For those of you who are new to my blog, it's often quite difficult to pick things up mid-stream. Right now I'm writing a fictional story about a hypothetical evaluation, based on real people at the mission I worked at, the culture of the mission and otherwise what I knew of the mission.
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.
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I'm going to have to pick things up in this evaluation set-up, because I'd like to finish it before I start in on the chronology (i.e., my autobiographical chronology), so here goes.
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I have to give the main parties names, in order to facilitate the discussion, and I've decided to just go through the alphabet. I'm also not going to give any of them doctorates, but in real life there were Th.D.s in the mission. In this way, here are the first groups of names:
> The director of the Vienna mission: Mr. Arny Adams
> The assistant director of the Vienna mission: Mr. Brad Benson
> The director of the U.S. office: Mr. Chester Cummings
> The director of the Big Bucks Bible Foundation: Mr. Douglas Douglas
> The evaluator hired by BBBF (my twin): Ms. Erica Elliott
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Mr. Douglass had arranged to come to Vienna and meet with Mr. Adams and Mr. Benson to see their work firsthand, as all contact with the mission to date had been in the USA or via long-distance communications. Mr. Douglass said he would be bringing someone with him whom he thought the mission should meet. He didn't want to let them know in advance, however, that he was planning to request an evaluation of the mission's work. But he had briefed Ms. Elliott about the mission and all that he knew about it, including the possible issues of concern.
When Mr. Douglass and Ms. Elliott arrived at the Vienna Airport they were warmly greeted by both Mr. Adams and Mr. Benson. At that time, Mr. Douglass introduced Ms. Elliott to their hosts as being someone who was going to be assisting him with the management of their case. Since the travelers were tired they retreated to their hotel rooms for a bit to freshen up and rest a while. Later that evening the men were introduced to more of the mission leadership and also their wives at a dinner soiree held in their honor. The atmosphere was very friendly and welcoming and the visitors were impressed with the quality of the leaders and the great sincerity and earnest commitment they expressed to their work. They also showed a human face as they talked about their families and also the relationships they'd developed with individual believers and church leaders in Eastern Europe. The men were quite impressed and everyone (both the visitors and hosts) felt encouraged by the first day's interactions (although Mr. Adams and Mr. Benson had a sense that there was more to Ms. Elliott than they knew). But the serious talks and more formal introduction to the work would begin the next morning.
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The next morning the men were picked up from the hotel by Mr. Benson and they drove straight to the mission. That day there were not a lot of people in the mission because, as Mr. Adams and Mr. Benson explained, there several groups out on trips in Eastern Europe and a couple other groups that had just returned the evening before and wouldn't be in the office until the next day. But the men were shown around the office and introduced to everyone that was there, all of whom were very pleasant and quite eager to discuss their part in the work of the mission to the visitors. By that time it was noon and Mr. Adams, Mr. Benson, a couple of the other workers, and the visitors all went out for lunch at a nearby restaurant.
In this way, it was only after lunch that the discussions began in earnest. Mr. Arny and Mr. Benson along with Dr. Douglas and Ms. Elliott all went into a room set up for discussions and meetings. It was determined that it might be useful to have Mr. Arny's secretary in the room to take notes, help with refreshments, and otherwise assist as needed, so she joined them as well.
After some introductory pleasantries, expressions of heartfelt thanks on the side of the hosts (for the support of the foundation, without which they couldn't carry out their work) and of praise on the side of the visitors (regarding the wonderful work of the mission and the quality of its workers), the hosts went in to a more formal explanation of their work, including where they were at concerning how many groups had completed which courses and of these how many were starting their own second generation courses, and things of this nature. The foundation had also asked the mission leadership to prepare some more information about their financial needs and how much of these needs were being met, and other such accounting details as might be relevant for a major funder to know about. The mission leaders had prepared handouts for the visitors and had very neatly collated them into nice booklets for the visitors to take home with them. Since it was a small group there was also a lot of back and forth by way of question and answer and the like as well.
Then it was the funder's turn to say a few words. The mission had mainly expected the funder to discuss the next funding cycle and what they might or might not be able to offer, especially considering the worldwide recession, which also affected foundations. Mr. Douglass' introductory words, when it came time for his presentation, seemed to confirm the mission leaders' expectations. But then Mr. Douglass changed course midstream when he mentioned that there was a growing movement among foundations to require periodic accountability of their grantees and that he had come to the conclusion that such requirements reflect not only sound financial management (for the foundation), but are also biblical, as being a tool where iron can sharpen iron. And while he was very pleased with the quality of the mission, its work and its workers, he expressed a belief that there is always room for improvement.
