Twelve Steps

Hi. My name is Mike and I'm a jerk. That's what someone close to me called me recently (actually reference was made to the human anatomy, but I'm cleaning it up a bit here). As I sputtered a series of refutations, I realized she was right and I haven't been the same since.

I begin this with a style of declaration that starts any 12-Step testimonial because being a jerk is like an addiction. While I'm not a jerk all the time, conditions can conspire to put me right in the middle of a good long bout of jerkiness. Under these conditions, when I am a jerk, I'm not proud of the way I act, react and think. I just can't seem to control myself. I become overwhelmed and I say things I later regret and I act like a, well, like a jerk.

Fear is my drug of choice. Precisely, it is the fear of making a mistake or the fear of being discovered as a fraud that leads to the transformation to jerk. I'm capable of compassion and empathy except when I feel like I'm being criticized. When I'm under attack, the meanness comes out under the cover of defensiveness.

My hope is in the belief that I am a recovering jerk. I admit that I have no power over my addiction and my life is presently unmanageable. I believe that only God can restore my  sanity and I turn this addiction over to God for care. The third step of the program has far reaching implications. The step calls for a decision to turn our will and lives to the care of God as we understand God.

It is the last part of this step that I'll be considering over the next series of posts. What do I understand about God? In addition to guidance from the 12 steps, I'll also use Alexander Shaia's The Hidden Power of the Gospels.

Living, Working and Serving in Two Worlds

Christ speaks of two worlds, both real, but with only one worthy of our consciousness. In one world, consciousness is centered on oneself. Folks living in this world seek more of what they already have: security, comfort, prestige, power and control. The highly valued folks in this world are rich in things, well-fed, happy and respected members of the community.

In the other world, consciousness is centered on what is to come. This is a transformative world where the most respected, or blessed, people are not very well adjusted to present conditions. They are not rich in things. They are often hungry. Since they are downtrodden, they are often perceived as unhappy. They are reviled, pitied or ignored.

Nonprofit organizations are the center of this more meaningful world. High performance then is in healing, lifting up, empowering and rendering justice. More than this, high performance means delivering the messages and teachings of the poor, widows, orphans and prisoners to the people still living, working and serving in the unreal world.

I believe Jesus urges us to do just that in a mysterious parable that appears only in Luke. It is a curious tale of management styles of the two worlds. Knowing that he will soon be fired, a dishonest steward ingratiates himself with his master's debtors by reducing their accounts. Upon realizing what had been done, the master commends the steward for acting shrewdly. Jesus ends the parable by saying, "For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than the people of the light."

More From Light and Drucker

There is too much of a hopeful quality imbedded in aspirational goals to be helpful. Aspirational goals become something to shoot for, but with the understanding that you might not actually achieve them. For example, at a 2007 conference of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation, the Australian Prime Minister announced the agreement among APEC members to set a "long-term, aspirational, global emission reduction goal." When the world press pushed for an explanation, it became clear that the goal was voluntary and nonbinding on the member nations. Presented as an aspirational goal, the message is obvious: this goal is nice, good, maybe even the right thing to do; but expect only the noble to reach for it.

Another example can be found in the U.S. Bar Association's Model Rules for Professional Conduct. Rule 6.1 makes a strong statement:

Every lawyer, regardless of professional prominence or professional workload, has a responsibility to provide legal services to those unable to pay, and personal involvement in the problems of the disadvantaged can be one of the most rewarding experience in the life of a lawyer.

Service to anyone in need of a lawyer but who cannot afford one is not only the right thing to do, it is one of the most rewarding things you can do in your career, no matter how rewarding your career has been.

The rule goes on to state the goal:

Every lawyer has a professional responsibility to provide legal services to those unable to pay. A lawyer should aspire to render at least fifty hours of pro bono legal services per year.

In case you are not clear on the use of "aspire" here, the title of Rule 6.1 is Voluntary Pro Bono Public Service.

I believe Light would be more on target if we turn to the second usage of the word. "Aspiration" in phonetics is the strong burst of air after sounding some consonants (as in "how", "when" or "key"). Thinking again about the soul of the nonprofit industry, I'm reminded that the Greek and Hebrew words most commonly rendered as "soul" connote "breath" and the divine breathing process. I'm suggesting we make spirituality a distinguishing characteristic of high performing organizations. High performers are awake in that they are conscious of who they are and what they represent. They are awake to the Spirit.

