Teamwork Cross-Culturally

Christ-Centered Solutions for Leading Multinational Teams

Lingenfelter, Sherwood G., Green, Julie A.

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781493436736
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

Following Sherwood Lingenfelter's successful books on ministering, teaching, and leading cross-culturally (with combined sales of over 200, 000 copies), Teamwork Cross-Culturally casts a vision for how teams made up of diverse peoples can serve in unity as the body of Christ despite the complicated problems that arise. The book equips leaders to respond to divisive issues so that multinational mission teams can do the work of ministry in ways that honor God. Real-life examples of teamwork challenges from around the world demonstrate that "in Christ" responses are achievable.

1
What Are Wicked Problems and In-Christ Solutions?

SHERWOOD G. LINGENFELTER
AND JULIE A. GREEN

Starting Language Programs in Asia: A Case Study

One of my (Julie’s) first assignments as leader of a multinational team was to help my team start language development programs—alphabet, grammar, dictionary, stories—that would lead to translation of Scripture. My organization, Southeast Asia Team (SAT), was a new branch of our sponsoring organization, SIL International.1 We hoped to recruit more workers, so preparing a program plan was essential in order to apply for new visas—a challenging task in our national context. We turned to SIL leaders who had experience and expertise to help us to prepare our language development proposal. As a result of my past experience and success in starting language development projects in another South Asian context, I was quite confident that I knew what we needed to make this current work come together.

My first task was to get to know each of my team members in SAT, who were also members of SIL. As I looked around in our first meeting together, I saw godly men and women from Indonesia, Denmark, the Philippines, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States struggling with our assignment. I was concerned, so I asked them about the difficulties they had encountered while starting new language development projects within SIL, and they quickly told me stories of their troubles. They asserted that SIL staff did not write language development work into project proposals—or, when they did, the goals and time frames were utterly inappropriate. They also complained that when SIL staff had written language projects, they had not allowed local communities to have any say or ownership. Additionally, my team members wanted the local church to be involved in the work from the beginning, even if it slowed down the progress of the project.

After talking with my team, I relayed what I had learned to SIL leaders. They also affirmed that language development work must happen from within the existing church structures and with other national nongovernmental organizations. They went on to explain that they did not want to duplicate work or do anything on their own. They also assured me that future project proposals could have room in them for research and development and local involvement. I was reassured by their response, and—believing that our goals were similar—I quickly outlined a strategic framework that would allow the language development team to start projects locally while at the same time considering SIL’s (our sponsoring partner) concerns.

When I presented the language development framework to the leaders in SIL, they were very supportive, and at the next board meeting, they approved the strategic framework document. They also encouraged me to work with the language development team to reach out to local churches and organizations to create proposals that would work for language development projects.

Thinking that I had bridged the organizational gap between my team members and our SIL partners, I called a meeting of SAT language development workers. The agenda was to discuss how we would do language development projects within the organizational framework I had outlined to SIL. I anticipated that this framework would help us focus our planning and give us the freedom we sought. I sent the agenda of our meeting and the proposed framework to these field teams.

I was enormously proud of the work I had done negotiating and then writing the strategic framework document. It did not take long, however, for my pride to deflate to dismay and then quickly to annoyance as complaining and condemning emails began to invade my inbox. In this flood of emails, each field team of SAT took turns complaining about the strategy and tearing it down.

In short, my team was angry with me and resisted everything I proposed. They rejected the way I had processed this decision and dismissed my proposal since it failed to achieve the organizational revolt against SIL that so many of them desired. I thought my recommendation for collaboration, defining common goals, and focusing on strategy between SAT and SIL personnel seemed quite reasonable. I sought a mutual path forward by limiting the discussion to ways we could cooperate positively and refused to entertain exit strategies that were outside my leadership mandate. Unfortunately, my attempts to lead only created more conflicts and polarization within the team and caused more damage to our relationships.

As I cried to the Lord and then reflected on the polarizing positions of my teammates, I knew there was no right answer about how to make decisions on this team. I had run into a sticky, wicked problem without understanding it, and my desire to use what I thought was my authority to control the process and create certainty was making it worse.

Why Name It a “Wicked Problem”?

First of all, no one involved in this case would permit Julie to call this a “wicked problem.” “We are good people; we just disagree on the fundamentals of how to go about language development. Yes, the situation is complex, and yes, we have different experiences, but . . . I am right and the rest of the team just doesn’t get it! I pray that they will wake up to the reality we are facing in these tribal languages. I can see it clearly—why don’t they see it, and why doesn’t Julie agree with me?”

