Unleash The Masterpiece

Shark Tank – Prison Edition

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#SecondChanceMasterpiece: Shark Tank – Prison Edition

This life-changing event started out as a few words on a whiteboard in a cubicle back in 2018. We were brainstorming what kind of course project would be of the greatest benefit to the Illinois state prisoners taking the fourth course in our Transformational Rhythms Program called: Organizational Integrity – Entrepreneurship / Intrapreneurship.

Each of the 9 prisoners signed up for the course had already been through our three preceding courses on Self Leadership, Personal Influence and Team Building as both students and apprentice leaders for the last three years.

We wanted to create an opportunity to showcase the tenacity, grit, innovation and brilliance of these prisoners to local business leaders. If we could get business leaders to see the extraordinary masterpieces these prisoners were proactively becoming, we could change hearts and minds both inside and outside of prison.

Those initial few words on the whiteboard quickly turned into a detailed plan. The prisoners would develop a business plan on an idea of their own choosing, in small, well-defined steps over the 18 weeks of the Organizational Integrity course. Then we would invite 6-8 well established, successful, local business leaders to a two day Shark Tank event inside the state prison in Dixon, IL. Each one of the 9 prisoners would get an hour to present their business plan, the WHY behind the idea, and then field any questions the “sharks” had.

The day finally came in early 2019…Shark Tank – Prison Edition was live at Dixon Correctional Center. Over the next several hours, each prisoner shared their idea, business plan and the heart of compassion and empathy behind the ideas and their deep desire for a Second Chance, to make amends for their past mistakes and to make things right.

The ideas ran the spectrum from leveraging existing vocational skill sets of painting, landscaping, mechanical truck and auto repair and construction of low-cost housing for veterans to creating development programs for prisoner reentry to reduce recidivism and programs for at-risk youth aimed at reducing first-time incarceration.

The sharks were completely dialed into every presentation. At various times during the day, the entire room was moved to tears as a prisoner would give his real-life background on the WHY behind their idea. The sharks gave the honest feedback they believed would make each business plan better, and the prisoners graciously received the feedback and engaged in productive, professional-to-professional conversations.

The sharks shared with us after each day that they had no idea people in prison could be such sincere, respectful, hard-working, empathetic, dynamic and talented individuals. Back at Dixon, the prisoners felt incredibly validated in their growing belief that there was significant value inside of each of them that they could offer to the outside world. 

#SecondChanceMasterpiece

Remembering Jessica

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Oh, Jess, my sweet little Zoobie girl, me and mom, your brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, grandparents, cousins, nephews, soon-to-be-nieces and close friends are so heartbroken over losing you. At times, the grief can be so overwhelming it feels like we will never be able to get past it. Events, people, places, things and memories become triggers that jar us back into the reality that you are no longer here with us, and we will never be able to be with you again in this life. That is the negative reality of things.

At times, that negative reality can feel like it is crushing the life out of all of us. That negative reality can invade every aspect of our lives, the present, the future and even the past. That negative reality wants to dominate the conversation in our heads. Those voices of negative reality come barging into our lives at all hours of the day and night, uninvited, unexpected; they are loud, persistent and demand to be heard. Those voices of negative reality want to hijack and overwrite all of the wonderful realities of your life, and our lives together with you.

Well, you know what, we are NOT going to allow that to happen. We are NOT going to allow the wonderful realities of your short life, and our lives together to be stolen from us, and stolen from you. We are going to intentionally listen to the softer, quieter, more humble voices of the wonderful realities of your life and our lives together.

As painful as it is, that process of taking back the wonderful realities, the wonderful moments, has to begin by acknowledging the tragedy, the grief and the loss. Those things are all too real. Something tragic, unfair and terrible happened, and was happening for so many years. We can’t just ignore it and pretend it isn’t there. If we do, it is going to build and build and eventually explode and blow up our lives.

This is the one year anniversary of your death. It is that. But if we intentionally choose it, and fight for it, this can also become a celebration of your life, and our lives together. It can be BOTH. It can be a time to grieve the past, present and future, but also to celebrate the past AND present, and EVEN the future.

We need to intentionally choose to turn down the volume on the voices of negative reality, and amplify the quiet voices of the wonderful realities, the wonderful moments. Truth-be-told, the wonderful realities and moments, greatly outnumber and outshine the negative realities and moments, as excruciatingly painful as they were. We can honestly say that when we add it all up, your life, and our lives together with you, have been MOSTLY WONDERFUL.

I remember going with mom for her ultrasound when she was pregnant with you, and I remember the technician turning to us and saying, “it’s a girl.” A girl! What a blessing! We are having a girl! Bobby is going to have a little sister! We were so happy. We picked out your name, Jessica Marie Clinkert months before you were born. 

I was working full time and going to grad school at night while mom was pregnant with you. While I was taking notes, I would be doodling your name in my notebook, over and over again. I could not wait for you to be born. Then the big day finally came. I was in the delivery room when you first came into the world. I was able to cut the cord and hold you just moments after you were born. Once we got home, we had a little routine together. I would hold you close and sing a little song to you, “Jessie, Jessie, Jessie, I love you. Yes I do. I love you.” I would whisper it in your little ears over and over again.

Bobby lovingly referred to you as “baby sister” and you two were so cute together. You were the enabler of all of the risky things that Bobby wanted to do. He would whisper something in your ear, and then you would run to us, smiling, saying, “Mom, dad, can WE do this or that somewhat dangerous thing?!?!” You and Bobby were partners in crime together for so many years.

You were all about the equal opportunity for women, even at a young age. You crawled, walked, talked and did everything at such a young age as you were desperately trying to keep up with your older brother. You were the embodiment of “everything boys can do, girls can do better.” 

You were such a bright, bold, cheerful, smiling, laughing, running, playing, mischievous and loving little girl. Mom did home daycare for some of our neighbors to help us make ends meet. You were barely older than the children mom cared for, but you took it upon yourself to be a second mother to them. You were SO SWEET to the children mom cared for on a daily basis. 

Your love for children stayed with you throughout your life. You were so thrilled to have a baby sister, and as you grew up, you LOVED being dressed in the same outfit as she was. Picking outfits to wear was a very important part of your young little life (and really your entire life), and you were “kind enough” to help Courtney and Bobby pick their outfits.

You were sooooo excited when mom was pregnant with Michael that you begged to go to the hospital with us so you could be there when Michael was born. You loved children so much, me and mom agreed that it would be a wonderful memory for you. You were there, in the delivery room, when your baby brother was born, and you were so happy you started sobbing tears of joy when we handed him.

Of course your love of children was able to fully blossom as you got older (I’ll make an allusion here to the future just so I can mention how much you absolutely adored your nephews, and how much they absolutely adored their Aunt Jess. That is one of the losses we grieve the most). We started to take family trips to the Philippines when you were 15 years old to help serve at a local orphanage. On every trip, your soft, compassionate, gigantic heart broke for each one of the children you met. You were able to form an instant bond and connection, and the name “Jessica” really became famous in San Pablo City, Laguna.

In the back of our minds, me and mom were thinking ahead, to you growing older, falling in love, getting married, and having children of your own. You had such an abundance of love for children and family, we knew you would have been the most amazing wife and mother. 

That reminds me of a phrase I used to use to describe some of our experiences together as a family, and a larger unit of extended family and friends. I called these “concentrated life experiences.” During these experiences, like our trips to the Philippines, it felt like we experienced decades of life, all concentrated into a relative short experience. In these experiences we would have joy, sorrow, laughter, tears, catastrophe, success and failure, all at the same time.

The more I think about it, your whole life was like a concentrated life experience. You lived your whole life so large and with such intense passion, beginning at such a young age. While it breaks my heart that you never got to experience having your own children and raising a family, I cannot help but think that you had already experienced a lifetime’s worth of loving on children in the short time that you lived on this earth, especially your little sister, your little brother, your nephews, and the children you hung out with in San Pablo City, Laguna.  

Maybe your short life was really full, because it was so concentrated by your intense passion for life and loving others. Maybe you experienced a lifetime’s worth of love, friendship, awe, wonder and connection in your 27 years on this earth. Maybe we can let go of some of the feelings of regret, because of how passionately you lived every moment of the life you had. 

When the intensity and passion that characterized your life was under control, you burned like a warm, cozy, crackling fire in a beautiful fireplace. Inviting everyone to get close, cuddle, have intimate conversations, live, laugh and love together, as a whole. You were an epicenter of what we came to call Communitas. It was your intense passion, under control, that drew people in, to gather around you like they would gather around a fireplace, or a glowing campfire in the woods.

You created the environment and experience of Communitas – being welcomed, loved well, and accepted as an equal. That was the blessing of your intensity, passion, and concentrated life experiences.

When the bipolar disorder caused your intensity and passion to spiral out of control, you burned like a raging forest fire that wreaked havoc and destruction on you and those closest to you. 

We have bipolar disorder in our family. I have heard stories told of the damage done by that disease to those who came before us. I have seen that physiological disorder manifest itself in other family members, ultimately ending their lives as well. I can feel that neurochemical defect inside of me. For some reason, my defect is smaller than yours was. Mine is small enough that I can contain it and control it. 

Unfortunately, sometimes the neurochemical defect is larger and more productive in some people than in others. Tragically, you ended up receiving a very large defect, along with many other things that were wonderful. 

You leveraged your wonderful gifts of intensity and passion into a joyful, zest for living and loving others that was so expressive, so concentrated, that it could not be contained. That really made you stand out in a very unique, and wonderful way. 

You lived and loved so large, so intensely, and so passionately, that maybe, the truth is, you really lived and loved 200 years worth of life in the all-too-short 27 years you actually had.

That reminds me of something two good friends of mine shared with me recently about dealing with loss and grief. It was written by “Judy51” in the following post. The post compares and contrasts two views of dealing with grief. The first view is a very common, but incorrect view of dealing with grief. The second view is a much more robust and real view of dealing with grief, that can be engaged by choice, if one desires to do so. 

The common, but incorrect view or false narrative of dealing with grief, can be illustrated with a jar and a rock. The jar is your life. The rock is your grief. The false narrative says, on day one, the rock is huge and takes up a big chunk of the space in the jar. A while later, the big rock is replaced with a medium sized rock. The false narrative on grief says the grief actually shrinks as time goes on, taking up less space in the “jar” of your life. Then finally, the medium sized rock is replaced with a very small rock and your grief shrinks and almost completely disappears over time.

I used to believe that the false narrative of dealing with grief was true, until I experienced the very intense grief of losing you. I know now, first-hand, that my grief will never shrink – it will always remain the same size.

However, the robust view of dealing with grief has revolutionized my thinking, not only about grief, but about your disease as well.

The robust view of dealing with grief begins with a similar illustration as the false narrative. The first jar, representing your life, is the same size, and the big rock placed in the jar, representing your grief, is the same size. As time goes on however, the rock, representing the grief, always stays the same size. It remains as big as it was on day one, all throughout the process. This has certainly been consistent my personal experience. The grief and the intensity of it has never really changed. I don’t think it ever will.

