John Pearson's Buckets Blog

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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What’s Wrong With the World? 

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


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

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

Lessons From the Church Boardroom

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

Church Boardroom Bloopers

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

STOP THE MADNESS!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

RESOURCES:

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Council (and how to delegate your reading)

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

Information Overload Avalanche

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Zondervan 2019 Guides for 2018 Tax Returns - 2 books

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

Don't Run Out of Money!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

VERIFIABLE ACCOUNTABILITY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



AHA’S ON EVERY PAGE!

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

Protected!

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

Banking, Beer, Bibles, and Books!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why Your Meetings Stink—and What to Do About It

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

Your Meetings Stink!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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



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


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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

Top 10 Books for 2018

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

Top-10 Books for 2018

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

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

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

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

2018 Book-of-the-Year

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



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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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



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

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



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

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



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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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


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

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

Happy New Year and Happy Reading in 2019!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trust for Today and More Gift Book Ideas

Issue No. 396 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting features last-minute gift ideas, including six books, a desk calendar, and a LOL coffee mug! And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and check out the links on these pages for my recent book reviews. Merry Christmas!

Do Angels Laugh?

Quick! Here are some gift options for your last-minute Christmas shopping needs. This potpourri (or maybe mishmash) of books, coffee mugs, gift cards, New Yorker calendars, and other tempting purchases will help you find gifts for team members, board members, colleagues, spouses, grandparents, and your pastor. And check out my last-minute gift list from 2017 here.

[  ] Trust for Today: 365 Days of Encouragement – A Year With the Trueface Team. You’ll chuckle when you read the short, one-page devotional thought for February 24, “Do angels laugh when we say something funny?” and “In heaven, will we be able to make God laugh?” I’ve reviewed numerous books by the Trueface Team (their best: The Cure). Your gift recipients will have appreciative thoughts of you every day for a year—wow!

[  ] This Is Marketing: You Can’t Be Seen Until You Learn to See, by Seth Godin. “There are two ways to do your work. You can be a cab driver. Show up and ask someone where they want to go. Charge them based on the meter. Be a replaceable cog in the on-demand transport system. You might be a harder-working cabbie, but it won’t change much. Or you can be an agent of change, someone who creates tension and then relieves it.” (Watch for my 2019 review.)

[  ] The Secret Lives of Color, by Kassia St. Clair. You must order this for your graphic designer/marketing colleagues! John Ruskin wrote, “The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love color the most.” So the author paints—with words and swatches—a 320-page gorgeous book of 75 colors “with particularly fascinating, important, or disturbing histories.”

[  ] Leaders: Myth and Reality, by Gen. Stanley McChrystal (U.S. Army, Retired), Jeff Eggers and Jason Mangone. If you enjoyed Team of Teams in 2016, you’ll appreciate Leaders. “Don’t scan the text for new leadership checklists. We will use stories to challenge traditional leadership models, but we stop short of prescribing how to lead.”

Over a dozen leaders are profiled including Walt Disney, Coco Chanel, Albert Einstein, Leonard Bernstein, Harriet Tubman, Margaret Thatcher, Martin Luther, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The authors contrast and compare founders, geniuses, zealots, heroes, power brokers, and reformers. I read the last chapter first—“Redefining Leadership”—insightful! (Watch for my 2019 review.)

Weekly staff meeting idea: assign the 10 sections to 10 staff members and each week ask one team member to share a 5-minute review and a 5-minute discussion question. To listen to this book at Libro.FM audiobooks (17 hours, 2 minutes), click here.

[  ] Coffee Mugs: “I Survived Another Meeting That Should Have Been an Email.” Raise your hand if this week you “survived another meeting that should have been an email.” I thought so. Thanks to my son, Jason, we’ve created an entire product line of coffee mugs, t-shirts, travel mugs, mouse pads, coasters, and more with this eye-catching and very convicting catchphrase:

“I Survived Another Meeting
That Should Have Been an Email”

Order today from Café Press. Click here.

