A Window on the World

I spent three years in Jackson, Mississippi from 1977-80 as the manager of one of our family’s production plants. That was less than 15 years from the civil rights battles of the 60’s.  In the Jackson Jewish community you heard stories about the few courageous souls to stood up for justice and a muffled acknowledgment that most had done little. In Jackson, the cost of courage was real. The rabbi, Perry Nussbaum, had taken a stand for civil rights. In 1967 the synagogue and his home were bombed.

Some people, like Rabbi Nussbaum, have the courage to stand and be counted.  Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel walked arm-in-arm with Dr. Martin Luther King in Selma. This is what courage looked like.  I heard that Heschel insisted that his office at the Jewish Theological Seminary in NYC have a window that looked out over Harlem. He wanted to ensure he was not cut off from the world.

When I saw the riots in downtown Baltimore last month my first thought turned to Beth Am Israel, the only Conservative Congregation in the inner city of Baltimore. I asked some colleagues if they had heard anything from Rabbi Daniel Burg. They said no.

Then one offered, “Whatever happens in the crisis you can be sure that Rabbi Burg will be there the day after to help rally the community like a modern-day Heschel.”

Crisis in Baltimore

So I went to do some research. The Times of Israel reported:

Burg’s 93-year-old synagogue was once in the center of the main Jewish neighborhood – before most of the community moved further north toward the city’s borders and the suburbs. Now, Burg’s synagogue is the only permanently active Jewish institution in Reservoir Hill. Burg and his congregants are committed to remaining deeply involved in the neighborhood, the surrounding community, and Baltimore City. His congregants, he says, were very aware of recent cases of police violence against young black men – even months before fellow west Baltimorean Freddie Gray was taken into a police van and emerged an hour later with multiple breaks to his spine, paralyzed and comatose.
“Since Freddie Gray was killed, the conversations here have become more pointed and there is deep concern and consternation about the current state of race relations in this town and about the lack of trust between law enforcement and the civilian population,” Burg said.“On Shabbat after services, I walked down and joined a few congregants who joined a group from Jews United for Justice, and we had a Shabbat prayer experience together. Then we joined the protests at the Western District [police] headquarters where Freddie Gray had been, and walked through west Baltimore in what in my experience was a very peaceful demonstration. “

What the Times article demonstrates is that Rabbi Burg and his community have a “window on the world.” They have an external focus that looks beyond their walls. They look for opportunities for community programs and partners. They helped create a playground for the neighborhood partnering with the Baltimore Ravens. They worked with local groups to create a community garden. In the wake of the crisis the garden was damaged.

Rabbis Nussbaum and Heschel could affirm that having a “window on the world” can be dangerous. 

In Burg’s neighborhood, windows were smashed. Blocks away, protesters burned a CVS drug store and looted local stores.
 “My job first and foremost is to [take care of] my congregation, but our values, mission and vision as a synagogue is to be accountable to and in a relationship with our neighborhood in Reservoir Hill and to Baltimore City. [We try] to capitalize on the opportunities that come at the nexus of history and geography that is a 93-year-old synagogue building in a majority African-American neighborhood,” Burg explained. “In that sense I serve as a community leader, a faith leader. So today [Tuesday] I was out in west Baltimore helping with the cleanup, and working with our partners leading prayer services.”
Burg called on his congregants – and others – “to think about ourselves as part of this community and this city, and on a day like today, not just our neighborhood – Reservoir Hill. The more that we can do that, the more that we can build bridges,”That is what you see when you have a window on the world.

A Mission Bigger than Ourselves

 Rabbi Daniel Burg spoke to the Torah’s mandate of piku’ach nefesh, that we are compelled to act if by doing so we might save a life. I believe that “Prophetic Judaism” challenges the status quo. It forces the community to see. It helps them have a window to Gods will. A commitment to social justice helps Beth Am’s neighbors. It also, I believe, helps Beth Am. A commitment to social justice and opportunities for hands-on social action (Heschel called marching “praying with his feet”)  creates a mission that is bigger than just sustaining the congregation. It gives people a chance to connect to a higher purpose. That is an idea as old as Abraham.

