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\u201cI can\u2019t wait to get back to normal\u201d was a regularly heard phrase by the members of the church I served when the Covid Pandemic was in full swing.\u00a0 Although people were thankful for Zoom technology for worship, the heart felt sense that we were not the same community because we could not be together in person was so palpable. Even as the Pandemic began to lessen its hold on the world, the church wanted to know how much longer we were going to mess with having the hybrid worship gathering. My proclamation that in person worship with Zoom technology was here to stay tapped into the anxiety that Covid change was our foreseeable future.\u00a0 WYSIATI[1]<\/a> has been the modus operandi of the church for so long that imagining a different way, even when it is forced up it, is almost impossible.<\/p>\n Remote Not Distant: Design a Company Culture That Will Help You Thrive in a Hybrid Workplace<\/em> written by workplace culture thinker, Gustavo Razzetti is a timely book for organizations working to navigate the \u201cgray zone\u201d[2]<\/a> midst the rapidly changing cultural dynamics that have shoved the world into confronting the digital reality of life. Razzetti offers leaders a toolbox full of wisdom from organizational leaders, a systematic approach to nurture remote work culture and effectiveness, and Mural templates to help facilitate the transformational work needed to embody a healthy organizational system.<\/p>\n Remote not Distant <\/em>is structured around 5 steps that include 1. Resting the culture, 2. Reimagining a shared culture through inviting those invested into the conversation, 3. Reigniting belonging by means of nurturing deep sense of safety, 4. Rethinking collaboration in reframing 6 modes of collaboration and ways to use asynchronous communication, 5. Release agility that happens when leaders release control.[3]<\/a> I found the first three chapters particularly provocative as a pastor who continues to wade into this digitally challenging era.<\/p>\n Numerous times through the book I found myself making notes about how to apply Razzetti\u2019s concepts in an institution that often defies change.\u00a0 For Razzetti, culture is more dynamic than external behaviors; he includes emotions and mindsets that encompass a culture system.[4]<\/a> Although he glances the topic of how anxiety manifests in a culture system, I found myself asking what are the dynamics in play that relate to Friedman\u2019s proposition of the characteristics of an anxious system[5]<\/a> and how much does lack of self-differentiation impact the culture system Razzetti describes?<\/p>\n The heart of my NPO is about the need for the church to rethink or reframe its identity, or in Razzetti\u2019s language, culture.\u00a0 He invites the leader to be cognizant that by way of culture the \u201cwhat is\u201d and \u201cwhy\u201d of the organization is conveyed and embodied in community.[6]<\/a> This echoes the driving point of An Everyone Culture<\/em>. But this also is at the heart of what we have been talking about through this Leadership education….what makes meaning. Razzetti\u2019s concept of the power of culture echoes something of a \u00a0Trinitarian Ubuntu and Friedman\u2019s call for healthy leaders to hold the tension of individualism and togetherness well.<\/p>\n As I continue the conversation with the church to consider how Covid has offered us an open door to rethink how, why, and what is the church God is inviting us to be, Remote not Distant <\/em>tools can help facilitate conversations.\u00a0 We can ponder things like: How do we better interact with our digital community in worship? What if we worshipped in hybrid format twice a month and do small encouragement gatherings throughout the month? Could there be value in having more asynchronous planning meetings instead of in person?<\/p>\n It is likely that any given church will resist taking seriously these changes.\u00a0 It is not only the biases Razatti mentions[7]<\/a> that paralyze the church. The fear of letting go of control that is a strong subconscious tendency for presentism is a factor.[8]<\/a> This is a hurdle for those who have been in the church for a long time. How do I help the church embrace a new model that doesn’t make presentism the anchor?<\/p>\n Razetti comments, \u201cGoogle is missing an opportunity to leverage everything it\u2019s learned from working remotely. The culture that got you here won\u2019t get you into the future.\u201d[9]<\/a> Leading the church into a future that is not normal and disrupts the cultural system that has been WYSIATI will require me to be continually working on being well-differentiated. I am thankful for the toolbox Razatti put in my hands. Hopefully I will be able to facilitate the church to say, \u201cBye-Bye normal, hello WYSINATI.\u201d<\/p>\n [1]<\/a> What people see is all there is is one of the biases Daniel Kahneman addresses in Thinking, Fast and Slow.<\/em><\/p>\n [2]<\/a> The gray zone is the time between the shift between two eras.\u00a0 This subject is the foundational proposition in Mark Sayers book, A Non-Anxious Presence: How a Changing and Complex World will Create a Remnant of Renewed Christian Leaders. <\/em><\/p>\n [3]<\/a> Razzetti, Gustavo. Remote Not Distant: Design a Company Culture That Will Help You Thrive in a Hybrid Workplace<\/em>. Liberationist Press, 2022. \u00a0Page 6. Kindle. These 5 steps are then the 5 sections of this book<\/p>\n [4]<\/a> Ibid. \u00a0Page 13.<\/p>\n [5]<\/a> Friedman, Edwin H., and Peter Steinke. A Failure of Nerve, Revised Edition: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix<\/em>. 10th Anniversary edition. New York: Church Publishing, 2017.<\/p>\n [6]<\/a>Razzetti, Gustavo. Remote Not Distant: Design a Company Culture That Will Help You Thrive in a Hybrid Workplace<\/em>. Liberationist Press, 2022. Page 14. Kindle.<\/p>\n [7]<\/a> Ibid. Pages 38-39, 48. Safety, anchoring, and proximity biases which are also found in Sway<\/em> and Thinking, Fast and Slow<\/em><\/p>\n