John Pearson's Buckets Blog

The Logic of God: 52 Christian Essentials

Issue No. 442 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting recommends another “Thank God It’s Monday” book. Invest 15 minutes every Monday morning—for 52 weeks—to read 52 mini-chapters of Ravi Zacharias’ remarkable book. And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and click here to read my review of the just-in-time book, Fearless Innovation: A No-Nonsense Guide.



A Worldview Answers 4 Questions 

In the previous issue, I suggested a crazy idea (whether you’re back at the office or still in your bunker): every Monday morning, before you look at your email—invest 15 minutes in reading. If you have the right book, you’ll have a “Thank God It’s Monday” experience.

Option #1: Select a book with 52 mini-chapters and start every Monday with a bang. (Sorry…I still have 4th of July firecrackers reverberating in my skull.)

Option #2: Or, delegate your reading and ask team members (on a rotation basis) to give a five-minute chapter summary of the book at your weekly staff meeting.

52 MINI-CHAPTERS FOR MONDAY MORNINGS
OR YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING
The Logic of God: 52 Christian Essentials for the Heart and Mind, by Ravi Zacharias

I picked up the “Thank God It’s Monday” tag from a fascinating 2019 interview of apologist Ravi Zacharias (who died this past May at age 74). He told Eric Metaxas that he wanted to name his latest book, Thank God It’s Monday, but (as they poke fun at the publisher on the broadcast), the final title for his book became The Logic of God.

Click on this link to enjoy this inspiring one-hour interview. About 10 minutes into the video, you’ll be stunned at the true story Zacharias shares—he’s 17 and in the hospital. (I urged my 17-year-old triplet grandkids to view this powerful segment.)

View the one-hour Eric Metaxas Radio Show with Ravi Zacharias.

The Logic of God is Ravi Zacharias’ first “devotional” book. Published in 2019, the book was selected for the 2020 ECPA Christian Book Award for the Bible Study category. It is a USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestseller.

The 52 mini-chapters (four to five pages each) address why Christianity, the Bible, and God are still relevant. Christ-followers will appreciate the refresher course. Seekers will have both their minds and their hearts challenged. Each chapter is concise, but meaty.

Zacharias: “Because these readings will consistently challenge your mind and stir your heart, and the questions and applications will take time to process, I recommend that, if possible, you spend a week with each ‘experience.’ If you start on a Monday, think of it as a kind of ‘Thank God It’s Monday’ summons, add that cliché to your intention, and thus help make your usual Mondays actually something to look forward to. Whatever motivates, right?” Here’s a taste:

Chapter 1: Behind Every Question (2 Corinthians 5:20-21). “I always bear in mind that behind every question is a questioner. The convergence of intellectual and existential struggles drives a person to a brutal honesty in the questions he or she has.”

“Whether religious or irreligious, everyone has a worldview. A worldview basically offers answers to four necessary questions: origin, meaning, morality, and destiny. In turn, these answers must be correspondingly true on particular questions and, as a whole, all answers put together must be coherent.” (Read more about “the three tests for truth” that must be applied to any worldview.)

Chapter 2: The Ultimate Calling (1 Peter 3:8-9, 15-16). “The British evangelist Rodney ‘Gipsy’ Smith once said, ‘There are five Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and the Christian, but most people will never read the first four.’ In other words, apologetics is often first seen before it is heard.”

Chapter 3: Point of Exclusion (John 14:5-6). “The law of noncontradiction does apply to reality: two contradictory statements cannot both be true in the same sense. Thus, to deny the law of noncontradiction is to affirm it at the same time. You may as well talk about a one-ended stick as talk about truth being all-inclusive.”

Chapter 4: The Pathway of Pain (Psalm 22:1-2). “But why do we even ask these questions about suffering within the context of morality? Why have we blended the fact of physical pain with the demand for a moral explanation? Who decided that pain is immoral? Indeed, almost every atheist or skeptic you read names this as the main reason for his or her denial of God’s existence.”

OK…I’m four Mondays ahead of you already. I love the format of each mini-chapter: just the Bible verse on the first page, then two or three pages of brilliant and tightly-packed commentary, then two reflection questions and two personal application questions—designed for thinking about over the next six days. Then repeat with another “Thank God’s It’s Monday.” Brilliant and doable—for 52 Mondays.

To order from Amazon, click on the title for The Logic of God: 52 Christian Essentials for the Heart and Mind, by Ravi Zacharias. Are you a listener? Listen to the book on Libro.fm (5 hours, narrated by Ravi Zacharias).



Reminder: In the previous issue, I reviewed another excellent book with 52 mini-chapters, It's the Manager: Gallup Finds the Quality of Managers and Team Leaders Is the Single Biggest Factor in Your Organization's Long-Term Success, by Jim Clifton and Jim Harter. Read my review.

Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) Ravi Zacharias quotes G.K. Chesterton: “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.” Share your faith journey. Are you a believer, a seeker, a skeptic, or what?
2) In Chapter 38, “The Books We Read,” in The Logic of God, Zacharias quotes Groucho Marx, who once responded to an author, “From the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Someday I intend reading it.” How many books are on your “intend” list? What book (or books) are you reading now?
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3 Paths Ahead: Check Only 1
Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook

The core competency in the Strategy Bucket affirms: “We’re systematic—never negligent—in our strategic planning. We know our mission statement by memory, and our programs, products and services are in alignment with the mission.”

J. David Schmidt of Wise Planning writes: “A social disaster within a financial disaster within a health disaster has suddenly reframed our work as leaders in the months ahead.” In his thoughtful style, Schmidt writes about “Embracing Redemptive Disruption.” He outlines three possible paths as you look ahead, and offers practical next steps for guiding your organization into the future.

CHECK ONE:
[  ] Path #1: The Path Back to the Land Called Familiar. Safe. Comforting. And No Difficult Conversations.
[  ] Path #2: The Path to Thoughtful, Organizational Decluttering. Getting Free From Some Stuff.
[  ] Path #3: The Path to a Fresh Start. Rich Rewards but Not for the Faint of Heart.

Click here to download the nine-page PDF. And let me add this note—three times in my CEO leadership days, I invited Schmidt to facilitate a strategic planning process. The results—and spiritual breakthroughs—were stunning, by God’s grace. Contact J. David Schmidt via email at David@wiseplanning.net

Schmidt asks: “What are we not doing that if we did—it would fundamentally change the trajectory of our mission results?”

For more resources and books, visit the Strategy Bucket

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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Measure your communication strategy against the three paths above. Safe? Some uncluttering? Or…ready for a fresh start with rich rewards? Contact Jason Pearson at Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video).
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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, nap duration, and client deadlines. We do not accept any form of compensation from authors or publishers for book reviews. As an Amazon Associate, we earn Amazon gift cards from qualifying purchases. 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.

It's the Manager

Issue No. 441 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting suggests you invest 15 minutes every Monday morning—for 52 weeks—to read 52 mini-chapters of a culture-changing book. And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and click here to read my review of the brilliant coaching book, The Advice Trap.



The One Single Lever to Create Change—It’s the Manager

“Setting aside just 15 minutes a day will enable you to read up to two dozen books in a year. Keep it up and you will have read 1,000 books in your lifetime. That’s the equivalent of going through college five times.” (Books Are Tremendous)

Here’s a crazy idea (whether you’re back at the office or still in your bunker): every Monday morning, before you look at your email—invest 15 minutes in reading.

Option #1: I’m not asking you to do this every day—just every Monday. So here is a “Thank God It’s Monday” book with 52 mini-chapters.

Option #2: Or, delegate your reading and ask team members (on a rotation basis) to give a five-minute chapter summary of this book at your weekly staff meeting.

52 MINI-CHAPTERS FOR MONDAY MORNINGS OR YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING
It's the Manager: Gallup Finds the Quality of Managers and Team Leaders Is the Single Biggest Factor in Your Organization's Long-Term Success, by Jim Clifton and Jim Harter

Don’t allow the mini-chapters (four pages or less each) to delude you into thinking this is light-weight content. The 52 short chapters are readable, to-the-point, and packed with promise for thoughtful implementers.

Starting next Monday, what if…you invested 15 minutes to read and think about Chapter 1, “What Exactly Should CEOs and CHROs Change?” Even if you’re not the CEO or the Chief HR Officer, you will learn (and remember) the six changes recommended by Gallup, including #3, “Millennials and Generation Z don’t want bosses—they want coaches.” Sneak peek: it’s time to retire the old-style boss who leads by command and control.

With your 15-minutes-every-Monday discipline, look at what awaits you for the next 52 weeks:
    2) Why Organizational Change Is So Hard
    3) Two Non-Negotiable Traits for Leaders
   10) Hiring Star Employees
   21) The Five Coaching Conversations
   25) Make “My Development” the Reason Employees Stay
   30) The Five Traits of Great Managers
   47) Gig Work: The New Employer-Employee Relationship

Based on roundtable interviews with CHROs from 300 of the world’s largest organizations, the content covers Strategy, Culture, Employment Brand, Boss to Coach, and the Future of Work.

The robust appendix (pages 189-378) includes major sections on: “Leading With Your Strengths: A Guide to the 34 Clifton Strengths Themes,” (including one unique code to take the online assessment), “Q12: The 12 Elements of Great Management,” and “The Relationship Between Engagement at Work and Organizational Outcomes,” plus more.

“The Future of Work” section, Chapters 32 to 41, addresses diversity and inclusion topics—and the critical “lever” of the manager, a discussion of the gender gap, women in the workplace (work-life flexibility, etc.) and for us old guys, “Are Boomers a Burden?” Breaking News: “74% of Americans plan to work past age 65.”

You have my permission to start with Chapter 26, “Moneyball for Workplaces: 12 Elements of Team Success.” Here are three:
   • I know what is expected of me at work.
   • In the last seven days, I have received recognition or praise for doing good work.
   • There is someone at work who encourages my development.

Why this book? Gallup’s extensive research (extensive!) has concluded this:

“Of all the codes Gallup has been asked to crack dating back 80 years to our founder, George Gallup, the single most profound, distinct and clarifying finding—ever—is probably this one: 70% of the variance in team engagement is determined solely by the manager.”

They add, “Usually, there isn’t a single lever to create change. In this case, there is: It’s the manager.”

To order from Amazon, click on the title for It's the Manager: Gallup Finds the Quality of Managers and Team Leaders Is the Single Biggest Factor in Your Organization's Long-Term Success, by Jim Clifton and Jim Harter.



Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) Positive responses to the statement, “At work, my opinions seem to count,” is one of the 12 elements of team success in It’s the Manager. How would each of your direct reports answer that question on a scale of one to five (5 = strongly agree)?
2) According to Gallup, “about one in four full-time and one in two part-time workers have a gig job.” If that were true of our employees—is that a good thing or not? And, is this “Uber economy” going to grow or decline—and how will that affect our team? 
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NEXT ISSUE: I picked up the “Thank God It’s Monday” tag from a fascinating 2019 interview of apologist Ravi Zacharias (who died this past May at age 74). He told Eric Metaxas that he wanted to name his latest book, Thank God It’s Monday. But instead (as they poke fun at the publisher during the broadcast), Zondervan titled Zacharias’ first devotional book—The Logic of God: 52 Christian Essentials for the Heart and Mind. Read my review in the next issue. This might also be your Monday morning reader for the next 52 weeks. Incredible book.
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30 Books to Delegate During This Crisis...And the Next Crisis
Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook

The core competency in the Book Bucket affirms: “We mentor team members with thoughtfully selected titles and chapters to help them leverage their strengths, grow in their faith, and serve others with passion. We don’t just talk about books—we actually read them!”

During this COVID-19 marathon, I curated a list of “30 Books to Delegate During This Crisis...And the Next Crisis.” You’ll find them on LinkedIn and Twitter and this week I compiled them into one master list. To download from the Book Bucket, click here.

The nominees include some obvious gems, including The Checklist Manifesto and How the Mighty Fall, plus a few unexpected picks, such as The Boys in the Boat and Leadership Prayers. The 12-page PDF includes links to my reviews of all 30 books.

According to Murphy’s Law Book Three: Wrong Reasons Why Things Go More!, by Arthur Bloch, here are the things that can be counted on in a crisis:
   • Marketing says yes.
   • Finance says no.
   • Legal has to review it.
   • [HR] is concerned.
   • Planning is frantic.
   • Engineering is above it all.
   • Manufacturing wants more floor space.
   • Top management wants someone responsible.

During this—and your next—crisis, are you relying on the limited experience of your in-house team, or are you going deep in your reading? Read and learn how others have weathered the complexities of the convoluted crises in past years and generations.

For more resources, the 30 books, and other lists, visit the Book Bucket.

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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Should your communication and marketing teams rely on more or less gig workers? Are there policies in place governing outside work performed by your full-time team members? Talk with someone who has seen it all (the good, the bad, and the ugly!). Contact Jason Pearson at Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video).
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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, nap duration, and client deadlines. We do not accept any form of compensation from authors or publishers for book reviews. As an Amazon Associate, we earn Amazon gift cards from qualifying purchases. 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.

Practicing the Present: The Neglected Art of Living in the Now

Issue No. 440 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting highlights a timely book that pushes back on visionary leadership. Surprising and convicting! And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and click here for my Zoom Review of The Art of Writing with commentary from four scholars/grandkids.



“Blah, Blah, Blah, Jesus”

Ready for a poke-in-the-ribs? After reviewing several decades of “visionary” church vision statements, John Koessler, author of Practicing the Present, came to three conclusions. Gulp—he nailed it in just one:

“Although their aim is to inspire, most vision statements are tedious in reality. My heart doesn’t beat any faster when I read them. They don’t make me say, ‘Yes, I want to be a part of that!’ When I read them, all I see is ‘blah, blah, blah, Jesus.’”

I’m guessing—during this COVID-19 era—that you’ve had enough with the “present,” are eager for the future (whatever that may be), and you’re a tad nostalgic for the past. Breaking news: THIS IS THE BOOK YOU SHOULD READ RIGHT NOW.

But first, hear my confession. With inappropriate motives, I began reading Practicing the Present: The Neglected Art of Living in the Now, by John Koessler. Good title. Solid publisher (Moody). Solid author (blogger/podcaster, Moody faculty, theologian, former pastor, 13 books and more). Well-respected endorsers.

“Yeah,” I thought. “My readers need this. I’ll breeze through this baby—no pen, no underlining. One and done.”

Oh, my. I needed this. By page 11, I grabbed my pen. I didn’t release that holy tool until I had underlined almost the entire book. This. Book. Changed. My. Thinking (and my heart). Oh, my.

Koessler writes, “My training as a leader taught me to focus mostly on the future. I thought my main goal should be to help the church become what it was not. Once our goals were met, I felt it was my job to find new goals and aim for those. Whatever we were doing could be done better.” So he focused on “more people, more programs, and more projects…”

But being future-focused has a downside. “I have been scattered in times I do not understand,” St. Augustine complained, notes Koessler. “He saw his life as one that stretched in many directions at once.” Augustine was “distended”—a good word “because it conveys the notion that time is not only stretched between the past and the future, but also distorted.”

The danger? “Unfortunately, the beauty and the value of the present is often lost. We are here in body but not in mind. We are only halfhearted in our attention and sometimes in our service.” (Published a year ago, I’m thinking Practicing the Present was prophetically written for 2020.)

The dilemma?
• If you focus on the future…the present “is only a way station. Its primary function is to serve as a staging ground for what comes next.”
• If you focus on the past…“the present becomes a cemetery filled with monuments to the glory days that will never come again…”

The author adds, “For the future-oriented, the past is a drag and the present an obstacle. Either way, the present is where we are but not where we want to stay.”

“Interestingly, C.S. Lewis saw both perspectives as strategies of Satan, pointing out that humans live in time but are destined for eternity. God wants us to attend to both. But this can happen only if we understand the importance of the present moment, which Lewis calls ‘the point at which time touches eternity.’” (Read more in The Screwtape Letters.)

Like me perhaps, your morning prayer during COVID-19 goes something like this. “Lord, teach me what you want me to learn during this present hour…and umm…gotta go now…oh, one more thing—how soon will my favorite restaurant be open? And when should I book those airline tickets?” Yikes.

Here are some more pokes-in-the-ribs from the nine meaty chapters:

#1. Practicing the Present. “Pastor and theologian Helmut Thielicke observed that Jesus Christ ‘always lingers in the darkest places of the world.’” Koessler adds, “…Jesus is equally present in the common places.” And “…the bulk of Jesus’ earthly life was spent living an ordinary life.”

#2. Take No Thought. “…our fears reflect a secret suspicion that the God who should be in control is actually asleep at the wheel.” And “…the root of our anxiety does not really lie in our circumstances but in our souls.”

#3. Race Among the Ruins. “Jesus’ reminder that every day has enough trouble of its own is not a warning. It is a road sign. Jesus points us in the direction of God’s presence.”

#4. Living on Daily Bread. “Since many of us presume we are not rich, we conclude that we are not greedy.”

#5. The Art of Being Self-Conscious. “No wonder Screwtape advised Wormwood: ‘You must bring him to a condition in which he can practise self-examination for an hour without discovering any of those facts that about himself which are perfectly clear to anyone who has ever lived in the same house with him or worked in the same office.’”

#6. Inspired Intuition. “We do see something like intuition at work in the lives of God’s people in the Bible.” One fat paragraph documents people who were guided by intuition, including Abraham and Paul.

#7.The Opportunity of the Immediate. “The basic command in James 1:2 is not to suffer but to consider. ‘Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.”

#8. Leading from the Middle Space. “The church we are dreaming of is a false church. It did not exist in the past. It will not exist in the future. It is certainly not the church of the here and now. Ultimately, it is not a Christian vision.”

#9. Disciplines for Living in the Present Tense. “The practice of these disciplines does not make God present. We practice them to learn that He is already present.”

Breaking news!
THIS IS THE BOOK YOU SHOULD READ RIGHT NOW.

To order from Amazon, click on the title for Practicing the Present: The Neglected Art of Living in the Now, by John Koessler. (Note: As an Amazon Vine reviewer, I received a review copy of this book in exchange for a fair-minded review.) Are you a listener? Listen to the book on Libro.fm (5 hours, 46 minutes).

Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) In a section on “selective listening” (a discipline in chapter nine), John Koessler writes, “When we choose to be silent, we find that God is able to manage things without our help. The things that we anxiously want to say are suddenly on the lips of someone else. Those who have not been permitted to speak, because we usually control the floor, now express themselves.” Give yourself a grade (A, B, C, D, or F) on your listening competencies.
#2. Where do you hang out the most: the past, the present, or the future? Thoughts? 

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Slow Down!
Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook

The core competency in the Team Bucket says you should probably slow down—and be still. “We believe that a balanced life honors God, each other, our families and our friends…” So slow down for four minutes and listen to this YouTube video, a soulful affirmation from Psalm 46:10, “Be still and know that I am God.” Click here.

Chuck Girard sings Slow Down.

For more resources, visit the Team Bucket.

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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Are you back to work with your team—or going stir crazy in your bunker? To refresh your communication strategies for this unprecedented time in your organization—you’ll likely need outside thinking with fresh ideas, insights, and frank feedback. Don’t go it alone! Check out the innovative work from Jason Pearson at Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video).
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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, nap duration, and client deadlines. We do not accept any form of compensation from authors or publishers for book reviews. As an Amazon Associate, we earn Amazon gift cards from qualifying purchases. 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 Art of Writing - Zoom Review

Issue No. 439 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting features a refresher on improving your writing—with the assist of four grandkids on a first-ever “Zoom Review.” And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and click here for my review of eight movies and videos—some eligible for your lifelong learning goals, including the two-hour 2019 film, Harriett.

4 Grandkids Join Me for a Zoom Review on Great Writing!

Zig Ziglar writes, "People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing. That’s why we recommend it daily."

Ditto the art of writing. Perhaps eons ago, you devoured a book on the craft of writing—but maybe your passion has now plummeted. Time for a refresh?

Trust me—no decent book on great writing would dare bore you. So in this Zoom Era, I invited (motivated, cajoled, and/or incentivized) four of my five grandkids to join me in reading and reviewing The Art of Writing: Four Principles for Great Writing that Everyone Needs to Know, by Peter Yang.

Click here to enjoy this YouTube video, a 23-minute lively conversation and commentary on four principles of great writing, featured in this 84-page writing-refresher book!
   • Principle 1: Economy (Anders Pearson)
   • Principle 2: Transparency (Emelia Pearson)
   • Principle 3: Variety (Zuzu Pearson)
   • Principle 4: Harmony (Annika Pearson)

Note: See below for the other books and links mentioned in the video.

Pop Quiz! What are your four principles of great writing? I doubt you would land on the author’s fascinating four: Economy, Transparency, Variety, and Harmony. (Brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant!)

Gratefully, Peter Yang has come to the rescue with an easy-to-read book that checks all the boxes: motivating, inspiring, fun to read, new nuances, and great reminders (but not preachy!)

My favorite phrases:
   • Crush Your Crutches
   • Write with Conviction
   • Write in the Positive
   • Write to the Layman
   • Save the Best for Last
   • The Error of Arrogance

There’s so much more, including “Stop Making the Reader Do Arithmetic” and why you should take writing breaks. I urge you to read and savor this refresher course in great writing.

