John Pearson's Buckets Blog

I've Got Your Back: A Leadership Parable

Issue No. 267 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting features a new book that demonstrates, biblically, why excellent leaders must also be excellent followers. And this side note: according to Jim Galvin, there’s a new leadership book published every eight hours in the U.S. (Yikes! I’m behind on my reading!) Plus, this reminder: check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings. And…if you missed it, here is a link to Issue No. 265 with my Top-10 book recommendations of 2012.

Leadership Is Still Messed Up

When is the last time you’ve read a book on “follower abuse?” I’ll bet never.

In this hot-off-the-press “leadership parable,” Jim Galvin, an organizational consultant specializing in strategy, effectiveness, and change, explores this elephant-in-the-room leadership sin with thoughtfulness, insight and creativity.

Leadership—the God-honoring flavor—cannot be learned or practiced on a diet of tweets, blogs and business books.  Jim reminds us that leadership began in the mind of God, but leaders are sinners too. 

So I have eight reasons why you must read his book, I've Got Your Back: A Leadership Parable — Biblical Principles for Leading and Following Well.

Reason-to-Read #1: Page-Turner Story + Readable Theology! First, this is a brilliant, page-turner story with a one-of-a-kind section, “A Concise Theology of Leadership and Followership.”

Reason-to-Read #2: Bad Bosses! It’s the perfect tool for young leaders and their coaches and mentors. The book has two parts. “The first part is a fictional story of four twenty-somethings who are having major problems with bad bosses. Through the story, you will learn Biblical principles for leading and following well.”

Reason-to-Read #3: Old Leaders Liked It. Next Gen Leaders Didn’t. Galvin has got to be one of the most honest leaders/authors of our day. After getting high fives on the manuscript from older leaders, he writes, “I showed the chapters to more frontline leaders and younger leaders. The book didn’t seem to be doing much for them. After more thought, I realized that even my own children, who were in college at the time, wouldn’t read the book.” So he tossed the manuscript and started over!

Reason-to-Read #4: Flawed Mental Models of Leadership.  In his highly readable section, “A Concise Theology of Leadership and Followership,” Galvin summarizes the fictitious mentor’s approach with four young adults. “As they progress, they also develop a Biblical perspective on leadership and followership that transformed the way they interacted with their leaders. The Bible passages were all familiar to them. They simply had never made these connections before because
     their mental model
     of leadership was flawed.”
Then Galvin skillfully “un-flaws” it for us.

Reason-to-Read #5: Forewords by Ortberg and Ortberg.  I can’t recall ever reading a foreword to a book by a husband/wife team.  Nor possibly such meaty material in a two-page foreword. Example:

   • John Ortberg: “Leadership has deep spiritual implications because it speaks to the whole notion of what the Bible calls ‘dominion’; an essential part of our being made in the image of God.”

   • Nancy Ortberg: “Leadership is the ability to create a way for people to contribute to make something extraordinary happen. So simply by its own definition, a leader has his or her eyes on others. Servant leadership requires that great leaders develop ‘spiritual gift radar,’ thinking less about themselves and more about the vision and the people of God.”

Reason-to-Read #6: It’s as Relevant as Your Last Meeting!  Galvin writes,
“Even with all the research and books available to us, leadership is still messed up.
When managers or politicians or pastors dominate in meetings, demand their own way, treat people as objects, or abuse followers, we typically call them ‘strong’ leaders. Harsh leaders would be a better descriptor. Clumsy would work. Maybe we should describe them as completely inept at creating a healthy leader-follower dynamic.” He adds, “As followers, our mental model of leadership must be messed up, too.”

Reason-to-Read #7: Four Insights on Followers.  Galvin explains why everyone should care about becoming better followers: “1) The best followers are more likely to be the best leaders; 2) Being a good follower helps us to deal with poor leaders; 3) All of us will always remain a follower; and 4) How well we follow others offers people quick insight into our character.”

Reason-to-Read #8: Understanding Follower Abuse.  In the parable, the mentor writes the words “Follower Abuse” on the whiteboard and then shares this: “All four of you are victims of follower abuse. You have experienced so much bad leadership from your teachers, coaches, and bosses, for so many years that it has scarred you deeply. Your mental model of leadership is warped. You avoid leadership positions. You have problems relating to authority figures.”

