LeadershipConneXtions

Bottlenecks

Bottlenecks are a fact of life.

Bottlenecks are one of the big reasons why we don't make as much progress as we would like to.

A bottleneck is "anything" in life that narrows and constricts and restricts movement.

Many years ago we would go down to the Outer Banks for summer vacations. We had a great time. The drive back home was a different story. There was a bottleneck getting off the Outer Banks at the bridge. Everyone was trying to leave at the same time and traffic would back up for a long way.  Even worse was when we would get just south of Washington D.C. where the four lane highway (each way for a total of eight lanes) would shrink down to two lanes (each way) going across a bridge. Traffic backed up for miles. And one year, they were doing construction on the bridge and only one lane was open heading north . . . traffic backed up to Richmond (slight exaggeration). I was driving a "problem" car back by myself and I sat for long hours at that bottleneck.

Bottlenecks are everywhere. They slow us down. They hinder us in our forward movement. Sometimes we just come to a dead stop because of them.

We have bottlenecks in manufacturing processes, delivery systems, obtaining information, decision making processes, team dynamics, anything you can think of.

Here is a helpful exercise: 

• What are your bottlenecks? 
• Where do you slow down? 
• When do you find yourself stuck and waiting? 
• And what can you do about those bottlenecks?

Brian Rice

Leadership ConneXtions International

Opportunity and Being Prepared

Here is a great quote from Peter Drucker.

"Opportunity favors the prepared mind."

Opportunity is often calling on us and knocking on our door. But we are not ready to receive visitors. To be ready when opportunity comes knocking, here are some suggestions:

Hold many things loosely and travel lightly through the world, it is easier to respond and go when you don't have much holding you down or back.

Pray constantly. Keep your faith strong and your hopes high.  Practice vital optimism as a way of life.

Keep your eyes open and look up.  

Be curious. Explore. Follow "some" rabbit trails. 

Meet new people, try new things, go new places, have new experiences... Who knows what will happen when you do this!

Ask "why not?" instead of "why?"  That changes your entire mindset.

Keep on navigating the tension of hastiness and cautiousness. Neither hasty or cautious are the best for opportunity. Readiness is the way.

Don't be afraid to go looking for opportunity. Sometimes opportunity is shy and demure.

Trust your gut (at least some of the time). 

Have one or two close, trusted, wise friends/councilors you can quickly float options and ideas past

Hey . . . can you hear it?  It sounds like someone is knocking on your door. Go answer it.

Brian Rice

Leadership ConneXtions International

The Knowing - Doing Gap

Knowing what do to and why we should do it is often not the problem.

Lack of information and a deficit of good ideas is usually not the issue we have to deal with.

We have knowledge in abundance. Information abounds in ways as never before. And our access to information is at an all time high.

I think one of our "gaps," and one of Grand Canyon proportion is the gap between what we know and what we do (or how we live).

If you are a regular reader of this blogsite, this is nothing new. In fact, it is a frequent theme. I was pleasantly surprised to read a review of a business book on his exact topic by the title:

The Knowing - Doing Gap.

One of the questions raised in the book was simply - why does this gap exist? Authors Pfeffer and Sutton give several reasons for the gap. Here are a few of their answers to this question.

(1)  Pointless communication! By this they mean we give out information poorly. We give out too much information. We give it out in boring, non-memorable and non-useful ways. We have lengthy planning documents that no one cares about. 

(2)  History and tradition about how we have done things in the past can easily offset new ideas from being implemented and with our follow-through efforts. The old ways overwhelm the new information and it is aborted and not birthed into reality. Especially in the area of past success does this happen.

(3)  Naysayers. These are the critics, the complainers, the fault-finders, the doom-proclaimers, the prophets of woe (you get the picture) and their loud voices dissuade us from following through with a good idea. 

(4)  Fear of the future, fear of looking bad, fear of failure, fear of other consequences can immobilize us. So we sit with the information, paralyzed, unable to act on the knowledge.

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I would add one more.

(5)  It is easier to hear than to do. It is easier to know than to act. This has always been true and it was addressed by Jesus and by James.

To act, to change, to live differently, to perform in new ways is a greater task than to simply receive new information. It is easy for me to learn something new. I do this every day. But to implement it in my life so it becomes a part of who I am - now that is a very different and difficult matter.  

