July 2016 – Chris Marshall Resources

The Three Things You Can Control

One of the biggest challenges for leaders is understanding what we can control and what we can’t. After 59 years on the planet, reading many leadership books, attending decades of schooling in and out of the classroom, and seeking to live my life fully for the vast majority of those 59 years, I’ve boiled what we can control down to three things: Our Allegiance, Our Attitude, and Our Effort. Today, we’ll focus on the overall idea of these three areas being the only matters within our control. Then on Monday, we’ll pick up with a focus on Our Allegiance; Tuesday we’ll focus on Our Attitude, and we’ll finish this little series of posts on Wednesday by focusing on Our Effort.

Here’s why I believe the three areas listed above are the only areas of life we control. While we may think we can control many other areas of life, when we examine them we find either that we can’t control them, or they fall into one of the three areas. For example, we may think we can control other people, specifically our spouses, children, parents, co-workers–particularly if they are employees, or others in our spheres of influence. The truth is we may be able to control others’ behaviors while they’re in our presence or under the influence of the paychecks we provide them, but we can’t ultimately control them if they decide to take control of their own allegiances, attitudes and efforts.

We may think we control how much money we make, or how much resource we have available to us to live our lives or carry out our work. In the short-term that may be true. But as great economic downturns throughout history have demonstrated worldly wealth can be so uncertain. What we can control when it comes to our personal resources is our allegiance to them–whether we control them or they control us, our attitude toward them–whether they’re tools or traps, and our effort in attaining them.

We may think we have control of our time. We can sit down at the start of a day, week, month, or year and plan the course we will take for each of those units of time. Not only can we do that, if we want our lives to matter as much as possible, we must do that. What we cannot do is control whether what we have planned will happen. It is true that when we have a plan, we have a much greater probability of attaining what we set out to do than if we don’t, but we can’t even control with absolute certainty whether we’ll make it through this day. Every day folks with great plans have heart attacks, get hit by busses, and find themselves impacted by random occurrences they could neither have foreseen nor controlled.

By now you’re probably seeing we have far less control in our lives than we think. I’m not making this case in order to depress us, or to tell us we can’t lead effectively, because we never know what’s going to happen next. We must lead more effectively precisely because we don’t know what is going to happen next. When we have our allegiances set on the right people and causes, when we have our attitudes aligned with our life purpose, and when we give the maximum effort to the areas of life that matter most, we’ll experience both success and significance. As you’ll see on Monday through Wednesday, as we focus on allegiance, attitude and effort, controlling these three is the leader’s basic task.

When our plans don’t work the way they thought we would, we must remember why we were living out the plan in the first place, which leads us back to allegiance. When others make purposeful attempts to upset our plans, or just blunder into our plans without an idea in the world of what they’re doing, our attitudes will make all the difference to whether we maintain our leadership or not. When roadblocks come up along the path our plan is taking us, as they surely will, our effort will make all the difference. We do control our allegiance, our attitude, and our effort. The more we focus on them, the more the rest of our lives will be ordered and effective–if not controlled–in the direction our leadership is focused.

Here’s to leading better by controlling our allegiance, our attitude and our effort-today!

(Remember, no posts on Saturday or Sunday. Have a blessed weekend! Looking forward to being with you on Monday.)

Leading or Taking a Walk?

John Maxwell popularized this leadership proverb: He who thinks he is leading, but has no one following is only taking a walk. So, are you leading or talking a walk? Whatever your leadership position, are there folks who are following you? If they are following you do you know why? Is it merely because you have the title of leader in their lives so they’re forced to follow you or pay the consequences? Do they follow you, because you have established a relationship with them that makes them want to follow you? Do they follow you, because you have sown into their lives and they have seen growth in their lives because of you?

I know that was a lot of questions. Great leaders ask themselves a lot of questions, because reflecting on who we are, what we’re doing and why we’re doing it is a basic reality for us as leaders. After all the unexamined life is not worth living, right? When it comes to leading or taking a walk, we must look to see who is following and reflect on why they are or aren’t following us on a regular basis. One of the things I realized as a leader long ago is if I want folks to follow me then I must care about them, and care about their growth. After all, positional leadership, the leadership that comes with a title such as pastor, or manager, or crew chief is the lowest level of leadership, and if that’s the only reason people are following you, then you are basically taking a walk.

