MANY leaders in mission/values based health care organisations are only too aware that we don’t need any more organisational consultants or change management gurus who don’t understand the theological and spiritual ground that underpins the service we provide and the work we do.
At the same time, human resource and mission directors know that we can’t offer leadership in this dimension of our core reason for being “the way the sisters did it”.
The old way simply doesn’t work any more. We have grown too large and complex for “the way it used to be”.
Our hospitals, nursing homes and corporate offices need more than the physical presence of people in pastoral care. We need mission built into “the way we do things”.
We have to build measurable ways to develop employees’ personal performances which include mission competencies.
We have to have policies and procedures which reflect our mission statements.
But these things alone will never build for organisations which truly live out their reason for being.
Only nurturing an environment that encourages people to focus on what really matters and on what’s really happening can do this.
We need to grow an intelligent and critical consciousness of mission in our organisations.
To do this we need to focus less on liturgies and more on learning. This is not to suggest that things like liturgies don’t matter.
Of course they do. We simply need to adjust our focus.
We need to encourage mission educators across a wider range of services rather than concentrate on staffing mission departments that operate in isolation and struggle to gain access to conversations that matter.
We need to start thinking seriously about our learning and development departments being just as much about education for mission as about professional development in clinical skills and management competencies.
A healthy mission consciousness requires the growing of learning environments which are shot through with insights gained from at least a little knowledge of theology, philosophy and spirituality.
Mission educators need to belong to our learning and development departments if we are to transform our Catholic organisations.
We need to separate mission education from pastoral care, liturgical offerings and chaplaincy and get on with integrating all our learning and professional development experiences with appropriate exposure to our spiritual foundations, social justice history, ethical standards and theological frameworks.
Mission education and learning needs to be integrated not “sprayed on” at the beginning or end of other courses and programs.
We have to educate in the principles and values we hold dear without preaching and by doing more than hanging a cross at the end of the hallway, placing a statue of Mary in the foyer, providing a quiet reflection room and renovating the chapel.
The young nurse with the tattoos, the upbeat x-ray technician in the Nike cap, the old bloke from maintenance who won’t check his emails, the receptionist at the front desk with the nose piercing, the guy plugged into his ipod as he vacuums the rooms, the HR manager in head office snoozing through another update, Sr Marg and “salt of the earth” Pat from auxiliary escorting volunteers through to the kiosk.
All need to be challenged to discover what really matters to them, what’s really happening around them and how we can re-energise ourselves for the things that matter, our reason for being, and engage with necessary change. This sort of transformation has to be led by our corporate leaders.
All our professional development must incorporate mission education.
From the CEO to the kitchen hand, all need to have had mission education constantly built into professional development.
We don’t need more commercial, generic organisational development solutions that work well for Schweppes Cadbury or Coca-Cola. We don’t need warm, fuzzy “mission-speak” sessions which anaesthetise the energised.
We don’t need more retreat experiences offered as disconnected additions to the “real business” at hand.
We need to educate. We need to develop individuals through mission education who are able to speak and demonstrate those things which lead employees to be better, fuller, wiser human beings capable of practical, pragmatic, business decisions which reflect who we are.
We need to wake up, “smell the coffee” and know that there is no single program we can purchase, no course we can send employees to, no tool we can add to our technologies, no wiz bang application or redesigned organisational chart which will ever be the solution for mission and values based organisations in our times.
We simply need to be willing to speak what we see happening and have the courage to point to those things that we agree matter to us in the light of our reason for being and our spiritual foundations.
We must engage with our spiritual and values traditions and speak what we think needs to be heard.
We must attend to our relationships and build unique and individualised, educational processes that engage us with each other in order to serve those who seek our care.
It is possible to do change management within a Catholic corporate health care organisation in such a way that honours our mission and founding spiritualities.
Much more is also possible. We simply need to concentrate our efforts on growing and nurturing learning environments which integrate spiritual insights and mission imperatives with professional and organisational development strategies.
We needn’t preach, we needn’t evangelise. We need to educate in mission honouring perspectives which accommodate learning in sound business and leadership practices.
When we have critically intelligent learning environments which access rich spiritual and theological traditions, when we have people who can make connections and see beyond their own silos, we will have employees, managers and leaders who can think more holistically.
We will have organisations that are unable to separate conversations about what’s good for mission from what’s good for margins.
The “real business” won’t be separate from our founding vision.
We will be good stewards and trustworthy carriers for the ministries we have inherited and transformed into mission-focused businesses.
We will feel extremely confident that the care and service we provide reflects the dreams for the future of those who built our hospitals and nursing homes in the first place.
It won’t be “the way the sisters did it” and it won’t be the way we often do it now.
It will be built into the way we all think. It will be built into the way we all plan. It will be built into the way we all act.
And when it is, we might hope that “the sisters” will indeed be proud of us and we will stand next to those photos in the foyers of our hospitals and services and know that we work and care in the same Spirit that inspired them years ago.
Kate Englebrecht has experience in mission leadership in both the education and health sectors and is the director of Mission Possible Education. Visit www.missionpossibleeducation.com.au
