Morning

One of the changes I made in my last two parish posts was very subtle, and I doubt if it was noticed or has lasted. It was certainly never commented upon. They were both places where, on arrival, I learned that the habit of the service leader on a Sunday was to say 'Good morning everyone' and then wait for a reply. 

Now, there is a way of making it clear, although you need some timing skills, that you expect a reply. If you don't have those skills the response will be a bit hit and miss and you will not be sure if the congregation is with you. At this point comedy value can be extracted by doing the pantomime thing of saying 'There's nobody here. I'd better try again.' Any children in the congregation will now shout back, at minimum.

For an example of expecting a reply when you have no communication skills try the Liz Truss cheese speech (I found it by googling that word string, so popular it has become).

So I always begin services with:

'Good morning and welcome to <name> church. If you are a visitor, newcomer or just passing though it is great to have you with us.' No reply required.

I thought of this because I now attend a church where each of the first three people to stand up front tends to say good morning, although few are looking for a reply when they do it. The service leader says good morning and welcomes the notice-giver who says good morning who quite often then introduces a second notice-giver who then says good morning and it is not unknown for further good mornings to be issued by the lesson reader and the preacher. One service leader also regularly includes some weather-based commentary and yesterday some how-to-behave-in-the sun advice. Amazingly it is not a place where people are often late yet we usually don't start the service within ten minutes of the advertised start time. At my last parish 25% of the congregation arrived after the welcome.

The thing I love most of all is that I am now retired and this is not my problem and does not annoy me. It's a local church full of local people being normal. What's not to like? Good morning.

Inbox

I read a status update from a clergy friend going on sabbatical. In this post a four-figure number was mentioned as the number of emails to be cleared out of the inbox.

Well, oh dear.

I know people have difficulties with jobs that become so big they will never be done but really. Thousands?

How do you claw your way back from this? Slowly. You know roughly how many emails you get daily so each day make sure you deal with more than come in until the problem is gone.

Or quickly. Put all of your current inbox in a folder called 'old inbox'.  Now deal with each day's new emails alone and only dip into the old inbox when you get a reminder. Diary to delete it in a year's time. Some people may be irritated but not as many as you have irritated so far with your massive inbox.

Some quick tips:

1. Stuff that is:

• Not relevant
• Not for you
• Already out of date
• No action required.

Delete it at once.

2. Stuff that needs to be retained for the future but not acted upon. File it. It is kind, but not essential, to send a quick acknowledgement. If it is more than a week old don't. You'll look stupid.

3. Stuff that needs a reply. Either reply quickly, if you can, then file it, or send a brief acknowledgement and add the job of thinking about it to your things-to-do list. Then file it. Yes. Get it out of your inbox to somewhere you will be able to find it. I use googlemail so you can label your emails so that they appear in more than one folder. I also always operate remotely so never download emails to any device or PC. Outlook is dangerous.

4. So, how do you organise an email filing system? Any way you want but I'll tell you about mine. By and large the bulk of stuff I need to keep is about future events, many of which are Sundays.

So my first few folder labels are simply Sunday dates. As they are numbers they stay at the beginning of an alphabetical filing system:

(9/10)
(16/10)
(23/10
(30/10)

When the first email comes in about a future Sunday I start a folder for it. I delete these folders a month after the Sunday.

My second major grouping is 'Forthcoming Appointments':

Forthcoming Appointments
 CMD (13/3)
 E*** P****** Visit (12/10)
 Funeral (13/10)
 Hope for Life Dance (29/10)
 Reading Break November

When the first email comes in about a future event I start a folder for it. I delete these folders a month after the event.

My other folders are sub-headed under 'People', 'Church' and the inevitable few that will not categorise.

5. I deal with emails about three times a day for five minutes. I have turned off email notifications on my tablet and phone. Email is meant to be non-intrusive communication. It is not for the urgent. If you want me to come and give you a lift from the station now, ring me (unless you know the family secret group on Facebook).

6. Email is meant to be a communication aid but it needs a little bit of management to keep it under control.

7. Once a week diary to clear your inbox. There will always be one or two stubborn messages you couldn't decide what to do with. Shift them weekly.