If people are going to follow us, because we care about them and are feeding into their lives, then we must actually care about them and be growing ourselves. It’s all too easy in the midst of considering the “bottom line,” to forget that a leader’s true bottom line is always more than the number of widgets produced, the number of dollars in the profit column, or even the number of souls saved. As leaders the way we care for those who are following us, or leading with us, and the way we model and encourage growth are more of a lasting bottom line, even if all we are thinking about is the business or church we lead. Let me explain: one day you and I won’t be leading or taking walks any more. Our tenure as leaders is finite. If the church, or company or organization is going to thrive after our leadership ends, then we must be developing other leaders who will take our place.

That will certainly mean developing other’s skills and abilities, but it means so much more than that. If we want folks to follow us-truly follow us-then they must know we care for them as people and not just as cogs in the wheels of the machine. They must also know we are invested in them as people. That means we care about the intangibles such as their integrity and character development as well as their skill and leadership development. It isn’t either/or when it comes to these matters but both/and. Caring about the whole person and how they are getting along in life as well as how they are getting along in their roles at work is key to ensuring you will be leading and not merely taking a walk.

We are in a time of rapid growth at New Life right now, and our staff has multiplied over the past several years. That makes it a challenge for me as the lead pastor to know everyone personally and to help with their overall development as people and leaders. The truth is my role is becoming more one of leading through other leaders than it ever has. Even so, I still want everyone on the staff team to know I am there if they need me, and that I care about them, their families and their growth.

As a leader of leaders one of the best ways for me to be leading instead of taking a walk is to ensure I am continuing to grow. As a pastor, I make sure my relationship with God is growing through a daily practice of prayer and Bible reading/study. I also continue to read books and watch and listen to videos and podcasts that will sharpen my leadership. I invest time in Nancy, because I must model what I expect when it comes to family. My season of life permits me more time for all of these things than when I was the dad of small children. I take the season of life each of our staff members is in at the moment into consideration when I think about what it means to lead in his or her life. All of these considerations are aspects of what it takes to be a leader, and to ensure that I don’t turn around one day to find no one is following.

I hope you are taking the necessary time to inspect your leadership on a regular basis. Sometimes it’s as simple as asking, “Is anyone following?” If so, “Why are they following?” If not, “Why not?” As we ask and address the answers to those questions our leadership impact will grow, if we’re honest with our answers, and if we truly care about being leaders who develop followers whose own lives are healthy and growing. That type of environment is one that fosters the development of other leaders, which is a key to leading well not only in our own lives, but in the generations after us as well.

Here’s to leading better by investing care and encouragement into those who are following us–today!

Going First at Changing Direction!

I concluded yesterday’s post by asking what a leader ought to do when he or she has gone first in developing or using a new tool or process and it turns out that the innovation really wasn’t effective. The short answer is go back to what you were doing, or do something different. One of the greatest roadblocks to leadership is a failure to admit when we’ve made a bad or at least a non-helpful decision or commitment. No one likes saying, “I was wrong,” but until we learn to do that as leaders we’ll never be as effective as we could be. Because we’re human beings, we make mistakes. Those of us who go first make more mistakes, because we don’t always have the benefit of other people’s experience to guide us. While certain base-level truths guide our general decisions and actions, we all face opportunities to innovate in our lives, whether at home, work, school, or play. As I said yesterday what separates leaders from the rest of folks is leaders go first.

When we have gone first and been correct often enough, people recognize us as leaders. The challenge then becomes our tendency to move toward one of two extremes. Those who have been successful in inventing or choosing the latest innovations often enough may go to the extreme of thinking they will always make the right choice. They become reckless in their approach to leadership. At the other extreme are those who have attained a certain level of success by going first, and then say, “I don’t want to lose what I’ve built. Therefore, I’m going to maintain what I have. No more innovations.” While people seldom move to the absolute end of either extreme along the spectrum of innovation and maintenance, we do face the danger as leaders that we will tend toward one extreme or the other.

