Let Your Life Speak

 

Issue No. 312 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (Nov. 22, 2014) notes that acclaimed author Parker Palmer spent years imitating heroes—instead of listening to his heart. He says that if leaders “are to cast less shadows and more light, we need to ride certain monsters all the way down.” And this reminder: check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- The Clearness Committee Creates Chaos Yikes. It’s almost December—and then we’ll blink and raise a glass to the New Year, and do it all over again—expecting different results. Yikes, again. So…before you grieve another year of unfulfilled promises to yourself (career-wise or other)—invest 109 pages in your calling. Read. Reflect. Listen. Pray. Discern. Jump. Parker Palmer’s stunning quick-read, Let Your Life Speak, will help you think backwards and forwards.  And his confession—that he failed to listen to his heart and squandered valuable years—is a warning to all of us (no matter how many candles on our last cake)…that vocation and calling matter. He begins:    • “…a funny thing happened on the way to my vocation.”     • He was guided by Frederick Buechner’s inspiring insight: “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” He confesses:    • “I had simply found a ‘noble’ way to live a life that was not my own, a life spent imitating heroes instead of listening to my heart.” He learned:    • “Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen for what it intends to do with you. Before you tell your life what truths and values you have decided to live up to, let your life tell you what truths you embody, what values you represent.”    • “My youthful understanding of ‘Let your life speak’ led me to conjure up the highest values I could imagine and then try to conform my life to them whether they were mine or not.” He adds: “If that sounds like what we are supposed to do with values, it is because that is what we are too often taught. There is a simplistic brand of moralism among us that wants to reduce the ethical life to making a list, checking it twice—against the index in some best-selling book of virtues, perhaps—and then trying very hard to be not naughty but nice.” He explains the book’s subtitle, “Listening for the Voice of Vocation” with this:    • “Vocation does not come from willfulness. It comes from listening.”    • “Vocation [rooted in the Latin for ‘voice’] does not mean a goal that I pursue. It means a calling that I hear. Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am.” Parker Palmer’s Quaker roots add color and authenticity to this remarkable little book—a collection of essays, edited into a book-length gem. It’s tough to narrow down my favorites stories—I read most of them to my wife, Joanne—but certainly these two: Favorite Story #1: The Clearness Committee. A presidential search committee for a small educational institution invited Palmer for an interview. “So as is the custom in the Quaker community, I called on half a dozen trusted friends to help me discern my vocation by means of a ‘clearness committee,’ a process in which the group refrains from giving you advice but spends three hours asking you honest, open questions to help discover your inner truth. (Looking back, of course, it is clear that my real intent in convening this group was not to discern anything but to brag about being offered a job I had already decided to accept!) Gulp! One stunning question rocked his world (see pages 44-46)—and he said no to a career-enhancing opportunity. Favorite Story #2: Outward Bound. Hanging from a cliff, 110 feet above ground in his first Outward Bound rappelling experience (more like “Outward Down”), Palmer had a profound moment (pages 82-85). Later he reflected, “I chose the weeklong course at Hurricane Island, off the coast of Maine. I should have known from that name what was in store for me; next time I will sign up for the course at Happy Gardens or Pleasant Valley!” He describes five shadow-casting monsters: First, “insecurity about identity and worth.” Next, “the belief that the universe is a battleground, hostile to human interests.”   The third one is a real poke-in-the-ribs. “A third shadow common among leaders is ‘functional atheism,’ the belief that ultimate responsibility for everything rests with us. This is the unconscious, unexamined conviction that if anything decent is going to happen here, we are the ones who must make it happen—a conviction held even by people who talk a good game about God.” The fourth shadow is fear, “especially our fear of the natural chaos of life. Many of us—parents and teachers and CEOs—are deeply devoted to eliminating all remnants of chaos from the world.”  The fifth shadow that leaders project is, “paradoxically, the denial of death itself.” He’s savvy! “Leaders who participate in this denial often demand that the people around them keep resuscitating things that are no longer alive.” If you’re working on a strategic plan right now, you must read pages 89 to 91! Why should you read this 109-page treasure?    • It’s never too late to let your life speak.    • You may be coaching someone who needs this eye-opening touch.    • Sibyl Towner, co-founder and spiritual director of oneLifemaps, LLC, named Let Your Life Speak as a book-of-the-month selection for Sibyl's Book Club in July 2013.    • It’s a perfect companion book to The Joseph Road: Choices That Determine Your Destiny, by Jerry White, International President Emeritus of The Navigators.    • I asked Steve Macchia for his favorite quotation from Palmer’s book. As the founder and president of Leadership Transformations, and author of Crafting a Rule of Life: An Invitation to the Well-Ordered Way, Steve shared this: Considering our vocation “not as a goal to be achieved but as a gift to be received,” Palmer encourages his readers that, “self-care is never a selfish act—it is simply good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to offer to others.” Therefore, we need to become authentic leaders, who “in every setting—from families to nation-states—aim at liberating the heart, their own and others’, so that its power can liberate the world.” To order from Amazon, click on the title for Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation, by Parker J. Palmer. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions: 1) Palmer describes the fourth shadow: “In families and churches and corporations, this shadow is projected as rigidity of rules and procedures, creating an ethos that is imprisoning rather than empowering. (Then, of course, the mess we must deal with is the prisoners trying to break out!)” So…does our culture embrace or eliminate chaos? 2) Palmer notes, “We will become better teachers not by trying to fill the potholes in our souls but by knowing them so well that we can avoid falling into them.” Who is helping you identify your potholes—and how might that impact your “true self” vocation? ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes! We Actually Read Books!   Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit In my cycle through the 20 buckets, here’s the core competency from the Book Bucket, Chapter 5, in Mastering the Management Buckets:  “We believe leaders are readers! We create a culture that embraces a healthy appetite for leadership and management books, journals, articles and audio resources. We mentor team members with thoughtfully selected titles and chapters to help them leverage their strengths, grow in their faith and serve others with passion. We don’t just talk about books—we actually read them!” As you’re thinking about Christmas gift-giving, consider giving books. For ideas, including a list of over 300 books that have been reviewed in this eNews—categorized within the 20 buckets—visit the Book Bucket. 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 • John Pearson's Buckets Podcast NOTICE! Effective Oct. 1, 2025, all 657 eNews issues, previously archived on Typepad.com are slowly (!) being moved to a new website here at John Pearson's Buckets Blog.            ECFA BLOG on “Governance of Christ-centered Organizations”  - Add your thoughts to John's latest blog post for boards, "We Don't Eliminate--We Help Our Competition!" PLUS! View the short video on the ECFA Governance Toolbox Series: No. 1: Recruiting Board Members and No. 2: Balancing Board Roles (DVD and Viewing Guides).

The Unnatural Act of Management

		Issue No. 43 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (June 25, 2007) highlights another book and a bucket for equipping your team in the “unnatural” act of management. This week’s book is a must for your loaning library as you mentor individuals with niche books, based on their unique needs. Reminder: you can read the mini-reviews of more than 40 books at my Buckets Blog.
		While it is true that you only have a 50/50 chance of success every time you hire a new team member, the interviewing and hiring process does not have to be an anxiety-ridden exercise in Russian roulette.  It’s likely this week’s book slipped past you in 1992, but its unique and comprehensive management “story” (complete with a plot, interesting characters and a February 1 to May 3 company turn-around timeline) is a worthy addition to your summer reading list. In his story, Everett T. Suters cautions managers to watch for any of the 17 red flags during the interview process.  His cautionary warning signs include: 1) being late for the appointment, 2) no resume, 3) disturbing appearance, including poor eye contact, 4) poor communication skills, 5) cannot name any personal weaknesses, 6) no evidence that the person takes initiative—on their own time—to improve themselves, 7) unexplained employment history gaps, 8) low level of formal education, without a legitimate reason, 9) frequent job changes, yet little if any career progress, and 10) overqualified. Other red flags include: 11) unsolicited criticism of former employers and managers, 12) unable to verbalize realistic personal goals, 13) little interest in the scope of the job or the future state of the company, 14) personal problems that could affect performance, 15) inappropriate concern about compensation and benefits, 16) openly expresses radical opinions, and 17) the person does not need to work. When he spots a red flag, the author says, “I give them an opportunity to alleviate my concerns with an explanation.” The book is packed with savvy management wisdom.  ORDER FROM AMAZON: The Unnatural Act of Management: When the Great Leader’s Work Is Done, the People Say, “We Did It Ourselves.”
		Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. What is the best question you have ever been asked in an interview? 2. Why is life-long learning—improving yourself on your own time—so important to an employer? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
		Insights from the Management Buckets Workshop Experience Whenever I interviewed a prospect for a staff position, I carefully avoided details about what I was looking for—and then about 20 minutes into the interview, I asked the greatest interview question ever. “Joe, talk about the best job you’ve ever had.  You’re driving home after work—and all of a sudden it hits you.  You tap the steering wheel with a playful slap, and exclaim out loud, ‘Wow! That was a really great day at work!’ “So, Joe…tell me. What happened at work that caused that little celebration in your car?” The response is truly amazing.  Joe’s eyes light up.  His interviewee nervousness disappears—and what gives him joy at work quickly oozes out.  Sometimes, the very thing that breathes life into Joe on the job was exactly what we were looking for.  Other times—it was the opposite, so we celebrate his passions, but we don’t hire him.  I’ve never seen anyone manufacture an answer to that question.  It’s the greatest interview question ever.
		Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions: The People Bucket -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.OK, for our weekly meeting today, I’d like you to gather in groups of three and tell each other what happened the evening you said to yourself, “Wow! That was a really great day at work!” 2. Does that “Wow!” happen enough in your current position? If not, what initiative should you take to increase the joy? --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  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 • PODCAST: John Pearson's Buckets Podcast NOTICE! Effective Oct. 1, 2025, all 657 eNews issues, previously archived on Typepad.com are slowly (!) being moved to a new website here at John Pearson's Buckets Blog.

Entrepreneurial StrengthsFinder

 

Issue No. 309 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (Oct. 17, 2014) highlights Gallup’s latest hot-off-the-press release, Entrepreneurial StrengthsFinder. So I asked my son, Jason, to take the online assessment for a spin. And this reminder: check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings. -----------------------------------------------------------------------   Shiny New Object Syndrome Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com, is quoted in this issue’s book: “If you double the number of experiments you do per year, you’re going to double your inventiveness. The thing about inventing is you have to be both stubborn and flexible, more or less simultaneously. If you’re not stubborn, you’ll give up on experiments too soon. And if you’re not flexible, you’ll pound your head against the wall and you won’t see a different solution to a problem you’re trying to solve.” That’s from the nine-page color commentary on “Creative Thinker,” one of the 10 talents of successful entrepreneurs according to the hot-off-the-press book/assessment from Gallup, the creators of the international bestseller, StrengthsFinder 2.0. This new book and 25-minute online assessment, Entrepreneurial StrengthsFinder, measures 10 talents, or drivers of entrepreneurial success. “The degree of your natural ability in each of the 10 talents will determine where you will be successful and where you will fall short in your entrepreneurial journey.” Co-authors Jim Clifton, chairman and CEO of Gallup, and Sangeeta Bharadwaj Badal, Ph.D., say their research reveals that “only about 5 in 1,000 people have the aptitude for starting and growing a business. In comparison, 20 in 1,000 have IQs high enough to be accepted into Mensa.” (My assumption: if you read this eNews, you’re a Mensa member, right?) Over the years of guilting readers into buying books (and I know you read them all, thank you), I've probably gone overboard on entrepreneurship books. (See the Book Bucket below.) So finally, I have a cogent reason for my gut instinct that entrepreneurs are needed more than ever.  But is this new assessment just one more flash-in-the-pan, leadership fad-of-the-year?  To find out, I was the almost-silent observer last weekend when my entrepreneurial son, Jason Pearson, completed the 25-minute online assessment. (Each book includes a unique access code that can only be used once.) My response while looking over Jason’s laptop: fantastic questions!  