John Pearson's Buckets Blog

The Hamster Revolution for Meetings

Issue No. 146 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting reminds you that 43 percent of your time in the Meetings Bucket is wasted, but this week’s book includes a case study that improved meeting results by 38 percent. Would you spend a few bucks on a book that helped you have less, but more productive meetings? And this reminder, check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings. 

Meeting Reduction Tools

This book is a no-brainer purchase.  First, calculate the hourly salary and benefits cost of everyone that attended the last staff or department meeting.  Did you get your money’s worth out of the meeting? If not, there’s help.

Try the P.O.S.E. meeting reduction system in this week’s book: Priority, Objenda (objective and agenda), Shorten and E-vailable.  The “Priority” question asks, “Does this meeting relate to my top goals for the year?” Amen and amen!

“How to meet less and get more done” (the book’s sub-title) is all it took for me to jump in.  With a foreword by Ken Blanchard and co-authored by Vicki Halsey, VP of applied learning at the Ken Blanchard Companies (she’s a great presenter also), my expectations were high and the 130-pages, including a case study, did not disappoint.  It’s in the classic business story format, with large print, so it’s easy to read and easy to implement.

Would you put someone in the pulpit on Sunday morning who has never preached before or been trained as a speaker?  If not, why would you ask someone to lead a meeting—using up valuable and limited staff time and payroll—who has never been trained in meeting facilitation? 

To order this week’s book from Amazon, click on this title: The Hamster Revolution for Meetings: How to Meet Less and Get More Done, by Mike Song, Vicki Halsey and Tim Burress.

Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) Pair off in groups of two and ask, “How much training have you had on leading or attending meetings?” What book(s) have you read that have made you a better meeting facilitator or attender?
2) If you could change three things about a meeting you attended last week, what would they be?

Transformation or Tournaments? - Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit

One of the big ideas in the Donor Bucket, Chapter 11, in Mastering the Management Buckets, is to measure your current fundraising menu of activities against not what works—but against a biblical standard of stewardship. Martin Luther said, "People go through three conversions: The conversion of their head, their heart and their pocketbook. Unfortunately, not all at the same time."

In other words, does your golf tournament, auction, donor premium and other “giving incentives” move donors and prospects towards a “revolution in generosity” (per Wes Willmer’s excellent book) or does it reinforce an inappropriate exchange between the donor and the organization?  It’s not easy, but transformation never is.

For more help, check out the Donor Bucket page at my Management Buckets website and note the book recommendations including A Revolution in Generosity: Transforming Stewards to Be Rich Toward God, edited by Wes Willmer, who was just named the new senior vice president at ECFA.

NEXT CEO DIALOGUES:
• August 28, 2009 – CEO Dialogues 1-Day Roundtable (Dana Point, California)
• October 1, 2009 – CEO Dialogues 1-Day Roundtable (New York City)
Click here for more information.

MANAGEMENT BUCKETS WORKSHOP:
• October 20-21, 2009 – Mastering the Management Buckets Workshop Experience (Orange, County, California)
Click here for more information.

 

Transforming Together

Issue No. 145 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting asks if you’re ready to raise the bar on spiritual mentoring in your organization. Do you want activity or transformation? And this reminder, check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings. 

Quick Fix or Transformation

Wow.  With all the trendy stuff out there on mentoring, coaching and counseling—it’s easy to be confused and do nothing.  Ele Parrott has a simple—but profound—question she asks women who come to her for help or mentoring.  “Do you want a quick fix, or do you desire to be transformed by Jesus?”

If the women on your team (and in your church) are tired of activity-driven programs, fill-in-the-blanks “Bible” studies and “8 Steps & 8 Weeks for Becoming a Spiritual Giant,” you’ll like this book.  Actually…you’ll have a personal gut check first. Then you’ll buy copies for friends. Serious-minded friends. It’s written for women—but it touched me.

The author’s transparency sets the tone.  After her missionary husband, Don, got his dream job volunteer assignment (the pastor’s inner circle) at their home church in Argentina, Ele proudly presented her substantial ministry credentials to the pastor.  His response, “Los banos de la iglesia estan sucios.” Translation: “The church bathrooms are dirty.”  That’s where she started—scrubbing toilets for Jesus in South America. And that’s when she seriously listened to God and her mentoring journey began.

Her definition of mentoring will stop you in your tracks. “Spiritual mentoring is coming alongside of and partnering with who the Holy Spirit is being in the life of another person and infusing truth into that person’s reality.”  Read it again and think what “infusing truth” could look like if you have the heart and calling to be a mentor.

Ele Parrott shares God-honoring principles and memorable real-life mentoring stories. Our activity-driven programs that don’t ignite transformation (we’ve all done them and led them) quickly pale when contrasted with the richness and potential of authentic spiritual mentoring.

