ViaMedia

Category: Strategy

  • Sports, Wellbeing – and the Theology of the Body

    by Helen King with Revd Pete Wheeler

    On Tuesday, Synod is hearing a presentation followed by this motion:

     ‘That this Synod recognise the missional potential for churches of sport and wellbeing through its ability to transform the lives of people and communities.’

    I (Helen) am among the members of Synod least qualified to speak in this debate, my own experience of sport including deliberately spraining my own ankle in order to get out of school hockey. When I see images of energetic lively young people on the website for the Church of England’s National Sport and Wellbeing Project, I feel the urge to go into a corner with a book. And yet… I want to speak in this debate.

    That’s because, at a recent deanery synod meeting, I heard about St Peter’s Aylesbury. We are not a pilot diocese for the Sport and Wellbeing Project, and St Peter’s is part of our diocese’s Estates Ministry Network. It has recently experienced revitalisation, which started from a ‘breakfast church’ initiative about five years ago.

    But before I share what they are doing, I want to say that I am concerned by the way that the supporting document for the debate, GS2381, focuses more on ‘sports ministry’ than on wellbeing, talking about numbers, and ‘success’, even (paragraph 1 of the executive summary) how to “find the sweet spot of how this could contribute to a growing and outward facing church”. In the research appendix that forms the second part of GS2381, we have “strategic aims” and “buy-in” and “sustainable business development” and “standardised systems and processes around data collection to refine Sports and Wellbeing Ministry models and approaches” and yet more language of “success’.

    For St Peter’s, their interest in wellbeing and exercise comes from a different direction. It is not about ‘sport’; it’s part of a focus on “health, hope and wholeness through fun, faith and fitness”. That’s backed up not through a focus on numbers, but through their theology of the body. The vicar, Pete Wheeler, told me that “In Estates ministry we commit to walk alongside people who often live very chaotic lives in areas of high deprivation. Their discipleship pathway is never a straight line – so, it can’t be about ‘numbers’! (And related to this I also long for the CofE to recognise that churches that are struggling financially are not necessarily ‘failing’!).” He went on, “Our theology of the body is not only as a sacred space where God chooses to meet with us, but as something that is fully endorsed by God in the bodily incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus. It is, therefore, anti-gnostic – declaring that our own bodies, how we look after them, and what we do with them, really matter to God and to how we live a ‘whole’ and fulfilled life.”

    There are two projects which they run which express this theology most fully.

    Revelation Fitness runs free classes for all abilities, including chair-based classes. Pete writes “Each weekly class has a Bible theme (usually part of a series) which is developed and explored as the class exercise together – sometimes circuit, high-intensity interval training, exercise to music, etc. (For example, our current Series is on Colossians 3: 12-17 with each week focusing on a different attribute Paul mentions). It ends with a cooldown that includes a time of reflection and prayer. The music we use is combination of secular and worship tracks. After the class there is opportunity for Prayer Ministry and healthy smoothies.”

    Last month, they offered a 21-day sugar fast, with daily Bible passages and encouragements, to “clear your mind, boost your health, and reset your cravings – while drawing you closer to God. Let’s break free from sugar’s grip and focus on what truly satisfies.” Pete observes, “We reject the false economy presented by organisations such as ‘Slimming World’ who talk about treats as ‘sins’ (and subtly perpetuate the unhealthy focus on body shape and a cycle of failure to change habits). Rather, Revelation Fitness focuses on our call to be ‘fit for life’; to understand our bodies and how to fuel them well by using healthy, simple, practical and spiritual disciplines; learning to move, use and ‘tune’ our bodies into the daily rhythms of our life and calling.”

