The Servant

by James C Hunter

  A few monks were beginning to file in and take their seats.

  The teacher’s last words that early morning were, “The good news is that when we are committed to love God and others and continue to work at it, positive feelings will eventually flow from positive behaviors, something sociologists call praxis. Let’s talk about this more tomorrow morning.”

  EVEN BEFORE THE CLOCK finished chiming, the teacher announced, “Let’s switch gears a bit today and talk about the importance of creating a healthy environment for people to grow and thrive. I would like to begin by using the metaphor of planting a garden. Nature clearly shows us the importance of creating a healthy environment if we want growth to occur. Does anyone here do any gardening?”

  The coach waved her hand. “I’ve got a beautiful little garden right behind my condo. I’ve been gardening for over twenty years—with a real green thumb, if I do say so myself.”

  “Chris, if I knew nothing whatsoever about gardening, how would you tell me to go about growing a healthy garden?”

  “Oh, that’s simple. I would tell you to find a piece of land that gets lots of sun and turn over the soil to get it prepared for the planting. Then you would need to plant the seeds, water them, fertilize them, keep the pests away, and weed the garden periodically.”

  “Now if I do all that you suggest, Chris, what can I expect will happen?”

  “Well, in due time you will see some growth and soon the fruit will come.”

  Simeon pressed further, asking, “When the fruit comes, would it be accurate to say that I caused the growth to occur?”

  “Sure,” she answered quickly. Then she paused and reconsidered for a moment before adding, “Well, you didn’t exactly cause the growth to occur, but you helped it along.”

  “Exactly,” the teacher affirmed. “We don’t make things grow in nature. Our Creator is still the only one who knows how a little acorn stuck into the ground one day becomes a large and shady oak tree. About the best we can do is create the proper conditions for growth to occur. This principle is especially true with human beings. Can anyone think of any examples to illustrate this?”

  “As a birthing nurse,” Kim said, “I can tell you that for a child to develop normally during the nine-month gestation period, a healthy environment within the womb is essential—in fact, conditions must be near perfect. If not, the baby will generally miscarry or some other serious complications may arise.”

  My roommate jumped in next with, “And once born, I’ve learned, a child needs a healthy, loving environment to develop properly. I can remember reading about the orphanages created under that dictator in Romania, Nicolae Ceausescu, where babies were literally ware-housed with little and sometimes no human contact. Did any of you see the film clips of those babies? Do you know what happens to babies deprived of any human contact?”

  “They die,” the nurse softly replied.

  “That’s right, they literally shrivel up and die,” the preacher agreed, shaking his head.

  After a moment or two the principal said, “I’ve been working in the public school system for many years and you can pretty well pick out the kids who come from a lousy home environment. Our prisons are filled with people who grew up in sick environments. I’m convinced that proper parenting and creating a healthy home environment are essential to a healthy society. And I am becoming convinced that the answer to crime has very little to do with what happens in the electric chair and much more with what happens in the high chair. When it comes to the importance of creating a healthy environment, I’m with you all the way, Simeon. You’re preaching to the choir on this one!”

  The nurse added, “This principle is even true in medicine. People sometimes mistakenly believe that they are going to the doctor to be healed. Yet in spite of all the advances in the medical field, no doctor has ever mended a broken bone or caused a wound to heal. The best that medicine and doctors can do is provide assistance in the form of medications and therapies, create the proper conditions, if you will, for the body to heal itself.”

  “Come to think of it,” I jumped in, “my wife, The Shrink, has told me on a number of occasions that therapists do not have the power to heal their patients. She says new therapists often believe they can heal people, but with experience they usually discover they do not possess that power. What a good therapist can do is to create a healthy environment for the client by establishing a loving relationship based on respect, trust, acceptance, and commitment. Once a therapeutic and safe environment is created, patients can then begin the process of healing themselves.”

  “Wonderful, wonderful examples!” the teacher exclaimed. “I hope it’s becoming clear that creating a healthy environment is very important for healthy growth to occur, especially with human beings. The garden metaphor is one I have used for as long as I can remember with whatever group that has been entrusted to my care: family, work, military, sports, community, church. To put it simply, I think of my area of influence as a garden that needs tending. As we discussed, gardens need attention and care, so I am constantly asking myself, What does my garden need? Does my garden need to be fertilized with appreciation, recognition, and praise? Does my garden need to be weeded? Do I need to have the pests removed? We all know what happens to a garden if the weeds or pests are allowed to run wild. My garden needs constant attention and I have faith that if I do my part and nurture my garden, I will get healthy fruit.”

  “And how long does it take before you see the fruit?” the coach asked.

  “Unfortunately, Chris, I’ve known many a leader who has become impatient and given up the effort before the fruit had a chance to grow. Many people want and expect fast results but the fruit only comes when it is ready. And that is exactly why commitment is so important for a leader. Imagine a farmer who tries to ‘cram for finals’ by planting his crop in late autumn hoping to get a harvest before the snow flies! The Law of the Harvest teaches that the fruit will grow, but we do not always know when the growth will occur.”