This book is a keeper. It’s wisdom layered upon wisdom.  It’s not a formula book on mentoring, yet it’s very practical and highly motivating. The chapter on learning to be an active listener by not inserting my story into the conversation—and thus devaluing the mentee—was a big, big wake-up call for me.

Imagine what could happen in your church or Christian organization (and your own life) if you set the bar high and focused on spiritual transformation, not spiritual activity. To order this week’s book from Amazon, click on this title: Transforming Together: Authentic Spiritual Mentoring, by Ele Parrott.

Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) The author notes that Jesus was full of grace and truth (John 1:14). Then she asks, “What are you full of?”  Ask family members and close friends to suggest two or three words that describe what you are full of!
2) Have you ever had a spiritual mentor? What happened?

It’s Not About You - Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit

One of the big ideas in the Hoopla! Bucket, Chapter 10, in Mastering the Management Buckets, is to ensure that you have a hoopla! champion, with a budget and a nose for fun and affirmation.

This month I read about a hoopla! team that interviews every new staff member and makes a list of their favorite cartoon characters, food, movies, music, etc.  Then when it’s time to celebrate or affirm a team member’s contributions and achievements, the celebration is customized to the unique joys and quirks of that person.  Example: the person’s cubicle is decorated early morning with Dilbert cartoons and Twinkies are served at the break.  (The food favors the team member—not the party planner. What a concept!) Simple idea, but what a profound way to show you care.

For more help, check out the Hoopla! Bucket page at my Management Buckets website and note the book recommendations including The Carrot Principle, which lists 125 ideas for giving recognition in the workplace.

Wired to Care

Issue No. 144 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting features a Top-10 book in the Customer Bucket—a sleeper that, I predict, will become a classic. The author writes, “More than one business leader has complained to me that their company is attracting smart and ambitious young people who lack any sort of gut sense for the work they do.”  And this reminder, check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings. 

In Search of Empathy

I’m on the hunt for the 10 best books for each of the 20 buckets (critical competencies) that help all of us with leadership and management issues. This week I found a Top-10 book for my Customer Bucket. I’ll tempt you with three stories on how “widespread empathy” (what’s going on in other people’s lives) will help you stay close to the customer.

Story #1: Eisner’s Tiger Encounter.  When Joe Rohde, a Disney Imagineer, wanted to convince Michael Eisner to open a safari-like experience for guests, he needed a way to get past the mantra “Disney doesn’t do zoos.” After making the pitch to CEO Eisner (still unimpressed), Rohde opened the doors of the executive suite to let in a 400-pound Bengal tiger. After experiencing this immense beast (bigger than his desk) up close, Eisner responded simply, “I see your point.” Disney’s Animal Kingdom was born.

Story #2: Eat More Jell-O.  Author Dev Patnaik, founder and principal of Jump Associates, a growth strategy firm, was invited to meet with the senior leadership of Jell-O about their declining sales. “For several hours, we sat through presentation after presentation of depressing quantitative research that described the situation. At some point, I had to raise my hand. I looked around the room and asked if anyone there had eaten any Jell-O in the past six months. No one raised a hand. Interesting, I said. Maybe that was part of the problem.”

Story #3: Mercedes-Benz.  Twenty senior executives from Mercedes-Benz flew from Germany to San Francisco to meet with Patnaik to learn how their cars could appeal to younger Americans. To help them develop empathy for this customer niche, Patnaik assigned each team of two executives to a 20-something person. After 30 minutes of interviews, each team of two was given $50 and a city map with an assignment: purchase a gift for the person they just met.  Some teams blew it (San Francisco mementos for people who lived in San Francisco), but other teams were able to experience life in their customers’ shoes and bought very meaningful gifts. Patnaik’s point: “a great product has to function like a great gift.”

The Big Idea.  “…as companies grow larger and more prosperous,” says Patnaik, “they start to look less and less like their customers. Airline executives stop flying economy class. The little tomato sauce company starts to attract Harvard MBAs who eat out all the time and never cook their own spaghetti. The lives of the people that the company employs become less and less like the lives of ordinary folks. Continued for too long, this gap can grow into an overwhelming gulf between the people inside of a company and everyone else.”

After 50 pages of non-stop defining business stories, I knew this book was a keeper.  After 100 pages, I couldn’t stop reading the stories to my wife—a sign of a great book. (Sorry, Joanne.) It reminded me of the Tom Peters and Robert Waterman 1982 classic, In Search of Excellence.  You could call this one, In Search of Empathy.

To order this week’s book from Amazon, click on this title: Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy, by Dev Patnaik with Peter Mortensen. 

Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) Any chance our organization is guilty of the Jell-O syndrome?
2) Early in his tenure as CEO of IBM, Lou Gerstner met with the CEOs of his top customers to find out what IBM was doing wrong. When is the last time we met with our top customers (donors, clients, guests, church members, etc.) and asked what we are doing wrong?

Expect Staff to Bail - Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit

One of the big ideas in the Team Bucket, Chapter 9, in Mastering the Management Buckets, is to leverage the strengths of your boss (or board chair) and your direct reports.

If you and your team members have taken the StrengthsFinder assessment from the Gallup organization (see below for more information), but you still can’t remember the Top-5 strengths of your people and you’re not leveraging their strengths every day—expect staff members to bail on you.  Gallup reports that costly turn-over is less in organizations where people leverage their strengths every day. (Seventy percent of the workforce do not.) If a “strengths culture” is not in your corporate DNA, you can fix that this week by scheduling a strengths briefing.

For more help, download Worksheet #9.2: My Team’s Top-5 Strengths from the Team Bucket page at my Management Buckets website. Plus, check out the three book recommendations featuring the Gallup StrengthsFinder assessment.

What Are You Living For?

Issue No. 143 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting gives you a book with a zillion stories and anecdotes to spice up your talks and presentations. You’ll be tempted to schedule two staff meetings a week just to share the memorable stories with your team members.  And this reminder, check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings. 

Let’s Write a Swimming Pool

Go Lakers!  But…to be fair and balanced for Orlando Magic fans,  this week’s book was written by Pat Williams, senior vice president of the NBA team he co-founded in 1987. If you’re always looking for captivating illustrations and amazing real life stories for your speaking engagements or department meetings—this book delivers the goodies.

Williams take important issues and unpacks them with dozens of memorable stories. The measure of a great anecdote is whether I can repeat it to my wife and she can pass it along, facts in tact, to her friends. For example, in his chapter on the futility of chasing fortune, Williams’ stories and quotations hit the mark:
     • Did the music of the Beatles really reject the materialistic values of the culture?  Not really.  Thinking of the money they’d make, John Lennon and Paul McCartney literally used to sit down and say, “Now let’s write a swimming pool.”
     • “A checkbook is a spiritual document,” said Billy Graham. “It tells you who and what you worship.”
     • When industrialist J.P. Morgan died at age 75 in 1913, a newspaper reporter asked one of his associates how much money Morgan left behind. “All of it,” the associate replied.
     • And this from John Wesley, “When I have any money, I get rid of it as quickly as possible, lest it find a way into my heart.”
     • “Nothing that is God’s is obtainable by money,” observed Tertullian, the third century Christian theologian.

That’s just a sample of the wisdom and the take-aways from Pat’s prolific pen. The author of more than 50 books, Pat and his wife are the parents of 19 children, including 14 adopted from four nations. Pat Williams’ bio is amazing—and reason enough to read one or more of his books.  He’s a sports guy—but a renaissance man.

To order this week’s book from Amazon, click on this title: What Are You Living For? Investing Your Life in What Matters Most, by Pat Williams with Jim Denney.  He tackles big issues: fortune, fame, power, pleasure, character, influence, parenthood and faith.  He then wraps it up with an intriguing final chapter, “What Are You Dying For?” He notes that, sadly, while Bill Gates won dinner in Seattle’s Space Needle for memorizing the Sermon on the Mount as an 11-year-old church attender, today Gates says there is no room for faith in his life.

Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) At Arthur DeMoss’ funeral, Bill Bright asked, “Would everyone here who is going to heaven because of Arthur DeMoss please raise your hand?”  So how many people will be raising their hands at your memorial service?
2) Will Rogers said, “Too many people spend money they haven’t earned to buy things they don’t want to impress people they don’t like.” Do you agree? Why?

His Highness, Our CEO - Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit

One of the big ideas in the Culture Bucket, Chapter 8, in Mastering the Management Buckets, is that when your culture and values are crystal clear, your new people will embrace them with confidence.

What happens when team members who don’t walk the talk line their walls with your plaques and awards? What do reserved parking spaces communicate to your employees, customers and visitors? (“This Parking Space Reserved for His Highness, Our CEO.”) Is your leadership group named the “Management Council,” the “Management Team” or the “Leadership Cabinet?” Does it matter?
Why do people leave your organization? Do you ask them? Are they honest? When you announce the next great idea, are naysayers valued or quieted? Is there a trash can underneath the bottomless suggestion box?

If your corporate culture is not crystal clear to new employees (or new volunteers), appoint a small task force to assess the culture and write a brief document that defines the cultural reality. Here are two ways to conduct the research:
     • Narratives. When you’re interviewing your next potential employee, ask several team members to describe the culture at your company for the job prospect. You might be surprised at their answers, but write them down and add the narratives to your research.
     • Written Surveys. Distribute a survey (online or paper) to your staff, board members and volunteers. In addition to the rating scale (1 to 5), leave space for open-ended responses.

