Management Philosophy

Recently read a book called, "Let my People go Surfing: Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman," by Yvon Chouinard. He is the founder and CEO of a clothing company called Patagonia. I've always been interested in different approaches to business models and such as a marketing major. This concept of community and collaboration is very interesting:
"We've had psychologists who specialize in organizational development tell us that Patagonia has a far above average number of very independent-minded employees. In fact, our employees are so independent, we're told, that they would be considered unemployable in a typical company.
We don't hire the kind of people you can order around, like the foot soldiers in an army who charge from their foxholes without question when their sergeant yells, "Let's go, boys!" We don't want drones who will simply follow directions. We want the kind of employee who will question the wisdom of something he regards as a bad decision. We do want people who, once they buy into a decision and believer in what they are doing, will work like demons to produce something of the highest possible quality--whether a shirt, a catalog, a store display, or a computer program. How you get these highly individualistic people to align and work for a common cause is the art of management at Patagonia.
Since we don't order our employees around, either they have to be convinced that what they are being asked to do is right, or they have to see for themselves it's right. Some independent people, until the point they they "get it" or it becomes "their idea," will outright refuse to do a job. or worse, you get a passive-aggressive response so that you think the job will be done, but in the end the person just won't do it--a more polite but more costly form of refusal.
In a company as complex as ours no one person has the answers to our problems, but each has a part of the solution. The best democracy exists when decisions are made through consensus, when everyone comes to an agreement that the decision made is the correct one. Decisions based on compromise often leave the problem not completely solved, with both sides feeling cheated or unimportant or worse, as in the biblical example of Solomon, cutting the baby in half to settle the dispute between two harlots claiming the save baby. The key to building a consensus for action is good communication. A chief in an American Indian tribe was not elected because he was the riches or had a strong political machine; he was chosen chief because of his oratory skills, which were invaluable for building consensus within the tribe. In this information age it's tempting for managers to manage from their desks, staring at their computer screens and sending out instructions, instead of managing by walking about and talking to people. The best managers are never at their desks yet can be easily found and approached by everyone reporting to them.
Patagonia's offices support these ideas. No one has a private office in our company, and everyone works in open rooms with no doors or separations. What we lose in "quiet thinking space" is more than made up for with better communication and egalitarian atmosphere. Animals and humans that live in groups or flocks constantly learn from one another. Our cafeteria, besides serving healthy organic food, is convenient for everyone and is open all day as an informal meeting place. Then you look to hire management, it is m important to know the difference between leaders and managers. For instance, a branch manager of a bank is expected to avoid risk (not make loans without approval from higher up). Managers have short-term vision, implement strategic plans, and keep things running as they always have.
Leaders take risks, have long-term vision, create the strategic plans, and instigate change.
The best leadership is by example. Malinda's and my office space is like everyone else's, and we always try to be available. We don't have special parking places for ourselves or for any upper management; the best spaces are reserved for fuel-efficient cars, no matter who owns them. Malinda and I pay for our won lunches in our cafeteria; otherwise it would send a message to the employees that it's okay to take from the company. A familial company like ours runs on trust rather than on authoritarian rule.

