Note to Self

From my uncle for my archives:

1. Know your vision

Paint a detailed picture in your head of your core mission – what does it look like? Who are you serving? How are you doing it? Why are you doing it? What resources are in the picture? What is your “best scenario” picture? What is the reality picture of today? What do you think it will look like tomorrow? A year from now? Five years from now? What do you think God’s view of the same set of pictures is?

A leader needs to know his Lord, mission, values, people and resources. Have a clear picture (vision) in your head and relentlessly pursue it.

3. Manage people first – resources second.
Marcus Buckingham on Management and Leadership

I. Being a good manager

“People join an organization. They quit their boss.”

“The job of the manager is to turn a person’s talent into performance.”

“For those of us who like getting things done, people are annoying. People are never done.”

“Great managers find out what is unique about each person and capitalize on it.”

Things you need to know about the people you manage

1. Their strengths and weaknesses
– Spend 80% of your effort developing their strengths
– Spend 20% working on weaknesses
2. What are their triggers
– What stimulates them
– What discourages them
3. What are their working and learning styles
– Analyzers – Good students. Hate making mistakes don’t give them jobs where they must learn from their mistakes
– Doers – Love unknown situations. Don’t mind learning through mistakes. Give them jobs where than can solve problems and learn by trial and error.
– Watchers – Learn by observing others. Like being mentored. Give them jobs where they can learn from others.
4. Management questions to ask when getting to know your employees
1. What was your best day at work in the last two months? (What motivates?)
2. What was your worst day at work in the last two months? (What discourages?)
3. Who was your best manager and why? (What helps?)
4. Who was your worst manager and why? (What hinders?)
5. What was your most satisfying recognition? (What excites?)

II. Being a good leader

“Good leaders rally people to a better future”

“A good leader is an almost irrational optimist.”

“A good leader has a strong ego balanced by strong ethics.”

A good leader has a clear vision of the future that others can understand and rally around.

– A good leader makes sure his followers know who they serve.

WalMart serves people who are living paycheck to paycheck

TESCO serves busy housewives

– A good leader knows his organization’s core strength

– A good leader knows the core score

Who are we competing against

Who are we cooperating with

How are we doing

– A good leader knows what actions the organization can take NOW

When Rudy Giuliani wanted to clean up New York’s image, he started by getting rid of

the men who washed car windows at every intersection and bullied drivers

into giving them a tip. The mayor had them arrested for jay-walking!

4. Communicate, Communicate, Communicate

Many corporate failures can be tracked to a lack of or poor communication – make sure you communicate your vision – make sure your people are on the same page – do your people have the same picture in their head you do? Can they communicate that picture? Can you and your people say the mission statement verbatim? Can you all articulate the vision in a few sentences? Be consistent – say the same things over and over to your people, donors and clients – make sure your people are consistent (It’s OK if your vision drifts or changes, but make sure everyone is aware of the changes, are on the same page and can articulate the mission and vision.)

I can not emphasize this enough – if you and your people don’t communicate, it will be hard to succeed.

Things People Want to Know About You

1. Who are You? – the vision thing as above – core mission, values, people and resources.
2. Where do you want to go? – What is it you want to accomplish? Why?
3. How will you get there? – A detailed implementation plan – what specifically are you going to do and how are you going to manage it? What people, resources and processes are you going to put into place to do accomplish your vision? Who will you partner with?
4. How will you know when you’ve arrived? – What outcomes do you expect and how are you going to measure it? You need to find and use assessment tools – client counts, surveys, evaluations etc. – implement this now while your ministry is young – it will make it much easier to do when you get large.
5. How do you spread the word? Marketing, Publicity – How are you going to let people know and be a part of what you do?

If you and your people can answer these questions, you are ahead of many organizations.