For a sample survey, download Worksheet #8.1: Our Corporate Culture - Your Confidential Assessment from the Culture Bucket page at my Management Buckets website. Plus, check out the book recommendations listed for this bucket.

NEXT STEPS: I can help you integrate these leadership and management best practices into your unique setting and help you assess your competencies in the 20 management buckets. Email me at John@JohnPearsonAssociates.com or visit my website at www.JohnPearsonAssociates.com and my book website at www.ManagementBuckets.com. Look for me on Facebook and tweet me at http://twitter.com/JohnWPearson.

 

The 100 Best Business Books of All Time

Issue No. 142 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting features a CliffsNotes-type book with summaries of the 100 best business books of all time (in the opinion of two legendary book reviewers).  And this reminder, check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings. 

100 Best Biz Books

If a college-age intern asked you this summer to name the 100 best business books of all time, I have a cheat sheet for you.  Some of your favorites won’t be on this list and you’ll likely be unfamiliar with several dozen—but that’s a good thing.

The co-authors run 800-CEO-READ and have been recommending business books for years—so buying the book was a no-brainer. It called out to me. Reading the book was both mandatory and motivating.  The 100 best business books are categorized in 12 sections including: you (strengths, etc.), leadership, strategy, sales and marketing, rules and scorekeeping, management, biographies, entrepreneurship, narratives, innovation and creativity, big ideas and takeaways.

I’ve read 21 of the 100 books.  I’m familiar with another 25—and have always wanted to read about half of those.  So the value of this book, for me, is having at my finger tips a two-page morsel on each of the 54 books I’ve never read. If your favorite book is missing, you can recommend it on their website like I did. (Click on my book here, or on the book cover, to visit their website.)

Each book summary includes a memorable quote in big, bold type, like “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it,” from The Balanced Scorecard. Or, this from Moments of Truth, the classic customer service book by Jan Carlzon, who led the Swedish airline, SAS:  “An individual without information cannot take responsibility; an individual who is given information cannot help but take responsibility.” And how about this line from The Partnership Charter: How to Start Out Right With Your New Business Partnership (or Fix the One You’re In), “A charter is a necessary tool because few people have been taught how to be partners.”

The co-authors are like fine surgeons in the art of reviewing business books: no wasted words, get to the heart of the matter, get out.  Each two-page review delivers the diagnosis and enough medicine to get you moving.  Even reading the summary of The Effective Executive, by Peter Drucker (one of my personal Top-20 books), gave me new insight and a new one-liner, “Effective executives solve problems once.”

This book is a treasure, and besides the 100 book summaries, it’s jammed with delightful full-page sidebars including a readers’ Top-10 poll (The Goal was No. 1), conferences to attend (like the TED conference), an interesting chart on the differences between fables, modern books and classics (with examples), the Top-10 bestselling business books from 2004 to 2008 (Good to Great was No. 1 with 1.4 million sales), six leadership movies, and why The Economist is the only magazine you need to read.

To order this week’s book from Amazon, click on this title: The 100 Best Business Books of All Time: What They Say, Why They Matter, and How They Can Help You, by Jack Covert and Todd Sattersten.

Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) About 11,000 business books are published in the U.S. every year.  How do you decide which books to read? What is the most important business book you have ever read?
2) Speaking of GM, when Alfred Sloan was chairman of General Motors, he wrote an article on management for Fortune magazine in 1953.  That turned into his book My Years With General Motors.  What book would you recommend that President Obama read, now that he owns this car company?

Comfort Zones Matter - Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit

One of the big ideas in the People Bucket, Chapter 7, in Mastering the Management Buckets, is to find your comfort zone and help your team members find their comfort zones.  By understanding the four social styles (analyticals, drivers, amiables and expressives), you can help your staff (and family and friends) be more effective in people relationships.

For example, each of the four social styles will address budget-cutting decisions at your organization four different ways:
• Analyticals will avoid risks, based on facts.
• Drivers will take risks, based on intuition.
• Amiables will avoid risks, based on opinion.
• Expressives will take risks, based on hunches.

Important!  Analyticals and drivers have similar priorities (tasks) and amiables and expressives have the same priorities (people).  Analyticals and amiables have the same pace (slow) and drivers and expressives share the same pace (fast).  But watch out! Analyticals and expressives have neither pace nor priority in common and ditto for drivers and amiables.  You’ll often find conflict between those social styles—usually because a team member doesn’t understand her comfort zone and has not become a student of the comfort zones of her direct reports.

For more help, download Worksheet #7.2: General Overview of the Four Social Styles from the People Bucket page at my Management Buckets website. Plus, check out the book recommendations listed for this bucket.