Purpose driven congregations attract members and potential leaders. We find that “thriving congregations” connect Jewish learning, Jewish prayer and prophetic social justice. This is more than an annual mitzvah day or a teen trip to Washington. By weaving the three elements it creates a critical mass of commitment to see the right and to respond to what is called for.

I learned on my visit to Beth Am that this commitment to social justice existed before Rabbi Burg arrived there, but he has built on it. Some congregations are consumed by internal politics rivalries and day-to-day operations. Beth Am had a vision to be in a relationship with their neighborhood in Reservoir Hill and with Baltimore City.  Rabbi Burg has kept his window open and encouraged others too look out of their windows. In the process of helping to transform the Reservoir Hill District I imagine that many of Beth Am’s leaders have been personally transformed. When the crisis came they did not have to break down the walls that separated them from other community leaders. They found that the doors of the community were open to them. 

Programming for Today’s Jewish Audience

In the New York Times on May 11, 2015, Dave Itzkoff wrote, “David Letterman’s departure is in some ways the end of an era in late night television. If Mr. Letterman represented an era when a late-night show was a comprehensive end-of-day viewing experience, meant to be watched in a post-twilight setting for an hour (or until you fell asleep), the coming age is fragmented by technology, designed for online virality, unstructured and unmoored from time slots.”

Changing Expectations for Viewers

Itzkoff continued, “What is going away is the expectation viewers will watch these programs in close to their entirety, or even sequentially. And future shows will abandon the familiar, rhythmic tempo of late-night altogether.” It seems to me that Next Generation watches things when they want to, on the device they want to and where they want to. Observers report they have a short attention span. Program developers may find they are just ‘one click away from oblivion.’

We are all too familiar with the disruptive impact of generational changes fueled by economic and technological changes. How do these changes impact the attitudes of the next generation for synagogue’s engagement and or membership? 

Kathy Elias has noted that most synagogue leaders are what she refers to as “structuralists.” They want people to join up and attend key programs at set times, within the boundaries of their culture and within their synagogue walls (structures). In today’s environment, prospective members are often what Elias calls “experientialists.” They may feel they can get Jewish content and experience from a wide array of providers when they want it, where they want it and how they want it. They also have learned that they can get much of this for little or no cost.

Outside of the walls of Jewish institutions (synagogues, federations, seminaries, denominations) the world is changing. Leaders within their institutions must deal with major paradigms shifts. They are challenged to see the world with new lenses. Rabbi Hayim Herring writes about this shift in “Educating Rabbis for Jews Without Borders”:

In the 21st Century, we can now clearly see a new paradigm of a world characterized by human networks that can swell swiftly to upend governments or fund game-changing products; an unbounded start-it-yourself and share-it-with-others ethos; and, heightened influence of lone individuals, ephemeral crowds, and enduring social networks. Individuals have the ability to span cultures, geography and time, and relatively small groups have the means to violently shift national borders.

He then shifts to explain the impact on Jewish institutions:

The American Jewish community has naturally been affected by this new zeitgeist. For many Jews today, the beliefs, behaviors and values that animated the Jewish community have lost their former power. Beliefs don’t hold people. Rather, people hold beliefs – and may discard them when they no longer “work,” customize “new traditions,” or design Jewish rituals drawn from multiple faith traditions. As a result, we might call the Jewish community of the United States, “Jews Without Borders.”

The New Program Scheduling Paradigm

A new paradigm? While many of the changes have been going on for last 20 years, change has accelerated and the accumulated force of these disruptions has created a new reality. How do we create programs in a world where audiences have become “unmoored” from such programming staples as late-night TV? How do we engage current and prospective members when they have a finger on the mouse or the remote control and are ready to turn their attention elsewhere within a moment’s notice? How do congregations program and communicate in a world where the basic assumptions they have operated on have a smaller and more fragmented audience? Here are some programming guides:

• Volunteer activity will be more episodic. More people will opt for a short projects or task forces.

•  Programs will need to be able to stand on their own. Leaders can’t assume their participation will be sequential.

• Resources need to be accessible when people need them. We may have fewer people that attend a live Sulam webinar but many who access these materials later.

• Programs will need to have shorter time frames- more mini-series where people can jump in for a limited time period.