The essence of a “wicked problem,” as opposed to a critical problem (such as a fire) or a routine problem (such as a budget), is that both the problem and the solution are fundamentally inscrutable—neither can be completely understood or clearly explained because of their complexities. As Julie describes in her case study, the conflicting values of her teammates and their objections to the process that she or others proposed were so polarized that the group members rejected every “management” solution offered. Julie was confident she had crafted a compromise pathway that would satisfy most involved, but her teammates did not agree, and—as we will see later—the uncertainty about the problem increased the harder she tried to manage it.

Julie recognized the deep challenge of polarization within her teammates. In their conversations, they mentally framed one another’s positions as “either-or” choices. They debated with one another about the strengths and weaknesses of “my” position as opposed to “your” or “their” position. They exercised patterns learned in their years of education—there is a single right answer to the problem—and each was confident about what that answer was. Out of their diverse personal and cultural backgrounds, they were deeply suspicious of approaches they had not experienced. If Julie had been trained in the business practices of “polarity management,”2 she may have had better luck with her colleagues, but many other factors were at work in their respective backgrounds.

These team members had all experienced a calling to the mission of Bible translation, raised personal financial support, and sacrificed much in their home settings—Indonesia, Denmark, the Philippines, the United Kingdom, Australia, the United States—to make the journey to Southeast Asia. Their churches and supporters back home had high expectations for them, and they also had high expectations for themselves. They did not feel accountable to SAT, and even less to SIL. They did not owe allegiance to SAT or SIL, nor had they developed the kind of loyalty Julie had because of her years of experience with SIL. They had been trained differently in their respective home countries, studying common topics but mentored by people who understood these topics from different perspectives. As relatively new members of Julie’s team, they acted more as independent contractors than as members of a team. Some saw no need even to be a team, believing their role was one that could be performed alone.

As people engaging across cultures, our problems are manifold. First of all, we know only what we know—the childhood and adult experiences of language, culture, and faith that have shaped us as persons. Within these limitations, we are inherently afraid of what we do not know and of the risk of losing what we do know and what we turn to for comfort and security.

Further, as human beings we have a host of cravings that drive us daily—thirst; hunger for food, shelter, comfort, and intimacy; and sleep—and emotional needs such as the needs for love, security, acceptance, meaning, significance, authority, and control. James reminds us that “each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death” (James 1:14–15).

Finally, the Scriptures teach us that we have an enemy, the devil, who is always working to discredit God and deceive us. Later in this work we will reflect on the hungers or evil desires that often deceive us as persons and the deceptions that the devil uses to deceive the body of Christ. He is the ruler of darkness, and Christ alone—the Lamb that was slain—is able to deliver us from that darkness.

This chapter will conclude this discussion of Julie’s wicked problem by considering three additional questions. Given the difficulties of wicked problems, (1) Is “mission with” an option for sharing the gospel? (2) How do we respond to such fragmentation and division in the body of Christ when we are called for God’s mission? (3) How can we, in such situations of cultural complexity, ever find unity in Christ?

Is “Mission with” Optional in Christ?

Given the challenges and difficulties Julie experienced in her case study, is “mission with” optional? Many churches and mission organizations have made the decision to stay within their own national and denominational cultures and to send missionaries out to unreached peoples and plant churches of “our kind” in other nations. Lorraine Dierck, a mission leader observing missionaries who have given up on “mission with” teams in Thailand, comments:

The complexity of cross-cultural communication continues to baffle and confuse people engaged in the task of frontier missions. A young missionary to Thailand said, “I came to Thailand with a big vision, and with a lot of skill and enthusiasm. I know I have a lot to contribute to this ministry. But the Thai leaders go ahead and do whatever they want without discussing anything with me. I feel totally useless. I’m planning to go back to England as soon as possible.”3

Many, like this young man, have reverted to the old colonial option—mission within my own sphere of power and influence. They have found this far easier to manage, and they plant churches in the denominational patterns and divisions they have experienced at home. But is this route—which is clearly easier to manage—the purpose and intent of God?

Julie and I began this work with a proposition that “mission with” is the only feasible paradigm4 to fulfill the purpose of God in the twenty-first century. Given that her teammates in practice did not agree, we asked ourselves, How do we know that “mission with” is God’s purpose for our time?

As we reflected on this question, we read from John 17: “I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” (vv. 22–23). The intent in this prayer is clear: “complete unity” is how the world will know Christ and God’s love through Christ. As we read further in Scripture, we saw how the apostle Paul also called local believers in Ephesus to this same end: “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (Eph. 4:3–6). While Paul’s reflection on the church as “one body” was far smaller in scale than the reali...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsements
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Abbreviations
• Preface
• 1. What Are Wicked Problems and In-Christ Solutions?
• Part 1: Biblical Foundations for In-Christ Responses
• Part 2: “In the World” Deceptions and Disagreements
• Part 3: Five Leaders, Four Journeys, Four Metaphors of Leadership for “Mission with” in Christ
• Part 4: Leadership Challenge, Steadfast Hope
• Bibliography
• Contributors
• Index
• Back Cover