Friends can help you overcome your personal demons.
Accepting the outsider can bring out the best in them.
Rumors kill.
For many, facts don’t matter, they only get in the way.
We marry our version of reality then we have to maintain it by only allowing in information that fits. Eventually we hear only what reinforces our version of reality and anything else is spun as a sinister lie.
Your enemies will try to get you to give up by breaking your will. You can outlast and overcome them with perseverance, problem-solving, courage, and tenacity.
Evil doesn’t give up easily. Actually, it doesn’t give up.
“Never underestimate the power of a small group of committed people to change the world. In fact, it is the only thing that ever has.” ~ Margaret Mead
” Greater love has no one than this; to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” ~ Jesus of Nazareth
Love your enemies; Love those who aggravate you; Love those you have scorned; Love those you envy; Love those who disgust you; Love those you think you are better than; Love those you do not think work hard enough; Love those you think use the system; Love your political opponent; Love your competitor.
Pray for your enemies; Pray for those who aggravate you; Pray for those you have scorned; Pray for those you envy; Pray for those who disgust you; Pray for those you think you are better than; Pray for those you do not think work hard enough; Pray for those you think use the system; Pray for your political opponent; Pray for your competitor.
If your enemy is hungry, feed them; If the one who aggravates you is hungry, feed them; If the one you scorn is hungry, feed them; If the one you envy is hungry, feed them; If the one who disgusts you is hungry, feed them; If the one who you think you are better than is hungry, feed them; If the one you do not think works hard enough is hungry, feed them; If the one you think uses the system is hungry, feed them; If your political opponent is hungry, feed them; If your competitor is hungry, feed them.
Anger begets anger.
Do not be conquered by evil but conquer evil with good.
Dear God, I want a team of coworkers made up of people who…
They take ownership of their job.
They see and understand how their job fits into the agency mission.
Their first thought is, “if it is to be it is up to me.”
They supervise and lead with the motto, “I won’t ask anyone to do anything I am not willing to do myself.”
Their first instinct in a problem situation is not to look for who to blame but rather think “how can I be the solution?”
They refuse to leave their work undone for someone else to clean up.
They think “team” before “self.”
They speak in terms of “we”versus “me .”
They know there is no “I” in the word “team”.
Their first thought is “How do my actions affect everyone else?”
They believe “I want to do my part and a little more to make sure the team is successful.”
For my coworkers in leadership roles:
They take ownership of their team’s performance.
They realize if you don’t take ownership you are not leading.
They know what conversations are part of leadership problem solving and aren’t ready to be shared with co-workers.
They know what is confidential and keep it confidential.
They can handle and participate in leadership conversations about money, benefits, staffing patterns, policies and procedures through the lens of the whole organization rather than the lens of self or their small part of the organization.
They know what to say and what not to say in meetings and to staff who are not managers.
If they have an issue they bring it to their supervisor and do not share it with staff (causing gossip…drama).
But God, I realize this list does not represent everyone on my team. What if you have put some of my frustrating coworkers on my team to teach me how to work with difficult people. Could it be that you are teaching me something through them? Could it be…
Some are there to teach me how to do confrontation in a humane restorative way.
Some are there to help keep my expectations of people realistic.
Some are there to help me grow in my capacity to understand how people’s life experience, past and present, impacts their work
Some are there to teach me how to coach people step by step.
And some are there to teach me how to lead and manage a team by having hard conversations and making difficult decisions.
In the midst of all this you call me to be a servant leader. Help me to do this with love, compassion, truth, and honesty.
Have you ever thought about how important your enemies are to you? If “enemies” is too strong of a word then think of the people in your organization, industry or community who oppose you with the most strength and frequency. Why are they so important? Because no one else in your life can do what they do for you.
Your greatest enemies give you:
Regular opportunities to practice courage. Sometimes thinking about our enemies can lead us to experiencing fear or dread. This happens when we focus on how their actions could harm us or the organizations we lead. Practicing courage requires us to change our focus and to talk to ourselves rather than listen to ourselves. William Tecumseh Sherman is quoted to have defined courage as, “a perfect sensibility of the measure of danger, and a mental willingness to endure it.” It is likely your enemies, competitors, or opponents may be just as afraid of you as you are of them. Don’t simply focus on the power or leverage they have over you, but realize you too have power and leverage. Sometimes we can get so focused on how we could be hurt that we only see those aspects of our future. Choose, as General Sherman suggests, to push past that and explore your strengths and possibilities. Allow yourself to think outside the box. Get advice from a variety of types of sources. By focusing on what you can do rather than on what someone else might do to you will give you energy and help you grow in confidence.
