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The Problem Of Marginless Living

Posted by on March 11, 2016

In the past I have talked about the need to create margin in our lives. Margin is the space that used to exist in all of our lives between all the physical, emotional and mental pressures of every day and our capacity to respond in a meaningful way to all of the people and circumstances that we must address.

The lack of margin is exactly the opposite when we have too many demands and not enough resources. For most of us the public parts of our lives centered around our work life demands its percentage first. I know people who can make million dollar decisions all day long at the office only to be so spent by the end of the day they can’t even decide if they want pizza or hamburgers for dinner.

They put other people first all day whether they are customers or co-workers only to come home with nothing left for a lonely spouse or stressed out children. We may feel successful at times because of all the public praise that comes with making your numbers but at the end of the day we know something is terribly wrong.

Whatever it takes all of us must find the courage to stake out some core values that are non-negotiable. This will allow us maybe for the first time in our lives to have the margin we need to live the life we want rather than the one someone else has scripted for us.

You have the capacity to write your own script, so take out your pen and start writing.

Find out what works for you to find time for the people that matter most.

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12 Habits Of The Most Productive People

Posted by on March 9, 2016

I am constantly reading and doing research to find any new way or tool to improve my personal productivity. After all, when you set your goals but you are not able to achieve them because you have no margin you have failed. This post from Fast Company reminds me of several key tactics that have helped me over the years along with a few new ideas:

“High performance starts with a mind-set that translates into things that you do. Once you’ve got the mind-set, you will have the behaviors, and then it will turn into action. Everyone can become a high performer,” Rulkens says. They know these 12 things.

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Complacency: The Subtle And Silent Enemy Of Your Marriage

Posted by on March 7, 2016

When I talk with people who say they want to set personal goals around things they really want to change, I often hear this when I check in. Yea, I really do want to do that but you know life got in the way. That has become an all too familiar excuse for not doing the best things. This is clearly a critical problem in a lot of marriages and Mark Merrill has some important reminders:

“The same is true of relationships, especially marriages. If you don’t nurture and nourish your relationships, they will begin to wither. What starts out being comfortable can easily slide into complacency if we are not careful.”

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Great Leaders Practice Feedforward

Posted by on March 4, 2016

Almost every serious organization uses some form of feedback to evaluate the performance of their top leadership team. This usually works best in a 360 type environment where the person receives feedback from superiors, peers and subordinates as well.

The concept of feedforward was developed by Marshall Goldsmith in his best seller What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, which is about how to coach senior executives. He encourages every leader to identify core behaviors that need to change through feedback. Then apologize for your mistake and commit to change that character quality in the future.

The primary way he recommends to accomplish this is through the four disciplines in feedforward:

Identify Target Behavior—choose the one behavior that your colleagues have told you about that you consider to be at the top of your list for change. The number one issue among the thousands of people he has worked with is to be a better listener.
Enlist Accountability Partners—the key here is to secure a personal commitment from as many people as possible to help you in this particular area. This should include family members as well as various levels of people within the organization where you work. They will all commit to help you focus on this one specific area and help you with ongoing feedback.
Solicit Specific Suggestions—ask everyone in your accountability circle for at least two suggestions that might help you achieve a positive change in your selected behavior. The key ground rule here is that there should be no mention of mistakes in the past but every comment is about the future.
Practice Active Listening—take appropriate notes if necessary but make sure you are really listening to each and every suggestion to the point that you can put it into practice. Also it is very important regardless of the quality of the input to be sure to graciously thank everyone involved who will take the time and emotional risk of telling you what you really need to hear.

Instead of waiting six months for the next performance review cycle, get feedback when you need it so you can become a better leader.

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Resolving Unrealistic Parenting Expectations

Posted by on March 2, 2016

It is incredibly important that we all have realistic expectations as parents for our children. We should want them to develop character, succeed academically, respect authority and grow in their faith.

However, the reality is they are going to fail in every one of these areas and many more on their journey towards becoming successful adults. When they do fail, we as parents must care enough to take the time to correct them for the mistakes and then encourage them to restore their confidence. They will need to learn to deal with the consequences of bad decisions and on the other hand not break their spirit so they give up on life.

Many times this process fails because we as parents have placed our own personal expectations on top of the ones we already have for our children. We are vicariously living our lives through them instead of for them.

