Tag Archives: purpose

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A Matter of Perspective

225This past Sunday I found myself driving to the airport in the pre-dawn darkness planning on staying awake just long enough to sleep through a two hour, early morning flight to Dallas.

As I smoothly guided my little MR2 around the corner from I25 onto I225 north I found myself momentarily befuddled. You see I225 actually heads mostly east at this point, yeah, don’t ask, and there, in front of me, in the phantom light of early morning, I saw mountains on the horizon.

If you’ve ever been to Denver you know the mountains are on the west. To the east is the beginnings of the great plains…NO mountains…even very few hills.

I started to wonder if I had taken the wrong exit. I started checking the road that I had taken so many times before to be sure all the proper landmarks were in place. The entire landscape started to look unfamiliar and different. It probably took me close to 30 seconds to fully convince myself I was headed in the right direction.

And then I realized the “mountains” were just clouds.

For the next ten minutes or so my mind kept bouncing back and forth between the assurance that I was following a well known path and the suspicion that I was headed into some entirely new, unknown, potentially misleading landscape. I must have checked the next six or seven exit signs just to be sure they were filing by in the corrected order. But that rolling feeling of strangeness and discomfiture continued.

Fortunately I wasn’t lead astray. I stuck to, constantly glancing at the mountainous clouds which became more and more evidently clouds as the sun came up and as it did my discomfiture ebbed.

Those several minutes stuck with me though and made me wonder, how often does this kind of thing happen in everyday living? How often does some odd cloud on the horizon of life suddenly change my entire perspective and cause me to question where I am headed, cause me to question if I even really know where I am at all?

Allow me to share three lessons I learned from my Sunday morning encounter:

1. We’ll all encounter clouds on the horizon of life.It is inevitable. Usually we know they’re clouds and we know how to handle clouds but sometimes they’ll look a LOT like something else, something different, something disturbing to our normal order. When that happens remind yourself they’re just clouds.

2. Clouds are temporary

When you find odd shaped clouds on the horizon of life remember that clouds are temporary. Yes they may LOOK like permanent mountains but don’t allow that to stop you. Consider them carefully and you’ll discover they’re really clouds, no need to change course. (Of course CAREFUL consideration is the key…just in case you ARE going the wrong way and they ARE mountains!)

3. We don’t have to be fooled.These confounding clouds can confuse us but when we stick to what we know rather than giving in to the emotion of the moment we find that our path hasn’t changed, nor does it need to change. We can, and will, continue towards our goal, even getting a laugh out of the moments confusion if we allow ourselves the freedom to laugh.

When we find ourselves confronted by a confusing set of clouds on the horizon, if we remember that it is expected, it is worthy of careful consideration and it is temporary we can more easily navigate the confusion they cause and continue towards our original goal. It’s really a matter of perspective.

What are the “mountainous clouds” that have popped up on your horizon? How have you navigated that strange set of moments?

 

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Four Tips for Helping People Understand You Better.

How often have you heard someone say, “I know that’s what I said, but what I meant was…” or some variation thereof?

Communication is an interesting animal. We use words to convey ideas and often struggle to find the right ones. Speaking of course is the worst because it is real time. All the editing typically happens between the head and the mouth.

Now, if you’re a poor conversationalist the tips I am about to provide probably won’t help you much. You’re better off renting The King’s Speech. What I want to work on here is how to be better understood in a more formal speaking setting. That being said, three tips:

1. Have a point.
Your point is NEVER “to provide information”. You always provide information FOR A REASON…and that reason is your point. If I just say, informationally, “You know you should always have a point when you open your mouth to speak”, you would nod and agree and still often be pointless.

My point here is to help you be a better communicator. To be clear here, when I say ‘have a point’ I mean something you can articulate in a single sentence. “The reason I am speaking to these people is…”

That sentence will become the anchor to which I attach all the information you are about to provide. Without it the information becomes overwhelming and floats off into the sunset like a boat one the waves.

2. Stick to the point.
If you’re being asked to speak you have information. You probably have enough information to speak for hours. But how much of that information supports your point?

