Numbers are Just the Beginning
It happens every time I read Greenleaf’s essay "The Servant as Leader." A passage I never much attended to leaps out, grabs my head and holds it steady on the words to make me reflect anew. Today it was this one: “Criticism has its place; but as a total preoccupation, it is sterile. . . The danger, perhaps, is to hear the analyst too much and the artist too little.”
Research. Critical analysis. Benchmarks. Measurable outcomes. Aristotelian and Boolean logic. ROI. These numbers-based activities have never been more important than they are today. Yet they are only the beginning, not the end, of juicy human authenticity. Where numbers leave off, the artist, the seeker and the servant in your psyche can take over.
One of my best friends designs circuit boards to control remote cameras in race cars and other difficult sites. He also writes fluent code in a dozen computer languages. Keith, who never earned a college degree, is a numbers genius, but he’s also one of the funniest, most creative people I’ve ever known, a graphic artist with a brilliant eye, a loyal friend, and a servant at heart. He’s most proud of being elected president of his condominium association board where he has turned around an aging development, saved tens of thousands of dollars, and made life better for several hundred neighbors. He could not have done it without (1) understanding the financials, but also (2) choosing to go beyond criticism of existing leadership by serving. He ran for office, built consensus, earned trust and acted congruently as a servant of the greater good.
If you’re a professional in a modern organization, you’d better understand how to gather and interpret numbers and analyze them wisely to evolve strategy and measurements. But if that is your only focus, consider that you may be sterile, and some nagging part of you knows that even if you get promoted. What we can offer the world as servants and servant-leaders is something that includes but goes beyond numbers—an artistry that uses intuition, takes risks, and paints fresh possibilities in our corners of the world.
Naïve? Maybe, but just thinking about the possibility makes me feel more alive. Greenleaf was fond of quoting Dean Inge on this point: “Faith is the choice of the nobler hypothesis.”
Research. Critical analysis. Benchmarks. Measurable outcomes. Aristotelian and Boolean logic. ROI. These numbers-based activities have never been more important than they are today. Yet they are only the beginning, not the end, of juicy human authenticity. Where numbers leave off, the artist, the seeker and the servant in your psyche can take over.
One of my best friends designs circuit boards to control remote cameras in race cars and other difficult sites. He also writes fluent code in a dozen computer languages. Keith, who never earned a college degree, is a numbers genius, but he’s also one of the funniest, most creative people I’ve ever known, a graphic artist with a brilliant eye, a loyal friend, and a servant at heart. He’s most proud of being elected president of his condominium association board where he has turned around an aging development, saved tens of thousands of dollars, and made life better for several hundred neighbors. He could not have done it without (1) understanding the financials, but also (2) choosing to go beyond criticism of existing leadership by serving. He ran for office, built consensus, earned trust and acted congruently as a servant of the greater good.
If you’re a professional in a modern organization, you’d better understand how to gather and interpret numbers and analyze them wisely to evolve strategy and measurements. But if that is your only focus, consider that you may be sterile, and some nagging part of you knows that even if you get promoted. What we can offer the world as servants and servant-leaders is something that includes but goes beyond numbers—an artistry that uses intuition, takes risks, and paints fresh possibilities in our corners of the world.
Naïve? Maybe, but just thinking about the possibility makes me feel more alive. Greenleaf was fond of quoting Dean Inge on this point: “Faith is the choice of the nobler hypothesis.”
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