The chance to hone your problem solving skills. A focus on problem solving versus a focus on the problem is a life practice that will make you better at all aspects of leadership. It is easy to become enamoured with an obstacle, or adversary in our life and perseverate on how much damage they could do to us. Having a clear sense of the dangers that we face is healthy and a survival skill, but we must pivot to solutions or we become stuck in the unproductive cycle of worry, fear and anxiety. Thankfully we can choose what we think about and how we think about it. It takes practice but over time and repetition we can get better at being solution-focused rather than problem-focused. A problem-focused approach sees the potential dangers ahead and becomes increasingly trapped by them. Being solution-focused acknowledges the danger ahead and immediately pivots to using our personal strengths, our relationships, our knowledge and wisdom to solve the issue. Being solution focused decreases anxiety while generating positive energy and creativity.
The necessity to think tactically and strategically. Thinking strategically takes problem solving a little farther. It involves long range planning and requires a focus not only on solving the problem right in front of you but on changing how you operate in general. It helps you not only solve the initial problem but gives you a map to ultimately deal with the source of the problem. Your enemy may create many problems. Being strategic means pursuing a deeper understanding of your opponent’s personality, patterns, and motives. Being strategic usually means getting more people involved in helping you analyze your own position. A common and effective way to initiate the process is by doing a SWOT analysis. SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. With a team of people you trust to give honest good advice, review these four items about yourself or your organization. From there you can begin the process of developing a longer range strategy that will make you problem solving even more fruitful.
The opportunity to have your deficits exposed in order to overcome them. We have a tendency to hide our faults or not put ourselves in situations where we have to operate out of our deficits. Enemies may put you in a situation in which you have to wade into your deficits and either improve those areas of leadership or find functional adaptations for them. Leaders who are unaware of their deficits or who ignore them set themselves up for difficultes. Enemies can keep us on our toes regarding our deficits as often those who oppose us come at us in areas we are weak. Honest self awareness can be your friend. Examine the areas of your leadership domains that you struggle with. Be honest about important facets of leadership that you neglect. Leading an organization requires attention to organizational culture, organizational climate, team member morale, human resource management, legal compliance, ethical practice, fiscal dilligiance, political awareness, and many other subtle and not so subtle areas. You are not skilled in all of them and you aren’t able to focus on all of them. Seek help.
The chance to learn how some people are experiencing you. Thinking about how others experience us does not come naturally. We like to believe others see and feel our good intentions. The reality is they are experiencing us through their own unique lens. This is one of the most surprising lessons I have learned over 16 years leading a nonprofit. People interpret and judge everything I do and say. Often their interpretations display mistrust and misgivings. The people I work with come in with a variety of preconceived notions, perceptions, expectations, and previous experiences with authority. We may create fear, doubt and distrust in others without even realizing it. As an organizational leader how often are your statements, even casual off the cuff remarks that you meant nothing by, interpreted completely differently than you intended? Consistent, fair, equitable, behavior that demonstrates a commitment to the agency’s mission and values and as much as possible the best interest of the employees is essential in gaining the trust of your co-workers. Your enemies’ experience and perceptions of you give you a chance to see how others may be thinking of you. This gives you the chance to act differently, in ways that will actually communicate what you are hoping to.
The opportunity to change the whole paradigm by practicing what Jesus taught, “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you (Matthew 5:44).” Not everyone reading this may share this as a value. But just think of it. What if, by changing how you viewed your enemy you were able to turn them into a valued collaborator? True, this may not be possible with everyone, however, “…as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone (Romans 12:18).” Jesus teaches about his upside down kingdom where the “first shall be last (Mark 10:31),” and where the poor are blessed (Luke 6:20), where you’re encouraged to “turn the other cheek (Matthew 5:39),” along with loving and blessing those who are against you. This paradigm shift certainly has the chance to transform relationships. As much as it may impact your enemy it may transform you even more. By choosing to love the person who is against you, how you relate and respond to them changes. You become more generous, more empowered, and move into a new level of freedom.
Friends as you go forward as a leader may your journey be blessed and may you be successful in turning your greatest adversaries into your greatest allies.
As much as anything else, work is about learning. It is learning about what we are good at and what we enjoy. It is about striving to get better. Conversely, the learning we receive from a job can also involve finding what we do not like to do. We may discover we don’t care for the work, the clientele, the company, or the entire industry. Finding out we do not like a certain job is important information and can teach us a lot about ourselves. Being unhappy at one job may propel us down a new path we love that we might not have otherwise considered.
