Nothing Happened Today

On July 4, 1776, King George III of England wrote in his diary, “Nothing happened today.”

That same day, fifty-six men of the Second Continental Congress unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence.  Through this document, they created a new nation, independent of British rule.  Through this document, they created a country that would one day become a world power unequaled in strength and prosperity.  What looked like an ordinary day from the King’s perspective was really a day of extraordinary proportions.

King George III, the leader of the world’s strongest country at the time, didn’t think anything important had happened that day, because he didn’t respect his competition.  He knew that the colonials were trying to shrug off the yoke of his leadership, but he didn’t think they had it in them.  His early attempts to quell their revolutionary spirit included imposing higher taxes and restrictive laws.  These actions further angered the colonials and united them behind a shared indignation.  While King George III had been distracted by his obvious adversaries (France, in particular), the colonials had been quietly gathering strength and organization until they were able to throw off the king’s yoke altogether.

In the words of Gerald Nachman, “Nothing fails like success.”  Once we are the reigning leader in a particular area, we typically become complacent.  We stop doing the things that got us there.  We switch our focus from our weaknesses and the threats to our success and put it solely on our strengths and accomplishments.  When we do, we are susceptible to attack from even the most unlikely of sources.

Don’t make the same mistake King George III made.  Always keep your eye on tomorrow’s competition.

Pick a Winner

How many superstar athletes do you know of that went on to become great coaches?  Not many, I bet.  It rarely happens, because the skill set that makes the best athletes has very little overlap with the skill set that makes great coaches.  In fact, some of the things you need to be great as an athlete (i.e. a burning desire to be the best) work at cross purposes to what you need to be a great coach (i.e. a burning desire to help others to be the best they can be).

This principle is true on our teams, as well.  The best individual producers are not necessarily the best qualified for leadership.  Yet, because we don’t know how to identify leadership potential, we promote on what we can measure: aptitude in their current role.  This is a simple approach, but it’s often ineffective.  Promoting your top producer to manager may create more problems than it solves.  Achievement-minded people often struggle with leadership, because it requires that they switch their focus from their personal goals to the goals of the team.  The drive that was so necessary in their previous role often causes interpersonal problems with their team members.  Their strength then becomes a weakness.

Achievement-minded people also find it difficult to delegate.  From their viewpoint, no one can do it as well as they can (and they are probably right – they are the superstars, remember).  Besides, much of what they do so well is rooted in talent.  While skills can be taught, talent is part of our genetic code.  Michael Jordan can teach you some of the fundamentals and advanced skills of basketball, but he can’t teach you to be great unless you are already naturally gifted athletically.

Instead of promoting the same type of people over and over and expecting different results, why not try to identify an individual’s talent for leadership?  While this can be challenging considering our team members’ job responsibilities, it isn’t impossible.  As you talk to your team members, keep your antennae out for the following leadership competencies:

• Leadership in other environments (church, community, trade organizations, family…)
• Dissatisfaction with the status quo
• Willingness to take on more responsibility
• Ability to overcome obstacles to complete a task
• Respect of his/her peers (not to be read “Liked by his/her peers” – they are not the same thing)
• Integrity
• Willingness to give away credit

Obviously, this isn’t a comprehensive list.  Add competencies of your own to round it out.  If you can’t glean enough information about your team members from observation and interaction, give them an opportunity to lead a project team or task force.  Let them head the next meeting.  Put them in charge of organizing the team off-site.  If all else fails, ask them to give you examples of each competency from their personal experience.  Starting with the right criteria makes all the difference.

The Fortunate Fall

I’m not speaking theologically here.  I’m talking about normal, everyday failure.  Oh, how we dread it!  How we avoid it!  How we guard against it!  How we try to hide it when it happens!  Failure is so…(if my international friends will forgive the expression)…so…un-American!  It carries with it the stigma of unworthiness, and we refer to those who have failed as the “losers,” the “has-beens,” the “also-rans” and the “one-hit wonders.”  Tsk…tsk…

No wonder we don’t want to fail.  There’s little grace for the “failure” in today’s world.  Failures are written off and disowned, and many take delight in pecking them to death like chickens do with their weak and wounded.  It’s survival of the fittest, and there seems to be a measure of justice accorded when the “imposter’s” sins find him out.  Besides, what if it’s catching?  Maybe his failure is contagious!

How short-sighted of us if we hold these views.  Failure is rarely the end of the story; oftentimes it’s just the beginning.  How many people have you known who have experienced a significant failure only to rebound in a spectacular way?  Consider these examples:

• John James Audubon, whose name is now synonymous with birds and bird conservation, didn’t start traveling and painting birds until his dry-goods business failed and he had to be jailed for bankruptcy in 1819.

