Leadership Summit: post from sessions 1,2, and 3 yesterday

I've taken the time to pull my twitter posts (tweets) from yesterday and post them here from Sessions 1 and 2 yesterday:
1. Bill Hybels: Leading in a new reality
2. Hiring, firing, and Board Meltdowns: Panel of Bill Hybels, Henry Cloud, Patrick Lencioni, Carly Fiorina, David Ireland
Session 3: Leadership Summit: Gary Hamel speaking: http://www.garyhamel.com/ Manage Differently NOW

• Session 1: Bill Hybels
  You need to have your "replenishment bucket" full to inspire your team
• book "How the mighty have fallen": need to assess who key leaders are in your org
  what r key leadership positions? are they filled w/right people? Plan to fill with right people? Backup plan for each pos?
  if this economic rogue wave is the new norm, it's adding extra work. How can we sustain the work we do?
  oceangrove.org Discipleship training center is also for your replenishgment
  Oceangrove.org is celebrating 140 years, was chartered by state of NJ for perpetual worship of Jesus Christ
  Hybels: interviewed Jack Welch (GE) who said "Cash is King"... It gives time to react. Bus and Personally u need cash reserve

Session 2: Hiring, firing, and Board Meltdowns: Panel of Bill Hybels, Henry Cloud, Patrick Lencioni, Carly Fiorina, David Ireland

Leadership Summit: David Ireland is on panel, he spoke at ocean grove NJ just a week ago oceangrove.org
Leadership Summit: Determining if there is a Cultural connection is important when hiring (background checks too)
When hiring a change agent, dont always look at 1st impressions Sometimes you don't have a correct impression
spend time with a person b4 hiring, ask same question multiple times, open ended, take out of environment
When interviewing: ask weaknesses and how they would work in your org. Listen more than talk. Ask about their answers. Open ended q's
Tell them what your culture is to see if they fit. becomes difficult if you dont have well defined culture
interviewing: take time to have conv up front: tell why r we hiring. Find out lots about the person. Have a hiring process
interviewing/hiring: if ur in hurry, better to take time 2 get right person than the pain of wrong person
Board Meltdown: Who is your "board"? your family, your sponsors at work?
Leadership Summit: are you letting your "Board" / ur team / ur upline know what's going on? Communications is key!
your "board" - spend time together, build trust through time together. board "retreats" r different goals than Board mtgs
Leadership Summit: Board meetings: take 10 minutes at end to ask "how did we do?
demistify boards: they are a team! To be functional, it takes work to determine common goals.
Board Meetings: decide ahead: what do we do when we disagree? What is process to decision: concensus/Majority

• Board members need to have a skillset that contributes to goals. Can they help move the ship forward? Need terms 4 members.
• need term limits to elimate exhaustion of members and for new and fresh ideas.
• Terminating someone from the team: it is compassionate and respectful to be truthful: candor
• Terminating people: let people know feedback in advance. A firing should never be a surprise
• Terminating people: Can you retrain? Can you re-position? No blind-sighting. Warnings: verbal, written, dev. plan, probation
• Terminating: in small org, remind them "it's not working, how can we make it work?"
• Evaluating Employeers: grading system well defined, let them know how to improve and what the grading means
• Reward process: if all are rated high, then u risk loosing top performers because they dont believe in the system
• Leadership Summit: Kindest form of management is the truth

Session 3: Leadership Summit: Gary Hamel speaking: http://www.garyhamel.com/ Manage Differently NOW

• We are @ point in history where rate of change is exponential. Many things are changing exponentially
• many orgs have issues because they cant keep up with exponential change today, paradigm shift
• Are you taking off like a rocket? keep in mind that rockets have parabolic curve!
• organization entropy, gravitational pull is downward
• Are you in Org denial? In your org? in your relationship?
• Paterns of org dillusion: Dismiss, Rationalize, Mitigation, confront
• Steps to avoid Org Disillusionment: 1. face the facts. Don't pretend or avoid truth
• avoid Org diso step2: Question your beliefs: not creed, but practices. invite otusiders to provide input.Look 4 more options
• need to diverge a lot to create enough input to the innovation funnel to get to successes at end of funnel
• to get idea funnel, consult others: IBM did this several years ago by looking outside. Ideastorm.com is used by Dell
• Very unlikely to create lots of options, unless you deconstruct your model and do business innovation
• innovation always follows a power curve: lots of ideas, many experiments, some projects, a few successes
• when everything is changing, we need to learn to be contrarian
• #1 reason orgs get left behind: when mental models of leadership team depreciates but they still have power
• Leadership Summit: Gary Hamel "Can your org survive without the stars at the top?
• Leadership Summit Hamel "Leadership today is: mobilize, connect and support"
• Intenet is authority of the crowd, change in heirarchy paradigm in effect since the pyramids
• Hamel "In the internet paradigm, natural leaders are the ones who rise to top
• Hamel: We need to rethink changing our church orgs if we want to change lives 4 better
• Hamel "In the internet paradigm, natural leaders are the ones who rise to top