If we are honest with ourselves we would admit that when we overreact because they fail it is partially because we have failed as well. Our own emotional needs to be successful parents have been added to the relationship to the point that our expectations for them are now totally unrealistic.

Constantly check your motives and make sure this is primarily about what is best for them and not about me. Growing up today is hard enough without them having to take on the extra burden of making us feel good about ourselves. That is our responsibility.

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The Benefits Of Peer-To-Peer Praise At Work

Posted by on February 29, 2016

One of my biggest failures as a leader is making positive comments that encourage other people on an intentional ongoing basis. With performance metrics being driven more by collaborative relationships than directive responsibilities this is a fatal flaw that I must resolve. This HBR post takes the goal of praise and builds it into the ongoing organizational culture:

“In The Happiness Advantage, I describe an experience with a leader at a Fortune 100 company who told me, “We don’t need a happiness program, we pay people to be engaged.” This is a surprisingly common refrain from unenlightened leaders, an assumption based upon the belief that pay equals engagement.”

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3 Absolutes In Hiring The Right People

Posted by on February 26, 2016

I just finished writing a recommendation for someone on Linkedin that reminded me of what is absolutely critical when considering someone for your team. When I hire someone I am always looking for three major things that are very important to me. If any one of these is missing then I know no matter how qualified they may be in the other two areas it is still a no deal for me:

Character—According to all the research Jim Collins has done this qualification has moved to the top of the list. When someone has the right kind of character you will not have to worry about having to over manage them they are self motivated and will only settle for excellence in everything they do. Talk is cheap in this area and I want someone who has demonstrated over time they have the foundation that can withstand the problems that will surely come in the future.
Competency—There is no doubt that everyone you add to your team needs to be qualified to fill the positions you have available. The more technical and specialized the skill set the more demanding you must be in this area. However, in Collin’s research and my own personal experience, if I find the right person I will hire them first and figure out what they are going to do later.
Chemistry—The clear issue here is how well this person will fit into the team dynamic that is already in place. I always in the interview process find a way to get a person into a casual environment so I can observe them and see who they really are unscripted. I want people with a heavy dose of personal humility and equal amount of personal determination that do not care who gets the credit but will make sure it all gets done.

The people who are going to do great things in this new global environment are going to be the ones with the best people on their team. There is no greater responsibility for the leader than making sure you get the right people on the bus and the wrong ones off as quickly as possible.

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Why Speaking Well Of Your Spouse Is So Important

Posted by on February 24, 2016

A very legitimate issue we all face in today’s work culture is the expectation of bringing too much work home. A 40-50 hour work week and leave it at the office is not a reality in our ever more connected lives. However, what most company leaders are not valuing enough is that everyone also brings home to work and that dramatically effects their performance as well. Michael Hyatt makes some great points in this important post:

“As a leader, the health of your marriage directly affects the impact of your leadership. I have witnessed this time and time again. Being effective at work or in ministry begins by being effective at home.”

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The False Choice Between Top-Down And Bottom-Up Leadership

Posted by on February 22, 2016

Wow, this is the nail on the head for the tension between directive and collaborative leadership. It proves the case for situational leadership where the leader is constantly adjusting their leadership style based on the competency and commitment of their team. This is clearly not an either/or approach but a both/and:

“In management circles, leadership tends to get reduced to two opposing models: You’re either a traditional top-down leader who believes in the organizing power of clear chains of command, or you’re a collaborative, bottom-up leader who puts more faith in flat organizations, holocracies, and approaches that put leaders in more of a facilitator role. Advocates of either approach will tell you why theirs works best, and why the alternative is a disaster.”

Categories: Leadership Development Pastoral Leadership Staff Development | Comments Off on The False Choice Between Top-Down And Bottom-Up Leadership

Building The Business Case For Doing Good

Posted by on February 21, 2016

The whole idea of making a profit so that you can make a difference is hot right now. More and more organizations are getting a corporate conscience and that is really helping a lot of people who desperately need it. However, there is incredible internal benefit and Gwen Moran tells us why:

“Creating workplace philanthropy programs is a good way to bolster a company’s reputation while making employees feel good about the place where they work, says management consultant Michael Montgomery, founder of Montgomery Consulting, which helps companies implement such programs. However, starting a philanthropy isn’t just a matter of picking a charity to support.”

Categories: Church Scattered Missional Living Servant Leader | Comments Off on Building The Business Case For Doing Good