Promises We Make
Filed under: Core Values, Family Ministry, Personal Development
This is the sixth 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 bottom line is we will either choose to believe the best about the other person or we will assume the worst.
The sixth promise is I will not manipulate change in you. This deals with our core motivation when we interact with other people. If our goal in sharing with this person is to only tell them what they are doing wrong and why they should be the one to change then we are manipulating.
We must first assume personal responsibility for whatever percentage of the problem is our responsibility by admitting it and giving a sincere apology. Then and only then are we ready to talk to the person about what they did in a way that will really try to help them to move forward as well.
It is very easy to see what other people are doing wrong and sometimes almost impossible to see the blind spots in our own lives. When people first see our humility then they will be open to our advice.
The Winning Attitude
Filed under: Core Values, Leadership Callling, Personal Development, Servant Leader
Lou Holtz the famous football coach once said, “Ability is what you’re capable of doing, motivation determines what you do and attitude determines how well you do it.” We have heard all our lives how important a role our attitude plays in everything we do every day.
In John Maxwell’s book The Winning Attitude he says that it is absolutely your key to personal success. His list several key principles about how attitude impacts every part of our lives:
1. Our attitude determines our approach to life
2. Our attitude determines our relationships with people
3. Often our attitude is the only difference between success and failure
4. Our attitude at the beginning of a task will affect its outcome more than anything else
5. Our attitude can turn our problems into blessings
6. Our attitude can give us an uncommonly positive perspective
Maintaing the proper perspective is probably the most important one for me. We are all going to encounter problems and setbacks in our lives. It is very important to remember when you are going through difficult times not to focus on what you have lost but what you still have to be thankful for all around you. When you choose to see the glass for the way it is more than half full it will give you the perspective you need to deal with all the other issues.
I found the following to be very helpful about What is an attitude?
It is the “advance man” of our true selves
Its roots are inward but its fruit is outward
It is our best friend or our worst enemy
It is more honest and more consistent that our words
It is an outward look based on past experiences
It is a thing which draws people to us or repels them away
It is never content until it is expressed
It is the librarian of our past
It is the speaker of our present
It is the prophet of our future
Six Ways To Make Emotional Deposits
Filed under: Family Ministry, Leadership Callling, Marriage, Parenting, Personal Development, Servant Leader
We are all familiar with the metaphor of making emotional deposits and taking withdrawals from another person both personally and professionally. When you end up taking more than you give to another person you end up with a negative balance and believe me there are serious fees and late charges involved.
Stephen Covey in his great book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People gives us six ways that we can make sure we are making deposits on a consistent basis with another person:
1. Understanding the Individual—really seeking to understand another person is probably one of the most important deposits you can make, and it is the key to every other deposit. You simply don’t know what constitutes a deposit to another person until you understand that individual.
2. Attending to the Little Things—the little kindnesses and courtesies are so important. Small discourtesies, little unkindness’s, little forms of disrespect make large withdrawals. In relationships, the little things are the big things.
3. Keeping Commitments—keeping a commitment or a promise is a major deposit; breaking one is a major withdrawal. In fact, there’s probably not a more massive withdrawal than to make a promise that’s important to someone and then not to come through.
4. Clarifying Expectations—the cause of almost all relationship difficulties is rooted in conflicting or ambiguous expectations around roles and goals. That’s why it’s so important whenever you come into a new situation to get all the expectations out on the table.
5. Showing Personal Integrity—personal integrity generates trust and is the basis of many different kinds of deposits. One of the most important ways to manifest integrity is to be loyal to those who are not present because that builds trust with those who are.
6. Apologizing Sincerely When You Make a Withdrawal—when we make withdrawals from the Emotional Bank Account, we need to apologize and we need to do in sincerely. Great deposits come in the sincere words we share with the people we have hurt.
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.