What Churches Can Learn from the Harvard Business School: It’s Not What You Think...
I wrote this article as an assignment for my PhD program and pitched a form of it to a Christian leadership magazine hoping to start a much-needed dialog about bottom-line-first, numbers-oriented business practices that secular leaders are now calling "soul-less" that remain best practices in many American churches. Would love to hear your thoughts...
Over the past two decades, many American churches have evolved and grown utilizing many of the same tools and strategies that propelled top corporations to record growth domestically and across the globe. Mission statements, five-year strategic plans, hierarchical management structures and demographic-friendly programming have become de rigueur in many faith communities, resulting in a spiritual version of Darwin’s survival of the fittest as large, program-oriented churches outpace many smaller community churches in growth and giving. While there are voices from the fringe who view the use of branding, demographics and marketing to propel church growth as collateralizing the gospel, those who embrace these models find little reason to ignore the best practices of successful business organizations in their efforts make the Christian story more relevant to a consumption-driven American culture.
Yet, as the world financial system bends under the weight of an unprecedented worldwide financial crisis business leaders and thinkers are reassessing the models profit-centered models that have driven the economic boom of the past 50 years. As titles like Moral Markets: The Critical Role of Values in the Economy by neuro-economist Paul Zak; Trust Agents by social networking gurus Chris Brogan and Julien Smith and The Trusted Advisor by Harvard MBAs and consultants David H. Maister, Charles Green and Robert M. Galford make their way up the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists, the question of profit-making at the expense of valuing human relationships in the marketplace is being examined as the foundation upon which a sustainable turnaround might be built. Terms such as trust, humility, character, sincerity, intimacy, reliability and honesty are entering today’s business lexicon in boardrooms and b-schools in an attempt to ascertain where things went off track and what it will take to recover.
I had the pleasure of sharing breakfast with approximately 300 executives, entrepreneurs and social media advocates in the main hall of the Harvard Club on a recent Friday morning for an interactive conference on the topic of trust. Billed as a “Trust Summit”, the authors of Trust Agents and The Trusted Advisor gave brief presentations, which were followed by more than 90 minutes of questions from the floor. Many of the questions were what one might expect: How can marketers quantify the value of social networking to skeptical leaders? or What is the ‘next big thing’ in online interaction with customers? If the questions were predictable, the answers were not.
Rather than focus on processes and tactics, the panelists’ answers gravitated over an over again to matters of integrity and character. Suggestions such as putting others first, seeking genuine human connections, pursuing trustworthiness and risking vulnerability by trusting back were raised—activities that are impossible to quantify and even more difficult to acquire by training. And yet, when I posed a question to the panel, Charles Green offered a thought-provoking and convicting snapshot of the dilemma facing capitalism and a hint that a spiritual (but not Christian) solution is part of the conversation.
Q (Joan Ball): I cannot help but notice that words such as integrity, trust, humility, character, sincerity and honesty are being used with frequency. How does a leader teach matters of virtue in an organization?
A (Charles Green): “This is a very important question. The doctrine of competitive advantage as it has been taught is essentially anti-ethical. It is solely about ourselves. It is not about relationships except as they are means to our own self-aggrandizement. Robinson Crusoe did not need ethics…at least not before Friday. When we have no relationships, ethics are irrelevant. If you treat the world as if everyone else is a means to your own end, you are not dealing in ethical frameworks. When business schools put together ethical programs and treat them simply as another course to find out how to navigate the political and social mores in order to achieve sustainable competitive advantage, you have just marginalized ethics and you have ruined it by teaching the strategy class down the hall.“
“What I think we are really talking about is a joint way that says you matter as much as I do. In fact, the ultimate paradox is we need more “Buddhist Capitalism”. The best way to make money is to stop trying to make money. The best way to sell people is to stop trying to sell them. By serving customers, you will end up making a lot more money than someone who is trying to extract every last penny from their wallets. But not if you set out with it as your objective. “
“Part of the problem is we have defined everything in terms of service to increasing the bottom line and the continued survival of the corporation, which is a soul-less, naked, abstract body. Business ought to be made of blood and flesh people and relationships between them. Ethics ought to be absolutely at the heart. That’s what we mean about the word commerce [versus competition]. Commerce, when you think of it, is interaction between entities that find themselves there for the greater good of all. And by moving it to the competitive angle, which is wholly self-oriented, we have taken the soul out of capitalism in a very distinct and literal kind of way.” *
Green’s response raises questions for church leaders who have embraced these same business models as the foundation of their church expansion strategies and a faith that has at its center sharing a gospel whose principles reflect many of the needs expressed here. Specifically:
• Should church leaders join their secular colleagues in reassessing their methods and strategies?
