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Each semester in my
graduate organizational theory course, I present one idea I hope my
students will take from the course away and ponder in future years. I
pose this idea in the form of a question by which they can measure their
success as managers and leaders of their organizations. That question is: “Will people be
better because I was there?”
Certainly, managers and
leaders need to attend to many organizational matters. But the question
I pose to my students focuses not upon what they will do to improve organizational
processes, operating margins, or technology. No, my question inquires
into whether managers and leaders foster the conditions that will make
it possible for their followers to become better people not just better
employees. It’s a question that really inquires into the quality of
one’s character rather than the quantity of one’s decisions.
Managers and leaders
oftentimes are seduced by the notion that, by getting others to do what
managers and leaders tell their followers to do, this is how one makes a
difference in an organization and can measure one’s success. The
question I pose to my graduate students challenges this notion. Namely,
every manager and leader one day will be replaced and will have “been
there.” For some, this may happen sooner than they might prefer; for
others, this may happen later than might be good either for them or the
organization. But, at some point in time, every manager and leader will
have been there. And so, these women and men need to ask themselves
is not
“What am I going to get
people to do because I am there?”
but
“Will people be better because I was there?”
From this perspective,
managing and leading requires that one possess some core principles―what really are inerrant truths―that
serve to inform one’s decision-making process. Managers and
leaders certainly should not overlook the importance of organizational politics, personal
preferences, affinities, opinions, and power. But, when managers and leaders
are keen that their
followers will be virtuous because those managers and leaders know
that one day they will have been there and it will then be the
followers’ opportunity to carry the mantle of managing and leading the
organization into the future, only core principles―those
inerrant truths―can
provide the solid bedrock foundation for decision making, despite all of
the politics, preferences, affinities, opinions, and power present in
organizations, even families!
Over the years, some
students have telephoned, returned to visit, or written to tell me how
my question “bothered” them when I first posed it to them early in their
Master’s program. Yet, in their subsequent
“real world”
experience, they have
discovered just how easy it is to lose focus
and to root one’s
decision-making process
upon everything other than core principles. They also tell me in
embarrassing and sometimes painful detail about the
negative consequences that oftentimes ensue when one makes decisions
based not upon principle but expedience.
The good news, I tell
these former students, is that even these failures teach a very
important and necessary lesson. Acting according to one’s core principles is always
the best choice if only because the quality of character managers and
leaders communicate to their followers teaches them about the type of
virtuous person all of us know we should be and yet oftentimes fail to be. In
sum, women and men animated by core principles help others to be
virtuous...because these women and men were there. And, at
some moment in the unknown future, when this generation’s followers are standing in
the place of this generation’s
managers and leaders, they will then have to answer the question: “Will
people be better because I was there?”
While I believe this is
a good question to pose to my students who will be managing and leading
organizations one day in the not-too-distant future, I also believe it
is a very good question to pose to engaged couples and spouses, to
parents and grandparents, and to young adults and children as well.
Consider, just for a moment, the fact that we all are mortal and some of
us will have a shorter lifespan than others. In light of that fact,
we need to ask ourselves: “Will people be better because I was there...as a husband or
wife, as a parent or grandparent, as a sister or brother, a friend, a
neighbor, or a co-worker?”
It’s pretty easy to
respond glibly, “Yes, people will be better because I was there.”
So, assuming an affirmative
response to the question, think a little more specifically about how those people
will be better and precisely how you will have helped them to become
better. Think in the future passive tense. How will your spouse be
better because you will have been there? How will your children or
grandchildren be better because you will have been there? How will your
brothers and sisters be better because you will have been there? What
about your friends, neighbors, and co-workers?
Now, look at the
specifics that you’ve cited. What core principles do they
reflect that, because you will have acted upon them, these core
principles will animate the lives of other people long after your clock runs
out? What, then, are those core principles? Are you
dedicated to committing yourself to making these principles the solid
bedrock foundation as you
make decisions each and every day as a spouse, parent, sibling, friend,
neighbor, or co-worker?
