The First Hour Of The Day

What do you do with the first waking hour of your day? Do you just try to get awake? Do you pray? Study (God’s word or anything else)? Exercise? Plan? If you study the lives of folks who have lead or are leading well in any area of life: business, politics, faith, or relationships, you find a common thread among most of them: they start the day strong. That start includes planning, prayer, and physical care. (I’m not generally an alliteration person, but it seemed to fit in this case.)

Planning first gives us the opportunity to consider what is most important in the short term: today and this week, and in the long term: this month and beyond. Steven Covey referred to it as “sharpening the saw.” I like this image, because I saw it put into action literally during my years working as a carpenter. Frank Fairman, my immediate boss during that time, always sat down at the start of each day and sharpened the blades on the circular saws we would be using that day. It would take about fifteen minutes, and he would always say that we would save much more than that during the day as we cut boards, because the saws would cut cleaner, faster and straighter. Without a doubt, when we start the day with planning, our days will be more effective. Even when those unexpected interruptions come, and perhaps particularly when they come, having taken the time to plan–and include margin–will make a major difference in our ability to handle and overcome them, and in living days that seem “cleaner, faster and straighter.”

Whether we plan then pray or pray then plan, the two actions go together for those of us who lead by following Jesus first. Prayer either guides our planning, or it takes what we’ve planned and filters it through the lens of God’s perspective. Either way it confirms or modifies what is truly important in our lives, and reminds us that if what we are planning to do is going to have ultimate significance it needs to flow from God’s guidance in our lives, rather than simply our own wisdom. When my life seems to be frazzled or disorganized, or just not as effective as I know it can be, I always pause and ask, “Am I praying and planning?” Generally, either one or both of those aspects of my life is out of alignment at those moments, and I need to put them back into the first hour of my days.

Physical care is one of those aspects of life that many consider a “luxury,” for which they don’t have time.  We say, “I’d exercise if I had time, but who has time for that?” Or “I know I need to eat better, but I don’t have time to PLAN what I eat.” Most of us have heard the saying, “Why is there never enough time to do it right, but always enough time to do it over?” The question applies both to the matter of what we do with the first hour of the day, and with whether we exercise physical care in our lives or we don’t. Planning and prayer ensure not only that we will be more likely to do things right, but that we do the right things in the first place. The aspects of physical care I mentioned: exercise and eating well, are things we either do right, or we will eventually “do over” in the sense of needing to lose weight, take medication, etc… In my experience, when I invest time at the start of the day to exercise (either before or after I plan and pray), and at the start of the week to plan what I’m going to eat (and do this with Nancy) my overall life is much healthier.

You may be thinking: That all sounds like a lot of work! Yes, it is. But as we’ve been saying all along leading is work. It’s hard to be effective leaders and will cost us making great efforts to be get there. But the cost of being ineffective leaders is far great for our families, our businesses, our churches, or whatever area of life we lead. Self-leadership is the beginning of all effective leadership. That’s why the first hour of the day is so important!

Here’s to leading better, starting with the first hour of the day–today!

The Unexamined Life…

Thousands of years ago Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” His words related to his decision to end his life rather than remain in prison where he would not be able to reflect and consider all the facets of life. I have used his quotes many times in my life simply to remind myself that if I don’t stop to reflect on what is happening in and around my life, I will miss out on many times to grow as a person and leader.

This past weekend was a tremendous time of celebration at New Life Christian Ministries. As I noted in a post last week, I have never been good at pausing to celebrate the goodness of God, the “wins” of life, and the milestones reached along life’s way. This past weekend was a major step forward in that area for me, as we stopped on Friday evening–ALL evening–to celebrate God, each other, and what God has done in our fifteen years together as New Life. It was great to pause and remember the amazing sequence of events that brought New Life to existence, how God used a couple of people to increase my faith so Nancy, the girls and I would take the step of starting New Life. It was great to remember how many people came along side us from day one, and to see the hundreds of different people God has used to see that New Life has continued to not only exist, but thrive.

I am writing this post on the evening of July 4th. Nancy and I have taken most of the day since Abby left this morning to pause and celebrate what God has done in our lives and particularly what He did through the weekend. The community fireworks display we provided as the “cap” on the celebration weekend proved to surpass all of our expectations. People from the community gathered in large numbers to watch the display. Our parking lot and property were full for the event as more than 1,000 people joined us. I’m told the parking lot of the local primary center was full and that people lined Knoch road and another small business’ parking lot for the event. Everyone I saw was enthusiastic about the opportunity to pause and celebrate together.

I must remember this moment of examination on taking the time to celebrate, because it has helped me to see that celebrating is a great gift and blessing in life. Thanks to all who served in anyway at New Life’s 15th anniversary celebration. Thanks to all who participated in any way. Thank for helping me to realize once again that pausing to celebrate is one of the ways life is made richer and more meaningful. As I pause on a regular basis to examine my life, I’m going to remember to ask, “When was the last time I stopped to celebrate what God is doing in my life and in the lives of those around me?

Here’s to leading better, by pausing to examine our lives and learning from that examination–today!

