Defined By Your Environment

There's an interesting law that governs most of us that we rarely wrestle with or acknowledge but this law has great control on us all. It's the law that our environments truly govern our outcomes.

It's proven time and time again that you can take any diversity of people, place them in a certain environment, and expect relatively the same results. What does this mean and what can we do about it?

First, we must recognize that our results are based more on the environments that we create than the people we hire. This may sound foolish, but if you give it enough thought you may start to realize it's truth. Second, in order to have the impact we desire we must be willing to change the environment to reach that end.

It is possible and it is good. We need to challenge our environments. We need to challenge our structures. If we don't we will be ruled by our practices and methods and these always go the way of extinction in time.

Environments shape our results... challenge your environments to be the best steward of the mission set before you.

Stewardship in Leadership

Yes, of course, leadership is stewardship. We should all get that idea rather quickly. But have you ever thought of it from the angle of stewardship being on of the greatest gifts ever given to us - therefore making those who are in positions of leadership in a place of great joy and responsibility?

I've observed many leaders over the years in work, home, and other environments miss this completely. The question must be ask... if you're given a position of leadership, why wouldn't you want to run with that well?

Leadership is a responsibility of stewardship and those of us given that opportunity need to take full advantage of the perspective in that role. And may we never forget that all stewardship is temporary - that's why it's called stewardship. We are entrusted for a season to lead something well and to pass it along to the next team/person well.

May we run well with leadership as we recognize that we are entrusted with it only for a season - there is great strength in realizing our time is limited.

Fight It, Fund It

I was listening to a leadership session and heard Andy Stanley's phrase here which really stuck with me.

"Fight It or Fund It"

That's the decision many of us will face on a daily basis. It's really quite interesting in scope of when market innovations will be birthed and influence culture - they are always from younger and more innovative people. This starts with the assumption that we need to be humble to allow others, and especially younger people, to have a say in the future. Here's whats true regardless - what those people are doing is going to happen anyways - it always has and always will!

That's where we have the decision to either fight it or fund it. The concept is simple. Where will you land? Will you be one who is fighting for old methods and systems that are out of date or will you challenge even your own comfort and allow fresh method to be launched? Funding someone else's idea may be your greatest legacy... don't miss the opportunity.

Learning from Experience

There's a common and true belief that we learn from our experiences. For the most part this is a very true and accurate statement. The enemy of this statement is time. In short bursts of time it's easy for us to learn from our experiences both good and bad. It's easy to reflect on what's happened and navigate how to move forward. But as time moves along we forget the decisions that lead us to various ends. This is the old phrase of "those who do now know the past are doomed to repeat it". But how does all of this effect us in our organizations?

The challenge is make the best decisions possible with the best desired outcome in mind while honoring all those involved and effected by our decisions. The challenge might be to properly capture the reasons by the decisions we made so that as time moves along we can and others can learn from the motive and the result.

We are all aware that most of the decisions we make today in business most likely spread their wings of influence in the years that follow. How many of us can remember the motive behind a decision that's now years old? Not many of us.

The goal here is to be intentional, the plan well, and the share wisdom as best possible with those who will come up after us. We have a great opportunity to share and coach others in this area as they are making decisions and mapping a future path for their efforts. May this be a challenge to us all that we alone are not savvy enough to learn from our own experience and that we desperately need external forces to help up learn those valuable lessons.

The Baseline of Excellence

I was working through a strategy plan for an organization and realized something quite simple yet often ignored in organizational culture... what do we measure ourselves on?

The predicament I observed is that we often we default to a scale that looks like this three stage model:

Poor - Status quo - Excellence

Now, I would imagine that most of us would agree that we desire to achieve excellence in our work, projects, programs, leadership, relationships, etc. But we fail to measure off the right index.

Most charters will begin with the baseline of excellence... this is where we hope to reach. But what happens is that as we grow there's a gap in leadership accountability and our baseline shifts from excellence to status quo and all of the sudden all our efforts begin looking great because of our baseline for measurement.

Lesser leadership will gravitate toward presentation of performance based on the status quo. Great leadership will always strive toward measurement on excellence. You can recognize this leadership in vision, challenge, hope, excitement, and engagement.

This is our challenge as leaders... to identify the core of excellence in our field (an ever changing goal) and draw our teams to this end. Much like Kouzes and Posner note in The Leadership Challenge, leaders must challenge the process.

Benchmarking Breakdown

Many organizations have fallen into an unhealthy trap in their view of benchmarking. Just as there are many great resources in business development... there are just as many ways to use them improperly. I've noticed organizations using benchmarking as a technique for their strategy and product development. Benchmarking was never intended to serve that purpose. This is a tool that helps organizations understand their market landscape and to learn other's best practices in certain pieces of their market. But the tool should stop here... this is not a means for determining strategic direction.

