Then the next section of the blog (after I stop the evaluation story part) is an ongoing effort to try to make sense of my experiences with the mission, and I'm using journal articles and the like as spring boards. I worked in a mission that worked in Eastern Europe (but was located in Vienna, Austria) in the late 1980s before the fall of Communism in that part of the world.
***
The mission leaders and their two guests from the States made some more headway on the evaluation plans. For example, they decided on most of the data collection methods - for each of the questions they'd developed earlier. They also revisited those questions and tweaked them a bit, for clarity and the like. They also developed a general timeline and discussed reporting a bit. They decided to take the morning off and meet around 2:30 the following afternoon to work some more on the plans. In the meantime Ms. Elliott promised to work on the collection development instruments to have drafts for discussion at that meeting. Ms. Elliott also asked everyone to try to think of potential obstacles they might face in the course of carrying out the evaluation and thinking about possible ways to deal with them if they did present a problem.
Mr. Adams and Mr. Benson were visibly tired and they had gotten a lot accomplished so Ms. Elliott tried not to let the meeting go too long, so they were out of the building by 10 o'clock. Mr. Adams took the guests to their hotels and promised that either he or Mr. Benson would be by to pick them up around 2 o'clock the next afternoon. In the meantime, however, they could contact him either at home or the office if they needed anything. He said he had some work to catch up on that had gone neglected, so he was going to spend some time at the office the next morning.
***
Soon after getting to her hotel room Ms. Elliott noticed the light flashing on the phone and found that it meant she had a message waiting. It was the other evaluator she had called earlier. The message said he would be at home for a couple more hours. She looked at the clock and placed the call immediately scrambling for paper and pen as she did.
She recognized the voice on the other end immediately and after they caught up on what each other had been doing most recently Ms. Elliott presented her problem to her colleague who was familiar with doing program evaluations in East Bloc contexts, if not exactly in religious institutions. After listening to Ms. Elliott's description of the situation, he warned her that there could be some serious things going on in the background. He couldn't know for sure in this particular situation, but it sounded like she did need to be careful and he advised taking a more distrustful stance, while not letting on that that's where she was coming from. In any case, he assured her, this wouldn't be her typical Christian institution she was evaluating, so she should be ready for things that she might not normally encounter in other religious organizations. He apologized for being so vague, but he evaluated businesses, not religious institutions and not being there in person it would be hard to be any more specific than that. He did say that if she needed any more help with the project to give him a call. He sounded almost curious to see what would come of the evaluation.
So with her fears confirmed, she knocked on Mr. Douglass' door, but he must have been sleeping already, so she decided to wait until morning to tell him about the phone call.
***
I'm ending this little story here. I never did intend to really finish it in a standard sense and it wasn't meant to be a story just as a story for its own sake, but rather a tool to help you understand what some of the issues were for me in Vienna. Again the people are the same people who were there when I was, except that I changed their names. The evaluator and Foundation president are made up, as are the member mission directors (the one who had come by to take Mr. Lyons away and the other one who was to come the next week).
***
Returning to the textual discussion, these portions of the text are taken from the "Propositions" sub-sub-section under "Interaction of the Socialization Tactics," referring to the socialization tactics I discussed in my most recent previous posts.
"1. A custodial response will be most likely to result from a socialization process which is (1) sequential, (2) variable, (3) serial, and (4) involves divestiture processes.
In other words, the conditions which stimulate a custodial orientation derive from processes which involve the recruit in a definite series of cumulative stages (sequential); without set timetables for a matriculation from one stage to the next, thus implying that boundary passages will be denied the recruit unless certain criteria have been met (variable); involving role models who set the 'correct' example for the recruit (serial); and processes which, through various means, involve the recruit's redefinition of self around certain recognized organizational values (divestiture)." (p. 253)
This is another incredibly accurate, but succinct description of my experience of the socialization process, especially in the first months of my time with the mission. The only quality that I'm not sure fits is the sequential one, because I only saw it as one jumbled up process with everything happening at once, rather than as distinct stages. Also, it felt to me like it was might have been intended to be a before and after situation, where all (pretty much) all the socialization happened until one became assimilated via totally submitting which allowed one to internalize the organizations norms and values. So it wasn't like I moved from divestiture into mentoring/role model/reference group socialization sequentially or moved from partial submitting to more submitting to completely submitting, for example, because, while moving in that direction (or appearing to do so) might have been a sign to the mission that you were responding, but until you had reached the total submission point they were just going to keep up with the socialization tactics, including using divestiture whenever it seemed that the new recruit might be holding back on submitting.