Leading In A “Free” Society

Having traveled to serve Jesus in several “closed” or communistic societies, I am aware of some of the differences between leading in a “free” society and a closed one. On this 240th birthday of the United States of America, I am grateful to God for living in the land of the free and the home of the brave. I am also aware that in my lifetime, 59 short years, this society has moved “forward” in its freedoms in ways not many could have anticipated when I was born. I’m not pining for the “good old days” as I write this post, nor do I miss the America I grew up in as I have seen on many signs and posters recently. I do miss certain aspects of that America, as I’m sure most people miss certain aspects of the world the way it was when they were children, or at least the world they way they remember it.

What has changed the most in my lifetime, and what matters most significantly for those of us living and leading in the free society known as the United States of America is the disdain for “absolute truth” and the increasing bias against those who ascribe to the belief that the basis for truth is the God of the Judaeo-Christian Bible. So long as we agree with our culture’s bias against absolute truth, and the idea that everyone’s ideas are equally as valid (or invalid?) as everyone else’s we are fine. No one bothers us much if we agree to “tolerate” everyone and agree that their beliefs are “right.” The problem with that way of thinking is how the words tolerate and right are being defined these days. When I was a child to tolerate a person or idea meant to acknowledge the person or idea, and to agree to let that person or idea coexist with me. It did not mean that I agreed with the person’s view points, or that I accepted the idea. In fact, Aristotle (who was around a little while before me!) said, “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”

It is becoming increasingly true that if you and I hold to a Christian perspective as a leader, both we and our views will be considered intolerant and even hateful. I have dedicated my adult life to learning, living and teaching the biblical concept of speaking the truth in love. That requires a body of truth to learn, live and teach, and an understanding of love as an action– specifically a self-giving preference for the good of others–rather than mere feelings. The challenge in leading from a truth in love perspective in this particular free society at this particular moment in history is that many, and particularly many among the intellectual and political establishment have forgotten the historical basis for the United States of America. The framers of the Constitution and those who led in the first generation of the United States of America, are often portrayed as deists who acknowledged a god, but feared the establishment of the biblical God as the official deity of our nation. Any historian who has actually studied the words of those early American leaders knows that they believed in absolute truth, in an absolute Source of that truth, and that this nation could not endure without the application of truth and the benevolence of God.

So what are we to do as leaders in this free society known as the United States of America as it becomes increasingly obvious that to hold to these “traditional” views of truth is considered, intolerant, out of touch, and even “evil”? We must remember our heritage. We have long held that while we may not agree with a word another American says, we will defend to the death that American’s right to say it. Of course, that right does not extend to hate speech, but we must be clear that it is not hateful for a person to speak the truth in love, even if we disagree with what truth and love are. When I say that a certain action is a sin, for example, and I say that out of a genuine concern for the welfare of the sinner, every fiber of American history supports me in that endeavor.

To be clear Christians or those who claim to be Christians have not always spoken the truth in love as is our mandate from the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 4. We are rightly called “haters” if we condemn those for whom Jesus died, because they are living in sin. After all, as we know ALL of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. I have often been ashamed of those in the Christian community who have spoken the truth in a tone that makes it clear that love is the farthest action from the speaker’s mind and heart. As leaders who bear the name of Jesus in this society, we must be absolutely clear that we always speak from the position of being forgiven sinners, and not as those who have somehow moved passed our own imperfections.

As we move deeper and deeper into the 21st century, to be a Christian leader in the USA is going to mean becoming more and more loving and gracious even as we become bolder in speaking the truth. We must not yell, stomp our feet, or demand that people hear us. Our words and our actions must reflect the humility of our ultimate leader, Jesus Christ. I have found that when people disagree vehemently with my position as soon as they find out I am a Christian, they are reacting to the caricature of what they think I am rather than who I am. As I listen to their perspective and share mine calmly, but confidently, I have found that I am often afforded a hearing. Some folks have changed their perspective of truth. Many more have not, but even those who have not have walked away from the conversation recognizing that not all Christians are haters.

We often say that as Jesus’ followers we are to hate the sin and love the sinner. That is true, but quite difficult to pull of as redeemed sinners ourselves. The challenge is that we tend to extremes. Sometimes forgiven sinners assume we have no right to challenge the sins of others. As leaders we must challenge sin, while remembering that we are still prone to it ourselves, and therefore must be gracious as we speak the truth. The other extreme is far more damaging and must be avoided at all costs: self-righteousness. Jesus condemned the self-righteousness of the Pharisees of His day as vehemently as he ever condemned anything. He called the Pharisees hypocrites, a common term used today in reference to all Christians. We must acknowledge that at some level we ARE all hypocrites. Our words and our actions don’t line up 100%. In those moments we must point to Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, noting that while we are not perfect, He was, and we are offering His truth in love in order to preserve the peace, purity and unity of our society.

I love being a citizen of the United States of America. She is still a great nation, one of the greatest nations on the planet. As all human institutions, she is flawed, and those of us who serve as leaders, who also serve Jesus have contributed to those flaws when we have remained silent as the truth has been challenged, or when we have spoken self-righteously as we have stood up for the truth. We risk irrelevance as leaders in this society when we do either. As Carl Shurz said in response to a senator from Wisconsin, who had said, “My country right or wrong,”  during a debate in 1872: “In one sense I say so too. My country; and my country is the great American Republic. My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.” We must always be the ones to keep America right, and when she is wrong the ones to set her right.” This is increasingly challenging in an era when there is considered to be no right or wrong. Even so, we must lead from the truth, because there IS truth, and He is also the way and the life!

