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Archives for November 2013

How to Delegate When You're Overwhelmed

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This is a really good article over at 99U on overcoming the biggest obstacle to delegation. I love out how it starts out by nailing the exact difficulty that I find with delegation:

You’ve tried every productivity hack in the book and have reached your max capacity in terms of output. You know that you need outside help to bring the work to the next level… but you hesitate. On the one hand, the idea of not having to do everything yourself really appeals to you. On the other, you wonder if you can handle the management responsibilities on top of your already heavy workload.

Your concerns are valid. In order for people to help you, they need to know what you need and to receive feedback and direction along the way. Your workflow that was uniquely yours will now have to account for another person. With the right systems and communication, this process can run relatively smoothly. But without them, the people who were supposed to help can end up creating more work.

She then gives five very helpful strategies. It’s worth the read.

 

10 Reasons to be Hopeful and Excited About the Next Wave of Leaders

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Brad Lomenick, president of Catalyst, has an excellent post on why he’s excited about the next generation of leaders — specifically, those in their 20’s and 30’s. He writes:

I love leaders. And especially next generation leaders. Specifically those leaders who are currently in their 20′s and 30′s. And I’m incredibly hopeful regarding this next wave of leaders. Incredibly excited and hopeful and expectant. Expectant that they are going to take the reins and move things forward like no other generation before them.

I agree. Here are the ten reasons Brad gives for why he’s excited about this generation of leaders and how they stand out from all generations before:

  1. Passion for God
  2. Willing to work together
  3. Don’t care who gets the credit
  4. Generosity and sharing are the new currencies
  5. They understand the holistic responsibility of influence
  6. Authenticity wins
  7. Not willing to wait
  8. See social justice as the norm
  9. Seeking wisdom and mentors
  10. A change the world mentality

Read the whole thing to see Brad’s comments on each of these ten points.

(Note: I think Brad is too modest not to include himself in this generation of leaders! He exemplifies all of these qualities and more, and he’s just barely out of his 30s, so technically, he’s still in this generation. Brad: we want to see your leadership continue for many more decades to come!)

Seasons of Low Productivity Are Not Always Bad

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I appreciated this post from Michael Hyatt today on how he’s had a low-productivity week. I can relate, because my week was the same! It’s frustrating.

I even did a sort of experiment this week. Normally this week I’m at ETS, the annual convention of the evangelical theological society. I didn’t go this year. So I thought it was a good opportunity to test this question: Do business trips decrease your tangible productivity?

As I’ve argued elsewhere on this blog, I believe that conferences are incredibly productive because of the relationships developed. In fact, I believe that everyone should go to every conference they can.

But the question I was experimenting with this week is: what does business travel do to the more tangible aspects of your productivity? Specifically, would I have a more productive week in terms of tangible output because of not taking that trip this week?

Unfortunately, I feel like I would have gotten just as much done on that front if I had gone to Baltimore this week for ETS as if I had stayed home. For if I had gone to Baltimore, I would have put in a good 12 hour day before leaving in order to get a bunch of stuff moved ahead, and would have had a plan for a bunch of reading and such in between sessions. There would have been also time on the plane for work, and on top of that the conference itself. As it was, I got some good stuff done this week, but not near what I had hoped or planned, and my energy flagged on several days.

It’s probably not always the case that you can get the same amount of tangible things done on a business trip as if don’t go, and there have been many times when I’ve had to skip out on a trip because of tight project deadlines. But I think we can conclude that at least on many occasions, business trips do not cut down on your tangible productivity, but sometimes even increase it.

The question of business trip productivity aside, all of us can relate to Hyatt’s point about having low productivity weeks. What should we think about those?

I actually think low productivity weeks are not always bad. One of the features you’ll see in my book when it comes out (the release is set for March) is that I rarely fall into the stereotypical thinking on productivity. I believe that the process of productivity and effectiveness is much less linear than we often think; there is often a three steps forward, two steps back component.

Which means we can be encouraged even in the midst of times when it doesn’t feel like we are being productive. That’s why in an earlier version of the book, I even had a box called “Seasons of Low Productivity Are Not Always Bad,” quoting Jason Fried from a great post on his blog a few years ago. (I had to cut the box for space reasons from the final version, unfortunately.)

So, for the encouragement of everyone who had a low productivity week this week (inlacing me!), here is that box from the original version of my book:

Seasons of Low Productivity Are Not Always Bad

Jason Fried, co-founder of 37 Signals and author of Rework, from his blog:

“A few weeks ago, I was on fire. I was working on some designs for a prototype of a new software product, and the ideas were flowing as they hadn’t in months. Every day, I felt as if I were accomplishing two or three days’ worth of work. I was in the zone, and it felt fantastic.

“It lasted about three weeks. And then I found myself back at my old pace. Instead of being super productive, I was sort-of productive. Some days, I felt as if I barely accomplished anything.

“So what was wrong? Nothing at all.

