Take a Step

There are many facets of designing a life in which your dreams come true. When I talk to people I ask them to Look, Learn, and Act. We must be able to see our current reality and understand what it means in light of our destination. But, at the end of the day nothing moves forward without action.

As you look at 2012 what is it you want to write? say? acquire? give away? bake? sell? create? experience?

Ask yourself this question: What is one thing I can do today to take a step in that direction? Perhaps it is as simple as getting the title to your report or speech written. It may be simply spending some time on Google finding places to experience your dream, or finding a recipe to that dish you have been waiting to create. Don't judge the "size" of the step so long as there is a step.

Your next question should be: What should I do right now? If you can accomplish your step in the next 3 minutes, then Do. It. Now. If not, then take the next 3 minutes to schedule your step on your calendar. Give it a time slot. Mark it "urgent". Set an email reminder. Don't let anything sway you from taking your step at the scheduled time.

The step is your goal. It is the path to your dream.

What step can you take or schedule today?

Exponential Day 2 - Learning to Listen to your community

I grew up learning about acts of service as a way to show God's love. These were good things, rarely received poorly by the people served. And yet, they also rarely led to any lasting change either in a community or even in my church's relationship with the community.

A breakthrough occurred when I learned a seemingly simple truth: Service is most effective when it meets a felt need. Felt needs are discovered through listening and within a relationship.

The first step to listening to ones community is to form relationships with people in the community. That is often done by volunteering. Schools, non-profits, chamber of commerce, and other civic organizations are a great place to start.

Go. Volunteer. Look. Listen. What needs do you see repeated from person to person or place to place? What needs to you hear expressed in the conversations that happen around you? What assets (strengths) exist in the community that might be unknown or underutilized?

PS - This thought has been repeated time and again in many different sessions and will shape much of what "Community Impact" looks like. The basic, simple truth is that the community knows what it needs, and if I will do the work of listening... I can actually design projects that meet those needs, rather than merely bringing my "good" ideas to the table.

Other ideas from today that will become later posts:

1. Vision requires clarity and consistency. Someone must create it and measures for it.
2. Another value that we often state and rarely measure... healthy leaders.
3. Missional Problem (yea it was very cool having Alan Hirsch come and ask if the seat next to me was empty... um, Yes, yes it is!) - "How do we communicate the good news to people who have heard our message and rejected it?"
4. Everyone needs an apprentice. This is something you will get sick of hearing, and I will rejoice on that day because hopefully you will then be close to understanding and believing it.
5. Church leader in India on "casual" Christ followers - "Why would you lose everything for something that you only casually believe?" Quick answer? We don't really lose all that much for our beliefs in America.

Exponential Day 1 - Core Values vs Core Practices

I have noticed an alarming trend among leadership teams in recent years. There is an increase in conversation about core values, but the conversation stops before discussing core practices. They behave as if values have benefit without action. However, principles are not helpful until they are practiced. Using the example of honoring volunteers I will walk through three key elements of core practices. Core practices are:

1) Clearly defined. If my core value is to honor my volunteers, what does that mean exactly? What does an honored volunteer look like? How do they feel about the job they do? How do they describe it to others? How do they participate in our training and recruitment?

2) Systematic. When are we going to evaluate how well we honor our volunteers? (at our weekly staff meeting?) How will we measure it? How often should we ask these questions? (every week? month?) What happens if we fall short of our expectations (we discover a large number of our volunteers do not feel honored)?

3) Relentless. People will ask, "How long to we need to maintain this focus?" However long you want to maintain your core values. You must relentlessly pursue clarity and consistency, repeating your evaluation system over and over again. The reality is that you will never stop doing this, it will only feel like you have. At some point what once seemed extremely aggressive will be normal, and what may seem over-the-top to outsiders will be status quo for your organization.

What core values have yet to become core practices in your organization? What stage in the process do you need to address? (clearly defined, systematic, relentless)

Create Conflict in your Calendar

Conflict is a fact of life. Recently I have had several conversations with leaders who are dealing with conflict due to a "lack of time" to get everything done or touch all of the people who need to be touched. In other words they are experiencing conflict that is coming from their calendar.

I encourage them to create conflict within their calendar and avoid conflict with other people or projects. The conflict cannot be avoided, but it can be moved.

Many people live their lives as virtual slaves to their calendar; and that calendar is largely set by outside forces. Someone calls and wants to schedule an appointment, a project deadline is approaching, a new initiative is beginning and needs time for meetings. All of these things may be good, but what if they begin asking for the same block of time? And, what about family time and personal health?

What do you do when your calendar is filled with important things and you have more things to do than time to do it?

You create conflict in your calendar.

I have had the following coaching conversation several times in the last few weeks with several different clients (players). It goes something like this:

Coach: We have been talking about your goals, values, and high priorities; how did you address them this last week?

Player: I did not get a chance to focus on them this last week, it was slammed!