• There need to be multiple locations where one can connect to the community (multiple service rooms, home Shabbat networks, book groups, service streaming, sermon podcasts that can be played as you walk through the park etc.)

• Programs need to show how the synagogue connects members to the world outside the synagogue’s walls through hands on social action.

• Leaders will welcome programs from the bottom up. The synagogue or Jewish organization may tap the knowledge and skills of groups and simply help them convene. Let them go with their passions within a supportive framework.

• Leaders have to create a strong brand experience. HBO’s president understands that not all of his subscribers will love boxing or political comedian Bill Maher.  He just needs subscribers to find among all of the programs enough perceived value to sustain his monthly fee.

• Leaders can welcome programs from across the community. Not everyone can afford to have the program breadth of HBO (from comedy to boxing) . Some need to find ways to collaborate and partner to program with others across  borders.

• Programs will have to show how they welcome different types of people into the walls of the synagogue (LGBT, singles, interfaith, financially struggling, etc.).

• Programs have to appeal to people’s interest in learning, social action and spirituality. Programs need to weave different elements together to cluster enough value for an experience.

• Programs are not enough. Participants need some kind of relationship building experience with others.  They need to make friends.\

• Participants have to believe in the synagogue's brand. HBO’s subscribers believe in HBO’s brand. Synagogue participants need to believe in the vision (brand) of the synagogue.

Conclusion

Television programs and synagogues are both experiencing disruptive change. Some leaders choose to ignore the paradigm changes and continue to do what they have been doing. Others realize that there is a new generation with their own personal playlist. These synagogue leaders are hoping to get some of their best ideas and programs on these playlists. They want to be a brand that wins the hearts, minds and loyalties of their audience. It’s not an easy process but having a sense of urgency about the need for change is the first step.

To Survive, To Strive, and To Thrive

As I prepared for a workshop recently with Shir Chadash, a Conservative congregation in New Orleans, I watched Spike Lee’s HBO documentary “When the Levees Broke.” The people interviewed loved New Orleans – its history, its music, its food, its families. Many have had a multi-generational commitment to the city. I came away from the film with a powerful sense of what was lost.

When I arrived at Shir Chadash, I learned that over 25% of their members left after the flood. Older members decided not to rebuild. Some moved near their children. Many members had to leave when their companies relocated.

A few years ago, I heard Rabbi Harold Kushner speak about his book on Job. He told a story about discussing his book in post-Katrina New Orleans. He was asked where God was in the storm. He replied that God was not in the storm. Storms are governed by the laws of nature. God was in the hearts of the first responders. Religious faith and practice is not an amulet that provides protection from the world but it does provide a framework for building a purposeful life the day after.

Megillah reading at Shir Chadash - Purim 5775

So as I traveled to Shir Chadash, I was looking for how Jewish life was being built “the day after.” I wanted to see what it looked like to survive – and thrive – as a synagogue in the 21st century.

I asked some of the leaders of Shir Chadash to complete a new assessment we created called “18 Characteristics of a Thriving Congregation.” The assessment looks into how a congregation’s clergy and lay leadership create a shared mission, a welcoming culture, meaningful Jewish learning, prayer, and connected community. I had some initial, interesting responses from the Shir Chadash team.  But I was most struck by what I noticed informally over the weekend, which were clear examples of what I call “sightings of thriving.”

