March 17, 2009 | In 2003, St. Louis-based Ascension Health -- a sprawling network of facilities in 20 states -- faced a growing shortfall in its retirement assets.

Like the leaders of other companies in the same position, Ascension executives had to decide what to do. The company had made promises to thousands of employees and retirees about their pension plans. At the time, the retirement fund assets had eroded below 60 percent of the company’s obligations.

Executives could have slashed pensions. But Ascension Health, the nation’s largest Catholic, nonprofit health care company, took a different path. The executives, after much consideration, agreed to borrow $600 million and funnel the money into the pension plan. They preserved pensions for current employees and retirees even though they agreed that new employees might see slightly reduced pensions.

“We felt as a matter of justice, we had to keep our associates whole, keep their plans whole,” said Dan O’Brien, Ascension’s vice president of ethics. “It was something we had promised those associates. That cost us a lot.”

It was a difficult -- and expensive -- decision. The leadership at Ascension Health arrived at it through a process of discernment -- a detailed, theologically based approach to decision-making that is part of the company’s business culture. (See related reflection.)

Although Ascension isn’t the only organization to apply this Christian practice to contemporary decisions, it’s fairly rare, even in churches, said Martha Ann Robbins, a professor at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. And even those that do use it tend to employ it on an individual level, not as a structured company practice.

Robbins said using discernment can lead to decisions that conflict “with the bottom line.” And, even in a mission-minded organization, “that’s a reality factor.”

Following the discernment process

Ascension adopted its discernment process in 2003 to help its leaders make major organizational decisions that adhere to its mission, vision, values and identity.

It engages the spirituality, intellect, imagination, intuition and beliefs of those involved. One of Ascension’s brochures states: “It is decision-making that reaches into the hearts of our beliefs about God, creation, others and ourselves.”

Formed in 1999, Ascension Health is sponsored by the four provinces of the Daughters of Charity, the Congregation of St. Joseph and the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet. The company models itself after Jesus Christ as healer, dedicated to providing spiritually centered health care to everyone, with a special emphasis on the poor and vulnerable and the communities where they live. The company, which has more than 106,000 employees, posted annual revenues of $13.5 billion in 2008.

For the decision about its retirement fund, Ascension executives relied on the detailed, seven-step discernment process to guide them in understanding God’s will.

In many ways, the discernment process looks ordinary. It is typically a meeting or series of meetings involving company leadership.

It’s not as if executives enter a room, open a Bible and proclaim a heavenly answer. Executives begin with a key question: What is the central problem or question? Once they identify that, the process involves gathering the facts necessary to make the decision. That effort can take weeks or months.

Sister Danielle Bonetti, vice president of mission integration at Ascension’s St. Mary’s Hospital in Amsterdam, N.Y., saw the process in action with her hospital’s 10-member executive team in May 2007. The question was whether St. Mary’s should move forward with acquiring a struggling hospital in town. The team had been discussing the idea for several months and gathering information.

The time then came for a decision. The team scheduled a day-long meeting with a facilitator at a conference center about 20 miles out of town.

Bonetti described the ensuing discussion as informal and organic. Executives weighed the pros and cons. They asked themselves and each other: Is there anything else left to explore? What would the hospital founders do? What would Jesus do? How would the decision mesh with Ascension’s mission and vision?

She said they paid attention to the facts and each person’s feelings about the decision. “You have to listen to each person,” she said. “It’s a conscious choice to listen to each other.”

Built into the discussion was time for quiet reflection, which sometimes begins with a prayer. Bonetti described it this way: “Let’s just sit with this a minute. What are we hearing at this moment?”

The goal was to build consensus. At the end of the day, the hospital’s executive team agreed to move forward with the possible acquisition of the other hospital, which is still underway.

The meeting, while similar to a regular executive meeting in many ways, was also starkly different.

“The clear distinction is we did it with a consciousness of God’s presence,” she said.