What can change, if we intentionally choose to change it, is the SIZE OF THE JAR. In other words, we can intentionally choose to GROW the size of our lives. The bigger, and larger we allow our lives to grow, the less space the big rock of grief occupies in our lives. 

If we live large by choosing to love large – loving BOTH ourselves AND others large – that growth in the “size” of our lives can change the amount of space the grief occupies. I absolutely LOVE that analogy. What a great analogy. What a great vision and mission for living beyond a traumatic loss.

Jessica, looking back at it, I can see a similar pattern at work in your life with your mental illness. The big rock taking up space in your life was your bipolar disorder. The bigger that rock became, the bigger you grew the jar of your life and love, as kind of a natural pushback against your illness. You were able to keep ahead of the growing rock of your bipolar disorder when you were younger by continually growing your life. and your love.

As you became a young adult, the bipolar disorder just kept growing out of control and it began to fill the jar of your life faster than you could grow it. The bipolar rock eventually just overwhelmed you and broke the jar of your life here on earth.

In spite of this tragedy, you left us with such a wonderful example of how to fight to grow the jars of our lives bigger. How to live bigger, and love bigger. How to live and love with a passion and intensity that is always growing and expanding.

Fortunately for us, the grief will always be the same size rock. It is a big rock for sure, but it can’t get any bigger. We have already experienced the maximum loss. 

If we are willing to follow your lead, and continue to grow our lives, the grief will take up less space, and be more difficult to see. The bigger life and love will outshine, overwhelm and overcome our big rocks of grief.

Jess, thank you for fighting so hard for so long. Thank you that you never stopped loving and you kept growing your love. Thank you for being such a wonderful role model of channeling intensity and passion to create Communitas, to welcome people as equals, to love them well, and love them big. 

Today, we acknowledge the tragic loss, and how big it really is. But we will NOT stop there. We will ALSO remember, share and enjoy all of the MOSTLY WONDERFUL moments we had together as a family and extended family and friends. We will remember how you taught us to battle the difficulties of life by living and loving with relentless passion and intensity – growing our lives and our love bigger every day. 

We miss you Jessica, but we love you SO MUCH MORE than we miss you. We will see you again. That will be an amazing, incredible reunion honey. Until then. Love you so much <3

We DON’T Know How THEIR Story Ends

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I am not a big TV watcher, but so many people recommended the series This is Us to me, that I felt like I had to watch it just to be relevant. I am unavailable when it is playing live, so me and my wife catch up on the NBC app.

I recently watched the Season 2 Episode, Most Disappointed Man. There is a scene in that episode where the young William is going to be sentenced by the judge for his drug crime. William explains to the judge how disappointed he is with the tragedy in his life, and the role his difficult and under-resourced environment played in his crimes.

 

William’s explanation seems to rattle the judge, who asks for a private meeting with William. In that meeting, the judge explains how he is disappointed as well, and that he doesn’t like the fact that he has to sentence people to long prison sentences. The judge recalls a few, recent sentences he had to hand down recently, and he says, I know how the story ends for the guys he sentences.

 

The judge then tells William he intends to commute his sentences, if he promises to always think of the judges face every time he is about to do something that could lead to going back to jail. On the surface, that all seems really sweet. But, as I reflected on it, that scene really bothered me for several reasons.

 

I have been blessed to be involved in teaching life skills in one of our state prisons here in Illinois, and also involved in some mentoring of returning citizens. I have done a great deal of research on incarceration, attended conferences, read books, listened to real-life stories and testimonies, etc. With that as a backdrop, here are the things that bothered me about that scene:

 

First, it sets up this dichotomy between the judge and the perpetrator. Like the judge has reached some kind of perfected state where he doesn’t have to worry about doing bad things, whereas the perpetrator will always have to worry about returning to a life of crime.

 

One thing I have learned in my prison outreach work is that being bad or good has precious little to do with why some people are in prison and other people like me are not. My neighborhood, financial opportunities, educational opportunities, my race, my luck, my relationships and my fear are the primary things that prevented me from ending up on drugs and/or in jail for a crime of any kind. I could have easily ended up in jail for a variety of reasons but these external factors conspired to rescue me.

On the other hand, many, many incarcerated people end up incarcerated because their external circumstances conspire together to lead them to jail. My external situations provided me the privilege I needed navigate my life successfully away from prison up until this point. Their external situations worked against them developing unhealthy habits, attitudes, behaviors and relationships that ultimately led them to prison.

 

Second, the phrase, I know how that story ends… with regard to the people the judge sentences, is offensive in many ways. He has no idea how anyone’s story is going to end after he sentences them. NO ONE is beyond full and complete redemption, and a meaningful life well lived. I have seen and heard of many, many formerly incarcerated people completely transforming their lives in and out of prison, and becoming productive, healthy members of society and healthy spouses, parents, neighbors, coworkers and friends.

 

Assuming that someone is incapable of transformation and projecting that onto their lives can have a worse effect than a physical prison sentence. Saying someone is beyond hope of redemption is a virtual life sentence that strips people of their dignity and God-given potential to unleash the masterpiece that God intended for their lives.

 

Also, assuming we know how are own story ends is also presumptuous. Judges commit crimes, have affairs, become addicts, abuse their spouses and kids, and end up in jail. No one is above their own human nature. Every one of us needs to consistently invest in healthy growth and development throughout our lives. We are really much closer to failure than we like to think we are.

 

I would rather tell every prisoner or ex-prisoner they can do it. They can turn their lives around. They can redeem the junk in their lives and trade it in for joy, meaning, love, peace and wholeness. Even if almost all of them do fail and never get their lives back on track, it is worth projecting hope and positivity to help the one person get over the hump and make it.

 

We do not know how anyone’s story ends. This fact drives me to make sure I keep investing in my own story to make sure it stays as healthy as it can be. This fact also drives me to project hope and transformation onto everyone I meet – especially the easily discarded and disdained people in our society. I will not and cannot know exactly how each their stories will end, but I can say with certainty they are capable of living out a meaningful, hopeful, loving, fully redeemed story. I want to be about that in my own life and in the lives of others.

A Legacy of Struggle

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I remember watching the TV sitcom Alice in the mid 70s when I was growing up. I watched it a few times a week for many years. An actor named Vic Tayback played Mel Sharpels, the owner of a greasy spoon diner in Phoenix. One of the episodes I can still remember is when Mel turned 50 years old and they had a surprise roast party for him. A roast, if you don’t know, is where they mock you, but it is because they all know you so well and love you so much.

During the roast, Mel looks like he is sad, and then, when everyone is done roasting him, and it’s his turn to speak, he is very upset with all of them for being so disrespectful to him, and he leaves the room. Everyone in the room is floored when he does this. They look around at each other, horrified that something they intended to express love was taken the wrong way. A few moments later, Mel bursts back into the room saying, I was only kidding! This is the best party I have ever had! You guys are the best friends ever!

When I watched this episode as like a 9 or 10 year old boy, I remember thinking how old 50 sounded. My parents were still in their mid-thirties at that time. I tried to imagine what my life would be like when I turn 50. Would I look old like Mel did? Would I be working at a dead-end job? Would I have good friends who would want to throw me a roast birthday party? What idiosyncrasies might they roast me about?

I will be turning 50 in a couple months. It’s a marker event for me and I take marker events to heart. I have cried at every kindergarten drop off, 5th grade moving on, jr high graduation, high school graduation, college graduation, kids marriage and grand baby (Only one of those so far 🙂 ).

I ran and hid in the Philippines so no one would throw me a surprise 40th party, and I have asked everyone to promise not so throw me a surprise 50th. To me it seems like a popularity contest. An event to only remind me of my limited circle of good friends. I hope to spend it with my immediate family, but I don’t have much interest in anything beyond that.

I grew up in a house without a loving marriage, with two pretty dysfunctional extended families on either side. There was a lot of love, but people had to express it through some pretty broken lives. As a result, often times, it didn’t come out right, and the brokenness of their lives got the better of them. I remember as young as 7 years old thinking to myself, that when I grow up, I am going to really love my wife, and give that to my kids as a gift. I knew first hand how bad it hurts when your parents don’t love each other. I was determined to never abuse substances, and never allow relationships to deteriorate to the point of no return.

My childhood really shaped me and set the course for my future – good and bad. I was mostly able to leverage the bad as a foundation for moving forward, although some of the bad is embedded deep inside of me. As a young kid, I was always curious as to what kind of legacy I would leave. I dreamed of being wealthy, successful, not having to worry about money, not have relational strain, not having any difficult situations – just laughing and enjoying the good life with my friends and my large, happy family.

As I honestly assess where I am now, I can say I have experienced a depth of intimacy and love in my marriage, that totally exceeded my already high expectations. Same with my children, adopted children, grand child, etc. The upside has been way better than I could have imagined back then when I was a little boy contemplating my future.

On the flip-side, I had no idea how difficult the downsides would be. I had no idea that, the more I worked to eliminate struggle from my life, and the lives of those I love, the more struggle would work it’s way deep into my life and their lives. I just assumed, back then, that struggle was a result of bad actions, so if you eliminated the bad actions, you would eliminate struggle.

I have found the exact opposite to be true. The more I love, the deeper my faith becomes, the more wisdom I possess, the more I try to make a difference – the more struggle comes into my life. I have profound struggles, minor struggles, and everything in between, with new ones and changing ones all the time. My family and close friends experience the same.

It’s a weird mix. The song that goes, Morning by morning new mercies I see which comes from Lamentations 3:22-23, The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning.

I feel like that truth is counterbalanced with Morning my morning new struggles find me, that would be based on Jesus’ words in John 16:33, Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows.

At 50, I still struggle financially, relationally, professionally, physically, mentally, spiritually. It’s a struggle to choose joy every morning, my faith is a struggle, love is a struggle, keeping a positive attitude is a struggle. It’s all a struggle. My kids have similar struggles, My adopted kids. My good friends. I have done a poor job of eliminating struggle from my life and the lives of those I love.

In fact, part of the positive ways that I have invested in my family and friends invites and creates struggle. Lack of struggle was part of the goal, part of the vision I had for my family and friends, part of the legacy I wanted to leave – and I have failed at that – in fact, the struggles seem to be picking up steam with no end in sight.

I hoped I would have more prosperity, position and power and that I could pass on as a legacy to the family I friends I love so much. In some ways, I am profoundly disappointed that my vision of myself at 50 in terms of prosperity, position and power is so far from what I hoped it would be. I am pretty much an obscure person, with a very limited influence. My life is full of struggles. My legacy – in reality – is really struggle.

Jesus goes on to say in John 16:33, Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world. As I grow older and adjust my life mission and rethink my legacy, maybe that’s the best I can do. Leave a legacy of someone who overcomes struggle.

But the truth is, really overcoming struggle is a huge struggle in itself. I suspect only God can truly overcome struggle. While God is in me for sure, I am not God, and I don’t believe I can fully reach a point where I can say that I have completely overcome my struggles. New ones are coming in too fast, and old ones can evolve like an antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Maybe my real legacy is struggling to overcome the struggles. I have struggled mightily, and still do. The people who know most of my story know the depth, height and width of my struggles and they are somewhat inspired by my ability to carry on with a mostly positive outlook. I have my bad days, and I have my doubts, I have some days where I want to quit, and I sometimes even express that out loud.

