John Pearson's Buckets Blog

Readers Recommend: My Ideal Bookshelf

Thanks to Greg Anderson for posting his Top-10. He added more details on his Facebook page. I especially like his Chasing Francis pick.


Thanks to Paul Thompson for his excellent bookshelf! Delighted to see that he holds high the art of spelling. Three cheers for the Printing Bucket!

Paul Thompson's Ideal Bookshelf

Congrats to Ken Sutterfield for being the first to submit his ideal bookshelf. One favorite, he says, is missing (out on loan and out-of-print): Managing Our Work, by John Alexander (IVP). That's one of my favorites also. I found a used copy on Amazon in 2009.

Ken Sutterfield's Ideal Bookshelf

ECFA Governance Toolbox 2: Balancing Board Roles

Issue No. 276 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting says there is a 30-minute fix to solve the confusion over the three board hats: Governance, Volunteer and Participant. Plus, this reminder: check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings.

Board Dysfunction X 11.3 Million!

Peter Drucker, the father of modern management, famously said: “There is one thing all boards have in common. They do not function.”

Google “board dysfunction” and you’ll hit the jackpot with 11.3 million results! So why is dysfunction so rampant on church boards, nonprofit boards and company boards?

One reason is the confusion over the three board hats: Governance, Volunteer and Participant.

In the hot-off-the-press ECFA Governance Toolbox Series No. 2: Balancing Board Roles, the short DVD and the Board Member Read-and-Engage Viewing Guide makes this obvious, but seldom practiced point:

     “If you need a board member—recruit a board member.
     If you need a volunteer—recruit a volunteer.”

The 20-page viewing guide (12 per toolbox) includes a board self-assessment tool for each hat—a perfect resource for your next board meeting.

Agree or Disagree?

The Governance Hat:
• “We invite spiritually discerning and governance-savvy people to consider board service—but we don’t propose marriage on the first date!”
• “In our organizational annual planning process, we seek to hear God’s voice and spiritually discern His direction. We also ‘own the strategy.’”

The Volunteer Hat:
• “We are crystal clear—when recruiting new board members—that the Volunteer Hat is optional for board members and volunteer service must be passion-based, and aligned with a volunteer’s spiritual gifts, strengths and ‘social style.’”
• We have written board policies and/or protocols that carefully define the reporting relationship for board members when they volunteer in the organization. (Read: The Imperfect Board Member, by Jim Brown)
• During a board meeting, when a zealous board member inappropriately brings a Volunteer Hat situation or problem to the table, our board chair graciously moves the discussion back to the agenda and true Governance Hat topics.

The Participant Hat
“Board members should be informed, up front, of the organization’s realistic expectations regarding attendance at ministry events (graduations, walk-a-thons, annual celebrations, etc.). Effective boards leverage a Board Member Annual Affirmation Statement, a document signed annually by both new and current members that spells out the specifics for all three hats. This annual affirmation also adds rich meaning to the spiritual calling of board service and inspires high commitment.”

This second-in-a-series toolbox from ECFA includes online access to helpful templates, including the annual affirmation statement, plus other resources. 

The “View-Inspire-Engage” toolbox includes the 11-minute DVD, 12 Board Member Read-and-Engage Viewing Guides, and a Facilitator Guide with just-in-time help to engage your board on this fork-in-the-road core competency.  The Facilitator Guide provides three discussion options:
   Option 1: 15-30 minute board discussion
   Option 2: 30-60 minute discussion
   Option 3: Board Retreat (or a 2-hour session)

Referencing the ten basic responsibilities of nonprofit boards from BoardSource, this ECFA resource will enrich a board member’s understanding of the additional stewardship requirements of Christ-centered boards, especially noting the difference between decision-making and spiritual discernment (how do boards hear from God?).

In the book, Stewards of a Sacred Trust: CEO Selection, Transition and Development for Boards of Christ-centered Organizations, David L. McKenna writes,

“When asked what they would do differently, retired CEOs most often say, ‘I would give more time to developing the board.’”

So how much time does your organization invest in developing and enriching the work of your board?

I had the privilege of writing the video script and viewing guide content for Series No. 1 and No. 2 in the ECFA Governance Toolbox Series. So I know you’ll appreciate the brevity and real life chuckles for the “In the Trenches Board Stories” vignettes. Series No. 2 includes the humorous episode, “The Day We Pushed Frank Out the Door…and Off the Board,” which spotlights the solution when a board member has high passion for the Volunteer Hat and zero passion for the Governance Hat.

If your board tends to have fuzzy distinctions between the three hats, then this could be the most cost-effective investment in your board this year. This resource will help your board members focus their limited time on their highest priority: Governance.  As Peter Drucker reminds us:
     “Time is the scarcest resource 
     and unless it is managed
     nothing else can be managed.”

To order this toolbox from ECFA, click on the title: ECFA Governance Toolbox Series No. 2: Balancing Board Roles – Understanding the 3 Board Hats: Governance, Volunteer, Participant.


Click here to read my review of Series No. 1: Recruiting Board Members – Leveraging the 4 Phases of Board Recruitment: Cultivation, Recruitment, Orientation, Engagement.

Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) In the Governance Hat discussion, the toolbox quotes Jim Brown, author of The Imperfect Board Member, who writes, “Boards don’t need to hear how busy the CEO is—they need to hear about results.” What does our board measure? Are we activity-driven or results-driven? Do we measure spiritual impact?
2) The toolbox quotes Ram Charan, “With the right composition, a board can create value; with the wrong or inappropriate composition, it can easily destroy value.” Really? How could our board destroy value here?


 Sustaining Motivation: A By-Product - Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit

This issue’s big idea from Mastering the Management Buckets, (Chapter 12, The Volunteer Bucket) is to think differently about what motivates a volunteer.

Al Newell, co-founder of High Impact Volunteer Ministry Development, says if you pursue discipleship, then motivation will follow. He writes:

“Sustaining motivation is better understood as a by-product as opposed to a goal of itself. It is my experience that if you pursue discipleship with volunteers, motivation will follow. If volunteers see the fulfillment of their role as ‘obeying and serving God’ rather than serving you or your organization it will cause motivation to swell.”

Before you copy, steal or misappropriate all the secular tips, tricks and manipulations for motivating volunteers, just take a breath, read your Bible, and then discern what is really at the heart of volunteer service. It could be a fork-in-the-road paradigm shift for your organization!

Visit the Volunteer Bucket webpage for free downloads and more resources.

 

 

John's Ideal Bookshelf

My Ideal Bookshelf - Part 2

In my book review of My Ideal Bookshelf, I asked, “So what’s on your ideal bookshelf?”

Today I’m posting the 10 books on my ideal bookshelf:


Cathy and Carl Captured, by Dorothy Johnston
I received this book in third grade at Elim Baptist Church, Seattle, with this inscription: “To John Pearson for doing very good work in his Sunday School class during the last quarter of 1955. Teacher – Ray Hendrickson”

At an impressionable age, the Lord used this book and the story about the Oregon Trail missionaries, Narcissa and Marcus Whitman (also a physician), to nudge me about serving in Christian ministry. I treasure this first edition, published by Scripture Press.

The Temptation to Do Good: A Novel, by Peter F. Drucker
Bob Buford and Fred Smith invited me to one of my Top-10 life experiences—sitting at the feet of Peter Drucker for four days in Estes Park, Colo., with 30 other Christian leaders in August 1986.  He signed and gave me this book as a gift. One of my 20 management buckets is the Drucker Bucket.

Strengths Based Leadership: Great Leaders, Teams, and Why People Follow, by Tom Rath and Barry Conchie

“While the best leaders are not well-rounded, the best teams are.”

I encourage clients constantly to leverage the 3 Powerful S’s: Strengths, Social Styles and Spiritual Gifts.  This StrengthsFinder book categorizes the Gallup Organization’s 34 talent themes/strengths into four major categories: Executing, Relationship Building, Influencing and Strategic Thinking. It is transformational for many teams and boards.

The Messiah: An Oratorio, by George Frideric Handel
Handel wrote this enduring Christmas oratorio in 1741 in just 24 days. It’s on my ideal bookshelf because in 1984 I bought the score (252 pages, $5.95) and joined the bass section for the “Do-It-Yourself Messiah” at the Norris Cultural Arts Center auditorium in St. Charles, Ill.  Once a very part-time church choir director in my college years, I am still deeply moved by good music and God-honoring lyrics. The Hallelujah chorus, of course, is on my iTunes list.

The Delicate Art of Dancing With Porcupines: Learning to Appreciate the Finer Points of Others, by Bob Phillips

The social styles system was (and still is) a game-changer for me. Understanding the four styles (Analytical, Driver, Amiable and Expressive) has enhanced my people skills by at least 500 percent.  I’m a Driver—and any decision is better than no decision. But I need to be versatile (a key social styles concept) with my wife, Joanne, an Analytical who believes that no decision is better than the wrong decision.

Author Bob Phillips and I learned social styles from Don German. Bob has since written several updated versions of social styles with new titles. Don was gracious enough to write “The People Bucket” chapter in my book, Mastering the Management Buckets. (There...I cleverly worked my own book in.)

15 Minutes Including Q & A: A Plan to Save the World From Lousy Presentations, by Joey Asher

I read this on a plane enroute to a speaking engagement in 2011. I immediately and dramatically changed my presentation style from that point on, following the author’s wisdom on handling audience questions. Buy an extra copy for your pastor!

The One Year Bible (The Living Bible)

The Living Bible breathed new life into my Bible reading, but for a Driver like me, the One Year Bible launched a holy habit in 1988 that was both deeply satisfying and wonderfully invigorating.  Copied now by almost every Bible publisher, the folks at Tyndale House Publishers gave us a profound tool with the easy-to-use format of an Old Testament portion, a New Testament portion, a Psalm, and one or more Proverbs every day—thus reading through the entire Bible in a year.

Here is the Proverbs selection for today, April 20: “A person with good sense is respected; a treacherous person is headed for destruction. Wise people think before they act; fools don’t—and even brag about their foolishness.” (13:15-16)

Owning Up: The 14 Questions Every Board Member Needs to Ask, by Ram Charan

About half of my consulting work is in nonprofit board governance and Charan’s book is one of my favorites in this arena. Most boards are soft on Question #5: “Does the board own the strategy?”

Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership: Seeking God in the Crucible of Ministry, by Ruth Haley Barton

This was my 2009 book-of-the-year and I reviewed it again in 2010 to keep it on everyone’s front burner. I’ve seen only a handful of books that God has used to dramatically change the game. This is one of them.

She writes about spiritually discerning God’s voice: “It is also important to involve the right people. One very common leadership mistake is to think that we can take a group of undiscerning individuals and expect them to show up in a leadership setting and all of a sudden become discerning!”

A Diary of Private Prayer: A Devotional Classic, by John Baillie

Where do I start? I received this deeply encouraging devotional book in 1988 and rarely missed reading the 31 morning prayers, one per day, for 12 years until it was stolen, along with my laptop. (Maybe the thief is reading it now?)

On the blank facing page to each prayer, I had recorded my travels by date and location, U.S. and worldwide. Combined with the poignant prayers by this Scottish Presbyterian professor, my road warrior diary was both nostalgic and meaningful.

I bought my replacement prayer book in 2000—a hardback this time—and use it infrequently now (so it doesn’t get stale), but I’ve given dozens away to appreciative friends.

So…that’s my Top-10 list. What’s on your ideal bookshelf?

INVITATION: EMAIL ME YOUR IDEAL BOOKSHELF! 
Email me a photo of your ideal bookshelf and I’ll post it on this blog. Or, if you prefer, post your photo directly on my Facebook page.

 

 

 

My Ideal Bookshelf

Issue No. 275 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting urges you to set aside your iPhones and iPads and enjoy a tactile browsing experience with a spectacular coffee table book—and then email me a photo of your “ideal bookshelf.” Plus, this reminder: check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings.

*My Ideal Bookshelf

What a brilliant idea!

And how will you leverage this idea with your team at work, your family and friends, your small group and your social media followers?

The co-creators of My Ideal Bookshelf have served up a unique coffee table book that, at least momentarily, is more compelling than YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest.

The idea: invite over 100 leading cultural figures “to share the books that matter to them most; books that define their dreams and ambitions and in many cases helped them find their way in the world.”

So, for example, Malcolm Gladwell, author of Outliers, The Tipping Point and other books, shares 12 books that have influenced him.  His next book is about crime, so he acquired 150 books on the subject.

Gladwell writes, “I haven’t read them all, and I won’t. Some of them I’ll just look at. But that’s the fun part. It’s an excuse to go on Amazon. The problem is, of course, that eventually you have to stop yourself.  Otherwise you’ll collect books forever. But these books are markers for ideas that I’m interested in. That’s why it’s so important to have physical books.
     "When I see my bookshelf expanding,
     it gives me the illusion
     that my brain is expanding, too.”

Across the page from Gladwell’s book journey commentary is an original painting of his ideal bookshelf—showcasing the book spines creatively sorted by color and size. Amazingly, artist Jane Mount created 100 original paintings for this impressive work.

You cannot resist browsing this book! Hmmm. I wonder what’s on Atul Gawande’s bookshelf? Have I read any of his favorites?

Another writer, Andrew Sean Greer, confesses that he steals ideas from other books and “I have finally forgiven myself for not reading everything in the entire world.”

A chef and writer, Gabrielle Hamilton (one of the few to include a Bible, the King James Version), writes, “I think all of these books give the reader permission to break the rules.” Then referencing Jackson Pollock and e.e. cummings, she adds, “You can’t start out using all lowercase letters and no punctuation. You have to know all the rules first. Then you can play.”

Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage, by Alfred Lansing, was one of pro skateboarder Tony Hawk’s picks. His theme—the importance of perseverance.

An illustrator and artist, Oliver Jeffers, opens his profile with this: “I picked all of these books because I think you should always judge a book by its cover—or its spine, in this case.”

With a nod to high tech, Nico Mulhy, a classical music composer, showcases his iPad favorites on an iBook screen, painted sparingly with low tech brushes.

The mega writer James Patterson crammed 18 picks onto his ideal bookshelf. His profile enlightened: “For better or worse, I get right into the story. It’s like that rule of real estate, ‘Location, location, location,’ except for me it’s ‘Story, story, story.’ I think it’d be disastrous if everyone wrote the way I do. But I think it’s good that somebody does.”

The challenge was too overwhelming for Francine Prose, a writer, to pick her ideal bookshelf because “there are a gazillion bookshelves in my house.” So she picked her all-Chekhov shelf. That was interesting, but more so her commentary about the difference between short-story writers and novelists (and baggy writing). “But then I remember that Chekhov wrote six hundred stories. And that he died at the young age of forty-four. David Gates asked this about Charles Dickens, but you could ask it about Chekhov, too: ‘Was he a Martian?’ He was not from this planet.”

“Sometimes I meet ministers, and I always say to them,” writes David Sedaris (a writer),
      “’If I had a church,
     I’d read a Tobias Wolff story every week,
     and then I’d say to people, “Go home.”’ 

There’s nothing else you would need to say. Every story is a manual on how to be a good person, but without ever being preachy. They’re deeply moral stories; the best of them read like parables.”