My Main Take-aways:

• Keep our cash reserve at home
• Work on EQ, relationships with others, Kindest form of management is the truth

Leadership Summit: Friday session#5: Dave Gibbons: Third Culture Leadership

Leadership Summit (willowcreek.org/summit)

Friday Session 5: Dave Gibbons: Third Culture Leadership
Author of book "Monkey and the Fish"

• In most orgs, vision comes from the core and goes out to fringe, but in better orgs, the vision comes from the fringe and is caught by the core
• your weakness and failures may be God's successes, his strength is made perfect in your weakness
• relationships trump vision
• Spend 75% devloping leaders, 25% time executing
• Medici effect - when multiple domains together, exponential experience
• How/what he learned:
  1. Priority shifts
  2. Design/space shifts
  
• They focus on the fringe.
• Obedience is more important than passion - Jesus didn't feel great about going to the cross ("if possible, let this cup pass...")
  
• 4 acts of obedience in the church:
  1. deeper collaboration
  2. Communal living - learn to walk and talk together
  3. Prayer - all the great movements have prayer as their core
  4. Radical sacrifice for the outsider

My Main Take-away: Develop relationship and prayer within churches

Leadership Summit - Last session on Thursday: POWERFUL!

Well, the battery died in the laptop, so I'm posting this a day after, but this was powerful!

Harvey Carey - started church in Detroit

• after 6 years, 800 in attendance
• top %5 of spiritual growth in reveal assessment
• says "I Am your expresso; no cream, no sugar
• thought he was rich because his mom took care of them, but he was po (Po looks up to poor)
• He is pastor in poorest zipcode of poorest city in poorest state
  What do you do when faced with insurmountable odds:
• #1. Believer God's word is true and he is working miracles today
  Was told by detroit pastors: you've got white people coming to your church, we don't want white people coming back to the city, so we're going to shut you down
• When odds are brought against you, that's when God shines
• The fact that you're under an economic crisis is because God is about to show up!
• For those that have all the resources, you're gonna loose your mind. Join the rest of us already used to no resources.
  We need people on staff to equip others to equip people to reach the lost
• It's not how many on your staff, it's how many that are effective are on your staff
• How would you like to go to a professional sports game, pay all that money, they come out, they huddle 10 minutes, 25 mins, 45 mins, 1 hour, then they say a prayer and go home? You'd be very upset, there'd be an uproar. But, that's what God sees us do every week in church. We need to go out and reach the world.
• He sometimes gives a short 10 minute sermon then they go out and minister to the community. Examples:
• Giving a Bible and praying to everyone in their neigborhood
• Having Urban camping in front of a crack house - shut down 6 this way!

Main Take-away: get in the game, apply what God's taught you

Leadership Summit: Session 4 Jessica Jackley and Kiva.org

Note: I'm at a satellite location in Ocean Grove New Jersey USA (oceangrove.org) attending the Leadership Summit (willowcreek.com/summit). Even if you don't use twitter, you can see my postings at:twitter.com/henrywill It seems that #tls09 is too much traffic on twitter, so I'm blogging here.

Jessica Jackley: co-founder of Kiva.org

About Kiva:

• Anyone can contribute to this micro-capital financing enterprise
• Formed in 2005
• Global
• Mission: connect people through lending to eliminate poverty
• Has financed $83 Million US Dollars
• Microlending website - has little overhead. Minimum $25 investment
• on track to finance $100M in US$ by 2010
• has helped 200,000 entrepenuers in 83 countries

About Jessica:

• Parents convinced her that she can do anything
• Started journaling at age of 5
• First Leadership Summit while in college - had a mini-summit each year with dad
• From Pittsburg PA - Orchard Hill Presb. Church
• Passion for fighting extreme poverty came from Church in Sunday School: Jesus said the poor will always be with you. It scared her. Then a few minutes later she learned Jesus said "whatever you do for the least, you've done for me." She then realized she could do something
• She didn't know what her role could be
• Later learned about power of small loans: infusion of capital
• Realized: why don't we provide the funding
• So, they tried to figure out how to loan to a small business in Tanzania/Uganda

