The MFC & the Olympics

No, I'm not about to suggest that interviewing become an Olympic event, even though some schools have interviewing competitions and prizes.

Rather I was caught by the parallels between the MFC interview and an Olympic event when a speed skater said that she had had an emotional breakdown on the day of her event. Her statement was part of an NPR segment on the psychological preparation and coaching. It was good to hear of the preparation and that the skater recovered from her breakdown and earned a silver metal.

Both Olympic athletes and ministerial candidates spend years preparing for "tests" that are over in minutes. The emotional and psychological tension can be quite intense.

An MFC member once said, "We're not so scary." Another posited that successful candidates will face much greater challenges once they become ministers. Yet there is something special about the years of preparation and the few brief moments of the "test" that is different than other challenges. The parallels should led us to question how we prepare ministerial candidates and what we might learn from Olympic coaching.

Demolition Advocates v. Tinkerers

In my discussions with individuals who have felt wounded by the current ministerial examining process, there are always those who'd like to blow up the whole thing. Why do we need ministerial examining in the first place? If we need it, why does it pivot on the interview? Shouldn't we have a process, like "in-care" in the United Church of Christ (UCC), that is more supportive and affirming of those striving to enter professional ministry and calls for greater involvement of the local congregation as a key partner in the process?

On the other hand, some of us are tinkerers. Why can't we, like the American Baptists, limit the interview to questions of character and find other ways to examine for content knowledge? Are there other ways to demystify the process?

I'm more in the tinkerer than the demolition camp, arguing for some form of centralized or regionalized examining and that some (and probably most) members of the examining committee should not personally know the examinee. Despite all post-modern claims to the contrary, there are arguments for objectivity, or, at least, what Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia calls neutrality in his TED video.

I'm also a believer in innovation and continuous process improvement. Mostly this involves tinkering, but occasionally it requires demolition.

What do you think?

Reflecting Theologically on Ministerial Credentialing

I'm daunted by the challenge of the title of this post which was inspired by Scott Gerald Prinster's comment to my post on "Ministerial Examining & Climate Change" and thoughts about the differences between ministry and organizational development consultancy. Scott points out that ministry is distinguished from activism and politics by reflection upon the deeper issues that form the basis for the latter two activities. His comment caused me to wonder about the project of this blog: Where would theological reflection about ministerial examining/credentialing lead?

The other thread was a comment made to me that while I may serve as an organizational development consultant as a minister, my clients would also expect me to minister to them. This distinction is more subtle than it may first appear. Consultants often do minister to their clients. While consultancy, therefore, can be a ministry, there is a different intention or at least a greater intentionally in fellowshipped ministry than in consultancy and different expectations from those served by ministers than those served by consultants.

Reflecting theologically on ministerial examining starts with "respect for the inherent worth and dignity of every person," UUism's first principle and the first principle of this blog. Ministerial formation is a transitional time of great vulnerability, and like other transitions, calls for a greater measure of care. Think of all the people who enter our congregations at times of person crisis and transition and our call for radical hospitality.

Jungians refer to periods of transition as liminal space. This term derives from the Latin word "limen," which means threshold. Aspirants for ministry hope to cross the threshold into candidacy, candidates into preliminary fellowship, and preliminary fellows into final fellowship. These thoughts about thresholds lead to thoughts of hospitality supported by the UU source of "Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God's love by loving our neighbors as ourselves." The Ministerial Fellowshipping Committee literally welcomes successful candidates into UU ministry.

What is sometimes difficult to remember in the midst of preparation for exams is that some covenantal expectations of hospitality/ministry also fall upon the guest. Candidates and aspirants must learn to welcome the concerns of Committee and Subcommittee members as they will be expected in their ministries to welcome the concerns of congregants and community members.

Finally, this blog has reminded me of the 7th UU principle, "Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part." Ministerial examining is connected to ministerial competencies, formation, and development. These are connected to the role of professional ministry which is connected to the role of lay ministry. These roles are performed in the context of the covenant and principles of UUism. Just as candidates for ministry are expected to minister to their examiners as their examiners minister to them, our living covenant is embodied in and informed by how we welcome and examine candidates for ministry.

