John Pearson's Buckets Blog

Knowing God

Issue No. 406 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting asks what you would have said to a reporter—when the Notre-Dame cathedral was burning. J.I. Packer has answers from his book, Knowing God. And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and click here to read about the fork-in-the-road movie, Unplanned.

Feeble Faith and Flabby Worship

The world shuddered this week as Notre-Dame de Paris burned on live TV. The incredible French Gothic cathedral, completed in 1345, evoked heartfelt responses—and questions. Why now?—people in the street asked reporters. Why now—just days before Good Friday and Easter?

Had reporters been more helpful, they would have quoted the French philosopher, Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), who noted: “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of each [person] which cannot be satisfied by any created thing but only by God the Creator, made know through Jesus Christ.”

Had I reported on the story, I would have called J.I. Packer—to glean his insights on why a secular world was stopped in its tracks.

Perhaps Packer, the imminent theologian, would have said this: “When the person in the church, let alone the person in the street, uses the word God, the thought is rarely of divine majesty.” Packer, in fact did say this—and much, much more about Knowing God (or the lack of knowing God):

“But this is knowledge which Christians today largely lack: and that is one reason why our faith is so feeble and our worship so flabby. We are modern people, and modern people, though they cherish great thoughts of themselves, have as a rule small thoughts of God.”

Over the last three years on dozens of weekends, I’ve enjoyed re-reading Knowing God, the classic morsel by J.I. Packer. Now 92, this English-born Canadian evangelical is still considered one of the most influential evangelicals in North America. Knowing God has sold over one million copies.

So for this issue—and perhaps to give you content for your next staff meeting, sermon, talk, or tweet—I’m sharing some satisfying morsels and snippets from this treasured book, Knowing God. I’ve waited for the right timing before writing this review——and so today it is, I pray.

Published in 1973, my well-worn copy is from the 13th printing in 1978, and Chapter 2, “The People Who Know Their God,” grabbed me by the throat back then—and still does:

“But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ,” wrote Paul. “What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him. . . .I want to know Christ” (Phil 3: 7-10).

“When Paul says he counts the things he lost rubbish, or dung (KJV), he means not merely that he does not think of them as having any value, but also that he does not live with them constantly in his mind: what normal person spends his time nostalgically dreaming of manure? Yet this, in effect, is what many of us do. It shows how little we have in the way of true knowledge of God.”

BAMBOOZLED?
I’m guessing—if Packer were a guest on the Sunday morning news shows to help us make sense of the Notre-Dame fire—he might mention God’s work in Jacob’s life (a must-read snippet from Chapter 9, “God Only Wise”).

“But God in his wisdom had also resolved to instill true religion into Jacob himself. Jacob’s whole attitude to life was ungodly and needed changing; Jacob must be weaned away from trust in his own cleverness to dependence upon God, and he must be made to abhor the unscrupulous double-dealing which came so naturally to him.

“When Jacob had filched Esau’s birthright and blessing (Gen. 25:29-34; 27:1-40), Esau turned against him (naturally!) and Jacob had to leave home in a hurry. He went to his uncle Laban, who proved to be as tricky a customer as Jacob himself. Laban exploited Jacob’s position and bamboozled him into marrying not only his pretty daughter, whom Jacob wanted, but also the plain one with bad eyes, for whom he would otherwise have found it hard to get a good husband (Gen 29:15-30).

“We may be frankly bewildered at things that happen to us, but God knows exactly what he is doing, and what he is after, in his handling of our affairs. Always, and in everything, he is wise: we shall see that hereafter, even where we never saw it here. (Job in heaven knows the full reason why he was afflicted, though he never knew it in this life.)

“Meanwhile, we ought not to hesitate to trust his wisdom, even when he leaves us in the dark. But how are we to meet these baffling and trying situations, if we cannot for the moment see God’s purpose in them? First, by taking them as from God, and asking ourselves what reactions to them, and in them, the gospel of God requires of us, second, by seeking God’s face specifically about them.”

THE 1, 2 PUNCH! 
Why trust God? Packer gives us this one, two punch! “Wisdom without power would be pathetic, a broken reed; power without wisdom would be merely frightening; but in God boundless wisdom and endless power are united, and this makes him utterly worthy of our fullest trust.”

MORSELS…
In seeking to know God and God’s will (Chapter 20), Packer warns of six pitfalls:
   • “Unwillingness to think
   • Unwillingness to think ahead
   • Unwillingness to take advice
   • Unwillingness to suspect oneself
   • Unwillingness to discount personal magnetism
   • Unwillingness to wait.”

The Mount Everest of Scripture: Romans
“Paul’s letter to Rome is the high peak of Scripture…” Packer reminds us. Luther labeled Romans “the clearest gospel of all.”

“Not every Christian, however, appreciates the magnificence of Romans, and there is a reason for this. Someone who touched down on the top of Everest in a helicopter (could such a thing be) would not at that moment feel anything like what Hillary and Tensing felt when they stood on the same spot after climbing the mountain. Similarly, the impact of Romans upon you will depend on what has gone before. The law that operates is that the more you have dug into the rest of the Bible, the more you are exercised with the intellectual and moral problems of being a Christian, and the more you have felt the burden of weakness and the strain of faithfulness in your Christian life, the more you will find Romans saying to you.”

And get this! “John Chrysostom [349-407] had it read aloud to him once a week; you and I could do a lot worse than that. Now, as Romans is the high peak of the Bible, so chapter 8 is the high peak of Romans.”

But wait! Packer’s promo for Romans 8 is exceeded only by Alexander Whyte (1836-1921) who told his Scottish congregation, “You’ll not get out of the seventh of Romans while I’m your minister!” Yikes!

MORE MORSELS…
   • “There are two sorts of sick consciences, those that are not aware enough of sin and those that are not aware enough of pardon, and it is to the second sort that Paul is ministering now. He knows how easily the conscience of a Christian under pressure can grow morbid, particularly when that Christian’s nose is rubbed as Romans 7:24-25 would rub it in the reality of continued sin and failure.”
   • “God makes not only the wrath of man to turn to his praise but the misadventures of Christians too.”
   • “Is your trouble a sense of failure? The knowledge of having made some ghastly mistake? Go back to God; his restoring grace waits for you.”
   • “Is it not a hollow fraud to say that we honor Christ when we ignore, and by ignoring dishonor, the One whom Christ has sent to us as his deputy, to take his place and care for us on his behalf? Ought we not to concern ourselves more about the Holy Spirit than we do?”

I ASKED THE LORD THAT I MIGHT GROW (Big Mistake!)
The great hymn, “Amazing Grace,” penned by converted slave trader John Newton (1725-1807), is familiar to all. But…have you sung or read Newton’s other, more deeply convicting hymn?

Packer wraps up Chapter 21, “These Inward Trials,” with Newton’s remarkable lyrics: six convicting verses of “I Asked the Lord That I Might Grow.” I’ve listened to, sung, and meditated on the words for half-a-year now. “Alexa, repeat!” Yet every repeat stings. (Read the lyrics here. Listen here.)

SNIPPETS…

In Chapter 20, “Thou Our Guide,” the author shares deep wisdom on discerning God’s will. He writes, “Wisdom in Scripture always means knowledge of the course of action that will please God and secure life, so that the promise of James 1:5—“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives to all men generously and without reproaching, and it will be given him” (RSV)—is in effect a promise of guidance.

“Only within the limits of this guidance does God prompt us inwardly in matters of ‘vocational’ decision. So never expect to be aided to marry an unbeliever, or elope with a married person, as long as 1 Corinthians 7:39 and the seventh commandment stand!”

Tweet this! “The Spirit leads within the limits which the Word sets, not beyond them. ‘He guides me in paths of righteousness’ (Psalm 23:3)—but not anywhere else.”

THE QUEST FOR COMFORT
“Comfort is, of course, used here in the old, strong sense of that which encourages and nerves, not in the modern sense of that which tranquilizes and enervates. The quest for ‘comfort’ in the modern sense is self-indulgent, sentimental and unreal, and the modern ‘I-go-to-church-for-comfort’ religion is not Christianity; but [Edward] Elton is talking of Christian assurance, which is a different thing. Here again, however, the Everest principle operates.” (Don’t skip Chapter 20. Oh, my.)

Finally…I hope this Easter eNews was edifying. My second read-through of Knowing God was on Kindle, but I just ordered a fresh new copy (without underlined pages) for my third read. I hope you’ll read (or re-read) this powerful book…slowly.

To order the book from Amazon, click on the title for Knowing God, by J.I. Packer.



If you’re a listener (not a reader), visit Libro.fm and download the audio book, Knowing God. Listening time: 10 hours. (Enjoy the three-minute clip from Chapter 2.)

YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) J.I. Packer notes: “When you start reading Luther, or Edwards, or Whitefield, though your doctrine may be theirs, you soon find yourself wondering whether you have any acquaintance at all with the mighty God whom they knew so intimately.” So…who do you read to know God more deeply?
#2. Has God ever “bamboozled” you? How did you respond? How should you respond? Read J. I. Packer’s list of “6 Things You Should Tell Yourself Every Day.”

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Have You Served on Your Church Board in the Last 3 Years? Take This ECFA Survey!
Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook

The Customer Bucket in Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook reminds you to “Listen! Listen! Listen” as you conduct research on what your customer values. Ditto your supporting customers (staff, board members, givers, volunteers, etc.).