Brian Rice

Leadership ConneXtions International

Creating Experiences

We all know that we live in an era and cultural time where Experiences are crucial. Today's customer and consumer is interested in finding, buying, obtaining, and enjoying experiences. Some of the hottest products these days are "experiences."

So, we leaders are in the business of creating, producing, and providing experiences. For those of us who work in the realm of the church and mission, we would be naive to think "we are not in that business." Of course we are.

Spiritual experiences . . .

God experiences . . . 

Learning experiences . . .

And so on . . .

The church of modernity was in the information distribution business. We designed sermons, adult education, Children's ministries, curriculum, etc. to provide information. 

The church of postmodernity is in the experience business. There is nothing wrong with this. In fact, I think it is a big improvement over modernity's excessive rationalism. 

The Pentecostal and Charismatic churches were more focused on experiences that were emotionally rich, whereas the evangelical and fundamentalist churches, who were more skeptical if not hostile about emotions, focused on informing the mind with teaching.

Experience is more holistic and integrative of the entire person than information reception. Experience is (usually) much more participatory.

We just need to think carefully and pray wisely as we design the right kind of experiences that will be spiritually authentic, genuinely transformative and in the service of biblically defined outcomes. 

Experience for the sake of experience is not our goal... but great experiences in the service of the Great Commandment and the Great Commission and the fullness of maturity in Christ - that is our goal.

And remember that spiritual experiences that are not biblically rooted can be dangerous and even deadly.

Brian Rice

Leadership ConneXtions International

Don't Look at Christians . . . Look at Jesus (Who Came Up With That One?)

"Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the Feast. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request.'

"Sir", they said, "we would like to see Jesus."  (John 12:20-21)

I've said it before.

I've heard it said so many times.

I know why we say it.

In some ways . . . it kinda, sorta, maybe makes sense.

And yet it is utterly wrong and as far from what the Scripture says, as it can be.

Don't Look at Christians . . . Look at Jesus.

That sounds spiritual, pious, like a good thing. After all Jesus is the perfect son of God, full of love and truth, full of grace, the sacrificing servant, the brilliant debater, story-teller, teacher, and so on. And Christians, well, we are a pretty sad lot. Full of sin, hypocrisy, character flaws, suspicious political agendas, sad in-house squabbling and arguments . . . did I mention we have a few quirks as well.  

A friend of mine talks about "Stupid Christian Tricks."  (Good one Dan...). The Door has no end of material to poke fun at Christians. Why would anyone want to decide to become a Christian by looking at Christians? "So don't," the line of reasoning goes, "instead, look at Jesus."

Here is what I think the Bible (and Jesus in the Bible) teaches us instead.

Look at Jesus by looking at Christians.

(or)

Look at Christians so you can see what Jesus is like.

Here is my reasoning for this.

Paul talks about the imitation of Christ and challenges his readers to be about the work of that imitation. (See Ephesians 5:1 and 1 Thessalonians 1:6)

We are being recreated in the image of God. That image and likeness is being restored in us. There is a reconfiguring, a reforming, a restoring of Christ-likeness in us. It is the essence of being a Christian. (See Colossians 3:10)

By the way, let's not overlook the obvious. We are "Christ"ians. (Maybe that is why we like to call ourselves Methodists, Lutherans, pentecostals, evangelicals, fundamentalists . . . It is easier to look like that than to look like Jesus. (See Acts 11:26)

We are the body of Christ and the body is inseparably joined to the head. 

A disciple, by definition, is one who is like the master. A disciple is one who learns from the master, imitates the master, and represents the master.

The same is true for the word ambassador. The ambassador is an extension of the one who sent him/her (2 Corinthians 5:20). Jesus says in John 20:21 that he has sent us out into the world in the same way the Father has sent him. Like Father like Son and now like our Elder Brother Christ, we the sons and daughters of God are sent out to do his work.

God is love, Jesus is love, and that love is the fundamental descriptor and definer of our reordered lives.

God is light. Jesus is the light of the world. We are to let our light (really His light) shine.

Peter even dares to say, we participate in the nature of God.  (See 1 Peter 1:4)

Think godliness and holiness are qualities of the Christian life. Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect. Be holy as I am holy, says the Lord. (Matthew 5:48;  1 Peter 1:16)

Maybe it is time we wake up and realize that . . .

