Leading by Asking the Right Questions
Leadership is more about asking the right questions than having all the answers.
Implied in my last post, What’s Required to Lead Teams, Organizations and Movements, is the reality that best Organizational Leaders ask the right questions.
That’s because asking the right questions creates dialogue, and dialogue is critical for creating shared vision and values, as well as creating a strong commitment to both the people and the organization’s mission. So the leader’s job is to ask the right questions and listen to all the answers and discussion that follows.
Asking the right questions also requires asking the right people. In most organizations the right people included include employees, board members, customers, potential customers, volunteers and donors (for non-profits), and yourself. Of course it’s not always practical to ask every person in each category, but it’s important to find the right number of people in each group, remembering that the goal is to create dialogue, commitment, and clarity in the answers to the Right Questions.
Finally, though it’s obvious, if leaders are to lead through asking the right questions it requires them to ask these questions with humility, to be truly open to hearing things they may not like to hear, to respect both the messages and the messengers, and finally, to have the wisdom to sort through the array of answers to find the common themes which, ultimately leads to the right answers.
So what are the right questions that need to be asked?
They’re questions that center on the four areas leaders need to lead – Organizational Thinking, People, Resources, and Self – discussed in my last two posts. Though there may be many right questions, you might want to begin with the questions SpringHill asks by clicking here (or see my page on the above right side of my blog called “Questions Leaderships Should Ask and Help Their Organization Answer”); they’re formatted into a checklist you can use to evaluate your own organization and its journey of asking and answering the Right Questions.
What’s Required to Lead Teams, Organizations and Movements
When it comes to leading others, whether it’s a team, an organization or even a movement, there are four areas that require leadership – an Organization’s Thinking, People, Resources, and Self.Let’s start with an Organization’s Thinking. Thinking is the way an organization sees the world and sees itself in the world, then through these lenses, develops a sense of what’s important, articulating its purpose and distinction as well as unity in its beliefs and aspirations.
Thus the leader’s job is to bring clarity to each of these culture defining attributes by asking the right questions and creating the best dialogue.The second area in which a leader must lead is People. People not only desire to be a part of something significant (as defined in an Organization’s Thinking) they want to know where they fit and what they can do to contribute to the organization’s success. An organizational leader’s job is to provide clear answers to these questions for the People they lead.
The third area of leadership is Resources. Resources include time, property, facilities, technology, money, intellectual properties, partnerships, and any other tools at the disposal of the organization for the purpose of advancing its mission. To lead an organization’s Resources requires setting clear priorities which maximum the use of these resources. It also requires continuously improving as well as assuring the growth of these resources so that the organization can achieve its vision.
Finally a leader must lead Self by assuring their own time, focus, and attention’s aligned with the Organization’s Thinking, People and Resources. There needs to be a clear and visible sense of consistency, one that’s seen by anyone associated with the organization, between the leader and these other three areas. This can only be accomplished with honest self-evaluation and frank input from others.
In my next post we’ll look at an approach to leadership that makes leading an Organization’s Thinking, its People, Resources and Self a reality.
The One Ingredient Necessary for Any Team’s Success
Our exclusive IN Food Service Teams from the past 3 summers We’ve just hired a new Food Services Director for our Michigan overnight camp. Her name is Ann Marie and she moved here all the way from Texas. On her first night in Michigan she had dinner with Joel Hamilton, our Site Director, and her son in our New Frontiers Dining Hall. It was a Saturday night of one of our Winter Retreats.
And it just so happened that my wife Denise and I were also in the Dining Hall so we joined them for dinner where Ann Marie asked both Denise and I what we’d like to see in our Food Service program. I answered that I wanted people to brag about the food, the service, and entire dining experience.
My wife, on the other hand had the far better answer. She told Ann Marie, “I hope working in the Dining Hall becomes the most desirable job at SpringHill”
Why is Denise’s answer a far better one? Because accomplishing any great vision or achieving any big goal starts with having the right people. And the only way to have the right people is for the right people to want to be on your team. Which means you need to be the kind of organization that the right people want to work for.
And I know this is to be true, even in Food Service, because this is exactly what our Indiana overnight camp has accomplished over the last few years. Under the leadership of our Operations Director, Keith Rudge and his Food Service managers, working in our Indiana Food Service Department has become one of the most desirable jobs at camp. And the result has been an ever-increasing quality of food and better dining experience.
So after watching Joel, Ann Marie and her team work these past few weeks, I have no doubt they’ll exceed both Denise’s and my expectations and, more importantly, they’ll accomplish what our Indiana Food Service team has so beautifully accomplished over these past few years.
