By Kevin Ford

“This is hogwash!” General Cabot threw the report on the table. All the medals in the room shook with the force.

General Chase glared at me and echoed his colleague’s sentiments. “Transformation? You call this transformation?! This is like shifting the deck chairs on the Titanic. This isn’t change. We need real change if we’re going to be able to combat terrorism!”

Twenty sets of eyes were fixated on me. The generals, the highest ranking in the U.S. Army, were about to kill me (although I’ve changed their names for the sake of confidentiality). Our company, TAG, had been hired by the Office of the Chief of Staff (the highest ranking general) to lead the senior officers through a series of recommended changes. They were in the midst of their “Army Transformation”.

Another consulting group had drafted a 400+ page report of recommended changes (we estimate that their report cost the Army about $2 million). I thought my job would be easy – just get the generals to say “green light”, “red light”, or “yellow light” to the other firm’s recommendations. We didn’t even have to make any recommendations. It seemed rather linear to me. Our contracting officer, a colonel, had been very clear with me about this task – and he was on the line for completing the task. If we failed to complete the task, he would probably never be promoted – or even shipped off to some undesirable post. We were not asked to do anything else – no recommendations. We were simply to facilitate a yes, no, or maybe around the list of recommendations. But something else was going on – and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

The infrastructure of the Army Staff was designed to support two major land wars on different continents simultaneously – a relic of the Cold War. But things had changed. The Cold War was over. The emerging enemies (primarily terrorists) were numerous and had no geographical boundaries or geopolitical affiliations. The generals knew that true transformation had to occur. And they also knew that the other consulting group had missed the mark in its report. The recommendations focused on incremental changes – moving a particular department from one side of the Pentagon to the other, and so forth. I was caught in the middle of an emerging conflict – and not quite sure what I should do next. The glares told me all that I needed to know. I had lost almost all hope of a successful outcome. I was either going to fail the generals in their desire for true transformation, or I was going to ignore the requirements for our contract (which would result in big-time trouble for the officer who hired us). True change was required. But the internal conflict created a catch-22. It was a no-win situation. I was going down, and going down fast.

The Nature of Change
So what does a church have to do with the U.S. Army? A lot! Every organization dances the same dance. Every pastor or lay leader in the country has been through their own variation of my project with the Army. For example, I was recently contracted by a large East coast church to examine their facilities needs. I’ll call the church First Church. The task was, once again, fairly straightforward. They were out of space and had enormous parking problems. They wanted to know whether or not they should relocate or renovate. But in my assessment, I found other issues. First Church lacked a clear vision. Their leadership structures would not permit future growth, regardless of facilities. The facilities issue was a real issue, but it wasn’t the real issue. When I found myself in another catch-22. Should I simply provide facilities recommendations? Or should we focus on the deeper issues? I took a risk and decided to go for the latter.

Over the course of three days, First Church’s leadership began to realize that they had not been able to solve their facilities issue themselves, precisely because they hadn’t answered the deeper questions. How could they build a building if they didn’t understand what purpose it would serve? During the session, one of the lay people said, “Now this finally makes sense. If we’re going to build an education wing, we have to know what purpose it serves. Will it be for Sunday School? Will it be for small groups? Will it be for a school? Same goes for worship space, and office space, and a gym or fellowship hall. We could never have answered an architect’s questions without first having a clear focus!” During the session, conflict emerged. But the conflict was healthy – and focused around the church’s core values, mission, and strategy. At the end of the session, they were finally prepared to discuss the facilities issue.

During the process, I also discovered that the group wanted to avoid the deeper issues by focusing on the facilities. They were scared of the potential conflict that might arise if they talked about strategy, vision, and leadership – because conflict had been painful in the past. They thought that they could just build a bigger building on a new site, and the conflict would somehow go away. They never realized that even the facilities issue was wrapped up in the need for change.

