Should Leaders Pay Attention to Religion?

Being a nomadic leader is to learn to encounter and manage the many worlds that make up our human-ness.  One of those worlds is religious faith.  We are currently entering a season that acknowledges/celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ who is worshipped as the divine Saviour by billions on this planet.  Soon enough whether determined by the calendar or a political event, another reminder of our religious diversity (and division) will occur.

Religion is polarizing.  More accurately, our reactions to religion are what is polarizing.  At this intersection where humanity meets we are both intrigued at our diversity and repelled by our  differences. Can we be civil?  Can we be respectful?  Can we honour one another?  Despite each of our claims to truth we still must find a way to live together in a society that provides the freedom of conscience and practice for our belief (or non-belief if that’s the case).

Travel the world, read the news, tune into the conversations, follow the public mood and you know that if we are ever to live alongside one another in peace there is a need for respect & civil discourse in our human relations.  In this world that is both secular and religious we need to rediscover how to engage each other in public (and private) discourse without the lazy polarization that usually characterizes such discussions.

 

For the record we all stand on some particular ‘truth’.  The secularist who wants to somehow rid the  world of the need for religion or a particular philosophy still has a point-of-view, a ‘truth’ on which they stand that is as clear to them as a religious persons’ ‘truth’. Therefore let’s not be so naive to think that somehow we can all attain to a utopian reality based on no absolute truth or no religion. "Imagine there's no heaven, and no religion too..." is a great piece of music, but John Lennon had it wrong. The innate human striving for meaning will always ensure the pursuit of and disagreement over truth.

From my personal Christian perspective there is an ultimate Truth and Truth-Giver.  I believe that Jesus Christ rewards those who diligently seek Him. While I want the freedom to communicate and practice that Truth I must then afford those of other faiths and no faith the freedom to proclaim and practice theirs.  If I can assume those of other faith positions feel similarly, we then must create the space where dignified discourse and personal respect rule our human interactions. This cannot be accomplished through state-sanctioned religion OR the state sanctioning against religious expression.  Neither can it be attained at other levels of society by just ignoring it and hoping it works itself out.

To my fellow nomadic leaders - you can be part of creating a movement toward practicing civil discourse among our diverse worlds:

• Don’t be afraid of allowing for discourse, discussion and even disagreement in your organizations' work-spaces over essential matters of life.  The people who work for you are not just workers.  They are people with histories, allegiances and more often than not despite thier differences, share more mutual values and concerns than you think.  By freeing space for open discussion, we can get in touch with what makes us human and perhaps begin to respect each other for who we are rather than for how we perceive each other.  And for those leaders who need a financial bottom-line rationale - mutual respect will go a long way toward leaning in on a job vs. expecting a team/group to produce who hold deep distrust or prejudices toward each other. 
• Do establish protocols for conversations that ensure mutual respect.  Here are some suggestions:
• Determine that no one may call another person 'wrong'
• Encourage a liberal use of questions and curiosity when asking others about thier belief or point of view. This helps divert judgement.
• Establish up front that mutual respect allows for disagreement, but not a devaluing of the others' point of view
• Though disagreement is inevitable on some issues, regularly seek the answer to this question: "What do we share together"?

Be part of creating a movement of civility across cultural, religious, political and other borders.  It begins in the lunchroom, the workspace, the kitchen and the classroom before it makes it to the global public square.

Harv Matchullis

 

Recommended Reading:

 

Is Your Brain Wired for Partnership?

The nomadic leadership journey is one of adaptation, adjustment & awareness of two worlds:  the internal world of our thinking and the external world where our thinking interacts with people and the environment.

Here’s an example.  I am a part of a few cross-cultural partnerships.  In one recent meeting we had a great outcome, but our process revealed some deeply-set thinking.   This is typical of most meetings and with all people, but as I tried to discern in this case whether  it was culturally or personality based it occurred to me that behind both is a common denominator...

…the brain

Reflecting on that meeting, I realized with greater clarity that whether something we hold to is defined as a cultural value or a personality characteristic, our behaviour towards each other can change because our brains can change.  We can therefore transform our thinking as leaders.  As you think, so you behave.

We often limit ours and others’ ability to adapt because we claim “it’s their culture”, or “that is how they are wired”.  While there is truth underlying those declarations, it is a limiting truth.  For clarity:

Culture is a shared pattern of thinking and behaviour, which is developed and reinforced by a person’s ethnic group.  Geert Hofstede refers to culture as the “collective programming of the mind”

Personality has a genetic component but also is the unique software of the brain developed and nurtured while interacting with the world around us.  Bio-physical influences, social teachers, environmental systems, experiences and more all contribute to defining and then rooting our personality.