And THANKS to the four scholars who shared their colorful commentary on today’s video! Way to go, Grandkids!

To order from Amazon, click on the title for The Art of Writing: Four Principles for Great Writing that Everyone Needs to Know, by Peter Yang.



Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) Peter Yang says that “Writing is about prioritizing the reader, not the self! Never lose sight of your purpose in your writing. Doing so is the ultimate form of indulgence.” Assignment: read two or three pages on our organization’s website. Are we prioritizing our readers/customers—or are we indulgencing ourselves with hype and selfies?
2) If you could write a book on any subject, as an influencer, what would the book be about? What would you title it? Who would buy it?  

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The Punch Line of Great Writing
Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook

One of the big ideas in the Printing Bucket (aka the Communication Bucket) is to “elevate the power of the written and spoken word and leverage communication tools to create synergy and alignment between our mission, BHAG, strategic plans and programs.”

When is the last time you’ve invested one or more hours on improving your writing and speaking? We mentioned these resources in the Zoom Review (above):

[ ] PUNCH LINE. Keys to Great Writing, by author and writing coach Stephen Wilbers, notes: “Think of the last part of a sentence as a punch line to a joke: It counts more than the beginning and the middle. Your success—both as a writer and a comedian—depends on it.” (Read my review.)

[ ] BUMPER STICKERS. Joey Asher, author of 15 Minutes Including Q&A: A Plan to Save the World From Lousy Presentations, says your talk should have three big ideas and your three points should be like bumper stickers: short and memorable, supported by stories. “Great speakers [and great writers] use lots of stories.” (Read my review.)

[ ] BELIEVABILITY. “The most important dimension of communication takes place not at the conscious level, but the unconscious level. We’re talking about trust, believability and likeability—the emotional connection.” That’s from Bert Decker, who coaches and trains politicians, Fortune 500 company CEOs and thousands of other people in effective public speaking. Must-read: You’re Got to Be Believed to Be Heard: The Complete Book of Speaking…in Business and in Life. Listen to the audio at Libro.fm—just 5 hours and 8 minutes. (Read my review.)

[ ] FACTS = BOREDOM. In his 107-page quick-read, How to Deliver a TED Talk: Secrets of the World’s Most Inspiring Presentations, Jeremey Donovan warns: “If you would like to bore people to tears until they tear out their hair and claw their eyes out, then hammer them with facts for the entire 18 minutes of your TEDTalk.” (Read my review.)

[ ] PAINT A PICTURE. Which sentence grabs you? “Deficits will badly affect the economy,” or “Deficits will spread a subtle, devastating poison through the economic bloodstream.” Even if you’re not interested in deficits, the “poison” picture has arrested your curiosity. That’s from the “Paint a Picture” chapter in Milo O. Frank’s 128-page power book, How to Get Your Point Across in 30 Seconds—or Less. (Read my review.)

Note: We also mentioned two other books and a WSJ article on the Zoom Review:

[ ] MY IDEAL BOOKSHELF. This is a gorgeous coffee table book for your office or home by Thessaly La Force (editor) and Jane Mount (illustrator). One hundred people share their ideal bookshelf in two-page spreads: narrative and color drawings of the book spines. You’ll treasure the art and the wisdom, including this from writer David Sedaris: “Sometimes I meet ministers, and I always say to them, ‘If I had a church, I’d read a Tobias Wolff story every week, and then I’d say to people, “Go home.”’” (Read my review.)

[ ] Europe from a Backpack: Real Stories from Young Travelers Abroad (From a Backpack series) by Mark Pearson and Martin Westerman.

[ ] “Arnold the Grammarian,” column by Jason Gay in The Wall Street Journal, June 13, 2020.

For more resources and books, visit the Printing Bucket (aka the Communications Bucket).

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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Is your communication strategy one-size-fits-all or precisely targeted to these four niches: the Info-Sponge Customer, the Just-the-Facts Customer, the Heartfelt Customer, or the Share-Meister Customer? Read REBRAND: Workbook + Coloring Sheets for Ministry Branding, by Jason Pearson, a fun and creative starter kit for nonprofit ministry and church marketing teams. Millennials will appreciate the fresh approach (a coloring workbook!) and marketing veterans will have a good laugh and a new coaching tool. Plus, check out the innovative work from Jason Pearson at Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video).
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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. As an Amazon Associate, we earn Amazon gift cards from qualifying purchases. 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.

Faith for Exiles

Issue No. 438 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting features the latest book from Barna—and their robust research on Millennials and growing “resilient disciples.” Must-read. And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and click here for my review of Fearless Innovation: A No-Nonsense Guide.

5 Years in the Paint Aisle Won’t Make You a Painter! 

The authors of Faith for Exiles leave no cherished church practice unrebuked. They write:

A few years ago, the Barna team was conducting research among teenagers who had left the church. While interviewing a young woman about her relationships with the church before she left, David asked, “Did you have good friendships at the church?” 

“No, not really. I guess a couple of my age group were my friends, but not close.”

“None of the adults?”

“No.”

“What about the youth pastor?”

“The youth pastor was paid to be my friend.”

David needed a couple of seconds to catch his breath. “What do you mean?”

“That was part of his job. He’s paid to be a marketer of church to teenagers.”

Ouch.

Whoa. We have a big problem—and David Kinnaman and Mark Matlock are gutsy enough to talk about it. My words (not their words): Sunday morning at 11 a.m., while helpful, is not the whole enchilada. And the more we persist in adding more bells and whistles to the one-hour per week “main event”—putting most of our eggs into this basket—we are deluding ourselves. The king has no clothes, colleagues. It’s time to admit it.

The authors’ research concludes that “many young people (and older adults, for that matter) are dutiful churchgoers while remaining spiritually inert. Church involvement is a necessary but insufficient condition for resilient discipleship.” They add, “It is difficult if not downright impossible, to shape hearts and minds with only a few hours a week to work with.”

Yikes! “Let’s say you show up at a home improvement store and stand in the paint aisle every week for five years straight. You even attend a couple of demonstrations by the experts in the orange aprons. That doesn’t make you a painter.”

The good news: this book is hopeful, not disparaging. Subtitled, “5 Ways for a New Generation to Follow Jesus in Digital Babylon,” Faith for Exiles delivers on its bold promise—and along the way, you’ll experience all the emotions: mad, sad, glad. (I got teary-eyed reading some of the Kinnaman and Matlock family stories to my wife.)

Until Faith for Exiles was published last September, I had not seen such thoughtful segmentation thinking since The Engel Scale (see “Segment Your Customers Prayerfully” in the Customer Bucket of my book). High fives to the authors!

The Barna research reveals that “Resilient faith is not easy to sustain in any context, but it’s even harder for young people in digital Babylon. Among today’s 18- to 29-year-olds, here is what’s happening among those who grew up Christian.”
   • 22% are Prodigals (Ex-Christians)
   • 30% are Nomads (Unchurched)
   • 38% are Habitual Churchgoers
   • 10% are Resilient Disciples

The book defines each segment and notes that “Habitual Churchgoers” have attended church at least once in the past month, “yet do not meet foundational core beliefs or behaviors associated with being an intentional, engaged disciple.”

You might be discouraged upon learning that 90% (the first three groups above) are not on the disciple path, but Kinnaman and Matlock will, in fact, encourage you. They see great promise in the 10% and their research and practical next steps will inspire you to focus on the few. (Hmmm. Reminds me of the Parable of the Sower in Matthew 13. If you’re a leader at a Christian college or camp, youth ministry or church—and/or you’re a fully devoted parent or grandparent—this is a must-read.)

So…the authors share their robust research and recommendations in five meaty practices for growing resilient disciples:
   • Practice 1: To form a resilient identity, experience intimacy with Jesus.
   • Practice 2: In a complex and anxious age, develop the muscles of cultural discernment.
   • Practice 3: When isolation and mistrust are the norms, forge meaningful, intergenerational relationships.
   • Practice 4: To ground and motivate an ambitious generation, train for vocational discipleship.
   • Practice 5: Curb entitlement and self-centered tendencies by engaging in countercultural mission. (For example—read about 18-year-old Katie’s amazing Ugandan adoption adventure on page 201. Eighteen!)

So what’s with the Babylonian exile metaphor? “Ancient Babylon was the pagan-but-spiritual, hyperstimulated, imperial crossroads that became the unwilling home of Judean exiles, including the prophet Daniel in the sixth century BCE. But digital Babylon is not a physical place. It’s the pagan-but-spiritual, hyperstimulated, imperial crossroads that is the virtual home of every person with Wi-Fi, a data plan, or—for most of us—both.”

“In digital Babylon, where information (and any thing we could ever want or need) is instantly available at the godlike swipe of a finger, Almighty God has been squeezed to the margins.” They add, “That transition—from faith at the center to faith at the margins—is happening in North America and other societies in the cultural West. Our data show widespread, top-to-bottom changes from a Christianized to a post-Christian society.”

Yikes…I had highlighted more than 100 quotable quotes for this review. Way too many. I identified more than a dozen zinger, attention-getting titles for this review. I could only use one! I was ready to wax eloquent on Practice 4’s “vocational discipleship” and why it was my favorite chapter—but it was replaced by Practice 5, which was replaced by the “What’s Next” conclusion. Killer insights: hard truth delivered with hopeful hearts. You’ll just have to read or listen to this book yourself. Don’t settle for the paint aisle at Home Depot.

Well—OK—if you insist. I’ll end with five teasers:
• “If, in trying to build our ministries, churches, and impact, we have contributed to the inoculation of a generation, how can we repent?” (See pages 56-57).
• “When Christians capitulate to the zeitgeist of cultural norms—if we cannot articulate a countercultural biblical morality, for example—we leave the next generation immunodeficient.” (Relevant metaphor!)
• David Medders at a seminar with Christian college students: “I’d like to personally repent for my generation, the Boomers, and how we’ve let these negative perceptions [about Millennials] take root.” (Must-read: pages 141-142)
• Three Buckets! Barna research identified three major career aspirations of practicing Christian teens: Entrepreneurial, Science-minded, and Creative. “Skye Jethani points out that, according to the book of Genesis, God ordains work to accomplish three things: to generate abundance, to bring order, and to cultivate beauty.” (Read more on this alignment in “What’s My Calling?” on pages 154-157.)
• “At one point in his life, Mark wrote down every biblical proverb on an index card and sorted the cards into thematic piles. As he did so, he discovered that each proverb falls into one of seven broad categories.” (See page 169 for the seven marks of a wise person, according to Proverbs.)