Here’s to leading better by speaking the truth in love–today!

Margin…

I’ve already mentioned margin in a couple of previous posts, but today and tomorrow I want to devote the entire posts to this important concept. Margin at its simplest means leaving extra room when we budget our time and money, so we’ll have some extra when we need it. Most Americans are all too aware of what it’s like to have margin in neither–to live paycheck to paycheck, and day to day without much of a plan for how to provide margin in either bank accounts or calendars. By definition if we are going to lead we must be different than most Americans when it comes to margin. We must budget both our time and our money intentionally, because if we don’t plan our time someone else will, and as John Maxwell has said, “If you don’t tell your money where to go, you’ll wonder where it went. Leaders need margin if for no other reason than to have more time to think and more resources to apply to leadership opportunities.

I want to be extremely practical with these posts, and not just theorize about what it might look like to put some margin into our calendars and bank accounts. While I learned a long time ago that there is no one “right” way to do most things, particularly when it comes to something as individualized as planning the use of one’s time and money, so I will provide examples today and tomorrow describing what has worked for me. These will not be prescriptions of what will necessarily work for you. I have found quite often that when I read another’s examples of how he or she does something, while it might not fit me exactly, it’s a helpful place to start, rather than totally reinventing the wheel.

For the remainder of this post, let’s consider budgeting money. While I have studied just about every financial planning process out there with a Christian slant, Nancy and I have found that Joseph Sangl’s simple formula I-O=EZ proves quite helpful. The letters in the formula stand for I=Income; O=Outflow; EZ=Exactly Zero. In other words if you add up all your sources of income over a specific period: a week, every two weeks, each month, or whatever your pay periods happen to be, and then subtract all of your outflows over the same period, they need to EQUAL exactly zero. Remember that the outflows include giving and saving, along with all of the typical expenditures and commitments you have made with your money. I like the 10/10/80 “rule” as a guideline for how to disburse our income. The first 10 represents the percentage we give, the second 10 represents the percentage we save, and the 80 represents the percentage devoted to paying all the rest of the bills.

The first time Nancy and I put a budget together and got serious about following it we were surprised by two things: 1) John Maxwell was right! We didn’t realize how much money we were spending that we didn’t know we were spending. 2) Including EVERYTHING in the Outflow area is both crucial and challenging. It’s crucial, because if you don’t know exactly how much you are spending, you won’t be able to balance your budget (or spending plan, as I like to call it!). It’s challenging because the first several months we put together our spending plan, we had to keep adjusting the totals, because we forgot things. We forgot what we call the “1/12 items.” 1/12 items are bills that come due once a year. If you put aside 1/12 of the amount each month, then when the annual bill comes due, you will have the amount you need. A couple examples of 1/12 bills in our lives are life insurance and Christmas presents. Nancy and I each have a life insurance policy that comes due once a year. We simply divide the total cost by 12 and put that amount in a special checking account each month. Then when it comes due, we write a check from that account. We have a Christmas savings account, because we want to have money to buy Christmas presents, and since Christmas is always on December 25th, we start saving the first week of November the year BEFORE the Christmas for which we’re saving. We put $50 in the bank every two weeks (now that we get paid every other week), and then at the end of October we have $1,200 to spend on Christmas. We usually don’t spend that much, so we donate the rest to a charity such as Samaritan’s Purse. We remembered the Christmas 1/12 expenditure several years ago, and it’s been fun to look forward to buying Christmas presents and knowing we won’t be paying for Christmas into the following year.

Nancy and I also found out that our original outflow number was larger than our income. When that happens there are only two ways to balance the equation: add more income or subtract expenses. It’s simpler (not necessarily easier) to subtract expenses. Nancy and I found that we had some “fat” in our spending plan so we started cutting there. We also realized that our savings in various areas are the MARGIN that we’ve been talking about in this post. When we have an emergency fund, (which we do, now!) and an emergency comes up, such as an expensive car repair, or a root canal, or any true emergency, we have money to pay for it. That way we don’t find ourselves using a credit card to pay for emergencies, putting us back into a cycle of debt.

At this time we’ve been working our budget for years, so we’ve been able to eliminate all debt with the exception of the remainder of our home mortgage, and we have developed several additional “margin” accounts. We have an appliance replacement fund, a car replacement fund, and a major repair fund to which we contribute every month. That way when the stove stops working, or the roof needs to be replaced down the road, or we want to buy a new couch, or replace a car we have the money to do so. What we have found is that by putting $25 or $50 away each month in these various funds, the margin increases fairly quickly. Thankfully, a roof only needs to be replaced every thirty years, and a stove every 10-15 years. If you put these replacement funds in the Outflow portion of your budget the money will be there when those eventualities become realities.

