5 Characteristics of the Effective Executive — And Why This Matters for Everyone, Including People in Ministry
From Drucker’s The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done
- Effective executives know where their time goes. They work systematically at managing the little of their time that can be brought under control.
- Effective executives focus on outward contribution. They gear their efforts to results rather than to work. They start with the question, “What results are expected of me?” rather than with the work to be done, let alone with its techniques and tools.
- Effective executives build on strengths — their own strengths, the strengths of their superiors, colleagues, and subordinates; and on the strengths of the situation, that is, on what they can do. They do not build on weakness. They do not start out with the things they cannot do.
- Effective executives concentrate on the few major areas where superior performance will produce outstanding results. They force themselves to set priorities and stay with their priority decisions. They know that they have no choice but to do first things first — and second things not at all. The alternative is to get nothing done.
- Effective executives, finally, make effective decisions.
But Does This Apply to Everyone?
It’s easy to dismiss counsel on effectiveness by saying “everyone is different and has their own way.” But that objection falls apart upon closer inspection.
It is certainly true that everyone has their own style and uniqueness. Drucker points out that effective executives differ from another widely in their style and temperaments and unique talents — and so do ineffective ones.
However, effectiveness is not about style or temperament, but rather a set of practices. “What all effective executives have in common is the practices that make effective whatever they have and whatever they are. And these practices are the same, whether the effective executive works in business or in a government agency, as hospital administrator or university dean.”
He goes on:
But whenever I have found a man, no matter how great his intelligence, his industry, his imagination, or his knowledge, who fails to observe these practices, I have also found an executive deficient in effectiveness.
Effectiveness, in other words, is a habit; that is, a complex of practices. And practices can always be learned. Practices are simple, deceptively so….But practices are exceedingly hard to do well. They have to be acquired….Practices one learns by practicing and practicing and practicing again.
Is Effectiveness Possible for Everyone?
Since effectiveness is a practice, not an innate talent, the answer is yes:
There is, in other words, no reason why anyone with normal endowment should not acquire competence in any practice. Mastery might well elude him; for this one might need special talents. But what is needed in effectiveness is competence. What is needed are “the scales.”
In fact, even if you are really bad at being effective and getting the right things done, there is much hope, because it turns out that nobody (except, I think John Piper) is a natural at being effective. As Drucker points out earlier:
In forty-five years of work as a consultant with a large number of executives in a wide range of organizations — large and small; businesses, government agencies, labor unions, hospitals, universities, community services; American, European, Latin American and Japanese — I have not come across a single “natural”: an executive who was born effective. All the effective ones have had to learn to be effective. And all of them then had to practice effectiveness until it became a habit.
But all the ones who worked on making themselves effective executives succeeded in doing so. Effectiveness can be learned — and it also has to be learned.
Does Effectiveness Matter for Everyone?
There are two other, and related, significant objections that can be raised. First of all, one might misunderstand and think I am only talking about top management here. That effectiveness matters if you are a CEO, vice president, or otherwise very high up, but not if you are in the other far more common positions in an organization.
Drucker dispatches this objection very well. He points out that “executive” is not equal to “top management.” Rather, an executive is anyone whose decisions affect the capacity of the organization to make its contributions. This means you don’t even have to be a manager at all to be an executive. You could be a developer who codes the website, or a content editor who writes content for the web, or someone in customer service. If your work requires any self-direction at all (and all knowledge work does) and you make decisions that affect the performance of your organization, you are an executive.
This means that just about everyone in today’s knowledge economy is an executive.
On the other hand, you can be a manager of people and not be an executive at all, if your goal is simply to supervise, do what you’re told, and get other people to do what they’re told. If you remove all need for judgment from your role, you are not an executive, no matter how many people you manage or how high up you are.
Should Even People in Ministry Learn About Effectiveness?
The second objection that could be made here is that this may apply to knowledge workers in all areas of life, except for those who work in churches and at ministries. There has indeed been, I would say, an unfortunate lack of attention to the unique needs and situations of those who work in ministry roles. Many books on effectiveness and getting things done focus almost entirely on the secular arena. I’m seeking to change that in the things I write by directly applying things to and thinking things through in relation to the non-profit and ministry sector, just as much as the business sector.
But there is also an odd notion among some in ministry that everything is different in ministry, and that therefore people in ministry ought to look with skepticism upon most thinking on being effective and getting things done.
I disagree. The reality is that whether you are in ministry or the business world, your work is about dealing with people and managing yourself. These things are the same across all industries and areas. There certainly are unique factors that apply to ministry, as to any specific area. There are some real adjustments that need to be made. But, having worked extensively in both ministry and non-ministry roles, the unique factors are about 10 – 25% of what you do; a full 75 – 90% of the principles for effectiveness and managing yourself (and your organization) well are the same across all areas.
Further, and ironically, I think some ministries get things backward here. They think that if you learn from “the business world” you risk bringing worldly thinking into your organization. But in my experience, worldly thinking exists just as much in some churches and ministries as it does in the business world, and often this is precisely because of looking upon business practices with skepticism and failing to learn from the best of secular thinking.
The reason is that there are two kinds of business thinking: good business thinking, and bad business thinking. Most of the time those in ministry who reject “business thinking” have only been exposed to the bad kind of business thinking. They then superficially, and wrongly, think that’s what all business thinking is like.
But it’s not! The bad business thinking is, in fact, bad not just in ministries but in businesses as well. The best business thinkers in our day are realizing this, and coming to show that effectiveness in business actually comes from putting others first, from putting people before profit, and from seeking to serve others and do them good before yourself. They are coming to see (as the best business thinking always has) that the most significant trend in business is actually the downfall of the barracudas and sharks and the rise of “nice, smart people” (as Fast Company summarizes Tim Sanders’ excellent book Love Is the Killer App
In other words, some in the business world are actually outdoing the church right now in their commitment to serve others and put them first. Ironically, by closing ourselves off from this kind of ”business thinking,” we are not protecting ourselves from worldliness at all, but rather inviting it to come in by roping ourselves off from the very important practice of “outside-of-your-area-awareness.” By roping ourselves off from “business thinking,” the all-too-often-result is that we actually end up adopting the worst practices of business out of the air, while remaining ignorant to what truly are the actual best practices that apply across all areas of life, work, and ministry.