In business setting I typically find that something like 50-60% of the information in any presentation really belongs in an appendix, stuff that supports the talk but isn’t directly connected to the main point. Leave all THAT stuff out. Save it for the Q&A at the end.

3. Consider you audience.
Whatever it is you’re communicating should have some relevance to why the audience is there. Otherwise your point becomes one of trying to prove how smart, or funny, or important you are.

I was struck by a thought today, and I confess I may have read this somewhere but if not then I want full credit:

“No one cares what you know until they know that you care.”

Granted there are exceptions to this. If the plane is going down and you know where the parachutes are I don’t care if you care about me, I just want to know what you know.

4. Sharpen your message to match.
Case in point: I hate the title of this post. It started as “The Power of Clarity” the morphed into the grammatically poor., “Four Reasons Why You Need to Be More Clear”.

Here’s what I know about my audience at this point. In general a phrase like “The Power of Clarity” is interesting, but it does not generate page views. If I want my audience to benefit from what I think I have to provide I have to start with a hook, something that will prompt YOU to read the post.

“The Power of Clarity” is informational. “Four Tips” conveys the notion that I care about helping you be better. Same information, same point, better connection to the audience.

What do you find to be the biggest challenge in being completely understood?

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Are you in the right job?

There is a question that I ask everyone who reports to me at one time or another: If you could do anything in the world to make a living, no limitations or restrictions, you could be older, younger, live in the past, live in the future, what would you do?

Would it surprise you to know that fewer than 2% of the people I ask that question ever answer with the job they’re in?  To be fair I don’t know that I have yet answered that way either.  Let’s quadruple my experience though. Let’s guess that 8% of the people you know are in the job that is their perfect fit. Really?!? 8%? That’s horrible. How is it that so few people are really in a job that is what they’d think of as a perfect fit?

The job we land in is typically dictated by a significant number of factors: pay, location, schedule, opportunity for advancement, experiential fit, prestige. If we’re lucky a few of those factors come together and land near what we’d call our perfect job.

I think the trouble, for most of us, is that we never actually interrogate our answer to the question, if you could do anything what would you do? Why never actually ask ourselves why?

For years my answer to that question was that I would either play professional football or act. I played football all the way through college, even a season after college, loved it, miss playing, but I’m way too old now…even by Brett Favre standards. I’ve done some local acting around the edges. Loved it. But I have a family to support and there aren’t a ton of high paying acting gigs in Colorado Springs.

So I guess I’m stuck right? Wrong.

You see when I finally took the time to ask myself why I would pick one of those two professions, and did a little digging, I realized that what those two options had in common was what I call spectacle. They each are imbued  with opportunity to take people out of the course of daily routine and provide them with an emotional experience that is outside their norm.  I LOVE being able to create those moments for people.

For me the word “spectacle” encompasses what I want to be involved in creating. Now, here’s the interesting bit, the rest of that job stuff? Title, location, particular company, prestige etc. etc. all starts to take a back seat. Pay is still important because I have a wife and three kids after all, but as long as what I do has an element of spectacle to it I’m good to go!

So in order to figure out if YOU are in the right job you need to explore the answer to three questions:

  1. If you could do anything to make a living, no restrictions, (the age excuse on football falls out here), what would you do?
  2. What are the elements of your answer to #1 that most inspire you, in other words, why did you pick that?
  3. How much of your answer to #2 is present in your current job?

To be fair you may need someone to help you dig a bit. By way of example my little brother hated question #1, got tired of people asking him about his passion.  He just knew he wasn’t happy in his job and would rather be “doing adventures”.  But you can’t support a family just doing adventures so he’d given up.  Would it surprise you to learn that with some probing and digging we landed on corporate tax accounting as a potential career change? On the surface that seems CRAZY, but once we’d answered the “why” and found the elements he was after HE even agreed that it sounded cool.

Put titles and labels aside. Ask yourself the questions. Get someone to help you dig for the real “why” and you may surprise yourself with where you land.

Are you in the right job? Why do you think you just answered the way you did?

 

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Question #1: Who are you really?