Ministerial Examining & Climate Change

When I came up w/ the above topic, I thought of the folowing:

• the old Reese's commercials about accidentally getting chocolate in peanut butter and vice versa;
• a poetry workshop in which we were given the task of creating poems using randomly selected words to start each line (a great exercise that produces amazing results);
  
• a desire to let you know that I do not spend all my time thinking about ministerial examining; and
• my interest in discovering links between ministerial examining and climate change, two of my current passions.

I went from a mild interest in climate change straight to despair (do not pass GO; do not collect $200) after attending Dan Miller's "A Really Inconvenient Truth" presentation (summary here) at the Chabot Space & Science Center in Oakland. Miller claimed that we must reduce dramatically the release of of carbon into the atmosphere within the next 2 or 3 years if we are to avoid environmental disaster within the next 20 years. With my knowledge of the glacial speed of cultural change, I interpreted him as saying that we would face the inevitable if we didn't do the impossible. (And, considering how quickly the glaciers are melting, I may need to come up w/ another metaphor, like "bowling in the sand," to describe the slowness of cultural change.)

I'm grateful to report that my trip to despair was quite brief. (Not a nice place; don't recommend it.) It occurred to me that UU communities, littered as they are with scientists and engineers, might be a good place to start tackling climate change. Naturally, at least for all of you who have been paying more attention than I have, I found that many UUs and others such as Bill McKibbon of www.350.org (YouTube video here) had preceded me in this thought.

So what does all this have to do with ministerial examining? Before I answer that question, one more aside.

I just finished listening to the book Change or Die, which I highly recommend. In it, the author tells the story of Madison Avenue advertising account reps who made quite a good living placing ads on broadcast television. As the audience for that medium shrank, the cost of the ads increased. This could not go on forever, and in time, many account reps saw their commission income drop significantly as more and more advertising dollars moved to the Internet.

There are many types of "climate change." The "climate" in which UU ministry is practiced is changing, as the new UUA President frequently reminds us. Like the advertising account representatives, UU ministers may need new knowledge and competencies to thrive in the midst of change. If that's the case, then ministerial formation, examining, and development will be enhanced by changing too.

See a UU Minister?

In reply to my 12/10/09 post "See a Minister?", Scott Gerard Prinster wrote the following comment:

My first thought about this elusive "ministerial presence" is that a strong candidate demonstrates the ability to reflect critically on questions in light of our UU traditions and values. Our congregations expect us to be able to provide leadership in responding thoughtfully from a UU perspective to difficult questions and situations.

His comment closely tracks my thinking about the 16 competencies (Sexual Health, Sexual Boundaries, Sexual Justice was added at the 12/09 MFC meeting) for UU ministry. When the MFC evaluates candidates, it's not just trying to answer the "See a Minister?" question. Rather it's looking at the more specific "See a UU Minister?" question. It wants to know whether the candidate is grounded in "UU traditions and values" and understands theology, church history, Hebrew & Christian scriptures, etc., from a UU perspective.

This lens for looking at the other competencies can be helpful in studying for the MFC interview. For example, candidates are less expected to memorize scripture than they are expected to see it as a UU and to "respond thoughtfully from a UU perspective."

One can advocate this study method without slipping into the dangers of orthodoxy. It's not necessary nor wise to parrot a UU "party line." Instead reflect on how your theology, ethics, and understanding are aligned with UUism. For example, my theology had its roots in Asian Indian philosophy. Learning that Mary Moody Emerson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and others had trod this path before me and the impact of Asian philosophies on modern UUism put me on solid UU ground.

Blind Spots

Happy New Year!

Maybe you've had this experience. You get a notice from an airline frequent flyer program that you'll lose your miles unless you either fly or extend their life by using some for a magazine subscription. Since you're not a real frequent flyer, but someone who's accumulated a few miles from the occasional trip, you go for the magazine subscription. Thus I became a Wired subscriber.

I'm loving it. Tho I don't have the quals to be a card-carrying geek, I have the nerd's love of things of the mind and have found many wonderful articles in Wired, including this one about the neuroscience of illusion, staring Teller of "Penn & Teller" fame.

An aside: It's a great article, and I still have a fondness for reading paper rather than a computer screen, but there are clear advantages of the net as is illustrated by the embedding in the online version of the article of YouTube videos showing Teller performing the illusions/magic which are only described/pictured in the paper version.

