When Keepa Speaks, the Thinking Has Just Begun

This puts that highly controversial statement that when the prophet speaks, the thinking has been done — in perspective. But how many people will show up at church and quote it in lessons, as if we are in fact thoughtless lemmings who follow our leaders blindly? And then back it up with the story of Abraham and Isaac??

It does epitomize the thinking in our church, with it’s emphasis on obedience, and the social no-no of challenging leaders. And few people know about the response from the Elder Widstoe…

On a related note, there is a book anyone interested in leadership should read. It’s called Multipliers — how the Best Leaders make everyone smarter! By Liz Wiseman. I believe she is a Mormon, although that has nothing to do with it.

She talks about the roles of the best leaders — Investors, Debate Makers, Challengers, Liberators, and Talent Magnets. These people make you feel smart. They help you become smart, and they multiply the intelligence and ability of the people they lead.

People who don’t fulfil these roles, are accidental diminishers — they leave talent and commitment lying on the table unused.

The New Era quote above is clearly a diminishing statement. It encourages people to put their brains on the shelf if not qualified as to its meaning.

I would like to assess whether our church fulfils these roles, and therefore, makes us smarter, or takes on an accidental diminisher role.

Investors — do they give us the resources we need to be successful and to empower us? Sometimes. Sometimes you get very good stake leaders who are there as resources, HC that are that way, but it’s a crap shoot. And having such leaders has been the exception, and not the norm for me. Most of the time, they are more about ensuring policy is followed.

Challengers — they encourage followers to set high goals. I think that is true, although sometimes the goals are so high and unrealistic they are demotivating (like 100% home teaching when you have no control over what your families will do).

Liberators: The encourage you to think for yourself, and accept solutions to problems that leaders may not have thought of. I think this happens a bit at the local level, depending on the leader and if the issues is day-to-day and somewhat microscopic. But if it’s addressed in a manual, you’re stuck. I give low points on this one as it pertains to big picture, important issues in our Church.

Talent Magnets — the church does seem to attract a lot of talented people. Although I find there aren’t enough of them to make the Wards really exciting places to be consistently. Most of the talent gets snapped up by the Stake or at higher levels of the organization. In most of the wards in which I’ve served — middle to lower income ones — there aren’t enough talented or dedicated people to go around. So, in that sense, we have not attracted sufficient talent to fill our needs.

Debater Makers — low points on this one. Debate is not encouraged in our lessons, not encouraged when our leaders issue decrees, not encouraged at all. It’s about shoring up faith and being unified around the directives from the prophet. You speak up against policy and you are often knocked down due to the perceived inspired nature of policy, the handbooks, the scriptures, etcetera.

Overall, we’re a mixed bag. I think we are Challengers, but its an inconsistent mixed bag on the other items, wholly depending on leaders personal leadership styles. I find that we are not at all into Debate making, where healthy conflict of ideas leads to great outcomes. And I think we get low points on the Liberator role.

And I want to add — my philosophy is that this approach to leadership only works when there is strong talent on your team. Put together a team of people who are not motivated, who lack talent, and don’t really want to develop it, then these principles don’t work. There has to be grist for the mill.

Silent Dawning – You are more into the management/leadership study than I am. I was a bit and a few years ago I diverged my study into marriage improvement and then trying to figure out my faith crisis. I backed off the study of leadership as Dilbert seemed to be more of the management philosophy at the time (it has greatly improved).

I too just look at the church and the total lack and even blocking of any upward communication. The only MEN that are allowed to communicate upward are generally selected from the most “yes men” that there are and generally seem to be more worried about impressing those above than passing information upward. Maybe that was too harsh, but I would say that most every SP I know of does not see his position as pushing issues to the leaders above him. At work it is very much my role to be sounding the alarm when I see issues. I try to show my management that I have loyalty to them, but will be blunt with them in private.

I would assume if you had a management consulting firm come and evaluate the management structure and culture they would have a rather scathing report.

I would assume if you had a management consulting firm come and evaluate the management structure and culture they would have a rather scathing report.

I don’t know — when organizations get to be a certain size, a lot of current thought advocates the bureaucratic model proposed by Max Weber — if you read his principles, then you find a lot of principles at work in the church, large franchises, large corporations, etcetera.

Read down to the part that says “A formal hierarchical structure’. I think the church qualifies as an up and in structure at the same time…

http://www.bustingbureaucracy.com/excerpts/weber.htm

My experience has been limited to working at a company of 500K+, so maybe when you get even above that there is a whole new level of bureaucracy that I generally have not had to deal with.

My main point is that I see even when my company had some rather autocratic leaders for a while, there were annual “voice of the employee” feedback mechanisms that individuals really felt they could give some feedback up the chain. As a manager I found that people calmed down a bit when they felt their voice was at least heard up above and that management occasionally was clearly told, “you are screwing up in this area.” That is something I can’t recall ever experiencing in the church.

And don’t get me started on the lack of training. We go to TONS of “leadership” meetings that really don’t focus on what I think of as leadership. Most of all I really wish bishops received more formal training – including where they need to generally acknowledge they are not experts and should direct people to experts

Thanks SD for giving me a bit more to look at.

The LDS irony on the Prophet Speaks line is how randomly we apply it.

President Monson added a 4th mission to the church. Care for the Poor and the Needy. I didn’t see a rush on following that one. It barely blipped the news radar.

But the prophet asks for support against prop 8. And we are all grabbing our angry mob supplies and following Him.

I could go on with examples, but we don’t fully obey the injunction at every turn. A lot more goes into our selected obedience and conviction of obedience when he speaks. Which just muddies the water.

I for one use it as a perfect Alinsky tool. It’s so great to point out our flaw in class. I use all my sheepese when I do, but it works every time.

Why do you think the Christian Right in the USA is so keen to discuss whether Adam and Eve had pet dinosaurs, rather than “give to the poor”?

Ardis is wonderful.

That is all.