Posts Tagged ‘leadership’

Elusive Excellence

Posted in Bible Study, leadership, Life and Ministry, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 23, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Everyone is looking for excellence, or at least a lot of people are.  A quick search of books on excellence will demonstrate the ubiquitous desire for this elusive quality.  The books that pop up span the spectrum of milieus.  Personal excellence, business excellence, academic excellence, excellence in sports, excellence in parenting are all represented in even a cursory review.  I have been pondering this topic since I opened a file on it in August of 2019.  I just could never envision the direction that I wanted it to go.  I had an experience that changed that today.

I went to Chic Fil A for lunch.  I have always been professionally impressed with the overall service model that Chic Fil A has developed and even more so that they have maintained (hupomone has a business application too).  Here is what I saw today.  Chic Fil A has been faced with a pandemic just as every other business, organization, school etc. in the world.  Many businesses and organizations have made adaptations in order to continue to operate.  They have also made concessions in quality and service.  They have cut little holes in their paradigm boxes in order to comply or avoid liability.  Others have just given up, not being able to see a way to make their paradigms remotely work.  I am not going to go into the details but what I saw today was an organization that looked at the operational exigencies of a world in pandemic and instead of cutting little holes in their operational paradigm to adapt and comply, accepting the cultural compromises that accompany such efforts, they just blew it up.  They restarted at their core values and said “How can we best express our core values operationally during the pandemic.”  Now I cannot vouch for every Chic Fil A, I have only visited this one recently (unfortunately Chic Fil A does not fit in my current nutritional regimen) but this location’s brand new paradigm is a wonderful expression of excellence in the face of adversity.

The Bible has a lot to say about excellence and being excellent.  The two Greek words that we translate as excellence and excellent (Kalos and Arete) among other things, are used well over 100 times in the New Testament.  Arete carries with it a sense of moral goodness or virtuous thought, feeling or action.  Paul uses this word once in Phillipians,

“Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.” Phillipians 4:8

Paul calls us to “dwell on” or meditate on/think about things that have this quality of moral goodness.  However he doesn’t just leave this quality in the thought realm.  In the very next verse he says,

“The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.” Phillipians 4:9

So we need to dwell on some things, but what things?  Things learned, Things received, things heard and things seen, then these things must become things practiced but it starts with the idea of excellence. Peter uses arete in direct reference to the attributes of God.

“But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR God’s OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;” 1 Peter 2:9

How awesome is that as people set apart by God for His Glory we have the opportunity to proclaim His excellencies! The same qualities that we are called to dwell on and then put into practice. This is why our walk of maturing in Christ never ends. We should always be learning, receiving, hearing and seeing! This is how God works in us.

Peter then echoes Paul’s call for diligence and equates God’s excellence with our own as he summarizes the spiritual process of maturity.

“3 seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. 4 For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust. 5 Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, 6 and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, 7 and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love. 8 For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 2 Peter 1:3-8

Here, Arete meets Hupomone as we are transformed into his likeness and become “neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” How amazing is it that when we apply ourselves to the process diligently, the Holy Spirit honors our commitment and we begin to evince the fruit of the Spirit and and take on the excellence of our Father in Heaven!

So how does all this relate to Chic Fil A? Chic Fil A has anchored the excellence of their brand not in a series of procedures and practices. If this had been the case, as they attempted to adapt to the pandemic they would have clung to their old way of doing things, believing (as many do) that excellence resides in those practices. What I saw in my visit was an organization that understands what is excellent in their industry. They put the customer experience before their operational manual and understood that in this case they didn’t need to make as minimal adaptations to their practices as they could to operate under these conditions. Instead they blew up the manual and took all they had learned, received, heard and seen and molded it into a new thing that pursued true excellence. If you are doing things because it has always been done that way, maybe it is time to stop.

“8 Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. 9 The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.” Philippians 4:8,9

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Seeing the Glass 1: Identifying Cultural Glass Walls

Posted in leadership, Organization, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on December 2, 2020| Leave a Comment »

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Before 0ne can address a glass wall, one must be able to see it. this is no easy task as the cultural design and one of the primary characteristics of this kind of dysfunction is its invisibility. I am going to explore some of the fingerprints that you can find on the glass wall. This is by no means a comprehensive list but it is a place to begin when taking a serious look at cultural barriers to operational success.

