Leadership For Congregational Vitality:

Paradigmatic Explorations in

Open Systems Organizational Culture Theory

George B. Thompson, Jr.

Introduction: A Problem of Scale

Imagine, if you will, this absurd scene: You are on a weeklong backpacking trip with a group of colleagues, hiking through beautiful forests and along trails in a national park. Everyone is enjoying the scenery, the fresh air, the peace and quiet, the chance to reflect on oneself in God’s wondrous creation. On the fourth day, the leader of your recreational expedition, for the first time, pauses in the trail and appears uncertain. Looking around in several directions, he takes off his hat, scratches his head, digs through his fanny pack and pulls out a multi-folded map. Then he begins to scrutinize the details of the map, glancing up now and then to survey the scene ahead of your party.

This ritual continues for a few minutes. Members of the party begin to murmur quietly to each other at first. Before long, one of your group members steps out of line, walks up to the deliberating trail guide, squats down and bends over the map with him. A few seconds later, she jumps to her feet and exclaims, “This will never get us where we are headed! It’s a map of downtown Kansas City!”

Your trail guide looks up at her, as calm as ever, and replies with all seriousness, “Well, it’s a map, isn’t it?”

Such a scene surely would be absurd. No experienced trail guide ever would embark on a journey without having first packed and checked all the maps covering the locations to be traversed. Being carefully prepared for the particular journey is one of the prerequisites of successful hiking and backpacking. Such a scene is about a ridiculous as gathering on a clear night to gaze at the stars, only to find that one of your celestial compatriots is staring intently into the sky through a microscope! In scientific as well as recreational pursuits, knowing what tools will aid you toward your goal is a key first step to being effective. Furthermore, tools are designed with scale in mind. Microscopes are not useless; they simply will not reveal much information about the sky. Similarly, a map of Kansas City is not a false document, but it is of no use when you are lost in the mountains somewhere.

City maps and microscopes have their place but do not help when applied to tasks for which they are not designed. I would argue the same point for many of the tools currently at the disposal of today’s local church that is seeking to remain strong and dynamic. What many pastors and lay leaders find available for guiding churches, especially out of decline and loss of direction, are not necessarily helpful. As well-intentioned as many of these resources are, they often are like using city maps in the wilderness or microscopes for the sky. The scale for which they were designed does not fit the (sometimes desperate) application of them to a different context.

Perhaps these images of maps and microscopes might seem too severe or critical, when used to construe the challenges of maintaining faithful American churches today. After all, are there not many sincere, deeply faithful pastors who are committed to helping congregations sustain a life of faith? Have not some of our struggling churches made dramatic turnarounds in Christian life and witness? Have not many denominations established offices designed to offer resources and guidance? Certainly, this kind of dedication mixed with “success stories” eventually should yield a harvest of congregations energized for another generation of Christian ministry.

Theology and Paradigms

In one respect, I wish it were this easy. I am persuaded, however, that even good intentions by themselves very likely will not produce the results in a beleaguered church for which all stakeholders would hope. No doubt I could be accused of possessing not even “the faith of a mustard seed” i.e., that “nothing is impossible for you” (Matthew 17:20). However, Jesus’ advice to the twelve, sent out on a mission, was to be “wise as serpents” as well as “harmless as doves” (Matthew 10:16). As I reflect back upon my own pastoral experience, I majored in the latter and had few clues about the former. Jesus’ own framing of this odd-sounding admonition uses the metaphor of sheep among wolves—a dangerous scenario under any circumstances!

Ironically, perhaps, the serpent’s wisdom is needed desperately today. Congregations are born, grow, and flourish for reasons that, while certainly attributable to theological or spiritual categories, to some degree also are easy to measure in other, less “lofty” terms. Similarly, congregational loss of membership and vitality also holds some elements of predictability. In other words, the presence of a particular communal religious activity is not due merely to spiritual mystery. Theological attributions for congregational “success” often blind church people to recognizing the “earthly” factors involved. Pastors not infrequently eschew dominant premises about, and practices of, modern secular organizations, even as those premises operate deeply in the very society in which pastor and church (and denominational structures) participate. What is needed for addressing ongoing church vitality more effectively is a fresh paradigm, one that lays out its concepts, its analytical character, and its concrete potential clearly and effectively.

In today’s world, what does it look like to combine the wisdom and innocence that Jesus’ admonition carried—especially when addressing matters of congregational faithfulness? In no way am I proposing that faith and theological definition should be jettisoned from our churches so that we can transform them, through slick techniques, into lean, mean mission machines. At the same time, however, I submit that the means by which church vitality is pursued should be defined with all the wisdom that human experience can muster. This effort requires, in part, realizing that often we have been using the wrong maps and the wrong scopes.

Congregational Vitality: “It’s the Culture, Stupid!”

In this article, I sketch out a new generation of clearly-developed, cognate paradigms that can be used to understand and engage congregations. Ultimately, I seek to suggest a strategic direction for leadership in the complex, and often misunderstood, phenomenon of congregational life and witness. One of my major premises posits that effective ministry practice flows out of sound analytical insight, drawing from appropriate secular, scholarly resources. As a result of major sociocultural developments that accompany us into the twenty-first century, such resources represent a clear and necessary shift of paradigmatic framework. A second major premise posits that, in local churches, leadership depends upon more than one person or one specific style or set of skills—because leadership (which is to be distinguished from office) is grounded in culture, which is communal, rather than individual. Implications of this second premise—flying as it does in the face of popular notions of effective leadership—offer some significant, well-defined approaches that blaze fresh trails in ministry practice.

