Love as Killer App

Yahoo exec Tim Sanders (from Love is the Killer App | Fortune Magazine) :

The bottom line: If you don't like certain people, it's easier than ever to escape them. If you are a lousy person, it's harder than ever to keep people around you. Hence, the power of love. What do I mean by "love"? The best general definition that I've read comes from philosopher Milton Mayeroff's brilliant book, On Caring. Love, he writes, "is the selfless promotion of the growth of the other." When you help others grow to become the best people that they can be, you are being loving -- and as a result, you grow.

Selfless promotion of the growth of the other. In Church related businesses,  I think we have the right to expect this.   What I too often see is the endless promotion of "solutions" and "resources" with a glaring disconnect to the real needs or interests of the customers.  It should seem obvious that the resources provided by Religious Publishers should be surrounded by conversations: Conversations about what resources are good for what situation;  what resources are relevant to certain contexts,  and what these resources have done for people and groups who have used them.   These are the absolute best "advertising" for an organization seeking to help the Church be the Church,  and provide resources for leaders and for all.  If we are seriously pursuing the "growth of the other",  then the provided resources are not only "sellable" products,  but connecting them with the others who "gather around" this or that issue,  and let them be the promoters of the product (except that many fear the "bad review",  and so they avoid this kind of "open conversation" and prefer the "marketing hype",  actually thinking this sells more than the stories and conversations of users.)

How many of us have been drawn into a Church by their brochure?  How many by the human stories;  from the testimonies of members of how they found a home and acceptance and support from this community?  The latter is the obvious choice.  How come Christian publishers are so clueless about this?  Why does this have to come from buisness?  The thing is,  it shoudn't. But if it takes the "wake up call" from someone on the business side,  so be it.  Even there,  they are drawing on something the Cluetrain authors are communicating: that it takes BEING REAL.  That we speak as people speak.  And that we let them speak.  This is so crucail to making the Church BE the Church.  They can't be LED,  but only enabled.   The Churches that are being Church are enabling their members to discover their call - and then to implement it in mission.  Implementing it in mission requires that the call be sounded,  and this is done by recounting and engaing in discernment of what the call is saying to us.

Love is the act of intelligently and sensibly sharing your knowledge, networks, and compassion with your business partners. The secret to being a high-impact leader and the essence of individual and corporate success: Learn as much as you can as quickly as you can and share your knowledge aggressively; expand your network of people who share your values and connect as many of them with each other as possible; and, perhaps most important, be as openly human as you can be and find the courage to express genuine emotion in the harried, pressure-filled world of work.

Businesses are doing "Knowledge Management" (KM),  which is finally waking up to the fact that crucial strategy lies within the organization.  WITHIN it, all the way through.  Not just at the top.  This is never more true than in the Church.  Any and every process or technique can and should be utilized to enable KM as a crucial element of Church discernment.

© Copyright 2003 Dale Lature. Last update: 9/23/2003; 3:39:45 PM.