•  Spirited Singing: At the Friday night Kabbalat Shabbat service, I was impressed by the spirited singing of the rabbi and prayer leader. Not everyone was able to sing with such abandon but overall the room was lifted up by enthusiasm.
• Welcoming Guests: The kehilla leaders took it upon themselves to hold a Shabbat dinner for me with the board. Everyone wore name tags and were great about coming up to me. We played Jewish geography and got to know each other. On Saturday morning I was given an Aliyah. I thought, I thought, “This is what welcoming looks like.”
• Connecting Torah to the Modern World: I walked away from this service with two divrei Torah that boldly and creatively took traditional Torah values and “made the connection” to our times:
• The rabbi gave a very creative sermon about the dangers of Jews criticizing each other for having multiple allegiances. He reminded us that throughout history governments have tried to give Jews a litmus test to prove their loyalty. There is nothing wrong, he argued, with having multiple allegiances. The rabbi showed how he might make the connection between Jewish history to a burning issue of the day. 
•  Next I heard a d’var Torah by the bat mitzvah. While we had just listened to a Torah reading about animal sacrifices, she helped us look at the text in a new way. In Biblical times, she noted, sacrificing an animal was a huge economic sacrifice. Paying for an animal would not be such a big deal for us today. Today our most valuable asset is our time. She asked us to consider what time commitments we are willing to make for our Jewish community. WOW. The issue of how we carve out sacred time is one of the pillars of the Sulam for Emerging Leaders program. I often have to work hard to help rabbis make this point with their participants. This 13 year old girl “nailed it.” She had learned to make the connection.
• Building Relationships: At Kiddush lunch people came up to me and introduced themselves.  Rabbi Linden took the initiative to introduce me to the Membership Chair, “I think he would like to talk to you,” he said. Rabbi Linden was helping us to connect.
• Welcoming Young Families: I sat with several young couples and was surrounded by babies in high chairs and kids zigging and zagging around us. One of the young couples told me that this is a place that welcomes young families. I could see that the generations really enjoy each other.
• Taking Care of the Little Things: When I arrived at the conference room the executive director was there early, making sure that everything was in order.  I in turn was able to focus on my pre-workshop preparation knowing that all of the logistics were taken care of. This is what it looks like to care for and honor a guest. Why do I make such a big deal about such mundane details?  Judaism emphasizes the importance of practicing the little things that build a covenantal and caring community. I learned a great deal about a leadership culture by observing how they treated me.
• Leaders with a Shared Commitment: On Sunday we conducted a leadership development workshop for the board. They have around 30 members. Usual attendance is about 60%. In some dysfunctional cultures it can be less than a third. On Sunday we had over 85%. This is what shared commitment looks like. 
• Going Beyond the Synagogue Walls: I learned that the congregation holds Friday services in a member’s home in the uptown neighborhood where many members live.  Shir Chadash has a vision of a portable mishkan that can move out to the people. This is what you see when leaders  strive to meet people “where they are.”

Shir Chadash:  A New Song

Ten years after Katrina, Shir Chadash certainly has a new song. They have added a net of about 20 new members a year for the last 5 years. They have been able to create a narrative of growth in a community with memories of devastation and loss. These members have been welcomed into a community that seems committed to weaving new meaning between their Torah and the lives of their members. They have had the chance to participate in a caring, connected community clearly united in striving for continuous learning and improvement. That is more than surviving, I thought. “This is what thriving looks like.”

Accountable for Building Sacred Community

I have always wondered about the narrative that precedes and follows the incident of the Golden Calf.  In Parashiot Terumah and Tetzaveh we find all of these instructions about how to build the ritual objects of the tabernacle. In modern terms, we are building the hardware for the system.  We learn about the crafting of the Menorah. We hear rich detail about the cloth and the bells around the hem of the priest’s garments. 

In Parashat Ki Tissa we learn that Moses has gone up to the mountain to get the law that will help provide the ethical software to bring the holy space to life. At the base of the mountain, however, the people are falling apart. They are unraveling. The people get anxious when Moses is gone for 40 days. Moses’ brother, Aaron, wants harmony. He is a people pleaser. He wants to quell their unrest. He agrees to make a golden calf to provide a tangible object of their lost leader (God and/or Moses). Aaron creates a mold to hold the outpouring of their gifts of fear. They react to his gesture by throwing their gold into the fire.

Moses reacts as well. When he hears the singing and sees the dancing around the calf he breaks the tablets of the law. The people are rebuked. Moses and God step back from the precipice and process the event.

When confronted by Moses, Aaron tries to remove his fingerprints from the crime scene.  On the retelling of the story, Aaron says that the people just threw their gold into the fire and “out came the calf.” He does not admit that he framed the situation, used his craft and made the mold.

God assures Moses that he will temper his anger. He will be “compassionate, gracious and slow to anger” (Ex 34:6). He commits that he will “go in their midst,” despite this betrayal, as long as they uphold the covenant (34:10-11). Good news!

