Faith, Compassion and the Challenge of Business

By Rev Keith Garner

"This is a handbook for leaders in times of constant change." Rev Tim Costello AO

Is the uncertainty of the future wearing you down as a leader?

Have you taken on a leadership role that faces seemingly insurmountable challenges?

If you feel ready to bow out, learn how faith can

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rev Keith Garner
• Release date: Aug 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9781922391469

Rev Keith Garner

Keith Garner has been a faith and business leader for more than 40 years. During the past 15 years, in the unique role of CEO and Superintendent of Wesley Mission in Sydney, Keith led a multi-million dollar social services business and ministered to large city centre congregations. Calling on faith and business skills, Keith and his team steered Wesley Mission through dramatic government outsourcing and policy changes, the global financial crisis, soaring numbers of vulnerable Australians, Royal Commissions, and COVID-19, to build a resilient organisation, both financially and culturally, serving more Australians in need. Keith has authored five books, three on Methodist leaders and two on finding strength through faith. Related to these works, he co-wrote and presented an award-winning documentary and presented another documentary series broadcast on national television. He regularly speaks out on welfare issues in the mainstream media.

Book preview

Introduction

I was not unique in taking on a CEO role in an organisation facing a particularly challenging business environment. In fact, most CEOs embark on their role in similar circumstances. The specific challenges that I faced at Wesley Mission related to my taking on the dual role of CEO and Superintendent – that is, of business leader and church leader.

I was familiar with the latter, having held leadership roles in the British Methodist Church for more than 25 years. Undertaking the two roles at once was something I had to learn and develop – and, indeed, it was not readily understood by those I served. The whole of my time in this position has entailed a sensitive interaction between the twin roles – of working out how to concurrently be a business leader and church leader.

The following sections introduce some of the main challenges I faced taking on these two roles, and I expand on each of these areas through the book.

Transforming ‘not for profit’ into ‘for purpose’

At Wesley Mission, I succeeded a CEO who had exercised leadership for 27 years. At the time, in 2005, the organisation was also entering a new phase. Those working in the ‘not for profit’ arena were facing a changing context and an increasing atmosphere of fierce competition in the delivery of welfare services between the ‘not for profit’ sector and ‘for profit’ agencies. It began to emerge that the descriptor ‘not for profit’ was not entirely appropriate.

My personal unease with the title ‘not for profit’ lay in the fact that people seemed to consider such organisations talking in terms of profit was somehow unhealthy. To shift this thinking, we looked for a better way to describe what we were focused on. At Wesley Mission, we realised ‘for purpose’ was a better description – it captured our focus of providing services that achieved our purpose, with an acknowledgement that making a profit was part of being able to do so. This would prove to create a significant change in attitude and approach over the next decade.

I settled in my own thinking on the thought of ‘for purpose’ because it portrays a much more positive understanding. It avoids describing what we’re not, and at the same time releases those of us in this sector from having to explain why we needed to build financial capacity to achieve desired outcomes.

After 15 years in this post, I am convinced that it is necessary to generate profit in order to create strong organisations able to partner with governments and stakeholders. This strength is essential in providing the necessary compassionate care for the vulnerable and marginalised in our community.

Mixing business leadership and faith leadership

Wesley Mission dates back to the first Australian Methodist meeting in 1812 in The Rocks, Sydney. In the UK, the Methodist Church dates back to a movement started (by John Wesley and others) in the mid-eighteenth century from within the Church of England. In 1977, the Methodist Church of Australasia became part of the Uniting Church of Australia (along with about two-thirds of the Presbyterian Church of Australia and almost all the churches of the Congregational Union of Australia). Together, the Uniting Church of Australia is Australia’s largest non-government provider of community and health services.

Wesley Mission continues to be inspired by its Methodist roots, especially with regard to organisational flair, a strong prophetic tradition and the adoption of clear Christian values.

However, as Wesley Mission strode forward as a key provider in the ‘for purpose’ sector, challenges arose in the relationship between Wesley Mission and the Uniting Church. Some of these tensions were exacerbated by the growth, success and sheer size of Wesley Mission. As is often the case, both sides contributed to relationship challenges, and I knew it was time for a new approach. On a number of occasions, I reminded myself of the old saying, ‘It is easier to catch flies with sugar, rather than vinegar.’ While grappling with these tensions, my conversations with many other CEOs led me to conclude that all leaders face difficult issues that need to be addressed at the time – and that failure to do so is costly in the medium and long term.

Looking to the future

Very soon I would also learn the importance of constantly looking towards the future, rather than concentrating all my energy on a particular issue. Wesley Mission’s Annual Review for 2006 included my first CEO report, in which I chose to use a powerful Christian thought from Revelation 3:8, ‘See I have placed before you an open door that no-one shall shut.’ For me, this expressed the sense of confidence I wanted to communicate across the organisation.