  1. Observed behavior contravenes a stated value of the organization.

Value statements have become standard in most organizations. They will be touted in flowery language on web pages, in orientation documents, annual reports, and regular employee meetings. This is perhaps one of the most visible signs of a glass wall in an organization. It is for this reason that it will most often go to great lengths to espouse its “values” at every level. The difficulty can be that organizations that function within their values may appear to do the same. The biggest tell is that the glass wall restricts value communications to being conceptual. Alliterated catch phrases, cool sketches and often long-winded exhortations will regularly lay a conceptual framework for the proposed value system. There is an absence of behavioral meat to the value system and a lack of accountability particularly amongst the leadership. It is almost impossible for an organization to function for any amount of time without this part of the glass wall getting dirty and more visible. This often triggers point 3 as well-meaning leadership realizes the disparity between the stated values and the actual behaviors occurring in the organization. Unfortunately, all of these decisions and actions stem from point 2 and so never actually address the wall.

2. Leadership has an external locus of accountability.

There is a decision side and execution side of every glass wall. This separation results in consistent failure to achieve the stated goals of the decision side. This failure is often not even recognized and is either snuffed under a sudden change in language and goals or mined until some small positive is found that can be heralded as institutional success. The internal double speak that takes place to make this happen is both impressive and saddening. The decision side of the glass wall goes on undeterred and oblivious. However, should a failure penetrate the wall, the culture demands an immediate search for unaccountability. This results in a search for an external locus of control for the event and the institution of a blame game that focuses entirely on the execution side of the wall. It is in this category that anyone who challenges the wall most often finds themselves. In the absence of a scapegoat, or in organizations with a wall that has deep foundations and broad impact, the locus of control and accountability can be set in surrounding circumstances or external influences. This causes the culture to enforce a measure of isolation, and in some pernicious cases, place the blame on the population sector they serve. This lack of real accountability is perhaps the strongest defense mechanism employed by the glass wall.

3. There are regular declarations of a new day in the organization.

This most often happens when circumstances make the glass wall just a little more visible. The culture triggers new language and promises of new behaviors, but it then implements them entirely within the boundaries of the glass wall. The function of this particular exercise is to “Windex” the wall and return it to its invisibility. There will be a conceptual recommitment to the stated organizational values. Value training as stated above will be required of every employee. New alliterations, graphics and catchphrases will abound. Unfortunately, new behavior and accountability will not. In some cases, new leadership will be brought in, or more often promoted from within to supervise the “reset”, “relaunch” or other “re”. There is real intent to change here, but the constrictions of the wall and the strength of culture to hide its own dysfunction, blunt the effort, and channel the energy back into the wall itself. Once the wall has been “Windexed” the organization will sometimes declare success and settle into its routine patterns of behavior. Other times the initiative will simply fade away once the smeary grime is no longer apparent.

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Breaking the Glass

Posted in leadership, Organization, tagged , , , , , , , on November 20, 2020| Leave a Comment »

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I have mentioned in various settings The Glass Wall and it has inspired some inquiries. This is my introduction to the concept. I plan to follow it with some more concrete definitions. This series is more organizationally/business oriented.

In my twenty plus years in the hospitality industry and now decade in the non- profit world I have found that many organization have glass walls. These walls are a function of the culture of the organization and interestingly enough transcend changes in leadership, focus, language and communication. Stakeholders at every level rarely recognize these glass walls and even more rarely challenge them. When they do, they are most often bludgeoned into compliance, dismissed or opt to leave. This costs the organization significant resources but the culture most often flips the script to find this type of turnover liability, as an asset. It is in this kind of internal language and attitudes that the glass part of the glass wall is conceived. It becomes so engrained in the organization that while its members understand the importance of the limits placed on them by the wall, they do not see it for what it is. They also cannot see the organizational failure it breeds as it is shrouded in the strongly regulated and distinctly reinterpreted language of the culture. Significant organizational assets are unknowingly tasked with protecting the glass wall both internally and externally.

Cultural boundaries are a necessity for any organization. So the dysfunction does not necessarily reside in the boundaries, rather in their inflexibility and invisibility. In the next few posts on this subject I will discuss what I have seen as the some of the characteristics of cultural boundaries that constitute a glass wall. The very first step in being able to break the glass, is to be able to see it!

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Leading Culture that Changes the World

Posted in Bible Study, Life and Ministry, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on November 10, 2020| Leave a Comment »

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In three short years Jesus gathered, trained and empowered a group of people who would stand the world on its ear and engender a spiritual revolution that would encompass the globe. It was a development program unequaled in history. I would also suggest that it is a program that not only can be repeated but one that we are called to repeat both as leaders seeking to develop those around us and as seekers looking to have the greatest impact for the Kingdom that we can.  Let’s take a look at four points of  Jesus’ development program.