To order from Amazon, click on the title for Faith for Exiles: 5 Ways for a New Generation to Follow Jesus in Digital Babylon, by David Kinnaman and Mark Matlock. Click here to listen to the book on Libro.fm (5 hours, 52 minutes). And thanks to Tom Matlock (Mark’s father/raving fan) for providing a review copy.



Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) The Barna team “invented” the phrase “vocational discipleship.” Brilliant. Re-read the review of Non-Obvious Megatrends and how to “name” a trend. Then read about “vocational discipleship” in Faith for Exiles. Identify something we’ve recently named well—and something we’ve botched when naming it.
2) According to Kinnaman and Matlock, “Many pastors admit they don’t enjoy developing younger leaders—but ensuring the transfer of leadership to the next generation is a requirement, not a choice.” Read “Mentoring in Digital Babylon,” pages 169-174, and then re-read the reviews of nine mentoring/coaching books. Rate our organization (1 to 5, with 5 being high): How effectively are we mentoring emerging leaders? 

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COVID-19: Customer Segmenting 2.0
Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook

One of the big ideas in the Customer Bucket is to segment our customers to more effectively meet their unique needs. Faith for Exiles focuses on a high priority 10% of today’s 18- to 29-year-olds who grew up Christian—but it’s a potentially high Kingdom impact segment—“Resilient Disciples.”

In Mastering the Management Buckets, we highlight “The Engel Scale,” named by an appreciative grad student who studied under Jim Engel. (Read What's Gone Wrong With the Harvest? by James F. Engel and Wilbert Norton.)

The scale begins with a -8 (a person with an awareness of a supreme being, but no effective knowledge of the gospel). It moves down to a -1 (repentance and faith in Christ), and then to a +1, +2, +3, +4, +5 and beyond (demonstrating growth in being a Christ-follower).

We note, “Fifty-two weeks of Sunday sermons may be 52 weeks of miscommunication if the message is targeted to +3 Christ-followers when 50 percent of the congregation is still at -1. Yikes!”

During this COVID-19 era, you and your team will likely move to Customer Segmenting 2.0—to go deeper on more research-based customer segmenting. Most organizations will need to drop some programs, products or services—and hone others. You’ll likely create new programs. But before you join the what-everyone-else-is-doing band wagon—and squander money down a black hole—read the Customer Bucket chapter.

And to fill in the blanks on your customer research, check out these jam-packed trend reports:
• Barna Trends 2018: What's New and What's Next at the Intersection of Faith and Culture (read my review)
• Barna Trends 2017: What’s New and What’s Next at the Intersection of Faith and Culture (read my review)

For more resources and books lists, visit the Customer Bucket.

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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Look at your recent marketing campaign. Was it targeted to the Info-Sponge Customer, the Just-the-Facts Customer, the Heartfelt Customer, or the Share-Meister Customer? Read REBRAND: Workbook + Coloring Sheets for Ministry Branding, by Jason Pearson, a fun and creative starter kit for nonprofit ministry and church marketing teams. Millennials will appreciate the fresh approach (a coloring workbook!) and marketing veterans will have a good laugh and a new coaching tool. Plus, check out 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. As an Amazon Associate, we earn Amazon gift cards from qualifying purchases. 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.

9 Mentoring and Coaching Books

Issue No. 437 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting recommends you focus on the narrow mentoring window—before it’s too late. Here are nine books to help you. And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and click here for my review of Non-Obvious Megatrends.

Hall of Fame-level Blunders 

I’m guessing the Library of Congress will need another building by the end of the COVID-19 era. Much has been written by experts and non-experts! But unless I missed it, I’ve not seen anything about the emerging managers, new CEOs, and just-appointed senior team members, who may be forgotten or ignored due to—yes—more challenging, but perhaps, misplaced priorities.

In their thoughtful article on March 20, “Leading Beyond the Blizzard: Why Every Organization Is Now a Startup,” Praxis leaders Andy Crouch, Kurt Keilhacker, and Dave Blanchard, note that COVID-19 may disrupt organizations for 18 months or more. They write:

“But 18 months is not a season—it is, for many purposes, more like an age or an era. Just to choose one example, the Tufts scholar Maryanne Wolf has theorized that there is a roughly three-year window, from ages 7 to 9, when children can transition from ‘novice’ reading to ‘fluent’ reading. Children who miss this window, for any number of reasons, seem never to acquire genuinely fluent reading skills no matter how much additional instruction they receive later in life.” (Click here to read their April 23 follow-up.)

With crises everywhere—and it’s very, very tough—let me encourage you to think about the mentoring window. If your new team members (those who arrived just before lockdown) are neglected, they may never catch up—never unlearning inappropriate leadership and management bad habits from their early months or years. But—if somehow—you can invest time in this formative window in their careers, the results can be transformational.

Letters to My Younger Self!

Now in her sixth decade, Michelle Hoverson has just published a brilliant coaching tool, Mentoring Moments with Myself. She writes to her “younger self,” reflecting on life lessons learned. Whew—talk about transparency! Must read: “Chapter 2 or Chapter 22?” She reflects on her early CEO years:

“Comparison will be an ever-present trap.”

After 23 years in ministry (compassion pastor in a large church) and several corporate communication positions ranging from a law firm to the White House, Hoverson became the executive director of an international missions ministry. But, she had never been the fundraiser. Her aha moment: “This will take you swimming in the deep end of the pool.”

So this new CEO connects with a friend who led “a massive international ministry,” and his response unleashed “a downward spiral of self-doubt.” She didn’t have the experience, the staff, the network, or the volunteers.

The conversation haunted her for 24 hours—then she prayed. So today, she writes to her younger self. “You will realize that your friend’s nonprofit is experiencing chapter 22 in its development. You, however, are just writing chapter 2. Nothing will steal the hope and joy from your heart more quickly than comparison.”

That’s from page 11 and she’s just warming up. What a brilliant idea (did I mention that?). Write letters to your younger self: counsel, thoughts, reflections. Hold nothing back. And thus inspire other leaders to write “Dear Younger Me” letters. (There are blank pages at the end of every short chapter.) Her insights abound:

• “In an effort to avoid mistakes, you will want to retreat from making daring and bold moves. When you find yourself deliberating too long or waiting for one more sign from God, you will risk missing the miraculous if you choose safety and don’t go up the mountain.”
• “As you age, you will see culture slowly releasing its grip on the importance of faithfulness.” (Read Psalm 31:23, Proverbs 3:3-4, and Luke 16:10-12. Question: “Why does God place a high value on faithfulness?”)
• On grumbling and complaining: “Don’t do it. Ungratefulness is socially unbecoming and spiritually limiting. No one is inspired by a grouch. You will do well to remember that the Israelite’s 11-day journey through the wilderness took 40 years because of their ungratefulness.” (Attn: COVID-19 pilgrims!)

The one-liners are convicting:
• “Listen instead of lecture.”
• “Let failure influence you, not define you.”
• “Stay in your own lane and not run the race someone else is winning.”
• “Take it one step at a time and not try to skip the steps.”
• “Oh my gosh, you are going to make so many mistakes! Some will be minor, and others will be real doozies—Hall of Fame-level blunders.”
• “People will pressure you to conform. Choose to be a prototype, not a stereotype.”

Who are you mentoring (or should be mentoring) that needs this book? Hoverson’s chapter, “The Aging Advantage,” is wisdom-filled. “The more you age, the more you realize…the value of the pause.”
     “When in doubt—pause.
     When making a big decision—pause.
     When angry—pause before responding.
     When tired—pause before reacting.
     And when you pause—pray.”

The author’s humility is arresting. She’s says she’s not really a writer, but her wise words are colorful and memorable. After a defining moment: “In a parking lot, you will wage a spiritual battle in prayer. Like never before, you’ll turn into a scriptural machine gun, firing relentlessly at the adversary of your soul and declaring the promises of God for your life.”

This is a keeper!

To order from Amazon, click on the title for Mentoring Moments with Myself: Letters to My Younger Self about Life, Faith, Love and Leadership, by Michelle Hoverson.



Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) List the emerging leaders on your team that are currently in the “mentoring window.” What’s your coaching plan for them?
2) Michelle Hoverson writes, “When Jesus encountered future disciples and said, ‘Follow me,’ imagine what they would have missed if one replied, ‘Thanks, but I’m comfortable catching fish. I think I’ll just stay close to my boat.’” In this COVID-19 marathon, what does it mean to follow Jesus outside your comfort zone? 

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Resources for the “Mentoring Window”  
Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook

One of the big ideas in the Culture Bucket is to assess your team members through the filter of “The Ultimate Values Test” (page 94 in the workbook). This quadrant identifies four groups based on values and performance. Group 2, for example, includes people who live the values, but have unsatisfactory performance—so give them another chance. But here’s the big question: As you mentor your people on the importance of living your values—are you willing to “cut the cord” for people in Group 4?

These coaching books will help you address your culture—and your values. Share the books below and inspire every team member to have a coach/mentor—or be a coach/mentor:

[ ] Legacy: 60 Life Reflections for the Next Generation
Steve Macchia wrote 60 life lessons upon turning 60. (John Maxwell postponed writing Leadership Gold until he was 60. Catch the theme here?) I asked my son, Jason (not yet 60!), for his review of Macchia’s mentoring book:

Review by Jason Pearson: This book is a must-buy for any parent or grandparent who is intentional about their family’s spiritual growth [and their team’s growth]. Each two-page chapter gives practical, inspiring, and even some very powerful “soul care” lessons to reflect on with your own family [or team]. It isn't just a book—it’s an interactive journal that can be used around the dinner table.

If you were gone tomorrow—what are the key things you would want to pass on to your kids? Yes, we do think about those things, but Legacy provides an easy way to actually start doing them. Use the blank pages to share your own life experiences. Your family will keep and treasure your thoughts, we hope!

Warning! Legacy is not for the faint of heart. You may be asked to be vulnerable and bare your soul. Chapter 3, “Mistakes Regretted,” is perfect for sharing with teenagers and helping them to avoid a few of life's pitfalls!

What would you invest if you knew that your kids would have a consistent walk with Jesus? Certainly more than the price of this book! This book should be on every spouse’s wish list—and it’s a great resource for every team member.

GRANDPA JOHN’S NOTE: And while you’re in your bunker this month, it’s the perfect time to invest in your family (children and grandchildren) by completing the fun and meaningful journal by Jason Pearson and Doug Fields, This. Customizable Journal: 52 Ways to Share Your World With Those You Love. Click here to read my review.

MORE COACHING/MENTORING TOP PICKS:

[ ] 20 MENTORING SESSIONS: What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: Discover the 20 Workplace Habits You Need to Break, by Marshall Goldsmith with Mark Reiter (2013 Book-of-the-Year). This world class coach says that a “minor” workplace foible can become a major crisis. Why? “More often than not, it’s because people’s inner compass of correct behavior has gone out of whack—and they become clueless about their position among their coworkers.” (Listen to an abridged audio edition of the book at Libro.fm—just 6 hours.)

