Democracy = Bad Business
June 19, 2008
Democracy in corporate America has been a point of contention recently. The beauty of democracies can be traced to their inefficiency at fulfilling their purpose - i.e. to govern. Democracies are perhaps the least efficient form of government (one step ahead of anarchy), but their power (or lack thereof) is why they are the best form of government. Thomas Pain suggested “That government is best which governs least.” Drastic change in governments, policies and laws make life hard for people and businesses. Democracies make drastic change impossible and incremental change hard. For example, we can’t come up with a coherent energy policy, despite the fact that we all know what to do. The good news is that it is very difficult for democracies to consolidate the power required to subjugate their populations. Freedom and justice is a direct result of inefficiently.
Of course, we have been socialized that ‘democracy’ is THE way to run EVERYTHING including business. Ironically, all of the reasons why democracy is such a successful form of government make it a horrible way to run a business. I am a member of the stewardship committee at my church. I came up with an idea to utilize ACH as tool for raising funds for the operation of our church. In the past we simply included a simple form in our weekly newsletter, but only 25 out of 1000 families participated. I recommended a ‘full-court’ press as detailed below in an email I sent the pastor and the committee:
I believe the ‘ACH Promotion’ could be executed in a non-confrontational way, specifically avoiding a ‘big push’ or ‘cry wolf’ conversation. Of course it wouldn’t preclude a ‘big push’ or ‘cry wolf’ style program, but I suspect that if we moved to an automated giving approach our need for ‘big push’ or ‘cry wolf’ programs would be mitigated in the long run. The program I envision is a game-changer, requiring a paradigm shift that is fraught with possible booby traps and landmines and as a result I think it might make sense to give ourselves the necessary time to get it right. Ironically, it might allay the finance committee’s fear once they realize that it would take us a couple of months (or more) to develop the program given the realities of our organization (I could get it done in a week if I did it my way, but everyone would leave the church). Based on our conversations here is what I envision:
- Build a standalone/single class curriculum with a dual focus on stewardship and church operations. The curriculum should seek to build the case for moving toward a more modern collection/payment program for churches. We should train the interns (and other appropriate parties) to give the curriculum within 25-30 minutes. Open source the curriculum for use by other churches (i.e. lets foster a paradigm shift in modern giving beyond Wilshire).
- Deliver curriculum within a 30 day timeframe (i.e. each class would set aside one Sunday for the program), reinforcing the message each Sunday (Big Church) and Wednesday (Bible Study).
- Perhaps we could merchandize the program (i.e. build a standee with signup forms) in each classroom. Create a contest to see which class has the highest participation rate (i.e. as a percentage of membership). Update the standee each week so each class would know where they stood in the rankings.
- Perhaps wrap-up the program by NOT passing the plate one Sunday, instead have the deacons pass out ACH signup forms.
- Finally, make ACH signup part of the church membership process.
It might make sense to hire a third-party consultant (i.e. like we did for Measure by Measure) to build the program/curriculum and help execute on it once it is developed. It may be possible to get a bank to sponsor or subsidize the creation of the program (materials, standee, payment to consultant) if we could convince them that distribution of the program could provide them with avenues into additional churches. Again, all of these ideas would take time and effort to execute on. Of course we could simply suggest that people signup for ACH as we have in the past, perhaps we would have more success this time (but I doubt it).
The stewardship committee is formed as a democracy and as a result the committee reached a consensus that we send out a notice in the weekly newsletter requesting that people sign up for ACH. Ug, nightmare! I wonder how successful the program will be? About the same as it always has been. Do you run your business like this? You need gaming changing ideas, but you also need the ability to execute on those ideas. If you try to achieve consensus you won’t experience change - i.e. you won’t achieve success. Live in a democracy, run a dictatorship!