I bought My Ideal Bookshelf when it was published last November and I’ve savored this morsel, page-by-page, over many insightful evenings. Some closing thoughts:
   • I love books and I’m in good company.
   • Whew! I’ve hardly read anything! Where did I miss that one?
   • What fun—to inspire others to read with such a visually-pleasing invitation to browse 100 bookshelves.

So what’s on your ideal bookshelf? The graphic on the last page invites you to fill in the titles of 10 books you can’t live without.

*The photo at the top of this blog showcases my ideal bookshelf. It’s not prescriptive for you, nor will my Top-10 remain the same a year from now. It was fun to stage the photo (Thanks, Jason!). I’m already remorseful about 10 other books I ignored. (Sorry, friends!)

If you’re interested, I’ve posted short summaries of my 10 picks here.

INVITATION: EMAIL ME YOUR IDEAL BOOKSHELF! 
Email me a photo of your ideal bookshelf and I’ll post it on my blog. Or, if you prefer, post the photo directly on my Facebook page.

To order this book from Amazon, click on the graphic below for My Ideal Bookshelf, by Thessaly La Force (editor) and Jane Mount (illustrator).

Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) What 10 books would be on your ideal bookshelf—and why?
2) What book, besides the Bible, has made an indelible mark on you—and why?



A Dollar’s Worth of Ministry - Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit

Obviously, I could not include my Buckets book on my Top-10 list, because when I asked Jeff Lilley several years ago what important books he had read, he recommended Humility, by Andrew Murray. (It’s powerful!)

But this issue’s big idea from Mastering the Management Buckets, (Chapter 11, The Donor Bucket) is to mentor givers on the Bible’s value system regarding money and possessions.

When I served at Willow Creek Association, Bill Hybels would often ask a rhetorical question at leadership conferences, “How much ministry can you do for one dollar?”

Pastors thought it was a trick question and they would often shout out interesting, and often humorous responses.  Hybels’ simple answer: “With one dollar, you can do one dollar’s worth of ministry.” His point: you need lots of dollars to do lots of ministry.

Olan Hendrix, a management mentor to me and the first president of ECFA, famously wrote:
     “Where there is no vision, the people perish.
     Where there is no plan, the vision perishes.
     Where there is no money, the plan perishes.”

Your organization or church needs money, so check out the books and resources on the Donor Bucket webpage.

 

The Leader's Palette

Issue No. 274 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting introduces a brand new book with a warning about celebrity leadership. It’s convicting.  Plus, this reminder: check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings.


This Palette Will Preach!

Really? Do we need another book on leadership?

Absolutely! Life-long learners/leaders have insatiable appetites for books that help them grow—like this one, The Leader’s Palette: Seven Primary Colors.

Author Ralph Enlow says “we inflict harm upon ourselves and havoc upon God’s people when we overestimate the degree of our giftedness.” Ouch!

The author, president of the Association for Biblical Higher Education, skillfully builds his case by describing a piano-playing friend. While this play-by-ear artist performs impromptu piano concerts, he doesn’t read music. Though gifted, he has not through “disciplined study and diligent practice, acquired the technical knowledge, mastered the skills, and developed the proficiencies associated with musical greatness.”

Here’s the convicting big idea: “I think a lot of leaders are like my piano player friend. They may be gifted, but they have neglected to master their art. They are proficient in only one or two leadership ‘keys’—or colors, to use the metaphor I have chosen for this book.”

He adds, “They refuse to listen and learn. In short, they rely on their giftedness which, in some cases is quite prodigious, but fail to acquire and hone to their fullest capacity the full spectrum of dispositions and skills available to them as leaders.”

So what happens? “...their leadership does not result in the fullness of beauty and shalom God had in mind when he gifted and called them to lead. In some cases, they wreak organizational havoc and inflict personal injury upon those for whom they have been given charge. In other cases, they and their followers simply writhe in drudgery, dissipation or despair.”

So with this attention-getting metaphor of seven primary colors in the leader’s palette, Enlow delivers 128 pages (none of them needless filler) with a comprehensive discussion of how to paint (lead) with a full palette that includes:
   • Incarnational Leadership
   • Relational Leadership
   • Developmental Leadership
   • Directional Leadership
   • Ecological Leadership
   • Situational Leadership
   • Doxological Leadership

I especially appreciated his insights on Ecological Leadership (“cultivating a wholesome organizational climate”) and Doxological Leadership (“moving people toward God and moving people into step with God”)—stunning labels!

This book is perfect for coaching and mentoring, personal renewal, and staff meeting enrichment. Arresting PowerPoint slides jump off almost every page:
   • “You can’t make up in training what you lack in selection.”
   •  “Leaders ignore culture at their peril.”
   • “The responsibility of every godly leader is to resist the subtle temptations to convert their credibility into celebrity.”

“Plan sparingly,” Enlow counsels. “Plans also fail because they are too bulky. Good planning is participatory. Especially at the operational level, it should flow up from the grass roots. It requires the input of all major stakeholders and systems.” And then he adds this kicker:

“But good planning is not the accumulation of everyone’s aspirations. Ultimately, a plan represents the elimination of options.”

