Forgiveness and Driving Organizational Performance

Wade Westwood

ORGL 532 Leadership, Justice and Forgiveness

Gonzaga University

Dr. Shann Ferch

18 December 2022

MY FORGIVENESS STORY 

Bob and I work for the same company; Bob is a director and I am a manager, so he is more elevated in the hierarchy than I am, and he is also my senior by probably 25 years. While I don’t work directly for Bob, me and my team of industrial engineers are expected to support his team and their efforts. 

In October, I was brought into a confidential business development proposal that would utilize some of the capital equipment Bob manages; the business development team wanted me to evaluate whether we would need to purchase additional equipment, erect new facilities and to estimate the recurring costs associated with the proposed program.

Our timeline was short – we had 30 days to provide a rough order of magnitude answer so that the business development team could get the proposal returned to the customer while funding was still available in the fiscal year. 

Over the course of the month, I worked with the contacts that I had on Bob’s team to gather the information that I needed to provide a comprehensive answer. As a professional courtesy, I always try to keep any leaders aware of why I am in their factories and offer periodic reviews of my findings so they aren’t blindsided or hear through the grapevine any of my assessments or recommendations. For the first 3 weeks, I scheduled these with Bob at a time his calendar showed as available, and, for the first 3 weeks, Bob did not respond and did not attend. During this time when I would pass Bob in the hall or make it a point for him to see me, he would direct me to relatively small matters that he assured me needed my attention. I got the feeling that he was blowing me off and that he wished I would just go away.

My assessment was due to the business development team by the end of the fourth week, and I still had not shared any of my findings or validated any of my engineering assumptions with Bob. The pitch was due on Friday morning, so I scheduled 30 minutes on Bob’s calendar for Thursday afternoon and made the one and a half hour commute to Bob’s factory.

The meeting time came and went, and again Bob blew me off. For me, the writing was on the wall as far as what he thought about me, but I still had to provide the team an answer, so I persisted. Via text, I asked Bob to let me know when we could review the findings, validate the assumptions, and work to provide a unified answer to the development team. He scheduled, canceled and rescheduled via text multiple times, and finally agreed to meet me at 4:30, which is the time most of the organization goes home. He no-showed again to the 4:30 meeting. 

Around 5, Bob called my cell, and asked that I just tell him over the phone the results of my study. Years of doing this work has informed me that this is not the preferred method, as seeing the charts is usually helpful in addition to the added benefit of being able to read body language and look one another in the eye. As a change agent, it is normal for receptions to my findings and recommendations to be met with emotion, whether it be disbelief or anguish, so it is helpful to be in the same room to affirm trust and encourage dialogue. 

In spite of knowing better, I proceed to brief Bob on the findings of my studies over the phone. As expected, Bob was in disbelief of my recommendations. Rather than talking through any concerns, Bob chose to be passive aggressive. My recommendations were meant with interrupting comments like, “You must know more about this than I do”, or, “I don’t see how that is possible, but don’t let me stop you.” 

After 15 minutes on the phone and many denied requests to talk to Bob in person while I was seated only 100 feet down the hall from him, I realized that I would not be getting his blessing and that the conversation was going nowhere. The conversation came to a boil when Bob accused me of not being able to provide a thorough analysis in only 4 weeks, not involving his team in my analysis, and finally him saying that I can just do whatever I want because I “seem to know everything”. I was so angry about being constantly interrupted, about being accused of taking shortcuts and about being told that I lacked respect for my teammates. 

I hung up.

Very shortly later, my phone began to ring. I considered not answering it, but I ultimately did. Bob was screaming on the other end. “DID YOU HANG UP ON ME? COME TO MY OFFICE.” I obliged and within seconds was in Bob’s office. Oddly, he looked surprised to see me. He stood up with vigor, and I intentionally shut the door and sat down in an effort to deescalate the situation. He pointed his finger at me, and proceeded to dress me down about disrespecting a director, threatening to call my boss, and telling me how disrespectful I am. I listened, and when he paused, I aired my side. I explained how disrespectful it was for Bob to constantly interrupt me, to not respond to meeting invites that require people to drive three hours round trip, and how I could tell that Bob was pointing me to insignificant tasks rather than collaborating with me to address the questions that we get paid to answer. His demeanor softened enough for us to work for 2 hours that night on our pitch. That night, I almost ran out of gas coming home because I was still so livid that I did not bother to check my fuel level. 

