Six Hours One Friday

 

Issue No. 601 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (March 29, 2024) suggests an Easter Weekend book from Max Lucado, who says he “writes books for people who don’t read books.” Plus, click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets.   This Easter weekend, I'm rereading Max Lucado's book, Six Hours One Friday. This gem is in my "WHAM! Bucket" (a new category today!).   WHAM! “You make mistakes. God doesn’t.” Occasionally…you discover a book that interrupts your routine page-turning. Wham! More than three decades ago, I was about half-way through the book, Inside Out, by Larry Crabb (1944-2021)—and it stopped me in my tracks. Wham! I closed the book—stunned. I’ll never forget that moment. (Last Sunday, I mentioned this to our granddaughter, Emelia, and I gave her my book. In God’s timing, I hope she’ll read it.) Max Lucado is another “Wham!” author. During Easter Week in 1990, I read this prolific author’s fourth book. His capacity to flesh out and fresh out insights that touch both my heart and my mind—extraordinary! Six Hours One Friday:  Living the Power of the Cross by Max Lucado This Easter weekend, I’m rereading Six Hours One Friday. Here’s a holy taste: “Those six hours were no normal six hours. They were the most critical hours in history. For during those six hours on that Friday, God embedded in the earth three anchor points sturdy enough to withstand any hurricane. “ANCHOR POINT #1—My life is not futile. This rock secures the hull of your heart. Its sole function is to give you something which you can grip when facing the surging tides of futility and relativism. It’s a firm grasp on the conviction that there is truth. Someone is in control and I have a purpose. “ANCHOR POINT #2—My failures are not final. It’s not that he loves what you did, but he loves who you are. You are his. The one who has the right to condemn you provided the way to acquit you. You make mistakes. God doesn’t. And he made you. “ANCHOR POINT #3—My death is not final. There is one more stone to which you should tie. It’s large. It’s round. And it’s heavy. It blocked the door of a grave. It wasn’t big enough, though. The tomb that it sealed was the tomb of a transient. He only went in to prove he could come out. And on the way out he took the stone with him and turned it into an anchor point." Max Lucado adds, “He dropped it deep into the uncharted waters of death. Tie to his rock and the typhoon of the tomb becomes a spring breeze on Easter Sunday.” This profound book—with heart-touching stories of his family and memorable pastoral moments—connects three anchor points of the cross with our everyday obstacles: Futility, Failure, and Finality. Wham! Wham! Wham! (This outline will preach!) WHAM! “…if you ever want to know how to conduct yourself at a funeral, don’t look to Jesus for an example. He interrupted each one he ever attended.” WHAM! “Has it been a while since you let God surprise you? It’s easy to reach the point where we have God figured out.” WHAM! “Had the centurion not said it, the soldiers would have. Had the centurion not said it, the rocks would have—as would have the angels, the stars, even the demons. But he did say it. It fell to a nameless foreigner to state what they all knew. ’Surely this man was the Son of God.’”   To order from Amazon, click on the title for Six Hours One Friday: Living the Power of the Cross, by Max Lucado. Listen on Libro (3 hours, 54 minutes).     YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS: 1) Ready for a deep dive into the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection? Read the new book, On the Resurrection, Volume 1: Evidences, from the noted apologetics professor, Gary R. Habermas. (Warning! The book is 1,072 pages!) Prefer something shorter? Read my short review of Is God Real? by Lee Strobel. QUESTION: What book “WHAMMED” you recently? 2) Max Lucado has written more than 40 books including: Fearless: Imagine Your Life Without Fear and Cure for the Common Life. QUESTION: What books have you read more than once—and why?        Mastering 100 Must-Read Books Part 13: In Search of Global Perspectives Book #71 of 100: Myself and Other More Important Matters For your team meeting this week, inspire a team member to lead your “10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning” session by featuring Book #71 in Mastering 100 Must-Read Books.  Myself and Other More Important Matters by Charles Handy Books #71 through #76 spotlight six fascinating looks at diverse cultures—in search of global perspectives. You’ll be shocked—and educated—when you discover that Britain had no books on management in the 1950s (none). And no business schools until Charles Handy co-founded the London Business School in 1967 (after a year at MIT’s Sloan). “Business…was long seen by the British as a lower status occupation, definitely inferior to the armed services.”     • Read my review.     • Order from Amazon: Myself and Other More Important Matters     • Download the 100 Must-Read Books list (from John and Jason Pearson). While paradigm-changing concepts like the shamrock organization, the sigmoid curve, “doughnuts,” and the “portfolio worker” elevated Charles Handy to management guru status, his humility is remarkable. He said that Peter Drucker “once quipped that journalists only came up with the word [guru] because ‘charlatan’ was too long for a headline.” Handy has written 20 books, including his classics Understanding Organizations, The Future of Work, Gods of Management, The Age of Unreason, and The Hungry Spirit. While this book is autobiographical, his professor/consultant bent pops out on every page.   CLICK HERE FOR BOOKS BY JOHN           Visit The Shroud of Turin: An Immersive Experience (Garden Grove, Calif.)   Read my "review" of visiting this extraordinary museum. 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. 4 CONFESSIONS Confession! Sadly, I had never read a book on neurodiversity until last week. I urge you to inspire someone in your organization to read The Neurodiversity Edge: The Essential Guide to Embracing Autism, ADHD, Dyslexia, and Other Neurological Differences for Any Organization, by Maureen Dunne. Read my review.