[ ] 11 MENTORING SESSIONS: The Softer Side of Leadership: Essential Soft Skills That Transform Leaders and the People They Lead, by Eugene B. Habecker. The author quotes Henri Nouwen about blind spots: "The interruption…forced me to enter the basement of my soul and look directly at what was hidden there.”

[ ] 8 MENTORING SESSIONS: Monday Morning Leadership: 8 Mentoring Sessions You Can’t Afford to Miss, by David Cottrell. What if every person on your team had a Monday Morning management mentor for the next eight Mondays? Cottrell writes, “As a leader your job is to keep everyone’s bucket filled. You are the Chief Bucket-Filler, and the best way to fill buckets is with excellent communication.”

[ ] 10 MENTORING SESSIONS: The Top 10 Leadership Conversations in the Bible: Practical Insights From Extensive Research on Over 1,000 Biblical Leaders, by Steve Moore. PowerPoint worthy insights throughout!
   • “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.”

[ ] 14 MINUTES! The Advice Trap: Be Humble, Stay Curious & Change the Way You Lead Forever, by Michael Bungay Stanier. View the author's 14-minute TEDx Talk (March 13, 2020), “How to Tame Your Advice Monster.” It’s meaty, funny, and might be your best use of 14 minutes this week!

[ ] STOP WORKING SO HARD! The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever, by Michael Bungay Stanier. Follow his three memorable points on coaching:
   • BE LAZY: Stop working so hard.
   • BE CURIOUS: Stop giving so much advice.
   • BE OFTEN: Stop waiting to coach.

For more resources and books lists, visit the Book Bucket.
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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Who is mentoring and coaching the creatives on your team? Need help? Check out the innovative work from Jason Pearson at Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video). 
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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. As an Amazon Associate, we earn Amazon gift cards from qualifying purchases. 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.

Non-Obvious Megatrends

Issue No. 436 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting highlights an obvious Top-10 book for 2020, Non-Obvious Megatrends. Incredibly, the author grades himself with a “trend longevity rating” to the 135 trends he’s predicted since 2011. And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and click here for my review of Upstream: The Quest to Solve Problems Before They Happen, by Dan Heath.
 
Be Observant, Curious, Fickle, Thoughtful, and Elegant

“At least 50 percent of pundits seem wrong all the time,” wrote Dan Gardner. “It’s just hard to tell which 50 percent.”

Can leaders spot trends—in advance? By page 28, the author of Non-Obvious Megatrends dramatically (dramatically!) shifted my thinking about trends. (Many books deliver pay dirt by page 25, but this was worth the extra effort.) Consider:
   • “Trend spotting isn’t the same as identifying actual trends.”
   • Definition: “A trend is a curated observation of the accelerating present.”

Rohit Bhargava, founder and chief trend curator of the Non-Obvious Company, shares this helpful metaphor: “When you focus on spotting stories that stand out, you gravitate toward collecting interesting ideas without understanding the broader context of what they mean. Calling the multitude of ideas spotted the same thing as a trend is like calling eggs, flour, and sugar sitting on a shelf the same thing as a cake. You can see ingredients, but true trends must be curated to have meaning just as a cake must be baked.”

Curated is the perfect word—and you will never, ever, read a book quite like Non-Obvious Megatrends: How to See What Others Miss and Predict the Future. Five reasons:

#1. Research Methodology Unmasked! The author gives away the store in the first 67 pages. Actually, you could stop right there—read no further—and you’d already have a ROI more than 100 times the cost of the book. Example: You’ll rarely find a needle-in-a-haystack, but follow the author’s “Haystack Method” of curating trends—and you’ll find gold. Five steps:
   1. Gathering—save interesting ideas.
   2. Aggregating—curate information clusters.
   3. Elevating—identify broader themes.
   4. Naming—create elegant descriptions.
   5. Proving—validate without bias.

The “Naming” step is brilliant—how to wordcraft memorable trend titles. He delivers five questions that will scorch your first five trend-naming attempts! Example: “Does it make sense without too much explanation? Could you imagine it as the title of a book?”

Click here to watch a one-minute video of Rohit Bhargava’s Haystack Method. (See—he does give away the store and note that in this digital age, he’s old school.)


Click here to view this one-minute video of the Haystack Method.

#2. Five Mindsets Unmasked! Bhargava makes a bold claim: “Non-obvious thinking can make you the most creative person in the room, no matter what your business card says and help solve your biggest problems.” He quotes Isaac Asimov (author/editor of nearly 500 books): “I’m not a speed reader, I am a speed understander.” Bhargava summarizes “The Five Mindsets of Non-Obvious Thinkers” on page 15 (he’s an over-achiever!):
   1. Be Observant. See what others miss.
   2. Be Curious. Always ask why. [See also The Advice Trap.]
   3. Be Fickle. Learn to move on.
   4. Be Thoughtful. Take time to think.
   5. Be Elegant. Craft beautiful ideas.

Those five points will preach at your next weekly staff meeting. But he doesn’t stop with this well-designed page. He then summarizes the big ideas for each point (two pages per point, again, beautifully designed)—and lists three practical disciplines for each big idea. To be fickle, he suggests, “take shorter notes” and use a Sharpie marker so you note only the most useful observations. You’ll also appreciate his warning to avoid “the temptation to fixate on assigning meaning to every idea instantly.”

#3. Intersection Thinking Unmasked! Chapter 3 is a must-read. “Trends might offer a signal that you should consider abandoning an existing product line or staying the course in a direction that hasn’t paid off yet. Or they could suggest that you should pivot the focus of your career to learn new skills.”

He adds, “What gives you the power to receive these signals and reach these conclusions is intersection thinking, a method for connecting disparate concepts and beliefs from unrelated industries to generate new ideas or products.” The author lists four ways to leverage intersection thinking effectively:
   1. Focus on similarities.
   2. Embrace serendipitous ideas.
   3. Wander into the unfamiliar.
   4. Be persuadable.

Bhargava’s personal discipline is to read widely (off-beat magazines, A to Z industry publications, etc.). He takes a cue from the 1980s bestseller by John Naisbitt, Megatrends: Ten New Directions Transforming Our Lives (14 million copies sold in 57 countries!). (See also the board retreat trend exercise, Tool #15, in ECFA Tools and Templates for Effective Board Governance: Time-Saving Solutions for Your Board, by Busby and Pearson.)

And here’s a non-obvious aha! When you leverage trend insights effectively, you will strengthen your culture (one of five tips for using trends—see the graphic on page 57). How? Trends will help you “improve your employee engagement and recruiting.” Brilliant.

#4. Four Tips for Running a Trend Workshop Unmasked! The author, apparently, can’t stop giving away the store! Also in Chapter 3, he elaborates on the five tips for using trends with a “Trend Action Guide” featuring five brief case studies (including one of my favorites: Zappos). He scolds us for the boring “About Us” pages on our websites (I agree!), and explains his “Lovable Unperfection” trend from 2017. (Another example of elegant wordsmithing.)

The case study for “Tip #2: Share Your Story” features the self-described “worst hotel in the world,” The Hans Brinker Budget Hotel, which has been “proudly disappointing travelers for forty years, boasting levels of comfort comparable to a minimum-security prison.” (Did I mention you’ll annoy everyone in your sheltered-in-place family by your incessant reading of half-page snippets—both funny and profound—all day long?)

There’s more—and this is crazy. The guy who makes his living giving keynote talks and workshops, tells you how to run a trends workshop! Tip #4: “Always Have an Unbiased Facilitator.” He writes, “It’s easy to assume that the person closest to the problem you hope to solve is the one most suited to lead the workshop. This is never the case.” Must-read (pages 64-67).

By the way, on page 56—there’s a tantalizing fork-in-the-road:
• Option 1: Remain here and continue reading.
• Option 2: Jump to the 10 megatrends starting on page 71.
Oh, my. What will you do? Hilarious and brilliant. I stayed with Option 1 and feasted on the delectable details that delineate how Bhargava and his team curate the trends. If you’re more A.D.D., you’ll likely jump to the 10 trends for 2020—all worth the read.

#5. Trend Longevity Rating Unmasked! Bhargava devotes pages 187 to 230 for “Part III: Previous Trend Reports (2011-2019).” Yes, he’s been publishing non-obvious trends since 2011. (How did I miss them?)

But who does this? He rates his own track record for every non-obvious trend he’s identified since 2011. Honest. I counted 135 trends, and humbly, he gave himself some D’s and C’s, but (in his view) scored dozens of A’s and B’s. You gotta love the honesty—and this models something to all of us.

This week, I ran across Leadership Gold, John Maxwell’s “lessons I’ve learned” book (which he didn’t write until age 60!). My favorite chapter: “The Secret to a Good Meeting Is the Meeting Before the Meeting” (read my review). But I also reread this pithy pointer (just $1.99 on Kindle): “Your Biggest Mistake Is Not Asking What Mistake You’re Making.” So high fives to Rohit Bhargava for his well-documented process for soliciting feedback on his trend-naming—and the guts to publish his “Trend Longevity Ratings.”

OOPS! My mistake—I ran out of room and I didn’t give you my color commentary on the 10 trends for 2020. You’ll have to buy the book to learn more about Amplified Identity, Ungendering, Instant Knowledge, Revivalism, Human Mode, Attention Wealth, Purposeful Profit, Data Abundance, Protective Tech, and Flux Commerce.

To order from Amazon, click on the title for Non Obvious Megatrends: How to See What Others Miss and Predict the Future, by Rohit Bhargava.



Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) Does your organization’s uniqueness stand out? In his book, Rohit Bhargava highlights the worst hotel in the world, the world’s best umbrella, and the world’s smartest building. What are we famous for?
2) The author writes, “By some expert estimates, a whopping 90 percent of the data that currently exists in the world was created in the past two years and it will continue to multiply exponentially.” The 2020 trend, “Data Abundance,” addresses “how to make it useful, who owns the data, and who should stand to profit from it.” The author asks us, do we have a data strategy? And the answer is…? 

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The Secret to a Good [Zoom] Meeting 
Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook

One of the big ideas in the Meetings Bucket is to “design meetings like an architect designs buildings.” Are you as intentional about designing Zoom meetings as you are in face-to-face (mask-to-mask) settings?

Download (just $1.99 on Kindle), John Maxwell’s short chapter, “The Secret to a Good Meeting Is the Meeting Before the Meeting,” from his book, Leadership Gold.

