“Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else”
In Patrick Lencioni’s new book The Advantage he makes his case for why organizational health is the most important characteristic in any successful business or not for profit organization.
“At its core, organizational health is about integrity, but not in the ethical or moral way that integrity is defined so often today. An organization has integrity – is healthy – when it is whole, consistent, and complete, that is, when its management, operations, strategy and culture fit together and make sense.
…any organization that really wants to maximize its success must come to embody two basic qualities: it must be smart, and it must be healthy.
Smart organizations are good at those classic fundamentals of business – subjects like strategy, marketing, finance, and technology – which I consider to be decision sciences.
But being smart is only half the equation. Yet somehow it occupies almost all the time, energy, and attention of most executives. The other half of the equation, the one that is largely neglected, is about being healthy.
A good way to recognize health is to look for the signs that indicate an organization has it. These include minimal politics and confusion, high degrees of morale and productivity, and very low turnover among good employees.
The vast majority of organizations today have more than enough intelligence, expertise, and knowledge to be successful. What they lack is organizational health.
This point is worth restating.
After two decades of working with CEO’s and their teams of senior executives, I’ve become absolutely convinced that the seminal difference between successful companies and mediocre or unsuccessful ones has little, if anything, to do with what they know or how smart they are; it has everything to do with the how healthy they are.”
Creative Solutions and Heroic Actions
The Heros – Teri, Joe, Dan, Rose, Dwayne, Chuck, Eric and Josh (missing – Ryan, Allison, Casto, Matt, Jarred, and Jake) What do you do when you’re training 100’s of summer staff and, at the same time, hosting multiple retreat groups, all of which require a lot of meeting space, and you happen to be a camp for kids and not a conference center?
You get creative, and a little sweaty, and sore, and you convert your game room into a meeting room that accommodates over 200 people. And by convert I mean moving pool and ping ball tables, booth seating, chairs, and tables out of the game room and into other locations, and move in and set into place staging, AV equipment, and appropriate meeting room seating.
The game room before the conversion. Photo by Rose Peever 
The game room after the conversion. And that’s exactly what our Michigan overnight camp team did last week. Why? Because we consider it a privilege to ally with other ministries by providing them an outstanding retreat experiences, so we’ll do whatever we can to accommodate their needs, even if it means thinking and do things we’ve never thought of, or tried before.
As someone once said “necessity is the mother of all inventions”, and it’s when you’re committed to serving others, including fulfilling your commitments to them, that opportunity often becomes necessity. So, for our team, it was out both necessity and their desire to create outstanding experiences for our guests, which led to their novel solution, and more importantly their willingness to see that solution become a reality.
So you see, such things as problem solving tools and innovation processes are not enough. Real creativity and problem solving begins and ends with willing hearts and open minds, followed by a commitment to action, even at a personal cost. And how do I know this is true? Because of what our Michigan Site and Retreats team did last week to assure our guests had an outstanding SpringHill Experience.
Paying Attention to the Details
Keith Rudge and Neil Hubers One of the things I love about our Indiana camp Site Team is their incredible attention to detail. Keith Rudge our Site Director, his right hand man Neil Hubers and their team of staff and volunteers make attention to the details a significant goal in all their work. As campers, parents and guests visit our Indiana camp they experience this attention to detail in such things as the care of the grounds, the freshly stained decks and walk ways, and the well thought out safety and security procedures.
Attention to details is important part of the SpringHill Experience because our goal is always to be professional. This means we plan, we implement, we measure and we evaluate every experience as to whether we exceeded people’s expectations. And one of the best ways to exceed expectations is in the attention to the details, because people notice the details. And it’s in the details that people judge the thoughtfulness and quality of our work.
And the amazing reality about attention to detail is this – it doesn’t cost the organization any more to pay to attention to them. Because paying attention to the details is more about habits than money, more a commitment than a skill, more a practice than theory. All of which means there’s no excuse for neglecting the details.
This value of exceeding expectations by paying attention to the details goes back to the earliest days of SpringHill when Enoch Olson, our Founding Director, made sure every detail was just right before guests arrived at camp, including such things as having every sidewalk swept perfectly clean.
But the most important reason paying attention to the details is so critical in our work is because we know that if we can demonstrate to parents our trustworthiness in the details, then they’ll trust us with the most important things – caring for their children.
