Monthly Archives: September 2016

Posted on

Happy Family Tip #1

Friday Family Tip #1: Do as much as you can together.

This may seem obvious, but in reality moms and dads often lead very separated and isolated lives trading children for which ever spouse it’s more convenient. This is a recipe for rebellious children, a fractured family and ultimately, a divorce.

This kind of dual-living really speaks to the properties of the parents and quality of their marriage, which is the core of the family structure and health. Healthy marriages facilitate healthy families. Wake up, if your marriage is in trouble, your family is in trouble. Wake up if your priorities center around you, your family is in trouble. Families that have shared priorities are happier, healthier and work together better as a whole. Families that have competing priorities are associates not friends, escalate into hostility quickly and are generally looking for substitutionary means of happiness that come from outside the family (the root of many affairs).

Together means “with, at the same time, without interruption.” So, families that do things with each other, at the same time, without interruption are doing things together. Together means “not apart.” Together means unity and wholeness. Families must discipline themselves to work together, play together, eat together, disagree together and be together. This can be hard for some families (certainly, there are times that work/vocation make this impossible), but it is really about melding an attitude, a spirit and a heart of family unity that is an indivisible and indefatigable bond.

“There is no doubt that it is around the family and the home that all the greatest virtues, the most dominating virtues of human society, are created, strengthened and maintained.”

Winston Churchill

Happy families have strong bonds. This idea of bonding is critical for your family’s health and happiness. Bonds are formed and strengthened as your family spends time together. When parts of the family are missing, they are missing out on strengthening the bond. Bonds are born by time spent by doing things close together. Some of my most poignant memories of my childhood became bonds of suffering as I and my five siblings went everywhere together in our 1979 Chevrolet Impala station wagon with no air conditioning and half the windows that didn’t work. Environments, activities and situations create unbreakable bonds between children and parents.

We live in a generation that’s all about “me.” That can be me the kids or me the parents. Part of the role of a family is to teach everyone about commitment, cost and sacrifice. My parents didn’t cater to their six children, nor did they make us cater to them. There were family priorities that affected everyone in to family that helped determine what we did as a family.

Parents take your kids with you wherever you go, whenever you go as often as you can as an ENTIRE FAMILY. Don’t fragment your family unless you have to. Fragmentation is a structure that has developed into pieces or parts. The healthy family functions as a whole, single unit.This creates a system of support. So, when the members of the family have problems (and trust me you all will), they can turn to their immediate and closest support system–their family.

Create and schedule intentional whole family activities where all parents and all children are engaged. Parents, this means NO CELL PHONES. Family activities are the most influential and memorable when mom and dad are fully present and attentive. Play a board game, eat meals at a table, watch a movie (on Clearplay or VidAngel), go to the park, go for a walk, go to the grocery store and attend church together. Being present and attentive signifies a healthy family support system.

Keep your children as close to your wings as possible for as long as possible. Don’t push them out of the nest to figure out how to fly on their own. Put them on your back and jump out of nest with them, as a family. This will keep them coming back to the nest as a place of safety, security and happiness.

Selfish parents seek to do lots of “things” by themselves apart from their kids. Keep your kids close, change your lifestyle to benefit your children, not your children to benefit yours.

Principle #1 is about sharing and doing life together. Otherwise, when they are grown, they will not want to share their life with you. You have a short window of opportunity to really enjoy your kids when they are young, otherwise they will not enjoy your company when they are old.

Posted on

6 Things to Look for in a Leader

Leadership seems to be lost these days. What should we be looking for in our leaders? 

There is not much debate around leadership anymore. The fact is widely acknowledged that leadership is at an all-time low, despite having more written about it in the past 30 years than all the millennia of human history combined.  If there was a hall of fame for worst leaders, then we’d certainly have some prime candidates as we begin the 21st Century. Somewhere along the way, our leaders have lost their way. Followers stopped holding their leaders accountable and our culture is not better for it.

There are still great leaders out there, but sadly many of them are not running for public office, being promoted as generals (we do still have some great generals) or sitting in positions of national influence. If you’ve ever been led by a great leader, then you know that everything rises and falls on leadership.

