We Have a Pope - movie

 

Issue No. 271 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (March 11, 2013) suggests you take a week off from book-reading guilt and enjoy a very relevant and entertaining video, We Have a Pope.  Plus, this reminder: check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings.  ----------------------------------------------------------------------- The Reluctant Leader: Plan A or Plan B?  Recently, I coached my 10-year-old granddaughter, Emelia, on the value of doing a pro and con list when making decisions.  I gave her a template with two columns: five reasons for Plan A and five reasons for Plan B.  After a few minutes of fourth grade discernment, she presented her work:    • Plan A had five excellent reasons in favor.     • Plan B had just five words: None, None, None, None, None!   I chuckled and thought, “Memo to Self: Read another book on coaching!”   So with Plan A and Plan B fresh in my mind, I treated myself this weekend to a second viewing of a wonderful film, We Have a Pope (Habemus Papam).  Joanne and I first enjoyed it at the Palm Springs International Film Festival in 2011 (Italian, with English sub-titles). It’s now available on Netflix and Amazon Instant Video, plus in DVD format for U.S. viewers.   If you view it this week, you get a twofer: 1) an entertaining film (1 hour and 45 minutes) with a tongue-in-check, inside-the-Sistine-Chapel look at the selection of a pope, and 2) comparisons to the real life conclave in Vatican City this week.   No spoiler alert is needed because I’ll just set the stage for you.  The papal conclave is in session—and balloting has begun.  The thunderous murmuring from dozens of cardinals needs no sub-titles: “Not me, Lord! Not me!” No one wants the job.   Finally, a pope is selected—and that’s when the fun and the soul-searching begin. The reluctant leader is not sure he wants to be pope. (Plan A or Plan B?) He is unprepared, he thinks, for this one-in-a-billion leadership challenge—and the cardinals (still locked in the Vatican, without cell phones) are not much help to their new leader. Yet he had their votes. Hmmm. Plan A or Plan B?   It’s a humorous, but eye-opening study in leadership trauma.  It’s the perfect video to watch this week—as we watch Rome. Enjoy!   P.S. Click here if you missed my last review (Issue No. 270) of The Pope & The CEO: John Paul II's Leadership Lessons to a Young Swiss Guard, by Andreas Widmer. It includes a memorable, heart-warming true story—perfect for your next staff meeting.   To watch the trailer and/or order this DVD (or the Amazon Instant Video) from Amazon, click on the title for We Have a Pope (Habemus Papam), directed by Nanni Moretti. (Note: While it has an “NR” rating, I found only one objectionable word in the English subtitles.)  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions: 1) Have you ever met a reluctant leader: a CEO or a department head—that truth be told—was uncomfortable in that role? Have you ever been a “reluctant leader” and, if so, what was the outcome? 2) You’re on the “search committee” to interview papal candidates. What are the Top-10 qualities and characteristics in your Opportunity Profile?  ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Social Style Tip of the Day Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit One of the big ideas in Chapter 7, The People Bucket, in my book, Mastering the Management Buckets, is to know your social style comfort zone—and relate appropriately to all four people styles: Driver, Analytical, Amiable and Expressive. (What style will the next pope be?)   For more help, visit the Tracom Corp website to view their “Social Style Tip of the Day.” For example, the tip for today, March 11, 2013, is “How to Compliment an Analytical Style.” Their counsel, “keep it simple and professional.” (Far different than what an Expressive would want from you!)          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 • PODCASTS: John Pearson's Buckets Podcasts  NOTICE! Issues No. 1 to 657 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (2006 to 2025), previously archived on Typepad.com are slowly (!) being moved to this new blogsite: John Pearson's Buckets Blog. ECFA Blog on “Governance of Christ-centered Organizations”   Add your thoughts to John's latest blog post for boards, "The Meeting Before the Meeting," and check out the new ECFA Governance Toolbox Series.

