Meet Jim McDowell
A playwright and wit famously noted, “A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he gets to know something.”
That being so, it explains why Jim McDowell is so much in demand at St. Peter’s. Need something done right? Need a moderator or reconciliation? A good dining companion? Where’s McDowell?
“The best thing you can say about a good communicator is he’s a good listener,” says Jim, looking at you intently, as though you’re the only important thing in his world. “Some can talk very well, but they don’t listen.”
He did both very well during a 34-year career at Hallmark. Not surprisingly, much of it was spent in the world of marketing. Jim prefers to call it “communications.”
“It’s a broader turf that ‘marketing.’ When I mentor kids I tell them that if they can write, speak or handle themselves well in personal conversation, then they can succeed. You can be an advertising guy or a marketing guy but, if you want to be able to profess the organization you work for in the most efficient manner, at the end of the day it’s all about communications.”
And not all that passes as communication is, well, communication.
“Corporate Speak has been around for a long time,” says Jim, “and people in business have hidden behind it for years because no one challenged it.”
Instead, he continues, now gaining steam and speed, simply telling the truth as quickly as possible is critical in establishing a person’s or an organization’s integrity.
As an example, he cites the 1981 tragedy at the Kansas City Hyatt Regency Hotel when a walkway collapsed during a tea dance killing 114 people. The hotel is in the Hallmark-owned Crown Center. Hallmark immediately announced that because the building was part of its center, it was taking responsibility.
“On every anniversary of that tragedy the media recalls everything but not one reporter has ever accused Hallmark of hiding and the company is respected for that,” said Jim.
Over the years, Jim rose from a freshly graduated college student (Central Missouri State University, 1962) in Hallmark’s field sales corps to director of marketing for Hallmark Properties and later for Ambassador Cards. In the process he was part of the team responsible for the wildly successful “Hallmark Hall of Fame” television programs and he directed its advertising featuring those memorable Hallmark cards commercials.
“I was blessed for 34 years to work for a company with the highest values and a lot of that blessing rubbed off on me,” Jim says. Telling the truth right away and stressing the positive works at the highest level of business and should also be the rule in any church, he insists.
“Don’t you think that the negative press generated by the installation of a gay bishop could have been mitigated by better communication? We can stress what the church stands for: people and the love for each other and the worship of God. That’s what we needed, not just rather (dry and overly-general) pastoral letters.”
Communication and honesty are also needed in all the church’s parishes and dioceses where contentious issues can fester before becoming painful sores. Jim:
“You have to set up a process for communication and that
process has to be as open as possible. The clergy carries a certain amount of
baggage so it’s the laity’s responsibility to insist on that open process of
communication. Things like town hall meetings can clear up a lot issues. And all
issues involving the church and the vestry should be open to all.”
Disagreements between individuals can quickly become a divided parish.
“I’d hate to go to church every Sunday with a chip on my shoulder,” says Jim, shaking his head. “There has to be a feeling of harmony that, when push comes to shove, people can deal with each other with our common belief….that belief in Christ, in coming together to celebrate those beliefs. That should transcend any problems between two people and (their allies). Those problems shouldn’t be the focus.”
Jim, his wife Jeanne and their two daughters (Kathy is now an M.D. and Lynn is a public relations executive) have been mainstays of St. Peter’s for 37 years. And their dedication to the community goes even further. Jim himself has been on the governing boards, and often their president, in such divergent groups as the New Theater Guild, the Kansas City Advertising Club Foundation, the Starlight Theater Association, the American Royal Association and the Boy Scouts of America Heart of America Foundation. He is past president of his university’s Foundation board of governors and was honored by his school in 1987 with a Distinguished Alumni Award.
Jim says it’s been “a very good ride”:
“There are those things that get you out of bed in the morning… I love people and I take great joy in being with people; sincerity with good dose of humor. You can have those principles and be a good listener. But one of the ways you can break through with most people is not taking yourself too seriously and being able to have and use a good sense of humor.”
From this page,
you can access
News from
Episcopal Church USA
and
around the diocese