[  ] Invitation to Retreat: The Gift and Necessity of Time Away with God, by Ruth Haley Barton. What if—and I know this sounds crazy—you’re so busy that you should drop everything and focus on soul care? Ruth Haley Barton’s new book will guide you along. Jesus reminds us, "Come away and rest awhile." Barton writes, “Jesus invites us to be with him, offering our full and undivided attention to him. When we choose retreat we make a generous investment in our friendship with Christ. Truth is, we are not always generous with ourselves where God is concerned.” (Watch for my 2019 review.)

[  ] Cartoons from The New Yorker: 2019 Day-to-Day Calendar. One of my favorite gifts each year: LOL cartoons every day to tear-off, tweet, tease, and/or toss. One of my favorites from 2018: two lab-coated scientists filling a classroom chalkboard with algebraic theories—“You’re right—the shipping isn’t free. They’ve folded the expense into the cost of the item.”

[  ] 42 Seconds: The Jesus Model for Everyday Interactions, by Carl Medearis. “Forty-two seconds: That’s the average length of Jesus’ conversations as recorded in the Bible.” The author suggests you read this 151-page book for inspiration or as a “four-week devotional that teaches you how to be like Jesus in your everyday interactions with those God has placed in your life.” (See also my review of his book, Muslims, Christians, and Jesus: Gaining Understanding and Building Relationships.)




[  ] Amazon Gift Card. Can’t decide? Order an Amazon Gift Card. (One-day shipping!)

YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) What’s one of the most treasured books you’ve ever received as a gift? Why?
2) Is it time for you to take time for soul care? 

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2018 Book-of-the-Year Announcement!
Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook (2nd Edition) 

Watch for the December 31 announcement of the 2018 Book-of-the-Year and the updated books list to be posted on the Book Bucket webpage here.

For more ideas on books to give your team members, CEO, board members, and colleagues, visit the archives on this webpage at John Pearson’s Buckets Blog—featuring more than 400 book reviews. Or see the master list on pages 197-230 in Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook.

FOR MORE HELP ON UNDERSTANDING YOUR CUSTOMERS and which gifts certain customers would appreciate (example: "Info-Sponges" will appreciate Gen. McChrystal's book while "Share-Meisters will enjoy coffee mugs and New Yorker cartoon calendars), check out the free 57-page eBook on ministry branding, by Jason Pearson at Pearpod Media.

For more on branding your programs, products, and services, order the second edition workbook, Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook: Management Tools, Templates and Tips From John Pearson. Order here on Amazon.

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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Looking for new ways to communicate your mission—with messages that won’t be lost in the sea of kitten videos and fake news? Check out the innovative work from Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video). Click here.

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

Scaling Up - Rockefeller Habits 2.0

2018 Book-of-the-Year!
Issue No. 395 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting features an anonymous letter I received from a reader with his pick for 2018 book-of-the-year. Oh, my! It looks good. And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and check out the links on these pages for my recent book reviews.

Sloppy Execution and Lack of Discipline

We received this anonymous letter today:

Attn: Book-of-the-Year 2018 Awards Committee
Your Weekly Staff Meeting

Dear John,

As you and your team gather in your plush executive offices (or perhaps at your gourmet dinner meeting) to discern your pick for the 2018 Book-of-the-Year Honors, please give this gem your serious consideration. I have 12 reasons why your readers would thank you profusely—should you name Scaling Up as your top book of 2018.

If you pick this book, you’ll have to write the summary (all that unnecessary filler stuff you write that goes on and on and on). I think your readers, however, would prefer just getting to the good stuff, like these 12 reasons:

Reason #1. $20 AWARDS. Read about the Colorado company that required every manager—every month—to submit three ideas “for increasing revenue, reducing costs, or making something easier.” Managers who submitted the top 20 ideas—as determined by the CEO who responded to every idea submitted—received $20 cash per idea at the monthly managers meeting. (See page 166.)

Reason #2. BEST QUOTE. “Senior leaders know they have succeeded in building an organization that can scale—and is fun to run—when they are the dumbest people in the room! In turn, if they have all the answers (or act like they do), it guarantees organizational silence, exacerbates blindness (the CEO is always the last to know anyway), and means the senior team ends up carrying the entire load of the company on their backs.” (See page 5.)