Both culture and personality are developed as our brain interacts with our surroundings.  Over time we develop certain patterns which can then be hard to shake.  Think of your brain development in this way:  As an infant, your brains’ neural pathways were like a wide sheet of water on a flat plain.  As you developed, small streams begin to form.  Continual learning and experiences add more streams on the open landscape of your brain.  Confirmations & affirmations of your learning serve to deepen those streams into rivers of thought.  Patterns are formed.  Ongoing learning and experience is then framed by or channeled into these existing rivers, because that’s easier to do than creating new streams of thinking. 

If you are honest you will notice in yourself that you tend to seek out learning, opinions and people that confirm or align with what you already know & perceive (called ‘confirmation bias’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias  ) .  Not to excuse it, but this is actually related to brain physiology.  It takes less physical energy to process something that can be channelled into one of those existing rivers.   Think of it this way – your brain is like a computer with a hard drive and RAM.  The RAM, your frontal cortex, is where executive functioning, working memory and new learning take place.  While it is only about 4-7% of your brain, it consumes the most physical energy.  This part of the brain is fussy, limited and energy intensive, so the brain prefers to ‘hardwire’ information as much as possible.  Therefore without intentional effort when confronted with new information or situations, we will default to what we already know.  We go to where the pathway takes less energy – the stored learning in the hard drive. That’s why learning new skills or perspectives as we age get harder (but not impossible).  

 

Getting back to the rivers of thinking analogy, after a time the rivers become deeper and form canyons.  They become opinions, prejudices, positions, perspectives, and worldviews. Once deep enough and left unchallenged, it’s difficult to see out to a new horizon.   

The multiple vistas that were available to us when we were younger now take a lot more energy to see let alone process.

 

This reality played out in my partnership meeting.  A partner was fixed in their thinking and had a hard time looking out and over the walls of the canyon.  It was far easier for this person to bring everything into their canyon to interpret it from that perspective.  In my default mode, I do exactly the same thing.

Our cultures, our personality and our training all give us a framework for interacting with and making sense of the world.  This is necessary because we all need some lens through which to initially interpret life.  But let’s acknowledge that much of our thinking exists in a few canyons we have dug out over years and years of processing life in a certain way.  Getting out and abandoning those ways entirely is not really possible, BUT it is possible to start a new stream, a new neural pathway.

Here are some self-coaching questions to use when you encounter a very different perspective. Let them help you begin the process of starting a new stream of thought & learning:

• What is the issue I am facing at this moment where my approach or thinking is not producing the outcome I want?

•  How am I trying to solve this?  How effective is my strategy?

• If I could get into the mind of the person on the ‘other side of the table/issue’, how might they be thinking about this?  What questions can I ask them to gain this understanding?

• What perspective will I need to take to see this issue differently so that I can think in new ways about it?

• What simple strategies can I employ to get me thinking in a new way about this issue?  Who can help me accomplish this?

Speaking from the cross cultural contexts I am part of, ethnic culture needs to be both honored and challenged.  While on the one hand it provides a person community, security and a sense of ‘place’, it also bears limitations because it can restrict the potential of discovering and implementing a new way. 

There is a trans-cultural way of thinking, and I propose to you it is found in the teachings and ways of Jesus.  Following His ways does not lead a person to abandon culture or personality so much as it leads us to think & act above those ‘canyons’ we have created.  God challenges humanity to be ‘transformed by the renewing of our minds’.  Our Creator wired our brains and knows we can get fixed in destructive or limiting thinking.   So, is the answer to think your way into transformation?  Afraid not!  We all need Divine help because quite simply, our thinking is affected by a universally shared selfishness that defines ‘me’ as the center of reality.  That can’t be fully overcome independently or by great coaching.  Only the presence and the power of the One who crafted your brain can come alongside you and affect true transformation that gets you ‘out of yourself’ and focused on the interests of others rather than just your own.

I do coach people using a brain- based approach.  My approach is to help you to ‘think about your thinking’ so that you can create new neural pathways in order to move forward in some aspect of your life.  I have seen this help people transform their thinking to take a significant new step in their business, pursue a dream, make a career shift, renew a relationship.  However what I can never do is help you approach life and this world from a trans-cultural, divine, other-centered perspective. Only by following the way of Jesus can you accomplish that.  He will transform you by the renewing of your mind. 

For information on a brain-based coaching approach or on the way Jesus can fully transform your mind & life, contact me at:

Harv Matchullis

Visiontracks Facilitation and Coaching 

harvey@visiontracks.ca

403 970 4148

Why I Struggle With (my) Faith

Let’s start with some music...

