4.2 The Shifting Nature of Authority
4.2.5 Dealing With Abuses of Authority
Again, flat organizational structures are not without their problems. The kind of relationship that Cody and Jessica describe as having with Jeff can lead to the formation of a closed group with no formal way of addressing their power or authority. Each person that I interviewed both formally and informally at Calvary confirmed that this is not how the congregation is run and that Jeff is accessible to everyone, but this in an of itself certainly does not prove that anything structural is prohibiting power concentration from arising. The fact that a traditional authority structure has not been implemented might be simply due to a whim of Jeff’s personality. While this is substantively
important, it is not the theoretically significant insight here. The theoretical contribution to understanding how resistant organizations can avoid traditional authority structures comes when we understand the utilization of the flat organization in combination with elimination of feedback loops. In chapter 5, I discuss how changing the role of the pastor into a congregational resource as opposed to a manager is implemented in these
organizations. No doubt there are other useful processes for avoiding static authority structures which have yet to be uncovered due to a lack of research, but for now it is important to note that the full utility of the strategies presented here is only realized when they are combined.
attended by 25-30 people in the Emerging Church who were attempting to construct a training program which would be consistent with their desire to avoid institutionalization while still managing to prepare people to be leaders in the Emerging Church. The conference was primarily organized by one individual in particular, Patti, with no other formal positions or committees. However, despite the relatively small size of the
gathering and the lack of other recognized authority figures, her attempts to exert control over the proceedings were met with resistance, and ultimately the group ended up
redefining the agenda for the conference. This was only possible because, as Patti put it,
“I’m the only person here who knows everybody. Everyone who is here is here because of a personal relationship that they have with me.” While it became clear during the second day of the week-long conference that some people were unhappy with the way the conference was going, it was substantially more difficult at first for me to identify the source of the dissatisfaction. My inquiries with various participants elicited answers ranging from the content of the sessions to the timing of events to the lack of downtime.
Indeed, many of these comments contradicted one another with some participants bemoaning the lack of structure while others complained that the conference was too rigid. At night, when I would process my fieldnotes, however, a general consensus began to emerge that the problem was not with any content or outcome but rather with the process. Comments such about specific issues were bracketed with more general level concerns about the way decisions had been made. Rob, for example, explained his dissatisfaction this way.
I don’t really know what’s going on. I wasn’t involved in the planning process.
The schedule doesn’t make any sense to me. This group is so relational that we should have more unstructured down time…I don’t know, I think we should have spent the entire first day as a group deciding what the rest of the week should look
like.
These sentiments were not uncommon. The participants consistently resisted the
decision-making process which privileged Patti’s voice and vision above all others. The decisions regarding the purpose and method of the conference had been Patti’s by virtue of her position as conference organizer. Ultimately, her attempt to exert authority over the gathering was checked by the personal relationships which had been so instrumental in getting people to participate in the first place. People expressed their dissatisfaction with the proceedings to her through a series of one-on-one conversations, reporting frustration that they did not have the freedom to structure the gathering in a way they thought would be best. At least 1125 people had private conversations with Patti to discuss the way things were going with the conference. Eventually, the structure of the remainder of the conference changed in a way which better reflected the desires of the group.
This outcome initially struck me as odd, however. Why would the individual relationships and access made possible by a flat organizational structure lead to a resistance to power when it could have just as easily gone the other way? As I pointed out above, backroom deals in organizations often serve to coalesce power rather than to resist the concentration of authority (Krackhardt 1990; Pfeffer 1981). Hamilton and Biggart (1985) have shown that organizational power is the struggle for control of organizational outcomes such as the use of resources and the garnering of prestige associated with titles and positions. In these situations, then, backroom politicking leads
25 This actually represents an even high percentage of the conference attendees as some people who had come in groups (most notably a group of 3 from the UK and a group of 4
to power concentration as people jockey to obtain an increasing amount of organizational resources from the person who has the ability to dole them out. What became clear to me after analyzing my fieldnotes is that the important difference was that the dissatisfied conference attendees were not making outcome based arguments so much as they were objecting to the decision-making process and lack of dialogue. It is important to note that while Patti is tangentially connected to many people in the Emerging Church, as
evidenced by the 30 people at the conference, her occupation is within a traditional church governmental structure working as a consultant for church development. She has extensive experience personally and professionally with institutionalized churches, and her interest in the Emerging Church is recent, and at the behest of the organization for which she works. Thus, it may come as no surprise that she might not be as sensitive to process and dialogue as to outcomes.
The flat organizational structure which was a result of intentional planning, small size, or lack of resources, combined with preexisting relationships meant that everyone had access to Patti and were ultimately able to change the decision-making process for the rest of the conference. I do not mean to paint an overly rosy picture here, however.
While these relationships were ultimately able to check the concentration of power, the process was not fast and relied on some attributes which might be unique to this group, namely that conference was comprised primarily of people who held leadership positions in their own congregations and thus might be less likely to take a back seat to other people. However, these data do suggest that when people are resisting an abuse of authority based on the process of organizational decision-making rather than the
outcomes of these decisions, it is possible for relationships to result in a resistance to the
institutionalization of authority.