The Culture of Opinion
Over the last few months I’ve traveled 90 minutes to and from Grand Rapids on a weekly basis. As I started this routine, I turned to the local sports talk radio for my on road entertainment. But within a few trips I grew weary of listening to the callers spouting off with their opinions about local teams, coaching decisions and player performance.
I grew weary because I had just come off of 5 years of coaching middle school and high school sports and I had discovered that there’s much more to coaching decisions than what the average fan sees during a game. I came to appreciate that coaches have significantly more information about their players and their team than any person could conceivably gain just by being a fan.
And what made sports talk radio even more wearisome was simply that most of the callers had so little experience playing or coaching, and none at the highest levels, yet felt they could, with authority, criticize coaches and players. They seemed to ignore the obvious fact that those they criticize have significantly more knowledge, experience and ability than all the callers combined.
Yet this culture of opinion isn’t limited to the world of sports. It’s in every facet of our society including politics and business. So as I listened during those first few trips I realized I no longer want to be filled with a litany of uniformed and inexperienced opinions, instead I need facts and perspective that I can trust, value and act on (such as a good interview with a player or coach). And I also decided I will not be one of those people who criticize others, whether they’re close to me or far off, when I’m not capable of doing any better myself, and when I know I have significantly less information and experience than they do.
“Strategic Planning is Not Strategic Thinking”
As part of my work in re-articulating the SpringHill vision I’ve turned, once again, to one of the best books on leadership ever written The Leadership Challenge by James Kouzes and Barry Posner. In the section titled Inspiring a Shared Vision Kouzes and Posner write…
“Strategic planning often spoils strategic thinking because it causes managers to believe that the manipulation of numbers creates imaginative insight into the future and vision. This confusion lies at the heart of the issue: the most successful strategies are visions; they are not plans. McGill University professor Harry Mintzberg explains that planning represents a “calculating” style, while leaders employ a “committing” style – one that ‘engages people in a journey. They lead in such a way that everyone on the journey helps shape its course. As a result, enthusiasm inevitably builds along the way. Those with a calculating style fix on a destination and calculate what the group must do to get there, with no concern for the members preferences. But calculated strategies have no value in and of themselves…Strategies take on value only as committed people infuse them with energy.’
Leadership that focuses on a committing style is what leadership scholars have called transformational leadership. Transformational leadership occurs when, in their interactions, people ‘raise one another to higher levels of motivation and morality. Their purposes, which might have started out as separate but related, as in the case of transactional leadership, become fused…. But transforming leadership ultimately becomes moral in that it raises the level of human conduct and ethical aspiration of both the leader and the led, and thus it has a transforming effect on both.'”
I’ve taken these words to heart and am using them as guides as I lead SpringHill in the re-articulating of its vision.
One Step Closer to Dunking a Basketball
Our son Mitch just told my wife and I that he dunked a dodge ball for the first time yesterday. Dunking a basketball has been a goal of Mitch’s and yesterday’s feat was tangible evidence of his progress towards reaching his goal.
He was proud of his accomplishment because, as he said, “it takes lots of small steps to accomplish a goal and yesterday was one of those steps in me dunking a basketball.” Our 16-year-old understands a powerful reality about reaching goals – if we want to accomplish a difficult task or reach a challenging destination we need to break it down into achievable steps and patiently work our way through those steps.
This process of breaking down a goal, task or project into smaller steps does a number of important things that increases the odds we’ll reach our desired end.
First, it forces us to think through, plan and count the cost of all that needs to be done to ultimately accomplish a goal. Mitch knows there’s more work to be done if he’s ever going to compete in a slam dunk contest.
Second, if we ultimately don’t achieve our goal, we have the consolation of having improved and being in a better place than we were before we started. Yesterday Mitch jumped higher than ever before.
Finally, and maybe the best reason for breaking down our goals into manageable steps, is it creates many opportunities for small victories which give us confidence and motivation to keep going forward. Dunking a dodge ball is a small victory and it fired Mitch up to keep moving along his journey to achieving his goal of dunking a basketball.
What goal do you have that would become more achievable if you broke it down into smaller steps?
Our Relationship to Creation
I’m reading the last book written by John Stott before he passed away, titled The Radical Disciple. If you haven’t read it you must. It’s not often we have the privilege to read the intentional final published words (Mr. Stott knew this would be his last book) of such a significant person on such an important topic.
The sub-title to the book is Some Neglected Aspects of Our Calling and true to the sub-title, Stott covers a wide range of neglected discipleship topics, including one chapter titled “Creation Care”. The fact that John Stott, in his last book, covers this topic, only affirms the great respect I’ve always had for him.
Let me share with you just a bit of his perspective on creation care.
“The Bible tells us that in creation God established for human beings three fundamental relationships: first to himself, for he made them in his image; second to each other, for the human race was plural from the beginning; and the third, to the good earth and its creatures over which he set them.