I’m the kind of leader who likes to try new things. Thankfully, I’ve learned over time that “trying” new things all the time is a sure way to lose focus and eventually to lose my effectiveness as a leader. Thanks to John Ortberg, I learned the difference between trying and training a number of years ago. Training is any concerted effort continued over time that will empower us to do something we cannot do now at a point in the future. Trying, on the other hand may be nothing more than a half-hearted effort to do something new or different. As leaders, we cannot afford the luxury of trying every new idea that comes along. I did that too often in years past. Thankfully, I ordinarily saw the idea, process, tool or whatever wasn’t working, and was willing to say, “Enough of that.” While that was an important ability, it still frustrated those around me to no end. After all, who wants to follow a leader who is charging off in four different directions at once?

The key for all of us when it comes to innovation and adopting new ideas, models, and technologies is to consider the implications of the change before we “pull the trigger.” I’m one of those folks whose tendency when it comes to pulling the trigger is to follow the sequence: fire, ready, aim. As we all know the most effective sequence is ready, aim, fire. Over the years, I’ve been blessed to be surrounded by other leaders at New Life who were better at getting ready and aiming. They have helped me to see some of my great ideas, or more properly other people’s great ideas that I wanted to adopt, were indeed, great ideas but the timing wasn’t right for us to implement them. When I’ve listened, the results have been quite effective. At times, when I’ve pushed us forward, the results were also quite effective, because the idea was right for us, and God is gracious.

Far more often, though, when I have not listened to the counsel of those around me who are good at getting ready and aiming, I’ve found myself in the position of having to say, “That didn’t work. We need to go back to what we were doing.” Or “That didn’t work. We need to try something else.” Or “That didn’t work. Let’s just bag it.” None of those are good options, because they demonstrate an initial lack of leadership. The key in those moments is not to compound an initial lack of leadership with an ongoing lack of leadership by riding a dead horse, as my Dad would have put it.

Great leaders will surround themselves with people who fill in the areas where they are deficient. My deficiency is rarely an unwillingness to adopt an innovation that will improve our effectiveness. My deficiency is “firing” before I’ve taken time to get ready and aim. Thirty years of leading has given me more than enough evidence that such an approach is seldom effective. Thankfully, as I’ve grown older, I’ve matured and God has brought a team around me that has helped me become far better in preparing before firing.

While I could offer dozens of examples of how firing on a new idea or adopting someone else’s innovation backfired and led to my having to say, “Time out. That was a bad idea,” we had a recent victory at New Life that shows what happens when the team works together to make one of my “go first” ideas a major success. As I’ve mentioned in a couple of previous posts, this is the 15th anniversary year of New Life. Back in January, I told the staff we needed to take time to celebrate this milestone, because I’ve never been good at taking time to celebrate. I said that April, which is our actual anniversary would not be a good time to celebrate, because it’s too close to Easter, and if we wanted to do anything outside the weather would be iffy.

My idea was to have the celebration coincide with Independence Day weekend, and to have fireworks as the grand finale of the weekend. Fireworks are not new. In fact, they are ancient. What would be new, was a community fireworks display had not been done in Saxonburg for decades, if ever. Eventually, the weekend planning came together, and we thought of virtually every detail, and distributed responsibilities for each detail to a particular staff member and his or her team. (When I say “we” I mean our leadership team at New Life.) The result of months of getting ready and aiming on the part of many creative and dedicated people is that Independence Day weekend was an incredible celebration. More than 1,000 people participated on our property and around the community with the fireworks finale. People left that night saying, “Wow! That was great.” The key was we had several good ideas, that were different than we had done before, and we planned them over a period of six months. Attention to detail was left to those who love attending to details, and we even added a last minute mission dinner, which was my idea, that had enough planning to be effective, and the weekend was amazing.

If you are a leader who tends to fire before you get ready and aim, know that you will find it necessary to pull the plug on many of your ideas. In those instances, please, pull the plug. It will save you and everyone else a lot of additional grief. Better yet, build a team of people who will help you get ready and aim before you fire, a team who will help you see that not all of your great ideas are. Listen to them, but also listen to God for that rare time when your “crazy” idea is His idea. In those moments do everything you can to ensure that you have gotten ready and aimed, then fire. The principle that leaders go first is valid all the time. The better prepared we are before we go first, the less we will have to go first in saying, “I was wrong.” This is a time when I hope you will learn from my mistakes and successes, rather than having to make all the mistakes yourself.