The mentor adds, “Not all follower abuse is intentional.” He then lists four kinds of follower abuse (incompetent, disempowering, manipulative and toxic) and four ways people respond to it. One response, coaches the mentor, is that “the bad habits of your role models are deeply engrained and you repeat their bad behaviors without knowing it.”

Honest. I could list 18 or 28 reasons-to-read this book—but you’ll appreciate the journey more if I don’t give away the story or the Biblical insights. I will need to read some amazing books in 2013 to keep this one off my Top-10 list for 2013.

To order from Amazon, click on the graphic below for I've Got Your Back: A Leadership Parable — Biblical Principles for Leading and Following Well, by James C. Galvin.

Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) The author writes, “When someone is rebellious or indignant under the direction of others, character flaws show through like warning lights.” When is the last time you bristled under a leader’s request or demand—and what did it reveal about your character?
2) Galvin describes a “REAL” follower as someone who is Responsible, Ethical, Authentic and Loving. Would you add anything else to the Biblical call to followership?

Strategic Planning Insanity! - Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit

One of the big ideas in Chapter 3, The Strategy Bucket, in my book, Mastering the Management Buckets, is to be strategic with strategic planning.

It was Albert Einstein who said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” If your company or organization has gone three or more years without a written strategic planning process—and you think this year you’ll finally get around to it—Einstein has one word for you: insanity!

Winston Churchill said,
“There is in the act of preparing, the moment you start caring.” 
So for some, it takes baby steps. Before you retain a consultant, buy a 15-tab binder today, a book on strategic planning—and presto, you’re on your way.  Begin to assemble the obvious documents and resources. Then assign a point person.  Who should lead your year-round planning process? Ask God to give you a champion who loves planning and is passionate about the Strategy Bucket.

To download “Worksheet #3.2: The 7 Reasons Why Strategic Plans Fail," from my Rolling 3-Year Strategic Plan Workshop, visit the Strategy Bucket on my Management Buckets website.

BOARD GOVERNANCE BLOG
Looking for a governance insight to share at your next board meeting? Visit the ECFA Governance Blog and download one of my weekly blogs, like "The Connection Chasm."

 

2013 Church and Nonprofit Tax & Financial Guide

Issue No. 266 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting highlights two tax and financial guides for nonprofits and churches—just in time for tax season here in the U.S. Plus, this reminder: check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings. And…if you missed it, visit Issue No. 265 with my Top-10 book recommendations of 2012.


10 Biggest Tax and Financial Mistakes

“Nobody joins a nonprofit board to close the organization down,” writes Ron Mattocks in Zone of Insolvency: How Nonprofits Avoid Hidden Liabilities and Build Financial Strength. In his book, which I reviewed in 2008, he spotlights the success and failures of 10 nonprofit organizations, including the infamous New Era Philanthropy and the Baptist Foundation of Arizona.

Most readers of my eNews either work or volunteer for nonprofits or churches, or serve on their boards. The responsibilities you carry are abundant, even staggering.  And you don’t want to mess up—especially in the tax or financial area.  You don’t want to be on the front page of the Chicago Tribune or Christianity Today—or a chapter in Mattocks’ next book!

So…just in time, the 22nd annual edition of the Zondervan 2013 Church and Nonprofit Tax & Financial Guide (for 2012 returns) is available. According to ECFA President Dan Busby, CPA, along with co-authors J. Michael Martin, JD, and John Van Drunen, JD, CPA, “last year brought a fresh round of tax changes that are integrated throughout the text. The voluminous laws and regulations that apply to churches and other nonprofits are mind-boggling.”

Unless someone in your organization has stayed on top of every new law, rule and regulation (which is impossible), this book is a must-buy resource for your finance team and your board’s finance committee.  Guessing and hoping are ineffective strategies.  Seeking advice from a friend of a friend of Cousin Eddie may be the trigger that ultimately dooms your organization. Instead, use a trusted resource like this highly regarded guide.