Moreover, all three relationships were skewed by the Fall. Adam and Eve were banished from the presence of the Lord God in the garden, they blamed each other for what had happened, and the good earth was cursed on account of their disobedience.
It stands to reason therefore that God’s plan of restoration includes not only our reconciliation to God and to each other, but in some way the liberation of the groaning creation as well. We can certainly affirm that one day there will be a new heaven and a new earth, for this is an essential part of our hope for the perfect future that awaits us at the end of time (e.g., 2 Peter 3:13, Revelations 21:1). But meanwhile the whole creation is groaning, experiencing the birth pains of the new creation (Romans 8:18-23). How much of the earth’s ultimate destiny can be experienced now is a matter of debate. But we can surely say that just as our understanding of the final destiny of our resurrection bodies should affect how we think of and treat our bodies we have at the present, so our knowledge of the new heaven and earth should affect and increase the respect with which we treat it now.”
Can People Truly Change?
“Past performance is the best predictor of future performance.” I learned this fundamental truth about people back in my days as a corporate recruiter. It was drilled into me through the interview training I received and built into the selection processes we used, the same selection processes used in many organizations today.
Yet, I have to admit, there’s been many times when I didn’t want to accept it as true. I wanted to believe people can change. That their past behavior doesn’t mean that’s how they will act in the future.
I’ve, at times, ignored this truth, because I wanted to trust people when they said they’ve changed. But, almost every time I’ve turned my back on this truth, I’ve regretted it.
Why? Because the truth is the truth – past performance is the best predictor of future performance – because most people don’t change.
But can this be the only truth about people? Is this the last word about what we can expect from others, from ourselves?
The answer is no, it’s not the only possibility. People can and do change. It’s rare, but it’s possible. But the second truth is this – people do not change by themselves. It requires something significant to happen to a person for true change to take place and cause a break from their past.
That “something significant” needs to go deep and rattle a person down to the core of their being, and in that place, true transformation happens. And always, at the center of this “something significant” is Jesus Christ, because it’s God who ultimately transforms lives, who grants people a lasting break from their past.
This is why I’ve committed my vocational life to Christian camping. Because Christian camps create those “something significant” experiences, where God steps in, goes down deep, rattles the core of a person, and leads them to a place of true transformation where the past is no longer a predictor of the future.
False Hero Worship
Our Michigan Facilities Manager, Joe Yahner, calls the celebration of work and projects done at the last-minute, false hero-worship. He mentioned it in an impromptu conversation he, our Retreats Manager Eric Woods and I were having about Winter Teen Retreats preparation.It’s a great description of an all too often occurrence in organizations large and small, including, in times past, at SpringHill.
False hero-worship happens when organizations confuse procrastination, the lack of planning and the accompanying last-minute scramble to get work done, with good planning and execution. When organizations and leaders make this mistake they reinforce the wrong behaviors in their teams. Instead of encouraging great planning and execution, leaders send a message that they value being behind with two minutes to go, and the lack of planning and procrastination which causes it.
It’s like making heroes of fire fighters who start their own fires, and then celebrating their great fire fighting. We become so addicted to the adrenaline rush of fire fighting (or watching fire fighting) that we inadvertently encourage fire starting (lack of planning and preparation).
And if adrenaline highs is your goal then good, thoughtful and intentional planning followed by calm and professional execution of the plan, offers very little excitement. It only offers great, sustainable results at lower organizational and personal costs.
Great planning and execution also offers the deep satisfaction of knowing a job, the entire job, from beginning to the end, has been well done – so well done that the work looked easy (even if we know it wasn’t).
So Eric, Joe and I had our own brief “celebration” in the Trading Post of the good planning and great work done by our team. And based on the first two retreats, we’ll also be celebrating another winter of great ministry.
10 Questions to Ask Yourself about 2011
Every year over the Christmas holidays I take time away from work and spend it with family, doing needed projects around the house, and readying myself for the New Year. One exercise I do in preparation for the upcoming year is to set personal goals, as well as layout plans to achieve those goals.
As in any goal setting exercise, I always begin by evaluating the past year. After a conversation about 2011 with my good friend Jack McQueeney, Executive Director of the Navigators’ Glen Eyrie Group, he sent me the following list of thought-provoking questions to help me evaluate 2011 and plan for 2012. I share them with you in hopes that they’ll be as helpful to you as they have been for me.
- What is the greatest lesson you learned this year that you never want your kids to forget?
- How might you have behaved or acted differently this year if you had to do it over again?
- Looking back over the year, what did you set out to do that you didn’t do and why?
- What key discipline did you live out this past year that had a significant impact on your life? What was the impact?
- What are you most proud of this year?
- What were the key surprises (good or bad) that happened this year?
- Which relationships in your life grew this year and which regressed?
- If you could go back to the beginning of this year, what piece of advice would you give yourself? Why?
- Looking back, what was the overarching theme for the year?
- What will be your overarching theme for next year?
Are there other questions you’ve found helpful to answer in evaluating your life? Please share them with us.