So…if you (or your colleagues) are current church board members and/or have served on your church board anytime in the last three years, you are eligible to participate in a ground-breaking Church Board Survey from ECFA. Help ECFA identify and share best practices and you’ll be entered to win one of three Amazon gift cards. CLICK HERE.

How does your church board compare to others? According to ECFA's survey in progress, only 21% of church boards set or review measurable goals related to the church's mission/vision "at almost every meeting." And only 42% of church boards have an annual retreat. Help ECFA discover best practices by adding YOUR church's experience. CLICK HERE.

When you participate, ECFA will also give you a free summary of the survey results. So thanks for participating—or forwarding the survey link to your current or past church board members. CLICK HERE.

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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. If you read my review of the film, Unplanned—thank you! Visit the Unplanned website here and their Facebook page here to see the innovative work created for Unplanned from Jason Pearson at Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video). The film is now going international.

Your Weekly Staff Meeting is emailed free one to three times a month to subscribers, the frequency of which is based on an algorithm of book length, frequent flyer miles, and client deadlines. We do not accept any form of compensation from authors or publishers for book reviews. PRIVACY POLICY: Typepad, Inc. hosts John Pearson's Buckets Blog. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform for Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews. By clicking (above) to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy policy here.

UNPLANNED (book and movie)

Issue No. 405 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting asks a fork-in-the road question and urges you to see a fork-in-the-road movie opening on March 29. And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and visit Issue No. 397 for my 2018 Book-of-the-Year and my Top-10 books of 2018.

What Can One Person Do? 

Have you ever let-yourself-off-the-hook with this excuse: “I’m just one person. What can one person do?”

UNPLANNED, the book and the movie (opening Friday, March 29), will change your mind about what one person can do.

BREAKING NEWS: This is likely the most potentially impactful issue of Your Weekly Staff Meeting I’ve ever written—and you’ve ever read. Don’t let the routine of reading my latest eNews distract you. Please pause…pray…and then act:

Step 1: View the movie trailers below. (The 27-minute video is gripping.)
Step 2: Visit the UNPLANNED movie website here—and help spread the word.
Step 3: Take family members and friends to see UNPLANNED, opening on Friday, March 29.

In theaters everywhere March 29, UNPLANNED is the inspiring true story of one woman’s journey of transformation. All Abby Johnson ever wanted to do was help women. As one of the youngest Planned Parenthood clinic directors in the nation, she was involved in upwards of 22,000 abortions and counseled countless women about their reproductive choices. Until the day she saw something that changed everything. Watch the two-minute video:

I was at a private screening of UNPLANNED. I have no words…no words…other than—you-must-see-this.

Others are more eloquent:
• “This movie will shake this country to its core on the abortion issue. It’s about time.”
• “If you are pro woman, come see this film.”
• “If you see one movie this year, see the movie UNPLANNED. I warn you, UNPLANNED is graphic and painful and, at the same time, inspiring.”

VIEWER WARNING. Last week, CBN News, discussing the “R” rating for the film, noted that 13-year-old teens can get abortions in America—but the Movie Picture Association of America (MPAA) thinks 13-year-olds shouldn’t see a film about abortion. “What’s the deal?” the writer asked.

The producers label the MPAA’s “R” rating as a political move. In response, numerous leaders are urging parents to take their teens to see this fork-in-the-road film.

In “An Open Letter to the Faith Community,” signed by Tony Perkins, Mike Huckabee, and more than 30 leaders, the signers urged the nation to view this dramatic film—saying “that R stands for Recommended and while we don’t think this film is for young children, we strongly recommend that this film be seen by as many Americans as possible, including older children.”

I agree and I also urge you to see this movie—and to support it on March 29, Friday, when it opens. If you cannot attend, I urge you to read the book, Unplanned: The Dramatic True Story of a Former Planned Parenthood Leader's Eye-Opening Journey Across the Life Line, by Abby Johnson. The expanded edition of the book was published just this month by Tyndale Momentum.

Here’s the book’s synopsis from the movie’s website: “Abby Johnson quit her job in October 2009. That simple act became a national news story because Abby was the director of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Texas who, after participating in an actual abortion procedure for the first time, walked down the street to join the Coalition for Life.

“Unplanned is a heart-stopping personal drama of life-and-death encounters, a courtroom battle, and spiritual transformation that speaks hope and compassion into the political controversy that surrounds this issue. Telling Abby’s story from both sides of the abortion clinic property line, this book is a must-read for anyone who cares about the life versus rights debate and helping women who face crisis pregnancies.”

More links:
• Unplanned film website and official trailer (click here)
• Free downloads and memes (click here)
• Tickets and locations (click here)
• 27-minute preview video (click here)

What can one person do? One person—with God’s help—can save lives.

To order the book from Amazon, click on the title for Unplanned: The Dramatic True Story of a Former Planned Parenthood Leader's Eye-Opening Journey Across the Life Line, by Abby Johnson.



If you’re a listener (not a reader), visit Libro.fm and download the audio book, Unplanned. Listening time: 7 hours and 38 minutes.

YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) Think about the people who helped launch our organization. What did one person (with the help of many others) actually do? What can one person do? What can you do?
2) What’s the most impactful movie you ever viewed? Why? What could be the impact of the UNPLANNED movie? 

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The Power of Story
Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook

How do you “move mountains” when marketing a movement? What can one person do—as a warrior in your organization’s movement? The UNPLANNED movie (before, during, and after)—I predict—will be a case study. (I’m praying for impact.)

For the record—my son, Jason Pearson, through his company, Pearpod Media, is on the team for UNPLANNED. I had the privilege of praying for the team at their weekly staff meeting earlier this month. Trust me—the producers and the entire team are the real deal.

I’m an unofficial, non-compensated, volunteer—and I’ve had the humbling privilege of assisting Pearpod Media with numerous projects for UNPLANNED. I cannot think of a more powerful movement—told with a more powerful story (Abby Johnson’s life) than UNPLANNED. I pray you will support this fork-in-the-road movement. This touches so many buckets...but the Program Bucket is especially relevant.

"We tell ourselves stories in order to live.”
Joan Didion

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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Visit the UNPLANNED website here and their Facebook page here to see the innovative work from Jason Pearson at Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video).

Your Weekly Staff Meeting is emailed free one to three times a month to subscribers, the frequency of which is based on an algorithm of book length, frequent flyer miles, and client deadlines. We do not accept any form of compensation from authors or publishers for book reviews. PRIVACY POLICY: Typepad, Inc. hosts John Pearson's Buckets Blog. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform for Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews. By clicking (above) to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy policy here.

Turning the Flywheel

Issue No. 404 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting notes this from Jim Collins: “Look closely at any truly sustained great enterprise and you’ll likely find a flywheel at work, though it might be hard to discern at first.” And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and visit Issue No. 397 for my 2018 Book-of-the-Year and my Top-10 books of 2018.

2019 Wisdom From Jim Collins in Just 29 Pages!

In his 2019 hot-off-the-press mini-book, Jim Collins reminds us:
   • “When you have disciplined people, you don’t need hierarchy.
   • When you have disciplined thought, you don’t need bureaucracy.
   • When you have disciplined action, you don’t need excessive controls.
   • When you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship, you create a powerful mixture that correlates with great performance.”

Turning the Flywheel: A Monograph to Accompany Good to Great is the latest gem from over 25 years of research from Jim Collins (just 29 pages plus eight pages of helpful summaries in the appendix). The subtitle describes this must-read content: “Why Some Companies Build Momentum and Others Don’t.”

So think about this: You’ve written five powerful business books between 1994 and 2011 (plus a lesser known book in 1992). You’ve sold over 10 million copies worldwide. The assignment in 2019: boil it all down and deliver the key thought—the Big Idea—of what leaders and managers are missing. Pick from this list:
   • Level 5 Leadership
   • Genius of the And
   • Confront the Brutal Facts
   • The Hedgehog Concept
   • The Flywheel
   • 20 Mile March
   • Fire Bullets, Then Cannonballs
   • Productive Paranoia
   • Clock Building, Not Time Telling
   • Preserve the Core/Stimulate Progress
   • Return on Luck
   • Superior Results
   • Distinctive Impact
   • Lasting Endurance

What one concept would you pick—that rises above everything else—and is your critical message for organizations today? Jim Collins picked the flywheel.

I’ve reviewed Collins’ books over the years and found leadership wisdom in every one—but even if you’re already a Jim Collins zealot—Turning the Flywheel will re-energize you. Here’s why: “No matter what your walk of life, no matter how big or small your enterprise, no matter whether it’s for-profit or nonprofit, no matter whether you’re CEO or a unit leader, the question stands, How does your flywheel turn?”

What’s a flywheel? Read Chapter 8 of Good to Great, “The Flywheel and the Doom Loop,” or read the nine-line summary in the appendix of Turning the Flywheel, including this: “…the process resembles relentlessly pushing a giant, heavy flywheel, turn upon turn, building momentum until a point of breakthrough, and beyond.” (By the way, Collins includes more than a dozen succinct summaries of his amazing body of work in just eight pages. Perfect snippets for your next 14 weekly staff meetings!)

THE BIG IDEA: “To maximize the flywheel you need to understand how your specific flywheel turns.”