Teller is now a co-author of an article in a neuroscience journal on the new field of "magicology, the mining of stage illusions (magic) for insights into brain function." Not only is the hand quicker than the eye; the brain is so enamored of its perceptual heuristics that it still can't perceive/understand what's happening when the secrets of some illusions are revealed. As Jonah Learner, the author of the article and the books How We Decide, and Proust Was a Neuroscientist, writes:

What's surprising is just how limited the repertoire of magical illusions actually is. The Nature Reviews Neuroscience paper lists nine fundamental "conjuring effects" of modern magic, from the vanish and the restoration to telekinesis and ESP. While these basic tricks have been varied endlessly—you can "restore" a cut rope, a sawed-in-half assistant, a shredded piece of paper—each of the effects relies on a specific perceptual phenomenon. This may be why exposing the "secret" of a magic trick is so often deflating. Most of the time, the secret is that we're gullible and our brains are riddled with blind spots.

OK, you who have been reading this blog for a while know what's coming. I read the above and immediately thought about the implications for interviewing and examining. Good design is critical for examinations precisely because "our brains are riddled with blind spots" and cognitive frames that are usually functional but sometimes misleading. We interview in groups partially in hope of reducing our blind spots and confirmation biases (ignoring evidence contrary to our beliefs), but then we risk group polarization, the tendency of people with shared beliefs to become more certain of those beliefs when they congregate.

Knowing these limitations to human perception and understanding encourages the spiritual practice of humility. In this new year, may we wear our beliefs like comfortable old garments, soft to the touch and with room for growth.

Regionalization, Baffling Information, & Independent Review

Thanks to Christine Robinson at iMinister for this continuing dialogue on ministerial credentialing. Her latest post on the subject, to which this one is in reply, is here.

Regionalization - The fact that ministers often move among regions is not a significant objection to the establishment of 4 regional MFCs to match the 4 regional RSCCs. It does speak to the need to assure consistency and equity among regional RSCCs, as there needs to be consistency and equity between MFC panels now.

My experience with process innovation suggests that vertical integration--reviewing the record from application for aspirant status to final fellowship--is likely to be more important than horizontal integration--a single body reviewing all ministers in a step on the path, e.g., preliminary fellowship. One of the most valuable things that the MFC now does is look at multiple evaluations across time. When this is done, items that may have seemed minor in a single evaluation become magnified when they are repeated and unaddressed.

I do wholeheartedly agree that non-MFC individuals and groups can help the RSCCs and the MFC. For example, the drafting of standards and evaluation methods and studies of MFC processes and results can be performed outside of the MFC. In fact, the UUA Board recently charged a non-MFC work group to look at all UU credentialing.

Baffling Information - Christine rightfully points to the "baffling information" (or the baffling lack of information!) that sometimes accompanies a "3" from the MFC or a "yellow light" or "red light" from a RSCC. Christine tells us what happened to her 30 years ago. Today, David Pettee and others are ready to help "decode" these baffling comments. While it would be ideal for the MFC and RSCCs to provide more information in writing, this may not happen until they are given further resources.

Maybe another question might be helpful: "When is it appropriate to require additional preparation by a candidate before the candidate is allowed into preliminary fellowship?" As we strengthen the common and public understanding of the answer to that question, greater clarity and detail in the information provided to aspirants and candidates is likely to result.

Independent Review - Ah, it is terrible to waste a good miscommunication. I was not recommending a preliminary fellowship review outside the MFC; I was lauding the merits of having the annual MFC review because it is in addition to those provided by individuals and committees who work directly with the minister. The danger of direct observation is that the observers sometimes become so close to the minister that they become unwisely biased in their evaluations. However, I'm glad for the happy accident of the fuzziness of my recommendation because there is wisdom in Christine's recommendations that others be involved in the review process and that the mentoring process be strengthened.

Ministerial Credentialing: Four Questions from Wayne Arneson

What a wonderful time to catch up on backlogs.

This post is in reply to the 4 questions from Wayne Arneson, Chair of the Ministerial Fellowshipping Committee (MFC), posted here at iMinister on 12/8/09.

1. The UUMA already plays a major role in accrediting ministers. There are UUMA reps to the MFC. Other Committee members, including the chair and the senior UUA staff advisers, are UUMA members. Having the UUMA take over the process entirely is very unlikely and risks isolating the process from the various constituencies served by UU ministers.