• How might spiritual leaders partner with their counterparts in business as they attempt to shift from a profit-first, competition oriented system to one that views service to customers, workers and the community as equally or even more important than the bottom line?
• Has trust in the church eroded to such a degree that a term such as Buddhist-markets is preferable to Christian-markets when describing the needs of a marketplace that has lost its soul?
These are critical questions if the church is to transition from following culture to talking a servant leadership role and modeling behaviors that might be embraced by the culture. The harvest is plentiful…are the workers equipped?
The following links include the entire event: The are long, but well-worth the time to have a deeper understanding of the dilemma facing American business thinkers and those who are looking to them for solutions.
http://trustedadvisor.com/trustmatters/674/Trust-Summit-Summary-and...
http://trustedadvisor.com/trustmatters/675/Trust-Breakfast-Part-II-...)
Over the past two decades, many American churches have evolved and grown utilizing many of the same tools and strategies that propelled top corporations to record growth domestically and across the globe. Mission statements, five-year strategic plans, hierarchical management structures and demographic-friendly programming have become de rigueur in many faith communities, resulting in a spiritual version of Darwin’s survival of the fittest as large, program-oriented churches outpace many smaller community churches in growth and giving. While there are voices from the fringe who view the use of branding, demographics and marketing to propel church growth as collateralizing the gospel, those who embrace these models find little reason to ignore the best practices of successful business organizations in their efforts make the Christian story more relevant to a consumption-driven American culture.
Yet, as the world financial system bends under the weight of an unprecedented worldwide financial crisis business leaders and thinkers are reassessing the models profit-centered models that have driven the economic boom of the past 50 years. As titles like Moral Markets: The Critical Role of Values in the Economy by neuro-economist Paul Zak; Trust Agents by social networking gurus Chris Brogan and Julien Smith and The Trusted Advisor by Harvard MBAs and consultants David H. Maister, Charles Green and Robert M. Galford make their way up the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists, the question of profit-making at the expense of valuing human relationships in the marketplace is being examined as the foundation upon which a sustainable turnaround might be built. Terms such as trust, humility, character, sincerity, intimacy, reliability and honesty are entering today’s business lexicon in boardrooms and b-schools in an attempt to ascertain where things went off track and what it will take to recover.
I had the pleasure of sharing breakfast with approximately 300 executives, entrepreneurs and social media advocates in the main hall of the Harvard Club on a recent Friday morning for an interactive conference on the topic of trust. Billed as a “Trust Summit”, the authors of Trust Agents and The Trusted Advisor gave brief presentations, which were followed by more than 90 minutes of questions from the floor. Many of the questions were what one might expect: How can marketers quantify the value of social networking to skeptical leaders? or What is the ‘next big thing’ in online interaction with customers? If the questions were predictable, the answers were not.
Rather than focus on processes and tactics, the panelists’ answers gravitated over an over again to matters of integrity and character. Suggestions such as putting others first, seeking genuine human connections, pursuing trustworthiness and risking vulnerability by trusting back were raised—activities that are impossible to quantify and even more difficult to acquire by training. And yet, when I posed a question to the panel, Charles Green offered a thought-provoking and convicting snapshot of the dilemma facing capitalism and a hint that a spiritual (but not Christian) solution is part of the conversation.
Q (Joan Ball): I cannot help but notice that words such as integrity, trust, humility, character, sincerity and honesty are being used with frequency. How does a leader teach matters of virtue in an organization?
