International Conference on Computing and Missions
June, 1995The following is a write up of a presentation given at the 1995 International Conference on Computing in Missions. It provides a broad overview of the role of high tech and high tech people in support of strategic planning in missions. The views expressed are my own as part of my work in coordinating long range planning within the university as well as overseeing the various high tech information services. They do not necessarily represent the views or position of Taylor University.
Do you have a significant number of decision makers in your mission who are reluctant to utilize high tech? Can you identify the five main reasons that they give?
Can most of the decision makers in your mission define such terms as Pentium, modem, World Wide Web or CD-ROM and use the terms correctly in a paragraph?
Can you recite the mission statement of your mission?
What are the three big decisions your mission needs to make in the next year?
At the 1995 ICCM, these questions were used to identify a gap between the leaders of the mission and the providers of high tech within the mission. That gap can be segmented into components of culture, background and education, interests, and largely in communication.
As an example, we might consider the mission statement of
Taylor University. Taylor University is an interdenominational
evangelical Christian institution educating men and women for
lifelong learning and for ministering the redemptive love of
Jesus Christ to a world in need. As a Christian community of
students, faculty, staff and administration committed to the
Lordship of Jesus Christ, Taylor University offers post-
secondary liberal arts and professional education based upon the
conviction that all truth has its source in God.
I probably recite this to myself at least once a day, and I must say that it is often difficult to recite it out loud because it embodies so much of what my family is committed to while a part of the university that it chokes me up. It represents a specific calling and provides a focus for our activities every day. It provides a measuring stick against which each new idea can quickly be measured for further attention or rejection.
During an informal tour of Biola University several years ago, I happened across an individual who maintained the telephone system for the college. He was able to trace his day-to-day job through the objectives and purposes of the university clear back to the mission statement. And he was joyful, because he knew why his work was valuable for that particular institution as it also worked to provide Christian education.
Those within missions that provide and support high tech also need to know what it is that the mission is attempting to accomplish. They need a measuring stick to compare the value of various opportunities. Sometimes I fear that it is too easy to slap on a label of "Christian" and continue playing with whatever it is that we want to play with. This may apply especially to those of us who are involved with high tech.
It is interesting to note that strategic planning has its roots in two well known places - early military planning and the Catholic church. Both are intended to beat an enemy.
Strategic planning is the definition of alternative approaches to achieving the mission. I define strategic planning as the definition of approaches which can be implemented within the resources at hand as opposed to long range planning which addresses directions for which there are currently no resources available. Strategic issues are always stated in the form of alternatives eg. with the church planters at hand, we can start the next church planting effort in India or in southern Africa, but not both. Strategic plans are the choices between alternative approaches. Strategic plans tend to focus more on effectiveness than on efficiency.
As in so much of our work, there is often a difference between what we are trying to accomplish and how we go about doing it. It has become clear to me over the last several years, however, that some people too tightly link what we want to accomplish with how we have always done things. To suggest changing how we do things translates, in some people's minds, with abandonment of the mission itself. A solution is define the mission statement in broad enough terms that the steps to accomplish the mission are not addressed or implied.
Within strategic planning and the resulting plans, there can be politics. I define politics as the tension involved in the allocation of scarce resources - a natural but not necessarily negative thing. It is when we let our pride get involved that politics take on a negative flavor. In any case, those involved with providing high tech support to strategic plans must be aware of the possibilities and realities of these tensions. Ignoring "politics" ignores tensions which are a part of any change. I encourage "techies" to not play politics but simply acknowledge tensions and understand that addressing them might be a better solution than more equipment.
Let's define a set of concentric circles. A common view of information begins at the center as internal information, then adds conversational information, then reference information, news information, and finally cultural information. Not bad, and it clearly shows that high tech can assist in providing some parts of the information desired, but not all.
I might suggest that a somewhat related model might start with data, which is changed into information, which is changed into knowledge and changed into wisdom. Isn't it really wisdom that is needed to make and implement strategic plans in mission work? So, how do we get wisdom?
The world acknowledges that "Information is not knowledge. You can mass-produce raw data and incredible quantities of facts and figures. You cannot mass-produce knowledge, which is created by individual minds, drawing on individual experience, separating the significant from the irrelevant, making value judgements." (Theodore Ruszak, author of The Cult of Information, quoted in "This World", May 24, 1987)
Somewhere in the models as expressed by the world, Christians would insert such qualitative items as prayer, the leading of the Holy Spirit, providence and the will of God. And, we would wrestle with yet another apparent dichotomy between information created from the bottom up through cranking through data and the radical thinking of Christian leaders which is sometimes presented as "top down" from the Lord.
Strategic planning is not a scholarly or intellectual exercise. Ultimately, we must make some decisions and move out to spread the gospel. But, neither is strategic planning in a missions context a management exercise to determine the most efficient use of resources to gain market share.
A short version of the information -laden steps of strategic planning, can be described this way:
Before going on to the next paragraph,
sit with your eyes closed for thirty seconds to imagine the most
beautiful rose. Imagine the setting, the colors, the scent, the
leaves, and shape of that rose and have it imbedded in your mind
before you continue reading.
The rose model of strategic planning begins with the flower itself. That is the Program to be achieved. Programs lead to the accomplishment of the mission eg. Taylor provides liberal arts curricula for "educating students for lifelong learning and for ministering...".