Lender perspective

• Lenders from 185 countries
• Anyone with paypal or credit card and internet connection can participate
• profiles are listed on website
• The use reps that find local entrapeneurs: They know the local, they're experts in what they do.
• Lenders will get their money back
• Avg is $500 to $600
• Avg lender is $100
• 98.5% payment rate!
• It's not just a loan, it's Money with purpose, a Loan with intention

Stories

• One family was able to get a lock to be more secure
• A woman can buy sugar to put in tea they share with visitors
  

How did they start:

• They weren't sure it was legals
• tarted with $3000 and 7 people
• 2nd year:$15M in loans
• now $5M per monthin less than 4 years

Leadership questions:

• How are you organized?
• Flat org. Started as a handful of friends. At that point, everyone is equally valuable
• You don't need to tell people their job is important, it just is.
• It's not who's in charge, but who can fix problem now.
• It's trust based, so the values can be perpetuated even though Values go beyond paid staff to volunteers and lenders

believe in co-creation, so need to trust and be open and allow those people to contribute

Keeping on course:

• Mission which states: What/how/why
• We make decisions based on the mission statement
• Build common purpose

Innovation

• Innovation and Entrapaneurship are life giving to organization
• Innovation should be present in the church, that's were life should come from, it should be the biggest place on the planet for innovation

What have you learned about giving?

• Great poets show, they don't tell
• People are designed to give sacrificially, that's where joy comes from in life
• Give people the chance, they will participate

Fears for the future?

• Connection between fear and safety
• There is more to loose with each new step as we grow
• I would hope that fear doesn't cause org to be less nimble and dynamic and pioneering

What would you say to young leaders?

• 1. Don't appologize for the first step - no matter how small. Don't be afraid to start small. You can talk about an idea, but once you start, it's a different atmosphere
• 2. Just start - get going

What would you say to more experienced leaders - they want to know how to lead new folks coming into their orgs

• the idea of co-creation and collaborative is new
• Working with leaders in both camps: co-creation and the old way of doing things - get them together to brainstorm, learn from each other

Final thoughts:

• When you believe in a woman living in a hut, you can do what needs to be done
• When you feel ashamed of wealth in own life, you have kiva.org to allows you to break out of the false dichotomy of rich vs. poor. It changes the way people work together
• People from foreign countries can now invest in U.S. micro-businesses as of this year.

take a look: kiva.org

Leadership Summit - Session 3 with Tim Keller

Tim Keller is the pastor of Redeemer Church in Manhattan (New York City) USA.
He's speaking now at the Leadership Summit (willowcreek.com/summit).
The church he leads has 6000 weekly attendance in 3 locations, planted over 100 churches.

He is the author of "The Reason for God" on NY Times Best Sellers List.

I'm at a satellite location in Ocean Grove New Jersey USA (oceangrove.org) attending the Leadership Summit . Even if you don't use twitter, you can see my postings at:twitter.com/henrywill It seems that #tls09 is too much traffic on twitter, so I'm blogging here.

What others are saying about him in pre-video: His vision is about changing NYC, not about him.

Points from Tim's talk for Leadership Summit:

• He's always wiling to listen to someone who says "I have the key to Spiritual Renewal" - pastors are looking for spiritually alive people. Only a few people do the work, there is back biting. Pastors are desparate for finding a way to promote spiritual renewal.
• Prodigal: the meaning is "wrecklessly extravegant" - so God's love for us is prodigal too. The story of the prodigal son is about both sons.
• Luke 15: Religious leaders were concerned about Jesus hanging out with sinners. Jesus responded with several stories about the lost.
• The brother that stays home is like the brother that stays home - that part of the story is to address those of us in the church
• The two brothers show 2 ways to reject God:
• Younger brother decides he wants everything from the Father (God) now
• Older brother decides he deserves what God has to offer, he's only giving father lip-service. He's lost because of his goodness. He won't go into the feast. He's obeying God just to get things.
• Gospel isn't moral or immoral - it's about God's love for you
• Religion operates on the principle of us trying to be good to get to God
• the Gospel operates on the principle of us not being good enough and God taking our place so we can have God's Love (grace). We do good for God out of our appreciation.
• Older brothers: want everyone else to follow commands, and they're a bit uncomfortable because they're insecure because they aren't quite sure they are good enough.
• Older brothers: not just sad when things don't go well, they get furious with God because they think God owes them.
• Need to get to a new level of repentance and rejoicing
• Repentance is not just being sorry for our wrong-doing and turning around (Pharisees did this)
• You won't be renewed until you look at repenting from the things you do right, and trying to get leverage over God
• You can't think you're doing God a favor by following him.
• You need to get to a deeper level of repentance of repenting for our right-doing.
• We need to look at what it cost the father
• Since the younger son took half, the only way to bring the younger son back would be to take what was left which was the older son's inheritance
• The older brother, if he was a true older brother, should have went after the lost brother into a foreign country and at his expense.We do have a true older brother. We need a brother that came from a distant country (heaven) and saves us at a cost (which Jesus did at the cost of his life)
• How to get spirtual renewal in the church:
• 1. As leader, need to work this in your heart (don't go into the ministry to save your soul)
• 2. All of your teaching is Gospel
• 3. Gather all the leaders together and take them through book (could use the "Prodigal God" book)
• 4. Work it in your team and followers (congregation)
• How you'll know when you're reaching people:Gracious disagreements, instead of people leaving or always fighting.When religious people come to you realizing they are not really a Christian