2. There may be merit in regional credentialing. The MFC has a massive workload that could be divided by regionalization. There would be the challenge of consistency across the regions; however, that challenge isn't likely to be insurmountable and is already faced by the Regional Subcommittees on Candidacy (RSCCs). The great challenge would be to locate the resources, both human and financial, to create such regional MFCs and to develop and provide the training and evaluation needed for valid and consistent examining in all of them.

3. The broader question is the following: Should there be a substantive review/examination before a candidate is accepted for preliminary fellowship, or should a candidate automatically be accepted for preliminary fellowship when the candidate has successfully completed all the requirements (M.Div., CPE, internship, etc.)? This question revolves around whether this examination is worth the resources expended. Without going into a long argument here, let's just note that some ministers have reported that getting a "3" (do "X" and come back for a 2nd interview) helped prepare them for ministry.

To return to the narrower question, if you accept that a final substantive review/examination is needed, then it's legit to ask whether an interview should be a part of it. The interview does produce information that can assist the MFC. It's also true that the interview and the process of preparing for it could be further demystified so as to reduce the attendant anxiety and improve its validity and reliability.

4. Even Christine Robinson's proposal seems to be another form of a probationary period, a time of trial during which a determination is made whether a person receives "tenure." As long as you retain a 3-year probationary period, it makes sense to have annual reviews and a continuing mentoring process.

Finally, it's of benefit to have someone or group other than the mentor who is outside the immediate setting evaluate progress during preliminary fellowship. This does not answer the questions of whether there is too much paperwork involved in the current process and whether we can streamline and improve the reviews.

Christmas & Credentialing

Merry Christmas everyone!

I just got caught up on my e-mails yesterday. When that happens in Gmail, a little message appears asking whether you'd like to look at Google reader. I did so and found this most interesting post about ministerial credentialing at iMinister. Here are some responses to the points made there:

1. A cost-benefit analysis of UU credentialing is an excellent idea. I believe it is within the charge to the workgroup now being formed by the UUA Board in response to a recommendation from the Excellence in Ministry Summit.

2. A brief, high-stakes interview is a terrible way of determining who is qualified to be a UU minister. However, it's important not to confuse the culminating event in a process with the entire process. Now having served as a liaison to candidates, I am more aware of the importance of the packet review in the decision-making process of the Committee. From the outside, the interview appeared to have more weight in MFC decisions than it actually has.

This is not to say that the ministerial examining process could not be improved. A subgroup of the MFC Process Working Group is being created to further examine the interviewing process.

3. I couldn't agree more that "it would be best to be clearer and more transparent about who needs ministers to know what." It's even more important to be clearer and more transparent about who needs ministers to do what.

Furthermore, there's a disconnect between how the MFC sees itself, and how it is perceived by others. More transparency in the examining process, including how the MFC determines what questions to ask, can help to close this gap.

Yet an important part of the gap is not informational. It is, to use a phrase made famous during the Johnson Administration, a credibility gap. This credibility gap isn't generated by misdeeds and deceit. Rather it is a consequence of the fears generated by the high stakes involved in the MFC's decisions, the need to protect the privacy of candidates, the weight of tradition, and the paucity of resources. We can reduce it.

In this paragraph of the post, there is a misconception that the MFC interview is primarily fact-based, like a game of Jeopardy. Candidates can't afford to miss all the fact-based questions, but they are not the primary focus/point of the interview.

Finally, while we have congregational polity, we have an increasing number of community ministers. The needs of the communities they serve--hospitals, shelters, prisons, birth control clinics--should also be taken into account in designing and implementing ministerial examining processes.

4. Yes, written comprehensive exams--and alternatives to accommodate candidates with learning disabilities--would be fairer that a short oral interview covering 16 competencies if it is decided that the candidates' ability to recall such factual information is critical. In today's wired world, this is an anachronism. UU ministers should be able to locate facts, not be walking encyclopedias. Our exams should speak to whether they are mentally, emotionally, and spiritually ready for UU ministry.

5. The point of the Gladwell article is that in many occupations, the examining (and possibly the educational) process is flawed and does a terrible job of predicting success in the occupation. We can't conclude from it or from our current experience that all examining processes would not be predictive of ministerial success.