Here’s to leading better by admitting when our ideas aren’t great, and by developing a team to ensure that our ideas are great before we implement them–today!

Going First!

It’s often been said that leaders are simply those who go first. I saw hundreds, if not thousands, of examples of that at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown over the weekend. For example, when baseball was invented no one wore a glove to catch the ball. It was considered “unmanly” to even consider wearing something on one’s hands when catching the ball. Over time someone decided to where fingerless gloves to pad the palms of both hands, while not limiting the dexterity required to throw the ball after it was caught. This was the first of many leadership innovations regarding the equipment used to play the game. As we know, gloves have evolved a great deal since those days when it was unmanly to wear any kind of glove. Now, we have catchers mitts, and first baseman’s gloves, as well as individualized gloves for infielders and outfielders.

Each of those innovations required someone to go first. That player was undoubtedly laughed at and ridiculed for being soft, or for cheating, or for any number of infractions of the purity or intention of the game. Yet, as with all lasting leadership innovations, over time people came to recognize that different wasn’t wrong, or ridiculous, but in the particular case in question it was better. Imagine the first catcher who put on a chest protector, or the first outfielder who put cleats or spikes in his shoes to get better traction. You can hear the shouts of “Cheater!” or “Look at that idiot!” And yet, eventually all baseball players were wearing cleats and every catcher wears a chest protector.

Whatever your field of leadership, you will find yourself in the position of needing to go first at times. It will take courage. It may take innovation. Sometimes you will be ridiculed for jumping on the bandwagon with others who are using an innovation that few have yet adopted. Relatively few leaders are true innovators, but nearly every leader has been an “early adopter” at times. That means we have seen an innovation for what it is: an improvement to an old process, system, or tool of our trade. When personal computers came out in the early 1980’s, I saw at once that such a tool could revolutionize the way I prepared papers or sermons or anything I wrote. That’s no different than a baseball player recognizing that a webbed glove would do a better job of catching a baseball than a fingerless glove that covered just the palm, or a five fingered glove that provided protection for the fingers, but no good place for the ball to rest.

Thirty-seven years ago, I needed a new softball glove. I had switched from baseball to modified pitch softball, and my old glove was worn and it’s web was designed for the smaller baseball, rather than the much larger softball. I went to a sporting goods store and discovered that a new glove was on display. It was a softball glove and it had a “super monster” web designed specifically for use with softballs. The glove was fully one-third larger than my old glove. The price tag on the glove was $50, which was a high price to pay for any kind of glove in 1979. My brother Tom was with me and he knew the owner. He told the man I had just been married and I didn’t have that much money. Then he said, “Why don’t you sell it to him for $25?”

The guy responded, “That wouldn’t even cover my cost. I’d have to get at least $35.”

I said, “I’ll take it.” I had been a better than average center fielder before wearing that glove. Now, I could get to balls a few inches farther away than before, and with that “bushel basket” far more of them stayed in my glove than ever before. As you would expect, some of my teammates laughed at me when they saw the size of the glove. They told me I was cheating. The interesting thing is within the next season or two everyone was wearing gloves like that. I led the way on our team, because I’ve always been an early adopter. I don’t think I’ve ever had more than a couple original ideas, but I’ve been willing to step out and go “first” when it comes to adopting new equipment, ideas, and strategies when I could see they were an improvement. (I took good care of that glove, and used it for 34 years, before “retiring” from playing a few years ago. I still have the glove, and could use it if I came out of retirement. While this is a post for another day, it showed me that sometimes it’s better to pay more up front for a better product that will last, than to buy the “bargain,” and end up replacing it regularly.)

So where do you need to go first today? Is it in buying a household item, or tool for your work? Is it in implementing a new idea that you’ve been reading about for a while that seems to be helping others in your field excel in their efforts? Remember, sometimes you’ll go first and find out that you were wrong. That’s the topic of tomorrow’s post. What do you do then? (Spoiler alert: Be the first one to recognize you made a mistake and abandon the new way until you find a better one.) Whatever it is that you need to do differently in order to demonstrate your leadership, remember that baseball was once played without gloves. Thankfully, someone decided to go first and change that!

