Thomas Benjamin gave us a 'parable' of the bishop and the vicar. He
suggested that the vicar had done the wrong thing by wearing out his
sandals rather than his knees in prayer. I can't agree with this
conclusion. I think to stay in your church and believe people will come
because you are praying is arrogant and unrealistic. Perhaps the vicar
had been doing the right thing but doing it the wrong way. My point here
is that it is not enough to making contact with people in your
organization whether they be parishioners or employees. It is the type of
contact you are having that counts. I remember when our local vicar
visited our home to try to encourage us to attend church. He knew I was a
PE teacher and thought he might drop down to my level. "You know God is
like the referee in a football match" he said. From that point on I knew
it was pointless trying to have an intelligent conversation with him
because he was not listening to what I was saying but rather basing his
argument from where he was a and his perception of me. Needless to say we
do not attend church.
Perhaps if the vicar had started with questions and tried to understand
where we were and accept some of our assertions we might have got
somewhere. The key to my 'parable' is that it is probably the bishop who
was correct to stay in the church and pray for at least he was not causing
any damage. If you are going to 'manage by wandering around' then
conversations have to be meaningful and the key skill of the manager is to
listen and to allow the individual to make sense of their contribution to
the bigger picture.
Sorry to sound so dogmatic Thomas but direct experience tells me a
different story from the one you recounted.
All the best
Don Ledingham
--Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>