• Joe Rosenthal, who received the Pulitzer Prize for his stunning photograph of the flag-raising at Iwo Jima, wouldn’t have been there to make the moment immortal if the armed forces hadn’t rejected him for service because of his abysmal eyesight (one-twentieth of the average person).  Instead of going to war, he photographed it for the Associated Press.

• William Faulkner didn’t start writing seriously until after he was asked to resign from his postmaster’s job.  Within five years, he had written The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying, considered to be his greatest works.

• Ulysses S. Grant failed as a farmer, as a real-estate partner, in a bid for elected office and in several key battles of the Civil War before he found his niche at the head of the Union armies.  Within a few years, he won the war and was appointed a full general –  the first since General George Washington.  Three years later, he was elected President of the United States.

Each of these men capitalized on their failures.  They learned what failure had to teach them.  They gained self-awareness and clarity around their strengths and their weaknesses, and then they used failure as motivation to operate in their strengths.  For them, failure was a fortunate fall.

When was the last time you had a fortunate fall?  Are you avoiding it because you fear the consequences?  Are you struggling in a no-win situation, because you don’t want to admit it’s a bad fit?  Are you trying to hide your lack of skill or talent or results from your peers or from your boss?  Isn’t that draining the life out of you?

When we try to be someone we aren’t, the stress and frustration accumulates until one of two things happen:

1.    We make the decision to make a change.
2.    Someone else makes that decision for us.

Wouldn’t you rather make the decision of your own initiative?  It could be the beginning of a whole new chapter in your life, a chapter of incredible self-fulfillment and achievement.  Stop focusing exclusively on the negative consequences of failure.  It has much to teach you, and it can be the catalyst for positive change.

One last note: if you know someone who is trying to be someone they are not, the kindest thing you can do for them is to hold up a mirror.  Tactfully, share what you see as the disconnect and encourage them to face the facts.  No one can be successful at everything that they do.  Help them to find that for which they were created, and you free them to reach their highest potential.

Harder Than It Has To Be

I went bowling a few days ago with my youngest son.  We played a tendon-stretching seven games before calling it quits and abandoning our last three paid-for games.

When we started, I asked my nine-year-old if he wanted me to have them put up the bumpers.  (No way!  Bumpers are for babies!) Game one – 34 points.  Game two – 26 points.  (Sure you don’t want the bumpers, son? – No, Dad.  Bumpers are for babies.) Game three – 22 points.  (How about those bumpers, buddy?  Nope.  Bumpers are for babies.) Game four – 7 points.  (I think the bumpers would be a good idea, son. – Uh uh….bumpers are for babies.)  Game 5 – 6 points, made in one, lucky roll sandwiched between 19 gutter balls.

His body language said it all.  Discouragement.  Frustration.  Defeat.  I tried my best to pep him out of it, to give him some pointers that would help – nothing did.  But sometimes it just takes a third party’s permission to help us see the alternative.  One of the bowling alley attendants saw my son’s struggles and offered to put up the bumpers.  (Sure, I guess…)

Game 6 – 100 points.  Game 7 – 96 points.

His body language said it all.  Excitement!  Enthusiasm!  New life!

Sometimes we make things harder than they have to be.  We set up “bumpers are for babies” rules and force ourselves to live by them, but they lead us into failure after failure.  A wife has a rule about having to be the house cleaner her mother was even though it’s not her strength.  A husband has a rule about being the handyman that his dad was even though it’s not his gift.

• “I must make straight A’s.”
• “I must do it all myself.”
• “We can’t ever have an argument.”
• “Our kids have to be perfect and impressive like the Johnson kids.”
• “I have to be a size 8.”
• “Everyone has to like me.”
• “I’ve got to live up to my brother’s reputation.”
• “I have to prove myself to them.”

All these rules make life so difficult and discouraging.  They define failure and success in unrealistic ways that ignore how we were created.  Everyone can be good at something, but it’s not necessarily what your parents or your neighbors or the world says it should be.  It would be so much easier if we could just come to terms with our weak areas and start investing more time into our strengths.  It’s no fun trying to measure up to someone else’s yardstick.

Why is it that bumpers are only for babies?  Who says?  Why do I care what they think anyway?  Am I “bowling” to earn their approval or to enjoy the game?  I only get one trip to this bowling alley.  Why should I waste even a minute of it trying to be something I’m not?