“I believe it’s perfectly fine to spend some of your time, maybe even a lot of your time, not firing on all cylinders. Just like full employment isn’t necessarily good for an economy, full capacity isn’t always great for your mind.”

Dorothy Sayers: Why Work?

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I did not realize until the other day that Dorothy Sayers’s classic, foundational, and fantastic essay on work is online.

This is one of the most helpful articles on work that I’ve read. Keller and many others refer to it often as well.

And, we still need to fulfill the challenge she lays down in it. She says at one point “the Christian church desperately needs a theology of work.” We’ve been doing better in the last ten years (some fantastic efforts are listed below), but don’t let the existence of some great new books on this fool you. We still have a long way to go in actually working this these truths into our hearts and lives.

Here’s one of the best quotes from Sayers’ essay:

It is not right for the Church to acquiesce in the notion that a man’s life is divided into the time he spends on his work and the time he spends in serving God. He must be able to serve God in his work, and the work itself must be accepted and respected as the medium of divine creation.”

Here are some of the best books that have begun to give us a much better, articulate, and biblically grounded doctrine of work in recent days:

And here are some websites that I highly recommend:

Question: What other books and websites would you suggest?

Entrepreneurs Must Save America

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That’s the title of an excellent interview at the Gallup Management Journal with Jim Clifton on his book The Coming Jobs War.

Here are a few excerpts that are especially worth noting:

The U.S. has no shortage of great ideas and innovations. What the country needs now are highly motivated entrepreneurs who can turn those ideas into great businesses, says Gallup’s chairman. [But]…by concentrating on innovators and neglecting entrepreneurs, we may be making it harder to create the jobs the world wants and needs.

…The country that invents the future wins the jobs war, and inventing the future is what great entrepreneurs do.

…Businesses like the one Steve Jobs created and businesses like Intel and Microsoft and Amazon and Groupon and Facebook and eBay — nobody else sees that stuff coming. Nobody else says, “Hey, we need a site where we can post pictures from the weekend. We need a site that’s basically a 24/7 garage sale.” That wouldn’t have market tested well. But look at Facebook and eBay — they’re multibillion-dollar companies that created jobs for thousands of people.

We’ve got to accelerate that. To imagine that we’ll compete with China and those manufacturing jobs will come back is hallucination — or at best, wishful thinking.

…Engagement is a precondition for the state of mind that creates entrepreneurs. Miserable workgroups chase customers away. Miserable workforces don’t create any economic energy, so those companies are always cutting jobs. America will not come back and win the world unless we have the most spirited workforce. Spirited workforces create new customers. New customers create new jobs.

How to Follow Your Passion — in the Right Way

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My other post for The Institute for Faith, Work, and Economics this month. In it, I once again take issue with the increasingly common view that “follow your passion” is bad advice.

The most important point in the post is that we need to recognize that our passions are actually activities, not abstract generalizations. Recognizing that point alone will bring amazing clarity to all of your career decisions.

Here’s the start:

We often hear the advice “follow your passion” or “do what you love and the money will follow.” Is that good advice?

A few business thinkers have recently been saying that it is not. Even the author of the popular Dilbert comic, Scott Adams, was recently interviewed by the Wall Street Journal, where he argued that “follow your passion” is bad advice.

Adams gives an example from when he worked as a commercial lender. The person who came in and said, “I want to open a sporting goods store because I really like watching sports on television,” was not the kind of guy who tended to be a good investment. Hence, “following your passion,” he argues, is not usually good advice.

But what’s the real problem here? I would argue that following your passion is, in fact, good advice—as long as you understand what that actually means.

Read the whole thing.

Potential, Not Just Performance

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Colin Powell, in It Worked for Me: In Life and Leadership:

Leaders and bosses see qualities that separate some few from the crowd. What do they see?

For starters, they see consistently outstanding prior performance in different positions.

They see someone learning and growing intellectually, someone preparing for the next level, not just maxing out in his current job; someone who is ambitious, but not cutthroat.

They see someone tested by his assignments and challenges generally given to people with more seniority and greater experience, thus indicating early that he can probably perform well not only at that higher level, but at levels above that one.

They see someone reaching outside his comfort zone to acquire skills and knowledge that are not now essential, but are useful at a higher level.

They see someone who has demonstrated strength of character, moral and physical courage, integrity, and selflessness, and who will carry those virtues to the next level.

They see someone who is confident about the next step. His ego is under control, and he is mentally prepared for the added responsibilities and burdens of higher office. It won’t go to his head. He is balanced.

There are No Trivial Jobs

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A very important point from Colin Powell in It Worked for Me: In Life and Leadership:

Every person in an organization has value and wants that value to be recognized. . . . The person who came to clean my office each night was no less a person than the President, a general, or a cabinet member. They deserved and got from me a thank-you, a kind word, an inquiry that let him or her know their value. I wanted them to know they weren’t just janitors. I couldn’t do my job without them, and the department relied on them.

There are no trivial jobs in any successful organization. But there are all too many trivial leaders who don’t understand this oh so simple and easy to apply principle.