Difficult decisions

As a leadership consultant and CEO, I have a number of pet concepts that have withstood the test of time. My number one concept is, “Under promise, over deliver.” You see plenty of that idea in many of my blogs. Another one, no less common unfortunately but far less inspiring is, “Someone has to be the adult.” My kids especially hate it when I pull that one out, but the leaders I work like it no more than the kids.

But it is oh so true. Everyone wants to be a leader, but almost no one wants to make leadership level decisions. Because they are always difficult decisions. Decisions that no one wants to make. Heck if they were easy, someone would have already made the decision! The non-leaders can be as reckless and immature as they want, but the leaders, they have to do the right thing for the right reason without any luxury of what he or she wants. Difficult decisions. Someone has to be the adult. If you are the leader, that would be you.

Maintenance moments?

Thank God for maintenance! Today was my 6000 kilometer service for my motorcycle. I needed what this brought, all apart from the oil and filter. 

The maintenance service forced me to sit, be still, and work. I needed it badly. Although it is not like I had been avoiding it or anything, just the busyness of the day, guests, schedules, urgency of the moment, email, demands, rain, distractions of the day, everything taking longer to accomplish than allotted, competing agendas and desires, etc, etc, simply derailed me completely from focused concentrated work.

Take advantage of those enforced times of maintenance, whether it is the Honda shop or the Midas muffler shop or a flight or road trip or waiting in line or any minutes where you are forced to be patient and wait - can serve as a great opportunity for an inspirational moment.

Making babies

What a satisfying day at "work".  I can't imagine that anyone has a job like mine.  Its a location-less job, with a long long reach.  Today I am physically in Chiang Mai Thailand in Southeast Asia.  The part of my work that was so satisfying today was in the Ukraine.

There in Ukraine are young Tolic and Sveta.  They are both very physically handicapped.  They both grew up in Ukrainian state orphanages.  Then they did the unimaginable - they got married!  And still, even though married, as all "graduates" from State orphanages do in the Slavic world, they were sent to the Old Folks Home when they turned 18 and by law must leave the orphanage.  The only other option they had was to go live in a State Psychiatric Hospital. 

As married couples usually do, they made a baby. The State terminated their pregnancy.  They got pregnant again, and this time they are fighting hard to keep this child.  (this pic is of Sveta at 7 months) We are moving them out of the old folks home, so that they can keep the baby.  But the logistics are daunting and overwhelming and there are just so many factors to consider.  But a new baby, a new creation of God, is certainly worth all the effort.

The trials of Mr Tsa

I can't believe how naive I am sometimes.  I mean, don't you just ASSUME that others will treat you like they want to be treated?  Don't YOU treat others the way you expect to be treated? Surely I can't be in the minority here!  But there is something amiss in my la-la land.

At first I thought it was just a wild anomaly.  While we were getting a foot massage the other evening, three girls, jumped up and run off without paying 3/4 of the way into their foot massage!  Girls!  Foreigners who obviously had enough thousands of dollars to get here in the first place, ripping off people who are not certain of having enough money to buy their one meal of the day.  The poorest of the poor.  I thought it was an anomaly.  I was wrong.

Today I was sitting on a tiny little stool in Mr Tsa bicycle shop, about four inches off the floor, watching Mr Tsa replace the spoke I had broken earlier in the morning.  Five brawny American and Aussie boys (20 somethings) returned with their rental bikes.  The bikes had clearly been in the mud and offroad, although their contract with Mr Tsa expressly forbid that.  These were the cheapest of the rentals, for city use only, costing a $1.65 per day.

Mr Tsa informed the boys that were going to have to pay extra, in order to have the bikes detailed again, so that he would be able to rent the bikes to the next customers.  They protested strongly against the $1.25 cleaning fee assessed against each bike.  In the conversation that followed, Mr Tsa informed me that if I had not been there, things might have gone very badly for him indeed.  He then proceeded to tell me of how many times rich foreigners regularly lied, cheated, damaged, abused and generally did not behave in any manner in which to inspire confidence in the human race, to him and his business over the years.  I asked him what percentage took advantage of him overall.  He replied, "about 50% good like you, and about 50% bad, or worse, like them."  I was ashamed for all Westerners who I see here, giving us all a bad name.  I think I probably have to do 10 righteous acts, to counter a single bad apple in the mix.

The biggest irony for me, is that these people ripping off the poorest in south east Asia are the Millennial's - the most justice minded generation ever.  Maybe they should start with a dose of simple human decency and compassion before they yell at the rest of us to save the world.

Warm steady breeze

How are you doing setting the ambience for your best work?  For me a warm steady breeze works best.  Warm because I don't want to be cold and steady because I don't want to get too hot.  A warm steady breeze in my workflow happens like this.

It blows between things.  Between other events and appointments throughout the day.  There is no happy hour of creating or innovating or thinking.  It doesn't happen every day between 4-6 pm.  It more often occurs after my session with my physiotherapist, before my scheduled meeting with my boss.  Between those things.  30 minutes here, an hour there, intentional for sure (i.e. steady), but between other stuff.

