HARVEST THE POWER
A Tapestry of Faith Program for Adults
WORKSHOP 10: UNDERSTANDING SYSTEMS IN YOUR CONGREGATION
BY GAIL TITTLE, MATT TITTLE, GAIL FORSYTH-VAIL
© Copyright 2009 Unitarian Universalist Association.
Published to the Web on 9/29/2014 9:17:58 PM PST.
This program and additional resources are available on the UUA.org web site at
www.uua.org/religiouseducation/curricula/tapestryfaith.
WORKSHOP OVERVIEW
INTRODUCTION
The call to acts of leadership, which can be practiced from wherever we sit, is also an invitation to reclaim the creative capacity within every human being — especially those who are willing to engage the complex, adaptive challenges of our time. — Sharon Daloz Parks, contemporary educator and author
This workshop introduces the idea of system thinking. Participants practice identifying relational and emotional patterns within the congregation as they examine congregational challenges. Looking at their own congregation's issues from a system perspective, participants will apply system thinking to consider healthy approaches to real life challenges.
GOALS
This workshop will:
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Participants will:
WORKSHOP-AT-A-GLANCE
Activity | Minutes |
Welcoming and Entering | |
Opening | 3 |
Activity 1: Story — It's Not MY Problem! | 10 |
Activity 2: Applying System Thinking | 45 |
Break | 10 |
Activity 3: Three Guidelines for Leaders | 10 |
Activity 4: Your Congregation's Systems | 40 |
Faith in Action: Through a System Lens | |
Closing | 2 |
Alternate Activity 1: Alternate System Thinking Scenarios | 45 |
Alternate Activity 2: On the Brink of Big Change | 40 |
SPIRITUAL PREPARATION
Consider a challenge facing your congregation right now. Use the process described in Activity 2 to identify some of the emotional and relational systems at play. Talk with your parish minister about the challenge, using the content of this workshop. Ask their observations about the congregation's emotional and relational systems in regard to the challenge facing the congregation. Reflect on the minister's observations and your own as you prepare to lead this workshop.
Examine the three guidelines for leaders in Handout 1. How are you doing a good job of caring for yourself as a leader? Are you having more difficulty doing so? In meditation or prayer, express compassion and a wish for spiritual and emotional health for yourself and for all the participants in this workshop.
To strengthen your leadership skills and confidence, explore the leadership development resources recommended at the end of the workshop, as well as Workshop 1, Leader Resource 1, Accessibility Guidelines for Workshop Presenters.
WORKSHOP PLAN
WELCOMING AND ENTERING
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Invite any participant who needs a name tag to create one now.
OPENING (3 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Light the chalice and share "Out of the Stars," Reading 530 in Singing the Living Tradition. Read it antiphonally, with half the group reading the plain text words and the other half responding with the words in italics.
ACTIVITY 1: IT'S NOT MY PROBLEM! (10 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
As a volunteer reads the story to the group, ask participants to consider "drops of honey" that have caused unforeseen reactions or consequences in their family, their workplace or the congregation. Allow a minute or so for reflection, but do not ask for responses. Instead, invite participants to carry their examples and stories in their minds as you move through the workshop. Say, in your own words:
This workshop explores system thinking, the idea that all parts of the congregation are connected. Leaders need to examine all changes and all presenting issues in congregational life by looking at the congregation as a system.
ACTIVITY 2: APPLYING SYSTEM THINKING (45 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Share with participants the scenario in Leader Resource 1. Tell them you are going to create a drawing of "the system" at Heavenly.
Draw a stick figure of the music director in the center of the newsprint. Ask participants to name individuals or groups affected in any way by the music director's work. As each individual or group is named, draw or represent them on the newsprint using the same color marker you used for the music director. If they have not done so already, prompt the group to add groups or individuals in the congregation which may have little relationship with the music director, but might have feelings about her departure. Draw these in the picture as well.
Now use a second color marker to draw arrows to connect the music director to groups or individuals with a direct relationship with the director. Use a third color marker to draw wavy lines between the director and those with whom she has an indirect relationship or who might have feelings about her departure.
Invite the group to examine the drawing and consider other connections in the congregation which have nothing to do with the music director or the music program; for example, teachers might be connected directly to the religious educator. Draw in those connections with arrows or wavy lines, as appropriate, using a marker in a fourth color.
