One Damn Thing After Another

 

Issue No. 522 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (July 9, 2022) urges you to read a “Master Class” in leadership by former Attorney General William Barr. And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies).   Senator Everett Dirksen’s counsel to his son-in-law, Senator Howard Baker, after Baker gave a “windy maiden speech” in 1967: “Perhaps you should occasionally allow yourself the luxury of an unexpressed thought.” Bill Barr on Malice or Stupidity! We’ve all written our fair share of job descriptions over the years, right? So take out a blank piece of paper (you still use paper, right?)—and list the Top-10 roles and responsibilities for POTUS 47 (President of the United States, 2024-2028).  Extra Credit: List the Top-20 responsibilities of the White House chief of staff. Spelling and neatness count. Term Paper: List the Top-100 responsibilities of the Attorney General and—in 50,000 words or less—explain how the nation’s top law enforcement officer (though appointed by a Republican or Democratic president) can effectively call those legal balls and strikes and still keep his job! Required Reading: Oh…before you pick up your pen, read the absolutely fascinating, hard-hitting, poignant, often concerning, yet very witty book by Bill Barr (I've retitled it), “The 2022 Master Class in Seriously Critical Issues as Seen Through a U.S. Department of Justice’s Top Decision-Maker.” William P. Barr, now 72, served as the 85th Attorney General for the last two years of President Trump’s term. He also was the 77th Attorney General under President George H.W. Bush (1991-1993) and here’s a hint on your job description assignment:  When Ed Levi, Dean of the University of Chicago Law School (and then president of the university), was asked to describe his stint as Attorney General under President Gerald Ford, he responded, “It’s just one damn thing after another.” Did I mention that your required reading is One Damn Thing After Another: Memoirs of an Attorney General, the New York Times instant bestseller by William P. Barr? It’s a robust 567 pages (plus notes). But honest—Barr’s honesty and insights were so memorable, I would have enjoyed another 500 pages. So…how does Barr view the President’s job description? When COVID hit, Barr noted that “…the President’s desire to honor our federal structure and accommodate the states’ sovereign role was both sensible and, ultimately, unavoidable.” He adds, “But this collaborative approach required a statesman capable of herding cats—one with boundless patience and diplomatic skills, especially in an election year when his adversaries were at their worst in scoring cheap shots against him.” DEMOCRATS will appreciate this book. Barr writes that the COVID crisis “…required a statesman with the ability to explain complex matters and regional variations to the public with precision and clarity. Trump was not that statesman. He was a disrupter—he liked to move forward by confusing and rattling his opponents. After March 2020, that was basically the opposite of what his job called for.” (What’s on your CEO’s job description?) REPUBLICANS will appreciate this book. After about 300 page-turning “inside the Beltway” stunning moments (the Prologue explodes like a James Bond movie) and Oval Office policy debates (but often monologues), Barr then invests 200 pages for “Master Class” treatments of the gnarly issues facing our nation and world. With a conservative philosophical bent (yet an honest and balanced narrative), he offers real world solutions for:    • Upholding Fairness, Even for Rascals    • Bringing Justice to Violent Predators    • Fighting the Drug Cartels    • Securing Religious Liberty    • Taking on Big Tech    • Cops, Race, and the Big Lie    • Protest and Mayhem For a first-time author (I think he was way too busy with “one damn thing after another” to write a book earlier in his career), Barr’s writing is colorful, often elegant, and yet with a tell-it-like-it-is candor. Yes, he voluntarily served as Trump’s second Attorney General, and stayed through thick-and-thin for 23 months, but frequently pushed back. Yikes! What a tough job! (Where is that in the job description?) WHY READ THIS BOOK—whatever your political leanings? You’ll appreciate how leaders lead through the minefield of politics, egos, and crises. (Imagine: you’re the “CEO” of a government department with more than 100,000 employees in 50 countries. Click here for the DOJ’s current organization chart!) #1. MENTORING UP. How do you coach your boss or CEO to dial it back a bit? Maybe fewer press conferences during COVID? Fewer “gabfests.” Fewer tweets. Barr quotes Senator Everett Dirksen’s counsel to his son-in-law, Senator Howard Baker, after Baker gave a “windy maiden speech” in 1967: “Perhaps you should occasionally allow yourself the luxury of an unexpressed thought.” (Resource: Read the classic HBR article, “Managing Your Boss.”) #2. TWO TYPES OF LEADERS. In the chapter, “Eating Grenades,” Barr colorfully details the constant never-ending challenges of leading the DOJ. (Impossible, actually.) He describes two kinds of cabinet secretaries, those “…who are run by their agency. They do little else but respond to their in-boxes and thus are almost entirely reactive, spending their time hopping to other people’s priorities and putting out fires.” The other type: “Then there are executives who run the agency. This requires, in addition to responding to events, clearly identifying a core set of priorities, taking direct charge of them, and applying the energy necessary to overcome institutional inertia and bring them to fruition.”  The grenade metaphor? When working with White House counsel Pat Cipollone, “We operated like a tag team, so that neither of us would provoke too much of the President’s ire at one time. We referred to this as choosing who would ‘eat the grenade.’” #3. MALICE OR STUPIDITY? Commenting on Jeffrey Epstein’s 2019 suicide while in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons, Barr said that he personally reviewed the relevant video footage. He writes, “The fact that so many failures occurred at one time understandably led people to suspect the worst. But thorough investigations have shown once again the wisdom of Hanlon’s razor: don’t ascribe malice when stupidity is a sufficient explanation.” (Resource: More wisdom from Wikipedia!) #4. RECRUITING GOOD PEOPLE. I’ve often wondered (usually ascribing malice) why cabinet secretaries and senior White House staff continued to serve Presidents whose policies and/or character they could no longer support. Barr quotes Bob Gates (who served both Bush 43 and Obama). “‘Look, somebody has got to do these jobs,’ he said, ‘and what is best for the country is that we get good people who know what the hell they are doing.’” (By the way—as you might expect from the Trump White House—there are the occasional “strong” words used in this “damn” book!)   #5. CHIEF OF STAFF/LION TAMER. Barr notes that Trump’s fourth chief of staff, Mark Meadows, would sometimes take the heat for helping Barr and Cipollone protect the DOJ from “the President’s frequent bad ideas or his impulsive mistakes.” So what’s the job description of the chief of staff? “Before the election, Mark’s job was like a high-wire act; after Trump’s defeat, he was like a lion tamer without a whip and chair.” (Resource: read Rumsfeld’s Rules and his description of the job as “javelin catcher!”)   #6. MEMORABLE METAPHORS. My opinion: outstanding leaders have a steady supply of metaphors and well-crafted labels for describing challenging and complex issues. Barr is a master at this. When arguing with the Treasury Department that ATF (not a revenue source) belonged in the DOJ, Barr told Treasury Secretary Nick Brady (during Bush 41’s term), “Things that go Clink belong to you; things that go Bang should belong to me.” (Hilarious!) Other memorable metaphors and wordcrafting:    • “Hissy Fit” (Really…someone emoted inappropriately in our government?)    • Space Cowboys (the Clint Eastwood movie about geriatric astronauts): a moniker the younger DOJ staff assigned to Barr and two of his senior team members!    • Bamboozled: “Yet the FTC, bamboozled by economic mumbo jumbo, approved the acquisition.” (See the “Taking on Big Tech” chapter—brilliantly written.)    • Alligators: “Getting [Trump] to accept good advice was like wrestling an alligator.” And when asked how he felt beginning his first term as the AG, Barr commented, “Like I’m about to run across a river on the backs of alligators.”     • Skunk Works: Barr assembled a "skunk works" of key players to create “a specific plan of action to step up the fight against the Mexican cartels.” (See more about skunk works in the book, In Search of Excellence.) There’s much, much more—including Barr’s appreciation for Trump’s important policy decisions during his term. But he also quotes Salena Zito’s article in the Atlantic describing how people responded when Trump made outrageous claims. She wrote, “the press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally.” This is Barr’s first book. I would definitely read another damn book by Barr! (Visit here to read his speeches.) To order from Amazon, click on title for One Damn Thing After Another: Memoirs of an Attorney General, by William P. Barr. Listen on Libro.fm (22 hours, 1 minute). YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS: 1) Bill Barr writes about the death penalty: “Opponents cannot dispute that the proportionate penalty for murder is death. But they argue that it is somehow inconsistent to take a life in the name of upholding the value of life. This is a sound-bite argument lacking intellectual coherence.” (He builds his case in the chapter, “Bringing Justice to Violent Predators.”) Who on our team is gutsy enough to push back on, perhaps, our simplistic “sound-bite arguments” that we’ve grown accustomed to using in defense of our mission? 2) Barr had a good working relationship with FBI Director Christopher Wray. (Yet Trump wanted to fire Wray for a variety of reasons Barr thought inappropriate.) “I thought [Wray's] low-key, businesslike style—he called himself a ‘workhorse, not a show horse’—was refreshing after Comey’s insufferable exhibitionism.” Discerning leaders know when to hire and when to fire (some say “hire slower, fire faster”). Are our job descriptions, SMART goals, and expectations clear in our organization—so there is clarity on character and performance standards?   Burned out or exhausted in this season of your leadership? Read one of these six books (below) on lessons learned by U.S. presidents and their chiefs of staff. (You’ll immediately feel better about your job!) POTUS Leadership Lessons Looking for several leadership books to read on the beach or in the mountains this summer? (Or if you’re a Southern Hemisphere reader, please jump in also!) [  ] The Presidents Club: Inside the World’s Most Exclusive Fraternity, by Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy (Order from Amazon.) [  ] The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency, by Chris Whipple (read John’s review) [  ] Rumsfeld’s Rules: Leadership Lessons in Business, Politics, War, and Life, by Donald Rumsfeld (read John’s review) [  ] Fight House: Rivalries in the White House from Truman to Trump, by Tevi Troy (read John’s review) [  ] How Ike Led: The Principles Behind Eisenhower's Biggest Decisions, by Susan Eisenhower (Order from Amazon.) [  ] Eisenhower 1956: The President’s Year of Crisis—Suez and the Brink of War, by David A. Nichols (read John’s review) For more leadership and management insights, read Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook: Management Tools, Templates and Tips from John Pearson, with commentary by Jason Pearson (2nd Edition, 2018) - Order from Amazon.                   JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Does your chief marketing officer feel like a “lion tamer without a whip and chair?” Is it just one crazy thing after another—with no coherence in your marketing and communication strategies? We can help! Contact Pearpod Media (Design, Digital, Marketing, Social). WORKBOOK AVAILABLE To order the 107-page workbook featured at John Pearson’s three-hour seminar with The Barnabas Group San Diego, visit Amazon for The 4 Big Mistakes to Avoid With Your Nonprofit Board: How Leaders Enrich Their Ministry Results Through God-Honoring Governance (Third Edition). Order here. MORE RESOURCES: • BLOG: Pails in Comparison • SUBSCRIBE: Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews • JOHN'S BOOK REVIEWS: on Amazon  • WEBSITE:   Management Buckets • BLOG: Governance of Christ-Centered Organizations IMPORTANT NOTICE! Effective Oct. 1, 2025, all 657 eNews issues, previously archived on Typepad.com are slowly (!) being moved to a new website here. New book reviews will also be archived at John Pearson’s Buckets Blog. Or, click here for John’s recent book reviews on Amazon.

