Calendars and Checkbooks

Posted by on March 1, 2010

We all want to accomplish the things that are really important in life and learn the discipline to walk away from everything else.  Most of us have not taken the time to write down specific goals in a life plan that involves everything personal, family, faith, friends and our professional lives.

So how do we know if we are just filling our schedules with things to do without any serious evaluation or if those are the things that should even be done at all?  We don’t want to get to the end of our lives and look back realizing that a lot of our time was totally wasted on things that don’t really matter.

A great place to start is to evaluate how we are spending our time and our money.  Calendars can tell us a lot about our core values and priorities because they reflect the choices we are making.  No doubt some of our time is not our own to schedule but how we are spending a large percentage of it reflects what is really a priority and what is not.

Are you making time for the people and relationships that you care about the most or are they getting the leftovers at best?  If you really  want to know take the time to track how you are spending your time for at least a month.  You will be amazed how much of it is scheduled based on what appears to be urgent at the time but in the end is not really important at all.

The next big indicator of what is a priority in our lives is to look at how we are spending our finances.  If we are living beyond our means and accumulating unnecessary debt then we have a major character problem that must be addressed.

More stress is brought into marriage by this one area than almost anything else.  The only solution is again to write down a budget that includes all of your expenses and then have the discipline to post all your transactions and make necessary adjustments to live within your income.

You may think this sounds like way too much work to me and I am already busy enough.  Trust me you are already using calendars and checkbooks anyway but you may not be gaining any of the benefits of leading your life instead of just letting it happen.

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Time vs. Timing

Posted by on February 12, 2010

When we all think about the concept of time we tend to focus on the immediate and what needs to be done right now.  Timing on the other hand takes the long look and always wants to ask the question why am I really doing this?

That pause to look beyond what I need or want to happen now can keep us from making some major mistakes in our lives that haunt us for years.

1.       Time focus hurts relationships:  All of us have been hurt or offended by what someone else has said or done at home and at work.  If we react in the moment many times we will say the wrong thing only to wish later we could take it back.  It is never enough just to be right we must say the right thing the right way and especially at the right time.  If your son just failed a major test it is probably not the right time for you to start that you are not going to be able to get into college speech again.

2.      Time focus diminishes faith:  When Joseph was in prison for something he did not do I am sure he wanted out now and many hours were spent questioning God’s judgment.  Joseph was concerned about immediately changing his circumstances while God was concerned about building a nation to lead in His plan of worldwide redemption for the whole human race. 

3.      Time focus rewards urgency:  Just because something hits our inbox or demands that we deal with an immediate crisis at work does not mean that it is really important.  Driven people are extremely busy doing everything they can as fast as they can without ever asking the question should this be done at all?  Time focus is all about efficiency of schedule while timing is primarily concerned about effectiveness of resuts. 

 

As people of faith we must be patient and remember that even sometimes to our dismay God is never early but always to our benefit He is never late.  He will be true to His word and in every situation of life even when we want to give up His grace will be sufficient for the need and it will always come in His perfect timing.

 

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First and Lasting Impressions

Posted by on January 21, 2010

I have had two very bad experiences with customer service this week.  Not only was I the recipient of this bad “service” I also saw several other people having the exact same horrible experience.

In both situations the people assigned to dealing with the problem made promises they did not keep.  For example setting pickup times and assuring you that if they did not call it would be ready, status updates that did not happen and the approach let’s just try this and I am sure it will work when they really did not have a clue about what to do.

Here is the interesting part at least for my situation.  With both companies only because of my pushing I was eventually given to a supervisor to help me resolve hour’s worth of wasted time and finally fix the problems. 

When I communicated with these new people they had a much better attitude and brought product knowledge that the front line people did not know.  They did simple things like returning my calls on time and then committed to do whatever it took to resolve my issues.

Here is my question?  Why not set the bar for all of the front line people in your organization at the same level where the supervisors were operating either in technical training, people skills or the authority to make it happen.

You will never convince me that it is cost effective for any company to pay less than qualified people to take hours of their time and your customers offending people that will probably never come back unless they get the slim chance to talk with their boss.

The front lines of your organization where interaction takes place with the people who are experiencing what you have to offer will always be the place where you want to make the best impression.  If you’re weakest and newest team members are given these roles thinking they will grow into the job eventually the problem will solve itself because you will not have any more customers to deal with.

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Christianity 24/7

Posted by on October 5, 2009

The days of build it and they will come are over for churches.  We may not want to admit it but for most Christians when they talk about church in their minds it’s about what happens at the buildings and not out in the community.