Pause for a moment and let the participants take in the drawing. Tell them you are going to add complexity by identifying the emotions involved in the relationships. Form three small groups. Assign each group to consider the emotions involved in one of the three types of relationships:
Provide each small group with newsprint and invite them to list all the emotions that might be involved in each relationship in the category they are assigned. After five minutes, invite each group, one at a time, to post their lists near the diagram and share. Ask the entire group for additions to each list.
Explain that system theory tells us an organization, family or congregation desires stability or balance and will find ways to keep things stable, whether or not those ways are entirely healthy. When something upsets the balance, it is human nature to want to return to what was perceived as stable and safe. The music director's resignation upset the congregation's balance and brought into play a variety of factors and issues which had been latent or dormant when the congregation was stable.
Post the newsprint you have prepared with reflection questions. Invite participants to move back into their small groups to reconsider the question of who in the congregation is affected by the music director's resignation and what emotions might come to the fore as the congregation works through this challenge. Invite them also to identify any long-standing patterns of behavior in this congregation that were revealed by the music director's resignation.
After 10 minutes, re-gather the large group. Invite small groups to share their responses to the reflection questions. Then ask:
Allow 10 minutes for this conversation.
To conclude, ask: Was the music director's retirement a good thing or a bad thing for Heavenly Unitarian Universalist Congregation?
Including All Participants
If any participants cannot see your drawing of Heavenly's system on newsprint, explain the drawing in detail as the large group works together to create it.
ACTIVITY 3: THREE GUIDELINES FOR LEADERS (10 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Distribute Handout 1. Read aloud the Steinke summary statement about system thinking. Then invite three volunteers to each read one of the guidelines.
Explain that the group will next look at their actual congregational issues and challenges from a system perspective. Suggest that they keep these guidelines in mind. Invite brief comments or questions about the handout.
ACTIVITY 4: YOUR CONGREGATION'S SYSTEMS (40 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Have the group brainstorm challenges or issues facing their congregation(s) and select two or three to examine from a systems perspective. Invite participants to form groups of four to six to address the issue that most interests them.
Invite the groups to examine their congregational issue from a system perspective, using the process for Heavenly Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Activity 2. Tell groups they have 10 minutes to represent on newsprint everyone affected, directly or indirectly, by the issue, the relationships between the parties, and the emotions involved in those relationships.
After ten minutes, post the newsprint you have prepared with questions. Invite the groups to consider those four questions and to write their responses on newsprint. Allow 15 minutes for this part of the activity.
Now, ask groups to post their diagrams and responses and share their discoveries with the large group. Engage the large group in making plans to continue the conversations and seek ways to move forward on these issues.
CLOSING (2 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Description of Activity
Gather participants. Invite the group to share a brief moment of silence to honor the important work they have done together. Share Reading 706 in Singing the Living Tradition, "May the light around us guide our footsteps."
FAITH IN ACTION: THROUGH A SYSTEM LENS
Description of Activity
Consider some of your congregation's social justice projects and programs using a system lens. How does your congregation engage with the community? What relationships, both within the congregation and outside it, comprise your congregation's social justice system? What healthy or unhealthy patterns appear as your congregation engages in carrying its faith into the world? Consider inviting interested congregants to examine the social justice work of the congregation to discern how to support healthy patterns and shift unhealthy ones.
LEADER REFLECTION AND PLANNING
TAKING IT HOME
The call to acts of leadership, which can be practiced from wherever we sit, is also an invitation to reclaim the creative capacity within every human being — especially those who are willing to engage the complex, adaptive challenges of our time. — Sharon Daloz Parks, contemporary educator and author
Make plans with other members of the congregation's leadership team to follow up on ideas that emerged from examining the congregation's challenges from a system point of view.
Find Out More
Resources that informed this workshop may enhance your congregation's leadership library; read the works of Barry Oshry and Peter L. Steinke to explore organizational system theory in more depth:
Congregational Handbook (at www.uua.org/leaders/leaderslibrary/congregationalhandbook/index.shtml), Unitarian Universalist Association, 2005
Friedman, Edwin H., A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix ( New York : Seabury Books, 2007)
Oshry, Barry, Seeing Systems: Unlocking the Mysteries of Organizational Life ( San Francisco : Berrett-Koehler Publications, 2007)
Steinke, Peter L., Healthy Congregations: A Systems Approach (Herndon, VA: Alban Institute, 1996)
Steinke, Peter L., How Your Church Family Works: Understanding Congregations as Emotional Systems (Herndon, VA: Alban Institute, 1996).