"Iridescent"

By Linkin Park

When you were standing in the wake of devastation
When you were waiting on the edge of the unknown
And with the cataclysm raining down
Insides crying, "Save me now!"
You were there, impossibly alone

Do you feel cold and lost in desperation?
You build up hope, but failure’s all you’ve known
Remember all the sadness and frustration
And let it go. Let it go

And in a burst of light that blinded every angel
As if the sky had blown the heavens into stars
You felt the gravity of tempered grace
Falling into empty space
No one there to catch you in their arms

Do you feel cold and lost in desperation?
You build up hope, but failure’s all you’ve known
Remember all the sadness and frustration
And let it go. Let it go

It's a failure of leadership development to not address issues of the soul.  Too much out there is focused on hard and soft skills, neglecting the sub-surface currents of the soul.  Linkin Parks' song is a soul-cry - and don't tell me you have not felt what this song expresses. That's why on occasion I speak clearly about the soul.  I am about to do it again, so either check-in for a read or feel free to check out now.

I struggle with my faith in Jesus Christ and have no problem saying that to my Christian community. This blog is about a Christian leaders' wrestling with pain, suffering, meaning and purpose.

 

What follows are not originally my words.  I came across this 'confession' in 2010 while doing research on a sermon focusing on the issue of doubt.  The source is unknown to me, but I give credit to this person, whoever he/she is. At the time I was living in Kuwait. A family crisis was emerging.  I was beginning to doubt a lot of things about my own identity as a pastor, a father, a follower of Jesus.  The situation only got darker when I repatriated to Canada.  I lived on the edge of a fight or flight response to God for 2 years.  What this person had to say on that website resonates more with me now (3 years later) than it did when I was on the front edge of my crisis of doubt. Things got really dark before I could see there was light there all the time. 

I share it because the realization that doubt is a part of true faith has transformed my relationship with God and I hope, my leadership. It has made me more honest with Him to the point that I feel more than ever that I have a true relationship with my Creator where everything can be on the table and we will still love each other. So, whoever you are out there who first authoured this– thank you for giving expression to my heart and thoughts. Your story is my story – and I know that as long as other Christian leaders are honest out there, that this is their story too…

"Ping. The hammer fell and preacher came tumbling after. It's funny, when your faith finally caves, it goes all at once. You realize you were just a shell held together with hackneyed rituals and desperate hopes. You are not strong. You do not have answers....St John of the Cross calls it 'the dark night of the soul'...It broke my heart. I grieved joint and marrow. My reptilian brain cried. I was sad all the way to the bottom.

I decided not to give up without a fight. I can be a stubborn son-of-a-bitch. I sought answers. I read the good stuff and talked with the good people. I learned some things. I found my way. 

Turns out Christianity is an eastern religion. The earliest Christians were Hebrews. Semites. People of the east. They did not know how to separate mind from body. They were holistic before holistic was cool. In our world we have separated mind from body to our great loss. Here a man may betray his wife and neglect his children, but he says he loves them 'down inside'. Bullshit. There is no 'down inside'. Love is something you do, not something you feel. Likewise, we think having faith means being convinced God exists in the same way we are convinced a chair exists. People who cannot be completely convinced of God's existence think faith is impossible for them. Not so. People who doubt can have great faith because FAITH IS SOMETHING YOU DO, NOT SOMETHING YOU THINK. In fact, the greater your doubt the more heroic your faith.

I learned that it doesn't matter in the least that I be convinced of God's existence. Whether or not God exists is none of my business, really. What do I know of existence? I don't even know how the DVD works. What DOES matter is whether or not I am faithful. I think faithful is a hell of a good word. It still has some of its original shine. It still calls us to action. Once I stumbled upon this very old truth, I prayed the most honest prayer of my life:

'God, I don't have great faith, but I can be faithful. My belief in you may be seasonal, but my faithfulness will not. I will follow in the way of Christ. I will act as though my life and the lives of others matter. I will love. I have no greater gift to offer than my life. Take it.' "

And what does the Lord require of you, O man, 

but to do justice, 

love kindness, 

and walk humbly with God

Micah 6:8

A family member who has also endured suffering and doubt along with me these past few years often plays that song by Linkin Park which has become a bit of a favourite of mine; capturing the emotion of that season.  The ‘let it go’ advice is partly right.  What I now know better than before is to let it go into the sovereign hands of a God who faithfully endures with me… (yes, God suffers along with us)

Harv Matchullis