The 2013 edition includes expert advice on handling charitable gifts, risk management checklists, techniques for simplifying financial policies and procedures, tried-and-true steps for reporting financial information, key steps in sound compensation planning, and examples of required IRS filings.

The guide lists 10 of the biggest tax and financial mistakes made by churches and nonprofits, including:
   #1. Not setting up and adequately monitoring an accountable expense reimbursement plan for employees.
   #3. Not reporting taxable fringe benefits and social security reimbursements as additional compensation to employees.
   #6. Weak controls over revenue, including failing to have offerings and other cash and checks controlled by two individuals until the funds are counted.
   #7. Inadequate controls over disbursements leaving the ministry at risk for embezzlement.
   #8. Failure to issue a proper receipt (including the fair market value of the goods or services provided) when a donor makes a payment of more than $75 and receives goods or services.

For each of the Top 10 mistakes, the guide provides easy-to-understand details on addressing the issues.

“All churches are religious organizations, but not all religious organizations are churches,” note the authors. They list 14 criteria the IRS generally applies when deciding whether a religious organization can qualify as a “church” and benefit from tax exemption. While exempt churches are not required to file IRS Form 990 each year, they must file Form 990-T for unrelated business income, if applicable. Confused? Buy this guide!

A companion guide for ministers, Zondervan 2013 Minister’s Tax & Financial Guide (for 2012 returns), authored by Busby, Martin and Van Drunen, is also available—and includes money-saving strategies for ministers, along with long term financial planning resources for clergy.  One of the biggest tax mistakes made by ministers? “Failing to have at least a modest housing allowance designated when living in a church-provided parsonage.” (There are nine more big mistakes.)

Peter Drucker said “Vision without execution is delusion.” John Maxwell adds,  “Dreams don’t work until you do.” Faithful stewards (staff and board members) focus on the big ideas and the details—including the financial details—especially the “render unto Caesar…” details.

Church and Nonprofit Guide: To order from Amazon, click on the graphic below for Zondervan 2013 Church and Nonprofit Tax & Financial Guide (for 2012 returns) by Dan Busby, CPA, J. Michael Martin, JD, and John Van Drunen, JD, CPA.

Minister’s Guide: To order from Amazon, click on the graphic below for Zondervan 2013 Minister’s Tax & Financial Guide (for 2012 returns) by Dan Busby, CPA, J. Michael Martin, JD, and John Van Drunen, JD, CPA.

Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) In the Church and Nonprofit Guide chapter on financial records and reporting, the authors write, “Understanding the terminology of outcomes measurement is fundamental.” What percentage of our staff, board and volunteers could adequately define these four measurement terms: Input, Program, Output and Outcome?
2) On a scale of 1 to 5 (5 is extremely confident), how confident are you that a) the financial officers of your local church are aware of the “10 Biggest Tax Mistakes Made by Ministers”—and b) that the church is in compliance with the latest IRS rules and regulations?

Pushing JELL-O® Uphill - Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit

One of the big ideas in Chapter 2, The Customer Bucket, in my book, Mastering the Management Buckets, is to focus on your primary customer. Peter Drucker wrote, “your primary customer is the person whose life is changed through your work.”

Does it feel like you’re pushing JELL-O® uphill while your team’s morale is sliding south? If you’re focused on the wrong primary customer, the hill will only get steeper and your morale will nosedive deeper.  You can juggle all the balls in the Hoopla! Bucket to try and fix morale, but if you haven’t done the homework on your primary customer—you’re doomed.  Get this one right and then the Hoopla! kicks in on its own!

For more information on the distinction between primary customers and supporting customers, read Chapter 2 and visit the online resources in the Customer Bucket, including Worksheet #2.1: Local Church Simplified Segmenting Chart - Who is God calling you to reach and serve?

INSPIRE BOARD MEMBERS.  Check out my latest ECFA blog posting for board members on "Never Say Someone's No for Them," (wise counsel from Bill Hybels).

 

 

Top-10 Books of 2012

Issue No. 265 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting delivers my Top-10 book picks from 2012 and my chronological list of all the books I’ve reviewed since 2006. Plus, this reminder: check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings.