Serendipitously, the timing of this interaction with Bob, which was the most uncomfortable interaction I have had in my professional career, coincided with the beginning of this class. Upon reading the syllabus and the requirement to share my own story of asking for forgiveness, my encounter with Bob came to mind, but I resisted. It was too fresh, the wound too raw. Tutu (2000) says, “we all know how difficult it is for most of us to admit that we have been wrong. It is perhaps the most difficult thing in the world – in almost every language the most difficult words are, ‘I am sorry’.”

Last week, I was at Bob’s site again, and I made it a point to find him. He was alone in the cafeteria, and I could tell that he was less than thrilled to see me approach. He greeted me curtly, and I told him that I had been thinking a lot about our interaction. The look on his face was one of confusion and surprise when I told him that I wanted to apologize for my behavior and asked if he would forgive me. Bob is a prototypical engineer with an old-school manufacturing bend, so his emotional quotient may not even register on the scale. He blurted out, “people’s lives and livelihoods depend on us”. I remained silent, and eventually his confusion subsided and he proceeded to forgive me, even going so far as to say, “You’re a good man, Wade”.  Bob’s subsequent actions spoke louder than his words, as he walked me around the building, offered me an office and assured me that if I needed anything I should just come to him. 

As time has passed and I have studied more deeply the notion of forgiveness, I have come to see Bob’s perspective more clearly. I don’t agree with the way he behaved, but I do see how he could interpret my actions to be subversive to his authority over the site and the program. Looking back on it, all the reasons I was apprehensive about seeking forgiveness from Bob were all of the reasons why I should have sought forgiveness: this happened at my place of work where we are supposed to be professional, I did not know how he would react, and I was afraid of being vulnerable and being perceived as weak in the future. Bob’s actions after granting forgiveness brought to mind the words of Ray (2022) who wrote, “Grace leads us to where the fear of wilderness subsides and is subsumed by intimacy” (p.112).

DRIVING ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE STARTS WITH EMPATHY

As leaders, Bob and I are both responsible for delivering organizational results, and doing so requires that expectations be set higher than they were in the past. We must push for and expect better results, but certainly not at the cost of alienating our people, the lifeblood of the organization. Challenging people and the processes that they have created requires tact so as not to offend, but rather to elevate and to develop our people into stronger organizational players than they were the day before. 

How can we challenge our organization’s ways of doing things without calling the baby ugly? Tran quotes Greenleaf, “People grow taller when those who lead empathize and when they are accepted for what they are, even though their performance may be judged critically in terms of what they are capable of doing” (Song et al., 2020). We must accept the people, but not necessarily the results they produce. When we as leaders seek to understand our people, we will gain insight into their passions, their dreams and their definition of success. When a leader understands the goals of the organization as well as the goals of the people within it, they become better positioned to put the team members in a symbiotic relationship with the organization so that both are more successful.

It is up to the leader to frame the work in a context that is meaningful to both the organization and the employee; the risk of not doing so is leaving people within the organization with an empty feeling that Frankl (2000) describes as an existential vacuum. If our people feel as if their work is without meaning, how can we expect them to achieve great things? Furthermore, if we as leaders are unable to provide perspective as to why a task or job is meaningful, how can we in good conscience ask a team member to do it?

PERFORMANCE AND ACCOUNTABILITY

Team members spend a certain percent of their life working on and in our organizations. For example, a full-time employee working 40 hours per week is giving 24% of their week to the organization. This is time they could spend elsewhere and that they will never get back. To honor their sacrifice and respect their lives, leaders must set performance expectations and then hold people and the team accountable to the results. Today, accountability can have a harsh or negative connotation, but that should not be the case. Accountability should be applied equally for positive outcomes and negative outcomes.

Leaders must hold in tension the need to drive performance via accountability while also not creating an environment where people feel threatened, anxious or paranoid of consequences should a goal not be reached. This organizational condition would perpetuate a cycle of injustice, and this would cause the notion of forgiveness to be diminished or ultimately meaningless.