  1. Lead in God’s timing

I think that in modern western society we are much too often guilty of leading in our timing. We think, “I have got this. After all, I have done this before.” The people of Israel certainly thought so as they eyed up the city of Ai (Joshua 7). The classic financial disclaimer comes to mind, “Past performance may not be indicative of future results”. In this particular case it got a bunch of people killed and what should have been an easy success (and was later) became a morale crushing defeat.

Jesus is the eternal son of God. He was the son God throughout his time on earth and continues to be the son of God for eternity. Yet He waited 33 years before he started His earthly ministry and before he started the development process that would forever change the world. He repeatedly deferred to the Father’s timing and in doing so taught His disciples to do the same. This obedience to the Holy Spirit empowered the New Testament church to “turn the world upside down” (Acts 17:6)

2. Lead in lifestyle

The Bible tells us very little about His childhood, but I think we can reasonably look at his lifestyle habits throughout his ministry and extrapolate that they did not arise in a vacuum. I believe that Jesus spent that 33 years carefully establishing an earthly lifestyle that maximized his relationship with the Father and prepared him for the empowering of the Holy Spirit that would be the highlight of his ministry and the sacrifice that would be the fulfillment of His purpose on earth. The blend of Holy Spirit inspired action with times of solitude and prayer are the result of careful personal cultivation. Lifestyle is street level development. This was the purpose of the 33 years. Jesus developed the lifestyle so that he could impart it to his followers. This is an area so severely lacking in today’s leadership.  Lifestyle leadership is rarely discussed and often dismissed. The personal life of our leaders is too often considered irrelevant or simply ignored .  Paul spends considerable time in his letters both to churches and leaders talking about the necessity of lifestyle leadership.

3. Lead in the small things

John tells us the story of Christ’s first miracle. It was not an incredible life changing healing. He did not raise someone from the dead or cast out a demon. Jesus fulfilled a simple (for him) request from his mother. Actually, it wasn’t even really a request. She (as mothers will do) simply pointed out the situation. “They have no wine” (John 2:3) and then set the stage for obedience. This was the first recorded lesson for Jesus’ new followers and here is the kicker, Jesus wasn’t the teacher, Mary was. We too often view development as telling people what to do, when to do it and how to do it. Mary does none of these things. She simply puts truth on the table and then sets up the mode for obedience. “Whatever he says to you, do it.” We too often want to raise the dead and heal the sick when there is a wedding that needs saving. We can put the event even more in perspective when we look at the end of the story. “the headwaiter called the bridegroom, and said to him, ‘ Every man serves the good wine first, and when the people have drunk freely, then he serves the poorer wine; but you have kept the good wine until now'” Jesus did not even get the credit. It is likely that Peter was there for this event. I can only imagine his reaction to this lack of recognition for his rabbi.  I am not sure that this was a lesson learned.  However, it would be repeated.

4.  Lead in the big things

In chapter 8 of his Gospel, the Apostle John tells us the story of the woman caught in adultery.  Jesus took a night of respite after a particularly acrimonious round of dispute with the Temple authorities, retreating to the Mount of Olives for the night.  However in the morning he again appeared in the Temple courts and as usual the people gathered around this man who spoke with such authority.  This morning the Pharisees and teachers in the Temple space laid a trap for him involving a woman they had caught in adultery.  This was a life and death matter under the Law.  This was a big thing. 

They had failed to trap Jesus with a web of little things in their disputes, so they brought out the big gun.  The fact that John notes that it was in fact a trap may well indicate that there was something going on here not readily apparent to you and me.  Jesus’ response also probably has significance beyond what the text states as he quietly drew in the sand.  I have heard many sermons on different theories about what Jesus drew but that is neither here nor there for our discussion. 

When faced with the big trap, Jesus led in a big way.  “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”  I imagine she quickly scanned the crowd wondering if any of them had the hubris to heft a stone.  “At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there.”  Jesus had a big answer for the Pharisee’s big trap.  While it saved one woman’s life it taught an even bigger lesson to his followers.  When the law meets grace, grace wins. “Woman, where are they?  Has no one condemned you?”  “No one, sir,” she said.  “Then neither do I condemn you.” Jesus declared, “Go now and leave your life of sin.”  John quotes Jesus later in this chapter, “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”  While Jesus did not need this assurance we have it. Lead in the big things and guess what if you screw up, its ok because when the law meets grace, grace wins.

Timing, lifestyle, small things, big things, when the people of God follow Jesus the world turns upside down and grace wins.

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