Moving Beyond Paycheck
As Christians we are to do everything as unto the Lord and not unto men. That means we have far more than a job we have a calling.
We tend to live segmented lives with separate time and devotion given to work, family, faith, friends and entertainment. What comes with this mentality is the faith part of our lives tends to be limited to what we do on Sunday and it has very little practical impact on how we live the other six days of the week.
For some of us it goes way beyond that. Our careers become the major source of emotional fulfillment in our lives and we become seduced by all the power, position and possessions that come with worldly success.
In my opinion every Christian should see themselves living in full time ministry on mission for God. Their career then becomes their platform for impacting other people and not merely project deadlines and performance reviews.
When your whole life is integrated around your faith everything you do and every relationship you have takes on eternal significance. The person you are now working for is not your boss but the One who died for you so that you might live for Him.
Changing the world one person at a time is a career worthy of God’s grace in our lives and it is way beyond any paycheck that any company can give.
First and Lasting Impressions
I have had two very bad experiences with customer service this week. Not only was I the recipient of this bad “service” I also saw several other people having the exact same horrible experience.
In both situations the people assigned to dealing with the problem made promises they did not keep. For example setting pickup times and assuring you that if they did not call it would be ready, status updates that did not happen and the approach let’s just try this and I am sure it will work when they really did not have a clue about what to do.
Here is the interesting part at least for my situation. With both companies only because of my pushing I was eventually given to a supervisor to help me resolve hour’s worth of wasted time and finally fix the problems.
When I communicated with these new people they had a much better attitude and brought product knowledge that the front line people did not know. They did simple things like returning my calls on time and then committed to do whatever it took to resolve my issues.
Here is my question? Why not set the bar for all of the front line people in your organization at the same level where the supervisors were operating either in technical training, people skills or the authority to make it happen.
You will never convince me that it is cost effective for any company to pay less than qualified people to take hours of their time and your customers offending people that will probably never come back unless they get the slim chance to talk with their boss.
The front lines of your organization where interaction takes place with the people who are experiencing what you have to offer will always be the place where you want to make the best impression. If you’re weakest and newest team members are given these roles thinking they will grow into the job eventually the problem will solve itself because you will not have any more customers to deal with.
Christianity 24/7
The days of build it and they will come are over for churches. We may not want to admit it but for most Christians when they talk about church in their minds it’s about what happens at the buildings and not out in the community.
We must as leaders move the conversation from what we do on Sunday to what we do every day of our lives. The Christian life is not just about coming to church but being the church everyday where we go to school, live in our neighborhoods and work in our careers.
I recently met with a very successful committed Christian who is a pediatrician who wanted to grow more spiritually and get more involved in ministry. It was obvious to me from the very start of the conversation this meant to him taking on more responsibility at the church.
I began to share with him the vision that he could do more through his practice to reach young couples for Christ than we could ever do at the building. They would not even come to the building to hear Billy Graham but they were several new couples sitting in his waiting room every week expecting their first child.
In this postmodern age, we must never minimize the importance of the church gathered for worship and ministry but we must prioritize the church scattered for evangelism and missions. We must find new ways to take the gospel to where people live, work and play.
By the end of the conversation the light had come on for my friend because he no longer had a career but he now had a calling. That’s what happens when you change the definition of success from increasing profits to impacting people.
Teamwork Chemistry
I have probably learned more from Pat MacMillan on this subject than from any other writer. His book The Performance Factor is still a must read if you want to fully understand all the dynamics involved in leading a successful team.
When selecting team members you must have the right combination of competency and character. You really need people who are experts in their area of responsibility that can bring great factual accurate information into the discussion. However, the ultimate success of the team in my opinion will be even more driven by how people interact with each other showing mutual respect and humility.