    As for the second project, that’s Revelation Run. Pete writes that “The missional energy for Revelation Fitness has also led to ‘Revelation Run’ which helps local people to learn how to run, with prayer as an integral part (and which usually starts with walking!). We have also developed links with a local group called ‘Recovery Runners’ – a community of people recovering from addiction, burnout, bereavement, mental health, etc., which we refer people to often … we have seen people’s lives changed through encounters with Jesus; freedom for those with addictions developing new healthy habits and disciplines; and those who find new hope as they discover their bodies are not the enemy.”

    I find what Pete and his community are doing is an inspiration. So I would urge a reset from sports to wellbeing; from a focus on children and young people (the result of the Vision & Strategy) to adults; and something driven not by the rhetoric of management and ‘success’ measured by numbers, but based on a rich theology of the body. Reflecting on the paper being presented to Synod, Pete noted that there was no need to do “evangelism by stealth” using sport as the way in, because Revelation Fitness is already advertised as a faith-based activity, and this does not put people off; they want to explore spirituality and faith without suspicion.

    Pete suggests that we are in a “new shifting missional landscape. We have the opportunity to enable all apostles (not just ‘pioneers’!) to ‘take church to the people’, by running, for example, local community sports and wellbeing groups, that include spirituality / faith / prayer as an integral part. This is something that the new parents of the next 10 years will happily be a part of with their children!”

     

  • Mini-MBA Course for the Talent Pipeline in the Church of England: Safeguarding Strategy

    by Anon.

    Memorandum

    To: Current Participants in the Mini-MBA Talent-Pipeline Learning Community.

    From: The Mini-MBA Leadership Development Module Team, Lambeth Palace.

    Thank you for your emails following the publication of the outline course on Strategy and Marketing. A number of you have asked for “clarification” on the redacted pages on Safeguarding Strategy. As you know, this was done at the insistence of the Secretariat. However, after taking much careful advice and soundings from Lambeth Palace, Church House and the Secretariat, we have reproduced the questions and answers for you below, which should allay any qualms and concerns you might have.

    Please note, there is no definite date for the Safeguarding Strategy Module to be delivered, because its postponement fits within the broader ‘Managing Perpetual Reputational Risk Module’. Assessment for that is ongoing in the Talent-Pipeline Learning Community, and takes place over the course of your entire ministry. You cannot begin the Safeguarding Strategy Module until the Managing Perpetual Reputational Risk Module is completed.

    As you will have retired by then, you do also have the choice of opting out at this point, should you wish to do so. Whilst that means you won’t get your PTO, you might have had enough by then in any case. Many bishops just put their slippers on at this juncture, and never go out again. That avoids potential CDMs later, and if you are not going to church anymore, you don’t even have to reply to the summons. We obviously don’t recommend this course of action, but it is an option that a number have taken up!

    All that said, we have tried to deal with your questions as follows:

    Question One: What is a Safeguarding Complaint?

    This is more difficult to answer than you might at first think. For example, a Vicar telling infants at a school assembly that Father Christmas is not real clearly meets the trauma-safeguarding threshold. So would removing soft toys from the creche on the spurious grounds that they were badly manufactured.

    On the other hand, a clergyman caught behind the bushes naked from the waist down probably has prostate issues, and was just relieving themselves. Nobody likes to be caught short. The presence of other men in similar states of undress merely shows how common prostate problems are, and also points to council cuts in shutting down the public toilets.

    The reason the NST does not have a robust or legally compliant definition of safeguarding is rooted in the theological commitment to reflective practice. So much depends on who you are, where you were, and what you have done (NB: Secretariat – please insert “are alleged to” throughout).

    Question Two: If there is a complaint, what happens?

    Much depends on what role you have in the CofE.  The Archbishops’ Council does offer a system of fully comprehensive Legal-Comms insurance, but only to a few. Obviously, if you have ever tweeted in favour of Save the Parish, you can only have yourself to blame. Bishops, on the other hand, are automatically covered.

    Question Three: What Does the NST Do All Day?

