Good morning, World! It’s Friday!

For though the righteous fall seven times, they rise again but the wicked stumble when calamity falls
Proverbs 24:16

How do you gain a sense of appreciation?

When things go well, we feel good and start to believe we made all the right choices and our success is by our own hand. But…
when things don’t go well, we think we’re cursed and made poor choices and wring our hands and grind our teeth and grumble and cuss and we dig our own mental holes. Every road has bumps and rough patches and detours. No one gets a newly paved highway from cradle to grave. No one. So why does it seem that some people have it so easy?
Did they get “lucky”? Or…did they learn the ninth Fruit of the Spirit and master self-control? Did they stop complaining to the (ultimate) referee and wake up earlier every day to sharpen the mastery of their own game?

Erik Weihenmayer, the first blind individual to climb the seven highest peaks on seven continents, knows failure and he knows self control. In his book The Adversity Advantage written with Paul Stolz, they used the metaphor of the Seven Summits to discuss how to turn pain and suffering into growth and development. Sounds better than whining followed by more pain and suffering, doesn’t it?

I can’t tell you why I’ve always been this way but simply and professionally stated, I prefer candor. If it looks and smells like [ahem…pooh], it probably is. Who among you appreciates a polished turd? I say, call it what it is, allocate resources accordingly and move on.

If you laid an egg, biffed it, messed up or were dealt a crappy hand…get up, clean it up and move on. What more certain way do you know of to not repeat something besides living through a bad situation? The quicker you recognize your situation, the quicker you can improve it. Once you’ve lived through a bad situation, the slimmer the chance you’d repeat it.

Gain wisdom, apply liberally on your future and succeed!

Have a blessed weekend.

Good evening, World! It’s Sunday (and a very special Father’s Day).

My father Ken passed away in February this year. He lived a full life and was the hardest working man I’ve ever known. Suffice it to say he made a lifelong impression on me. His father wasn’t around to guide him through his teens or twenties. My father’s father put an end to his suffering when they could find no cure for his excruciating headaches. He ended his pain but left a difficult void to fill. Who would be there for Dad to learn from?

The Navy taught Dad discipline and his desire to succeed overcame a number of obstacles that most small businesses face. Even the latest statistics indicate that 9 out of 10 new business ventures fail so he demonstrated a relentless resilience for us kids each day on how to persevere in business and in life.

I paid attention, made mental notes, made some critical choices and focused on success. I hoped to achieve what seemed so elusive for Dad…financial accomplishment. Mid way through life, I find my focus shifting away from striving for success and more toward seeking significance.

I heard Coach Jerry Kill (Minnesota Gopher football coach) this morning addressing Westwood church (we LiveStream it) on the priorities of faith, family and football – in that order and how it wasn’t always that way for him. I can identify with having a mixed up set of priorities.

That is why I am so proud of my son Jeff and how he has his priorities straight.

Recap:

My grandfather instilled a sense of urgency into my Father that he grow up quickly and trust himself.

My Father instilled an incredible amount of responsibility and work ethic in me.

I did my best to instill a desire that our kids reach maximum potential and leverage the gifts God blessed us with.

My son Jeff has made sacrifices, relocated, put career goal emphasis behind fatherhood and realigned typical materialistic tendencies to ensure his son Dylan is taken care of first.

With this kind of living and fully present example, my grandson Dylan is growing up knowing his Dad as being the number one male figure in his life; teaching, guiding, loving, laughing and sharing quality time together.

Happy Father’s Day.

Have a blessed week.

Good morning, World! It’s Friday!

John Hauser is a leader in our community, founding pastor at Prairie Heights church, who worked for the same company I have over a period of time while he was answering his calling. He introduced me to John Maxwell’s leadership teachings and we began to inculcate the company with VCR recorded lessons during lunch time. We were planting leadership seeds.

Before, during and since that time, John Maxwell has written a tremendous number of leadership books and produced a number of simulcasts (Leadercast) in which he has introduced the world to easy to read and easy to practice leadership principles.