In 16 quick-reading pages, Maxwell builds the case for turning routine meetings into productive action-oriented gatherings. Following the counsel of Olan Hendrix, he writes that the meeting before the meeting: 1) helps you receive buy-in, 2) helps followers to gain perspective, 3) increases your influence, 4) helps you develop trust, and 5) avoids your being blindsided.

The “no surprises” rule is critical for the key people in each meeting—and typically that means you must meet with them in advance. Maxwell preaches:
• “If you can’t have the meeting before the meeting, don’t have the meeting.
• If you do have the meeting before the meeting, but it doesn’t go well, don’t have the meeting.
• If you have the meeting before the meeting and it goes as well as you hoped, then have the meeting!”

For more resources for more effective meetings, visit the Meetings Bucket.

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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Is your organization the “best” or the “worst” in the world? Or just lost in the sea of online anonymity and overload? Need help? Check out the innovative work from Jason Pearson at Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video). And while in your bunker this month, it’s the perfect time to invest in your family by completing the fun and meaningful journal by Jason Pearson and Doug Fields, This. Customizable Journal: 52 Ways to Share Your World With Those You Love. (Read John’s review 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. As an Amazon Associate, we earn Amazon gift cards from qualifying purchases. 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.

A Life of Listening: Discerning God's Voice and Discovering Our Own

Issue No. 435 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting suggests you leverage the slower pace during COVID-19 to discern God’s voice in the stillness. Leighton Ford, now 88, shares his transparent journey. Perfect timing! And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and click here for my review of Upstream: The Quest to Solve Problems Before They Happen, by Dan Heath.

 

A Graduate Course in Discernment 

“Lord, what book should I read and review next?” is my on-going prayer. Many times I sense the Holy Spirit’s nudge about a specific book. So perhaps for you also—while hunkered down during this COVID-19 crisis—it may be God’s timing for us to read Leighton Ford’s masterful memoir of his very personal journey, A Life of Listening: Discerning God's Voice and Discovering Our Own.

When Leighton Ford reflects on calling and vocation, he notes that “we spend the first part of our lives finding a role—professional or parent, executive or explorer, solider or artist.” But then (quoting Thomas Keating), “the paradox is that we can never fully fulfill our role until we are ready to let it go.”

So who is Leighton Ford? One global title is noteworthy: Honorary Lifetime Executive Chair of the Lausanne Movement. But is he a preacher, or a proclaimer, or a prophet, or a painter, or a poet? Yes—all of the above. He’s also a listener. And his life has impacted mine across the years. I’m so grateful.

Coaching a young leader—early thirties—who was second-guessing his pastoral call, Leighton encouraged him. “Remember God is an artist. He doesn’t do copies. He does originals. And if you are called here, God will do something new through you.”

Thus, at age 88, when asked to declare his mission statement, Leighton Ford now says “To be an artist of the soul. And a friend on the journey.” What’s your mission statement—and has it changed over the decades?

But let me back up a bit—with a LOL story that will provide some context. At age 14 (because he was tall!), Leighton was named the president of his local Youth for Christ club in Ontario, Canada. In the late 1940s, Billy Graham—the emerging evangelist—was invited to speak at the YFC rally in Chatham, Leighton’s hometown. So with this God-planned connection—fast forward—Billy Graham tells his sister, Jeanie, about this young Canadian and Leighton and Jeanie meet at Wheaton College and eventually marry.

Then, as part of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Team, Leighton formed a team to focus on Canada and other parts of the world. Once, when Leighton’s team was conducting a two-week crusade in Nova Scotia, Billy Graham was invited to preach on the final weekend. Billy arrived a day early and sat quietly in the back of the crowd. During the invitation—when seekers would go forward to place their trust in Christ—Billy noticed an older man who perhaps needed encouragement. So Billy “tapped the man on the shoulder, and asked if he wanted to go down and give his life to Christ.”

“The old fellow turned, and, not recognizing Billy, who was wearing dark glasses, thought a moment, then said, ‘Nah, I think I’ll wait until the big gun comes tomorrow night!’”

So…you’re Billy Graham’s brother-in-law. Life is good. Bed of roses. Opportunities. Acclaim. Success. God’s blessings. (Eh?)

Hardly—and maybe you’ve hit a rough patch also along the way. So that’s why now would be the perfect time to listen, to go deep, and to discern God’s voice with the help of an experienced guide, Leighton Ford. Here’s a taste of the guidance:

• “As you read my story, perhaps it will stir a remembering of the voices you have heard in your life…”

• Following the tragic loss of their 21-year-old son, Sandy: “It’s been said that there are places in our hearts we don’t even know are there until our hearts are broken.” He then discovered: “My preaching was more from the heart, but what I sought was not so much more places to preach as more still places to listen. Silence and solitude, which I had often avoided, became more welcome and compelling.”

• The endnotes deliver readings for a graduate course in discernment: Leonard Cohen, Henri Nouwen, N.T. Wright, Mary Oliver, Parker Palmer, Richard Rohr, E. Stanley Jones, Amy Carmichael, Oswald Chambers, and dozens of others.

• On his birth parents and his adoptive parents: “It has also taught me that I cannot be a rescuer in unhealthy ways of those who carry deep wounds from life. To discern the difference calls for a lifetime of listening.”

• On recognizing God’s call to launch Arrow Leadership, a ministry to younger leaders: “For some time I had been keeping what I called my GGTW List—Guys and Gals to Watch. These were younger men and women in whom I observed strong potential for leadership.”

• In the chapter, “When We Lose Our Way,” he transparently describes his own angst during a devastating conflict: “Motives are misunderstood, and those involved project onto leaders their own needs. Reason shuts down, and emotions rule. We get wrapped in the ‘fog of war.’ The desire for power and control take over. And when those we have trusted let us down, the sense of betrayal is acute.”

On a country path walk through farm fields in northern England, Leighton remembered the discerning words from his “spiritual father,” an Anglican bishop, who tenderly said to him, “You just need to find a way to let the pain and hurt go. Hold it loosely even if you can’t fix it.” So Leighton “picked up a stick and drew a line on the dirt.” He stepped across the line and breathed this prayer: “Lord, as best as I can, I let go of the hurt, the resentment, the anger. I don’t know if the breach will ever be repaired. But as much as is in me I leave it behind. Help me to do so.”

• He quotes Frederick Buechner: “The place where God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” And Leighton adds, “…where the Spirit’s deepest promptings bring a deepening conviction of being in the right place.”

• Looking for a deeper leadership model than the ones many believers adapt from secular models, Leighton notes how Jesus led: “the leadership of a son, a storyteller, a servant, and a shepherd-maker.” (Four S’s: that will preach!)

• Noting how E. Stanley Jones pictured a “Cosmic Loom” metaphor emanating from the unshakeable kingdom in Hebrews 12:28, Leighton writes, “As I respond to his calling, I may make mistakes. But he does not. And even my mistakes he can weave into his pattern.”

• An editor’s advice to Leighton and Jeanie’s son, Kevin (also an author), on making college decisions—discernment counsel from A.W. Tozer: “When you have to make a decision, concentrate on loving God from your heart. If there are several doors open, some will likely close. Then if more than one is open, go through the door you want to go, and trust God to make it right.”

• And this from a Quaker woman when asked how “to discern God’s way in her life.” Her answer: “Way has not often opened before me, but way has often closed behind me.” (Prophetic words during COVID-19?)

• Don’t miss Leighton’s exposition on the three-step process for discerning your calling: Observe, Reflect, Act. He notes John Wesley’s encouragement that we should “second the motions of the Holy Spirit.” He quotes Mary Oliver’s instructions for living a life:
   --Pay attention
   --Be astonished
   --Tell about it.

• How might God get your attention? Study the great characters of the Bible and reflect on the diversity of attention-getting moments (see Moses, Samuel, Mary, Peter, and others).

• Leighton punctuates this powerful memoir with a probing question: “If right now the Lord walked up the back steps to where I am sitting on my porch, I wonder, how might his voice sound?” He answers his own question with 19 bullet-point phrases (arresting insights)—the strongest and most meaningful final two pages of a book I’ve ever read. Stunning.

A Life of Listening is rich. I read it slowly and I’m still discerning and discussing the book with my favorite listener—my wife, Joanne. I never aspired to be a Billy Graham or a Leighton Ford (not my calling)—but the book prompted me to think ahead to 2034, when I’m 88 (Lord willing). Will I have been a faithful lifelong learner and listener over the previous 15 years—so I might have something to write home about? Yikes.

Or even this, as Leighton notes: Inscribed on Ruth Graham’s memorial plaque at the Billy Graham Library,

          “Construction complete.
          Thanks for your patience.”

To order from Amazon, click on the title for A Life of Listening: Discerning God's Voice and Discovering Our Own, A Memoir by Leighton Ford.



Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) In Ruth Haley Barton’s book, Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership (my 2009 book-of-the-year), Leighton Ford’s foreword pulls you into the richness of the text. The 10th anniversary expanded edition (2018), includes a new “afterword” also by Leighton Ford. He writes about the book’s impact: “My own soul responds both with ‘Ouch!’ and ‘Yes!’” Mention a book you’ve read or listened to recently that prompted an “Ouch!” response!
2) “Most of us need some kind of spiritual jolt to start us on the second journey, to make us stop and listen long enough to pay attention to what God is saying to us,” writes Leighton Ford in The Attentive Life: Discerning God's Presence in All Things. Describe a “spiritual jolt” you’ve experienced—and the result.

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Bullet Point Your Life!
Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook

One of the big ideas in the Team Bucket is that “…we leverage the unique set of talents and strengths given to each person by God. Thus we serve with more fulfillment and joy.”

Have you ever “bullet pointed” your life’s journey? During this unique COVID-19 period, in addition to reading A Life of Listening, by Leighton Ford (above), select a second book from the list below—and use another person’s journey to reflect on your own journey.

#1. The Joseph Road: Choices That Determine Your Destiny, by Jerry White. The author’s bullet point summary of Joseph’s life is fascinating and so he convinced me to “bullet point” my major life events—to see what I could learn from those forks-in-the-Joseph Road. Jerry illustrates how to do this exercise with bullet points of his own life.

#2. Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation, by Parker J. Palmer

#3. Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson. Warning! You’ll weep as you journey with John Ames, the 76-year-old still-in-the-pulpit Congregational minister in Gilead, Iowa. It’s 1956 and Pastor Ames is journaling a life letter to his seven-year-old son, an extraordinary blessing from his second and younger wife.

#4. Listen to My Life: Maps for Recognizing and Responding to God in My Story, is a unique visual tool that helps you invite God into the process of reviewing your past, assessing your present, and enriching your walk with God into your future. Created by Sibyl Towner and Sharon Swing.

