Dale Higginbotham, VP Fossil Engineering and Support, recently completed the first year of Servant Leadership Development, which includes extensive training in dialogue. Each leader was encouraged to practice these skills at home, at work, and in the community. The following story is a powerful example of how one person by shifting into dialogue can change the collective intelligence and spirit of collaboration of the whole group.
About 4 years ago an ill thought out and poorly communicated initiative to develop a church master plan was started at my local church. Unfortunately, the intention of the plan was perceived to be a secretive plot by some members to relocate the longstanding historic church to a different part of town. Church members became polarized, feelings were hurt and trust was destroyed. It is from this foundation that the following illustration is born.
Following a two year journey of developing and publishing a vision document for the church which spelled out our primary mission and our ministry focus, we took a controversial action as a church to try again to study how our physical structures could support our present and future needs—a master plan. The Trustees Committee is responsible for these types of activities, so they took the lead in searching for an architect. A subcommittee was formed with the specific intent to involve a broad spectrum of church members, but most importantly to get people who were on both sides of the previously polarized issue. As expected, in the architectural selection process, the subcommittee members remained somewhat polarized with the final selection meeting approaching.
“What Ann does so beautifully is facilitate all our different styles to merge together as we create and struggle to reach our visions. The art in Ann’s involvement is the permanence of the change that results.”