If you’re thinking: I could never do all that! The truth is all of us can take a next step from where we are. Nancy and I didn’t realize that we would ever be at place to consider all these eventualities when we first started using the I-O=EZ formula, but what we noticed within a few months was we started to have a little margin. It wasn’t much, but it was there. Over the years the margin has grown. We still don’t have a great deal of day-to-day margin, but we know that a blown transmission, or a broken dishwasher is no longer going to blow our budget. We also know that when a giving opportunity comes up and we believe God is calling us to give to it, we are able to say, “Yes!” far more often than we used to be able to do. That’s a great blessing.

The key is: the younger you are when you start to develop margin in your finances, by developing a workable spending plan and sticking with it over time, the sooner you will have margin and the more margin you will have. As the old saying goes, “The best time to plant an oak tree is fifty years ago. The second best time is today.”

Here’s to leading better by creating or using a spending plan to create or increase margin in our finances–today!

Taking Time To Celebrate…

This weekend we’ll be celebrating the 15th anniversary of New Life Christian Ministries, the church Nancy and I planted in April of 2001. While the anniversary was officially a couple of months ago, I suggested to our leadership team that we wait until summer to celebrate, because I have been notoriously bad at taking time to celebrate the wins over the years and I knew we needed to make a big deal about what God has done among us. In the past it’s always been, “Wow! Look at what God has been doing among us. Okay, let’s keep going!” Over the years, we’ve taken a moment to mention that it was the 1st, 2nd, 5th, 10th anniversary as the moments came and went. We said thanks to God for all He’s done, but we haven’t taken the time for an appropriate celebration of much of anything along the way.

We did have a grand opening when we moved into our “stage one” building at 139 Knoch Road, Saxonburg, PA back in 2013, but even as we were celebrating my mind was thinking about “stage two,” and “stage three.” This time it’s going to be different. We’re having a pig roast on Friday evening, July 1, and more than 500 people have signed up to join in the celebration. We’ll play games together, eat together, and then we’re going to take some time to watch a video collage of many of the moments and events from our first fifteen years. After that I’m going to share a number of memories and a few hopes for the future. Then we’ll close with a time of prayer during which we’ll praise God for who He is, and thank Him for all He has done.

We’re following Friday, with a weekend of “regular” worship gatherings on Saturday at 6:30 pm, and Sunday at 8:30, 10:00 and 11:30 am, but we’re holding them outside as we used to do in the summer months when our normal worship space was the local school and we could only gather at the church property during the warmer months. Then on Sunday night we’ve invited the community to join us for a professional fireworks display, honoring our country and celebrating the many blessings we have as Jesus’ followers.

I share this with you for two reasons: 1) If you live in the Saxonburg area, we’d love to have you join us for any or all of these celebrations! and 2) If you are a leader, I exhort you to take time on a regular basis to celebrate the wins, both small and large, because it’s far too easy to just keep the pedal to the metal and keep barreling forward. Not that we don’t all want to make progress as leaders–we do. It’s just that sometimes we need to stop, take a breath and say, “Thank you!” to God, to those who have joined us on the journey and who have helped make the wins happen. It also helps us remember why we exist and that a major part of our life together is celebrating the journey. The people you lead will thank you for making the commitment to celebrate. Your team’s morale will increase, and life will just be better. I wish I knew this from more consistent experience of celebrating myself, but in those relatively few times when we have paused to celebrate, I’ve always been reminded how important it is to make celebrating a priority. Starting this Friday, I’m going to do it more often.

Let’s lead better by taking time to pause and celebrate–today!

That’s Why We Play The Games

As leaders, we sometimes think that the statistics “prove” a certain thing is going to happen or not happen, so we forget there is always a human factor and often a God factor involved when it comes to the actual playing out of a particular situation. For example, on Sunday evening my brother, Kenn, his wife, Colleen, and Nancy and I went to the Pittsburgh Pirates’ game versus the Los Angeles Dodgers. On paper, they didn’t even need to play the game. Clayton Kershaw was pitching for the Dodgers. He has been arguably the best pitcher in all of baseball over the past several seasons, and his statistics going into Sunday evening’s game were spectacular. He was leading the majors in several important pitching categories and his 11-1 won/loss record along with his ERA of 1.59 made him seem untouchable. Add to that the Pirates were sending Chad Kuhl, a rookie making his major league debut, to the mound and it seemed highly improbable, if not impossible, that the Pirates would win the game.

Kenn and I talked about the statistics, and the odds of the Pirates winning a third straight game over the Dodgers, who had come into PNC park riding a six-game winning streak, while the Pirates had forgotten how to win during the month of June. It didn’t look hopeful, but I turned to Kenn and said, “That’s why they play the games.” In other words: statistics don’t lie, but sometimes individuals and teams overcome the statistics to win. That’s exactly what the Pirates did on Sunday night. Kershaw gave up four runs in one inning, something he had not done in a long time. Chad Kuhl was good enough to make it through five innings with a 4-3 lead over the Dodgers, even though it took him making a play at home plate for the third out of the inning after he had thrown a wild pitch with a runner on third!