But, People are the ones who make the Program work. It is People who our Lord uses to actually spread the gospel. So, People represent the stem of the rose.
People need Facilities to live in and provide some location for their work. Within those Facilities is often Equipment. So, Facilities and Equipment are leaves attached to the stem of People who make the Program work.
All that Equipment and those Facilities require money, and the People need other support to live. Underneath all the visible aspects of this beautiful rose are the roots which represent Finances We don't always see that portion, we don't like to be limited by it, and sometimes we feel that the roots are trying to define what the flower ought to look like, but Finances are an integral part of this rose just the same.
So, strategic planning defines what the flower, the Program, ought to look like. As part of that process, the People needed are defined. Facilities and Equipment needed to support the People are then defined. And, finally, the Finances needed to support the Facilities, Equipment and People are defined, all in a way that the Program can be accomplished.
High tech, then, is properly viewed as an add-on. It can help a lot but the program is not often dependent upon it. Indeed, leaves can be trimmed on a rose with only indirect affect, while the flower and stem are much more directly involved in the successful display of the rose.
High tech is always responsive to strategic needs but does not lead them.
I believe that in most cases of resistance, decision makers simply do not understand what tools they already have or could easily have if they just knew enough to ask. They are visionaries, well educated, good thinkers, and reasonable people.
The solution to this is not more high tech and not more data but more education.
For several years, I have "preached" that where there are plans, there is lots of money. Maybe that is a poor paraphrase of "where there is no vision, the people perish", but I believe that when we are focused in prayer seeking the Lord's will, with all the appropriate information tools alongside to help, the real needs become evident and the solutions become equally as evident.
Well, we planned. And, our high tech area is now overwhelmed with money as well as high expectations for the next several years.
As part of this, I read of some relatively new thinking concerning "negative information." It is not wrong information, it is simply so voluminous that it distracts a person and might actually cause more confusion as the most important facts become hidden. Remember the story problems in third grade arithmetic and how difficult it was sometimes to identify which numbers were needed to solve the problem? There was not a need to get more facts but to be able to pick out those facts which were relevant to the question at hand. Our world is a story problem, not necessarily requiring more information but better information.
Sometimes, the information coming from high tech and "techies" is too technical. It is in a language that is not easily understood by decision makers. I would suggest that the solution is mostly one of translation to their language and only somewhat an issue of their education.
For several years when I was younger, people told me that "Jesus Christ died for your sins." I remember countering that I was not aware of any sins because I was a good boy in the eyes of my parents, got good grades, and did what I was told. And, anyway, I didn't ask anybody to die for me.
These people knew I had a need and knew the answer to my need but the problem was, I didn't know that I had a need so their solution was irrelevant! Eventually somebody listened to me and helped me articulate that I wasn't the person I wanted to be, regardless of what the world said. When the right question was asked, the solution was clear and readily accepted.
So, a faster machine or more data may be irrelevant to a decision maker because he or she doesn't believe they need either right now.
Mission decisions are highly participative, values based, iterative, qualitative, and ultimately, very slow. Technology is changing faster than most of us can comprehend, let alone implement. Indeed, in the time it takes to successfully obtain a decision for some high tech project, the underlying technology can often be obsolete and no longer available. This "grating of gears" can often reflect on those who seem to be "pushing." And, it is sometimes unclear whether this "pushing of high tech" is really a high tech issue or one involving the rate of change. We must recognize that high tech and a fast pace of change are inseparable in the minds of most who we serve. It may be that the rate of change is more of an issue than the high tech itself.
As such, we may do better addressing the stresses of change than providing more high tech training.
It is possible that decision makers really do understand the tools at hand and the availability of much data and information but all that is possibly untimely, inappropriate, inadequate, irrelevant, or just not as effective as other means. If there is any perceived substitution of mission effectiveness for efficiency, the passionate leader/decision maker will probably choose effectiveness.
Somewhere, in at least our Western culture, we have developed a sense that it is our right to be more efficient, that if there is a way that automation can reduce our work, it is the right thing to do. Yes, if we can then do more for the Lord, that might be a good point. But, I am not sure it always results in "more for the Lord."
A few years ago, we informally consulted with a tract publisher who thought that computers could help in tracking their large mailing list and distribution system. After looking at their operation, we recommended against any further automation. As it was, a significant part of the community volunteered on a regular basis to come in to work on packaging and sending out the tracts.
It was a wonderful time for those people to work together in a community setting and they loved it. The tracts got packaged and sent in a very inefficient, yet highly effective way.
Let's role play just a bit to see the potential gap between "techies" and strategic decision makers. You will see that I believe the better way to fill the gap lies with the "techies."
Presented below is a short list of practical items that high tech people can implement to better support strategic decision making.
Most of the items would fit into most any kind of organization although some items might best fit in organizations which are primarily values and vision oriented such as in mission work.
Each section above could easily be a long discussion in itself. This overview is intended to simply identify the role of high tech and information in supporting the strategic planning process of the mission. I invite comments and further discussion so that all of us can bring our skills and experiences together to further the gospel.
ICCM '95 Homepage
Last modified: Tue Dec 26 17:26:17 EST 1995