The Importance of Knowing Life Purpose
Filed under: Core Values, Family Ministry, Leadership Callling, Life Balance, Marriage, Personal Development, Time Management
In a day when our calendars are beyond full and yet our lives seem to be empty something has gone wrong. We in many cases have assumed because we are busy the things we are doing must be important.
We clearly have shifted the focus from being as a person to doing and what we are able to accomplish. Technology has helped us in many cases simply to do the wrong things faster.
The great paradoxes of our time have been summed up well by the Dalai Lama:
“We have more conveniences, but less time.
We have more degrees, but less sense…more knowledge but less judgment.
More experts, but more problems.
More medicines, but less healthiness.
We have been all the way to the moon and back but have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbor.
We build more computers to hold more information that produce more copies than ever before, but have less communication.
We have become long on quantity, but short on quality.
These are the times of fast foods but weak digestion.
It is a time when there is much in the window but nothing in the room.”
For many of us we have been living the script for our lives that were given to us by someone else; parents, peers, friends or the culture we live in. The time has come for us to have the courage to say no and the passion to write our own.
Team Operating Principles
Filed under: Leadership Callling, Personnel Development, Servant Leader
The first thing I look for in putting together any team is the right chemistry for the particular task at hand. If the team is responsible for completing a construction project I need expertise and great project managers. When the assignment is to create a new vision statement I want very creative people that are willing to think outside the box.
One of the best books on team building is The Performance Factor by Pat MacMillan. He is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Team Resources Inc. an international consulting firm specializing in organizational and team development.
Regardless of the team dynamics and the task assignments there should be some guiding principles that give direction to all teams. The following list from MacMillan is the best one I have found and creates an environment of mutual respect that drives participation and performance:
1. We are open and honest with one another.
2. We treat each other with dignity and respect.
3. We listen to and respect each other’s ideas and opinions.
4. We hold confidences.
5. We honor our commitments.
6. We support and invest in each other’s development.
7. We routinely critique our processes.
8. We have fun.
If the team leader can model and get everyone to buy into these principles then the potential for a great outcome has dramatically increased. When teams often break down it has very little to do with the task at hand but with the way members communicate and relate to each other.
My Boss Does Not Get It
I spoke this week at an annual conference for the utility industry on the subject of change. The major takeaway was that when this recession cycle is over we are never going back to the way things used to be.
The world has permanently changed the way we live and especially the way we work. The power of technology and the globalization of world economies are driving change in an unprecedented way.
At the end of both my presentations we had a question and answer session. The dominant question from everyone was what do you do when you know change needs to occur but your boss either does not see the need or simply will not give up on the status quo?
The first thing you must do is to continue to respectfully continue to tell the truth. The moment you give up and become a yes man you have stopped doing your job.
The second thing you must do is check your motives. At the end of the day if I have tried to be helpful and share my perspective in the right way then I can go home knowing I did it right.
The third thing is to realize that it is not in your job description to change your boss any more than it is to change your mate at home. When we hit the wall is when we assume responsibility that was not given to us and become frustrated when the people above us don’t seem to get it.
After several months of respectfully communicating what you see from your perspective and nothing seems to be changing and you get the impression that they don’t want to hear it anymore. The you must realize that in the end you will either change the corporate culture you are working in or if you stay too long it will change you.
When I have reached this point the change that needs to occur is not in my boss but where I am working. I will not settle for a paycheck becasue the world is in a mess and I want to make a difference.
Creating Margin
Filed under: Family Ministry, Leadership Callling, Life Balance, Marriage, Parenting, Personal Development, Time Management
A simple definition of margin is the space between our load and our limits. It is the opposite of overload because you will have something in reserve for a time when you will need it.
Richard Swenson wrote an incredible book entitled Margin to help us learn how to restore emotional, physical, financial and time reserves to our overscheduled lives. Of all these important areas he believes everything must start with our emotional energy.
Every day we only have so much emotional energy to give to our family, work, friends and other people. Most of these people are making withdrawals from our emotional bank accounts and if we are not careful we become overdrawn with nothing left to give.
We must start each day knowing our emotional balance and then set limits on those people and things that will tend to drain us to the point of experiencing the pain of being overwhelmed. He lists several things that can restore your emotional energy:
1. Cultivate Social Supports
2. Reconcile Relationships
3. Serve One Another
4. Rest
5. Laugh
6. Offer Thanks
7. Grant Grace
8. Be Rich in Faith
9. Hold Fast Hope
10. Envision a Better Future
Some of the emotional drainers in life cannot be avoided but when you build in things that make deposits then you can routinely within your day monitor your balance and make the necessary adjustments to maintain margin.
We must find ways in this wired world we live in to have peace of mind so that we have something left to give to the people that matter the most.
Weisure Lifestyle
Filed under: Leadership Callling, Life Balance, Personal Development, Time Management
Welcome to the latest new term to describe the tension that exist between life and work balance. According to Dalton Conley a New York University sociologist, “increasingly it’s not clear what constitutes work and what constitutes fun time.” You can read the entire article on CNN.com/living.
More and more people are using their smart phones and other technology to keep up with their 24-7 lifestyle that keeps them in almost constant contact with others. At one minute we may be quote at work and receive a text message about last night’s game and then later while at quote home get an important email on major project.
It’s one thing to watch a fellow employee scroll through email during a meeting you are attending but now to see the same thing happening during the evening meal is a little harder to swallow.
Apple is probably not going to come up with an app that will schedule time everyday to unplug from all the information that is available to spend time with people who really matter in your life. We are going to have to discipline ourselves to set some boundaries so that we can have the time we need to wind down and even quietly think without interruption.
Technology can be an incredibly good thing if we use it as a tool to improve our lives. If we let it though it can easily change from a means to the end into the end itself and when it does that we all lose.
Twitter Power
I just read this book by Joel Comm on how to dominate your market one tweet at a time. I am really just beginning to understand all the dynamics of social media so I am trying to read all I can.
All social media seems to be trying to either build community on the one hand or build market share on the other. When I see that was a good hamburger tweet or please follow me so I can reach 1,000 followers tweets both seem to add little value.
Occasionally I come across people that really seem to want to help other people by supplying helpful information and encourage them in some personal way. When I find this I think it is extremely positive.
This is a very good book for someone who not only wants to know the basics of microblogging but how can this very powerful tool be used to its maximum potential. Social media in its simplest form is content that has been created by its audience.
In one sense twitter is very restrictive with its 140 characters max on each tweet. However, that small message can reach thousands of people in a matter of seconds and then be resent to thousands of other people all over the world.
My first month on twitter has been a very good experience even as I continue to learn something new every day. It forces me to think about major subjects in very succinct and relevant ways and that has to be a good thing for anyone who wants to communicate information that other people really want and need.