Great notes here: http://entermission.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/08/leadership-summit-session-four-the-prodigal-son.html

and here

http://www.timschraeder.com/2009/08/06/leading-people-to-the-prodigal-god/

Leadership Summit - live posting

I'm at a satellite location in Ocean Grove New Jersey USA (oceangrove.org) attending the Leadership Summit (willowcreek.com/summit). I will be attending both Today (Thur. 8/6) and tomorrow (Fri. 8/7)

Even if you don't use twitter, you can see my postings at:
twitter.com/henrywill

There is lots of information helpful for all of you who are leaders.
Almost everyone is a leader of one type of the other. If you look around, you'll find that there are people following you!

Posting from Leadership Summit on twitter this Thurs and Friday

I will be posting tweets from the Leadership Summit this Thursday and Friday on twitter @henrywill with hashtags #tls09 and #OGCMA

Follow me on twitter if you want to hear good information on leadership.

I hope to also do some blog posts on the topic!

Project Management is Like a Banana Split

Project Management is Like a Banana Split

My wife and I shared a Banana Split the other evening in Ocean Grove. We try to do that once a year.

I got to thinking (afterwards of course) how Project Management is like sharing a Banana Split.

• It's a joint effort - you need a team to tackle the project (even if you can eat the whole thing alone, think about the team that brought all the parts together: creating ingredients delivering them, building that banana split, and then eating it!
  
• Building (and eating) a Banana Split is a temporary endeavor to produce a product or service (Now, that's the definition of project management and a Banana Split certainly fits that)
  
• Projects also have lots of different flavors
• Project team members come in lots of different flavors too
• You need to give the cherry to someone else (the cherry tops the Sunday and it's fun to give it away, just like it's best to give the credit for the project to the team and the sponsor)
  
• Sometimes when the job is done (like when you're done eating a Banana Split), you're 100% successful, yet there is a sticky mess left behind, but nobody is all too concerned about it!

This reminds me of a team I worked with in another country. We had a tough task ahead of us. It was a hot summer day and the schedule was very tight (requiring long hours). One of the team leads suggested we buy ice cream for everyone. We got management approval and went and bought an ice cream for every member of the team. Now, that's a reward that goes a long way!

I'd like to see your comments about how Project Management is Like a Banana Split!

The Battles We Fight

We know a pastor who would frequently say "Everyone is fighting a battle. No matter how happy they may look, or how well they hide it, everyone is fighting battles."

I often think about that and that's why I try to post every now and then with the label/topic of "Encouragement." (look at the link for "Encouragement" on my blog to see some of the others).

This past weekend we heard Dr. Charles Stanley speak at Ocean Grove on the subject of "The Battles We Fight."

Here are some of the main points that I hope help you in fighting your battles:

• The story came from the Bible about a King who realized that the battle was God's not his (2 Chronicles 20) to fight
  
• 1. There will always be battles (John 16:33), but greater is He who is in us than He who is the world (1 John 4:4). God gives us the Holy Spirit to live inside us (2 Timothy 1:14).
  
• 2. We must view that God is in control (Rom 8:28). He is sovereign over all.
• 3. We must fight our battles in the right way: with prayer. We must depend solely on God and obey Him.
  

When you realize that God loves us, He is with us, and He has ultimate control, you'll realize that you can have peace by leaving everything in His hands!

Now, that's encouragement!

Garden Back Rub

I'm posting this for all the parents (and maybe grandparents) out there.

I was reminded the other day of the "Garden Back rub" we found in a magazine years ago and gave to our children many times at bedtime.

The idea is to give your children a back rub with various different types of motions based on a bit of a story of how a garden is planted. It also teaches them how a garden grows.

We told our story and gave a Garden Back Rub with each of the following parts:

1. First, ask what the person wants you to plant - this is a good way to find out what they like. Flowers? What type? Vegetables? Fruits?
   
2. Turn over the soil - this was a sort of rotating motion
3. Use the rake and/or hoe to smooth it down - use the fingers spread (like a back scratch) for a rake or the edge of the hand like a hoe.
   
