Leadership

As senior leaders, we are responsible for shepherding the overall health and wellbeing of our organizations and teams. To do so effectively, we must have access to good information. Without good information to guide our decisions, it's easy to pursue priorities and projects that may actually be detrimental to the health and wellbeing of our organization. At lower levels of leadership, this access to good information is often first-hand -- it's right there in front of us. If you lead a single team, you can assess fairly quickly how that team (and individual team members) are doing. But as you move up the leadership level, your access to first-hand information becomes less and less. You become more dependent on others to provide both the information itself and the interpretation of that information. But all information and its subsequent interpretations aren't equal. While the information may be accurate, how it is...

In terms of finances, I wish I would have learned the lesson of compound interest when I was twenty-five years old. But, as with many things, it's better to learn the lesson later than not at all. Compound interest is when the interest earned on an investment is added back to the principal balance. This results in a larger balance, which then earns more interest. Here's an example from Forbes Magazine: "Let’s say you have $1,000 in a savings account that earns 5% in annual interest. In year one, you’d earn $50, giving you a new balance of $1,050. In year two, you would earn 5% on the larger balance of $1,050, which is $52.50—giving you a new balance of $1,102.50 at the end of year two." As the article goes on to point out, "The more frequently interest is compounded, the more rapidly your principal balance grows." Good leaders...

For some crazy reason, leaders in other organizations will contact me for advice. I usually chalk it up to desperation or having exhausted all other options. My price is pretty reasonable - it's the price of a cup of coffee. Since I've been leading organizations for over thirty years, one of the topics they often want to discuss is organizational change. What to change? How to change? Should they even change at all? To quote Farmer's Insurance, "I know a thing or two, because I've seen a thing or two." Often it is church leaders who want to sit down and talk. They love their church and want to see it succeed. In many cases, it's a volunteer who has devoted years of time, energy, and dollars to the cause. The last thing they want to see is their church decline, or even close down. Sometimes it is a pastor...

Stories are powerful. Parents tell stories to help their children find their place in the world. Coaches tell stories to inspire their players. Leaders tell stories to rally their teams to tackle a project or navigate a change. Jesus is widely recognized as a great teacher. While he certainly had "lectures" that he delivered to audiences, he is perhaps best remembered as a master storyteller. Religious or not, many people can retell the basic meaning of parables (stories) such as the Good Samaritan or Prodigal Son. Jesus understood the power of stories. A good story is more than entertainment; it has the ability to shape and form the hearer. It has the ability to introduce a new perspective or challenge an outdated one. Stories are also sticky. A well-told story can stick with us long after we first hear it. Given the power of stories, I find it interesting that...

When a team is functioning well, it's a blast. When it's dysfunctional, well, it can be a blast, too ... just a different kind of blast! Every well-performing team shares certain characteristics. These characteristics must be embraced and empowered by their leaders. Number Four - Practice Your Hand Off It just so happens that I'm writing this blog post while watching Peyton and Eli Manning host Monday Night Football. Living in Denver, I've been impressed with Peyton Manning off the field as much as when he led the Broncos to a Super Bowl victory. What makes watching the Manning brothers so much fun is that both of them were top-notch quarterbacks. They not only love the game but they see things in a game that a normal person does not. In between breaking down defensive coverages, one of the teams fumbles. The quarterback and running back were out of sync....