Road to Flourishing: Eight Keys

 

Issue No. 514 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (April 19, 2022) highlights a new book (published today) that asks, “PICK ONE: Life-Giving Work or Life-Sucking Work?” And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies).   In one organization in Road to Flourishing, “…when compensation became the last remaining complaint and nothing was done about it, it stuck out like a sore thumb.” PICK ONE: Life-Giving Work or Life-Sucking Work Right now. Clear your calendar. (Really!) Next, order multiple copies of Road to Flourishing and schedule a day—or an offsite retreat—with your team members. If “collaboration is the secret sauce of a high-performing culture” and “eating together is a sacred thing,” as Al Lopus notes, then use this powerful book to assess and enrich your organization’s culture. Unlike any book you’ve ever read, this practical, practical roadmap oozes with both best practices and worst practices from the trenches—and you can learn from both!  EXAMPLE #1: “THE LAST 10 PERCENT.” Lopus writes, “One of the best conflict-resolution principles for teams that I’ve heard comes from Rock Point Church in Arizona. They call it ‘the last 10 percent.’  “As lead pastor Bill Bush explains, ‘When we’re in a tough meeting, we always ask around the room, ‘Hey, did everyone say the last 10 percent?’ Because I know there are a lot of people who will say 90 percent of what’s bothering them. And the problem is, that last 10 percent is usually the real problem. And so you keep having meetings that sound so good. We high-five each other—‘Hey, we got through. We communicated so clearly. That was great.’ And then everybody walked out of there with the real problem still tucked away.’” As the CEO and Cofounder of Best Christian Workplaces Institute, Al Lopus has seen it all! (Oh, my!) BCWI launched in 2002 as an employee engagement ministry dedicated to helping Christian leaders and organizations achieve their full potential by creating flourishing staff workplaces. BCWI helps measure and improve the health of organizations through surveys, a unique 360 Leadership Review process, and consulting services. (Visit their website here.) Road to Flourishing is no pie-in-the-sky, trendy book from academic idealists. On the contrary! Research-based, the book delivers what Lopus and the team at BCWI have learned from “the most widely used Christian-based engagement survey” across the globe. And get this! They have actually inspired more than 1,000 churches, ministries, and Christian-owned businesses to measure the health of their workplace cultures. Using the helpful “FLOURISH Model,” Road to Flourishing goes deep on “Eight Keys to Boost Employee Engagement and Well-Being” (the book’s subtitle). So…how would your team members rate these eight factors—and have you ever discerned an objective, quantifiable way to measure overall engagement at your shop?    • Fantastic Teams    • Life-Giving Work    • Outstanding Talent    • Uplifting Growth    • Rewarding Compensation    • Inspirational Leadership    • Sustainable Strategy    • Healthy Communication EXAMPLE #2: COMPENSATION CONUNDRUMS. I don’t need to urge you to read the chapter, “Rewarding Compensation,” because you and your team members will skip to Chapter 6 first (like I did!). Lopus describes two Christian organizations that “committed the same classic error in opposite ways.”  • Classic Error #1: Sore Thumb! Seven of the eight “FLOURISH” factors improved in one organization—“but when compensation became the last remaining complaint and nothing was done about it, it stuck out like a sore thumb. Despite how far the organization had progressed, poor compensation yanked employee engagement back like a bungee cord around its waist.” (Memorable metaphor!) • Classic Error #2: Bribed to Cause Mayhem! In another organization, employee pay and benefits did receive high marks—but the staff “gave their employer low marks on most keys to a flourishing culture.” The problem? “…there was a disturbing number of disengaged employees, people who weren’t just unenthusiastic at work but were actively pumping toxicity and dysfunction into the culture.” Lopus notes that “…they were being paid so well that they were sure never to leave on their own. They were being bribed to keep causing mayhem, and they were not about to kill the golden goose.” EXAMPLE #3: “CULTURE IS A BUCKET OF PURE WATER.” The book shines well-deserved spotlights on healthy organizational cultures, including Joni & Friends, where Doug Mazza, the former president and CEO, used a “bucket” metaphor (nice!):  “Culture is a bucket of pure water,” says Mazza. “If it’s polluted, dropping in a great strategy is not going to clean it. Great strategies flourish in clean water. Get the culture right, point to it constantly, and new strategies will evolve and are invented in healthy cultures.” Lopus adds, “Put another way, while a sustainable strategy nourishes a flourishing culture, a flourishing culture irrigates a sustainable strategy.” (Note: Chapter 8, “Sustainable Strategy” mentions why the Joni & Friends team followed Henry Blackaby’s approach in Experiencing God.)   