A (Charles Green): “This is a very important question. The doctrine of competitive advantage as it has been taught is essentially anti-ethical. It is solely about ourselves. It is not about relationships except as they are means to our own self-aggrandizement. Robinson Crusoe did not need ethics…at least not before Friday. When we have no relationships, ethics are irrelevant. If you treat the world as if everyone else is a means to your own end, you are not dealing in ethical frameworks. When business schools put together ethical programs and treat them simply as another course to find out how to navigate the political and social mores in order to achieve sustainable competitive advantage, you have just marginalized ethics and you have ruined it by teaching the strategy class down the hall.“
“What I think we are really talking about is a joint way that says you matter as much as I do. In fact, the ultimate paradox is we need more “Buddhist Capitalism”. The best way to make money is to stop trying to make money. The best way to sell people is to stop trying to sell them. By serving customers, you will end up making a lot more money than someone who is trying to extract every last penny from their wallets. But not if you set out with it as your objective. “
“Part of the problem is we have defined everything in terms of service to increasing the bottom line and the continued survival of the corporation, which is a soul-less, naked, abstract body. Business ought to be made of blood and flesh people and relationships between them. Ethics ought to be absolutely at the heart. That’s what we mean about the word commerce [versus competition]. Commerce, when you think of it, is interaction between entities that find themselves there for the greater good of all. And by moving it to the competitive angle, which is wholly self-oriented, we have taken the soul out of capitalism in a very distinct and literal kind of way.” *
Green’s response raises questions for church leaders who have embraced these same business models as the foundation of their church expansion strategies and a faith that has at its center sharing a gospel whose principles reflect many of the needs expressed here. Specifically:
• Should church leaders join their secular colleagues in reassessing their methods and strategies?
• How might spiritual leaders partner with their counterparts in business as they attempt to shift from a profit-first, competition oriented system to one that views service to customers, workers and the community as equally or even more important than the bottom line?
• Has trust in the church eroded to such a degree that a term such as Buddhist-markets is preferable to Christian-markets when describing the needs of a marketplace that has lost its soul?
These are critical questions if the church is to transition from following culture to talking a servant leadership role and modeling behaviors that might be embraced by the culture. The harvest is plentiful…are the workers equipped?
The following links include the entire event: The are long, but well-worth the time to have a deeper understanding of the dilemma facing American business thinkers and those who are looking to them for solutions.
http://trustedadvisor.com/trustmatters/674/Trust-Summit-Summary-and...
http://trustedadvisor.com/trustmatters/675/Trust-Breakfast-Part-II-...)
Tags: at, business, ethics, spirituality, values, virtue, work
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Bob Hempen on -
I don't think business practices such as" Mission statements, five-year strategic plans, hierarchical management structures and demographic-friendly programming" are a problem in and of themselves. I don't think these practices have any virtue attached to them good, or bad. I think they are tools that can help an organization make money, serve customers, or in a churches case help people connect with God through Jesus Christ. I think it is the culture, values, goals of an organization that determine their outcome. The practices you mentioned are not naturally antithetical to Christian virtues or ethics.
I'm guessing there are churches that may use these practices to promote something other than the Gospel, but I'm also guessing there are many churches that need to implement these practices so they can better promote the Gospel.
I'm also wondering about these "churches" that people like to mention on this sight that are less than missional, or only concerned with the bottom line. Who are these churches? I don't know the heart behind the leadership of any church other than mine and those with whom I've been personally connected.
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Permalink Reply by Joan Ball on -
Hi Bob: Green's point, as I heard it, was that outcome-oriented business approaches such as managing to metrics at the expense of customer relationships are anti-ethical. He and the others at the conference were not suggesting the abandonment of these tools, just a reexamination of what motivates the users. Speaking of businesses (not churches) Green states, “Part of the problem is we have defined everything in terms of service to increasing the bottom line and the continued survival of the corporation, which is a soul-less, naked, abstract body. Business ought to be made of blood and flesh people and relationships between them."