None of us is immortal
but each of our lives can impact others in such ways that the core
principles that animate us take root and live in others because we were
there. It’s when we fail to possess or, as is more frequently the case,
when we fail to act upon our core principles, that people are not better
because we were there. Any failure or duplicity presents a
fundamentally more difficult question that we will have to answer: “Why
were you there
anyway?”
One of the core
principles Jesus wanted to take root in and to animate his disciples was
the love of truth. We heard about this in today’s gospel when,
following the Last Supper, Jesus prayed that his heavenly Father
consecrate his disciples in the truth. Jesus said:
“I do not ask that you
take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil
one….Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me
into the world, so I sent them into the world. And I consecrate myself
for them, so that they may be consecrated in truth.”
One core principle
animating Jesus was that, when his clock would run out, his disciples
would be better people because they rooted their lives in the truth
revealed to them through the quality of Jesus’ character which perfectly
reflected God’s
love and mercy. This is
what Pope John Paul II means when he challenges us in this generation to
“contemplate the face of Jesus.” Just what in Jesus’ character
challenges us to be better people because Jesus was there?
Are people better
because Jesus was there? Did the content and quality of his
character reveal core principles that, as he made decisions, challenged
his disciples to become better
people? Did those principles live on in his disciples in such a way
that the content and quality of their characters revealed core
principles that, when they made decisions, have
made it possible for others to be better people because Jesus’ disciples
were there? As Jesus disciples in this generation, will people be
better because we were there?
Obviously, the response
to these questions for Jesus’
disciples should
be a resounding “Yes.” But, in today’s society, I am not so sure that
many Catholics would respond in the affirmative.
Why my skepticism? Is
it that I’ve become a grumpy, arrogant, old, fuddy duddy priest who
thinks that nobody is good?
Well, I don’t believe
that the case and certainly hope it isn’t the case.
What may well be the case is
that relativism has become so pervasive in our culture that many
Catholics don’t believe there is such a thing as inerrant truth. Public
opinion poll after public opinion poll reveals that Catholics are very
much like their non-Catholic fellow citizens. The majority of Catholics
don’t believe that Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist, that the
Church is infallible in matters of faith and morals, or that it is
necessary to follow Church teaching in one’s
life. As the
polls indicate, many Catholics aren’t consecrated in the truth, as Jesus
prayed. What I fear, as a consequence, is these women and men may
not be making decisions based upon core principles―the inerrant truth revealed in Scripture and Church teaching―but instead upon expedience, caprice, whim, or “how I feel” at any
particular moment.
I think I know when
this ideology first established a toehold in and began to extend its tentacles
throughout American culture. It was when the book, I’m Okay, You’re
Okay, was published in the late 1960s or early 1970s. The basic
premise of the book was that it is much better to endeavor to understand
other people and where they are coming from than to judge others,
to challenge them, or to be critical of their beliefs or behaviors.
Now, in and of itself,
this is not a particularly troublesome concept. After all, Jesus
did teach his disciples:
“Judge not lest ye
be judged.”
But, what I believe
happened as that premise was applied by many well-intentioned people in
their decision-making process, I’m Okay, You’re Okay quickly came
to mean a garden variety of very troubling things.
One particular outcome
was that many people soon considered all truth―like religious truth―to
be “relative.” That is, because there is no such thing as inerrant
truth, people mustn’t judge or challenge others for the truths they
believe. In actual practice, this meant that institutions like the
Church and people possessing authority like parents had no right to be
critical about what other people or their children believe or how they
choose to live their lives.
“I guess it’s okay even
though I don’t like it” is how many people responded to when others
posited beliefs, lifestyle choices, or behaviors that flew in the face
of virtue.
I cannot tell you the
number of parents who are outraged when educators correct student misbehavior
or require consequences for
it. Just reflect
upon that so-called
“hazing”
incident by some
out-of-control seniors in Chicago two weeks ago! And, believe it
or not, just last week a lawyer told me I had no right to assert that
there is a world of difference between former-President Clinton’s
infidelity and William J. Bennett’s gambling!
