I'm reading a white paper on creativity by Hugh MacLeod. Some you may know him as the guy who draws cartoons on the back of business cards (gapingvoid.com). In the paper, he shares his tips and advice on how to be creative. One of those was this: "Merit can be bought. Passion can't." While MacLeod was talking on the creative level, I'd like to venture out into leadership issues. If you're the leader of an organization and need an accountant who can keep the dollars and cents straight, that's about finding merit -- or competence. If you're looking for an accountant who is competent AND believes in what you're doing so much that he or she will work long hours and evangelize any vendor that comes within twenty feet ... that's about passion. Passion is an intangible. Passion is an internal fire in the belly that can't be contained. It's…
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After writing a previous post about using sandboxes in church, I got to thinking about another topic that piques my interest: open source software. For years, I have been a big fan of open source software. In web development, the first content management system (CMS) I used was Mambo -- an open source CMS that used PHP and MySQL. When Mambo transformed into Joomla, I followed along. The componenets, extensions, and modules were created by fellow Joomla users who made their work available free of charge. Open source software is simply software where anyone can contribute to its development. Many projects may feature a core team of developers who do much of the heavy lifting. However, one of the great benefits of open source software comes through the community that is created around the software. With the best software, its often the community that surrounds the software that finds bugs,…
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The other day while leading a collaboration meeting with our ministry leads, I mentioned that we needed to create a sandbox where people could experiment with new ideas without a fear of failing. The idea of a sandbox is familiar to those with a technology background -- it's when users are allowed to go in and put new software (or systems) through the paces. Users become comfortable with features, bugs are found, and the product gets better (hopefully!). The beauty of a sandbox is that you can test and experiment without the pressure of producing results. Users are typically forgiving of beta releases; not so much with final versions. What if your church had a sandbox budget that allowed ministry folks to test and experiment ideas -- gaining input, confidence, and creativity along the way. From my experience, the usual way a new ministry gets rolled out is in "final"…
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In his book about motivation, Dan Pink describes three conditions that are needed to create an intrinsic motivational environment: 1. Autonomy: Give people autonomy over what they’re doing and how they do it, including choosing their time, tasks, team and techniques. 2. Mastery: Give them an opportunity to master their work and make progress through deliberate practice. 3. Purpose: Make sure people have a sense of purpose in their work — preferably to something higher and beyond their job, salary and company. Daniel H. Pink: Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
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As leaders, we often are very passionate about our vision for the future. Good leaders bleed vision. They leak vision -- leaving trails of vision wherever they go. This is both good and necessary. It also means we have to be intentional about hearing other perspectives. One of the best questions we can ask is this: "How does this look to you?"
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