Most of the time though, I am ready and willing to fight back against the struggle. I am ready to hold my ground, and try to gain new ground against my struggles. Most days, I can feel the power to redeem negative experiences – to see all things working together for good. Most days I am filled with hope, joy and love.

I guess that is what I really want my legacy to be – someone who struggled against the struggles of life – and won – not by eliminating struggles, or completely overcoming them, but by not allowing the struggles of life to overcome me. Not allowing the struggles of life to steal my faith, my joy, my love, or my hope, in the big, overall picture.

I have failed to leave the legacy I dreamed of leaving when I was a little boy watching Alice on TV. But I am not that little boy anymore. The 50 year old me leaves a legacy of struggle. A legacy of struggle AGAINST the inevitable struggles of life.

Struggling well doesn’t mean that you will never lose it, never feel overwhelmed, never feel disappointed in yourself, and you never blow it. It means that your life is not defined by your struggles. When your life is judged at the end, the struggles didn’t get the better of you. You fought them hard, you found them long. You were tenacious in struggling against your struggles.

Yeah. That’s it. TENACITY in the struggle against struggle. That’s the legacy I want to leave.

Thanks Mel Sharpels – Vic Tayback. Thanks for giving a little boy an opportunity to contemplate the bigger picture of life through a silly sitcom.

Direction/Guidance <--> Courage/Discipline

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Direction/Guidance <–> Courage/Discipline

We all are faced with decisions every day – some of them minor, some profoundly major.
I have been immersed in the high school, college, young adult scene for a while now, and that age range has a variety of relatively serious decisions to be made. Who to date, where to go to college, what major to study in college, what job to take, who to marry, when to have kids, etc.
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I have seen so many followers of Jesus agonize of “finding God’s will” for their lives – painstakingly seeking direction and guidance from God – looking for signs, feelings of inner-peace, closed and open doors, etc.
Let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that there is validity in seeking direction and guidance from God on important decisions. However, what is typically lacking from most followers decision making process is the other end of the tension – courage and discipline. Asking for, and working for, the courage and the discipline to love, and to follow/obey the principles and wisdom that God has laid out for us in his word and through wise counsel.
I have done some deep research on the idea of a singular “God’s will for one’s life”. The details of that won’t really serve any purpose here. The executive summary is, much of the notion of a singular “will of God” for our lives that we risk “missing” is not supported in the Bible, but more entrenched in relatively recent tradition.
Here is a quick story to illustrate the overall issue. If there is one person for you to marry, and one person for your spouse to marry, then, if you marry the “wrong person”, not only are you and your spouses messed up for life – since you shouldn’t get divorced – but, the people you should have married are messed up for life. Of course, if the people you both should have married, themselves get married, they will be messing up not only their own lives, but the lives of the people they marry, etc. Then, each couples kids – if they choose to have them – will have parents in a marriage outside of God’s “perfect will” and as such, they will be missing out to some degree. Think about it, in the “singular will” case, one “wrong” date that leads to one “wrong” marriage, and you could literally mess up the lives of hundreds, thousands or more people. That’s a lot of pressure! Date the wrong person and the whole world can suffer!
I think about my own journey as a parent. Originally, I was way too involved in pushing my kids towards a particular career choice, towards or away from a particular dating relationship, etc. Over time, I realized, to be a really good parent, I need to trust my kids. Trust that they will attack the decisions of life with the love, wisdom, principles, values, courage and discipline my wife and I have tried to instill in them. I don’t want robots. I don’t want them to date who I would date, and become who I became. I want them to be fully unique express of the masterpiece God made them to be. That requires them to live their own lives, make their own decisions. Of course they can come to me for counsel, but, they need to choose their own path.
God is a “good, good Father.” God is a better “parent” than we can ever be. God trains us up to make our own decisions. He expects us to operate within the principles and values he has “taught us” and instilled in us. He also expects us to be driven by sacrificial love for him, and for everyone in our lives. Living by principles, values and love does not require a crystal ball, or a horoscope. It requires, courage, discipline and study. It requires faith.
I have slowly come to the realization that my original job as a parent is pretty much done once my kids leave the house for college. For better or worse, my wife and I have modeled principles, values and love for our children. We hope they not only follow them, but follow them better than we ever did. We hope they learn from our what we have done well as well as from our mistakes. We could never plot the course of their lives for them – but we can prepare them with love and wisdom.
I hope my wife and I can be there for our kids, grandkids, and even great-grandkids for years to come. Wise counsel is a gift to give, and a gift to receive. But I am very content to watch my kids live, make their own choices, and flourish as the masterpiece God made them to be. That masterpiece is already inside of them. No one but them can fully unleash it. Not even God is willing to force it in them.
In the past, my advice was very one-sided – seek Gods direction, guidance and will. Look for “signs”, inner-peace, closed/open doors, fleeces, etc. I am sure those things have some value and some reality. But, I have become more focused on balancing out that side of the tension  with prayer for courage and discipline to love the way we have been taught to love. To be guided by our principles and values we know to be true and right.
That takes so much more courage and discipline than it does clairvoyance, crystal balls and visions. It’s difficult to love the people in your life sacrificially. It’s difficult to do the right thing when there is little perceived reward. I need discipline and courage to follow the example that Jesus has set for me in my life – moment to movement and decade to decade. My kids, and the young adults like them need courage and discipline as well.

2016 Global Leadership Summit – My Summary

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This is my personal summary of the 2016 Global Leadership Summit in Chicago. A dozen business and outreach leaders spoke on the topic of Leadership.

I have organized my summary into three sections: Top Three Quotes from each speaker, One Minute Summary of each speaker, and a Three Minute Summary of each speaker. Enjoy!

GLS-SMALL

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TOP THREE QUOTES

  • Bill Hybels – Four Lenses of Leadership
    • You need to fill your own passion bucket so you can fill tthe passion buckets of people you influence
    • Maximizing performance requires constantly readjusting to stay in dynamic balance – not over adjusting or under adjusting
    • Legacies can and do change in an instant – in a good way or a bad. Eg: the thief on the cross. His legacy is getting his last decision right.
  • Alan Mulally – CEO Ford, Boeing
    • EVERYONE included – employees, suppliers, bankers, etc
    • EVERYONE knows the ONE plan, the status and areas that need special attention
    • Trust the process – Keep emotional resilience
  • Jossy Chacko – Empart USA
    • Faithfulness is not about maintaining what you have, it’s about multiplying what you have been given
    • Focus on Building the Character BEFORE your empower.
    • See risk as your friend to love, not your enemy to be feared – See Comfort and Safety as your Enemies
  • Dr. Travis Bradberry – Emotional Intelligence 2.0
    • Personality traits are fixed by age 15-20 but EQ can be developed your entire life
    • Self Awareness of your tendencies and being prepared to deal with them – lean into the discomfort and learn what you can improve
    • You have to focus more on the other person than yourself – You have to look at what the world looks like from the other person’s perspective and find common ground.

 

  • Patrick Lencioni – The Ideal Teammate
    • People who are hungry and smart but not humble are the most dangerous, hardest to spot and most devious because they can hide the fact that they only care about themselves.
    • It’s much better to allow people to self-assess than to tell them what’s wrong
    • Have the Courage to Constantly and Consistency to remind people of where they need to improve
  • Chris McChesney – Four discipline of execution
    • Execution does NOT LIKE complexity – the two best friends of execution are simplicity and transparency
    • The number one driver of morale and engagement is when you think you are winning
    • Do your people feel like they are playing a high stakes winnable game??
  • Erin Meyer – The Cultural Map
    • High context – it’s not what I said, it’s what i meant when i said it – the subtle messages between the lines – “Reading the air/atmosphere” “listening with all of my senses”
    • How do we receive critical feedback? Direct negative feedback versus indirect negative feedback
  • John Maxwell – Intentional Living
    • Intentionally, every day, add value to people – this is the CORE of leadership – Do you exist to add value to people or to have people add value to you?
    • Everything worthwhile in life is uphill all the way. People have UPHILL HOPES and DOWNHILL HABITS – The only way you can change downhill habits is to be intentional. You have to turn on the switch of “intentional”
    • Significance is uphill and it’s not about us it’s about others – selfishness and significance are INCOMPATIBLE
  • T.D. Jakes – Second Wind
    • We think tribally instead of globally
    • You are going to miss something every day. Just try not to miss something in the same area multiple times in a row
    • We are so good at seeing what other people’s gifts are but we are not that good at acknowledging what God has given us – how he has gifted us.

 

  • Bill Hybels, Shauna Niequist, Henry Cloud – Blindspots for Leaders
    • Speed – Bill Hybels – We need self-reflection. We need to push the time-out button – stop the activity, sit before God, get a journal out and lower the RPMs
    • Connection – Henry cloud – Relationships operate according to a formula: I need to make my needs known, and find someone who can help me with those needs
    • Myth of Achievement – Shauna Niequist – Being FULLY PRESENT with everyone God has placed in your life, every moment of every day
  • Danielle Strickland – Leader Interrupted
    • True peace is not the absence of conflict, but the presence of justice.
    • The world is crying out for all of the wrong things to be made right.
    • We need to create spaces in our lives where only God can show up.
  • Horst Schulze – Creating an Organization of Excellence and Efficiency
    • Any/All Customers Want: Perfect product – NO defects, You serve them timely, You care (this is the most important)
    • Process and Products are MANAGED – People need LEADERSHIP – Hiring people to perform a FUNCTION is NOT moral – You hire people to be part of a purpose, part of a dream
    • Is our dream/vision GOOD for all concerned: employees, customers, shareholders and society as a whole – measured by the VALUES that God gives us?