Reason #3. THE WEEKLY MEETING. John, I know you’re a big fan of weekly meetings (duh—your eNews name), but you never convinced me of the value of wasting everyone’s time weekly. But Verne Harnish, Scaling Up’s brilliant author, has totally convinced me! The “Rockefeller Habit #3: Meeting Rhythm” chapter gives amazing detail on four types of meetings: the daily huddle, the weekly meeting, the monthly management meeting, and the quarterly and annual planning meetings. I’ve become a born-again-meeting-rhythm-freak! (See pages 175-190—the most helpful 15 pages I’ve read all year.)

Reason #4. “EVERYTHING IS FINE!” As an example of the helpful detail on meetings, Harnish drops in frequent warning icons. “What’s the rock in your shoe?” is a high priority meeting agenda question for the daily huddle (Where are you stuck? What constraints are you facing in the next 24 hours?). And this wisdom/warning:

“WARNING: Anytime somebody goes two days without reporting a constraint, you can bet there’s a problem lurking. Busy, productive people who are doing anything of consequence get stuck pretty regularly. The only people who don’t get stuck are those who aren’t doing anything or are so stuck that they don’t know it!! So, challenge the team member who reports, ‘Everything is fine!’” (See page 183.)

Reason #5. ROCKEFELLER HABITS. John, I’ve noticed that “Oh, my!” is one of your frequent and favorite filler phrases (could you dial that back a bit?). But, “Oh, my!”—am I the only leader or manager that has never heard of the Rockefeller Habits? I was blown away to learn about the leadership habits of John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937) and to see how Verne Harnish’s consulting company, Gazelles, has systemized these 10 habits into a one-page, 40-item checklist. (Download here.) Brilliant! And read this warning from the author:

“WARNING: You’ll drive everyone in the organization crazy if you implement all of these habits at one time. The key is focusing on one or two each quarter, giving everyone roughly 24 to 36 months to install these simple, yet powerful routines. Then it’s a process of continually refreshing them as the company scales up.” (See page 15 and read why habits are “routines that set you free!”)

Reason #6. THE QUESTION WE DO NOT KNOW. The graphics, icons, and format of this visually-appealing book are amazing (“Oh, my!” amazing, to be honest.) Like this call-out: “We have the answers, all the answers; it’s the question we do not know.” To help organizations achieve results, the author delivers detailed (detailed!) processes in four major areas: People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash. And—get this—he says it’s OK to start reading anywhere you want in the book. John, I'll send you a Starbucks card if you can resist NOT reading about weekly meetings first!

Reason #7. GUT-CHECK ZINGERS. Oh, my! These one-liners are convicting:
   • “NOTE: The cost of a bad hire is 15x his or her annual salary, according to Topgrading, so it’s important to get the recruiting and selection process right.”
   • “Good managers play checkers while great managers play chess, according to researchers Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman.”
   • “The bottleneck is always at the top of the bottle,” noted Peter Drucker.
   • “It’s time to break apart a 50-year-old business term—strategic planning—and think about it in terms of two distinct activities: strategic thinking and execution planning. Each requires two very different teams and processes.”

Reason #8. BIG, BUT NOT BIG ENOUGH. Read why you must conquer complexity. “Expanding from three to four people grows the team only 33%, yet complexity may increase 400%,” writes Harnish. He says optimal employee counts include: one to three; eight to 12; 40 to 70; 350 to 500; and 2,500 to 3,500. “Any company with an employee count between these natural clusters is likely feeling a bit stuck—“…‘big, but not big enough’ syndrome—even in making minor decisions like what size photocopy machines you need next.”