Collins illustrates the uniqueness of the flywheel approach with flywheel diagrams from seven companies and nonprofits, including Ware Elementary School, located on the Fort Riley army base in Kansas. Deb Gustafson, the principal, first read the Good to Great and the Social Sectors monograph and was absolutely giddy! “When I got to the part about turning the flywheel, I was bouncing up and down out of my seat,” she said.

And note this: Jeff Bezos “…considered Amazon’s application of the flywheel concept ‘the secret sauce.’” But this caution: you need to understand how your organization’s specific flywheel turns—and the sequence of the components. Collins notes seven key steps for capturing your unique flywheel approach—plus this warning: don’t feature more than four to six components.

He includes flywheel diagrams from Amazon, Vanguard, Intel, Giro, Ware Elementary School, Ojai Music Festival, and the Cleveland Clinic. (Wow—Collins must have a love affair with Cleveland. In his first monograph, he highlights “Greatness at the Cleveland Orchestra”—one of my favorite examples for nonprofits.)

He packs all of this—and more—into just 29 pages, plus the appendix. But this is all you’re getting in this review, otherwise you wouldn’t need to buy the book. But I’ll close with this motivational pop quiz:

STAFF MEETING POP QUIZ:
1) If you’re a millennial and you’ve read a book by Jim Collins, please stand. I have a Starbucks card for you.
2) What books/insights by Jim Collins have made the greatest impact on our department or organization?
3) If you have a marked-up/heavily-read copy of any book by Jim Collins (see his six books listed in the article below), please stand: I have an Amazon card for you.
4) If you have NOT read a book by Jim Collins, but would volunteer to read and review Turning the Flywheel at our next staff meeting, please stand. I have a Chick-fil-A card for you!
5) True or False? Using the flywheel concept at Ware Elementary School, the principal and her team saw satisfactory reading levels of just 35% mushroom to 99% in just seven years. (Answer: True!)

Collins concludes on page 37 in the appendix: “Finally, I caution against ever believing that your organization has achieved ultimate greatness. Good to great is never done.”

To order from Amazon, click on the title for Turning the Flywheel: A Monograph to Accompany Good to Great (Why Some Companies Build Momentum and Others Don’t), by Jim Collins.

If you’re a listener (not a reader), visit Libro.fm and download the audio book, Turning the Flywheel. Listening time: just one hour and 47 minutes

YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) Pop Quiz-2nd Round: In groups of two, invest 15 minutes right now and nominate four to six (no more than six) components that might uniquely describe our organization’s flywheel.
2) Pick another bestselling business author (Drucker, Blanchard, Lencioni, Maxwell, or your favorite). If he or she summarized the most critical insight for leaders and managers in 2019—what would your author title the mini-book? 

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You’re Fired! You’re Hired!
Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook

According to Jim Collins in Turning the Flywheel, in the mid-1980s, Andy Grove, president at Intel said to his CEO, “If we got kicked out and the board brought in a new CEO, what do you think he would do?”

Gordon Moore gave his answer and Grove responded, “Why shouldn’t you and I walk out the door, come back and do it ourselves?”

So Grove and Moore pointed at each other and they both said, “You’re fired.” Then out in the hallway, they pointed at each other again with “You’re hired.” They returned to their offices and launched Intel on a whole new direction. Brilliant!

Have you ever fired and re-hired yourself? The Strategy Bucket includes wisdom and insights to help you re-think your outdated strategies with innovative new approaches. If you haven’t read a book by Jim Collins, delegate your reading today to a team member or board member. Here are his six books in the Good to Great Series (click here for all six on Amazon) and click below for links to my reviews:

#1. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others Don’t (2001) - Read my review.

#2. Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies (1994) - Order  from Amazon.

#3. Good to Great and the Social Sectors (2005) - Note: This was my first review in the first issue of Your Weekly Staff Meeting, on Aug. 28, 2006.

#4. How the Mighty Fall and Why Some Companies Never Give In (2009) - Read my review.

#5. Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck—Why Some Thrive Despite Them All (2011) - Read my review.

#6. Turning the Flywheel: A Monograph to Accompany Good to Great (Why Some Companies Build Momentum and Others Don’t), by Jim Collins (2019) - Order from Amazon.

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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. In How the Mighty Fall, Jim Collins identifies five stages of decline. Stage 2 is “Undisciplined Pursuit of More.” You may need outside eyes and expertise to help you avoid the cliff. Check out the innovative ideas from Jason Pearson at Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video). Click here.

Your Weekly Staff Meeting is emailed free one to three times a month to subscribers, the frequency of which is based on an algorithm of book length, frequent flyer miles, and client deadlines. We do not accept any form of compensation from authors or publishers for book reviews. PRIVACY POLICY: Typepad, Inc. hosts John Pearson's Buckets Blog. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform for Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews. By clicking (above) to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy policy here.

Knight of the Holy Ghost: A Short History of G.K. Chesterton

Issue No. 403 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting is important and confessional. Read my review of the new book on G.K. Chesterton. It’s witty, wise, and worth your time. I promise! And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and visit Issue No. 397 for my 2018 Book-of-the-Year and my Top-10 books of 2018.

Who Is This Guy and Why Haven’t I Heard of Him?

G.K. Chesterton (1874–1936) “was once asked what advice he would give to a young journalist. He said he would tell him to write one article for the Sporting Times and one for the Religious Times and then put them in the wrong envelopes.”

Oh, my. You must read this book—because the envelope story is a brilliant summary of the person John Ortberg called “one of the most erudite and creative Christian writers in the first half of the twentieth Christian century.”

Author Dale Ahlquist, who leads the Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton, adds to the envelope story: “This was essentially the advice he followed himself his whole journalistic career. He wrote about religion for the secular papers. But he didn’t write about religion per se. He wrote about religion when he was writing about everything else.”

Hot-off-the-press this year, Knight of the Holy Ghost: A Short History of G. K. Chesterton, is just 170 pages, and I can’t stop talking about it. (Ask my wife, Joanne!)

But first…a confession. For years, I’ve dropped witty G.K. Chesterton quotes into conversations, articles, books, and blogs—but with some guilt. Who was this guy? Well, I knew he was from England. Writer. Thinker. (Oh, look…there’s another perfect quotation. Thanks, G.K.!)

I’ve borrowed John Ortberg’s tribute to Chesterton (in The Life You’ve Always Wanted) many times:

“If you were marooned on a desert island and could have only a single book with you, what would you choose? Somebody once asked this question of G. K. Chesterton. Given his reputation as one of the most erudite and creative Christian writers in the first half of the twentieth Christian century, one would naturally expect his response to be the Bible. It was not. Chesterton chose Thomas' Guide to Practical Shipbuilding.”

I’ve also recycled these Chesterton favorites:
• “I’ve searched all the parks in all the cities and found no statues of committees.”
• “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.”
• “The Bible tells us to love our neighbor and to love our enemy, generally because they are the same people.”

Some book reviews write themselves. Not this one—because Chesterton’s depth and breadth (he weighed 300 pounds) are stunning. Writer. Speaker. Wit. Christ-follower. (You can thank me now for not writing a 5,000-word review.)

Amazingly, Ahlquist’s “short history” is comprehensive, inspiring, and breath-taking. After listing a dozen favorite Chesterton quotes including, “Satire has weakened in our epoch for several reasons, but chiefly, I think, because the world has become too absurd to be satirized” (Take that—Babylon Bee! Take that—Lark News!), the author respects Chesterton’s humor with his own playful style—punctuated with truth.

Ahlquist: “I could go on and on. I often do. Chesterton is delicious. His words provide exquisite flavor and enormous satisfaction. But what do we especially notice in the above quotations besides how clearly and crisply the truth bursts out of them? They are utterly timely. They describe today. Yet they were written a hundred years ago.”

On the jam-packed website of the Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton, you must read “Who Is This Guy and Why Haven’t I Heard of Him?” by Dale Ahlquist:

“Born in London, G.K. Chesterton was educated at St. Paul’s, but never went to college. He went to art school. In 1900, he was asked to contribute a few magazine articles on art criticism, and went on to become one of the most prolific writers of all time. He wrote a hundred books, contributions to 200 more, hundreds of poems, including the epic Ballad of the White Horse, five plays, five novels, and some 200 short stories, including a popular series featuring the priest-detective, Father Brown.

“In spite of his literary accomplishments, he considered himself primarily a journalist. He wrote over 4,000 newspaper essays, including 30 years’ worth of weekly columns for the Illustrated London News, and 13 years of weekly columns for the Daily News. He also edited his own newspaper, G.K.’s Weekly.”

The author adds, “To put it into perspective, 4,000 essays is the equivalent of writing an essay a day, every day, for 11 years. If you’re not impressed, try it some time. But they have to be good essays—all of them—as funny as they are serious, and as readable and rewarding a century after you’ve written them.”

Stunning! And I agree with Ahlquist. Chesterton is timely—2019 timely:
• He writes on the utter failure of socialism, but also the warped values of capitalism. (“Capitalism does not care about marriage.”) He championed distributism. (Learn more here.)
• “Modern materialism is solemn about sports because it has no other rites to solemnize.”
• Abortion: “He said it should be called by its real name: ‘murder at its worst; not only the brand of Cain but the brand of Herod.’”
• The politician: “His whole career has only two stages: first, as quickly as possible to represent his town; then as quickly as possible to misrepresent it.”
• “Every political question is a religious question.”
• Alhquist summarizing Chesterton: “Progress has become an ideal, even though its goal is not defined, which makes the word meaningless.”

