Issue No. 396 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting features last-minute gift ideas, including six books, a desk calendar, and a LOL coffee mug! And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and check out the links on these pages for my recent book reviews. Merry Christmas!
Do Angels Laugh?
Quick! Here are some gift options for your last-minute Christmas shopping needs. This potpourri (or maybe mishmash) of books, coffee mugs, gift cards, New Yorker calendars, and other tempting purchases will help you find gifts for team members, board members, colleagues, spouses, grandparents, and your pastor. And check out my last-minute gift list from 2017 here.
[ ] Trust for Today: 365 Days of Encouragement – A Year With the Trueface Team. You’ll chuckle when you read the short, one-page devotional thought for February 24, “Do angels laugh when we say something funny?” and “In heaven, will we be able to make God laugh?” I’ve reviewed numerous books by the Trueface Team (their best: The Cure). Your gift recipients will have appreciative thoughts of you every day for a year—wow!
[ ] This Is Marketing: You Can’t Be Seen Until You Learn to See, by Seth Godin. “There are two ways to do your work. You can be a cab driver. Show up and ask someone where they want to go. Charge them based on the meter. Be a replaceable cog in the on-demand transport system. You might be a harder-working cabbie, but it won’t change much. Or you can be an agent of change, someone who creates tension and then relieves it.” (Watch for my 2019 review.)
[ ] The Secret Lives of Color, by Kassia St. Clair. You must order this for your graphic designer/marketing colleagues! John Ruskin wrote, “The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love color the most.” So the author paints—with words and swatches—a 320-page gorgeous book of 75 colors “with particularly fascinating, important, or disturbing histories.”
[ ] Leaders: Myth and Reality, by Gen. Stanley McChrystal (U.S. Army, Retired), Jeff Eggers and Jason Mangone. If you enjoyed Team of Teams in 2016, you’ll appreciate Leaders. “Don’t scan the text for new leadership checklists. We will use stories to challenge traditional leadership models, but we stop short of prescribing how to lead.”
Over a dozen leaders are profiled including Walt Disney, Coco Chanel, Albert Einstein, Leonard Bernstein, Harriet Tubman, Margaret Thatcher, Martin Luther, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The authors contrast and compare founders, geniuses, zealots, heroes, power brokers, and reformers. I read the last chapter first—“Redefining Leadership”—insightful! (Watch for my 2019 review.)
Weekly staff meeting idea: assign the 10 sections to 10 staff members and each week ask one team member to share a 5-minute review and a 5-minute discussion question. To listen to this book at Libro.FM audiobooks (17 hours, 2 minutes), click here.
[ ] Coffee Mugs: “I Survived Another Meeting That Should Have Been an Email.” Raise your hand if this week you “survived another meeting that should have been an email.” I thought so. Thanks to my son, Jason, we’ve created an entire product line of coffee mugs, t-shirts, travel mugs, mouse pads, coasters, and more with this eye-catching and very convicting catchphrase:
“I Survived Another Meeting
That Should Have Been an Email”
Order today from Café Press. Click here.
[ ] Invitation to Retreat: The Gift and Necessity of Time Away with God, by Ruth Haley Barton. What if—and I know this sounds crazy—you’re so busy that you should drop everything and focus on soul care? Ruth Haley Barton’s new book will guide you along. Jesus reminds us, "Come away and rest awhile." Barton writes, “Jesus invites us to be with him, offering our full and undivided attention to him. When we choose retreat we make a generous investment in our friendship with Christ. Truth is, we are not always generous with ourselves where God is concerned.” (Watch for my 2019 review.)
[ ] Cartoons from The New Yorker: 2019 Day-to-Day Calendar. One of my favorite gifts each year: LOL cartoons every day to tear-off, tweet, tease, and/or toss. One of my favorites from 2018: two lab-coated scientists filling a classroom chalkboard with algebraic theories—“You’re right—the shipping isn’t free. They’ve folded the expense into the cost of the item.”
[ ] 42 Seconds: The Jesus Model for Everyday Interactions, by Carl Medearis. “Forty-two seconds: That’s the average length of Jesus’ conversations as recorded in the Bible.” The author suggests you read this 151-page book for inspiration or as a “four-week devotional that teaches you how to be like Jesus in your everyday interactions with those God has placed in your life.” (See also my review of his book, Muslims, Christians, and Jesus: Gaining Understanding and Building Relationships.)
[ ] Amazon Gift Card. Can’t decide? Order an Amazon Gift Card. (One-day shipping!)
YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) What’s one of the most treasured books you’ve ever received as a gift? Why?
2) Is it time for you to take time for soul care?
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2018 Book-of-the-Year Announcement!
Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook (2nd Edition)
Watch for the December 31 announcement of the 2018 Book-of-the-Year and the updated books list to be posted on the Book Bucket webpage here.
For more ideas on books to give your team members, CEO, board members, and colleagues, visit the archives on this webpage at John Pearson’s Buckets Blog—featuring more than 400 book reviews. Or see the master list on pages 197-230 in Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook.
FOR MORE HELP ON UNDERSTANDING YOUR CUSTOMERS and which gifts certain customers would appreciate (example: "Info-Sponges" will appreciate Gen. McChrystal's book while "Share-Meisters will enjoy coffee mugs and New Yorker cartoon calendars), check out the free 57-page eBook on ministry branding, by Jason Pearson at Pearpod Media.
For more on branding your programs, products, and services, order the second edition workbook, Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook: Management Tools, Templates and Tips From John Pearson. Order here on Amazon.
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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. 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.
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