I want everyone engaged and passionate about their contribution to the discussion but I do not want anyone attacking another person rather than debating their ideas. I have found the following list to be helpful for setting the right tone:
1. Treat each other with dignity and respect
2. Listen for understanding
3. Don’t take things personally; don’t mean things personally
4. Ask, but do not assume motives
5. Avoid degrading language; do not attack each other credibility
6. Everyone has input, regardless of position
7. We will not take ourselves too seriously
There is a big difference in being professional vs. being negatively personal toward another person. We must separate their ideas and comments from who they are and even though we may disagree we always value the individual.
How The Mighty Fall
Jim Collins follows up his all time best selling leadership book Good to Great with this incredible new work on why some of these once great companies now have fallen as well. He writes, “Whether you prevail or fail, endure or die, depends more on what you do to yourself than on what the world does to you.”
Based on his thorough teams research there are five major stages that lead to failure:
1. Hubris Born of Success: This stage kicks in when people become arrogant, regarding success virtually as an entitlement, and they lose sight of the true underlying factors that created success in the first place.
2. Undisciplined Pursuit of More: Companies in this stage stray from the disciplined creativity that led them to greatness in the first place, making undisciplined leaps into areas where they cannot be great or growing faster than they can achieve with excellence, or both.
3. Denial of Risk and Peril: At this stage leaders discount negative data, amplify positive data and start to blame external factors for setbacks rather than accept responsibility.
4. Grasping for Salvation: The sharp decline now becomes visible to all and the common saviors include a charismatic visionary leader, a bold but untested strategy, a radical transformation, a dramatic cultural revolution, a hoped-for blockbuster product or maybe game changing acquisition.
5. Capitulation to Irrelevance or Death: At this stage accumulated setbacks and expensive false starts erode financial strength and individual spirit to such an extent that leaders abandon all hope of building a great future.
All companies go through ups and downs but if you are willing to admit your mistakes and make the necessary changes early then this death spiral cannot only be overcome it can be avoided entirely.
Organizational Culture Change
According to John Kotter there are many reasons change initiatives fail especially in large organizations. The number one reason is there is not a clear sense of urgency for change that makes everyone willing to pay the short term price of pain due to change to gain the long term benefit of progress.
Many times the communications part of the process breaks down and the implementers do not get enough information to really buy in. The importance of creating short term wins for establishing credibility for the entire process cannot be overstated.
When the new of change becomes the norm there are several key factors that let you know it is now firmly in the D.N.A. of your organizational culture:
1. More change, not less: The guiding coalition uses the credibility afforded by short-term wins to tackle additional and bigger change projects.
2. More help: Additional people are brought in, promoted, and developed to help with all the changes.
3. Leadership from senior management: Senior people focus on maintaining clarity of shared purpose for the overall effort and keeping urgency levels up.
4. Project management and leadership from below: Lower ranks in the hierarchy both provide leadership and specific projects and manage those projects.
5. Reduction of unnecessary interdependencies: To make change easier in both the short and long term, managers identify unnecessary interdependencies and eliminate them.
When everyone in the organization starts to articulate the new vision in their own words as if it were their idea then you know they own the process. It is time to start looking for what needs to be changed next, the process never stops.
When To Quit
As Seth Godin points out we have all heard the expression winners never quit and quitters never win. In real life that is simply not true because knowing when to quit something that is clearly not working is the secret to winning because it gets you one step closer to the one thing that you were meant to do with your life.
Many times we take jobs thinking that we have finally found the answer to what do I want to do with my career? Many months later we realize that what we expected was wrong. We should never quit just because the work is challenging and the people with whom we work are not the best.
However when you have done your best and the day to day responsibilities that you have been assigned are not bringing any challenge or lasting value then you need to find something that you can be passionate about doing. Our work should be something we care about to the point that we look forward to going in every day because what we do really matters.
Sometimes we really like what we do but the team of people we are doing it with are merely takers and not givers. They are out for number one and there is an atmosphere of backbiting , constant stress and negative criticism that drives the culture of the organization. No matter how much you like what you do if you cannot enjoy the journey with the people you are doing it with it is simply not worth it.