As a way to be concrete about a constructive, practical methodology grounded in sound scholarship, I will define leadership in terms of open systems, organizational culture theory. In such a paradigm, leadership performs on the basis of the cultural dynamics of the organization at any given point; furthermore, the organization’s functional needs (do not read here “wants”) are integrally tied to conditions and changes in the environment. For religious leaders, this kind of theory appears to be relatively new and unfamiliar.[1] Some hints of it can be found in several fairly

recent publications for practitioners,[2] including application of family systems theories to congregations.[3] What I am proposing here views church renewal and leadership with an even wider lens. Through an open systems culture framework, it is possible to grasp the multifarious, subtle dynamics of local churches more comprehensively. Their complexities, while challenging to understand, will emerge with greater clarity. Relationships between tradition, resistance, vision, novelty, leadership, and learning create an exciting, productive process with scholarly integrity as well as practical potential.

Methodology

In order to clarify the nature of the argument presented here, we will take several steps. These steps are not necessarily in a strict sequence, since the emergence of new paradigms is not a “neat” process in itself. So this order seeks to present its several topics in a way that is least likely to confuse. By the last sections of the article, the paradigm in its theoretical context should be fairly clear.

First, we will consider the nature of paradigm shifts themselves, by reviewing some of Thomas Kuhn’s classic discussion of how developments in scientific inquiry eventually change the prevalent theoretical models. Then we will illustrate how the concept of culture, broadly defined, can elucidate complex organizational, national, ethnic, and economic phenomena. Focusing next upon the particular paradigm under consideration here, we first will consider it in its context among a stream of associated notions. This task will involve reviewing the nature of one illustrative phenomenon--the experience of most American “mainline” denominations (now called “oldline” by some observers) in the late twentieth century. They illustrate the issues of decline and renewal well, not because they dominated the American religious scene for so long, but because they have been heavily researched and thus provide ample data. Second, we will sketch out the basic cognate parameters of this emerging open systems paradigm, highlighting its cultural version through the models of Adizes and Schein. Finally, we will highlight how a paradigm like this one can make a tangible difference to ministry practice. Inherent to the argument, especially at this point, is that a clearly-developed conceptual tool offers the kind of analysis that points to appropriate, effective strategy (practice).

Scientific Revolutions and Paradigms

Thomas Kuhn’s survey of the history of modern scientific discovery presents a general perspective that suggests why it is important even in churches to pay attention to paradigms and paradigm shifts. Kuhn’s work, first published in 1962 and revised in 1970,[4] points convincingly to

evidence that revolutions of thought can, have, and must occasionally occur. By comparing what he

calls “normal science[5]” with the way in which new discoveries arise out of the recognition of paradigmatic “anomalies,”[6] Kuhn highlights the struggle over convention and insight that dogs even so-called “objective” scientific investigation.

Every scientific discipline, Kuhn points out, must operate at any given time within previously identified parameters of method, law, and theory. In other words, to do any scientific work at all, there first must be an acknowledged framework for the inquiry, one that inevitably “restricts the phenomenological field accessible for investigation.”[7] Consequently, to some extent, what researchers expect to find often influences the study significantly.[8] It is not until researchers actually perceive that their received data does not fit the paradigm that they begin to consider that they might need to see the data in a new way.[9] The discovery experience in science therefore is actually a process, Kuhn argues. It involves both seeing something new and eventually creating terminology that presents a new notion for what is observed.[10]

One of the implications of Kuhn’s line of argument is that tradition and novelty always end up in the same soup, whether recognized or not. That is, when scientific work is seen as “normal,” its conventional laws and methods practically and necessarily dictate. Paradigms of normal science guard, so to speak, the nature of all inquiry at the time; they by nature withstand incongruity in data. It is not until these inconsistencies “penetrate existing knowledge to the core” that changes in the existing paradigm begin to be considered.[11] In other words, the model of research itself provides the mechanism for realizing that a particular result does not fit. “Anomaly appears only against the background provided by the paradigm.”[12]

Kuhn’s primary argument, then, concerns the question of how novel scientific paradigms materialize. They do so over time, within a field of study, as researchers gradually come to terms with uncertainties and the power of their own discipline’s models. Kuhn summarizes this argument with these words:

Because it demands large-scale paradigm destruction and major shifts in the problems and techniques of normal science, the emergence of new theories is generally preceded by a period of pronounced professional insecurity. As one might expect, that insecurity is generated by the persistent failure of the puzzles of normal science to come out as they should. Failure of existing rules is the prelude to a search for new ones.[13]

Science, according to Kuhn, functions as though it “knows what the world is like,”[14] even as throughout history science has been challenged to overcome its presumption of objectivity and recognize its own paradigms.

Kuhn’s penetrating and persuasive presentation of the structure of scientific revolutions can speak a most relevant word to students and practitioners of American religion. As we pursue our goal of new paradigms for congregational vitality, it would help to consider briefly the kind of “pronounced professional insecurity” that has been generated by “the persistent failure” of conventional American religious wisdom. It is this kind of insecurity that eventually makes it possible for new paradigms to spring forth and be tested. In the religious arena, new paradigms are complicated by a permeable but rather distinct boundary between research and practice. Pastors and denominational officials, the practitioners, do not undertake the lion’s share of research and academic reflection on religion. The latter, as we know, takes place in theological institutions and religion departments of colleges and universities. I would suggest that searches for new paradigms of practice provide a significant opportunity for strengthening interchange between church and academy.

