- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
It wouldn’t surprise me if there is a lot of conflict at that level in the organization, as I see these men now as primarily business managers. They do, do administering, but I don’t think people get very close to them in the rank and file….and we are reminded repeatedly to stay away from them with our problems — as we would with senior executives in a company. If you read Mormon America, Howard W Hunter was on record of holding his tongue regarding issues on which he disagreed with BKP, because he didn’t want to turn every meeting into a fight….don’t know how that sneaked out, but it shows that it’s not all angels and heavenly visitations at the top….it’s probably a conflict of ideas, perhaps some political issues at the top — none of which is ever revealed or disclosed to the membership at large.
Roy wrote:They act as what is known as a devil’s advocate (bold in original) – a person willing to stand up and question the beliefs of more powerful people, resist influence attempts, and convince others that the planned actions are flawed. At this level, the issue of self interest and the intent to persuade to personally benefit does not come into play.
Old-Timer wrote:Devil’s advocacy works in religious settings only if the person isn’t seen as advocating for the devil…. (snip)….Iow, everyone who knows me knows I actually am acting as a “Church’s advocate” – even when I’m expressing opinions about what I think needs to change in the Church.
I agree that the title “Devil’s Advocate” is perhaps a little loaded for our purposes (sorry DA
😥 ). Perhaps “agent of organizational change” would be a more appropriate fit. My reading of the final sentence from the quoted text, “At this level, the issue of self interest and the intent to persuade to personally benefit does not come into play.” is that this “change agent” would be acting out of the best interest of the organization and its goals and would be a “Church’s advocate” in their own right.I think it is important to point out that these change agents do not need to be right or know better what is good for the church to make important contributions, just the fact that diversity of opinion exists and is tolerated represents the opportunity for growth in my book. As far as methods, I do not know too much about all 10 of the persons listed, but there are some very “faithful” names on the list that would qualify as Church’s/Devil’s advocate – change agents.
Old-Timer wrote:Oh, and I know enough about how the Q12 operates to know there is “organizational conflict” in the Church – probably more as a straight percentage, ironically, at the top levels than further down the chain.
Perhaps this is an advantage of having 15 different people leading the church as one, in making decisions there is a fair potential for the good kind of organizational conflict without the danger of tipping the scales towards fractional, divisive conflict.
Good points. I completely agree that in a church proclaiming to help people become happy there should be some happiness meter or gauge to see how they are doing.
I guess I’ve been paying attention to my own happiness for quite a long time. This isn’t to say that I’m self-serving, and I certainly understand and have a testimony of service and giving to others, and work. But my loyalty and committment is not to the church first. When church leaders, members, or responsibilities cause my unhappiness and stress levels to rise to dangerous levels, I tend to back off and slow down, focusing on what *I* feel are the most important things. I’m not a great home teacher sometimes. I skip out of meetings sometimes. Yet, recently, a friend told me that I was one of the best examples of Mormonism he’d seen, and although he wants to be left alone by the church, he still wants to associate with me. Why am I a good example when I often do the opposite of what “good” Mormons do? I don’t know. One thing is that I view this particular guy as a friend and not as number on the potential-baptisms-for-the-year chart. I don’t go visit him because I’m told to. I don’t talk to him about the blessings of the temple.
What does this have to do with the topic? Back to my original assertion that I think “conflict” can just as well be emotional as well as organizational, and that the concept that a middle amount of conflict leads to optimum performance applies equally in either situation. It is a well-documented phenomenon. Maybe this should be a different topic called Emotional Conflict and how it relates to Church performance, with church performance measured quantitatively. We have those numbers already. As SD pointed out, we collect that data all the time. What we need is the emotional data, which should be easy enough to gather, along with our hypothetical happiness data we’d all like to see. Then compare those variable together and see what correlates positively. My guess is that we’d see optimum church activity correlated positively with a medium amount of stress. Where would happiness be? I’m not sure. If I had to guess, it would probably be inversely correlated with the stress, but maybe not for a population of Mormons… optimum happiness would probably be somewhere between optimum performance/activity and total inactivity. Great research idea.
Fwiw, the Church does lots of research, and many of the changes that have occurred over the years have been influenced greatly by that research. Also, many of the statements about certain things that aren’t really “changes” but more like “reminders” of what the actual doctrine or desired policies are also are influenced by that research. I have said this many times, but if the local zealots / Pharisees actually loosened up a bit and actually practiced many of the things the top leadership now teaches (and has taught pretty clearly for the last 15-20 years), much of what we discuss here would fade away – or, at least, be MUCH easier to reconcile. Of course, there still are plenty of things that would cause cog dis, especially when looking back at our history before the last two decades but also with things like Prop 8 and individual statements by GA’s, but SO much of the cultural baggage with which so many struggle could be put down much more easily.