Reason #9. GARBAGE UNIVERSITY. John, you’ll love the insightful business stories—in-the-trenches examples—of how organizations are building the Scaling Up system into their DNA with training and education (normally about 2% to 3% of payroll).
   • The City Bin Company in Ireland created an internal learning academy, “Garbage University,” and provides “three hours of training every two weeks from September to May.” (Their CEO, by the way, never learned how to drive a garbage truck—and thinks the company is better for it!)
   • “At MOM’s Organic Market, in addition to executive education, produce managers will typically read four to five books together every year.”
   • Great companies start growing their people on day one. When they don’t, “…the first days on the job often feel more like waterboarding than onboarding: no desk, no computer, no phone…” (John, that reminds me of your 2017 book-of-the-year, The Power of Moments.)

Reason #10. RENAME “HR.” Verne Harnish mentions a company that “renamed its HR Department the Employee Experience Department.” Core values are not taken lightly in Scaling Up. He suggests you “organize your employee handbook into sections around each Core Value.” And—so insightful—“Every time you praise or reprimand someone, tie it back to a Core Value or Purpose.” Read his eight ways to reinforce culture on pages 102-106.

You’ll also appreciate his flexibility on terms: should we use “mission” or “purpose?” He says pick the term you prefer, but “use the terms consistently.” He likes “purpose” (more heartfelt). And to illustrate…here’s another “Oh, my!” I'll send you another Starbucks card (or maybe Chick-fil-A), if you can read—without getting teary-eyed—about the company that asked how they could become more like Make-A-Wish Foundation for their employees—per their core value, “Take care of each other.” (See page 100.)

Reason #11. ONE-PAGE STRATEGIC PLAN. John, I realize I’m stepping on your strategic planning toes—but honestly—the “One-Page Strategic Plan (OPSP)” in Scaling Up is so, so good. And the detailed instructions for the downloadable 11” by 17” template give step-by-step directions. In preparation, Harnish suggests that managers work on the SWOT analysis, but senior teams should focus energies on SWT (Strengths, Weaknesses, and Trends). Example: “Forget about the competitor down the street. Is there a company on the other side of the globe that might put you out of business?” (See pages 123-140.)

Reason #12. SLOPPY EXECUTION. So (and with this I’ll end—and now I see why your reviews are so long: these books are powerful!)…what’s the downside of not reading this book? Harnish says if you don’t execute the Rockefeller Habits, “It just means you’ve been leaving massive amounts of money and time on the table. And if you have a killer strategy and/or heroic people willing to work 18-hour days, eight days a week, these will make up for the messes created by sloppy execution and lack of discipline.” (As you often say, John—“Yikes!”)

Sincerely yours,

An Anonymous Reader

P.S. John—Please give Scaling Up very serious consideration when you announce your Top-10 books of 2018 (and your book-of-the-year) on Dec. 31. (And please note I am not the author nor have I met the author!)

To order from Amazon, click on the title for Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It…and Why the Rest Don’t – Mastering the Rockefeller Habits 2.0, by Verne Harnish.



YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) At Amazon, according to Scaling Up, Jeff Bezos asks his team each week what competitors have entered their market in the last seven days! So…is anyone tracking trends in your organization? (Reminder: Eternity magazine, ironically, published its last issue in 1989!)
2) In Scaling Up’s “cash” chapters (one of four key topics,) the author notes that Costco’s bold move in charging customers a membership fee now accounts for 75% of Costco’s profit ($3 billion of the $4.04 billion in pretax earnings in 2017). When was the last time your senior team had serious and strategic conversations about cash and your ability to fuel the growth of your organization? 

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Mark Cuban Reads 3 Hours a Day!
Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook (2nd Edition with 17% Fewer Typos!) 

Scaling Up is one of the most complete books I’ve ever read. The alignment with the great leadership/management experts (Drucker, Collins, Lencioni, Gerber, Blanchard, and many more) is stunning. Faith-based organizations will enhance their study of Scaling Up with occasional dips into the 20 core competencies in Mastering the Management Buckets, including the Book Bucket. Reminder: leaders are readers! According to Verne Harnish:

“Mark Cuban, the outspoken owner of the Dallas Mavericks, reads three hours per day. His goal is to find just one idea he can use to give him and the over 150 companies in which he’s invested an edge in the marketplace.”

Watch for the December 31 announcement of the 2018 Book-of-the-Year and the updated books list to be posted on the Book Bucket webpage here.