    At last, a question about strategy! Well, the NST does NOT investigate complaints. Then again, it will often issue statements that begin, “following a complaint, and an independent investigation by the NST…”. To the uninitiated this looks like a contradiction, but the strategy is to keep these two mutually exclusive statements, ALWAYS, at least two paragraphs apart, and ideally two entirely different Cases apart.

    Thus, you could issue a statement saying “after a thorough/preliminary NST investigation by the NST, XXXXX was given a verbal warning”. But you must separate that statement by at least two paragraphs from the sentence that reads “it was not the role of the NST to investigate these matters…”.

    Both are true. But put together, we do agree they appear to be confusing. Clearly, the NST does not have the expertise, resources, independence or personnel to investigate complaints. Except of course, when it says it has already done so, which is different.

    The NST Director can reassure you that the NST never investigates a case. Then inform you later of the result of the investigation you were just told was not even happening, and so you are now suspended. So much depends on who you are, what you were alleged to have done, and whether you have ever signalled a ‘like’ on Save the Parish tweets.

    Investigations aside, the NST has outsourced most things to the NSG and NSSP, and even to 31:8 and the NSPCC. There was some outsourcing to the ISB too, but that all ended badly when the dreaded “I-word” was used far too much – Independent (see question four).

    It is not tricky to grasp the nuances of this strategy. But to answer your question, nobody is actually working at the NST anymore, and that has been the case for some time. Staffing is done through AI mannequins, programmed and operated by the Secretariat and run out of Lambeth Palace. (So yes, this technically qualifies as an independent and remote ‘hands off’ operation).

    Question Four: When the Church of England Says it has Commissioned or Conducted an “Independent Investigation”, What Does this Mean?

    Another laser-like strategy question – thank you, and well done! We have already covered “investigation”. When a Bishop, Archbishop or member of the Secretariat says “independent”, they mean a third party that they chose, set the terms of reference for and pay – all in order to get full value for money in their commissioning of this work.

    There is obviously no point in having an investigation or even a trial if you don’t already know what the verdict is going to be that you are working towards. (Secretariat: As you know, verdicts are my prerogative, and I am exempt from any such process, just so we are clear).

    If for any reason you think the preferred verdict is likely to be the wrong result, not what you paid for, or likely to be deeply unpopular with a sceptical public, the strategy is to delay publication for a considerable period of time, by which we mean several years. If there are complaints about these delays in publication, there’s no need to worry, as you can commission a separate audit or reviews into why the delays have dragged on and on.

    That in itself buys even more time, and of course has to be fed into the original processes. Hopefully (NB: Secretariat – “normally”?) Synod will have all turned over by then, the entire NST staff changed, a flood will have destroyed all the records in the bishop’s basement, the server melted or been subject to some naughty rival denomination launching a cyber-attack, so the whole thing has to start all over again.

    Question Five: I Might Have Been One of the Clergy Referred to in Question One, Caught Behind the Bushes with Trousers Around My Ankles. My Court Appearance is Next Month. Should I Be Worried?

    (NB: Secretariat – insert “alleged” again, liberally; and redact the name of person, court location and date of appearance, etc). Not really. The legal profession works by establishing Case Law precedent. You may recall some years ago that a Bishop often got lost in places that, on reflection, were he rather less confused and other-worldly, he should probably have avoided on reputational grounds. Public lavatories, bushes in parks, private clubs in Soho and other good places to meet (Ed: seriously?) can sometimes be traps. The bishop was forever getting into unfortunate situations that were “open to misinterpretation”.

    On one occasion, the Bishop got lost in a liturgical procession. (NB: Secretariat – date, festival and church redacted). But the bishop turned up later in the vestry wearing only his dressing gown, as he said he’d got confused about timings and location. But this was easily remedied by the following measures.

    First, the parish did very, very well in the next round of Strategic Development Fund bids, which considering they’d not even made a submission, was an example of truly amazing grace, with everything that had happened in the procession quietly forgotten. So, win-win!