The author notes that “a better title for Chesterton may be the General of Generalizations.” And “…if Chesterton had a specialty, it was everything. Everything was the thing he was always writing about, everything involved in being human.” Yet—as you’ll read in this heart-probing book, Chesterton’s entire being pointed to God. (Always a believer, he became Catholic just 12 years before his death. He was 62 when he died.)

The book has just three sections: The Man, The Writer, and The Saint? The author shares Fr. Vincent McNabb’s sweet memory of G.K.’s head and heart:

“It was hard to speak with Gilbert Chesterton and not to think—and to think of God. Even the atheist who spoke with him, and who would have despised the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, felt he would like to know about the God of Gilbert Chesterton—this God whom the very laughter of Gilbert Chesterton seemed to prove was such a lovably human, though transcendent being…”

That reminded me of King David’s charge: “Solomon, my son, get to know the God of your fathers.” (1 Chron. 28:9, TLB)

Enjoy this intellectual and inspirational feast and see why the author honors Chesterton with the title, “Knight of the Holy Ghost.” This just might be my 2019 book-of-the-year. I can’t stop talking about it.

To order from Amazon, click on the title for Knight of the Holy Ghost: A Short History of G. K. Chesterton, by Dale Ahlquist. (And thanks to Carmel Communications and Ignatius Press for the review copy.)



If you’re a listener (not a reader), check out other books by Chesterton at Libro.fm.

YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) Joanne and I are faithful fans of the Father Brown series on PBS. Ahlquist notes that Chesterton’s new genre of the “priest sleuth” and the “underdog detective” changed the course of detective fiction. “Everyone thinks he’s naïve. It doesn’t occur to them that a guy who listens to confessions might know something about how the criminal mind works.” Discuss: what other wisdom advantages do priests and pastors have over many of us?
2) Reading about Chesterton prompted me to imagine a roundtable discussion with Chesterton (1874-1936), C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), Peter Drucker (1909-2005), Andrew Murray (1828-1917), and Mother Teresa (1910-1997). Who would you add to the panel?

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The Culture Bucket: Counterfeit Holiness
Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook

Because Chesterton’s specialty was “everything,” I’m inclined to list his book in all 20 management buckets. But if I had to choose just one today, it would be The Culture Bucket. This week I recommended Humility, by Andrew Murray, on the Governance of Christ-Centered Organizations blog. Murray and Chesterton align:

• Murray: “The chief mark of counterfeit holiness is its lack of humility.”
• Chesterton: “The best kind of giving is thanksgiving.”
• Murray: “Humility is the only soil in which the graces root; the lack of humility is the sufficient explanation of every defect and failure.”
• “The Donkey,” by Chesterton, “is a sweet and simple poem about how the humble shall be exalted.”

As you focus on results, customers, strategy, and more—don’t neglect culture. For more resources visit The Culture Bucket webpage here.

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What’s Wrong With the World? 

JASON PEARSON’s 2016 solo exhibition, “The Problem With the World Is Me,” was inspired by G.K. Chesterton’s response when The Times of London invited intellectuals to respond to the question, “What’s the problem with the world?” View Jason’s three-minute video with Chesterton’s two-word answer.


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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Chesterton wrote, “We are putting all the best things to all the worst uses.” To position your message against the grain—and to thrive—check out the innovative ideas from Jason Pearson at Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video). Click here.

Your Weekly Staff Meeting is emailed free one to three times a month to subscribers, the frequency of which is based on an algorithm of book length, frequent flyer miles, and client deadlines. We do not accept any form of compensation from authors or publishers for book reviews. PRIVACY POLICY: Typepad, Inc. hosts John Pearson's Buckets Blog. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform for Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews. By clicking (above) to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy policy here.

Lessons From the Church Boardroom

Issue No. 402 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting is a tad self-promotional, but only 50 percent (learn why). Read the new book, Lessons From the Church Boardroom, by Dan Busby and yours truly. And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and visit Issue No. 397 for my 2018 Book-of-the-Year and my Top-10 books of 2018.

Church Boardroom Bloopers

News Flash! There’s way too much confusion in the trenches on the appropriate roles and responsibilities of church board members.
   • New church board members are often overwhelmed. (“No one told me!”)
   • Veteran board members have turned micro-managing into an art form.
   • Senior pastors often use the mushroom management approach (Google it!).
   • Senior staffers plead for more face time with the church board, then with missionary zeal, often convert board meetings into staff meetings.

STOP THE MADNESS!

Here’s one solution to these and many other obstacles to God-honoring governance: Lessons From the Church Boardroom: 40 Insights for Exceptional Governance, by Dan Busby and John Pearson.

When ECFA President Dan Busby invited me to co-author a series of governance books with him, I jumped at the opportunity. We’re both passionate about good governance so we wrote 40 very short chapters in 10 irresistible categories:

Part 1: The Powerful Impact of Highly Engaged Boards
• Would you trust a surgeon who stopped learning? How about a church board member who stopped learning? (Lesson 1)
• What’s the “Gold Standard Question” to ask after every board meeting? (Lesson 2)
• Andrew Murray: “Humility is the only soil in which the graces take root; the lack of humility is the sufficient explanation of every defect and failure.” (Lesson 3: Guarding Your Pastor’s Soul—a must-read chapter)

Part 2: Boardroom Tools and Templates
• “A BPM (board policies manual) will help your church board negotiate an emergency leadership transition, frame the strategic planning process, and give direction and boundaries in dozens of other important policy issues.” (Lesson 5)
• True or False: Our church board is crystal clear on the role of the board versus the role of the staff. (Use Lesson 7’s one-page Prime Responsibility Chart to eliminate fuzziness between board and staff roles.)

Part 3: Nominees for the Church Board Member Hall of Fame
• Yikes! “Pastor Carlos said he didn’t have the spiritual gift of church board meetings!” (Lesson 8: Thrive With Four Kingdom Values)
• Attn: All Pastors! “Don’t ask board members to vote against God!” (Lesson 9)

Part 4: Epiphanies in the Boardroom
• To inspire your board to go deeper into spiritual discernment, “…consider how St. Ignatius identified three distinct times when faced with making Spirit-filled choices.” (See Lesson 11 to learn more about a revelatory time, a discerning time, and a waiting time.)
• “It is only with the help of the Lord—and often the Lord uses fresh faces on the board—that a church will begin the important process of governance improvement. God can move mountains, so you can also trust Him to move pendulums!” (Lesson 13: Caution! Understand the Governance Pendulum Principle)

Part 5: Boardroom Bloopers
• On listening: “Leave space for anyone who may want to speak a first time before speaking a second time.” (Just one of 10 pokes-in-the-ribs on effective boardroom listening from Ruth Haley Barton in Lesson 15.)

Part 6: Boardroom Time-Wasters, Trouble-Makers, and Truth Tellers
• “Without adequate advance preparation to fully address an issue, boards tend to function as a committee of the whole, often resorting to painfully circuitous discussion.” (See Lesson 18, “Never Throw Red Meat on the Board Table.”)

Part 7: Boardroom Best Practices
• How do you address Absentee Board Member Syndrome?
   --Option 1: Ho Hum.
   --Option 2: Hint.
   --Option 3: Harass.
(Read Lesson 25 for seven insights, including “Affirm. Affirm. Affirm. When board colleagues affirm each other, then engagement will heighten and board service satisfaction will soar.”)

Part 8: Boardroom Worst Practices
• Read “Where Two or Three Are Gathered on Social Media…” to learn why conflicts of interest always sound more questionable on the internet and social media. (Lesson 28)

Part 9: Building a 24/7 Board Culture
• Honest! Lesson 36 begins with Billy Crystal’s stunning performance, “15 Rounds”—honoring boxing great Muhammad Ali—in front of 20,000 of Ali’s “closest friends” in 1979. Watch it here on YouTube. Learn why the “goal of every board should be continuous improvement to make the board better than it was before.”



Part 10: Boards That Lead
• “As we’ve observed in hundreds of churches over the years, the numbers reveal the reality. Successfully achieving stretch goals is very uncommon, and thus reaching for the moon (and beyond!) should generally be avoided.” (Lesson 39: Don’t Stretch Credulity with BHAGs and Stretch Goals)

RESOURCES:

[  ] 40 BLOGS. 40 WEDNESDAYS. Dan Busby and the ECFA team are featuring 40 guest bloggers with their color commentaries to all 40 lessons. Click here for Lessons From the Church Boardroom—The Blog. (Subscribe on the blog to receive a new lesson every Wednesday.)

[  ] READ the first chapter online, “Lesson 1 – Wanted: Lifelong Learners,” visit the ECFA Knowledge Center here.

[  ] GUESS! And by the way, Dan wrote about half the lessons and I wrote the others. I’ll send a Starbucks gift card (or a Chick-fil-A gift card) to the first reader who correctly guesses which 20 lessons I wrote. (Hint: Dan’s are better!) 

[  ] VISIT the book’s website here for more resources.

[  ] ORDER from Amazon, click on the title for Lessons From the Church Boardroom: 40 Insights for Exceptional Governance, by Dan Busby and John Pearson.



[  ] BULK ORDERS: For special pricing on multiple copies for your church board and senior team, visit ECFAPress here.

YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) Lesson 29 asks, “Are too many staff causing the boardroom to capsize?” Is there a “right number” of board members versus staff in your board meetings? Read “Keeping the Boardroom Afloat.”
2) Lesson 30 gives seven ways to avoid a financial train wreck in your church. A graphic, “The Transparency Continuum,” urges boards to discern what “appropriate transparency” looks like—a delicate balance between two extremes: no transparency and absolute transparency (neither appropriate). Where is your board on the continuum?
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Eliminate Fuzziness
Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook

True or False? Our church board is crystal clear on the role of the board versus the role of the staff.

If not clear, visit the Operations Buckets webpage and download the Prime Responsibility Chart template—and then customize it to eliminate fuzziness between board and staff roles. (It’s also a helpful one-pager for any project where the approval process is a tad fuzzy.)

For more resources from the workbook, visit “The Operations Bucket,” webpage here.
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⇒JASON AND JOHN PEARSON quote Zig Ziglar in the intro to the Operations Bucket chapter of Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook: “People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing—that’s why we recommend it daily.” So if it’s been a very long time since you’ve coached and mentored your team in the Operations Bucket, here’s a reminder that last year’s coaching wasn’t enough. Click on the graphic below to order the workbook from Amazon.

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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Delegate your reading—and ask a team member to read Duct Tape Marketing, the classic from John Jantsch. Jump to page 32 and craft your “Talking Logo.” Then align that with innovative ideas from Jason Pearson at Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video).  Click here.

Your Weekly Staff Meeting is emailed free one to three times a month to subscribers, the frequency of which is based on an algorithm of book length, frequent flyer miles, and client deadlines. We do not accept any form of compensation from authors or publishers for book reviews. PRIVACY POLICY: Typepad, Inc. hosts John Pearson's Buckets Blog. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform for Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews. By clicking (above) to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy policy here.

The Council (and how to delegate your reading)

Issue No. 401 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting suggests a team-building way to stay on top of the information overload avalanche. It works! And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and visit Issue No. 397 for my 2018 Book-of-the-Year and my Top-10 books of 2018.

Information Overload Avalanche

You can’t possibly read all the books (or listen to all the audio books or podcasts) that your board, your boss, your co-workers, your consultants, your mother-in-law, and your favorite eNews editor INSIST you read.

So how do you stay on top of the information overload avalanche—while taking a shovel to your mountainous to-do list?

The answer (write this down): DELEGATE YOUR READING.

For example, at your next weekly staff meeting bring four books from your dusty reading pile. Inspire four team members to each take one book. Ask for a five-minute “highlights” report at your next staff meeting (one book per week). The math is amazing! In four weeks, your team will have the CliffsNotes for four important books.

Ask each reviewer to use a yellow highlighter, or Post-It Notes, or dog-eared pages. Or try my favorite approach—write one-line notes in the front of the book. Example:
   • Page 18 – 4 snares (“a recipe for disaster”)
   • Page 31 – 4 pitfalls (“Spelling them out helps overseers learn how not to govern.”)
   • Page 93 – killer quote from C.S. Lewis!

Those are just some of the must-read pages from a new book I just read and reviewed, The Council: A Biblical Perspective on Board Governance, by Gary G. Hoag, Wesley K. Willmer, and Gregory J. Henson. Read my review on the ECFA blog, Governance of Christ-Centered Organizations.

Next…feature the book on your organization’s bookcase/resource center (you do have a resource center, right?) and as I mention in the Book Bucket chapter of Mastering the Management Buckets, “Mentor your team members with niche books. Leverage their strengths with thoughtfully selected chapters.”

Do the math:
• 4 books reviews per month (five-minutes each)
• 44 or more books per year

I’ve repeated Henrietta Mears’ wisdom hundreds of times, “A teacher has not taught until the student has learned.” And—my opinion—the best way team members learn is to read for themselves (or listen for themselves) and then inspire their co-workers with what they’ve learned.

Here’s what I learned when I read The Council recently (click here for the full review):

Hoag, Willmer, and Henson ask: What does the Bible say about board governance? That’s the weighty (but short and sweet—just 106 pages) commentary on what board members can discern from biblical and historical councils, such as the Council of Moses, the Jewish Councils, the Gentile Councils, and the Jerusalem Council described in Acts 15.

The authors urge boards to practice four disciplines of what they call the “council model:” Scripture, Silence, Sharing, and Supplication. This may seem like a no-brainer at first, but—honest now—when was the last time you experienced intentional silence in your boardroom? The Council quotes Richard Foster:

“Silence frees us from the need to control others. One reason we can hardly bear to remain silent is that it makes us feel so helpless. We are so accustomed to relying upon words to manage and control others. A frantic stream of words flows from us in an attempt to straighten others out. We want so desperately for them to agree with us, to see things our way.”

Foster concludes with this jab: “We evaluate people, judge people, condemn people. We devour people with our words. Silence is one of the deepest disciplines of the Spirit because it puts a stopper on that.”

If you serve on a board, the “delegate your reading” approach is very effective. Ask one board member, per meeting, to read and review a board governance book. (See below for more book options.)

That killer quote from C.S. Lewis on page 93?

“We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.”
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

To order from Amazon, click on the title for The Council: A Biblical Perspective on Board Governance, by Gary G. Hoag, Wesley K. Willmer, and Gregory J. Henson. (And thanks to ECFAPress for sending me a review copy.)

YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) Try this: “Over the next 12 months our team is going to ‘read’ at least 40 books together. Here’s the plan…” For a bonus, give a Starbucks card or a Chick-fil-A gift card each week to the book reviewer.
2) In The Council, the authors remind us that board service can get messy. “To share Moses’ burdens meant the seventy would voluntarily inconvenience themselves and put the needs of the people ahead of their own.” Is “voluntarily inconveniencing ourselves” one of our values here?
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Best Board Governance Books
Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook

Chapter 14, “The Board Bucket,” notes a Chinese proverb, “If you want one year of prosperity, grow grain. If you want 10 years of prosperity, grow trees. If you want 100 years of prosperity, grow people.”

You can grow your people—and your board members—by investing in their personal development with a “Delegate Your Reading” plan. I’ve recently reviewed my picks for “Best Board Books” on the ECFA blog, Governance of Christ-Centered Organizations. As of today, I’ve posted 16 mini-reviews of board books (random order—one size doesn’t fit all). Consider picking four for your next board meeting—and (here it comes again): DELEGATE YOUR READING!

• Best Board Books #1: Boards That Lead
• Best Board Books #8: The Practitioner's Guide to Governance as Leadership
• Best Board Books #9: Called to Serve: Creating and Nurturing the Effective Volunteer Board
• Best Board Books #15: Lessons From the Nonprofit Boardroom (Second Edition)

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⇒JASON PEARSON notes these pokes in the intro to the Board Bucket chapter of Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook: Management Tools, Templates and Tips From John Pearson: “Would you trust a surgeon who was not a lifelong learner? Would you trust an airline pilot who relied on outdated training?” Who is inspiring your board to be God-honoring stewards? For more help, visit the Board Bucket webpage here. Click on the graphic below to order the workbook from Amazon.

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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Delegate your reading—and ask a team member to read This Is Marketing, the latest from Seth Godin. He says “trust and tension create forward motion.” Then check out the innovative work from Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video). Click here.

Your Weekly Staff Meeting is emailed free one to three times a month to subscribers, the frequency of which is based on an algorithm of book length, frequent flyer miles, and client deadlines. We do not accept any form of compensation from authors or publishers for book reviews. PRIVACY POLICY: Typepad, Inc. hosts John Pearson's Buckets Blog. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform for Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews. By clicking (above) to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy policy here.

Zondervan 2019 Guides for 2018 Tax Returns - 2 books

Issue No. 400 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting adds three “B’s” (Bolin, Buford, and Busby) to my personal Mount Rushmore tribute list! (Who’s on your list?) And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and visit Issue No. 397 for my 2018 Book-of-the-Year and my Top-10 books of 2018.

Don't Run Out of Money!

In 1983, and still fairly young to be named the executive director of Pine Cove Christian Camps in Texas, Dan Bolin received some savvy financial counsel from Bob Buford.

At the time, Buford (1939 – 2018) was a member of the camp and conference center’s board of directors. His 1997 book, Halftime: Changing Your Game Plan from Success to Significance, became a popular bestseller.

Bolin told me that Buford’s advice still ranks high on his list of Top-10 management insights. In Dan’s first few months as the camp’s CEO, Bob had a defining conversation with him. “Dan, let me give you some advice. It may be one of the most important principles I can share with you about ministry leadership,” Buford said.

Dan’s energy perked up. He was all ears because he knew that Bob Buford was a successful business leader with a heart for God. Whatever leadership lesson Bob was about to share would be memorable.

Bob looked deep into Dan Bolin’s eyes and whispered, “The fun stops when the money runs out—so don’t run out of money!”

I’m sharing this story in this 400th issue of Your Weekly Staff Meeting—because I was recently reminded what Peter Drucker acknowledged to Bob Buford: “The fruit of your work grows on other people’s trees.”

I so appreciate leaders who intentionally shine the spotlight on others. Bob Buford generously wrote the foreword to Mastering the Management Buckets. Dan Bolin’s influence, insights and friendship have fueled my career. (You’ll appreciate his weekly eNews, Refueling in Flight.) Another “B,” Dan Busby, is also on my Mount Rushmore tribute list of colleagues, coaches, and friends who mentor leaders with quiet competence and God-honoring grace.