I recently heard one of his Leadercast references that resonated and I thought worthy of repeating (see title). While Mr. Maxwell specifically details what it means to him, John Hauser and I collaborated to put the principle into practice before it had been articulated by Mr. Maxwell.

A true leader is not the one with the most followers but the one who creates the most leaders. John Maxwell

This quest for true leadership is not about amassing a collection of talented individuals in a closed system where the developed abilities are sequestered. Our focus was to develop leadership in a learning environment where non-billable time was not considered a cost but an investment. The investment has “flight” risks but as I recently read regarding this deliberate executive decision, author unknown; CFO says to CEO-“What happens if we train all of our people and they leave?” CEO to CFO-“What happens if we don’t … and they stay?” A river does not stay in the confines of a closed berm, it is a living system that communicates, flows, feeds…

Demographics studies clearly indicate that post-baby-boomer-talent voids will be difficult to fill.  Automation and immigration have limitations. If the focus on quantity doesn’t satisfy the need, we must (and chose to) turn our focus to quality. Developing people to become their very best, reach their highest potential, to lead every aspect of our organizations. To replace (or even enhance) the vacated positions with quality leaders.

Attrition is viewed by many as a negative. In this economic environment, post recession, it is a reality that talent will shift – and possibly due to reasons beyond current comprehension. If you’ve developed leaders in an environment where rivers are celebrated and reservoirs are not, you’ve made an investment into the future of your communities, your industry, your company and your people that will transcend quarterly results and sustain a brand for decades to come.

Have a blessed weekend.

Good Morning, World!  It’s Friday!

Being fully engaged, eyes wide open and actively listening for over 27 years in the consulting industry you tend to pick up a thing or two from the masters of their craft.  One such master was a Human Resource leader I had the pleasure to work with for a few years, Mr. Bruce Lake.  He believed in “the power of the question”.  In his spirit, I pose some thought provoking questions that are meant to make you ponder some pretty deep issues.  Pause between each question and take the time to think about what your answers would be.

• Have you ever wondered why you are here?
• What purpose were you meant for?
• What is your destiny?
• What have you been conditioned for?
• What is your cranial capacity?
• What is your nurturing capacity?
• How are you persevering with your God-given, albeit worldly-shaped, talents?
• Are you exhausted at the end of the day…in a good way…from doing the right thing-all day long?
• Do you wake before the alarm clock goes off…and are you smiling…or groaning?
• How do you cleanse your heart?
• How do you define yourself when someone asks who you are? (spend some extra time on this one)
• What makes you complete?
• Are you assuming noble intent with everyone you encounter?
• If you are a leader, are you doing everything imaginable to realize a single vision?
• Are you putting into your life what you hope to get out of it in order to achieve high-volume purpose?

Have a blessed weekend.

Good morning, World! It’s Friday!

I just heard a very practical, down-to-earth presentation on Jungian-based personality typification presented by Mr. Scott Schwefel with Discover Yourself based in the Twin Cities; foundational content and awesome delivery.

He engaged our group for 3+ hours with enthusiasm, energy and clear explanation how critical it is to know thyself. Self-awareness is so crucial in every aspect of what we do and how we relate at work, at home, in the community. The magic is how Insights group articulates complex and deep psychology in easily digestible, bite-size pieces. Concepts are then reinforced with visual aides that serve as regular and consistent reminders of who we are, how we should relate to others and how we prefer to be related with.

I’ve been fortunate to work with a variety of personality profile tools; DISC, MBTI, Enneagram to name a few. In my opinion, the Insights tool gets to the heart of the matter quickly and simply with a high expectation of comprehension and utilization.

We all know communication is a tricky, tricky topic. The “telephone game” is a quick reminder how we get details wrong regularly, even when prompted to pay close attention. We also know from previous studies, like Albert Mahrabian’s work that 55% of our communication is body language, 38% is tone of voice and a mere 7% comes from words. If it were easily understood and easily executed, we wouldn’t need so many forms like talking, writing, emailing, texting, tweeting, snap chatting, instagramming (is that a word?)…

Imagine if everyone you related with understood you better than they do today. Imagine if you better understood everyone you related to as well. With all of the stated barriers to effective communications, doesn’t it make sense to remove as many barriers as possible? It starts with knowing who you are so you can get out of your own way.