Let's Make a Deal! 25th Sunday of ORD Time

Praise the Lord! It is a blessing to finally have the opportunity to be at Our Lady of Lourdes Parish. The first time I had heard Father Tim was at a funeral out in Oneida. During my first months of priesthood, we were able to have lunch together. It was at that time, over a year ago we spoke about the possibility of doing a pulpit swap. Months later, it finally materialized. Seeing that I am at St. Pius X Parish in Appleton, it seemed even more appropriate for Father Tim to head back to his original parish family during this jubilee year. So it is good to be here and to share a bit about how the Lord is calling us to greater sanctity through the scriptures. For myself, I am humbled to be given the chance to preach in place of your pastor this morning.
Growing up in Sturgeon Bay, we never really had a lot of things. In those days...now I'm speaking like an old man, but when I was a kid, Sturgeon Bay looked a lot different than it does now. It was simpler and a lot more blue collar, we had to share the little we had. The aroma of smoked fish would drift from Andy's Fish Market, you could hear the bells of the old bridge and the sound of the cars over the metal grid. Now, condos dot the shore, the bridge is being replaced, and Andy's is closer to tourist traffic away from the water. We didn't have much so borrowing things was second nature. Some say that you would mooch things off of others. I always took pride in the fact that I could get something for nothing out of someone.
I suppose we have all borrowed something to someone at sometime. Perhaps we were the “borrowee.” In our day and age, borrowing is becoming extinct. We all have our own lawnmower, our own car, our own everything. We need not depend on someone because we have it all. Maybe we like to be self-sufficient and not have to borrow something from someone because when we do it reminds us of our own selfishness. When we borrow something to someone, when we lend and entrust to another something that is important to us, we are taking the risk of losing it, never having it returned or worst yet, having it broken. We are also taking the risk of seeing how we may react once the precious item borrowed is destroyed. We instinctively don't take the chance because it will remind us of our own human limitations to charity.
This past summer, a camping ministry we began back in 2002 on Chamber's Island really gained some momentum. We had our first full-time college summer staff. I found myself move to a more distant, but equally important task of being the spiritual director or our “expedition retreats” and this entailed the responsibility of guiding our twelve summer staff workers. Along with this new ministerial territory came the agonizing experience of seeing them break things that I had worked hard to obtain for the ministry. The first outboard was ruined by an improper mixing of oil, the next outboard was steered into a reef and tore up the prop and lower shaft, the newly acquired projector for media projects was dropped, and the van received a new dent in the back door from an improperly fitted trailer hitch coming up and hitting it. I now know why my dad seldom wanted me to borrow anything of his! Needless to say, it was heartbreaking to see these “borrowed” things come back in disrepair or broken.
In today's gospel, the steward was given something to take care of and he dropped the ball. He lost what he was supposed to take care of. The master had given him a responsibility to take care of what was his only to find it squandered and ruined. We, like the unfaithful steward have blown our responsibilities. We have broken what has been given to us out of apathy or a disinterested approach to faith. We have failed to recognize what exactly has been given to us and take it for granted not respecting the gift that has been given. Think of something that was borrowed to you or given to you and ask yourself how you have treated it. Were you responsible with it? Did you respect the wishes of the borrower and take care of what had been given to you out of love? Chances are, if we find ourselves not respecting the little things in life that have been given to us and living in gratitude for what we've been given, we can't be trusted with the true wealth that has been given to us by Christ.
We can translate this to the intangibles, the the gifts given to us by The Master. Most importantly, the gift of life that has been entrusted to us. Life has been given to us as a gift, yet we fail to recognize its sanctity and the gift that it is. There was nothing we did to make the decision to come into being! God created us and gave us a life to live. We're living on borrowed time so to say right?! God has entrusted life to us and we, and like good steward, we are to make our lives and the lives of others worth living. Life has been gifted to us, yet it is the most squandered and abused gift of them all. We take life for granted, not acknowledging it as coming from The Master. We easily can begin to abuse the gift of life and not respect it. Whether it be wasting the time that life affords us by laziness, by ruining another's life by hurt and abuse, or by not being open to the gift of life in marriage.
Yet, even after the “borrowee” aka, the steward royally ruins what the Master had borrowed him, he is given the chance to make things right. The important realization for the steward is that he, in and of himself, can not rectify the situation. He says, “I am not strong enough to dig and I am ashamed to beg.” We to, once we've destroyed what has been given to us must realize that we, in and of ourselves are too weak to dig ourselves out of our dilemma and too often filled with pride to beg for forgiveness. At the same time, however, we can do something. We can have the hope that the Master may be merciful to us if we can in fact bring some recompense, pay some penance. Maybe, just maybe we can finds some friends to gain in it all and maybe, just maybe the Master will see our contrition and sincere resolve to right the wrong we have done. In and of ourselves, however, we can not completely justify the hurt we have caused. We must hope and trust in the mercy of the master.
The steward realized that in order to be made right with the Master, he had to hope in His mercy. So what does he do? He makes a deal! In doing so, he restores the Master's confidence in him and instead of living for two things, he realizes his responsibility to respect the life he has been given by the Master and to live for one thing, one person—Jesus Christ. “You can not serve both God and mammon.” Have we made this move spirituality? Do we hope in God's mercy to forgive us of our sin, or do we think we can do it on our own? As I Timothy 2 states, Jesus Christ is the one, “who wills everyone to be saved and come to the knowledge of Truth.”
If we have borrowed something to someone. If we have entrusted another with the care of something that is precious to us and they destroyed it, our first reaction is to be angry. To be mad at the violation of trust, the lack of respect, and the dishonesty of it all. We can dig our heals in and say, “The heck with that person, I'm gunna stay angry at him or her.” We can hold a grudge and be resentful for remorseful. And so very often that is what we end up doing. But we must recognize the poor in us before pointing to the poverty or deprivation in others. If we play this game we need to personally hear the words of the prophet Amos because they are directed toward us, “Hear this, you who trample upon the needy and destroy the poor of the land!” We are not called to trample upon others who have squandered what we have borrowed them, as difficult as this may be. And often, what has been broken could have resulted from an accident, it may very well have never been intended.
God does not work this way! We are the ones who have rained on his parade! He has entrusted to us this life and promised us eternal life by giving to us, “borrowing” to us His Son, Jesus Christ. And what have we done to the gift of life itself? What have we done to Jesus? We have rejected Him, sold Him, betrayed Him, and squandered the life He has to offer us. Yet God, the borrower, the giver does not sink back fold his arms in disgust as we so easily can when we have been offended, but moves forward continually giving us the umpteen chances we need to finally get it right. That's what the Eucharist is! God's continual mercy being extended to us each and everyday for time memorial reminding us that we are forgiven for what we've squandered.
So like the steward, let's make a deal! What's the deal? God's mercy is the deal! The deal is that we are called to hope in God's unfailing mercy. To truly believe that even when we've broken what has been given to us, He will remain faithful to us. This faithfulness is most powerfully revealed to us through his continual outpouring of Himself through the Eucharist, the bread and wine that have become his coming to us all over again and again until the end of time.
We live on borrowed time and it is too short to be angry at someone because of what they have ruined. I can not possibly be angry at my staff for anything they have broken along the way because I've done the same thing and we discover we are all in the same boat. What we can do, is to forgive like God forgives us. We can make that deal. We can exchange our broken lives and broken spirits for the promise of mercy and the hope of eternal life that God has extended to us through His Son, Jesus Christ. Even when we've broken something, doesn't mean that God will break off a relationship with us. Now that sounds like a heck of a deal! Now and Forever!