Then, surprisingly, in the next parasha after Ki Tissa (Vayakhel), we pick up more details about the building of the tabernacle. “Why the bookend parashiot about building the tabernacle?” I wonder. My rabbi suggested, that as often happens, the texts may not be linear. He explains how the twelfth-century French biblical commentator Rashi argued for a different timeline:

Rashi’s Timeline

• The people mold a Golden Calf in Ki Tissa.
• God chooses to be compassionate. The people were weak and got poor direction.
• Now God provides detailed instructions for the structure in Parashiot T’rumah and Tetzaveh.
• In Parashat Vayakhel, God calls on the talents and gifts of the people.
• God chooses gifted leaders like Betzalel to build the tabernacle according to a plan.
• We hear about how the clothing of priests were constructed and how the tabernacle is built. We learn how the plan was completed.

The Sulam Accountability Plan

This now makes sense to me. In our Sulam Accountability Plan we follow a similar timeline from reflection to action:

Reflection

• We make an honest assessment about the ways we have failed to be a team with shared values, covenants and agreements. In the past we may have operated with unclear roles and expectations (like the Israelites in the story) which may have led to conflict. In the past, when things went badly leaders may have thrown up their hands and said, “We don’t know how our board became so contentious and dysfunctional” (i.e. “Out came the calf.”)

Action

• We design a set of structures that will help us move toward sacred team work.
• We call upon the gifts of all of those at the table to comment on what they expect from themselves and each other.
• We create a board expectations guide and then put these principles into action.  
• We conduct a self-assessment about how leaders are addressing these expectations.
• We make the expectations a living covenant by referring to them throughout the year.
• We provide them to the nominating committee so that we can ensure that new leaders are also committing to the covenantal board values.

Molding Sacred Teams

Sulam leaders take responsibility to mold their leaders into a team through reflection and action. In this series of stories we can contrast the leadership of Aaron and Betzalel. When the people complain, Aaron just reacts and gives in. Like many of our leaders, he enables the people. He buys some peace for a few hours. The cost for the people and their mission is high. In Rashi’s reading, Betzalel gets a chance to harness the gifts of the people and put them to work in an intentional step-by-step process. This process will allow them to contribute to the creation of sacred space for a committed leadership - a place God will dwell.

Leaders Help Teams Learn to Count on Each Other

In his recent book Leaders Eat Last, Simon Sinek uses examples from the armed services where leaders learn to build trust by putting the welfare of others first. This high level of trust is critical for their ability to operate in stressful combat situations. Soldiers need to count on each other.  You can listen to his Ted talk on the book here: 

In his book, The 17 Laws of Teamwork, world famous management consultant, John Maxwell, lists the Law of Countability (p. 117). “Teammates must be able to count on each other. In order for me to count on you I have to know what I can expect from you and trust that you will meet those expectations consistently.”

Unfortunately many synagogues’ boards lack up-to-date board expectations that really relate to the work they do. According to United Synagogue’s Succession Survey (2012), even those synagogues that have board expectations often fail to hold people accountable for those expectations.

Many synagogues are going through challenging and stressful times. A team with a strong shared vision, values and expectations can create a circle of trust and security for leaders to be their best. According to Sinek, when people get stressed out, they produce cortisol, which impairs their health.  When leaders create communities (circles) of trust, they produce healthy chemicals. So for Sinek, team chemistry really matters. In our Sulam leadership process, we take these team-building expectations seriously.

Our Sulam Team-Building Process: Shared Expectations

• Shared Ownership: Involve the board in the creation of expectations. Expectations should be realistic. Board members are not realistically going to commit to go to daily minyan. Expectations should be fair. Each board member engages in board service in different ways. Some may be very active in social justice, others in volunteerism and some in ritual. Expectations should honor these different paths to service.
• Relevant Values: All leaders need to know what values driven leadership looks like. Leaders often talk in generalities (respectful and accountable) but do little to show what these values mean in practice.  Effective boards use their board expectations throughout the board year. When the president is recruiting people to be on the bimah or to solicit for the annual campaign, they should do it with this board covenant in hand. This is what some call “The Teachable Moment.”
• Reflective Leadership: Board members should take a self-assessment that helps them reflect on how they have progressed during the year. This will prepare them to talk to the nominating committee about their desire to continue for the next board term.
• Accountable Culture: Nominating Committees can use these categories to reflect on the performance of board members. Leaders are shaped by what they focus on. In terms of Sulam Leadership strategies, it is inconceivable that the nominating committee would not have board expectations in hand when they recruit leaders on the way in or at moments of assessment.
• Supportive Colleagues: Teammates help one another. Some synagogues train mentors to help develop new members to be more effective teammates.