  The nurse remarked, “Another factor in determining when the fruit will ripen is the state of our relational bank accounts.”

  “What on earth is a relational bank account?” my roommate asked.

  “I learned about this metaphor while reading Stephen Covey’s best-seller The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People. We all know about financial bank accounts where we continually make deposits and withdrawals, hoping never to be overdrawn. The relational account metaphor teaches us the importance of keeping healthy relationship balances with the significant people in our lives, including those we lead. Simply put, when we meet a person for the first time, we basically have a neutral relationship account balance because we don’t know one another, we’re still kind of testing the waters. As the relationship matures, however, we make deposits and withdrawals in these imaginary accounts based on how we behave. For example, we make deposits into these accounts by being trustworthy and honest, giving people appreciation and recognition, keeping our word, being good listeners, not talking behind other people’s backs, using the simple courtesies of hello, please, thank you, I’m sorry, and so on. We make withdrawals by being unkind, discourteous, breaking our promises and commitments, backstabbing others, being poor listeners, being puffed up and arrogant, and so on.”

  The sergeant said, “So at the afternoon break yesterday, when I called my girlfriend and she hung up on me, that probably means I’m a bit overdrawn, huh?”

  “Makes sense to me, Greg!” I laughed. “With our union drive back at the plant we probably had some seriously overdrawn accounts. So what you’re saying, Kim, is it may take longer for the fruit to show up depending upon the shape of our relational bank accounts. Is that correct?”

  “For those people with whom we have established relationships, I think that would be true. For the newcomers, we generally have a clean slate from which to begin.”

  “Thank you for another beautiful metaphor that we can use here, Kim,” the teacher acknowledged. “T
his relational account idea also illustrates why we should publicly praise people and never publicly punish people. Does anyone see why?”

  The principal spoke first. “When we publicly punish someone, we obviously have embarrassed them in front of their peers and that is a huge withdrawal out of our account with them. But in addition to that, when you publicly humiliate people, you also make a withdrawal out of your relational accounts with everyone watching because public floggings are horrible to witness and people wonder, ‘When will my turn come?’ So I guess if your intent is to make lots of relational withdrawals, publicly punishing people is certainly an efficient way to use your time.”

  The coach added, “It seems to me that the same principle would be true when we publicly praise, appreciate, and recognize others. We not only make a deposit into our account with the recipient of the praise, but we also make deposits into the accounts we have with those watching. And as you’ve said before, Simeon, everyone is always watching what the leader is doing.”

  “That’s right, Chris. Everything the leader does sends a message,” Simeon replied. “Somewhere in my office I’ve got an interesting article and survey that speaks to the high regard people have for themselves and why relational withdrawals are so costly. I’ll see if I can dig it up and share it with you after the lunch break.”

  IT WAS A GORGEOUS AUTUMN AFTERNOON, so I decided to take a little stroll along the sandy cliff running parallel to the beach below. It was sunny, the temperature was in the sixties, and there was a light breeze coming in off the lake. This would ordinarily be my idea of a perfect day but I hardly noticed because my mind was conflicted.

  I was excited about the information I was gathering and the prospect of applying the principles when I returned home. At the same time, however, I felt depressed and even embarrassed as I reflected upon my past behavior and how I had been leading those entrusted to my care. What would it be like to have me for a boss? To have me for a husband? To have me for a father? To have me for a coach?

  My answers to these questions only served to make me feel worse.

  AT TWO, THE TEACHER SAID cheerfully, “I found that article and survey I told you about before lunch. It was in an old issue of Psychology Today, and I think you’ll find it interesting. The behaviorist who wrote the article says there is not an even correlation between positive and negative feedback. To put it in our ‘deposit and withdrawal’ terms, he claims that for every withdrawal you take out of your account with a person, it takes four deposits just to get back even. A four-to-one ratio!”

  “I can believe that,” the preacher responded. “My wife can tell me over and over again how much she loves me, but I can still remember the time last spring when she said I was getting too fat. Now that one really stuck with me!”

  “I can see her point though, preacher!” the sergeant jabbed.

  “Exactly, Lee,” the teacher continued. “We all tend to be pretty sensitive no matter how calm we may try to appear on the surface. To help support this claim, the article goes on to discuss a survey that was conducted to determine how realistically people view themselves. Listen to these numbers. Fully 85 percent of the general public see themselves as ‘above average.’ Asked about their ‘ability to get along with others,’ 100 percent put themselves in the top half of the population, 60 percent rate themselves in the top 10 percent, and fully 25 percent rated themselves in the top 1 percent of the population. Asked about their ‘leadership ability,’ 70 percent rated themselves in the top quartile and only 2 percent rated themselves as below average. And check out the men. When males were asked about their ‘athletic ability compared to other males,’ 60 percent rated themselves in the top quartile and only 6 percent said they were below average athletically.”

