Before writing this post, I was preparing an article about how you can start using Trello at your church as a collaborative tool.
However, this week I watched a video about the rules for smart simplicity that made me think on how we tend to think that new technologies are the best solution for productivity and engagement problems in our organizations.
A friend of mine, a systems designer, taught me to don’t ask him to develop a database until people were already doing that process using paper. His principle was based on cooperation. He knew that if the workers were not able to cooperate in order to maintain a hard copy based system, they won’t be able to do it with a digital solution.
If I look back to my failures as an organizational designer, I would found that every time I tried to implement a new structure, process, job title, methodology, software, among many other technological solutions; I was adding complexity instead of simplicity. In those moments I didn’t understood that may be cooperation was the best technology to use and that one of the best enablers for it was reinforcing current integrators (a.k.a. leaders) by removing layers between them and the people.
How are you enabling cooperation as a technological solution for your church?
[Video via Ted.com | Image via Lollyman]
Eric Dye says
I LOVE this! 😀
Jose Quesada says
Hi everybody!
Technology is not exclusively equal to geek toys, gadgets, space rockets or just electronics. Sorry if this overwhelms somebody! 😉 It’s about channels, ways, efforts, tools to make our not just your life easier.
So, if we’re trying to make something easier for our church just because it should be easy for us through that specific way, well, maybe we’re losing perspective. We’re serving people and people are not necessarily, and hopefully, 😉 equal than ourselves. In the end, we’re a body in Christ and each part of a body are different.
Let’s try something new but guiding each one step by step, hearing them, helping them and, most important, letting them to cooperate with us in finding the best solution that works for the church not only for the tech guy (like myself).
Have a nice day!