway, 2002. Print.

What does a church look like that worships through service?

Hundreds of Park Cities members and attendees spread out across Dallas to serve our neighbors, sharing God's love and compassion on 1:8 Day 2012. It takes more than just a Saturday once a year to share God's love…it takes a lifestyle of serving.

Developing a Missionary Mentality is the work of transforming each small group member into believing that they are a missionary developed at their place of work, school, or neighborhood. Reggie McNeal describes this transformation, “God had a mission in mind that everyone could participate in, a far cry from a member culture that gathers on Sunday to watch a few people exercise their gifts” (55).
In order to become a small group that has a Missionary Mentality the group must have four distinctions. Stetzer and Rainer write that these four distinctions begin with understanding the mission, the church and group is on, is God’s mission, and He has already defined it (68-69). Second, “[Transformational Church’s] understand and obey God’s call to serve the poor and the hurting and are not afraid of a stronger engagement in social justice” (Stetzer and Rainer 69). Third, the church cares deeply about God’ redemptive mission to the nations (Stetzer and Rainer 69). Finally, Missionary Mentality churches, “are serious about joining God on his mission and obey his commands to disciple the nations” (Stetzer and Rainer 69).
Basically, the group and church need to think like a missionary, a shift needs to take place. This shift will mark a radical departure for a majority of church members, in eras past- ‘others’ were missionaries, and now the church is calling for everyone to be one.

Sources:

McNeal, Reggie. Missional Renaissance, Changing The Scorecard For The Church.San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2009. Print.

Stetzer, Ed, and Thom S. Rainer. Transformational Church, Creating A New Scorecard For Congregations. Nashville: B&H Books, 2010. Print.

In order for a Christian businessman to see their business as missions, to embrace the characteristics of a mission-focused great commission company, to understand their vocation as a calling, the church must change its culture. The church must learn to connect Sunday morning worship to the boardroom on Mondays. This means it is essential for the church to embrace the missional movement and celebrate missionaries already deployed in all spectrums of life, including the office tower.

Reggie McNeal, provides a glimpse in Missional Renaissance of what the culture shift looks like: “Moving from a member to a missionary culture means making heroes of Jesus followers who are using their life assignments as missionary posts to bless people” (55). A church moving from a member to a missionary culture means story telling, life coaching, developing strategies and providing training (McNeal 151). It will become the role of the pastor and leaders in a missional church to explain to the businessman what it means to see business as mission, a lesson in theology (McNeal 150). The pastor will need to continue to provide good teaching as well and help to develop a theological perspective in all of life (McNeal 150).McNeal writes the pastor and other church leaders will help connect Sunday morning to Monday morning by providing life coaching, displaying how the businessman can live missionally, and be a missionary in their current vocation (151).

These shifts will mark a radical departure for a majority of businessmen in the church, in eras past- ‘others’ were missionaries, and now the church is calling for the businessman to be one. “God had a mission in mind that everyone could participate in, a far cry from a member culture that gathers on Sunday to watch a few people exercise their gifts” (McNeal 55).

The culture shift connecting Sunday morning to Monday morning requires church leaders to display how God is at work everywhere and we are to join in. McNeal compares this to a being on a life long mission trip:

On mission trips, people focus on the work of God around them, alert to the Spirit’s prompting, usually serving people in very tangible ways, often in ways that involve some sacrifice or even discomfort. Life on mission is more intentional and more integrated. (54)

Life on mission is integrated into the fabric of business everyday; it requires church leaders to push their congregations to be incarnational. “The incarnational understanding of who the church is declares that we are the body of Christ in the world today” (McNeal 50).

Pastors will need to bless businessmen, set them apart and release them as missionaries to their workplaces. McNeal states they should be commissioned, “commission people as missionaries to apartment complexes, to business ventures, to school classrooms” (53).

The missional church is a church of celebration; displaying ‘others’ are valued in God’s eyes. In essence the businessman is taught the daily routine is where God is represented, and through this routine the Lord does his finest work. “The idea is that in their daily lives and daily routines, in their relationships and social networks, in their fields of influence, the people of God represent God to people and people to God” (McNeal 55).

Connecting Sunday morning to Monday morning will not be an easy overnight transition (Nelson 189). It will require discipline from both the pastoral leaders and the business community.

When a Christian businessman represents God in the office, the office becomes a place of life transformation.

