Have you ever seen an example of a group of people or an organization succeeding in something that everyone else is struggling with? People usually want to find out “the secret” so they can jump on the success train too.
I was talking with a friend not too long ago about an example of an organization that has really taken major jumps in its success empowering ethnic minority leaders and creating a culture that fosters and honors diversity and rich cross-cultural engagement. We were talking about why this one organization and event was seeing such fruit while others that were at least in theory working towards the same thing not seeing anything close to the same ethos being produced.
What was clear to us was that the “secret” was not in what took place at the event itself or in the immediate months prior to it. What was evident is that the fruit that was experienced in terms of diversity and ethnic minority leadership out of an originally Caucasian environment was a product of years of right, healthy, and serving decisions. Those decisions did not immediately produce glaring fruit, but over time those decisions shaped culture.
This is my takeaway from our conversation:
“Ethical, serving, and healthy decisions over time increase the capacity of a community or organization to be ethical, serving, and healthy. Places that are failing to serve or failing to empower leaders are failing not just because of the moment, but because they are bearing the fruit of years of decision making that hasn’t served or empowered to the degree that was needed.”
Decisions are capacity building opportunities. One decision by itself to move towards something different or new or needed may not have a radical impact on a culture’s ability to embody those values. That decision may not even be successful or fruitful. But it may fail because the community’s capacity isn’t ready to live out those values yet. Pragmatic or success driven institutions panic in such a moment and begin to backtrack to alleviate the anxiety of change. Serving institutions committed to creating new realities continues to stay the course in making these value driven decisions.
These decisions are like weight lifting. One decision may not produce much and it may meet a lot of resistance. But over time, decision making that is anchored in a clear commitment to culture change and serving others, especially those who are different, starts to bear the fruit of an increased number of people who have the capacity to live out the values of the desired future as opposed to the comfortable past or present.
But like weight lifting, decision-making is hard when your goal is increasing capacity. There is resistance. There are temptations to quit. There are temptations to take shortcuts to capacity and growth that undermine the health and integrity of the long-term objectives.
These are the dynamics of sowing and reaping. These dynamics are readily embraced when it comes to some elements of leadership, yet when it comes to multi-ethnic empowerment and unity, the empowerment of ethnic minority leaders, and issues of power and voice in community and organizations we often fail to remember the phenomenon of sowing and reaping.
Today there are many places that want to reap health, reap justice, and reap ethical serving cultures without understanding how they must sow to those areas over time. Most of us would agree that it can be pretty discouraging when there is talk about what people want for the future, but the decision day to day and month to month or year to year don’t reflect a core commitment or understanding of how to build the capacity to see such a new reality come to pass.
When it comes to ethical, healthy, and serving environments, there is no “secret sauce.” But there is a secret – it’s that you are embodying and reproducing what you have sowed over time. If we want an environment that is more healthy, just, serving, and empowering then we must be willing to pay the price over time. There are no short cuts, no steroids to serving and empowering leaders from all backgrounds. Every decision matters – it’s building our capacity to live out what we want or it’s tempting to live out what always has been.
How are you seeing your capacity strengthened or weakened by your choices and decisions?