4. Make rows - draw straight lines down the back with a finger
   
5. plant the seeds - use your pointer finger to poke, poke, poke those seeds
   
6. Cover over the seeds - pat it down with the palm
   
7. Water it and let the rains come - gentle taps of the fingers all random, almost like randomly typing keys on a keyboard
   
8. Wait for God to make it grow - sometimes you can let this linger until the person getting the back rub tells you it's been long enough.
   
9. Pull the weeds - gentle grabbing motion
   
10. Pick the garden - gentle pinching motion - you could also ask here what we planted: are they flowers? Vegetables? A little variety?
11. Eat the vegetables and fruits - take an imaginary fruit or vegetable and put it in their mouth. Ask/tell them what you're giving them. This is the part when I had some fun: after they got used to me giving them the fruit, I'd not say anything and "give them something to eat" then I'd say "that was dirt" or "that was a rock" or "I forgot to peel that one" - It added a bit of laughter and joking.
    

The Garden Back Rub is also a good lead-in to a story about some of the parables Jesus told of the seeds and the sower from Matthew 13 or Mark 4.

Enjoy!

Wordle - see a picture of what words occur most often

Here's the brainchild of an IBM researcher: a website that will take words and show you a picture of the words with ones used most often being larger. This is sort of like a word cloud. You can click create, enter (or paste) text and see what it does.

The website is:
http://wordle.net

You can paste something you wrote in here, like an email! Or, you can copy and paste a website, or a bible verse from biblegateway.com or the Gettysburg Address in wordle.
(hint: try clicking the randomize button to see all different designs!)

Or, you can point it at an RSS feed (like the one from my blog).
Try clicking on "create" again, and then putting in the URL box (the second box on the page) the following:
http://henrywill4.blogspot.com
then click submit

Enjoy!

It all ends up in the trash

One of the lessons I learned this past weekend...

My wife and I helped with the OG Ladies Aux. Bazaar. Part of the Bazaar sales are the items that people contribute (mostly used) that are sold at a great discount (I picked up a used guitar amp for a very good price).

Near the end of the two days, they have a "$3 a bag" sell. People can just fill it up with as much as they can for $3.

Then, much of the better items that are left are donated to the Salvation Army. Almost everything that's left after that is tossed into a big dumpster.

Some of us were talking about what a shame it is to throw away items that some people might need. Then, my friend, Mike, made the point that everything eventually ends up in the trash. You can't take it with you.

It really got me to thinking (those that know me, know that I think a real lot about things). I was thinking how true it is; just about all the stuff we own eventually ends up in the trash. It's just a matter of how long it takes to get there. It makes you realize how temporary things are and how much we should value people more than things.

I think this is one of those posts that is best to keep short and let you think it through.

Starting a PMO

For the past few months, I've been starting a PMO at work.
A PMO is a Project Management Office.

I thought it might make sense to blog about some of the goals, challenges, and plans.

PMO Goals (for our PMO at least):

• The PMO needs to demonstrate ROI (this is a tough one and honestly one we need to start working on)
  
• The PMO must promote and "sell" the value of Project Management to the members of all of the project teams it oversees and upward to management (this includes coaching, development of people to be better Project Managers, and educating people in the PM processes, templates, and tools)
  
• The PMO must provide a means of common, standard reporting and common PM processes (templates and tools should also be included)
  
• The PMO must collect all the status and roll this up to the mangement/executive it reports to (eventually, this status should be proactive in providing suggested solutions)
  
• The PMO must provide PM administrative support to each project

Challenges - The challenges of our PMO and how we are handling them:

• PMO Resources - there always seems to be more work than resources. We're handling this by tracking every responsibility and request and then constantly re-priortizing. We also are in weekly communication with our executive to discuss our priorities.
• Balancing Priorities - There are a few high priority activities on our lists. We need to take a time slice for each to at least get each one started (sort of like taking a bite of each item on your plate). Many times we are waiting on others to move ahead, so getting a little progress on each item is a big help toward accomplishing the goal.
• Finding the answers - Especially with the compliance items we're working on, it's difficult to find the person who has the answer to the questions we need to resolve. For Example: we might be looking for the person who has responsibility for all of the desktop software licenses. In our big organization, it takes a while to track that down. We're working to solve this by asking people who have tracked down this information in the past.
  
• Scope Increase - The two "biggest baddest" words in project management! Yes, it happens in a PMO too. People are constantly trying to put a bunch of "monkeys on our backs" by trying to delegate more work to us. We handle this by keeping our roles and responsibilities clear. Actually, just writing this helps me to realize that we should document our Roles and Responsiblities. Maybe I should review my recent presentation on PMlessonsLearned.com on the subject of "RACI Roles and Responsibilities" and apply it.

