Entering 2026: An Exercise of Faith and Discipline

In retirement, I work on non-profit boards and committees. I select organizations that have a clear mission and a track record of making a difference as they act on it. I love seeing the impact these organizations have on their constituencies. A couple of businesses also retain me to help clarify and focus their operations and executive perspectives. Both businesses have a strong sense of social responsibility and a commitment to serving their customers. But organizations and companies are not always consistent with their mission. Financial pressure, regulatory changes, legal actions, personnel changes, and changes in the competitive environment can push boards of directors, managers, and staff into reactive behaviors that violate or contradict the very values they espouse as organizations. This pressure to buckle to the expedient is why I enter the new year with a commitment to faith and discipline.
For me, faith is a personal anchor that both enlarges my sense of purpose and interrogates my assumptions and commitments. Faith is the assurance that God is at work and that work is incarnate now through me and others who follow Christ. Systems cannot be counted upon to take the place of human compassion, learning, action, reflection, or presence. Even the best system, and many are far from good, fails at critical points. Organizational systems often cave to the pressure to increase efficiency, effectiveness, self-preservation, and growth, which can become ends in themselves, acting more sociopathic than helpful, as these goals supplant the very purpose and mission they are meant to support.
I admittedly have a unique perspective by working in governance and consulting. I am removed from the daily pressures in a seat that allows me a broader view of the outcomes and unintended consequences of the governance/policy decisions I make. Functioning as I do in systems, it falls to me, and the board members I serve with, to ensure that the mission/purpose of the organizations we serve remains at the forefront of action rather than being referred to episodically during moments of inspirational reflection. So, it takes faith to stand in a system and use wisdom to question decisions that contradict the organization’s mission/purpose and future well-being. Faith cannot afford simplistic naivety; it has to allow one’s own perspectives to be interrogated by others’ perspectives, as well as to interrogate the assumptions and perspectives of others. At times, this is deeply rewarding, and at others, deeply challenging.
I face three arenas in which to exercise discipline at this stage of my life. The first is the discipline of presence. I have amassed a career of experience and insight. My career saw both great successes and disappointing failures. Having both success and failure over time makes one less rattled in the face of conflict and challenges. Rather than surging anxiety, I more often experience curiosity that rifles through my experiential database for transferable lessons I can apply to current challenges, and I am willing to sit in the situation rather than escape its discomfort. At the same time, I ask questions to explore the problem rather than seek quick solutions. Where the challenge is more adaptive than technical, my experience helps me lean into uncertainty to explore new perspectives. I walk with leaders and help them focus on what is essential, not just what is noisy. I am not quite as solid as Yoda in the Star Wars epochs, but I am much closer than at any other time in my life.
The second discipline is consistent execution/reflection. I received a book for Christmas that explores the way President Abraham Lincoln conducted the Civil War. Lincoln’s frustration with generals who spend all their time preparing and none of their time acting runs like a barbed irritant through the book’s narrative. I have sat through more meetings than I care to count that talked ad nauseam about what should be done or who was to blame for what didn’t work. In contrast to these energy-zapping and morale-busting exercises in self-importance, I can think of all the compelling conversations I had over my career that defined a plan of action, assigned responsibilities, and a timeline of execution. We made progress, we surmounted challenges, and we won. I will take the discipline to execute and then critique the results rather than engage in drawn-out discussions of why something cannot be done any day. Experience shows me the value of discipline.
The third discipline is continuous learning. I challenge myself to grow in familiarity with new skills, areas of expertise, and ways of analyzing experience. My reading list each year incorporates a variety of disciplines. I won’t be an expert, but I am familiar with the kinds of challenges, technologies, and ways of thinking that emerge from our rapidly changing world. Some people seem satisfied with coasting through retirement to death. While I cannot avoid death, I prefer to run and, along the way, meet as many new challenges and people as I can.
So, here’s to 2026. My world here in the United States is in political, spiritual, and social turmoil. To borrow a phrase from the days of my Southern California youth, the surf’s up, and I want to see how many waves I can catch before the tide changes. Happy New Year.