ONE MINUTE SUMMARIES

  • Bill Hybels – Four Lenses of Leadership
    • Passionate Lens
      • Passion comes from the top of the mountain (beautiful dream) or the bottom of the valley in the desert (outrage, holy discontent).
      • You need to fill your own passion bucket so you can fill the passion buckets of people you influence
    • Shattered Lens
      • Organizational health trumps everything. It takes hard work and effort and must be driven by a healthy leader at the very top
      • Transactional Noise (water-cooler talk that is negative) takes a toll on everyone. You need to observe and confront it head-on
    • Performance Lens
      • Maximizing performance requires constantly readjusting to stay in dynamic balance – not over adjusting or under adjusting
      • Willow assesses each department every six months thriving (gaining ground), healthy (maintaining ground), and under-performing (losing ground)
    • Legacy Lens
      • “I would give anything for a do-over” – There aren’t do-overs just make-overs.
      • Legacies can and do change in an instant – in a good way or a bad. Eg: the thief on the cross. His legacy is getting his last decision right.
  • Alan Mulally – CEO Ford, Boeing
    • Working Together Principles and Practices
      • People first
      • EVERYONE included – employees, suppliers, bankers, etc
      • Compelling vision
      • Comprehensive Strategy and Relentless Implementation
      • Weekly core team meeting with EVERYONE
      • Simple – Green, Yellow, Red dashboard
      • Clear performance goals
      • One plan
      • Facts and Data
      • EVERYONE knows the plan, the status and areas that need special attention
        • Everyone is expected to help out with the Red and Yellow statuses
      • Positive “find-a -way” attitude
      • Respect , listen, help and appreciate
      • Trust the process – Keep emotional resilience
      • Have fun – enjoy the journey and each other
  • Jossy Chacko – Empart USA
    • Faithfulness is not about maintaining what you have, it’s about multiplying what you have been given – The Three E’s
    • Enlarge your Vision – You need to enlarge that vision for multiplication
    • Empower your People –  Create opportunities despite your past bad experiences.
      • Leaders are like scaffolds to raise up leaders and empower them.
      • Character
        • Focus on Building the Character BEFORE your empower.
      • Relationship
        • You have to be in close proximity to know someone’s character. It’s about leading from alongside – rather than from the front
        • All future Empart leaders have to live with a small group and a leader for 12 months before leaving
      • Right Controls and Measurement – Right Outcomes
        • Control the outcomes not the people
    • Embrace Risk
      • Our Western society is all about eliminating risk – which is good generally speaking but in leadership it moves us from pioneering to preserving. From multiplying to maintaining
      • See risk as your friend to love, not your enemy to be feared.
      • See Comfort and Safety as your Enemies
      • You can’t have everything figured out before you get started.
    • Increase your Pain Threshold
      • Your leadership capacity is directly proportional to your pain threshold.
  • Dr. Travis Bradberry – Emotional Intelligence 2.0
    1. Personality traits are fixed by age 15-20 but EQ can be developed your entire life
    2. Four EQ Skills
        1. Self Awareness
          • Awareness of your tendencies and being prepared to deal with them – lean into the discomfort and learn what you can improve
        2. Self-management
          • It’s not about stuffing your feelings – both positive and negative emotions need to be managed.
        3. Social Awareness
          • You have to focus more on the other person than yourself.
        4. Relationship Management
          • You have to look at what the world looks like from the other person’s perspective if you’re to find common ground.
          • Don’t win the battle to prove you are right to lose the war which is the overall quality of the relationship.
    3. Increasing Your EQ
        1. Get your Stress Under Control
          • Low stress and high stress are unhealthy – “Optimal Stress” is necessary for good health.
          • The little things matter most when it comes to stress reduction
        2. Clean-up your sleep hygiene
          • Getting 7-9 hours helps, but high quality sleep is even more important.
          • Toxic proteins are a natural byproduct of normal brain activity that can only be cleaned up during sleep.
        3. Get your caffeine intake under control (BOO!)
          • Makes you less emotionally intelligent in the moment and affects your sleep long-term.
          • If you have to drink caffeine, don’t do it after 12 noon.
  • Patrick Lencioni – The Ideal Teammate
    • The Three Virtues
      1. Humility
        • True humility is just the recognition of what is true
        • Humility is not thinking less of  yourself, but thinking of yourself less
      2. Hungry
        • Passionate and tenacious in getting something down
      3. Smart
        • Common sense around people – people good at practicing the four behaviors of emotional intelligence.
    • When two virtues are lacking
      • The PAWN
        • People who lack hunger and smart. They are just humble
      • The BULLDOZER
        • People who lack humble and smart. They are just hungry
        • Leave a trail of dead bodies behind.
      • The CHARMER
        • People lack hunger and humble. They are just smart
    • When only one virtue is lacking
      • The ACCIDENTAL-MESS-MAKER
        • People who are humble and hungry but are not smart.
        • These are the people you are always making excuses for.
      • The LOVABLE-SLACKER
        • The people who are humble and smart but not hungry
        • They never go above and beyond. They are very frustrating.
      • The SKILLFUL-POLITICIAN
        • People who are hungry and smart but not humble
        • The most dangerous and the hardest to spot:.
        • They are devious because they can hide the fact that they only care about themselves.
    • Use the Three Virtues to develop yourself and your people
      1. Identify the areas that need improvement
        • You need to be vulnerable enough to identify the areas you need to improve in.
        • The leader has to go first and make it safe.
        • It’s much better to allow people to self-assess than to tell them what’s wrong
      2. Have the Courage to Constantly and Consistency to remind people of where they need to improve
        • People are most likely either going to improve or opt-out on their own – but occasionally you will need to terminate them
      3. Hiring people
        • Generally we over-emphasize technical skills
        • We don’t get people out of the interview room.
          • Ask them the same questions more than once
          • Stop doing SILO interviews. Do TEAM interviews.
        • Scare people with sincerity
          • Example: “We are fanatical about humble, hungry and smart. You will hate it here if that’s not you and we will hate you.”
  • Chris McChesney – Four discipline of execution
    • Execution is a game of changing human behavior.
      1. Focus
        • There will always be more good ideas than there is capacity to execute
        • Focus on the Wildly Important Goal (WIG)
          • One WIG per team at the same time.
          • Everything else you need to sustain STILL GOES ON
        • Move goal from X to Y by WHEN
        • When accountability increases, morale and engagement increases because it throws the “game on switch”
        • Execution does NOT LIKE complexity
        • The two best friends of execution are simplicity and transparency
      2. Act on LEAD Measures
        • Example: losing weight is the lag, diet and exercise are the lead measures
          • Everyone knows diet and exercise conceptualize, no one knows how many calories they eat and how many they burned
          • It’s easy to know the concept but not the data behind the concept
      3. Keep a Compelling Scorecard
        • People play differently when THEY are keeping score
        • We need a players scoreboard not s coach’s scoreboard
        • The number one driver of morale and engagement is when you think you are winning
      4. Create a Cadence of Accountability
        • Twenty minute meeting weekly where you make one or two commitments
        • Did I do what I was supposed to do
        • Review and update scoreboard
        • Make commitments for next week
        • As a leader, do not specify the commitments, let the staff make their own commitments
        • It’s a PULL strategy
    • Do your people feel like they are playing a high stakes winnable game??
  • Erin Meyer – The Cultural Map
    • ErinMeyer.com talks about every dimensions
    • Three Dimensions Relative to Communication
      1. Low versus high context
        • Identifying the subtle messages between the lines.
        • “Reading the air/atmosphere” “listening with all of my senses”
      2. How do we receive critical feedback
        • Direct negative feedback versus indirect negative feedback
        • “Upgrader” words versus “Downgrader” words
      3. What silence means
        • High comfort with silence versus low comfort with silence
  • John Maxwell – Intentional Living
    • Intentionally, every day, add value to people – This is the CORE of leadership
    • Do you exist to add value to people or to have people add value to you?
      • There is a fine line better motivation and manipulation?
    • Three questions followers ask leaders:
      1. Do you like me? Compassion
      2. Can you help me? Competence
      3. Can I trust you? Character
      • In other words: Will you intentionally add value to my life?
    • EVERYTHING WORTHWHILE IS UPHILL – UPHILL ALL THE WAY
      • Good marriage, physical health, good business, etc.
    • People have UPHILL HOPES and DOWNHILL HABITS
    • The only way you can change downhill habits is to be intentional. You have to turn on the switch of “intentional”
      • Intentional living is deliberate, consistent and willful.
    • Significance is uphill and it’s not about us it’s about others
      • Selfishness and significance are INCOMPATIBLE
    • Significance is uphill and it’s not about us it’s about others
    • Most people don’t lead their lives, they accept their lives…which is not intentional
    • Five things I (John Maxwell) do every day to add value to people
      1. Value People
        • God values me and he values you, he values people I don’t know and people I don’t like
        • Are we going to spend our lives connecting with people or correcting people?
      2. Everyday think of new ways to add value to people
        • You need to think ahead to be intentional – Thinking ahead is preparing, reacting is repairing
      3. I look for ways to value people
        • I prepare in advance, then when I am with them, i look for new opportunities
      4. I actually do things to value people
        • You need to do it and measure it, not just talk about it
      5. I encourage others to add value to people
    • John’s one word for people is TRANSFORM
  • T.D. Jakes – Second Wind
    • We think tribally instead of globally
    • If we want to be salt and light, we need to GO more often than we ask people to come to church
    • How do you juggle multiple responsibilities?
      • You are going to miss something every day. Just try not to miss something in the same area multiple times in a row
    • Why start a Daily TV Show?
      • There are a lot of people who don’t go to church who are starving for what we have in abundance all the time – opportunity to help people with life skills
    • What about Racial Reconciliation?
      • The operative question is: Have you included people in the overall strategies of success?
      • “Tough on crime” was really tough on people who couldn’t afford a rich lawyer
        • Blacks are seven time more likely to be incarcerated for the same crime
      • We have left people behind who are no longer willing to be ignored.
      • We have not created a system that allows the under-privileged to be served.
    • Is the worldwide problem fixable without faith?
      • You need to be intentional about tearing down the natural propensity in all humans to remain comfortable.
    • On your book “Second Wind”
      • Re-imagining yourself – owning your own future – not waiting on anyone
      • What made America great? Being creative and not just consuming
        • God is entrepreneurial – We are more like God when we were creative.
      • We are so good at seeing what other people’s gifts are but we are not that good at acknowledging what God has given us – how he has gifted us.
  • Bill Hybels, Shauna Niequist, Henry Cloud – Blindspots for Leaders
    1. Speed – Bill Hybels
      • We ask God to keep up with us. To bless our speed and give us more speed. We go too fast for the people in our lives
      • We need self-reflection. We need to push the time-out button – stop the activity, sit before God, get a journal out and lower the RPMs.
    2. Connection – Henry cloud – Book: The Power of the Other
      • Part of what it takes to keep your head on straight is the power of the other.
        • Avoid NO CONNECTION, BAD CONNECTION and UNHEALTHY CONNECTION
        • Strive for REAL CONNECTION
          • Relationships operate according to a formula: I need to make my needs known, and find someone who can help me with those needs
    3. Myth of Achievement – Shauna Niequist – Book: Present Over Perfect
      • The Lies of Perfect
        • You are word you do. You are what you build. You are what other people think of you.
        • Everything becomes an opportunity to succeed or fail – Leads to exhaustion and isolation. Love is not found in the “hustle”
        • What are you sacrificing on the altar of achievement?
      • Love is found in exactly who you are – right now
        • Being FULLY PRESENT with everyone God has placed in your life, every moment of every day
  • Danielle Strickland – Leader Interrupted
    • True peace is not the absence of conflict, but the presence of justice.
    • Shalom is about everything wrong being made right.
      • The fullness of how things were designed to be.
      • The world is crying out for all of the wrong things to be made right.
    • True Humility – First posture shift.
      • True humility is agreeing with God about who you are.
      • It is a dynamic tension between insecurity <——-> arrogance.
      • God wants you to stop “playing the tape” in your head
      • We need to come into agreement with God about who we are
    • True Dependency – Second Posture Shift
      • Agreeing with God about who he is – vertical dependency
      • You are NOT God.
      • Dynamic tension between self-sufficiency and codependency
      • We need to create spaces in our lives where only God can show up.
    • Take the Shalom into the world – Third Posture Shift
      1. God wants us to bring that Shalom – that wholeness of justice and rightness – true Peace – to the world around us
  • Horst Schulze – Creating an Organization of Excellence and Efficiency
    • What you need to do to be successful in business? You need to build the MOST sufficient and MOST efficient business
    • Sufficiency means you create excellence in what the customer wants.
      • Any/All Customers Want:
        • Perfect product – NO defects
        • You serve them timely
        • You care (this is the most important)
    • Efficiency means it costs you less to produce a better product
      • Do NOT exceed the customer’s expectations – that is wasteful and inefficient
      • The greatest efficiency you can have in your business is the elimination of defects
        • 5.6% of a business transaction as an average have mistakes. That rework causes inefficiencies.
        • Elimination of defects creates huge ROI.
        • The root cause of defects is almost always five steps away.
    • Every business is in the hospitality business
    • Process and Products are MANAGED – People need LEADERSHIP
    • Hiring people to perform a FUNCTION is NOT moral
      • You hire people to be part of a purpose, part of a dream
    • Is our dream/vision GOOD for all concerned: employees, customers, shareholders and society as a whole – measured by the VALUES that God gives us?
      • Employees need to know and be reminded often of what the dream is
    • Empowering employees is simply respecting them. Loving them well.