Plans: - The plans of our PMO

• Common and standard reporting templates and Metrics: We're working on a standard reporting spreadsheet that records all the basic data we need from each Project/Program to insure that the metrics we're reporting are supported by hard data. This is a very high priority at this time because we just started work on a new project that can be used to create all the reporting and then we can roll it out to other projects.
• We're concentrating on Compliance. This is compliance with all rules, regulations, business operation guidelines, controls, and any other directives that would be required to pass an audit. This also includes contract compliance. This is one of our main measurements at this point that would be rolled up above our sponsor, and so we need to be working on this.
• Some lower priority elements of our plan:
  
• Process Improvement: We hope to promote and participate in process improvement to improve project efficiency.
  
• Quality: Later we hope to add some spot checks to give feedback and improve on the PM artifacts
  
• Coaching: We are constantly involved in coaching people, giving feedback, and promoting the PM processes
• Education: We have already begun doing some Lunch and Learns to help people discuss the PM processes and improve on them

These are just a few quick thoughts I've had this morning (since I wasn't able to sleep). I'm sure that I probably missed a few "200 pound Gorillas" that I will remember in a few minutes. Hopefully I'll be able to blog more on this in the future.

I'd like to hear your comments.

For all you fathers out there who have daughters

A good friend of mine sent this video of Michael W. Smith singing a great song.
He sent it because we're preparing for our second daughter's wedding next year.

For all you fathers out there who have daughters, my advice to you is to watch this. Then, go spend the next few years with your wife and children as much as you can.

Your children need to see you setting an example of you spending time with your wife, it's a role model for them.

And, you need to spend time with your children: Quantity time is even more important that Quality time. They grow up so fast! Believe me, I know!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fk5K-eTTkfM&feature=related

Note: my advice to those of you with a Daughter who is about to be married is to watch the movie "Father of the Bride" with Steve Martin.

Pilgrim's Progress Presentation

Last night I saw a wonderful "Pilgrim's Progress" Presentation (note: follow the link for free copies). It was given by Jim Winder (Website about the presentation here: thehardbutrightway.com) in Ocean Grove and was based on the book by John Bunyan.

The presentation was a bit of acting/telling the story interspersed with songs.

I enjoyed reading the story to my daughter years ago. This presentation re-sparked my interest in the book. I'm hoping to read it again.

I would say that the main thread of the story is based on the scripture:

Matthew 7:13-14 (New International Version)

¹³"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. ¹⁴But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

Jesus said these words. He also said that he is the narrow road that leads to life (John 14:6).

I hope you find the narrow way. If you want to know more, just contact me.

I watched and listened to the presentation last night while sitting next to a family of our good friends. It was great to see the play through the eyes of someone almost 10 years old. She was very perceptive of the meaning of the allegory, which is very impressive for someone her age. It was a joy to see her rejoicing in the triumphs of the main character.

At one point, the main character of the story meets someone who is going the wrong way on the path. They had believed at one point, but had wondered for a long time and had given up. They no longer believed. At that point I noticed the countenance changed in my young friend sitting next to me; she was looking downward, was very sad, and said "this is horrible." Later, I asked why, and she said "because he was going the wrong way." It was so deeply touching to my heart to feel her sadness over someone who was lost. I, too, have felt a deep sorrow for people who are lost on life's way. Jesus is so close and wants to give them life. I pray for them individually.

I encourage you to read the story of "Pilgrims Progress." I know that I intend to read it. If you do too, it will give you strength and understanding to know Him better. And, that's the best encouragement there is!

Business Email Guidlines

These are some "Business" email guidelines that I've learned over the years.

I'll share my "Personal" email guidelines soon too!

I'm posting these here because I told my manager that I'd write them up so he can distribute them to the team.

He has far too many emails coming to him. Following these guidelines will help everyone to be more effective with email.

1. Keep emails to one subject each

Since so many people have so much email to skim through, they often read the first two sentences and decide what to do with the email. By putting separate subjects in separate emails, you’ll help people to know which ones they need to take action on and which are informational only

2. If there is someone who is responsible for providing something, make it clear

Help the person(s) receiving the email to know who’s expected to do something.

If you need Jack to supply the latest report, make sure that Jack knows that. If there are multiple people needing to supply things, you might consider spelling it out in the beginning of the email and then bolding their names on the items they’re responsible for.

Example:
It was a great meeting today: Jack, Jan, and Sally all have action items assigned, see the details below.

