Issue No. 114 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting features a comprehensive leadership library in just 300 pages—organized for niche mentoring at your weekly staff meeting. For years, Ted Engstrom hosted CEO Dialogues for nonprofit CEOs. These one-day roundtables are continuing on Dec. 3 in Covina, Calif., and Jan. 20-21 in Phoenix. (See the info below.) And this reminder, check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings.
Danger Checklist
Ted Engstrom wrote more than 50 books, many on management and leadership. If you read this week’s book, you’ll have the essence of this evangelical giant’s library on life. He entered heaven in 2006 at age 90, but his insights are not old. They are wise and they work. As president of World Vision, and many other notable organizations, he walked the leadership talk.
The Essential Engstrom, edited by Timothy J. Beals, delivers 40 short chapters in nine areas: Leadership Defined, Leadership and the Bible, Christian Leadership, Excellence in Leadership, Integrity in Leadership, Leaders as Managers, Leaders as Decision Makers, Generational Leadership and Leaders at Home.
Virtually every chapter is an outline for a “management moment” at your weekly staff meeting. Should the boss also be the staff pastor? Read Chapter 11, Manager or Minister? Need to bump up a culture of risk-taking? Read Chapter 15, “Mistakes” Are Important. Need a quick time management refresher, with a nod to Pareto’s 80/20 Rule? Read Chapter 31, Murphy’s Law for Managers.
The anecdotes, illustrations and one-liners are ample and memorable. Some organizations, Engstrom comments, often begin with a man, become a movement, develop into a machine, and eventually become a monument. That will preach! His “Danger Ahead” Checklist is remarkable (page 195).
THERE’S DANGER AHEAD IF YOU:
#1. Settle for the status quo.
#2. Eliminate creative tensions.
#3. Don’t plan in depth.
#4. Stop listening.
#5. Depend on past successes.
#6. Depend on personal experience.
#7. Neglect the highest good.
#8. Forget unity.
#9. Lose the joy of service.
#10. Forget the bottom line.
To order this week’s book from Amazon, click on this title: The Essential Engstrom: Proven Principles of Leadership, by Ted W. Engstrom.
Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) Looking over the list of 10 dangers ahead, which danger is most likely to torpedo our organization?
2) Is there another danger, not listed, that we’re ignoring?
Measuring Results - Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit
One of the big ideas in the Results Bucket, chapter one, in Mastering the Management Buckets, is to measure your results. Be results-driven, not activity-driven, or worse, anecdote-driven. Ted Engstrom was all about results, as was his fellow management guru, Peter Drucker.
In his 839-page book Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices, Drucker writes that the work of the manager involves five basic areas. Managers (1) set objectives, (2) organize, (3) motivate and communicate, (4) measure results and (5) develop people (including themselves).These functions, when done well, equal stellar results.
Last week at a client’s office, I asked a ministry leader from India if the 141 evangelists in his state were accountable for any measurable results. His response was immediate. “Yes. The goal for each evangelist is to baptize six people per quarter, or a minimum of 24 per year.”
You do the spiritual math: that’s 3,384 conversions and baptisms per year. Then he added, “That’s per church. Each evangelist serves two churches.” So double those results to 6,768 people per year (minimum) who experience the life-changing power of Jesus Christ in their lives. That’s transformation—and those are very measurable results. What an encouragement! What are the measurable results in your organization?
Check out chapter one for the five strategic best practices in getting results, including Worksheet #1: Where Are Your Priorities? Five Signs You Might Be Focused More on Inside Results Than on Outside Results. Plus, visit the Results Bucket on our website for resources, more downloadable worksheets, and other book recommendations.
ATTENTION: CEOs!
CEO Dialogues – Dec. 3, 2008. CEOs: Join your colleagues for the next CEO Dialogues, a one-day roundtable for presidents, CEOs, executive directors and senior pastors, at South Hills Country Club in West Covina, Calif., with John Pearson, Alan Bergstedt and Stan White. For more information, visit CEO Dialogues.
CEO/Board Dialogue – Jan. 20-21, 2009. CEOs and Board Chairs: Join your colleagues for this first-ever dialogue for the CEO and the board chair, a 24-hour retreat in sunny Phoenix in January with Bob Andringa, Fred Laughlin and Dale Lefever. It’s limited to 12 teams of two (24 people). For more information, visit CEO Dialogues.
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