Hence, to tie this back: effectiveness is indeed possible for you, whether you work in the business world or in ministry (or whether you stay at home with the kids), and there is a lot we can learn from the best business books out there (though, at the same time, we certainly need more written from a specifically Christian perspective).
If you are seeking the need to become more effective, especially if you work in ministry, here are three books I’d recommend for where to start:
- The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done
- Love Is the Killer App: How to Win Business and Influence Friends (Tim Sanders)
- Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time (Keith Ferrazzi)
Managing Your Weaknesses
A few thoughts:
1. Avoid working in your weaknesses if at all possible.
2. If you can’t, then seek to become competent in your areas of weakness. You won’t become extraordinary in areas of weakness, but competence is sufficient.
3. Continue to spend the most time sharpening and harnessing your strengths. This is where your contribution will shine. As long as you are competent in your weaknesses, they won’t detract and your strengths will stand out and make an extraordinary contribution.
An example (a slightly risky one since I’m not huge into basketball, but you will get the point): Let’s say you are a basketball player and you are great at making baskets but pretty bad at getting rebounds. You need to become solid at getting rebounds when they come your way, so you don’t do harm. But your focus should be on putting yourself in a position to take shots, not get rebounds, if that’s where you make an incredible contribution.
And here’s an example of avoiding your weaknesses altogether: if you are a great quarterback, it doesn’t matter if you are terrible at defense. Don’t play defense. This is so obvious as to be completely undisputed.
Why, then, do we feel like there is some sort of virtue in focusing on our weaknesses in our work?
Seek to contribute where you can make the greatest contribution.
Two Articles I Just Cited in My Book on Fitting Hard Thinking into Busy Schedules, Which I Highly Recommend
- Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule
- Getting Creative Things Done: How to Fit Hard Thinking in a Busy Schedule
And both of these are simply an application of what Drucker said in The Effective Executive
“To be effective, every knowledge worker, and especially every executive, therefore needs to be able to dispose of time in fairly large chunks. To have small dribs and drabs of time at [your] disposal will not be sufficient even if the total is an impressive number of hours.”
A Series on Managing Stress that Actually Looks Helpful
I’m not super in to “tips on managing stress” and the like. But stress is a significant reality in our era, and it’s worth learning some things about.
I just noticed that The Teaching Company — which has a host of excellent courses on all sorts of subjects, from science to philosophy to mathematics to history — has the course Stress and Your Body on sale for 70% off right now.
One of the things that looks interesting about it is the way it looks at the physical effects that stress has.
You can get it by audio download, CD, video download, or DVD.
The Essential Companion to Your To Do List: A To-Don’t List
Good words from Dan Pink.
Here’s a key paragraph:
“It is the discipline to discard what does not fit – to cut out what might have already cost days or even years of effort – that distinguishes the truly exceptional artist and marks the ideal piece of work, be it a symphony, a novel, a painting, a company or, most important of all, a life.”
Now, one qualification. I’ve seen people do this wrong — incredibly, horribly, terribly wrong.
The point is not about merely subtracting things. Some people get on this bandwagon and start chopping away, thinking they are being disciplined. They aren’t.
You need to get rid of the right things.
Lack of discipline is not merely doing a lot of things. It’s doing a lot of things outside of your hedgehog concept — the intersection of what you’re passionate about, what you can do with excellence, and (for organizations) what drives your resource engine.
I’ve seen people cut out a lot of great things that were inside their organization’s hedgehog concept and which there was staffing for, and the organization suffered. These people just didn’t know what they were doing. They got a hold of an important management concept, but they didn’t understand it rightly, and so misused it — to the organization’s detriment.
It is valuable to have a lot of things going on — as long as they are inside your hedgehog concept. The key to discipline is to stop doing the things that are outside of the overlap of those three circles.
Priority Management Tips
Dave Kraft has a very helpful article on Priority Management Tips (pdf) that gives some helpful points on managing to-do lists well.
Update: I’m not able to get the direct link to the pdf to work, but if you scroll down on this page, you will find it about half way down. While you’re there, note that there is a lot of other helpful content worth taking a look at!
The Secret of Those Who Do So Many Things
Drucker, in The Effective Executive
“Effective executives know that they have to get many things done — and done effectively. Therefore, they concentrate — their own time and energy as well as that of their organization — on doing one thing at a time, and on doing first things first.”
“This is the ‘secret’ of those who ‘do so many things’ and apparently so many difficult things. They do only one at a time. As a result, they need much less time in the end than the rest of us.”
“The more one can concentrate time, effort, and resources, the greater the number and diversity of tasks one can actually perform.”
Note that: The more you concentrate your efforts, the greater number and diversity of things you can do. Concentration results in getting more done, not less.
How to Discover Your Calling
A great article by Mike Horton on discovering your calling. Here’s a key point:
God does give us the desires of our hearts. He is not out to get us, or to make us wander the vocational wilderness forever. Sometimes we are “dumped” into short-term vocations which to us seem utterly meaningless and yet in some way providentially equip us with a skill which will be vital in our as yet unknown calling in life. We just cannot figure out God’s secret plan, but we can trust it and learn from natural as well as biblical sources how we might better discern our calling.
The questions, What are your skills?, What do you really enjoy?, What would get you up on Monday morning?, are in the realm of nature. Super-spirituality may look down on such mundane questions and try to steal into God’s secret chamber, but biblical piety is content to leaf through the book of nature. God has created us a certain way, given us certain habits, skills, longings, and drives.
Sometimes we over-spiritualize things and think God doesn’t care about whether we are in a role that is a good fit, or that considering our own desires and giftings in choosing what to do is somehow unspiritual.
Not true. Sometimes God will have us doing something that is not the best fit, but seeking the right fit is a good — and spiritual — thing to do. It is a matter of good stewardship to seek the best way to maximize the gifts, skills, and interests that he has given us.
What Should I Contribute?
Drucker:
Throughout history, the great majority of people never had to ask the question.
What should I contribute? They were told what to contribute, and their tasks were dictated either by the work itself as it was for the peasant or artisan — or by a master or a mistress — as it was for domestic servants. And until very recently, it was taken for granted that most people were subordinates who did as they were told. Even in the 1950s and 1960s, the new knowledge workers (the so- called organization men) looked to their company’s personnel department to plan their careers.