 

Humility

Issue No. 141 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting tackles humility and the Program Bucket—two subjects rarely combined. And this reminder, check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings. 

The Root of Every Virtue

Andrew Murray (1828-1917) was a South African Dutch Reformed pastor and Christian leader who authored 240 books and devotional writings, including With Christ in the School of Prayer and this week’s book, Humility.  No jazzy subtitle, just the one word—humility.

The book caught my eye because a candidate for a CEO position included it as one of three books he would recommend to his senior team members. Wow. I must confess that I have exerted untold wasted energy being outraged more over arrogant leaders than I have in reflecting on the cure: humility.  This book whacked me—and is still poking at me, yet it’s only 59 pages, with big print. Here you go:
   • “Humility, the place of entire dependence on God, is, from the very nature of things, the first duty and the highest virtue of the creature, and the root of every virtue.”
   • “The chief mark of counterfeit holiness is its lack of humility.”
   • “Pride can lift its head in the very temple of God, and make His worship the scene of self exaltation.”
   • “Humility is the only soil in which the graces root; the lack of humility is the sufficient explanation of every defect and failure.”
   • “Humility is not so much a grace or virtue along with others; it is the root of all, because it alone takes the right attitude before God, and allows Him as God to do all.”
   • “The truth is this: Pride may die in you, or nothing of heaven can live in you.”
   • “No tree can grow except on the root from which it sprang.”

Every page convicts—you probably shouldn’t order this book. There’s more.  “Is it any wonder that the Christian life is so often feeble and fruitless, when the very root of the Christ life is neglected, is unknown?”  And thus Andrew Murray (who also wrote The True Vine and Abide With Me) elegantly pictures the battle between pride and humility (“the two master powers”)—documenting the futility of living a God-honoring life without humility.  The path to the higher life? “Down, lower down!”

To order this week’s book from Amazon, click on this title: Humility, by Andrew Murray.

Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) Andrew Murray writes, “…humility towards men will be the only sufficient proof that our humility before God is real; that humility has taken up its abode in us; and become our very nature; that we actually, like Christ, have made ourselves of no reputation.” What does this mean to you?
2) What’s the balance between pride and humility when we tell our organization’s story in publications, brochures, donor letters and Rotary speeches?

Thus Saith the CEO - Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit

One of the big ideas in the Program Bucket, Chapter 6, in Mastering the Management Buckets, is to do research. “If you have $10,000 to spend, invest $5,000 in researching and understanding your audience.”

Truth be told—in this economic downturn—the reason some companies, churches and nonprofits are dropping programs right and left is that they should never have been launched in the first place.  Some were started because the leader came down off the mountain and announced, “Thus saith the CEO.” No research. No ask the customer. No second guessing.  Just full speed ahead. That’s not faith—that’s stupidity.

So…before you launch your next big idea, invest 50 percent of the budget in researching and understanding the market. You’ll save a ton of money—and often, a ton of embarrassment.

For more help, download Worksheet #6.2: Top 10 Questions to Ask About Program Capacity and Sustainability from the Program Bucket page at my Management Buckets website. Plus, check out the book recommendations listed for this bucket.

101 Mission Statements

Issue No. 140 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting spotlights a reference book with 101 corporate mission statements. The shortest is from Amgen Inc.—“To serve patients.” And this reminder, check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings. 

Gr-r-reat Mission Statements

Peter Drucker said that a good mission statement should fit on a t-shirt. “Together we will build the world’s most extraordinary food company,” is the bold mission statement of Campbell Soup Company.  Chiquita Brands International, Inc., in part, promises, “We will win the hearts and the smiles of the world’s consumers…”  Kellogg Company’s “identity” statement actually prompts a smile: “We build Gr-r-reat brands and make the world a little happier by bringing our best to you.” 

This week’s resource book delivers the “positioning statements” (vision, core values, brand promises, objectives, etc.) of 101 companies in one-page snippets. It’s fun reading. “The Coca-Cola Company exists to benefit and refresh everyone it touches.” That’s inspiring!  Pepsico’s mission statement isn’t.

How about your mission statement? No one disagrees that everything you do must flow out of your mission statement.  Your programs must be aligned with your mission statement. Your branding must enhance your mission statement.

Yet!  When I facilitate management workshops, I always poll the audience.  “Please stand up if you can put your hand on your heart and recite your organization’s mission statement by memory.”  That’s when I get the deer-in-the-headlights look and otherwise bright leaders and managers break all eye contact with me.  Usually, less than five percent of my workshop participants can pass the test.  What’s the deal here?

I’ve concluded that most mission statements are too wordy, too boring and don’t inspire. They don’t energize staff members, board members or volunteers.  And few CEOs take the time to connect the mission statement with real-life-in-the-trenches. The mission statement is a dusty plaque on the wall—not a daily inspiration. 