Frankly, I see most of the really serious organizational conflict in the Church at the local level – where people like me do our best but screw up all the time in that effort. Sometimes, all it takes is an insensitive Bishop or RS President or HPGL or EQ President or Primary President or YW Advisor – and there just isn’t any getting around the fact that those “relationship poor” “always will be with us”.
Sometimes, they are us.
Old-Timer wrote:Fwiw, the Church does lots of research, and many of the changes that have occurred over the years have been influenced greatly by that research. Also, many of the statements about certain things that aren’t really “changes” but more like “reminders” of what the actual doctrine or desired policies are also are influenced by that research.
I have said this many times, but if the local zealots / Pharisees actually loosened up a bit and actually practiced many of the things the top leadership now teaches (and has taught pretty clearly for the last 15-20 years), much of what we discuss here would fade away – or, at least, be MUCH easier to reconcile. Of course, there still are plenty of things that would cause cog dis, especially when looking back at our history before the last two decades but also with things like Prop 8 and individual statements by GA’s, but SO much of the cultural baggage with which so many struggle could be put down much more easily.
Frankly, I see most of the really serious organizational conflict in the Church at the local level – where people like me do our best but screw up all the time in that effort. Sometimes, all it takes is an insensitive Bishop or RS President or HPGL or EQ President or Primary President or YW Advisor – and there just isn’t any getting around the fact that those “relationship poor” “always will be with us”.
Sometimes, they are us.
Religious zealots can be illuminated and blinded by the same light….
Quote:“blinded by the same light”
Yup – and now I have an inappropriate song going through my mind.
😮 Thanks a lot!!😆 DevilsAdvocate wrote:Personally I think there are no devil’s advocates in the Church that enough top leaders like Monson, Packer, and Oaks will ever really listen to and they are mostly surrounded by yes men. Any devil’s advocates in the Church are typically censored or ignored so the communication ends up being mostly one way. The Church currently seems to be very unfriendly toward any dissent whatsoever from top to bottom no matter how careful people are about trying to present any unorthodox views in the least threatening way possible.
A later chapter said that some organizations assign a rotating devil’s advocate in group discussions so that the role does not turn into a negative label. It can be difficult to challenge group assumptions without eventually being seen as not really part of the group.
Cnsl1 wrote:I completely agree that in a church proclaiming to help people become happy there should be some happiness meter or gauge to see how they are doing.
The next portion of text deals directly with this train of thought and is IMO the culmination of this discussion.
Quote:adaptive cultures are those whose values and norms help an organization build momentum, grow, and change as needed to achieve its goals and be effective. Inert cultures are those that lead to values and norms that fail to motivate or inspire employees; they lead to stagnation and often failure over time. What leads to an adaptive or inert culture? Researchers have found that the organizations with strong adaptive cultures invest in their employees. They adopt human resource practices that demonstrate their commitment to their members by, for example, emphasizing the long term nature of the employment relationship and trying to avoid layoffs…In these ways, terminal and instrumental values pertaining to the worth of the people working within the organization encourage the development of supportive work attitudes and behaviors.
However, some organizations develop cultures with values that do not include protecting and increasing the worth of their people as a major goal. Their employment practices are based on short term needs and minimal investment in employees, who perform simple, routine tasks. Moreover, employees are not often rewarded based on their performance and therefore have little incentive to improve their skills to help the organization meet its goals. In a company with an inert culture and poor relationships with its employees, the instrumental values of noncooperation, laziness, and output restriction norms are common. Employees are content to be told what to do because they have little motivation to perform beyond the minimum requirements. Unfortunately, such a hierarchical structure and emphasis on close supervision produce a culture that doesn’t readily adapt to change.
So based upon this description, is the LDS church culture adaptive, inert, somewhere in between, or something that defies both these categories?
That’s a hard question Roy. Thanks for asking it. Must think. That’s a good question…. The criteria for Adaptive — gains momentum, grows, and changes. Behaviors: Invests in members, shows commitment, seeks to increase the worth of people.
Criteria for Inert — stagnation, Laziness, Failure — behaviors — heirarchical, employees not rewarded, no investment in employees, poor relationships with employees, close supervision.