They Will Only See Jesus as They See Jesus in His People.

Let's not blow off our responsibility by passing the buck back to Jesus to represent Himself.

Let's be about the radical and wonderful work of transformation, in ourseleves and in those to whom we minister, to the glory of God.

Let's do this for all those who are saying, 

"We would like to see Jesus."

Brian Rice

Leadership  ConneXtions International

Women in Leadership: Some Interesting Studies

I thought a very good chapter in Ruth Tucker's book, Leadership Reconsidered, was the one that looked at the issue of woman in leadership. Most of the thoughts I have here are launched out of her thoughts, and the studies I list are directly lifted from her book (page 113-114).  Get the book if you want more good stuff.

Is there a difference between the way men and women lead? I'm not sure that is even a good question? Mainly because it may be very overly simplified. 

This is the same simplification that is involved in wondering - is there a female personality and a male personality?  Well the answer is NO. Personality is much more nuanced and complicated than gender. Gender may influence personality, but it is not the only influence, nor is it the decisive influence. Personality is much more varied than two types. 

If you are familiar with the DISC profile and the 16+ main personality variations, you know what I mean. As I have worked with women over the years, I have found women scattered all across those 16+ variations. 

If you are familiar with the MBTI and the diversity of options, you know that women fall into all the possibilities. The one category where women are very likely to fall is the F (feeling) category and men are much more regular in the T (thinking) category. For the other spectrums (extroversion - introversion;  sensing - intuition;  judging - perceiving) there is no real statistical difference. 

I believe the same is true for leadership. There is a wide variety of leadership giftings, strengths, styles, skills, roles and responsibility preferences. The way of leadership is very diverse and the possible leadership profiles are all over the map.

Now, (on the other hand) it is possible that woman may be stronger than men in some of the styles, strengths and skills. And, in fact, that is what some of the studies seem to clearly show. Here is a list of studies provided by Ruth Tucker that come from Jim Collins (not the Good to Great Jim Collins) about how men and women compare as leaders.

The Hagberg Consulting Group study. This consulting group examined evaluations of 425 high-level executives.  Each leader was evaluated by 25 people. The women executives scored higher ratings on 42 of the 52 skills measured.

The Personnel Decisions International study. This consulting firm examined 25,000 managers. It gave the women the advantage in 20 of 23 areas.

The Lawrence A. Pfaff and Associates study. This one examined 2482 executives and found that women outperformed men on 17 of the 20 measures.

The Management Research Group study. This one compared male and female managers at the same firms, with similar jobs, at the same management level, with the same amount of experience. 1,800 supervisors were evaluated on 22 management skills. The women outranked the men on half of the skills.

The Janet Irwin study. This study had 6,400 respondents. Women ranked higher than men on 28 of the 31 measures.

I think this is pretty interesting. On the skills measured, the women leaders did pretty good and, to be blunt, significantly outperformed the men leaders. 

To the women leaders who read this blog-site: I hope this post encourages you. Your leadership is valuable and your leadership is needed.

To the male leaders who read this blog-site:  I hope this post enlightens you (if you need it).

Brian "a definitely male, but sadly deficient leader" Rice

Leadership ConneXtions International

Developing Leaders in the Ukraine (Tim Adour)

On June 16-21 Tim Adour was in Paltava, Ukraine conducting a leadership seminar for Ukrainian and Russian leaders.  Each day 150 leaders gathered together, under a tent, to discuss the thought and spiritual life of the leader.  Below is a brief report of Tim’s trip.

By the way, Tim apologized for the picture quality, using the same excuse I do . . . photography is not an area of strength!

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It was a wonderful and unique experience.  Many churches in the area do not own a building and rent prices are very high.  To save money, the organizers pitched a tent in an open field.  Some leaders stayed in a small hotel down the road, others brought their own tents for their accommodations.  Arrangements for electricity, bathroom facilities and running water had to be put in place.   It was quite an undertaking.  What all this shows is the hunger to learn.  I was thoroughly impressed with the dedication of these leaders.

The subject matter took an unexpected twist.  As is true all over the world, sexual immorality and financial improprieties are not uncommon.  Within the first 2 hours of the seminar questions on these two topics came up.  The result was 2 days of discussing scriptural and practical boundaries to avoid becoming just another causality.  In fact, there were several times the conversation became so blunt I wasn’t sure people wouldn’t get upset.  However, the opposite happened.  

