Understanding Your Personality and Mindset - Lesson 9

Dr. Chuck Coker
Understanding Your Personality and Mindset
pc312-09
The Importance of Utilitarianism in Ministry
Lesson Transcript

[00:00:00] Now that we've got that logical, process oriented, objective mindset out of the way, let's take a look at the utilitarian, because the utilitarian while yes, they're logical, but they are focused much more in the area of practicality and efficiency. They want to focus on usefulness gathering, growing and increasing. The results of their efforts. It's all about the return on investment. Now, folks, that doesn't mean necessarily money. That means if I teach a group of nonbelievers, I'm expecting that somebody is going to get saved. If I go to Haiti and help build a process for farming for the people in Haiti, I expect they'll grow crops each year and I expect they'll have other resources. You see, the utilitarian is trying to solve problems through efficiency and make the most out of the resources that are available to them. They want to grow. Another thing unique about the utilitarian person is that they tend to be faster paced and bottom line oriented. Most of all, they hate doing things twice. They don't like repetitive actions. They want to do it once. Tick off the box and move on because their whole focus is on efficiency. One thing that may stand out to you about these people in ministry is the fact that they may never appear to be satisfied with things the way they are. You'll discover that every time they use expressions like this, I know what needs to happen. Just get it done. Whatever works. Let's get to it. You can see it even in their everyday life, because when they have time off, what do they do? They go into the office, create a to do list and use their time off to get caught up on the things that they couldn't get to because they probably overloaded their schedule. 

[00:02:42] Or they might be taking care of their possessions, waxing their car, getting something new for their office to make their job a little bit simpler. But. They're going to focus on making their life more and more efficiency. Let me give you an example. I worked with a gentleman one time who had an extreme library, and it got to the point to where he struggled finding the book he wanted when he wanted it. So what he had his secretary do was go catalog every single book based on category so that he would know exactly where it was. In other words, he met a secretary, a librarian. So don't be surprised when these people are not satisfied and want to fix things and make them more efficient. However. As an individual, you may stress them out when you say, Oh, I didn't do that right. I need to do it again. First thing they're going to do. It's a waste of time and resources. Why do I have to have this conversation with you again? Especially if it involves money or resources being used improperly. What are they going to do when that happens? They're going to start micromanaging you, controlling a little bit more and actually hoarding resources if they don't think you're efficient. They also may even have some concerns and express a fear about not having enough in the bank, not having enough in inventory and things like that. So. They may actually even disengage from you if they're not getting any return or there's no reward or progress. Or. They may take their ball and go home. They're going to withdraw their investment of time, energy resources. And you may feel that they're just selfish. However they can. They can collide with everybody also. 

[00:05:22] For example, let's start with the other objective person, the theoretical. They are going to feel that the high theoretical is either too slow or trying to be overtly organized. In other words, they're not moving fast enough. Now the subjective person is going to feel that they are uncaring about the situation in the circumstances. So they are going to probably distance themselves from them. The belief system people do not want to appear is caring about doing things the right way. So these collisions are going to occur. But the question I must leave with you and ask you is what is actually trying to be accomplished in your church or ministry? The utilitarian is going to help you produce more tangible results. They enjoy those short term projects and the variety of things that happen. They're actually going to keep track of their progress and the changes and. This person is going to be the shaker and the mover in the church. They are going to be constantly on top of things because they're going to be doing the tasks that track. And I identify the things that need to be done on a continuing basis. So knowing you got one of these people in your congregation or in your ministry, how are they going to work? Point them to something that they need to know. Show them statistics. Show them that there will be something that comes out of this. What is the return on investment? Show them how the ministry can grow most of all and then showing them the value of what they're doing. And the idea there is to show them that souls will be saved. Revenues will be increased through the fundraising efforts or whatever it might be. Now, I want you to pull out your assessment now and look at your utilitarian score, because if the score is 61 to 70, you hate wasting time. 