Then in the late 1960s, no one wanted to be told what to do any longer. Young men and women began to ask. What do / want to do? And what they heard was that the way to contribute was to “do your own thing.” But this solution was as wrong as the organization men’s had been. Very few of the people who believed that doing one’s own thing would lead to contribution, self-fulfilment, and success achieved any of the three.
But still, there is no return to the old answer of doing what you are told or assigned to do. Knowledge workers in particular have to learn to ask a question that has not been asked before: What should my contribution be? To answer it, they must address three distinct elements: What does the situation require? Given my strengths, my way of performing, and my values, how can I make the greatest contribution to what needs to be done? And finally, What results have to be achieved to make a difference?
Consider the experience of a newly appointed hospital administrator. The hospital was big and prestigious, but it had been coasting on its reputation for 30 years. The new administrator decided that his contribution should be to establish a standard of excellence in one important area within two years. He chose to focus on the emergency room, which was big, visible, and sloppy. He decided that every patient who came into the ER had to be seen by a qualified nurse within 60 seconds. Within 12 months, the hospital’s emergency room had become a model for all hospitals in the United States, and within another two years, the whole hospital had been trans- formed.
As this example suggests, it is rarely possible — or even particularly fruitful — to look too far ahead. A plan can usually cover no more than 18 months and still be reasonably clear and specific. So the question in most cases should be. Where and how can I achieve results that will make a difference within the next year and a half? The answer must balance several things. First, the results should be hard to achieve — they should require “stretching,” to use the current buzzword.
But also, they should be within reach. To aim at results that cannot be achieved — or that can be only under the most unlikely circumstances — is not being ambitious; it is being foolish. Second, the results should be meaningful.
They should make a difference. Finally, results should be visible and, if at all possible, measurable. From this will come a course of action: what to do, where and how to start, and what goals and deadlines to set.
Excellence is not the Opposite of Failure
Marcus Buckingham states this well in Go Put Your Strengths to Work
The radical idea at the core of the strengths movement is that excellence is not the opposite of failure, and that, as such, you will learn little about excellence from studying failure.
This seems like an obvious idea until you realize that, before the strengths movement began, virtually all business and academic inquiry was built on the opposite idea: namely, that a deep understanding of failure leads to an equally deep understanding of excellence. That’s why we studied unhappy customers to learn about the happy ones, employees’ weaknesses to learn how to make them excel, sickness to learn about health, divorce to learn about marriage, and sadness to learn about joy.
What has become evident in virtually every field of human endeavor is that failure and success are not opposites, they are merely different, and so they must be studied separately. Thus, for example, if you want to learn what you should not do after an environmental disaster, Chernobyl will be instructive. But if you want to learn what you should do, Chernobyl is a waste. Only successful cleanups, such as the Rocky Flats nuclear facility in Colorado, can tell you what excellence looks like.
Study unproductive teams, and you soon discover that the teammates argue a lot. Study successful teams, and you learn that they argue just as much. To find the secrets of a great team, you have to investigate the successful ones and figure out what is going on in the space between the arguments.
Well said.
The Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards in Categories
As I’ve been working on my book on gospel-centered productivity, Jonathan Edward’s resolutions have been very relevant and significant. Edwards is an example to us of true productivity — he shows us that true productivity is about a life well lived and that, even more, a life well lived is a God-centered life.
Edwards also shows us that a well lived life doesn’t just happen; it requires intentionality. And intentionality manifests itself in certain “mechanisms” that help us maintain our intentionality. Edwards’ resolutions are one example of such a “mechanism.”
So Edwards is a good example not just of a life that is lived well, but also of the “practical side” of how to actually build that intentionality into our lives, rather than just letting it remain a vague wish that never takes deep root and makes a real difference.
Toward that end, it’s worth reflecting on and giving some thought to his resolutions. Many of you are familiar with them, I’m sure. What I’ve tried to do here is put them into a few categories that can perhaps help shed some additional light on the resolutions and how Edwards lived his life.
Obviously these categories are somewhat subjective. In one sense, everything could fit under the “spiritual life” category, for example. And things could be divided into more categories than I have here. But I hope that these categories help cast some additional light on Edward’s resolutions for you — and how you think about these areas of your own life. For example, we might not typically put something like resolution 7 (“Resolved, never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do, if it were the last hour of my life”) under “time management.” But I think it is extremely relevant to time management, and seeing it in that light helps us re-orient the way we think about time management for ourselves generally.
You’ll notice also that I’ve categorized this post under “managing yourself.” That is to underscore the point — which I think is often overlooked — that when we are talking about the spirituality of someone like Jonathan Edwards, we aren’t talking about anything different than the basic reality of how to manage our own lives. Managing yourself is actually a very spiritual thing, and ought to be understood in that light, rather than as simply a mix of secular disciplines (though there are many “secular”-seeming disciplines involved, especially as life gets more technological and complex).
The Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards (1722-1723)
Being sensible that I am unable to do anything without God’s help, I do humbly entreat him by his grace to enable me to keep these Resolutions, so far as they are agreeable to his will, for Christ’s sake.
Remember to read over these Resolutions once a week.
Overall Life Mission
1. Resolved, that I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God’s glory, and my own good, profit and pleasure, in the whole of my duration, without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriad’s of ages hence. Resolved to do whatever I think to be my duty and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general. Resolved to do this, whatever difficulties I meet with, how many and how great soever.
2. Resolved, to be continually endeavoring to find out some new invention and contrivance to promote the aforementioned things.
3. Resolved, if ever I shall fall and grow dull, so as to neglect to keep any part of these Resolutions, to repent of all I can remember, when I come to myself again.
4. Resolved, never to do any manner of thing, whether in soul or body, less or more, but what tends to the glory of God; nor be, nor suffer it, if I can avoid it.
6. Resolved, to live with all my might, while I do live.
22. Resolved, to endeavor to obtain for myself as much happiness, in the other world, as I possibly can, with all the power; might, vigor, and vehemence, yea violence, I am capable of, or can bring myself to exert, in any way that can be thought of.