Applying that to the church, the "bottom line" might not be money. It might be numbers or a large church campus or some other metric. I was involved with one church that chose a target demographic and created a culture to serve that demographic that led older members to leave the church. They took the position that this was where the church was going and people had a free choice to stay or go. Was this guided by God's will or by a church consulting report? I do not know. However I think it is an interesting question to consider.
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Permalink Reply by Bob Hempen on
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To your point, many businesses have poor motives, or "bottom lines" so anything they do will probably be corrupted, but that doesn't make many of the tools, methods, principles found in the business world themselves the problem, it's the motives of the users that are problematic.
So I think everyone would agree people, companies, churches with bad motives will promote, or produce bad things. But I can say from my personal experience 3 of the last churches I was involved with could have benefited a ton and impacted their communities for Christ if they incorporated these principles.
I'm also curious if you ever asked the leadership of your previous church why they chose that direction?
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Permalink Reply by Joan Ball on
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Bob: Your response led me deeper into my thinking about the relationship between business tools and organizational culture. In the case of strategic planning, for instance, the planning process itself results in the creation of metrics against organizations measure success. Things like number of new members or number of people who "made decisions for Christ" become the most obvious measures of success while things like honesty, integrity and transformed hearts--because they are impossible to measure--can get lost in the shuffle.
As for why the church I mentioned in the earlier comment, I believe they made the changes to create an environment that would attract a certain kind of new member. That said, I never asked an elder or the pastor directly, so I cannot be sure.
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Permalink Reply by Bob Hempen on
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I think you are making an assumption that tracking numbers of new attendees, decisions made, etc makes, or leads churches to marginalizing heart/internal issues; however, you can measure some of that as well by tracking service, giving, participation in various growth environments, missions , etc.
If the missions, or goal of a specific church is to reach disconnected people then trying to track those numbers doesn't mean that church only cares about numbers of new people, but wouldn't you want to find out how you are doing in that area? Why wouldn't any organization want to set goals, assess their effectiveness and come up with practical plans to do things better? I agree when people become just numbers that's a problem, but it's just as much a problem if a church can benefit from some of these principles, but decide not to because they are "worldly". If using business methods can lead to churches becoming heartless then not using them can also be a great pious excuse to stay mediocre.
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Permalink Reply by Anna M. Clark on -
Joan, this is precisely the dilemma that my church faces. Where do I begin? Our church is being forced to move out of its building in a matter of months. If we can't all compromise, find a new venue, and continue in a new format that somehow appeals to our existing congregants AND the neighborhood demographics, then we will be forced to disband and go our separate ways. There is much strife and decline in our congregation since the old people dislike the band (which we hired to attract young people). Now we have learned that the congregation cannot support the building any longer, mainly because our membership has declined so much since the 1970s. Also within this time frame the demographics have changed considerably. We live in a semi-urban area about 15 minutes from downtown Dallas. A number of cultures collide in this little enclave and our church's almost all-white culture (not to mention aging congregation) just isn't attractive to a lot of visitors. Most of the people in this area that have money prefer to drive to the big churches that do cater to their needs with expensive programs. Our church consultant, one of the best around, explained this in great detail, showing us the reports and statistics. What is a Methodist church to do? Either we modify ourselves to fit the culture and all its expectations, or we get radical and do this "love thy neighbor" thing that Jesus taught us. Both of these choices are extremely difficult because the first requires us to be more business savvy and the second requires us to work outside our comfort zones. Since your average person has limited leadership ability or courage to be missional, it is usually much easier for folks (over 30, that is) to join an institution that can just handle all the details of church growth for them. More of us feel comfortable with the branding, mission-statement, 5-year plan route than the missional route (at least in my church). Also, the business-minded church knows how to raise money. I know that there are a number of successful independent churches, but ours is Methodist so it has certain responsibilities to the denomination. There isn't as much freedom to change, not to mention the strife going in among the congregants. What is hard for me is that I an see how the large institutional variety worship is not the future for many people. It's not a sustainable model, but then neither is a small community church with an expensive building. I know things are changing, but as a mom of 2 toddlers and a business owner, I don't feel called to go off and start some radical new church all by myself. I am just caught up in this along with everyone else, or so it feels. One final thing - it is curious that Greene uses "Buddhist" instead of "Christian." It saddens me that "Christian" holds such a negative connotation for secular people. Then again, I can sometimes see why. From the outside looking in, we are one giant (and often judgmental) club. Why all these denominations anyway? When did this become so messed up? Are these naive questions?