After having said all that, he introduced his guest, Ms. Erica Elliott as being the external evaluator he'd hired for the express purpose of carrying out the evaluation of the mission. He explained that she was a committed Christian as well as a very competent and accomplished evaluator. He didn't need to go into a lot of detail on these things, however, because he had also prepared materials to give to the mission, which included not only current information about the foundation, but also information about Ms. Elliott and her business. He did point out a few highlights, however, such as her past evaluations of a medium-sized seminary in Nebraska, a large church-planting effort in Zimbabwe, and a Christian publishing house in Singapore. He highlighted that she had excellent cross-cultural skills and knowledge and a strong biblically-based background, as well as proven evaluation skills. At this point the hosts, including the secretary, were about at the limit of their security-induced facades, and were silently trying to agree among themselves (without it being apparent) how to respond to this unexpected turn of events. As usual, Mr. Adams took the lead and vocally welcomed the opportunity to work with Mr. Douglass and Ms. Elliott and cooperate in any way they could. But before he could say much more than that, Mr. Douglass graciously but firmly cut him off by thanking him for that offer and then immediately turning the floor to Ms. Elliott.
Ms. Elliott had also come prepared with handouts and had also brought with her a laptop computer with projection capabilities (she was a technological pioneer). Her PowerPoint demonstration, punctuated by intelligent explanations, very adeptly introduced the missionaries her thoughts on the matter, which she had developed in conjunction with the foundation and using the information it had provided her about the mission.
Both Mr. Adams and Mr. Benson knew a little about evaluations, but it had never occurred to them to evaluate the mission before, and nor had the board ever suggested it. But they didn't know enough about the subject to fully appreciate what Ms. Elliott was suggesting. However, they did know enough to understand that they were in for a potential security red alert situation, which was far worse of a threat than even Mr. Benson's secretary was proving to be. In any event, they were all ears and listened to every word Ms. Elliott said while taking into account the information on the PowerPoint slides (which they also had in their handouts she'd given them).
After the general introductory information about what evaluation was, etc., Ms. Elliott described what she and Mr. Douglass had come up with by way of what form the evaluation might take. She explained, for example, that they weren't concerned at this point with evaluating the teaching, per se, nor its effectiveness, nor the content of the textbooks. Rather, they wanted to get a better idea of some of the organizational and administrative processes, apart from the actual ministry itself. The evaluation, then would take place in Vienna, at the office and in places where the members lived and interacted outside of the office. That is, the evaluation would include aspects of the mission what weren't necessarily only directly work related.
By the time Ms. Elliott had explained this much and had reached the end of her slides, it was already going on 6:00 and the office was mostly empty because everyone except a couple stragglers finishing up their work had gone home. And everyone was getting hungry, despite having been treated very graciously to authentic Austrian Apfelstrudel and melange at a break.
Since the guests were tired and were still experiencing jet lag they were brought back to their hotel where they ate dinner and discussed the day's events and interactions. So far they were pleased with how things were going and decided to not make any changes to the evaluation plans they'd laid out so far. Tomorrow they were going to present more information about their evaluation intentions and then they would get down to brass tacks and start hashing out more of the initial details with the mission leadership. Then they retired to their respective hotel rooms to prepare for the next day and also get a good night's rest.
As for Mr. Adams and Mr. Benson, after they saw their guests safely in to the hotel and drove off, Mr. Benson asked Mr. Adams what his thoughts were about how things were proceeding with their guests, and Mr. Adams said they probably grab a quick bite to eat somewhere, return to the office and call their wives to tell them they were going to be home late. Until they reached the office, after picking up the makings for a quick sandwich dinner at the grocery store, they didn't say much to each other, but rode in silence, each trying to think through things as they now stood.
At the office they slapped together the sandwiches while making coffee at the same time. Then they headed upstairs to talk in earnest. Mr. Adams, since he was the senior of the two men, broke the silence with a leaderly firmness that they didn't have much choice but to oblige the foundation. However, there was no way they could proceed with this without contacting the member missions and also the director of the U.S. office of the mission. They agreed easily to contact Mr. Cummings, the director of the U.S. office. Because of the time difference, Mr. Cummings was still in his office, but he was in the middle of giving instructions to his secretary when the call came in. When it became clear what the nature of the call was he dismissed his secretary and said he would explain the rest of whatever he was explaining later.
The three men, divided by an ocean and then some, quickly tried to think through the major implications of this pending evaluation and try to agree on how to proceed. Although Mr. Cummings didn't know as many details of the evaluation as did Mr. Adams and Mr. Benson, it was decided that it was more important that all the board members be contacted that that they be given all the details, so Mr. Cummings took down as many details as seemed most critical to the situation, and the three men proceeded to try to get a hold of the other board members.