Light said it this way: "High performance can only be achieved and sustained if an organization knows why it exists, who it serves and when it is successful." Drucker focuses on the mission statement with the acknowledgment that the real world to us is the world of public and not private good. Drucker says mission statements must ultimately state the difference we intend to make in individuals or society at the end of the day.

Consciousness is being aware of your position in the "real world." Just what is real and what is unreal is the basic spiritual issue. Buddhists say that none of the world around us is real. All is illusion. After his eyes were opened by the ground-of-all-being, Paul saw a radically different world. Christ speaks of two worlds, both real, but with only one worthy of our consciousness.

Next: Living, working and serving in two worlds

Are We Conscious Yet?

Peter Drucker and Paul Light call for nothing less than a radical shift in thinking about nonprofit management. When combining and extending their thoughts on mission, performance and, in a fundamental way, our very reason for being, a loud call is heard to stop marching toward mediocrity as if it were the only course available. Both men ask nonprofit managers and their boards to open up to high performance as a way out of a second-class existence.

Before we apply their teachings, we should engage in a bit of self-examination. How did the sector get to this point? I believe it is a matter of consciousness. Do nonprofit managers really read capacity-building books and then slap their foreheads from the overwhelming revelation that high performance is right around the corner for anyone who sets reasonable, quantified and appropriate goals?

The underlying cause of low performance simply cannot be that we never thought any better before. Obviously, managers know about goals and how to set them. The root cause of our malaise has to be hidden, or just beyond our consciousness, or simply avoided and ignored until everyone agrees that the Emperor looks dandy in those new clothes. We must wake up.

Light comes close to identifying consciousness as an important factor when he suggests a loss of soul if the sector adopts a more business-like definition. To avoid losing our soul, he suggests forming aspirational goals to lead us to high performance. "Aspirational" has two usages. I'm guessing that Light intends to convey the sense of having a strong desire or a longing for success. 

Next: More from Light and Drucker

Struggle for the Soul of the Nonprofit Sector

If we become more business-like, which companies should we model: Enron, sub-prime mortgage brokers, Big Pharma? The appeal of being more business-like is due to its superior image, which consists of words and phrases like: lean and mean, efficient, entrepreneurial and innovative. In contrast, the word "nonprofit" conjures images like: ill-equipped, struggling, stressed and ineffective. While Light finds appealing the pursuit of business-like methods, he believes it changes the soul of the nonprofit organization.

But, the pursuit of being more nonprofit-like is a fool's errand too because there is no acceptable definition of nonprofit-like. The term itself defines the industry by what it is not. Using the term is like telling you "I have something in my hand and it is not a horse." It's a true statement, but not at all helpful. As a way out of the conundrum, Light insists we redefine "nonprofit" instead:

Properly defined, the term should refer to the best in the sector ... and it should be aspirational in tone. At a minimum, it should refer to high performance in the service of the public good, and not being mediocre or hanging on for survival's sake. This meaning emphasizes dedication not only to excellence but also to the public, not private, good.

In Managing the Nonprofit Organization, Peter Drucker writes a chapter entitled, "What Is the Bottom Line When There Is No Bottom Line?" To reverse the trend to disregard performance because the bottom line is hard to define, Drucker suggests mission as the starting point when considering performance goals:

In every move, in every decision, in every policy, the non-profit institution needs to start out by asking, "Will this advance our capacity to carry out our mission?" 

 From mission, we are to ask ourselves what fundamental difference are we to make in society and the lives of particular individuals. Performance goals are then carved out to determine what success will look like when we make those fundamental changes through the work of our organizations. It is then that we will be able to answer our investors' "bottom line" question. It is then that we can say we have done everything possible, prudent and legal to increase stakeholder wealth.

Next: Are We Conscious Yet?

What Society Really Thinks About the Nonprofit Sector

Paul Light in Pathways to Nonprofit Excellence paints a grim portrait of the nonprofit industry when he presents evidence that the public does not have confidence in the sector, and what confidence it holds is waning. In the latter days of the last century, the public read about  United Way, Red Cross and Nature Conservancy scandals. This century began with press scrutiny of Habitat for Humanity and Congressional investigations into excessive nonprofit executive salaries.