    Second, the Bishop was electronically tagged (voluntarily, and we thank the police for organising this), so that his movements could be GPS tracked by the Legal-Comms Team at Lambeth Palace.

    Third, the device as fitted also gave the wearer a nasty electric shock (like a dog collar – not the clergy type, but the canine ones). So if the bishop were more than 20 feet out of sight range of the hired-hand monitoring his movements, a shrill alarm would sound, and the bishop would experience a mild taser sensation.

    In view of these hi-tech solutions, you should not really be worried at all. Especially as the Lambeth Palace Team (Secretariat: I have deleted “allegedly” here, as that implies some doubt) monitoring your tag on the day in question now shows that you were not even in that park at all, but on retreat several hundred miles away. So this is either a case of mistaken identity or impersonation. You can therefore plead “not guilty” with a clean conscience. (Ed: you mean like the Secretariat, who when they said they weren’t in the meeting or the room, but actually were…I’m confused…?).

    Question Six:  Are You Actually Going to Say Anything About Safeguarding Strategy? Isn’t the Whole Point of this Module to Understand That?

    Finally, we get to the heart of the matter! This is tricky for some of those in the Mini-MBA Talent Pipeline to grasp, but strategy is an art.  You’d think that strategy would flow from the many safeguarding ‘Lessons Learned Reviews’, as they would help shape future policy and practice. But you need to remember the following three things.

    First, very few ‘Lessons Learned Reviews’ are ever completed. Even fewer are published. And those that are must be subjected to full Maxwell-isation so that no person can be identified, unless it is the one we had previously nominated for throwing under the bus.

    Second, remember that zero is a number, and that it is possible, therefore, to talk about “a number of lessons learned”. However, GDPR legislation does not actually require you to specify what the number is. The Chair of the House of Laity was very clear about that at a recent meeting of General Synod. In any case, that number could always increase, so it pays to be circumspect.

    Third, never forget that the context of this module is set within the “Talent Pipeline Learning Community”. This is very important for strategy. You cannot speak of “learned” as though this was done and dusted and in the past tense. We are always “learning” (present and future tense), so it really would be pedagogically nonsensical to talk about “lessons learned (in the past)”, as everything learned has to be un-learned, so we can re-learn.

    Question Seven: I’ve Heard Quite a Few Bishops, the NST, Secretariat and Others Talk About “the Safeguarding Journey we are all on”. But What Does That Mean in Practice?

    We are glad you asked, and we can end this Q&A with a proper old biblical story – the Parable of the Missing Japanese Snow Monkey! As you know, this naughty Snow Monkey went AWOL from Highland Wildlife Park at Kincraig, near Aviemore, in January. It was on the run for five days, before being finally found in some Highlands back garden eating nuts. Like the lost coin, lost sheep, lost pearl or straying prodigal son, there was much rejoicing at the Monkey being recaptured. (NB: Secretariat – “recovered” or “found” sounds better; this modern parable is not supposed to stress the captive nature of the animal).

    Now throughout the Monkey’s meanderings, nobody was asking if the animal had a destination or end in mind, or was trying to get home (to Japan!). No, this Monkey was on a journey, and the point of the journey was to keep moving, and follow its nose. The excitement, vision and energy comes from not knowing where this will end from one day to the next. Reaching an actual destination is never the point. Because that would mean to have arrived, have finished something, and to be at completion.

    This is not the way of the pilgrim. John Bunyan was right to title his book Pilgrim’s Progress. He didn’t call it Pilgrim’s Arrival, or Pilgrim’s Journey Ends. The clue is in the word ‘progress’ – he keeps going. Like the Snow Monkey.

    You may this this is all a bit fruitless, but then so much strategy is about going back to the beginning, and starting all over again (Ed: You mean like LLF?). The Monkey did not have a wasted journey. And our Safeguarding Journey is never wasted either.

    All that happens is after some while meandering around, we go back home, and begin to reimagine the next Safeguarding Journey we might embark upon. The aim is to keep moving, and not get overly focussed on where we are supposed to be ending up. Look how that tormented Bunyan!

