As I spend time with leaders from both the business and church world I have noticed a common theme. With a few questions, a decent cup of coffee, and about an hour of time they can describe why they do what they do. What they talk about are their core values; those things that they want to describe their life when it is all said and done.
Another thing becomes quite apparent with just a bit of digging. Many of these leaders have a hard time connecting the tasks that fill their days to their core values.
Sometimes it is just a matter of better understanding what they do and why. This is especially true of people with repetitive job cycles (each day looks the same, or each week follows the same pattern).
Most pastors fit into that category as there are certain things that must be done each week before the next Sunday arrives. Their to-do lists are often full before a week even begins. Many times they struggle with motivation because they have forgotten the connection that the task has to their values.
Other times the reason it is hard to find a connection between task and value is because there is no connection. People in this state often talk about things like "the tyranny of the urgent". They are doing things that must be done, but when you ask, "why?", they have a hard time giving a satisfying answer.
One little exercise I ask clients to walk through is to look at their To-Do list for a given week, take each task listed, and ask "Why am I doing this?" Take that answer and ask "why" again. Keep asking why until you get down to something you would consider a core value.
For example, a task might be "write follow-up letters to all guests from Sunday". Why? Because we want guests to feel welcomed and help them connect to our church. Why? God welcomed us into His family, we want to do the same. Why? We value Grace and Hospitality; two characteristics God displays to us.
Each task could go a number of directions. This exercise does two things for you. First, for those tasks that do lead to a core value it allows you to speak vision and not just task. We are no longer "writing follow-up letters to guests", we are extending Grace and Hospitality to people that God loves, just as He did to us. It might flavor those same letters with a different tone and passion.
Second, for those tasks that do not lead to a core value it helps you see that it either does not need to be done or it does not need to be done by the leader. It is important that a leader does not fill their week with tasks that have no connection to their core values. That drains motivation and quickly decreases their performance, creativity, passion, etc.
The simple truth is that there are more things that must be done than a leader can do in any given week. In the past we turned to "time management" tools to help us become more efficient. Sadly, the same technology that allowed us to become more efficient also allowed people to make more demands on us.
Cell phones allow us to make connections at any time, anywhere. They also allow people to believe that we are available to connect any time, anywhere. Email and every other online communication tool allow people to send questions, requests, comments, etc. to us with little to no effort. Put a $0.10 price tag on emails and I bet the average in-box would be cut in half.
Today the focus is not so much on time management as it is on Priority Management. Leaders that will be consistently successful are those that keep a tight reign on their weekly to-do list, keeping them in line with their core values.
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