62. Resolved, never to do anything but duty; and then according to Eph. 6:6-8, do it willingly and cheerfully as unto the Lord, and not to man; “knowing that whatever good thing any man doth, the same shall he receive of the Lord.” June 25 and July 13, 1723.
Good Works
11. Resolved, when I think of any theorem in divinity to be solved, immediately to do what I can towards solving it, if circumstances don’t hinder.
13. Resolved, to be endeavoring to find out fit objects of charity and liberality.
69. Resolved, always to do that, which I shall wish I had done when I see others do it. Aug. 11, 1723.
Time Management
5. Resolved, never to lose one moment of time; but improve it the most profitable way I possibly can.
7. Resolved, never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do, if it were the last hour of my life.
17. Resolved, that I will live so as I shall wish I had done when I come to die.
18. Resolved, to live so at all times, as I think is best in my devout frames, and when I have clearest notions of things of the gospel, and another world.
19. Resolved, never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do, if I expected it would not be above an hour, before I should hear the last trump.
37. Resolved, to inquire every night, as I am going to bed, wherein I have been negligent, what sin I have committed, and wherein I have denied myself: also at the end of every week, month and year. Dec.22 and 26, 1722.
40. Resolved, to inquire every night, before I go to bed, whether I have acted in the best way I possibly could, with respect to eating and drinking. Jan. 7, 1723.
41. Resolved, to ask myself at the end of every day, week, month and year, wherein I could possibly in any respect have done better. Jan. 11, 1723.
50. Resolved, I will act so as I think I shall judge would have been best, and most prudent, when I come into the future world. July 5, 1723.
51. Resolved, that I will act so, in every respect, as I think I shall wish I had done, if I should at last be damned. July 8, 1723.
52. I frequently hear persons in old age say how they would live, if they were to live their lives over again: Resolved, that I will live just so as I can think I shall wish I had done, supposing I live to old age. July 8, 1723.
http://www.whatsbestnext.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=5412&action=edit&message=9
55. Resolved, to endeavor to my utmost to act as I can think I should do, if I had already seen the happiness of heaven, and hell torments. July 8, 1723.
61. Resolved, that I will not give way to that listlessness which I find unbends and relaxes my mind from being fully and fixedly set on religion, whatever excuse I may have for it-that what my listlessness inclines me to do, is best to be done, etc. May 21, and July 13, 1723.
Relationships
14. Resolved, never to do anything out of revenge.
15. Resolved, never to suffer the least motions of anger to irrational beings.
16. Resolved, never to speak evil of anyone, so that it shall tend to his dishonor, more or less, upon no account except for some real good.
31. Resolved, never to say anything at all against anybody, but when it is perfectly agreeable to the highest degree of Christian honor, and of love to mankind, agreeable to the lowest humility, and sense of my own faults and failings, and agreeable to the golden rule; often, when I have said anything against anyone, to bring it to, and try it strictly by the test of this Resolution.
33. Resolved, always to do what I can towards making, maintaining, establishing and preserving peace, when it can be without over-balancing detriment in other respects. Dec.26, 1722.
34. Resolved, in narration’s never to speak anything but the pure and simple verity.
36. Resolved, never to speak evil of any, except I have some particular good call for it. Dec. 19, 1722.
46. Resolved, never to allow the least measure of any fretting uneasiness at my father or mother. Resolved to suffer no effects of it, so much as in the least alteration of speech, or motion of my eve: and to be especially careful of it, with respect to any of our family.
58. Resolved, not only to refrain from an air of dislike, fretfulness, and anger in conversation, but to exhibit an air of love, cheerfulness and benignity. May27, and July 13, 1723.
59. Resolved, when I am most conscious of provocations to ill nature and anger, that I will strive most to feel and act good-naturedly; yea, at such times, to manifest good nature, though I think that in other respects it would be disadvantageous, and so as would be imprudent at other times. May 12, July ii, and July 13.
66. Resolved, that I will endeavor always to keep a benign aspect, and air of acting and speaking in all places, and in all companies, except it should so happen that duty requires otherwise.
70. Let there be something of benevolence, in all that I speak.
Suffering
9. Resolved, to think much on all occasions of my own dying, and of the common circumstances which attend death.
10. Resolved, when I feel pain, to think of the pains of martyrdom, and of hell.
67. Resolved, after afflictions, to inquire, what I am the better for them, what good I have got by them, and what I might have got by them.
57. Resolved, when I fear misfortunes and adversities, to examine whether ~ have done my duty, and resolve to do it; and let it be just as providence orders it, I will as far as I can, be concerned about nothing but my duty and my sin. June 9, and July 13 1723.
Character
8. Resolved, to act, in all respects, both speaking and doing, as if nobody had been so vile as I, and as if I had committed the same sins, or had the same infirmities or failings as others; and that I will let the knowledge of their failings promote nothing but shame in myself, and prove only an occasion of my confessing my own sins and misery to God.
12. Resolved, if I take delight in it as a gratification of pride, or vanity, or on any such account, immediately to throw it by.
21. Resolved, never to do anything, which if I should see in another, I should count a just occasion to despise him for, or to think any way the more meanly of him.
32. Resolved, to be strictly and firmly faithful to my trust, that that in Prov. 20:6, “A faithful man who can find?” may not be partly fulfilled in me.
47. Resolved, to endeavor to my utmost to deny whatever is not most agreeable to a good, and universally sweet and benevolent, quiet, peaceable, contented, easy, compassionate, generous, humble, meek, modest, submissive, obliging, diligent and industrious, charitable, even, patient, moderate, forgiving, sincere temper; and to do at all times what such a temper would lead me to. Examine strictly every week, whether I have done so. Sabbath morning. May 5,1723.
54. Whenever I hear anything spoken in conversation of any person, if I think it would be praiseworthy in me, Resolved to endeavor to imitate it. July 8, 1723.
63. On the supposition, that there never was to be but one individual in the world, at any one time, who was properly a complete Christian, in all respects of a right stamp, having Christianity always shining in its true luster, and appearing excellent and lovely, from whatever part and under whatever character viewed: Resolved, to act just as I would do, if I strove with all my might to be that one, who should live in my time. Jan.14′ and July ’3′ 1723.