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Permalink Reply by Joan Ball on
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Dear Anna: I am by no means qualified to offer any solutions to your challenges, but a couple of questions/thoughts came to mind as I read your comment.
You mention a church consultant, statistics, sustainable models, branding, mission statements and 5-year plans, but not much regarding the leading of the Holy Spirit and discernment of the will of God regarding this church and how it does or does not serve God's will in the world. Is every church meant to serve young people? I'm not so sure. In fact, in a society that frequently ignores and institutionalizes its elderly, might it be just like a loving and merciful God to call us to sacrifice our programs and musical tastes to love and serve our elders? Not a great church growth strategy, I know, but incredibly, counterculturally loving.
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Permalink Reply by Anna M. Clark on
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I hear you, Joan. As a layperson, I realize I don't know everything there is to know about this issue. However, from where I'm sitting, the Methodist church (which I love, don't get me wrong) seems hampered by bureaucracy. Independent churches seem to be more agile and able to adapt to areas with "difficult" demographics. Anyway, it's been an education. Fortunately for me, I'm getting better answers on this site than I have anywhere else. I am grateful!
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Permalink Reply by Greg Funk on -
I think the whole issue of "business" practices inside the Church is a crucial one. Why would we want to emulate a lot of businesses who are doing a horrible job. Method do have a morality to them and we need to be careful that rather than simply reacting to a leadership culture, we instead engage culture with a preferred leadership paradigm. I think one of the critical issues is that the Church does not think out into a preferred future which result in a constant mimicking the best and the brightest of our day (again - let's look at the best and the brightest by how we define success) Can Churches learn from Harvard . . .absolutely . . can Harvard learn from Churches . . . absolutely - th is is not a one way relationship and it is about relationships.
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Permalink Reply by Bob Hempen on
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I'm wondering what is the morality of these stated methods "Mission statements, five-year strategic plans, hierarchical management structures and demographic-friendly programming" to me these are just tools, ideas, that may help an individual, company, or church. Businesses are horrible because they have horrible mission statements, horrible strategic plans, and poor leadership, not because they incorporated a mission statement, or strategic plan.
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Permalink Reply by Glynn Young on
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I was a member of a large and growing church that decided to use business philosophy and practices to "advance the kingdom" -- branding, strategic objectives, "educating the public" (congregation), outside consultants, the use of popular culture to attract seekers (movies sprinkled in the sermons, among other things). I was actually asked to stand for election as an elder because of my background and experience in corporate communications -- and I said I didn't think that was among the qualifications for elder in 1 Timothy (which autmatically labeled me as "not a team player" -- just like in business). Teaching was dumbed down (The Prayer of Jabez was as heavy as it got), worship incorporated cool cultural practices like dancers and a maypole, hymnbooks disappeared and were replaced by words broadcast on multimedia screens, "observers" were sent to adult Sunday School classes where people were raising objections, and there was more. People began fleeing the church in droves -- the church didn't just lost more than half the congregation, it lost the half that financed the church and served in all the programs. This was more than five years ago and today it continues to limp along, never having recovered. So when I see questions like "what can the church learn from business," my immediate, kneejerk reaction is "absolutely nothing."
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Permalink Reply by Joan Ball on
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This is what fascinates me, Glynn. What came across at the Trust Summit was a admission that over the past few decades business and business education somehow lost its way. In fact, those exact words were used by one of the presenters. This kind of humility and the desire to return (or pave a new way) to a people-first, service-minded orientation is both refreshing and inspiring. Perhaps the decision-makers at the church you describe might reconsider if they knew that the folks who created some of the models they follow are actually rethinking them.
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