USCM and Leading Change

What follows is a quickie evaluation of my leadership experience over the past 4 years. It has been a fantastic ride filled with wonderful people, Godly leaders and new and challenging paradigms.

We have attempted to lead a major shift in the thinking and functioning of the US Campus Ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ. The hope was to enable the orgnaization to move powerfully ahead in Asian American, African American and Hispanic contexts. Not an easy task for a 50+ year old organization that is pretty set in its ways (including the thought that we are very innovative). And we are pretty white to boot.

So – as an exercise in learning (an autopsy even), I have taken the key steps from Kotter’s leading change (remember this one) and evaluated our (my) performance. Here are the random musings (read if you care). This is by no means comprehensive, but it is a start.

1. Establish a Sense of Urgency
Well – I think this was being set in motion by the National Director (Mark Gauthier) and company and I was asked to be part of the mix. Sam Osterloh gave a wonderful talk at CSU in 2003 that really set the tone for our next steps (Cornelius and Peter from Acts 10). I felt as if we were poised for some very radical shifts (and indeed some amazing things have happened).

Unfortunately, much of what we were communicating urgently was interprited as a critique of our traditionall methodology (and I have to own this). Without intending to, the new direction was seen as a wholesale indictment of our history. We did not talk that much about the old intentionally, but in race issues, new direction can often feel very condemning of the past. My communication was not as precise as it needed to be. Much of the urgency we needed was dampened by a feeling of condemnation.

However, I think the ethnic staff felt the urgency, as well as those working in metro situations . . . .

2. Form a Powerful Guiding Coalition
This was indeed a stumbling block. Upon entering the role, there were only 4 regional leaders within ESM and one interim – and no one east of the Mississippi. One person (Dirke Johnson) left to take a critical role with our African American leadership team (a good move for sure). The entire National Leadership Team was behind the effort, but I do not think any of us realized the complexity or the level of energy it was going to take in order to enact substantial change. There were a handful of local leaders who were already succeeding in doing what needed to be done, so this small entourage formed a bit of the guiding coalition. Looking back, I think we should have consolidated this group on a more official level and begin working from there. I think I over estimated how ‘in’ people were across the board and therefore I did not see how much opposition would be encountered.

3. Create a Vision
We initially were saying things like ‘ethnic movements everywhere no matter what it takes” - this being tied to “Spiritual Movements Everywhere so that Everyone knows someone who knows Jesus.” The goal was to get to at least an African American and International Student movement on every priority location (about 300+ new plants) while increasing our leadership capacity in the Hispanic and Asian American communities. (A side note: As of 8/1/06 there were 425+ ethnic student ministry plants).

4. Communicate the Vision
No doubt we under communicated by a 5 fold factor, but we also encountered a cluttered national agenda that focused on filling leadership roles, issues with women in leadership as well as various regional and national crisis's. The vision became simply part of information shrapnel flying around.

5. Empower Others to Act on the Vision
This is where I feel we really gained some new ground and found a number of ways to move ahead in ethnic ministries. Because of some of what we saw in the field and the determination of our African American and Korean American leaders, I found myself doing a 180 in understanding of problems and answers. A big thanks to Kim Dong Whan, Jacqueline Bland, Jim Williamson and Charles Gilmer on this. As a result of people responding to the vision, we have created at least 30 new approaches to planting and growing new movements on campuses. This is very exciting.

6. Plan for and Create Short-Term Wins
The biggest short term wins were the launching of the Impact Coaching Teams (African American ministry), the Destino Summer Project in San Antonio in 04 & 06 (a rally point for the Hispanic staff), a consolidated movements everywhere focus with some teams seeing successes, and the Asian American Summer Projects and the Summit in CA (hiring Tommy Dyo!). This helped us get some traction in some new areas.

7. Consolidate Improvements and Produce Still More Change
MovementLaunching.com helped us to consolidate some of the gains as well as highlight was was new. We are still seeing people create new stuff (shock and awe in the Great Lakes and now being used in the Carolinas). Good stuff and the best is yet to come. I think that many of the true blue leaders around the country will be very effective at taking these fledgling efforts and making them really solid and replicable. I like to think that we are just on the cusp of what will be created.

8. Institutionalize New Approaches
This where we are now, and we will see what sticks. Hopefully we realize that this type of effort and ministry is our future and we will continue to move forward with courage, daring and creativity. I think there are some institutional approaches and habits that we will need to unlearn before we can see massive breakthrough - but I am confident it can happen.

Please add your assesment if you would like - or forward this on to a friend so they can chime in. Nothing like a little learning to grease the wheels for the next endevour!

Lead on.