dennis martin papp

Tossing the Bouquet

 

When Good Gets Stale (response 2)

Last year I knew we had a rare opportunity.   We were moving out of a facility we had inhabited for forty years.  On one day, and one day only, everyone was going to be a first-timer. 

Why was this a rare opportunity?  We had no muscle memory in this place.  We would not, out of mere reflex, do what we did last week.  It was a rare opportunity to shake up some of the ruts we were in without announcing the change.  The space would do some of the changing for us...and it did.

I knew something else as well.  It would take less than a month to start to form new habits...some good, and some not so good.  The predictability was stunning.  Within a month we had been melted from old habits, remolded and were already starting to set in to new ways.

I stated above that some habits were good, and some not so good.  Bad habits have one common element...they are habits that cause us to do what is personally comfortable, but not necessarily what is best for the newcomer, the outsiders or the organization as a whole. 

Whoever first described humans as creatures of habit was a genius.  We are so habitual it is mind-blowingly predictable.  One thing can be predicted every time...we will do what feels most comfortable to us, despite whether it is what is best for anyone else.  Why?  The motive is not necessarily evil...it's just natural.  Creatures of habit love ruts.  Ruts are comfortable and predicable.  Ruts feel good.

Years ago I heard Bill Hybels make a statement that has haunted me ever since--

Leadership is relentless

Only a person who has held the reigns of leadership for an extended period of time can fully appreciate those words.  Leaders are rut busters.  They are in a relentless state of breaking up ruts.  While ruts feel comfortable, they are the subtly dangerous habits that create a climate of insiders and outsiders. 

I love breaking up ruts because I know how bad they are for everyone---the person in the rut as well as the people being excluded by the rut.  The more ruts...the deeper the ruts...the more we forget why we are doing what we are doing in the first place.  We get off group mission and on to the individual agenda of creating personal comfort zones.

I hate breaking up ruts because it is inevitable...people get offended.

More on that tomorrow.

Wednesday...

When Good Gets Stale (response 1)

This is a follow up to a really good post by Craig Groeshel on Breaking Up the Systems.

He uses the term muscle memory.  I snipped this from the site wise geek:

Muscle memory can best be described as a type of movement with which the muscles become familiar over time. For instance, newborns don’t have muscle memory for activities like crawling, scooting or walking. The only way for the muscles to become accustomed to these activities is for the baby to learn how to do these things and then practice them with a great deal of trial and error. Gradually, as the baby becomes a skilled walker, he falls less, is able to balance, and finally is able to incorporate other activities into his life such as running.

Although the precise mechanism of muscle memory is unknown, what is theorized is that anyone learning a new activity, or practicing an old one has significant brain activity during this time. The walking child is gradually building neural pathways that will give the muscles a sense of muscle memory. In other words, even without thinking, the child is soon able to walk, and the muscles are completely accustomed to this process. The child doesn’t have to tell the body to walk; the body just knows how to do it, largely because neurons communicate with the muscles and say, “walk now.”

Muscle memory thus becomes an unconscious process.

Doing ministry out of muscle memory is, as Adrian Monk would say, "A blessing and a curse."

Muscle memory in ministry happens when we do a task often enough and well enough that we can perform it without thought.  

The great part is that we just do our job without thinking about it.  The bad part is we just do our job without thinking about it.  Do you see the problem? 

Autopilot feels great!  We're finally comfortable, operating at a high level of proficiency with little thought.  On the other hand, it was the discomfort we felt when we were learning that stretched us and challenged us to try harder and give our best.

It is not too long before autopilot looks strangely similar to a rut.  You've heard the definition of a rut?  A rut is a grave with the ends kicked out.

Autopilot is dangerous for a number of reasons:

• We don't remember why we are doing what we are doing
• We stop noticing little things
• We get focused on the task and not on people
• We just do the job and lose site of the bigger picture
• We start to cut corners to make the task even more "efficient"
• We get impatient with those we are training; after all, to us it is easy

So to avoid this tendency, leaders need to shake things up. 

We need to change the routine and break up the rut.

That leads to all kinds of fun.  More tomorrow.

When Good Gets Stale

I said last week that I would be posting followups based on this post, then I got sick. 

I'm starting tomorrow.

From Craig Groeshel's blog today.  It has prompted many thoughts.  I'll post more later.

Even a good ministry system will eventually limit what God wants to do if the system doesn’t evolve or totally change.

(By system, I mean any program, structure, philosophy, or culture that shapes and helps produce a desired outcome.)

Once people operate within a system long enough, they often start to do ministry out of “muscle memory.” They tend to do the same things and work with the same people, but the results often start to slowly (or quickly) diminish.

Because this is what “we’ve always done,” people might think we just need to do what we did—better. In reality, God might want you to de-construct some ministry philosophy or system so you can hear His new direction.

For example, years ago we were doing everything you could think of at LifeChurch.tv. God directed us into a season of focusing on only five things. This philosophy served us well for about four years. It allowed us to focus on our core ministries without being distracted by lots of less-than-our-best efforts.

After a few years, it became obvious this season was coming to a close. What used to seem freeing started to become limiting. After prayer, we intentionally broke the established system to learn something new.