I am not what I have been.

read a fascinating article by Daniel pink today.

He linked here.

I downloaded this.

It reminded me that I am not what I have been.  Don't put me in a box or tell me what I can or can't do because I for one have not stopped learning.  I'm just getting started

ADHD

Fascinating thinking on education.

Got me thinking about my own experiences in school and the experiences that we're walking our 7 year old son through now.

Now I'm not ADHD but I probably diverge in my thinking from time to time.



I wonder what other skills (like divergent thinking) we loose as a result as the present educational system.

What was your favourite memory of learning in school?

Least Favourite?

My Daughter

OK before i get into it, You should understand that it's September.

That means that there are a million more things to do than normal.

Kids need new clothes, supplies, shoes etc in time for school, cross country, church whatever.

And all of the programs at church are kicking off.

I'm in a state of eternally playing catch up.

This week i skipped the day off cause i was in Southern ontario serving on a district committee. Got home tuesday night and jumped right back in on Wednesday with a full day of meetings.

This morning i was planning on ticking a lot of boxes because next week we're on Staff "retreat" on Monday Tuesday and Wednesday and i need to get some stuff off my plate so next week when we're back, i can be in message prep mode as i've got two assignments approaching. Instead i spent the morning spending some really good time with a fellow staff member who i needed to connect with. Good time, but no boxes ticked.

I checked the email before rushing home to watch Esther while Luana goes to School, and my inbox was full of new boxes.

I got home and Luana, who had been working like crazy all morning greeted me with a list of things i needed to do so she could jump right back in when she gets home with her list.

I wolfed down a bite and fed Esther lunch and started working my way through the honey do list when I noticed that Esther was talking to me and had been for who knows how long.

I paused from loading the dishwasher to hear her story.

She said, "There was a girl named mary who had a sister, and Mary's sister was busy getting ready for lunch because God came over. but Mary listened to God instead.

And God said, you don't have to be in such a rush."

To say i was rattled a bit is an understatement. I didn't know what to say. I sat down next to her and pulled on onto my lap and gave her a hug so she wouldn't see me cry. I asked her how she got so smart.

She reminded me she goes to school.

I need a say a couple things now.

I need to say thank-you to Heather and Mark and the whole team in Children's Ministry at Redwood park for helping my daughter get so smart.

I need to tell you that i love pouring my life into people so that they can learn to hear from God and take steps of obedience and purpose and spend their lives walking with him.

I know that everything i do at Redwood is really important. So if i haven't gotten to something i said i would do or something you hoped i would do, i'm sorry. I really am. I've just been reminded that there's something really important i need to do right now.
;-)

ToneCheck: Don't send the wrong message.

ToneCheck: Don't send the wrong message.

like that little angel who sits on your shoulder while you think about what to do.

Online self

Another article from Harvard Business Review that got me thinking.

IT's all about your online presence as compared to your offline presence.

Go here to Read the whole thing or stay on the line for a taste

***

It's time to start living in 21st century reality: a reality that is both on- and offline. Acknowledge online life as real, and the Internet's transformative potential opens up:

1. When you commit to being your real self online, you discover parts of yourself you never dared to share offline.

2. When you visualize the real person you're about to e-mail or tweet, you bring human qualities of attention and empathy to your online communications.

3. When you take the idea of online presence literally, you can experience your online disembodiment as a journey into your mind rather than out of your body.

4. When you treat your Facebook connections as real friends instead of "friends", you stop worrying about how many you have and focus on how well you treat them.

5. When you take your Flickr photos, YouTube videos and blog posts seriously as real art, you reclaim creative expression as your birthright.

6. When you focus on creating real meaning with your time online, your online footprint makes a deeper impression.

7. When you treat your online attention as a real resource, you invest your attention in the sites that reflect your values, helping those sites grow.

8. When you spend your online time on what really matters to you, you experience your time online as an authentic reflection of your values.

9. When you embrace online conversations as real, you imbue them with the power to change how you and others think and feel.