8. I lose emails. I make mistakes with filing. I sometimes dither a bit. But I'm pretty good. This is why.

Quote Book Index 671-680

678. Aristotle taught that effective communication consisted of combining:

logos - the essence of the message
ethos - the credibility of the messenger
pathos - the appeal to the inner motives of the hearer

(Steve Chalke, Making a Team Work, Kingsway 1995 page 60)

And Improve Our Communications Skills...

'The main problem here is communication.' I have often heard this said in church meetings, groups and organisations. And when it is said it is often greeted by nodding heads from some (who agree but have never said so) and surprised looks by others (who had no idea it was a problem and even having heard it expressed still can't believe it).

So you carry out a communications review maybe? You discover that people value things that are relatively unimportant and don't want to think about them being changed. When they hear 'communications review' they imagine their favourite thing (organisation's notice board or special place on a shelf full of leaflets) is under threat.

And the review ends up with a huge reporting bias because people will find a way to include that one thing, the single occasion, where they didn't know something they should have known and missed an appointment or responsibility.

And they will weigh in with a critique of that so strongly that they don't recall all the times communication was good. Because no-one ever leaves a meeting or hall and says, 'You know that was exactly the right length.' Or 'The temperature in that room was perfect today.' The one bad experience casts a long shadow over the good ones.

And of course, because this always happens, in a church that has abandoned their Parish Magazine as an effective tool (and I have worked in three) there will be a call for its return.

Three of the parishes I work in currently have A4 folded magazines on white paper (with cardboard, A4 folded covers in a pastel shade) containing predictable vicars' letters, filler 'funnies', cartoons, rotas, adverts from undertakers and information only the members of a small group (who already have it) need to know. But those people get very upset if their group is omitted.

There is an organisation at a local church called After Eights. I have said for some time that the advert for its meeting gives no indication whatsoever as to who might be able to attend. Is it a men's group? Ladies? Adults? Older people? For the first time ever I saw, in the text describing a future meeting, a sentence that addressed 'Ladies'. I had no idea. Shouldn't that be the headline?

Here's the trouble. Initiates easily forget that communication is not only internal. And if you forget that you end up with a notice board containing seventeen different sheets of closely-typed A4 and an organisation that is proud of its communication because, 'Everything is there for you to see.' See? You mean 'read' - with a magnifying glass and a strong constitution.

The trouble in this day and age is not too little communication but too much. And too much poor communication at that. A notice sheet with a notice of the week underlined verbally and any extra local notices that people need to do for an individual congregation. Notice boards in obscure places where no-one stops. Weekly emails (to some congregations, not all). A four times a year parish mailshot. A web-site. Some Facebook and Twitter presence but not consistent. A few leaders have blogs but not all are updated regularly. Extra emails and of course, phone calls, for urgent matters.

We don't have too little communication, we have too much. It is so constant and repetitious it is like missing all the signs in a big store because there are too many. Oh, baskets only. Sorry I never noticed.

And a final problem. Not all those who communicate in writing or up-front are trained at it. But they all seem to think they are good. (Pause to chase cat out of garden.) I hear Dick Lucas say, 'Brother can you summarise your message in a sentence or two?' It means that he thinks you are waffling and should pay more attention to deciding on your main point before speaking. You have to give feedback to the bad notice-givers.

You could appoint a communications officer but unless that person turns out to be passionate about communicating and not put off at the first sign of people being unreceptive (which they are and have every right to be) it will fail. And in a large and growing parish that is almost a part-time job. It is probably beyond the scope of a volunteer with any other responsibilities.

You could strip down communications to a bare minimum. Rely on word-of-mouth more because everyone is talking about what we are doing. And add in new layers only when it becomes absolutely obvious that we can't do without them.

I am not a good editor. I have too few completer/finisher genes. But I can write, a bit. If asked to 'wordsmith' a piece of writing I will normally shorten sentences and take out three syllable words. I don't muck around with the sense of a piece but simply try to make its current intention more readable.