THREE MINUTE SUMMARIES

Bill Hybels – Four Lenses of Leadership

  • Organizational Leadership is moving people from here to there.
  • You can’t stay here, we must start the journey to a preferred future
  1. Passionate Lens
    • Followers need to be energized and sustained by the passion of the leader
    • Bill researched and found difference in productivity between motivated and unmotivated worker is 40%
    • Healthy culture, compensation, etc less important than following a passionate leader
    • Passion comes from the top of the mountain (beautiful dream) or the bottom of the valley in the desert (outrage, holy discontent).
    • Whose job is it to fill their passion bucket? Yours. It’s your job to fire yourself up. How do you do it?
  2. Shattered Lens
    • High trust, high functioning, caring culture versus low…
    • Willow named top workplace in mid sized businesses in Chicago in 2015
    • An organization will only ever be as healthy as the top leader wants it to be
    • Bill’s advice, hire an off-site firm to do an organizational health assessment and fix what’s broken
    • We need more pastors of business where congregation is the staff, or community, etc
    • Transactional noise (water cooler) chatter about decisions and promotions and relationships. Takes a toll on everyone.
    • Willow now uses Lominger Card Sorting … All 67 cards have a competence. Identify the top 22 they have are good at green. Not very good at is orange, neutral uncolored are the rest
    • This Lominger card Sort Exercise causes a self awareness explosion.and then you share them so you got others awareness
    • Senior executives need to do more “talent observation” to view people’s potential outside of the c suite for coaching and identifying rising stars
  3. Performance Lens
    • Speed of the leader speed of the team
    • Setting goals and measuring progress
    • Maximizing performance requires constantly readjusting but not over adjusting or under adjusting…losing your dynamic balance
    • Willow assesses each department every six months thriving (gaining ground), healthy (maintaining ground), and underperforming (losing ground)
  4. Legacy Lens
    • What people remember of you when you are gone? What are you leaving behind?
    • “I would give anything for a do-over”
    • There aren’t do-overs just make-overs
    • Redistribute the spending of energy
    • Legacies can change in an instant – good or bad – like the thief on the cross. His legacy is getting his last decision so right…..

Alan Mulally – CEO Ford,Boeing

  • Started his career as an aeronautical engineer with Boeing with experience on every single model of Boeing
  • CEO who turned around Ford, Google board member, adviser to Obama on exports.
  • From Career at Boeing: Working Together Principles and Practices
    • People first
    • EVERYONE included – employees, suppliers, bankers, etc
    • Compelling vision
      • Comprehensive Strategy and Relentless Implementation
    • Weekly core team meeting with EVERYONE
      • Green, Yellow, Red dashboard
    • Clear performance goals
    • One plan
    • Facts and Data
    • EVERYONE knows the plan, the status and areas that need special attention
    • Positive “find-a -way” attitude
    • Respect , listen, help and appreciate
    • Keep emotional resilience – trust the process
    • Have fun – enjoy the journey and each other
  • Moves over to Ford
    • When he first came in, Ford was losing billions of dollars
    • Gets picked up in a LandRover, and none of the cars in the executive parking garage are Fords
    • Journalist asked him during initial press conference, “Is it OK that the automobile industry is complicated, in trouble and you(Alan) know nothing about it?”
      • Alan replied, “Well, I know cars are complicated with 10,000 parts, but a 777 has 4 million parts and stays in the air”
    • “Is it going to be OK for the executives at the Ford World Headquarters to be wearing sport jackets and slacks instead of suits?”
    • “Henry Ford’s initial vision in 1925 –
      • “To open the highways to all mankind – not just the wealthy”
      • Henry Ford looked forward to the opportunity to serve all mankind.
  • Alan’s first strategic decisions at Ford:
    • to get rid of all other brands but Ford and Lincoln
    • every vehicle was ongoing to be best in class
    • serve all of the markets around the world
    • aggressively restructure the business to operate profitably even though demand is way down
    • accelerate all of these new vehicles despite the economic slowdown
    • we need a loan
      • Alan gave the pitch to investment banks for money himself
      • Secured $23 billion in loans to make the above happen
    • Started to implement the initial business plan review
  • Illustration of cultural issues at Ford
    • One of the worst old culture problems
      • “never bring a problem to your manager without a solution”
    • All the charts his teams made were green, even though they were going to lose $17 billion
    • Someone had the courage to mark something red –
      • “We need to work together to turn the red to yellow to green” – Alan started clapping when someone was brave enough to present something red.
    • it still took several weeks for the rest of the executive team to have the courage to start marking things red and yellow
    • Once that happened, once everyone had the courage to deal with reality, he knew they were going to be OK.
    • Just follow the plan. Trust the process
    • He also wanted to make sure that all of the dealers felt “love”
      • Made his executive look the Ford dealerships and tell them that they loved them
      • That made everyone realize that things were going to be different.
  • The turn-around: Where things eventually went:
    • Customers rank Ford to have the best product line across all sizes
    • #1 brand in the Unites States. #1 or #2 in Europe. Fastest growing in Russia and China, etc.
    • Suppliers – #2 ranked supplier against all other automobile manufacturers
    • Over 1000% stock growth, reinstated the dividend and increased it 5 times
    • Ford has the highest large company “employee positive impression of the company. compared to the world-wide average across all companies which is 42%
    • Ford did not go bankrupt and did not require a bailout

Jossy Chacko – Empart USA

  • Empart Mission – Transform 100,000 communities by 2030
  • Early Life
    • He moved from India to Australia, pursued his dream to be successful and rich in business.
    • He married an Australian lady named Jenny
    • They went to India to visit the Taj on their honeymoon.
    • They met an 8 year old beggar boy from the slums and they invited him along on their honeymoon.
    • That encounter changed both their lives for ever
  • The parable of the talents spoke to him greatly after that experience.
  • All of us have been entrusted with something.
    • How are we proving ourselves to be trusted with more?
  • If today the master demands an account of your talents, what would your response be and would would the master say back to you?
  • Faithfulness is not about maintaining what you have, it’s about multiplying what you have been given.
  • The “Three E’s”
    1. Enlarge your Vision
      • The unfaithful servant has a vision – a vision to play it safe and maintain.
      • You need to enlarge that vision for multiplication
      • Foundational vision of Transforming Communities can be enlarged to build bigger visions that include things like bring toilets to those communities.
    2. Empower your People
      • It’s easy to lose your motivation for this when people fail you, or leave, or betray you.
      • Leadership is all about taking wise chances to create opportunities despite your past experiences.
      • He took a crazy homeless man living under a bridge as a beggar and he is leading the transformation of several communities.
      • A good test of your empowerment of your organization is to take a long vacation and see what happens.
      • Leaders are like scaffolds to raise up leaders and empower them.
        • Character
          • Focus on Building the Character before your empower. People don’t fail because of lack of information they fail because of lack of character.
        • Relationship
          • You have to be in close proximity to know someone’s character. It’s about leading from alongside – rather than from the front
          • All future Empart leaders have to live with a small group and a leader for 12 months before leaving
        • Right Controls and Measurement – Right Outcomes
          • KPIs = key performance indicators – control the outcomes not the people
    3. Embrace Risk
      • To Jossy, risk and faith is the same thing. Without taking risks (faith) it is impossible to please God.
      • Our Western society is all about eliminating risk – which is good generally speaking but in leadership it moves us from pioneering to preserving. From multiplying to maintaining
        • See risk as your friend to love, not your enemy to be feared.
          • Embrace the courageous spirit from Jesus. Fear comes from the devil. Don’t allow the fear of losing what you have keep you from what God has for you.
          • Be permanently hinged to the door of risk so that doors of opportunity open for you.
        • See Comfort and Safety as your Enemies
          • Don’t allow comfort and safety into your leadership.
          • Who is missing out because you are refusing to take the next step of faith?
          • You can’t have everything figured out before you get started.
            • If Moses had board members and advisors like we had he would still be in Egypt.
            • Don’t allow the earthly practicalities keep you from the heavenly possibilities – Eph 3:20
        • Increase your Pain Threshold
          • Your leadership capacity is directly proportional to your pain threshold
          • Today is not only a learning day, but a decision day.
          • Make a list of all of the dreams, ideas and visions God has put inside of you that you have not acted on yet.
            • Put a timeframe column next to that on when you are going to take action on each, and in a third column who is going to hold you accountable.