10. When you talk honestly about the real joys and frustrations of the Internet, you can stop apologizing for your life online.

If this sounds like the kind of reality you want to live in, I've got great news: you can move in today. All it takes is the decision to treat your online existence seriously, honestly and attentively, and you will find that the Internet is RLT: Real Life Too.

The Secret powers of time

Stumbled on a fantastic video by the folks at the RSAnimate.

would love to get a hold of their data.

Click here to watch the Video at FORA.tv

Span of Care by Mac Lake

Mac Lake is the Leadership Development Pastor at Seacoast Church.

I've appreciated his blog and will no doubt be posting a lot of his material here but i thought i'd start with this little video teaching he did on what he called span of care - which is essentially an attempt to address the questions, "just how many people should one leader be overseeing?"

would love your thoughts.


What Is A Good Span Of Care For Leaders? from Seacoast Church on Vimeo.

Drive

Check out this video.



Can't wait to see this guy at the Leadership Summit!

Running with Horses

There is a story in the Old Testament where God is speaking to one of his followers. Now, I don’t know about you but I would confess that the idea of God speaking directly to me both inspires and scares me a bit. I’ll also confess that it’s during times of stretching when I most wish God would tell me what’s going on. Of course, what I really mean to say is that it’s during times of testing when I wish that God would speak to me a message of encouragement and strength or perhaps a message of hope - that the season of stretching will soon be over. In the story I referred to God sortof tips his hand and shows Jeremiah that the stretching that he is experiencing is not only normal it’s necessary in light of what God wants to do in his life. You can read God’s response to Jeremiah, in this conversation, in Jeremiah 12:5 "If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses? If you stumble in safe country, how will you manage in the thickets?
This story comes to mind often when I’m feeling worn out by tests, trials, or days that are just plain hard. It’s not that I want to be able to endure gross amounts of hardship, or that I’m a glutton for punishment, but simply that God sees in me a potential that i’ve yet to realize. This summer, if we’ll let Him, God will continue to train us for races of great endurance that we will run in the future and strengthen us to walk paths where the footing is questionable at best - all to make us people better equipped to bring God’s love to people hard places. The challenge i think, is that we don't even like our own hard places much less the thought of moving into other's hard places to help them. I'm really praying God continues to change my heart about this kind of thing. I want to love the training as much as the running. ... or at least take the training in better stride.

May your summer be filled with races well run.

Goaaaaaaaal

Benefit #47 of having a sister who teaches business management and organizational behaviour is that when i call with a question she always has oodles of info and sometimes class handouts on what i'm looking for.

Love you pam.

Biased

We're at a critical season at Redwood these last few months.

We've entered into a significant time of recruiting a new generation of leaders. As we have been looking for these key people we have been talking as a staff team about the traits that we are looking for.

A term that we have heard recently (by Bill Hybels) is the trait of a bias for action. Hybels was using to describe initiative and the idea of overcoming delays by going to extra distance (Hybels would rather take the stairs instead of take a slow elevator).

This discussion has had me quite interested so i've been researching the idea of a Bias for action a bit.

The Business Dictionary defines Bias for Action as the Propensity to act or decide without customary analysis or sufficient information 'just do it' and contemplate later. This definition comes from Tom Peter's Search for Excellence.

Don Sull writes an interesting post here on Peter's idea of a Bias for action

I found helpful his cautions regarding a dysfunctional bia.

Managers often invoke a bias for action to bypass sense-making and dive into the concrete details of execution. A dysfunctional bias for action is endemic among “take-charge” or “gung-ho” executives who excel at getting things done, but dread the open-ended discussions required to understand situations where complexity, ambiguity, and incomplete data preclude easy answers. To avoid this discomfort, they bypass discussions to make sense and dive right into making choices or working out the details of implementation. By jumping too quickly to discussions on how to take the hill, however, these teams often end up attacking the wrong hill.