And I have tried, over the years, to capture a certain amount of precision in my spoken contributions which I restrict, if possible, to those occasions when I have something to say. It is a lifetime's learning and I may peak soon as old-age and forgetfulness start to take their cut. If you have never listened to yourself it is a good exercise to record a meeting you are involved in and then listen back to your contributions. How many words did you use before there was something people could grab onto to know what the subject was? Did you know what you wanted to say before you started speaking. Did you change the subject? Was everyone ready for that? How did the length of your contributions compare to everyone else's?

And for those who chair or co-ordinate. My bugbear. Is this the sort of meeting where you need to indicate to the chair that you want to speak? Some guidance from the front at the beginning please.

A few years back I helped interview some people for a communications job. One of the questions was 'How will you make internal communications in the organisation more effective?' The answer from one person, which surprised me but gave me a sense of the applicant's big vision for the work, was that he would make the organisation so famous around the country by telling everyone what we were up to that everyone internally would be sure to be aware. Internal comms would be solved by external. I think he scared everyone and didn't get appointed.

But I loved the vision.

So my closing question in all communication problems is this: Will you want to know what's going on so much that you will make sure you find out even if the communication is poor? Because if you do, perversely, the communication will be good.

Brief Communication Workshop

I was talking to a guy last Sunday who was feeding a child. As our conversation continued he concentrated on me, ignoring the open mouth in front of him awaiting another shovelful. As his wife took over she offered this as a further piece of evidence that men can't multi-task. She may well be right (about some men some of the time, not all men all of the time). There are certain points at which those of us, who find inter-action draining, have to really concentrate. If we don't, we find we have agreed to things we didn't want to do, or to things we won't be able to remember a day, (OK ten minutes) later.

I had a good conversation with another man yesterday about not paying attention in meetings, the person expressing gratitude that I was able to tune back in pretty quickly when I looked absent-minded. I have had this all my life and can hear various teachers from the past saying 'You haven't listened to a word I said.'

Strangely, in one such incident, in a Latin lesson in about 1970, I can still remember precisely the thing I was accused of not attending to. 'Cum takes the subjunctive in the imperfect tense.' I told him. Thing is, I have no idea what it means. Never have had and, since I don't care, never will. I floored that teacher and he had to apologise. He should have apologised that his subject wasn't taught with a grip or enthusiasm that caught his pupils up and fascinated them.

Why is it then that if I zone out in a long meeting (or at least let my visual interface drop) it is my fault? I find meetings draining.

Here's a tip. No speeches in meetings, for the benefit of those of us who might be more gripped by inter-activity than lectures. Short sentences, agreed outcomes, specific subjects to discuss and please, please, please, spare us the five minute contribution that covers such a range of issues that the concluding question 'What do you think?' is not capable of a short answer. (In such cases someone responding often picks a small detail and explains their opinion about that. Then a whole broad discussion about a massive programme can become a discussion about plug sockets in one room.)

A meeting is a way of saving time - we get more done by getting together than we could do alone. A member of my family drove hundreds of miles to a meeting yesterday which was delayed by an accident, had the venue moved without consultation and the subject matter of which was communicated differently to three of the five attendees none of whom can give a clear summary of what has been agreed. How this business has survived the downturn is beyond me sometimes and I reckon yesterday cost the company four figures (my calculation based on probable salaries and cost per mile).

I think this is a memo to the chair-people. We need to know what we're supposed to be talking about. We need to know why you need us to care. And on the drive back we need to feel it wasn't a waste of that precious resource - petrol.

If we are not stuck in it might be because you aren't gripping. Still; will try harder in future.

Important information from Royal Mail

Along with many people in 'my area' I am going to have changes to my Royal Mail service. A letter, from Plymouth so I don't know quite how big 'my area' is, explains why these changes are necessary.

These changes are necessary to give best value, invest in modern equipment and stop Royal Mail personnel getting a hernia from their heavy bags. Apparently it has not occurred to Glynn Lane, Delivery Sector Manager for the Nailsea area, that I might expect these things to happen as a matter of course.

Still, we get to heading three, 'What this means for you.' I quote in full:

• We will continue to deliver in the morning and for a longer period during the day. Many customers will continue to get their mail by lunchtime.
• The time you receive your mail will depend on where you are on the new delivery route. This may be later or possibly earlier than you are used to.
• As I am sure you understand, when mail volumes vary, I may need to adjust delivery arrangements and time.