#5. Soul Keeping: Caring for the Most Important Part of You, by John Ortberg

#6. Leading Me: Eight Practices for a Christian Leader's Most Important Assignment, by Steve A. Brown (president of Arrow Leadership)

#7. The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in Washington, by Robert D. Novak

#8. Myself and Other More Important Matters, by Charles Handy

#9. Eisenhower 1956: The President’s Year of Crisis—Suez and the Brink of War, by David A. Nichols. After a heart attack in 1955, the “doctors told him to take it easy—and in that we get a humorous picture of Ike. He wrote a friend that he had been ordered ‘to avoid all situations that tend to bring about such reactions as irritation, frustration, anxiety, fear and, above all anger.’ So he had snapped at the doctors, ‘Just what do you think the presidency is?’”

#10. Crafting a Rule of Life: An Invitation to the Well-Ordered Way, by Stephen A. Macchia.

Note: Click here to download PDFs of three lists from the Book Bucket, including more biographies, autobiographies, and other resources for the journey.

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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Your organization is also on a journey. How effectively are you painting your past, your present, and your future? Check out the innovative work from Jason Pearson at Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video). And while in your bunker this month, it’s the perfect time to invest in your family by completing the fun and meaningful journal by Jason Pearson and Doug Fields, This. Customizable Journal: 52 Ways to Share Your World With Those You Love. (Read John’s review 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. As an Amazon Associate, we earn Amazon gift cards from qualifying purchases. 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.

Upstream: The Quest to Solve Problems Before They Happen

Issue No. 434 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting urges you to read or listen to this must-must-read book on upstream thinking—how to solve problems before they happen. Timely? And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and click here for eight leadership flicks with more than 11 hours of informative and entertaining movies, videos, and YouTube clips.


Trial and Error, Error, Error  

During this COVID-19 marathon, could there be a more relevant, timely book than Upstream, by bestselling author Dan Heath? No way. The big idea: solve problems before they happen. Customer complaints, crimes (and get this!)—chronic illnesses are preventable.

RELEVANT! We must experiment. Heath quotes systems thinker Donella Meadows. “Remember, always, that everything you know, and everything everyone knows is only a model. Get your model out there where it can be shot at. Invite others to challenge your assumptions and add their own….The thing to do, when you don’t know, is not to bluff and not to freeze, but to learn.

“The way you learn is by experiment—or, as Buckminster Fuller put it, by trial and error, error, error.”

TIMELY! Don’t make the problem worse. Heath notes, “When we fail to anticipate second-order consequences, it’s an invitation to disaster, as the ‘cobra effect’ makes clear. The cobra effect occurs when an attempted solution to a problem makes the problem worse.” That happened in India, during the UK’s colonial rule. “A bounty on cobras was declared,” and citizens received cash for producing dead cobras. You guessed it—the entrepreneurs began breeding more cobras. (Read more here.)

INSIGHTFUL! Data—the centerpiece of upstream efforts. Heath quotes Joe McCannon who uses “data for the purpose of learning” as distinguished from “data for the purpose of inspection.” Read chapter five (gulp!) to learn why you never hear about data systems “that are useful for people on the front lines.” (Maybe Heath was channeling our new physician hero, Ambassador Deborah Birx.)

Forget all the other “must-reads” I’ve cajoled you into reading. This is the must-must-read of the year. Upstream: The Quest to Solve Problems Before They Happen, by Dan Heath, was just published March 3, 2020, and—here at home, hunkered and bunkered—I naively thought, “For once, I’ll read a book without a pen. Just enjoy it. Learn. Reflect.” Not!

The two blank pages in the front of my book are now smothered with 47 page numbers and notes. Forty-seven! There’s no way to cram all this good stuff into a short review. Sorry!

I waded into Upstream while reading Sam Walker’s “Captain Class” column in The Wall Street Journal. The headline: “Covid-19 was a Leadership Test. It Came Back Negative. One lesson from the coronavirus is that we need leaders who prevent crises more than we need managers who scramble to handle them.”

Walker’s WSJ column included this:

Last year, before this virus began to spread, I learned about a parable that’s well-known in public-health circles. It goes something like this:

Two friends are sitting by a river when they spot a child drowning in the water. Both friends immediately dive in and pull the child to safety. But as soon as they do, another struggling child drifts into view. Then another. Then another. After completing several rescues, one of them climbs out of the water.

“Where are you going?” the other friend asks.

“I’m going upstream to tackle the guy who’s throwing all these kids in the water.”

This parable is on page one in Upstream—and it’s the metaphor for the next 243 pages, followed by a “Next Steps” section, a one-page graphic summary of the book (Brilliant—why doesn’t every author give me a one-page summary?), and a discouraging two-page appendix, “Scaling Programs in the Social Sector.” (Heath: “My own take is that this is largely an unsolvable problem—that there are few programs for improving the lives of human beings that are as easy to reproduce on a large scale as fried chicken or lattes.”)

So here are four options for this must-must-read:
• Option 1: View Dan Heath’s four-minute video (see below)—and then delegate your reading to a team member for a report at your next weekly meeting on Zoom.
• Option 2: Actually read the book! (Hardback or Kindle)
• Option 3: Listen to the book, an hour a day, during your daily exercise routine this week (the audio is just 7 hours, 47 minutes). Visit Libro.fm
• Option 4: Don’t read or listen to the book—and continue to manage your “willy-nilly” systems (per the downstream approach to the homeless problem previously used in Rockford, Illinois).

DAN HEATH EXPLAINS UPSTREAM THINKING (4 ½ minutes):

Click here to view the video.

MY TOP-10 TEASERS (and a bonus!):

#10. BOXES. The Dutch bicycle company VanMoof reduced shipping damage by 70% to 80% when “they started printing images of flat-screen televisions on the side of their shipping boxes, which are very similar in shape to flat-screen TV boxes.” (page 104)

#9. BARRIERS. Illustrating the three barriers to Upstream Thinking (problem blindness, a lack of ownership, and tunneling), Heath praises Chicago Public Schools for thinking upstream—and assigning their BEST teachers to ninth grade students, during the “whopper of a transition,” their vulnerable move from elementary school (K to 8) to high school. Where do you assign your best team members? (page 25)

#8. BRACELETS. In a sleepy New England town, north of Boston, a “Danger Assessment” tool brought agencies together to address domestic abuse instead of the previously splintered response. Dan Heath attacks silos like COVID-19 attacks those who don’t social distance. One simple “upstream” innovation—attach GPS bracelets to released offenders BEFORE they leave jail, not two days later at their first parole appointment. I know, “Duh!” But…read the book and you’ll find the finger pointing at you. (page 82)

#7. BUMMERS. Yikes #1: “Choosing the wrong short-term measurements can doom upstream work.” Yikes #2: “Getting short-term measures right is frustratingly complex.” Yikes #3: A ghost victory occurs “when measures become the mission.” (Did I mention “must-read?” See chapter nine, “How Will You Know When You’re Succeeding?”)

#6. BUNKERS. How does one city use “predictive modeling to accelerate ambulance response time? By forward-deploying ambulances around the city, based on the model.” Thus without that system, Heath suggests you bunker down near a fire station! “This could become a selling point for real estate agents: First floor master—AND just a three-minute drive from the fire station!” (page 138)

#5. BUSINESS. Read chapter eight, “How Will You Get Early Warning of the Problem?” and then view this witty IBM Watson TV commercial. (Click here.)

#4. BONKERS! Yikes! An Illinois school district tech director was concerned about phishing attacks—so with a security firm’s help, he sent a “phishing test to the district’s staffers from a weird email address they’d never seen before. The email announced that a suspected security breach had happened earlier in the week and encouraged them to click a link to change their passwords.” Yikes—29% of the staff clicked on the link. (page 221)

#3. BRILLIANT! Read how LinkedIn earned “tens of millions of dollars annually” by reducing the churn rate on a product. Attention: Church Leaders & Association Execs—a member’s first 30 days are the most important. Brilliant. (page 135)

#2. BROWNIE. Did I mention relevant? In the twelfth chapter, “The Chicken Little Problem: Distant and Improbable Threats,” you’ll weep when you read about the “Hurricane Pam” simulation. “The assignment: Create hurricane response plans for New Orleans and the surrounding region.” The July 2004 week-long gathering (amazing collaboration among agencies) launched the planning effort. Except…the follow-up meetings were cancelled because FEMA would not approve the additional $15,000 in travel expense. By the way, Heath notes that Congress ultimately funded $62 billion (not a typo) for the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina which hit 13 months later in 2005.

#1. BUREAUCRATS (see “LAZY”). When your team finally commits to upstream efforts—and you’re pondering how to measure success, Heath has five questions to prevent “pre-gaming” your results—aka “the careful consideration of how the measures might be misused.” They include:
   • The “rising tides” test
   • The misalignment test
   • The lazy bureaucrat test
   • The defiling-the-mission test
   • The unintended consequences test

BONUS TEASER: BIBLE-READING! One of Heath’s three types of “ghost victories” (where “it’s possible to ace your measures while undermining your mission”) is his youthful account of his father’s offer to pay him $1.00 for every book of the Bible he read. Younger Heath gamed the system—and instead of reading from Genesis to Revelation to earn $66—he started by fast-tracking through Second John, Third John, and Philemon—the three shortest books in the Bible—and then asked his Dad for his first cash payout—three bucks!

Note: I just shipped this book to my favorite state senator in California. You might want to do the same in your state.

To order from Amazon, click on the title for Upstream: The Quest to Solve Problems Before They Happen, by Dan Heath. To listen to the audio version (7 hours, 47 minutes), visit Libro.fm

BONUS BOOK! You’ll also enjoy reading (or listening to) the bestselling book by Dan Heath, and his brother Chip Heath (my 2017 book-of-the-year), The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact. (Read my review.) Listen to the audio book here on Libro.fm (6 hours, 24 minutes). You'll appreciate the ideas in this book when planning the “Welcome Back!” celebration at your office, church, or classroom.

Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) Who are you currently getting to know and collaborating with now—in anticipation of the NEXT crisis or disaster? Heath quotes a participant in a community-wide preparedness event, “You don’t want to be exchanging business cards in the middle of an emergency.”
2) One company (see page 160), discovered that email “open rates” were the wrong measurement when their spiffed-up email subject lines caused sales to plummet—even with increased open rates. So…how do we know if we’re measuring the right things? Are we thinking upstream or downstream?

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“Locked in a Room Together”
Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook

I know. I know. You’re already locked in a room during COVID-19, but this is different. Keep reading!

One of the big ideas in the Customer Bucket is this: “We listen to our customers. We are zealots for researching and understanding our markets.”