Gallup wants to inspire Americans to wake up and start spotting young entrepreneurs.  The message: the need is not more innovation; we need entrepreneurship which creates customers—and customers create jobs. Jim Clifton (the son of the late Donald Clifton, the father of the StrengthsFinder movement) sold me on this bedrock core belief in the first 35 pages. Upon completing the assessment, Jason downloaded two helpful documents: a color-coded three-page report of his entrepreneurial strengths—strongest to weakest; and a 20-page practical guide on suggested next steps. Jason was dominant in three talents: Creative Thinker, Relationship-Builder, and Risk-Taker. He had four more talents termed "contributing," and three at the bottom in "supporting."  Nothing complicated—and all very practical and straightforward.  The customized color-coded report defines your entrepreneurial strengths:    • Dominant talents. “You consistently and naturally lead with your dominant talents.”    • Contributing talents. “You show some evidence of your contributing talents, but you must deliberately apply them to achieve success.”    • Supporting talents. “The talents that you don’t naturally lead with are your supporting talents.” Jason, who has started four companies, has the entrepreneurial genes.  The authors note research “that the tendency toward entrepreneurship is between 37% and 48% genetic.”   I wasn't surprised that Creative Thinking was Jason's top entrepreneurial strength. Ask him for 10 ideas, and he'll deliver 20 by the time you’ve learned how to spell “entrepreneurial.” But I was pleasantly surprised by the book’s practical definitions and color commentary on each of the 10 entrepreneurial strengths. That section highlights key traits of each strength “in action” (with PowerPoint-worthy quotes from well-known entrepreneurs like Warren Buffet and others); cautionary notes (be sure to read the warnings for Risk-Takers); and then a practical list of next steps for maximizing that talent.  All in about eight or nine pages each—easy reading and immediate comprehension (for you Mensa types!). For example, under Creative Thinker:    • “You have a mind that is typically firing with many different ideas.”    • “Comfortable with the unknown and the unfamiliar, you always look for new ways to combine and recombine resources to create innovative solutions for your customers.”    • “As a Creative Thinker, you are quick to act. You seize opportunities and are usually the first mover in the market.”    • Other code words: “rule breakers,” “refuse to be bogged down,” “you like to work autonomously,” “push the boundaries.”     • Under cautions: “You may fall prey to ‘incumbent inertia’ as you achieve success and growth. Maintain the organizational flexibility that allowed you to explore your creative imagination in the first place.” If you score high, as Jason did, as a Risk-Taker, share the color commentary with your spouse, family, and friends.  “Contrary to popular belief, highly successful entrepreneurs are not risk seekers, they are risk mitigators par excellence. If you are a Risk-Taker, you instinctively know how to manage high-risk situations.” While Risk-Takers are “avid problem solvers,” some (on the extreme side) hold themselves in high regard, a phenomenon known as “hyper-core self-evaluation” (hyper-CSE). This may lead to “shiny new object syndrome.” Andy Dunn, co-founder and CEO of Bonobos: “Prior to a lobotomy I just underwent which removed shiny new object syndrome (SNOS) from my brain, I was both an asset and a threat to my own company.” There are six ways for Risk-Takers to maximize their talent (plus color commentary on each):    1. Know what you do know and what you do not know.    2. Take risks incrementally.    3. Beware of confirmation bias. (“Ask people with opposing views to counter your initial idea or concept.”)    4. Construct different scenarios to guide your decision-making process.    5. Don’t gamble. (Institute a “cooling-off period” before you’re swept away by the brilliance of your own ideas!)    6. Kill unimportant projects. Bill Gates on Warren Buffet: “He doesn’t invest—take a swing of the bat—unless the opportunity appears unbelievably good.” Who should read this book?    • CEOs and senior leaders (to spot and coach young entrepreneurs)    • Educators    • Parents and grandparents     • Spouses and family members (part encouragement, part therapy!)    • Mensa members! Clifton suggests every city (his core belief: cities are the fulcrum for the future) install an early identification assessment system and offer the Entrepreneurial StrengthsFinder assessment to thousands of students (prime age: high school freshmen to sophomores in college). Clifton begins this book with a sobering thought: “During my 40 years at Gallup, I’ve observed that when very talented leaders fail, it’s often because their thinking failed them. Not their management or leadership skills, but their thinking about a core belief that they put at the center of all of their strategies.  Because they are so wrong about that core belief, every subsequent decision actually makes things worse, because every decision is tied to that belief. The more they manage and lead, the worse things get.” “This is happening in Washington, D.C., but it is also happening in many cities throughout America.” His core belief: “Entrepreneurs create customers. And customers, in turn, create jobs and economic growth." "Almost no leader knows this.” “Virtually all U.S. and world leaders have misdiagnosed the core problem and put billions and billions of dollars into mistaken strategies that are not helping America’s economy, much less the world’s.” I must end this review—but you MUST read this book! To order from Amazon, click on the link for: Entrepreneurial StrengthsFinder, by Jim Clifton and Sangeeta Bharadwaj Badal, Ph.D. To purchase the online assessment without buying the book (which I don't recommend, unless you have access to a colleague’s book), visit the Gallup Strengths Center (and view the three-minute video). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions: 1) Gallup says that “those with the dominant talent in Business Focus are twice as likely to exceed their profit goals,” and “those with dominant Risk-Taker talent are four times more likely to growth their business significantly.”  So…why might it be important to assess the entrepreneurial strengths of your team members—BEFORE you assign people to projects? 2) Gallup also says “if you have a high IQ, America’s massive testing systems will find you,” and “if you have the rare, innate talent to play basketball or football, our massive youth-to-college-to-pro sports system will find you.” So…why don’t we already have a system for finding those young entrepreneurs “who have the rare, innate ability to create a customer, to build a company?” ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Leaders Are Readers. Ditto Entrepreneurs!   Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit In my cycle through the 20 buckets, here’s the core competency from the Book Bucket, Chapter 5, in Mastering the Management Buckets:  “We believe leaders are readers! We create a culture that embraces a healthy appetite for leadership and management books, journals, articles and audio resources. We mentor team members with thoughtfully selected titles and chapters to help them leverage their strengths, grow in their faith and serve others with passion. We don’t just talk about books—we actually read them!” So here’s a short list of entrepreneurial books I’ve reviewed. Add them to your toolbox and resource shelf, and/or assemble a portfolio of my book reviews to inspire your budding entrepreneurs: • Entrepreneurial Leadership: Finding Your Calling, Making a Difference, by Richard J. Goossen and R. Paul Stevens • Corporate Entrepreneurship: How to Create a Thriving Entrepreneurial Spirit Throughout Your Company, by Robert D. Hisrich and Claudine Kearney • Entrepreneurship, by Robert D. Hisrich (with Peters and Shepherd) • PastorPreneur: Pastors and Entrepreneurs Answer the Call, by John Jackson • Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge From Small Discoveries, by Peter Sims • Creators: From Chaucer and Durer to Picasso and Disney, by Paul Johnson • The Decision Maker: Unlock the Potential of Everyone in Your Organization One Decision at a Time, by Dennis Bakke • The King of Madison Avenue: David Ogilvy and the Making of Modern Advertising, by Kenneth Roman •    and my two-page article, “Entrepreneurial Wisdom: 5 Career-Saving Principles for Ministry Entrepreneurs,” published in CLA’s Outcomes magazine       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 • John Pearson's Buckets Podcast NOTICE! Effective Oct. 1, 2025, all 657 eNews issues, previously archived on Typepad.com are slowly (!) being moved to a new website here at John Pearson's Buckets Blog.         ECFA BLOG on “Governance of Christ-centered Organizations”  - Add your thoughts to John's latest blog post for boards, "Should Your Board Launch an Advisory Council?" PLUS! View the short video on the ECFA Governance Toolbox Series: No. 1: Recruiting Board Members and No. 2: Balancing Board Roles (DVD and Viewing Guides).