27. Resolved, never willfully to omit anything, except the omission be for the glory of God; and frequently to examine my omissions.
39. Resolved, never to do anything that I so much question the lawfulness of, as that I intend, at the same time, to consider and examine afterwards, whether it be lawful or no; except I as much question the lawfulness of the omission.
20. Resolved, to maintain the strictest temperance in eating and drinking.
Spiritual Life
Assurance
25. Resolved, to examine carefully, and constantly, what that one thing in me is, which causes me in the least to doubt of the love of God; and to direct all my forces against it.
26. Resolved, to cast away such things, as I find do abate my assurance.
48. Resolved, constantly, with the utmost niceness and diligence, and the strictest scrutiny, to be looking into the state of my soul, that I may know whether I have truly an interest in Christ or no; that when I come to die, I may not have any negligence respecting this to repent of. May 26, 1723.
49. Resolved, that this never shall be, if I can help it.
The Scriptures
28. Resolved, to study the Scriptures so steadily, constantly and frequently, as that I may find, and plainly perceive myself to grow in the knowledge of the same.
Prayer
29. Resolved, never to count that a prayer, nor to let that pass as a prayer, nor that as a petition of a prayer, which is so made, that I cannot hope that God will answer it; nor that as a confession, which I cannot hope God will accept.
64. Resolved, when I find those “groanings which cannot be uttered” (Rom. 8:26), of which the Apostle speaks, and those “breakings of soul for the longing it hath,” of which the Psalmist speaks, Psalm 119:20, that I will promote them to the utmost of my power, and that I will not be wear’, of earnestly endeavoring to vent my desires, nor of the repetitions of such earnestness. July 23, and August 10, 1723.
The Lord’s Day
38. Resolved, never to speak anything that is ridiculous, sportive, or matter of laughter on the Lord’s day. Sabbath evening, Dec. 23, 1722.
Vivification of Righteousness
30. Resolved, to strive to my utmost every week to be brought higher in religion, and to a higher exercise of grace, than I was the week before.
42. Resolved, frequently to renew the dedication of myself to God, which was made at my baptism; which I solemnly renewed, when I was received into the communion of the church; and which I have solemnly re-made this twelfth day of January, 1722-23.
43. Resolved, never henceforward, till I die, to act as if I were any way my own, but entirely and altogether God’s, agreeable to what is to be found in Saturday, January 12. Jan.12, 1723.
44- Resolved, that no other end but religion, shall have any influence at all on any of my actions; and that no action shall be, in the least circumstance, any otherwise than the religious end will carry it. Jan.12, 1723.
45. Resolved, never to allow any pleasure or grief, joy or sorrow, nor any affection at all, nor any degree of affection, nor any circumstance relating to it, but what helps religion. Jan.12 and 13.1723.
Mortification of Sin and Self Examination
23. Resolved, frequently to take some deliberate action, which seems most unlikely to be done, for the glory of God, and trace it back to the original intention, designs and ends of it; and if I find it not to be for God’s glory, to repute it as a breach of the 4th Resolution.
24. Resolved, whenever I do any conspicuously evil action, to trace it back, till I come to the original cause; and then both carefully endeavor to do so no more, and to fight and pray with all my might against the original of it.
35. Resolved, whenever I so much question whether I have done my duty, as that my quiet and calm is thereby disturbed, to set it down, and also how the question was resolved. Dec. 18, 1722.
60. Resolved, whenever my feelings begin to appear in the least out of order, when I am conscious of the least uneasiness within, or the least irregularity without, I will then subject myself to the strictest examination. July 4, and 13, 1723.
68. Resolved, to confess frankly to myself all that which I find in myself, either infirmity or sin; and, if it be what concerns religion, also to confess the whole case to God, and implore needed help. July 23, and August 10, 1723.
56. Resolved, never to give over, nor in the least to slacken my fight with my corruptions, however unsuccessful I may be.
Communion with God
53. Resolved, to improve every opportunity, when I am in the best and happiest frame of mind, to cast and venture my soul on the Lord Jesus Christ, to trust and confide in him, and consecrate myself wholly to him; that from this I may have assurance of my safety, knowing that I confide in my Redeemer. July 8, 1723.
65. Resolved, very much to exercise myself in this all my life long, viz. with the greatest openness I am capable of, to declare my ways to God, and lay open my soul to him: all my sins, temptations, difficulties, sorrows, fears, hopes, desires, and every thing, and every circumstance; according to Dr. Manton’s 27th Sermon on Psalm 119. July 26, and Aug.10 1723.
Aug. 17, 1723
CS Lewis on Courage
This Lewis quote is spot-on, and well worth thinking over:
Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality. A chastity or honesty or mercy which yields to danger will be chaste or honest or merciful only on conditions. Pilate was merciful till it became risky.
Doing good, and pursuing Christ-like character, is not something to do simply when it is easy. What really counts is when you continue being merciful or generous or justice-seeking or truth-affirming even when it is risky, dangerous, and possibly to your own disadvantage. To be merciful or loving or generous only when it is easy is not to be merciful or loving or generous at all.
Five Ways to Neutralize Your Weaknesses
Since we are to focus on our strengths, not weaknesses, what should we do about our weaknesses?
The answer is to neutralize them. Marcus Buckingham gives five ways to do this in his helpful resource kit The Truth About You. The resource kit covers a whole lot more than this, but here’s a quick summary of the five ways Buckingham gives to neutralize your weaknesses.
1. Just stop doing it
Some things that we think we need to be doing might not be necessary at all. Originally they may have been, but circumstances and needs have changed — and our thinking just hasn’t caught up yet.
So for some things, ask “do I need to be doing this at all?” And if in doubt, maybe stop doing it for a while and see what happens.
2. Partner up
As Buckingham puts it, “seek out someone who is strengthened by the very thing that weakens you.”
The power of partnering should not be under estimated. In one of his other books, Buckingham points to Bill Gates as example and points out that “Bill Gates’s true genius, the genius that differentiates him from the masses, lies in his ability to find just the right partner at just the right time.”
In response to those who would say “of course he can find the right partners; he’s Bill Gates,” Buckingham responds: “The causal arrow actually goes the other way. He is ‘Bill Gates’ in part because he had a genius for finding the right partners.” “Whatever your assessment of Gates, when faced with a role that repeatedly calls upon your weaknesses, you would do well to remember that effective partnering is the quiet secret of the successful.”
