Promises We Make
Filed under: Core Values, Family Ministry, Personal Development
This is the fifth in a series of ten posts on promises we should be willing to make to the people that matter the most in our lives. A promise goes beyond a mere commitment to do something it carries the clear expectation that we are going to pay the price to do what we said we would do.
The first promise was I will sincerely listen to what you have to say. Really listening to someone without a personal agenda communicates to them that they have value in your life and that you sincerely care.
The second promise was I will always tell you the truth. Without this there can be no basis of trust, just ask Elizabeth Edwards how painful that can be.
The third promise is I will apologize when I am wrong. When someone sincerely and genuinely apologizes we know two things. They are willing to humble themselves and they want to restore their relationship with us because we still matter to them.
The forth promise is I will forgive you when you hurt me. There can be no lasting peace in any relationship without the power of forgiveness. This is even more critical when someone has come to us and sincerely apologized they are asking without saying it will you please forgive me.
The fifth promise is I will live with hope and believe the best. Relationships are messy and there are always going to be times when people do or say things that upset us. It is at that precise moment that we have a critical choice to make about how we process what we are hearing.
The motive behind the message a person is communicating is extremely important. Most of the time it will not be immediately apparent what their motive is but every time we bring our own presuppositions and expectations into each conversation.
The bottom line is we will either choose to believe the best about the other person or we will assume the worst. When we assume the worst we will walk away hurt or even bitter. When we assume the best regardless of what they say and how upset they are we can give them a pass because we trust their heart.
Law Of The Inner Circle
Filed under: Leadership Callling, Personnel Development, Servant Leader
This by far is one of the most important principles identified by John Maxwell in the realm of leadership. The simple definition of the law is that a leader’s potential is determined by those closest to them.
As any organization continues to grow the leader cannot continue to spend equal time with every person on staff because of time constraints alone. This means that eventually the majority of a leader’s time will be need to be spent with the top 20% of their leadership team.
It is a proven leadership principle that they in turn will produce at least 80% of the desired results because of the scope of their impact throughout the entire organization. The leader is incredibly dependent upon this inner circle because they are responsible for providing the best information possible upward for decision making and they are also responsible for the downward execution of all planning.
Leaders of large organizations should still spend some time managing by walking around and maintain some personal contact with all levels of staff. However the purpose of this interaction is for personal encouragement and visibility and not for problem solving and day to day decision making. The leader can be involved to some degree with everyone but they must invest themselves only in the inner circle because they are the key to continued growth and outstanding performance.
Rinsing Your Cottage Cheese
Filed under: Core Values, Leadership Callling, Personal Development, Servant Leader
There were many profound conclusions reached by Jim Collins research team that were documented in his bestselling book Good to Great. The principle of rinsing your cottage cheese received a small amount of space in the book but may be one of the key principles that separate those organizations who merely survive in this economy and those who thrive.
This analogy comes from a disciplined world-class athlete named Dave Scott, who won the Hawaii Ironman Triathlon six times. Even though he had a training schedule that would burn at least 5,000 calories per day he would still rinse his cottage cheese to get the extra fat off.
From a business planning model this represents the last 10 percent of work that most people are not willing to do or even know exists to make their project or program the best it possibly could be. Most people are willing to settle for 75-90% effort and feel that should really represent the best they can produce.
Sometimes the last 10% represents seemingly little things like a spot on the carpet or windows that have not been cleaned. However that can be the very thing that a customer will notice and come to the conclusion that if you do not care about those areas what else are you not doing to be your best that they cannot see.
Collins writes, “Everyone would like to be the best, but most organizations lack the discipline to figure out with egoless clarity what they can be the best at and the will to do whatever it takes to turn that potential into reality.” Bottom line they lack the character and the discipline to rinse their cottage cheese.
Shut Up And Listen
Filed under: Leadership Callling, Personal Development, Servant Leader
This phrase is not only the title for one of the chapters in Mark DeMoss’s book on Wisdom but it is also incredibly good advice. To make his point he uses the confirmation hearings of Justice Samuel Alito where most senators spent almost all of their allotted thirty minutes for asking questions pontificating about their own political bias. At the end of the day we learned very little about the new prospective judge because he had no time to talk.
Mark has many great insights in this book and on this subject he writes, “It’s safe to say that in my life I have never learned a single thing while I was talking.” On the other hand his willingness to close his mouth and open his ears has given him a tremendous amount of knowledge from a variety of different people.
In corporate culture today the priority is on participative leadership that makes sure everyone on the team has a voice in the conversation. For that to happen the people that used to do all of the talking have to discipline themselves to now do most of the listening. Mark has another great quote when he says, “To dominate a meeting or conversation is not power, informed good judgment is power.”