Policy vs Paper Clips

 

Issue No. 284 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (Aug. 26, 2013) features a dialogue on how to move micromanaging board members into a new-and-improved paradigm, “The Corporate Model.” The author quotes William Bowen, former Princeton University president, “Finding the appropriate balance between executive authority and board oversight is more likely to require strengthening the hand of the CEO than building up the powers of the board.” Plus, this reminder: check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings.  ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Analysis Paralysis vs. Rubber-Stamping  Leaders and readers of this eNews fall into several categories: CEOs, senior team members and church leaders who work with board members Board members People who will serve on boards in the future (Listen up!) So let's be real here: much of what happens in the boardroom (nonprofit and corporate) is highly dysfunctional. In my opinion, most governance fuzziness emanates from unvoiced assumptions about the board's role and the CEO's role.   Role clarity should always prompt a discussion about governance models: the Hands-on model, John Carver's Policy Governance model, the Board Policies Manual tool, and so many other options.  Yet with all of these models and resources available with a simple Google search, why is there still so much dysfunction? (Maybe no one reads this stuff?) So here's a resource—with a very unique writing style—that will help clarify board roles and responsibilities. The author begins with the key question: what's Job #1 for a board?    According to Eugene H. Fram, the most important job of the board is “to find the best possible person to manage the organization, then stand back and let that person manage.”   That's just one of dozens of quotable one-liners and wisdom-filled paragraphs in Policy vs. Paper Clips: How Using the Corporate Model Makes a Nonprofit Board More Efficient & Effective (3rd Edition).   “Volunteer directors who micromanage their agencies are, in blunt terms, cost centers for nonprofits, since they affect staff time so dramatically.” (Preach it!)   “Good governance helps eliminate the many hidden costs associated with pursuing activities that have nothing to do with the organization's purpose.” (Amen!)   “Your board should not be primarily focused on outcomes (e.g. success of specific programs) but concerned more about assessing the 'impacts' of those outcomes.” (High five!)   In putting flesh on the bones of the “generative mode” of governance (read my review of Governance as Leadership: Reframing the Work of Nonprofit Boards), the author says boards must focus more on the “what if” and other long-term questions.     “Because directors' questions in this mode are different from the questions that they ask when day-to-day operations take up the agenda, they will find themselves focused on identifying available opportunities and vulnerabilities.   “This enables board members to tap their special expertise and professional experience in board discussions.  To draw upon this outside wealth of knowledge and perspectives, nonprofit executives should avoid acculturating board members to the 'conventional wisdom' of the organization.  “In practical terms that means, for example, that a director with marketing strategy experience should be asked to help uncover new markets to serve but not asked to write advertising copy.”   Then Fram adds, “Separating operational and policy issues is more complicated than it sounds.”    Oh! I haven't shared this bonus factor: The entire book (240 pages) is a series of short email conversations between a fictitious nonprofit CEO (an acknowledged expert and speaker on the “Corporate” board model) and a golfing buddy who just joined a nonprofit board.   Fram mentions two board sins, analysis paralysis and rubber-stamping.His solution? Use the “Corporate Model” to focus the board on policy, not operations.  The quick-reading email dialogue between two friends eliminates the typical boring governance rhetoric (yada, yada, yada) and replaces the blue sky stuff with in-the-trenches, to-the-point conversation and thoughtful next steps.     About every other chapter, I would inject, “Wait a minute. That wouldn't work!” And then in the next paragraph, the rookie board member would email my objection to his mentor—and the practical drill-down response would satisfy.  (I may steal this brilliant idea: an entire book of email conversations. It works.)   The emails are segmented into 12 chapters including:  The Corporate Model: A Board Alternative How the Model Is Structured: Intentional Simplicity Assessment and the Model: The CEO Cannot Be Insecure The Model and the Future: The Planning and Resource Committee The Model at Work: The Executive Committee and Its Responsibilities The Model Creates a New Culture: Trust Is the Critical Factor The Model and Commitment: Board Members Must Be Involved Practical charts are included like the five lists detailing the differences between the Corporate Model and the Traditional Model. The last chapter asks, “Is your organization ready for the Corporate Model?” and features 23 pages of very, very practical Q & A.   To order this book from Amazon, click on this title: Policy vs. Paper Clips: How Using the Corporate Model Makes a Nonprofit Board More Efficient & Effective (3rd Edition), by Eugene H. Fram with Vicki Brown. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions: 1) In one email, the rookie board member asks, “We also need more information about how to keep board members truly involved without the ego satisfaction that often comes from dealing with operational issues.”  Have you ever considered that a board member's temptation to micromanage might be related to ego satisfaction? 2) PowerPoint Rules? One email mentions this: “Directors hate [PowerPoint presentations] when they are far too long, the slides are overwhelmingly dense, or they touch on issues tangential to the case being made, or frankly are being used to stifle real dialogue).” The author prefers a limit  of 10 slides. Interesting! Do your board or staff PowerPoints encourage micromanagement and/or stifle dialogue?  ----------------------------------------------------------------------- The Meeting Before the Meeting Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit   If I could add another ball to my Meetings Bucket chapter (20), in Mastering the Management Buckets, it would be this wisdom from John Maxwell: “The secret to a good meeting is the meeting before the meeting.”   The “no surprises” rule is critical for the key people in each meeting—and typically, that means you must meet with them in advance.  Maxwell preaches:  If you can’t have the meeting before the meeting, don’t have the meeting.  If you do have the meeting before the meeting, but it doesn’t go well, don’t have the meeting.  If you have the meeting before the meeting and it goes as well as you hoped, then have the meeting! To read my review of Maxwell's chapter on meetings, click here: Leadership Gold: Lessons I’ve Learned from a Lifetime of Leading. For more resources, plus book recommendations from the Meetings Bucket, click 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 • PODCASTS: John Pearson's Buckets Podcasts  NOTICE! Issues No. 1 to 657 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (2006 to 2025), previously archived on Typepad.com are slowly (!) being moved to this new blogsite: John Pearson's Buckets Blog. ECFA BLOG on “Governance of Christ-centered Organizations”   Add your thoughts to John's latest blog post for boards, "6 Board Dysfunctions" including when the board chair thinks he or she is the CEO's boss.

