Making Decisions versus Finding Solutions
I was working with a church recently that has a leadership issue, which is causing harm to the church. One of the staff members is extremely popular with the people in the church, but he is considered a lousy team player by the rest of the staff. He’s lazy, divisive, and disrespectful to the senior pastor.
The pastor and key leadership realize a change needs to occur. He’s been counseled and threatened with his job, but he knows he is popular and therefore refuses to change. The pastor, who has been at the church less time than the other staff member, knows he could never recover from letting him go.
I was asked to help the church find a solution to the dilemma. If I were simply encouraging them to do the right thing…that would be easy, in my opinion. He needs to go, because of the flippancy he’s shown towards leadership. Unfortunately, what is easy isn’t always best.
It was a reminder:
The answer to problems is often easy, but the solution can often be hard.
Want an easy answer to the above scenario?
There can even be three options on the table. The senior pastor can either fire the associate pastor, quit as the pastor, or live with the problem. That’s easy isn’t it. Choose the one that seems best to you. You could even draw numbers out of a hat for that one if you can’t decide. (One for fire, two for quit, and three for live with…in case you weren’t following.)
Finding the solution to a problem is much more difficult.
I have my particular easy answer, but finding a solution is a more delicate process. It involves making hard decisions and dealing with hard consequences. It could be either of the three easy answers, but a solution is bigger than making a decision. To be a solution it would involve the follow through…clean-up…and the working of the situation for the ultimate good of the organization. That’s hard, messy, difficult work.
Making decisions…Easy
Finding solutions….More difficult.
By the way, great leaders don’t just make decisions…they find solutions.
Honestly, would you rather make decisions or find solutions?
(Please know I changed some details of this story to protect identities.)
