Archive for February, 2009

For as long as I can remember, I have valued open and clear communication. I strive to communicate myself clearly and concisely, and I am frustrated when I fail to communicate myself, or when I witness mis-communication. I firmly believe that friendships, families, corporations, and governments function BEST with the minimal limits to their communication, and a fundamental embrace of openness, rather than closed-ness.

At work, I strive to keep open communication with my team especially, but also with the general staff. I encourage my team to always be honest, and when they don’t know an answer, to be comfortable saying so. Though it’s not always easy, I have found incredible freedom in owning my failings upfront, and acknowledging when I drop the ball. (It helps that I have good bosses, btw.)

Socially, I try to never sweep things under the rug. If someone has hurt me, or I have hurt someone, I generally work to specifically resolve the issue. I want to talk about it. I want to bring light to it. If I have had a crappy day, I will tell you. If you have had a crappy day, I hope that you would tell me. I value candidness above politeness and “not wanting to burden someone.” My heart weeps just a little bit when a friend retells a painful event with honesty, and their spouse or a mutual friend sugar-coats the same story to me later on.

In our communities, slowly crawling towards Christ-infused life as we are, surely we must embrace openness, clarity of communication and feeling, and honesty in our weaknesses and our failings. We must remove all pretense from our relationships. I do believe that as managers, leaders, fathers and grandfathers, we must abandon our sense of entitlement, our right to being respected for our position or our achievements. If my children grow up to love and respect me, I pray that it is not because I am their Father, or because of any other social construct, but solely because I have loved and respected them first. And if my children continue to love and respect me throughout our lives together, I pray that it is not because of some single event of particular poignancy, but because I am continuing to love and respect them daily.

Surely our communities can come out of the cloak of structure, of authority systems, and simply be open… equal… honest… raw… ugly… beautiful… loving.

The Naked Pastor has a great post today on the importance of communication in our communities, and the incredible risks we subject ourselves to when communication fails.

I just finished reading Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers. It is a fascinating read. Basically, his thesis is that what makes a person succeed is not necessarily or only his or her ingenuity, energy, determination, or vision, but a series of events and legacies that this person is given. A great deal depends on chances this person is offered and takes. In other words, Gladwell is talking about the importance of our communities on whether we fail or succeed.

The chapter I found the most intriguing was about plane crashes. Briefly, it has been concluded that most plane crashes are not because of one catastrophic problem, but the accumulation of smaller ones. It is also concluded that the more people are actively involved in the flight of the plane, from the captain to the first officer to the flight engineer to the flight attendants, the fewer accidents occur. So, when little problems occur, many eyes and hands are on deck to help solve these issues. If these are managed, accidents will be diverted. So, it is a community effort that ensures the safety of the flight. It is absolutely critical, therefore, that there is clear communication between the flight crew when problems arise. It is a community effort that gives the captain and the airline an accident-free career.

In the nineties, Korea Air had so many plane crashes that it lost its status as an airline. A professional researched the problem and discovered that the culprit was “mitigated speech”, that is, downplaying or sugarcoating the meaning of what is being said. Because of the Koreans’ deep and traditional respect for authority, subordinate flight crew members would never ever try to instruct, correct or challenge a flight crew member higher up the rungs of authority. Once mitigated speech was corrected, Korea Air rebounded and became the respected airline it is today.

It seems that flight crew members today are trained on how to communicate clearly what they mean. There are precise levels of urgency and clarity. Also, it’s best for the first officer to fly the plane with the captain in the co-pilot’s seat. That way the captain feels comfortable challenging the first officer if something goes wrong. And everyone on the flight crew has authority when they notice a problem arise. Plus, everyone speaks to each other on a first name basis, avoiding labels that carry the intimidating weight of authority. Even those who have the cultural legacy of unquestioning respect for authority learn to divest themselves of this during training. Korean pilots are now among the most respected and accident-free in the world.

If we are as concerned about the “safety” of the people within our communities, then I find Gladwell’s insights applicable. The church has a cultural legacy of deep respect towards authority. When I came to this church from the Presbyterian, I moved from an ecclesiastical authority structure to a personal authority structure that is just as dangerous. Authority, authority, authority… I hear it all the time. The religious cultural legacy I come from demands that I not question authority. And it makes me wonder if this is the cause of so many fatal church accidents. Many become proficient at mitigated speech for fear of not just challenging authority, but even upsetting authority or hurting it’s feelings! It has taken me years, with limited success, to work against this unhealthy and even dangerous deference to authority. I think if we want to see religious communities succeed, we’d be wise to apply a few principals:

1. No more mitigated speech. When it comes to the health of the community, direct communication matters. Enable people to mean what they say and say what they mean without fear of repercussions.
2. Empower others to fly. Decentralize power and decision-making. Share the welfare of the community.
3. Everyone on a first name basis. Remove all residue from former authoritative paradigms. Today, a lot of what is called post-modern or emergent is basically cooler and hipper mutations of our old accident-prone structures.
4. If you’ve ever sat by the emergency exit on a flight, you know you are essentially emergency staff if a problem occurs. So… teams! Everyone is involved! Everyone can, if they wish, participate in the health and welfare of the community.

From nakedpastor’s Cultural Legacy and Mitigated Speech