ALTERNATE ACTIVITY 1: ALTERNATE SYSTEM THINKING SCENARIOS (45 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
The two scenarios in Handout 2 are less complex than the Heavenly Unitarian Universalist Congregation scenario presented in Activity 2, and the events which cause the system to react come from outside, not inside, the organization. Use these alternate scenarios if the group you are working with is, in fact, engaged in a challenge resembling the Heavenly Unitarian Universalist scenario or if unpacking two simpler scenarios would work better for the group than exploring the single, complex one. These scenarios will take less time to process, so you will likely have time for both of them. You might change the configuration of small groups for the second scenario.
Read the first scenario aloud to the group. On newsprint, use the process described in Activity 2 to identify and diagram those affected by a change, their relationships to one another and the emotions involved. Then, form small groups to consider the questions you have posted on newsprint. Re-gather the large group to share observations (see Activity 2). Then, if time allows, repeat the process for the second scenario.
ALTERNATE ACTIVITY 2: ON THE BRINK OF BIG CHANGE (40 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Use this activity to lead a system analysis of your congregation's real life, including a planned major change such as a ministerial transition, a new worship service schedule or addition or removal of program staff positions. Follow the process outlined for the Heavenly Unitarian Universalist Congregation scenario in Activity 2, except that you may want to keep the leadership together rather than forming small groups.
Tell the group they will examine their congregational challenge from a system perspective. With input from participants, diagram on newsprint all those affected, directly or indirectly, by the change. Diagram the relationships (see Activity 2). Invite the group to consider the emotions involved in the relationships. Take 20 minutes to create the diagram.
Post the questions you prepared and distribute paper and pens/pencils. Invite participants to consider the posted questions and write their responses individually on paper. Allow 15 minutes.
Now invite participants, one at a time, to share what they have written. List the responses on newsprint as they are shared to document the group's collective thinking on the congregation's current challenge. Engage the group in making plans to continue the conversation and seek ways to move forward.
HARVEST THE POWER: WORKSHOP 10:
STORY: A DROP OF HONEY
Adapted from a Thai folk tale.
Once upon a time, a queen sat on her balcony eating rice cakes and honey with her chief advisor. As they ate, they gazed down at the busy street below. The queen pointed to something in the distance. As she did, a drop of honey from her rice cake landed on the balcony railing.
"My Queen, you have spilled a drop of honey," observed the advisor. "Shall I call a servant to come and clean it up?"
But the queen laughed, "A little drop of honey is not MY problem. Someone will clean it later."
They went on eating and talking as the drop of honey warmed in the sun and began to slowly drip down the side of railing until it landed in the street below with a plop!
"Your Highness," the advisor said, "that drop of honey has now fallen into the street, where it is attracting flies. Shouldn't we call a servant to come and clean it up?"
But again the queen yawned lazily and replied, "A little drop of honey and a few flies are not MY problem. Someone will deal with it later."
Soon a lizard darted out from underneath the palace wall and began to catch the flies on her tongue. Then a cat sprang from the baker's shop and began to bat the lizard back and forth like a toy. Just then a dog charged out from the butcher's shop and began to bite the cat on the neck.
"Your Highness," the advisor implored, "now the flies have attracted a lizard, which attracted a cat, which is now being attacked by a dog. Shouldn't we call someone to stop the fight?"
But the Queen only stretched, and shook her head at her advisor, "Won't you relax. A silly animal fight is not MY problem. Someone will surely see to it."
In fact the baker did see to it. She saw the dog attacking her cat and ran out with her rolling pin and began to hit the dog. And then the butcher heard his dog howling and ran out with his broom and began to hit the cat. Soon the butcher and baker were hitting each other. Then the neighboring shopkeepers began to take sides, joining in the fight. Then some soldiers came along, but some knew the butcher and some knew the baker. So the soldiers, too, took sides and the
battle grew. It grew and grew until a great battle waged in the streets. People were throwing rocks through windows and tipping over the vendor carts. Someone picked up a torch from the wall and hurled it through a window. Fire raged, and eventually it spread to the palace.
The next thing they knew, the queen and her advisor were being escorted down a ladder from the balcony into the street below because the palace itself was in flames.