BONUS PODCAST! Click here to listen to Al Lopus interview Doug Mazza on The Flourishing Culture Podcast, “How Flourishing Workplace Culture Fosters a Thriving Mission,” (Season 7, Episode 16). Lopus doesn’t mince words when writing about the toxic work cultures he’s observed. But Road to Flourishing is also upbeat—you can create “life-giving work” for every team member. You have two options: (1) continue to apply inappropriate Band-Aids to your sick workplace, or (2) go deeper and discover how your organization’s culture will flourish with God-honoring and intentional best practices. Reading this book with your team members is a no-brainer.  PICK ONE:  [  ] Life-giving work. [  ] Life-sucking work. To order from Amazon, click on title for Road to Flourishing: Eight Keys to Boost Employee Engagement and Well-Being, by Al Lopus with Cory Hartman. Listen on Libro.fm (6 hours, 52 minutes).  YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS: 1) In the foreword to Road to Flourishing, Peter Greer, president and CEO of Hope International, urges organizations to invite BCWI to assess and measure their organizational cultures. “You can’t fix what you don’t know is broken…” writes Greer. How are we measuring employee engagement and well-being? (Note: Watch for my next eNews with my review of The Gift of Disillusionment, by Peter Greer and Chris Horst.) 2) Of the eight factors in a flourishing culture, Al Lopus notes that “The strongest overall influence on workplace culture is inspirational leadership, closely followed by life-giving work.” List the eight factors (see above) in F.L.O.U.R.I.S.H. and discuss: What do we do well? What needs dramatic improvement? And…what’s our plan?    The Culture Bucket Core Competency includes this zinger: “We invite those who won’t live out our values to exit.” Buckets Countdown:  The Culture Bucket (#8) Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook: Management Tools, Templates and Tips from John Pearson, with commentary by Jason Pearson (2nd Edition, 2018) - Order from Amazon. The Culture Bucket Core Competency: “We strive to create a corporate culture with core values that are crystal clear. We yearn for a God-honoring workplace where grace and trust are alive and well. Because we are human we will always have relational conflicts, so we are zealots about resolving conflict early. We invite those who won’t live out our values to exit. We experience true joy at work.”  QUESTION: Why do you think that more than 1,000 churches, ministries, and Christian-owned businesses invested time in measuring the health of their workplace cultures? What would be the upside of achieving recognition as a Certified Best Christian Workplace? Check it out here! The 20 management buckets are perfect content for the lifelong learning segment in your weekly staff meetings (you do have weekly staff meetings, right?). Visit the 20 buckets webpage here. For more, visit the Culture Bucket here. For supplementary resources, click on John's  "Bucket" book and workbook below:                   JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. “Outstanding Talent” is one of the eight factors on the “Road to Flourishing.” We can help you identify, recruit, train, and inspire the right people for the right spots on your communication and marketing teams. Contact Pearpod Media (Design, Digital, Marketing, Social). PODCASTS! Listen...as Al Lopus of Best Christian Workplaces Institute interviews John Pearson on The Flourishing Culture Podcast, on “Books, Board Governance, and Hoopla!” (Season 2, Episode 26). Do you know the reading styles of your team members? Are they readers or listeners? MORE RESOURCES: • BLOG: Pails in Comparison • SUBSCRIBE: Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews • JOHN'S BOOK REVIEWS: on Amazon  • WEBSITE:   Management Buckets • BLOG: Governance of Christ-Centered Organizations IMPORTANT NOTICE! Effective Oct. 1, 2025, all 657 eNews issues, previously archived on Typepad.com are slowly (!) being moved to a new website here. New book reviews will also be archived at John Pearson’s Buckets Blog. Or, click here for John’s recent book reviews on Amazon.