    But it didn’t bother the Monkey one bit, who is glad to be back at the beginning with a banana, and is already planning their next trek. Remember, the Talent Pipeline Learning Community is a non-stop Ferris Wheel. You are not meant to get off.

    Assessment:

    If you are in favour of Save the Parish, you may answer questions 1-3, but should then proceed straight on to question eight.

    1. On a scale of 1-5, five being the most favourable, how would you rate the oversight of the Secretariat in national safeguarding?
    2. On a scale of 1-5, five being the most favourable, how would you rate the performance of the NST, NSG, NSSP, etc?
    3. On a scale of 1-5, five being the most favourable, how confident are you of a bishop evading a safeguarding complaint?
    4. Using fewer than 10 words, but with diagrams allowed, what lessons were learned in the last review you looked at? If none, write ‘zero’ (which is a number, and might be the right answer)?
    5. The Father Ted Christmas Special episode involving the lost clergy in the lingerie section of Dublin’s leading department store was the set text for critical reflection in our previous module. (NB: Secretariat – the Ignatian reflections from some students were illuminating). Mindful of that critical incident, how could Father Ted’s leadership be up-scaled?
    6. Assuming you have understood this Module correctly, as it was intended to be, write down your next ideal job on completion of the Mini-MBA.
    7. What does the Monkey teach us about the value of the Journey (NB: not a question about destinations!).
    8. If you answered with less than ‘five’ in questions 1-3, where do you think you are actually going to end up?

  • Mini-MBA Course for the Talent Pipeline in the Church of England: Revised Strategy Module

    by Anon.

    Now that the dust has settled on the Post Office scandal (Ed, is this right?), many of you in the Talent Pipeline have been asking for course guidance on the lessons learned. As you know, the mini-MBA has been developed by those seeking to develop pools of talent to run the Church of England, and we have drawn from the commercial and public sector to bring you this new module:

    Lessons Learned: Strategy in the Church of England

    Strap-lines 

    How do you know if the strategy for your diocese or cathedral is working? How can you know that your new strap-line is garnering enough traction, and that clergy and congregations are on the same page?

    We know that strap-lines are just catchy slogans meant to give us an effervescent lift. Like a small caffeine hit, every time you hear or read the strap-line, it should make you more alert, give you a bit of a buzz, and help you to stay awake longer. But, like caffeine, don’t overdo it, as it can cause migraines. Limit yourself to no more than three mentions a day, and avoid strap-line use after 6pm, unless you want to lose sleep.

    Most strap-lines don’t make any sense. They don’t have to. That’s the point. They’re meant to be pick-me-ups, not rational statements. Some are oxymorons. “Growing Younger” (Newcastle) is great, because it is impossible and meaningless. “Wider, Younger, Deeper” (Southwell & Nottingham) is rather risky, and may open you up to mischievous Freudian readings. Your clergy will love that, but it is distracting, so you should try and avoid that sort of thing. Usually, a strap-line with something like “transforming” and “growth” will work, because it can’t be measured, so you avoid becoming a hostage to fortune in future.

    Understanding Church Strategy 

    Strategy is like developing ideas and planning, but much, much better. While planning can be tedious and difficult, strategy is constantly rewarding because someone else does the work. This is one of the ways we can talk about collegiate leadership and collective responsibility in the Church. Remember, true leadership is “we”, not “me, me, me”. Everybody gets to own and participate in the strategy once you have set it out for them. Clergy and laity who reject it can be asked to move on.

    For example, if you face a financial crisis or can no longer recruit clergy to your diocese, it would be easy to get bogged down in the details as to why. A more strategic approach is to streamline the issue, and avoid describing it as a problem at all. Start with a catchy slogan or a brief Mission Statement, such as: ”Attract, Train, Retain, Develop”. Remember, “Crisis” means “opportunity” in Chinese. But don’t use the C-word too much, as it may cause people to revisit your strategy. You don’t want that.