In my exploration of this i also stumbled upon a book called Bias for Action by Heike Bruch and Sumantra Ghoshal that takes a bit of a different spin. The book is about willpower--how to develop it in your individual work life and how to push your organization to develop collective willpower so that action, not complacency, is the standard. The Authors do make a critical distinction in Bias for Action, which is to differentiate between real action and the busy idleness which characterizes so many managers. Purposeful action is limited to those actions that actually (and perhaps obviously) get you closer to the goals of the organization.

All of this thinking has been helpful for me because i'm continually being reminded of my personal tendencies.

I love to think Big picture - often at the expense of the details.
I love to explore new ideas -often at the expense of finishing present projects.
I have recently come out of an environment where i had through years of hard work and development worked myself into a position where i could really focus on my strengths - I had a team of awesome people who worked around me on those things that i'm not strong at but which coincidentally they were.

I haven't figured out when my bias for action conflicts with my bias for people
I haven't figured out when my bias for action keeps someone else in our organization from doing what they are passionate about
I haven't figured out when my bias for action should take a back seat to careful and thoughtful consideration before it is released from the gate.

But this i hear clearly.

I want to be a man who produces real fruit.
I want my days to be filled with the kind of action that produces real fruit.
I want to take as many people with me as possible.

I've got a lot to learn, and i'm so thankful for the people striving to build these things in me.

Empowering Leadership

We've been talking a lot the language of Empowering at our church lately. We know we cannot continue the way we have been but we are struggling with what empowering leadership will look like in our setting.

Though we might not be willing to admit it I suspect that many around us are skeptical as to whether anything will get done in an environment of empowering leadership when what we are used to may look more akin to hierarchical or control based leadership.

Ron Edmondson has been writing on this lately so i wanted to share with you his list, not on how to define Empowering leadership, but on how not to define empowering leadership.

Read his whole post here

Here are 10 reasons you may want to reconsider calling yourself an empowering leader:
Your number one answer is “NO”.
You have to personally approve every decision and control every outcome.
Everyone on your team works “for you” and not “with you”.
You use the word “I” more than the word “we”.
Your idea of delegation is telling people what to do, when and how to do it.
You say “Do this” far more than you ask “What should we do?”.
Nothing happens in your organization without your knowledge.
You consistently reverse the decisions of the team.
You control information because information is power.
You crush people when they make a mistake.

I'm going to be spending time over the next few weeks thinking about what empowering leadership means.

I'd love your thoughts.

Leadership – Are You “Feeling” It? | tonysteward

Good blog post by Tony Steward.

Check it out

Leadership – Are You “Feeling” It? | tonysteward

Uncertainty

Have you or do you read My Utmost for His Highest?

It's good today.

in it's entirety...

Gracious Uncertainty

Apr292010

. . . it has not yet been revealed what we shall be . . . —1 John 3:2

Our natural inclination is to be so precise— trying always to forecast accurately what will happen next— that we look upon uncertainty as a bad thing. We think that we must reach some predetermined goal, but that is not the nature of the spiritual life. The nature of the spiritual life is that we are certain in our uncertainty. Consequently, we do not put down roots. Our common sense says, “Well, what if I were in that circumstance?” We cannot presume to see ourselves in any circumstance in which we have never been.
Certainty is the mark of the commonsense life— gracious uncertainty is the mark of the spiritual life. To be certain of God means that we are uncertain in all our ways, not knowing what tomorrow may bring. This is generally expressed with a sigh of sadness, but it should be an expression of breathless expectation. We are uncertain of the next step, but we are certain of God. As soon as we abandon ourselves to God and do the task He has placed closest to us, He begins to fill our lives with surprises. When we become simply a promoter or a defender of a particular belief, something within us dies. That is not believing God — it is only believing our belief about Him. Jesus said, “. . . unless you . . . become as little children . . .” (Matthew 18:3 ). The spiritual life is the life of a child. We are not uncertain of God, just uncertain of what He is going to do next. If our certainty is only in our beliefs, we develop a sense of self-righteousness, become overly critical, and are limited by the view that our beliefs are complete and settled. But when we have the right relationship with God, life is full of spontaneous, joyful uncertainty and expectancy. Jesus said, “. . . believe also in Me” (John 14:1 ), not, “Believe certain things about Me”. Leave everything to Him and it will be gloriously and graciously uncertain how He will come in— but you can be certain that He will come. Remain faithful to Him.