In another unlikely scenario the Pirates’ relief pitchers blanked the Dodgers for the final four innings to preserve the victory for Kuhl. (Imagine someday, when Kuhl tells his grandchildren that he face Clayton Kershaw in his prime, in his major league debut, and WON!)  I love baseball, and even though the Pirates have struggled mightily over the past several weeks, I love how often baseball offers us leadership lessons. I don’t quote Woody Allen often, but one of my favorite quotes attributed to Allen is, “90% of life is just showing up.” How true! The Pirates showed up on Sunday night. They didn’t care that Kershaw was on the mound, or that most people thought they didn’t have a chance of beating him. The game was on the schedule, so they showed up and played. They overcame the statistics and won. That IS why they play the games.

What “game” do you need to “play” tomorrow that doesn’t offer a likely prospect of “winning”? Remember that if you just show up, your odds of winning increase dramatically! Know that if you persevere day after day after day as a leader, you will often win over time, because perseverance is not a common quality, but it is a necessary one for leaders. I encourage you to take the statistics seriously, because they’re often quite helpful in preparing for life’s endeavors. Just don’t let the statistics convince you that there’s no point in playing the game, because on any given day the team that wins may NOT be the team with the better statistics!

Here’s to leading better by showing up–today!

Leaders Go First!

I once listened to a leadership podcast by Andy Stanley titled “Leaders Go First!” In the talk Andy pointed out that the leader isn’t always the smartest person in the room, or the most creative one. Often the leader is just the one who goes first. He offered the illustration of a group of children riding bicycles “off road.” The group comes to the crest of a hill, a very steep hill. Everyone looks at each other wondering, “Is it safe? Can we make it to the bottom of the hill without getting hurt? Which route would be the best?” As all these questions and more bounce through everyone’s minds, one member of the group let’s out a whoop and heads down the hill. After a ride that may have been exhilarating, terrifying or both, the rider looks back to the rest of the group from the bottom of the hill and pumps both fists in the air. That rider has just become the leader of the group! The next time a danger, challenge, or opportunity comes to the group, they will look to their leader for permission, for direction, for whether to attempt to overcome the danger, or to take on the challenge.

I’ve found Stanley’s assessment to be true time and time again in my life. I remember a time nearly four decades ago when I worked a part-time job as a carpenter. I had started working evenings and Saturdays with Nancy’s cousin Frank, who already held a full-time job as the foreman of his dad’s construction crew. They built new homes and did remodeling Monday to Friday. Frank also worked in the evenings and on Saturdays during the summer months to make extra money. He had taken me on as a third member of his “crew.” I was in my second summer of working with Frank and John. I had also started working full-time with Frank’s dad that summer during my break from college, so I had gained sufficient skills for the task that was before us on that particular Saturday morning: removing an old roof down to the rafters, replacing the rotted sheeting boards with plywood, covering it with felt (tar paper), and then laying new shingles.

The house was small, and the task of removing one half of the old roof and getting it to the point of being water tight, meaning to the point that it had plywood and felt covering it would likely only take a few hours. The challenge was the weather. As we got up on the roof that morning with mattocks in hand (The plan was simply to drive our mattocks through the old, rotted shingles and sheeting in order to remove them as quickly as possible, and then replace them with the plywood, felt and shingles.), the sky looked ominous. It was about nine in the morning. The weather forecast called for afternoon rain, but the morning would have only “scattered showers.” We knew we couldn’t get the whole roof done that Saturday. We weren’t sure we could even finish half of it completely. The goal was to get half of the roof “felted under,” meaning water tight. This would ensure that when it did rain, the house would not be damaged until we could complete the job.

The three of us stood looking up at the sky and considering what to do. The clouds to the west were gray and threatening. If felt like rain. At the same time, we knew that to do nothing would put us behind schedule, and we only worked this job on Saturdays and evenings. Frank had other work lined up for us, so delays meant frustrated potential customers, and smaller paychecks for us. The possibility existed that the rain would come before the roof was felted under, or it could miss us completely.  The roof was already leaking. That’s why the homeowner had called Frank in the first place. He had water marks on his ceilings, which meant the rain was coming through the roof and pooling in places on the ceiling. Frank had determined the sheeting was rotten by inspecting the roof from the outside–by walking on it, and from the inside–through a visual inspection from the attic. What should we do?

I drove the mattock through a section of the roof. It pulled away easily. It wasn’t going to take long to remove the old stuff. AND I had just become the leader of the group for that day! The three of us worked quickly, exposing one half of the roof to the elements. John started handing us plywood, and cutting the end pieces to fit. Frank and I nailed furiously. As we completed the plywood it started to rain softly. We quickly laid the felt, making sure it was nailed securely, and lapping the top piece over the peak of the roof to ensure that no rain could enter. We got off the roof, gathered our tools into the truck and jumped in the cab. A few minutes later we were sitting through a downpour. It rained harder and harder, but the half of the roof where we had just worked was more secure from the elements than the other half. John, who always called me “Sonny” said, “Well, Sonny. Looks like you were lucky.” Frank saw it differently. He was never one for giving compliments, but I noticed that he started relying on my opinion more when we needed to make decisions. He was still the boss, but my leadership had risen in his eyes. He started giving me more opportunities to make decisions, to lead.