How to play your first Game like it’s Mid-Season
This weekend I watched our SpringHill Michigan team perform during our second Winter Teen Retreat of 2013. And frankly, it seemed like it was our seventh retreat because it went so smoothly. Yet I know this didn’t just happen, instead it was the result of our team’s good work before the first retreat.So what was that good work our team did leading them to perform at a mid-season level in our second weekend? Well our team took four intentional and necessary steps to be ready. First, they created a plan, second they prepared, and then they practiced before they ever played the first Winter Retreat.
Let’s take a closer look at the four steps our team took look:
Planning: plans require setting measurable goals and then mapping out in detail how to achieve these goals.
Preparation: preparation is where the identification and the gathering of all the resources necessary to successfully work a plan takes place. A plan without resources is just a dream.
Practice: once the necessary resources are in hand then practice and rehearsal provides insight into what needs to be re-planned and what resources are still needed. It also builds the confidence and habits required to win. This step is the one most often skipped, yet as any coach knows, without practice a team will not be ready for the game.
Play: playing is the outcome of the first three steps. And, as coaches know too well, how the team plays is 100% dependent on the game plan, the preparation, and most importantly, the practice a team’s had before the game.
And so, because our team worked through the first three steps before taking the fourth, this second retreat went as we’d expect our seventh one to go, which a good for our team, but even better for our campers.
The Necessary Qualities to be on a Super Bowl Team
A few years ago, the season after the Indianapolis Colts won the Super Bowl; we hosted a small group of SpringHill friends at a Colts preseason practice session where we had a few minutes with Coach Tony Dungy. During the Q&A time one of the questions our group asked Coach Dungy was “what are the qualities the Colts look for in players?”He responded without even thinking about his answer, reflecting the deeply held values he and the Colts had about the kind of players they looked for. Coach Dungy said there were three things they expected from every player:
- Players had to be smart. To help assess this quality one of the things the Colts did was simply reviewed the academic records of players being considered for their team.
- Players had to be goal orientated. The Colts evaluated this quality by asking potential players to state their goals for their career and their life.
- Players had to be team players: Before drafting or signing players the Colts asked a number of current teammates of a potential player to name the 10 people on their team they’d most want to play with on future teams. If a potential player didn’t make these lists the Colts won’t sign them.
Simple, straightforward yet imagine if all the players on the team you’re currently on, whether it’s a sports team or a business or ministry team, had all three of these qualities. What kind of team would it be? What championships might you win?
The SpringHill Fraternity
Ben Johson of Camp Berea in New Hampshire and Steve Pate of Tall Timber Ranch in the state of Washington, both SpringHill Staff Alumni I’m on a plane flying back from the Christian Camp and Conference Association’s (3CA) national conference in San Diego, CA basking in the afterglow of the people I spent time with and the things I learned.
I’ve concluded that among the many great parts of this conference, which included spending time with peers who, over the years, have become close friends as well as listening to inspiring and challenging speakers, that the most encouraging part of the conference was talking with SpringHill staff alumni who are now serving other camps.
These alumni include people now working at camps in New England, the Pacific Northwest, in the heart of the California Redwoods, and even in Spain. Each of these camping professionals spent a part of their early professional years at SpringHill.
And, almost to a person, these professionals told me how much they learned and grew while at SpringHill. As a result they’ve been able to take what they’ve learned and positively impact the camps they’re currently serving.
Now you need to know there’s nothing much more rewarding for me than knowing that SpringHill has played a part in the personal and professional development of our past staff. Especially when it’s enabled them to make a bigger contribution to the organizations (especially camps) they’re currently serving.
And even more rewarding is knowing that this handful of past staff I talked with this week represents a fraternity of literally 1000’s of Springhill alumni who are now making positive contributions in companies, schools, churches, mission agencies, ministries, and families all over the world, and by doing so making an eternal difference in the lives of thousands upon ten thousands of people.
“Connecting One’s Voice to One’s Touch”
“At the core of becoming a leader is the need always to connect one’s voice to one’s touch” Max De Pree in Leadership JazzWithin any group of people, whether it is a friendship, marriage, family, or organization, holding shared values, a common purpose, and set of beliefs creates meaningful, enduring, and influential relationships. Without these commonalities, relationships become superficial, temporary and incapable of making a significant difference in the lives of the people in the relationship, or to others in the world.
So how does a family, team or an organization achieve a unified commitment to such important issues? Ultimately it’s through leadership.
After Mark Olson hired me to replace him as Director of our Michigan overnight camp I asked him what his expectations were for me. He simply said “maintain our culture”. In other words my job was to not only assure that our core values, mission and beliefs were never compromised but that they were also reinforced and advanced. Mark understood the absolute importance of a leader’s role in creating this kind of organizational clarity and commitment.
