March 1, Lent 1A (Matthew 4:1–11)

I used to serve as chief operating officer of the Hospice of Baton Rouge. My role included assessing the skills of our nurses, social workers, chaplains, and administrative staff each year. That task overwhelmed me. Each member of the team held different levels of expertise and training. They completed unique tasks in service to patients and their families. Could there be one universal way to assess their overall commitment to our goals as a team?

I found some help in the skill/will matrix, defined by Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard in their work on situational leadership. It measures the intersection of two critical qualities: the individual’s ability and motivation to complete the goal at hand.

I quickly learned that addressing an employee’s ability was something in my control as a supervisor. Our organization could offer training or coaching to a team member who was unlearned in a specific area. Motivation, however, was far trickier. Highly skilled employees who were unmotivated to meet the current challenge or to change were often the ones to receive “freedom counseling” (a kind term coined by our CEO for “fired”). We could change skill but not will.