You Should Write a Book

 

Issue No. 536 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (Nov. 15, 2022) asks if you've preserved your memories and defining moments for future generations? Six ideas on why "You Should Write a Book!" And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies).   Don’t wait until it’s too late. You should write a book now!   You Should Write a Book! Looking back, I wished I had asked my grandparents more questions. Learned more about their Swedish heritage. Their defining moments. Their joys. Their mistakes. Their Christian faith.  I do have a framed black-and-white photo of then U.S. Vice President Richard M. Nixon talking with my Grandpa Carlson (1889-1966) at the Bit of Sweden Restaurant in Portland, Ore. I do remember my grandpa’s hand-written Sunday morning letters to Nixon and President Eisenhower! Oh…to have copies today of those weekly epistles! If only…my grandfather had written a book. How about you? Are any of those memories and defining moments preserved for you? Perhaps you could still inspire your parents or grandparents to write a book—sharing their hopes and dreams for the next generations. (David Green, the founder of Hobby Lobby, is thinking ahead to five generations: his great-great-great-great-grandchildren.) In this issue, I’ve curated a collection of sample books and methodologies to inspire you, your family, your colleagues, and maybe your boss—not to write the Great American Novel, but something more personal and meaningful. Enjoy reading how others have blessed the next generations of lifelong learners and listeners. Six ideas and templates: YOU SHOULD WRITE A BOOK #1:  Fasten Your Seat Belts! Some years back, I was in the crowded jetway for a full flight at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. Next to me was a tired, middle-aged passenger—a double for Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman. He was talking to a young, uniformed soldier and as we boarded, he gave this serviceman a poignant benediction: “Young man, thank you for your service —and please enjoy yourself. These years will be the best years of your life.” I thought of that moment when reading Ed Sabol’s page-turning narrative from his U.S. Air Force service years (1954-1958). While Sabol had a very meaningful life well beyond those post-high school years (FAA leadership roles, consulting, and more)—you’ll be amazed at the sights, sounds, and serious reflection that this short chronicle delivers. I couldn’t put it down! A Life In The Day Of: A Strategic Air Command Veteran's Memoirs of The Cold War invites us back to the 1950s. Fasten your seat belts! • The Flying Coffin. More than 200 crew members “lost their lives in the B-47 and RB-47 by crashing or being shot down by the Soviet Union.” (Your odds: “One in eight airman would not return to base.”) • SAC. You’re onboard in the cramped quarters of the most modern planes the Air Force used in the 1950s for reconnaissance missions for the Strategic Air Command. • See the World! Sabol’s passport in his four action-packed years was stamped in Japan, Okinawa, the Marshall Islands, Alaska (not yet a U.S. state!), Turkey, England, and other stops. • Fill-‘er-Up! Imagine this: gas was 18 cents per gallon in 1955! Hush. Hush. One dark night in Turkey, Sabol returned to the base with two airmen to finish a project for a morning flight. Yikes! An overzealous guard, protecting the RB-47 planes, fired at Sabol and his buddies! (They survived.) Why? “At three different times during my tenure on this base, Soviet spies dressed in Turkish uniforms were caught on base asking questions related to the U-2 and our RB-47s. They were all caught when they were asked questions that a Turkish military man would have known.” There’s so much more in this quick-reading book, including almost 100 photos. When you read the last page, you’ll be grateful for the thousands of young men and women who enlisted during those perilous Cold War years. My five grandchildren are now reading this fascinating book because it was written by their other grandfather, Grandpa Ed Sabol. (Thank you for your service, Ed, and thanks for the autographed review copy!) To order from Amazon, click on the title for A Life In The Day Of: A Strategic Air Command Veteran's Memoirs of The Cold War, by Edward D. Sabol.    YOU SHOULD WRITE A BOOK #2:  And God Did It!   Pastor Robert Palmer is now in his 90s and his family is so grateful that he and his wife, Eleanor (1927-2018), wrote this labor of love in 2017 for family members, the legion of church members they served, and pastors everywhere. (Yikes! Being a pastor is tough duty and often involves a moving van or a church member’s pick-up truck!) Just 140 pages and populated with family photos and memorable stories, Faithful: The Robert & Eleanor Palmer Story is the perfect template for other pastors and ministry leaders who are inspired to write their stories. There are many highlights, including: • “I was very young—only 18—when I became a pastor. I had so much to learn…” • His prayer: “I prayed for a wife who could play the piano, sing alto, and love me.” (She did so much more!) • In 1943, Palmer’s father was the Caretaker/Manager for FA-HO-LO Park—the Assemblies of God camp meeting grounds now called Faholo Conference Center (Faith-Hope-Love). “At that time, we had a 1941 Plymouth. The gas ration board allowed us gas stamps for only 60 gallons of gas. Mother and I drove the whole trip from Kansas…to Grass Lake, Michigan, at 35 miles an hour, and averaged 25 miles per gallon.” SERMON TOPICS!  • While pastoring in Galena, Mo., Palmer was bi-vocational and worked at the courthouse—a strategic location for meeting people. The church invited a young evangelist to preach. “There was some interest because some people didn’t believe in women preachers. So, one night she preached on ‘Should a Woman Preach?’” • He pastored 11 years in Lee’s Summit, Mo. His first Sunday’s sermon title: “Expectations: What You Can Expect From Me, What We Can Expect From You—What We Can Expect From God.” (Brilliant!) • While pastoring in Ottumwa, Iowa, Palmer hosted the “Happy Hunters.” Charles and Francis Hunter preached on “Divine Healing: Baptism with the Holy Spirit and Deliverance From Smoking.”  92 BOARD MEETINGS! • Clearly a lifelong learner, Pastor Palmer attended the “Pastor’s School” in Hammond, Ind., where Jack Hyles was pastor at First Baptist Church. (And yes, Palmer’s church then started a bus ministry with four buses and two vans.) • Upon retiring in 1992 from their pastorate in Santa Maria, Calif., the Palmers ministered widely to Assemblies of God pastors and churches. He writes, “In one given year, I attended 92 board meetings.” Oh, my! • Working across the globe in their “retirement” years, they visited almost 50 countries, including Egypt, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Russia, and Ukraine. What a gift this book is to the next generation of Palmers and Christ-followers. My big take-away? Frequently, throughout these inspiring pages, the memorable stories conclude with one line: “And God did it.”  