3. Sharpen your strengths to make your weaknesses irrelevant
This means becoming so effective in your areas of strength that your weaknesses are overwhelmed; they become a non-issue.
He gives Tom Brady as an example here. He writes:
Brady holds the ball very tightly, which makes his passes exceptionally accurate, but it also prevents him from throwing the ball as far as other quarterbacks like John Elway, Brett Favre, or Brady’s predecessor at New England, Drew Bledsoe. Rather than try to transform him into someone he wasn’t, his coaches built their game plan around a series of short passing plays that would demand, and capitalize on, Brady’s awesome accuracy. When he took over from Bledsoe as the Patriots starting quarterback, Brady threw a record 162 passes in a row without an interception.
4. Look at your weakness through one of your strengths
This means finding a way to use your strengths to do the activity that weakens you.
Buckingham gives Rudy Giuliani as one example here. As an attorney, Giuliani was very effective at arguing his cases in court. But when he became mayor of New York, he struggled giving speeches to a roomful of people behind a lectern.
He worked at it and hired a speech coach, but still struggled. Then his coach said to him: “You love arguing. So turn every speech into an argument. Come out from behind the lectern, leave your notes behind, take questions from the crowd, and then walk around where everyone can see you and make your case.”
As Buckingham points out, this worked perfectly and has been Giuliani’s style ever since. “He comes across as comfortable, powerful, authoritative; exactly what a leader should be. He took his weakness — public speaking. He looked at it from the perspective of his strength — arguing. And he neutralized it.”
Buckingham adds:
“And oh, by the way, he has also gradually become better and better at doing regular public speaking. You’ll find this too. You’ll find that when you fall back on one of your strengths, it has a side effect of helping you with your weakness.
5. Suck it up and do it
Sometimes, obviously, this is just what you have to do.
But don’t go here too fast. That’s the mistake most people make — and thus they short circuit better approaches that will make them more effective for everyone.
So treat this as a last resort, and seek to minimize the time you have to spend here so that most of your time can be spent on your strengths.
Being Proactive is Christian
I posted about six months or so ago on what it means to be proactive. In that post, I quoted from Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
I think we all realize the truth of Covey’s observations from the nature of human experience. As a parent, for example, it seems undeniable to me that my role is to raise my children to be responsible, creative, interdependent (not dependent) individuals who take responsibility for their own decisions.
But is this also biblical? In other words, is the importance of being proactive something we learn only from common grace (which we are to learn from — see, for example, Romans 12:17, where we are told to “respect what is good in the sight of all men”; that’s common grace), or is it also something we learn from the Bible?
William Carey, the great missionary and reformer to India, was proactive, and his proactive nature came directly from his understanding of the Bible. Vishal Ruth Mangalwadi describe the biblical basis of Carey’s proactive nature perfectly in their book The Legacy of William Carey: A Model for the Transformation of a Culture. They don’t use the word “proactive,” but this is one of the best descriptions of the term that I’ve seen:
Carey’s heroism — a result of his understanding of vocation and destiny — represents the best form of the Western individualism that followed the Protestant Reformation.
One central emphasis of the Gospel is that each individual has to stand alone before God and give an account of his life. I cannot blame others for my life, any more than Adam could blame Eve for eating the forbidden fruit. I am responsible for my choices. I have to trust God and obey Him, whether or not those close to me obey Him. If I have disobeyed, I have sinned and need to repent.
Christian life begins with repentance that leads to conversion. Repentance implies a radical individualism — a person assuming responsibility for his or her own life. In India, religion had been a tool of social control over a person’s conscience, an instrument for quashing a person’s individuality. In contrast, when Jesus called His disciples to “forsake all” for the kingdom of God, He set them free to be themselves, to follow God and fulfill their destiny — their calling.
Christ’s disciples, as a result, became heroes who turned the world upside down. Sixteenth-century Reformers and nineteenth-century missionaries who followed Carey’s initiative resembled Christ’s apostles at this point.
We should be grateful that some parts of the Indian church today have recaptured Carey’s missionary vision and the individual heroism that accompanies it. They are the best hope for India’s marginalized millions.
I’d like to end the post right there, because it highlights the fact that being proactive is not about yourself, but is part of what leads to the hope of social reform and change. But I think it’s also important to distinguish this type of individualism from other forms that are not biblical, as the authors go on to do:
These remarks are not to imply that all facets of Western individualism are good or are rooted in biblical teaching. One stream of individualism that sprang from Enlightenment thinking was the kind summed up in the ethic of “self-reliance” taught by Emerson. This increasingly dominant form of individualism turns individual self-reliance into selfishness. Carey’s individualism, like the Lord’s, was both self-sacrificing and balanced by the biblical emphasis on the church being a body.
The Value of a Wondering Mind
A good post by Justin Buzzard from a couple of years ago, but still very relevant. He quotes Clive Thompson, who postulates that it may be a good and productive thing for our minds to wander.
The Core Productivity Decision in an Age of Infinite Input
Namely: input versus output. Godin makes a great point on this today:
[Input versus output] is one of the most important decisions you’ll make today.
How much time and effort should be spent on intake, on inbound messages, on absorbing data…
and how much time and effort should be invested in output, in creating something new.
There used to be a significant limit on available intake. Once you read all the books in the college library on your topic, it was time to start writing.
Now that the availability of opinions, expertise and email is infinite, I think the last part of that sentence is the most important:
Time to start writing.
Or whatever it is you’re not doing, merely planning on doing.
Beware of Performance Load
Being competent is a good thing, but you need to be aware of one danger: “If not controlled, work will flow to the competent man until he submerges” (Charles Boyle). So if you aren’t deliberate about it, your competence can actually be your undoing.
This is the issue of performance load. Here’s how Josh Kaufman explains it in The Personal MBA:
Being busy is better than being bored, but it’s possible to be too busy for your own good.
Performance load is a concept that explains what happens when you have too many things to do. Above a certain point, the more tasks a person has to do, the more their performance on all of those tasks decreases.
