Misdiagnosed
When I go to my doctor because I'm not feeling good he goes through a process to diagnose what it really wrong with me. He starts asking some basis questions that narrow the options of my illness. "Where does it hurt?" "My elbow." He has now narrowed down the potential diagnosis... I clearly don't have a broken ankle.
When dealing with situations in our organization, we need to start by asking the right questions. Asking the wrong question won't get you the right answer. In fact, asking the right question won't usually get us the right answer! Asking the right questions will get us to the right answer!
Value Added Living
I was recently thinking about the value that group life has added to my life. I grew up in church, a pastors home even. I can remember when I was a child being sick on Sundays and having to go and spend Sunday morning in my father’s office instead of in my bed. Going to church on Sunday is so normal to me that when I’m on vacation I feel guilty if I don't find a church to go to.
That being said, there are huge benefits that I’ve gained in my life over more than a dozen years in structured group life. Benefits that exist, not because of Sunday mornings, but because I’ve chosen to live in close proximity with other believers.
1. Confession: As I have built the relationships within a small group of friends, I have found that trust grows, acceptance flows, and therefore confession is able to happen. I am able to express the things that God is putting his finger on in my life and I find the support and love of friends.
Triple-Threat Leadership : Book Review
I just finished a real quick read, Alan Danielson's ebook, "Triple-Threat Leadership" It truly is a one sitting read.
Alan takes the three critical skills needed in leaders and talks about how each leader has a predisposed leadership style based on the way they are wired. In a refreshing change from the 'play to your strengths, don't worry about your weaknesses' teaching that is common these days, Alan addresses the fact that leaders must have at least moderate competence in these three leadership skills to be a great leader.
The three realms he addresses are: Vision, Relationships and Strategy. While it is close to impossible to to have equal strength in all three areas, ignoring one or two of the realms to simply play to your strength is not going to cut it in today's leadership intensive culture. Alan calls challenges the reader to find the "appropriate imbalance" in these three skill sets. Leaders need to avoid neglecting their weak areas, but at the same time avoid overcompensating and spending too much time developing their weak areas.
This read is beneficial for every leader to read, I also believe that this would be a great tool for teams to digest and discuss. There will be a common language that can be used, and getting feedback from others on the team will help with each leader's self-awareness of their own strengths.
All in all, this is a great reminder that every leader has natural strengths and inherent weaknesses. When it comes to these three skill sets, we can play to our strengths, but to be a great leader we must spend some time developing our weaknesses.
Bloopers
I've been cleaning up some of my files lately and came across this blooper video that we put together when we recorded the "What Matters Most" video curriculum for small groups.
One for All!
My wife and I took our son to go see Madagascar 2 a while back. I remember that there were enough one-liners in the movie to provide enough chuckles from me that I didn’t fall asleep. There were two lines that caused me to whip out my phone and make a note to myself right away. One line was: “They’re New Yorkers, they’re just rude and angry people.” Okay, so it struck me as funny, what does that say about me? 
The other line that I wrote down was much deeper and much more deep. The zebras were running as a herd and you hear one make this comment: “It’s one for all, and all for all.” Did you read that properly? "It's one for all, and all for ALL."
What I'm Thinking...
- Cost of superbowl commercials is so highroad corporations have sold other companies product placement options. 20 hrs ago
- If you don't already use Dropbox: Use this link to learn about it and sign up: http://t.co/BwqUBmFc 2 days ago
- You can get an additional 4.5GB of free storage (you'll be beta-testing for them): http://t.co/NRKpWPqK 2 days ago
- Is you already use Dropbox, you can get upto 768mb of additional storage for free: https://t.co/9oB8DT6h 2 days ago
- I love Dropbox because Has made file sharing with my two college kids super easy! One in FL, one in MN, I'm in PA. http://t.co/NQHNBBgx 2 days ago
- More updates...
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