Barnabas File

You’ve seen it happen.     A motivated, well-meaning group of leaders decides to provide a ministry, program, or outreach that will change the lives of a particular segment of the population. They gather the resources, train the providers, deliver the intervention . . . and it falls flat on its face.     What happened? There may be multiple causes for the failure, but one could be that those delivering the intervention never stopped to talk to those who were the designated recipients.  Perhaps the project failed to meet a real need, duplicated another service, was offered at the wrong time, or failed to understand the values of the recipients. There are times when the intervention might even be offensive. In recent years, several processes have been developed—total quality management, asset-based community development, and design thinking, for example—that begin with those who know more about the concern or problem than anyone else: ...

Whether we want to admit it or not, our actions and decisions each day are as programmed as if we were computers. The word “routine” applies not just to humans but to computers as well. I n computer programming, “routine” and “subroutine” are terms that describe any sequence of code that is intended to be called up and used repeatedly during the execution of a program. They are shortcuts to speed things up. We function smoothly most days because we have developed certain habits related to hygiene, eating, dress, relationship, and exercise that are second nature.  In the same way, we use paradigms to process what we experience even if those paradigms are fictional.  For example, we talk about the sun rising in morning and setting at night when we are the ones moving.  We have adopted patterns for processing information that usually give us reliable results and makes sense of our environment.   As with most things, a strength ca...

Have you ever had the experience of picking out what you thought would be the perfect gift for a friend or loved one and then seeing disappointment or confusion on that person’s face when it was unwrapped?  This is an embarrassing moment for everyone involved (especially if there is an audience). Why does this happen?  One reason is that we did not know the person’s interests and inclinations as much as we thought we did.  Another is that we selected the gift because it was something that we would like to have and just assumed that the other person would as well.  Finally, we gave a gift that we thought that the person ought to have to correct some fault or encourage them to adopt a new behavior.  Sometimes we do this in ministry settings as well.  We assume that a certain constituency needs something and we plan to provide it.  When it is delivered, the process, program, or service falls flat on its face.  Why? 1.  We did no...

No matter what your profession, family situation, or station in life, change happens.   As it does, we have the choice about how we will engage change.   In recent weeks, I have been engaged with colleagues considering how to use human-centered design (or design thinking) to address some of the opportunities that change creates. Bill Burnett, a professor at Stanford University, suggests that we face change with three types of thinking: In engineering thinking, we seek to solve our way forward.   Trained professionals come up with a way to deal with a problem. In scientific thinking, we analyze our way forward.   We develop hypotheses, design experiments, gather data, analyze the data, and arrive at conclusions. In design thinking, we build your way forward.   We start from the ground up with those who stakeholders and engage in an iterative process of inspiration, ideation, and implementation. These ways of thinking are not fo...

Whether we want to admit it or not, our actions and decisions each day are as programmed as if we were computers.  The word “routine” applies not just to humans but to computers as well. I n computer programming, “routine” and “subroutine” are terms that describe any sequence of code that is intended to be called up and used repeatedly during the execution of a program. They are shortcuts to speed things up. We function smoothly most days because we have developed certain habits related to hygiene, eating, dress, relationship, and exercise that are second nature.  In the same way, we use paradigms to process what we experience even if those paradigms are fictional.  For example, we talk about the sun rising in morning and setting at night when we are the ones moving.  We have adopted patterns for processing information that usually give us reliable results and makes sense of our environment.  As with most things, a strength ca...