Grace Murray Hopper said the most dangerous phrase a manager can use is “We’ve always done it that way.” Still, not everyone is open to accepting a better way to do things. In this episode of By Your Life, we discuss how continuous improvement is good for business and for our lives.

Mass Readings Audio
http://ccc.usccb.org/cccradio/NABPodcasts/2020/20_07_05.mp3

Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time – July 5, 2020

Welcome to the one hundred and nineteenth episode of By Your Life. I’m Lisa Huetteman and I know that you have a hundred different things you could be doing right now, so I thank you for choosing By Your Life.

My goal is to inspire, empower, support, challenge, and encourage you to connect Sunday, with Monday-Friday, in a secular business world. It’s my desire to help you live our Catholic faith in the marketplace. I hope to offer you practical ways to go forth and glorify the Lord by your life.

We’ve always done it this way

In this edition, we’ll reflect on the readings for the Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. (Cycle A) Grace Murray Hopper was an American computer scientist and United States Navy rear admiral. She was a pioneer in computer science and her work was central to the development and adoption of COBOL (common business-oriented language), one of the foundational high-level programming languages. Hopper said the most dangerous phrase a data processing manager can use is “We’ve always done it that way.” In 1981, almost forty years ago, she said, “Kids know what’s happening. They’re up on the technology. Lots of bright youngsters aren’t hampered by ‘we’ve always done it this way,’ ‘it won’t work,’ or ‘I’ve never heard of it.’” Just watch any two-year-old take selfies on a smartphone and you know that Grace Hopper was, and still is, right.

In the early 1990s, I worked in new business planning and development in the telecommunications industry when virtual reality was in its infancy and video-on-demand was being delivered to pilot neighborhoods by a guy behind the scenes putting VHS tapes into a video cassette player and then streamed via cable to the home. I worked in mobile telecommunications and tested the first voice-activated dialing features, something that was revolutionary at the time but is now so common that my 95-year-old mom can turn on the light in her room by asking Alexa to do it.

Resisting change

Despite the advances in technology that have contributed to our lifestyles, not everyone is on board. A year ago, my father-in-law broke down and got a smartphone because he needed to have an app to control his hearing aids, but don’t bother calling him on that number, because the phone is always turned off. When we’ve tried to show him how he can use an app like Google maps for driving directions, his usual response is, “Why would I want to do that when I can look it up on the computer and print the map before I go?” He likes the way he’s always done it, so don’t bother telling him that there may be a better way.

As much as I worked on the forefront of technological advances, I must admit that I’m getting to be more and more like my father-in-law. Every day I hear of new apps that have gained popularity and I wonder, “Why would I want to use that?” I am comfortable in the way I’ve always done things that I see no need for change. Sometimes the technology solves a problem I don’t have, like a dating app, but other times, maybe most of the time, I’m so convinced I know all I need to know, I’m not open to learning a better way. And then my kids come home and reveal to me what I’ve been missing.

A better way

At work we should always seek a better way, it’s called continuous improvement. I have led a lot of teams through process improvement. These efforts were generally interventions to address cost, time, or quality issues and focused on eliminating non-value-added steps to achieve breakthrough improvement. But total quality also involves a process for incremental improvement over time.

The Institute of Quality Assurance defined “continuous improvement as a gradual never-ending change which is: ‘… focused on increasing the effectiveness and/or efficiency of an organization to fulfill its policy and objectives. It is not limited to quality initiatives. Improvement in business strategy, business results, customer, employee, and supplier relationships can be subject to continual improvement. Put simply, it means ‘getting better all the time.’ ”

The better way

So, what does this have to do with Sunday’s readings? In our Gospel, Jesus said, “I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike. (Mt 11:25) In his day, the wise and the learned were the scribes and Pharisees who rejected Jesus’ preaching and the significance of his mighty deeds. To accept him and his teaching, they would have to admit there might be a better way. But the childlike, on the other hand, were open to him and listened to his word.

Jesus said, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me...” (Mt. 11:29) He invites us to learn a better way. He says, “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Mt 11:28) In his day, those who labored and were burdened, were burdened by the law as expounded by the scribes and Pharisees. In place of the yoke of the law, that was complicated by scribal interpretation, Jesus invites the burdened to take the yoke of obedience to his word, under which they will find rest. But those wise and learned who thought they knew it all and preferred the way they’d always done things, rejected him and the better way.

Burdens of our day

In our day, the wise and the learned are those of us who let pride and arrogance prevent us from being open to Jesus as the King of our lives. In our secular world, we have replaced the scribes and the Pharisees with the Joneses and the Kardashians. There is a whole new set of expectations for how to live. We become obsessed with what we have, how we look, and who we know. Like it or not, we are all slaves to something. We define ourselves by whatever that is and have an insatiable desire for more and more. It is a heavy burden that has led to working longer hours and carrying greater amounts of debt and all the while has failed to satisfy.

St. Augustine wrote, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in you.” Our hearts are restless pursuing things of the flesh, material things, possessions, power, pleasure, and fame. You know it, and I know it. But there is a better way. Our second reading tells us that a better way is living by the Spirit, not according to the flesh (Rom 8:9), and our Gospel tells us to take his yoke and learn from him. (Mt 11:28-29) Let him be the Lord of our lives, and he will give us rest.

Are you letting Jesus be the Lord of your life, or are you holding onto your burdens? What economic, physical, social, or emotional anxiety is weighing you down? Are you submitting to Jesus’ yoke and allowing him to rule every part of your life or are you holding back when it comes to your work, family, friendships, or fun?

Releasing the burden

Let’s face it, we all need to work at getting better all the time. Perhaps a little personal improvement process is in order. Every total quality manager knows that you have to get to the root cause of a problem if you want to make lasting change. The same is true of our personal lives. To discover what we are stubbornly holding onto, because it is how we’ve always done it, periodically it is good to make a retreat so we can step back and reflect on the root cause of our problems in order to re-evaluate and make breakthrough changes.

Every total quality manager also knows that if you don’t measure it, you can’t manage it. If you aren’t self-aware, you can’t make the changes you need to overcome what’s weighing your down. So, we also need to take a daily measure by doing an examination of conscience and frequently receiving the Sacrament of Reconciliation if we want to make those small, incremental improvements that will allow us to become, as Matthew Kelly says, the “best-version-of-ourselves.” And that is God’s dream for us too, to be the best-version-of-ourselves, nothing more, nothing less.

So, let’s ask the Holy Spirit to guide us this week as we seek the better way.

Lord, we pray you would move the Spirit more boldly in our lives. We know that when we seek things of the flesh it diminishes the voice of the Spirit in our lives. Help us to crave you more than things of this world. Help us to continually grow more childlike, learn from you and walk with your yoke upon us so that we may become all that you have made us to be.

May God bless you abundantly this week and may you glorify the Lord by your life.

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