Mistakes That Worked

 

Issue No. 669 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (Jan. 9, 2026) spotlights several dozen inventions that resulted from big mistakes! (Think chocolate chip cookies and Frisbees!) Plus, click here for recent issues posted at the NEW site for John Pearson’s Buckets Blog, including my year-end “Top-10 Books of 2025 and Book-of-the-Year.” Also, check out the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and more book reviews at the Pails in Comparison Blog.   Fix Your Boring Staff Meetings! One of my favorite college professors, Talmage Wilson (1926-2006), once shared a funny story with our class at SPU. He and his wife, Doris (a physician) had served as missionaries in several African countries. At a retreat for fellow missionaries, the mission’s leader had asked Prof. Wilson to lead an inspirational seminar. Underwhelmed by previous presentations that often put seminar participants to sleep, Wilson distributed his one-page handout: a black-and-white outline of the face of Jesus. Crayons were placed at the seminar tables and the assignment was given: “Reflect and meditate on Jesus for the next 30 minutes—and use your favorite colors to complete the drawing.” Oh…to have been in that seminar room and hear the reactions of the participants! My take-away from Prof. Wilson: don’t be afraid to try something creative. Make a memory.  Now, as I think back over the years of my boring seminar presentations, I should have (I could have) been much more creative. (Ditto at weekly staff meetings.) Thus…I’m urging you to do a cannonball into the deep end of the creativity pool—and inspire your team with a surprisingly fun book: Mistakes That Worked:  The World's Familiar Inventions and How They Came to Be by Charlotte Foltz Jones (Oct. 11, 2016) If I were still a CEO, here’s how I would facilitate my next weekly staff meeting: STEP 1. Order three books and gift them to the three most creative team members. Assignment: Each person will pick one “mistake that worked” (an invention that documents how we can learn from mistake-making). Prepare a five-minute presentation on the mistake/invention—and then facilitate a five-minute “What can we learn from this?” Q&A. (You’ll receive a Starbucks gift card if you finish in 10 minutes or less.) STEP 2. Definitely…serve some fun food! Chapter 1, “Favorite Foods,” features a dozen “mistakes” that brought us these favorites: chocolate chip cookies, Coca-Cola, doughnut holes, fudge, ice cream cones, popsicles, potato chips, sandwiches, tea, and more! (Note: Here’s just one of dozens of fun factoids in the book: On Sept. 7, 1975, a church in Davenport, Iowa, landed in the Guinness Book of World Records for creating a 5,750-pound “iced lollipop on a stick.”) STEP 3. At future weekly staff meetings, assign one person to present the five-minute summary and facilitate the five-minute Q&A discussion. Extra credit if they include a “show-and-tell” of the actual “mistake/invention.” The book showcases several dozen memorable innovations:    • The Frisbee. Let’s meet at the 2026 United States Disc Golf Championship!     • Ivory Soap. Honest! The “soap that floats” was named by Harley Procter (as in Procter & Gamble) “while listening to a Bible reading at church one morning in 1879.”    • Paper Towels. This reminded me of the market segmentation discussion on Bounty Paper Towels in the brilliant book, Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works, by A.G. Lafley (former CEO of P&G) and Roger L. Martin. (Read my review.)    • Many More! Team members can showcase their favorite piggy banks, Levi’s jeans, Slinky toys, and Silly Putty! The Big Idea for Life-long Learning: We’ll make mistakes—so let’s learn from them. Something good may pop out like VELCRO, Post-it Notes, or even seeing eye dogs or trouser cuffs! Note: Plan something special on February 11—National Inventors Day. If you live close to Washington, D.C., plan a team-building day at the National Inventors Hall of Fame Museum in Alexandria, Virginia. Or visit the National Inventors Hall of Fame in North Canton, Ohio. Details. LOL! According to the author, in 1875 the director of the U.S. Patent Office “quit his job and suggested that his department be closed. There was nothing left to invent, he insisted.” Apparently, not true! For fun, visit the California Invention Convention on April 18, 2026, or the U.S. nationals at The Henry Ford in Dearborn, Mich., June 3-5, 2026.   PICTURE THIS! I’ve listed two editions of this book below. My favorite color illustrations are from Book Option #2. The illustration for VELCRO features a hilarious color drawing of a cowboy on a bucking horse—riding “hands-free” on a VELCRO saddle! Page 73 spotlights a wedding ceremony with the bride and groom (an Englishman is the trend-setter who “invented” trouser cuffs). The scene with the officiating clergyman: LOL! And...Amazon says this book is perfect for ages 8 to 11. (It's also perfect for ages 18 to 80!) COLORING SHEETS! And speaking of crayons and learning, you’ll appreciate this creative workbook from our son, Jason Pearson, REBRAND: Workbook + Coloring Sheets for Ministry Branding. Read my review and note Jason’s take on the four social styles.  