A second outcome of the
“I’m Okay, You’re
Okay”
mentality was that
culture was also relativized. Any culture was asserted to be just
as good as any other culture. No musical form could be considered
superior to any other musical form. And, all art was art, even if
a piece of
“art”
depicted a crucifix immersed in a container filled with urine.
When there is no such
thing as inerrant truth, there can be no core principles upon which we
can make decisions. And, personal character then suffers because
it means
nothing. “Just do it,” the Nike advertisement tells us, whatever
“it” may be.
And, sadly, our culture―whose
members
pride themselves on being so nonjudgmental, so inclusive, so diverse,
and all so understanding of anything and everything―boasts few leaders who have the courage of their convictions to make
decisions based upon core principles and, thus, who challenge
us to be virtuous because these women and men were
there.
While what I have said may lead some to conclude that I am pessimistic, I
actually am not. Over the past decade, I have seen a sea change slowly
emerging, especially in many young people and young married couples.
They hunger for truth and respond deeply from within when someone
actually states the truth and defends it. And, I see them making
decisions today that reveal a quality of character that will make other
people and their children, too, better because one day these young
people will have
been there.
Perhaps this sea change
is emerging because these young people have experienced firsthand the
fallacy and failure of the “I’m Okay, You’re Okay” ideology. They don’t
believe that everything is okay and that everybody is okay. They
believe that some
things are right and that some other things are wrong. And, as they struggle to
understand why they believe this in a culture that so desperately clings to the
“I’m Okay, You’re
Okay” ideology as its sacred
dogma, there emerges in
these women and men a hunger for something more permanent and enduring
beyond this life than that vacuous ideology which many of their parents
and priests have proposed to them. When, for example, I explain
the inerrant truth of mortal sin and depict its utter and complete
destructive power upon human life, they ask: “Why hasn’t anyone taught us this?”
That’s a very good
question. Why are parents and priests afraid to state the inerrant
truth proposed by Scripture and Church teaching? Framed in the
theological context of today’s gospel, what young people today are asking is:
How can we be one with the Father as Jesus and the Father are one?
Jesus prayed that his
heavenly Father would consecrate Jesus’ disciples in the truth,
specifying that truth to be God’s word. That presents our challenge
today, if we are to be Jesus’ disciples not only in word but also in
fact.
To respond positively to this challenge, we need to
open ourselves to deeper union with God so that we experience a
deeply personal conversion of mind and of heart. This conversion
requires studying and learning the inerrant truth of God’s word as it is revealed
in Scripture and Church teaching. This conversion also requires that we
allow the inerrant truth of God’s word to take root in our character and
to transform us from wishy-washy disciples into authentic disciples.
And, lastly, this conversion requires that we spend time in prayer so
that we our union with God will not only strengthen us but also give us
the courage to proclaim the inerrant
truth of
God’s word revealed in Scripture and Church teaching
to a world which
sincerely but stubbornly believes I’m Okay, You’re Okay and
anything and everything is okay. “Just do it” as long as it “feels good”
is their mantra. And, their defense is: “Don’t challenge my
beliefs or how I live my life.” Or, as Rodney King put it: “Can’t
we all just get along?” meaning “not to challenge one another to ask
what the truth requires of us and demand what we act virtuously?”
Just as I pose the
question to my students each semester, the
question that will be put to us when our clock runs out is: “Will people
be better because I was there as a spouse, parent, sibling, friend,
neighbor, or co-worker and proclaimed the inerrant truth of God’s word
revealed in Scripture and Church teaching?”
No one said it would
be easy and Jesus’
life testifies to the difficulties associated with making decisions that
are rooted in the inerrant truth of God’s
word.
To the degree that we
have rooted our daily decisions in core principles and, particularly, in the
inerrant truth of God’s word revealed Scripture and Church teaching, the
quality of our character and its core principles―as these live on in the
lives of others because we were there―will
speak volumes for us. |
HOMILY