  “So what’s your point?” the sergeant asked.

  “The point to me, Greg,” the coach jumped in, “is that people generally have a high opinion of themselves. This means we should be very careful about making withdrawals out of others’ accounts because they can be very costly.”

  The teacher added, “Think of building trust in a relationship, for instance. We can spend years of effort building it and it can be lost in an instant of indiscretion.”

  “You know, here we go again,” the sergeant grumbled, his voice rising. “We’re talking about all these nice and pretty theories here in this nice and pretty setting, but some of us have to go back and face superiors who are power-oriented and who couldn’t care less about authority and upside-down triangles, let alone love, respect, and relational bank accounts. What are you supposed to do if you work for a person like that?”

  “Great question, Greg,” the teacher said, smiling. “And you are absolutely correct. Power people are generally threatened by authority people, which means it can get uncomfortable. It may even cost us our jobs. There are few places, however, where we cannot treat people with love and respect, in spite of how we are being treated.”

  “You don’t know my boss,” the sergeant insisted.

  Simeon didn’t give up. “When I was working as a business leader, I was often called upon to go into dysfunctional companies and get them turned around. One of the first things I always did in a new assignment was conduct an employee attitude survey to take the pulse of the organization. I would always collate the surveys by department and even by shift to better pinpoint the problem areas. In even the most screwed-up company with terrible survey scores, I would still always find healthy islands of apparent tranquillity in the huge sea of unrest. For example, shipping and receiving third shift, good scores; final end department second shift, good scores; computer room first shift, good scores. When I saw survey scores identifying one of these healthy areas, I would always make it my business to see what was going on in that certain department on that certain shift. And what do you think I would invariably find?”

  “A leader,” the nurse offered quietly.

  “You bet I would, Kim. In spite of the mass chaos, confusion, power politics, and other dysfunctions going on all around, I would find a leader who was taking responsibility for their little area of influence and making a difference. They couldn’t control the bigger picture but they could control how they behaved every day toward the people who had been entrusted to their care down there in the bowels of the ship.”

  “It’s funny you should use the analogy of a ship, Simeon,” I remarked. “I once had an employee tell me that employees often feel like Charlton Heston in the movie Ben Hur. Remember old Charlton Heston, chained to that oar rowing away year after year? He would hear the sounds of hurricanes and ships colliding outside, but they never even let him go up on deck for fresh air or go for a swim in the ocean. And then there was that incessant beating of the drum by the big, sweaty guy to keep the rowing rhythm. Anyway, this employee told me that workers often feel the same way. They’re down in the bowels of the ship all day and they never get to go on deck or hear what’s going on with the ship. Then the captain yells down that he wants to go waterskiing and the supervisor speeds up the drum beat. And when times are tough, the captain yells down that a few have to be thrown overboard to lighten the ship. Not a pretty picture.”

  My roommate added, “I have an old coffee mug from my working days that says:

  It’s not my job to steer the ship;

  The horn I’ll never blow.

  It’s not my place to say how far

  The ship’s allowed to go.

  I’m not allowed to go on deck

  Or even clang the bell

  But if this damn thing starts to sink

  Just watch who catches hell!”

  “That’s great!” I roared. “I need to get one of those mugs! But you know, even if I make the choice to behave in the ways we are discussing, I still have forty supervisory employees who may not buy in. I can’t create this environment without their help. How on earth do I get everyone to buy in, Simeon?”

  “You legislate their behavior,” came the teacher’s quick reply. “As leader, John,
you are responsible for the environment that exists in your area of influence and you have been given power to carry out your responsibilities. Therefore you are empowered to legislate their behavior.”

  “What do you mean you legislate their behavior?” I objected. “You can’t legislate another person’s behavior!”

  “You sure as hell can!” the sergeant shouted at me. “We do it all the time in the Army, and I’m sure you do it with your people at your plant. You have policies and procedures everyone must follow, don’t you? You make them use safety equipment and come to work regularly and follow all sorts of codes of conduct on the job. You and I legislate behavior all the time.”

  I hated to admit Greg was right, but he obviously had me. If a customer service employee started behaving badly with a customer, their job would be at risk. If employees didn’t follow our rules, they quickly became ex-employees. We were constantly legislating behavior as a condition of employment. Suddenly I remembered another example of a company legislating behavior.

  “My father,” I began, “was a front-line supervisor at the Ford assembly plant in Dearborn for over thirty years. Back in the early seventies, I went to work with him on a Saturday morning and was convinced I would go to college after spending just one hour in that plant. People were screaming, swearing, and carrying on with one another like you wouldn’t believe! I mean the place was a jungle. It looked like you got to be the ‘Supervisor of the Day’ if you could publicly humiliate an employee and simultaneously get at least ten ‘F’ words into one sentence.”