Archive for January, 2009

 

The Challenge of Innovation and Communication!

Posted on: January 30th, 2009 by Hayim Herring

Here’s one of my favorite stories about the challenges of communicating:

A lawyer was interviewing a man regarding his decision to divorce his wife, and asked, “What are the grounds for your divorce?”
He replied, “I have about 5 acres.”
“No,” he said, “I mean, what’s the foundation of this case?”
“It is made of concrete” he responded.
He said, “Do you have a grudge?”
“Yes,” he replied, “it can hold two cars.”
“Sir, does your wife beat you up?”
“Yes,” he said “several times a week she gets up earlier than I do.”
Finally, in frustration, the lawyer asked, “Why do you want a divorce?”
Looking perplexed, he answered, “My wife says I don’t communicate well.”

According to the Jewish tradition, God did not communicate with the Jewish people at Mount Sinai only once. Rather, the classical rabbis teach that every day God’s voice still emanates from Mount Sinai. (Pirkei Avot 6:2)

Without stretching this analogy, there is something important to learn from this rabbinic teaching: communicating once about critical matters is not enough. No matter how many times you think you have clearly explained a change-related matter, you probably need to continue working at it.

Often, there is a small cadre of people directly assigned with implementing a change and they’ve probably been working at it for some time. They are close to it and understand from the inside out. But, it probably took this group some time to gain clarity on their mandate for change. So if even those who are most intimately associated with the change require time to digest it, consider how much effort is really required to communicate on a broader level.

There are a few strategies that can help you communicate effectively:

When I Googled “communications strategies,” I received 36,800,000 hits—a sign of the challenge of communicating in a multi-media, information-saturated age. So here’s my question: what are the most effective means you’ve found to communicate a change?

Rabbi Hayim Herring

Support, Support, Support!

Posted on: January 22nd, 2009 by Hayim Herring

In order for any kind of change effort to succeed, you have to do more than provide a clear, positive verbal and visual message about the intended change. You also need to help the people who are on the front lines of change become successful.  While it is important to set goals and expectations about the intended outcomes of the change, it’s equally important to support them with the resources to make the leap from doing things how they are currently done to conducting business in a new manner.

Why? Because those responsible for implementing the change are likely to feel incompetent for a period of time, as they let go of the old (which they were good at) and embrace the new (for which it will take time to gain proficiency). During this transition, they need to have the technical support to help them gain mastery of a new skill or process, and the emotional support to let them know that they have permission to ask questions, to make mistakes and to feel frustrated as they transition from how things were done to how things will be done.

For example, let’s look at the adoption of new technologies.  People have different levels of comfort with technology: as a general rule of thumb, the younger the individual, the greater the comfort level. When congregations decide to invest in new technologies, like advanced phone systems, computer software or even photocopiers, they budget for equipment but may not budget sufficient funds for training staff on the new equipment.  Moreover, board members may have unrealistic expectations about the timetable for efficiencies that the new technology promises.  As a result, feelings of frustration on the part of staff and lay leadership occur, causing some to question the need for the investments or the abilities of this staff.  So remember, when investing in any kind of change process, allow time and support for people to adjustments to their new circumstances.

I’d like to hear your story about trying to innovate in your congregation.  What were you trying to achieve that was different?  In hindsight, do you feel that an appropriate amount of support was offered?  What would you do differently next time?  Thanks in advance, for sharing your insights!

Rabbi Hayim Herring

Preparing for the Unexpected

Posted on: January 5th, 2009 by Hayim Herring

I’m writing from Israel, where I’ve been with my family since before the start of the war in Gaza. If I was in Minneapolis now, the media would be showing a graph with a list of school closings and the number of inches of snow that fell in each school district. Snow falling from the sky is a natural event, causing children to miss school and families to rearrange their schedules.

Instead of watching graphs with school closings because of falling snow, we’re watching graphs of school closings in southern Israel’s towns and cities with the number of falling rockets. Rocket fall, unlike snow fall, is not a natural event. Causing it is a humanly-calculated malicious act.

In Minneapolis now, the major safety concern is with the snow falling from the sky. In Israel, schoolchildren and residents of the south now have to worry about the number of rockets raining from the sky.  In fact, over 6,300 rockets have struck Southern Israel since August 2005 when Israel unilaterally evacuated Gaza, with over 3000 rockets alone landing since 2008 (Jewish Virtual Library).

Issues in the Middle East are always complex and my purpose is not to treat this war simplistically, nor do I want to minimize the sheer suffering of those innocent Gazan residents. But I can’t believe that if St. Paul started lobbing 50 rockets per day at Minneapolis that anyone would accept this reality.

The subject of Tools for Shuls for the last few weeks has been strategic change. In a related vein, the events of the past 10 days have reminded me of the importance of taking unforeseen events into account and having the flexibility to modify plans based on these contingencies. For the family part of my visit, we’ve had to skip some sites we hoped to see and substitute them with others. For the remaining week that I’m here on a leadership retreat with rabbinical students, we’ve also had to modify our agenda. My guess is that it may change during the retreat as well, based on events. Even when plans are carefully developed months in advance it’s good to remember the expression: “change happens,” and to be prepared for it on all levels of planning.

A version of this blog post appears at www.starsynagogue.org/blog.

Rabbi Hayim Herring