I am recommending this extraordinary book to all of my clients. It under-promises and over-delivers with leadership wisdom and practical takeaways.

The warning in the last chapter on Doxological Leadership is poster-worthy for every leader’s morning look-in-the-mirror:

“Celebrity will seduce you before you know it. If you have to self-promote in order to get the opportunities you seek, you are selling out. Your capacity to move people toward God will be slowly supplanted by your ambition.”

Read this with a pen (or a paint brush). You’ll leverage the insights often from this powerful and well-researched masterwork on leadership—and this palette will preach!

Enlow reminds us, “Pretty much any of us can recognize the difference between painting by numbers and true art.” Ditto true leadership!

To order this book from Amazon, click on the graphic below for The Leader’s Palette: Seven Primary Colors, by Ralph E. Enlow, Jr.

Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) In his chapter on the primary color of Developmental Leadership, the author writes, “Developmental leaders latch onto every teachable moment.” On our team, who wins the Starbucks card today because they’re good at “latching”?
2) Enlow quotes a friend, “There is a difference between 20 years of experience and one year of experience 20 times. Experience is not the best teacher after all. Experience reflected upon is the best teacher.” Does our organization take time to reflect and learn from our experiences?

Sleuth for Success - Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit

Some leaders rarely paint with Hoopla! colors so one of the big ideas in Chapter 10, The Hoopla! Bucket, in my book, Mastering the Management Buckets, is to have more fun—and leverage affirmation and celebration.

The Carrot Principle: How the Best Managers Use Recognition to Engage Their People, Retain Talent, and Accelerate Performance features 125 recognition ideas. Here’s Number 34: “Each day, spend ten minutes looking for someone doing something that furthers your company’s goals. When you find it, recognize the person on the spot.”

To order The Carrot Principle or for more resources and books on affirmation and celebration, visit the Hoopla! Bucket webpage.

P.S. If you'll be at CLA Anaheim 2013, April 30 - May 2, join Wes Willmer and me for "Inspiring Board Members to Model Generous Giving," and join David Curry and me for a unique workshop on "Bad Idea: Management By Bestseller," both on Thursday, May 2. Details.

 

How to Delegate (CD)

Issue No. 273 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting highlights a remarkable audio CD on effective delegation. (Alert! Your team has both readers and listeners—so bless your listeners this week.) Plus, this reminder: check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings.

You May Be Seriously Overpaid!

Alec Mackenzie, the time management guru, has an Effective Delegation Quiz for you—and if you fail the quiz—he says you may be seriously overpaid!

Ten Delegation Questions:
1. Do you take work home regularly?
2. Do you work longer hours than your subordinates?
3. Do you spend time doing for others what they could be doing for themselves?
4. When you return from an absence from the office, do you find the in-basket too full?
5. Are you still handling activities and problems you had before your last promotion?
6. Are you often interrupted with queries or requests on on-going projects or assignments?
7. Do you spend time on routine details that others could handle?
8. Do you like to keep a finger in every pie?
9. Do you rush to meet deadlines?
10. Are you unable to keep on top of your priorities?

How many questions were YES?
0 to 1: You are an excellent delegator!
2 to 4: You can improve.
5 to 6: You have a serious delegation problem.
7 to 10: You are undoubtedly doing much of your subordinates’ work and may be seriously overpaid!

39 Minutes of Delegation Wisdom!  Scratch the agenda for your next staff or department meeting, order the pizza, and treat your team to this delicious delegation masterpiece!  Alex Mackenzie’s 39-minute audio CD, How to Delegate, will revolutionize your leadership and (honest) could transform your team’s professional development. And…your morale will skyrocket.

Those are bold claims, but I’ve listened to this CD twice recently—and I’ll listen to it again yet this year. Like last issue’s book, The Decision Maker, this resource is also a gut check. Mackenzie explains why:

• “Fifty percent of the tasks littering the desks of most managers today could have been delegated in the first place to someone else.”
• “The person who cannot delegate, cannot manage.”
          “Management and delegation
             are virtually synonymous.”
• “Somehow executives at the top live in a dream world of their own. They are convinced that the success of that organization is because of what they are doing, not in spite of it.”
• “Decisions should always be made at the lowest possible level.”

Author of The Time Trap: The Classic Book on Time Management, Alec Mackenzie was also co-author with Ted W. Engstrom of Managing Your Time.  Not every author has the chops to write and speak persuasively—and change your thinking in just 39 minutes. Mackenzie does.

In this hold-your-attention audio interview format, Mackenzie addresses the common barriers to delegation, such as confusion about priorities and what he calls “the destruction of morale,” where leaders must use authority instead of persuasion. When that happens, all loyalty to the organization and the leader is sadly lost.

• If you’re not delegating, your people are not learning anything and they will never progress.
• The failure to delegate destroys the atmosphere of confidence in your team.
• The symptoms of “broken morale” include blaming the messenger and fear about delivering bad news to the boss.
• “Never hide an elephant!”

As we discussed in the review of The Decision Maker (which is a revolutionary approach to delegation), perhaps the most powerful tool for developing people is to delegate decision-making to them.