Adaptive AssessmentResults:Gains momentum. Used to, but not lately….Momentum declining. A couple years ago we had a meeting when they described how the growth rate of the Church was declining.
Change: Slow. Some change with the new CHI, but it hasn’t permeated to the local Wards in my view.
Behaviors:Invests in members. Not sure. Well, depends on the leader — no real program or systems that encourage or even measure this, other than priesthood advancements, temple recommend holders…but not much on individual character growth that I can see — only that as defined by Church-centric metrics.
Employees rewarded. No. This is left up to the employee to find intrinsic reward. Releases are usually unceremonious, except in one Ward I served in where, there was unexpected adulation and tearful thanks when I was released. Most other callings just gave me a mechanistic thanks and that was it. Not sure what to expect from a Church on this….especially with overworked lay ministers.
Shows commitment…No…I find the commitment tends to flow the other way, actually. I don’t know what the Church does to show me commitment. It is expected — the other way around. Commitment is expected without reciprocity from the Church. In fact, the committed are the ones who get chastised the most, I have found.
Seeks to increase worth of people. Mixed Bag…Yes –to the organization. Bishop’s training, all our meetings, you name it — are aimed at helping people be more spiritual and happier, although there is often misdirected doctrine and bad effects. Welfare funds are available to help people be more self-reliant. But if you stop being willing to contribute the way they want, you can suffer from treatment which reduces your perceived worth. Mixed bag.
InertResultsStagnation: Mixed Bag. Yes, for people who have been around a long time, no for people who are new. Thsi points to a need for some way of rejuvinating people who get tired of the same old programs.
Laziness: Mixed Bag. I find the lazy people outnumbered the actively involved people as HPGL in one Ward, but it was reversed in another Ward. Not sure.
Failure: Mixed Bag. Not a lot of results as defined by activation, depends on the Ward really..
BehaviorsHeirarchical: Yes
Employees not rewarded: Employees find their own reward. Very little extrinsic reward given in my experience.
No investment in employees: investment made if free — meeting attendance for training, fast offerings to get people off welfare, or to find better employment — but only temporary.
Poor relationships with employees: Mixed Bag
Close Supervision: Yes
Here is what I get. This is a continuum, not an either-or dichotomy. I put the Church here at the “X”:
Adaptive_____________________X___________Inert
Roy wrote:…A later chapter said that
some organizations assign a rotating devil’s advocate in group discussions so that the role does not turn into a negative label.It can be difficult to challenge group assumptions without eventually being seen as not really part of the group. Quote:However, some organizations develop cultures with values that do not include protecting and increasing the worth of their people as a major goal…In a company with an inert culture and poor relationships with its employees, the instrumental values of noncooperation, laziness, and output restriction norms are common.
Employees are content to be told what to do because they have little motivation to perform beyond the minimum requirements. Unfortunately, such a hierarchical structure and emphasis on close supervision produce a culture that doesn’t readily adapt to change.So based upon this description,
is the LDS church culture adaptive, inert, somewhere in between, or something that defies both these categories?I don’t believe that most top Church leaders really have that much interest in adapting or even listening to suggestions at this point. My guess is that one reason for this is that most top Church leaders are probably TBMs first and independent decision-makers second, if at all. Because of this, they are already thinking inside a restrictive box with many scriptures and traditional doctrines accepted as absolute God-given answers that cannot be changed no matter what. On top of that, they are not really held accountable for the end results of their decisions or lack of action. So even if someone like Hugh B. Brown or President Uchtdorf that has done everything possible to earn their trust tries to push for real changes they are still likely to resist doing anything different and be content to just keep doing what they have been doing for decades.
It seems like their typical response to most perceived problems is that rank-and-file members need to try harder and have more faith rather than even considering the possibility that there could ever be a fundamental problem with some of the existing doctrines and policies. For example, rather than paying much attention to why there are so many inactive members and the retention of converts is very poor it looks like most Church leaders assume that there could be no good reason for members to feel dissatisfied with the Church or not want to participate anymore so they simply want remaining members to try harder to reactivate them and expect them to repent or else they are not worth worrying about.
Quote:So even if someone like Hugh B. Brown or President Uchtdorf that has done everything possible to earn their trust tries to push for minor changes they are still likely to resist doing anything different and be content to just keep doing what they have been doing for decades.
Change usually is much slower than we would like it (except for destructive change, which often happens very quickly), but I’ve seen too much change in my life in the Church to accept that characterization fully.
