I have learned
that I cannot fill
the chasm that runs
from my north
to my south
and so
i will let
the water pour in
that i might drown
and float to the sunlit surface
from my dark depth
Month: April 2017
A Vignette
“I feel as if I have pulled away from things and into some sleepy dream,” she thought. “As if I have been tugged from within to without and only now, after so much time, am I receding back into myself…but now my view has become so different. My windows have become winter-frosted and the world is grey and cold.”
Margaret got up from her chair and moved slowly to the window of her room to look out upon the wind whipped fields, all stubble since the harvest. The room itself was small, painted a pale egg yolk yellow. It was sparse and institutional which was appropriate because it was a room in an institution. A crucifix hung upon the east wall and from it dangled a rosary.
Saint Lutgardis’s Home for the Aged was the least auspicious of senior facilities. A small, century old, red brick affair with a mere dozen rooms in a bucolic village that seemed to have shrank to less than this even.
Connected to the home by a small brick, many windowed hall was a two story, similarly bricked convent with a mere six nuns and a Mother Superior whose lives were dedicated solely to the care of their predecessors, retired nuns like some odd, self-fulfilling, perpetual motion machine in which the present entered to take care of the past failing to see their own future.
Margaret’s past was once Mother Superior. Once Sister Peter Andrew, a name forced upon her by her mother who wanted a priest in the family which she accepted with humility expected of her. Now she was simply Margaret to all.
Leadership & The 10 Rules of Hiring
There is often nothing more stressful in leadership then the hiring experience. This is usually due to a lack of preparation, low-balling salaries and unrealistic expectations/timelines.
RULE 1: The first rule of hiring should be – “Don’t Panic“.
This is true, fear and panic often derail the hiring experience as leadership makes poor decisions based primarily on filling a role quickly instead of responsibly.
The truth is a quick hire may solve a few problems in the short term but it can kill you in the long term.
RULE 2: Take as long as you need to hire a good person into the role. There is no time limit.
In the meantime re-deploy responsibilities to the best you are able and make do. If you have to shelve certain functions and run the role on life-support until the new hire is selected.
RULE 3: Develop a THOROUGH and APPROPRIATE job description. NEVER hire a person without a very thorough job description. If the position is new make sure you go through a strategic visioning process to ensure the role is complete and dovetails into other roles in the organization without conflict.
Thorough does not mean make them do EVERYTHING. Make sure the description is focused.
If the vacancy arose as a result of a departure make sure you ask yourself first – is this an opportunity? By which I mean can the role be re-tooled, re-purposed, split into two etc. to the needs of the organization that have likely changed since the role was first created. You may find you do not need what you think you need.
RULE 4: Do not over-hire. By this I mean do not hire a Swiss army knife employee (hinted at in Rule 3). Many organizations think they can find some mythical chimera employee who has five radically different, conflicting skill-sets. These are VERY rare. You chances of finding one are low AND the chimera is generally not deep in any of their skills but rather shallow in many. This offsets the number of skills.
RULE 5: Personality first, skills second – ALWAYS. Having been through the hiring process countless times and worked with many other who have as well I can tell you the one regret that continues to rise to the top is from hiring a person based primarily on their skills rather than and often despite certain clear issues with personality.
Most of the skills you need can be learned/taught over a reasonable time. However it is VERY difficult for an asshole to unlearn being an asshole.
It doesn’t matter how many degrees they have, how many decades of experience, how many committees chaired etc. If they are a class A pain the neck RUN.
You can learn to discern most people’s personalities through a thorough interview, which brings us to our next rule.
RULE 6: Ask a lot of questions! For Heaven’s sake take the interview seriously. Avoid deciding based solely on a resume. You are bringing a person into the fold to join your team – making a bad choice at this stage can lead to catastrophic consequences for the organization.
Don’t ask Yes and No questions. Ask questions that require a thoughtful and detailed response. Provide hypothetical scenarios that require engagement. Do not avoid the tough questions. These things will help you better understand the person you are dealing with.
RULE 7: Be Honest. Do not hide potential problems in the organization for fear of losing a candidate. Be as honest and transparent as you can no matter how horrible the truth may be (“the last person in this role was eaten by the photocopier”). If the candidate is successful they will learn about your dysfunctions and will feel betrayed by the lack of honesty. This destroys trust and ultimately will lead to the person’s departure and reduced motivation and performance.
RULE 8: Pay them properly. Too many organizations (especially not-for-profits) think they can hire God’s nephew for $18,000 a year and expect them to perform all the duties of the CEO of Intel AND their executive assistant in a part-time role.
“We want you to raise $1 million a year AND make the board coffee and sandwiches when necessary”
Uh huh. Really? See Rules 3 and 4.
Rule 9: CHECK REFERENCES! I put this in all caps because it is shocking how many organizations fail to check references. Why? Why in the world would you not? Make sure you get employment references. Ask for the last two employers. This question alone can help weed out candidates. If there is a 13 year gap in employment references you need a good reason – ask.
When you are talking to previous employers focus on personality, working in a team and working with clients. Were they ever disciplined? If so why? Why did they leave? etc.
I feel so strongly about this I will say that you should NEVER hire a person if you have not checked their references.