Whether you’re planning for your next crisis (visit the Crisis Bucket)—or you finally (finally!) exit your silo to research your customer—Dan Heath urges teams to get “locked in a room together.” That’s one of the not big, but HUGE, ideas of Upstream. Talk! Collaborate! Do it together—trial and error, error, error.

In 2012, about 20 million Expedia customers called the travel company. “At a support cost of roughly $5 per call, that’s a $100 million problem!” For every 100 online transactions, “58 of them placed a call afterward for help.”

But…customer service was hunkered down answering the phone—and their customer satisfaction ratings were acceptable, I’m guessing. Every other department had other metrics. No one saw the big number or the big picture or the big problem.

Finally two upstream thinkers recognized the problem and assembled a war room with a simple mandate: “Save customers from needing to call us.” The results are stunning! “Since 2012, the percentage of Expedia customers who call for support has declined from 58% to roughly 15%.”

The secret: assemble cross-functional teams—and lock them in a room together! (Read chapter one, “Moving Upstream.”)

For more resources from the Customer Bucket, click here.

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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Are your communication tools focused downstream or upstream? Check out the innovative work from Jason Pearson at Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video). And while in your bunker this month, it’s the perfect time to invest in your family by completing the fun and meaningful journal by Jason Pearson and Doug Fields, This. Customizable Journal: 52 Ways to Share Your World With Those You Love. (Read John’s review 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. As an Amazon Associate, we earn Amazon gift cards from qualifying purchases. 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.

8 Leadership Flicks

Issue No. 433 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting spotlights eight movies and videos—some eligible for your lifelong learning goals (i.e. watch during the day without guilt!). Be safe, please. And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and click here for my recent review of The Advice Trap—on how to be more coach-like every day.

11½ Hours of Movies, Videos & YouTube

Welcome to the movie issue with my recommendations of eight titles (including comedy) that address leadership issues, insights, and ideas. Enjoy!

#1. HARRIET (2019)
PG-13 (2 hours, 5 minutes) - Amazon Prime
Memorable Line: “The hole in my head just made God’s voice more clear.”



You think your life is hard? Take a run in Harriett Tubman’s shoes. In my 2019 review of Leaders: Myth and Reality, by General Stanley McChrystal (US Army, Retired), I urged readers not to skip the chapter, “The Heroes: Zheng He and Harriet Tubman.” McChrystal writes, “She never intended to lead, and that turns out not to matter—she became a hero, and a leader, all the same.”

Then Harriett premiered on Nov. 1, 2019. You’ll want to watch it twice. I was stunned by Tubman’s attentive heart—always listening for divine direction. Don’t miss this jolt, 38 minutes into the movie—Harriett, age 13, with a fractured skull, observes, “The hole in my head just made God’s voice more clear.” The writing is powerful: stinks, stings, and stature. Heart-breaking: learn what gave landowners their stature. God’s voice: “…something like a sting, like a slap in the face.” The river crossing scene: courage defined.

#2. WE HAVE A POPE (2011)
Original title: “Habemus Papam” (Italian with English subtitles)
Unrated (1 hour, 44 minutes) - Amazon Prime
Read my review.
Memorable Line: “Not me, Lord! Not me!”

No spoiler alert is needed because I’ll just set the stage for you. The papal conclave is in session—and balloting has begun. The thunderous murmuring from dozens of cardinals needs no sub-titles: “Not me, Lord! Not me!”

No one wants the job.

Makes me wonder if, post COVID-19, there will be more or less applications for presidents, prime ministers, popes, governors, and mayors? Leaders needed. Yikes!

#3. THE SECRET OF SANTA VITTORIA (1969)
PG-13 (2 hours, 19 minutes) - Amazon Prime

I stumbled across this one last week when the WSJ recommended the novel by Robert Crichton (which I have not read). Set during WWII and directed by Stanley Kramer, and starring Anthony Quinn, a wine-producing Italian village must hide a million bottles of wine from the Germans.

The village clown becomes the mayor (has that ever happened before?)—and without reading a book, watching a TED Talk, or attending training sessions—Quinn masterminds an ingenious plan. Lots of laughs (and a bit rowdy for PG-13)—but the teamwork scene is incredible and memorable.

On one level—it’s the aspiration for every country, including Italy, during this COVID-19 crisis. (Not the wine—the teamwork!)

#4. TWELVE O’CLOCK HIGH (1949)
Not Rated (2 hours, 12 minutes) - Amazon Prime
Read my review.
Memorable Lines: “And I want you to paint this name on the nose of your ship: ‘Leper Colony.’ Because in it you're gonna get every deadbeat in the outfit. Every man with a penchant for head colds. If there's a bombardier who can't hit his plate with his fork, you get him. If there's a navigator who can't find the men's room, you get him. Because you rate him.”

In the classic 1949 film, Twelve O’clock High, Gregory Peck plays an Air Force general tasked with rejuvenating an exhausted and demoralized bomber group in World War II. From 9,000 feet, the daytime air raids against Germany seemed hopeless and unending. The unspoken goal: fly 25 missions with all limbs intact and you’ve done your duty.

One mission arrested my attention in the middle of this remarkable movie. General Frank Savage (Peck) announces a strategic target: the ball bearing factory. Bomb just one factory (Germany’s sole ball bearing supplier) and you’ll disrupt assembly lines throughout the country. Brilliant!

So…what’s your strategic target?

The film is often used in MBA courses (google it). Constantino Salios taught a course at Biola University’s Masters of Arts in Organizational Leadership program in 2007 and invited me to join the class for this powerful film.

#5. IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON (2007)
PG (1 hour, 39 minutes) - Amazon 
Read my review.
Memorable Line: “And of course at that time, the Atlas boosters were blowing up every other day down at Cape Canaveral. And it looked like a very, you know, a good way to have a short career.” (Jim Lovell)

This extraordinary documentary has teachable moments in almost every one of my 20 management buckets. The Results Bucket: check. The Strategy Bucket: bull’s-eye. The Systems Bucket: 15 astronauts owned 15 segments of the mission. The Crisis Bucket: “Houston, we have a problem.”

The film is absolutely rich in memorable moments in the Team Bucket. Then there’s the People Bucket with often hilarious and poignant illustrations of the four social styles, including analyticals (Neil Armstrong) and expressives (James Lovell).

#6. Sesame Street: Ernie Puts Down the Duckie (2003)
G-rated – View on YouTube (5 min.) or Amazon Prime
Memorable Line: “Put down the duckie if you wanna play the saxophone.”



Add some hoopla! to your next Zoom meeting and screen this rousing sing-along video clip, “Put Down the Duckie.” Read the Book Bucket chapter in Mastering the Management Buckets—and learn why “You gotta put down the duckie…if you wanna play the saxophone.” Hoots the Owl is trying to teach Ernie a lesson in Learning 101. Hebrews 12:1 is also applicable for this principle: “Master the Management Buckets by Reading.”

This Sesame Street video (all ages will love it) features more than a dozen celebrities and musicians, including Paul Simon, John Candy, Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman, and my favorite, Ladysmith Black Mambazo.

#7. OUR DAILY BREAD (1934)
Not Rated: (1 hour, 13 minutes) – Amazon (sometimes on YouTube)
Read my review.
Memorable line: “Ya gonna follow me or quit like yellow dogs?”

The New York Times named Our Daily Bread, directed by King Vidor, “one of the 10 best films of 1934.” (Which may not mean anything.) But I titled my review, “The Cadence of Team Building”—and I urge you to skip the plot and just watch the last 12 minutes.

Let me net it out for you. Would you invest 12 minutes to enrich the team building culture in your organization? Of course you would.

So here’s the plan. Give your staff team (or department team) the movie synopsis—but just show them the last 12 minutes. In my opinion, it’s the best video clip on team building ever produced.

Our Daily Bread depicts the deep depression-era cultural discouragement of the time, but lands on an upbeat solution. No need to watch the entire 73-minute film—often termed as a propaganda piece for the idea of a socialistic community. (Any inferences to current left-leaning politicians are purely coincidental. Note that I’m not recommending the film’s message, so just use this closing scene as a powerful team building tool.)

#8. MAKE YOUR BED (2014)
Inspirational Talk – View on YouTube
Time: 19 minutes
Read my book review.
Memorable Line: “If you want to change the world, start singing when you’re up to your neck in mud.”

The best-selling book, Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life…and Maybe the World, packs a punch at the fast clip of one big punch every 10 short pages. Admiral William H. McRaven (U.S. Navy Retired) delivered these 10 principles at a university commencement address. His speech on May 21, 2014, to the graduating class of the University of Texas at Austin went viral—with over 10 million views!

Watch the 19-minute YouTube video here (and read a transcript of his speech in the back of his book). The big idea for Principle #1: “Start your day with a task completed.” Or, listen to the audio book (1 hour, 53 minutes) at Libro.fm

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Bonus Hymn (for crisis reflection)
“I Asked the Lord That I Might Grow” (5 minutes)
Read my notes.

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? My opinion: at the heart of a person’s response to crisis looms a strong or inadequate theological foundation.

In Knowing God, by J.I. Packer, the esteemed author 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 18 months now. “Alexa, repeat!” Yet every repeat stings. (Read the lyrics here. Listen here.)
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Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) What’s the most insightful leadership lesson you’ve ever learned from a movie, video clip, TED Talk, or podcast?
2) “Give me any two pages of the Bible,” said Cecil B. DeMille, “and I'll give you a picture.” Aristotle said, “The soul never thinks without a picture.” Why do you think the right film, at the right time, for the right reason—can be so powerful?

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Never Worry Alone!
Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook

One of the big ideas in the Team Bucket is that a balanced life honors God and “thus we serve with more fulfillment and joy.” Is that possible during a crisis?

Authors Michael and Katherine Stallard recommend 12 must-do action steps during this COVID-19 crisis. Big Idea #11: “Never worry alone!” They note, “‍Whenever you feel anxious or stressed, call up a friend and talk it through. Doing this will move your brain activity from the amygdala where threats are processed to the cortex where we make rational decisions.” Click here to read the short article.

The authors help effective leaders boost human connection in cultures to improve performance. Check out my reviews of their books:

• Connection Culture: The Competitive Advantage of Shared Identity, Empathy, and Understanding at Work, by Michael Lee Stallard, Jason Pankau, and Katharine P. Stallard. (Read my review.)
• Fired Up or Burned Out: How to Reignite Your Team’s Passion, Creativity and Productivity, by Michael Lee Stallard, with Carolyn Dewing-Hommes and Jason Pankau. (Read my review.)

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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. “The soul never thinks without a picture,” said Aristotle. Check out the innovative work from Jason Pearson at Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video), including the new book by Jason Pearson and Doug Fields, This. Customizable Journal: 52 Ways to Share Your World With Those You Love. (Read John’s review here.)
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