Enough fluff, Let's Talk!

Stop Making Goals for the Future

4 Comments

I used to be a 5-year-plan type of guy. I was all about defining the vision and then establishing specific, measurable goals.

Now I think I’m more of a 5-day-plan type of guy. I still think organizations need to clarify their vision and their strategy, but I don’t necessarily think it’s helpful to define the 5-year goals.

Part of the reason why I don’t find long-term goals are helpful is that our environments are changing so rapidly. What we may perceive as success today, could look very different a few years from now. The goal may be too high or too low or we could be trying to reach a goal that has nothing to do with the long-term health and viability of our organization.

Additionally, I don’t think we sense the urgency today when we’re shooting for a goal 5 or 10 years from now. We delay the changes we need to make now. That’s probably because we fall in love what we’re doing now and think it’ll somehow produce different results in the future.

I do believe leaders instinctively have one eye on the future and the big picture as they’re making decisions today. I’m just in a place, though, where I think prioritizing our time and resources today is a much more valuable exercise than defining where we hope to end up 5 years from now.

And, rather than measuring where we are today against some goal in the future, I also think it’s wiser to measure current trends. We can hide behind future goals and forecasts, but getting honest about current trends forces us to reassess our strategy our structure and our team.

Instead of figuring out where we hope to be in five years, I think the more important questions are:

  • Do current trends suggest we’re moving in the right direction? If they aren’t, are you being honest about it or explaining away the numbers?
  • Do we have the right people in the right roles to help us move forward? I’d rather have the right people with the wrong strategy than the wrong people with the right strategy.
  • Are we focusing our time and resources on the right priorities? Honestly, I think most organizations can only handle one new project or initiative at any given time. Healthy organizations get everyone on the team pulling in the same direction to see that initiative through to success.

How about you? Are you still making long-term plans to clarify your personal or organizational vision? Or, have you landed in a similar place as me?

As we end one decade and launch into a new one, I’m really curious to hear how you’re approaching the future.

Do I need to stop what I’m doing and develop my “Vision 2020″ goals?

#6 in 09: 10 Keys to Leading Creative People

No Comments

I’ve had the opportunity to lead a number of creative people over the last 15 years both in ministry and in the marketplace. And, from time to time, I’ve been known to be a “creative” myself. Creatives are different. They deliver new ideas and approaches, but they come with their quirks. You can’t lead creatives like you lead “normal” people.

Within the church, don’t assume creative people only work in your worship arts area. They’re likely to hangout there, but it’s also very possible they’re on just about every ministry team at your church. They may not sing songs or draw pictures, but they’re still creative. And, if you don’t learn how to lead them, they’ll find someplace else to take their creativity.

Here are some reminders for leading creative people:

  1. Tell them what to do, but not how to do it. You can hold them accountable for the results, but don’t force them to embrace a certain process.
  2. If you want their input, you’ll need to ask. If you stop asking, they’ll stop contributing.
  3. If you ask, you better consider their input. If you’re not really going to use their input, it’s better not to even ask.
  4. Know that they’ll be emotionally attached to what they create. So, if you decide not to use their creation, you’ll have to process that appropriately and not abruptly.

[read more]

#7 in 09: Are you really the leader?

1 Comment

On Friday night, Jacob had a basketball game. We don’t always make the other kids watch him play basketball, but for this game we decided to take everyone. That included Brooke, my almost-four-year-old daughter.

For those of you who are experienced parents, you know it’s a little much to ask an almost-four-year-old to sit through an hour of anything including watching older brothers play basketball. Brooke is no exception. She’s a smart little girl. I love her. I mean that. But, just to be honest, sometimes her mother’s feisty personality comes through in most inopportune times.

We were about midway through the game when Brooke decided to begin pestering her older sister. Abby, our eight-year-old was sitting to my right. We had Brooke strategically positioned to my left between my feisty wife and me. Brooke, though, was done with basketball. She crawled under my legs and began teasing Abby. She made faces. She poked. She gave Abby the raspberries. Basically she was trying to annoy Abby in any way possible to divert Abby’s attention from the game to her.

Abby has great patience, but she’s also very human and will sometimes react the way “more mature” people react. She let Brooke do her thing for a few minutes, and then she basically kneed Brooke in the chest. I guess as the father I was supposed to reprimand Abby for that reaction, but my initial thought was, “You should have hit her a little harder.”

[read more]

#8 in 09: The Principle of the Path

1 Comment

I finished Andy Stanley’s most recent book, The Principle of the Path, last week. Andy is one of those guys that seems to have figured out how to get from here to there, so I figured I’d read his book about how to get from where I am to where I want to be.