It is possible to put more weight on internships and residencies. It may even be possible to hold internship and residency supervisors accountable for their recommendations. Then the MFC examination would be likely to be more predictive of success because it would be based on more reliable and valid evaluations of candidates doing ministry.

6. The MFC's workload is massive. And it ties into orge's remark about competencies propagating like tribbles (for non-Star Trek fans, think "rabbits"). I am making recommendations to the subgroup of the Process Working Group on both of these topics.

As mentioned above, in addition to the MFC subgroup, a UUA Board inititated workgroup is being formed to look at all UU credentialing processes.

I am so pleased that this topic is generating such interest. It's a wonderful Christmas present.

More Difficult Than I Thought

One of the drivers of the quest for improved examining and interviewing was equal employment opportunity. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the Department of Labor, the Department of Justice, and the Office of Personnel Management ( the Federal government's central human resources office, then called the Civil Service Commission) issued The Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures in 1978 to address the need for "a uniform set of principles on the question of the use of tests and other selection procedures." The two major issues in examining are validity (does the exam measure what it's supposed to measure) and reliability (is it consistent in its results).

Though I can't find the citation now, I remember a discussion about examining for the professions that was the material issued by the agencies to assist in implementation of the Guidelines. It made mention of peer examining because of the difficulty of quantifying competence in the professions.

At the time, I wondered whether this latitude given to the professions might have been due to pressure (or expected pressure) from the American Bar Association, the American Medical Association, etc. Now my experience as a Ministerial Fellowshipping Committee (MFC) liaison to candidates has given me a new appreciation of the difficulties of examining in the professions while affirming my conviction of the importance of doing so.

I will be making suggestions for changes in MFC processes in the days to come. In the meantime, I'd love to hear what you'd suggest.

Do the Right Thing

For the December meeting of the Ministerial Fellowshipping Committee (MFC), I was one of the two liaisons to candidates. After all this time thinking and writing about the MFC and ministerial examining, it's been fascinating to observe the process from the inside. I'm going to do some posting based on what I've learned and inferred.

This first post is on observations and recommendations made by a Centers for Ministry (CFMs), Regional Subcommittees on Candidacy (RSCCs), Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) supervisors, and intern supervisors and committees. I have been critical of some of these recommendations and of actions based upon them for the following reasons:

• "Requirements" are sometimes masked as "recommendations," especially by CFMs;
• Some recommendations are vaguely written and difficult to interpret; and
  
• The risks that aspirants and candidates will be penalized because of differing interpretations of these recommendations.

While I will say more about this issue in the future, I want to remind aspirants and candidates:

• Do not ignore recommendations--no matter how tentative or vague--that appear in the material that you'll be submitting to the RSCC and/or MFC;
  
• Either follow the recommendation, implement a solid substitute, or provide strong evidence that it's groundless; and
• Unless the recommendation is clear and it's clear how to address it, seek guidance from several trusted mentors on interpretation and implementation.

I'm reminded of a colleague who received a 3 (come back and see us again) from the MFC and was unsure how to interpret and implement the recommendations. She sought help from a senior minister and developed and implemented a plan. When she returned to the MFC for her 2nd interview, she received a 1.

Tyson, the Film and the Interviews

Last night I watched Tyson, a movie about Mike Tyson, the former heavyweight boxing champion, by James Toback. I haven't followed boxing since Muhammad Ali retired (and not very much before then), but between allegations of spousal abuse, a conviction for sexual assault, and biting a boxing opponent on both ears, it was hard not to know of Mr. Tyson.

Based on what I "knew," I assumed that he was no more than a brute without impulse control. I came away from the film with a much more complex and nuanced portrait of the man.

Based on the little bit of research I've done on the film (including watching the DVD extras), it appears that in addition to Tyson's complexity and Toback's skills as an interviewer and filmmaker, their long-time relationship helped Mr. Tyson open up in this revealing portrait. This relationship and other aspects of the film and Mr. Toback's history and oeuvre lead one to question his objectivity. However, there is less reason to question his results, in which we can find important lessons about obtaining a deeper understanding of another through interviewing.