Unbroken

 

Issue No. 308 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (Oct. 2, 2014) suggests a four-step plan for a staff team-building event—built around a “Book-of-the-Quarter” exercise. And...I sneak in a review of a phenomenal biography I read this summer. Plus, check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings. -----------------------------------------------------------------------   $50 Fine for Boring Meetings! After 30 years of CEO work, I turned in my keys and credit cards at the end of 2005. I’ll start my tenth year of consulting in three months and, I must say, from what I’ve learned in recent years, there are days I wish I could rewind the video—and get a do-over on my leadership years. For example, I would institute a $50 fine for every boring staff meeting—and I would double the fine for myself if anyone caught me leading an uninspired, ho-hum meeting. Here’s one thing I would do—at least quarterly: deliver a book, article, DVD, or TED Talk as a catalyst for corralling the creativity of the staff. Pearson’s Radical Wall Poster Team-building Exercise: 4 Easy Steps Step 1. Read or Listen to a Book. Distribute Amazon gift cards to every team member, and based on their preferred learning style, inspire them to order the book, audio book, or the Kindle edition of your “Book of the Quarter.” (If they already have the book, or can borrow the book, let them keep the gift card.) My recommendation: Start with a book that doesn’t add to your organization’s “Management-by-Bestseller Syndrome.” (See the Book Bucket chapter in Mastering the Management Buckets.) For example: If your staff, spouse or colleagues think your reading diet is too heavy on leadership and business books, start with a novel or a gripping biography. I got hooked on one this summer, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, by Laura Hillenbrand. Wow! Unbroken may be on my year-end list of Top-10 books of 2014—and I’m sure, many of my readers have already recommended this amazing book to friends. The movie version of Unbroken (view the trailer), directed by Angelina Jolie, will be released on Christmas Day 2014. (There’s another idea: get the popcorn and show the movie to your staff next year).  On the New York Times bestseller list for three years, this page-turner chronicles the life of Louie Zamperini: tough Italian-American kid, distance runner in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, and Army Air Corps bombardier in 1941. After heroically surviving an unprecedented 47 days in an open raft in the Pacific, he was reported missing in action for two years while enduring WWII Japan’s most brutal POW camps. Yet…there’s redemption! While early reports suggest the movie will not include this segment of his life, Zamperini was converted at Billy Graham’s historic Los Angeles evangelistic crusade in 1949 (scheduled for three weeks, but extended to eight weeks). According to the book, his life changed—literally overnight!  “The old life is gone; a new life burgeons!” 2 Corinthians 5:17 (The Message) Good news/bad news. Zamperini was welcomed into heaven on July 2 of this year at age 97, but he will miss the movie premiere on December 25 (easy choice!). He had also been named 2015 grand marshal for the Tournament of Roses in Pasadena, Calif.  He will still be honored, in absentia, as the headliner for the January 1 parade theme, “Inspiring Stories.”  Yikes—I got side-tracked with this stunning story. (You gotta read it!) Step 2. Create a Team-Building Exercise. This is a new version of the ho-hum inspirational wall poster idea—but with a relevant twist. Admit it. Your lunchroom has at least one motivational (ha!) poster. Been there for how many years? So…here’s the drill:    • Pick a word, or phrase, or a concept from the book that will inspire our team. There are zillions in Unbroken: Endurance. Persistence. Discipline. Hope. Faithfulness. Guts. Initiative. Forgiveness. Redemption. Leadership. Servant. More Guts.    • Each team of three or four people will create a poster, a video, an art piece, performance art, a poem—something that describes your emotional experience when reading the book…AND…leverages the unique giftedness and creativity of your team members.    • Our “Show and Tell Day” will be in two weeks. (And if possible, try to invest at least the majority of your time on your day job!!) Step 3. Celebrate Your Team’s Creativity! Inexpensive awards, old trophies from your local thrift store, or gift cards make great gifts to honor the work of your teams on "Show and Tell Day."  Step 4. Plan the Next “Book-of-the-Quarter” Event. Keep it going—and delegate the fun stuff to the Expressives on your team! So…if I were still a CEO and leading a team, I’d work really, really hard to make every single staff meeting both meaningful and memorable.  To order the book (Kindle edition or audio book) from Amazon, click on the title for: Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, by Laura Hillenbrand. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions: 1) How many weekly (or otherwise) staff meetings have you attended in your career? What are the ingredients that make some stand out over others? 2) In the chapter, “Running a Meeting," in Rumsfeld’s Rules: Leadership Lessons in Business, Politics, War, and Life, by Donald Rumsfeld, the former CEO and U.S. Secretary of Defense (twice) notes, "The first consideration for meetings is whether to call one at all.” Is the frequency of our staff meetings about right or not? ----------------------------------------------------------------------- WOW Meetings for the 4 Social Styles   Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit In my cycle through the buckets, here’s an insight from the Meetings Bucket, Chapter 20, in Mastering the Management Buckets:    Caution! Routine meetings quickly spiral into boredom and sheer agony.  Each of the four social styles (Analyticals, Drivers, Amiables and Expressives) has different expectations for your meetings.  If you are not a skilled meeting facilitator and you “don’t know yet what you don’t know,” ask two or three people at your next meeting to quietly evaluate the “WOW Factor” of your meeting.  Click here to download the “WOW Factor Checklist (Welcome, Organized, Warm)” and check out the resources and books in the Meetings Bucket.  Here’s just one of the 16 items to evaluate at your next meeting: “The meeting facilitator was prepared and relaxed, ready to greet the first person who arrived.” Rumsfeld again: “As drill sergeants are fond of saying, ‘If you’re five minutes early, you’re on time. If you’re on time, you’re late. If you’re late, you have some explaining to do.’”   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 • John Pearson's Buckets Podcast NOTICE! Effective Oct. 1, 2025, all 657 eNews issues, previously archived on Typepad.com are slowly (!) being moved to a new website here at John Pearson's Buckets Blog.   ECFA BLOG on “Governance of Christ-centered Organizations”  - Add your thoughts to John's latest blog post for boards, "Board Member Getting: It's Time to Demystify Fundraising." PLUS! View the short video on the ECFA Governance Toolbox Series: No. 1: Recruiting Board Members and No. 2: Balancing Board Roles (DVD and Viewing Guides).