Evidence in Religion that Calls for New Models

As we consider how Kuhn’s thesis can illuminate church life and vitality, one useful reference point is an unanticipated trend in American religion. For more than 30 years, several American denominations that historically had enjoyed long, steady numerical growth have been declining. Their aggregate memberships dropped from around 29,000,000 in 1965 to around 23,000,000 in 1991.[15] This numerical decline occurred during the same period that two other denominational groupings doubled and tripled their aggregate memberships.[16] It is safe to conclude, then, that Americans during that era were not necessarily less religious, but that mainline denominations were losing “market share.”

This phenomenon of “mainline” church and denominational decline has been observed for some time, generating considerable literature[17]--much of it written by practitioners for practitioners. Those of us who have been active in one of these denominations since about 1975 have witnessed various programmatic efforts to name “the problem” and thus to handle it. Inactive members, church growth, mission statements, seeker services, contemporary worship—these and other themes have emerged on the meeting dockets of many denominations and church boards.[18] Workshops, training programs, and published literature have been developed among Lutheran, United Methodist, United Church of Christ, Episcopal, Presbyterian, and related traditions.

However, numerical decline has continued. At the denominational level, major structural changes and budget cutting have been common among the old mainline.[19] Issues surrounding ordination and sexuality,[20] funding, national programs, trust of high-ranking officials and the like has become fairly common. In many quarters of these traditionally well-placed denominations, morale sinks and the problems never seem to diminish. Many of the internal debates are framed exclusively in theological language, as though “getting it right” will lead to a wondrous infusion of the Holy Spirit.

Denominational decline represents perhaps the most strenuous example of the many challenges ahead for American religious congregations. Using Kuhn’s language, it appears that the failures and anomalies have been noted and that the insecurity is pronounced. The search for new rules is on. There is not yet, however, a consensus about which “new rules” will work.

Illustrating Culture’s Analytical Value

One of my contentions is that culture, as a human collective phenomenon that has its own established discipline of inquiry and explanation, has been underutilized in American religion. By this statement, I mean to say that concepts and theories designed out of a broadly anthropological framework to illuminate the meanings of social custom and behavior are not readily appropriated by those who study, practice, or seek to lead religious organizations. It is not my purpose here to attempt to posit reasons for this underutilization. I will (perhaps naively so) assume that readers recognize to some degree the validity of this claim. In general, religious practitioners neglect resources from the human sciences besides psychology. To argue, then, for the importance of culture as a perspectival lens on local religious congregations calls for two things: one, recognizing that a paradigm shift (as discussed earlier) implies fresh investigative method; and two, identifying, developing, and learning fresh cognate content.

One effective way to strengthen these two claims is by illustration. Let us consider the use of culture as an elucidatory instrument in late-twentieth century global economics, as developed in Francis Fukuyama’s recent book, Trust.[21] In this book seeking to explain differences among various international players in the new economic order, Fukuyama relies heavily upon a few key terms that have not been widely used in much economic theory. These terms are culture, social capital, trust, and spontaneous sociability. Max Weber’s classic argument for the influence of specific religious ideas upon the development of modern capitalism receives at Fukuyama’s hands an update and something of an extension.[22] Fukuyama sees Weber’s work as the crucible for discussing the role of culture in economics.[23] Culture becomes the central notion for explaining why certain countries today (“high-trust”) fare better in the global economy than do other countries (“low-trust”).[24]

Fukuyama defines “culture” as “inherited ethical habit,” which includes ideas, values and social relationships.[25] He speaks of “trust” in terms of anticipation by community members that it is deeply important to get along in a forthright and reliable way.[26] “Social capital,” then, develops as members of a society trust each other, based upon cultural habits growing out of religious, traditional, or historical experience.[27] The degree to which trust and social capital exist in any given society directly influences, according to Fukuyama, its strength for international economical participation.[28] Those high-trust countries that succeed well do so because their social capital encourages what Fukuyama calls “spontaneous sociability.” This term describes the proclivity for establishing many kinds of “intermediate communities” that function in high trust societies, between family structures on the one hand and government on the other hand.[29]

Although he seeks to elucidate macroeconomic dynamics, Fukuyama maintains attention upon his central cultural concepts. He claims, for instance, that it is impossible to subsume all cultures into one set of “universal laws.”[30] He contends that cultures develop their own ways of making internal sense, ways that will not necessarily yield to initial investigation.[31] He recognizes that cultural adaptation, while neither quick to occur nor easy, does indeed take place.[32] Modern Catholicism’s gradual acceptance of democracy and capitalism, he submits, demonstrates how a strong, deep-seated culture can and does make changes.[33]

Fukuyama’s explanation of the cultural basis of participation in global economics might strike some economists as controversial. Our purpose here is not to critique Fukuyama’s claims but to appreciate his method. His work is distinctive in bringing an anthropological perspective to a field of study and practice that has the reputation of being quite rationalistic, quantitative and dry. Furthermore, a cultural view of economics is not “normal”—perhaps in a manner similar to Kuhn’s description of how scientific anomaly eventually leads to new paradigms. Fukuyama’s ideas illustrate the kind of analytical potency that a framework of culture can offer in interpreting communal human phenomena with new insights. The argument of this paper is similar. Hence, we turn to constructing one kind of cultural paradigm for interpreting the experiences and prospects of churches. This paradigm can be traced in several streams of literature, both secular and Christian, but all grounded in cultural anthropology.