It takes courage to go first. Courage is the quality of a leader that causes him or her to go first. There’s a difference between courage and recklessness. That day on the roof I took a calculated risk. I had faith in our crew. I knew we could get the roof to a point of being water tight in a couple of hours if we worked as hard as we could, and I knew we were especially motivated that morning. I knew the roof was already leaking, so even if we only got the plywood on the roof it would turn nearly as much water as the roof was currently. I also knew I would work in the rain until the roof was watertight if need be and so would Frank and John. Exercising leadership in that moment wasn’t a big risk, but going first showed confidence in myself and the team.

The next time you have a challenge before you, do you want to be the leader? Do you want to have the responsibility of stepping into the unknown and taking the risk no one else is ready to take? Remember, the difference between courage and recklessness. Courage moves people and groups to accomplish more than they would ever be able to do without it. Recklessness is likely to get someone hurt, or to cause unnecessary damage to people or property. Taking a courageous first step can sometimes lead to you or someone getting hurt, too. After all, leadership does come with those kinds of costs. The difference is when leaders exercise courage they are seeking to take the group to a new level whether of experience, expertise or accomplishment, while the reckless person is just looking for the next thrill.

Going first becomes easier over time. Through knowledge and experience we come to know the difference between courage and recklessness. We come to understand that we will nearly always regret NOT going first when opportunities come, more than we’ll regret the consequences of going first. Leaders are much more “afraid” of missing opportunities than of failing. After all when we fail, we can make adjustments, which lead to success. But when we miss an opportunity, it is often gone forever.

Here’s to leading better by going first–today!

Leadership Lessons I Learned From My Dad

Tomorrow is Father’s Day, so I thought I’d run a two day “series” on Leadership Lessons I Learned From My Dad. While my dad was an angry man most of his life, and not a follower of Jesus until just a couple years before he died, he was a man of integrity. If Clyde Marshall told you he would be somewhere, you could guarantee he would be there at least five and more likely fifteen minutes before the appointed time. If he told you he would do something, he would do it unless there was no way it was humanly possible. Dad expected no less from his four sons. Lying was never tolerated under his roof. Some people will tell you stories about their parents telling them that telling the truth was always best, that there would be less punishment for telling the truth about doing something wrong than lying about it. With my dad, it was always understood that there was no point in lying. He would find out and you would regret it. So, the first leadership lesson I learned from my dad was: Be a person of your word, a person of integrity.

It’s a common practice in business these days to impress customers by “under promising and over delivering.” With my dad there was never a need for a promise, because he was always going to deliver more than was required of him. I remember many times when my I would be introduced to one of my dad’s co-workers, and whether it was a “boss,” a peer, or someone dad was just working with as part of his daily routine in the company, every person said, “No one works harder than your dad.” They would usually add something about doing excellent work as well as working hard. The second leadership lesson I learned from my dad was: Work hard and work well.

I remember once when I was a teenager and had a job as a nurse’s aide at a local nursing home. It was between high school and college and would only last for four months. I knew I was going to be trying out for the basketball team at college, so I had started working out after a long lay-off from a daily workout routine in order to make up for lost time. I had overdone it with sit-ups during that first workout and when I woke up the next morning, as I bent forward to get out of bed, I felt sharp pain EVERYWHERE in my abdomen. I decided to stay home, because there was no way I would be able to work with pain like that. About ten minutes after I was supposed to be up, my dad who was home for some reason, (which wasn’t typical) shouted upstairs, “I thought you had work today.”

I shouted back, “I’m not feeling well.” He asked me what was wrong, and after several shouts back and forth I told him that my stomach hurt too bad for me to drive. He told me to get dressed and he would drive me to work.

He did.

I muttered under my breath all the way there. Every time I moved for the first couple of hours I felt pain in various places in my abdomen, but as the day wore on it was just a dull ache. I had felt similar pain after two-a-day workouts on the high school football team. I realized that my dad had been right, not only COULD I go to work, but it would have set a bad precedent not to go to work. I was in pain. I wasn’t sick. I wasn’t injured. I have experienced pain many mornings since that one so long ago. In fact, I have some kind of pain just about every morning at my age. Sometimes I think of my dad, who died to this life back in 1996, and remember that pain isn’t a reason to miss work. I’m grateful that my dad set the example of working hard and working well, and passed it on to me. I’m sure there have been hundreds of times over the years when his influence consciously or sub-consciously got me out of bed, or through a crisis, or to the finish line of a project, because working hard and working well are a given for Clyde Marshall’s sons.

I hope you had a dad who showed you some leadership lessons early in life. We live in a culture where dads are often absent either physically or emotionally. My dad was gone due to his work during much of my growing up. He often left for a week or two at at time and travelled to other states for his job. When he was home he wasn’t usually in the greatest of moods. I have often wished that he would have been home more often, and that he would have been more “present” when he was.  As a pastor for more than three decades, I have been with many people during significant moments in their lives. One time as I stood with a woman while her husband was dying, she turned to me and said, “He loved me the best he could.” The man wasn’t known as a great husband or dad. In that instant, I thought of my own dad. He had loved me the best he could. He never told me he loved me until after my mom died. He never spent much time with me until he retired, and by then I was well into adulthood myself. Even so, I learned much from him for which I am grateful. Tomorrow, I’ll offer a couple more leadership lessons from dad.

