Team Assessment, Professional Development & My Grad School Fantasy

Our office recently went through a team assessment process, this time one professionally done by Clarion Consulting. Most of you have probably been through processes like this. Like them? Hate them? I take these things with a grain of salt but generally find them helpful. Here’s what was included:

• MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) Step II assessment
• FIRO-B (“Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation-Behavior”)
• A strengths and gifts assessment
• Identifying our preferred leader-manager styles
• Articulating our personal sense of mission and calling
• Articulating our personal “best contributions”
• Articulating our "workplace values.” I wish I could post the survey tool for you here, but I think this stuff is copyrighted.

We did about a third of the assessments online in advance, but with that many things to work through – and consultants who were committed to explaining things as thoroughly as they could – we had less time than we might have liked to actually put the findings and categories to work in talking about how we want to work as a team.

Turns out the consultants rarely have the chance to go through a process like this with whole teams of people who know and are as comfortable with each other as we are, so they were a bit shy about really stirring up discussions; they tried to keep it kind of academic so everyone would feel safe. Maybe it’s just as well. I just hope saying “we’ll talk about this more later,” means “we’ll never get back to it.”

In articulating my “best contributions” and “personal mission and calling,” I realized that I’ve reached a stage in life where yes, I can do many things, but I feel a responsibility to work increasingly close to those areas of calling and best contribution. So, I probably don’t want to take on many big assignments that don’t line up with that.

What does that mean in terms of pursuing personal and professional development? What do I need to be more effective in making my best contributions? Here's how I articulated them. (I haven't really run these by anybody who knows me well, yet).

Mission: Equipping world Christians to serve God's kingdom and the least-reached in ministry efforts that are smart, sensitive, and sustainable. (Mobilizing Christians to complete the Great Commission)

Field: Christians - especially those who identify themselves as being involved in 'missions' - who are making themselves available to God and trying to learn and grow. Basically, people who are responding to God's call on their lives and know they need help, information, resources, or encouragement. I want to come alongside people like that.

Best Contributions:

1. Collecting information: I follow my curiosity into new areas of knowledge and relationships, learn what I can, and share it with others.
   
2. Connecting dots and building bridges: I evaluate the accuracy of information and the feasibility of projects and strategies, draw conclusions, bring in balancing perspectives, and network people, strategies, and resources.
   
3. Coaching and coordinating group efforts: I equip others in understanding information and applying skills, (particularly in the realm of cultural understanding) and serve others as a trainer, encourager, consultant, and debriefer.
   

Personal and Professional Development

Alright, so if you know where you going, what do you do to get there? This ought to be a guiding force in what personal and professional development ops I go after. And maybe an overseas sabbatical is worth pursuing, but this may also be a time to get serious about exploring graduate school.

And you know, one thing that stood out to me in the MBTI assessment was the statement, under the “open-ended” aspect of the judging vs. perceiving facet, was that “perceivers” like me tend to "have long-range fantasies rather than long-range plans." Oh, so true.

What turning the "fantasy" of grad school into a "plan" for grad school would look like (how long will it take? What will it cost? where would I live?) might depend on the school. In my fantasies, graduate school means seminary, and not just any seminary but one that sees its job as equipping people for practical ministry - including ministry cross-culturally. So, a school for mission "practitioners." Even though I may never "be" a missionary in the traditional sense, theirs is the world I'm most interested in serving.

Possible Schools

There are several schools that might fit that mold. One of them had me on their mail-and-call list for about a year but when I never responded, bumped me off; maybe I need to re-contact them. That’s Biola. They may be too conservative for me, actually. But they are in the same town as one that’s more broad (Fuller). So I could visit them at the same time. And both have branch campuses as well.

There is a third I don’t know as much about, in terms of their theological bent. (I squirm to admit to my conservative friends that I don’t want to be locked into something that's too fundamentalist, but it's true!) But in terms of being "a school for mission practitioners," I don't think they can be beat. It’s Columbia International University, in South Carolina. A good fit for me, or not? Well, I need more information. The fact that I could get a 50% tuition discount because of my agency affiliation is a big drawing card. I just sent an email to admissions.

By the way, my colleagues know I’m interested in this. I don’t anticipate resigning from Pioneers to go back to school. I could even start through a distance-learning program (all three of these schools have them) if that seems best, so I could stay in Denver if I want to. I could probably go to graduate school and continue working, at least part time. (No, Denver Seminary doesn’t seem a good option; if I'm choosing a seminary I am pretty sure I want one with a mature missions program. Denver has barely anything of that sort.)

I’m less interested in pursuing a secular school, say an M.A. in sociology at the University of Denver (locally known, strangely, as DU). I’m sure I could learn a lot in such a situation, but most secular sociologists seem to believe that one’s faith has to be very much on the shelf when doing sociology/anthropology. Since I’ve been blending the two for more than a decade I think I’d find that annoying and limiting.

Who knows, I might find submitting to the rigors and sometimes-silly prejudices of an academic program rather annoying, wherever I go! I remember what ridiculous things my friend G’s professors cared about (and the meaningful things which they neglected) when he was doing his Master’s and PhD. Sometimes I look at the grad school idea and think, who needs it? Would it be throwing my supporters' money away to spend it on something like an academic degree, when I can learn so much on my own? I’m still not sure. And that’s really the only way I can pay for something like this, to raise support for it (even if that means doing so by bumping up my low salary).

But I could use the chance to fill in the gaps in my education and teach with more confidence. And down the road, it could be handy to have some academic credentials.

So, besides getting more information about the most likely schools, another thing I need to do is figure out PI’s policies about raising support for one’s continuing education. Hmmm... and write to my long-standing support team members, and mentors, to ask for their prayers and advice. If they aren't keen on the idea, I don' t think I'd try to do it.