What Lies Underneath
You never know what you’ll find when you remodel an old building. For example, at our Michigan overnight camp, we’re in the process of remodeling and expanding our New Frontiers infirmary and as our team peeled off the siding from above the front of the building this is what they found (see photo above).
It’s a strategic location for all our arriving guest and staff to see over the next few weeks. And there’s no doubt it was a painted in that spot, by some daring volunteers and staff 40 years ago, because of its visibility, and the laughs it would bring, to those who arrived at camp during the infirmary construction.
And these same daring staff and volunteers have now given our current guests and staff, especially those who appreciate the cultural significance of the television show M.A.S.H. was in the 1970’s, another reason to smile as they arrive at camp.
But time does moves on, and as it does, cultural icons end up buried under old siding, only to resurface again one day, giving us a glimmer of where we’ve come from as well as reminding us of the people who’ve helped bring us to the place we are today.
Prep – Do – Review
Being the Boss – The 3 Imperatives for becoming a Great Leader by Linda A. Hill and Kent Linebeck is a helpful book for new or growing leaders. It provides both a philosophical and practical approach to leading yourself, leading your network and leading your team.
For example one of the most practical suggestions the authors give is a simple, three-step tool for tackling any kind of task or situation, called Prep – Do – Review.
The first step – “Prep. Before acting, take literally a minute to prepare. Ask yourself, What am I about do to? Why am I going to do it? (That is, what goal, no matter how simple, are you trying to reach?) Who will be involved or affected, and what are their interests? And how am I going to do it?
Step two – “Do. Perform the action you prepared to take in the prep stage.”
Finally, step three – “Review. Afterward, reflect on what was done and the outcome, including any expected or unexpected consequences. Identify the lessons to be learned. How would you perform the action differently in the future?”
As you can see one the keys to using it effectively is asking a lot of the right questions. And as Hill and Linebeck state, asking good questions is “a fundamental skill that, in our experience, all effective managers possess to a high degree.”
And the beauty of Prep – Do – Review is that it can be applied to everything from simple tasks to major events, from going through your day or week, to career planning. And, if it can become a regular part of how you work, it will undoubtedly make you a more effective leader.
The Reality about Time
As I mentioned in previous posts, springtime at SpringHill is absolutely our busiest time of year as we prepare for summer camp and the 1000’s of campers we’ll serve in the next 3 months. So time is always at forefront of my mind during this season. I find myself asking – “how can I make more time to do all the things I want and need to do in the weeks ahead?”
The problem with this question is it’s usually being asked by an exhausted and fuzzy thinking person (me). It assumes that we can “make time”. But the hard truth is we can’t create time, only God can do that. The best we can do is to care for the time God has given us as a gift.
But what’s even harder to face than the fact that we can’t “make time” is the stubborn truth that we’re actually losing time. The most time we ever have in our entire life is the moment we’re born. From that minute forward, day by day, moment by moment, we’re using up our time, like water flowing from a well.
It’s these dual realities – we can’t create time but instead we’re actually losing it – that should create a sense of urgency and purpose in how we use the time given us. It means we absolutely have to be careful and intentional in how we spend every single moment of time we have left.
I’ve found the better question to ask myself during these moments of too much to do in too little time to do it is “what’s really important now and in the long run?” The answer always frees up time because it points to the best place to spend my dwindling moments.
“If You Don’t Have Time To Do It Right, When Will You Have Time To Do It Over?”
In these busy weeks of May and June, as we prepare for summer camp, all of us at SpringHill reap what we’ve sown over the past 8 months. We’ve either prepared well and have a manageable, yet challenging schedule, or we end up with an impossible schedule trying to accomplish an impossible list of tasks, in an impossibly short amount of time.
It’s during these crazy months that I often return to a simple question, attributed to the great basketball coach John Wooden, I learned while leading a Quality Assurance initiative back in my former life in corporate American – “If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?”
You see if we haven’t done our preparation for summer camp right, we’ve literally run out of time to do it over. Unintended results can be – staff burnout, lower quality of camper experience, disappointed parents, and missed opportunities. Even if we’re able to recover by doing it over again, it’s usually at the cost of our personal health, our families, our relationships with each other, and our own spiritual well-being. None of these are worth the time we thought we were saving by not doing it right the first time.
But, as I watch our team this spring, it’s obvious, that through training and discipline, we continue to become better at doing things right the first time, and thus eliminating the need to find time to do them over again, especially in these craziest of seasons. So I’m proud of our team, as well as I’m confident of a great summer of SpringHill Experiences that’s ahead.