Until then, I hope if your dad is still around that you’ll take the time to thank him for what he has taught you that has made you a better leader. If he isn’t around, because he has died to this life, thank God for what you remember of him that was good, and kind and loving. If your dad has never been there for you, or even hurt you when he was, take a moment and forgive him, and put yourself in the hands of the perfect, loving and heavenly Father. I don’t write those words lightly, because I have no idea what it is like to never have had a dad at all, or to have one who hurt me consistently. I do know what it was like to have a dad who wasn’t often there for me, and who modeled inappropriate anger for as long as I can remember. The years have softened my memories and I am grateful that Clyde Marshall lived a life of integrity and diligent work, that he loved my mom, my brothers and me the best he could, and that one day I will see him again, and both of us will finally be all we were created to be by our loving Heavenly Father.

Here’s to leading better, by learning from our dad’s (or our Heavenly Father)–today!

Timing…Closer To Home

In yesterday’s post, I introduced John Maxwell’s four possible scenarios when it comes to timing and a leader introducing new ideas: a wrong idea at the wrong time equals disaster; a wrong idea at the right time is a mistake; a right idea at the wrong time equals non-acceptance; and a right idea at the right time equals success. Today, let’s take a look at that paradigm in our lives when it comes to something as simple as the timing of taking a vacation. Nancy and I got home on Monday evening after five days away on vacation. While the timing had been good for taking five days away from work, when I went out to the yard to check on the strawberries and the weeds–yes, to check on the weeds–I realized that our timing had not been the best for going away for five days from home. When we left last Wednesday afternoon, I knew the strawberries were getting ripe and that the weed situation needed attention in our blueberry enclosure and more so in our raspberry patch, in fact the raspberry patch had been next on my weeding schedule.

You may be thinking what does this have to do with leadership and timing? Everything! In last Saturday’s post titled The Importance of Rest, I noted the importance of taking time away on a regular basis for rest and renewal. Vacation is definitely part of that. While everyone receives differing amounts of vacation from their employers, it’s important to use whatever time we have available in our overall plan of rest and renewal, and to do so when the timing is the best for us. Nancy and I needed to visit our daughters, and we needed some time away. Since June 8-13 included Abby’s birthday (Abby is our older daughter) and Emmy (Emmy is our younger daughter) had recently moved to South Carolina, we thought it would be a good time to visit them, and since it was a good time for us to be away from our work at the church we went.

As I walked out to the strawberry, raspberry and blueberry patches I realized that our timing may NOT have been the best overall timing for a vacation. Nancy and I gave up on growing a big vegetable garden a couple of years ago, because I tend to take mission trips in the middle of the summer and when I come back the weeds have usually taken over the garden. Even at other times throughout the summer, we just can’t commit the time necessary to keep a garden doing well. Since then we have focused on our fruit bushes and a few apple trees. For example, I built a blueberry enclosure a couple summers ago and we were amazed to see the increase in the yield of the blueberry bushes once the birds couldn’t eat most of the berries. We planted strawberries outside the perimeter of the enclosure, and a handful of raspberry bushes given to us by some friends eight years ago have multiplied into a sizable raspberry patch.

When I walked out to take a look at each of them on Monday evening, the weeds were taller than the raspberry bushes. (Obviously, that didn’t happen in five days, since the raspberry bushes are three to four feet tall!) We have weeds about 6-10 inches tall throughout the blueberry enclosure. (No big deal, since I can clear those in about an hour.) But the strawberries had mostly ripened past the point of being useable or were bug infested. (That could have been avoided had we been home.) I told Nancy that June 8-13 is NOT the best timing for going on vacation from a standpoint of our fruit trees and bushes. I have been going out in the mornings on Mondays through Saturdays to pull weeds (in lieu of working out) and listen to my Bible on YouVersion, and then books on Audible for about an hour to an hour and a half at sunrise. By being away from June 8-13, I missed out on five to ten hours of pulling weeds. Had I been home the raspberry patch would have been weed free, since it was next on my list to weed when we left, as would the blueberries. In addition, I had staked up one of our apple trees, which has a weaker root system for some reason, and one of the stakes had broken while we were away, so the apple tree was leaning at a 45 degree angle. I would’ve caught that sooner had I been home. AND Nancy and I would have had fresh strawberries to eat at least three days during that time!

So what am I saying, that it was a bad idea to go on vacation? No, I’m saying it wasn’t the best timing to go on vacation. Had we gone a couple of weeks sooner, the strawberries would not have been ready to eat while we were gone, since that is a short window of time–basically the first two to three weeks in June. The weeds would still have been growing, but I would’ve just cleared the blueberry area of weeds, and the weeds around the raspberries would have been small, because of my “schedule” for weeding. I mentioned in yesterday’s post that I am extroverted, intuitive and spontaneous, so good timing isn’t a natural strength for me. In order to be better at it I need help from others AND I need to take better notes. Vacations and retreats are important–I would say vital–to a leader’s overall health and well-being. Good timing for taking them means more effective leadership over the long haul. While my goal is not to turn us all into obsessive-compulsive maniacs when it comes to timing in life, I am finally realizing at the age of 59 that good timing is a vital part of good leadership. Whether it’s when to go on vacation, or how to plan my work schedule, or how often I need to invest time in being with Nancy, knowing the best times to carry out each will mean better timing and good ideas carried out at the right time equal success!