He finishes:

'These changes may mean a different postman or woman ... will deliver to you...'

May I summarise Glynn's letter for the hard-of-understanding:

As a result of us doing what you would expect us to do we may deliver your post earlier, at the same time or later in future. In busy times your post may be late. This delivery may be carried out by the same, or different, personnel to those you are used to.

Gee thanks. Load off my mind Glynn.

Conversation Stoppers

If you tell a story it is acceptable to speak without interruption for a few minutes. As long as your company bought in to this rule. If you are simply chatting, what is the longest amount of time for which you should narrate?

I heard of a friend a while back who was talking too much without breathing and failed to notice that the line at the other end of the phone was dead. The person he thought he was speaking to called his wife on her mobile to tell her to tell Mr Long-winded that he had lost his audience. Several minutes ago.

It is different in professional situations where I often sit listening to people for a long time helping them to work out their own views by speaking. I like doing that.

But those who talk so much they don't notice no-one is listening any more. Annoying. Or worse; don't care as long as corporeal presence is still going on. Dreadful.

I know some people who need to tell the last story. Who talk to you in the car when you have arrived at their house. Who segue one story into another without breaking for you to comment (I hate this).

Please tell me when I am being boring. And try to notice when you are.

That will be twenty guineas. Good morning.

Diocesan News

A few years ago I decided not to join any Christian organisation except the Church of England. It seemed to me that every time someone had a beef about anything a pressure group was being formed. And all extra-curricular activities were being run by separate organisations rather than churches.

ABWON, MORIB, EGGS, Reform, FIF, New Wine, Eclectics and others all sought my membership or support at some time or other. Bonus mark if you can remember what they all are.

One of the troubles with all this is that organisations set up to support the Church of England ended up setting up parallel structures and programmes, then left you feeling guilty if you didn't do their thing. This is a bold statement from an ex-employee of CPAS but trust me when I say I never, in my ten years helping churches with youthwork, lost sight of the fact that it was the churches' agenda which was leading us; not vice versa.

So I am excited about Holy Trinity and Trendlewood's vision to be a hub of help to other churches in the south-west. Our Trinity Project is not about buildings but about collecting together plant, kit and expertise that can resource others if they want it.

In that context it is important that we tie ourselves into a bigger structure and that structure should be the Church of England. So I really want to encourage my local followers to be enthusiastic readers of Diocesan communication - e-bulletins, Connect, Manna (the magazine) all do a discreet job and will be the better if we engage with them. Swamp the diocesan communications office with correspondence.

You might start with the diocesan web-site. Click here to give it a viewing and tell them what you think. Don't mince words. We're all pretty thick-skinned. We? Yes, I have a bit to do with all this and can't think of any way of making it better other than getting quality feedback.

What Do You Think?

I had an interesting phone call the other day. The reason for the call, as expressed right at its beginning, was to find out what my opinion was of some intended policy. The course of action was then explained to me at some length and I asked a couple of questions to clarify. At this point I was thanked for my helpfulness and the conversation terminated. I suppose I could have shouted, 'Wait, wait, you haven't heard my opinion.' I suspect that would have been a complete waste of time. Anyone who forgets to listen to the views they have imagined they called to procure has a different problem.

So, life skill whatever we have got to. If you want to run something past someone to hear how it sounds as you speak it, do so. Don't tell them you want their opinion, unless you do. By the way I am a married man whose partner gets home from work. I can provide this service. I am good at it.

If you do want an opinion, spend time listening to it. Obvious? Apparently not.

Advent Thought 13

When the first Mars-landing took place the machine, we now discover, fell over. It landed on a hillock and tipped. At least that is the best guess of the investigators who devised later modules to be self-righting.

A NASA scientist, interviewed at the time of the failure, said this:

Our probe is neither sending data nor receiving commands - a very serious anomaly.

It struck me that this would be a good test of the effectivenes of a church's various ministries. Can mission control still instruct it? Is it still sending useful data (numerical or spiritual growth)? If the answer to these two questions is in the negative then that too would be a serious anomaly.