If you’re rolling gutter ball after gutter ball in any area of your life, give yourself permission to throw up the bumpers.  Hire someone to clean your house or do your handywork.  Cross some unrealistic goals off your list.  Lower your expectations, and learn to like yourself exactly the way God made you.  Save your energy and your efforts for what you do best.  Your new motto is: Bumpers are Brilliant!

On Solid Rock

I have a friend who once had his house jacked so that it was supported by bedrock rather than clay.  He shared with me that his house is now all “womperjawed” (yes, he’s from Texas).  Not a thing in the house is square – but it’s solid.  His house had been founded on clay so long that everything had shifted over time.  In fact, much of it was square before he jacked it, because it had all shifted together.  It looked good and felt comfortable, but it wasn’t solid.

When my friend made the decision to jack the house to found it on bedrock, he gave up the comfort and aesthetics he had before.  His house doesn’t look as good as it once did, but now it’s solid and will stand the test of time.

What a great analogy for what happens to our lives when we accept Christ and anchor our lives to the Rock.  When we accept Christ, the people around us  start to realize that we don’t have it all together like we used to pretend that we did.  Our flaws begin to show, but we can rejoice in that!  God doesn’t waste anything.  He uses our flaws as much or more than He uses our strengths to accomplish His purposes.  We can afford to be vulnerable with people and let them see how “womperjawed” we are, because we’ve got a solid foundation.

“Square” is overrated.  It’s better to be a mess with a message than to be “perfect” without a prayer.

Reset the Zero

Believe it or not, heating water from -1/2^OC to +1/2 ^OC (1 degree) requires 80 times the energy that is required to heat water from +1 ^OC to +2 ^OC (1 degree).  Why so much difference?  It’s because changing ice to water (-1/2^OC to +1/2 ^OC) requires a change in state.  When water changes state (from ice to liquid water or from liquid water to steam), all the energy (80 calories) goes into the state change.  None goes into heating the water.

When heating water, it takes 80 times the energy to go from a negative to a positive.  It’s not much different when you are working with people.  For example, consider a scale that ranges from -5 to +5 and measures influencing skills.  If you are coaching someone who feels he is a “-3” on the scale, he’s saying that he feels like he has none of the skill.  He’s so bad at it, that he’s in the negative range.

To coach him to the point that he feels he is on the positive side of the scale is going to require enormous amounts of energy on his part and yours.  He will actually have to go through a “change in state” – from someone who has no influencing skills to someone who has some.  That’s a mental leap across a wide chasm.

But what if you could show him that he already had some of the skill?  (as he most certainly does)  What if your reminded him that he already uses influencing skills when he’s talking to his peers about a common project or when he comes to you to ask for a better assignment.  Then, he doesn’t need a change in state.  He just needs to increase what he’s already got.

With water, once you change from ice to liquid water, all the hard work is done.  It only requires one calorie per degree to heat the water.  With people, the hard work is convincing them that they aren’t working from a state of lack.  They already have all the skills they need; they just need to increase them.  In effect, what you are doing is resetting the zero on their mental scale.  The same amount of influencing skills expressed this way would look like the scale below:

A +2 in the skill is much easier to build on than a -3.  Now, he’s got something to work with.  There’s an influencing skill muscle in there – he just needs to exercise it to make it stronger.

I frequently hear people make statements of lack such as, “I can’t speak in front of people;” “I can’t ever remember names;” “I’m not a people person;” “I don’t have any leadership ability.”  Statements like these allow people to abdicate responsibility for trying to develop these skills.  After all, if you don’t even have the raw materials for the skill, it’s not possible to ever have it.

Show them how they already have some of the skill, and you help them make a huge paradigm shift.  Instead of “strengths and weaknesses,” they start thinking in “greater and lesser strengths.”  Help them to reset their zero, and their eyes will be open to their potential.

(S – http://www.school-for-champions.com/science/heat_ice_steam.htm)

Checkers or Chess?

A few years ago, Marcus Buckingham, SVP of The Gallup Organization, and Donald O. Clifton, past chairman of the same, published their book Now, Discover Your Strengths.  Based on 25 years of research at Gallup, the premise of the book is that every person has a unique combination of strengths and that a performer’s greatest opportunities for improvement are not in developing his/her weaknesses but in honing his/her strengths.

To that end, they encourage managers to have “strength discussions” with every employee.  The purpose of a strength discussion is to identify what those unique combinations of strengths are and then work to give performers opportunities to operate in those strengths.  Their research has shown that most managers never have these kinds of discussions with their team members.  Instead, they manage their teams as if they were playing a game of checkers (with each employee representing an individual checker on the board).