The Sulam of Service

In Sulam Leadership we often say that we seek to be “steady in purpose, but flexible in strategy and tactics.”  We have some core values which we bring to the table and we expect kehillot to engage them:

• We expect each congregation to come up with their own board expectations. We are not neutral on the importance of expectations. We expect them to be created.
• We are open as to how the board engages with their expectations. We are not neutral on the need to engage with them. We expect an on-going process.
• We are open on the many different places people begin when they join the board. We are not neutral on the direction. We expect growth.

“Sulam” is Hebrew for “ladder”. A leader may come into leadership at different rungs of the ladder. What is important for us is that a leader role models a commitment to continuous improvement. It doesn’t matter if a leader has the same Torah study practice as I do. It is important that they have some aspiration to learn more. John Maxwell argues that effective business team members need a personal growth plan. If this in true in business, how much more relevant is a personal growth plan for leaders of a synagogue?

In our Sulam for Emerging Leaders program we end the 6 session program by helping emerging leaders create a Sulam Personal Growth Plan. If this is important for emerging leaders, how much more important is it for leaders at the top of the organization? Judaism argues that the higher your authority, the greater your responsibility. In our Sulam for Strategic Planners survey, we found that approximately 17% of the respondents strongly agreed that they would like support in order to increase their level of Jewish learning. When a board creates the expectations that they will be a learning and growing team, they send a powerful message to emerging leaders and aspiring members. We are all committed to growth.

Synagogue leaders can learn valuable lesson from high functioning teams. Board expectations provide one example of shared values. We encourage leaders to learn about the personality preference and management styles of their teammates.  We encourage leaders to have Briefing Books on key facts they need to know. They should understand the vision and strategies for the congregation. While just one element of a successful team, board expectations lay the foundation for other steps along the way to a cohesive and accountable team.

Getting Down to the Business of Teambuilding

“Who is Wise? The one who learns from everyone.”  (Mishnah Avot 4:1)

Over the years I have been consciously trying to build a sense of teamwork among synagogue leadership teams. I have tried to identify synagogues and leadership groups ready to make an investment in leadership development. My first book was called Byachad - “Working Together.” I even named my blog “Byachad Leadership.” Despite all this, though, I have often been put on the defensive by leaders who want to know why I am wasting time on teambuilding. They know I was once a businessman. They want to see me “get down to business.”

At Alban Institute we emphasized the importance of action and reflection. Leaders should be encouraged to try new practices and then take time to reflect on what they learn. With new learning in hand they step forward with new initiatives. In The Fifth Discipline, Peter Senge describes this process as the “wheel of learning.”  The balanced leader would take time to reflect on past experiences, connect that learning to the organization’s environment and challenges, decide on a course of action, and do something- take action. This rotation would be followed by additional reflection.  In my early consulting career, teambuilding tool kit in hand, I ventured out to a Long Island congregation. As I began to review the agenda, one leader looked at the topic of reflection and said to his friend, “Reflection?  We brought this guy from Ohio for reflection?”

In a recent article, “Why Some Teams Are Smarter than Others,” management scientists argued that teams with emotional intelligence performed better than those who have participants with greater individual IQs. The authors write, “The most important ingredients for a smart team remained constant regardless of its mode of interaction: members, who communicated a lot, participated equally and possessed good emotion-reading skills.”

Sure, smart problem solving is important. Financial and other analytic tools are critical.  How we go about doing things can be equally important. Three qualities of emotionally intelligent (SMART) teams were:

• They help leaders to communicate
• They strive for more equal participation
• They learn to read each other's emotions

In USCJ’s Sulam for Current Leaders curriculum we build in text study, case study, interactive exercises and readings to increase the relational capacity of leaders. We hope that an outcome of this work will be new team strengthening practices.

