What's Best Next

Rescuing Ambition in the Workplace

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I think you’ll benefit from this excellent series of articles from Dave Harvey, author if Rescuing Ambition (also highly recommended!).

This is how Dave introduces his series on ambition in the workplace:

A few years ago I wrote the book Rescuing Ambition and called for a rescue. I wanted to  snatch ambition from the heap of failed motivations and put it to work for the glory of God. I wanted Christians to realize that to understand our ambition, we must understand that we are on a quest for glory. And where we find glory determines the success of our quest. Since I wrote that book, many suggested that I address God’s design for ambition in the workplace and in one’s daily calling. 

Here are the links to Dave’s multi-part series, “Rescuing Ambition in the Workplace”: Part 1 , Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.

 

Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and You [Guest Post]

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This is a guest post by Alex Chediak, author of Thriving at College and now most recently, Beating the College Debt Trap.

Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg did it right. They left college when they got what they came for. They knew what they wanted. They knew who they were. They came, got after it, and got out. They didn’t earn degrees, but they got something better: an education. And the skills to keep learning for a lifetime.

Most of us don’t share their entrepreneurial brilliance. We’ve needed both an education and a degree to get our start. And the same will be true for our kids. The gap in earnings between those with only a high school diploma and those with a college degree—associate’s, bachelor’s, or beyond—continues to rise.

But too many of our kids are going to college not knowing who they are or what they want. As a result, too many leave without a degree or even much of an education. So what should we do about it?

1. Accept that we must change before they can change. We wouldn’t have the highest college dropout rate in the industrial world if we did more to prepare our children. It’s our job to help them develop the character and maturity they’ll need to be successful. Setting priorities, tracking deadlines, delaying gratification, and developing a work ethic are as important as test scores and GPAs.

2. Help them discover the intersection between their interests and their talents. Most students change majors at least once. That’s not always a bad thing, but it usually adds time and expense to their degree. And it’s often avoidable if they had only received more coaching. So be observant, hold brainstorming sessions (with a large college catalog open, if necessary), and encourage early signs of promise.

3. Encourage them to really try things.  Bill Gates said of his teenage computer addiction, “It was hard to tear myself away from a machine at which I could so unambiguously demonstrate success.” Math club and the yearbook committee can be helpful, but professional opportunities are even better. It could be shadowing an engineer at a tech firm, starting a small business, volunteering in a research lab, or filming an amateur movie. Career research is good, but career experience is better. Talents are revealed in the crucible of experience. 

4. Treat teens like young adults, not children. As they’re growing up, give them more freedom but expect more responsibility in return. Shift into more of a coaching than a controlling role. When it comes time to decide upon a college, share ownership of the decision and the expense. Students who have skin in the game tend to appreciate it more, attend class more often, and outperform those who (in theory) have more study time.

If we’re intentional in our parenting years, our kids, like Gates and Zuckerberg, can get a first-rate education. They don’t have to be Ivy League dropouts (or graduates), but they do need to know how they’re wired and how higher education fits with who they are and where they’re going. That will give them the focus to get in, get after it, and get out. 

Alex Chediak (@chediak) is a professor of engineering and physics at California Baptist University and the author of Beating the College Debt Trap, Preparing Your Teens for College, and Thriving at College. Learn more about Alex’s work at his website.

Online Training in January: Workflow Management

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We were greatly encouraged by the response to the online training we piloted last month.

If December was too crazy for you, we have two options on workflow management running this month.

We’ll have two live sessions, one tailored for busy professionals (on 1/12/16) and one for pastors & church leaders (on 1/19/16). Join Matt Perman online for 60 minutes as he helps you get control of your week.

Learn more here. 

Productivity Tip: Start with Simple

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Here’s a project for you: go build a smart phone this weekend.

I’ll give you some parts and some tools. You can pull from the internet if you want. And we’ll help you keep the distractions away. How do you think your project will turn out?

If you’re like most people, it’s going to be an unmitigated disaster. Why?  Because it’s virtually impossible to build a complex system from scratch.

Productivity Complexity

If you’re new to thinking about productivity and personal effectiveness, you may be surprised by how complex the whole subject can be.

There’s the theology piece. There’s the motivation piece. There’s weekly planning and workflow management and a hundred digital tools that might help you. You have different roles, specific strengths, and personal passions…

Then, as soon as you make some progress fitting the pieces together for you, you realize that you better figure out how your personal system fits (or doesn’t fit) with your colleagues. It doesn’t matter how “effective” your system is if you can’t work with others to be truly productive.