But why isn't it a tool for strategic direction? Simple. Strategic direction should strive to be unique, customized to clientele, principle-aligned, and specific to markets in a given time. Benchmarking starts with someone else's strategy and deducts from that point. Great vision is never a deduction. Great vision is always pioneering in method.

Where is benchmarking most useful? I would suggest that the most beneficial means for benchmarking is to explore principle, because principle never changes. But we must strive for what's unique and specific to our market - we'll never get that from someone else. In large part, this is our calling and our responsibility... to bear the image of our Creator in how we create and innovate for the future.

Fresh method and unique vision are both some of the greatest points of blessing given to us. May we never lower leadership to the deduction of benchmarking as a foundational practice. The people we serve deserve far better than that.

Change Without Compromise

I was fortunate to have some time with Brad Powell earlier this week, the pastor of NorthRidge Church in Michigan. I loved hearing his heart and passion for change, truth, and leadership. It was obvious to see the profound depth of perspective he has in leading change and challenging other to do the same.

Brad's theme is "Change Without Compromise" which should be an encouragement to us all. This theme sums up so many great points, especially the division of two things that certainly scare many people... change and compromise. Truth is, we can make epic changes without compromising our beliefs and foundations. Matter of fact, we are commanded to as Image-Bearers of God. Change, creativity, fresh look, innovation - this should be our market and one of our strongest abilities.

It was a great joy getting to talk to Brad about how his church has shifted in demographic and age, how he is almost more comfortable working with younger leaders than older now because of passion he has for their development, about principles that never change and the means to exegete them, and his perspectives on current models of ministry many of us have become familiar with.

There is great hope for us all... for churches and organizations alike. We must seek out change without compromise and we must have the leaders to take us there. This is our calling, this is our duty... to advance our work even further in means that engage the hearts and minds of people. The opportunities are rich...

Check out Brad's book Change your Church for Good - The Art of Sacred Cow Tipping on Amazon

http://changewithoutcompromise.com/

The Delegation Misconception

Very interesting to me how the idea of delegation is so poorly defined and used in today's world. I believe we mistake the idea of delegation and simply passing off work and assigning it to others. We go even further to reward people who can "delegate" well and consider them leaders.

This is all very systemic in our poor definition of leadership in today's world. Our role as leaders is never to delegate work, but to equip and prepare those people around us. Do leaders share work? Of course, but there's an intent at hand. Great leaders see all sharing of work and good delegation as an opportunity to equip, enable, empower someone.

The greatest investment we can ever make is in people; and we all know that we can't hold on to people forever. So why not make them the best we can while we have them - as a principle of good stewardship.

Delegation is an opportunity to lead and to lead others well - but it must be in terms of equipping them with the tools to be successful and the heart to see them succeed. True delegation is the sign of a great leader. Poor delegation is a sign of no leadership at all.

Take an inventory of your engagement of your team members and consider if you are simply passing off tasks or truly working to equip them well.

Manage Around - Leading Through

Well, back at it with some postings - ready for another good run of topics!

I would like to discuss the ideas of managing around people and leading through people. This may sound odd, but rather quite simple. Here's the principle - we can do one of two things with those we work with/for... work around them or lead through them. I'll unpack each one separately here...

By managing around someone, this is where someone simply doesn't fit for one reason or another in an organization and rather than making the right decision to move that person, we simply manage around them.

Leading through someone implies that we lead, that we work through the situation, and that we make the necessary changes that may be needed.

Honestly, it's easier to manage around people. We don't have to worry about disappointment, letting people go, disrupting things, etc.

But that's not what's lost - what's most likely lost is the respect of our best people. See, here's what happens. When you're best people see the weak links being "managed around" it translates as direct disrespect to them, whether they acknowledge it or not. And in so being, many times we lose our best because we don't make the hard decisions.

It all comes back to respect. The best way to respect the people who are not doing a great job might be to let them go. The best way to respect your best people is to provide them the best team possible.

Consider who you might be managing around and seek advice on how to make the necessary changes. I'm not saying they need to be let go; simply not ignored. Everyone wins if we don't mess this one up.

Build to Test

There's a stage we have in running an Innovation Engagement that's called Prototyping or Engineering. This is the culmination of our work to that point where we give our team the opportunity to take everything they've collected, learned, and observed to that point and put that into a workable model.