 

Dr. Travis Bradberry – Emotional Intelligence 2.0

  • Founder of TalentSmart
  • IQ vs EQ
    • People with high EQ make $29K more annually than those without
    • IQ explains about 20% of your success in life. EQ outperforms IQ 70% of the time
    • All senses are processed from the back of your brain to the front, and they pass through the limbic system FIRST, so you FEEL your senses before you think about them rationally.
    • Personality traits are fixed by age 15-20 but EQ can be developed your entire life
  • Four EQ Skills
  1. Self Awareness
    • Awareness of your tendencies and being prepared to deal with them.
    • Leaning into the discomfort and learning what you can improve.
    • Self-awareness can and should be developed throughout your life.
  2. Self-management
    • What do you do with the increased self-awareness?
    • It’s not about stuffing your feelings.
    • It’s about embracing your feelings and channelling them to accomplish what you want to do.
    • Both positive and negative emotions need to be managed.
  3. Social Awareness
    • It’s not just knowing what the other person is feeling, but what they are trying to communicate to you.
    • You have to focus more on the other person than yourself.
  4. Relationship Management
    • Requires that you use those first three skills on concert to create a greater good.
    • It’s much more difficult in relationships that are strained.
    • You have to look at what the world looks like from the other person’s perspective if you’re to find common ground.
    • Don’t win the battle to prove you are right to lose the war which is the overall quality of the relationship.
    • Seeing how your behavior impacts other people and adjusting it so you can improve the relationship instead of always feeling that you are being wronged.
  • Business Case for EQ
    • Emotions are the primary driver of your behavior so EQ impacts every area of your life
    • Some stats:
      • 60% of job performance comes from EQ
      • 90% of top performers have high EQ and 20% of low performers have high EQ
  • EQ Scores by Job Title Research
    • From individual contributor to supervisor to Manager the avg EQ goes up
    • Then from director to executive to senior executive to CEO it drops off more rapidly than it climbed up from individual contributors.
    • CEOs have half the EQ of individual contributors on average
  • Increasing Your EQ
    • This is personalized because everyone has different sets of habits that need to be overcome
    • You have to make positive EQ behavior habitual and extinguish negative EQ habits
    • The three things – three silver bullets everyone needs to work on:
    1. Get your Stress Under Control
      • Stress and health graphed looks like a Bell Curve.
      • Low stress and high stress are unhealthy.
      • “Optimal Stress” is necessary for good health.
      • How to bring your stress down? Taking a walk, breathing, turning your phone off before bed, etc.
      • Attitude of Gratitude. – reduces stress hormone cortisol by 23%
      • The little things matter most when it comes to stress reduction
    2. Clean-up your sleep hygiene
      • Getting 7-9 hours helps, but high quality sleep is even more important.
      • Toxic proteins are a natural byproduct of normal brain activity that can only be cleaned up during sleep
      • Clean up the quality of your sleep. Don’t take anything to help you fall asleep. Benadryl, etc.
      • No blue light in the evening.
    3. Get your caffeine intake under control (BOO!)
      • Makes you less emotionally intelligent in the moment and affects your sleep long-term.
      • If you have to drink caffeine, don’t do it after 12 noon.

 

Patrick Lencioni – The Ideal Teammate

  • The Ideal Team Player is the “prequel” to the Five Dysfunctions of a Team
  • Patrick has used the same three values from being an executive at a software company to the founding of the Table Group. Many of the companies he consulted with decided to adopt those same three values.
  • He called them virtues and said an individual with those virtues could overcome the five dysfunctions of a team.
  • The Three Virtues
    1. Humility
      • more interested in others than yourself
      • about the greater good
      • not arrogant
      • There is a difference between lacking self-confidence
      • True humility is just the recognition of what is true
      • A person who denies their own skills and downplays their abilities is not representing humility
      • Humility is not thinking less of  yourself, but thinking of yourself less
    2. Hungry
      • Passionate and tenacious in getting something down
    3. Smart
      • Common sense around people – people good at practicing the four behaviors of emotional intelligence.
      • We like when people ask us “What do you mean by smart?” We mean EQ
  • When two virtues are lacking
    • The PAWN
      • People who lack hunger and smart. They are just humble
    • The BULLDOZER
      • People who lack humble and smart. They are just hungry
      • Leave a trail of dead bodies behind. Usually they are in charge or working for a wimpy leader.
      • They are easy to identify but can last longer in an organization than PAWNS
    • The CHARMER
      • People lack hunger and humble. They are just smart
    • People who have one are easy to identify and keep off your team.
  • When only one virtue is lacking
    • The people who have two and are egregiously lacking in the third one. These people are much harder to identify and keep off your team.
    • The ACCIDENTAL-MESS-MAKER
      • People who are humble and hungry but are not smart.
      • These are the people you are always making excuses for.
      • Patrick has a lot of patience for these people because he knows their intentions are good
    • The LOVABLE-SLACKER
      • The people who are humble and smart but not hungry
      • They are great people but do just enough work not to get fired.
      • They never go above and beyond. They are very frustrating.
      • Patrick also has a lot of patience for these guys because they are humble, but they can sap the life out of peak performers.
    • The SKILLFUL-POLITICIAN
      • People who are hungry and smart but not humble
      • The most dangerous and the hardest to spot:
      • They know how to convince people that they are humble even though they are not.
      • They are devious because they can hide the fact that they only care about themselves.
  • What do you do with this? – Use it to develop yourself and your people
    1. Identify the areas that need improvement
      • You need to be vulnerable enough to identify the areas you need to improve in.
      • He did a simple coaching example – rank the three 1,2,3. Gather all of the people according to the weakest one of the three virtues and have them brainstorm on what they can do to improve
      • The leader has to go first and make it safe. It’s much better to allow people to self-assess than to tell them what’s wrong
    2. Have the Courage to Constantly and Consistency to remind people of where they need to improve
      • People are either going to improve or opt-out on their own.
      • Both of those are better and more dignified that the passive aggressive approach.
      • If they do not want to improve or leave over time you have to fire them. But that is likely a very low runner if you are consistent
    3. Hiring people
      • We don’t get people out of the interview room.
      • Generally we over-emphasize technical skills
        • We do not have enough vigor in going after team players
        • Johnny Manziel is a great example of over-focus on technical skills
      • What’s more important than being a team player? But, we cannot really identify them well. There is a disconnect between desire to hire and who actually gets hired.
      • Do something with them in a real world example and see how they deal with human beings.
        • Ask them questions more than once and see if the answers change
        • Ask what other people would say about you? Example: “What would your wife say about you? Do you hold grudges?”
        • Stop doing SILO interviews. Do TEAM interviews.
    4. Scare people with sincerity
      • Example: “We are fanatical about humble, hungry and smart. You will hate it here if that’s not you and we will hate you.”
  • Concluding thoughts
    • How much the world has changed in 13 years since he first spoke at Willow:
    • Persecution in the West is becoming more real – not to the extent of Iraq or other places, but the it is becoming more real even in the US.
    • This is the golden age of leadership if you are following Jesus. Let’s not turn our back on God or wilt under persecution – even here in the West.
    • We cannot be bitter – we have to rejoice, because Jesus said to rejoice when you are persecuted because of him.
    • May all of us leaders be willing to suffer for Jesus

Chris McChesney – Four discipline of execution

  • Execution is a game of changing human behavior.
    1. Focus
      • Additional goals in addition to the background whirlwind of activity
      • Law of diminishing returns
        • If you have 2-3 additional goals you’ll accomplish 2-3
        • If you have 4-10 additional goals you will only get one done
        • If you have, 11-20 additional goals, then zero get done
      • Poison pill
        • You have to say no to good ideas.
        • There will always be more good ideas than there is capacity to execute
      • Discern the line between energy to sustain the organization and your goals
        • Focus on the Wildly important goal (WIG)
        • Lives at the intersection of really important and not going to happen.
        • The WIG is a LAG measure
      • What are the FEWEST battles necessary to win the war
        • Don’t go big go narrow.
        • One WIG per team at the same time.
        • Everything else you need to sustain STILL GOES ON
        • You can veto but not dictate to the groups as a leader.
      • Move goal from X to Y by WHEN
        • X is the starting line
        • Y is the finish line
        • WHEN is the deadline
      • When accountability increases, morale and engagement increases because it throws the “game on switch”
      • Execution does NOT LIKE complexity
      • The two best friends of execution are simplicity and transparency
    2. Act on LEAD Measures
      • Two Attributes of LEAD Measures
        • Predictive of success
        • Influenced by teams
      • Lag measure is the WIG
        1. Example: losing weight is the lag, diet and exercise are the lead measures
        2. Everyone knows diet and exercise conceptualize, no one knows how many calories they eat and how many they burned
        3. It’s easy to know the concept but not the data behind the concept
        4. Data is hard to get but empowered teams can get it
    3. Keep a Compelling Scoreboard
      • People play differently when THEY are keeping score
      • We need a players scoreboard not s coach’s scoreboard
      • Keep it simple. Lag measure and two lead measures.
      • The number one driver of morale and engagement is when you think you are winning
      • Do your players (teammates) believe they are playing a winnable game?
    4. Create a Cadence of Accountability
      • In the moment urgency always trumps important
      • Twenty minute meeting weekly where you make one or two commitments
        • did I do what I was supposed to do
        • Review and update scoreboard
        • Make commitments for next week
      • As a leader, do not specify the commitments, let the staff make their own commitments
      • It’s a PULL strategy
  • Conclusion
    • The natural laws of execution are the same laws as the laws of engagement
    • Do your people feel like they are playing a high stakes winnable game??

Erin Meyer – The Cultural Map

  • How cultural differences impact our effectiveness – especially in business
  • Erin created Cultural Maps to help us decode cultural differences
  • There are many dimensions.
    • In this talk we will focus on three dimensions that would make you a good communicator in other cultures
  • Every culture has a great deal of variance around their “norm” similar to a bell curve.
  • This variance is also generational and regional
  • Where you land in a dimension, the others can lie on the left and right.
  • The three dimensions we choose to focus on for this presentation:
  1. Low versus high context
    • Context is shared reference points
    • In low context you repeat and summarize often
      • it’s about simplification and making it clear
    • High context – it’s not what I said, it’s what i meant when i said it. –
      • Identifying the subtle messages between the lines.
      • “Reading the air/atmosphere” “listening with all of my senses”
    • U.S. Is the lowest context, Latin in the middle, and Asian are very high context
    • Ex: In India the same word means both yesterday and tomorrow
    • Written confirmation is key in low context cultures
    • High context perceives low context as being condescending
    • Low context perceives high context as lack of transparency and secretive
    • US is a melting pot so we simplify everything to the lowest common denominator
    • But multi-cultural projects require a common denominator of low context processes
    • When Working work low context people, be explicit
    • In high context cultures ask lots of clarifying questions, repeat yourself less, and learn how to “read the air”
    • Story from Japan about reading in a person’s eyes to see whether they have a question and asking them directly
  2. How do we receive critical feedback
    • Direct negative feedback versus indirect negative feedback
    • “Upgrader” words versus “Downgrader” words
    • Germany is direct, U.S. in the middle, Asian indirect
    • Upgrader language confuses indirect, and downgrader language confuses direct
  3. What silence means
    • high comfort with silence versus low comfort with silence
    • Asian is high comfort, US is low,
    • Americans become uncomfortable at 2.5 seconds, Chinese at 8 seconds
    • There is also overlap cadence in conversation
      • like Latin countries. People talk at the same time
      • There is ping pong like in the US with no overlap but no silence
      • There is ping pong with silence gaps like Asian cultures
  • ErinMeyer.com talks about the other dimensions

John Maxwell – Intentional Living

Right after the iron curtain fell, John spoke in the Ukraine. His interpreter said You’re about to speak to 12,000 people who have never had leaders invest in them to make them better. How do I find common ground? He asked to questions. Have you ever been suspicious of a leader? Have you ever been hurt by a leader? Everyone raised their hands to both. Leaders either bless or curse, and these guys had only experienced leaders who cursed them.

John didn’t have the time to take them from here to there, he only had to get them to want to get from here to there themselves.

John boiled down the big idea of his talk to “Intentionally, every day, add value to people.”