For more help on understanding customers (a weekly discussion in Scaling Up), check out the free 57-page eBook on ministry branding, by Jason Pearson at Pearpod Media.

For more on branding your programs, products, and services, order the second edition workbook, Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook: Management Tools, Templates and Tips From John Pearson. Order here on Amazon.

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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Looking for new ways to communicate your mission—with messages that won’t be lost in the sea of kitten videos and fake news? Check out the innovative work from Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video). Click here.

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 a board member and raving fan of Christian Community Credit Union (a non-profit), we proudly list the credit union as our top pick for serving your financial services needs.

Being Mortal

Issue No. 394 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting recommends a MUST READ book on end-of-life issues that also oozes with leadership and management insights. The author notes, “People die only once!” And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and check out the links on these pages for my recent book reviews.

Pick One: Custer or Robert E. Lee

Apparently, I’m a slow learner.

You would think that when your daughter-in-law encourages you to read a book—you would read it. Ditto book recommendations from your wife.

Melinda and Joanne—sorry it took me a year to read this. But thank you. Because Being Mortal is now on my Top-10 book list for 2018.

In this riveting book, Dr. Atul Gawande reminds us: “People die only once.” So when facing fork-in-the-road sick and dying decisions, “They have no experience to draw on. They need doctors and nurses who are willing to have the hard discussions and say what they have seen, who will help people prepare for what is to come—and escape a warehouse oblivion that few really want.”

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

Custer or Robert E. Lee? The author says that medicine’s job is to fight death and disease—the enemy—but that the enemy eventually wins. “And in a war that you cannot win, you don’t want a general who fights to the point of total annihilation. You don’t want Custer. You want Robert E. Lee, someone who knows how to fight for territory that can be won and how to surrender it when it can’t, someone who understands that the damage is greatest if all you do is battle to the bitter end.”

Yet Gawande admits, “More often, these days, medicine seems to supply neither Custers nor Lees. We are increasingly the generals who march the soldiers onward, saying all the while, ‘You let me know when you want to stop.’ All-out treatment, we tell the incurably ill, is a train you can get off at any time—just say when. But for most patients and their families we are asking too much. They remain riven by doubt and fear and desperation; some are deluded by a fantasy of what medical science can achieve.”

By the way, watch for my review of Leaders: Myth and Reality, by General Stanley McChrystal (US Army, Retired), which includes a 30-page chapter on Robert E. Lee, and why this Civil War general’s picture no longer hangs in McChrystal’s office.

What should families do? My suggestion: ask your doctor (like I did this week) if he or she has read Being Mortal. (He had.) Gawande notes that medical school taught him two styles of doctor/patient interactions: paternalistic and informative.

The “paternalistic relationship” is the “priestly, doctor-knows-best model, and although often denounced it remains a common mode, especially with vulnerable patients—the frail, the poor, the elderly, and anyone else who tends to do what they’re told.”

Doctors make the critical choices. “If there were a red pill and a blue pill, we would tell you, ‘Take the red pill. It will be good for you.’ We might tell you about the blue pill; but then again, we might not.”

The “informative relationship” sounds good, at first. “’Here’s what the red pill does, and here’s what the blue pill does,’ we would say, ‘Which one do you want?’ It’s a retail relationship. The doctor is the technical expert. The patient is the consumer.”

The down side? Doctors become “ever more specialized” and “We know less and less about our patients but more and more about our science.” He writes, “In truth, neither type is quite what people desire. We want information and control, but we also want guidance.” In his medical school, there was also the brief mention of a third type of doctor-patient relationship often labeled “interpretive.”

“Here the doctor’s role is to help patients determine what they want. Interpretive doctors ask, ‘What is most important to you? What are your worries?’ Then, when they know your answers, they tell you about the red pill and the blue pill and which one would most help you achieve your priorities.”

Makes sense right? Gawande notes that this relationship is also called “shared decision making” and added, “It seemed to us medical students a nice way to work with patients as physicians. But it seemed almost entirely theoretical. Certainly, to the larger medical community, the idea that most doctors would play this kind of role for patients seemed far-fetched at the time. (Surgeons? ‘Interpretive?’ Ha!)”