Today, at SpringHill, we call leaders who do this “Culture Bearers”. And being a Culture Bearer isn’t just a philosophical ideal disconnected from the real work of our staff. Instead being a culture bearer, I believe, may be the most important personal quality a leader at SpringHill must demonstrate.
Why?
Because it’s only through leaders fully and visibly living out SpringHill’s mission, values and beliefs, in other words “connecting our voice to our touch”, that these important truths become baked into our culture. And as they’ve become baked into our culture, I believe it’s given SpringHill a true opportunity to make a significant and enduring difference in the lives of young people.
This is the final post of 14 in a series of about what it takes to be successful at SpringHill.
Having the Resilience of Churchill
On June 4, 1940, during the early days of World War II, Winston Churchill made a powerful speech to the British Parliament where he articulated the British people’s resilience in the face of the Nazi onslaught.
“We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender…”
It was Churchill’s stubborn resilience, and his ability to communicate it to the British people, that set the tone for British’s willingness to stand up to the evil aggression of the Nazi’s and their allies. This personal quality of Winston Churchill is what we, at SpringHill, call “Professional Will”. Professional Will is the ability to face and fight through adversity, to overcome obstacles, and continue to work without giving up.
This personal quality is important for a SpringHill staffer because working at SpringHIll, like working for any organization, has its ups and downs. We’re an organization of people serving people, so there are difficulties and frustrations that need overcoming. In addition we acknowledge the fact that we work in a fallen and broken world which creates the necessity to be resilient. That’s why our staff, though not needing to be Churchill like, does need to demonstrate his Professional Will.
This is part 12 of 14 in a series of posts about what it takes to be successful at SpringHill.
Leading People at SpringHill
There’s no other topic more written about, talked about, and blogged about in the entire world than leadership. It’s discussed, dissected, theorized, and analyzed in just about every facet in our society whether it’s government, business, education, church, or home.Why? Because we believe that for any organization, from a family to the federal government, to be successful through making a positive difference in the world it needs leadership. Yet it’s also a term that’s used so much and in so many ways that people don’t always agree on exactly what it means, yet we all know it when we see it and know when it’s missing.
At SpringHill we’ve also identified “Leading People” as an essential personal quality and professional competency necessary for a person to have long-term success in our organization. To that end we’ve defined leadership at SpringHIll, including what it should look like, so we can move leadership out of the ambiguous into a more clarifying, and thus useful, description.
We see “Leading People” as requiring building and maintaining working relationships with those within and outside SpringHill. “Leading People” also requires excellent communication skills as well as building strong teams. Within this context a person needs to be able to effectively share responsibilities with others, then motivate and inspire them to be successful in those responsibilities by creating an environment where both individuals and teams succeed individually and together.
You see “Leading People” is so critically important at SpringHill because leadership is at the core of what we do when we create SpringHill Experiences (SHX’s). Because in every SHX we’re leading staff, including 100’s of summer staff, volunteers and, most importantly, our campers.
This is part 10 of 14 in a series of posts about what it takes to be successful at SpringHill.
Together Accomplishing Something Great and Enduring
The greatest accomplishments the world has ever seen are the result of teamwork. Great institutions built, just wars won against incredible odds, and complex social problems solved because of communities of people who worked together to achieve something good, positive, and lasting. In every case these great accomplishments could not have happened through the work of a single person. True, a single person may have led the team, or been the public face, but behind that leader has always been people committed to seeing the work successfully completed.
Even in my life, in the great accomplishments I’ve participated in, I’ve always been member of a community. Whether it’s teaming up with my wife Denise to raise our children, being a part of a winning sports team, or working for an effective organization like SpringHill, it’s always been the team, the community that has brought success.
It’s this reality and the power of people working together to accomplish something significant and lasting that’s made it absolutely critical that SpringHill staff be great team players. It’s why being “Community Focused” is an essential personal quality and a key professional competency for staff who want to make an enduring impact at SpringHill.
“Community Focused” people not only value being part of a team, they value the team’s success over their own. They acknowledge and thrive on the inter-dependency our work requires including valuing the God-given differences each person brings to the community.
So whatever good and lasting thing SpringHill has ever done, or will ever do, will come through the team of people who’ve committed themselves, not only to SpringHill’s mission, vision and goals, but also to each other, working tirelessly as a team to see SpringHill accomplish the good work God’s given it to do.
This is part 6 of 14 in a series of posts about what it takes to be successful at SpringHill.