They assume that if a group of employees are performing the same role within the organization that they only have a limited and identical number of moves that they can make to accomplish their objectives, i.e. the employees can only move forward diagonally on the same-colored squares.  If this is true, then training, supervising and motivating become easy and predictable.  Treat everyone the same, and you’ll get the same results with everyone.

On the other hand, the most successful managers were found to treat their team members as if they were pieces on a chess board.  The managers knew that each person had a different set of moves (strengths) that he/she could use to accomplish objectives.  If the manager tried to make a knight move like a rook, it would frustrate and confuse the knight.  He would be forced to operate in his weaknesses rather than in his strengths.  So, like master chess players, these managers spent time learning each person’s strongest moves before deploying him/her toward the objective.

If this is true, why don’t more managers operate from the “chess” model of management?  Simply stated, it’s because the “checkers” model is so much easier and takes much less time and effort from us.  Most of us mastered the basic strategies of checkers as children, but it takes a lifetime to become a master at chess.

P.S. Parents, I think there is wisdom here for us in how we help our children discover their strengths, too.

(S – Buckingham, Marcus & Donald O. Clifton.  Now, Discover Your Strengths.)

Survival Skills

I have a friend who has lived in China for over a decade, but if you ask him about his Mandarin (a Chinese language), he will tell you he only has “survival skills.”  Sometime early in his transition into Chinese culture, he made a decision (unconsciously or not) to forgo fluency in lieu of getting by.  There was just enough English recognition around where he lived to make it possible to get along without going along.

I find that everyone makes decisions like this when it comes to some of their weak skills.  For example, I made the decision to settle for survival skills in the areas of time management, remembering names and following directions.  These three weaknesses cause me chronic, frustrating difficulties.  I show up late to everything, but I can usually blame getting lost (because I did) if only I could remember the names of the people I owe the apology to.

It’s not that I couldn’t have developed these skills to some level of proficiency.  It’s that I never HAD to.

The consequences of tardiness haven’t always been fun, but they’ve been bearable.  In fact, I find that sometimes showing up early is a punishment in itself, because I have to wait around for things to get started.  Whereas, when I’m late, people usually forgive me and the proceedings are already proceding when I get there.

The consequences of getting lost are irritating at times, but I married well.  My wife can find places she’s never been even without directions.  It’s a sixth or seventh sense, I think.

The consequences of forgetting names are almost always embarrassing, but I’ve learned to say things like, “Hey….you! It’s you, isn’t it?  Honey, you remember this guy, right?  He’s…..oh, excuse me, I’ve got Irritable Bowel Syndrome – talk amongst yourselves – I’m going to be verklempt.”

The best consequence is that people lower their expectations of me in these areas.  Seriously.  They just assume I’ll be late, lost and lacking good manners, and I’ve come to accept that.  It’s better than the alternative – CHANGE!  Change hurts, and it requires energy – something I have less and less of these days.  I’m satisfied with a depleting status quo.

So, let’s hear it for survival skills and the codependent people in our lives that enable this type of mediocre behavior – whatever their names are.

Hip Hip Hooray!

Tap Your Wells

Ira Yates knew ranching. He didn’t know diddly about running a grocery store. So when Thomas Hickox offered to trade his ranch for the dry-goods store in Rankin, TX, Yates jumped at the chance to get back to what he knew.

He had been warned against the deal. “That land’s not worth the taxes,” they told him. “A crow wouldn’t even fly over it,” they said. But it was 16,640 acres of land that Yates could call his own. Never mind the constant boundary disputes and the “greasy” well water. She weren’t pretty, and she was a bit high-maintenance, but she was his.

For almost a decade, Yates struggled to make ends meet ranching his land, but the expenses were just too fat for his income to reach around. Droughts and the Great Depression stole every penny of profit he could get his hands on. He was just about ready to concede defeat. Looked like all the naysayers had been right.

But then he heard a rumor. West Texas was sitting on an oil reserve, they said.

Excited by the possibility, Yates tried to talk oil companies into drilling on his land, but no one thought there was any oil west of the Pecos River. For two years, he continued to ask big oil to come drill, but they were all too busy with established wells to pay him any attention. Then, in 1926, Yates convinced Transcontinental Oil and Ohio Oil to put up some test rigs on his land.

They had to drill four wells before they found anything, but on October 28th of that same year, Yates became an instant millionaire! For decades afterward, his ranch was the largest petroleum reserve in the United States, producing at its zenith an incredible 9,009 barrels of oil a day!