Questions and comments flowed and expressions of gratitude were plenty.  What a beautiful thing to see leaders longing to remain pure and holy before God.   (Tim pictured speaking.)

In addition to the leadership seminar, they arranged for evening services.  They turned up the volume in the tent so people in the city could hear and I preached the gospel for 2 nights.  The numbers of those accepting Christ was small, but heaven rejoices when one sinner turns.  Of course, we know many seeds were planted.  May the Holy Spirit water each seed for a future harvest. 

Tim Adour

Church of the Revelation

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I am struck by the fact that two of the issues mentioned by Bobby Clinton, as reasons why leaders don't finish well, were the main themes these leaders were dealing with:  Sex and Money.

 I also appreciate the fact that while Tim took about 100 pages of notes to talk about other leadership matters, he ditched the notes and ministered in the area of their immediate need.

Thanks my friend.

-bkr-

New CDs for the iPod.

I put a number of new CDs on the What's in the iPod section, right column, scroll down.

Dropkick Murpheys

Pat Metheny

Chickenfoot

Buckcherry

Keith Urban

and more...

I neglected to add a Michael Jackson, Number Ones  CD.  With all the Jackson hoopla, I thought I'd revisit his hits.

What are you guys listening to this summer?

Brian Rice

Leadership ConneXtions International

Happy Fourth of July

For our USA readers . . . happy Fourth of July. If you are actually reading this post today... turn off your computer and go out and do something.  And enjoy fireworks. 

Brian Rice

Leadership ConneXtions International

On Blogging (A Few Personal Thoughts)

I have been blogging on this site for about three years. In June, this site had its 1000th post.  A few years ago, when I first started blogging, I read in a book about blogging that:

* there are over 100,000 new blogs started every day.

* less than 10% of those blogs have daily posts.

* and while the percentage wasn't known, many bloggers start but fade out pretty quickly.

A few friends have asked me how I can write something every day? 

Well, first, I have some friends and partners of LCI who are guest bloggers who post from time to time, so I don't have to write on a daily basis. But the main reason for having them blog is to expose you to their ideas and experiences. 

I like to write. I've been a writer for a long time. (That is not necessarily saying I am a good writer, just that I like to write). I have been using a journal for about ten years and that helped me in the discipline of regular writing.

In my Strengths Finder results, Learner and Intellection are two of my top five strengths. So I am constantly reading, thinking, learning, and processing.  I am an avid reader and, on top of that, I have Strategic as one of my top gifts and I can strategically arrange knowledge into useful ways.

For example, right now I am reading new books and/or writing ideas from ones I just finished. That list includes:

• Inside Drucker's Brain  (That alone has generated over 30 reflections, many of which will find their way on to this site.)
• Between Wyomings
• Leadership Reconsidred
• How the Mighty Fall (That generated five solid posts.)
• Knowing Christ Today (Several reflections came out of that.)
• The 100 Best Business Books of All Time (which generated at least 15 writings in my journal)

AND . . .

• I am on vacation and I have six books with me and I'll probably finish four of them.
• I regularly read a number of blogsites (usually ransacking for what I am interested in).
• I have great, stimulating conversations with friends.
• I pay attention to what is going on around me, reflect and, at times, write on what I see. 

And I have a number of areas of interest which keep me occupied. Leadership, spirituality, mission, culture, postmodernity and theology. I go in waves with these areas of interest. I was actually kind of burned out on leadership materials for about a year and so my posting was much more limited on leadership. In the last three or four months, I have really been recharged in thinking about leadership and so a lot of the posts are reflecting that. 

At the same time, my focus on postmodernity has waned in the last six months and I've hardly read anything in that subject, so the posts on that are quite few.

My point is that I have a steady and strong stream of input flowing in and much of it finds output in my writing, some of which appears on this site.  And I think it is of enough variety that it keeps the interest of some folks.

I usually write a rough draft in my journal and it sits there until I am ready to blog. Then it gets some editing as I work it into a post.

But I've also realized that I write because I have to write. I am a thinker and a teacher and a mentor and so much of that coalesces together in writing.

Thanks for reading.

Brian Rice

Leadership ConneXtions International