The Pope & The CEO

 

Issue No. 270 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (Feb. 28, 2013) features a poignant, yet powerful business book about Pope John Paul II, suggested by my friend, Jim Canning (how’s that for great timing?).  Plus, this reminder: check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings.  ----------------------------------------------------------------------- The Pope & The CEO  According to Andreas Widmer, business leader and author of The Pope & The CEO: John Paul II's Leadership Lessons to a Young Swiss Guard, “No cardinal wants to be pope. They know too well what goes into it, what the office demands. The work is endless, the responsibilities bone-crushing. There is no end to it, save death.” Well…until recently! Pope Benedict XVI, the 265th pope, steps down today, Feb. 28, 2013, after eight years as the spiritual leader of 1.2 billion Catholics—and the world now watches as the cardinals gather in their conclave to discern God’s choice for the next pope.   So with that backdrop, I just finished Widmer’s poignant book for CEOs, leaders and managers.  As a young Swiss Guard to the pope, the author observed the back office leadership of Pope John Paul II. Yet later, Widmer failed in business and had to re-learn the simple, but God-honoring papal principles of leadership. It’s a page-turner because the stories are so powerful and practical.    There are nine chapters in this spiritual/business portrait of the Pope who asked Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (Emeritus Pope tomorrow) to join the Vatican team: Know Who You Are, Know God, Know Where You Are and Where You Are Going, Know the Team and five more very contemporary topics.   Until today, this review was pre-written in my mind with killer quotes, arresting lead sentences, and humorous eye-opening stories. My wife, Joanne, genuinely appreciated my “let-me-read-you-another-story” marathon over several evenings.   But…I’m skipping all of that (and might return another issue with a full review)…to share this memorable account from his last chapter, “Live Detachment: Intentional Humility and Poverty.”   Widmer writes, “Over the years, I’ve heard a lot of great stories about John Paul II from friends at the Vatican and others who knew him personally. One of my favorites is this one from Scott Hahn [from his address to the Boston Catholic Men’s conference, March 4, 2006]. I repeat it here, because I can think of no greater testimony to the detachment we’re all called to possess.”   [Note: the following story is verbatim from The Pope & The CEO, pages 136-138.]   During the later years of John Paul II’s papacy, an American priest attended a conference in Rome. On the last day of the conference, he went to a church at midday to pray. As he walked in, he saw the ever-present beggars in front. He stopped, thought he recognized one of them, but dismissed the thought and walked inside. Still, he couldn’t help thinking about that beggar, so on his way out, he approached the man.   “Excuse me,” he said. “Do I know you?”   The man looked away, but answered, “Yes, we went to seminary together and were ordained together in Rome.”   The beggar priest then told the American about how horrific life choices and bad mistakes had poisoned and destroyed his vocation. The priest was devastated, but didn’t know what to say and hurried back to the Vatican.   That afternoon, there was an audience with the pope for all the attendees of the conference. The priest could not resist the temptation. As he approached John Paul, he said, “Holy Father, you have to pray for this priest I just saw.” And he told him the story.   After the audience, the American went back to that parish looking for the homeless priest. When he found him, he said, “The pope is praying for you.”   The beggar just stared at him with a look that said, “Well that’s great…whatever good that’ll do.”   But the priest continued. “That’s not all. The pope and his secretary, Bishop Dziwisz, invited the two of us for dinner tonight.”   