Now, what do you need to go out and stop?

Communication Lets Me Down

In the midst of the death throes of the Bath and Wells Diocesan Communications Committee today an enthralled meeting was told that, 'Nobody reads blogs.'

Mustard Seed Shavings was fortunate enough to be able to grab a member of the Committee for a brief interview after the meeting in an attempt to test the veracity of that statement. The text of the interview is reproduced here:

Interviewer
Excuse me Mr...

Interviewee
I'd prefer to remain anonymous. Perhaps you'd simply call me Bishop.

Interviewer
Why?

Interviewee
It makes me feel important.

Interviewer
OK Bishop. So how did the meeting go?

Interviewee
Well the gathered communications experts offered their combined wisdom about the idea of proceeding with a communications strategy for the 21st century.

Interviewer
Gosh, that must have taken ages.

Interviewee
Actually the meeting underran by an hour.

Interviewer
So they were in favour?

Interviewee
They were largely in favour of talking not listening.

Interviewer
I can't help noticing you have two black eyes.

Interviewee
I was talking when I should have been listening. At least I got some eye contact.

Interviewer
So what strategy was outlined?

Interviewee
That in future a new focus of communication will see a combination of an updated web-site, a weekly e-zine, a quarterly, quality diocesan publication and a relationship between the diocese and parish magazine editors that will ensure the best stories are circulated and the self-promoting claptrap is binned.

Interviewer
Brilliant.

Interviewee
Well some of us thought so.

Interviewer
Not everyone?

Interviewee
No, the Rev'd Stave Telley (a nom-de-plume) argued vehemently that this would disenfranchise the elderly who still felt that e-communication was the very spawn of Beelzebub.

Interviewer
What happened?

Interviewee
The committee agreed that some note must be taken of those who couldn't buy into the whole internet thing.

Interviewer
Was the committee satisified by that?

Interviewee
I don't think anyone noticed.

Interviewer
So what happens next?

Interviewee
Members of the committee were given two bottles of fair trade, not-for-profit, organic, beer-for-life and told to wait by their phones for news of their jobs after the reshuffle.

Interviewer
Will you be waiting?

Interviewee
No, I was only there for the beer. You don't know anyone who wants to buy two and a half thousand green mugs do you?

Interviewer
Bishop, thank you very much.

Apologies if any in-jokes are beyond the wit of the many of you who don't read blogs.

Quality Control

I'm grateful to Gillian Oliver, the Church of England's Head of Communications Development, who I met recently. I was impressed that, in a busy week reporting on the Diocese of Bath and Wells alleged communications systems she found time to chat to me before a meeting, think of an article relevant to our conversation and remembered to copy it to me with a note on her return to her office. Probably why she's a Head of Communications and I'm still an amateur blogger.

She copied me this article by Richard Morrison in the Times from April 17th this year. If you haven't time to go read it yourself you need to know that it concerns the reaction to a virtuoso violinist when he busked in the Washington subway rather than played in the concert hall.

The gist of the article is that we recognise greatness by context and most of us can't tell greatness and averageness apart, especially in the performing arts.

It's a good question. How duped are we? Could you tell an old master from a forgery, a £5 bottle of wine from a £50 or a vintage Stratocaster from a 2007 Tanglewood? In other words, do we rely too much on people telling us what is any good rather than trusting our senses? In the world of art our opinion is everything and nothing. I have seen the Mona Lisa and it didn't move me nearly as much as The Wedding at Cana on the opposite wall. But what do know? I also like Jack Vettriano but experts tell me he is poor.

If Joshua Bell, the violinist in question, came to play in Nailsea High Street with his £2 million Stradivarius I'd have no idea if he was any good. I don't live in that world. Would you? And what difference would it make if someone told you who it was and what he was playing? Would you like it more?

Intellectual and emotional honesty are precarious and precious commodities are they not? So how sure are you that you like things because you like them and not because someone else says so?

Doesn't Take Long

What is it with these people? Do they read their own instructions? How long is long anyway?

I have just purchased a BT Synergy 3105 cordless telphone system, reduced by £50 from £69.99 to £19.99 because it is ex-display and people have obviously ruined it by looking at it.