6 Things that are Essential to Excellent Leaders

1- Credible & Believable. If a leader is not credible, then they are unbelievable! Literally, if you are trying to convince yourself that the leader in question is trustworthy, then that leader has already been discredited in your mind. Rhetoric is the art of popular and persuasive speech. As a discerning follower, you must get beyond a leader’s rhetoric and assess their motivation. True inspiration does not come from solely passionate and persuasive speech. True inspiration comes from your assessment of credibility of the speaker’s motivation. Credibility is always born out of substance. Beware of leaders who peddle promises without substance. Anyone call tell you what you want to hear, very few will tell you what you need to hear–it’s the credible leader that will do the latter.

The ancient Greeks called this credibility a speaker’s ethos or spirit. You must ask yourself, “Does my spirit really connect, identify or testify to their spirit?” Each person has intuition until they quit using it or allow someone to numb it. When you evaluate a leader as credible, you have judged them believable.

If people don’t believe you, then ultimately they won’t follow you. So, either you have to bribe them, brainwash them or bash them to get them to follow you. This is what poor leaders do. Great leaders steer far away from this pattern of behavior. Poor leaders are always fearful of losing control, so they go to great lengths to protect their ability to control their followers. Great leaders are believed and beloved by their followers and they are willingly followed.

2- Track Record of Being Right and Getting it Right. There are no perfect leaders presently inhabiting the earth. There are good & effective leaders and there are poor & ineffective leaders. The question is not if they make mistakes, but rather, how they respond to their mistakes. I always teach that some mistakes are healthy (just not the lawsuit kind, the kind that cost a lot of money or the kind that loose your life). However, an assessment of leadership is to ask “Has this person learned from their mistakes?”

Leaders don’t always come out and say, “Yesterday I made a mistake, today I will correct it.” That would be nice, but maybe a little naive. However, does the leader at some point own up to the error and make the needed adjustments and corrections? Especially, as they progress, do they stop making that error.

3- Willing to Take a an Unpopular Position based on Convictions. Leaders with conviction have friends with convictions. You want to see the measure of a leader: look at the convictions of their friends. Convictions are deeply held beliefs that identify character and determine direction. Convictionless people are stringless balloons–they float whichever way the wind blows them.

Great leaders work hard to avoid the popularity contest. Great leaders take a position and hold it.  The effective leaders take a stand for what is right, not what is popular. Because true convictions are based on absolute, moral law, then the great leader will stand firm, despite popular opinion and pundits turning against him/her.

Convictions breed consistency. Great leaders are highly consistent people. Why? Because they are not trying to figure out what people want and then give it to them. They have a message to proclaim and allow people to see the consistency, transparency and candor that their personal convictions illicit in the life of  that leader. Many of our leaders today, not only can’t pick a position, they won’t pick a position. Moreover, because moral law has been disregarded in the court of public opinion, they take the popular position.

One of my favorite proverbs is a statement Jesus said, “Wisdom is proved right by her children.”  Every leader has a track record. Examine the track record. Wisdom and right decisions are always linked. A wise leader more often than not gets it right–whatever it is! (Just for the record Jesus never got it wrong). Always look at a leader’s “children” or what or whom they are producing. Good trees bear good fruit. Bad trees bear bad fruit or no fruit.

4- Understands and Applies Honor. Honor is a term that we rarely use anymore. We used to see our country as a place worthy of honor. We have holidays to honor those who have sacrificed and shed blood. Honor is a good thing. To honor someone or something is to esteem that thing above others. Historically, our nation has honored the brave, the selfless and those that have paid the highest sacrifice.

Leaders that understand honor, have the habit of giving it and showering it on those around them. Poor leaders, selfish leaders gravitate towards honoring themselves. These are self-centered, ego-driven leaders who are more about manipulating those that follow them and rewarding those who ensure their continued power. This is because they don’t like to share honor. Watch who leaders place around them “on stage.” Do they place self-less people or self-centered people? Do they put forth honorable people or dishonorable people?

Early Christians were commanded by the Apostle Paul to “outdo one another is showing honor” (Romans 12:10). To show honor demonstrates a reverence, a respect and a sacredness that is rapidly departing from our nation and our culture. Without honor a nation, a people will decay. Dishonor decays a nation. Demanded honor breeds tyranny.

5- True to their Word. Leaders who can’t keep their word, really can’t be trusted. Truth is not expedient for a leader. Truth is a non-negotiable for a leader. Sadly, our culture not only allows dishonest leaders, but whole-heartedly embraces them.

My father taught me to keep my word, despite what it cost me. Many games or fun things I missed because I had a prior commitment. Followers need to demand that leaders commit. A committed leader is a leader that is dedicated to the cause, the organization and the mission. A person’s word used to be their bond. A bond is a seal and a restriction. This bond of trust seals in the mission and restricts the distraction.  A leader that keeps his/her word is a leader that is demonstrating that they are both responsible and can be trusted. A leader that can’t keep their word is demonstrating that are irresponsible, looking for convenience and untrustworthy.