And speaking of cash (“don’t run out of it”)—how fitting then that this issue highlights two must-read resources from Dan Busby and the ECFA team.

VERIFIABLE ACCOUNTABILITY

If you serve as a board member, staff member, or volunteer of a nonprofit or church, you’ll appreciate these two very helpful annual updates:

Zondervan 2019 Church and Nonprofit Tax & Financial Guide for 2018 Tax Returns, by Dan Busby, Vonna Laue, Michael Martin, and John Van Drunen (Order from Amazon)

BIG MISTAKES! Read page 213 first: “10 Biggest Tax and Financial Mistakes Made by Churches and Nonprofits.” Note #7: “Inadequate controls over disbursements, leaving the ministry at risk for embezzlement.” Yikes.

That’s the headline, but fortunately, the solution is well-documented in Chapter 6, with 30 pages of commentary, templates, and helpful call-outs/icons titled “Idea,” “Remember,” “Caution,” and “Key Issue.” A one-page “Integrity Points” summary is included in each chapter. Example:

In Chapter 1: “Faithful Administration,” the five “Integrity Points” note that “setting the biblical tone for financial accountability” starts at the top. Another bullet point: why “a majority of independent board members (board members other than staff members or relatives of staff or board members) is vital to ensure the board’s action is done without partiality, undue influence, or conflict of interest.”

ACCOUNTABILITY DEFINED. Another must-read section begins on page one and details the dramatic difference between “self-accountability” and “verifiable accountability.” The authors cite 1 Corinthians 4:2, “Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.” They add, “Proving faithful requires verifiable accountability.” The next 200 pages describe how and why nonprofits and churches can meet the high standards of accountability—and sleep well at night!

POP QUIZ! List five Bible references that address the “Biblical Basis for Accountability.” Time! Put your pencil down and read pages two to four—the list of 40 Bible verses, including 2 Corinthians 8:21 (NLT), “We are careful to be honorable before the Lord, but we also want everyone else to know we are honorable.”

Over these last 400 eNews issues, I’ve encouraged leaders and managers to delegate their reading. So…what person on your staff, board, or volunteer team will you inspire to read this important book? Or…you can deal with Big Mistake #7 later. Your choice!

To order from Amazon, click on the title for Zondervan 2019 Church and Nonprofit Tax & Financial Guide for 2018 Tax Returns, by Dan Busby, Vonna Laue, Michael Martin, and John Van Drunen.



AHA’S ON EVERY PAGE!

PASTOR PAY PACKAGE. How much should you pay your pastor in 2019? “Chapter 2: Compensation Planning” and “Chapter 3: The Pay Package” in the Zondervan 2019 Minister’s Tax & Financial Guide delivers comprehensive wisdom and an insightful and practical format for reporting ministerial compensation—while also noting a common reporting practice to avoid.

The “Checklist for Churches Demonstrating Integrity in Compensation-Setting” is worth the price of the book. Plus, there are bonus “aha’s” on almost every page:

• “To avoid confusion, it is wise for churches to have a policy covering who owns books (and other property with a useful life longer than one year) paid by the church.”
• “Statistics suggest that a minister is seven times more likely to need disability insurance than life insurance before age 65.” (Wow—tough job?)
• “Caution! The previous tuition and fees deduction of up to $4,000 annually was eliminated under tax reform and may no longer be claimed by a minister starting in 2018.”

BIG MISTAKES! Be sure to read page 183: “10 Biggest Tax Mistakes Made by Ministers.” Note #9: “Improperly opting out of social security because of the belief that it is not a good investment.”

If your church is operating on last year’s tax and financial wisdom—that’s unwise. Read the invaluable information on minister’s housing exclusion, business expenses, retirement and Social Security, paying taxes, Form 1040 filing details, and more in this critical update for 2018 tax returns for ministers.

To order from Amazon, click on the title for Zondervan 2019 Minister’s Tax & Financial Guide for 2018 Tax Returns, also by Busby, Laue, Martin, and Van Drunen (order from Amazon). And…special thanks to the authors for providing me with review copies of both books.



YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) Reminder: “Don’t run out of cash.” That wisdom is echoed in my 2018 book-of-the-year pick, Scaling Up. Verne Harnish writes: “You can get by with decent People, Strategy, and Executive, but not a day without Cash.” So…how’s our cash flow? Who is reading the “Cash” section (pages 195-234) in Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It…and Why the Rest Don’t – Mastering the Rockefeller Habits 2.0? (Order from Amazon.)
2) Busby, Laue, Martin, and Van Drunen write, “When Christ-centered ministries do not demonstrate verifiable accountability, they risk doing what is right in their own eyes, as the Israelites did (Judges 17:6).” So…would the public, our donors, and the media agree that we are demonstrating verifiable accountability—or is it more like this paraphrase from The Message? “People did whatever they felt like doing.”
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Power Tools for Impact
Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook

While Chapter 15 is labeled “The Budget Bucket,” there’s a huge difference between budgeting versus finance and accounting.

In The Minister’s MBA: Essential Business Tools for Maximum Ministry Success, (see my 2006 review in Issue No. 9), George S. Babbes and Michael Zigarelli write, “Mention the words accounting and finance to a ministry leader and the first thing that comes to his or her mind is budgeting. But mention the words accounting and finance to MBAs and what instantly come to mind are tools. Power tools. Tools that, as we’ll see, help an organization spend in a way that maximizes mission-consistent outcomes, whether that’s profitability in a for-profit enterprise or social impact in a nonprofit.”
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⇒JASON PEARSON AND I QUOTE WILL ROGERS in the intro to the Budget Bucket chapter of Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook: Management Tools, Templates and Tips From John Pearson: “If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing is to stop diggin’.” For more financial wisdom and tools, visit the Budget Bucket webpage here. Click on the graphic below to order from Amazon.

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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Does the Budget Bucket come up empty when you need a branding refresh? There are cost-effective alternatives to traditional communication strategies. Check out the innovative work from Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video). Click here.

Your Weekly Staff Meeting is emailed free one to three times a month to subscribers, the frequency of which is based on an algorithm of book length, frequent flyer miles, and client deadlines. We do not accept any form of compensation from authors or publishers for book reviews. PRIVACY POLICY: Typepad, Inc. hosts John Pearson's Buckets Blog. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform for Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews. By clicking (above) to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy policy here.

Protected!

Issue No. 399 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting features an inside-the-camper-van look behind the Iron Curtain—and a two-minute video from Charlie “Tremendous” Jones on why “Nothing Works!” And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and visit Issue No. 397 for my 2018 Book-of-the-Year and my Top-10 books of 2018.

Banking, Beer, Bibles, and Books!

This week in North America, we’re fixated on a wall—while in the UK and Europe the focus is on Brexit. Hey, everyone! Take a deep breath! Just step back for a minute and let the extraordinary wordcrafter, author Bob Kelly, remind you about another wall—The Berlin Wall—and what we called the Iron Curtain and what true freedom looks like today (with or without walls or Brexit).

Protected! by Bob Kelly has a very intriguing subtitle, and—get this—a verse from Psalm 91 on the front cover!
   • Subtitle: A True Life Story of God's Word Smuggled Behind the Iron Curtain—and the Influence of a "Tremendous" Man
   • Psalm 91:2 – “I will say of the Lord, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.’”

Have you ever felt unprotected? Fearful? Anxious? Sleepless? Worried? Second-guessing—“why-did-I-say-yes-to-this?”

Bob Kelly’s short book packs a punch (dozens of punches!) as he bobs and weaves the Psalm of Protection through page-turning stories while smuggling Bibles behind the Iron Curtain in the 1970s. You think you’ve had a few zig zags in your career? Read why Bob, the East Coast bank president, signed on with a Bible-smuggling ministry in California—while his car ended up near El Paso, Texas! (Read Chapter 8, “A Hard Decision.” A miracle story!)

Oh…did I mention his short stint selling life insurance? One interviewer’s assessment, “This applicant is confirming definitely a real lack of interview getting and closing capacity.”

But that fortuitous, albeit brief insurance career opened the door to a lifelong friendship with a “Tremendous” man—Charlie “Tremendous” Jones—and you’ll be quoting Charlie, like Bob does, the rest of your life.

Oh…did I mention that besides banking, Bible smuggling, and beer branding (you gotta read Chapter 3!), Bob is a book guy? As “Resident Wordsmith” at WordCrafters, Inc., Kelly has authored or co-authored nearly 20 books and ghostwritten 40 books. His dad was sports editor of the New York Times for 21 years—so writing, apparently, in in his genes.

Oh…did I mention that Bob also has one of the world’s largest collections of quotations (nearly two million)? His sideline career as “Quotemeister” delivers, gratefully, dozens and dozens of powerful quotations in Protected! Some of my favorites:
   • “Fear of danger is ten thousand times more terrifying than danger itself.” (Daniel Defoe)
   • “Trials are medicines which our gracious and wise Physician prescribes because we need them; and he proportions the frequency and weight of them to what the case requires.” (Sir Isaac Newton)
   • “Lord, make me a crisis man. Bring those I contact to decision. Let me not be a milepost on a single road. Make me a fork, that men must turn one way or another on facing Christ in me.” (Jim Elliot)
   • “We are trying not so much to make God listen to us as to make ourselves listen to Him; we are trying not to persuade God to do what we want, but to find out what He wants us to do.” (William Barclay)

So…what does banking, beer, and Bibles have to do with Charlie “Tremendous” Jones (1927-2008)? You’ll laugh-out-loud at the insights and world class wisdom of this one-of-a-kind motivational speaker and Christ-follower. (I was privileged to host him at a gathering in the 1970s.) Charlie’s book, Life Is Tremendous, has sold more than two million copies. Wow. Click on the two-minute YouTube video below for a taste of Charlie on “Nothing Works!” (or read Chapter 16 in Protected!).

