Family Culture

About three years ago, our family made the completely spontaneous decision to become a “dog family”. I didn’t grow up in a “dog family”, so no one was more surprised than I when I found myself campaigning for the cute puppy I discovered in the adopt-a-pet area at PetSmart one fateful Saturday. I went to get a hamster.

Now, a few years and another dog later, I have learned a few things about dogs. Dogs have remarkable abilities! Some dogs are sled dogs, some are bird-dogs, some are search and rescue dogs, some are even seeing-eye dogs—I, on the other hand, have eat-the-furniture dogs. Eat the furniture, eat the walls, eat the shoes, eat my journal, eat my Bible (yes, even that). But we love them… so oh well.

I’ve also learned a lot about how the culture of a family can be impacted by the presence of furry, smelly, shedding, licking, jumping, biting, not-very-bright, but irrepressible, irresistible unconditional love. They bring a presence into our home that generally makes us better. They just do.

How? For those of you who are not (yet) in a “dog family”, I’ve discovered there is a warmth and welcome that awaits whenever we arrive. Any of us. Any of our friends. There is joy upon arrival, no matter how late you are, how much you screwed up at school that day, no matter how mean you were to your brothers, or how you forgot to finish folding the laundry. There is often reason to laugh at an upturned belly, a noxious smell, a furrowed brow, or a desperate plea for bad pizza. With our dogs around, not only do we have more fun; I actually think we are more fun. More gracious. More willing to look beyond stuff and see each other; more loved and wanted in spite of our faults, and that generally makes us better. We work harder, we play better, we forgive a bit better, we enjoy life and God and each other more.

Culture Matters

The culture of a group of people is a tricky thing to describe, but we all know what it feels like. The “culture” of a family can be welcoming and gracious, or it can be perfectionistic, stingy, and harsh. The culture of a church can be the same way. And so can the culture of a team.

A family, a church, and a team can all “look good on paper”, but step into the kitchen, the staff meeting, or the sanctuary, and you can quickly tell what’s actually going on. Beyond the discrepancy between what it is and what it appears to be, no matter how good it looks on paper, the culture of that team or church or family will often predict more about that group’s impact for good than anything else.

A visionary friend recently sent me this quote regarding culture… “The one unique role of leadership is to manage culture. When an organization’s culture is dysfunctional or maladaptive, it is the responsibility of the leader to break that culture and replace it with a new one.” Edgar Schien, of MIT’s Sloan School.

Culture, vague though it may be, difficult to ascertain and even more difficult to change, needs to be a leader’s obsession. It may seem quite counter-intuitive, if we learn to focus on the how, the what has a much better chance of being accomplished.

The undead.

Want to know what catapulted my 13 year old son to new levels of popularity in middle school? Toting around the coolest book in Middle School: The Zombie Handbook. Our family has spent a fair amount of time at meals discussing the finer points of zombie etiquette and defense mechanisms.

Zombies. The undead. Forever depicted in my mind by Captain Barbosa from Pirates of The Caribbean, as he tells Elizabeth Swan that she better get used to ghost stories, because she’s in one! As he speaks, he shockingly reveals the true nature of his crew… they looked perfectly alive and “normal” otherwise, but only in direct moonlight could she see the truth: inside they are dead. Nothing but bones; everything else is an illusion because, we learn, they are under a curse. This is zombie reality.

I wonder if a similar revelation doesn’t eventually occur to many of us who serve the local church. When you catch us in the right light, you can see us for what we are: dry bones. Oh, the show goes on… the work gets done, we look good on paper, but our ability to feel pain or feel pleasure is gone. We are numb. Dead on the inside. We could write the Zombie handbook.

What are some clues that you’re on a team of the undead? Drivenness and exhaustion; shrill “vision casting” and striving; folks who are slow to listen, quick to speak, and quick to become angry; prevalence of an apocalyptic fear that drives everything, and even, at times, the cynical gallows humor of the damned (doomed).

Leading for Collective Soul

How will this change? How do we break that curse? It certainly starts with leaders choosing—just themselves—to care for their own soul. While this personal emphasis is essential, it remains limited. Beyond us as individuals stands the enormous issue of culture: addressing systemic change—culture change. Trends I’ve noticed are these: Repentance as and among a team happens, and restoration of team members who have seriously strayed happens. The curse is broken interpersonally when we deal with brokenness, both individual and inter-personal.

I find it interesting that anthropologists assess the level of culture’s civilization by examining human skeletons. Broken bones that have been healed can be easily identified; and a healing culture is a civilized culture. In a way, you could call the commitment to lead for collective soul a commitment to lead for healing of brokenness – brokenness within a team.

What are some simple things you can do to enhance collective soul?

1. Define it. What’s a culture-vision? It’s the dream we have of our “way of being” together. One of the teams I led went through a process of articulating this very thing. Our goal was to be:

• serving interdependently (not just “reporting in” on our various individual tasks)
• from our true selves (striving for biblical simplicity)
• with disciplined integrity (no need to babysit; our yes is yes)
• in a fundamentally spiritual reality (impacts prayer/perspective)

What might be yours?

2. Lead towards it. So let’s get specific. Here’s a few things I work towards:

• Build a community, not just a team: This could involve learning each other’s stories as a team. So often we serve together without knowing anything of substance from one another’s lives and personal journeys. I believe that cripples the effectiveness of a team, and practically invites us to show up half-dead to meetings and to work. Lots of assessments (Myers-Briggs, StrengthsFinders, DiSC, Enneagram) can help with that, too.
• Develop individual freedom and responsibility: Jim Collins talks about disciplined integrity in Good to Great… for starters, you could read the chapter and discuss.
• Stand strong, together. How do you put the 4th point into practice? That’s key. Do you work in your own power toward God-goals? Or do you work, collectively, in cooperation with the movements of God’s spirit? What does collective dependence look like? How would you cultivate it? I know the things I and my teams do; how about you? What would feel authentic?

3. Live into it.(Enjoy it)
As you move against zombie culture and into a culture of collective soul health, the best news of all is you, too, get to live. The mission gets accomplished within a broad and captivating vision of God and his goodness and life and freedom and peace. My prayer for leaders everywhere is that this becomes the new normal.

That, and you could buy a dog.

Mindy Caliguire will be a presenter at this year’s arts conference. She will be teaching at the pre-conference workshops, Leading from a Healthy Soul: Caring for Your Own Soul While Leading Others. Mindy will also be teaching breakouts on Wednesday, Body of Soul and Collective Soul, Thursday.

Mindy and her husband, Jeff, planted a church in the Boston area, where she served in a variety of leadership roles for 10 years and launched Soul Care, dedicated to helping people restore health to their souls. She served in the area of spiritual formation at Willow Creek Community Church from 2001 to 2004, concentrating on membership, the ministry of prayer, small group curriculum, and "soul care": for individual staff teams. In 2005, she re-engaged with Soul Care, serving churches and organizations through leadership consulting and retreats. Mindy also serves as the Midwest regional director for the Spiritual Formation Alliance, building partnerships and creating formational events. Whether formally or informally, Mindy mentors leaders, focusing on re-establishing their spiritual vitality as the primary step towards a lifestyle of sustainable ministry and leadership. Mindy's books include Discovering Soul Care and Spiritual Friendship.