Sources:

McNeal, Reggie. Missional Renaissance, Changing The Scorecard For The Church. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2009. Print.

Nelson, Tom. Work Matters: Connecting Sunday Worship to Monday Work. Wheaton: Crossway, 2011. Print.

Church staff teams of the twenty first century led by a Senior Pastor and by a second chair leader embrace the following: servant leadership, transformational leadership and finally, team based leadership. Jesus’ team-based leadership is still in existence today (Anthony 333). “Today, almost two millennia since the ministry of Jesus, his disciples still comprise teams to advance its ministry and mature its members” (Anthony 333). Teams occur naturally because of the foundation laid by being a servant and transformational leader. “Once the staff has grown accustomed to servant leadership, teamwork happens naturally” (Cordeiro 120).

Since teamwork happens naturally, the staff realizes the value of everyone succeeding and stepping in when a gap develops. Wayne Cordeiro writes in his book, Doing Church as a Team, that staff teams are cross trained to fill in when one staff member lags behind, “in doing church as a team, we have learned the importance of cross training—training outside our specialties so that we can step up and step in when others need a break or simply need our support” (120).

A part of utilizing team-based leaders is for the Senior Pastor to have a strong relationship with those on the team. Peter Northouse describes that the Leader Member Exchange Theory focuses on the relationship and interactions between leaders and followers (151). Northouse declares that one of the goals of the Leader Member Exchange Theory is to make every subordinate feel a part of the in-group, a part of a team. “In general, leadership making promotes partnerships in which the leader tries to build effective dyads with all employees in the work unit” (Northouse 155). Northouse continues, “[LMX] attempts to make every subordinate feel as if he or she is a part of the in-group and, by doing so avoids the inequities and negative implications of being in an out-group” (Northouse 155). Making staff apart of the in-group, the team—is central to the twenty first century staff.

Developing future leaders is an important responsibility of leaders who lead twenty first century staff teams. Twenty first century staff teams contain the following: servant, transformational, and a team-based leadership environment. “Invite others into your ministry. Don’t consider passing batons an exit strategy, but as an invitational one. It is for inclusion and team building, not merely for transition” (Cordeiro 119).

Sources:

Anthony, Michael. Management Essentials for Christian Ministries. Nashville, TN:

B&H Academic, 2005. Print.

Cordeiro, Wayne. Doing Church as a Team. Ventura, CA: Regal, 2005. Print.

Northouse, P. G. Leadership Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks, CA:

Sage Publications, Inc, 2007. Print.

Second chair leaders, often known as an Executive Pastor, serve as the “right hand man” to the Senior Pastor. They are required to serve at the highest level and are given specific assignments from the Senior Pastor.

Mike Bonem and Roger Patterson detail this relationship between the Senior Pastor and the second chair leader in their book, Leading from the Second Chair, “for the church to further grow in its redemptive potential, a new wave of second chair leaders is essential, men and women who work in concert with their first chair leaders [Senior Pastor] to accomplish the mission that God has placed before them” (8). The role of the second chair leader has scriptural basis and can be found in the Old Testament, with Joseph who became second in command in Egypt, “You shall be in charge of my palace, and all my people are to submit to your orders. Only with respect to the throne will I be greater than you” (Genesis 41:40).

Understanding that the primary role of a second chair leader is to support the Senior Pastor at all times, their secondary role is to think globally for the organization, which often becomes a matter of outlook (Bonem, and Patterson 82). “Effectiveness as a second chair leader requires that you see the big picture, even as you are continuing to serve with excellence in your functional role” (Bonem, and Patterson 72). A large perspective of the entire ministry drives the position for the second chair leader, “they become knowledgeable of the key aspects of all ministry areas…. they seek this knowledge to improve the organization’s overall effeteness” (Bonem, and Patterson 81).

One of the final roles of a second chair leader is to build teams to propel the ministry towards the Senior Pastor’s vision. “Second chair leaders who are team builders understand and value the unique gifts and perspectives that each person brings to the table” (Bonem, and Patterson 87).  Developing teams continues to be a key endeavor in evolving twenty first century staff teams.

The second chair leader will be successful in their role, if they put the pastor, the organization and the vision before themselves. It requires a servant to be in the second chair role (Bonem, and Patterson 96). “The second chair leader who wants to thrive, personally and organizationally, builds a team by exhibiting a servant’s heart” (Bonem, and Patterson 96).