Sins of Omission

I‘m sure you’ve heard of Russell Akoff, the architect who became a business guru, No, well neither had I until listened to a programme about him on the radio. He was a contemporary of Peter Drucker and spent most of his career at Wharton College in Pennsylvania.
Though he had spent a career teaching on MBA programmes, he believed 95% of what managers learnt was on the job training and most of that came from making mistakes. So in his opinion, it was vital not to discourage people from making mistakes, or they would stick to what they already knew and never try anything new.

He went further and suggested that there were two types of mistakes; some were mistakes of commission and others were of omission, and the later were by far the worst. They cited examples such as Western Union saying no to getting into telephones and Kodak saying no to digital photography. His argument is that our financial accounts quickly pick up and high light mistakes of commission, but not mistakes of omission. To avoid this, he suggested that companies log the things they decide not to do and review that decision later, say at 12 months. Sounds complicated, but some companies have tried it and they find it does improve their strategic decision making.

I think a similar set of principles apply to churches, people are more focused on what does get done than what doesn’t. It’s not so much about the finances, but if the worship isn’t right, the prayer time too long or heaven forbid the pews have to be moved, then there are serious questions in the house. On the other hand, I don’t suppose a Vicar has ever been taken to task for not attempting a church in the pub or in Asda’s etc. SO it’s not surprising that the full time clergy quickly get focused inwards.

In the person sphere, we also talk about sins of commission and omission; and again I have been wondering if sins of omission are perhaps the worst? Clearly if we were to steal or murder, these would be dreadful sins of commission, but they are on the one hand mercifully rare, and on the other they are often detected. But what about what is not done. A while back I was working with a management team who simply could not work together anymore; and it seemed to me that was as much to do with what they were not saying to one another as what they did say. The anger and rage had gone and all that was left was silence and resentment and no one was willing to break it. A sin of omission?