Drucker & Me

 

Issue No. 298 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (April 24, 2014) highlights another hot-off-the-press book—this one from Bob Buford about his close friendship with Peter Drucker.  Plus, check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff or board meetings.  ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Bob Buford's T-shirt: 100x  Spoiler Alert!  Drucker & Me, by Bob Buford, is a terrific book—and the depth will surprise and delight you. But first…a disclaimer: I’m a big Drucker fan (see the Drucker Bucket chapter in my book) and I’m indebted to Bob Buford and Fred Smith who invited me to a 1986 summit conference with Peter Drucker (33 of us in the Colorado mountains). That four-day marathon ranks as one of my Top-10 life experiences.  Bob also wrote the foreword to my book, Mastering the Management Buckets. So I’m a tad biased. Buford could have written his new book with Crayolas—and I’d still give it a thumbs-up.  But, gratefully, he excelled again (as he did with Halftime) and delivered an amazing, poignant and powerful account of his annual one-day meetings—and close friendship—with the father of modern management. Imagine! In the foreword to this warm and meaty book, Jim Collins writes, “It is exceptionally well-written and provides a glimpse into the secret sauce of how a truly great teacher can have an impact on the world through a truly great student.” Secret sauce, indeed! If you’re coaching and mentoring a young leader, this book will inspire you. If you’re looking for a coach or mentor, this dynamic duo is your new benchmark. So picture this: Bob Buford, the CEO of a network of cable TV systems, boldly seeks one-on-one management counsel from Peter Drucker, the father of modern management! Bob invites us into the meetings, often in Drucker’s humble home, just walking distance from where the esteemed prof held court at Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, Calif.  So listen in: ELBOW BOOKS. Buford learned that Drucker’s most famous book (he wrote 39), The Practice of Management (1954), “was not so much a strategic career move but was characteristically written to meet a need. There were plenty of books out there at the time on individual aspects of running a business—finance, for example, or human resources. Each of them ‘reminded me of a book on human anatomy that would discuss one joint in the body—the elbow, for instance—without even mentioning the arm, let alone the skeleton and musculature,’ Drucker later recalled. The Practice of Management was the first that put it all together.” GOAL SETTING. “In one of our regular meetings, Peter suggested I spend some time thinking about my personal goals—not just for my business but for my life. So the next time we met, I had my list of six goals for my life all set. I was determined to show the professor that I had taken his assignment seriously…” So Bob recited the list and when he read the fifth goal, “…to engender high self-esteem for our son, Ross,” Peter interrupted Bob “rather abruptly.” “‘You can’t make goals for other people!’ he stated with authority. ‘You can only set goals for yourself, which might include how you want to treat Ross. But only he can determine his goals—not you or anyone else.’” PLANNED ABANDONMENT.  Bob learned the concept of “planned abandonment” from Drucker. “It was not unusual for Peter to begin a meeting by saying, ‘Tell me what you’re not doing.’ In other words, not everything you try is going to work out, so what have you decided not to do? What have you quit doing so that you can focus more on those things that will produce results?” AN OBOE PLAYER BECOMING A VIOLINIST? FORGET IT! Bob, with Drucker’s encouragement, launched Leadership Network, a catalyst for the mega-church movement. So he fully understood management in both the marketplace and the nonprofit world. Buford notes, “Peter frequently used the metaphor of a symphony conductor when he talked about management.” “A conductor would never ask an oboe player to play the violin or vice versa. The role of the conductor is to make sure the right people are playing the right instruments so that when the baton comes down, the symphony made great music.” Then Bob confesses, “More than once I have employed a person who performed well in a maintenance role in a large, prestigious organization. It never seems to work out. It is the difference between Special Forces and holding down a Pentagon job.” INTERNAL FOCUS.  