Organizational Theory’s Three Generations

One argument for using culture science as a practical tool for churches is found in the history of organizational theory itself. In the century or so since this discipline was created, three distinct perspectives on organization have developed. A brief summary of these three perspectives helps to locate the present discussion.[34]

Most easily identifiable as an organizational model is the one called variously “mechanistic,” “rational-legal bureaucracy” and the like. This model developed “scientific” principles[35] for running an organization, based largely upon Weber’s observations that bureaucracies require rules, hierarchy, documentation, specialized roles and written policies. It is the form of organization that is readily associated with large corporations and modern governments. It is also the model to which many pastors react with revulsion, when it is applied to churches. After all, the argument goes, churches are about people and their needs, so we should not treat church people like cogs in a machine.

Churches are not the only organizations that find the emphasis of a machine model of organizations inadequate. By the 1930s, a second movement of thought began to focus upon the people of the organization, their needs and groupings, what motivates them, and so on. This second generation of models came to be known as the “human relations” model or, in some circles, “organizational development.” It highlights the importance of people within an organization being effective at communicating and working together. In recent years, weekend staff experiences such as high ropes courses have been utilized in many companies. They are undertaken with the conviction that they help organizational members share common experiences, learn to trust each other, and talk through problem-solving issues.

Today’s companies thus include an office of “human services,” acknowledging the influence of the human relations model of organizations. These people-oriented concerns strike much closer to home for many pastors, laity, and denominational officials. Yet, in spite of the popularity of this second-generation theory, the development of organizational theory has not ceased. An even more recent school of thought, with some radical differences, has emerged in the last few decades. It is within this school of thought that organizational culture theory is to be found.

This third generation of organizational theory is most often known as “open systems.” The term “open” distinguishes these models from the other two generations, which assume a “closed” system. That is, both bureaucracy and human relations concern themselves primarily with what is or should be taking place within the organization. By contrast, open systems theories emphasize the relationship between the organization and its environment, context, surroundings. What kinds of mutual interactions between the two are considered essential, rather than peripheral.

Some management scholars have utilized recent theories in so-called “hard science” to promote open systems approaches to organizations and leadership. Margaret Wheatley discusses three of these scientific theories in her book, Leadership and the New Science:[36] quantum physics, self-organizing systems, and chaos theory.[37] Wheatley has been concerned, as have others, that today’s organizations have been floundering. She concludes that these new scientific theories suggest new ways to manage organizations: discovery filled with wonder and humor; participation; relationships; and “the capacity for self-reference,” i.e., an ability to be consistent with oneself and others in the system.[38]

Wheatley’s widely regarded exploration of the relevance of scientific open systems for organizational management exhibits the seriousness with which many organizational theorists treat open systems paradigms. As McCann summarizes, these systems approaches bear superior potential in accounting for the vitality, novelty, and conceptual variability that can be effective in understanding churches.[39] Our concern here is similar to that which stimulated Wheatley’s study: to understand why so many organizations (read “churches”) languish. Our argument to this point is that open systems theory, laced with cultural concepts, offers many benefits for explanation as well as practice. We turn now to laying out the elements of such a theory. Our journey begins with a look at some of the earliest efforts, following a few comments about method.

A Note on Theoretical Method

The summary above, describing the emergence of open systems theories, should suggest to the reader that this generation of organizational thinking still is very much in flux. Kuhn’s observations about the structure of scientific revolutions is relevant here: once a set of methods and laws do not explain data as well, time passes as novel understandings of the anomalies begin to emerge. Open systems theory is still relatively new and untested. Analogous to the emergence of a new technology, new theories take time to be articulated, tried out and compared with other theories attempting to address the same acknowledged novelty. The theoretical presentation in this article thus represents my own effort to trace streams of conceptual identification and relate them in some systematic and practical fashion.

Hence, in constructing the organizational culture theory that is presented in this article, I have followed what seems to be a fairly simple method. First, I have identified from a number of sources a variety of concepts, derived from “secular” sources, i.e., organizational theories with no particular interest in religion. Next, as I became familiar with the several concepts, I began to highlight those that hold specific potential for local churches. Then, keeping in mind the theoretical models with which each particular concept is associated, I have sought to “discern” a version of a model that appears to be arising out of my thought and application. Finally—and this step in the method will take more years—I have begun to put the theory’s power of explanatory generality to the test. Through teaching seminary students, training pastors, and coaching teams of church members working on specific tasks, I seek to discover in what ways this version of organizational culture theory “works” and where it might need modification. Throughout this task, Whitehead’s caution about metaphysical speculation rings true: “at best, [we reach] only an approximation,” since “the proper test is not that of finality, but of progress.” [40] Therefore, we seek here to elucidate a model for better understanding and helping real churches—a model that will provide progress.