How many of us are sitting on untapped potential? How many of us have unused resources, talents, gifts and abilities? What are we saving them for? We give God glory by using everything He gave us, and our greatest potential for drawing others to Christ is in doing what God uniquely designed each of us to do.

If you haven’t discovered what that is yet, it’s time to start digging some wells. Maybe the first few things you try won’t pan out, but keep digging. Maybe everyone around you will tell you that you don’t really have anything to offer, but don’t believe them. You have abundance! It’s hidden inside, and you’ve got to search it out.

And if you’re stuck “ranching” today even though you know that’s not God’s ultimate purpose for you, remember to be faithful with small things. Even this work is part of God’s plan. Remember that Moses tended sheep for forty years, and Paul made tents. How you respond to these tests shows the quality of your heart. When you’ve passed the tests, God will show you your oilfield.

P.S. Don’t let anyone else drink your milkshake. ;0)

Peter Pauper

Ever notice how many times in the Gospel accounts that Peter was doing the wrong thing?  He seemed to always be three steps in the opposite direction of where God wanted to go.  Here’s my possibly non-exhaustive study of Peter’s wrong turns:

• John 1:35-51, Mark 1:16-20 and Matthew 4:18-22, Luke 5:1-11, John 21:1-25 – Peter was called to follow Jesus three different times.  In between each call, he went back to fishing, obliging Jesus to come back after him.  Even after Jesus’ resurrection and personal appearance to Peter, Peter still chose fishing over ministry until Jesus came to get him one last time.
• Luke 5:5 – Tired from a long night of fishing, Peter argued with Jesus about casting the nets but gave in begrudgingly.
•  Matthew 14:29 – Peter walked on water for a few moments, but then he took his eyes off Jesus.  Losing faith as he was threatened by the wind and the waves, Peter sank.
• Matthew 17:25 – When questioned about the temple tax, Peter lied.  Jesus made an honest man out of him by giving him a profitable fish story.
• Matthew 18:21 – Thinking he was being generous, Peter offered to forgive his brother up to seven times, but Jesus was thinking more in multiples.
• Mark 8:32 – Peter rebuked Jesus for saying that He must be killed and rise again.
• Mark 9:5-6 – Peter, not knowing what to say after the Transfiguration, should have said nothing at all.  Instead he proposed to build three shacks for Elijah, Moses and Jesus to live in even though they had more suitable living arrangements in heaven.
• John 13:8 – Peter refused to let Jesus wash his feet until Jesus told Peter that he could have no part with Him unless he allowed his feet to be washed.
• Mark 14:37-41 – Peter, James and John slept while Jesus was in agony in the garden even though He asked them three times to stay awake and pray with Him.
• John 18:10 – Peter cut off Malchus’ ear trying to defend Jesus from the fate Jesus had already chosen to follow.
• John 13:37; John 18:15-27 – Peter promised to lay down his life for Jesus, but when Jesus was arrested, Peter denied he knew Him three times.
• Luke 24:12 – Despite all the prophesies Jesus shared about Himself, Peter was still slow to believe that the resurrection could be true.
• John 21:21 – Always wanting to know “who would be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven,” Peter hoped to get Jesus to share his plans for John, the beloved, so that he could do a little comparison.

Peter once claimed to Jesus, “We have left everything to follow you!” (Matthew 19:27)  And maybe there was truth in that.  Peter had left his fishing business, his reputation and maybe members of his family to follow Jesus as He traveled from town to town.  But Peter didn’t leave everything.  He carried with him his impetuousness and his pride, and these were continuously at odds with Christ’s mission.

Always looking for a pat on the head from the Teacher or to prove that he was the greatest to his fellow apostles, Peter continuously brought Jesus things the Lord didn’t need or want.  A lie to protect The Way, The Truth and The Life, a shack to shelter the Creator God from the elements, some swordplay to rescue The Almighty from His captors…  Peter thought he had the most to offer among his peers, but he was really just Peter, the pauper, with nothing of value to bring.

If Peter hadn’t been so busy trying to get out in front of the Lord, he might have learned to wait on God’s leading.   Had he submitted to the Lord’s agenda and timetable, Peter’s leadership ability and strong faith would have been powerful tools in God’s hands.  But because Peter thought he knew best how to use what God had given him, his strengths became his greatest weaknesses.

All of us have God-given strengths and abilities.  But when we try to use them without allowing God to show us how and when, we just end up making a mess.  Even when we are well-intentioned, our “good thing” can get in the way of the “God thing.”  If we will just humbly bring Him the equivalent of our loaves and fishes, He will multiply them beyond all expectation.  Peter Pauper finally got it and showed on Pentecost what God can do with what little we have.