We must as leaders move the conversation from what we do on Sunday to what we do every day of our lives.  The Christian life is not just about coming to church but being the church everyday where we go to school, live in our neighborhoods and work in our careers.

I recently met with a very successful committed Christian who is a pediatrician who wanted to grow more spiritually and get more involved in ministry.  It was obvious to me from the very start of the conversation this meant to him taking on more responsibility at the church.

I began to share with him the vision that he could do more through his practice to reach young couples for Christ than we could ever do at the building.  They would not even come to the building to hear Billy Graham but they were several new couples sitting in his waiting room every week expecting their first child.

In this postmodern age, we must never minimize the importance of the church gathered for worship and ministry but we must prioritize the church scattered for evangelism and missions.  We must find new ways to take the gospel to where people live, work and play.

By the end of the conversation the light had come on for my friend because he no longer had a career but he now had a calling.  That’s what happens when you change the definition of success from increasing profits to impacting people.

 

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How The Mighty Fall

Posted by on September 8, 2009

Jim Collins follows up his all time best selling leadership book Good to Great with this incredible new work on why some of these once great companies now have fallen as well.  He writes, “Whether you prevail or fail, endure or die, depends more on what you do to yourself than on what the world does to you.”

Based on his thorough teams research there are five major stages that lead to failure:

1.       Hubris Born of Success:  This stage kicks in when people become arrogant, regarding success virtually as an entitlement, and they lose sight of the true underlying factors that created success in the first place.

2.      Undisciplined Pursuit of More:  Companies in this stage stray from the disciplined creativity that led them to greatness in the first place, making undisciplined leaps into areas where they cannot be great or growing faster than they can achieve with excellence, or both.

3.      Denial of Risk and Peril:  At this stage leaders discount negative data, amplify positive data and start to blame external factors for setbacks rather than accept responsibility.

4.      Grasping for Salvation:  The sharp decline now becomes visible to all and the common saviors include a charismatic visionary leader, a bold but untested strategy, a radical transformation, a dramatic cultural revolution, a hoped-for blockbuster product or maybe game changing acquisition.

5.      Capitulation to Irrelevance or Death:  At this stage accumulated setbacks and expensive false starts erode financial strength and individual spirit to such an extent that leaders abandon all hope of building a great future.

All companies go through ups and downs but if you are willing to admit your mistakes and make the necessary changes early then this death spiral cannot only be overcome it can be avoided entirely.

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Organizational Culture Change

Posted by on September 4, 2009

According to John Kotter there are many reasons change initiatives fail especially in large organizations.  The number one reason is there is not a clear sense of urgency for change that makes everyone willing to pay the short term price of pain due to change to gain the long term benefit of progress.

Many times the communications part of the process breaks down and the implementers do not get enough information to really buy in.  The importance of creating short term wins for establishing credibility for the entire process cannot be overstated. 

When the new of change becomes the norm there are several key factors that let you know it is now firmly in the D.N.A. of your organizational culture:

1.       More change, not less:  The guiding coalition uses the credibility afforded by short-term wins to tackle additional and bigger change projects.

2.      More help:  Additional people are brought in, promoted, and developed to help with all the changes.

3.      Leadership from senior management:  Senior people focus on maintaining clarity of shared purpose for the overall effort and keeping urgency levels up.

4.      Project management and leadership from below:  Lower ranks in the hierarchy both provide leadership and specific projects and manage those projects.

5.      Reduction of unnecessary interdependencies:  To make change easier in both the short and long term, managers identify unnecessary interdependencies and eliminate them.

When everyone in the organization starts to articulate the new vision in their own words as if it were their idea then you know they own the process.  It is time to start looking for what needs to be changed next, the process never stops.

 

 

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Pull The Trigger

Posted by on August 10, 2009

There may be nothing harder to do as a leader than make the decision to terminate an employee.  To be honest we feel to some degree we have failed and that is hard to accept.

This is especially true if we hired the person in the first place.  Not only have they failed but now our performance as a leader may be in question also.  We cannot let our own emotional need for personal success stand in the way of doing what is right for the organization.

There are three critical things that I must do as a leader before I feel that my responsibility has been completed prior to any termination.  The first is to provide clear expectations of what is required in their job description.  It is impossible for someone to meet your expectations if they have not been clearly communicated early and often.

The second important thing is to make sure the person has had adequate training and resources to complete their job successfully.  It is not fair to ask someone to grow a particular area and not give them the financial and manpower assets they need to be effective.