This 39-minute pleasantly paced mixture of stories and problem-solving principles will challenge even the best note-taker.  You’ll snicker at the senior leader in the 30,000-employee organization that brought his boss a 57-item agenda!  The boss was working 70 hours a week—and Mackenzie’s decision matrix system saved his career.

Mackenzie warns that team members will pay lip service to obeisance, but when the decisions have already been made higher up, you’ll only get concession and acquiescence, never commitment.

But isn’t it risky to push decision-making down? “Of course it’s risky,” Mackenzie laughs, “that’s the whole idea!” You want boat-rockers and mistake-makers in your organization. “Only dead fish float down stream,” he responds.

Look for opportunities to affirm people who make mistakes. If someone announces, “I haven’t made a mistake that I can think of in the past month,” then ask about the last six months.
          Still no mistakes?
             Then “fire him,”
            pleads Mackenzie!

Another story will raise your eyebrows! Mackenzie salutes a division manager of the world’s largest sugar company, a primo delegator, who made just four or five decisions a year. His direct reports were so well coached that when the division head slipped into inappropriate decision-making, his people would call him on it!

Mackenzie’s insights on the sin of “reverse delegation” are eye-opening. (We’ve all been victims, right?)  Like the business leader who accepted the helm of a government agency with 500,000 employees.  He kept a rubber stamp at his desk which he used frequently on incoming low-level stuff, returning it with:
           “WHY ARE YOU
        SENDING THIS TO ME?”

And…the leader who regularly rejected reverse delegation by quietly pointing to the framed acronym (DBMP-BMA) on his wall, short for “Don’t bring me problems, bring me answers.”
              DBMP-BMA

The hero syndrome discussion might also sting: “Managers have perfected the art of massaging problems into crises so they can move in on a regular basis and be a hero.”

This CD is so convicting, Mackenzie could have given an altar call and invited fumbling delegators to come forward for confession. He wraps it up with an eight-point delegation checklist including: “Give clear, complete instructions. Never delegate with a mumble!” and “Select, train, and develop competent staff. Don’t select people for the present job, but select them for the future,” what you'll need from them in 3 to 5 years.

To order this 39-minute CD from Amazon, click on the graphic below for How to Delegate, by Alec Mackenzie.

Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) Mackenzie preaches, “Do nothing that you can delegate.” But…what if you don’t have anyone to delegate to? Any ideas? (Hint: read the Delegation Bucket chapter in my book.)
2) The #1 time-waster, says Mackenzie, is a lack of objectives, priorities and planning. Pop Quiz! Everyone stand and answer this question: “What is your supervisor’s #1 S.M.A.R.T. goal for this year? Extra credit: List our CEO’s Top-5 Annual S.M.A.R.T. goals.

Delegate to Strengths! Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit

Speaking of delegation, one of the big ideas in Chapter 9, The Team Bucket, in my book, Mastering the Management Buckets, is to delegate to strengths.

The Gallup Organization’s StrengthsFinder assessment identifies your Top-5 strengths (out of 34 talent themes).  So how would you delegate to a person whose top strength is CONTEXT? (This person “looks back because that is where the answers lie.”) 

How would you delegate (and bless) a team member whose top strength is ANALYTICAL? (“Prove it. Show me why what you are claiming is true.”)

For more resources and books on leveraging your team’s strengths (with an eye toward effective delegation), visit the Team Bucket webpage. And for resources on delegation, including the brilliant Ken Blanchard book, The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey, visit the Delegation Bucket webpage.

 

 

The Decision Maker

Issue No. 272 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting says enough with hogging all the fun at your shop! To engage your team, you must become a decision-maker organization. Here’s my review of Dennis Bakke’s latest book, out this month. Plus, this reminder: check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings.

Gut Check for Decision Makers

Dennis Bakke has a gut check for you.

The bestselling author of Joy at Work: A Revolutionary Approach to Fun on the Job, Bakke has some counter-intuitive counsel for you. Maybe, just maybe, you should push decision-making farther down into your organization because the people closest to the situation are the best informed and have the most at stake. 

Bakke, the co-founder of Imagine Schools and the former president/CEO and co-founder of AES (27,000 people in 27 countries, a Fortune 200 global power company) admits: “Early on, I would sometimes ask others for advice, but I would make the final decision. Isn’t that what leaders are supposed to do?”

He adds, “I soon realized that the more decisions I made, the less engaged others became, and the less ownership they had in the results."
           "The problem was me.”

“The problem was me” is not a common tweet from the boardroom or the lunchroom. So in Bakke’s second book, published this month, he leverages the leadership fable genre to recommend a management solution in very, very practical terms. The Decision Maker: Unlock the Potential of Everyone in Your Organization One Decision at a Time is dangerous reading—because it may dramatically change your culture.

The action explodes in the first paragraph. Tom and Jim, new partners of a medical device company, dash to the manufacturing floor to inspect a critical piece of equipment. “The machine wasn’t just broken. It seemed to have been obliterated.”

Whether you’re in manufacturing or ministry, we all have days like this. Some of us thrive on chaos, others immediately surf online job listings. But you’ll be shocked at how Tom and Jim address their next steps—arguing over and then gulping and gutting it out as they agree on a new approach to decision-making. It’s a page-turner and it’s a culture-changer.