You must read Bob’s insights on “How Organizations Die.” Here’s a teaser: “One of the most important lessons Iearned from Peter inevitably, in my view, turned our client-consultant relationship into more of a partnership. That lesson was his conviction that an organization begins to die the day it begins to be run for the benefit of the insiders and not for the benefit of the customers.” Whew! Trust me—this 172-page book (plus an epilogue from Ed Stetzer) is jammed—it’s jammed—with wisdom and use-it-today leadership insights. Remarkably, it’s packaged with an endearing warmth that is missing from business and leadership books. (Again, I’m biased. I really didn’t want the book to end—so I delayed reading the last 40 pages to savor the experience, but ultimately succumbed.  It was a joy to read.) What will surprise you? Even if you’re already a Drucker zealot and deeply appreciate Buford—you’ll be blessed by the deep well of wisdom:    • “…after I finished yet another iteration of what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, he sat silent for a moment and then spoke in a voice that to my ears sounded like the voice of God himself: ‘Your mission, Bob, is to transform the latent energy of American Christianity into active energy.’”    • “We would use their credibility, not ours—we were the platform, not the show. Or as Peter once told me, ‘The fruit of your work grows on other people’s trees.’”    • Drucker: “Build on islands of strength.”    • “I think he knew the tendency of people working with nonprofits to think of themselves as the minor league where good intentions are enough. So he stressed the need to raise the standard of performance in my work with churches and others.”    • “Peter once called me a troublemaker, referring to the Parable of the Sower. ‘You are not satisfied that what you are doing is enough,’ he told me. ‘The Parable of the Sower tells you that you have to produce results of at least four or five fold, if not a hundred fold. It’s a very, very upsetting parable.” So out of Drucker’s insight, Buford summarized his mission. “Upsetting, yes, but it has become the solution to another challenge Peter gave me when he said an individual’s mission statement ought to fit on the front of a T-shirt. I have chosen 100x for my ‘shirt’ because I believe it is my calling to become the ‘good soil’ from which innovative, entrepreneurial church leaders can change the world.” To order from Amazon, click here for Drucker & Me: What a Texas Entrepreneur Learned from the Father of Modern Management, by Bob Buford.   Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions: 1) Admiral Ed Allen, captain of a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, described Buford’s role this way: “The catapult is what makes the United States Navy work. It is virtually invisible but it gets 60,000 pounds that is a fully loaded F-14 off the deck in about 200 feet. You are not the carrier. You are not the plane. You are not the pilot. You are the catapult that gets the plane airborne.” So…who is the catapult in your organization? 2) What is your organization’s God-given calling: to be the platform or to be the show?  Thanking Givers With Intentionality Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit   In my cycle through the 20 management buckets, this issue features Chapter 11, The Donor Bucket, and this insight from the ECFA 1st Annual Church Stewardship Survey (2014): “Leading churches [as defined by this survey of ECFA-accredited churches] are intentional about thanking givers.”   Example: Leading churches “disciple and engage givers further with meaningful gifts, including inspirational books.” Drucker and Me, or The Daily Drucker, or The Practical Drucker might make the perfect thank you gift to the right donor, at the right time.  For more book recommendations, including Igniting a Life of Generosity, visit the Donor Bucket webpage.      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 • John Pearson's Buckets Podcast NOTICE! Effective Oct. 1, 2025, all 657 eNews issues, previously archived on Typepad.com are slowly (!) being moved to a new website here at John Pearson's Buckets Blog. ECFA BLOG on “Governance of Christ-centered Organizations”   Add your thoughts to John's latest blog post for boards, "Good to Great Governance: Who Cares?" PLUS! View the short video on the ECFA Governance Toolbox Series: No. 1: Recruiting Board Members and No. 2: Balancing Board Roles (DVD and Viewing Guides).