When someone is a great listener it says several things about them. First they are learners by nature and they seek out other people who can teach them something. Second they are also humble because they do not always have to be the expert on everything and they are willing to be quiet and even give someone else the credit. Finally they are relational because they want the other person to know that what they have to say and who they are as a person is important to them.
Mark believes that when a person is not a good listener, “it’s like standing on a balcony over breathtaking panorama and using the entire time to stare into a mirror.” OUCH!!
Customer Service That Works
In a day when we tend to have more user identifications and passwords than we do meaningful relationships real customer service that treats you like a person really stands out and separates you from your competition. There may be nothing worse than to be stuck on a computer phone tree that puts you through twenty selections only to drop your call before you get to a real person.
I love technology but when you substitute the personal touch with a phone tree you have gone too far regardless of what the cost benefit studies tell you. These are my non-negotiable items when it comes to customer service:
1. Personal Touch—If you must use automated answering software there must be an option to get to a real person within first ten seconds of call. If people want to use technology they can go to your website and totally automate the entire transaction but when they make a phone call they need to talk with a highly trained friendly individual who knows how to deliver.
2. Inside Staff—When you talk with someone and you can tell they are probably several thousand miles away and they are not well trained it is a horrible experience. I do not think customer service should be outsourced because no matter how much they know about your product they are still not personally invested in your success.
3. Follow Up—There is nothing better than when the person on the other end of the line lets you know they own your problem and they will not be satisfied until you are as well. This means they give you their name, an incident report number and a direct phone number if you need to call them back. They also get your number and call you back later to make sure the problem has been resolved.
There are many areas where it may be prudent and profitable to cut back on expenses to help your bottom line. This is not one of them because in the end if your customers are not satisfied they will find someone else who gets it.
Resolving Conflict
Filed under: Family Ministry, Leadership Callling, Marriage, Parenting, Personal Development, Servant Leader
All of us at some point in time will have conflict and disagreements with someone else either in our personal lives or professionally at work. These situations can be painful at times but seeking resolution is the only way to maintain positive momentum in your life.
There are at least three critical steps that you must take if you want to restore the relationship and move forward in your own life.
1. Own Your Part—In every disagreement there are always two sides to the story. I have never known a situation where there was not some responsibility for the problem with both parties. If we think the other party is the major offender then we tend to wait for them to make the first move. Instead we need to take whatever percentage of the problem is ours even if it’s minor and do what we need to do to admit it and ask for forgiveness regardless of what the other person does.
2. Talk Person Privately—Most of the time when we are having problems with another person we tend to go to other people first and complain or try to find emotional support. What we should do is go privately to the person who offended us first and tell them in a respectful way why we are offended and give them a chance to respond. When we are talking about someone else to another person rather than talking to them the situation will only get worse.
3. Give Benefit Of Doubt—When we sense that a conversation is not going well and we can tell it may hurt us we have a decision to make. We can either assume the worst about the other person’s motives or we can believe the best. Many times if we can give them the benefit of the doubt at this critical moment then even though it may still hurt there will be no lasting damage because we give them a pass because we trust their heart.
What’s Next?
This phrase became the mantra on the award winning series The West Wing. After every serious issue that had to be dealt with not matter how long the conversation or difficult the task the president would always ask what’s next?
That is a very good question that all of us have to answer each and every day regardless of whether we realize it or not. Inherent within the question is the intention to find the most important things on our must do list and place them at the top.
Most of us allocate a considerable amount of time to plan our weeks and certainly each individual day with pre-determined goals and priorities. However in today’s wired culture we are constantly receiving new information throughout the day that must be processed.
David Allen is recognized as one of the nation’s leading experts on time management and personal productivity. In his book Getting Things Done he list four key criteria about processing new information that help him to answer the what’s next question:
1. Context—A few actions can be done anywhere but most require a specific location or having some productivity tool at hand, such as a phone or a computer. These are the first factors that limit your choices about what you can do in the moment.
2. Time available—When do you have to do something else? Having a meeting in five minutes would prevent doing many actions that require more time.
3. Energy available—How much energy do you have? Some actions you have to do require a reservoir of fresh, creative mental energy while others need more physical horsepower.
4. Priority—Given your context, time, and energy available, what actions will give you the highest payoff? This is where you need to access your intuition and begin to rely on your judgment call in the moment.
Pull The Trigger
Filed under: Crisis Management, Leadership Callling, Leading Change, Personnel Development
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.