To order from Amazon, click on the title for Faithful: The Robert & Eleanor Palmer Story, by Robert E. Palmer and Eleanor M. Palmer. (And thanks to Paul Palmer for sending me a review copy.) YOU SHOULD WRITE A BOOK #3:  Grandpa Conversations on Character Traits     Picture this! A fictional grandfather engages with his twin grandchildren, Nate and Nancy, in a robust conversation that germinates their Top-30 list of character traits. In the process, they learn about the YOUquation toolbox and “the universe’s simplest and most magical secret formula”—and why traits like love, self-respect, control, humor, curiosity, and gratitude are essential for a happy and successful life (What a great exercise with your children or grandchildren!) The learning is two-way and the twins add a creative wrinkle to “The Serenity Prayer,” retitling it, “The Serenity, Courage & Wisdom Prayer.” That conversation prompted me to search for this toe-tapping number, “The Serenity Prayer Song.”   Listen to "The Serenity Prayer Song" (4 minutes). Bonus Video! By the way, you’ll also appreciate this hilarious/poignant sketch by The Skit Guys, “The Serenity Prayer” (13½ minutes). Click here. Read the full review here. To order the book from Amazon, click on the title for YOUquation: Living Your Dream—Your Happiness + Your Success, by Thomas M. Dean and  Linda B. Awar. (And thanks to John Moorlach for inspiring Tom Dean to send me a review copy.) YOU SHOULD WRITE A BOOK #4:  Weekly Emails = Keepsake Book Last month, The Wall Street Journal featured a “write-your-own-book” process from Storyworth. The headline: “How to Preserve Your Family History, No Awkward Interviews Required. Instead of having to make sense of a recording or spending your weekends digging through public records, try Storyworth, a service that gets your loved one’s memories down in writing.”   Storyworth fashions the process “like a conversation.” Step 1: Once a week, choose a question to inspire them to write. Step 2: They'll simply reply with an email, which is shared with you. Step 3: At the end of a year, their stories are bound into a beautiful keepsake book. (Current price for the process and one book: $99.) Visit Storyworth. YOU SHOULD WRITE A BOOK #5:  “Reach Millions!” Amazon’s company, Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), promises that you can “self-publish eBooks and paperbacks for free…and reach millions of readers on Amazon.” (Well…maybe not millions.) I’ve self-published on KDP (Mastering Mistake-Making, 100 Must-Read Books, Buckets Workbook, etc.) and it’s fast, free, and easy—even for an old, non-tech guy like me. OK, I did have a little help from my son, Jason.) Visit KDP and view the how-to video here:   View the 2-minute video on Kindle Direct Publishing.   YOU SHOULD WRITE A BOOK #6: Fill-in-the-Blanks on 52 Topics! Here’s the fastest/simplest/niftiest version of passing along your history, wisdom, and faith to the next generation. Our son, Jason Pearson, teamed up with prolific author Doug Fields, to write THIS, as in… “I just want you to know THIS.” Beautifully designed as a tool (really a treasure) for parents and grandparents to think, write, and then pass along to each child or grandchild—you’ll be prompted to share meaningful messages on 52 topics in this fill-in-the-blanks journal. (Read my review.) To order from Amazon, click on the title for THIS. 52 Ways to Share Your World With Those You Love, by Jason Pearson and Doug Fields. YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS: 1) While Steve Macchia has written many books, including his latest, The Discerning Life, he waited until he was 60 to write Legacy: 60 Life Reflections for the Next Generation. Chapter 3, “Mistakes Regretted,” is perfect for sharing with teenagers and helping them to avoid a few of life's pitfalls! So…should you write a book?  2) Judges 2:10 (MSG) reads, “Eventually that entire generation died and was buried. Then another generation grew up that didn’t know anything of God or the work he had done for Israel.” How are you inspiring the next generation to know God, as described by J.I. Packer?        Mastering 100 Must-Read Books Part 2: Books-of-the-Year Book #7 of 100: Doesn't Hurt to Ask For your team meeting this week, inspire a team member to lead your “10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning” session by spotlighting Book #7 in Mastering 100 Must-Read Books.    Doesn't Hurt to Ask: Using the Power of Questions  to Communicate, Connect, and Persuade  by Trey Gowdy Books #6 through #21 spotlight 16 books that I named the Book-of-the-Year from 2006 to 2020. Trey Gowdy’s book shared the 2020 honors with Book #6. • Read my review. • Order from Amazon: Doesn't Hurt to Ask • Download the 100 Must-Read Books list (from John and Jason Pearson) Trey Gowdy, who served eight years in the U.S. Congress (2011-2019), confesses, “The mistakes made early in my career were many and largely rooted in two areas: not understanding the dynamics of persuasion and not understanding the nature and characteristics of those I was trying to persuade.” His book is persuasive, not political. Although Trey Gowdy interjects numerous stories from the House committees he served on (or chaired), including Judiciary, Oversight, Intelligence, and the Select Committee on Benghazi, this book is not political—it’s persuasive, in the same way Rumsfeld’s Rules (Book #69) is not political.                     PEARPOD | TELLING YOUR STORY. OK, you just refreshed your website—but is it persuasive? Your elevator speech: clever and concise—but is it persuasive? Your Rotary Club talk: short and sweet: but is it persuasive? We can help you persuade! Contact Jason Pearson at Pearpod (Design, Digital, Marketing, Social). MORE RESOURCES: • BLOG: Pails in Comparison • SUBSCRIBE: Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews • JOHN'S BOOK REVIEWS: on Amazon  • WEBSITE:   Management Buckets • BLOG: Governance of Christ-Centered Organizations IMPORTANT NOTICE! Effective Oct. 1, 2025, all 657 eNews issues, previously archived on Typepad.com are slowly (!) being moved to a new website here. New book reviews will also be archived at John Pearson’s Buckets Blog. Or, click here for John’s recent book reviews on Amazon.   INSIDE MARINE ONE The World’s Most Amazing Helicopter. What's not to like about a 10,000-foot view of four U.S. presidents from the cockpit of Marine One, the president's high performance helicopter? Read Inside Marine One: Four U.S. Presidents, One Proud Marine, and the World’s Most Amazing Helicopter and you'll have dozens of quotable facts and fun for impressing your friends. Read more on the Pails in Comparison blog.