Top-10 Books for 2012

Woody Allen once said, “I took a speed-reading course where you run your finger down the middle of the page and was able to read War and Peace in 20 minutes. It’s about Russia.”  I don’t speed-read my book picks—and I was blessed with a heavy client load last year, so I averaged an eNews about twice a month, a bit down from my 34 reviews in 2011—but who’s counting?

This first issue of 2013 features my annual recap of the books I reviewed in 2012 (Issues No. 240 to 264). To read all the 2012 book reviews from Your Weekly Staffing Meeting, visit the "archives" here on my Buckets Blog.  To download a PDF of the chronological list of book reviews from 2006 through today (all 265 issues), visit the Book Bucket at my Management Buckets website. In 2012, I published 25 issues with reviews of 22 books, plus two Harvard Business Review articles, one creative thinking card deck, and one board member recruitment DVD/toolbox.

It's a tough assignment to narrow it down to 10 that all have popular appeal—since all of us are at different levels of competency across the 20 management buckets. Other than my top pick, the other nine are listed here in chronological order.
 
2012 Book-of-the-Year

[ ] The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business, by Patrick Lencioni

Lencioni articulates the “values” discussion with wit and wisdom. He’s the only management guru who says there are four categories of values (Core Values, Aspirational Values, Permission-to-Play Values, and Accidental Values) and that you’re wasting everyone’s time by including some of these in your strategy documents.

I also appreciated this insight: “Bad meetings are the birthplace of unhealthy organizations and good meetings are the origin of cohesion, clarity and communication.”  He adds, “If someone were to offer me one single piece of evidence to evaluate the health of an organization, I would not ask to see its financial statements, review its product line, or even talk to its employees or customers: I would want to observe the leadership team during a meeting.”

The Other Nine Books

[  ] Eat That Frog! 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time, by Brian Tracy

If you’ve conquered procrastination, you will still find the 21 strategies valuable—especially as you coach others. “One strategy might be effective in one situation and another might apply to another task. All together, these 21 ideas represent a smorgasbord of personal effectiveness techniques that you can use at any time, in any order or sequence that makes sense to you at the moment.” The one-liners are memorable—and poster-worthy:
   --“Goals are the fuel in the furnace of achievement.”
   --“It only takes about 10 to 12 minutes for you to plan out your day, but this small investment of time will save you up to two hours (100 to 120 minutes) in wasted time and diffused effort throughout the day.”
          “Resist the temptation
          to clear up small things first.”
   --“Time management is really life management, personal management. It is really taking control of the sequence of events.”

[  ] The Million-Dollar Dime (A Novelette), by R. Scott Rodin

The perfect book to give to donors, this is a page-turner. I was captivated by the story—built on the memorable simplicity of a dime. (I predict you’ll repeat this stunning story dozens of times.)
   --I was convicted by the insights. “The journey from owner to steward is the transformational journey from bondage to freedom, anxiety to peace, grasping to letting go.”
   --I was shocked by the honesty—especially the transparent confessions that maybe, just maybe, our evangelical mantra of sacrificial giving (“give until it hurts”) is, in fact, not biblical. Yikes.
   --I was inspired by the biblical principles. “We should be outrageously generous givers because we were created in the image of an outrageously giving God.” And “No matter how much we think we have or don’t have, we have enough.”

[  ] The Presidents Club: Inside the World’s Most Exclusive Fraternity, by Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duff

This book, about recent U.S. presidents, is a leadership case study on multiple levels. CEOs in transition (retirement, termination or promotion) will especially appreciate this revealing inside look at the new guy/old guy relationships in the Oval Office. The book will trigger all your emotions (as it did for each president): mad, glad and sad.

[  ] Pursuing God’s Will Together: A Discernment Practice for Leadership Groups, by Ruth Haley Barton

Ruth Haley Barton has the audacity to write, “Just because something is strategic does not necessarily mean it is God’s will for us right now.” She says that our staff meetings and board meetings must move from decision-making to discernment. “Spiritual discernment is the ability to distinguish between good (that which is of God and draws us closer to God) and evil (that which is not of God and draws us away from God).”

I named her previous book, Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership, my 2009 book-of-the-year. This is a must-read companion.