The simple road out is to just build a plan, cast a vision, give a powerpoint presentation, or something that covers the concept but doesn't necessarily lay out a good model and example of exactly what you're thinking. It's the difference in an architect showing someone blueprints and then creating a fly through of the building. Some people can construct the idea in their head from a blueprint, but most of us need more visualization.

This is where our principle comes into play. Why do we prototype? We prototype (or build) to test. The better we build a model the more critically and accurately we can assess it's viability and determine how it resonates with our teams and clients.

My encouragement for everyone here is that no matter what you're working on (program design, product development, etc.) there is always an opportunity to prototype well and allow your audiences to evaluate accurately on a good idea of your proposal. Yes, it's simple... but it makes a big difference. Just remember that the more you can show the better your opportunities for success in the long run will be.

Creating Wealth

As we've been working through issues of social justice I've had time to think about certain perspectives surrounding this whole idea. Now, social justice can certainly be a good thing. But it can also be a bad thing if it's based on the wrong foundations and if it doesn't truly help people in the end. I wish to address the first point here.

The right foundation. There's a perception that if some people are to become wealthy then some others are to be taken from. The perception is such that there's only a certain amount of wealth in existence and for one to have more is for another to have less. And let's honestly consider what social justice means in terms of economics... a level playing field. But here's the marvel of capitalism... it's not about taking wealth from another, it's about creating wealth. This is simple, just think about the establishment of the United States and it's economic power over the past 5-7 decades. Where has that wealth come from? We created it.

The reason I bring social justice into this discussion is that we are careful to define our spheres correctly. If we have false perceptions of wealth and capitalism, then we're responsible to align those correctly to truth.

I'll leave with this thought. We often as, how it is that poverty is created? Shouldn't we be asking how wealth is created first?

Productivity or Control

Do these two words create a dichotomy in the work place? Can you have both? Or are they mutually exclusive?

I'm just asking the question here but allow me to paint the picture. If we have an environment that maximized productivity, then do we have to relinquish control of that environment to reach that high level of fresh productivity? If we desire an environment of high control (or any control for that matter) then are we diminishing the opportunity for higher productivity?

I believe the solution is quite simple, but the ideologies surrounding this are difficult to accept. What do we believe are the benefits of control? Have we ever measured higher productivity because of controlled environments? Maybe we should ask it like this... are we honoring people well in creating controlled environments?

The goal here is really quite simple... it is the productivity of our team. That's the goal or at least it should be for our companies. But we're forced to ask two very difficult questions. (1) Does control actually give us any greater productivity results? (2) Are we more concerned with control (as a measure of productivity) over true productivity?

I'll ask again... productivity and control... are they mutually exclusive?

Risk/Rigor

What's the correlation in Risk & Rigor?

This is a simple one but a great tool to have in your box of understanding the effort put forth toward any project.

Here's the premise... the greater the risk the greater the rigor.

An example. If I'm working on a project for a client that's significant for their organization, that has a great deal of investment, and stands in high profile... that project would demand a higher level of time and rigor. In another case you might have a quick issue to resolve that doesn't demand as much rigor.

Be conscious of the risk for each of your projects and responsibilities and seek wisdom for the proper rigor to give them each. There's no template for getting this one right - everything is different. But, it's good stewardship to match the risk with the rigor.

Risk/Rigor balance will help serve people well, ensure greater return on your investment, and serve to keep you in good standing with what you produce.

Holistic Stewardship

This is a short entry but simply one to challenge our perspectives of stewardship. For most of us that word elicits thoughts of financial accountability. That's only scratching the surface of what this truly means. Consider the following...

Relational stewardship
Environmental stewardship
Economic stewardship
Health stewardship
Work stewardship
Time stewardship
Rest stewardship
Joy stewardship

And the list goes on; but the point here is simple - stewardship is holistic in nature and it's both a command and an opportunity to enter into what we were designed for. Holistic stewardship incorporates ALL aspects of our lives - there's nothing left out from deserving our stewardship and respect. May we all work toward being greater stewards...

Maintaining Constructive Relationships

Maintaining constructive relationships is vital for work place encouragement and respect. Let’s look at each of the three words individually first.

Maintaining requires a constant motion toward something. It’s an action and an intention that must be pursued.

Constructive directs us toward a positive outcome and intent. It’s keeping the end goal in mind.

Relationships are our meaningful interactions with other people on a constant basis.

The beauty of this principle is the combination of these three words. We must proactively work toward bettering each of our working relationships. Relationships require work and they require opportunity to be challenged to make better. Discussion with each other should be constructive as we seek to honor those we work with. And we must always be proactive to reach these goals for the benefit of others.

On the opposite side; we all can relate to the frustrations of not being respected well and with conversations that were not constructive to us or to our development. Our goal is not how we’ve been treated… rather it’s how we can best serve and honor those around us.