This was, you understand, a very difficult task because board members tend to be very busy people and they don't always sit right next to the phone just waiting to answer an unexpected phone call. Then there was the additional unfortunate detail of time, because it was by then mid-evening in Vienna and the board members that were located in Europe would, most likely, not be at their offices by that time.
By midnight the men - all three of them - had managed to somehow or another contact all the men on the board. They weren't able to talk to a couple of them directly, but they had indication that these men would call back by the next morning at the latest. In this way, although it wasn't possible to get anything close to a consensus, at least every body was on board about the change of events (i.e., the pending evaluation), and the mission leaders had received enough feedback to act on at least for the time being.
So shortly after midnight, the two harried men in Austria left for home to get a few hours sleep before facing the next day. Meanwhile, the U.S. director continued working on the situation in his office until it was approximately midnight where he was too. Then he also returned home harried as the other two men before him had done, having forgotten to finish explaining to his secretary whatever it was that he was explaining to her.
Stay tuned for the next installment...
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Now I'm returning to the discussion of the Van Maanen and Schein text.
This next major section in the article is: "Individual Responses to Organizational Socialization Role Components - Knowledge, Strategy, and Mission."
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"...[O]rganizationally defined roles can be seen to possess, first, a content or knowledge base, which, if accepted by the role occupant, indicates the range of existing solutions to the given problems encountered regularly on the job. Engineers know, for instance, the heat limits to which certain metals can be exposed before the molecules of the materials rearrange themselves. Second, an organizationally defined role includes a strategic base, which suggests the ground rules for the choosing of particular solutions. Hence, the engineers may be out to 'cut costs' or 'beat the competition' in some organizations when designing a particular product of piece of machinery. Third, organizationally defined roles are invested historically with something of an explicit and implicit mission, purpose, or mandate which is, in part, traceable to the knowledge and strategy bases of the roles, but also is grounded in the total organizational mission and in the relationships that a particular role has with other roles within and outside the organization." (p. 227; unitalicized words in italic in original)
My role within the Vienna mission was secretary and sometimes receptionist, although I participated a few times in a Saturday English class in Bratislava that the secretaries split among ourselves, and I took one longer women's ministry teaching trip. The knowledge base needed for my secretarial and receptionist duties was negligible; I could probably have gone straight to that position from high school graduation (as did one of the secretaries on staff). In high school I took some office classes including a 2-hour office simulation in which we all ran 2-person small businesses (travel agencies) and switched positions mid-term. I also had taken a typing class. So between those, and maybe a little temping in addition, I could very easily, I think have done the job in Vienna. I hope you can imagine how hard, then, it would have been for me to be content in the position I was in and how it would almost be expected that I'd try to find some other way of using the skills and knowledge I did have when I was in Vienna. I think things might have turned out a lot better if I'd gone to the position(s) I was in straight from high school, as long as my dad's work wasn't part of the cause of the problems I did have. But even then, my being a lot more manageable going there straight from high school might have minimized the risk of my doing anything that might compromise dad's work. That is, I wouldn't have known German and that would have been my first time oversees, so that would have also contributed to my willingness to just hang around missionaries and go to the English speaking church, for example.
As far as strategic base is concerned, I'm not sure if there was one. I'm not saying there wasn't one, just that I couldn't identify it, probably because I was never truly assimilated and so didn't understand the mission enough to pick up on that sort of thing. In that respect, then, I just did my job as best as I could with what was presented to me. If there were other nuances I should have picked up on I can't remember any.
Regarding the third aspect of my role, its position within the mission, this would necessarily have changed depending on my position in the organization, but also, I think, would have been influenced by where I stood (or more accurately, where the mission thought I stood) in relation to my attachment and submission to the mission. In this regard, when I first arrived I didn't really have any role in the mission (I was too busy reading software manuals, for example). After my stint in the USA and return to my former position in Vienna I did start to have a little bit of a role within the mission, such as in helping my boss arrange for an upcoming board meeting that was going to be in town. Mostly, however, I was so marginal to the organization and I didn't have much of a relationship to others in it, especially work-wise. It's not like anyone really depended on me, and even my boss' dependence on me could be tangential depending on how I seemed to be doing. (He could always turn to his boss' secretary for some things, if he had to, for example, or even do something himself instead of asking me to do it.)
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Now we're moving into a sub-section (of the same main section) of the article called "Responses to Socialization." In this section the authors present and describe 3 possible responses.