Bakke preaches a radical approach to decision-making.  He says that in a decision-making company:
   • the leader chooses someone to make a key decision
   • the decision-maker seeks advice (including from the leader) to gather information
   • the final decision is made not by the leader, but by the chosen decision-maker.

He believes that all of us can make good decisions. “So this story is not just for people who currently lead organizations. It’s for managers at any level who want to unlock the full potential of the people around them.”

The story, if you’re gutsy enough to read it, will convince you that “decision-making is simply the best way in the world to develop people.”

First, read the graphic slides on pages 200-211. They summarize the heart of a decision-making organization and highlight our current problems with decision-making; the results of those problems; and articulate the truth that people [made in the image of God] are “unique, creative thinkers, capable of learning, and up for a challenge.”

The summary slides (also available online) describe “The Decision Maker Process” in detail, how to choose a decision-maker (proximity, perspective, experience, wisdom), and the advice process.  “In a decision-making culture, the decision-maker makes the final call but must ask for advice. Deciding who to get advice from can influence a successful outcome.”

These back-of-the-book pages also include the benefits of the advice process with this wisdom: “Everyone becomes more engaged. People feel more ownership when their advice is sought.” (Preach it!)

So…what would happen if your shop became a decision-making organization? What would happen if you created a “joy at work” culture where others had the fun of making decisions? Are you gutsy enough to at least buy the book and delegate your reading (along with a Starbucks card) to a key team member?

To order this book from Amazon, click on the graphic below for The Decision Maker: Unlock the Potential of Everyone in Your Organization One Decision at a Time, by Dennis Bakke.

Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) Bakke writes that accountability is key. “After the decision is made, the decision-maker follows through by communicating and measuring the results of the decision.”  On a scale of 1 to 5 (5 is excellent), how would you rate the accountability culture in our organization?
2) The author says that “many organizations seek to control behavior through top-down leadership that enforces procedures and rules. But people aren’t machines.”  What’s the down-side of “top-down” organizations, departments and teams?

No-Hogging Cultures! - Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit

Speaking of your workplace culture, one of the big ideas in Chapter 8, The Culture Bucket, in my book, Mastering the Management Buckets, is to invite those who don’t live your core values (including managers who hog the decision-making) to exit. 

Here’s the Culture Bucket core competency: “We strive to create a corporate culture with core values that are crystal clear. We yearn for a God-honoring workplace where grace and trust are alive and well. Because we are human we will always have relational conflicts, so we are zealots about resolving conflict early. We invite those who won’t live out our values to exit. We experience true joy at work.”

For more resources and books on creating core values and a God-honoring culture, visit the Culture Bucket webpage. For a brilliant article on core values, by Patrick Lencioni, click here.

ECFA GOVERNANCE BLOG. Share this link with colleagues and friends who serve on nonprofit boards. My latest blog is "Board Input Versus Board Output."

 

 

 

We Have a Pope (DVD)

Issue No. 271 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting 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 movie trailer and/or order this DVD (or the Amazon Instant Video) from Amazon, click on the graphic below for We Have a Pope (Habemus Papam), directed by Nanni Moretti. (Note: While it has a “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) Play along with me here.  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!)

P.S. For insight to pass along to your board members, read my blog,"The Meeting Before the Meeting," at the ECFA Governance blog.

 

 

The Pope & The CEO

Issue No. 270 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting features a poignant, yet powerful business book about Pope John 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, stepped down 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 (now Emeritus Pope) 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 graphic below 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!

 

 

What Got You Here Won’t Get You There

Issue No. 269 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting highlights a bestseller with 20 workplace habits you need to break. (Before you order it for your boss—look in the mirror yourself.) Plus, this reminder: check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings.

Behavioral Tics and Tweaks

Good News: a client gave me this week’s book.  Bad News: a client gave me this week’s book.

Whew!  This is one powerful, convicting book. Bestselling author Marshall Goldsmith says there are 20 workplace habits you need to break. He quotes Peter Drucker:
“We spend a lot of time teaching leaders what to do. We don’t spend enough time teaching leaders what to stop. Half the leaders I have met don’t need to learn what to do. They need to learn what to stop.”

Goldsmith agrees and then asks, “When was the last retreat or training session you attended that was titled, Stupid Things Our Top People Do That We Need to Stop Doing Now?”

Mega-Warning!  The author—called the World’s #1 Leadership Thinker (pretty good branding)—says the problem for leaders is “not deep-seated neuroses that require years of therapy or tons of medication to erase. More often than not, they are simple behavioral tics—bad habits that we repeat dozens of times a day in the workplace—which can be cured by (a) pointing them out, (b) showing the havoc they cause among the people surrounding us, and (c) demonstrating that with a slight behavioral tweak we can achieve a much more appealing effect.”

Perceptively, Goldsmith identifies co-workers, bosses, volunteers and board members you know: “people who do one annoying thing repeatedly on the job—and don’t realize that this small flaw may sabotage their otherwise golden career.  And, worse, they do not realize that (a) it’s happening and (b) they can fix it.”

But here’s his asteroid-size attention-getter: smart, successful people are pitifully blind to their own tics. (If you agree, then insert your own Big Gulp here.)

