Study the Decision-Making PowerPoint Presentation (ATTACHED). Name something you learned about decision-making from the PowerPoint Presentation and discuss how this might impact your ability to lead. (Assignment MUST BE 1 and HALF PAGES)

Amridge University

Decision Making

Thoughts taken from Shawchuck and Hueser, Leading the Congregation.

Discerning Priorities, Making Choices
Regardless of motives in the midst of ministry’s demands, few leaders boast of free time for themselves or with their families and friends.
Ministry is all-consuming when urgencies rush daily toward the leader, calling out for an immediate response while carrying out the normal responsibilities of pastoring amidst family and personal commitments.

Discerning Priorities, Making Choices
Leaders most susceptible to burnout do not necessarily work too hard. Rather, they confuse their own identity with the roles they fulfill by playing up to the expectations of others and working too hard for their approval. Leaders know there is some distortion of personal identity when they believe all criticisms and positive things said about them. The interplay of guilt and caring for others, and not for ourselves, eventually results in our growing resentment against those for whom we were called to serve.
When feeding others becomes our daily sustenance, we may not realize how hungry we ourselves really are.

The Logic of Task Pursuit
Embracing familiar patterns in our daily lives is inevitable because of past success and current habits, and breaking even bad habits is difficult when we are caught up in the logic of task pursuit. The story to illustrate this phenomenon is the hermit who must chop enough wood for his own survival during the winter so his cabin is heated throughout the long season. An early storm was fast approaching, and his woodpile was barely started. His saw needed sharpening, but more wood was also needed in order to ride out the storm. So the hermit began his work, frantically, making some progress. Realizing that his saw needed sharpening, he nevertheless decided to work harder than ever, and he would not stop to waste any time. As the storm unleashed its unforgiving force, the hermit fell exhausted without enough wood to survive this calamity. The hermit had become a victim of the logic of task pursuit even though he knew that his saw had become dull and ineffective in its purpose.

The Logic of Task Pursuit
Being fruitful is a dynamic interplay of the leader’s intimate spirituality with God balanced by personal giftedness and commitment to the right priorities in working with others toward the fulfillment of a common mission.

Connect Your Charisms (Gifts)
Consider first, What do I do well?
In 1926, Lloyd C. Douglass admonished clergy to daily “ascertain as early as possible what features of your ministry are most effective; what things you do best and with the finest results; what things are most rewarding to your sense of duty fulfilled—and concentrate on these things.“
Second, How can I apply the one thing that I do well to the fundamental needs and purpose of the organization?
leaders must be good stewards of their own gifts as well as being dedicated to the premise that each person exercise spiritual gifts for the benefit of the organization.

Connect Your Charisms (Gifts)
Third, How can I project what I do well on that which must be done now?
When we determine the one thing that we must do for the organization to fulfill its mission, then we will escape the activity trap that perpetuates the status quo. To do the one thing necessary pushes us back to the fundamental priorities for being both faithful and effective.

The Golden and Silver Threads
Searching for the one thing necessary that only we can do is akin to the quest described in many stories within the literature as one who searches for the “golden vial” or the “golden coin.” In like manner, finding the golden thread is to identify the one thing that will make the fundamental difference within an organization. The results of finding the golden thread are systemic and far-reaching, but the impetus may be a small but strategic change.

The Golden and Silver Threads
In every organization there is a golden thread, an innovation that potentially yields significant results, though taking hold of it may come with great risk because people are comfortable with the familiar and resist being changed.
Examples of the golden thread include (per Shawchuck and Hueser): implementing a variety of music genres in worship services, rethinking the purpose and structure of small groups, starting a new ministry within the community, or making a dramatic change in the facilities.
Leaders who anticipate the golden thread must continue to think through the fundamental priorities of the congregation that yield systemic change results.

The Golden and Silver Threads
If leaders cannot immediately identify the golden thread, then they may look for one or more silver threads and concentrate on them. Since silver threads are often the challenges that someone else can do, leaders do well to consider giving each silver thread to the best performers in the congregation, and ask them to concentrate on this priority alone.

Become Clear About Priorities
Becoming clear about results influences how leaders approach their daily priorities. What leaders become clear about—and committed to— is what they will accomplish.
Amid the trivia of daily urgencies, it is easy to lay aside one’s priorities. Thus when the leaders’ bedrock commitments are communicated with others on the ministry team, they become like a beacon that guides the team in a clearer understanding of what needs to be done, and how the team can support one another in the members’ respective priorities.

Become Clear About Priorities
Prioritizing the few things that make a difference in the congregation enables leaders to stay out of the activity trap, but this alone is not enough. Leaders must also communicate their priorities to the leadership team and to others in the congregation.

Communicate Your Priorities
Observing the various ministries of leaders, one can assume that leaders know what they are trying to do, but people cannot support the priorities that are not clearly communicated.
Thus the guiding principle is this: Do not surprise people by keeping your priorities a secret. Make them clear and send them to those whose support you depend upon to achieve them.

Manage Time in Light of Your Priorities
Ineffective leaders are plagued by either of two extremes in their inability to manage priorities: compulsion and procrastination. Compulsive leaders get caught in the logic of task pursuit, described earlier in the chapter—working harder than ever but becoming emotionally attached to irrelevancies that are not tied to missional effectiveness. Leaders who procrastinate may perform well nearer the deadlines amidst growing pressures, but the impact on others often results in frantic efforts, increasing anxiety, and less than high quality work.

Priorities of Urgency and Importance
Time Management Matrix
Urgent Not Urgent
Important
Quadrant I
Crisis
Deadlines, problems
Serious misunderstanding among team leaders Quadrant II
Building Relationships with others
Strategic priorities
Meaningful work
Professional and Personal Development
Sabbath
Unimportant Quadrant III
Some telephone calls, mail, reports, meetings and interruptions, etc. Quadrant IV
Busy work, trivia work, some telephone calls, reports, meetings, time wasters, etc.

Priorities of Urgency and Importance
Time Management Matrix
Urgent Not Urgent
Important
Quadrant I
Crisis
Deadlines, problems
Serious misunderstanding among team leaders Quadrant II (Energy here reduces Quadrant I)
Building Relationships with others
Strategic priorities
Meaningful work
Professional and Personal Development
Sabbath
Unimportant Quadrant III
Some telephone calls, mail, reports, meetings and interruptions, etc. Quadrant IV
Busy work, trivia work, some telephone calls, reports, meetings, time wasters, etc.

Utilize the Influence of Your Own Example
The influence of your own example, whether intentional or not, makes an impact upon the congregation’s attitudes and ministry involvement— for good or ill. The way you live out your priorities makes known your own values while influencing the success of others, both of which support or hinder your own effectiveness and the ministries of the congregation.
First, do the things you want others to do.
Leaders who equip others through their example and quality training of others become indispensable gifts that continuously build up the body of Christ (Eph. 4:11-12).

Utilize the Influence of Your Own Example
Second, set your own standards of performance high; then expect a high quality contribution from others.
When leaders concede to the temptation that protects incompetent people or rewards mediocre ministry, the entire congregation suffers. Be as consistent in your expectations with others as you are with yourself. People tend to rise to the level of expectations the leader holds for them.
No one rises above the level of his own self-expectations, and few rise above the example set by the leader.
Third, reward work well done.
Find ways to affirm persons personally—and generously honor them for their work. Leaders are indispensable to creating a genuine climate of goodwill, which is central to the ways in which we “consider how to stir up one another to love and good works” (Heb. 10:24).

Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.
Goethe