Have a blessed weekend!

Good Morning, World!  It’s Friday!

Based on last weeks subject, I thought I would further explore another subtle (sounding) difference between the root words humble and humiliate.

Dictionary.com calls out humbling as:

to lower in condition, importance, or dignity; abase.

The same source describes humiliating as:

to cause (a person) a painful loss of pride, self-respect, or dignity; mortify.

The difference here comes down to who is taking control of the humbling process.

To humble could be considered to lower yourself.

To humiliate is to lower someone else.

There will be pain, by your hand or another person (or situation).

In the book Launching a Leadership Revolution by Chris Brady and Orrin Woodward, the author believes that Leadership requires following three basic principles: Hunger, Honeable and Honorable.  Hunger is straightforward enough and my blog short enough to not bore you with my definition.  I would make the connection that Hone-ability is the quality of making oneself vulnerable to the lessons life is ready to teach you.  Honorable represents personal integrity and describes a person who has the ability to separate right from wrong and then act accordingly. 

I believe each of these principles require the quality of humility.  You can’t be hungry if you aren’t first self-aware enough to know there is so much more to know and always more room to grow.  You can’t consider vulnerability without some form of humbling experience.  Having and treating others with honor, always taking the high road regardless of what road others take, requires a sense of humility to understand one road from another.

Proceed with confident humility.

Have a blessed (and humble) weekend!   

Good Morning, World! It’s Friday!

The older I get, the more apparent it has become how the little things make such a tremendous difference. Not just from a ‘devil is in the details’ sort of way, but how we oversimplify the meaning or generalize what we hear when the subtle difference could lead us down an entirely different path or understanding. One degree of separation today continues to increase as time passes and you wind up on a different coast eventually.

A few examples that come to mind-

Struggling vs Suffering-In Still Alice, Julianne Moore’s character Dr. Alice Howland addresses the Alzheimer’s Association and tells them she’s NOT suffering…she’s struggling. No pain, just frustration.

Hurt vs Harm-Dr. Henry Cloud, in Necessary Endings does a nice job of describing the difference: “We all hurt sometimes in facing hard truths, but it makes us grow. It can be the source of huge growth. That is not harmful. Harm is when you damage someone. Facing reality is usually not a damaging experience, even though it can hurt.”

Wisdom vs Intelligence-separated by the ability to put experience into action as compared to having the capacity to learn. In both cases, the assumption is that the ability to learn is prominent but wisdom has already learned and intelligence is able to. Think of a gold-medal-winning Olympic swimmer compared to a young swimmer with water wings. Both are “strong” swimmers but one has proven them self and the other merely aspires. Time, and all that comes with it, separates them.

Active listening requires paying full attention to the subtleties. When you are uncertain what someone means, be courageous enough to ask for clarification. It could make a world of difference.

Have a blessed Memorial Day weekend!

One more (slightly inappropriate yet humorous) example would be
Love vs Lust- as I heard a comedian the other day…
Love is: getting ready to meet your girl friend’s Mom & Dad
Lust is: asking her, “Who’s your Daddy?”

Good morning, World!  It’s Friday!

I have  a long term friend who has, over the years, imparted his wisdom.  One of the recent conversations we had included content around the title of this post.  I’ve not personally tried to row a boat in the ocean.  I’ve tried paddle boarding and surfing (and even had a scare with rip tide while swimming in Hawaii a few years ago but that’s an entirely different post).

The moral of the post title is that there are times when rowing is beneficial and there are times when it is completely futile.  If the tide is coming in and you want to go out or the tide is going out and you want to come to shore, you are fighting gravity, and it typically wins.