The following are some examples of Sulam team building practices that seek to nurture SMART teams:

Strive for more equal participation - let them be heard:

• Put leaders in pairs to tell their stories to a partner practicing active listening
• Create board practices that ensure key committees all have access to share their goals
• Create meeting designs that allow everyone to speak once before others speak twice
• Teach brainstorming techniques where all voices count

Help leaders to communicate - encourage leaders to share vision, values, strategies and goals:

• Invite the executive committee to describe the kind of leadership community they seek to become. I press them to describe this community in rich details so that they might imagine what leaders would be doing, saying and feeling. 
• Give leaders an assessment in which they reflect on their commitment to board expectations and share their commitments.
• Assess and share their experience about their committee work.

Learn to read the emotions of others:

• Encourage leaders to take assessment on personalities that would help them see some of their preferences in both paid and volunteer work. Through self-reflection, leaders will be better able to read the preferences of others.
• Help leaders diagnose their approach to conflict so they can better read the approaches of others.
• Give leaders tools to understand why they find some leaders difficult to manage and try to increase their coping skills

Without a Vision of Teamwork, Leadership Development Perishes

As we approach a leadership community we try to engage them in a leadership vision activity. When leaders are invited to dream about the kind of community they seek, they often talk about collaboration and teamwork but do not have a firm understanding of how either can be successfully accomplished. In order to engage leaders in SMART team building, they need to affirm that leadership teamwork is part of their vision. They need to reflect on their practices and look at the gap between their vision and their practice.

Most leaders focus on the next 3 months, not the next 3-5 years. Few look at the long-term goals of developing leaders. Leaders can be defensive about their current practices. They may resist outside programs or outside consultants that challenge them to reflect on what they are doing. Without leadership vision, the will to improve leadership practices perishes. It withers under the force of resistance from those who feel leadership development is a waste of time.

If new ideas are seen as coming from a few leaders or outsiders the change agents can become the lightening rod of resistance. Our Sulam exercises were designed to help create shared vision, shared goals, and shared sense of accountability. The key word is shared. By doing the same exercises and using a common vocabulary, individuals begin to think as a “we” rather than an “I”. We have worked on slowly increasing teamwork intelligence and it has laid a foundation for better work. These Sulam principles have been at work whether we were building teamwork in a planning committee, an emerging leaders study group or an executive committee.

The Quick Fix

Despite the success of Sulam programs, I am constantly pressured by certain lay leaders to cut back all this teambuilding “stuff.” “Bob,” they ask me, “can’t we do this in 30 minutes? Why do we need 60 minutes? How important is this? Our leaders want to ‘get down to business’ and ‘”fix the board.’” When leaders show up late and it looks like we will have less meeting time than we planned, the first things these leaders want to cut out is the segment on teambuilding so they can get down to what matters.

Sulam Leadership’s approach is informed by the contrast between technical change and adaptive change. A surgeon may create technical change when they fix a broken arm. Their personal IQ and expert skill are by far the most important factors. The patient is passive. In contrast, when a person goes to see a nutritionist they understand that they need to work together. The nutritionist must provide information and support but the client needs to develop a new practices. The client needs to work with the nutritionist on goal setting and the rate of change. They both need to disclose what they are experiencing and give each other feedback in order for adaptive change to occur.

Who is wise? The one who learns from everyone.  (Mishnah Avot 4:1)

Sulam for Current Leaders negotiates with board leaders to give up three hours of board meeting time over a 12 month period. These three hours require the board to allocate about 15-20% of their time for leadership development for one year. Congregational leaders learn to share (disclose) what they are learning and give us feedback on our programs. Adaptive change requires Sulam Leadership and congregations to learn something together.

Judaism is very process oriented. It cares a great deal about how things are done. If leaders are going to speak with authenticity and integrity they should be challenged to grow in learning and in service. They should be judged by how they develop and nurture emerging leaders so that leadership can continue l’dor v’dor, from generation to generation. What modern business research is showing is that leaders who understand and care for each other, strive for participation, and communicate their vision and goals do better. Teamwork is not just good Judaism, it’s good business. The next time one of our leaders is challenged for taking time for teambuilding study and reflection, hopefully they will remember to say, “I was just trying to get down to business.”