Protected! is published by Tremendous Leadership—and, trust me, every minute on this website will encourage you in your leadership and management journey. You can also order The Tremendous Power of Prayer, by Charlie “Tremendous” Jones and Bob Kelly on the website or here on Amazon.

And this reminder from Bob, quoting Charlie: "You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read." Ken Blanchard, author of The One Minute Manager, endorses this book. You will too!

To order from Amazon, click on the title for Protected! A True Life Story of God's Word Smuggled Behind the Iron Curtain—and the Influence of a "Tremendous" Man, by Bob Kelly.



YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) Bob Kelly quotes Oswald Chambers: “Be ready for the sudden surprise visits of God. A ready person never needs to get ready.” So…is our team and our organization ready for the sudden surprise visit of God? If not, how do we get ready?
2) Bob Kelly doesn’t preach a sermon (thankfully) in Protected!—instead he tells stories and weaves Psalm 91 throughout the book (I rated Chapter 9 with five stars. It’s a must-read!). As you share your organization’s story—or your personal story—is it evident that God’s sudden surprise visits are common, or has your work become routine and mechanical and not God-breathed?  

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Church/Nonprofit Financial Mistake #7
Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook

If you serve as a board member, staff member, or volunteer of a nonprofit or church, don’t miss the 400th issue of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (coming next week), with my review of two very helpful annual updates:
   • Zondervan 2019 Church and Nonprofit Tax & Financial Guide for 2018 Tax Returns, by Dan Busby, Vonna Laue, Michael Martin, and John Van Drunen (Order from Amazon)
   • Zondervan 2019 Minister’s Tax & Financial Guide for 2018 Tax Returns, also by Busby, Laue, Martin, and Van Drunen (Order from Amazon)

Here’s a teaser: what’s Number 7 on the list of the 10 biggest tax and financial mistakes made by churches and nonprofits? The answer: “Inadequate controls over disbursements, leaving the ministry at risk for embezzlement.”

Jason Pearson and I quote Will Rogers in the intro to the Budget Bucket chapter of Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook: Management Tools, Templates and Tips From John Pearson: “If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing is to stop diggin’.” For more financial wisdom and tools, visit the Budget Bucket webpage here. Click on the graphic below to order from Amazon.

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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Does the Budget Bucket come up empty when you need a branding refresh? There are cost-effective alternatives to traditional communication strategies. Check out the innovative work from Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video). Click here.

Your Weekly Staff Meeting is emailed free one to three times a month to subscribers, the frequency of which is based on an algorithm of book length, frequent flyer miles, and client deadlines. We do not accept any form of compensation from authors or publishers for book reviews. PRIVACY POLICY: Typepad, Inc. hosts John Pearson's Buckets Blog. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform for Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews. By clicking (above) to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy policy here.

Why Your Meetings Stink—and What to Do About It

Issue No. 398 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting warns—your meetings stink! But—good news—read this five-page HBR article for solutions. And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and visit Issue No. 397 for my 2018 Book-of-the-Year and my Top-10 books of 2018.

Your Meetings Stink!

At your next meeting, does your team need to make a quick decision—so discussion doesn’t drag on and on and on? Schedule the meeting in the elevator. “Okay, team…enjoy the ride, but we’re not leaving until we have a decision on the Nelson Project.”

No elevator? Take a team walk and don’t turn back until you’ve made the big decision! Once made, celebrate the decision—immediately!—with Starbucks or Chick-fil-A gift cards for everyone.

Those two ideas from the Hoopla! Bucket reminded me that a new year is the perfect time to refresh your weekly staff meeting. (You do have a weekly meeting right?) And just in time, is a brilliant five-page article from the Harvard Business Review. This poke-in-the-ribs for meeting facilitators is perfectly titled:

“Why Your Meetings Stink—and What to Do About It”
by Steven G. Rogelberg

Ever heard of “meeting recovery syndrome?” The “stink” article reports that “one recent study found that the effects of a bad meeting can linger for hours in the form of attendee grousing and complaining—a phenomenon dubbed ‘meeting recovery syndrome.’” Yikes!

Another yikes: “One study found that despite the prevalence of meetings today, 75% of those surveyed had received no formal training in how to conduct or participate in them.”

That’s not you, I know, because you’ve read many of the Meetings Buckets books I’ve recommended over the years:
   • Death by Meeting: A Leadership Fable...About Solving the Most Painful Problem in Business, by Patrick Lencioni
   • Read This Before Our Next Meeting: The Modern Meeting Standard for Successful Organizations, by Al Pittampalli
   • The Secret to a Good Meeting Is the Meeting Before the Meeting: Lesson 18 from Leadership Gold, by John C. Maxwell ($1.99 on Kindle!)
   • The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact, by Chip Heath and Dan Heath

So we all agree that most meetings stink (right?), but note Rogelberg’s findings—and his solutions:

THE PROBLEM:
• A survey found that managers reported high productivity in meetings they led—but lower productivity in meetings they didn’t lead—“clear evidence of an ‘I’m not the problem’ attitude.” Ouch!
• People who lead meetings talk the most. Ouch!
• Leaders who run ineffective meetings—and “thereby failing to make the best use of the talent around them”—will likely lose good people.
• Most organizations don’t train their leaders and managers in meeting self-awareness—what they do well, and don’t do well, when leading meetings.

THE SOLUTION:
• Ask your meeting participants to regularly evaluate the meetings you lead. Use surveys, one-on-one short conversations, and include meeting productivity assessments in your 360-degree feedback surveys.
• Define your meeting goals. “If you don’t have a clear mission or a list of agenda items, you should probably cancel.”
• Use a timed agenda.
• “For high-stakes meetings your preparation should go even further. Try having a ‘premortem’ (also known as prospective hindsight), which involves imagining that the meeting has failed and working backward to ascertain why. Then plan the meeting in a way that avoids or mitigates those problems.”

Here’s the deal—I’m trying to inspire you to read a measly five-page article (not a 300-page book) as your first assignment in this new year. If you have a meeting scheduled—and you don’t have time to read this article—cancel the meeting. Or…ask another team member to read the article and facilitate the meeting!

MORE MEETING MORSELS:
• “Facilitation starts the moment attendees walk into the room.”
• “…the key to successful facilitation is understanding that you’re primarily playing a supportive role.”
• “To prevent groupthink, consider incorporating periods of silence throughout the meeting…”
• Instead of verbal brainstorming, use “brainwriting.” (A must-read paragraph!)
• Shave five or 10 minutes off your normal one-hour meeting—“to create a bit more urgency and focus.”

And Rogelberg’s final recommendation in the Meetings Bucket: “If your organization isn’t training you in this key skill, it’s time for you to develop it on your own using these strategies.”

[ ] OPTION 1: To purchase and download the five-page article, “Why Your Meetings Stink—and What to Do About It,” by Steven G. Rogelberg, (Harvard Business Review, January-February 2019), visit the HBR website here.



[ ] OPTION 2: To read on Amazon Kindle, you can subscribe to Harvard Business Review and immediately download the full January-February 2019 issue. (See the 30-days free offer, currently available.)



[ ] OPTION 3: Note to meeting zealots! The Surprising Science of Meetings: How You Can Lead Your Team to Peak Performance, by Steven G. Rogelberg (192 pages), was published on Jan. 2, 2019. Click here to order from Amazon. (Note: I have not yet read this, so I am not yet recommending it. If you read it, please pass along your feedback. Thanks!)


YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) Rogelberg writes, “…when you’re a steward of others’ time, you owe it to them to make some modest upfront investment” as you plan your meetings. How much time do you invest in meeting preparation? Is it enough?
2) My 2018 Book-of-the-Year, Scaling Up, notes: “At the heart of a team’s performance is a rhythm of well-run daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual meetings.” Who will you assign to read “The Meeting Rhythm: The Heartbeat of the Organization,” chapter 11 in Scaling Up? Order from Amazon.

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The Meeting Begins When the First Person Arrives
Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook

Do you facilitate “WOW” meetings? Click here to download a one-page PDF from the Meetings Bucket: “Create a Welcoming Environment for Every Meeting: The Meeting Begins When the First Person Arrives.”

This “W.O.W. Factor Meeting Evaluation” measures three key elements of effective meetings:
• Welcoming
• Organized
• Warm

Inspire a team member to become your meeting evaluator—and suggest ways to improve your meetings and your stewardship of everyone’s valuable time. For more resources from the Meetings Bucket, click here. And try this: present a "I Survived Another Meeting That Should Have Been an Email" coffee mug or t-shirt to your new meeting guru! Click here.



TRY THIS! Amazon's Jeff Bezos often begins a meeting with a “silent start,” according to Jason Pearson’s commentary in the Meetings Bucket chapter of Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook: Management Tools, Templates and Tips From John Pearson. Order here on Amazon and read more about effective meeting management.

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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. So…you and your team just had a meeting (that didn't stink!)—and you're oozing with ideas? Looking for new ways to communicate your mission—with messages that won’t be lost in the sea of kitten videos and fake news? Check out the innovative work from Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video). Click here.

