Tag: Leadership (Page 3 of 3)

I won’t help you

September 12, 2014 /

don't be disappointed if people refuse to helpWhen I was in high school, I learned a few programming languages. In one class, we were given a new assignment nearly every day. Whenever I would get stuck, I would ask the teacher for help. His answer became very predictable.

He who learns for himself learns seven fold of he who is told

Argh. Look man, all I really needed was a simple answer, not a philosophy lesson. As it turns out, he was right.

Get the Answer, or Learn to Learn?

In the moment of feeling stuck, having a leader unwilling to bail you out is so frustrating. Looking back, I value those people the most in my life, whether they be teachers, friends, mentors, or strangers. As a result of those frustrating moments, I have developed an attitude in life of, “I can figure this out…I can learn this if I just ask the right questions.” Of course, that doesn’t always work, but it gets me a lot further down the road than waiting for someone to give me the answer. I have adopted a similar strategy now that I have others to lead.

Why You Should Frustrate Them

As I have watched people on my team, or my family, get frustrated with me, I have had to reflect on why I am doing this. Is it just because I am mean?

  • It is fun to watch you struggle. Ok, that sounds sinister, but what I really mean is that I love to see people dig deep and create some new thinking patterns that will get them out of this situation. While they struggle, stay close and nudge them along…without giving away too much.
  • I care more about you than the answer. This is the big one. As a leader, it is my job to grow people more than anything. It is not my primary role to grow the business, take care of the customer, or ensure profitability. Those things are important, but all secondary to growing people to be better, smarter, faster, more confident, and more valuable to the world. The best way I know how to do that is to help them learn to learn. When I feel bad about watching someone wrestle with a problem, I have to remind both of us, “I care more about you, and your ability to learn, than I do the time it takes or quality of the solution.”
  • It exposes my leadership failures. Yay! Let’s all look at how I have let you down and failed to equip you…what fun. Although not always pleasant, exposing where I have failed to communicate, teach, guide, or lead helps me to learn in the situation. At the highest level this has taught me that every time a protegé is struggling, I have something to learn.

Part of my philosophy of leadership is a job well done renders me useless. I want to invest in people and the process so thoroughly that I am not required to solve a problem. They have the tools they need to do a great job. This is often referred to the “hit by a bus” strategy. I love to be called on because I am the best one to solve a problem. I get very discouraged when I am the only one who can solve a problem.

Your Next Move

Look for opportunities to promote the ability to learn in those around you. Choose one problem this week and change the way you help. Walk them through learning rather than give them the answer. If you get push back, send them here to read this.

Planning Takes Too Long

September 4, 2014 /

Planning takes too long, let’s just get started.

Omniplan

I use OmniPlan for the Mac for my project planning


When we start coaching a new church to implement a change, we make a plan. Usually this is a pretty detailed plan with lots of tasks, dependencies, dates…the whole bit. We often get feedback that this planning process takes too long and they just want to get started. In my mind, planning equals speed. I know that sounds contradictory, but the key is whether you are in a hurry to start, or to finish.

What’s the Hurry?

If you are in a hurry to start a project, then planning is indeed a waste and should be ignored. However, let’s first ask what is driving us to be in a hurry. Here are some common reasons that we hear:

  • I have to show ____ I am making progress.
  • If we have a plan, we will be forced to follow it and I want to be more flexible.
  • I am new here and I need to show them I know what I am doing.
  • You just can’t plan this type of work.
  • I am an action-oriented person. All this talking just wears me out.

None of those hold water in my mind, they are excuses. When exploring a brand new thing nobody has ever done, the plans are a lot more vague and loose. In fact, sometimes projects are entering into such an unknown territory there is no way to make a meaningful plan – so don’t waste a lot of your time. However, if you are motivated by the end of the project, the results part, then planning that project out really increases speed to finish.

How Does Planning Make us Faster?

Below are four key benefits to a solid plan.

  • A good planning process clarifies the direction, the scope, and the value of a project before you begin. How many times have you started a project that seemed like a good idea, then realized half way through you can’t even remember what you were trying to accomplish? Planning allows you to firm up those reasons and success criteria early. Sometimes creating a plan helps you to realize the project isn’t even worth doing….before you started working in earnest. Great savings. The last thing any of us need in our busy lives is a project we shouldn’t be doing.
  • My personal favorite, a good plan helps us to stay focused. I get so easily distracted, I need tools to help me only think about what is relevant right now. Back to the house: spending days working on the color of the curtains is not time well spent while trying to rough-in the plumbing and electrical. Stay focused on the work at hand, and know that other thing is in the plan and will come up at just the right time.
  • A good plan helps us to avoid rework. “If something is worth doing, it is worth doing over again.” While I have always enjoyed that adage, It bothers me that we behave that way so frequently. Think of the time and costs associated with having to go back and redo something…that time could have been saved with a good plan. The more we do work in the “right” order, then the dependencies flow nicely and we don’t have to go back and fix things. Think of building your new house: pouring the foundation before you have decided where the bedrooms go would be a real mistake. You would have to tear it out and pour more concrete later when you really had a design.
  • A good plan shows us progress. A plan with some milestones in it allows us to track our progress. That progress status is used for three things that tends to increase motivation, resources, and speed.
    1. Communicate with the organization. “We are 30% done on this and we estimate being complete in October”. This builds clarity and reminds others you are still working and progressing.
    2. Celebrate. “Yahoo…we reached the end of the design phase!” This helps to lift spirits and keep the motivation to focus on the work.
    3. Compete. “We still need Bob on our team. Look at all he has done and what other tasks are assigned to him.” In this world of limited time and resources, we often have to fight to keep the resources we secured at the beginning of the project.