Trust is glue. Glue is what bonds things together. Trust is the bond that unites leaders and followers together.

“Work Hard. Do your best. Keep your word. Never get too big for your britches. Trust in God. Have no fear; and Never forget a friend.”

~Harry S. Truman

Leaders who get “too big for their britches” are arrogant leaders. Arrogance is blindness. Blindness leads people into ditches, snares and pits. Humility keeps a leader in the right-fitting pair britches. Humility makes a good mirror. Pride is a foggy mirror.

6- Trusts in God. There is no greater thing a leader can do than to put his/her trust in the Almighty Creator. When a leader recognizes that they too are under the authority of God, then a level and measure of humility enter in to that leader’s life that will affect their entire organization and sphere of influence. Leaders that recognize that God is supreme and has given man absolute, moral law truly begin to understand justice, judgment and mercy. Our nation’s greatest leaders were unashamed to evoke God’s blessing and publicly express their belief in God and the Bible.

“If we ever forget that we are one nation under God, then we will be one nation gone under.”

~Ronald Reagan 

We, as followers, must throw off the shackles of ignorance and passivity and demand that our leaders act like leaders instead of tyrants. Leaders who have credibility, who get their decisions right, have deep-seated convictions, act honorably, keep their word and trust God. We, as followers, must look beyond the popularity contest and the posturing contest to discern what is truly motivating and guiding that leader. Leadership doesn’t have to die with an election. If everything rises and falls on leadership, then let us ask God to raise up leaders who will raise the nation, the culture, the community and the home back up.

unknown-2“Without God there could be no American form of government, nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first, the most basic, expression of Americanism. Thus, the founding fathers of America saw it, and thus with God’s help, it will continue to be.”

– Dwight D. Eisenhower

Posted on

How to Select Better Talent: The Key is Chemistry

Do you need help selecting the right people?

Are you struggling to land the best people you can for the best position possible? Are you finding it difficult to determine if a candidate really will work well for you and with you. People selection is one of the most critical and difficult tasks for any leader on any team or in any organization. There is a war for talent and this clouds and confuses the talent selection process because there is more pressure to make the right selection than ever before. 

The Challenge  

Let’s assume you and your HR team have done your home work and you are looking at multiple candidates that are all qualified. You are debating with your team and with your self about if and who would be the “right” fit for the position. Let’s further assume you’ve hired or promoted some people in the past that either didn’t work or were just complete disasters. This fact is putting extra pressure on you to really get this selection right.

187b30438ac7e191d0a987216046cf05

The Chemistry of Selecting People 

Selecting people is like chemistry. Electing people is like politics. Both can be explosive. But chemistry is more predictable. Think of your selecting like chemistry. In chemistry, you don’t just pour a bunch of random chemicals into a beaker and hope for the best. If you do that you will create a potential poison gas or an explosion. Rather, you select chemicals that will react well and compliment one another. This is predictable. There is an art and a science to selecting people. Get in your mind that hiring and promoting people is a selection, not an election.

The Tool: Chemistry Checklist

I have developed a quick checklist when I get down to the final decision that will help you decide if the chemistry clicks. When you get down to the end of the process, review these things to make sure you are not going to mess up the chemistry in your organization. It, literally, just takes the wrong element at the wrong time to bring instability and tension to your chemistry.  These four elements were actually from a series of conversations that I had with my brother who is a very successful senior manager of a large corporation. He and I are in different organizations, but are really both in the talent acquisition business. Those who excel in talent acquisition are good at people chemistry.

Chemistry that Clicks Checklist:

#1 – Led: (A willing follower) The first thing I am going to examine is whether or not I believe that this candidate has a willingness to be led by me, the immediate supervisor and the organization.

Ask yourself, “Will this person follow me? Does this person have a willingness to be led?” 

If a candidate comes in to exert their efficiency, expertise or knowledge, then I can expect chemistry concerns from the very beginning. A person that can be led is potentially a person that can lead. People that don’t follow don’t belong in your organization. Everyone is led by someone. In your final selection process make a determination whether or not you believe this person can be led by you. I’m not suggesting you are looking for unmotivated, uninspired people (that should have already been determined or you shouldn’t be to this point). I’m suggesting you examine the motivations of the candidates ticker. What makes them tick? What drives them?