Your Weekly Staff Meeting is emailed free one to three times a month to subscribers, the frequency of which is based on an algorithm of book length, frequent flyer miles, and client deadlines. We do not accept any form of compensation from authors or publishers for book reviews. PRIVACY POLICY: Typepad, Inc. hosts John Pearson's Buckets Blog. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform for Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews. By clicking (above) to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy policy here.

Top 10 Books for 2018

Issue No. 397 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting delivers my Top-10 book picks from 2018 (and my Book-of-the-Year) and three master lists of over 400 books I’ve reviewed since 2006. Also, Happy New Year! And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and click here for my 2017 Top-10 picks.

Top-10 Books for 2018

James Mustich, the courageous author of the new 960-page book, 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die: A Life-Changing List, notes: “Readers read in so many different ways, and any one standard of measure is inadequate. No matter their pedigree, inveterate readers read the way they eat—for pleasure as well as nourishment, indulgence as much as education, and sometimes for transcendence, too. Hot dogs one day, haute cuisine the next.”

My goal in 2018 was to deliver both fast food and great food—along a diverse continuum of books for every leader’s and manager’s appetite. I don’t speed-read my book picks (shocker—I actually read entire books!).

This last issue of the year features books I reviewed in Issues No. 376 to 396. To read other 2018 book reviews from Your Weekly Staffing Meeting, visit the archives here at John Pearson’s Buckets Blog. To download a PDF of the chronological list of book reviews from 2006 through today (all 397 issues), visit the Book Bucket on my Management Buckets website. Another list, with more than 400 books categorized within my 20 buckets, is also available. You’ll also find my updated 2018 personal list (not necessarily prescriptive for you) with my Top-100 books (I add a few and drop a few every two years or so.)

In 2018, I published 22 issues. (But I thought “Your Weekly Staff Meeting” was published weekly? Not!) Certainly not all 10 books will have popular appeal—because all of us are at different levels of competency across the 20 management buckets. What were your Top-10 books in 2018?

2018 Book-of-the-Year

[  ] Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It…and Why the Rest Don’t – Mastering the Rockefeller Habits 2.0, by Verne Harnish (Read my review.)



BEST QUOTE: “Senior leaders know they have succeeded in building an organization that can scale—and is fun to run—when they are the dumbest people in the room! In turn, if they have all the answers (or act like they do), it guarantees organizational silence, exacerbates blindness (the CEO is always the last to know anyway), and means the senior team ends up carrying the entire load of the company on their backs.”

Scaling Up is one of the most complete books I’ve ever read. The alignment with the great leadership/management experts (Drucker, Collins, Lencioni, Gerber, Blanchard, and many more) is stunning.

The Other Nine on My 2018 Top-10 Book List
(With brief excerpts from my reviews, these nine are listed in alphabetical order by author or publisher.)

[  ] Before and After Babe Ruth: A Story of the New York Yankees Told Through the Lens of Tickets and Passes, by Dan Busby (Read my review.)

Even if you’re a Chicago Cubs fan like me (I survived 21 winters in Chicago), you can’t put this book down. It’s absolutely fascinating—and there’s something in this gorgeous coffee table book for everyone: fans, CEOs, marketing/branding teams, church leaders, parents, fundraisers, and team builders! Read my eight water cooler conversation starters.

[  ] Joy Giving: Practical Wisdom from the First Christians and the Global Church, by Cameron Doolittle (Read my review.)



Cameron Doolittle says all of us fall into one of three categories: 1) Listening to God is new to me. 2) I listen to God, but not about money and giving. 3) I listen to God about money and giving. Joy Giving describes a church in Beijing that was blessed with resources—but seemed to have a blind eye to community needs. Keung, a giver in the church, noted “The church wasn’t a conduit for giving; it had become a reservoir.”

[  ] ECFA Governance Toolbox Series No. 4: Succession Planning – 11 Principles for Successful Successions: “Every CEO is an Interim CEO.” (Read my review.)



This toolbox (four videos, viewing guide, and facilitator guide) quotes William Vanderbloemen and Warren Bird who caution that one size doesn’t fit all. “As the variety of successions in Scripture illustrate, our universal recommendation about succession is that there is no universal recommendation. Healthy succession is more art than science. The plan and details must be tailored to each situation. It is also a deeply spiritual process that calls for prayer and recognition of God’s leading.”

[  ] Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, by Atul Gawande (Read my review.)



This book changed—totally changed—my thoughts about end-of-life decisions. Whew. On one level, I agree that this New York Times bestseller (7,000 reviews on Amazon!) is a brilliant and deep look at the “…still unresolved argument about what the function of medicine really is—what, in other words, we should and should not be paying for doctors to do.” Yet on another surprising level, this writer (four bestsellers), surgeon, and public health leader—delivers fresh management and leadership insights in every chapter.

[  ] The Softer Side of Leadership: Essential Soft Skills That Transform Leaders and the People They Lead, Eugene B. Habecker (Read my review.)



Habecker says all leaders have blind spots. The problem: we’re blind to our own blind spots—and that creates frightening situations. He quotes Henri Nouwen in the important chapter, “Welcome Self-Discovery Learning.”

Nouwen: “…the house I had finally found had no floors…. It seemed as if a door to my interior life had been opened, a door that had remained locked during my youth and most of my adult life… The interruption…forced me to enter the basement of my soul and look directly at what was hidden there.”

[  ] Your Best Year Ever: A 5-Step Plan for Achieving Your Most Important Goals, by Michael Hyatt (Read my review.)



My favorite and most practical take-aways:
   • The dramatic difference between achievement goals and habit goals.
   • 10 very practical pages of sample goal templates (pages 237-246)
   • Myth-buster: you can perfect new habits in 21 days (research says it's 66 days).
   • The calendar chain concept. I’ve started using it.
   • “We share our goals, but not with everyone.”

[  ] The Top 10 Leadership Conversations in the Bible: Practical Insights From Extensive Research on Over 1,000 Biblical Leaders, by Steve Moore (Read my review.)

When I joined Steve Moore’s trek for leadership gold, wondering what themes made his Top-10 list of leadership conversations in the Bible—I started with “Chapter 8: Humility.” Powerful!
   • “Pride hides from the consciousness of leaders behind a mask of overconfidence. Overconfidence isn’t just annoying to followers. It is dangerous for leaders.”
   • Did you ever read this parenthetical note in Numbers 12:3? “(Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone on the face of the earth.)”
   • “I find it easier to admit my lack of patience than my lack of humility.”

And this quote from Larry Osborne: “The journey to accidental Phariseeism begins with a blind spot, not a sin spot.”

[  ] Stories of Sheer Pure Grace, by Nancy L. Nelson (Read my review.)



On the back cover is a nickel-sized head shot of Eugene Peterson (1932-2018), along with his endorsement of this special, special book. Wow! The candid photo captures Peterson laughing his head off—and Nancy explains their connection and her deep appreciation for The Message.

She quotes from Eugene Peterson’s introduction to 1st and 2nd Samuel in the Old Testament, “…as we submit our lives to what we read, we find that we are not being led to see God in our stories but to see our stories in God’s. God is the larger context and plot in which our stories find themselves.” Then Nancy adds, “And like 1st and 2nd Samuel, these Stories of Sheer Pure Grace are all framed by someone praying.”

[  ] Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box (Second Edition), by The Arbinger Institute (Read my review.)


Trust me—read and study this book with your team (and family) and you’ll be using the “box” metaphor within an hour. The second edition of Leadership and Self-Deception (over two million copies sold!) includes a short section on how to maximize the book’s impact. The authors list stunning (stunning!) examples of how the principles have transformed organizations (nonprofit and for-profit) and even police departments. In Japan, a word-of-mouth movement has launched “out-of-the-box” clubs.

The business novel/fable/story format makes for an easy read (about three hours) with memorable characters, but—warning—it’s not a comfortable read.

Happy New Year and Happy Reading in 2019!

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“A Good Book Is the Opposite of a Selfie”
Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook (2nd Edition) 

James Mustich, the author of 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die: A Life-Changing List (just published last fall and just 960 pages!), writes:

“A good book is the opposite of a selfie; the right book at the right time can expand our lives in the way love does, making us more thoughtful, more generous, more brave, more alert to the world’s wonders and more pained by its inequities, more wise, more kind.”

Click here to watch the C-Span interview with James Mustich and whether or not he’s actually read all 1,000 books. Click here to visit his website and his list (and short blurbs) on all 1,000 books. Amazing!

REMINDER: Visit the Book Bucket webpage here to download three lists of books I’ve reviewed since 2006, including my updated list of Top-100 books. And, if you’re a listener—and not a reader—visit the audio books available from Libro.fm, including Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box (six hours). I have some fantastic book reviews coming in 2019!

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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. So…you and your team just read a book—and you're oozing with ideas. Need an in-the-trenches one-stop partner to help you communicate your mission—with messages that won’t be lost in the sea of kitten videos and fake news? Check out the innovative work from Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video). Click here.

Your Weekly Staff Meeting is emailed free one to three times a month to subscribers, the frequency of which is based on an algorithm of book length, frequent flyer miles, and client deadlines. We do not accept any form of compensation from authors or publishers for book reviews. PRIVACY POLICY: Typepad, Inc. hosts John Pearson's Buckets Blog. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform for Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews. By clicking (above) to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy policy here.