"Perhaps the easiest or most expedient response of a newcomer to a given role is to assume a custodial or caretaker stance toward the knowledge, strategies, and missions associated with the role (Schein, 1971b). Taking such a stance, the newcomer does not question but accepts the status quo. Certainly, there are powerful reasons for adopting such a custodial or conforming orientation. First and foremost among them is the plain fact that the inherited past assumed by the newcomer may have much to recommend it in terms of functional achievement. If the enterprise has been successful, why 'rock the boat'? One simply learns the substantive requirements of the job and the customary strategies that have been developed to meet these requirements (and the norms of use that surround them) and the successful accomplishment of the mission is assured." (p. 228)
First of all, there had been no one in the position before me, so I didn't exactly have a predecessor. But on the other hand, I think the intention was that there would at least be basic commonality between how my boss's boss's secretary did things and how I was supposed to carry out my duties. Even if I'd reached my full potential in the position I was brought to Vienna for, however, there would still be significant differences in our responsibilities because of the differences between our bosses' positions and responsibilities. Still, the things we had in common I think were probably intended to be the same or similar. I never had any problem with this and, besides, I think she was probably a very good secretary (a professional one, as was the one from Alaska too), and I was pretty much a novice as a secretary (and had no career interests in becoming a professional secretary, although I wanted to do my work well; but in any event even if things went well between me and the mission I would not have agreed to staying a secretary for more than two years.)
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"On the other hand, as a newcomer one may feel for a variety of reasons somewhat impatient with or uneasy about the knowledge base of a particular organizational role that is transmitted and, hence, be unwilling to limit oneself to the use of such knowledge in the performance of the role. A newly promoted marketing manager may, for instance, take issue with the quality of some of the regional reports used by his predecessor to inform his decision making. The new manager may then aggressively seek out other information on which to base his decisions. As a result, new strategies and perhaps even new objectives as to the means to certain ends may be sought out by individuals after assuming a new role. The new marketing manager may decide to involve more salesmen and engineers in group meetings devoted to developing new product lines instead of relying only on his or her marketing people.
Schein (1971b) refers to this response as 'content innovation.' It is marked by the development of substantive improvements or changes in the knowledge base or strategic practices of a particular role." (p. 228)
In the positions I was in in Vienna, I was given a fair amount of leeway in performing my work. I think maybe the organization was so centered around the professional instructional staff that didn't particularly need a lot of oversight (maybe coordination would be a better term), and that just filtered out and down to everyone else too. In any event it didn't bother me, because I like being able to problem solve and figure things out. I think it was in my missions class in Bible school where we were studying church planting and learned that some pastors were generally more suited to particular stages of a church's life. These stages included, for example, church planting (forming new churches from the ground), building a church to maturity, maintaining a church at a mature level, and reviving a dying church. Since learning of this paradigm (I guess it's a paradigm), I began to see myself in the church planter role in general. That is, I like to get things started and set up. Another example of this might be Yeltzin: most people agree he did a pretty good job of sort of orchestrating the demise of the USSR, but not such a good job of taking it from there. In this sense, then, my starting out in a brand new position in the mission should have increased my interest in it as a secretarial role because I could "set things up" which I like to do, and I think I'm reasonably good at, too. But I never got the chance to really to that because of, well, intervening variables, if you will.
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"Pushing the analysis one more step, an individual may seek to redefine the entire role by attacking and attempting to change the mission associated traditionally with that role. This response is characterized by a complete rejection of most of the norms governing the conduct and performance of a particular role. The 'Rebel' or 'Guerilla' or 'Insurgent' are popular tags we attach to and associate with such responses. Take, for example, Ralph Nader's attempts within certain communities of lawyers who work for the federal government to create and sustain an organization defined role of consumer advocate, industrial safety proponent, or even whistleblower.... Schein (1971b) has called this response 'role innovation in that a genuine attempt is made by a role holder to redefine the ends to which the role functions." (p. 229)
Technically, it my official role in the mission I never wanted to be a rebel. But as a member-at-large of the mission, I think that if I wasn't so scared out of my pants of what they might and could do to me if I even let on that I was disagreeing with some of the things I've been talking about here, in that case I might have done something, tried to talk to someone. I think I can say this with some certainty because, if you remember (if you've been reading these posts long enough), I had a couple years earlier requested an appointment with the director of a very influential mission to Eastern Europe and the sole purpose of my doing that was to discuss some concerns I was having that were influencing my decision about how to proceed in my career. I was working part-time for them at the time and taking my second year of studies at Bible school. So I think it's very reasonable to expect that I would have done the same in Vienna, and it might even raise the question as to what could be going on there that I didn't try to talk to anyone about my concerns. In fact, not only did I not talk to anyone in Vienna or otherwise connected with the mission or my sending mission, but I was afraid to talk or write to anyone about these things. And that's the only time in my life, I swear, that I've ever felt like that; even when I was living in the heart of Siberia and recovering from almost dying myself and losing a baby under very suspect conditions was I afraid of talking like I was in Vienna. So there was something very strange going on there to affect me like that.
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That's the end of that major section of the article and this is a long enough post, so I'm going to go ahead and submit it. This is a long article, though and I've still got a lot to say about in it too.