So what if you’ve found yourself unhappy in your job? Do not allow the discontent to overcome you. Rather, I suggest you consider one of the following two options. First, if you are not happy in your job but feel that the type of work is something you want to do and before you get so frustrated you become angry, go to your manager and have a heart-to-heart discussion. Tell them what you like about the work and what you struggle with. Ask your manager for suggestions about what you [the employee] could do differently. Tell them what you think they [the manager or company] could do differently. If you are working for a company that believes in employee development and you’ve demonstrated a willingness to work hard, then it is likely your manager will do what they can to help you. It is much better for a company to help an existing employee be successful than to start all over with a new hire. In addition to speaking with your manager also figure out which of your co-workers are really successful and enjoy their jobs. Have a conversation with them. Find out how they do their work tasks, how they organize their day, how they handle the difficulties of the job, what they do for self-care, and what keeps them motivated. Learning from a successful co-worker may be just the thing you need to turn things around and excel. If however, you are convinced you are ready to give up on your current job and don’t want to give it a second thought, then I suggest you consider option number two.
The second option is this…leave gracefully. By this I mean do the following. First read the company policy on terminations. It will inform you of the organization’s expectations for you to leave on good terms. Follow the policy. Second, before resigning look for another job. Conventional wisdom says, “It is easier to find a job while you have a job.” Third, while looking for your new or transition job do not slack at the job you are leaving. Work hard and well. Fourth, once you have secured another job then give the company you are leaving the amount of notice of your departure they ask for in the policy. Leave on good terms. Don’t intentionally burn a bridge. The employer you are leaving may well be called on to give you a formal or more likely informal reference. We all need as many good references as we can get.
Being unhappy at work happens to everyone at some point. For some it is a temporary mood or only a brief season. After all, even if we love our jobs, there are tasks involved with the job we do not like. If, however, you have a pervasive discontent with your job, reach out for help. If that does not work, don’t be afraid to plan your transition. Just do it gracefully.
2019, like every year, was full of opportunities for learning and growth. Here are five things I’ll share that I plan to keep in mind as I go into 2020.
There may be a person in your life who you perceive as your nemesis. It is possible that this person is placed in your life to force you to grow. There are times (and only God knows when) we are not able to grow and develop into the leader we are intended to be unless we have someone in front of us who we must overcome. These are times when skills are required that have laid dormant in us. Skills that have been latent, waiting for the proper environment to sprout. It may be skills like the ability to exercise humility, courage to speak your mind, or the capacity to take decisive action. Whatever it is, you needed that “nemesis” to bring this out in you. It may seem counter-intuitive but be thankful for them even if the growth experience was painful.
There may be a person whom you perceive as very fragile and incapable of getting their feet underneath them and flourishing. It is possible that with the right supports in place, with a tribe of emotionally healthy friends, the feeding of the mind, body and soul with life-giving practices and the shedding of toxic relationships, a person can come into their own. Their skills, abilities and gifts can surface and thrive. Never underestimate or under-appreciate what a history of childhood trauma can do to a person. Never underestimate or under-appreciate what can be recovered when a healthy and supportive network of caring people begin to nurture someone.
The current environment you see yourself and your organization surrounded by may seem very unfriendly. The likelihood is, however, that the people, positions, and politics making it unfriendly will change. Hang in there. You never know when the leader of another agency you work alongside will take another job, when a friend will become a major player in your local government, a colleague will get a top post in the state government, or the new group of lawmakers decide to make rules and laws that are much more supportive of your industry.
If you are in a leadership role, never forget that it is a privilege to be there. It carries with it immense responsibilities. Treat your job with gratitude and treat the relationship with the people you work with as sacred. If no one is following you, you are not leading. You are the chief servant. Put all of the other ideas you have about yourself aside.
It is easy to get caught up in your day-to-day realities. It is easy to see the small space in the universe that you occupy as all there is. When this happens we fail to see the possibilities and potentialities around us. The world is full of amazing and interesting people doing amazing and interesting things. It is full of beautiful and breathtaking places. It is so important to step away from your work. To take time off. To see people and places you’ve never seen before. It does not necessarily require you to travel far. Go to art galleries. Go to a museum. Go to the zoo. See the Great Lakes. Go to a national park. See the ocean. Travel to another state or country if you can. These things help you realize that there is much more to life than your job or the circumstances you find yourself in.
I hope you find this list helpful. I’ve experienced all of it this year. Blessings to you and have a wonderful and meaningful 2020.