In this way, then, the "criteria" to pass from being an outsider new recruit to an insider new recruit was total submission. It was only after having totally submitted that the mission would start giving the new recruit "real" work and, I think, start providing him/her with more accurate and comprehensible cues as to the group's norms and values - its modus operandi. Until that point it would be difficult to make sense of things and the ambiguity and uncertainty would seem pretty great to the novice.
I've already discussed in some detail elsewhere how my main mentor was probably my boss's boss's secretary and my boss was the other individual with personal influence on my socialization, and that the secretaries were my intended "reference group." Although my position was new and so there couldn't be any continuation regarding the fulfillment of it (from a prior secretary in the position), I think I was expected to be like the other secretaries, which is part of why I felt so smothered by the apparent expectation that I was supposed to see myself as ultimately and primarily a secretary, which I didn't and couldn't do. I guess, in that sense, my views of myself aren't very dependent on what any particular group might think of me, even if the group should otherwise be in a position to be influential in that area. I tend to be the kind of person that if I have convictions about something there's a good reason for it, so unless that reason/those reasons are proven wrong I'm not likely to change them. For example, the fact that I had made a two year commitment to be a secretary for the mission couldn't erase all my other knowledge and skills, a fair amount of which had been recognized by others prior to the mission as being reasonably well developed. So I wasn't too prone to let immediate (current, real time) feedback undo prior feedback without good reason. I didn't (and still don't) consider appeal to force by itself as a "good" reason. However, that being said I think I might sometimes be able to distinguish between strengths that I perceive myself to have in some kind of absolute sense versus in a relative way. That is, I might see myself as having a particular strength, but that it might not be a strength in a particular context. In that way I might not really change my basic understanding about myself, but I might change my understanding of myself in a particular situation.
That being said, I think that in the Vienna context, my ability to do this was wearing down by the last 6 months or so, which is why the next year my journal reflects my confusion and lack of confidence in myself. So I was beginning to change my basic understanding of myself and accept the mission's apparent definition of me (based on how it was treating me, for example). I think that as soon as I started living according to the mission's apparent assessment of me it became more difficult to separate the two views of me and my basic view of myself then began to change to reflect how I was acting, that is, more in accordance to how the mission seemed to view me. This probably could use more fleshing out and psychologists would, undoubtedly have a lot to contribute here, but I think what I'm describing here could really describe part of what I was going through.
I've already talked at some length about the divestiture process I experienced with the mission, but I will comment a bit here, in as much as I think there might be something more to add to the discussion on that topic. As I understand the divestiture process, it is supposed to entail degrading and/or otherwise troublesome experiences meant to strip away (to one extent or another) previously held values, norms, views of oneself, etc., which is supposed to provide the "tabula rasa" then for constructing the new person the organization wants in its employ.
The problem was, however, that I never actually became a "tabula rasa" because of my not allowing the mission to clean the slate thoroughly enough for its purposes, although I might well have been coming close to it by the time I left them. They, then didn't begin any "reconstruction" efforts until they thought I had reached that point. I think at this point in the game it might be worth taking a stab at trying to guestimate what about me might have needed to be "erased" to make the slate clean enough to be able to become their version of the homo sovieticus (irony intended). So here goes...
- my sense of identity apart from the mission (at least for the duration of my term)
- my sense of confidence regarding my knowledge and experience in Eastern Europe
- my sense of efficacy in the Austrian context
- my view of myself in relation to anyone other than the mission and its members (with the possible exception of my family)
- my understanding of my relationship with the mission (cp. social exchange theory)
- my understanding of my relationship with everyone else (cp. social exchange theory)
- my value structure, including the basic criteria for determining how and when to modify it
- my views of authority (who has it, when, why, how much of they have why, and what kind of authority)
- my basic philosophy (St. Augustinian idealism - it might be worth comparing this to how the Soviets especially hated the Roman Catholics and tried to replace pope with the orthodox patriarch because the pope was an external authority and as such not easily controllable/influenced by the Soviet government)
- my view of "truth" (cp. "truthiness" for a close cousin to the Vienna mission definition)
- my view of how to interpret and apply (especially apply) Scripture (i.e., not to use it in an apparently manipulative way as a means of coercing someone into changing or as validation for how the mission is treating a member)
- etc., etc.