    If you still feel there’s something missing, consider adding the word “Inspire”. Note that this word could go anywhere in your assemblage of terms. Like a versatile midfielder in a football team, “inspire” looks great and performs well in any position: ”Attract, Train, Inspire, Retain, Develop.”

    You could represent all of this in a diagram using the words in a circle, linked by arrows. More advanced strategic thinkers can produce different versions of this diagram, headed ‘phase one’, ‘phase two’, etc. But please be careful, as you don’t want to imply there is a timetable. Nominate a hypothetical deadline year (2030?) by which time it will be delivered. By 2025 it will all be forgotten, and you can devise another strategy.

    Think hard about appointing an officer to deliver all this. You may want to consider a Facilitation-Facilitator, a Facilitator-Initiator, or an Enablement-Enabler. These can be attached to any posts concerned with mission, growth and vision, and for helping parishes to downsize and consolidate resources (i.e., “sharing in mission”).

    Does My Diocese or Cathedral Need a Strategy?

    Strategy is how we set the direction of travel. You cannot go forward without a direction of travel. Going forward is the strategist’s key objective. It doesn’t especially matter where you go, as long as you move forwards, not backwards. Even going forwards blindly over a cliff beats going backwards.

    Avoid discussing the actual rate of travel as this could lead to awkward questions about dates and deadlines. Talk instead about pace or, better still, momentum. How do you quantify momentum? You don’t. Remember, this is your strategy, and it is not concerned with measurement.

    For example, you can announce your intention to create five hundred new Intentional Discipleship Communities over the next five years. Nobody actually knows what this means, and it could cover anything from a new church on a housing estate to four people meeting for coffee at Costa each Wednesday to discuss last week’s sermon. These all count in the figures.

    What are the Best Strategic Words for Me to Use?

    There are certain words that every aspiring strategist needs to know. These are some of the most important.

    • Delivery – in daily life, a delivery is something that arrives, like a parcel from Amazon meant for your neighbour. Or a letter from the Post Office, eventually. Or, some deliverables from a Lessons Learned Safeguarding Review (i.e., timing and content unspecified). But in strategy, delivery is an end in itself. You need to be focused on or committed to that delivery. Don’t allow yourself to be distracted by specifics, such as “what is in the box, or in this report, or did I get what I asked for?”. Deliverables arrive. The joy of them is that nobody really knows what’s about to arrive, or when. God is a God of surprises. People must be expectant, otherwise nothing will happen. Like waiting for Santa.
    • Integration – this is the ultimate goal of strategy. Integration solves all known problems, particularly strategic ones. All great integrated strategies start with joined-up thinking. Make sure you emphasise that your thinking is joined-up, as it implies all previous thinking was OK, but not part of a strategic plan. If you have no thoughts of your own that are worth sharing, then claim to be linking-up other people’s ideas. This ticks the box for Enabling and Facilitating – also good words to use. Consider appointing a Facilitator-Enabler for this, and create a new group to review progress and to monitor deliverables. Then create a group to review the review group. That is how momentum is maintained.
    • Safeguarding Strategy – if thinking about a Safeguarding Strategy, then

    [NB: this entire section has been redacted in full by the Archbishops’ Council and Secretary General – please scroll down to Transformation.]