Organizational Culture Theory: Precursors

To speak of “organizational culture theory” introduces two terms that have not been associated in previous frameworks. We have noted above one particular development of culture theory that is applied to international economics; it is an illustration that should serve to fortify the case for using culture for research and practice in ministry. As has been intimated already, anecdotal reticence on the part of clergy to consider their parishes as organizations might make a discussion of organizational culture more challenging. Yet I would argue, based in part upon the open systems discussion above, that congregations have more in common with other, secular organizations than they realize—regardless of considerations of size, profit orientation, or stated values. It is these similarities that reveal many functional and measurable aspects of virtually all organizations in our present era.

Religious

One of the earliest religious writers to point in the direction of organizational culture theory was Robert Worley. He argued thirty years ago that local churches indeed possess many characteristics of organizations. Such characteristics are necessary to understand the role of pastoral ministry, which Worley said is afflicted with “rugged individualism,”[41] i.e., the assumption that pastors should be able to do everything on their own. He speaks about the local church’s “character” or “climate,” based in its communal existence, not defined by structure, goals, and activity but by “the total organization in its dynamic, expressive complexity.”[42] For Worley, pastors and other church officials need to pay attention to how to help their churches at certain times to change their character, so that Christian life and witness can remain faithful and strong.[43]

Worley’s writings are filled with references to the secular organizational literature of the day. In particular, he introduces (perhaps for the first time to a church readership) the central paradigm shift that has just been introduced as “open systems.” Open systems models, Worley points out, all begin in one way or another with the notion that the life of any group must always be understood contextually. That is, the company or other organization is deeply interrelated with its surroundings, its environment.[44] The two terms, organization and environment, thus encapsulate the foundation of open systems models.

Worley himself does not use the term “culture” as he concentrates upon the church’s organizational character, but his movement of ideas renders this omission only a semantic one. The presentation of a more full-blown cultural model to use with churches is quite evident in Denham Grierson’s later work, Transforming a People of God.[45] Grierson writes as a theological educator, working with students and new pastors, concerned to help them learn how to lead faithful renewal. He sets forth a model that is thoroughly anthropological. Its categories include time, space, language, intimacy, consensus, circumstance, remembered history, hero stories, artifacts of significance, symbols, rituals and gestures, and myth.[46] Grierson quotes Clifford Geertz[47] and uses the term “culture” seminally[48] but not exclusively. That is, Grierson sees the theological task as central, with social science resources being “useful, but limited” tools.[49]

Three basic movements comprise Grierson’s process of church renewal: naming, interpreting, and remaking.[50] Using the anthropological categories noted above, this process permits a pastor to listen deeply to the life and stories of the congregation. With guidance, the congregation learns to “value the past, claim the present, seek a future, and reconstruct its experience.”[51] More structured and denser reading than Worley’s work, Grierson’s book spells out a resource that can be considered a forerunner to more explicit forms of organizational culture theory. That he is using culture, thus treating human experience collectively, places Grierson’s work clearly in the stream of this new paradigm.

Seen in this way, both Grierson and Worley functioned in the manner of John the Baptist, heralding a central new way that was about to burst on the paradigmatic scene. Upon reflection, it does not surprise me now that neither one’s work has been widely appropriated in ministry practice. If they were to be so utilized, we would see more evidence of the paradigm shift that they both suggest. I will suggest, for the purposes of the argument in this article, that their cause can be furthered more fruitfully by casting it in other forms.

Secular

One early, secular, and non-technical form of organizational culture appears in Deal and Kennedy’s widely read book, Corporate Cultures.[52] Aimed at a popular audience (i.e., for business managers), Corporate Cultures was one of the first general readership books to use overt (albeit fairly straightforward) anthropological terminology for interpreting organizational behavior and suggesting managerial strategy. Deal and Kennedy develop chapters on values, heroes, rites and rituals, communication, tribes, and the symbolism of management. Their elaboration of each of these cultural categories using further language such as storytelling, priests, gossips, and cabals[53] indicates a serious—and not unnecessarily sophisticated—effort. Deal and Kennedy provide an introduction to thinking culturally about organizations that is not overwhelming, but rather becomes quite accessible to a typical manager or organizational employee.

Their offering of an explicit theoretical model builds upon a grid created by two factors: “the degree of risk associated with the company’s activities, and the speed at which companies—and their employees—get feedback on whether decisions or strategies are successful.”[54] Both directions on the grid operate between “high” and “low,” thus creating four kinds of cultures. Deal and Kennedy’s primary audience seems evident by the names given to these “ideal types” of organizational cultures: “tough-guy, macho;” “work hard/play hard;” “bet-your-company;” and “process.”[55] Examples of organizations that typify each culture lace their explanations of each one. Here is a cultural model that uses a handy number of easily identifiable terms to create ready recognition and practical application.

For starters in organizational culture, Deal and Kennedy serve a most useful function. At the level of graduate theological education, their work is lightweight, even though it is a skillful blend of ideas and action. For more comprehensive and applicable models of organizational culture, other

forms are available. Two such forms that I have used in my teaching and writing will be presented

now.