Along side the great philosophical questions such as “why are we here?” and ” does the stool really exist?” the question of personal identity ranks right up there as one of those we stumble across, answer briefly, live some more, answer again, then ask if we can change our answer, shrug, take a third pass, etc. etc.

For some reason I’ve been thinking about perceptions lately. Not the, “am I comfortable in my own skin”, kind of questions but questions more along the lines of, “how accurate is my understanding of how others perceive me, and, in parallel, how I perceive them”.

Case in point. About a week ago I drove my 16 yr old son Ian over to meet some friends to play tennis. (He get’s his license in another month or so then I won’t have to chauffeur to tennis any longer.) As I was driving away I had a picture in my mind of a kid playing tennis, probably a much younger kid than 16 followed by an almost visible flashback.

Suddenly I was 16 leaving the courts with my friend Dave H. after tennis. We played long hours of tennis that summer. Dave was tossing me the keys to his Triumph TR7 and saying “Hey, you wanna learn to drive stick?” It prompted other conversation we had that summer like deciding we’d start being gentlemen and opening doors for girls, a habit that has stuck ever since.

I remembered the oft times serious, life-shaping decisions we made that summer and as I came back to the present I realized my picture of my 16 yr. old son was probably inaccurate in several ways. This isn’t a young kid going to smack the ball over the fence as often as over the net. This is a young man chiseling out the shape of his future in conversations with his good buddies.

Wow.

That made me turn the mirror around. How did I perceive myself in relation to my kids, my wife, my coworkers? How do THEY perceive me? Is there ANY similarity between who they think I am and who I think I am? Try this one on for size:

Pick any adult you interacted with regularly as a kid, could be a parent, a coach, a youth pastor, a teacher…now try to recall your perception of them. If you could wrap up the package of experiences how would you label them? Next put yourself in that same role, as parent, coach, teacher, etc. Do you think the kids you’re around perceive you the same way you perceive that person from your past?

Now think about the fact that as adults we have a LOT more experiential ammo to draw from than kids do. Those mixed perceptions have even more options and potential for confused images, all leading back to the question, Does the way I see myself and the way others see me match up?

As a starting point to sorting all that out ask yourself these three exploratory questions:

What have I  heard others say about me?

I’ve been told on several occasions that I am “manipulative and physically intimidating”. I laugh when I hear that. ( although I think I have secretly come to love it!) I really don’t see myself that way at all. But if others DO why is that?

What would I say about myself if I were describing me as a third party?

The descriptions people generally use are only a couple words in length: “He’s a good dude, always there when you need him”, or “She’s awesome, a really good listener”, or “He’s manipulative and physically intimidating.” How would you phrase your description as if you were talking about another person?

Would others guess correctly?

I you took that phrase you came up with to describe you and went to a friend with that phrase and asked them to guess who you were talking about would they say, “Well, that sounds like you…”? I might be comical to see how many guess they took BEFORE they guessed you.

Experience shapes perception, our thought processes cement it. We all would like move and grow in some ways from where we are to where we’d like to be. We can’t begin the change process well unless we know the point from which we start.

When you look in the mirror do you see you or someone else? How close does your self perception match others perception of you? Would you be willing to try that little experiment above?

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What will you choose?

Something mildly different today.

Been thinking a bit about the choices we make and how they shape our thinking. The patterns we fall into, and out of, and the places we wind up as a result. We’ve made some choices lately that haven’t changed our circumstances but they have changed our outlook.

If you’re someplace you’d rather not be perhaps all you need do is change your thinking. It’s your choice. (Unless of course you’re in jail, then the time for choosing past you by some time ago.)

 

 

 

 

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Disciple Making (Sprirtual Version 1.0)

picture courtesy of ba1969 at sxc.hu18Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

If you’re a Christian you no doubt have some familiarity with this passage from Matthew 28 – The Great Commission.  What fascinates me most about this charge that Jesus gives the 11, Judas is gone by now, is the way we interpret it today.  Researching the possible interpretations of this passage is truly amazing. You’ll find:

  • “This is really a specific command given only to the eleven remaining disciples of Jesus”
  • “This really speaks to evangelism and the importance of baptism.”
  • “There are no disciples today, as such, so this simply means to witness.”