     

    • Transformation –for when mere change just won’t cut it. Nobody ever mastered strategy by worrying about incremental change or orderly progress. You can’t achieve transformation without vision. The great visionaries of the past all dared to dream. There are many recent Vision Statements to draw upon from in the Church of England, and they’re beacons for us all. (Ed. Do you mean these reports and strategy documents are all on the bonfire?)
    • Ambition – a tricky word for those in the Church of England’s Talent Pipeline and studying on the mini-MBA course (you may prefer ‘vocation’?). Either way, start by setting this out in the broadest terms imaginable. Don’t set limits or impose constraints. These can be added in much, much later, in the Operational Phase. Your job is to make the asks, not provide the answers. If you have appointed a Facilitator-Enabler, as suggested, then you are no longer providing answers or results in any case. Your role is to ask the questions and review progress.
    • Digital and Social Media – a vital ingredient of all strategy. There is virtually nothing that social media and digital solutions cannot enable. You can reach limitless numbers of people without spending too much time and money, except of course on more IT and Comms staff in Diocesan HQ. Your strategy will not be complete without a short paragraph acknowledging the transformative power of digital and social media. Again, use broad strokes. Your role is to embrace this world, not explain how it might be effective.
    • Leadership – no strategy can succeed without it. Setting out the strategy is the ultimate expression of leadership. In the unlikely event that your strategy fails, point to the absence of leadership in laity and clergy. Remember that rather like strap-lines, it will repay you handsomely to use a self-contradicting phrase that encapsulates your leadership style. A favourite is ‘Servant-Leader’, as it is easy to pose for photos doing servant-like things (e.g., put your back into planting a commemorative tree, or hold tea towel for a few minutes the next time you are at a parish lunch). But obviously, you are still The Leader, and you have no accountability to your colleagues. They have no employment rights. And the laity and the clergy won’t be allowed to scrutinise or appraise you. The good thing about strategy in the Church of England is that it is not a democracy, and they can’t get rid of your governance and leadership if they don’t agree with it. In some respects, setting strategy, goals and vision in the Church is more like being the sole ruler of a one party state. Enjoy.

    How Can I Operationalise My Strategy?

    Hand the PowerPoint assignment to someone subordinate and ask them to make it happen. Don’t try to tell them how. That’s their job. You’re strategic. Invite someone who works for you to follow up much later with “detailed operational guidance”. Ask them to link it to your strategy, wherever possible.

    If the programme fails, it’s because people didn’t understand the strategy, lacked the management skill to operationalise it, chose not to buy into it, clung to vested interests or failed to read the guidance over the bank holiday. Often, it’s a combination of the above. Or the laity and clergy are to blame, as they failed to keep pace, or preferred to continue without your vision. Either way, it’s not your problem.

    How Will I Know if My Strategy is Working?

    The success of every strategy is judged by history. The wise strategist will put as much distance as possible between themselves and history to give their strategy a fighting chance.

    Never promise that your strategy will bear fruit while you’re in a position to be accountable. Make sure the planning horizons of your strategy (if any) are slightly longer than the life expectancy of your current role. Set your heart on a bigger, better diocese or cathedral in the future, and work backwards from that point. If you are only a Suffragan or Area Bishop, it is usually a good idea to volunteer to lead and implement the strategy. When it is not working, it is easier for the Diocesan Bishop to move you on, meaning they can start again from scratch with a new vision, and blame the fact that you were called to a new role on the implementation failure.

    Can You Ever Have Too Much Strategy?

    If you need to ask this, you should not be in the Talent Pipeline. Non-strategists concentrate on the failures of the past and try and avoid repeating mistakes. These people are egg-head analysts, and are not persuaded by vision.

    Strategy depends on endless repetition. Consider what state the Church of England would be in were it not for your endless reforms and transforming vision. The true strategist constantly builds on their own success, as defined by themselves. Remember, your role is to go forwards, not backwards, and not to get distracted by the direction of travel. The point of going forward is to keep moving. The destination is open-ended.

    Assessment:

    The course is assessed by your response in the boxes below. Please note, we do not accept essays, attachments, citations or any secondary analysis drawn from academic literature or case studies you may deem relevant.

    Write your proposed Strap-line [3 words, max].

     

     

    Set out your strategic goals, and the resources to achieve these ends [20 words, max.].

     

     

    Describe your distinctive leadership contribution and style as related to your vocation and formation as part of the whole Baptised People of God [10 words, max.].