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

Hall of Famers Got There With Help!

Sorry for the tardiness of today’s post. I have a good reason: I’m just coming back from the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, where I’ve spent the weekend with my brother, Kenn, and his son, Matt. We arrived on Friday, and didn’t start home until noon today. We enjoyed all of the festivities associated with the induction of Ken Griffey, Jr. and Mike Piazza to the hall of fame over the weekend. This isn’t exactly a “bucket list” item for me, but more of a lifelong desire fulfilled, and I enjoyed it as much as I pictured it in years gone by.

The main leadership lesson I learned from baseball’s newest hall of famers is: No one gets to the Hall of Fame without a lot of help. Both Griffey and Piazza shared a plethora of names who helped them get to the podium in Cooperstown during their acceptance speeches. As you might expect, both had a great deal of praise for their parents, who pushed them to follow their dreams and do their best. They mentioned high school coaches, and minor league coaches and instructors who helped them developed their skills. They pointed to teammates and managers in the big leagues, and even mentors who had made it to the hall of fame before them.

As I sat with nearly 50,000 others in the hot sun listening to Griffey and Piazza thank many of those who were responsible for their success, I reflected on the many people who have helped me become who I am. In addition to those Griffey and Piazza mentioned, I would add mentors who I’ve only met through the books they’ve written or the videos in which they’ve appeared. Many of my mentors are long dead to this life, and many others I’ve never had the opportunity to meet even though they have poured much into my life through their written or recorded thoughts, ideas, plans, and instructions.

Every person who ever achieves anything of lasting value does so with help. No man (or woman) is an island. God created us for relationship, and as we interact with one another in our families, at work or school, or in community and recreational activities, some around us make major contributions to who we are, who we become, and the legacy we will leave when we have died. As I walked through the three floors of the baseball hall of fame, and saw the artifacts of nearly 150 years of baseball, I realized that some of those enshrined in the hall played the game as well or better than anyone else. Others invested their time and money into making the game America’s pastime. Certainly, they saw the profit it would bring them, but they believed the game would be a positive use of people’s time, a productive way to invest an afternoon. Still others were the rule makers and enforcers. While others were innovators. Baseball is truly a microcosm of life in these ways. It also shows us that while not everyone will end up a hall of famer, (statistically the number of those who play in the major leagues who will end up as one is about 1%), we can all be leaders as we work together, and use the God-given gifts, passions, abilities, personalities, and experiences of our lives to pave the way for others who will follow us, or to help others achieve their life goals.

No one knows whether he or she will stand on a podium one day at the end of a career receiving the accolades of the fans of his or her field of endeavor. What we can know for sure is that if any of us find ourselves in that situation, we won’t have attained that pinnacle without a great deal of help from those around us. May we be encouragers, mentors, and leaders who help others attain their life’s purpose. In doing so we will go a long way in attaining our own.

Here’s to leading better by helping others along the way–today!

Taking Time To Be…

This morning Kenn, my younger brother, and I will be driving to Cooperstown, NY, to visit the Professional Baseball Hall of Fame. We’re actually making a weekend of it, and Kenn’s son, Matt, will be joining us. I’m a devoted baseball fan and have always wanted to visit Cooperstown, but at the age of 59 it has never made it from the “to do” list to the “to done” list. Why? The short answer is I’ve been too busy doing other things. While traveling to Cooperstown is an activity, it is much more than that. It’s an opportunity to be a fan. It’s an opportunity to be a brother, and an uncle. It’s an opportunity to be a participant rather than a leader.

I have no doubt some things will happen that will be leadership lessons. That happens to me wherever I go, because I learned a long time ago to learn from the positive and negative events of life, which means every situation is a learning activity. But that’s not why I’m going. A couple of years ago when Jim, my oldest brother died, I realized that where there were once four brothers, there are now three. Eventually there will be two, then one, then none. I made a commitment then and there to invest time in my two remaining brothers, to be with them, to participate in activities we enjoy, and when we’re together just to be brothers. If “important” matters come up in conversation, that’s icing on the cake.