Jeffrey Abrahams writes, “People, by their very nature, seem to ennoble a task by endowing it with a stated mission.” If it’s time to dust off your mission statement, as part of your annual three-year rolling strategic plan process, here’s a great resource.  To order this week’s book from Amazon, click on this title: 101 Mission Statements from Top Companies: Plus Guidelines for Writing Your Own Mission Statement, by Jeffrey Abrahams.

The book includes a list of 75 key words (many are powerful and compelling) that the author has captured from some of the best mission statements.  He begins with 10 short pages on how to use the book. The variety of corporate expressions is stunning—with examples to fit almost any culture.  My opinion: about two-thirds are still too long, but the gems on numerous pages are worth the journey.  This book is a no-brainer addition to any leader’s toolkit.

And speaking of the Lakers (sorry, Houston) and the Magic (sorry, Boston), I had the privilege of being interviewed on Pat William’s weekend radio talk show last month.  Pat is the senior vice president of the Orlando Magic, the NBA basketball team. So while doing my homework before the program, I came across their extraordinary mission statement:"To be world champions on and off the court, delivering legendary moments every step of the way."

Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) Who can put their hand on their heart, stand and recite our mission statement, word perfect? (Starbucks cards to each team member that can do this!)
2) If the Orlando Magic’s mission statement is a “10” (on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being high), what rating would you give our organization’s mission statement? Why?  Is it time to re-visit our mission statement?

Delegate Your Reading - Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit

One of the big ideas in the Book Bucket, Chapter 5, in Mastering the Management Buckets, is to create your Top-100 Books List. In a journal or on your computer, begin to assemble your list. One rule: You may only list books you have actually read, not read about. I recommend that you list them under the 20 management buckets, though you may have another system that works for you.

And remember—it’s not cheating to delegate your reading! Imagine the “Leaders Are Readers” powerhouse team you could leverage if each person on your team was serious about building and sharing his or her Top-100 Books List.  If you have four direct reports and each one reads and reports on just one book a month, your collective team’s reading and new insights will equal 60 books a year. (If you don’t have a team, start a book club with this approach.)

Once you reach 100 books on your personal list, then decide which ones are your Top-20, Top-10 and Top-3.  It’s a great exercise and a life-long learning discipline. If you’re a listener and not a reader, build your list with audio books.

For more help, download Worksheet #5.1, My Top-100 Books List from the Book Bucket page at my Management Buckets website. Be sure to note best chapters and niche notes for each book to use in your coaching and mentoring opportunities.

 

The Prodigal God

Issue No. 139 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting might just change your thinking about Luke 15.  For me, it was “Wow!” and “Yikes!” I review a book every week here. I know you don’t read every book, but read this one. And this reminder, check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings. 

Labels That Live On

First, let’s cut to the chase: The Prodigal God is a powerful book and maybe one of the most important books I have read in years. After my sister-in-law, Marilyn, sent it to me, I also began hearing about it from others. The book has launched a holy buzz.

The lasting power of a book, for me, hinges on whether I can remember the key concepts and labels years later—and if they radically change my thinking.  J. Grant Howard’s 1983 book, Balancing Life’s Demands, says that sequential priorities (God first, family second, church third, work fourth) don’t make sense and, in fact, is not a biblical way of thinking about priorities. It changed my thinking.

“God owns everything. I’m His money manager,” is Randy Alcorn’s first concept in The Treasure Principle. That impacts my life every day.  And the three inter-connecting circles in Jim Collin’s hedgehog concept (passion, competence, economic engine), in Good to Great, enable me to help leaders identify the soft spots in their organizations.

Likewise Tim Keller’s profound book.  His labels, the younger brother and the elder brother, I predict, will be part of our spiritual formation lexicon for years to come.  How so? Keller reminds us that Jesus didn’t label the parable in Luke 15, “The Prodigal Son.” Jesus simply said, “There was a man who had two sons.”  And so Keller uses each brother’s story to deftly describe the church today.

“There are two ways to be your own Savior and Lord. One is by breaking all the moral laws and setting your own course, and one is by keeping all the moral laws and being very, very good,” writes Keller of the younger brother and the elder brother, respectively. The younger brothers have left the church, often because it is the elder brothers who populate the church.  “Though the older son stayed at home, he was actually more distant and alienated from the father than his brother, because he was blind to his true condition.”

Keller adds, “Because the elder brother is more blind to what is going on, being an elder-brother Pharisee is a more spiritually desperate condition. ‘How dare you say that?’ is how religious people respond if you suggest their relationship with God isn’t right. ‘I’m there every time the church doors are open.’ Jesus says, in effect, ‘That doesn’t matter.’”