A. O. Scott, The New York Times reviewer of the movie (see the link above), points out what a scary figure Mr. Tyson remains even as we come to see his humanity. In this blog, I have usually been focusing on how frightening interviews such as those by the Ministerial Fellowshipping Committee (MFC) and Regional Subcommittees on Candidacy (RSCCs) can be for the interviewees. This movie has led me to speculate more deeply on the emotions of the interviewers.

Total Recall; Practice, Practice, Practice; and the Power of Misinterpretation

Reading "Total Recall" by Gary Marcus, a cognitive psychologist, in Wired magazine reminded me of the power of practice and how easily examining can go astray. The subject of the article is Jill Price, a woman with a supposedly "perfect" memory. If you'll click on the link to the Wired article, you'll also see Diane Sawyer's interview of Ms. Price.

After interviewing (please note all fans of the blog: interviewing!) Ms. Price over 5 years, James McGaugh, a neuroscientist, and his team at UC Irvine concluded that she had a near perfect memory in this article first published in the journal Neurocase. An editor at the Free Press went even further, entitling her story The Woman Who Can't Forget: The Extraordinary Story of Living With the Most Remarkable Memory Known to Science.

Ms. Price does indeed have an amazing memory, but Dr. Marcus, upon examining her further, discovered that her memory isn't all-inclusive. Rather her forte is autobiographical memory. Dr. Marcus writes that the source of this autobiographic memory is rumination that appears obsessive. She didn't seek out this memory and she didn't know its source; it was an unsought consequence of her journaling and other daily habits.

OK, OK, so what does this have to do with ministerial examining?

• Examinees can mislead examiners even when they are not trying to do so.
• Interviewing is a limited tool at best even when in the hands of scientists who should know better. (Being a professional doesn't assure that you are a skilled interviewer, and even skilled interviewers can be misled or can deceive themselves.)
• Examining and assessment should be based on a multiplicity of instruments, and there should be appeal/review mechanisms because of the possibility of error.
• Interviewers are likely to be tempted, and may even consciously or unconsciously fall to the temptation, to seek information that affirms the conclusions they've already reached.
• "Ordinary" people can achieve extraordinary results with practice, practice, practice. (The thesis of Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, which is discussed elsewhere in this blog.)

So let's acknowledge the inherent worth and dignity of each individual involved in developing and implementing the current UU ministerial examining process. I am confident that they are doing their best with the best of intentions. I'm grateful for their professional and their volunteer efforts. Yet, I will continue to advocate for evolution in UU ministerial examining.

On the Job Assessment

In the print version of this SF Chronicle article, "More Companies Try Out Workers Before Making Full-Time Offers," the paper highlighted the following quote from a local CEO:

I've had people who are horrible at interviewing but are awesome employees, and people who are great at interviews and horrible employees.

My personal experience of the above was one of my motives for researching examining procedures when I worked for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The CEO and I are not alone. In interviews of senior VA officials who were being considered for advancement, nearly all reported that the decision they most regretted in their careers was an employee selection.

I mentioned in an earlier post that work samples tend to be superior to interviews as predictors of job success. Naturally, a 90-day work sample tends to be superior to a 2-hour work sample.

Please note that the firms described in the article aren't starting with "permanent" employment and using traditional probationary periods. The difficulty with such periods is that you have to fire a poorly performing employee, and most employers are reluctant to do so unless performance or behavior is egregious. The "test periods" described in the article allow employers to let individuals go without firing them.

Internships and residencies should serve as such "test periods" for ministry. They do to some extent, but not as effectively as they might, because supervisors are reluctant to make negative evaluations, and they don't have to live with the consequences of their positive evaluations. It is rare for a minister to be employed by his/her internship site (a special dispensation from the Ministerial Fellowshipping Committee (MFC) is required).

This reluctance to be candid reminds me of what a U.S. Marine officer one told me about the officer evaluation process. He said that all Marine officers are outstanding, but some are just more outstanding than others. To make comparisons among officers, you had to read between the lines.

The MFC has a tough job. Like senior Marine officers, it too has to read between the lines when reviewing the material in a candidate's package. For example, a seemingly minor comment by an internship committee may become major if it's duplicated in other evaluations. Sometimes the various evaluators have not seen one another's evaluations. The MFC must put the whole picture together.

The above reminds me of Spiderman's code: "With great power comes great responsibility." (Variations of this thought can be found in Socrates, Rousseau, FDR, and Churchill.) I add that with great power comes the need for great humility. The purpose of this blog is to start a dialogue about how the fellowshipping process be the best possible exercise of that responsibility.