Making Numbers Count

 

Issue No. 502 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (Jan. 12, 2022) notes that “our brains process stories better than statistics.” And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies), and click here for my 2021 Top-10 Books and Book-of-the-Year. Translate Dry Stats Into Emotional Moments! Chip Heath, bestselling author, says that “our brains process stories better than statistics.” I was hooked on this brilliant concept in the introduction, but by page 25 (my measure of the “meat and potatoes” of a book), he nailed it—and I’ve already repeated this example to friends and family! THE STATISTIC: “40% of U.S. adults do not always wash their hands after using the bathroom at home.” THE STORY: “2 out of every 5 people you shake hands with may not have washed their hands between using the toilet and touching your hands.” (Yikes!) You MUST read or listen to this book (hot-off-the-press yesterday): Making Numbers Count: The Art and Science of Communicating Numbers, by Chip Heath and Karla Starr. I’ve already recommended this book to two CEOs, one national association executive, and a chief development officer. Just look at the tempting section and chapter titles on why you must “translate everything” to up your communication game:    • “Avoid Numbers: Perfect Translations Don’t Need Numbers”    • “Convert Abstract Numbers Into Concrete Objects”    • “Human Scale: Use the Goldilocks Principle to Make Your Numbers Just Right” On using “emotional numbers—surprising and meaningful—to move people to think and act differently,” check out:    • How to avoid dry statistics by using transferred emotion (Florence Nightingale did this!)    • “Bring Your Number into the Room with a Demonstration” (brilliant!)    • “Selecting Combos That Hit the Right Notes Together” EXAMPLES (Stats vs. Stories): What’s the difference between a million and a billion? You could give the dry statistics—but where’s the fun in that? (And who would remember?). So the authors create a story. You enter a lottery to win either $1 million or $1 billion—with a catch. If you win, you must spend $50,000 per day. How long will it last?    • You win $1 million—and “you go bust after a mere 20 days.”    •  Your friend wins $1 billion—and it would take her 55 YEARS to squander $50,000/day! I know. Why read a book about numbers? First—the authors are hilarious! Noting that it would take about two generations to spend $1 billion, they add, “Almost 14 presidential terms” or “one wait to hear your name called at the DMV.” Lol. The genius of this book (less than 150 fast-reading pages, plus almost 50 pages of fascinating notes) is in the mouth-watering examples of stats versus stories. (Oh, my. I could have used this during my CEO years. Just brilliant.) STATISTIC (Accidental Deaths): “There are a little more than 50 million people in England, and around 50 deaths each day via accidental causes (slipping in the tub; being swept away in a flooding river; falling from a ladder). The daily risk of dying there in an accident is roughly 1 in a million.” STORY (Accidental Deaths): “Your risk of dying unexpectedly in England on any given day is the same as your odds of having to guess which date someone is thinking of between 500 BC and August 1, 2200.” ATTN: CDC AND NEWS ANCHORS! Please, please, please—read Making Numbers Count. Retain Chip Heath as your consultant. Most of your COVID statistics make no sense at all—there’s no context. Dry stats—meaningless. We can’t relate. Chip Heath can help you! Please! Example: Remember the container ship, Ever Given, that ran aground in a sand storm and blocked the Suez Canal in 2021? Here’s the stat vs. story comparison by two news outlets describing the size: STAT: “The container ship Ever Given is almost a quarter-mile long.” STORY: “Imagine the Empire State Building tipped over on its side and blocking the canal. The container ship Ever Given is actually longer than the Empire State Building if you take off the tiny, needle-like antenna at the very top of the building.” You get the idea: what’s more effective? Dry, mind-numbing stats or “Wow! That’s Amazing!” stories and examples that relate to your own experience?” (I’ve been to the Empire State Building.) What stats should you turn into stories? • Homeless meals served • Enrollment comparisons (students, campers, inmates, church attendance, etc.) • Year-to-date donor comparisons for the board • Budget vs. Actual reports • Inventory excesses? STAT (true story on inventory procurement): “We’re wasting millions, perhaps 10s of millions on an inefficient procurement system. Here’s a 9-tabbed spreadsheet that summarizes my findings.” STORY (bringing the demonstration into the room): “Come see my collection of the 424 different gloves that our company is currently ordering. This represents just one minor product that we purchase…” The demo: Jon Stegner, a business exec, recruited an intern to “track down one of each glove, attached price tags to them, and brought them into a conference room where senior leaders met. Then he poured the gloves out onto the conference room table and invited the leaders, one by one, to come see the ‘Glove Shrine.’”  