Here’s to planning better so our timing will be better, so we will lead better–today!

Timing…

Many years ago I heard John Maxwell talk about timing as a key in whether our leadership succeeds or fails. He spoke about how the timing of a particular idea or action makes all the difference. He said that the wrong idea at the wrong time brings disaster. The wrong idea at the right time is a mistake. The right idea at the wrong time leads to non-acceptances, but the right idea at the right time leads to success. I have always remembered those four possibilities:  wrong idea-wrong time; wrong idea-right time; right idea-wrong time; and right idea-wrong time, and have lived through their reality again and again.

Thankfully, I have avoided making a ton of wrong idea-wrong time decisions over the years, but a couple come to mind, and Maxwell was 100% correct. One time I introduced contemporary worship at both of the worship services in a church that had been worshipping in a traditional style for nearly 200 years. One week we had two traditional services. The next week we had two contemporary services. It was the wrong idea at the wrong time. Talk about a disaster. I lived to regroup and move forward, but not without losing a tremendous amount of leadership credibility for a period of time. Had that been one of my first leadership decisions in that church it could have been my last. Wrong decision +Wrong time = Disaster!

I have made many wrong decisions at the right time over the years at home, at church, and in other organizations with whom I have volunteered or worked. By that I mean I had been in the leadership situation for long enough and had made enough right decisions at the right time to have developed leadership capital, which John Maxwell refers to as having “change in your pocket.” That meant the wrong decision was at the right time, because I used up some of the “change,” and still had plenty left.so did not end my leadership tenure. An example of a wrong idea at the right time in my home, was the time I decided we ought to buy a time-share vacation plan a few years after we got married. It was the wrong decision for Nancy and me, but it was at the right time, because we hadn’t yet started our family, and Nancy and I were both working. That meant we had the disposable income to pay for the time share. After a few years we realized that we were not going to be able to afford to use the time share, so we sold it for less than we paid for it.  Wrong decision + Right time = Mistake.

I have made so many right decisions at the wrong time over the years, that I could write a book about it. Since I am extremely extroverted, intuitive and spontaneous, I tend to adopt and implement new ideas quickly. I am often right about the need to adopt the new ideas. The problem is I don’t always think through the process necessary to implement the idea, or the consequences of adopting the new idea on the overall system involved, whether our family, the church I serve, or a volunteer organization of which I’m a part. For example, I have often heard about a new program for children, youth, evangelism or you name it, and I can see right away that it is going to be helpful and impact people for God’s glory. But sometimes I haven’t thought about the financial impact, or the number of volunteers needed to implement it, or its long-term sustainability. If I had a dollar for every time I have rolled out a new idea, which was a GOOD, new idea to a leadership team, or a church board, or my family and heard, “Are you crazy?” Or at least, “There’s no way! I would be a much wealthier man. Right idea + Wrong time = Non-Acceptance.

Finally, I have experienced the joy of coming up with the right idea at the right time and experienced success often enough to have been given the opportunity to continue to lead when I have made the other three types of decisions! The thing I would say that has happened over the years, as I have matured is that I have come to realize the importance of not only having the right idea, but also the right timing to implement it more and more. I have also learned that it is so much easier to come up with the right idea and the right timing collaboratively than it is on my own. One of the greatest joys of my life at work right now is working with the “Lead Team” at New Life. The Lead Team consists of four of us who are on staff at New Life. We meet every two weeks to consider what God is leading us to do in the big picture of New Life. We evaluate what we’re already doing, and consider what we need to do that we’re not doing effectively or at all right now. The biggest blessing of being part of the team is that together we come up with much better ideas AND better timing for implementation that I was ever able to do on my own. For example, New Life has been growing at a rather rapid rate for the past several years, so last year the Lead Team talked and prayed about adding a fourth worship service at some point. Various ideas were set forward, but we eventually decided to add the service on the first weekend in 2016. This gave us time to let the church family know, to promote it through our Christmas Eve worship services which are always heavily attended. We even had the time to order better chairs for the worship center. The result? Within a few weeks we were seeing an additional 150 people per week in overall worship attendance. Right idea + Right time = Success!

I hope as you consider your “great” ideas, that even when they truly are GREAT ideas, whether at home, work, in the church or in a community group of which you are a part, that you will also consider the timing. Consider when is the best time to present the idea. Consider the response folks are likely to have to it. Anticipate the objections and be ready to respond to them. Consider the timing. Is it too soon or too late to implement your idea. Sometimes we miss windows of opportunity and they don’t reopen. At other times, the window hasn’t opened yet, and it’s a bit messy to break the window in order to get it open!

Remember, that just because you’re a leader doesn’t mean that your ideas are automatically right, or that that timing is. If you have the opportunity to run the idea past a group of trusted folks whether family members, co-workers, or others whom you trust, the end result will often be better. I’m not saying never to champion an idea that no one else sees being right, but you. I’m just saying be really sure that you’re right and then do everything you can to help others see not only that the idea is right, but that now is also the time. Because Right Idea + Right Time = SUCCESS!

Here’s to leading better by implementing the right ideas at the right time – today! (or tomorrow if the timing will be better!)