Becoming a serial quitter for all the wrong reasons can be a fatal character flaw that will negatively impact your entire life. Quitting for the right reason can be the best thing you have ever done because it can lead you to a brighter future.
Pull The Trigger
There may be nothing harder to do as a leader than make the decision to terminate an employee. To be honest we feel to some degree we have failed and that is hard to accept.
This is especially true if we hired the person in the first place. Not only have they failed but now our performance as a leader may be in question also. We cannot let our own emotional need for personal success stand in the way of doing what is right for the organization.
There are three critical things that I must do as a leader before I feel that my responsibility has been completed prior to any termination. The first is to provide clear expectations of what is required in their job description. It is impossible for someone to meet your expectations if they have not been clearly communicated early and often.
The second important thing is to make sure the person has had adequate training and resources to complete their job successfully. It is not fair to ask someone to grow a particular area and not give them the financial and manpower assets they need to be effective.
The last issue for me is a comprehensive and ongoing feedback system that lets a person know exactly where they stand in the area of performance. It is not right to see someone make mistakes day after day and stick your head in the sand hoping it will go away only to drop a bomb on them at annual review or even worse an unexpected termination. If you do not have the leadership skills to positively confront someone about what they are doing wrong then you may be the one in the wrong job and not them.
If you have done all of these three things well and given this person every opportunity to improve and they don’t then you should feel no guilt or sense of failure. Never obsess on the five to ten percent of your staff that may need to go every year. What is extremely important is to remember the ninety to ninety five percent who are doing their jobs well and are watching to see if you have the character as their leader to pull the trigger.
Interview Process
When it is all said and done all potential employees will be evaluated under the two broad categories of character and competency. The more important of the two is character because you can help most people through training to improve their skill set but you may never be able to overcome who they are as a person.
Once you have narrowed the number of resumes down to the people that you may be interested in it is very helpful to conduct an initial phone interview. It is very important to learn how to ask open ended questions that will allow the person to talk beyond the typical scripted answers. As quickly as possible find out what they are passionate about and what they are capable of doing.
The next step is to send them a series of questions and assessment tools that will give you an even clearer understanding of the person’s strengths and personality tendencies. This should be compared to a very detailed reference resource form that looks for the not so obvious information. A good question might be if you were to see them in a totally different field of work what would it be and why?
By the time you get to a face to face interview the issue is more about character and chemistry than it is competency. I have found it very beneficial to involve other team members in this process to see how they read the fit for our organizational culture.
I would never hire anyone for any kind of significant role without first meeting their spouse. Seeing a couple interact with each other can tell you a lot about the person. Probably one of the most important things to do is get the person in several casual settings where they will not have their game face on and you can listen and observe how they interact with other people.
This entire process could take several months but remember the only thing worse than not having a position filled is to have it filled with the wrong person. When in doubt move on to the next person because as a leader your gut is probably right.
Corporate Shepherd
There are many leaders today that want to move beyond just making a profit to really making a difference. They want to be successful and that’s great but they also want the significance that only comes from adding value to other people.
When leadership is approached from a Christian perspective a new model starts to develop where the leader becomes more of a shepherd to their people than a boss to their employees. They do care about performance and productivity but they also feel responsible for developing alignment around core values and creating the right culture for work-life balance for their people.
They also see life beyond the immediate pressures of planning, project management, staffing, goal setting and execution. The legacy they want to create for their life and organization includes eternal metrics that must be included when talking about the ultimate bottom line.
The clear plan for every Christian is to use your professional life as a platform for ministry because we are all in full time Christian service. Our lives should no longer be seen as segmented into faith, family, friends, recreation and entertainment but become totally integrated into being one life on mission for God. The various roles that we fulfill are no longer competing with each other but complimenting the calling God has for our lives.
In the end there is only one performance review that really matters. The evaluation criteria is simple, How faithful were you with all that I entrusted to your care? Thinking about that moment should overwhelm us with gratitude and give us a renewed sense of passion to hear well done my good and faithful servant.
Dan Greer
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