Setting priorities

In looking towards the future, my leadership priorities were to:

transform the organisation into a profitable business, able to focus on its clear purpose

adopt a clear, integrated approach to all aspects of management

develop dynamic partnerships and skilful management.

These priorities remained with me during my 15-year leadership. I would like to think that this clear vision from the outset of my tenure brought about the organisation’s genuine growth.

To achieve the growth, I depended on those with whom I worked closely, whose invaluable contribution I will refer to throughout this book, and without whom I would not have seen the positive outcomes we were able to celebrate.

Working as a team involved understanding and sensitively challenging the leadership styles of my various executives. Some had a strong success-dominated and structure-saturated model of working. And the focus on balancing the operational budget often challenged Christian values as organisational headcounts had to be balanced against the priority of supporting the poorer members of the community. The Christian strength of family values and compassionate care – values engrained in Wesley Mission’s leadership team – proved to be the pillars upon which we continued to grow.

Sharing the leadership lessons learnt

I am keen to share my experience to help others leading large organisations similar to Wesley Mission. My perspective on leadership has been the partnership of Christian principles and business acumen. It may assist others stepping out on a similar journey.

In my 15 years at the helm of Wesley Mission, I have learnt these three valuable leadership lessons:

Business must deal with uncertainty. We do not know the future, yet having faith gives us the strength to make decisions on the future with certainty.

A religious leader is not ‘the king of the castle’. They are not infallible and do not hold all the answers.

Passion is vital if we are to inspire others.

I discuss these lessons and learning in greater detail throughout the book, as well as the various challenges I and Wesley Mission faced along the way.

1

Understand the cultural context

When preparing a fresh piece of work or engaging in a new project, considering the cultural context is essential. In my own venture of leaving the United Kingdom to begin a new season in Australia, taking the cultural context of my new country and organisation seriously was critical. The distance between Britain and Oz, however, proved to be the least of my challenges!

I had previously spent six weeks in Australia as part of a sabbatical program. On my return to the UK, people asked what I thought about Australia and I said, ‘It was very good but I could never live there!’ I soon learned the foolishness of such an answer when I was approached 18 months later by the Joint Nominating Committee seeking a new Superintendent/CEO for Wesley Mission. My hasty response seems even more foolish in the light of my wife and I becoming Australian citizens on 20 August 2008. When God is part of your life plan, unimaginable journeys become possible!

While we hold a common language (and while I clearly have adopted the Australian lifestyle and culture), aspects of Australian church life and the way business operates were different from what I had experienced in Britain. I left my appointment as Chair of District in the British Church to enable my successor to commence in September 2005. My new Wesley Mission role would not formally begin until the opening of the 2006 calendar year so, in order for me to start to understand these church and business differences, it was agreed that I would spend September to December employed by Wesley Mission but not in the role of CEO and Superintendent. This time was designed to give me the opportunity to understand both the Wesley Mission cultural context and Australia in a broader sense. These four months proved to be very helpful.

Take advantage of a transition period

I make two reflections about this transition period; one is very positive and the other less so.

On the negative side, my predecessor asked me not to speak in any public setting and no regular meetings were arranged with him. Additionally, he was deeply involved in his political role as a Member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly. While I did not view this negatively, it did make some facets of the handover period challenging. I confess to feeling somewhat disappointed with the situation and encourage forthcoming leaders to think through carefully any interim arrangements.

On the positive side, many aspects of that transition period provided learning and insights that became the building blocks for the next 15 years. Among them were:

a senior executive management course I completed through the Australian Graduate School of Management at the University of New South Wales Business School

conversations with church leaders in the Uniting Church Synod (NSW and ACT)

meetings with CEOs of similar organisations

extended meetings, individually, with 15 senior staff members at Wesley Mission

meetings (attended as an observer) of the Wesley Mission Board and the Finance Committee

meetings with the Wesley Mission general managers, the two Wesley Mission officers, Jim Pendlebury and David Greatorex, and a very special group of ten advisers (which I will expand upon later in this chapter).

The lessons learnt during the four months and through these meetings were significant, and proved to be essential in making the period of handover as smooth as possible. As a result of this transition period, I also came into the appointment with high expectations of what could be achieved.

My advice to anyone taking on a senior role is to seek a handover period, and be clear about how the handover is conducted and the insights you can gain from it.

Overcome personal reserve

I was grateful that the transition period drove me to engage in conversations with people I had not met previously. Through being a complete newcomer, I brought no reputational luggage, positive or negative, when meeting with each new person. This situation would be very different for someone moving into a senior role from an already established position in the same business sector or social context.

While I didn’t come to the role with preconceived ideas, being a newcomer also meant I had to work at building relationships with people who were strangers to me. In one sense, I had always had to do this, but now it was on a much larger scale. And I confess that ‘networking’ and talking with strangers was not one of my natural gifts. Some would find this strange, given my history of speaking publicly to literally thousands of people, but communicating on a one-on-one basis was difficult