Light did a follow-up study in 2008. Americans remain skeptical of nonprofit organizations. Only 64% had either a great deal (16%) or fair amount (48%) of confidence in charitable organizations. Not only did respondents believe that the charitable sector wastes resources, the survey also indicated a sharp decline in the effectiveness rating. In 2003, 34% of the sample thought nonprofit agencies were doing a very good job of helping people. The "very good" rating dropped to 25% in 2008.

Light suggests two general methods of regaining public confidence and giving cogent answers to the bottom-line questions: become more business-like or become more nonprofit--like. There are problems with each alternative.

Next: Struggle for the Soul of the Nonprofit Sector

How's Your Bottom Line?

Everyone makes plans, whether for vacations, parties or selling iPods. In each situation, the same steps are taken. Decide exactly where you want to go; detail what it will take to get there; and decide what success should look like, so you know it when you arrive. When stripped to its essentials, the planning process is about the bottom line.

If you ask a commercial business manager the bottom line question, you might like get answers like:

• Sales are up the last three quarters
• All cost centers are meeting projections, or
• Margins are thickening

All are different ways of expressing the same thing. The bottom line relates to shareholder quality of life. Has the company's management team done everything possible, prudent and legal to increase the price of a share of stock, thereby increasing shareholder wealth?  All else is supportive but secondary.

Can there be a similar bottom line mindset in the nonprofit business world? To test, ask yourself these questions for your latest fiscal year:

• Who are my shareholders
• Was shareholder quality of life increased
• What was the impact of my nonprofit business

Typically, nonprofit business managers would say there is nothing comparable to a shareholder in the nonprofit world, in that there is not one category of beneficiary. There are several and all must be satisfied. That is why the term stakeholder is prevalently used instead. In addition to the client, stakeholders include volunteers, board members, donors and even staff.

Many managers would say nonprofit business is just too intangible to be quantified. While performance cannot be demonstrated with numbers, surely client qualify of life  improves, given the amount of service provided. Here, the causal link between performance and effectiveness is usually just assumed. Other managers might indicate that impact is quantifiable, having increased services from 1,000 meals a day (patient visits, hours of care, average daily census, or any process variable) to 1,800, a whopping 80 percent increase.

While both of these statements may be true, neither answers the question, "How is your bottom line?" No management team can say it has done everything possible, prudent and legal to increase stakeholder wealth.

When nonprofit agencies discuss results, as in these two imaginary conversations, no one is able to answer the question, "So what?" The marketplace does not offer an answer because it does not reward nonprofit performance to the degree necessary to sustain operations. Instead, nonprofit managers depend on independent investors. These investors deserve a decent answer to that question. Process variables such as the number of service units do not answer the "so what" question. Nonprofit managers know they offer value, but are unable to express it to others. Until the industry can communicate its true value to society, is it any wonder why the sector is under attack?

Next: What Society Really Thinks About the Nonprofit Sector

Faith in the Workplace

Now let's return to our Google search. While not a new idea, spirituality in business is taking a new direction. The workplace is becoming a venue in which employees could and should practice their faith.

Notre Dame University established the Center for Ethics and Religious Values in Business to "strengthen the Judeo-Christian ethical foundations in business and public policy decisions." Os Hillman's newsletter, TGIF Today God is First Marketplace Meditations, encourages women and men to express their faith in the workplace. Parker Palmer has been writing about spirit and vocation for the last 15 years. His works include Now I Become Myself, The Active Life: A Spirituality of Work, Creativity and Caring and Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation.

What about the nonprofit business world? Not much is said about our industry in the business literature except for that part of our sector identified as faith-based organizations, where some sort of spirituality is expected. But, Scripture leads me to believe all nonprofit businesses are faith-based organizations and should therefore be unafraid to acknowledge roots and practice spiritual disciplines.

Jesus the Christ was open and comfortable with everyone He met, but He especially loved to be with those who were in distress or considered to be outcasts: prostitutes (Luke 7:36-47), those with physical impairments (John 5:1-9), the diseased and consequently ostracized (Matthew 8:1-4), those unfaithful in marriage (John 4:9-26), and occupying military officers (Luke 7:1-10). In fact, He had a life-changing impact on anyone who had the courage to be who they are instead of presenting a mask of who they thought they should be. These honest and courageous people admitted they were not self-sufficient and instead were in need of help.

Christ's commitment to "such as these" continues today through the office of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, when we serve the poor, homeless, abused, imprisoned, orphaned or otherwise disadvantaged person, Christ is indeed there too, as promised, and perhaps more powerfully than anywhere else we might meet Him, including a church sanctuary. It would therefore seem most appropriate to conference with the Holy Spirit from time to time as we consider our customers, strategic plans and marketing environment.