Sunday Night Live and the Official Start to Summer
Summer has officially arrived because SpringHill has had its annual Memorial Day Family Camp.
Family Camp, along with Summer Camp, is SpringHill’s longest running program. This is our 43rd year of family camping at our Michigan camp and, believe it or not, we have a handful of families who have not missed one, ever. It’s also the first program I was a part of as a full-time staff member of SpringHill, and thus, for many reasons, is one of my favorite programs.
One of the reasons I look forward to being a part of Family Camp is because I love watching families have a SpringHill Experience together – riding horses, doing the zipline, sharing around the campfire, or joining in one of our family sessions where they sing together and listen to excellent family speakers together. After every Family Camp, we hear from people who tell us how God used their time at SpringHill to transform their family.
One of my favorite parts of the weekend is Sunday Night Live. Sunday Night Live is a giant campfire like session in our outdoor amphitheater where our staff performs campfire skits; families will sing campfire songs, listen to a campfire message from our camp speaker and, of course,
have a visit from Duct Tape Man. It’s a blast and this past week, with the incredible northern Michigan weather, it was as good as it gets.So get the suntan lotion and the bug spray out, summer has officially started, and after this great weekend, I’m looking forward, with anticipation, to all God will do in the lives of SpringHill campers, families and staff this summer.
Celebration and Dedication
Jim and Kris Mestdagh, John and Marlene Boll This week we held a celebration and dedication for the recently renovated indoor pool at our Michigan camp. We invited everyone involved with the project, including staff, donors and the general contractors. It was a fun and inspiring afternoon.
In the past we haven’t done a lot of these kinds of events and I’m not sure why. But over the last couple of years we’ve acknowledged, as an organization, the important role celebration plays in the life of an organization. So we’re trying to do a better job of finding reasons to celebrate, including celebrating and dedicating new or renovated buildings and activities at our camps.
This effort to create a “culture of celebration” has led to my reflection on the question “what makes a great celebration?” Here’s my current answer:
First, I believe, a celebration should be Christ centered, acknowledging the good things God has done or provided.
Jenny Waugh and Ken Bailey from Rockford Construction Second, it should affirm those people God used to help these good things become realities.
Finally, a celebration should inspire others to take part in God’s good work.
But there was a second and equally important part of our afternoon and it was the dedication of the pool to God’s glory. An act of dedication reminds us that we’re stewards of something we don’t own. So in dedicating the pool to God, we symbolically gave back to Him what He’s entrust to our care, as if returning the master’s five talents with five more.
So we all prayed, with hands joined together, that this pool building would be a useful tool in our work of helping young people see, hear and experience Jesus Christ in a life transforming way, and then celebrated His goodness which allows us the privilege to serve in such a way.Photography by Caitlin Crowley
Some Non-Fishing Insight from A River Runs Through It
As I said in my earlier post, A River Runs Through It is one of my favorite stories, much of my love for it has to do with its observations about life not just its insight on fishing. So below I’ve pulled some of my favorite “non fishing” quotes. After your done reading them, even if you’re not a fisherman, you may want to read the entire story for yourself. It may stir your heart as it does mine.
“My father was very sure about certain matters pertaining to the universe. To him, all good things – trout as well as eternal salvation – come by grace and grace comes by art and art does not come easy.”
“Sunrise is the time to feel that you will be able to find out how to help somebody close to you who you think needs help even if he doesn’t think so. At sunrise everything is luminous but not clear.”
“Even the anatomy of a river was laid bare. Not far downstream was a dry channel where the river had run once, and part of the way to come to know a thing is through its death. But years ago I had known the river when it flowed through this now dry channel, so I could enliven its stony remains with the waters of memory.”
“As the heat mirages on the river in front of me danced with and through each other. I could feel the patterns from my own life joining with them. It was here, while waiting for my brother, that I started this story, although, of course, at the time I did not know that stories of life are often more like rivers than books.”
“For all of us, though, it is much easier to read the waters of tragedy.”
“‘Help’, he said, ‘is giving part of yourself to somebody who comes to accept it willingly and needs it badly. So it is,’ he said, using an old homiletic transition, ‘that we can seldom help anybody. Either we don’t know what part to give or maybe we don’t like to give any part of ourselves. Then, more often than not, the part that is needed is not wanted. And even more often, we do not have the part that is needed. It is like the auto-supply shop over town where they always say, ‘Sorry, we are just out of that part.’
