7 Tensions You Can Expect in Fast Growth

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’ve been blessed to be a part of several organizations experiencing exponential growth. Once in business and with a few churches, we had what was considered explosive growth.

As wonderful as growth is — and as much as we enjoy it as leaders — there are tensions associated with fast growth.

Here are 7 tensions you can expect in fast growth:

Miscommunication. There is too much activity to keep everyone informed about everything. That bothers those who are used to “being in the know”. The organization will need to improve in this area, but during fast growth, expect mishaps in communication.

Changing roles. Jobs will change. People will do things they never expected to do. There will be lots of “all hands on deck” opportunities. No one gets a reprieve from doing what needs to be done.

Power struggles. There will almost always be turf scuffles during fast growth. One potential reason is what used to be a small, controlled group of people making decisions now needs to broaden to include more people. That feel uncomfortable to some. Providing clarity of roles can help some, but continually reminding people of the vision seems to work best. Still, some simply may not like the new size of the organization — and may not last.

Burnout. There will never be enough leaders or people during times of fast growth. It’s fun for a while, but begins to wear on people after an extended period. New leaders must be recruited and developed.

Confusion. “I don’t know.” You can expect to hear that phrase a lot during times of fast growth. And, many times the person saying that will be the leader. And, that’s okay. It’s part of the process. Still, this is a matter to continually work to improve upon over time.

Complacency. When people don’t know what to do — they often do nothing. That’s where leadership is needed, but in seasons of fast growth there aren’t always enough leaders to cover all the bases. If you’re not careful, excellence suffers — and few care. During seasons of fast growth, leaders need to help streamline focus, give clear expectations and hold people accountable for agreed upon goals and objectives. (Don’t ignore all structures — especially in times of fast growth.)

Stretched structures. Current structures will almost never be sufficient to sustain fast growth. The organization will never be the same. New systems and structures will be needed. Leadership must focus on development as much as it does the growth and maintenance of the organization.

None of these are reasons to avoid fast growth, but awareness is the first step to addressing problems.

And, now you know.

Here’s to fast growth! The tension is worth it.

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Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action

Are you Leading Well? 13 Questions to Ask Yourself

Ayear ago I began a new adventure…leading a new church in a new country. I accepted the lead pastor role at a great church in Canada, West Park Church in London, Ontario. This church is filled with great people committed to God and the cause of Christ. I’m loving my time here and although I’ve faced some challenges this first year, overall it has been a great year. Before I even started, I spent three weeks preparing for my new ministry and I learned these 4 keys necessary to start well and sustain healthy ministry. I’ve also included 13 questions that help us determine how well we are leading.

I use the acronym PALM to illustrate these 4 simple keys. It describes four practices that not only make a new transition go smoother, but represent leadership priorities I recommend every good leader embrace whether or not he or she is new to a ministry role. I’ll briefly explain them and then pose some questions to help you evaluate how well you are embodying these principles.

Prioritize family and self care. This concept simply means that to lead well, we must lead ourselves and our families well. I once heard Chuck Swindoll say that a healthy ministry flows out of a healthy marriage.

• Key questions to ask.

1. How would your spouse or kids say you are doing in keeping family a priority?
2. How often do you take a day off when you truly disconnect from your leadership role?
3. Are you getting enough sleep and exercise?
4. Are you saying ‘no’ enough to demands people try to place on your time that you know if you said ‘yes’ would not further your mission?

Avidly over-communicate. This concept implies that leaders must intentionally use multiple means to keep theirs churches and teams informed of what’s happening.

• Key questions to ask.

1. Do you have an intentional process you use to communicate to others progress in achieving your goals and key initiatives?
2. How many tools do you use to communicate? Or, do you count on one method and hope it’s successful?
3. How often do you repeat your church’s overall purpose and objectives?

Listen and learn. This idea embodies the principle that good leaders are learners and learning happens when we assume a listening posture. 

Key questions to ask.

1. In meetings how much talking do you do? Are you mostly telling or asking questions and listening?
2. When you meet new people, do you ask about their lives or do you talk about yourself?
3. When others are talking to you, how often do you mentally check out as you prepare your response?

Manage change wisely. For any church or ministry to make a Kingdom difference it requires that we effect change. But change for change’s sake seldom moves us forward. However, wisely managed and needed change will make a Kingdom difference.