If I look closely at how the majority of the church, and by this I mean main stream protestant denominations and non-denominational denominations, interprets the passage, and attempts to live it out, I think it looks something like this:

The term “disciples” in the New Testament refers to the followers of Jesus, most specifically the twelve very committed ones. Thus, this passage clearly means we are commanded to go make followers of Jesus, baptize them, and provide them with access to study materials that will enhance their knowledge of scripture.

I have to confess I struggle with that interpretation. First, the word “disciple” is secular word meaning “a person who is a pupil or an adherent of the doctrines of another”. John the Baptist had disciples, Socrates had disciples, even Buddha had disciples.  Second, in the context where Jesus’ words were spoken the people he was speaking to understood that any teacher worth his salt had disciples. Third, the notion of creating disciples carried with it a level of personal responsibility on the part of the disciple maker. Fourth, I struggle with it because it seems to let ME off the hook if I can just get someone into the hands of the “professionals” by getting them to attend church.

Thus I really firmly believe that the eleven would not have heard this ‘commission’ as “go make more followers of Jesus”, rather I suggest they would have heard: “Peter, go make disciples of Peter. John, go make disciples of John. James, go make disciple of James. Not pointing them towards yourselves ultimately guys but pointing them towards your father in heaven who has given me authority. And oh, by the way, baptize them in my name AND teach them all that I have passed on to you during YOUR discipleship.”

Radical perhaps?

Stop long enough to consider what it would mean for you to have a relationship with God that was strong enough, significant enough, secure enough, and steeped enough in the truth that He would actually ask you to grab some folks and have them follow you as you followed Him. That He would ask you to live life alongside this group of folks in such a way that they were drawn to Him by your very example.

Stop a second longer to consider what a church full of disciple makers would look like.

If our purpose in life is to “make disciples” then do some of us have some studying to do? Do some of us have some house cleaning to do? Do some of us have some serious consideration that needs to be given to have we live out a faith that is based on leading others rather than on personal growth?

What do you think? Is God calling you to be a disciple maker or an assistant convert maker?

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Leadership styles in Lord of the Rings

ring photo courtesy of pirateninjagabs @deviantart.comI confess I am a huge fan of the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien particularly the Lord of the Rings. I have read the trilogy multiple times and thoroughly enjoyed the films. While you may not remember all the characters listed below you’ll probably recognize a leadership description that fits your style:

Elrond– Elf Lord, bearer of one of the three elven rings.

  1. Leads from a base of wisdom: “counted chief among the wise”
  2. Leads from a safe haven: Rivendell, “the last homely house”
  3. Leads as a counselor, not as a participant.
  4. Leads out of enough experience to have become somewhat jaded.
  5. Provides a sense of big picture direction

Galadriel– Elf Lord, also a bearer of one of the three

  1. Leads out of a safe haven: “Lorien, a place where time seems to have stood still”
  2. Leads rooted in an ancient traditional past.
  3. Leads as a counselor not as a participant.
  4. Leads out of specific commitments rather than overall purpose
  5. Provides potential operational direction: “The mirror of Glaldriel”

Theoden– King of Rohan, the horse lords

  1. Leads from a deep association with his people.
  2. Leads out of militant participation.
  3. Leads with compassion.
  4. Leads with a sense of his historical place within his organization.
  5. Is the prime example of redeemed leadership.

Denethor– Steward of Gondor

  1. Leads out of a fortress mentality
  2. Leads out of ancient traditions
  3. Leads out of militant participation
  4. Leads out of an ego that forgets limitations and boundaries
  5. Succumbs to temptation and evil in the end

Boromir– Eldest son of Denethor

  1. Leads with a sense of his own strength.
  2. Leads as a militant participant.
  3. Leads with fervent passion.
  4. Leads by putting the world on his shoulders.
  5. Succumbs to ego and temptation.

Faramir– Youngest son of Denethor

  1. Leads out of a sense of duty.
  2. Leads out of a love that inspires.
  3. Leads as a militant participant.
  4. Leads with a sense of nobility.
  5. Leads out of a humility that is almost his undoing.

