By David Posthuma
How organizational personality enhances or hinders ministry efforts.
Your ministry has a distinct organizational personality; in fact, every ministry does. However, many church executives remain largely unaware of organizational personality, and how it helps or hinders ministry efforts. Within any church, a unique mix of people rise to positions of influence.
These influencers define your organization’s personality. To identify organizational personality, we need to know: 1) The personality of each influencer within the organization; 2) Assuming a four quadrant assessment tool is used (Myers-Briggs, DiSC, or AssessME.org’s ePersonality), the quadrant categories shared by key influencers. The four assessment quadrants include:
Relational style: How does my organization relate to people? (independent vs. social)
Information assimilation style: How does my organization process and communicate information? (abstract vs. concrete)
Environmental style: How does my organization relate to the world around it? (systematic vs. adaptive)
Decision-making style: How does my organization make decisions that impact people’s lives? (head vs. heart)
If a personality shifts, we generally consider the person to be emotionally or psychologically unstable. In contrast, organizational personality is highly moldable, enabling us to re-engineer our organization’s personality simply by modifying its unique mix of key influencers. If organizational personalities do not transform over time as ministry dynamics require, the lack of personality-shift is suggestive of organizational ill-health. One aspect of organizational ill-health is called mission myopia.
Myopic ministry
A myopic ministry exists when key influencers within the organization possess similar personalities, or when leadership imposes their ministry temperament upon how everyone else must serve. For example, one pastor expressed that the biggest problem facing his church was that in the past 10 years they started many good programs, but had difficulty sustaining them. An assessment of the senior pastor and board revealed that each influencer possessed an entrepreneurial profile — they were start-up people. This discovery explains why the church started many good ministries but was unable to sustain them.
The family-feel church: A small church or church plant will generally emphasize the relational style quadrant, and uphold social as their defining personality value. At this stage, the church functions much like a family with members who know and care for one another. There is little need for structure or programs.
Mission myopia is apparent in the family-feel church. Relational people are highly valued and are attracted to the ministry, while task-oriented people will generally wait out this phase of the church’s development, hoping to influence the church as it grows. However, if the church stagnates at this stage, people possessing ministry temperaments that value independence generally leave the ministry in frustration.
One pastor conveyed frustration that his church had never grown beyond 125 people. He was convinced that the only legitimate ministry style was his relational method. He openly admitted that he was incapable of creating organizational systems, but expressed that these were unnecessary. During a 10 year period, more than 1,000 people had entered the front-door of his church and exited the back-door while the church maintained an average of 125 in attendance. This church will not grow until the pastor can value all personality types. However, once he learns this valuable lesson, his ministry may enter the warm-hearted stage.
The warm-hearted church: To grow beyond the family-feel stage, leadership will need to adopt an additional quadrant-value, one that compliments and builds upon their established relational value. Often, church leadership, without knowing it, will implement the decision-making style quadrant and seek to include people who possess a heart value into positions of leadership. With the addition of this new quadrant value, decision-making within the ministry extends beyond the pastor and a few board members, to those who actually run the basic church programs. Since the structures are easy to manage at this stage, the relational leaders will excel until their ministries grow in size and complexity. The church is now positioned to grow beyond the 150 barrier, and will likely stagnate at around 600 people.
Mission myopia is now characterized by a high regard for people who are relational and make decisions based upon how they will impact others. People who relate differently or make decisions differently are often frustrated as they try to find a place within the ministry organization. Most churches never progress past the warm-hearted stage of development.
The structured church: The 600-person barrier represents the most significant adjustment a church will have to make. At this stage, the church will need to define program systems led by leaders who possess administrative and team building skills. It is common that administrative leaders are imported from outside the ministry, since the highly relational values which have dominated the church to this point have alienated task-driven people.
Without realizing it, the church leadership will adopt an additional personality value found in the environmental style quadrant, and introduce a systematic value. It is at this point that relational people within the church begin to fear the church is losing its family-feel. Relationships are no longer defined in terms of the entire church body, but in the context of service and common interest sub-cultures. Relational leaders, who have served well and are loved by the congregation, now are repositioned or replaced by people who possess strong administrative and team building abilities.
Recently, a church consulting group used the AssessME.org program to assess stagnant and declining churches. The churches had matured to the structured church phase and then promptly stopped growing. In each case, the church had elevated the status of manager/administrator personalities, while rejecting people who possessed entrepreneurial ministry temperaments.
Discarded or devalued
This form of rejection is common among churches: People who do not fit within the organization’s present personality are discarded or devalued. Sadly, these “rejects” are often the very people the church requires to reach its next developmental stage. It is essential that church executives assess the ministry temperaments of their entire congregation, to both use human resources effectively, and to discern what profiles may be alienated by the present organizational personality — the future of your ministry may depend upon the results of such a study.
When a warm-hearted church is able to transition into a structured church and include people who can implement the new systematic value, they generally discover a new army of systems-oriented people who are finally unleashed to serve within the church. These people have not known how to fit and serve effectively in the family-feel or warm-hearted church. But now, a new team-based synergy liberates strategic planners, administrators and managers to find places of ministry service. The structured church will now thrive until it reaches about 1,500 people.
Mission myopia at this stage occurs on two distinct and divisive fronts: 1) The old guard values relational people and resists the inclusion of other ministry temperaments; 2) The new guard of managers and administrators relate best to people most like themselves. The unfortunate consequence is the creation of a personality-gap that may take years for the church to overcome. Sadly, the adjustment is often made by sacrificing many relational people to other smaller churches, replacing them with new people who fit the present organizational personality.
The hierarchal church: The structured church transitions into a hierarchical church as it consolidates top-tier authority structures, while also integrating a concrete value associated with the information assimilation quadrant. The organization now provides many practical ministry services. Often a unifying theme binds these services together: Outreach, seeker-targeted, seeker-sensitive, purpose-driven, global impact and others. Due to the complex network of team-based ministries, literally thousands of people, of all ministry temperaments, can find a place of ministry service and influence.
Mission myopia exists when the ministry values only the elite leaders. These leaders-of-leaders excel at team building, administration and team motivation. Regardless of how a church matures, our organization will benefit as we affirm that God created each personality for an intentional mission purpose, that all ministry temperaments must be respected, and take care not to alienate the very people our ministry may require to mature to the next level.
David A. Posthuma is a church planter, revitalizer, software designer and founder of AssessME.org in Holland, MI. info@assessme.org