Interviews vs. Work Samples

OK, I thought I was pretty radical, but Dan & Chip Heath, authors of the "Made to Stick" column in Fast Company magazine and the book of the same name have exceeded me in dissing interviews in their article: "Hold the Interview: Why it may be wiser to hire people without meeting them."

Their citation of a study at the University of Texas Medical School is compelling, and parallels the findings at the University of Michigan Law School sited by Malcolm Gladwell in his video (see link with discussion here). I love the following quote:

With so little proof that interviews work, why do we rely on them so much? Because we all think we're good at it. We are Barbara Walters or Mike Wallace, taking the measure of the person. Psychologist Richard Nisbett calls this the "interview illusion"--our certainty that we're learning more in an interview than we really are.

The brothers Heath then go on to laud the merits of work samples, which are more valid predictors of job success.

We can do a better job of interviewing through the use of performance-based interviewing techniques. But the Heath article strikes an appropriate cautionary note: We would be wise to place less weight in the examining process on even the best of interviews.

Likeability

I've added Facebook to my list of addictions. Recently it suggested I become a fan of Pongo Resume. That's how I found the blog post, Like It or Not, Likability is the Key to Getting Hired.

OK, as a congregant and now as a colleague, there is much to be said for likable ministers. It's hard for me to imagine wanting to have a minister or be a minister who was not likable.

My concern is the risk of giving too much weight to likability in an interview and therefore in the entire examining/fellowshipping process. Even people who behave despicably can give the appearance of being likable for the length of an interview. And quite likable and well-qualified individuals can "freeze up," hiding their merit under the fire and ice of panic. Finally, ministry sometimes calls for not being likable, e.g., when telling truth to power.

Upside Down

Working/interpreting dreams has taught me to look at things both right side up and upside down. The scary monster in a dream may have my best interests at heart, may be a good friend trying to warn me of impending disaster. A death may be the announcement of a healing transformation.

Though I more often hear stories of shock, pain, fear, and anger from individuals who receive a "yellow light" from a Regional Subcommittee on Candidacy (RSCC) or a "2" or "3" from the MFC, I also hear stories from people who tell me that they have come to agree with the decision they received and have benefited from the additional study or the additional activities prescribed. Though this blog contains suggestions for improving the current examining process, it recommends that the UUA continue to examine for ministry and acknowledges that some candidates are not ready for "green lighting" when they first present themselves to the examining body.

My theology is principally drawn from Indian philosophy. When the WRSCC (Western RSCC) told me that I didn't have a fully developed UU theology, it forced me to research the Indian roots of transcendentalism. I found that I was treading a path that held the footprints of Mary Moody Emerson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau. The research and reflection helped me integrate my UUism and my nondualism.

Do you have a tale of how RC and/or MFC prescriptions--no matter how disappointing at the time--eventually worked to your benefit?

The Quest for Certainty

Currently, I'm reading The Age of American Unreason by Susan Jacoby, author of Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism. On page 157 of the former, she writes that in the 1960s:

The appeal of the Christian fundamentalists was similar to that of strict Hasidic sects in the Jewish community: They offered rules and certainty to some young men and women who had found only unhappiness where others had found personal freedom.

Back in the day, I was one of the youth who was revelling in the freedom of the time. Brought up UU in a diverse Washington, DC, congregation, when I went to the University of Wisconsin (Madison), during the turmoil of the late 1960s, I felt like the rest of the world was joining our free, liberal faith. In contrast to my felt sense at the time, Jacoby points out that the turmoil of the 1960s was the seedbed for neoconservatism, fundamentalism, and the Reagan Revolution.

In Outliers: The Story of Success and this wonderful video from the 2008 New Yorker Conference, Malcolm Gladwell points to a "mismeasurement" problem in many fields that is due to a misplaced quest for certainty in examining. While it's true that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior (the mantra of performance-based interviewing), the value of past behavior as a predictor varies with its relevance to the expected future behavior. Dividing a job into its component parts and testing each of these may not provide good results. Please see the Gladwell video for specific examples.

I wonder whether the complexity and the nature of the current UU ministerial examining process is not in part a consequence of the difficulties of some ministers and ministries. How has our UU history served as a seedbed for our conservatism in examining?