3. If there is something with a due date, make it clear when it is due/needed

Stating a due date helps the person receiving the email to schedule their time. If the due date is flexible, then say so. A good way to state a flexible due date is to suggest a date and ask if it’s obtainable. Example: I have to have this to my manager by Monday, but I need to compile what you give me with the responses of three others. So, could you have this back to me by Monday?

4. Put the action and/or assignee(s) in the subject

Help the person(s) receiving the email to know what’s expected of them.

Suggested Subjects:
FYI: We’re going ahead with the plan
Jack: Decision required by Tue. 5/19/2011: open or closed security?

5. Always end with the recommended action or suggestion

It’s great to point out the issues, but conclude with the suggested action. Actions can include: assigning an action to someone, have a meeting to discuss or to leave things as is.

6. If it’s long and detailed, put a synopsis at the top and detail below

A sometimes a lot of information needs to be communicated, but some of the audience doesn’t need to know all the details. Some people want the overview and to have the detail in case they need it for backup later. Help them out by giving them an overview and detail. Example:

Overview: We are going ahead with the plan to remove the ten widgets as discussed last week This will result in a 10% savings over the previous plan.

Detail:
Last week the team came up with a revised plan that would result in removing the ten widgets from the external widget generator. The following list of tasks will now need to be done, but it will save us substantial cost …

8. Think Twice before sending "Thanks" emails - the other person may already have enough emails in a day. Think about limiting your "thank you" emails.

9. If you have an email "discussion" going, it's time to pick up the phone - if it's a discussion that's gone back and forth more than twice, then the phone makes more sense.

10. If, when replying, you add or remove other email addresses, identify this at the beginning of the email

Phone Interview Pointers for interviewees

Well, It's been a bit since I conducted phone interviews, but I had to do some more today.

I know a lot of people out of work right now and thought they might benefit from what I found myself doing in these phone interviews (most of them apply to face-to-face interviews as well):

1. It's true - phone interviews are to screen people out. So, don't give the interviewer any ammunition. Give as little information as required so that you get called in for a face-to-face interview. Keep in mind the entertainers credo: always leave the audience in a way where they want more.

2. Keep your replies brief - I had a few too many times when I asked a question and wanted a short reply and the person talked on and on, much of the talking off subject! I always try to keep in mind what John Lucht says in his book "Rites of Passage:" when in an interview, try to keep your response to 2 minutes or less and end with a variation of "I hope that answers your question, or is there something else you'd like to know?"

3. Be a good listener: I was surprised at how some people heard my question and went off onto another subject without answering my question. Maybe it was because they didn't know the answer or because they weren't listening to the question closely, but it didn't reflect well on them.

4. Show some initiative: I had one interviewee who asked if they could send me a paper they wrote on a subject I asked about. It was a clever way to get my email address to follow-up. Another interviewee said they had researched the group I am in, so he knew what we do. These all demonstrate someone with initiative, a very valuable trait for us interviewers to find in someone.

5. Close the conversation with a question: Some people just said thanks and they hoped to hear from me again. That's nice. However, one asked when he would hear from me again and asked to be kept in the loop while waiting.

Another person, with even more initiative, asked when we would make the decision and who else he would need to talk to before the decision was made. He mentioned that he needed to know because he had other opportunities he was holding off. It showed he was interested. For someone who might be a strong candidate, this might give them an indication of how well they did because it might cause the interviewer to try to "sell" the position. It might also make the interviewer realize that they need to make a decision before the candidate takes another position.

Guitars, anchors, capos, chord shapes, and hammer-on

How's that for some off-the-wall terminology?!?
And I thought the IT industry had a bunch of jargon to learn!

Well, I learned a bunch from my friends Steve a few weeks ago and then from another friend, Joey, the past 2 weekends:

Anchors: I had learned from a Guitar lesson DVD that when playing chords, it's good to "anchor" a finger in one spot so it's easier to switch chords. I was learning the song "Homegrown Tomatoes" (a Guy Clark song) and was having difficulty switching chords quickly (it only uses 3: the I, IV, and V7 chords - more on that in another post, but suffice it to say in the key of G they are G, C, and D7 - see the chord chart here http://mugglinw.ipower.com/chordmaps/part2.htm). I happened to see Steve and explained to him about needing an "anchor" and he showed me (with no guitar) how I would play the G chord differently so I can switch between G and C easily. I was surprised that I was able to pickup what he meant without having a guitar with me, but you can bet I went home and tried it quick! It's great!

Capos and Chord Shapes:
So, then the past 2 weekends, Joey saw me playing on the porch. He came by and asked if he could jam with me. Of course I responded with a resounding "yes!" (He's a guitar teacher!). He played some wonderful things while I played my simple 3 chord "Homegrown Tomatoes."