But two decades later, the author describes a meeting with his father (also a surgeon) and his father’s neurosurgeon. The task: review the MRI images of his father’s giant and deadly tumor. The neurosurgeon “saw himself as neither the commander nor a mere technician in the battle but instead as a kind of counselor and contractor on my father’s behalf. It was exactly what my father needed.”

To get the conversation going in your family, maybe insert a reminder into your Thanksgiving prayer next Thursday that everyone around the table will die only once! Then, mention this book as required reading for at least one family member. (“Grammy—please pass the turkey and that Being Mortal book.”)

Dr. Gawande is an amazing writer. The poignant stories are page-turners. The innovative solutions—inspiring and encouraging. I’ve already re-told many of the memorable fork-in-the-road stories (tears will flow) to friends and colleagues and ordered the book for several friends. Be sure to read the hilarious story of the very creative nursing home that added two dogs, four cats, and 100 parakeets! (Memo to Purchasing: Next time, order the cages before the birds are delivered!)

I should have jumped on this 2014 book much, much sooner—because I still rave about Gawande’s 2010 insightful bestseller, The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right (read my review).

I had no idea that there were checklist connoisseurs! The Checklist Manifesto moves eloquently through medicine, aeronautics, and sky-scraper construction—noting why checklists will make or break a venture. For example, Boeing’s checklist expert uses “pause points” when designing checklists for pilots in crisis. Within each pause point, he limits the checklist to between five and nine items.

As a staff writer for the New Yorker, Gawande’s latest article, “Why Doctors Hate Their Computers,” was published on Nov. 12, 2018. Click here to read or listen to the article online. (Customer Bucket Pop Quiz: Are computer systems for the doctors or for the patients?)

And—get this—Gawande is also CEO of the health care venture formed by Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan Chase to deliver better outcomes, satisfaction, and cost efficiency in care. Stay tuned!

To order from Amazon, click on the title for Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, by Atul Gawande. To listen to this book at Libro.FM audiobooks (9 hours, 3 minutes), click here.


 
YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) What is your management style? How do you relate to your customers, clients, or donors? A) “Take the red pill—it will be good for you.” B) “There’s a red pill and a blue pill—you pick.” C) “We have some pills, but first, tell me what is most important to you?”
2) Custer, Lee, or Jesus? Read 1 Corinthians 15:57 in The Message and then discuss the ultimate fork-in-the-road end-of-life issues. “…In the resurrection scheme of things, this has to happen: everything perishable taken off the shelves and replaced by the imperishable, this mortal replaced by the immortal.” Who will have the last word? 

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Is Your Marketing Sick or Dying?
Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook (2nd Edition with 17% Fewer Typos!) 

Speaking of medicine, if your marketing or fundraising is sick or dying, here’s a reminder from The Customer Bucket chapter in Mastering the Management Buckets. Leaders, managers, fundraisers, and marketing specialists must use the right tools for the right people at the right time. One size doesn’t fit all—so if you’re trying to shoehorn all of your messaging to all of your customers and prospects with just one message—you will fail or die.

If you need help moving customers from ignorance to purchase—contact Pearpod Media and they’ll help you craft the right message for the right audience within these six distinct levels of awareness:
   • Level 1: Ignorance
   • Level 2: Awareness
   • Level 3: Interest
   • Level 4: Trial or Consideration
   • Level 5: Preference
   • Level 6: Purchase

For more help on messaging, check out the free 57-page eBook on ministry branding, by Jason Pearson at Pearpod Media.

For more on branding your programs, products, and services, order the second edition workbook, Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook: Management Tools, Templates and Tips From John Pearson. Order here on Amazon.

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JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Looking for new ways to communicate your mission—with messages that won’t be lost in the sea of kitten videos and fake news? Check out the innovative work from Pearpod Media (branding, digital, print, and video). Click here.

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 a board member and raving fan of Christian Community Credit Union (a non-profit), we proudly list the credit union as our top pick for serving your financial services needs.