The man protested. He was dirty. He had no decent clothes. But the priest persuaded him with an offer of a shower and the loan of one of his own suits. So they went.   The Swiss Guard on duty let them in, and they were ushered up to the apartment where Bishop Dziwisz greeted them. He then led them into the dining room where the pope was already at table.  Everyone exchanged greetings and the first course was served. Then the second course. At the end of the main course, the pope began moving his hand in a motion to Bishop Dziwisz.  The American priest didn’t understand what the gesture meant, but the bishop did. He got up and said to him: “Please come with me for a moment.”   The two left and waited outside. One minute passed, then two, then five, then ten. Finally the bishop seemed to know it was time to go back in. They sat down just in time for dessert.   At the end of the evening, farewells and blessings were exchanged and the two priests walked back down the marble stairs to St. Peter’s Square.  The American priest, however, was dying of curiosity, so as soon as they came out into the open he turned and asked, “What went on in there?”   The beggar said, “You wouldn’t believe it, even if I told you.”   “You have to tell me. Try me!” was the American’s response.   “Well, as soon as you left the room, John Paul turned to me and said ‘Father, would you please hear my confession?’ I said, ‘Holy Father, I’m not a priest, I’m a beggar.’ And the pope responded ‘So am I, I am just a beggar. You are a priest. Once a priest, always a priest.’   “‘But Holy Father,’ I told him, ‘I’m not in right standing with the Church!’   “‘As the bishop of Rome, I can reinstate you here and now,’ was his reply. ‘All you have to do is give me consent.’   “How could I withhold consent from the bishop of Rome?” the beggar concluded.   After hearing the story, the American priest said “But we were out there for more than ten minutes. It couldn’t have taken that long for him to confess his sins?”   “No,” the beggar agreed. “It was over in a couple of minutes. That’s when I dropped to my knees and begged him to hear my confession. And he did. Right before you came back in, he asked me where you found me, and upon my telling him, he asked me to report to the pastor there tomorrow. I’ll be assigned to that church, and my mission will be reaching out to all of our fellow beggars in the neighborhood. Because that’s what all of us are.”   To order this book from Amazon, click on the title for The Pope & The CEO: John Paul II's Leadership Lessons to a Young Swiss Guard, by Andreas Widmer. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions: 1) The beggar story touched me because it embodied a rare CEO quality: humility. Other accounts in this book may touch you differently. What did you learn about John Paul from this story? 2) In the chapter on living a balanced life, the author noted the pope’s zest for the outdoors and sports. When some questioned the cost of installing a swimming pool at the papal summer residence, the pope famously replied, “It’s cheaper than another conclave.”  What did he mean by that? Give People Choices Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit One of the big ideas in Chapter 6, The Program Bucket, in my book, Mastering the Management Buckets, is to give people choices. I call it the “One Cookie or Two Cookies?” principle. The cardinals have over a billion choices in the days ahead!    NOTICE! Issues No. 1 to 657 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (2006 to 2025), previously archived on Typepad.com are slowly (!) being moved to this new blogsite: John Pearson's Buckets Blog.   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 • PODCASTS: John Pearson's Buckets Podcasts  ECFA Blog on “Governance of Christ-centered Organizations”   Add your thoughts to John's latest blog post for boards, "Fast Feedback Tool," and check out the new ECFA Governance Toolbox Series No. 1: Recruiting Board Members (DVD and Viewing Guides).