Here are some of the highlights from my reading:

  • “To get from where we don’t want to be to where we do want to be requires two things: time and a change of direction.”
  • “Direction–not intentions, hopes, dreams, prayers, beliefs, intellect, or education–determines destination.”
  • “We should break the habit of drawing a circle around individual decisions and events and dismissing them as isolated occurrences. These are steps. Steps that lead somewhere.”
  • “Prudent people look as far down the road as possible when making decisions.”
  • “Christians start talking about forgiveness as if somehow forgiveness serves as an escape hatch from the outcome of bad decisions.”

[read more]

By the way, out of full disclosure, I received this book for free from the publisher. Most of the books I read are free from publishers or authors. With that said, this was a great book.

#9 in 09: 5 Reasons Why Consensus Sucks

No Comments

I’m growing more and more convinced that the worst thing an organization can do is try to reach a consenus about something. Think government. Think church committee meetings. Think declining big business.

On the surface, reaching a consensus seems like a positive thing because it means people have agreed to move in the same direction. That’s a good thing isn’t it?

Actually, I’m not convinced that’s the case. For example, here are:

5 Reasons Why Consensus Sucks

  1. It embraces the status quo. Change, whether positive or not, is not human nature. We would prefer for things to remain the way they are today. So, when people get together to discuss the possibility of doing something a little different in the future, it’s normal for the majority to avoid making changes.
  2. It gives the malcontents an equal voice in your decision. Reaching consensus gives everyone a voice at the table. When that happens, even the negative, bitter folks that don’t really embrace the vision have the opportunity to pull the rest of the group away from what could really be the most desirable outcome.

[read more]

Stop Doing Ministry

6 Comments

I’m guessing you’re familiar with the story from Acts 6 where the widows in the church were not getting fed. That’s a bad situation. I know how grumpy I get when I’m hungry. I can’t imagine how grumpy a group of hungry, older women can be. That can’t be good.

The grumpy, old women weren’t getting fed because the apostles weren’t getting the job done. These leaders were supposed to be focusing on prayer and teaching God’s Word (see Acts 6:4), but instead they were stuck trying to pull off a not very effective food distribution effort.

So who’s at fault? It could be the people in the church who are just showing up for services on Sunday morning but not engaging in ministry. Maybe they haven’t studied the Bible enough to learn that it’s not biblical to pay pastors to do all the ministry of the church.

It could be the fault of the leaders. Maybe they’ve fallen into the “I can do it better” trap. Maybe they aren’t really leaders, so they aren’t spiritually gifted to empower other people in ministry.

Either way, here’s what strikes me about this passage in Acts. The apostles were engaged in ministry. In that day, food distribution was just as much a part of the ministry of the church as praying and teaching. They were doing ministry; they just weren’t doing the right ministry. In other words…

It’s possible to do the work of God without doing the work God has called you to do.

That should be alarming for us. Because as the church grows, it requires us to prayerfully consider questions like this:

  • Am I encouraging people to serve in ministry?
  • Am I helping people determine their gifts?
  • Am I empowering new leaders?
  • Am I a leader, or am I just in a leadership position?
  • Am I doing what God designed me to do?

Fortunately, the apostles decided to empower seven other leaders to take responsibility for the food distribution. That allowed the apostles to get back to focusing on prayer and the teaching of God’s Word. I guess you could say they stopped doing ministry, and encouraged others to do it instead. As a result of that, “God’s message continued to spread. The number of believers greatly increased in Jerusalem, and many of the Jewish priests were converted, too,” (Act 6:7).

People pay me to figure this out for them, but let me share this advice for free. If you’re doing all the ministry, you’re probably going to lead a small, ineffective ministry that’s not consistent with God’s plan for your life. So what are you going to do? Are you going to continue to do the work of God, or…

Are you going to do the work God called you to do?

I can do it better.

9 Comments

Pride makes you do stupid things. One of the consequences is falling into the “I can do it better” trap. It’s what happens when you look at a situation and or a decision and say to yourself, “I can’t let anyone else have this one, because it’ll just be easier (and better) if I do it myself.”

Here are some thoughts for those of us who wrestle with this:

  • If you are a perfectionist, people won’t like to be around you. It’s one thing to give our best effort. It’s another thing to think it always has to be perfect. Perfectionism isn’t attractive.
  • Needing to be in control will kill you. It leads to anxiety and fear. It’s an indication that God’s not in control. It will paralyze you.
  • If you always do it, no one else will learn to do it and you will always be stuck thinking you have to do it. It’s a vicious cycle.
  • If you always do it, you’re denying other people the opportunity to live out God’s purpose for their life. That’s kind of like telling people you know better than God what’s best for their life.
  • What if Jesus said, “I can do this better.” Because, if you think about it, he could do it better…but he still elected to give ministry away to others.
  • When we don’t let others do it, we limit our influence and impact. Small organizations (and churches) have leaders who think they need to do it all.
  • When we choose to do it ourselves, we’re taking the easy way out. It’s harder to find someone else, train them, coach them and check up on them. In other words, we’re basically admitting we’d rather not do the hard work that could ultimately lead to better results.