“For where you have…selfish-ambition there you find [organizational] disorder…” *
Ambition is a very important quality for a leader or manager to have. You probably would not be in the role you are in as a leader if you did not have ambition, passion, or drive about something. Ambition can lead a person toward excellence and success. The real question about ambition is who or what is the ambition for? Additionally, what kind of wake does the actions generated by one’s ambition leave behind? A leader ambitious for the mission of their organization, who channels all of their problem solving, partnership building, and decision making for the furtherance of the organization’s purpose has a chance to build a healthy, longstanding, and fruitful organization. Conversely, a leader focused on building something only for themselves, over the long haul, is much less likely to develop an organization that functions at its best.
It is natural to have selfish interests. As humans one of our basic instincts is to look out for ourselves. To do the opposite, looking out for the interests of others, takes work. It takes an awareness of our motives and a willingness to move toward putting our self-centered thinking aside and acting in a manner that is other-centered. As I was reading this morning, a phrase from an ancient letter written to leaders jumped out at me. It stated, “For where you have…selfish-ambition there you find [organizational] disorder…” *
Leaders, ask yourself these questions: Is your ambition aimed at, Your agency’s mission; Your agency’s well being; Your agency’s culture’s health and strength; Your employee’s learning and growth; Your agency’s fiscal strength and well being; Your customer’s, client’s, or patient’s best care, treatment, and results?
If as leaders, we want to help the organization or agency we are part of to thrive we must be aware of what is motivating our decisions. Often this is not easy to figure out. It takes contemplation and feedback from others. We need to develop a practice of self-reflection, allowing others to speak into our life, and vulnerability. If we do this day-by-day we can begin to recognize when our selfish-ambition gets in the way of leadership that lifts up our coworkers, partners, clients, customers, or patients.
* The Apostle James’ letter “…to the Twelve Tribes Scattered Among the Nations” Chapter 3 verse 16.
We just finished interviewing two highly qualified, wise, and hard working people. They had amazing work histories that complemented the job they had applied for and had great references. After meeting with the candidates our interview team said the same thing: “Great people. They have great qualities. They are just not the right fit.”
What is “fit”? It’s includes a person’s training. It includes their credentials. It includes their experience. But it is also more than the things that go on a resume. Fit includes aspects of personality. It includes relationship skills. It includes a person’s preferred style of conflict resolution, problem solving, and communication. It includes the capacity to work independently and as a member of a team. It encompasses a person’s short term and long term career goals. It involves expectations of work hours or schedule. The list of what makes up “fit” could go on and on.
How is an organization supposed to uncover these aspects of an interviewee? The reality is that you can’t really know what type of an employee someone will be until they work with you. You can, however, take steps in the hiring process to increase the odds of finding out whether or not the interviewee would be a good match. The leadership team at the agency I work for has come up with a process that helps us narrow down new hires to people who have a better chance of being a good fit in our organization. The process includes,
Identify the characteristics of an employee who would be a “good fit.” Assess the team members you have who are successful and try to define the personality traits, soft skills, relationship style, cognitive abilities, and other attributes that help them do well.
Involve team members in the interview. This does three things. First it empowers the team members and sends the message that their opinion is very important to the organization. Second, it taps into their expertise. The current team is often the best people to determine if someone will fit. Finally it gives the team ownership in the hire and can motivate them to foster the success of the new employee.
Use real life scenarios as part of the interview. Scenarios help to get a sense of the interviewee’s problem solving, triaging, and organizing skills. It also gives you a sense of whether or not their experience translates into practical wisdom for the job.
Run the name past any team members who used to work with the potential hire. Your team members are invested in having good co-workers and will usually be very honest about their past experience with someone who is a potential hire.
Never hire the person with “the least bad interview.” By this I mean, you are in a situation where you don’t feel really good about any of the interviewees but because you feel pressure to fill a spot so you choose the person who was the least bad at the interview.
Never allow the administration to make a decision to hire someone while not having the full by-in of the primary supervisor. The direct supervisor is the team member who is going to have to live most closely with the new hire. For the supervisor’s morale and to give the new hire the best chance of success make sure the direct supervisor is okay with the hire.
Ask the interviewee for references that were former supervisors or team members. Try to get a minimum of three. The more work history the reference has with the potential hire the better chance you have of getting robust answers to reference questions.
Do an informal online audit of the potential hire. Google their name. Check on social media to see if they have any posts that reveal their work habits.
If you still are not sure about someone have a second interview and include more team members.
I hope this short list gives you some ideas to help improve your method of finding team members who are a good fit. It takes longer to get through the hiring process this way but in the long run builds a strong team and in-turn a stronger organization.