A second look at an unknown commodity

Through twitter i stumbled on the Harvard Business Review. Not sure why it hasn't been on my reading list in the past, but it is now.

Today i read an article about "confirmation bias" which is the human predisposition to look for ways it is right. In other words, I am always looking for the evidence that i'm right and i don't seem to see the evidence when i'm wrong.

The article was talking about how expectations affect behaviour and outlook.

It got me thinking about all of the teams that need to be built and invested in around the church that I work at.

I've only been here for 3 or 4 months but i'm already subconsciously putting people into categories with regards to what I can expect from them.

I should also tell you that already, there have been a number of occasions when someone has approached me and demonstrated capacities and aspirations that far exceeded what I had expected or more truthfully predicted.

I'm not embarrassed to say that I make predictions about people. We all do. All of our experience in leadership and teams, added to our history, however brief, with people shapes our predictions as to how people will perform in a given area.

But all of our experience in leadership and history with people can also negatively skew our expectations as well.

I'm going to work more on inspiring aspiration and developing people instead of simply predicting outcomes.

Predictions will no doubt take us down a shorter road, and we can expect to see all sorts of signage confirming our choice of paths but I can't help but wonder where that other road might lead.

The Missional Church

Hey check out this great video about the Missional Church.

Great reality check for those of us part of a truly attractive church. The difference is simply how we train our people to extend the Mission of Jesus.

Slow

Something I need to think about constantly in my new role at Redwoodpark.org is how to navigate urgent needs - when something needs to get done fast, with a more critical need - that things need to get done right.

Often these two needs collide and i am forced to choose. This video reminded me that i need to relearn how to drive stick.

Leadership Tools

Every once in a while i'll post a tool that i come across that will be helpful in the whole self evaluation category.

This one is pretty interesting.

The Book is Here.

The test was posted online by Guy Kawasaki.

Like Guy says, "I’m sure that none of you need to take this test, but you might know someone who does. :-)

Read more here

Three kinds of people

Was talking about message prep with the staff today. Love that churches are starting to work cooperatively on messages and sermon prep.

It reminded me that i love team sports and i love being part of a team.

It's great sharing wins with others and seeing your team members score goals.

Read a great little post about some of the kinds of players that you need on your team.

What is the role God has you playing right now?

And how can you help others play their role better?

we're workin on it

So this weekend the staff team and board got together to spend some time dreaming of what we want to become.

Not by accident we also spent lots of time talking about metrics and processes and an almost infinite number of rabbit trails.

It's going to take me some time to digest all that was talked about but the process itself has me thinking a lot about the difference in practical terms between means from ends.

And in my new job i have to figure out what tactics are actually getting us closer to our defined ends and which ones are just the bastard children of starry eyed lovers at a weekend getaway.

Like all of you

... I'm thinking about Haiti.

The Toronto Star article i read said this. "No one knows with precision, no one can confirm a figure. Our organization thinks between 45,000 and 50,000 people have died. We also think there are 3 million people affected throughout the country, either injured or homeless," Victor Jackson, an assistant national coordinator with Haiti's Red Cross said.

Here is a short news report.



Pray for the people in Haiti and pray that the relief efforts can be mobilized quickly and smoothly.

Might i suggest giving as you are able. Here is the link to Compassion Canada

Is this Redwood?

Many of you warned me that Thunder Bay is cold.

It's not just that Thunder Bay is cold, it's that they like to play in the snow.

Plunge Ice Baptism from Redwood Park on Vimeo.