  • Intentionally, every day, add value to people – This is the CORE of leadership
  • So you exist to add value to people or to have people add value to you?
    • What side of this thin leadership line are you on on any given day, at any given time?
    • There is a fine line better motivation and manipulation?
  • Three questions followers ask leaders:
  1. Do you like me? Compassion
  2. Can you help me? Competence
  3. Can I trust you? Character
    • In other words: Will you intentionally add value to my life?
  • EVERYTHING WORTHWHILE IS UPHILL – UPHILL ALL THE WAY
    • Good marriage, physical health, good business, etc.
    • It’s all uphill. It’s uphill all the way
  • People have UPHILL HOPES and DOWNHILL HABITS
  • The only way you can change downhill habits is to be intentional. You have to turn on the switch of “intentional”
    • Intentional living is deliberate, consistent and willful.
  • Significance is uphill and it’s not about us it’s about others
    • Selfishness and significance are INCOMPATIBLE
    • True test of selfishness: when you take a group picture, who do you look at first?
      • If you look good “send me that picture it’s awesome” and if you look bad, you say ” that’s a bad picture let’s take another one”
  • Most people don’t lead their lives, they accept their lives…which is not intentional
  • Five things I (John Maxwell) do every day to add value to people
    1. Value People
      • The one thing Jesus did was value people.
      • Everyone who encountered Jesus would say “Jesus valued me”
      • God values me and he values you
      • God values people I don’t know
      • God values people I don’t like – that’s a little uncomfortable
      • Are we going to spend our lives connecting with people or correcting people?
        • Christians today are much more about correcting than connecting
    2. Everyday think of new ways to add value to people
      • You need to think ahead to be intentional
      • Thinking ahead is preparing, reacting is repairing
      • John Maxwell asks himself, who am I going to be seeing today and how am I going to add value to those specific people?
    3.  look for ways to add value to people
      • I prepare in advance, then when I am with them, i look for new opportunities
      • We see things the way we are not they way they really are
    4. I actually do things to add value to people
      • You need to do it and measure it, not just talk about it
    5. I encourage others to add value to people
  • John’s one word for people is TRANSFORM

T.D. Jakes – Second Wind

(*sorry, I came late I had to take care of something so this is somewhat lacking)

  • We think tribally instead of globally
  • There are more people out on Friday night than in church on Sunday morning. If we want to be salt and light, we need to GO more than we ask people to come to church
  • How do you juggle multiple responsibilities?
    • You are going to miss something every day. Just try not to miss something in the same area multiple times in a row
    • Also, we need to be able to touch things but not hold them.
    • We need good teams around us that can hold things for us.
    • What do I need to let go of in order to take hold of what God has for me today?
  • Why start a Daily TV Show?
    • There are a lot of people who don’t go to church who are starving for what we have in abundance all the time.
    • Opportunity to help people with basic life skills in addition to sharing your faith. Race issues, economic issues, etc,
  • What about Racial Reconciliation?
    • The reason we physically get a fever or have pain is a gift that tells us something is wrong – there is a problem.
    • As horrendous and as atrocious as the issues are, they are in some ways a blessing like pain, like fever, bringing attention to issues that we don’t feel because we don;t know those people or live in those communities.
    • Eventually, a problem you do not know about shows up as a symptom so you can do something about it.
    • We have created pockets of infection that people are trapped in who cannot escape.
    • The operative question is: Have you included people in the overall strategies of success?
      • Poor whites and poor blacks are outside of the strategy.
      • It’s not just about race, it’s about not being able to eat, find a job, have opportunities.
      • It causes “swelling and pain” so we don’t ignore it.
    • TD Jakes wants to deal with criminal justice.
      • “Tough on crime” was really tough on people who couldn’t afford a rich lawyer,
      • Blacks are seven time more likely to be incarcerated for the same crime
      • it’s more about money and relationships than about pure racism.
      • Once you are an ex-con, you can’t vote, can’t get a job, can’t get an apartment.
    • We have left people behind who are no longer willing to be ignored.
    • We have not created a system that allows the under-privileged to be served.
  • When you travel, how do you deal with differences?
    • We see the types of war that we do not have a strategy to win. It’s no longer country against country
    • We need a worldwide comprehensive plan to attack hunger, disease, poverty, etc
    • Anarchy happens because someone in power forgot about someone who was not in power
    • Who is my neighbor is an opportunity to excuse yourself. Jesus told the story of the good Samaritan who helped someone who did not look like him. That he had nothing to gain from.
  • Is the worldwide problem fixable without faith?
    • Yes, but we have done a bad job. The church has the faith but not the works.
    • You have to be intentional about love. You need a strategy
    • You need to be intentional about tearing down the natural propensity in all humans to remain comfortable.
  • On you book “Second Wind”
    • Re-imagining yourself – owning your own future – not waiting on anyone
    • About what made America great in the first place – to be creative and not just consuming
    • Practical pragmatic skills for us to become entrepreneurial again.
      • God is entrepreneurial.
      • We were much more like God when we were creative.
      • We were not created to just consume.
      • We are now consuming from other people’s tables
      • This is a clarion call back to being fruitful
  • How would you inspire, challenge and encourage us
    • I want you to know that there is not one living thing on the earth that is not a seed within  a seed. There is potential for growth. You are gifted and gifted with multiple gifts
    • The real question is what are you going to do with what God gave you?
    • He wants us to take what he has given us and multiply it, to increase it.
    • We are so good at seeing what other people’s gifts are but we are not that good at acknowledging what God has given us – how he has given us.
    • At every age, at every stage you can be fruitful
    • Every morning God has given you a grace to discover yourself

Bill Hybels, Shauna Niequist, Henry Cloud – Blindspots for Leaders

  • Connection – Henry cloud – The Power of the Other
    • Part of what it takes to keep your head on straight is the power of the other.
    • Three Questions to Consider
      • Where are we in our state of connectedness?
      • What is the enemy of my connectedness?
      • Who is my buddy?
    • Map of Connectedness
      • Upper-left: corner of NO CONNECTION. You can be in proximity with someone and NOT be connected to them. A spouse, a boss, a coworker, a neighbor
      • Upper-right: corner of BAD CONNECTION – leaves us feeling bad. We aren’t good enough. You walk away from these relationships feeling like a loser
      • Lower-right: corner of UNHEALTHY CONNECTION – I want to feel good. We relieve the pain and connect with something that makes us feel good. Might be an addiction to drugs, or porn. Might be an addiction that looks positive – like building a better company, etc.
      • Lower-left: corner of REAL CONNECTION- the power of the other. Thriving.
    • Relationships operate according to a formula: I need to make my needs known, and find someone who can help me with those needs
  • Speed – Bill Hybels
    • We ask God to keep up with us. To bless our speed and give us more speed. We go too fast for the people in our lives
    • We need self-reflection.
    • We need to push the time-out button – stop the activity, sit before God, get a journal out and lower the RPMs.
  • Myth of Achievement – Shauna Niequist – Present Over Perfect
    • The Lies of Perfect
      • You are word you do. You are what you build. You are what other people think of you.
      • Everything becomes an opportunity to succeed or fail. The two emotions I felt were exhaustion and isolation. Love is not found in the “hustle”
      • It’s a long journey back to grace and love and connection.
      • I sacrificed my marriage, kids, my inner life on the altar of achievement.
    • Love is found in exactly who you are – right now
      • Being FULLY PRESENT with everyone God has placed in your life, every moment of every day

Danielle Strickland – Leader Interrupted

  • The Difference between Spiritual Leadership and Regular, Good Leadership
  • How do we make a transition from good gifted leaders to Spiritual Leaders with Authority?
  • True peace is not the absence of conflict, but the presence of justice. Shalom is about everything wrong being made right. The fullness of how things were designed to be.
  • God wants all of us as leaders to come into “Shalom”
  • The world is crying out for all of the wrong things to be made right.
  • Judges the Story of Gideon – Judges 6:11-24
    • Gideon makes some essential shifts in his life:
    • When God confronts him, he is in a surviving posture.
  • True Humility – First posture shift.
    • True humility is agreeing with God about who you are.
    • It is a dynamic tension between insecurity <——-> arrogance.
    • Go in the strength you have.
      • God is calling out what already exists in him. It is already in him.
    • But Gideon plays the old-faithful story/movie tape in his head.
    • Any time you get interrupted by God, “Hey Mighty Warrior” you have the list of excuses playing from memory in your head.
    • God wants you to stop “playing the tape” in your head
    • We need to come into agreement with God about who we are
  • True Dependency – Second Posture Shift
    • Agreeing with God about who he is – vertical dependency
    • You are NOT God.
    • Dynamic tension between self-sufficiency and codependency
    • Gideon is making “pockets of dependency”
      • We need to create spaces in our lives where only God can show up.
      • We run things in such a way in America where we really don’t need God.
    • We need the experience of God in our real lives.
  • Take the Shalom into the world
    • The Ephesians 6 armor of God includes the Boots of Shalom
    • God wants us to bring that Shalom – that wholeness of justice and rightness – true Peace – to the world around us

Horst Schulze – Creating an Organization of Excellence and Efficiency

  • What do you think about when starting a new business or reimagining your current business?
  • Separate into industry – market segment(s)
  • You need to identify what that segment wants – who are the customers?
  • What you need to do to be successful?
    • Whatever you produce, you have to do it better than the competition.
    • You need to be more SUFFICENT to the end customer.
  • Sufficiency means you create excellence in what the customer wants.
  • But, you also have to be more EFFICIENT, so it costs you less than it costs the competition to produce a better product – you need to be more efficient
  • You need to build the MOST sufficient and MOST efficient business and that requires leadership.
  • Any customer wants
    • Perfect product – NO defects
    • You serve them timely
    • You care (this is the most important
  • If you care and show hospitality, you develop a longer term win because even if they do not buy anything short-term, they will be back long-term
  • Every business is in the hospitality business
  • From the Order of St Benedict – On the Reception of Guests

Let all guests who arrive be received like Christ,

for He is going to say,

“I came as a guest, and you received Me” (Matt. 25:35).

And to all let due honor be shown,

especially to the domestics of the faith and to pilgrims.

As soon as a guest is announced, therefore,

let the Superior or the brethren meet him

with all charitable service.

And first of all let them pray together,

and then exchange the kiss of peace.

For the kiss of peace should not be offered

until after the prayers have been said,

on account of the devil’s deceptions.

In the salutation of all guests, whether arriving or departing,

let all humility be shown.

Let the head be bowed

or the whole body prostrated on the ground

in adoration of Christ, who indeed is received in their persons.

After the guests have been received and taken to prayer,

let the Superior or someone appointed by him sit with them.

Let the divine law be read before the guest for his edification,

and then let all kindness be shown him.

The Superior shall break his fast for the sake of a guest,

unless it happens to be a principal fast day

which may not be violated.

The brethren, however, shall observe the customary fasts.

Let the Abbot give the guests water for their hands;

and let both Abbot and community wash the feet of all guests.

After the washing of the feet let them say this verse:

“We have received Your mercy, O God,

in the midst of Your temple” (Ps.47[48]:10).

In the reception of the poor and of pilgrims

the greatest care and solicitude should be shown,

because it is especially in them that Christ is received;

for as far as the rich are concerned,

the very fear which they inspire

wins respect for them.