Later that day when the fire had died out, the queen and her advisor surveyed the ruins of their land. Suddenly the queen stopped in the street underneath where her balcony had been. She reached down and touched something in a small puddle on the ground. "It's honey," she said, remembering. "I guess I should have cleaned up that drop of honey in the first place. Now, my whole kingdom has been lost because of it."
That was the last day the queen ever said "IT'S NOT MY PROBLEM!"
HARVEST THE POWER: WORKSHOP 10:
HANDOUT 1: SYSTEM THINKING — GUIDELINES FOR LEADERS
In the book, How Your Church Family Works: Understanding Congregations as Emotional Systems (Herndon, VA: Alban Institute, 1996), Peter Steinke gives this summary statement about system thinking:
System thinking is a way of seeing
— the whole,
— how the parts mutually influence one another,
— how the circle of influence becomes patterned, and
— how the pattern is maintained by the arrangement of the functioning parts.
In an emotional system there is always
— information (a reaction or a response) and
— the struggle to be self-defined and yet in touch with others.
Here are three guidelines for congregational leaders to consider to help them remain healthy and effective in a congregational system under stress or in distress:
Take Responsibility Only for What Belongs to You
Maintain Personal Integrity
Stay Connected to the Organization
HARVEST THE POWER: WORKSHOP 10:
HANDOUT 2: ALTERNATE SYSTEM THINKING SCENARIOS
Note: These scenarios appeared in a different form in Workshop 4.
Accessibilities Audit Scenario
A congregation is planning to do some major work to repair the foundation of the building and to upgrade space. They have had a successful capital campaign and have raised nearly enough money—but not quite enough. Now they have heard from local government officials that they will not be granted a building permit until they have addressed some major accessibility issues in the building.
This project will be costly. The chair of the governing board believes there is no more money to be had from the congregation. She convenes a meeting of the governing board, which includes:
Safe Congregation Scenario
A congregation's insurance company has informed them the congregation will no longer be able to purchase liability coverage unless they have a policy in place for prevention of sexual abuse and misconduct. The prevention policy must include the use of criminal background checks for volunteers and staff. As the governing board convenes to consider this challenge, members of the board are of several minds:
HARVEST THE POWER: WORKSHOP 10:
LEADER RESOURCE 1: HEAVENLY UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST CONGREGATION
Heavenly Unitarian Universalist Congregation has a lovely building in a suburban community. It is a congregation well known for its music. They have a beloved music director who has been with the congregation for 20 years. She believes ethereal music is best for congregational worship and favors the harp. The Heavenly Choir loves her as a director and cannot imagine singing with anything other than harp as accompaniment. The Heavenly Music Committee meets only twice a year. Things are going so smoothly with the congregation's music program in the music director's hands there is no need for more frequent meetings. The staff members, particularly the parish minister, love working with the music director because the music is reliably excellent and the congregation seems happy with that aspect of worship. There are rumblings from the younger people in the congregation that although ethereal music is lovely, they might like to hear something more earthly now and again. Parents have commented to the religious education director that it would be wonderful to have music children can sing and enjoy from time to time. But, it is not a big issue in the congregation. All is tranquil at Heavenly Unitarian Universalist Congregation, until...
The Heavenly music director receives an offer to teach harp at a world famous conservatory and decides to accept. It means that she and her partner will be moving out of the area, so she tenders her resignation as Heavenly's music director effective at the end of the year. The Heavenly Music Committee and the Heavenly Choir make plans for a gala good-bye celebration. The Board decides to appoint a search committee for a new music director, and in the interest of being inclusive, appoints a parent, a young adult and a jazz musician to the search committee, along with a member of the choir and a member of the music committee. The appointments raise eyebrows among those in the Heavenly Choir and those on the Heavenly Music Committee, who thought they would be the ones to find a new harpist to continue their successful ethereal music program in the congregation. They begin to murmur, wondering what the Board is thinking, and feeling somewhat underappreciated.
After a grand good-bye party, the search committee meets to begin its work in earnest. They find very quickly that committee members have entirely different ideas about the person who should be their next music director. Soon they are divided into two factions, lovers of ethereal music and those desirous of something different, with both sides planning surveys to prove the majority of the congregation is on their side. The conflict spreads to the congregation at large. People choose sides. The Board is stunned by what is happening in their once tranquil congregation, and wants to do whatever is necessary to restore harmony and balance. The minister and Board chair wisely seek help from their UUA District staff, who help them examine their problem by looking at Heavenly's issue from a system point of view.