***
"3. Role innovation, the redefining of the mission or goals of the role itself, is the most extreme form of innovation and is most likely to occur through a socialization process which is (1) individual, (2) informal, (3) random, (4) disjunctive, and (5) involves investiture processes.
In other words, for an individual to have the motivation and strength to be a role innovator, it is necessary for that person to be reinforced individually by various other members of the organization (which must be an informal process since it implies disloyalty to the role, group, organizational segment, or total organization itself), to be free of sequential stages which might inhibit innovative efforts, to be exposed to innovative role models or none at all, and to experience an affirmation of self throughout the process. It is very difficult indeed to change norms surrounding the mission or goals of an organizationally defined role. Therefore, it will probably only occur when an individual who is innovative in orientation at the outset encounters an essentially benign socialization process which not only does not discourage role innovation, but genuinely encourages it." (p. 254)
The only criteria (in the first paragraph) that surely matched my experience in Vienna, as I've stated before, was that it was individual, but that wasn't so much by choice as because the context pretty much demanded (i.e., newcomers straggled in and those who came in close time proximity to others might have been in very different positions in the mission). So, if this text is correct, the type of socialization I did experience in Vienna should have argued against a role innovation response on the newcomers part, and the fact that my experience did meet all the requirements in the previous text would validate a custodial response by the individual.
I don't want to give the impression that the mission did not want any "innovation" at all, but that initially it probably didn't want innovation of any kind. Then it would loosen the reins on the individual gradually and the person proved him/herself as having internalized the group's norms and values. The group would probably be able to use the individuals choice of areas to innovate in and the characteristics of the innovation itself to determine, at least in part, how well the individual had internalized the group's norms and values. In this way, then, innovation could be both a reward (being allowed a certain amount of innovation) and also a test (to see if the individual's innovation stood up to the organization's values and norms). But, again, I don't think the mission wanted any innovation at all until the individual had learned that s/he had indicated that s/he had submitted in toto to the organization (or at least was making very good and consistent progress in that direction).
***
This, believe it or not, ends the socialization file. I'm going to have to take a bit of a break (hopefully just a few days at the most) to regroup and get everything set up and in order for returning to the chronology. However, I may take one or two posts to try to recap the issues I've been discussing in these literature discussion posts, but then I'll return to the chronology aspect of this blog, picking up with my 1987 arrival in Vienna to work with the mission.
I know it's really too much to expect from my readers to think that they will read my chronology in the light of all these previous posts, but that's my intent and I'm not sure what else to do. The thing is that a typical reader is most likely to use their own experiences and frame of reference as the primary tool for understanding what I do, what I think, what happens to me, what happens around me, etc. I know I did that when I was experiencing and witnessing the things I did in Vienna, but despite all my preparations and background, it wasn't enough to prepare me nor was it adequate to allow me to have a very good or clear understanding of what was happening. And I suspect the average reader doesn't have the benefit even of all the preparations I had gone through - such as the specific subjects I studied (versus, say, engineering or nursing) and the short-term mission experiences in Eastern Europe (when it was the Warsaw Pact). So I expect it's going to be very difficult for the reader to understand what's going on and these discussions and the information that I've provided thus far might help make up for that lack of background. If the reader does attempt to incorporate, in part at least, the information in these earlier posts, then I think (or at least I hope) you will be rewarded with a better understanding of what happened in Vienna, or at least my perspective on what might have happened there.
That being said, however, there is a big caveat, and that is that my review of the literature (as described by my commenting on these texts), while it has helped me greatly to clarify my thoughts about what really was going on and maybe why, there are still a lot of unanswered questions, some or most of which may never be answered conclusively or with any confidence. In as much as that is so, the reader will be hampered in making sense of my experiences just as I am. I know it's hard to live with ambiguity like that and it's likely to dissuade many readers from proceeding, but, if it's any consolation, it's hard for me too to live with the ambiguity, even though I think I'm basically a pretty strong person.