This raises the bar for a much greater opportunity for success and encouragement of people. Give it a chance to work for you…

Focus on the Situation/Issue/Behavior

A friend and mentor spent time with me a while back explaining some very simple principles, but principles that ended up shaping much of the way I approach life and work environments.

One of these is the principle of focusing on the situation/issue/behavior and not the person.

I write about such principles not because people don’t know them but because people fail to apply them.

This principle is simple as well but extremely important. We must work to do just that… focus on the situation, issue, or behavior… that’s the issue at hand. Yes, there is always a person or group of people behind things but it’s the foundational issues that we as leaders are responsible to extract.

Remember this… it’s the belief that’s most important to address, not the behavior. Behaviors, issues, and situations all stem from beliefs and understanding. If you’re able to address the foundation then the behavior change is simple.

Shifting belief is no easy task. But it is the leaders responsibility to invest well in people and helping them see these foundations is doing just that.

The other key point of this principle is the charge for the leader to pull out the core issue from the person. This is healthy conflict. This is also honoring to the person. It creates a level of separation between the action and the person. Criticism is difficult for many people to take and there is a healthy/honoring way to go about doing just that.

Simply give yourself a moment to process before address issues on your team and think how you might address the situation/issue/behavior without attacking the person.

Reassess/ Recalculate/ Reinforce

I heard a great strategy plan the other day for mid-progress development for project management and effective execution. It's a simple three step process of reassess, recalculate, and reinforce.

Reassess requires us to evaluate our teams, resources, effectiveness, and movement toward goal. It's painful, but good for development. This requires us to draw in other perspectives and carefully address progress.

Recalculation requires that we take our lessons learned and, as a team, work to develop tweaks and refinements to our strategies. Rarely are strategies perfect from the onset, great success hinges on the ability to flex mid-stream.

Reinforce requires that we take these previous two lessons and carefully allocate proper resources for continued effectiveness and success.

These three simple steps can help guide us through quick evaluation of progress management and milestone evaluation.

Thread of Experience

Several weeks back we discussed the idea on an Intentional Pathway. I believe IP is one of the most effective ways to understand where you are taking a group and determining what you trying to achieve.

Allow me to stretch that exercise with another term that may help better understand that tool. It's the idea of "thread of experience".

As you develop an IP for any product/program it's extremely important to keep in mind what the common theme is throughout that initiative. Remember, this is someone journeying through life who is going to interact/collide with something you have to offer - you need to be consistent in how you deliver.

Thread of Experience is simply the common core essence of what you're trying to communicate. It's the essential meaning. But, it must be defined and acknowledged.

Use these two tools (Intentional Pathway and Thread of Experience) to effectively build the experience you desire for your clientele to walk. Remember that you have the responsibility to steward their experience well. Why not use the right tools to help you better respect people?

Stewardship of People

I love the concept of stewardship. It leaves us to consider life as a protector and as a guardian for what's right and what's worthy. Many times we only think of stewardship in context on finances, but it often seems to end there.

Stewardship is certainly much larger than just financial responsibility. I would propose that the greatest stewardship responsibility we all carry is the honor and respect of people. I would also propose that there is no greater joy in the workplace than in treating people with the respect due them as people.

Now, I don't propose that's interpreted that we're easy on people. Quite the opposite. Stewardship relationship and people is difficult and it demands clear communication, set expectations, honoring of character, and connection to heart needs.

The point is this. If you interact with people then you've been given the responsibility to steward everyone of those relationships and interactions as best as possible. Each is an opportunity to honor well. And each opportunity to honor is a blessed to us each.

Lone Genius

There's a phrase given in innovations that says, "collective input is always better than the lone genius". It's a true statement, but I don't believe we've done justice to why this has so much purpose and potential.

First glance of this would lead you to catch the idea that a group of people has a better ability to solve a problem, develop a product, or achieve an objective... all better than one person, no matter how smart that one person might be. Yes, it's true. For the most part a team will always be better to deliver a higher quality product due to variety of giftings, insights, strengths, and perspectives.

But here is where the real value is.. in team, not solution. I believe that if you have a team that is completely sold on an idea that they feel complete ownership of, that idea or product might even be less quality than some other product, but since it was developed, owners, and birthed by this team it will have a greater chance of success.

Sure, at the end of the day we have to create products that are beneficial, creative, innovative, profitable, functional, and most certainly meeting the needs of people. But there's a higher ethic and concern here for team development. I believe in the long run it's good team development that will always succeed in the product that exists in the market place.

People are always our greatest treasure, this is why its imperative to have the right team. The right team can accomplish anything.