Page 3 of the instructions:

You must first set up your phone before you can use it.
This doesn't take long and is easy to do...

Page 7 of the instructions:

Place the handset on the base to charge for at least 16 hours ... After 16 hours, plug one end of the telephone line cord into...

And I haven't even reached the 39 pages of 'Getting to know your phone.' I'll probably have to take it out for dinner and drive it home. I wonder if it'll text on a first date

Courtesy

My mobile rings. Not a recognised number so I use my normal greeting.

Hello Steve Tilley speaking.

Sound of pub/cafe/bar noise in background. Assume one of my friends has dialled by accident with phone still in pocket. Listen for interesting dialogue with blackmail possibilities. Then I hear a girl's voice, quite loud...

Oo?

I repeat...

Hello Steve Tilley speaking.

I hear...

Don' wan' 'im.

And then the call is terminated. I feel vaguely violated. Someone dialled my number in error and all they can say, to their friends sitting around presumably, is, 'Don' wan' 'im.' All glotal and gob.

This may be a grumpy old man moment but it happens to me more than most, I guess because, more than most I engage several people in conversation at the same time and find witty replies to my comments are often made for the entertainment of friends at my expense. Youth worker history you see.

Doing 'vulnerable' is a tough call but it is easier when it is deliberate. How do you know you don't want me? I'm witty, erudite, good company, buy drinks and know the secret of life. You so missed out.

Question Time

It was very gratifying. About eight years ago, in a Bentham Venture leaders' meeting, Chris Ward said I was the best small group leader he had ever known and I never told the group anything, I only asked questions.

It was gratifying because it was generous praise, of course. It was also gratifying because up to that point it had only been an intuitive technique. I hadn't set out to do all my teaching by questions, refined to bring people to conclusions themselves, but it seemed to have worked and I resolved that it was indeed the best way to lead small groups or contribute to meetings. I have consciously used it as a technique ever since.

Of late I have become more aware of the way people receive this. In 2002 an Alpha small group became very irritated with me and we had to have two further terms of meetings in which I was told, in no uncertain terms that this time I would be the one answering the questions. From January to July 2003 I was in a lovely small group which became, more or less, 'Grill Steve'.

Last year, in a leadership team meeting, I asked why we had a Missionary Gift Day. It was a genuine question. We have had one at St Paul's since long before I arrived in 1992. The question was answered in various ways and it seemed that there might be good reasons to continue. We needn't worry about them now. What happened though was that someone said, 'Steve's point is a good one but...'

I had to make sure, before it passed into formal record, that I hadn't made a point but asked a question. Everyone then realised I had and the meeting notes recorded that.

Last night at our Church Council meeting we spent a lot of time in small buzz groups. One of the exercises was to look at a list of responses to a questionnaire and evaluate which were the key areas with which to deal. One of the people with whom I 'buzzed' was insistent that 'communication' was the key issue. We had this approximate conversation (rather excluding the third member of our group - sorry my friend if you're reading):

St: So what do you mean by communication being the problem then?
M: Well, for instance a lot of people wonder why we now have so many staff and what they do all day?
St: So it's not about communication as a whole but about having too many staff?
M: Well no, that's just an example.
St: So what else?
M: Well a lot of people say we should have a magazine again.
St: Yes, I noticed that from the responses. Do you think that would solve all our communication problems?
M: And there's a real problem with older people knowing the younger people. We used to have profiles in the magazine and interviews up front in church.
St: We still have interviews up front in church. Do you think people read the magazine?
M: Well no, you can't make people read it I suppose.
St. I just wonder if you would help people more by identifying the actual issues rather than blanketing a criticism against communication. Some of our communication is quite good. Aren't we in danger of suggesting it is all bad?

Called to order.

Asked to feedback, M told the chair that 'Steve and I spent the whole time having a debate about communication.'

I didn't respond, but did we do that? I agree I added some speculation by wondering rather than questioning, but I don't think we had a debate. If asked my opinion I don't think M would be able to give it.

Questioners and sceptics of the world unite. Make sure people understand. We're only asking.