Space

My pet peeve?  Pet peeves, probably.  I guess you can have them as long as you don't think that others really care about what your pet peeve is.  Look, we all got issues, right?  Anyway I was reminded of my pet peeve recently.  I offer it only in the spirit of insight.  It's when you try to put some pepper on something at a restaurant and the pepper shaker is so full of pepper that none will come out.  Because its so full of pepper.  Because somebody thought: the more pepper the better.  So you have to take off the top and shake some out and then invariably too much comes out.

Can we leave some room in the shaker so the pepper will come out?  We have to be careful about cramming so much stuff in that we don't allow room for the action to take place: for the contents to be shared.  

Today I'm thinking about that space as the room we need to allow for dreams.  On the website, in the ministry activity, in the planning, in the meeting, on the calendar, through the leadership.  We have to allow space for some dreams.  If you have ever seen the realization of a dream you know how important it is.

This summer, we dreamed a little about taking the opportunity to not just build a house with our habitat for humanity project, but also spending some time on building communities.  We went to the trouble of lugging a grill out to the site and handing out fliers for the cookout several days in advance.  Not too many folks came out, but a few did.  "It" seemed to happen.

I was kind of taken about when on a clay hill beside the house, I saw "little black boys and black girls joining hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers."  Well maybe not exactly as sisters and brothers.  And maybe they didn't actually join hands.  But they were playing together.  As members of the same community.  And I thought about the space it takes to dream.

Bread Bowls

I have never been able to figure out how to properly eat a dish served in a bread bowl.  Any food for that matter that is served in a container that you eat such as the taco salad shell thing.  If you eat all the soup or the salad, then you're kind of not wanting to eat the bread or the shell all at one time.  Ice cream cones are a little easier to eat with satisfaction because you can somewhat eat the container along with what the container holds a little bit at the time, but attempt that with the bread bowl and you have soup all over everywhere.

Anyway, how do we as leaders in Discipleship hold the things of God and offer them without ourselves being consumed in the process?  If you give yourself entirely to the thing, then what's left to hold the next serving?  But if you are ceramic or porcelain, how do you ever give yourself over to the task?  And how about the people who are really just interested in consuming you and not really interested in what you contain?

Does it have to do with timing somehow?  Christ was the ultimate bread bowl for humanity.  He both held the love of God, but offered himself as well.  And when the time was, and is, right; he was, and is, consumed by...us.

How do your regulate how much soup you offer and how much bread you offer when you are a bread bowl?

You're a supporter...right?

Teresa Amabile recently wrote about her research into Perceived Leaders Support of people leading teams of others.  The article is summarized at HBS Working Knowledge.

So.  What make can you do to increase the creativity of your team?  (Remember whether or not you think you are doing these things, unless your team perceives you are doing them, you are wasting opportunities for growth.)

1. Monitor the team's work effectively

-give timely feedback

-react to problems by listening, understanding, respond with help

-share with team about your own work- the good the bad and the ugly

2. Provide socioemotional support

-show support for team member's actions or decisions

-help alleviate stressful situations initiate plans to help those you lead help themselves

-socialize when the time is right.  (it should happen organically not by mandate)

-keep members informed of potential stressful situations

-address negative feelings with difficult conversations

3. Recognize good work privately and publicly

4. Consult those you lead about their work

-ask for ideas

-listen

-implement their ideas

What can you do to kill your team's creativity?

1. Monitor the work ineffectively:

-check on the status of the work too often

-display inadequate understanding of capability of those you lead

-provide nonconstructive negative feedback on work done

-check on the status of the work for too long

-display lack of interest in work and ideas of those you lead

2. Fail to effectively clarify roles and objectives:

-look for results from team members who aren't capable of producing them

-don't give enough detail on expectations for a project or event

-change goals and objectives frequently

-look for results that are counter to other expectations from the organization

3. Deal with problems ineffectively:

-pretend like there are no problems

-create unnecessary problems

4. Make sure your perception of your support of those you lead is reality. 

-get feedback from colleagues and those you lead

-ask yourself: do the people you lead realize that you like them?

And finally, a shocking revelation: After analyzing 12,000 diary entries from team members asked to journal the support they perceived from their leaders, there were more reports of negative leader behavior than positive behavior.