• Key questions to ask.

1. How often do you include in the conversation about a potential change those who would be affected by such a change?
2. When you bring change, how often do you evaluate after the change to learn how well it went?
3. What changes need to be made now in your setting and what are you doing to prepare your church or team for the change?

 Leadership brings leaders great fulfillment, especially when we lead well. Consider how you might apply these 4 keys in the PALM acrostic to your leadership setting.

What other keys have you discovered that make for successful leadership?

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John Maxwell Becoming an "I Can" Person

We Are All Confident Idiots

The trouble with ignorance is that it feels so much like expertise. A leading researcher on the psychology of human wrongness sets us straight.

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Last March, during the enormous South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas, the late-night talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live! sent a camera crew out into the streets to catch hipsters bluffing. “People who go to music festivals pride themselves on knowing who the next acts are,” Kimmel said to his studio audience, “even if they don’t actually know who the new acts are.” So the host had his crew ask festival-goers for their thoughts about bands that don’t exist.

“The big buzz on the street,” said one of Kimmel’s interviewers to a man wearing thick-framed glasses and a whimsical T-shirt, “is Contact Dermatitis. Do you think he has what it takes to really make it to the big time?”

“Absolutely,” came the dazed fan’s reply.

The prank was an installment of Kimmel’s recurring “Lie Witness News” feature, which involves asking pedestrians a variety of questions with false premises. In another episode, Kimmel’s crew asked people on Hollywood Boulevard whether they thought the 2014 film Godzilla was insensitive to survivors of the 1954 giant lizard attack on Tokyo; in a third, they asked whether Bill Clinton gets enough credit for ending the Korean War, and whether his appearance as a judge on America’s Got Talent would damage his legacy. “No,” said one woman to this last question. “It will make him even more popular.”

One can’t help but feel for the people who fall into Kimmel’s trap. Some appear willing to say just about anything on camera to hide their cluelessness about the subject at hand (which, of course, has the opposite effect). Others seem eager to please, not wanting to let the interviewer down by giving the most boringly appropriate response: I don’t know. But for some of these interviewees, the trap may be an even deeper one. The most confident-sounding respondents often seem to think they do have some clue—as if there is some fact, some memory, or some intuition that assures them their answer is reasonable.

At one point during South by Southwest, Kimmel’s crew approached a poised young woman with brown hair. “What have you heard about Tonya and the Hardings?” the interviewer asked. “Have you heard they’re kind of hard-hitting?” Failing to pick up on this verbal wink, the woman launched into an elaborate response about the fictitious band. “Yeah, a lot of men have been talking about them, saying they’re really impressed,” she replied. “They’re usually not fans of female groups, but they’re really making a statement.” From some mental gossamer, she was able to spin an authoritative review of Tonya and the Hardings incorporating certain detailed facts: that they’re real; that they’re female (never mind that, say, Marilyn Manson and Alice Cooper aren’t); and that they’re a tough, boundary-breaking group.

In many cases, incompetence does not leave people disoriented, perplexed, or cautious. Instead, the incompetent are often blessed with an inappropriate confidence, buoyed by something that feels to them like knowledge.

To be sure, Kimmel’s producers must cherry-pick the most laughable interviews to put the air. But late-night TV is not the only place where one can catch people extemporizing on topics they know nothing about. In the more solemn confines of a research lab at Cornell University, the psychologists Stav Atir, Emily Rosenzweig, and I carry out ongoing research that amounts to a carefully controlled, less flamboyant version of Jimmy Kimmel’s bit. In our work, we ask survey respondents if they are familiar with certain technical concepts from physics, biology, politics, and geography. A fair number claim familiarity with genuine terms like centripetal force and photon. But interestingly, they also claim some familiarity with concepts that are entirely made up, such as the plates of parallax, ultra-lipid, and cholarine. In one study, roughly 90 percent claimed some knowledge of at least one of the nine fictitious concepts we asked them about. In fact, the more well versed respondents considered themselves in a general topic, the more familiarity they claimed with the meaningless terms associated with it in the survey.

