Every time a member of your organization speaks, your values are communicated. They may not quote a poster on your conference room wall, but they are talking about them. The principle is simple: we talk about the things that are important to us. We see this clearly in our personal lives. A proud father can’t […]
Cracking Your Church’s Culture Code
Recently, I was asked by Leadership Network to review a provided copy of Cracking Your Church’s Culture Code by Dr. Samuel Chand. With pastors’ shelves full of books on ministry vision and strategies, Dr. Samuel Chand gets to the heart of church leadership: culture. While vision and strategy are necessary components to any organization, culture provides […]
Think about it…later.
Just about every day we each discover at least one new piece of information that either really frustrates us or really excites us. It could be any of a million things: someone lied, you won free John Mayer tickets, you missed a deadline, the Cubs are going to the World Series (ok, let me dream). […]
Innovation vs. Imitation
With every development, an organization either innovates or imitates. Too often the second is confused for the first. Let’s define the two… Innovation is any organizational development, created by your organization, that meets your own specific context. Imitation is the adoption of another organization’s development that meets that other organization’s specific context. [Also, the adoption […]
Making Christmas Memories: a lesson from Pixar’s “Up”
Tonight, I’m pulling an all-nighter in Germany to ensure that I sleep well tomorrow on the flight back to the U.S. Part of this effort included watching a movie I was long overdue to see: Up. While the entire movie was incredible (of course, it’s a Pixar), one line in particular jumped out at me. […]
What Martin Luther said to me.
Presently, I am nearing the end of a family vacation in Germany. Today, I had the opportunity to visit the city of Worms in which the Diet of Worms (1521) was held, leading to the excommunication of Martin Luther. I had no idea how humbling and inspiring my visit to this city would be. Standing […]
Many goals are impossible.
Yet their impossibility makes them no less worth pursuing. For instance… …A food bank will never fully eradicate hunger from its town. But should it settle for anything less? …A public school district will never see every student advance grades at the end of the year. But should it accept any pass rate lower than […]
Presenting personality
Sometimes tripping on your way to the podium is the best thing that could happen to you. Why? Because it forces you to break from the script and let your personality shine through. (Hopefully you turn a little red, laugh a lot, and make a light-hearted joke about yourself.) Now, if only you just found […]
Maximum Impact
If you want to achieve maximum impact, place yourself near the people who most need your insights and abilities [and are open to utilizing them]. We are often drawn to people who share our skill sets. But as the adage goes, “If two minds think alike, one of them is useless.”
Thanksacting
We all have much to be thankful for. And yesterday, we all were very quick to state that thanks. Unfortunately, I fear that many of us (including myself) stated much more with our words than we do with our actions. True thankfulness is based on a true value for what we have. And true value […]