Next: Techniques for Conferencing With the Holy Spirit

The Spiritual Side of Marketing Strategy

I believe that the most powerful marketing strategy today has a spiritual element to it. Brand management brings all marketing tools to bear to build up equity in a particular brand. Proctor and Gamble was the first company to organize its marketing efforts around a brand. In branding, managers work to imbue a product with a set of values. Hopefully, these values are attributes of a product that will be perceived as desirable by the buying public. 

Branding goes far beyond demonstrations of a product's consistent good quality, an important value but usually not sufficient to drive sales. Brand management links other product values that will separate it from competing products in the marketplace. A car does not just get you from point A to point B cheaply and effectively. It also expresses the buyer's lifestyle better than any other car. In advertising, these other value statements usually speak the loudest  (see the video for Toyota's Swagger Wagon). In Nike's case, its logo, know as the "shoosh" even unadorned by copy conveys a potent marketing message (product endorsement by celebrities is another story altogether).

Spiritual values can also be potent marketing messages. Consider Texas Interfaith Power and Light. This nonprofit business makes a connection between the theology of creation stewardship and reducing carbon emissions. It has formal ties to the Islamic, Jewish and Christian faith traditions. 

Next: Faith in the Workplace

Doing Well By Doing Good

If you searched Google right now for "spirituality in business" you might think it has become the hot topic. However, the now popular mantra, doing well by doing good, is at least 200 years old. Capitalist business theorists and practitioners have been thinking about spirit for at least that long.

Its antecedents go back to the 18th century and Adam Smith, a moral philosopher who wrote about the ethics of economics (The Wealth of Nations published in 1776, but more importantly, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, published in 1759). Smith's Invisible Hand is a close cousin of the conscience in that enlightened self-interest drives the marketplace as we seek to maximize individual return but only while being mindful of the interconnectedness of others in that market.

We see business ethics in the news again in the 1970s when the Corporate Social Responsibility movement was in full flower. The World Business Council for Sustainable Development defined corporate social responsibility as:

the continuing commitment by business to behave ethically and contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of the workforce and their families as well as of the local community and society at large.

Here, advocates were not interested in doing right for its intrinsic value to the soul. Doing good leads to doing well. (For more on the movement, see Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative web page http://bit.ly/Zf77).

As companies pursued the concept of corporate social responsibility, it became obvious to some that a corporation is like an individual in that it is a citizen and therefore woven into the fabric of community life at both neighborhood and national levels. Implementing the notion of corporate citizenship has become increasingly sophisticated in the last 30 years to the point of moving out of the executive suite and into the workhorse of any business, its marketing department.

Cause-related marketing is defined as promoting a link between commercial and nonprofit businesses to the benefit of both. Historians point to American Express in the early 1980s as the strategy's progenitor. The Company nearly doubled its number of cardholders and increased overall card usage by almost a third by promising to donate a penny to the Statue of Liberty restoration project every time a cardholder made a purchase. This is a direct causal connection from doing good (restoring Lady Liberty) to doing well (100% market share increase at the cost of a cent per transaction).

Next: the spiritual element of marketing strategy

When Everything Qualifies as a Miracle

Everything qualifies as a miracle. I hear people say babies, sunsets and mountains are all miracles, or at least the healthy, happy, good ones. I also hear people say it will take a miracle for some relatively mundane event to happen in their lives like, "it will be a miracle if there is no line at the post office". A jaded person would think the power of the miracle is lessened when everything is one.

We say these things because, as a species, we are constantly seeking approval. We are like whales swimming around with our mouths open and feeding on plankton trying to sustain ourselves on a high volume of bits of approval. We look for approval from parents, spouses, bosses, colleagues, friends, neighbors, even fellow worshipers. This behavior takes on all forms. "Am I doing OK?" "Are you mad at me?" "Will it ever be alright?"

And so it is with our relationship with God. We constantly seek God's approval and reassurance of worth through the show of miracles which we see as approval granting attention from the Almighty. Of course we see miracles everywhere.

What about the shoes for Lucian? Was it a miracle like a sunset or a traffic-free commute to work? Notwithstanding the jaded position, I believe it is on the same order as the feeding of the 5,000.