Change follows conflict and conflict follows change. It is a dance where one leads and the other follows, and then they switch roles. Yet it continuously baffles me as to why there is so little written about this dance. You can’t have one without the other. Change comes in many different flavors. Some changes are seismic shifts that cause earthquakes and create new continents. The shift from modernity to postmodernity, or from the production age to the information age are seismic shifts.

Other changes are less drastic and are seasonal transitions that turn buds into flowers. The typical church thrives for about 40 years. Why? Because that represents the leadership span of one generation.

Charles Handy, a British business writer, calls this the Sigmoid Curve. An organization goes through four basic transitions in its life-cycle: development, growth, maturity, and decline. But the church must go through transformational change if it is to survive beyond one generation.

The Nature of Conflict
Conflict is usually driven by the need for change. Conflict is a healthy reminder that we need to adapt. But as I consult with dozens of churches and businesses around the country, I hear many people label conflict in personal terms: “We have a personality conflict” or “She is just being stubborn” or “He is manipulative”. Once we personalize this type of conflict, we miss the opportunity to resolve it. Personalized conflict is unsolvable because it shifts the conflict away from the issue and onto a person. There are essentially two types of conflict. At TAG, we call these the Red Zone and the Blue Zone.

The Red Zone.
Red Zone conflict is personalized conflict. It is driven by our own emotional reactions to another person. We couch it in personal terms and talk about our differences. But Red Zone conflict is rarely our differences. Rather, it is personalized conflict around our similarities. The Red Zone is about our own issues and baggage – usually the same issues and baggage as the other person.

First Church was a prime example. The senior pastor wanted a new location and facility. But the executive pastor did not. They began to personalize the conflict and took opposing sides. They saw the conflict as personal – and about their differences. Each told me that the other person was stubborn and controlling.

But I found something else going on. The senior pastor confided in me that he didn’t think he was able to lead his people effectively – but had never come to terms with this. He was an introvert, and struggled in his interactions with people (although the people didn’t sense this). So, he unconsciously saw a relocation as a way of distracting his attention – he would have a great excuse for not leading people. At the same time, the executive pastor was scared of leading a relocation effort. He continually struggled with his job. He felt like he had no sense of direction, and couldn’t execute the church’s daily operations effectively. The possibility of having to lead a relocation caused his anxiety to soar. It suddenly became crystal clear that their conflict was not over their differences, it was over their similarities. They were both insecure in their leadership. And they were both in serious denial about these insecurities (which kept them from giving up control of the issues). By focusing on the facilities, the conflict was couched as differences. The facilities issue had allowed them to avoid facing their own baggage. We met for a few hours prior to the planning session – and they began to understand their own Red Zone.

With this understanding, they then moved back to the real issues of vision and leadership. The senior pastor recognized that the relocation would be a work-around for his unresolved internal issues. So, he committed to considering a new leadership structure that would allow other people to take on more people leadership. Likewise, the executive pastor began to understand that a clear vision would actually provide more focus in his daily operations. Their own denial about these issues, kept the church from addressing them. But once they understood their Red Zone, the church was able to move through the process. This ultimately resulted in a great sense of unity and purpose among all leaders and members in the church.

But they never could have moved there without first moving out of the Red Zone.

The Blue Zone.
Whereas the Red Zone is personalized conflict, revolving around unresolved issues in self, the Blue Zone is “professional” conflict revolving around issues. And it constantly keeps the focus on the issues by monitoring the process. Effective leaders engage Blue Zone conflict by adopting a number of practices (of which volumes have been written). But one of the most important practices for a leader is to moderate the level of anxiety.

Overwhelming change brings about overwhelming resistance. Resistance is high because anxiety is high. If a change initiative is introduced, and people expect that a decision is required immediately, the initiative will fail. People will either shoot it down in the meeting, or undermine it after the fact. Because many leaders have experienced this, they go to the other extreme and completely avoid the issue. At this point, anxiety is too low and change will never occur.

