Category: Leadership

Teamwork

Teamwork

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“No man is an island,” “the wisdom of the crowd is greater than the lone genius,” etc – We’ve all heard our fair share of quotes and thoughts about working as a team. However, at my organization, we use a collaborative management style and work closely with our colleagues across departments. In an attempt to learn more about working in a team-centered environment and improve my own management skills, I read Patrick Lencioni’s “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.” 

 

Lencioni lists the five dysfunctions as:

Absence of Trust

Fear of Conflict

Lack of Commitment

Avoidance of Accountability

Inattention to Results

 

Each of these dysfunctions leads to sub-optimal results. For instance, a lack of trust prevents conflict, which in turn prevents team commitment to decisions, where no-one is held accountable and results are never measured for achievement. He uses a simple pyramid to illustrate the concept.

five-dysfunctions-pyramid

 

His writing is easy to read as he couches his ideas and principles in a story format. This particular story focuses on a leadership team with a new leader who is attempting to turn around their organization. She takes her team to multiple offsite meetings to focus explicitly on teamwork.

As the book progresses you see the personalities of each of the characters and begin to wonder which one of them is you. As I read, I definitely found myself in the situation and thought “geez – I’ve got to be a real pain sometimes!” However, it’s because of the fact that we have a level of trust on our own leadership team that I am able to be myself and provide the critical input that myself and others were hired to provide.

If you’re someone looking to lead a team and don’t have a ton of time on your hand, I’d strongly recommend grabbing a copy of this one. I’m a really, really, slow reader and was able to finish this one in about 4 hours.

 

The Essential Drucker

The Essential Drucker

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The name Peter Drucker is synonymous with management, having written numerous books on management, politics, society, and economics over his storied career. I picked up a copy of The Essential Drucker which is a compilation of 60 years’ worth of his writing. It’s neatly divided into three sections: Management, The Individual, and Society.

The Essential Drucker

In the Management portion of the book he speaks to the role of entrepreneurship and innovation for the enterprise. One of the best nuggets I’ve seen play out time and time again in my own work is “In the existing business, it is the existing that is the main obstacle to entrepreneurship.” In a technology-based organization we are always striving to discover the latest and greatest, but are always constrained by the existing successful model.

 

In the Individual section he speaks to how an individual can become an effective executive. One of the most important things I’ve learned from this portion is to ask those who report to me  ‘What are the contributions for which this organization and I, your superior, should hold you accountable? What should we expect of you? What is the best utilization of your knowledge and your ability?’ Then they write out a management letter to let me know where they see themselves contributing the most. Drucker points out that often, where the manager sees the worker contributing and where the worker sees themselves contributing are often quite different. The point of the exercise is to open up better lines of communication between managers and their workers.

In his writing on Society, he traces the transition from the farmer to the industrial worker to the knowledge worker and how each have disrupted the social fabric for a time. The rise of the knowledge worker has led to an increase in education, placing it at the center of society, a redefining of what it means to be “educated,” and an increase in competitiveness. This book is a fascinating read and I would highly encourage reading it if you don’t have the time to pick up Drucker’s numerous volumes.

 

Getting it Done

Getting it Done

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I’ve been very fortunate over my career to lead teams that produce results. Often you’ll find me spending time thinking about how to better lead them to continue achieving, and hopefully surpassing our agreed upon goals. Much of the success is based on focusing on people and process. On people – hire competent people, provide an environment for them to succeed and get out of their way.

 

In this post, I want to focus more on the process. I work at an organization that runs Internet advertisements on a global scale 24/7. Nearly 500,000 people land on our web pages in 26 languages on a daily basis. We are data driven which means that we have to take time to see what the data is telling us, think about what changes we can make to increase performance, and then implement them.

 

Let’s talk then about how to give ourselves the space to do this in the midst of all the other “work” that has to be done. It’s starts with how you plan out your week. I divide my week into two parts: “operations” and “strategy.” Operations is managing today, today, while strategy is planning for tomorrow, today. Think of it like this: you’ve got to spend time working “in” the business and time working “on” the business.

 

With data coming in over the weekend, I like to spend Monday and Tuesday focused internally. This means that my meetings are focused vertically inside the organization. On Mondays, I review what is happening with those who report directly to me. On Tuesdays, I meet laterally with those on the leadership team and with my leader.