While I am more an more intentional about making my time count as I get older, I’ve realized that making time count doesn’t always mean making it pay a tangible reward that can be factored as a bottom line, or another “cog” in the “machine.” A couple weeks ago I took two days to celebrate my older brother Tom’s birthday with him. We didn’t have an agenda. We did celebrate. We got to be together. I expect the same from this weekend. Do I have work that I could do instead of taking the time away? Sure. We all do. There’s never time to be. There’s always time to do. The only way to make time to be is to schedule it and take it. Is this the best time for me to be away? You know the answer to that question. There’s never a best time to be away, especially if the being away is more or less just to be. It doesn’t add up in the world’s way of factoring importance or victory, or success. I know this: I’m glad I invested two days with Tom in early July, and that I’m investing four days with Kenn and Matt now. When I’m sitting in my rocking chair someday, I bet I remember the hall of fame induction of Ken Griffey, Jr. and Mike Piazza–and that I was there with Kenn and Matt. I’ll also remember that Tom and I got to be together for his 73rd birthday, and hopefully for a lot more.

Do you take time to be? Do you invest time in being alone, so you can remember who you are and whose you are? Do you invest time in the important relationships in your life so they really are the important relationships in your life? Let’s join our mentor, Socrates, and remember that the unexamined life is not worth living, and do a little self-examination in the area of being. Then if there’s a deficit, get out the calendar and start making plans to correct it.

Here’s to leading better by taking time to be–today!

Influence and Influenza!

In a recent blog post Michael Hyatt noted the five qualities of great leaders. They all started with the letter “i.” The qualities are insight, initiative, influence, impact and integrity. The post is excellent, making important points about each of the qualities. The one that jumped out at me, though, is that Hyatt noted the words Influence and Influenza both come from the same root! I had never made that connection before. Influence and influenza are both contagious, the one to our benefit the other to our detriment. Our influence as leaders is intended to spread to others, those in our immediate spheres of influence first, and then to ever expanding spheres of influence. At least if our goal is to be leaders of leaders.

While the “flu” is indiscriminate in its spread, moving from one host to another by virtue of contact, influence isn’t nearly as spontaneous. In order to influence others, particularly in order to influence them for their good we must be intentional, and we must live out all the other qualities of leaders that Hyatt identifies. As we mature as leaders, we eventually become aware that our lives matter and that our influence must be directed where it will matter the most. The flu may attack anyone in its path, but we must not take that approach as leaders. One of the most important truths I have discovered in practice over the past five years is that I have the same amount of time in a day, week, month, or year, but I must invest that time radically differently if I am to be a leader of leaders. I must invest more time in less people in order to influence more people.

Let me say that again: I must invest more time in less people in order to influence more people. At one point, my goal was simply to share the truth of Jesus Christ in His love with as many people as possible, and to help as many people as possible to come to trust Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. As they did, I would help them grow in their faith, so they would influence other people to trust Jesus as Savior and Lord. That’s a great goal, but it’s thinking of influence more or less like influenza, rather than as a leader who wants to make the maximum, possible impact. For example, at one point in New Life’s history, I wore a lot of hats. I did a lot of the pastoral care, worship, discipleship and even a fair amount of personnel development. While my primary task was to have the insight needed to see what was most important for the big picture future of New Life, I was often caught up in the details of everything else.

Over time as we have seen God bring more and more people to New Life, and as we have helped them trust Jesus as Savior and Lord and grow up in Him, we have been able to add staff members who have skills in specific areas such as pastoral care, worship, discipleship and so on. We have made it clear since the beginning of New Life that each of us must equip leaders in our areas to develop others, but while the clarity of the task was never in doubt, I often did too much of the ministry “in the trenches,” and didn’t invest enough time in equipping and developing leaders. I also didn’t invest as much time as I needed in equipping myself, and gaining new learning from others so I could be the best equipper of leaders I can be. All of this stems from my understanding of influence. The question becomes: Am I going to influence a handful of people who will influence a handful of people, who will influence…., which means that over time we can influence a tremendous number of people, or am I going to try to “infect” everyone myself? That answer to that question determines the ultimate extent of my influence–and yours.

If you want to be a “hands on” leader–and we all start out as hands on leaders if we care about people–you will never influence as many people as you could if you determined to be a leader of leaders. The choice is always ours, and the truth is we must always be willing to be hands on in a particular moment, but we must always remember that in order to influence the most people we can, we must change the focus of our influence. It must become intentional and concentrated to make the most difference over the long haul. I hope all of us are in leadership for the long haul!