It’s odd to see people who claim political expertise assert their knowledge of both Susan Rice (the national security adviser to President Barack Obama) and Michael Merrington (a pleasant-sounding string of syllables). But it’s not that surprising. For more than 20 years, I have researched people’s understanding of their own expertise—formally known as the study of metacognition, the processes by which human beings evaluate and regulate their knowledge, reasoning, and learning—and the results have been consistently sobering, occasionally comical, and never dull.

The American author and aphorist William Feather once wrote that being educated means “being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don’t.” As it turns out, this simple ideal is extremely hard to achieve. Although what we know is often perceptible to us, even the broad outlines of what we don’t know are all too often completely invisible. To a great degree, we fail to recognize the frequency and scope of our ignorance.

Continue reading; http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/confident-idiots-92793/

The year of the 'Selfie'...

In case you hadn't already realised, it's the year of the selfie.

That's according to Twitter's top trends of 2014. Ellen DeGeneres' star-stuffed Oscar photo was retweeted more than three million times - a Twitter record.

The generic term "selfie" was mentioned more than 92 million times on Twitter - 12 times more than last year. 

Not to brag or anything, but BBC Trending - and the Oxford English Dictionary - were ever so slightly ahead of the curve. This time last year we looked at the psychology of the selfie.

In 2014, we've covered (among others) a hair-pulling video selfie, the rise of #nomakeupselfie, and protesters in Egypt reacting to a selfieposted by former president Hosni Mubarak.

Outside the world of front-facing camera lenses, the World Cup was the biggest Twitter event of the year - 672 million tweets were sent about this year's finals in Brazil. 

The World Cup also figured on Facebook's list of top trends (for some reason top social media companies seem to discount the last three weeks of the year). 

Feats like Robin van Persie's famous header enthralled the social media world and resulted in bizarre spectacles such as BBC Trending's Anne-Marie Tomchak balancing on a traffic barrier in the middle of London.

Hitting the second slot on Facebook was the Ebola epidemic, despite the fact that a lot of online talk in West Africa is happening on chat apps, rather than on more public platforms.

Elections in Brazil, the charity "ice bucket challenge" and the conflict in Gaza also reached the top 10.

As a global trend, however, the selfie reigns supreme. So if - like many others - you are annoyed by the craze for self-photography, just take a deep breath and wait for 2015.

Read more; http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-30394875

Lincoln Thanksgiving Proclamation

Amid the tremendous challenges facing the United States at the moment, it’s useful to recall the origination of the now-familiar holiday. Abraham Lincoln established it in the dark hours of the Civil War.

This is the proclamation which set the precedent for America’s national day of Thanksgiving. During his administration, President Lincoln issued many orders similar to this. For example, on November 28, 1861, he ordered government departments closed for a local day of thanksgiving.

Sarah Josepha Hale, a 74-year-old magazine editor, wrote a letter to Lincoln on September 28, 1863, urging him to have the “day of our annual Thanksgiving made a National and fixed Union Festival.” She explained, “You may have observed that, for some years past, there has been an increasing interest felt in our land to have the Thanksgiving held on the same day, in all the States; it now needs National recognition and authoritative fixation, only, to become permanently, an American custom and institution.”

George Washington had declared a day of Thanksgiving in his first year as president, in 1789, but it was not an established national holiday. At the time of Mrs. Hale’s letter, each state scheduled its own Thanksgiving holiday at different times, mainly in New England and other Northern states.

Unlike several of his predecessors, who ignored her petitions altogether, Lincoln responded to Mrs. Hale’s request immediately. In her letter to Lincoln she mentioned that she had been advocating a national Thanksgiving date for 15 years as the editor of the immensely influential and popular periodical Godey’s Lady’s Book.

The document below sets apart the last Thursday of November “as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise.” According to an April 1, 1864, letter from John Nicolay, one of President Lincoln’s secretaries, the text was drafted by Secretary of State William Seward, and the original was in his handwriting. On October 3, 1863, fellow Cabinet member Gideon Welles recorded in his diary how he complimented Seward on his work. A year later the manuscript was sold to benefit Union troops. The embossed document, signed by President Lincoln, is now held in National Archives.

Washington, D.C.

October 3, 1863

By the President of the United States of America.

A Proclamation.

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies.

To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People.

I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln

William H. Seward,

Secretary of State 

Lincoln Thanksgiving Proclamation

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