Wisdom From Lyle Schaller

 

Issue No. 283 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (Aug. 2, 2013) highlights the amazing wisdom from the dean of church consultants, Lyle Schaller, along with his pithy rules for church leadership. Plus, this reminder: check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings.  ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Lyle Schaller Sifted  Over two million copies of books authored by the father of church leadership, Lyle Schaller, have been published since 1965. “The dean of church consultants” has authored or edited 96 books to help pastors, church and denominational leaders, and church board members. (That's not a typo: 96 books!)    Good news! You don't have to read all 96 books to benefit from this storied thinker. Warren Bird, editor and compiler of this jam-packed toolbox, has sifted Schaller's wisdom into just 159 page-turning insights (plus appendices).  My job today: sifting the sifter! Yikes.   Bird is the Director of Research and Intellectual Capital for Leadership Network and has collaboratively authored or co-authored 25 books, including this gem: Wisdom from Lyle E. Schaller: The Elder Statesman of Church Leadership. When I saw the title and the author, I salivated and—trust me—it's a leadership feast you'll devour. Warren Bird says that there are 10 ways Lyle Schaller will change your ministry. Here are just three: “Give you hope that you can be an effective leader and that the best is yet to come for your congregation.” “Help you shift your focus from teaching to learning.” “Expose you to multiple choices for various decisions where you think you have only one or two options.” One leader called Schaller a “precursor to Twitter.” He added, “Schaller could always deliver profound ideas and predictions in 140 characters or less.”    Example: On the question (one of 25 big issue chapters) of “How Do I Build on the Strengths of a Large Church?” Schaller tweets:    “The day of the generalist has been replaced by the demand for specialists.”    “To grow beyond 700 in average worship attendance usually requires a new rule book for a new staff configuration.”    “One facet is the shift from 'doing it' to 'making it happen.'” “More important is the shift  from staffing to perpetuate yesterday to staffing to create new tomorrows.”   The book has two parts. Part One introduces “America's best-known parish consultant,” with insights from Fred Smith, Bob Buford, Carl George, Chuck Smith Jr., Carol Childress, Mark Sweeney and others.   Most readers will jump immediately into the tempting second section that spotlights 25 tough questions, sifted from Schaller's three million words. Most chapters run about five pages and begin with an in-the-trenches story from a pastor helped by Schaller's books or consultations. Examples:    Chapter 5: How Should I Approach My First Year in a Pastorate?    Chapter 6: How Do I Follow a Long-Term Pastor?    Chapter 7: What Are the Most Important Staffing Mistakes to Avoid?    Chapter 12: How Do I Build on the Strengths of a Very Large Church? (story from Rick Warren)    Chapter 16: What Are the Land Mines to Avoid in a Merger?    Chapter 19: What Are the Most Important Strategies for Change?    Chapter 21: How Can Leaders Create Dissatisfaction With the Status Quo?    Chapter 24: What's the Biggest Issue When a Church Thinks About Relocating (story from Randy Pope)    Chapter 25: Should Our Church Become Multisite?    Chapter 29: When Do I Know It's Time to Resign?   Schaller has been called “George Gallup without the numbers.” Others compare him to Peter Drucker. Thankfully, Warren Bird has done the hard work for us—sifting Schaller's wisdom: When changes are made when following a long-term leader, “A common result of this changing of the guard is the creating of the AAOEL group. ...The initials of this informal, ad hoc, unrecognized group stand for alienated, angry, older ex-leaders.” “The first trait you're looking for in staff is character above skill.” “As a general rule, the part-time specialist is more productive and requires less supervision than the full-time generalist.” Make “a distinction between hiring staff to do ministry and choosing staff who focus on challenging, motivating, enlisting, training, placing, nurturing and supporting volunteers.” In my recent review of Rumsfeld’s Rules: Leadership Lessons in Business, Politics, War, and Life, I mentioned that Donald Rumsfeld listed over 400 rules in his 30-page appendix.  