I became a youth pastor of a large ministry when I was fairly young. I was 21 years old and found myself responsible for 200 youth and 50 adult workers. I still remember the first time I learned the lesson of early confrontation. (I say the first because this is a lesson I have had to re-learn many times, and honestly it gets tested on a continual basis to this day.) I had a particular adult worker who was not performing up to par. My wife told me there was an issue and that I needed to go to the worker and have a direct, serious conversation. I told her that I was aware of the issue and that the person was going to try harder and do better. I felt sure that given time and space the issue would resolve itself without the need for a messy, confrontational conversation. As it turns out there was a messy conversation, dozens of them in fact, and I was not a part of most of them. The issue did not resolve itself, instead if festered until it became an oozing sore. All of a sudden an issue that once involved one person was now affecting an entire division. Conversations were going on behind the scenes, and though I was often at the center of them (or my lack of leadership to more specific) I was not actually involved in most of them.
Confrontation is not easy, especially if you do it correctly, but it is easier than complacency or procrastination. When I spoke about Regular Evaluation I used the well known analogy of beginning a trip and moving 1 degree off course. The fix might be painful, because there is a reason you are off course. However, when we combine Regular Evaluation with Early Confrontation we save Future Pain and Suffering.
There is a formula in which Course Error * Time = (Messier Issues + Deeper Hurt + Wider Conflict + More Difficult Fix).
I have found that the longer I let bad behavior or attitudes go unchecked and confronted the harder it is to confront them in truth and love. What happens is that instead of focusing on one example I have to deal with multiple examples. The more examples I have to use, the harder it is to separate the issue from the person. The confrontation gets messy. My goal in any confrontation is to deal with behaviors and attitudes that hurt both the organization and the employee. That is much easier to do when I only have to discuss one behavior or attitude instead of a whole list of them that cover months of time and multiple projects or interactions.
Messy issues lead to deeper hurts. When people begin to feel like you are confronting their personality, their desires, their abilities, or their worth they tend to get very defensive. That is understandable, because I do the same thing. When I wait to confront I open the door to cause real hurt and pain in the person I am confronting.
Messy issues that lead to deep hurts rarely stay contained. They have a way of spilling out and affecting more and more people. They become a festering sore, or boil that has split open. It may be a nasty word picture, but the effect of a bad behavior and attitude that has been left alone for a long period of time is even worse. We have a horrible ability to downplay the spiritual, emotional, and relational damage that is being done while we find reasons to not confront.
My son has helped me learn this lesson many times. I now know that when he says, “Daddy I need to go potty!” it does not mean that I should think about finding a place in the next 30-60 minutes. It means I need to stop whatever I am doing and get to a bathroom NOW. That lesson became extremely clear when we were at the large, downtown public library. Somehow I thought it would be a good idea to take my two kids to the library by myself and check out 6 huge books. After spending some fun time looking around most of the 4-story facility we were ready to leave. I had all of my books in one arm, my daughter in the other, and was using one hand to try to hang on to Jared. He started saying he needed to go potty, but the thought of setting everything down and finding a bathroom just seemed too difficult… it could wait a few minutes right? Next thing I know I am in the main floor checking out and my son runs up to the desk informing us all that he has peed. Not that he needs to pee, mind you, but that he has already done so… in the lobby. I recently donated several dozen books to the library. Hopefully they will renew my library card now.
The last benefit that Early Confrontation gives is that it leads to easier fixes. Just like it is easier to fix a course correction after 5 feet than 500 miles, it is easier to correct a behavior after 1 week than after 1 year. I am currently doing some coaching for church planters in my area. So far it seems to be going well, and my mentor says that I am doing a good job. He also told me this last meeting that I need to continually seek training and resources that will help me evaluate my coaching style and confront issues. There is a danger that I will incorporate bad habits into my style early on, and if they are not caught and corrected in the beginning they will be much harder to fix later on. What we often forget is that people affect other people. If I have a volunteer or employee who has behavior and attitude issues, then they are affecting everyone that they come in contact with. That means that if I do not confront those issues for 6-12 months then I have now multiplied my problems by the number of people that have been affected over that time period. The real kicker is that the secondary people affect others in their own circles of influence, and before I know it I find myself wishing I had dealt with that “difficult” situation 6-12 months ago, because it certainly does not seem so difficult now in light of the problem I face.
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