Meridian Magazine : : Print

Leadership for Saints, Part 29: Charting the Course
by Rodger Dean Duncan and Ed J. Pinegar

Last time, we introduced the first of six steps to helping people walk comfortably down the road of Christian service. The first two steps were Validate the Journey (making a case for the change, and showing people the relevance to them personally) and Scan for Speed Bumps (assessing the “history of implementation” and identifying the possible points of resistance).

In this part, we discuss the roles that compliance and commitment plan in managing change.

3. Chart the Course. A big part of leadership is managing change and transition.

Change is situational: the new class curriculum, the new calling, the new team roles. Transition is the psychological process people undergo in coming to terms with the new situation.

Change is external. Transition is internal. Unless transition occurs, change will not work. Even positive change can produce stress (just ask anyone who’s planned a wedding). Very few things undermine leadership effectiveness as much as the failure to think through who will need to let go of what when change occur.

Transition starts with an ending. A person is asked to let go of his previous calling or way of doing something. Even if he didn’t particularly enjoy or wasn’t particularly successful with his previous way of performing, he may experience some anxiety with the letting go.

The next step in transition can be called the neutral zone. This is kind of a no-man’s land between the old reality and the new. It’s the limbo between the old sense of identity (the previous calling or performance standard) and the new. It’s when the old is gone and the new doesn’t feel quite comfortable yet.

It’s during this neutral zone time that your people are “getting ready to get ready.” Uncomfortable though it may be, the neutral zone is often the individual’s best chance for creativity, renewal and development. This is an especially critical time for attentive listening, leadership, training and coaching.

The final step in transition is the new beginning. This is when a person has successfully let go of the old and has come to terms with the new. So you have Ending—Neutral Zone—New Beginning.

In charting the course for the people you lead, two main approaches to transition are available to you: compliance and commitment. Compliance is when you simply instruct someone to do something and expect them to obey. Commitment is when you lead a person to “catch the vision” of a particular course of action. Good leaders carefully match the approach to the type of change they’re trying to create. If the building catches on fire and you want people to exit immediately, you won’t engage them with exploratory questions like “Do you have any particular opinions about smoke inhalation?” You will alert them to the fire and lead them to the quickest and safest escape route.

Although the commitment approach—helping people “catch the vision”—is certainly the most advisable in most of our leadership situations, a compliance component is frequently part of the mix. For example, when a new teaching curriculum is developed and announced by Church headquarters, it’s not the local leaders’ prerogative to use it or toss it. Their responsibility is to ensure that the new curriculum is appropriately introduced and that transitions to its use are smooth and timely.

One of the truly marvelous things about service in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is that commitment is an overwhelmingly large part of our performance climate. Yes, our people do comply with policies and handbooks and a wide range of operational instructions. And they comply because of their high levels of commitment. Again, leadership is about managing change and transition. People make new beginnings only if they first make an ending, then spend sufficient time in the neutral zone. Yet many would-be leaders try to start with the new beginning rather than first having an ending. They pay little or no attention to endings. They ignore the existence of the neutral zone. Then they wonder why people find change so difficult.

President Gordon B. Hinckley clearly understood transition when he outlined the three primary needs of a new convert: to have a friend, to be given an opportunity to serve, and to be nurtured by the good word of God. That is precisely what’s needed by every person we lead through an ending, through the neutral zone, and to a new beginning.

Frame of reference is so critical here. Frame of reference comes from past experience, from various social “filters,” and from the way “facts” are perceived and sorted. To lead effectively, we must understand the frames of reference of our people. We must understand how they see the world and how their current experiences feel to them. Only then can we chart the course.

What we need, as we journey along through this period known as mortality, is a compass to chart our course, a map to guide our footsteps, and a pattern whereby we might mold and shape our very lives. – Thomas S. Monson

While the principles of the gospel are divine and do not change, the methods in dealing with the problems change to meet the circumstances, and so our methods have had to be flexible. – Harold B. Lee

… wise shepherds understand that even in situations where perception does not agree with the facts, it is perception, and not reality, that determines behavior.– Alexander B. Morrison

Note: The excerpts of Leadership for Saints posted on Meridian are only a fraction of the contents of this 349-page book. To learn more about this ground-breaking book and to order copies, click here.