[00:08:08] Just that simple. You hate wasting energy and resources and it'll stress you out 53 to 60. That tendency is to see the task based on how they will provide the greatest impact and return for you. 42 to 52. The efficiency and effectiveness of most activities have a natural capacity to produce rewards. So when you get down to the middle an area of 32 to 41, efficiency and in fact effectiveness are dependent on a high interest or a desire. We're in that situational area. Again, 17 to 31. You're going to prioritize and strategically think. Bringing stress about yourself and causing a limited ability to get a return on investment. In other words, you may care more about people and circumstances than getting to the bottom line. If you're 1 to 16, there's rarely a sense of urgency and focus. On the likes and dislikes rather than the efficiency or timelessness, you're often going to find people that don't get through with their tasks on a timely manner, or they don't get the things done for themselves that they need to do because they're more focused on situations and circumstances now. You may say that that person is very altruistic and that they're very caring and the things that they do. But the challenge is, is that if they're not getting things done either for themselves or for the ministry. They're not doing their job. So. How do we define a utilitarian when it comes to power? Well, power comes from efficiency and effectiveness because their passion is getting a good profit, a return on their time, investment and resources. They're going to overstep their bounds by becoming a workaholic and showing little concern for others. But you can sure stress them out when you waste their time or their resources.

[00:10:46] How do you get your point across to one of them? Show them the value of what they're getting for their investments and time. They love jobs and careers that allow them creativity, control of their own time and resources. You'll find many of them are entrepreneurs and they like incentive based programs that allow them to perform the driving force in their life. Is that every investment made needs to have a greater return in time, talent and resources. And their goal is to be useful and to gather more and have the accumulation occur. So. What are their strengths and weaknesses for your ministry? Most importantly, they're positives is that they have a passion for completing the tasks they are given quickly, efficiently and effectively. They're your movers and shakers with multiple resources because they are purposeful and global thinkers and planners. However, they do have liabilities also, and those liabilities include a very narrow bandwidth when it comes to people and environmental issues, because they're going to do what brings the best results. They will often look overlooked details in haste, and they may be keeping score. Well, it's not really an issue. But they do want to serve. They want to serve within a role that allows them to produce and see the tangible results of their efforts. Especially if it's short term projects where there's variety and they can track their progress and tick off the box and move to the next level. But they have spiritual needs, and the spiritual needs almost always focus around needing to slow down the decision making process. And focus on the reasoning and purpose behind that project. They also have a tendency to compare and contrast people, which is a no no in God's kingdom, since we're all unique.

[00:13:33] They also will probably need to focus on individuals, people's needs. So what are the key points we want to remember about a how utilitarian? The goal is to be practical and efficient, maximize all of the resources that God has given them through production and collection. They're very good managers. They focus on getting the most out of their resources. They also spend their spare time catching up on the to do's and improving their quality of life, which will always have a positive impact on your ministry. So ministry wise, they're going to help a church or ministry achieve more than the ministry would have under other circumstances. So what questions do you have? Do you have any suggestions for setting or evaluating goals that are spiritual goals that are difficult to evaluate from the outside? Because if those are the really essential and foundational goals of the ministry, how do you do that in a way that utilitarian people can relate to? Excellent, excellent question. Objective people, especially utilitarians, need to have something that they can check off the box on. So here's what I would say. I know that you want to understand why God does some of the things that He does. And so rather than going and just reading a specific scripture or a specific chapter each day, I want you to start listening to the Bible every day during your workout or your exercise routine. Now, here's what's going to happen as you do that workout for 30 minutes or an hour each day, you're going to churn through 12 to 15 chapters of the Bible, and after a year you'll listen to it about 2 to 3 times. And so the stories will become something that you already know. But after you've done that for a couple years, you're going to find that you begin to look for the reasoning behind God's purpose in doing those things. 

[00:16:27] So understanding better how God's mind works is something that you can do. You work out every day. Now bring God into that workout every day so that you begin to understand His reasoning behind why he asked you to do what you do, why he created you the way that he did, and why he wants you to be strong and healthy. Physically, spiritually and mentally. Can you help me with the short definition of these three key terms we've been looking at? Objective, theoretical and utilitarian. What's the essence of each of those? That's a good question, because I'm sure each of you probably have that same question going on. An objective person is someone who likes to systematize, bring things into a logical, non-emotional standpoint because they're focused on what is done. Now there's two ways of doing that. There is a very strong process orientation that requires research and system ization, and that is the theoretical. That's what they love. They love filling their mind with information. Now, there's no a lot there's not a lot of emotion involved in that. But what there is, is I use the task of learning to help systematize and build processes. That's the objective theoretical. Now let's go over to the objective utilitarian. The object of utilitarian is very logical but from a different perspective. If I do this and I use this concrete because it gets harder, faster, I can build more houses. So the objective utilitarian is focused on that efficiency rather than just purely effectiveness. They're trying to find ways that can speed up the process to bring more return on their time. In other words, they are focused on accomplishing much rather than quality accomplishments.