Just so you know, I’m a recovering perfectionist. This is something God is continuing to work out in me. The crazy thing about this mindset is that it directly conflicts with my ministry calling. Here’s what I believe my primary calling is in my life:

“[My] responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ, until we come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature and full grown in the Lord, measuring up to the full stature of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12-13, NLT).

For me to fulfill that calling, there’s really no room for “I can do it better.” In order for me to do what God is calling me to do, I have to equip God’s people to do his work. Which, not to state the obvious, must suggest that God thinks …

They can do it better.

Why Introverts Make Good Leaders

17 Comments

You may have caught this article earlier this week on my twitter feed. Apparently it resonated with a bunch of you, because more than 1,000 people clicked the link to read it.

Jennifer Kahnweiler wrote about how many successful business executives describe themselves as being introverts. She reported the number may be as high as 40% including guys like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. In church world, I’ve heard rumors “team introvert” may include a pastor like Andy Stanley.

Kahnweiler then went on to give these reasons why introverts make good leaders:

  1. They think first, talk later.
  2. They focus on depth.
  3. They exude calm.
  4. They let their fingers do the talking.
  5. They embrace solitude.

It probably doesn’t surprise you to know that I’m an introvert. I don’t know whether or not those five attributes necessarily make good leaders, but I can certainly relate with each one of them. I’m guessing a few of you connect with those attributes as well.

So, what do you think? Do introverts make good leaders? And, more specifically, can introverts make good leaders in the church? After all, we’re in the people business. Can people who prefer solitude lead organizations that are all about people?

I’d encourage you to check out the full article. And, if you’re like me, you may also want to pick up Jennifer’s book on this same topic. Here’s my Amazon link to The Introverted Leader: Building on Your Quiet Strength.

Management Rewired: Interview with Charles Jacobs

No Comments

A few days ago, I had the privilege of interviewing Charles Jacobs, the author of Management Rewired. I recently finished reading the book and sharing some of my highlights. The book challenged my thinking so much that I decided to connect with Charles and ask him a few more questions. Here’s the recording of our interview:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Interested in more information about the book? You can visit the Management Rewired website for more information including an excerpt.

The Starbucks Experience

8 Comments

I recently revisited The Starbucks Experience by Joseph Michelli. Here are some key thoughts that jumped out to me this time through. Needless to say, I think several of these merit consideration in our ministry leadership roles.

  • “People want to do the right thing, they want to create and offer quality things, they want to do good in the world, and if you give them the opportunity and the resources to do so, they will shine.”
  • “Starbucks consistently spends more on training than it does on advertising.”
  • “I have worked in horrible places, and it’s hard to do a good job when you hate the company.”
  • “What are you doing to encourage the discovery of the unique needs of those whom you and your colleagues serve?”
  • “Rather than waiting for cues from the home office, everyone at Starbucks is charged with searching for new and better ideas for meeting and exceeding customer needs.”
  • “Leadership has created the expectation that partners are to be involved in improving Starbucks and has gone the extra step of creating a culture in which partners expect to be heard when they offer ideas.”
  • “While great leaders spend most of their time looking at big-picture, strategic opportunities, they cannot overlook the systems and training necessary to ensure the quality of every aspect of the company’s products, services, and processes.”
  • “When the economy turns bad or business hits a rough patch, training and education budgets suffer. This short-term financial fix often compromises the long-term health of the company.”
  • “Starbucks leadership understands that playful and positive work environments produce vital and engaged staff members.”
  • “Every company’s brand, is nothing more than the sum total of the individual actions its people take.”
  • “Consumers want the predictable and consistent, with an occasional positive twist or added value thrown in.”
  • “Many companies focus too much on the basic ingredients and not enough on adding that extra something that differentiates them from their competition and builds brand loyalty.”
  • “With consistency comes customer trust. Consumers gain stability when they know that they can depend on having a reliable experience.”
  • “If, at the end of each day, you and your colleagues have invested the extra energy to delight others rather than simply satisfy them, you will ultimately be rewarded with extraordinary results.”
  • “Because of the amazing diversity found within this country, some communities may have unique requirements that are quite different from those of neighborhoods only a few miles away.”
  • “We are often too close to our own ideas to objectively evaluate their viability.”

If you’re interested in picking up the book so you can read more insights from Starbucks, here’s my Amazon link for The Starbucks Experience.

Your turn. What of these ideas is the biggest challenge facing the Church?

« Previous Page
Next Page »