Your Next Move

Be willing to focus on the outcome you want before starting. Think of that project you are hesitating to start. Make a quick plan… at least enough to get started.

Is This Decision Right or Repairable?

August 29, 2014 /

Repairman

I tend to make decisions quickly, often more quickly than my peers. Rest assured, it is not because I am smarter, or think faster. In fact, I make more mistakes than most. I think it is because I evaluate the risk of decisions differently than many.

Right or Repairable?

All too often, we delay making a decision until we have all the facts, and check them twice. Why is that? I think it is because we want to make the right decision. Seems admirable. However, I think that may not be the best criteria in this fast paced world. I think a better decision making criteria would be, “Is this decision repairable?” Not all decisions carry the same weight, so inherently some are more risk than others if we get them wrong.

As you may have heard before, I believe learning is defined as the ability to detect and correct error. If I make the wrong decision and I don’t get the results I wanted, that is an error. Repairability of a decision is really based on whether I can learn from this (and fix it) or not.

How will I know?

Rules to determine if this decision is repairable:

  • Will I get good feedback? If we decide to change our church service times from 11:00 to 10:30am, I can watch the attendance trends to see if that had an affect, positive or negative. That is, if I track attendance carefully. Do you have a mechanism to provide feedback on this decision? If not, then the fear of getting it wrong is very valid.
  • How long until I know I made a mistake? When probes are sent into space, they are programmed with a specific trajectory that will be in line with the mission. Many times, those missions take years to complete. If it takes that long to realize we sent the probe in the wrong direction, that is a decision I would consider not repairable. However, preparing a budget for the next year I know I will get continuous feedback every week I count contributions. As a result, that feedback can help me make small repairs before I get too off track.
  • What will I lose in that time if I got it wrong? As humans, we like to employ catastrophic thinking as often as possible. At a high level, this means when we don’t know an outcome, we imagine the worst possible result. Coded into us for survival purposes (i.e.: rustling grass could be wind or a tiger), it is a healthy tool. However, we now imagine the worst case scenario when making every decision. Instead, think about what is the most likely worst case, in the length of time it takes us to get feedback. I was considering moving a person into a new position and didn’t know if they could be successful there. If they failed, the company would suffer, it could put their career in jeopardy, which adds strain to their family, which could… We decided even if they failed miserably, we were going to check in soon enough to minimize any real damage so it was worth the risk.

It is easy to see how this repairable criteria can drive our technical decisions, like budgeting, service times, or space probes. What about relational decisions, like whether to give an employee negative performance feedback? It all comes down to culture. Do you have a culture where mistakes are celebrated and relationships stay intact? If you do, then take a risk and know you can fix it. If not, then ask yourself what about your culture is preventing this?

Your Next Move

Think of a decision that is delayed waiting for more information and confirmation. Consider the points above and make a decision. When you make the decision, inform others of your plan to make it repairable. Do that now, and practice every chance you get!

July 22, 2014 /

volunteerWe Resist Leading Well

As we coach church leaders in process changes, a common theme is Setting and Managing Expectations for Performance….one of my favorite phrases. When we hear Expectations, or more so, Performance…we tend to get riled up. No area gets people more anxious than setting expectations for volunteers in the church.

I could never ask our volunteers to do that.

They are volunteers, we just hope for the best.

If we manage them too hard, they will quit…and we really need them.

…and the list goes on. This resistance has caused me to reflect on my beliefs about leading people, and volunteers specifically. I have learned a few things in the process:

What Actually Works

People like clear direction. When jumping in to help a ministry, people appreciate having some idea what they are supposed to do. Without clear direction (boundaries, expectations, process steps, etc.) people feel lost. Church is a place to feel secure, not lost. In fact, expectations should be set and communicated ahead of time to ensure volunteers know what they are getting into.

People like to learn. I define learning as the process of detecting and correcting error. When we play sports, there are boundaries. When you swing the racket and the tennis ball goes out of bounds, that is an error. In that context it is easy to detect that error, giving us a chance to correct it. With clear expectations for volunteers, they know the boundaries of the court. The way you help people detect and correct is important. This is your opportunity to show grace and mercy and guide them to a better behavior, rather than get angry and punish them for failing. To learn more, go read about the Power of Being Direct from Rob Cizek.

People like to feel special. When I have been most excited about a role, it is when I am in the inner circle of something. By definition, that means there is an outer circle. I often work in the tech booth supporting the worship ministry. That inner circle is created by the camaraderie of the people who have learned a set of skills and who consistently meet the expectations put on them. The joy that comes after a “successful” worship service is much greater than when success was never defined.

Volunteers are people. Those last three points were about people in general, but they don’t really apply to volunteers in the church, right? Wrong. Volunteers are people. Plain and simple, the things that motivate and fulfill people out in the “real world” are the same things our volunteers are seeking. Treat them like real, thinking and feeling people.

Your Next Move

Invest in your volunteers and help them to learn, feel special, and feel secure. This week, find one volunteer role and write and communicate your expectations for that role

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