Its warm all the time.  There is always a back burner seeing the world through a particular set of eyes, that can draw a metaphor for life that is worth living.  Its always warm.  Its always on.  There is no effort to it,  It doesn't take a ton of energy nor attention.  Just a percolating slightly all the time. Its always warm and slowly cooking something good up.

And often, it is actually a warm steady breeze, for real.  Like at this very moment, my "office" is the rooftop of my building, and its about 3000 square ft, with a killer view, internet, can enjoy my cigar, and there is a constant perfect warm breeze blowing out of the south.  A moment to create and think and innovation and build and develop.  Its an accelerant for the mind and heart.  And about the time the cigar ends, I will have to go back to the scheduled and planned and have a conversation with the boss . . . but the warm steady breeze was a golden moment. 

Being THERE versus BEING there

Some jobs need you to be fully present, on location, there in the flesh.  That is the primary reason I stepped down recently as the pastor of the International Church in Skopje.  I needed to BE there, and I couldn't.  Other jobs require you to be fully present mentally and emotionally, but not physically. That is the job I have now.  People still need me to be present, but they need my attention, my focus, my experience, my skills . . . but they don't actually need me to BE there.

These different types of jobs (and there is a whole scale of jobs between these two extremes) are equally important, equally impactful, and equally difficult, just in completely different ways. Please hear me well, I am in no way diminishing the critical nature of being a Pastor, nor the difficulty of that job.  I should know, as I have held that job in one fashion or another for most of my adult life.

But the locationless job I have now is fascinating to me.  As my dear sweet wife pointed out to me, I am very particularly wired to do this and do it well.  My steady high scores and evaluations year after year, echo her belief.  I have accomplished some significant work this week in Ukraine, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Cambodia, and Myanmar.  I have helped save babies, teach church planting, been invited to teach, assess, create and develop.  And all this and more, while physically being in Thailand the entire time.

So whether your value is created be BEING there or by being THERE, make sure you don't allow anything to stop you from being awesome.

You are being measured by metrics that you are not even aware of today.

The lady cooking my breakfast doesn't understand that speed or time is one of the most critical factors for Westerners. I can get a better breakfast far quicker at the neighboring store.  Why would I come back here? The desire for variety is often the only reason we even try a new place.  But you get measured by previous experiences.

Every church you visit has a very specific measuring tape.  You won't even know what that tape consist of until you have been there for a while. Trust me, they are taking your measure . . . just as you are taking theirs. 

Every job has metrics, and always only some of them are stated.  Your boss is the one who gets to interpret those metrics and while you may be exceeding all the stated evaluation points, you might not even rank on his/her understanding of those metrics. (I personally have had a number of uplines who use a variable measuring rod, and who interpreted the rules differently for each individual.  Impossible to succeed in such a situation.)

But you have choices.  If you are the business person trying to win my business or loyalty or return, you can query me to see how you did.  While the breakfast lady prompted this blog today, I honestly DID keep an open mind until I saw the breakfast and realized that it took less than three minutes to prepare, and I waited almost 15.  If you are the one searching for a new church or club group, you can stay, leave, or commit to change yourself or them or any combination of these options.  If the job is the focus, you can stay, change, grow, submit or leave, and once again, there are a number of combinations of these options depending on the situation.  But you do have options, let no one lead you to believe otherwise.

I took far too long in life to own up to this fact.  I stayed in a job with a certain company far too long.  And when circumstances finally forced me, forced me, to change and take the option that I could not contemplate previously, is when I was finally set free.  The scale and scope of my accomplishments since making the change, far exceed my previous production, in a third of the time.  Yes you are being measured by metrics you aren't even aware of, yet you have options and choices.

Extending your reach

I am really feeling the need to write these days.  Recently I opened my blogger account and what I discovered was a little disconcerting.  In 2006 and 2007, I posted a blog just about every other day.  But then came 2008 - only 16 for the whole year.  Then 2009 - only 3. Then 2010 - only 3. Then 2011 - only 1 Then 2012 - only 0.

Did I produce anything during those years?  Well actually I did.  But I got away from the discipline of systematically putting the work down in a place where it could be consumed, read, where it had the possibility of helping someone else, changing a life, building someone up, teaching an important concept or principle.  In reality blogging for someone like me - in a thinking job - is accountability.  A metric that can be seen and, well, measured.

Now I am using Evernote to track my touches with clients around the world, Feedly (at the moment but looking for something better) to research now that google reader is gone, Drafts for writing all content, because it is perfect on the mobile devices that I use, and I can then chose over 20 other actions with whatever I write, and back to blogger to publish the best content.  The challenge of a thinking job is that no one else but me will hold me accountable for producing something of value.  And we all need to bring value into the lives of others and into our work.  We all need to extend our reach.