I asked him what he was doing and he showed me how he had the capo on the 7th fret. He asked me how I could then figure out where "G" was on the "A" string (one second closest to the sky). Once I found the "G" note, I just had to think of a chord shape (the shape of a chord) that I play without a capo that uses that note as the "root". I mentioned the "C" Chord uses that string in that fret and he told me that if I play the same "chord shape" (same shape as the "C" chord) up on those frets (as though the capo is now the "nut," the piece at the top of the guitar neck where the stings end before the tuning pegs) I would actually be playing a "G". COOL! It sounded like a Ukulele!

Well, he taught me some more about the "Capo Triangle:" The three points of the triangle are the "chord shape", "root" and the "chord." I've got some "homework" that he gave me to do on this, so I'll blog more on this another time.

Hammer-on:
Joey also showed me how he was playing a "hammer-on" to make it sound great. I learned before (from a book) that you do a hammer-on by strumming a string and then quickly placing your finger on the fret where it's supposed to be. It takes a lot of practice (for me at least) to get the timing right. Well, what Joey was doing using a hammer-on was: first, you play the base note, then you play the 2nd string with a hammer-on, then the third string. It sounds great. Time to practice!

Maslow's Levels of Learning

Today I heard Duffy Robbins speak and he mentioned the 4 levels (hierarchy) of Learning.

He attributed them to Abraham Maslow because he thought that was who had published them, but he has looked around and can't find the reference.

They are:
1. Unconscious Incompetence - This is when you think you know it all, but you really just don't realize how little you know. I was like this in my teens and soon after graduating college.

2. Conscious Incompetence - this is when you realize that you have a lot to learn. I can remember being in this stage about several subjects in my life. I can remember being this way with life, with project management, and several times in my Christian walk.

3. Conscious Competence - This is when you get the "book learning." You have the knowledge, the know how, but you have to think about the steps and fundamentals in order to get the job done. I get this way with public speaking sometimes, I have to think about what I'm doing so I don't say "Ummm" all the time.

4. Unconscious Competence - This is when you can do things right without even thinking about it. It's being "in the zone." Some good examples are walking and riding a bicycle, once you learn, you don't have to think about how to do it anymore.

I hope to post a few blogs about applying this principle to other subjects. Learning has always been an important emphasis in my life, so I can think of lots of ways to apply these 4 levels.

Stay tuned...

update 2013-05-06 I just found this article on Wikipedia about "Four stages of competence" that makes a note about who this should be attributed to.

update 2013-07-31 I found this slide presentation about learning yesterday. It's for a different application in healthcare, but still applies. It talks about how to create tension in the "learning ladder" on slides 38-42 and 46-49 are helpful.

Update 2013-08-19 The related idea of creating tension for change is represented well in a few of the slides in the above presentation. Slide 39 is of note since it shows that too much tension can cause "shut down." I've seen this occur several times before when a project team is overwhelmed by a difficult environment. I've also found a few other sites that talk about tension for change: 

• Changing Minds explains the Tension Principle
• The Tension Management Institute talks about Tension Management and the "ChangeGridTM" (A trademark of theirs)
• Productive Flourishing provides "A User’s Guide To Creative Tension"
• "Why Good Leaders Create Healthy Tension" - An interview (follow links to the replay) on Keith Ferrazzi's "My Greenlight" with Jeff Hayzlett, bestselling author of "The Mirror Effect" and "Running the Gauntlet: Essential Business Lessons to Lead, Drive Change, and Grow Profits." Jeff is also known for his past leadership at Kodak and for his appearance on Trump's Apprentice.

Please Hide email Addresses of Your Friends

I've received a bunch of emails lately that people have sent to me with very good intentions; warnings about computer viruses, dangerous hoodlums, and other things.

Well intentioned people often do a forward and send these to all their friends and family.

This spreads around our email addresses to make it easy on spammers to add us to spam lists.

Please do us all a favor: when you forward emails, please put everyone's email address in the BCC box. That will hide our email addresses from other people we don't know when this email get's forwarded all around.

Email Addresses Ripe for the Picking (by spammers):
Note on how NOT to do it: If you put everyone's email in the "To" or "CC" box, then everyone sees all the other emails. As this gets forwarded around the internet, everyone get's to see our email address. A spammer picks that up and gets to add tons of email addresses to their spam list. For an example of what I'm talking about, just look at the emails you've received that have already been circulated from people passing the email around. You'll see lots of email addresses just ripe for the picking!

Thanks for thinking of us all. Let's cut back on the spam we all have to put up with.
Pass this around to your friends and family (but make sure you use the BCC box)!