[  ] How to Deliver a TED Talk: Secrets of the World’s Most Inspiring Presentations, by Jeremey Donovan

The author researched hundreds of online videos of the most popular 18-minute talks presented at the highly acclaimed TED Conferences. In just 107 big-print, fast-reading pages, he boils it all down. But it’s not a speaking-tips-for-dummies blah/blah/blah book; it’s much, much better—and rich in detail where it matters.

[  ] Nonprofit Financial Sustainability: Making Strategic Decisions for Financial Viability, by Jeanne Bell, Jan Masaoka, and Steve Zimmerman

“The Dual Bottom Line” matrix map addresses mission impact and financial sustainability—with four easy-to-remember icons:
   --Stars: High Mission Impact, High Profitability
   --Hearts: High Mission Impact, Low Profitability
   --Money Tree: Low Mission Impact, High Profitability
   --Stop Sign: Low Mission Impact, Low Profitability
Pop Quiz! Assemble your team and draw the Dual Bottom Line Matrix Map on your flipchart or whiteboard—and then plot every program, service and product you provide into one of the four quadrants.

[  ] ECFA Governance Toolbox Series No. 1: Recruiting Board Members (DVD, Viewing Guide & Facilitator Guide), published by ECFA

A Chinese proverb says, “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is today.”
 
That’s also relevant counsel for your board member recruitment process.  The best time to discern board member criteria and qualifications is before you invite inappropriate people onto your board. But moving from “slot-filling” to a thoughtful discernment process is not easy. The new ECFA Governance Toolbox Series launched in 2012 and the first title in the series is “Recruiting Board Members: Leveraging the 4 Phases of Board Recruitment—Cultivation, Recruitment, Orientation and Engagement.” (Disclosure: I was privileged to be involved in this project.)
 
This “View-Inspire-Engage” toolbox includes a 13-minute DVD, 12 Board Member Read-and-Engage Viewing Guides, and a Facilitator Guide with just-in-time help to engage your board on this fork-in-the-road core competency.

[  ] Thinkpak: A Brainstorming Card Deck, by Michael Michalko

The problem says Michalko, “If you always think the way you’ve always thought, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”
 
The solution: “Everything new is really an addition to or modification of something that already existed. To create a new idea, product, service, process, breakthrough, or whatever else you need, just take a subject and change it into something.” So this creativity guru recommends you “S.C.A.M.P.E.R” and leverage the nine principal ways of changing a subject:
   Substitute something.
   Combine it with something else.
   Adapt something to it.
   Modify or Magnify it.
   Put it to some other use.
   Eliminate something.
   Reverse or Rearrange it.
 
The Thinkpak brainstorming card deck has 56 cards including two instructional cards, four or five cards for each of the nine key processes, plus seven cards with creative ways to evaluate ideas.  It’s a brilliant instant brainstorming system. But caution! It could be dangerous to your boring, status quo!

[  ] 7 Seconds to Success: How to Effectively Relate to People in an Instant, by Gary Coffey and Bob Phillips

Forget the 16 grids and confusing letter combinations of Myers-Briggs (ENTJ, INTJ, etc.).  Skip the four animals system (“I can’t remember—am I a collie, a muskrat or a hippo?”)  Don’t waste time on the personality color systems, unless everyone in your circle is a color zealot (and they’re not).
 
If you want to effectively relate to people, literally in an instant, then order this new, easy-to-remember slant:
   • Analyticals are Thinkers
   • Amiables are Touchers
   • Drivers are Tellers
   • Expressives are Talkers

P.S. Master List of Book Reviews: Click here to download my chronological list of 265 issues/book reviews from Your Weekly Staff Meeting from 2006 through today.

And finally, these reminders for 2013:
C.S. Lewis said, "It is a good rule after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between."

And I would add:
1) Delegate your reading. Assign books to other team members and ask for mini-reports at staff meetings.
2) Read relevant chapters only. Don't feel guilty for not finishing a book. 3) Hold high the value of sharpening the saw and model it yourself and reward others who read. 4) Budget for books. Invest in your people by investing in books. 5) Discover whether your people are readers or listeners. Audio books might be helpful to some.

I have some fantastic books coming in 2013!