Organizational Culture: A Lifecycle Version

Within the stream of new models in open systems theories for organization stands Ichak Adizes’ theory of organizational lifecycles.[56] Adizes, a consultant and adjunct professor of management, has developed a fairly sophisticated (but, unlike some, not convoluted) model that predicts the typical problems facing every organization as it is born, grows, becomes dynamic, matures, declines, and possibly faces organizational death. I say “possibly” because Adizes claims that organizations are not like people: they don’t have to die. Instead, they have the capacity for maintaining themselves, and even thriving, indefinitely.[57] The key is in being able to reach a point of organizational functioning in which the ability to control things and the ability to adapt reach their maximum capacity for creative tension.[58] From there, the challenge is to maintain this balance of flexibility and control, which requires regular attention to change in the environment; otherwise, the organization eventually dies.[59] By the time an organization does reach death (which is not, by definition, necessary or inevitable), it will have passed through a number of predictable stages, with predictable needs, characteristics, and cultures.[60]

It is important to note that Adizes’ lifecycle theory of organizational culture does not operate fatalistically. That is, as pointed out above, organizations do not have to end up ceasing to exist. Those that do die become a victim of their own inability to deal with the essential relationship between themselves and their context. Perhaps the most common phenomenon for organizations that become institutionalized is their growing lack of concern for change and creativity.[61] They become complacent, believing that what helped them arrive at their success can be maintained indefinitely through simple repetition. Structures and processes that have worked well are assiduously maintained; the focus turns to the satisfaction of the organization; and long-standing networks of internal relationships grow increasingly powerful.[62] While it is possible, and in the long run necessary, for long-standing organizations to overcome the gradual stranglehold of its insular dominance, many do not seek to do so until they become desperate for survival.

What concepts in Adizes make these generalizations about organizational lifecycle possible? Within his theory, a few sets of concepts are fundamental. Methodologically, however, Adizes typically defines his terms indirectly, through their discussion in context. Infrequently do his terms receive the kind of definitional clarity for which a theorist like Max Weber so carefully labored. The best way to understand Adizes’ key terms is by reading how he uses them in more than one section of the book.

The concepts with which he begins his book is the pair that we already have discussed, “flexible and controllable.” Adizes asserts that every organization continuously faces the challenge of balancing, at each particular stage, the needs for adaptation and manageability. Across the lifecycle, the demand at first is high for flexibility and low for manageability. As the stages develop, flexibility eventually must wane some, so that control can grow.[63] The result of this interplay creates the two general lifecycle phases, which Adizes terms “growing” and “aging.”[64] I prefer to avoid the possibly negative social implications of the term “aging” and substitute the term “declining.” For Adizes, then, decline is predictable without being necessary.

These first two pairs of concepts are integrally linked. For Adizes, growth and decline cannot be measured in simple quantitative terms. That is, “big” companies—large in assets, sales, and profits compared to other companies—might not be growing. Growth for Adizes has to do with the ability to change easily; decline, by contrast, describes the organization’s ability to control easily.[65] Absolute numerical scales, Adizes implies, will mislead the observer or manager.

We also have seen already that Adizes’ model is an open systems one. He ties any organization’s prospects to its relationship with its environment. Indeed, the flexibility just discussed is generated as a result of being proactive to contextual factors.[66] Adizes does not spell out in detail what constitutes the factors. They are quite complex and will vary to some extent, depending upon the type of organization.

Two last sets of concepts from Adizes allow us to examine the heart of his theory. These sets are the decision-making roles and the ten lifecycle stages that emerge as the roles interact. We look first at the roles. For Adizes, every organization must attend to the specific demands that four distinct functions place upon it. These four, with their shorthand symbols, are: to “perform a service [P] that meets specific needs;”[67] “to systematize, routinize, and program the activities [A--administer],” so that the organizations resources are not taxed by starting from scratch every time;[68] “providing proactively—not reactively—for change [E—entrepreneurial];”[69] and “to develop [a] culture of interdependency and affinity [I—inclusion/integration].”[70]

These four decision-making roles are not arbitrary; they arise out of the interaction of two factors necessary to any organizational venture: range of time (either short-term or long-term) and nature of the effects (either efficiency or effectiveness).[71] When the short-term range interacts with efficiency, administering (A) decisions are in play. When the short-term range interacts with effectiveness, performing (P) decisions are at stake. Conversely, when the long-term range interacts with efficiency, the organization is dealing with matters of inclusion (I). Finally, when long-term interacts with effectiveness, entrepreneurial needs (E) must be considered. Drawing these relationships in a grid diagram visually illustrates why each role maintains a discordant relationship with all the others. In a sense, they all are competing with each other; yet if any one of them is ignored at the beginning of an organization’s life, that organization will fail.

Decision-Making Role Interaction Grid

	Short-term range	Long-term range
Efficiency	Administering (A)	Inclusion (I)
Effectiveness	Performing (P)	Entrepreneurial (E)

Adizes claims that it is the different combinations of strengths and needs emerging at different times over the life of an organization that create the various lifecycle stages. Without going into the details of the stages themselves, we can point out here that sometimes the performing function needs to be developed; sometimes performing must stay strong while another function is also developed; at other times, other combinations of functions demand to be developed.[72] Because of their natural incompatibility, the four functions thus create “normal problems” that every organization faces and must learn how to handle in a way that keeps it moving constructively.[73]

Furthermore, these problem demands shift gradually but steadily, once the organization moves out of the growing (i.e, more flexible) phase into the declining (i.e., more controlled) phase. In decline, the efficiency functions keep the organization controllable but not flexible. Forms of bureaucracy, in which outsiders observe that “the cart is before the horse,” thrive in organizational decline. Eventually, organizations in these declining stages need stimulus from (E), from new vision.[74]

How is this lifecycle theory of organizations a theory about culture? The simple answer, as one reads Adizes, is that the theorist himself refers to culture frequently. Chapter 8 is devoted entirely to the topic of “Predicting Corporate Cultures.” Yet the reader will look long and hard to find much of an elaboration of Adizes’ actual concept of culture. It is developed implicitly. The focus is more upon the four roles, their interaction, the ten stages, the need to deal with problems productively, what leadership looks like in each phase and stage, and so on. As introduced above, Adizes’ primary thesis is that organizations can reach a Prime stage and learn how to stay there, if they are willing and able to keep vision fresh and see their existence more as a “process, not a destination.”[75] An organization that creates a culture of openness, in which control never overtakes proactivity, has achieved the ability to stay fresh and vital.