Coach: It seems that over the last several weeks you have had difficulty finding time to work toward your goals. Would you like to change your goals perhaps? Do you still think these measures are the most important things for you to accomplish?

Player: No, I don't want to change them, I know that I need to be doing these things, I just have so much going on. I will try better next week!

What do you do when you know what is most important and yet you still find yourself doing other things?

You create conflict in your calendar.

Set aside an hour (or a day if you need to) and get out a blank calendar. I find that a week-long calendar works best. Our goal is to create a "perfect week". The perfect week is one in which you get to spend your time exactly how you would like to. Everything from personal time to family time to business and church gets done exactly how you want it. Begin by making a list of all of these things and how much time you think they would take. Be sure to include travel time for things that require it (so an hour at the gym that is 30 minutes away would actually be a 2 hour time block).

Once your list is complete start filling in blocks on your calendar. It will not take you very long to find that some items on your list begin to compete for the same time block. Great! You are well on your way to allowing conflict to happen in your calendar. Now the real work begins; you get to decide which of these very important things is more important. You will be amazed at the clarity and creativity that arises as you wrestle with your calendar, attempting to create your perfect week.

If you complete this process and actually implement it you will also be amazed at the amount of conflict you remove from your work and personal relationships. Your perfect week calendar will begin to be a filter that all new projects and meetings must work through. No longer will external forces drive your time; instead they will fit into pre-determined slots. Sound crazy? It really isn't. Notice the simple difference in these two conversations:

Conversation One:

Other person: Hey Jeff, I really need to meet with you this week, can you do Wednesday at 9; this is really urgent!

Me: (I have a regularly scheduled meeting I have deemed "important" at 9, but he just said it was urgent, I suppose I will need to adjust my calendar!) Um, sure I think I can do that, just let me rearrange a few things.

I just set myself up for conflict in at least one relationship as I will now have to go to a regularly scheduled meeting and attempt to change it to fit this new meeting (one that I don't have a timeline on).

Conversation Two:

Other person: Hey Jeff, I really need to meet with you this week, can you do Wednesday at 9; this is really urgent!

Me: Wednesday at 9 is booked for me, but I can do 10:30 or 1:00. About how long do you think this meeting will take?

Other person: It should be about an hour... and 1:00 should work, see you then!

This may seem like an over-simplified example, but I have seen it work hundreds of times. I have found that many people never even offer alternative times when people or projects ask them to compromise a pre-scheduled activity. Often that is because they don't know when they have an open time slot.

[A side note for those of you who are tempted to say, "I don't have an hour, much less a day, to do this!" If your child was rushed to the hospital could you find time to go see him? What if you had a heart attack, would you be able to take a few hours off? Time is a measure of priority, and if gaining control of your time is a priority you will make time for it.]

When you take time to bring structure and order to your calendar based on your priorities, values, and goals you will actually increase your ability to be flexible and adapt to new time demands.

Driving: Communication and Trust

I know that for most of the world "traffic" is not a new thing. I, however, have managed to avoid it for the better part of the last decade by living very close to where I work and play. In our current living situation; well let's just say that all changed.

It is not unusual for me to drive 100 miles on any given day; 20 miles to preschool, 20 miles to my daily meetings, 20 miles back to preschool and 20 miles back home. Yes, I know that only adds up to 80 miles, so just toss in another 20 for random driving stuff and there you have it.

Suffice to say I now get to experience this thing called "traffic" on a daily basis, and I am pretty sure I can now say with complete certainty that the greatest single example of American inefficiency is our roadways. There is absolutely no reason for 95% of the traffic I see on the roads. No wrecks, no lane closures, no meteors falling from the sky that will kill people might they actually drive the speed limit and go 50 feet without hitting their brakes.

My partner at Austin Business Coaching has had a good impact on my in the last few months, helping me realize the benefits that come from a more stress-free life. About the only way I can manage that stress while driving is to search for organizational principles in the midst of my driving. That leads to today's topic and the main reasons for traffic jams; both on the road and in your organization.

Poor Communication. Our roadways are a testament to the effects of poor communication. What should be a free-flowing highway turns into a parking lot in great part because people are unable to enter, exit, and maneuver freely. This is, in large part, because they are unable to communicate with each other effectively.

I see people all around me, but I have no idea where they are going and what they are needing/expecting from me or the other drivers. Many organizations face this same issue as departments become silos and information becomes more and more separated. People who have worked together for years pass in the hall, each having no idea where the other is going or why.

Tasks are duplicated, decision making is slowed, and the overall efficiency of the organization drops.

Of course sometimes people do try to communicate on the road. They may turn on their blinker to tell people, "Hey, I would like to be in that lane you are in, can you help?" That leads us to the second, even larger, issue of Trust.

Trust. I learned pretty quickly that only fools actually use their blinker. Experienced drivers know that the best way to change lanes is to drive casually, pretending like you are perfectly content with the lane you are in... waiting for an opening. Then you jump into the next lane before anyone can see it coming and move to stop you! Ok, maybe that is not the best way to execute a lane change, but it only takes a few (hundred) times of watching people intentionally move to cut you off after seeing your blinker turn on before trust begins to erode.