School of Diplomacy, Inner Peace, & Ministerial Presence

I worked for the Federal government from my early 20s through my early 50s. For much of that time, I was supervised and/or mentored by a woman who was concerned about my lapses in diplomacy. These lapses were most frequent in my 20s, gradually tappering off. As the years passed, I would tease her about being a graduate of her school of diplomacy, and she would tease me about not having a diploma to prove it.

I am currently serving as an organizational development consultant to a UU fellowship. The other day a member of its board complimented me on my people skills.

I briefly felt like a postgraduate of my former boss' school of diplomacy. However, drilled in reflection in seminary, I started to wonder what had changed.

As a young man, I thought that my and my family's current and future well-being were dependent upon success in my career. A workplace situation I found threatening felt very threatening indeed.

At first, I was thinking that my newly found (or slowly evolved) skills were merely a matter of not having the same emotional and economic investment in the consulting work that I did in my former career. Yet something quickly told me that this wasn't the right answer. I care very much what happens to the Fellowship.

What has changed is that I have become more aware of limitations -- my own, others, and collective -- and less attached to outcomes. Some of these changes are situational, and some are the gifts of guidance from mentors and friends.

When this thought appeared, I was reminded of a minister's comments about her preparation for her MFC interview. She said she'd spent months anxiously reading and memorizing. Somehow, just before the interview she found a place of peace. Her inner voice told her that the MFC would take her as she was or they would not. I've heard others referred to this moment as the recognition -- without shame or pride -- of being a minister regardless of the MFC 's decision.

There is some strong connection or even an identity between an inner peace and ministerial presence. Diplomacy and compassion often arise from this place.

Please note that I am not speaking of the mythic or unattainable. This sense of equilibrium is not unassailable. Moments of doubt and uncertainty and even of despair still appear. Yet something has shifted.

Where is your sense of equilibrium? What brings you back to center when you feel unbalanced? How do you find that peace in the midst of stress and anxiety? How do you let go of outcomes? The answers to these questions are likely to be more important to your preparation for your MFC interview than those to any fact-based questions you or the MFC can devise.

Temporary Autism

Autism is defined in Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary as:

A variable developmental disorder that appears by age three and is characterized by impairment of the ability to form normal social relationships, by impairment of the ability to communicate with others, and by stereotyped behavior patterns.

In Blink, Malcolm Gladwell lauds the merits of "rapid cognition," something we sometimes know as "intuition." However, he also points out that it can often go astray. One example he gives is what he calls "temporary autism."

Gladwell is focusing on our ability to assess the emotions of others by "reading" their faces, an ability that people suffering from autism appear to lack. Gladwell says that when those of us who are not suffering from autism becomes sufficiently stressed, we become temporarily autistic, losing our capacity to read in the emotions of others.

I went to the MFC presentation at the General Assembly in 2007 in Portland. A then member of the MFC said that he knew that ministerial candidates were stressed by the MFC interview, but he didn't think that the MFC members were all that scary a bunch and that the candidates would face much greater stresses when they became ministers.

I would have to agree that the MFC members are not all that scary a bunch. In fact I find them to be hard working, talented, dedicated, and well-intentioned. But the former MFC member's assessment did not take into account the situation in which the candidates find themselves when they are facing the MFC.

When working as a chaplain in medical center emergency rooms and critical care, medical, surgical, and psychiatric units, there are people and situations that are more frightening than the MFC and its members. Yet no single interaction has the foreseen capacity to postpone or even derail one's call to ministry.

In the parallel situation of a job interview, you know that if you don't get this job, you are likely to get another. You may also know that there are discrimination complaint and other review procedures if you believe you have been treated unfairly.

None of these options really apply to the MFC interview. If you're UU down to your bones and you're not fellowshipped as a UU, it's not likely that you're to become a candidate for fellowshipping in another religion. Furthermore, there's no review process outside of the MFC for its preliminary fellowshipping decisions.

The pressure therefore is enormous. When I listen to the stories of aspirants and candidates who "froze" in their interviews, it sounds an awful lot like temporary autism.

What do I recommend?

• Put less emphasis on the interview in the fellowshipping process;
• Create a review process outside the MFC; and
• Increase interview training for aspirants and candidates.