Why the book title? The dictionary definition of “prodigal” is not “wayward,” but “recklessly spendthrift.” (I also found “recklessly extravagant.”) And so Keller writes, “God’s reckless grace is our great hope, a life-changing experience, and the subject of this book.” Click here to listen to Tim Keller’s messages on this topic.

To order this week’s book from Amazon, click on this title: The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith, by Timothy Keller.

Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) Keller writes, “When a newspaper posed the question, ‘What’s Wrong with the World?’ the Catholic thinker G. K. Chesterton reputedly wrote a brief letter in response, ‘Dear Sirs: I am. Sincerely Yours, G. K. Chesterton.’”  What do you think he meant—and how might it relate to this week’s book?
2) Peter Drucker says there are five questions every organization must ask.  One is, “Who is our customer?” Does your church (or ministry) really understand these two customers: younger brothers and elder brothers?

The Drucker Deli - Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit

One of the big ideas in the Drucker Bucket, Chapter 4, in Mastering the Management Buckets, is to invite your team to the “Drucker Deli” for lunch once a month.

Order deli sandwiches (or bring your own) and meet at a nearby scenic spot. (During my CMA years in San Clemente, Calif., our team sometimes enjoyed carry-out on the T Street bluff, watching dozens of surfers get axed in the Pacific.) The admission price for the “Drucker Deli” is cheap. Bring your underlined copy of a Peter Drucker book and share your favorite insight from the last 30 days of readings.

Of course, it goes without saying that once a month you should also host a Bucket Breakfast or Bucket Brunch or Bucket Buffet or…(okay, I’ll stop) and have your team members share their favorite insights from Mastering the Management Buckets.

For more resources, a worksheet of Peter Drucker quotations and a list of his books, visit the Drucker Bucket page at my Management Buckets website.

Leadership RE:Vision

Issue No. 138 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting features a book that will challenge your conventional leadership thinking—and help you “RE:Vision” leadership with a new set of eyes. With 30 short snippets, you’ll easily find five to 10 leadership insights to use at your weekly staff meetings.  And this reminder, check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings. 

Beg for More Help

It comes with the territory. After 20 or more years (my estimate) savvy leaders notice they must work increasingly harder and harder to fight off the subtle signs of leadership arrogance.  Experienced leaders remain as leaders because they’re good at stuff—but then they start thinking they are great at stuff.  And then wham—the arrogance kicks in.

What’s the antidote to arrogance? There are many (including a truth-telling spouse), but I encourage colleagues and clients to read-up-a-storm. Diligently. With books that challenge the status quo and the conventional wisdom.  This week’s book does that.

If you have any symptoms of attention deficit disorder, this book is made to order.  I first scanned the 30 tempting chapter titles and couldn’t decide where to start first.  So I read Chapter 29, “Soar on Your Own Wings,” then jumped back to Chapter 1, “Don’t Waste God’s Time,” then to #27, “It’s Not Your Stuff Anyway,” and as I began to rate each five-page leadership lesson, I gave five stars to Chapter 4, “Time-Management Training Can Be a Con Game.” (How can you not read that one?)

In his con game chapter, author Jim Seybert begins when Jesus sent out 36 teams of two each.  “It’s clear that Jesus understood the futility of having too few people assigned to an important job.  The size of the task exceeded the limits of the available workforce, and Jesus tells his followers to pray that more helpers will join them along the way.  The additional bodies were not going to come by chance; the Lord of the harvest would provide them.

“We don’t see Jesus urging his followers to ‘work smart,’ nor do we see him sending them to class so they can learn how to use a Day-Timer.  The world’s most effective leader very distinctly encouraged his followers to beg for more help. I have a hard time imagining he would suggest such a thing were he not certain their prayers would be answered and that more people would be added to the effort.”

So….when is the last time the first item on your To-Do list was to beg the God of the Universe for more help?  When someone challenges your leadership premises, it’s a good thing.  You’ll get similar wake-up calls in Seybert’s chapters on “Customers Don’t Always Come First,” “Good Leaders Are Self-ish,” “Stand in the Spotlight,” “Must We All Get Along?” “Eat With the Troops,” and “Play Chess Not Checkers.”

To order this week’s book from Amazon, click on this title: Leadership RE:Vision – Looking at Leadership With a New Set of Eyes, by Jim Seybert.

Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) The author says “your role as a leader includes the responsibility of providing for and protecting the people God has called you to lead.” Describe a situation (at another organization) where you felt unprotected by your boss—and then a time when you felt protected. (Please change the names or organizations to protect the guilty!)
2) If you were to write a chapter for this book—challenging the conventional wisdom on leadership—what would you title the chapter, and why?