The author says that the faulty behavior that messes up the workplace (and your home) is not due to flaws of skill, intelligence or personality. “What we’re dealing with here are challenges in interpersonal behavior, often leadership behavior. They are the
     egregious everyday annoyances
that make your workplace substantially more noxious than it needs to be.  They don’t happen in a vacuum. They are transactional flaws performed by one person against others.”

The 20 Workplace Habits You Need to Break include:
#1. Winning too much.
#2. Adding too much value: The overwhelming desire to add our two cents to every discussion.
#3. Passing judgment.
#5. Starting with “No,” But,” or “However”: The overuse of these negative qualifiers which secretly says to everyone, “I’m right. You’re wrong.”
#9. Withholding information: The refusal to share information in order to maintain an advantage over others.
#12. Making excuses: The need to reposition our annoying behavior as a permanent fixture so people excuse us for it.
#14. Playing favorites.
#16. Not listening: The most passive-aggressive form of disrespect for colleagues.
#18. Punishing the messenger.
#20. An excessive need to be “me”: Exalting our faults as virtues simply because they’re who we are.

There are another 10—equally convicting for some of us.  But here’s the good news: Goldsmith says that these faults are simple to correct. Yet there’s bad news:
     “The higher you go [in your career],
     the more your problems are behavioral.”

If you’re gutsy enough to read this, you will not get to page 223 unscathed. If you read with a pen, like I do, you’ll have few unmarked pages. As a bonus along the way, the leadership wisdom oozes out:
   • Why not listening sends an “Armada of Negative Messages” (page 86) and three things all good listeners do (page 147). Goldsmith says “80 percent of our success in learning from other people is based upon how well we listen.”
   • The seven phases of a project and why projects fail because we erroneously practice “one, two, three, seven.” Don’t skip Phase 5: woo laterally to get buy-in from peers (page 144).
   • One big reminder about people styles: “You are not managing you” (page 208).
   • Why the most successful CEOs and senior leaders often have the best personal assistants (page 196).
   • Why people’s common sense gets fuzzy and opaque—when you’re talking about interpersonal behavior, and why leaders often choose the wrong thing to fix (the easy one, not the glaring one). See Goldsmith’s seven rules on the change process, including “Rule 1: You Might Not Have a Disease That Behavioral Change Can Cure” (chapter 13).
   • Why you must say “Thank You” when receiving requested feedback—and then stop. Say no more. Nada! (Chapter 11: Following Up and Chapter 12: Practicing Feedforward)

I don’t know how I missed this gem-of-a-book, first published in 2007, but I’m very, very grateful to Gordon Flinn at Simpson University for this treasured gift.  It has already improved my conversations when my wife, Joanne, offers a kind tweak for one of my many tics. I’m learning to respond, “Thank you.” Period.

As a Christ-follower, I have one caveat to the book. There is a spiritual dimension missing, as is common in many business/leadership books. For the Christian, behavioral change is a mandate, but we’re not dependent on only bootstrap discipline and frank feedback. Made in the image of God, we can understand and implement real change only from a theological, biblical worldview. It’s not either/or, it’s both. (If I could thoughtfully integrate the practicality of this book with the deep spiritual context of the business book I’m reviewing in my next issue, then, wow, that would be the perfect balance. Stay tuned!)

Two additional notes: First, Chapter 12, Special Challenges for People in Charge, encourages leaders to write a document: “Memo to Staff: How to Handle Me.” If written with humility and transparency, it’s a brilliant, brilliant tool.

Second, the appendix features a “Global Leadership Inventory” that can be used as a 360-feedback assessment. Respondents are asked to rate their leaders on a five-point scale from Highly Satisfied to Highly Dissatisfied. (Example: #44: “Asks people what he/she can do to improve.”) This is worth the price of the book.

To order from Amazon, click on the graphic for What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: Discover the 20 Workplace Habits You Need to Break, by Marshall Goldsmith with Mark Reiter.

Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) The author says that a “minor” workplace foible can become a major crisis. Why? “More often than not, it’s because people’s inner compass of correct behavior has gone out of whack—and they become clueless about their position among their coworkers.” So…if all of us are somewhat clueless, what should we do?
2) Goldsmith lists a 21st behavioral issue by giving “Goal Obsession” its own chapter. Goal obsession is “…not a flaw. It’s a creator of flaws. It’s the force that distorts our otherwise exemplary talents and good intentions, turning them into something we no longer admire.” Why might that be?

 
Management by Bestseller - Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit

One of the big ideas in Chapter 5, The Book Bucket, in my book, Mastering the Management Buckets, is to avoid management by bestseller.  I first heard the phrase, “management by bestseller,” over coffee at Starbucks with Scott Vandeventer. 

Scott nailed it.  He commented, “Too many leaders frolic from fad to fad, taking otherwise good ideas and making programs out of them, for as long as their attention span can handle it, without ever getting to their core values and their own unique business model or value proposition.”

To drill deeper, join David Curry and me at CLA Anaheim 2013, April 30-May 2, for the workshop, Bad Idea: Management by Bestseller. For more help and to download “Worksheet #5.1: Your Top-100 Books List,” visit the Book Bucket on my Management Buckets website.