A person that can be led by you can be fed by you. This is a key component in developing people in your organization.

#2 – Listen: (A good listener) The next element of chemistry I am looking for is to discern how good a listener this candidate is. People who are poor listeners typically are good talkers. Good talkers need to be heard. Beware of a need to be heard. You should have already determined that this person has been able to communicate their ability and you believe them. Ask them questions to asses their ability to listen.

Ask yourself, “Is this person someone I can see really listening to me?” 

Good listeners make good learners. It’s impossible to listen if you are distracted or doing all the talking. Beware of people that “don’t come up for air” when they are speaking. Basically, these people have not learned to read the person (in this case you) that they are communicating with. Poor listeners are often poor people readers. Poor listeners often have very poor emotional intelligence. Good chemistry always has a basis of good communication.

#3 – Loyalty: (A strong bonder) The longer I work with people, the more I have learned how valuable and irreplaceable loyalty really is for an organization or a relationship. Loyal people are harder and harder to come by. I think, however, there is some confusion as to what loyalty really is. To be loyal is to be faithful. This is a deeper understanding of loyalty. Loyalty is where integrity meets faithfulness. Faithful people are loyal people.

Ask yourself, “Do I see this candidate as someone who will be loyal to me and my team? Will this person stay on my team or become a team of their own?” 

In an age where commitment is at an all time low, uncommitted and unfaithful people mess your chemistry up. Why? Because disloyal people are inconsistent. Inconsistency causes those in the organization or in the team to question both the motivation and the sincerity of the individual. Inconsistency causes instability. Loyal people bring stability to the team. Loyalty is an element in a selection that will actually help bond your relationship, team or organization together. Strong bonds make for strong teams. Loyalty makes good glue in people chemistry.

#4 – Like-ability: (a good friend) This is the simplest one of all the elements. This comes from your heart to their heart. You, as a person, not the boss, not the leader, not the manager, just you, are wondering if you really like this person or not. I have found that if I am going to select people, I don’t want to have to convince myself that I like them. I don’t want to change my own chemistry to get their element to fit with my chemistry. Remember, you are in the position in your team or organization for a reason and you were there first. You are a leader for a reason. Leaders must protect the chemistry. This means, you get the first right of refusal. Sometimes, you just don’t “like” the candidate more than you like the one you just met with. This is fine. Don’t talk yourself into liking a candidate, this almost never works. If something in you doesn’t connect with something in them, then move on because you are in danger of messing up your chemistry.

Ask yourself, “Do I connect this person? Do I like this person? Will I like them more or less in the next couple of months than I do now?” 

I write this from more than 20 years experience of selecting people. Sometimes, you can’t explain it. You look at the candidate, you look at their resume and everything looks good, but you just don’t connect with them on any level or more importantly on the deepest levels. Don’t make yourself connect with them. You are a human. Most likely, if you’ve read this far in this article, you work with other humans. Not all humans like each other. Some chemicals react negatively with other chemicals, just like some people react negatively with other people. That’s okay. Don’t bring people into your sphere of influence if the chemistry doesn’t click from the beginning. Remember, in this discussion, they have already been proven to be qualified, so you aren’t trying to make an unqualified person fit into a position they aren’t qualified for.

Here’s why like-abilty is so important to you as the selector: you will be more patient, more forgiving and more understanding of the growth and development or the mistakes of a person that you like than one you don’t like. 

To like in chemistry literally means to attract, to draw together or agreeable. It’s like a good meal or a bad meal. A good meal reacts well with your body chemistry and you are relaxed and satisfied. A bad meal reacts poorly with your body chemistry and upsets your stomach.

Conclusion:

Think about your organization, your team as a chemistry lab. You have lots of elements present, but not all of them will mix well together. Your job as the professor in this lab is to match the elements well. When the chemistry in your organization or team is matched well you can expect peace, greater results and greater efficiency.

The right people for you will have a chemistry that meshes well with what is already existing (unless you are trying to change the chemistry, but that will have to be an article for another day!). The right people will be led, will listen, will be loyal and you will like them.

Get the Chemistry Right and You will Start Getting the Right Results! 

Chemistry that Clicks Checklist:

1-  will be Led – This person is a willing follower 

2- will Listen – This person is a good listener 

3- will be Loyal – This person is a faithful companion 

4- I will Like them – This person is an agreeable friend 

 

 

 

(c) 2016. Redwall Leadership Academy