Should You Walk AND Chew Gum? - Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit

One of the big ideas in the Strategy Bucket, Chapter 3, in Mastering the Management Buckets, is to hold high a B.H.A.G., a Big Holy Audacious Goal—an organizational goal or target on the wall for the next three to five years that is the catalyst for everything you do.

When reporters and pundits last week evaluated U.S. President Barack Obama’s first 100 days, some remarked that he had launched so many initiatives and was firefighting so many crises, that the American people were confused by the myriad number of priorities.

I agree with that observation.  You can’t do everything well. And even though Obama says he can walk and chew gum at the same time, every leader must recognize that too many spinning plates will make the audience dizzy.

So ask your trusted internal and external colleagues: “Is our message getting out there? Are we trying to do too much?” Without prompting, can your colleagues articulate your BHAG—your one crystal clear goal you want to achieve by December 31, 2011 (or whatever date you’ve set)?”

For more resources and book recommendations to help you with your strategic planning, visit the Strategy Bucket page at my Management Buckets website and check out other resources and downloadable worksheets in each of the 20 buckets.

NEXT STEPS: I can help you integrate these leadership and management best practices into your unique setting and help you assess your competencies in the 20 management buckets. Email me at John@JohnPearsonAssociates.com or visit my website at www.JohnPearsonAssociates.com and my book website at www.ManagementBuckets.com. Look for me on Facebook and tweet me at http://twitter.com/JohnWPearson.

The Noticer

Issue No. 137 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting features one of those pass-along books that you keep handy for friends and family who need just-in-time wisdom.  Read my review. And this reminder, check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings. 

Just-in-Time Wisdom

Hype or help?  Nancy Lopez, LPGA Hall of Fame golfer, unabashedly endorsed The Noticer with this cover line, “This is the best book I have ever read in my life.”  Come on, the best book ever? So…I had to read it.

Well…it’s pretty good. It’s tough to describe, but I’ll try. Twenty-something beach bum lives under a pier. Old guy (wise sage-type) confronts beach bum’s negative thinking. Urges him to read three biographies on Winston Churchill, Will Rogers and George Washington Carver. Then another three: Joan of Arc, Abraham Lincoln and Viktor Frankl. (Good stuff, I thought. He’s into the Book Bucket.) Three more books, then another three, eventually 200. But that’s not the story line.

The old guy wanders in and out of the lives of people in crisis.  Best-selling author Andy Andrews warns us that you’re either in a crisis, coming out of one, or heading into one. His life lesson observations (the old guy has the gift of “noticing”), served up short story-style, are sometimes lame, but many are throat-grabbers. Like this: “Forgiveness is about the past. Trust and respect are about the future. Forgiveness will be in the hands of others and can be given to you, but trust and respect are in your hands…and must be earned.”

Halfway through this 156-page story, I wasn’t convinced I would recommend it. Then the second half delivered.  I’ll connect with people in the future, and so will you, who will find the just-in-time wisdom of this book to be the perfect antidote to ego enlargement, marriage bugaboos, failing finances, excessive whining, and a dozen other life derailing obstacles. It’s not the best book I’ve ever read—but I’ve picked up some memorable lines and perspectives for my grandpa toolkit, if nothing else. I recommend it.

To order this week’s book from Amazon, click on this title: The Noticer: Sometimes, All a Person Needs Is a Little Perspective, by Andy Andrews.

Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) The book asks one of the most probing questions ever: “What is it about me that other people would change if they could?” Are you gutsy enough to ask others that question?
2) The author also asks this question: “Five seagulls are sitting on a dock. One of them decides to fly away. How many seagulls are left?”

Thomas Nelson’s Blogger Bandwagon - Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit

One of the big ideas in the Customer Bucket, Chapter 2, in Mastering the Management Buckets, is to stop treating all customers alike—and to understand that you must move customers through six levels: 1) ignorance, 2) awareness, 3) interest, 4) trial or consideration, 5) preference, and 6) purchase.

So I was intrigued when Thomas Nelson, publisher of The Noticer, this week’s book, mounted an unprecedented full scale awareness campaign. They’ve systematically engaged the loyalty of bloggers this year with advance review copies of selected books.  For The Noticer, they asked a special favor: write your blog on Monday, April 27—one day before the book is released.  Brilliant. (I’m tracking the book’s sales figures on Amazon all week—to see if it works.)

What is your company or organization doing to solicit the loyalty and engagement of previously under-utilized communicators who could help you create awareness for your programs, products and services? (By the way, Thomas Nelson does not require, of course, that bloggers give all their books high five’s. That’s gutsy and honest—and it works.)

For more resources and book recommendations to help you move people from ignorance to purchase, visit the Customer Bucket page at my Management Buckets website and check out other resources and downloadable worksheets in each of the 20 buckets.