The last issue for me is a comprehensive and ongoing feedback system that lets a person know exactly where they stand in the area of performance.  It is not right to see someone make mistakes day after day and stick your head in the sand hoping it will go away only to drop a bomb on them at annual review or even worse an unexpected termination.  If you do not have the leadership skills to positively confront someone about what they are doing wrong then you may be the one in the wrong job and not them.

If you have done all of these three things well and given this person every opportunity to improve and they don’t then you should feel no guilt or sense of failure.  Never obsess on the five to ten percent of your staff that may need to go every year. What is extremely important is to remember the ninety to ninety five percent who are doing their jobs well and are watching to see if you have the character as their leader to pull the trigger.

 

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Characteristics Of An Effective Vision

Posted by on August 5, 2009

When we think of the word vision we are drawn to a picture of the future of how things can be better than they are in the present.  Most vision casting does a good job of painting a hopeful image of the positive benefits involved but not a very realistic job of the costs involved to get there. 

This is a major problem because when the negative forces and fears involved in the change process start to appear and people are not prepared they can give up very quickly resulting in the death of the vision.  John Kotter in his book Leading Change lists all the characteristics that should be included in an effective vision:

1.      Imaginable:  Conveys a picture of what the future will look like

2.      Desirable:  Appeals to the long-term interests of employees, customers, stockholders, and others who have a stake in the enterprise

3.      Feasible:  Comprises realistic, attainable goals

4.      Focused:  Is clear enough to provide guidance in decision making

5.      Flexible:  Is general enough to allow individual initiative and alternative responses in light of changing conditions

6.      Communicable:  Is easy to communicate; can be successfully explained within five minutes

The change process for most people is extremely difficult because of the fear of the unknown.  There are powerful forces involved that will try to maintain the status quo at all costs.  The pain of the present must be contrasted with the pain of the change process so that the people will know that the option of no change is not realistic.

People also need to be told on the front end that sacrifices are probably going to need to be made and there will be discomfort involved during the transition.  However, if the vision takes the group to a better and more viable place then all the costs involved will be worth it every time.

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Love & Respect

Posted by on August 4, 2009

There have been a lot of great marriage books written over the last twenty years.  The Marriage Builder by Larry Crabb is probably the best based on how our individual needs for security and significance impact our relationship with our spouse.

Love & Respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs is extremely good from the standpoint of giving a simple foundational framework for the major role that each partner needs to play in the marriage.  Then the book gives lots of practical applications and illustrations on how to live this out in real world.

He writes that the husband should love his wife by:

1.      Closeness—she wants you to be close

2.      Openness—she wants you to open up to her

3.      Understanding—don’t try to fix her; just listen

4.      Peacemaking—she wants you to say, “I’m Sorry”

5.      Loyalty—she needs to know you’re committed

6.      Esteem—she wants you to honor and cherish her

The wife should respect her husband by:

1.      Conquest—appreciate his desire to work and achieve

2.      Hierarchy—appreciate his desire to protect and provide

3.      Authority—appreciate his desire to serve and to lead

4.      Insight—appreciate his desire to analyze and counsel

5.      Relationship—appreciate his desire for shoulder-to-shoulder friendship

6.      Sexuality—appreciate his desire for sexual intimacy

One of the very helpful points that he continues to make throughout the book is just because our needs make us so different that does not make either of us wrong.  When we assume the best about our spouse’s motives then we can give them the benefit of the doubt when they fall short of giving us what we want and need.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Leaders Legacy

Posted by on August 3, 2009

In a day when markets and shareholders demand short term rewards for their financial investment it is extremely difficult for leaders to have the courage to lead with the long term as a priority.  The temptation to make easy decisions that will make the leaders bottom line look good today are setting up good companies for failure down the road.

This mentality usually results in a strong almost dictatorial leadership style that builds the business around the charisma and determination of the celebrity type leader.  There is very little delegation and certainly no succession planning taking place because that does not serve the crisis of the moment mentality.

The real test of any leader’s success must not be simply measured by the timeframe when they are working but by what happens to the organization when they leave.  If everything seems to fall apart and all positive momentum is lost then you cannot believe the leader set the team up for future success.

John Maxwell makes the point when he writes, “Achievement comes to someone when he is able to do great things for himself.  Success comes when he empowers followers to do great things with him.  Significance comes when he develops leaders to do great things for him.  But a legacy is created only when a person puts his organization into a position to do great things without him.”

When we value the success of others over the long haul over any short term success we may have for ourselves then we are leading with integrity.  Anything less than that is nothing more than selfish ambition and that is not true leadership.

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