Treebeard– An Ent (talking trees)

  1. Leads out of long tradition.
  2. Leads out of deliberate thought not sudden emotion.
  3. Leads out of a commitment to purpose and his people.
  4. Leads as a militant participant.
  5. Is the prime example of a long dormant leader rising to meet a new need.

Frodo– A hobbit, ring bearer

  1. Leads out of reluctance.
  2. Leads out of a sense of purpose.
  3. Leads out of compassion.
  4. Leads for a project, not a period or a program.
  5. Retires from leadership after having accomplished his “task”.

Sam– A hobbit, Frodo’s “man Friday”

  1. Leads out of devotion.
  2. Leads out of humility.
  3. Leads only reluctantly.
  4. Leads without knowing it.
  5. Easily moves back and forth from servant to leader.

Merry and Pippin– Hobbits, cousins of Frodo

  1. Lead out of a desire for something better.
  2. Lead as militant participants.
  3. Lead out of organizational and inspirational strength.
  4. Lead through crisis and on into stability.
  5. Are the classic examples of leaders being “grown up”.

Gandalf– A Wizard

  1. Leads out of wisdom.
  2. Leads as a steward.
  3. Leads with a fervent passion.
  4. Leads as a militant participant.
  5. Occasionally allows his passions to overrule his compassion..

Aragorn– King in exile

  1. Leads out of patience and longsuffering.
  2. Leads with an acute knowledge of the mistakes of his predecessors.
  3. Leads with a sense of timing and purpose.
  4. Leads as a decisive participant.
  5. Inspires others to greatness

I love looking at leadership styles using these characters because we’re given a view of them in the context of an epic story. Your life is an epic story, even if you don’t have to battle orcs, nazgul, and evil wizards. So as you read the above descriptions ask yourself the following questions:

Did you find one that matches your style?

Try watching the film that features the character you chose (or reading the book). What are that characters strengths, weaknesses, blind spots?

How is that character tempted? How do they respond?

Any parallels in your real life?

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FYI-tis: Are YOU Drowning in Information?

Original image courtesy of SSPIVAK at sxc.huThe “information super-highway” (remember when it used to be called that?)  has done a lot to change the way we behave. We shop online, we do business online, our kids do homework online…if someone has a question they don’t know the answer to…they google it. The trouble is we’ve become afflicted with information.

Even though email is rapidly becoming a thing of the past when it comes to personal communication everyday hundreds upon thousands of pieces of email speed through the servers of American businesses with the subject heading “FYI”. The lazy sluggards who do this to you probably do so as a result of an unconscious prompt such as:

  1. I’ll probably forget this so I’d better send it to someone else as informational insurance.
  2. This doesn’t look like it is important to me but it looks REALLY important to someone who is not me.
  3. I’m not sure what to do with this so I’ll pass it on.
  4. As long as I pass this a long I can’t be held accountable.

It’s a lot like someone handing you a wilted plant in a damp clay pot, telling you it is important, and then walking away!

The worst of it is that we’ve gotten so used to simply “exchanging information” that it effects how we regularly communicate. Meetings are held, presentations are given, and memos are written that contain a LOT of information but seemingly little explicit purpose. Unfortunately our human brains LIKE purpose and DISLIKE a vacuum so anytime we’re given bulk information sans purpose we fill in our own, even if only subconsciously. This, in turn, spawns multiple rabbit trails of understanding which often have to be undone with yet another meeting, presentation or memo.

Effective communication happens not when we’ve given the MOST information but when we’ve given the RIGHT information. How do we know which bits are the RIGHT information?  The right bits are the bits that can be connected by a clearly focused clearly articulated purpose that is understood and shared by the informer and the informed alike.

So the next time you’re tempted to forward along an email with a simple FYI added to the top pause and consider WHY the recipient needs this information. Then, instead of taking the lazy way out and just leaving your FYI, take the time to write out a single sentence description of why they need the information. VOILA! An email with a clearly stated purpose is born!

How many FYI’s do you get in a typical week? How many do you forward along? How many of them contain any real purpose?