Imagine juggling bowling pins. If you’re skilled, you may be able to juggle three or four without making a mistake. The more pins that must be juggled at once, the more likely you are to make a mistake and drop them all.
If you want to be productive, you must set limits. Juggling hundreds of active tasks across scores of projects is not sustainable: you’re risking failure, subpar work, and burnout. Remember Parkinson’s Law: if you don’t set a limit on your available time, your work will expand to fill it all.
Part of setting limits means “preserving unscheduled time to respond to new inputs.” This is necessary to handle the unexpected. And this means we must recognize that downtime is not wasteful. Kaufman goes on:
The default mind-set of many modern businesses is that “downtime” is inefficient and wasteful — workers should be busy all the time. Unfortunately, this philosophy ignores the necessity of handling unexpected events, which always occur. Everyone only has so many hours in a day, and if your agenda is constantly booked solid, it’ll always be difficult to keep up with new and unexpected demands on your time and energy.
Schedule yourself (in terms of appointments and projects) at no more than 80% capacity. Leave time to handle the unexpected. And to enable yourself to do this, realize that, counterintuitively, people (and systems — this is true of highways, airports, and all sorts of things) become less efficient when operating at full capacity, not more, and that downtime can actually increase productivity. If you keep these things in mind, you can help prevent your competence from being your undoing.
Advice for Entering the New Year: The Yearly Review
Here’s a good idea for today or tomorrow, if you haven’t already: Do a yearly review.
The yearly review can be very simple and consist of just two parts. I’d create a heading on the page for each part.
Reflect on the Prior Year
First, look back at the last year. I think David Allen captures this process best when he says to simply write down, in the order that they come to mind and without feeling the need to organize or categorize things, the most notable accomplishments, events, and other points of interest from the year. To be “notable,” the item doesn’t necessarily have to be large; rather, it just means anything worth noting, to you.
Some of my items include: “South Africa,” “Submitted book proposal,” “delegate at Lausanne,” “almost spilled water on the former deputy prime minister of Australia,” “finished a large organizational design project (not without its challenges),” “productivity presentations in DC and at the DG conference,” “Kate started kindergarten,” and “Joseph started to walk.”
Define A Few Priorities for the Coming Year
Second, look ahead to the next year. Reflect a bit on your overall priorities and the general environment for the next year — major upcoming events in the year, current stuff on your plate, and stuff you really want to accomplish in the next year. Then, just list the top 3-5 primary things you want to accomplish this year (making sure you are identifying things that are truly important).
These 3-5 things should be “big rocks” for the year, rather than smaller stuff. In a sense, these are your goals for the year. Maybe you will change them as you get into the year a bit and more clarity comes about what is most important, and obviously you will be doing many other things as well, but it is a good thing to start the year with major priorities in place specific to the year.
Optional: Review Your Mistakes (but do it right)
When reviewing the prior year, you could review your mistakes. In one sense this may seem contrary to my prior post on forgetting what lies behind. So the first thing to say here is, if you do this, don’t dwell on them. Ponder them briefly to learn from them, then move on.
Which leads to the second point and the reason I mention this: It is a good practice to learn from your mistakes, but most people do it wrong. As Marcus Buckingham points out, most of us have a default assumption that excellence is the opposite of failure. So, in order to improve, we think we should look at what went wrong (either in your life or the experiences of others) and do the opposite.
But that’s wrong. Excellence is not the opposite of failure; they are just different. In fact, as Buckingham points out, excellence and failure are often remarkably similar. For example, in one of his books he talks about how unsuccessful salespeople often suffer from call reluctance. So one might conclude that excellent salespeople do not and say, “if you want to be an excellent salesperson, you better not feel high reluctance to making calls.”
But that would be wrong. Many excellent salespeople do suffer from call reluctance. But the difference is that they have an additional factor, namely the talent of “confrontation,” that presses them to push beyond that reluctance and make the calls anyway.
So the way to learn from things that went wrong is not necessarily to look at what you did and invert it. There may be some of that, of course, but don’t primarily look in that direction or dwell there. You may have actually done most things right, or in accord with what would make for excellent performance, and lacked something — perhaps even something small.
So when there is an area that you want to improve, the main thing to do, as Chip and Dan Heath discuss in Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard, is not identify what weaknesses you need to overcome but rather what bright spots you need to build on. Identify what went well and focus most of your energy there.
So, reviewing your mistakes may identify some things you need to improve and do differently. But most of all, when there is an area that you want to improve, seek primarily to identify bright spots and identify ways to build on those. And do this quickly and don’t beat yourself on. Make the changes you need to make (and correct anything you might need to correct) and move on.
Making it Happen: How Do You Keep Your Priorities in Mind?
There is one last thing to address here: Once you’ve identified your priorities for the year, how do you remember them in such a way that they really guide your actions?
This is important, because the reason most people don’t keep their New Year’s resolutions — or, alternatively, accomplish their goals — is that they don’t translate them into their schedule.
So, here are two ideas for accomplishing your priorities.
First, it can be helpful to identify one or two recurring practices or tasks that will move them along. For example, if one of your priorities is to learn about leadership next year, identify a recurring time that you read each day (perhaps before bed, or early in the morning, or whenever). Then stick to it, and put it in your calendar if you have to.
Second, review your priorities for the year as part of your weekly review. That way, each week they will be fresh on your radar and you can design your upcoming week in light of them.
Better than Resolutions
I think New Year’s resolutions are a good thing (as well as resolutions in general–see 2 Thessalonians 1:11; though keep in mind why most people don’t keep their New Year’s resolutions). But there is something better than resolutions and prior to resolutions.
David Mathis captures this in a post at the DG blog from last year, where he recommends starting the year with reading Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ Spiritual Depression and then something better than resolutions.
Regarding Lloyd-Jones book, Mathis notes: “the title can be a tad deceiving. It’s not merely a book for those with a pronounced sense of spiritual depression. It’s a book for all Christians — for the daily spiritual depressions we all face this side of heaven.”
So the book is worth your read whether you are facing a pronounced sense of spiritual depression or simply the more general spiritual depressions faced by all.