  • Process and Products are MANAGED
  • People need LEADERSHIP
  • What do employees want?
    • We are going somewhere from here to there. Align people on the journey
    • Is the destination of the leader good for everyone?
    • Is it good for all concerned: employees, customers, shareholders and society as a whole – measured by the VALUES that God gives us
  • How can I lead if I do not have true, steadfast VALUES.
  • Show new employees on day one where is the destination, how the vision and mission benefits everyone. This creates alignment
  • Alignment means you are aligning the heart and soul with your heart and should, but there has to be benefit for them.
  • You have to manage the process of hiring but LEAD the people.
  • When a significant emotional event in your life occurs, you are open to change in behavior.
  • If you introduce them to on honorable objective that is for the benefit of everyone, people will align. You need to do this on day one, and then reinforce it every day. Total focus on people every day.
  • When we win, how will the employee benefit? Be honored?
  • You hire people NOT for function (wash dishes, check people in). That is NOT moral. Those are human beings
  • You hire people to be part of a purpose, part of a dream – to join us. They need to know what the dream is.

Capella Hotel Group is in business

to create value and unparalleled

results for our owners by creating

products which fulfill individual

customer expectations.

We deliver reliable, genuinely caring

and timely service superior to our

competition, with respected and

empowered employees who work in

an environment of belonging and

purpose.

We are supportive and contributing

members of society, operating with

uncompromising values, honor and

Integrity.

  • Efficiency means you fulfill and MEET the customer’s requirements.
    • Do NOT exceed the customer’s expectations – that is wasteful and inefficient.
    • We exceed the competition, but we do not exceed customer expectations. We meet them.
    • Eliminate everything that does not add value.
  • The greatest efficiency you can have in your business is the elimination of defects
    • 5.6% of a business transaction as an average have mistakes. That rework causes inefficiencies.
    • Elimination of defects creates huge ROI.
    • The root cause of defects is almost always five steps away.
    • Example: Slow Room Service
      • Ask the team involved to find the cause of bad room service. Utilize cooks, waiters, etc
      • The team figured out that waiting for the elevator was the main cause of slow room service. It was several steps removed.
      • But more than that, the housekeeping people would prop the elevator door open because they were short on linen. More steps removed
      • Now, ask the laundry people, why are we short on linen. It ends up they were short on linen since the very opening of the hotel.
      • It was Horst himself who was the root cause of the problem when he decided to cut the linen on the opening of the hotel 🙂
    • So root cause is almost always several steps removed from where the defect is actually felt
  • Empowering employees is simply respecting them. Loving them well.

Not Having the Right Title for Influencing People

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I was having a peer-to-peer mentoring call last night with a couple of guys I have known for many years. One of the topics discussed was how we are all good at playing various “roles” that come our way in life. One guy was sharing that when he plays a “host” or “leader” role, he’s very extroverted, outgoing, friendly, connecting, etc. He remarked that if he attended the same function in as just a regular “attender” role, his introversion would have taken over and he would have been a lot more subdued.

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As I mulled over that comment a little, I came to the realization that I struggle with the same issue when it comes to “role” but I have not been able to articulate it until now.

 

It’s a little ironic, because after being in the big corporate world for the first decade of my career, I learned that you have to play the professional role FIRST, before you actually get the official title. I did a decent job of this in my professional context and did my best to take on leadership roles and responsibilities without the title – because I figured out that the title generally comes soon after.

 

I remember once at the height of the tech boom, hiring a manager who would be working for me, but he would be making a good deal more money than me. I remember my director asking me if I was OK with that. Of course, I said, “No problem. We need him and he won’t come over for anything less.” While that was indeed true, I also knew that I had a much bigger payday coming my way later on to “make things right.” In a sense, I gave myself a future raise by hiring a guy at a salary greater than my own.

 

So, in my professional contexts, I have been very aggressive at playing particular leadership roles, before I had the title – primarily as a means to get the title later. In ministry / outreach / life-on-life contexts, that motivation always seemed disingenuous – so I dialed down that internal drive in those contexts.

 

Over time, I believe that has led me to a place where I subconsciously feel like I need a particular “role’” in order to have “influence” in someone’s life. Or, more clearly stated, that the lack of a particular role – or platform – in ministry / outreach / life-on-life contexts somehow limits my ability to have influence in those contexts.

 

I have spent too much time in my life bemoaning the fact that I do not have a title that lends itself well to making a difference in people’s lives. I have always been envious of people who have the title “pastor”, “counselor”, “social worker”, etc. because when you introduce yourself to someone, it’s can be a huge advantage to dropping barriers and opening doors to have significant conversations.

 

I feel much more capable of influencing people when I am playing the role of small group leader, youth group leader, or coach. People EXPECT to be influenced by those roles. They are open and receptive to it.

 

When you are sitting next to someone on a plane and they ask you what you do, and you say you are a pastor – and go on to share how you have published multiple books, lead a large congregation, etc., people naturally open up more and are more willing to have significant life-on-life conversations. When you introduce yourself as a computer programmer, people are much more likely to tune out – or ask you to fix their smart phone.

 

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My “pastor-envy” and “psychotherapist-counselor-Brene Brown-envy” I think have some legitimate basis in fact. People are more willing to open up more quickly about issues that are really important in life when you carry those titles. People are expecting to be influenced. Not so much for operations experts with an engineering background.

 

I would much rather have life-on-life influence with people than be a professional, vocational success – but, I don’t want to quit my job and become a pastor just to make influencing people a little easier. That’s just not the right motivation.

 

The truth is, I do NOT need a particular title or “role” to have deep influence in someone’s life. It may be more difficult to have deeper, more meaningful conversations with people in casual contexts – like on the proverbial plane flight – but I need to be intentional and cognizant of playing the “pastoral” and “counseling” ROLE even though I do not have the TITLE.


That’s hard for me to do. It’s easy and safe for me to hide behind the lack of a platform that is seemingly easier to lend itself to influencing people. It’s a great excuse. I need to see every opportunity as a genuine opportunity to influence – love people well – and allow the Spirit to make the deeper connections.

 

I still might make up some business card some day that say, “Senior Pastor of Operations” or “Technical Project Counselor” or “Real-time Software Therapist” – but until then, I need to double-down on leveraging every opportunity I have to influence, and lose all of the excuses.

Good Advice from Graduating High School Seniors

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We had our “moving-on” ceremony for the graduating high school seniors in our youth group last night. We dedicated part of the night to honoring them, looking back on their last seven years in student community, and tapping their brains for advice to the younger kids in the program. It was a bittersweet event as “moving-on” events always are.

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I have been a student leader at my local church for almost 20 years now. That longevity gives me a great perspective and vantage point on the lives of the kids. Some of the kids who “moved-on” last night I have known to some extent since they were born, others since elementary school, others since jr high. When you are casually involved in the lives of other people’s kids, you get to see changes in bigger bunches. They grow 6 inches taller since last time you saw them, they can now dunk on you playing basketball and for many of them, they grow from immature kids into developing leaders.

 

Part of the service last night involved inviting each of the three graduating senior groups on stage to share one of their favorite moments from student community over the years, as well as to share some advice for the younger kids.

 

I remember meeting one of the graduating girls many years ago in jr high. I remember telling her that I do not recognize jr highers as legitimate people until they are freshman in high school. That’s one of my running gags that is partially having fun with the kids and partially serious 🙂

 

Every few months when I would see her around, she’d say something like, I’m going to be in 7th grade soon. Almost done with 7th grade, I’m going to be an 8th grader – one more year until you have to recognize me. Then, when she finally became a freshman, I was a man of my word and always acknowledged her by name and took time to catch up on what’s new in her life.

 

There she was, four years later, on stage, as the spokeswoman for her group. She was sharing happy memories and wise counsel on behalf of the group, while pictures of her with her friends and leaders over the last seven years flashed on the screen behind her. She has formed some great friendships and has made a big difference in the lives of so many people over the last seven years as a part of the student community. I am very proud of her, her friends, and her leaders.

 

One of the two guys groups shared their experiences. At the end of the sharing time, one of their leaders, a guy I have gotten to know well over the last couple years, thanked them for giving him “permission” to lead them. He thanked them for the influence they had in his life over the years, and encouraged them that growing spiritually is a lifelong endeavor – it doesn’t end when you go to college, it is just the beginning.


It’s cool to see the importance and fluidity of the “leader” role. You are an influencer, who should also be open to being influenced. Your role matters, but the relationships the kids develop with each other is more important. The investment you make, probably won’t be fully realized for many years, and probably never fully expressed. It is a difficult role with many ups and downs. Those that are willing and able to stay the course deal with some challenging moments, enjoy some good moments, and make investments for the benefits of others, primarily in the future.

 

The last group that went was the biggest and most rowdy group. Some of them had been together for the whole seven years of student community. Since this particular group really liked to have fun, the youth director was a little tentative when he gave them the mic and asked them to share their advice to the rest of the students – he even threw in a little insurance disclaimer right before they spoke.  

 

What they shared turned out to be sage advice. They shared two “tips”. The first tip was, “show up”. In order to build relationships, you need to spend time with each other. In order to spend time together, you simply need to show up. Showing up is difficult – especially in the over-programmed western burbs of Chicago. There are plenty of activities that seem more important from academic work, to sports, to music, to just taking a break from the insanity of suburban high school life.

 

Those that actually make the effort to show up, not only benefit themselves, but the rest of the kids in their group benefit, and, over time, the entire community benefits. Showing up is great advice. It is the easiest and simultaneously the most difficult decision you can make for any long-term, relational activity.

 

The second tip was to “invite new people in”. Wow. That is some serious wisdom coming from high school senior guys. They remarked that while some of them have been together for many years, they also made it a high priority to invite new people, and to make sure that new people felt included in their group. It’s so easy to allow good friendships to be intimidating to “outsiders”. These guys admonished everyone to make the extra effort to invite AND by inclusive after you invite.

 

Inviting high school kids to a church group is intimidating enough – but making the effort and the space for them to feel included takes a great deal of intentionality and maturity. These guys knew how to make it work and are great examples to the younger groups in student community of how to invite, and how to include. The circle of this group includes older friendships and newer friendships – and the impact of those friendships is only beginning to be felt.  

 

When I shared with my group of incoming sophomore guys after the senior groups shared on stage, we discussed those two tips in detail. I also added a third tip: “you get out what you put in.” If you do not feel like you are getting a lot out of a group – it is most likely because you are not putting enough into it. Showing up is a critical prerequisite to relationship building, but you must move beyond showing up to being invested and committed if you hope to maximize the relational impact you will have on others and experience yourself.
So, another group of young people have graduated high school and will be entering college over the next several days, and most of them will be spending 4-5 years at college more fully developing and growing into independent adults. It’s an amazing process – and I have been able to see it happen for my own kids, and many, many others.  It’s a mixed bag of challenges and awesomeness. Creating time and space for kids to focus on relationships and building a spiritual foundation is well worth the effort. Sometimes it takes a while to see the full effect, and for some of it, maybe much of it, you will never get to see it all – but someone sees it. Someone feels the result of that investment down the road – and for them, it’s always worth it!