 

I try to hold off on external meetings and conversations for the first two days of the week and push them to Wednesday and Thursday. I love Wednesday’s and Thursday’s because those are the days we dream. I’ll often meet with different people throughout the organization asking “what if” questions. You’ll see me writing on the writeable walls and brainstorming about new opportunities.

 

On Friday’s, I like to focus a little more on myself, the manager. I like to spend Friday mornings focused on reviewing our strategic projects, and my calendar for the next week. I’ll look at the meetings coming up and make sure that I’ve got my ducks in a row before they arrive so that they are as fruitful as possible. Then, we have Friday afternoons. This is when I spend some thinking time by myself. I’ll read some articles on leadership, strategy, technology, innovation, etc and see if there are a few opportunities for me to implement what I’m reading. It’s also a way not to sprint into the weekend, but to ease into it.

 

What about you? How do you get it done?

 

Calendar Example

A Response to Paris

A Response to Paris

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After the recent attacks in Paris, I’ve seen much debate (like everyone else) on cable news and social media. The responses among the people I know have ranged anywhere from “don’t let another person from Syria enter the country” to “open the flood gates.” This entire ordeal opens up a plethora of subjects to discuss – How should our governments respond (force, tighter immigration policies, only let in Christians, roll out the welcome mat)? How should Christians respond?

Among Christians debating the topic, the most striking difference is between the approach of older evangelicals and the millennial evangelicals (especially those who travel internationally). What I am reading from the more seasoned crowd is that we should shut off the borders to the United States to Syrians because European national Muslims attacked Paris (there is yet to be any evidence that the attackers were Syrian). Much of this crowd have had their opinions formed during rise of the Moral Majority and other conservative Christian causes which tended to conflate Christianity and the United States Government. They often see attacks like this as an affront to the United States.

The millennials, on the other hand, have had their opinions informed by the end of the Clinton era (where we disputed the definition of “is” and other moral absolutes) and the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center attacks. For their entire life our country has been at war. They tend to view the world through the lens of social justice, and are less concerned about security and national borders. They do not intertwine the United States and Christianity and often feel that the United States reacts in a very “un-christian” manner towards the powerless.

So, what should we do? I’m not going to advocate for opening the floodgates or shutting off the spigot. What I am going to argue for however, is a change in the tone. We do a disservice to our faith when we answer with smugness, anger, or heated rhetoric.

What should be uniting all of us is the Gospel of Jesus Christ – the fact that we no longer live our life condemned, but on the other side of the cross. It is only the Gospel that will allow us to open our hearts and minds up to those with whom we disagree. It is only the Gospel that will compel us to walk across the street to love our neighbor who may be a Muslim. And it is only the Gospel that will change the life of the radical jihadist. Our prayer should be not one of imprecation against those with whom we disagree; rather it should be one that he will open the hearts of those who stand at enmity with him to his saving Grace.

Need a LifePlan?

Need a LifePlan?

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Are you living your life with a purpose?

A great tool to help you find your purpose is a LifePlan. A LifePlan will develop the perspective of how you got where you are, plan for where you want to go, and begin taking the next steps for how you will get there. It focuses on the five domains of an individual: Personal, Family, Vocation, Faith, and Community.

During the LifePlan, we help you assess your talents, passions, and heart– discerning your life purpose and what type of future you want to create for yourself. When completed, you will have the necessary tools to filter career decisions, educational opportunities, and relationships to become truer to who you are and want to be. The process takes two full days, and when completed you are given a hard and electronic copy of a LifePlan manual.

The people who complete LifePlans are usually those looking at their next step in life:

 

-Baby Boomers looking to have a meaningful life in retirement

-Recent college grads hoping to make a career choice

-High school juniors and seniors trying to pick a college

-Employers pouring into their people as part of their professional development.

 

LifePlan provides one of the most important aspects to life that anyone (people or organizations) desire — clarity. LifePlan participants leave the process knowing who they are, what they’re meant to do, and what they need to start working on to get there.

If you are needing a little clarity about the next phase of your life, contact me today.

The Goddard School

OneHope

LifePlan

Global Media Outreach

StratOp

Christian Vision North America

Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church

Atlantic Christian Academy

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