Posted On 2015-03-27 In Schoenstatt - Reaching out

Jesus is the great master of wasting time

By Maria Fischer.

“Jesus was the master of time wasting, no? He wasted time to accompany, to allow consciences to mature, to heal, to teach…” This quote from Pope Francis’ message during the Jubilee audience on October 25th marked and touched the weekend of the International Kentenich Academy for executives. (IKAF).

Wasting time, beginning with the arrival: the trip was longer, because of the amount of snowfall and more than one participant needed help on the last kilometer up the hill that leads to “Schönstatt auf`m Berg” [Schoenstatt on the mountain]. In a round that began later than usual and which was shorter, but also more intense, the participants wasted time relating to one another what had been accomplished during the last year and what concerns them now.

“This has created a very special atmosphere,” someone said at the end of the workshop, “since the beginning. To have time without looking at the clock, to simply relate what one has accomplished, what has been demanding, what present concerns one has now. And the interest and listening by others makes the experience more concrete and bigger.” Another: “The narrative is often like a cash register at a supermarket during rush hour. One throws things onto the conveyor belt and then tosses them back into the cart as fast as they can, because others are waiting impatiently for their turn. And here suddenly, it is as if everyone was waiting to take the reins carefully in a very relaxed way…” To take the reins very carefully – stories like that of a business that lost a new employee twice before they began work, and a few days later, found the right employee, a man who was thinking about retiring and who already knew the business – a story needs time, one that is wasted in order to tell it and for it to be heard.

Simply, waste time

To “waste” time praying together, sleeping more on Saturday morning, taking a long break at noon, close to the coffee maker in the cafeteria – it was a weekend that did a lot of good. Despite that they worked intensely, or perhaps [they worked intensely} for that reason.

Almost all of Saturday was spent on relating professional day-to-day experiences. It was time to mutually enrich one another, to raise questions, and to answer them together. Why is there so much commotion in the business, where one shouts and does not speak, after a colleague has brought a stupendous coffeemaker? And why can nothing be accomplished by talking about the advantages and inconveniences of the coffeemaker? Because it is not about the coffeemaker; but rather, it is about the invasion of the protected territory of “my office kitchen.”

Contribute expertise

There is a couple, which has worked together for a long time; the wife contributes her expertise to her husband’s work. She is a personal coach, in the best sense of the word, in situations of leading the personnel as well as in far-reaching decisions for the direction of the business. And after a team business trip, both of them experienced that something was not right, if she only went as a companion to visit friends, instead of participating.

Key words, contribute expertise: it is always about one question, “to contribute Father Kentenich’s pedagogy and management skills to the business. Isn’t the reverse also true? Shouldn’t we also contribute the expertise, the specialized expertise of our professions, as well as the way of thinking, planning and treating the business, to the Church and Schoenstatt? Is it right that we contribute home remedies to the Church ‘as we have always done’, when in the business profession, in the development of a project, in directing personnel, in developing changes, we are competent and highly qualified? Or do we, as business executives, also have a mission there?”

And at the same time, through the concrete stories of everyday life in business and of the sharing of this weekend of wasting time, it was again recognized that it is a good idea to begin the next meeting with doughnuts, instead of with a Gantt diagram and to respect the time to eat as a time to rest.

Can I allow myself to waste time with my collaborators?

 

And the subject of wasting time continues: the decision to place this subject on the next jour fixe [regular meeting] was already made before this weekend of IKAF and before Melanie and Ulrich Grauert’s motivational talk. Now we all know that it was a good decision.

“During the audience with the Schoentatt Family, Pope Francis spoke about wasting time. This drew us and at the same time it challenged us. What does this mean in the concrete day to day of business? Can I truly allow it?   During the sharing, it was clear. The “yes, but” is maintained,” said Christine and Erwin Hinterberger in their invitation to executives for the next jour fixe [regular meeting] on the 21st of March in Memhölz.

And with whom and for whom do I waste time?

*Translator’s note: (IKAF) is the German acronym of Internationale Kentenich-Akademie für Führungskräfte

Original German: English translation: Celina M. Garza, San Antonio, TX USA

 

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