JW leadership shows an appalling lack of creativty and originality.
-- Meeting attendance down across the board? Let's keep the same 1940's format anyway!
-- Missionaries quitting their assignments? Rather than redesigning the school, just kill the program!
-- Pioneers Assistance Others Program not generating much interest? Kill the program!
-- Book studies in homes lead to close friendships and stronger congregational ties? Kill it!
-- Hundred of millions people embracing social networking? Condemn it as Satanic every month!
-- Elders keep screwing up judicial cases? Herd them into a 5 day school and don't teach them anything they haven't heard 500 times before!
The utter incompetence of the leadership is quite striking when you consider all the organizational changes of the past 10-15 years. What are these guys smoking? Can't they see that their flock is downtrodden and depressed? Why don't they try something interesting? Or at least different?
Well, consider this: How does one advance up the "ladder" in the organization? By being....obedient!
Have a good idea on how to improve efficiency when you are a territory servant? "Oh no, the Society says we do territories this way!"
Make it to elder....have an idea on how to help kids, maybe keep some of them from getting into trouble? "Oh no brother, the Society says we don't run youth programs...just encourage them to be pioneers and all will be well."
Make it to CO...have an idea on how to motivate BOEs to show concern for the congregation? "Well brother, you know that the education the Society already gives elders is more than sufficeint."
And so on up the line.
Creativity, originality, thinking outside the box...whatever you call it, it's quashed as soon as it raises its head.
Fight against the strict conformity? Fight too hard and you lose your "privileges".
Conform, conform, conform? March right on up the ladder.
So who makes it to the top - the service department, the governing body? Those who have proven over decades - sometimes 4 or 5 decades - that they are especially adept at mindless conformity and obedience. Any ability to develop new ideas was smothered eons ago.
So is it really any wonder that the Society keeps doing the exact same things, year after year, and then wrings their hands because "the friends don't respond"?
Other organizations encourage, nurture, develop, and reward leadership skills. The WTS encourages, nurtures, and rewards mindless obedience to concepts and structures developed 60 or 70 or more years ago, by people long dead.