Lifecycle Theory and the Pastoral Role

As brief as this presentation of organizational lifecycle is, it nonetheless offers several implications for pastoral emphasis and function. Some of these implications are general; others relate more specifically with the needs of congregational vitality. Perhaps the first implication is that pastors must learn how to analyze the lifecycle stage of the church that they are serving. If Adizes’ model of organizations can apply to local congregations, then one of the critical pastoral tasks is to know how the church’s four decision-making roles are interacting with each other in that church at that time. Such an analysis calls for careful attention by the pastor, immediately upon arrival, to various and numerous features, some of which are quantitative [activities (P) and structures/processes (A)] and others qualitative [degree of openness to others (I) and strength/clarity of vision (E)]. From a lifecycle perspective, it does the church no good if a new pastor begins to operate with skills that address needs at one stage, when the church is in a different stage. It is absolutely vital for pastors to learn how to tell the difference.

A second pastoral implication of lifecycle theory flows out of the first one. Pastors must clarify what functional needs—and hence which kinds of problems and conflicts—are in play within their particular congregation. The functional needs of a five-year-old, slowly growing congregation are very different than those of an eighty-five year old congregation whose neighborhood now is populated by a different ethnic group. A young church is very flexible but not very manageable, while the well-established church has lost much of its flexibility. A pastor who can analyze the stage then knows how the four functions are seeking to work through their interaction in that stage. Regardless of the pastor’s own skills or interests, it is the congregation’s own functional needs that must be handled well, if the congregation is to have a good chance at vitality.

Thirdly, then, a lifecycle-sensitive pastor begins ministry in the congregation by engaging it where it is, rather than where the pastor wants it to be. During the growth phase, the pastor—if she or he is actually leading—helps the congregation gain the specific role strength needed at that time, in order to reach the next stage (and eventually Prime). In decline, the pastor who is leading helps the congregation arrest its decline, by regaining functions that it has been losing along the way.[76] Adizes spells out these strategies for stages in general form.[77]

A final implication for our purposes here addresses the normative question of the place of theology. Since many pastors are trained to think primarily in normative terms, they might recoil at working with a resource that appears to have no room or religious or spiritual dimensions. Adizes’ lifecycle model, while obviously not designed intentionally for religious use, nonetheless provides a way to involve theology and religion integrally. It is through the entrepreneurial function, the (E) decision-making role. In my teaching, I call (E) the “energizing vision” or “energy for vision.” Any organization creates its own vision, through a founder or founding group. In churches, that vision (E) has everything to do with some kind of theological articulation of the Christian gospel. In other words, of the four roles, (E) is the place where a congregation can identify its distinctiveness vis-à-vis other kinds of organizations.

Even more specifically, (E) is the place for a church to discern its calling from God in all that call’s contextual idiosyncrasy. While all church visions will share some elements in common, those visions that reflect a particular congregation’s specific understanding of itself in its community will generate more power. Here, the pastor truly exercises her task as a theologian. Through preaching, but certainly not preaching alone, the pastor reflects back to the church what she sees about its theology; she uses her biblical, systematic, and historical training to help the congregation explore itself more thoroughly. A pastor who helps the congregation think theologically is helping to keep the visioning function of the church active, which means that renewal and vitality is possible.[78]

Adizes’ lifecycle theory has been a teaching companion of mine for a decade. I believe that it is an organizational culture theory that pastors can learn and use in their parishes. As a theory, however, Adizes’ lifecycle does not elaborate upon all the conceptual development that is possible. We noted already that he does not say much about culture itself, even as he constantly relates his theory to culture. Fortunately, another theorist of organizational culture—Edgar Schein--picks up where Adizes leaves off. More accurately, Adizes and Schein are complementary to each other. Their theories, when used together, offer remarkable depth and scope. A brief outline of Schein’s theory will round out my argument in this paper: that organizational culture theory provides many potent resources for helping to renew struggling congregations.

The Depths of Organizational Culture

Reading Adizes on lifecycle theory might seem like sitting next to a bright, talkative storyteller on a jet flight. By contrast, reading Schein as he spells out his theory and draw out its implications for leadership presents a study in conceptual precision. Although the styles of the two authors are quite different, both sets of work produce sound material for theory. As I mentioned above, the two actually complement each other’s work in some rather amazing ways. Neither author came to culture through formalized training: Adizes has a Ph.D. in management from Columbia University, while Schein taught for years at M.I.T. and helped to found the discipline of organizational psychology. Perhaps, as Kuhn’s ideas earlier in this paper suggest, both scholars turned to culture as the novel recognition, once they faced too many anomalies using the conventional organizational paradigms.