I don’t think the top leadership is content with the status quo or scared of change in any way – but I do think they are more cautious about change than many rank and file members like us are when we are debating change in a way that really doesn’t have immediate, practical application and “danger”. We feel strongly about these things, but we aren’t in a position to have our decisions and views affect literally millions of people. I see most of the changes over my lifetime as “steering” a ship in a new direction with slight adjustments to make sure the fewest people possible (especially long-time riders) fall out of the ship, while many people want sharper turns even if more long-time passengers bail.
Again, we can disagree about what would cause more passengers to bail, but the fact remains that the classic activity rate in the LDS Church is at least as high, and in most cases higher, than most other denominations (in all the comparable studies I’ve seen) – so it’s hard to argue that those steering the ship are doing worse than other ship captains. Not as well as some would like? Absolutely. Not as well as they could? That’s open to discussion, obviously. Badly? That’s harder to argue, except in relation to an ideal – and unrealistic expectations are a dangerous weapon that backfires as often as it fires properly.
Quote:
It seems like their typical response to most perceived problems is that rank-and-file members need to try harder and have more faith rather than even considering the possibility that there could ever be a fundamental problem with some of the existing doctrines and policies. For example, rather than paying much attention to why there are so many inactive members and the retention of converts is very poor it looks like most Church leaders assume that there could be no good reason for members to feel dissatisfied with the Church or not want to participate anymore so they simply want remaining members to try harder to reactivate them and expect them to repent or else they are not worth worrying about.My thoughts exactly. I call it “it’sallthemembersfault-itis”. Whenever I had disaffection years ago, the people in power would never admit they made a mistake!!! Others without direct authority might imply it, but the formal hierarchy would never admit it — they would place responsibility squarely on my own shoulders. It was around that time I felt that the divine commission was also a dual “license to kill” (although I think that is more strongly worded than I would like). I remained active by separating God from the formal hierarchy for a time, and that’s when I started thinking so divergently…aligning myself with the Church, but not necessarily buying into it all…it was how I resolved the cog dis.
So here I sit, thinking God has blessed our great organization as His at some level, while still not believing in its leaders and often, their advice, wholeheartedly.
Old-Timer wrote:don’t think the top leadership is content with the status quo or scared of change in any way – but I do think they are more cautious about change than many rank and file members like us are when we are debating change in a way that really doesn’t have immediate, practical application and “danger”.
What then, are they not content with? CAn you describe their implied vision of what they would like the Church to be?
Quote:Again, we can disagree about what would cause more passengers to bail, but the fact remains that the classic activity rate in the LDS Church is at least as high, and in most cases higher, than most other denominations (in all the comparable studies I’ve seen) – so it’s hard to argue that those steering the ship are doing worse than other ship captains. Not as well as some would like? Absolutely. Not as well as they could? That’s open to discussion, obviously. Badly? That’s harder to argue, except in relation to an ideal – and unrealistic expectations are a dangerous weapon that backfires as often as it fires properly.
I would like to see these studies — can you point to them? The evidence I have is that retention is very hard in our Church. The PBS.org special made a comment that we have a VERY hard time retaining new converts, although they gave no comparative statistics.
and, as I’ve said elsewhere, it’s really important to distinguish between the global leadership and local leadership in discussions like this. I think there are lots of statements and CHI changes and worldwide training etc. that point to a desire for change, but my lunch break is almost over, so I don’t have time to try to give specifics. As to the relative activity rates of denominations, I will try to find the studies I’ve read – but the core conclusion is that religions have a brutal time keeping their young adults actively involved (except in cases where there is wide-spread despair mixed with fundamentalist teachings), that all denominations have a fluctuating activity rate (based on age and marital status) and the “best” activity rates (measured the way the LDS Church does for official stats as attendance at church services at least once a month) within mainstream Christian denominations are below 50%.
For members of record, the LDS Church’s activity rate world-wide is around 25-40%. (I know that’s a large range, but it’s really hard to compute, since there’s no official “sign in sheet” at our meetings. All we have are raw numbers, and they are far less precise than most people assume.) In areas where there were issues like baseball baptisms in the past, the numbers are lower – sometimes as low as 15%. In many areas, the number is as high as 60%. When you factor only those members whose location actually is known, the number is significantly higher than the straight statistical average.
That is totally in line with the best of other denomination’s numbers I’ve seen – and it’s FAR higher than many congregations where I know the pastor and s/he is envious of our attendance rates.
Now I have to sign off and go back to work – and pick up my daughter this evening from college. I probably won’t be back on today.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.