Wisdom from The Lord of the Rings
As I read The Lord of the Rings for something like the 10th time I was once again reminded of the great wisdom Tolkien shares as part of the story. Below are some of my favorite quotes, many of which I’ve looked to and shared with others when they’ve seemed most applicable.
“I wish it had not happened in my time.” Said Frodo. “So do I” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live in such times. But that is not for them to decide. All
we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”“He deserves death.” Deserves it! I dare say he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.”
“Handsome is as handsome does.”
“You have come and here met, in this very nick of time, by chance as it may seem. Yet it is not so. Believe rather that it is so ordered that we, who sit here, and none others, must now find counsel for the peril of the world.”
“All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wonder are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, a light from the shadows shall spring; Renewed shall be blade that was broken: The crownless again shall be king.”
“He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.”
“It is perilous to study too deeply the arts of the Enemy, for good or for ill.”
“Despair or folly?” said Gandalf “It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not. It is wisdom to recognize necessity, when all other courses have been weighed, though as folly it may appear to those who cling to false hope.”
“The road must be trod, but it will be very hard. And neither strength nor wisdom will carry us far upon it. This quest may be attempted by the weak with as much hope as the strong. Yes such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere.”
“You have come and here met, in this very nick of time, by chance as it may seem. Yet it is not so. Believe rather that it is so ordered that we, who sit here, and none others, must now find counsel for the peril of the world.”
“To cast aside regret and fear. To do the deed at hand.”
“The treacherous are ever distrustful.”
“Perilous to us all are the devices of an art deeper than we possess ourselves.”
“The houses of the dead are no places for the living…Authority is not given you to order the hour of your death,” answered Gandalf.
“Despair had not left him, but the weakness had passed. He even smiled grimly, feeling now as clearly as a moment before he had felt the opposite, that what he had to do, he had to do, if he could, and what whether anyone
ever knew about it was beside the purpose.”“The houses of the dead are no places for the living…Authority is not given you to order the hour of your death,” answered Gandalf.
“For it is said in old lore: ‘The hands of the king are the hands of a healer.’
The Blessings of Integrating Our Personal and Professional Lives
Saturday night Denise and I had a chance to bring parts of our two families together – our immediate and our SpringHill families. In particular we had 18 members of the SpringHill family from the Indianapolis area join us to watch our daughter Christina dance in her first Butler ballet – The Nutcracker.
We had dinner together at a local Butler hangout, Binkley’s, and then went to the evening show at Clowes Hall on Butler’s campus. For Denise and me the entire evening was a blessing and a blast.
Afterwards I thought about how so many people seek a separation between their work and their personal lives. I understand this desire but not always the degree people can take it.
Because there’s something wonderful (maybe sacred is a better word?) when there’s a healthy integration between our work and personal lives. It’s what Denise and I experienced Saturday night. We experienced a great blessing when SpringHill staff, board members and other supporters enthusiastically celebrated with us Christina’s first Butler Ballet.
And it turns out to be more than just one evening, because we have these incredible friends who now know Christina, live near her and will be available to her (and us) during the rest of her years at Butler.
And this would not be possible if I kept a strict separation between my work and personal life.
Yes, it’s healthy to be able to step away from our work, but to build artificial walls between work and personal life isn’t, and often keeps us from receiving the blessings of an integrated life.
To strike the right balance between these two parts of our life requires wisdom, prayer and reflection. But when the right balance is struck, as it was on Saturday evening, it’s hard to imagine living any other way.
Hangin with the SpringHill Family
We often talk about SpringHill staff as “our team” but when we speak about staff and camper alumni, volunteers, donors, ambassadors, board members and ministry partners we tend to speak in terms of family. The SpringHill family’s large and diverse and I’ve grown to love and appreciate it more every year.
Part of my work includes spending time with SpringHill family members both when they attend a SpringHill Experience and with them in their homes, their places of work and at their favorite coffee shops and restaurants. The places where we meet are as diverse as the members of the SpringHill family which makes being with them one of the most enjoyable parts of my work.
For example, this week I’ve had the opportunity, along with Todd Leinberger our Great Lakes Region Vice President and my wife Denise, to spend time with these SpringHill family members:
Scott, a successful commercial real estate business owner, a competitive tri-athlete and a very active member on a number of ministry boards
David (in photo above), who’s responsible for all the tire, wheel and jack engineering globally for Ford Motor Company
Paul and Cindie, long time friends of Denise’s and mine from our church in Grand Rapids. Cindie works with teenage moms and Paul owns a wealth management and financial advisory business
Our friends Scott and Karen who’ve given much of their lives to a number of global ministries and businesses
And later this week Denise and I will have dinner and see Butler University’s Nutcracker Ballet with 18 of the SpringHill family in Indianapolis (look for my next post)
Every time I have coffee, lunch or dinner with a SpringHill family member I’m blessed because I learn something new, gain greater perspective on SpringHill and better understand the world in which the SpringHill family lives and works.