The feeding miracle shares a distinction with the resurrection in that it is the only other miracle reported by the four canonical gospel authors. Something about this miracle struck the disciples as being memorable, even more memorable than raising Lazarus from the dead.

Late in the evening, near dinnertime, a crowd of seekers assembled to hear the teacher. The disciples were worried about feeding such a large crowd and they asked Jesus what they should do about it. Three of the authors reported an unexpected divine answer: feed them yourself.

From the disciples' vantage point, they saw a magical moment. Jesus asked for God's blessing and somehow, a woefully inadequate amount of food became enough to feed thousands of hungry people. And the miracle did not end there. There was more than enough for the disciples to eat. In fact, after everyone ate, there was more food left over then the initial collection of a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish.

From a different vantage point, what if Jesus' blessing and prayer was not for some magic of sleight of hand but for the magic of a compassionate and loving heart. What if the first person in line to receive the basket of meager means knew there was not enough food for everyone and thought of others over self. It was after all late in the day and prudent people would have brought a bite or two with them. With hearts now opened by Jesus' prayer, people contributed what they had for the common weal and ate from the community's store only if they were totally unprepared. Such behavior among 5,000 people could have gone virtually unnoticed and the result would have appeared to the disciples as truly miraculous. Indeed it was.

The shoe miracle follows the same pattern. When I agreed to find 200 pairs of shoes for Lucian's children, I asked God just how I was going to do it (having no idea myself). That was my only prayer. From that point forward, God delivered people to me who took care of the rest. From casual conversations with a few people, I got the shoes, labor to clean and package them, and transportation to Romania without spending a cent.

At the time I asked God how this was going to get done, I remember hearing an answer which I quickly dismissed because it was not what I expected to hear: do it yourself.


Next: Doing Well by Doing Good

Shoes for Lucian

Without having lived in a police state, it is difficult to understand how fear can rule a people long after the source of fear has been removed. Under the former regime, informers and the secret police watched everyone everywhere and reported everything. Public life was owned by the state. When ServingHIM briefed us for the trip ahead, they told us that while the secret police had been disbanded, it was still considered rude to draw attention to yourself in public. This cultural norm is a vestige of the days when the collateral damage from prying eyes now focused on your public display could put someone near you in prison.

Given this reticence for the attention of authorities, imagine Lucian's concern when Romanian customs officials informed him that he had to come to the port to claim a few packages. Here is his email:

I was so happy when I received the twenty boxes with shoes. I was also a little nervous at the customs, but everything turned all right. Many children will be happy and so their parents. I pray God will reward all the dedication, kindness and I especially want to send to all the people involved in this operation, our deepest thanks and I ask God to send upon them His blessings. I know you carried them with Mike's car. I believe Kevin was also involved. Please, send them my best wishes and send my regards also to Stephanie and many hugs from Stella.
May God bless you as only He knows how from His riches in Heaven!
In His Service,
Lucian and Stella

As I now reflect on this tale years later, I can see Jesus the Christ in the seams of it. By removing cultural, religious and xenophobic filters, and by looking with eyes wide open, I believe this story describes a miracle on par with the feeding of the 5,000.

Next: how the jaded and skeptical will view this miracle story.

Return to Blogging

This blog started simply as a way to keep in touch with family when we were in Romania. I had no intention of keeping up with it after we returned. Occasionally, I tried to update material as the shoe story unfolded, but without a unifying theme, I lost interest. I'm not a diarist.

I changed the masthead to "Christ beyond church, culture and country" to declare a purpose. Christ has become too constrained, covered up and co-opted by the institutions that define life in America. As a result, Christ is no longer the living manifestation of the Almighty Creator of all we see, taste, touch and otherwise sense through our emotions.

The church has domesticated God into something comfortable and entertaining at week's end. Culture ignores God and instead offers us substitutes in a desperate attempt to prop up the notion that everything we do and say as a people is so damn important. Politics usurps and then repositions God's power for personal gain.

I will try to peek around the edges of culture, church and country for what I feel will be bountiful sightings of Christ Jesus, the gentle King who first came to us as a helpless baby and who promises friendship between lions and lambs upon His return. I'll report what I see.

I was inspired to search for a theme and return to blogging after a conversation with Stacy Caldwell, Executive Director of Dallas Social Venture Partners. Once you have given her web page a good look, you will come to know why I trust her social media counsel.

Next: the conclusion of the shoe story. Was it a miracle? Can it compare with the miracle in Matthew 14:14-21?