Rule 10: Don’t Interview Alone. If you can, always have one or two additional people with you during the interview process. They don’t have to ask questions but they do have to provide you with insights afterwards.
If you are in a small organization bring a trusted mentor or peer in from outside. It’s ok to do this. You can also ask board members or other employees to assist.
Many a bad decision has been avoided due to the feedback received from others who have been invited into the process. It also ensures clarity if their is confusion about something said because you will have other witnesses to assist.
Final Thoughts: These are not, by any stretch of the imagination, a complete or comprehensive list. Consider this the foundation and feel free to adapt and develop it. If you do all of these things you stand a good chance of hiring the right person for the job.
Remember – If after all of the time and energy invested in the hiring process you do not find someone refer to Rule 1 – Don’t Panic. Don’t hire on a deadline. Start the whole process over again if necessary – review the role, salary etc. Trust me you will be far better off in the long term by waiting for the right candidate and crafting the best role(s) possible then rushing headlong into a bad decision.
this truth
beneath a golden, honeyed sky
where below the fragrant barrows
those who were, now gone, do lie
there are a billion voices
whose songs, so lifted, do amplify;
but only one you.
but only one I.
to this truth only
can i speak of truth and testify
A Letter to the Church, Good Friday 2017
“Now you are Christ’s body, and individually members of it.” 1 Corinthians 12:27
Upon the day of our Lord’s death it is good to reflect upon the nature of church and the point of sacrifice.
Further it may be time to consider that perhaps the barbs we, as Christians, have been throwing at the institutional church should be turned back upon ourselves.
I say institutional church for a reason – the buildings, the pastors, the programs, the pews – these things are not the Church, the body of Christ – these things are our own creation…we, in fact, are the body of Christ.
But of course we know these things…we just find it convenient to forget we are the Church from time to time that we might blame our weaknesses on the institutional church and the pastors we place there.
Increasingly these days (although I assume this has always been an issue to one degree or another) Christians have walked out on their churches in great numbers all the while blaming the very institutions and staff for their abandonment while forgetting their own responsibility as the actual Church, the body of Christ, which is right now and always, at the centre of history, hanging and bleeding and dying on a cross.
When we, as Christians, look at our churches and pastors, and proclaim them profane, boring, unloving, broken, irrelevant, etc. we are, in fact, failing to see that these self-same churches are our own creation and as such our responsibility. Walking away from our creation is exactly the opposite of God’s lesson to us in Christ.
The churches are the visible manifestation of our own character to the world. If they are corrupt, broken and unloving this is our responsibility and frankly, our fault as they are merely reflections of our own poor character.
Leaving them does not help.
Why do you think the new churches we visit or start after we leave the one’s we dislike often fail or turn into the thing we despise? They do so because they too, are our creation, reflective of our selves.
These institutions are actually useful inasmuch as they are guided by faithful Christians to provide teaching, the sacraments, and a holy space to meet the God who dwells within each of us.
Unfortunately we abdicated our responsibilities as the body of Christ and gave them to the institution, that it, this human thing, might be Christ’s body instead of us.
We tell the church to evangelize, heal, visit, clothe, forgive, feed, house and more that we might not have to. We give it money in exchange for these services and we become terribly critical if it falls down on the job. We fail to recognize that this church will ultimately fail in these tasks EVERY TIME because these tasks are supposed to be the very outworking, the very breath of the body of Christ which is you and I.
The church is not the problem with Christianity today. The problem with Christianity is the Church. I trust you see the distinction.
YOU love. YOU heal. YOU feed. YOU clothe. YOU pray. YOU visit. YOU forgive. YOU evangelize. YOU house.
You do these things as an outpouring of the Spirit of God within you that when you gather on a Sunday you might do so in the overflowing of all these things you have done in the week. That you might recharge as other Christians continue to do the work given to them by preaching and teaching.
If the institutions are broken it is because we Christians built them as we would build robots to do the very holy work we have been given, our liturgy. We have created soulless automatons, dumb clay golems, machines without ghosts and expected them to perform as Christ that we might simply feed and feed and feed and get fat in our own judgement and laziness.
Right now Christ is dying on the cross for the purpose of enabling you and I to do the things we have abdicated to bricks and mortar. Right now Christ bleeds the very forgiveness and life we are to offer, not our churches. There is nothing compelling or noble about a corporation’s love…only living love is compelling.
When you look at your local church and dislike what you see perhaps consider that you are looking in a mirror.
The good news is there is time. For just as Christ forever hangs upon the cross so too does he forever rise to new life. Wherever there is death new life is possible.
Strip away from your churches the expectations you have that should be placed on yourself. Take away your churches’ mandate to do what you should be doing that they might be free to become the celebratory gathering and worship spaces they were meant to be while you become the Christ you were meant to be. There is still time.
The burden of Christ, the burden of the cross is too great for a church…it was meant to be carried by the Church. It was meant to be carried on your shoulders and on mine.
“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” Acts 2:42-47
ink
Mother is etched black into my skin
a maze that winds atop the veins she built
reminder of her blood that races still,
pressing me toward the good things
Every needle pierce, a small reminder of
Mother, whose beauty came through pain;
Mother, whose ink is all over me…
Mother through whose lost blue eyes I see
Harnessing Chaos 