 

The Perils of Unconnected Santas

Seth Godin blogs that in as much as all Santas look the same we should look to develop brands that works best when there is only one.  People look to these types of brands, not when they want to debate about which is better, but when they know they have the only one, the right one.  The post caught my eye because I had just listened to a podcast from This American Life which, coincidentally, described a nasty civil war that has recently broken out among a group called the Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas (AORBS).

The story detailed the schism that ripped apart the fabric of the venerable organization  purposed "to training Santas and enhancing their portrayal of Santa Claus".

Ironic perhaps, because even though the Santa "brand" is held up as the ideal for brand development because it is the only one of it, the AORB manifestation of the brand failed miserably to fulfill another concept of Seth Godin's: connecting the tribe.  

The seeds of destruction of any organization lie within it.

Failure to connect and "tighten the tribe" can even take down a bullet proof brand like Santa.

What are you doing to connect the communities you lead?

If you lead a tribe of santas, it turns out you need more than a red suit and a real beard.

A Tale of Two Trees

I received 2 trees for father's day this year. An avacado, (pictured on the left and a kumquat, on the right).  As you can perhaps see, neither of them is doing very well right now.  In as much as they have been taking up bath tub space since the cold weather, I was asked to assess the prognosis of the two trees.  (As in "...umm, how much longer will they be in here?")  

There is hope for the avacado, the kumquat not so much, I think.  What's the difference? They both look pretty much dead, right? Well what you may or may not be able to see is that the avacado has dropped all its leaves.  The kumquat is bitterly holding on to its leaves.  When a plant undergoes stress- change of weather, soil, moisture, loss of roots, pests-one predictor that will invariably indicate whether it will recover is whether or not its leaves drop.  If it lets go and makes way for new growth, chances are good it'll live.  If it hangs on to the leaves and they turn darker and darker shades of brown, then it's probably over.

What can we learn about discipleship from trees?  Well, discipleship is about spiritual growth and spiritual growth is about change.  The Difference Maker, by John Maxwell speaks to change and how people [and kumquat trees] resist change because of fear of the unknown.  As a LID, look for change.  But be ready to drop some stuff.  Be ready to change things.  And be ready for stress.  Be ready to respond.  Look for the new buds that will open, even as the old leaves are falling off.  Whether you are changing things or things are changing and you are responding to change: drop the old stuff.

Don't die.  Let go.  Grow.

White Christmas

I wasn't sure if the fund raising idea to put up a Christmas Tree with ornaments from the agency we support would get pass the non approved fundraiser but you can do it anyway litmus test.  It didn't.  So I was faced with having to actually put forth some personal involvement to get people to take home an ornament and hopefully remit a donation to the agency.

It is alot easier to put the thing up and wait for people to come to it.  I found myself lugging the tree all over the place to actually put it into the presence of people who might take an ornament home.  Not because it's a good cause or the right thing to do, or a way to give back, or a clever way to sucker people into taking an action.  I found myself asking people to take an ornament home because they cared about me.  And to make sure that I care about them.  White Christmas Tree with Blue Ornaments as a way to connect.

I guess so.

Size Might Matter

After having to make room in my file cabinet for end of the year desk clearing off, I am starting to think that the bigger the file folder is, the less I understand my role with the organization or cause the file folder holds information about.  The groups that I passionate about leading?  I seem to be able to keep up with them with a minimum of back up info.  Why is that?  

I took a look at the voluminous folders in question and found lots of:

1.  We aren't sure or have forgotten why we are doing this, so here is some more forms, agendas, by laws, and minutes to somehow give us credibility documents.

2.  We-aren't-happy-with-the-direction-the-organization-is-going-and-we-want-to-know-what-the-leadership-is-"going to do about it" emails and correspondence.  

3.  Replies to the items from #2.  These replies need to be hard copies because electronic responses that are honest about the fact that the organization represented by the folder is dying and needs to go to status quo organization hospice will be circulated and taken out of context and used against you. 

4.  Misc. we aren't sure what we are doing, but we want documentation that we are doing it a-lot.

So.  Is it possible to conserve space in your file cabinet?  Maybe start with removing your largest file folders and see who misses them.  Then, start talking to the people who ask what happened to them.  Maybe you'll find that you are interested in leading the organizations the file folder came to represent once you connect with the person who thinks it's important.