By my count, Schaller's work exceeds that number. Here are some of his rules—and they're not just for church leaders. All leaders and managers will learn from his pithy wisdom: “The person who is discontented with the status quo in any institution or organization has five choices.” His fifth option: “Go out and create the new.” “Whoever frames the issues influences how people will respond.” “Planned change always begins with discontent with the status quo."  “Today few pastors can depend on ordination, title, and office as sources of authority. Today authority must be earned . . . by vision, competence, performance, skill, character, knowledge, creativity, hard work, wisdom, productivity, initiative, and verbal skills.” “One of the most difficult tasks in this world is to enlist support for change when everyone is contented with the status quo.”   Bird's easy-reading short chapters feature four succinct sections: The Story, The Sayings, The Summary, The Sources.    Warning! “The Sources” notes prompted me to buy another Schaller book. The summaries are short and sweet: "Wanted: The most serious shortage in our society is for skilled transformational leaders who possess the capability to initiate planned change from within an organization.”   On my Top Books Scale of one to five (5 = most pages underlined), this is a five. Schaller's phraseology is still fresh:  “the awkward-size church” churches that are “too large for the grapevine to be a reliable communication channel”  and for his frequent reminder to churches that “no two are exactly alike,” he adds, “Act your size!” In my first out-of-seminary job in a denominational region, I savored the first and every issue of The Parish Paper, then written by Schaller. I read his early books. Now, with a growing number of local church clients, I'm revisiting Schaller's wisdom again.    I have 50 to 100 more underlined insights from this book—but it's closing time. So here are two options: 1) Read and learn from this book yourself. 2) And/or give it to your pastor or church board members. (They will thank you profusely!)   To order this book from Amazon, click on this title: Wisdom from Lyle E. Schaller: The Elder Statesman of Church Leadership, by Warren Bird. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions: 1) Schaller notes the behaviors of different-sized churches, “likening them to a cat, collie, garden, house, mansion, and ranch.” How would you describe your church—or your organization? 2) SMART Goal Plus: Schaller says that an ideal goal is “specific, attainable, measurable, visible, unifying, and satisfying, with a terminal date and with the opportunity for a celebration of accomplishment at the end.” (That's brilliant—and I've already changed my “SMART Goals” PowerPoints to include the addition of hoopla!) Do your goals meet this criteria? ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Burn the Fuzz Off Your Thinking (and Spelling)! Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit   One of the big ideas in Chapter 19, The Printing Bucket, in Mastering the Management Buckets, is to create a foolproof proofing system for spell-checking your organization's written documents, newsletters, website (and now your tweets and Facebook postings). Why? Look around—there's an epidemic of misspelled words (New York Times, TV news scrolls, and yes...your eNewsletters). Got typos? Then you've got credibility issues.   Example: In the widely distributed “Dear Workforce” weekly newsletter (August 1), the word “transitioning” was misspelled both in the email subject line and in the lead headline. Worse: the website (as of today) still carries the typo! Ironically, one of the newsletter articles was titled, “Creating a Smarter Workforce.” (I collect these examples—and my typo file folder is bulging.)   “I learned to write to burn the fuzz off my thinking,” commented Fred Smith, Sr., in his excellent book, Breakfast With Fred. To learn how to leverage print deadlines to enhance your communications (and proofreading), check out the forms, resources and 10 book recommendations on my Printing 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 • PODCASTS: John Pearson's Buckets Podcasts   NOTICE! Issues No. 1 to 657 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (2006 to 2025), previously archived on Typepad.com are slowly (!) being moved to this new blogsite: John Pearson's Buckets Blog. ECFA BLOG on “Governance of Christ-centered Organizations”   Add your thoughts to John's latest blog post for boards, "The 6 D's: Diligent and Faithful Participant," on six criteria for recruiting board members.