We are talking about the discretionary efforts that, when timed appropriately, will advance the cause and move things forward, whether rowing a boat or pursuing an interest or solving a problem. However, just like a boat in the ocean, sometimes it is hard to get your bearings and you feel like you are drifting aimlessly so no matter where you row to, you might be advancing or hurting the overall goal or effort.  Sometimes, it’s better to put the oars down and … wait.

Depending on how you function and what motivates you, doing nothing may be easy or it may be nearly impossible.  No human I know wants to chase their tail.  At times, I may take a longer route form point A to point B in a larger metro even if the time is the same or even a little longer to avoid the traffic and avoid having to sit quietly and patiently wait.  It feels better to be moving uninhibited, even if it burns more resources.  The point with rowing a boat in the ocean is that you get tired quickly if you choose to ignore the obvious forces of the Earth screaming at you to stop rowing.

*Be situationally aware.
*Seek clarity about what you want to accomplish.
*Save your energy for the highest priorities and time the expenditure of such energy well, recognizing that it won’t always be when you want it to be.

Have a blessed weekend.

Good morning, World!  It’s Friday!

Art imitates life so in music or movies, we hear and see poignant moments that stick in our brain because we’ve lived a similar tune or vignette.

Have you heard the country song by Rodney Atkins, “When you’re going through hell…keep on going”?

Have you seen the movie ‘Draft Day’ where one of the more memorable lines capturing the essence of the movie was, “Sometimes the correct path is the tortured one.”

At those pivotal moments of hell or torture, how you want to react (fight or flight) is at the core of your brain. How you choose to react is a little more learned than instinctual. How you should react might be considered spiritual.

If everything comes easy, how do you know good from bad? Do you gain the same perspective shifting from better to good back to better as you do when shifting from good to bad back to good again?

If everything was easy, how could we appreciate grace?

If we did everything perfectly, how might we experience mercy?

Hint: life is not easy and we are not perfect but we can get duped into thinking so pretty easily.

My world (like everyone’s at some point along their journey) has been disrupted and my hallucinations of control over my destiny are now replaced with the reality that God has the wheel.

I’m blessed to have a growing number of people support me in my journey and at points where I may feel desperate, almost as if on cue, a new friend or old acquaintance has shared words of inspiration they cling to. A few examples include;

“A man’s mind plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.” Proverbs 16:9

“I can do all things through he who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:13

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”
Philippians‬ ‭4‬:‭6

Have a blessed weekend (and a Happy Mother’s Day)!

Good morning, World! It’s Friday!

Last week while in Washington, D.C., I had the pleasure of hearing John Zumwalt, former President & CEO of PBS&J, an engineering consulting firm (now acquired) talk about leadership and it’s impact on company culture. The money line in his discussion was that “people follow a leader’s heart, they don’t follow a manager’s mind”.

This profound statement caused me to reflect on my professional experience and determine whether the statement was consistent with my currently held beliefs:

• I like the definition of culture that states it’s: an interlocking set of goals, roles, processes, values, communications practices, attitudes and assumptions.

• Some might assert about culture that “it is what it is” but I maintain that culture will devolve if neglected. Without a champion/leader(s) to set an aspirational tone, clarify, articulate and emphasize the goals, roles, processes, and values people should use as guides, as well as hold people accountable for a high level of professionalism when it comes to their communications practices, attitudes and assumptions…an organization’s culture will quickly become less than what it could be.

• The leader of an organization is afforded the opportunity to change the culture if given enough time, tools, and resources as well as trust and alignment of the majority of the company to affect it. Most experts who follow culture believe it takes five years or more to have sufficient influence to change the culture of a company in a positive and sustainable way. Obviously, the rate of adoption is different with every company because … every company culture is different. To make significant performance improvements, I’d offer that five years of patience and tolerance to overcome the resistance to change is a minimum.

• The phrase “culture eats strategy for breakfast” is attributed to Peter Drucker, the management and leadership guru. Having spent time and energy on multiple strategic plans, this statement bears paying attention to. The best laid plans … still have to pass the culture test.

So, yes, I agree with Mr. Zumwalt; “People follow a leader’s heart, they don’t follow a manager’s mind.”

Have a blessed weekend.