Perhaps you have noticed the same thing in your organization. People tend to be closed, protective, perhaps even verging on deceptive; and most of that behavior is because they are not sure what will happen if they speak up. Questions go unasked because people saw what happened to the last guy who questioned a decision made by the boss. Problems sprout up and are overlooked as people work to protect their own position rather than risk being blamed for the problem occurring.

Trust and communication are linked. Trust requires open and honest communication, and that sort of communication does not happen outside a relationship of trust. In order to begin the process of growth someone has to take a chance and become vulnerable.

That is the role of leadership. A leader must be willing to act trustworthy by practicing open and honest communication in order to build trust with his followers. Only then will a culture of Trust and Communication take hold in an organization, allowing it to reach its full potential of efficiency and effectiveness.

Lonely at the Top

Every society has its idioms and "wise sayings". The one that says, "It is lonely at the top" is humorous to me. It is one of those things that is true because it is true. You will often hear someone make this statement and those listening will silently nod their heads as if being reminded of some great mystery.

I have to wonder what people expected it to be like at the top. Leadership is lonely. By definition. If you are one of 1,000 "leaders", then who are you really leading?

Of course it is lonely at the top; otherwise you are not truly at the top.

It can also be much less distracting at the top.

We are currently experiencing a bird invasion in Austin. Maybe this is normal for the city and I have just been gone so long that I forgot, but there are a lot of birds here. I am talking Hitchcockian proportions where you move quickly from your car to your house just in case the birds get hungry for human.

Driving around the city I come across little colonies of birds sitting on electric lines; hundreds or thousands of them grouped together. I am sure they find some warmth and comfort from being one of many.

Today I saw something different; one bird sitting alone on the wire. At first I thought, "How sad, that bird is all alone." Then I realized that this particular bird was a hawk, a bird of prey. In the Austin bird world he is likely very near the top.

He was alone and he had to endure the cold, but he was designed for that. He could also do something that the other birds couldn't; look clearly at his surroundings.

I was struck by the difference between the two sights; one of thousands of birds flocking together and all of the energy and seeming chaos that it holds. The other of this lone bird sitting quietly, able to see all of his surroundings so clearly, free of distraction.

Leadership often requires solitude. Solitude can bring clarity. It is only when we rise above the tree tops that we can make out the forest, and the mountains and rivers beyond.

If your leadership is never lonely, then you may be robbing yourself of the clarity that "aloneness" provides, and that your organization desperately needs.

Questions for Further Thought:

1. How often do you or your leadership team get away from the everyday for strategic planning? In his book Death by Meeting Patrick Lencioni recommends that teams meet like that one weekend every quarter.
2. What organization/division do you lead? How comfortable are you with the reality that you are responsible for where your people go? Do you know where you are? Do you know where you are going? What are your first five steps to begin moving that direction?
3. What would it take for you to find solitude on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly basis? Can you find 5 minutes a day? 30-minutes a week? 1-day a month? 1 weekend per quarter? 1 week per year?

Conference Attending 201

Let us assume that you took to heart the lessons learned in CA101. You have your questions ready, you attend the conference and get the answers you were looking for, and you have begun making you action plans.

Here are a few things to remember while you make plans that will not only affect you but everyone who you lead.

They don't care. Not like you do. They can't because they were not with you at the conference. Without the same experience they cannot have the same response, and you should not expect them to. I see so many leaders who get frustrated when they present a new vision, with great passion, and their followers do not respond with a similar level of passion.

If you want your people to care like you do, then help them experience what you experienced. On a practical level this is often possible by purchasing DVDs of the conference itself and actually letting them get the information first hand.

They think you took a vacation. This does not mean that they are upset or bitter. Hopefully your people love you and are glad you had some time away to think, learn, and perhaps even grow.

If you want them to see what really happened, then show them your work. Show them the questions you were asking and how the answers you received can change the organization. Then show them their part in that change. Again, don't expect them to get it the first time, but paint the big picture and let them see that this was not just a weekend away to rest.

This will take time. Think in months, not days. You have likely been thinking about the issues on your heart for months. Give your followers the same courtesy. If this has not been something that you have already been talking about and working through, then realize that they will need at least as much time to work through the process as you did.

Allow this understanding to affect your scheduled release of your new plan. I have seen many good plans killed simply because they were never given a chance to take root. What the leader blamed on "lack of buy-in" was really a case of his followers being completely overwhelmed. Most people cannot manage a complete shift of paradigm in mere days and be ready to implement the practical changes it demands on their lives.

These truths lead me to encourage leaders not to attend a conference in the Spring to get great ideas for their Easter service. Allow the things you will learn this Spring to shape your Fall and your 2011. Let your people have the chance to get as passionate about the answers you have found as you did, and you will be amazed at how much greater the results can be.