The result: “The minute anyone saw the Glove Shrine, they immediately jumped to a question, the very one Stegner had wanted them to ask: ‘If we’re wasting this much money on gloves, what else are we wasting money on?’” I gotta stop, but I could list the dozens and dozens of the book’s STAT vs. STORY examples for the next 20 issues… Wait! Maybe Chip Heath and Karla Starr would say: “In the time it will take you to listen to this book, you’ll drink just 7 cups of coffee (aka 7 trips to the restroom—and please wash your hands) and you and your team will easily have stumbled upon at least 17 ways to leverage the art and science of communicating numbers. That’s the equivalent of…” (Well…you get it.) OK…just one more—on how to “Recast Your Number in Different Dimensions: Try Time, Space, Distance, Money, and Pringles.” (Yikes! “In order to burn off the calories in a single Pringle, you’d have to walk 176 yards, or almost 2 football fields.” Uh…I’ll have just one, thank you.) STAT (NEA budget): “In 2016, the $148 million allocated to the National Endowment for the Arts accounted for .004% of the federal budget expenditures ($3.9 trillion). Suppose we eliminated it in response to criticism?” STORY (NEA budget): “Trying to balance the budget by eliminating the NEA would be like editing a 90,000-word novel by eliminating 4 words.” Ready…set…SPRINT! Gather your team together and start reshaping your dry stats into memorable stories! Suggestion: read the demonstration stories about the speed of a baseball pitch. (Strike Three!) Plus, marvel at Usain Bolt’s speed (19+ seconds) in the 200-meter race at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro (and the narrow margins). If you can clap your hands four times in a second, Bolt crosses the finish line on Clap 1…and by Clap 3, the eighth-fastest person in the world crosses the finish line—“hopelessly out of contention—and the race is over.” Enjoy! To order from Amazon, click on the title for Making Numbers Count: The Art and Science of Communicating Numbers, by Chip Heath and Karla Starr. Are you a listener? Listen to the book on Libro.fm (4 hours, 35 min.). And thanks to Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster, Inc. for sending me a review copy. Note: Chip Heath is also the co-author, with Dan Heath, of The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact (my 2017 book-of-the-year). Read my review.   YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS: 1) I couldn’t help myself! Reading Making Numbers Count reminded me of an early comparison question—first asked by Steve Allen on the 1953 TV quiz show, What’s My Line? (He asks the question of the last guest: “Is it bigger than a bread box?”) Click here. Florence Nightingale was “ahead of her peers, by more than a century, she started by equating basket size.” So instead of describing cold stats following the Crimean War in the 1850s (“…in its first 7 months, 7,857 troops died out of 13,095”), she “translated” that into this memorable line: “We had 600 deaths per 1,000 troops”—“a rate of mortality which exceeds that of the Great Plague of London.” What stats in our organization need to be basket-sized—and appeal more to the emotions? 2) If you’re a “Six Sigma” zealot, you could say: “Six Sigma is 3.4 defects per million objects.” Or…use a memorable story: “To achieve Six Sigma as a baker, imagine baking a batch of 2 dozen chocolate chip cookies every night. You could do that for 37 years before finding a cookie that is burned, raw, or doesn’t have the perfect number of chips.” OK, team! In groups of two…here’s one of our boring organizational stats. Turn it into a memorable story! (Winning team gets these chocolate chip cookies!)    Oops! Has attention to detail and clarity been replaced by fuzzy thinking and leaky buckets? Time for a refresh? Visit the 20 buckets webpage here.   Buckets Countdown: The Printing Bucket (#19): aka The Communications Bucket Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook: Management Tools, Templates and Tips from John Pearson, with commentary by Jason Pearson (2nd Edition, 2018) - Order from Amazon. The Printing Bucket Core Competency: “We elevate the power of the written and spoken word and leverage our communication tools to create synergy and alignment between our mission, BHAG, strategic plans, and programs. We believe proofreading and style matters!” FUZZ NOTE! “I learned to write to burn the fuzz off my thinking,” commented Fred Smith in his pithy book, Breakfast With Fred. The big idea in the Printing Bucket: Use print deadlines to burn the fuzz off your organization’s blue sky plans that otherwise would rarely be committed to the printed page (or the website). The 20 management buckets are perfect content for the lifelong learning segment in your weekly staff meetings (you do have weekly staff meetings, right?). Inspire your team to begin a buckets refresh over 20 days, 20 weeks, 20 months, or (if you’re young enough!), 20 years! Visit the 20 buckets webpage here. For supplementary resources, click on John's  "Bucket" book and workbook below:                   JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Need help “translating” your dry and boring organizational stats into memorable stories—ones that your raving fans will repeat frequently to others? Contact Pearpod Media (Design, Digital, Marketing, Social). 25 WEEKS OF WEEKLY STAFF MEETING INSIGHTS! STUDY GUIDE:  See the study guide, “5 Ways to Maximize Learning at Your Weekly Staff Meeting” (page 141) and the bonus chapter, “Do-It-Yourself Mistake-Maker.” More here. Order from Amazon.  GIVE BOOKS IN 2022! MORE RESOURCES: • BLOG: Pails in Comparison • SUBSCRIBE: Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews • JOHN'S BOOK REVIEWS: on Amazon  • WEBSITE:   Management Buckets • BLOG: Governance of Christ-Centered Organizations IMPORTANT NOTICE! Effective Oct. 1, 2025, all 657 eNews issues, previously archived on Typepad.com are slowly (!) being moved to a new website here. New book reviews will also be archived at John Pearson’s Buckets Blog. Or, click here for John’s recent book reviews on Amazon.