Here’s to leading better by investing our influence in fewer people (leaders) who will invest their influence in far more than we ever could on our own–today and tomorrow!

Eat That Frog!

In his book, Eat That Frog, Brian Tracy gives us a lot of ideas about how to stop procrastinating and become more effective in our daily lives. I like the title, because we can all relate with the concept: If you had to eat a frog on a particular day, when would be the best time during the day to eat it? Many of us would wait until the last, possible moment. Tracy contends we ought to eat the frog first, because if the frog is sitting in a jar on the bottle all day, we’ll be distracted from whatever other tasks we have to do every time we look at the bottle. Knowing we have a task we don’t want to do in front of us, often keeps us from focusing on our other tasks.

For example, if you know you have to have a difficult conversation with a co-worker, when is the best time to have it? For most of us sooner is better than later, and that is Tracy’s point. After all, until we have the conversation, the task will either be in the front of our mind or in the back of it, keeping us from giving our full attention to the other matters of the day. We can have the best daily plan in the world, and if there’s a “frog to eat” on the agenda, that task will most likely grab a portion of our attention until we do it.

I need to make one key point about eating the frogs on our plates. Before we move the task to the top of our to do list, we must be sure it’s a frog that we need to eat. After all, sometimes we turn tasks that someone else ought to do into frogs that we eat. For example, let’s say a co-worker has asked you to review a project she’s working on. It’s important to her, but it has nothing to do with your area of expertise, or even interest. You want to be a good co-worker, but your plate is already full. The best thing to do in that situation is to let her eat her own frog. Saying, “No,” is often a small frog for many of us. We would rather eat someone else’s bull frog than eat the tiny frog of saying, “No.” We need to learn to eat the “no frog” in those moments when it will keep us from having to eat much larger frogs if we say, “Yes,” to tasks that we shouldn’t own.

When we have determined that the frog is ours, and it’s an important one, the bravest act of leadership is simply to open the jar and eat it. Sometimes we’re surprised to find that the frog didn’t taste as bad as we thought it would, and once it’s out of the way the rest of the day offers us the opportunity to accomplish a great deal more than we would have had we left it in the jar until the end of the day. Eat That Frog is a good read for those who need help with eliminating procrastination and gaining ideas for doing those unpleasant tasks that have to be done in order to increase our effectiveness as leaders.

Here’s to being a better leader by eating that frog–today!

Leaders and PED’s

With the Olympics starting in a couple of weeks, and the ongoing emphasis on sports’ stars who use PEDs-Performance Enhancing Drugs, I thought I’d offer a lighter post about leaders and PED’s. To my knowledge the most commonly used PED’s among America’s leaders is caffeine. Perhaps, I’m supersensitive to the substance at the moment, because I’ve decided to rid myself of it yet again. I’m experiencing the massive headache that always comes when I put myself through withdrawal from it. That after a night of not being able to sleep, which is a common side effect of caffeine withdrawal. (Who would’ve figured since many use caffeine to stay awake.)

The reason I’m eliminating caffeine from my system again is ostensibly because I’ll be leaving for Cambodia in about a month for a mission trip and I don’t want to experience the withdrawal while there, if caffeine isn’t available at any of the places we travel. The likelihood of not having caffeine available in Cambodia isn’t high, since caffeine is a worldwide PED. Whether it’s found in the form of coffee, or soft drinks, or tea, or the amazingly popular energy drinks that pack caffeine and sugar in incredibly high doses, caffeine is a nearly universal substance. I’m also withdrawing from caffeine again, because I don’t want to be dependent on any external substance for my energy.

I’m not telling all of you to stop drinking coffee or to get off caffeine. I’m pointing out that when I use caffeine, or more accurately, when I am not able to use caffeine when I’m using it regularly, I feel miserable. So the question becomes: Is the solution to stop drinking caffeine or just make sure that I always have enough of it? When I put the question to myself that way it sounds a lot like I “need” caffeine to function. I don’t want to need anything external in order to function. Thus, the withdrawal from caffeine AGAIN. I don’t know how many times over the years I’ve withdrawn from caffeine before a mission trip, or during one, or because I want to take better care of my body, but I know this: I’ve withdrawn from it for weeks and even months, but then there’s always that moment when someone offers me a cup of coffee, or I’m at a restaurant and they have Dr. Pepper, and I remember how bland water tastes, and I’m back on the PED’S again.

