Synergy: It's what's for breakfast

I attended a breakfast meeting recently with the president of St. Mary’s Hospital in Madison. Once a month he invites two dozen community leaders to meet for conversation, coffee and croissants.

A few decades ago, “community leaders” likely would have meant CEOs, bank executives and Chamber of Commerce presidents. Today, “leaders” also include:

The founder of 100 State, a non-profit “co-working” cooperative where building tenants not only lease space but collaborate on creative ideas regardless of their particular business.

The owner of Madison-based Red Star Pictures, which provides mobile lighting for President Obama's public appearances.

A Merrill Lynch financial adviser who also happens to be an Air Force pilot with a law degree and who travels regularly to Germany to advise the U.S. military on developing five-year plans to deal with emerging geopolitical conflicts in Africa.

Frank Byrne [pictured], St. Mary’s president, sees the value in bringing these seemingly disparate interests together: Synergy.

Today, leadership is not just about in-house technical knowledge – although that’s critical – but about meeting challenges holistically by inviting all sorts of thinkers and problem-solvers together to dream and strategize.

Church folk often see themselves as protectors of tradition instead of entrepreneurs. But this creative synergy is a biblically sound concept.

We are one body with many parts, as Jesus said, so we can bring different perspectives to modern challenges. We face many: poverty in the midst of societal affluence, cynicism toward organized religion in the midst of spiritual hunger, self-interest in the face of Jesus’ prayer that we would all be one.

Rather than following the crowd, I pray the church might seize its power to creatively face the world and find new ways to energize it with peace, joy and promise.