Schein’s theory of organizational culture and leadership reveals considerable empirical and theoretical facility. For instance, he discusses the several tasks that every organization faces in adapting to its environment,[79] as well as several tasks that are essential for “internal integration.”[80] Schein also includes chapters on cultural analysis for practitioners who are both inside[81] and outside[82] the organization under consideration. For our purposes, only his primary concepts will be necessary.

The internal consistency of Schein’s theory begins with his distinctive definition of culture. Rather than defining culture in terms of observable items and customs or named beliefs and values, Schein goes deeper. In fact, his definition cannot be fully appreciated without first placing it in context with his taxonomy of its three levels.[83] These levels begin with the observable objects and behaviors that he calls the “artifacts.” These include everything that anyone could notice: structures, use of space, foods, personal possessions, attire, rituals, and the like. The primary characteristic of artifacts is that they are easy to see but difficult to understand. Still noticeable, but less obvious, are the culture’s “espoused values.” These consist of the beliefs that are articulated as being important to the group, what it uses to validate its life and activity. For instance, many congregations claim to be “warm and friendly;” when church members sincerely use such a phrase about their church, it is an espoused value.

At first blush, culture might appear to consist only of these two levels. However, Schein insists that culture is anchored in a third level, one that provides strength to the other two levels. This third level consists of deeply held beliefs that do not enter the consciousness of group members very often. As a group’s “shared underlying assumptions,” this third level acts like the hidden, bottom mass of an iceberg. The waters are murky at this level, even as the shared assumptions develop into an integrated pattern that gives the group stability. An assumption is created when the group’s experience leads it to believe that one of its espoused values is trustworthy and reliable. The process of creating assumptions is a key feature of Schein’s theory of organizational culture.

Even “lower” than the shared assumptions are the group’s deeper cultural dimensions. These almost philosophical categories give rise to the assumptions themselves, for they deal with the very fundamental questions of reality, truth, time, space, human nature, and human relationships.[84] Schein contends that every human group finds a way of coming to terms with each of these categories. The precise way in which the “coming to terms” process culminates leads to the creation of assumptions. For instance, some cultures view time as open and based upon what needs to be done in the moment, while other (especially modern Western) cultures view time as something to measure carefully in sequential pieces.[85] Some cultures treat space between persons more closely than others; cultural differences in space and status are evident in field research.[86] Every group, according to Schein, develops shared underlying assumptions that reflect their perceptions on each of these categories. Since these are so subterranean, they do not often emerge into the group’s consciousness.

Culture for Schein, then, is defined by the group’s assumptions. In his words, culture is

a pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group learned as it solved its problems… that has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problem.[87]

Another major spin that Schein puts on this definition is that it is not static. Schein sees organizations going through three major phases over time, phases that roughly parallel Adizes’ growing and declining phases. The nature of the organization’s culture is different in each of the three phases.

In the early phase, the culture is being created, led by the espoused values and behavior of the group’s founder. Much of the culture in this phase, then, is negotiated, along the lines of the definition quoted above.[88] In the “midlife” phase, Schein argues that culture is well established; subgroups develop primarily because group tasks are more defined; hence organizational subcultures emerge and vie for influence. In this phase, organizational officials face the challenge of helping the organization highlight and remain committed to common ground.[89] In the third phase, mature and declining, the organization’s culture is suffering as a result of losing its attention and responsiveness to changes in its environment. Shared assumptions that were developed in an earlier phase, because they served the organization well, now become liabilities. The organization needs to change some of its assumptions, but group members will resist for reasons of stability, comfort, and pride.[90]

Leadership’s Cultural Qualities and Abilities

The implications of this fluid and rich model of organizational culture lead to some distinctive characteristics for organizational leadership. In brief, leadership is active in an organization to the degree that it helps that organization do what it needs to do in order to become strong and stay strong. Early on in the organization’s life, this means consistency between the leader’s espoused values and behavior, so that the shared assumptions that are formed become inherently linked to the espoused values.[91] Later, leadership must press the diverse organization to live with a wider vision of purposes that encompass all subcultures.[92] This task calls for the capacity to analyze nonjudgmentally the competing claims of the subcultures while being able to be trusted by all of them. Even later, if decline develops, leadership helps the organization come to grips with the gap between its values and its reality. From here it must deliberately redefine itself and test new values positively, so that new shared assumptions can form and thus strengthen the changing organization.[93] This broad task calls for the capacity to help the struggling organization face the truth about itself while soothing its understandable anxieties. It is this need to take the group’s apprehension seriously that many visionary pastors fail to consider.

Finally, Schein discusses change and leadership in terms of learning and marginality.[94] Leaders are persons who themselves have learned how to learn, in part because they have lived and worked in cross-cultural environments. This “fish out of water” experience sensitizes potential leaders to their own shared assumptions and stimulates them to pay careful attention to what is taking place in the environment. For Schein, contextual sensitivity is a must, so that leaders can figure out what the organization then needs to do.[95] Leaders, therefore, never allow themselves to become completely enmeshed in the culture of the organization. Their ability to learn equips them to help the organization itself learn how to learn, that is, “to become perpetual learners,”[96] to maintain a culture stable enough to be reliable yet fluid enough to respond to contextual change. Because cultural change takes years to shepherd through the or