{"id":13846,"date":"2017-09-07T07:37:40","date_gmt":"2017-09-07T14:37:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=13846"},"modified":"2017-09-07T07:37:40","modified_gmt":"2017-09-07T14:37:40","slug":"good-enough-jazz-a-response-to-collins-good-to-great","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/good-enough-jazz-a-response-to-collins-good-to-great\/","title":{"rendered":"Good Enough Jazz: A response to Collins\u2019 Good to Great"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ubiquitous on office shelves across the business, social and religious sectors, Jim Collins\u2019 book Good to Great<\/em> and its companion, Good to Great and the Social Sectors<\/em> are undoubtedly required reading for leaders and potential leaders, especially those who want their companies or organizations to be \u201cgreat.\u201d I believe Collins\u2019 simple, straightforward explanation of what makes companies great, coupled with extensive data, has given rise to its popular reception and reputation. While Collins would suggest it is not a \u201chow to\u201d but a \u201cwhy\u201d book, it is obviously meant to be just that: traits to foster a thriving company.<\/p>\n

That said, I\u2019ve wrestled this week with how beneficial Collins\u2019 characteristics are to my context, serving in an urban church in the Midwest. Recognizing I am still learning the language and culture of this new place, I am uncomfortable with some\u2014though not all\u2014of Collins\u2019 great traits.<\/p>\n

Why be Great?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

It\u2019s tempting to be skeptical of the drive towards \u201cgreatness.\u201d Emma Percy suggests sometimes it\u2019s best to be \u2018good enough.\u2019[1]<\/a> Collins sees it otherwise, to the point of critiquing \u201cthe disease of \u2018just being good\u2019.\u201d[2]<\/a> And yet, why is a stronger bottom line the judge for greatness? Collins himself answers that criticism in the accompanying text for the social sectors: \u201cA great organization is one that delivers superior performance and makes a distinctive impact over a long period of time. For a business, financial returns are a perfectly legitimate measure of performance. For a social sector organization, however, performance must be assessed relative to mission, not financial returns.\u201d[3]<\/a><\/p>\n

A different way to press against the \u201cgreat\u201d mentality suggests that many companies can potentially be \u201cgreat\u201d according to Collins\u2019 standards, but few are actually good, from an ethical standard: \u201cToday\u2019s great challenge isn\u2019t making the same old toxic junk, whether CDOs, Hummers, or soda, more efficiently \u2014 it\u2019s making stuff that\u2019s not toxic junk in the first place. That\u2019s the challenge of going from great to good \u2014 and becoming what I\u2019ve been calling a \u2018Constructive Capitalist.\u2019\u201d[4]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Level 5 Leader<\/strong><\/h3>\n

I appreciate Collins\u2019 characterization of a \u201cLevel 5 Leader\u201d as someone who is \u201cmodest and willful, humble and fearless.\u201d[5]<\/a> He clarifies what that looks like in the social sector, recognizing the reality that \u201cmost nonbusiness leaders simply do not have the concentrated decision power of a business CEO\u201d and that the goal of these leaders is to move the organization in the right direction, \u201cindependent of consensus or popularity.\u201d [6]<\/a> I can affirm all this, especially the deep commitment these leaders have to the organization and its mission. What troubles me are the repeated images of hierarchical leadership throughout both texts.[7]<\/a> While I do<\/em> have leadership responsibilities within our church, there are about 150 other people who share in leadership in one form or another (in a church of 150). We truly are a mushy, ambiguous consensus-based community of people. I\u2019m still not sure how I would diagram it\u2014though we\u2019ve tossed around a jazz-playing orchestra with Jesus as the conductor\u2014but it certainly wouldn\u2019t be a pyramid of hierarchy.<\/p>\n

Bus Riders<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Collins describes the need for the right people in the right seats on the bus, clarifying that with the reality that in the social sector, with volunteers, it\u2019s often challenging to get the wrong people off the bus.[8]<\/a> This is where I would push back on these texts. Like Max DePree\u2019s recognition that \u201cevery person brings an offering to the group\u201d[9]<\/a> our community recognizes that every person that comes into the community is a gift from God. There\u2019s no removing someone from the bus. We believe that everyone has a place in our community, to serve and be served. I would<\/em> concur with Collins that one of our roles as a community is to discern with one another our giftedness and find the best places for our gifts to be used, but that\u2019s simply moving seats on the bus, not discarding people.<\/p>\n

Hedgehogs<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Finally, I want to push back against the concept of being the best at something. While our \"\"<\/a>congregation wants to see our neighborhood flourish, more importantly and interconnected with that, we seek to be broken, faithful witnesses to the Kingdom of God in this neighborhood. Our hedgehog as a church might look more like the Jesuits\u2019 \u2018holy ordinariness\u2019: \u201cIt is the ordinary life of ordinary people doing extraordinarily ordinary things for an extraordinary purpose<\/em>.\u201d[10]<\/a><\/p>\n

Collins\u2019 popular texts are attractive because of their data, straightforward steps, and effective examples\u2014the science of success. However, true leadership\u2014especially within a church community\u2014is more of an art than a science. Both DePree[11]<\/a> and Percy would agree. Percy contends that ministry \u201ccannot be carried out successfully by following rules or generic patters. In place of rules it needs the development of virtues.\u201d Indeed, ministry is \u201ca reflective way of reasoning that takes seriously how people are feeling and uses feelings as a way of assessing appropriate responses.\u201d[12]<\/a> Kind of like jazz improvisation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Emma Percy, What Clergy Do: Especially When It Looks Like Nothing<\/em> (London: SPCK, 2014), 30-34.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Jim Collins, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don\u2019t<\/em> (New York: Harper Collins, 2001), 3.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Jim Collins, Good to Great and the Social Sectors: Why Business Thinking is Not the Answer<\/em> (Jim Collins, 2005), 5.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Umair Haque, The Great to Good Manifesto<\/em> Harvard Business Review Feb 2, 2010. https:\/\/hbr.org\/2010\/02\/great-to-good<\/a><\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Collins, Good to Great<\/em>, 22.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Collins, Social Sectors<\/em>, 10, 11.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Ibid., 12.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Ibid., 15.<\/p>\n

[9]<\/a> Max DePree, Leadership is an Art<\/em>, (New York: Doubleday, 2004), 65.<\/p>\n

[10]<\/a> Katy Drage Lines, Extraordinarily Ordinary: Heroic Leadership<\/em> (Oct 27, 2016), http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/extraordinarily-ordinary-heroic-leadership\/. cf. Chris Lowney, Heroic Leadership<\/em> (Chicago: Loyola Press, 2003), 15, 20.<\/p>\n

[11]<\/a> \u201cLeadership is an art, something to be learned over time, not simply by reading books. Leadership is more tribal than scientific, more weaving of relationships that amassing of information.\u201d DePree, 3.<\/p>\n

[12]<\/a> Percy, 34.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ubiquitous on office shelves across the business, social and religious sectors, Jim Collins\u2019 book Good to Great and its companion, Good to Great and the Social Sectors are undoubtedly required reading for leaders and potential leaders, especially those who want their companies or organizations to be \u201cgreat.\u201d I believe Collins\u2019 simple, straightforward explanation of what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":85,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[267,1014],"class_list":["post-13846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-collins","tag-jazz","cohort-lgp7"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/85"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13846"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13846\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13849,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13846\/revisions\/13849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}