Now, what is better than resolutions and the ultimate basis for any resolutions you do make? Mathis quotes Lloyd-Jones:
Would you like to be rid of this spiritual depression? The first thing you have to do is to say farewell now once and forever to your past. Realize that it has been covered and blotted out in Christ. Never look back at your sins again. Say: ‘It is finished, it is covered by the Blood of Christ’. That is your first step. Take that and finish with yourself and all this talk about goodness, and look to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is only then that true happiness and joy are possible for you. What you need is not to make resolutions to live a better life, to start fasting and sweating and praying. No! You just begin to say:
I rest my faith on Him alone
Who died for my transgressions to atone. (35)
This sounds like Paul: “Forgetting what lies behind [that's Lloyd-Jones' point] and straining forward to what lies ahead [there's the place for resolutions], I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus ” (Philippians 3:13-14).
So, forget what lies behind, and then press on toward the goal. And any resolutions you make, make in the recognition that you are accepted and forgiven by God in Christ apart from any resolutions, and then seek to fulfill them in the power that God supplies (Colossians 1:29).
A Right Understanding of Strengths
This is from an Amazon review of Marcus Buckingham’s DVD resource, The Truth About You. It describes what a strength actually is very well:
Buckingham’s advice to success is simple: Work on your strengths. But it is his definition of “strength” that makes a world of difference.
To him, strength is not something you’re good at but something that excites you, something that you look forward to, something that makes you strong. The idea of focusing on how it feels when we’re doing something rather than on how well we perform it has changed the way I look at my life and my work for the better. Now I don’t feel embarrassed that I’m not good at math or regretful that I did not follow my teacher’s advice (you’re good at writing; therefore, you should be a lawyer). Instead, I give myself permission to concentrate on using what I’m good at in ways that make me feel accomplished and fulfilled. That does not necessarily mean it will translate into buckets and buckets of money. However, it sure beats waking up every morning to go to a job you do well but dread and hate.
Related to this is my post from a few months ago, “Your Weaknesses Are Not What You Are Bad At.”
For those seeking to get a better picture of their vocational direction (and I mean first of all in your current job, rather than finding a different job), I would recommend Buckingham’s DVD set.
The most helpful thing about it is actually this little book that comes with it in which you record, over the course of a week, the things that weakened you and the things that strengthened you. By reviewing going through this exercise and then reviewing your entries you can get a better idea of your strengths and weaknesses (and remember: your weaknesses are not necessarily what you are bad at; they are what drain you).
If you are interested in a more in-depth treatment of strengths and how to get a better picture of what your own strengths are, I would also recommend Buckingham’s book Go Put Your Strengths to Work.
10 Big Ideas from The Power of Full Engagement
I blogged on The Power of Full Engagement a few months ago. Here’s a helpful summary of 10 of its core insights from the Personal MBA blog.
Effective People Know When to Work and When To Rest
Good thoughts from the Brazen Careerist blog.
If You Don’t Like Your Work, Here’s What the Problem Might Be
Daniel Pink makes the case very well in his book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us that there are three components to motivation: autonomy, mastery, and purpose.
If you find your work unfulfilling or draining, it may be because it is lacking one of those components.
Autonomy
If you don’t have control over how you go about your work, or input in setting your overall objectives, you might be lacking the freedom necessary to feel ownership (and interest) in your work. People don’t like to be (or need to be) controlled. In general, when freedom diminishes, motivation contracts as well. When freedom increases (supported by helpful structure and systems), motivation tends to increase.
Mastery
If your work is either too challenging or not challenging enough, it is likely to become miserable for you. We like to be good at things. This isn’t some bonus luxury; it’s how we are designed. If you aren’t good at what you are doing — or if it is too easy to be a challenge — you will likely be unfulfilled.
If you feel like you don’t have mastery in your work, don’t automatically conclude that you are somehow innately incapable of achieving competence. Often, the issue is simply a lack of training or feedback. It’s unfortunate that many organizations are not proactive in offering helpful training (especially training targeted to the real needs of today’s knowledge worker, who often operates in highly ambiguous environments with very few structured and routine tasks). So you may have to get creative here in figuring this out. But the point is: don’t automatically blame yourself. More than likely, you can improve and accomplish mastery.
They key is to have work that hits you in the sweet spot — not too easy, not too hard. It should be a challenge for sure, but not so challenging that you are lost and spinning your wheels. The challenge should in fact be continually increasing, but only as you organically gain expertise and mastery so that you are up for the increased challenge.
Purpose
Last of all, you might not see or value the purpose in your work. Lots could be said here. Ultimately, you’ll want to find work where the purpose jibes with what you feel you were made for. But even if you are not in such a role, the doctrine of vocation can be helpful here.
The doctrine of vocation means that everything we do (that is not illegal or immoral!) is valuable to God and accepted by him if done in faith. The arena for serving God is not the fortressed life of the monk, but the everyday real world of work, home, and society. If we do our work as unto the Lord (Ephesians 6:7) it is valuable and accepted by him. This infuses even the most mundane, everyday activities with meaning.
What Causes Burnout?
It’s not working long hours. It’s working on the wrong things — whether for long hour or, over time, normal hours. Here’s what Marcus Buckingham writes in Go Put Your Strengths to Work:
Burnout doesn’t happen when you are working long hours on invigorating activities. Long hours may tire you out, but they rarely burn you out. But fill your weeks with the wrong kinds of activities, activities that weaken you, and even regular activities will start to burn.
This means that burnout doesn’t even necessarily mean that you are in the wrong job. You can be in the right job, doing the wrong things.
So, what’s the solution? Work within your strengths, and cut out the activities that call upon your weaknesses — that is, the activities that weaken you:
Pick a week; capture, clarify, and confirm which activities strengthen and which weaken; then start the week-by-week process of pushing your time toward the former and away from the latter.
Why We Do Too Much
From Andy Stanley in Next Generation Leader: 5 Essentials for Those Who Will Shape the Future:
The primary reason we do too much is that we have never taken the time to discover the portion of what we do that makes the biggest difference.
About Matt Perman
Follower of Christ. Husband of one, father of three. Former director of strategy at Desiring God. This blog exists to help equip Christians in good works, because that's what productivity is really about.
Learn more Contact me Speaking Availability Friend me on Facebook Follow me on Twitter Like What's Best Next on Facebook
Keep Updated
Subscribe by email-
Map
nodirectory