Pursuing Peace

Pursuing Peace- Creating a Framework for Engagement

"Depart from evil and do good, seek peace and pursue it" (Psalms 34:15)

My rabbi began his High Holiday speech by saying, "This has been a very difficult summer for most of us." Of course, he was talking about Israel. He talked about what it was like to live under the tension of rockets. We all remember when major airlines refused to fly to Tel Aviv. We also saw the incredible instability of the Middle East- Egypt, Syria, Libya, Iraq. I was in Paris in July this summer when the anti-Israel demonstrations were going on. I saw police cars parked in front of synagogues. In every bistro in Paris the TV sets were showing pictures of Gaza. I walked by signs that explained that this was a corner where Jewish children had been gathered up for transport. I felt their vulnerability. It felt vulnerable again.

For those of us that make a hobby of following the politics of the region it is extraordinarily difficult to keep up with the complex weave of events. In Israel, these are not just intellectual issues- they are existential issues. Many people want to pressure Israel to take a leap for peace because they think that the leap could make things better or make things right.  While a Palestinian state on the West Bank might provide a breakthrough that allows Israel to gain real sustainable peace this risky leap could put a Hamas oriented regime 10 miles from major population centers.

Tal Becker

Recently I heard a presentation from Israel peace negotiator, Dr. Tal Becker. Becker is a senior policy advisor to Israel's Minister of Foreign Affairs and was a lead negotiator in the Annapolis peace talks. He described three main possible paths going forward: "Meltdown, Muddle Through and Miracle." Becker said that 80% of Israelis still hope for a two state solution. At the same time most Israelis don’t believe a miracle is possible. So this summer rockets flared. Children had nightmares of terrorist coming out of the ground to snatch them. Although parents try to comfort their children, when they talked with their friends they were uneasy. They saw no miracle path to comfort-just ongoing tension as they muddle through and hope to avoid a meltdown.

My rabbi noted that many of his colleagues had chosen not to speak about Israel for the High Holidays. They were uncomfortable. It was just too divisive. He disclosed that he had lost some members who felt he had not been strident enough in supporting Israel. A few had quit because he had not condemned Israel enough for the war in Gaza. In my work I see more rabbis choosing to avoid this topic. While the connection to Israel is a core pillar of Conservative Judaism, many rabbis have chosen to flee the topic.

My rabbi decided, despite the risks, that it would be "rabbinic malpractice" not to speak about Israel during these High Holiday. He also announced a series of programs about Israel to continue the conversation. As I listened to his High Holiday sermon I became uncomfortable. I am a co-chair of the Israel Zionist Book Group at the synagogue. It was time to pick a book. I read several books this summer. Each expanded my knowledge but they were too polarizing. I stand in the middle of most of these debates. I pride myself in wanting to understand both sides of an issue. With passions high, I just did not want to make a choice. In the end, I decided it would be Zionist malpractice not to pick a book. We are meeting November 3 to read Turning David into Goliath.

Tal Becker noted that Israelis audiences have become used to living with unresolved issues. In contrast he noted he has found that American audiences always wanted to be left with some hope. While his analysis was not particularly hopeful, his stance provided me with some hope. He talked about how important it was to listen and empathize with the other parties' story and not to shout over it. It does not pay to ask Palestinians to "get over" their sense of loss from the events of 1948 anymore than it is reasonable to ask Israelis to forget 3000 years of persecution or the Holocaust. He said the effective diplomat needs to imagine how he would write his adversaries' "victory speech." Negotiators need to be able to see how their plan might provide a plausible path for the other side to accept a settlement.

I encourage leaders have to balance their stance of advocacy (winning the case) and inquiry (learning about the situation).In practice, I lean to the pole of inquiry, or as Steven Covey argues, to "seek first to understand before being understood."

Becker noted that the Torah challenges us to "seek" peace, not to "achieve" peace. We are all challenged to be seekers of peace, even if - and when - the issues around the achievement of peace may be out of our control.

Peace, Becker argued, came when boundaries and resources were negotiated. The agreements were not made by people who loved or trusted each other. The peace accords created a structure that allowed the better actors in both communities to evolve. By taking a balanced stance for engaging Israel, my rabbi created a structure where members could stay engaged, continue to learn, and maintain some hope. He encouraged me to seize the opportunity to step up and engage my book group. That was an action within my control.