IT IS often suggested, perhaps unfairly, that the Church of England relies too much on business-management models to solve its problems. But let me offer another one — and not one that makes the clergy and lay leaders of the Church feel as though they were working against the grain of their calling. Instead, this is a model that can give us confidence in the existing structure of the Church of England and, if embraced, could help to rebuild trust across the Church in a way that involves real growth. I refer to James Timpson’s “upside-down management”.
In his book The Happiness Index: Lessons in upside-down management (HarperNorth), Timpson describes how, when he studied successful organisations, he noticed that they got two things right: they trusted their people, and they were kind to them.
From these two observations, he created “upside-down management”, rooted in his core principle of trust. Upside-down management means that in the Timpson Group, of which he was chief executive in July when he was appointed Prisons Minister, those who work on the front line (most of his colleagues) have two simple rules: they put the money in the till, and they and their environment look the part. Other than that, they can do what they like, focus on what they want, and innovate where they can.
And what part do Timpson and his management team play? It is simply to listen, invest, be kind, and trust the staff — essentially, give them what they need to be happy and to flourish. The more people are trusted, he argues, the happier they are, the more they flourish, and the better they do their work — the better they serve.
TIMPSON’s tried-and-tested decentralised approach has much to teach the Church of England — not least, by giving us confidence in the decentralised system that we already have. I think this, first, because it is my firm belief — on the basis of orthodox missiology as well as parish experience — that, to enable a church to grow (which is both a gospel imperative and a practical necessity), we must discern what God is doing in that place and join in. We must, therefore, listen to, invest in, and trust in clergy and lay leaders.
But trust in public institutions is at a low. Although I feel trusted, listened to, and invested in by the bishops and archdeacons in my own diocese, evidence suggests that this is not felt by everyone across the Church of England.
My bishop, the Bishop of St Edmundsbury & Ipswich, the Rt Revd Martin Seeley, recently produced a report on this subject for the General Synod: Trust and Trustworthiness within the Church of England (GS Misc. 2354) (News, 28 June; Comment, 5 July).
In it, he wrote that we see a “serious lack of trust displayed between different sections of the organisation, and for different reasons”. These, he explained “can be around decision making and resource allocation, or a more general sense that one part of the organisation is not on the ‘same side’ as the other part”. I know, too, from colleagues’ anecdotal evidence, that some of this distrust can come from a sense of pressure from “the centre”, so that, to obtain money, they must behave in certain ways, sometimes in contrast with what the local evidence would seem to demand. This is true both for dioceses as well as parishes.
I sense that much of this resulting distrust emanates from anxiety — an anxiety fanned by generational church decline, but positively related to a desire for the Church to grow and for the love of God in Jesus Christ to be known and felt by all.
And yet anxiety is something that Jesus constantly spoke against. In St Matthew’s Gospel, this culminates in his encouragement to seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and his assurance that, when we do, all else will be given to us.
AND so I turn, again, to upside-down management, which, rooted in trust and recognisable by kindness and the flourishing of the other, is, I believe, consistent with Jesus’s encouragement.
The existing structure of the Church of England, in which power is decentralised, is built for upside-down management. It already incorporates the necessity to trust; so let us embrace it confidently and with enthusiasm. The “centre” will need to be more confident in those on the front line, and this will need to be demonstrated in trusting them when they ask for investment and support. This will mean, too, that discernment, selection, and training of those serving locally will need to be of high quality.
Timpson notes, too, that recruitment is crucial. But I fundamentally believe that this is the right approach, because I believe in the clergy and other local leaders of the Church, and I believe in the local, where God can be discerned and known.
While learning about Timpson’s upside-down management, rooted in trust and kindness, I was struck by a line in Bishop Seeley’s report: “distrust damages love and impairs mission.” Perhaps, for once, the Church of England ought to rely a little more on a business-management solution?
The Revd Tom Mumford is the Vicar of St Mary le Tower, the town and civic church of Ipswich, in the diocese of St Edmundsbury & Ipswich.