The Temptation to Do Good

 

Issue No. 281 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (July 8, 2013) features a little-known book from  Peter Drucker who said,“We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change. And the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn.” Plus, this reminder: check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings.  ----------------------------------------------------------------------- A Novel Way to Understand Management  It's summer here in the Northern Hemisphere and time to find a book for the beach, the backyard, or the mountains.  One colleague admitted that his spouse complained recently, “Do you need to read so many management books? Can't you read at least one book, just for fun?”    So I loaned him the World War II heart-stopping true story, Operation Mincemeat:  How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory, by Ben Macintyre. (Confession: I titled my review, “Operation Details,” because I also learned a lot about management. Spoiler alert: the Allies won.) But...if your spouse or colleagues think it's time you should read a novel, here's a good one: The Temptation to Do Good.   Since I'm traveling this month (including some R&R), I'm reaching back to Issue 31 (April 2007) to remind you about one of my treasured books, autographed for me by the author, Peter Drucker. His first novel, The Temptation to Do Good, was published in 1984. It’s a great title and a quick read for busy leaders and managers who need a change of pace from the growing pile of must-read books.   Drucker introduces us to Father Heinz Zimmerman, president of a Catholic university.  He faces all of the leadership challenges common to nonprofit CEOs: budgets, donors, staff conflicts, board members, ethical issues and more.  Throw in student and faculty expectations and you’ll appreciate your current organization more—no matter how complex it is!   In this delightful novel (just 152 pages), Drucker addresses this subtle “temptation to do good” syndrome  that gets many religious leaders into trouble.  You’ll enjoy the story and Drucker’s memorable insights. Earlier this year, I added the book to my Top-10 list for My Ideal Bookshelf.   To order this book from Amazon, click on the title for The Temptation to Do Good, by Peter F. Drucker. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions: 1) Why might “the temptation to do good” get you into trouble? 2) Not all life-long learning comes from non-fiction.  Describe a leadership or management insight you received from a novel you’ve read. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- “Take That!” Water Cooler Ammo Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit If colleagues handed over $100 every time they roped you into the “Management versus Leadership” argument, you'd be wealthy.  So for your next round at the water cooler, just hand them the article from Olan Hendrix, "Management That Leads" (referenced in Chapter 17). Olan Hendrix writes,  "Leaders must learn to manage,  and managers must learn to lead.  When we see the two as interdependent we are more apt to improve at the work of getting work done through other people. When we see the two as totally separate we more easily excuse our deficiencies in one or the other and thereby deny ourselves the potential for learning."   Visit my Operations Bucket webpage here and download a PDF of the two-page article.  Hendrix quotes Warren Bennis, “People will do a good job if they are provided with management that leads.”     NOTICE! Issues No. 1 to 657 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (2006 to 2025), previously archived on Typepad.com are slowly (!) being moved to this new blogsite: John Pearson's Buckets Blog. 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 • PODCASTS: John Pearson's Buckets Podcasts  ECFA BLOG on “Governance of Christ-centered Organizations”   Add your thoughts to John's latest blog post for boards, "The 6 D's: Discerning Decision-Maker," on six criteria for recruiting board members. 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).