AND BY THE WAY—speaking of popsicles and boring staff meetings—the Heath brothers urge you to create extraordinary moments on a team member’s first day on the job instead of the opposite: “Imagine if you treated a first date like a new employee.” That’s from my 2017 book-of-the-year, The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact, by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. (Read my review.) And since we mention popsicles above, the Heath brothers explain why the Magic Castle Hotel in Los Angeles does this: “Let’s start with a cherry-red phone mounted to a wall near the pool. You pick it up and someone answers, ‘Hello, Popsicle Hotline.’" NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION: No more boring weekly staff meetings! Amen? Need more help? See Death by Meeting and Thinkpak: A Brainstorming Card Deck. And should leaders talk less in staff meetings? Learn why this author only talks five percent of the time. TO ORDER FROM AMAZON, OPTION #1: Mistakes That Worked: The World's Familiar Inventions and How They Came to Be, by Charlotte Foltz Jones and John O'Brien (Illustrator) – (Hardcover, black & white illustrations, Oct. 11, 2016). OPTION #2: Mistakes That Worked: 40 Familiar Inventions & How They Came to Be, by Charlotte Foltz Jones and John O'Brien (Illustrator) - (Paperback, color illustrations, May 1, 1994). And thanks to Paul Fleischmann, author of Better Together, who gifted this mistakes book to me! He was also influential in recommending my 2025 book-of-the-year. (Thanks, Paul!)   YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS: 1) “Boring is criminal” is the attention-grabbing graphic, attributed to Steve McKee, in Jason Pearson’s “coloring book,” Rebrand. Rate our recent weekly staff meetings on a 10-point scale from Criminally Boring (1) to Informative & Inspiring (10). 2) Mastering Mistake-Making: My 25 Memorable Mistakes—and What I Learned, a workbook by John Pearson, includes a two-page “Do-It-Yourself Mistake-Maker” template that can be photocopied for your next weekly staff meeting. Think of a big mistake you made earlier in your career and then recommend a book you should have read earlier.       SECOND READS: Fresh Solutions From Classic Books You have changed—and your problems have changed—since you read this the first time! Book #37 of 99: Operation Mincemeat For your team meeting this week, inspire a team member to lead your “10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning” session by featuring Book #37 of 99 in our series, “Second Reads.” The big idea: REREAD TO LEAD! Discover how your favorite books still have more to teach you and the people you’re coaching and mentoring.   Operation Mincemeat:  How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan  Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory by Ben Macintyre (April 5, 2011) My review highlighted a remarkable book on the zillion of details involved in one of the greatest war ruses of all time. It’s filled with leadership lessons and why missing even the smallest details can literally kill you.    • Reviewed in Issues No. 195 & 387 (Sept. 7, 2010; June 6, 2018)    • Read my review on Amazon.    • Order from Amazon.    • Management Bucket #17 of 20: The Operations Bucket    • Note: Operation Mincemeat (the movie) was released in 2022. I titled my review “Operation Details,” and it’s an amazing true story of a war machine bureaucracy that—due to detailed planning—gets it done. Unlike any spy novel I’ve ever read, the details and insights are extraordinary. The small team in London (about 20 men and women and just five typewriters in a stuffy underground office) executed the plan with spy movie genius.  Along the way, the leadership and management issues jump off the pages, including how to recognize the twin sins of “wishfulness” and “yesmanship.” For detail-oriented people (who bless others by mastering the Operations Bucket and the Systems Bucket) this true account will not disappoint. CLICK HERE FOR BOOKS BY JOHN      Mistake #5 of 8: “Obsessing Over Programs & Not Owning the Strategy.” Read more in the new workbook, The 8 Big Mistakes to Avoid With Your Nonprofit Board—and answer the 14 questions every board member needs to ask, including, “Does our board own the strategy?” (See page 56.) This is the NEW location for John Pearson's Buckets Blog. Slowly (!), the previous 650+ blogs posted (between 2006 and 2025) will gradually populate this blogsite, along with new book reviews each month. BOARD RETREAT  MISTAKES! More than 300 board governance blogs by John Pearson are archived at ECFA’s Governance of Christ-Centered Organizations Blog. To read “10 Mistakes to Avoid at Your Next Board Retreat (Part 1 of 2)," 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 Read at Least 1 Mistake Book Every Year! On the Pails in Comparison blog, check out my list of 16 mistake-making books, including Mistakes Leaders Make, by Dave Kraft, and why King Saul “could very well be the poster child for mistakes leaders make.” Inspire your staff and board to read at least one “mistake” book every year. Extra credit: read two! (Watch for more “mistake” books on the Pails in Comparison blog.)