When I told Nancy yesterday that I was withdrawing from caffeine for the LAST time, she just looked at me and laughed. She’s heard that line before. Right now, I just want to have a cup of coffee and end the pain in my neck and head. As I write those words, it sounds an awful lot like the guys I minister to at the halfway house who are seeking to overcome their reliance on alcohol and other drugs that may or may not enhance their performance. So, at least for today, I’m going to remain off the caffeine and if I make through Thursday it’ll be a matter of daily will power.

As our friend Socrates reminded us millennia ago: The unexamined life is not worth living. You may or may not use caffeine or any other PED, but if you do, I simply encourage you to ask yourself why you do, and whether there is anything to gain by not using it? As leaders we ought to set the example in all areas of our lives, and perhaps being PED free is one of those areas.

Here’s to leading better by examining our use of external substances and considering whether to ban them in our lives–today!

Never Do Anything Always!

Way back when I was a first year seminary student at Princeton, I had a preaching professor who said, “Never do anything always!” What he meant by that was as leaders, and particularly as leaders who are communicators we need to make sure that our routines don’t become predictable ruts that allow our listeners and followers to be become bored, distracted, or disinterested. That single statement has held a powerful impact in my leadership for nearly four decades. An example of its power comes from this weekend’s worship services at New Life. While the worship hour in churches across America may be one of the most predictable hours of the week in most settings, at New Life we tend to switch things up from time to time. This weekend our worship pastor, Brad French, pulled out the “acoustic” sound instead of our typical rock band style for the worship singing. Many people noticed and affirmed the difference. While some would like the acoustic sound every week, and others the rock style, because music is a matter of personal preference, the approach of changing from time to time keeps things fresher and that is refreshing!

I had folks come forward at the end of the worship gathering for a time of prayer and recommitment. Some churches do that every week, and others never do it. Many folks told me the experience was powerful for them. I felt the power, too. The majority of the reason for that was God’s work in us. I had sensed in my message preparation that God was calling us to make a tangible sign of our commitment or recommitment to Him. The blessing came in responding to that prompting, rather than say, “We never do it that way, God. I can’t change things up or people will get upset.” I never advocate change merely for the sake of change or for “shock value.” Following the promptings of God, or an intuitive sense that it’s time for a different approach often leads to breakthroughs in our leadership. The key is not to find one, particular approach and assume that because it works, we ought to stick with that forever. Remember: Never do anything always!

While schedule and routine are valuable for all of us, and the vast majority of us would do well to be more intentional with planning and carrying our our plans, even when it comes to our daily “regimen,” it’s helpful to switch it up every now and then. Exercising the freedom to do something a little different refreshes and renews us. I know that vanilla is the most popular flavor of ice cream worldwide, but every now and then it’s a good idea to try out a new flavor. The analogy holds in so many areas of our lives. I know folks who have followed exactly the same routine day in and day out for decades. For the most part they are quite successful. The challenge comes when something disrupts their routine, and let’s be honest something ALWAYS disrupts our routines. Making certain that we are intentional about changing things up every now and then prepares us for the moments when life changes our routines for us.

While your personality will have a lot to do with whether you like the rigid routine of a marine, or the happy go lucky whatever comes approach of the free spirit, each of us will lead more effectively if we are open to the idea of making adjustments from time to time so those we are charged to lead don’t find our approach so predictable that they stop listening for anything fresh or new in our leadership. As you go about the day think of one thing that you have been doing exactly the same way for a long time, and consider changing it up a bit for your benefit and the benefit of those around you. Please understand I’m not talking about any of the habits you have developed to keep you living with integrity, truth and love! I’m talking about habits such as the way you give a speech, or present a new idea to your work group, or exercise, or any area where a routine has become a rut. As one of my first mentors always said, “A rut differs from a grave only in its depth and length.” We want our leadership and our lives to be alive.

Here’s to leading better by doing something in a new or different way to enhance our ability to impact others–today!