The Campaign to Make Poverty History

The ONE campaign is a study in both social action as well as incredibly focused vision.  I was listening to Andy Stanley speak on the topic of vision last week at the annual Maximum Impact simulcast.  He applauded the incredible simplicity and focus of the slogan of the ONE campaign — The Campaign to Make Poverty History.
 
Simple.  Memorable.  Powerful.  Inspiring.  This simple six word phrase is all of that.  Hear it once and you'll probably remember it tomorrow.  The phrase invites you to be a part of something that is larger then yourself and that could only be undertaken by a vast army of people aligned towards a singular purpose.  It stirs your heart and calls you to action.

Vision statements are rarely this well done.  The Army spent millions of dollars to come up with "An Army of One."  This phrase certainly has a ring to it and it calls out to the individualistic core found in Americans that cries out for recognition and opportunity in the midst of a crowd.  Yet, it does little more than that, I think.  It does not rally one around a cause.  It does not indicate what the Army is about.  It does not tell us what the purpose of this incredibly important group of men and women is.  It does not call us to action beyond ourselves.

I'm not saying it's a bad phrase, it may do exactly what the Army wants.  After all, the United States armed forces is not a mercenary force — a for-hire, professional army.  I'm not maligning the Armed Forces, nor questioning the patriotism of its brave men and women.  This is simply a fact.  And as such, the Army's slogan may speak directly to the target group of men and women the Army so desperately needs to recruit.

But back to the ONE slogan — by the way, if you haven't joined, go ahead, if for no other reason then to receive an incredible lesson in the effective use of mass communication and leveraging the power inherent in social networks — it is what a vision statement is supposed to be.  It says what the organization is about, it rallies us to a cause and it paints a picture of a possible future.

Our churches would do well to study this.  It is most certainly not an easy task.  But if we believe that the message that we hold is the only hope for the world, we must.  

LRS

I just read an interesting article in this month's issue of Wired magazine, an often very interesting publication.  In the article the author was commenting on a business book that suggested using a concept used by animal trainers, known as Least Reinforcing Scenario — LRS for short — to train your boss.  

Setting that idea aside, I find LRS an intriguing concept.  Animal trainers use it in a situation where the animal is behaving in a manner that is undesirable and any response, negative or otherwise, would actually reinforce the behavior.  Often the trainer will simply ignore the behavior and act like they didn't see it or, at the very least, that they simple don't care.  Often the animal will not repeat the behavior because they did not get the response they desired.  

There is no doubt that LRS can easily be applied to our own human interactions.  My wife uses it on me all the time.  I was unaware that she knew about LRS, but obviously she has known about it for some time.  On rare occasions, I will try to get her to laugh when I know that I have done something that has made her unhappy.  Since I am a very funny person (anyone who knows me could tell you that I am one of the funnies persons around) it has always amazed me that no matter what I do in these situations — no matter what funny face, absurd gesture, crazy dance or foolish antic — she simply stares at me as if she could care less.  Any normal person would have laughed, cried or at least yelled at my to get out of the room, but not a person deviously utilizing LRS.  Now that I know that she has been secretly using this training strategy, I perhaps can deploy it on my own!