When discussing expectations, performance and results, I want to make it clear that I am coming from a place of love. According to St. Thomas Aquinas and the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1997), love is “to will the good of the other”. Delivering feedback regarding performance while coming from a place of love does not negate the need for tact from the leader, nor does it guarantee that the person receiving the feedback will react without emotion; however, love reminds leaders that we are here to serve. Ferch (2012) writes, “True leadership is love. People at mature levels of consciousness love deeply, and are deeply loved. They are not easily hurt. They are powerful, their power is legitimate, and they help others engage legitimate power” (p. 128).

PERFORMANCE AND FORGIVENESS

For an organization to achieve its full potential, forgiveness must be ingrained in the culture. My organization is composed of many professions and skill levels, and a large portion of the company demographic is engineers and other technical experts. Creating a space where engineers can fail repeatedly and still want to work to solve a given problem is a must for an engineering leader. There are parallels to be drawn between being allowed to fail while solving a technical problem and being allowed to fall short in our interactions and treatment of one another. 

In engineering, the goal is always to solve a problem completely the first time in a way that meets all of the stakeholders needs. In our human interactions, the goal is always to treat each other with respect, dignity and worth. Engineers fail to give perfect solutions, and people fail to have perfect interactions with one another. When we as leaders create space for people to fully display their humanity and to bring their whole selves to the organization every day, we enable the possibility for the organization to achieve the most. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stated, “The recognition of the oneness of humanity and the need of active brotherly concern for the welfare of others is the breadth of man’s life” (Scott, 1993, p. 6). When humans fall short in their interactions with one another, forgiveness must not only be an option but an expectation in order for the organization to continue to develop and achieve its full potential. 

If we cannot forgive, good people will only seek not to offend, and that will come at the cost of progress. To make forgiveness a cultural norm in an organization, it must start with leadership. By displaying the ability to forgive, leadership sets an example for the rest of the organization. “The idea of the leader as a servant is rooted in the far-reaching ideal that people have inherent worth, a dignity not only to be strived for, but beneath this striving a dignity irrevocably connected to the reality of being human” (Ferch, 2012, p. 18).

THE TIMELINESS OF FORGIVENESS

Rakya Farah states, “Leaders who wait for people to behave properly before responding in life-giving ways cannot hope to heal, restore, or reconcile” (Song et al., 2020, p. 92). As an industrial engineer, I will say everything in life has a time component. In engineering, a component of continuous improvement is to fail fast. The faster an engineer can understand what the deficiencies in a proposed solution are, the faster that engineer can iterate a more robust solution. The same is true for our interactions with one another. The faster we understand how we have caused harm, injustice or inequality, and the faster we resolve these issues, the more deeply human we are able to be as an organization. 

CONCLUSION

In Night by Elie Wiesel (1960), the author recounts that after being liberated from the concentration camp, revenge never crossed his mind or the mind of his fellow prisoners. They were presented for the first time in years with the opportunity to experience life – to eat, to pursue women, to wear clothes of their own choosing. My prayer is that I can be a positive example and influence over my organization, and that together we will seek to give and experience life rather than be consumed with notions of judgment and revenge.

As leaders, we can sow the seeds of love within our organization. When we ask for forgiveness, we set a tone of grace for the organization and show an example for everyone to be better. “From self-responsible living, grace draws near, and from grace rises the ability to forgive others, to face the atrocities done to us or our loved ones, and not only embrace the violent heart of humanity, but also see the heart of humanity whole, healed, and strong again” (Ferch, 2012, p. 30).

REFERENCES

Doubleday. (1997). Catechism of the Catholic Church: with modifications from the editio typica.

Frankl, V. (2000). Man’s Search For Ultimate Meaning. Perseus Books.

Ray, S. (2022). The Souls of Others. Unsolicited Press.

Scott, C. (1993). My life with Martin Luther King, Jr. Henry Holt And Company.

Shann Ray Ferch. (2012). Forgiveness and Power in the Age of Atrocity. Rowman & Littlefield.

Song, J., Tran, D. Q., Ferch, S. R., & Spears, L. C. (2020). Servant-leadership and forgiveness : how leaders help heal the heart of the world. State University of New York.

Tutu, D. (2000). No future without forgiveness. Doubleday.

Wiesel, E. (1960). Night. Bantam Books.