Effective leaders know this and so they introduce change incrementally – one step at a time. They create a safe place for change to be discussed without threatening the entire church. At TAG, we encourage pastors to use a simple tool to introduce change, while regulating stress. We call it the 3-D Method. When a significant change is needed, the 3-D Method calls for three distinct phases: Dialogue, Discussion, and Decision. Each phase may require numerous meetings, but it is critical for team participants to know which phase they are in, because each phase has different ground-rules.

The Dialogue phase is usually one or two meetings where people simply exchange ideas, without feedback. During this phase, the goal is to gather as much information as possible. Look to outside resources. Listen to each person. Capture all of the data. Don’t agree or disagree. Then stop.

The Discussion phase occurs several weeks after the Dialogue phase. Once everyone has had a chance to review the data and think about it, then the group comes back together. No decisions are allowed in this phase. Participants are free to agree or disagree with each other. The goal of this phase is to clarify the issues and provide scenarios, or options.

The Decision phase occurs usually within two weeks of the Discussion phase. During this phase, conflict will emerge, but it will be much less significant because the group has already gone through Dialogue and Discussion. If this phase drifts into the Red Zone, each participant shares the responsibility of helping to de-personalize the conversation. At some point, the leader then calls for a group decision. And remember that the best decisions are usually not unanimous decisions.

Dancing the Dance – The Army’s Real Transformation
If a car won’t start, we simply change the battery. But if a church needs to change, it is not quite so simple. The leader must understand the nature of the required change, and effectively engage the conflict that arises. Sometimes, we think the change is external, when it’s really internal. And sometimes we think we’re in the Blue Zone, when we’re really in the Red Zone.

As the generals stared at me, my palms began to sweat. It was a Catch-22. If I changed the format of our meetings to focus on the kind of transformation the generals wanted, I’d single-handedly send the contracting officer to Guam for the rest of his life – and we’d be out of work. If I went ahead with the agenda, I’d have resistance from some of the toughest people on earth – and no change would occur.

Just at that point, Joe Jurkowski (one of my colleagues at TAG), raised his hand. He asked one simple question that silenced the room: “Which one of you is going to tell the Chief of Staff that he just wasted $2 million?”

No one said a word. In one simple question, Joe had brought clarity to the real transformation that was needed. The Army was hierarchical. And the generals were not willing to sacrifice their careers by telling the Chief of Staff that he had wasted money. Likewise, the Contracting Officer was caught in this hierarchy. If he didn’t complete his assigned task, he would be reprimanded. An external change (the threat of terrorism) brought to light the need for transformational change (moving away from hierarchy), but the entire group was in the Red Zone. They all wanted the external change, but finally realized that they would only be successful if they addressed the deeper issues of transformation. This issue had not appeared in any reports. But they all knew that it was the very thing that was holding the Army back.

After Joe’s question, we were then able to move through the process – one step at a time. We told the generals that we first had to go through the series of recommendations. Once we did that, we would use the remainder of our time to recommend higher level changes that would indeed lead to transformation. The level of anxiety had been moderated for the generals – and they then set the stage for introducing transformational change to the Chief of Staff at a level that he could also tolerate. When the generals presented the final debrief to the Chief, there was conflict in the air – but it was Blue Zone conflict. Sure, they had completed their task. But they also introduced a new element. By simply presenting the recommendations for moving beyond hierarchy, they were challenging the hierarchy. Transformation had started in the U.S. Army – just nine months prior to the war on terrorism.

When it comes to organizations, conflict, and change, churches are really not much different than other organizations. Whether we’re talking about a church or the U.S. Army, we have to see our organizations as dynamic organisms. We need to understand the interconnectedness of change and conflict. If we can gain these skills, we will begin to fulfill the mission that God has given us.

About the Author
Kevin Ford is the Chief Visionary Officer of TAG, a sponsor of Cornerstone Conferences. He provides consulting services and strategic planning services to businesses, government agencies, and churches around the world. He is the author of The Thing in the Bushes (Pinon Press, 2001) and Jesus For a New Generation (IVP, 1995). In addition, he is the co-author of the nationally acclaimed congregational survey, the Healthy Church Index. He can be reached via e-mail at kford@877tagline.com.

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