All this complexity can keep you from getting started.

The good news is you don’t have to jump in to the deep end of the productivity pool.

Start with Simple

Today’s tip is simply to “start with simple.”

This comes from Gall’s Law, named after John Gall, a systems theorist who wrote the book Systemantics: How Systems Work and Especially How They Fail. It goes like this:

A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. The inverse proposition also appears to be true: a complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be made to work. You have to start over, beginning with a simple system.

So, permission granted to start simple.

Simplicity is incredibly powerful in how it allows you to get started and in what it makes possible down the line.

A Few Simple Places to Start

Productivity Tip: Remember the Intangibles (and go to conferences)

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Remember the Intangibles

The tendency to focus only on immediate, directly measurable results is a common productivity fallacy for individuals and organizations.

Way back in 1982 Tom Peters and Robert Waterman termed this “the numerative bias,” and gave example after example of how a narrow concern for numbers leads managers and leaders to overlook the things that really make their products and services shine—and thus leads them to do things to “cut costs” and increase the bottom line that actually end up undermining their results in the long-term. 

This is the great irony: defining productivity mainly in terms of immediate measurable results actually undermines the measurable results in the long-run.

The time and energy and resources you invest in the intangibles is not lost; it is not a “cost of doing business.” It’s an investment that pays substantial returns in the long run. It’s just that you can’t always draw a direct and immediate line to the results. But the results are there, and the connection is there, just as the farmer who sows a crop in the spring sees results—not immediately, but in the fall, when it’s time to harvest.

We too need to have this longterm view when it comes to our effectiveness and productivity, both as individuals and as organizations.

Attending Conferences

One example here for the knowledge worker is attending conferences or industry events. I believe that all knowledge workers should go to every conference they can because these are prime opportunities to connect with people, benefit from excellent teachers, and share ideas—essential to knowledge work. But many think that going to a conference is a luxury or bonus, something to do only if you can get your other, “real” work done.

But nothing could be further from the truth. Going to conferences is a key part of the work of any leader and manager. It is one of the many intangibles at the heart of knowledge work in our day.

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Adapted from What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done. See also Tom Peters and Robert Waterman’s In Search of Excellence, especially chapter 6, “Close to the Customer,” where they note that high performing companies are “mainly oriented toward the value, rather than the cost, side of the profitability equation,” and chapter 2, “The Rational Model.” See also my article, Against Over-professionalism in Management: Managing for the Human Side

Hope for Those Who Feel Totally Unproductive

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Job loss, economic downturns, illness, accidents, and a host of other difficult circumstances mean that at some point most of us will face something beyond a typical productivity challenge. We will have times when we’ll be seemingly unable to get much done at all that feels “productive.”

If you’re in a situation like that, take hope in the truth that you can be faithful wherever you are, however meager your energy and resources seem to be.

The book of Revelation, for example, teaches that faithfulness is the means by which we overcome the world and obtain victory. Christ specifically emphasizes this in his letters to the churches in chapters 2 and 3 in relation to those who are powerless and seemingly unable to do anything:

  • “I know your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich).” – Revelation 2:9
  • “I know you that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.” – Revelation 3:8

You can be poor in this world, and yet utterly rich before Christ (Revelation 2:9). You can be utterly powerless in this world, and yet highly regarded by Christ (Revelation 3:8). This is true riches.

Trusting in him and obeying his commands is the essence of what God requires, and you can do this wherever you are and in whatever condition you are in.

No matter what your situation, you can look to God (Psalm 18:6), you can pray for the spread of the gospel among all nations (Matthew 6:9-10), you can be kind to the people who cross your path (1 Corinthians 13:5), and you can point them to your hope in Christ (1 Peter 3:15). “Let him who walks in darkness and has no light trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God” (Isaiah 50:10).

And, no matter what situation you’re in, you can pray. You can do more through prayer than you can imagine. “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think…to him be glory” (Ephesians 3:20-21).

If you can pray, you can change the world.

Workflow Webinar for Pastors and Church Leaders

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CRAFT (3)

The Pastor’s Week – A What’s Best Next Webinar (12/9/2015)

Our next online training will be a live webinar especially for pastors on workflow management.

Pastors and church leaders have demanding schedules. From weekly sermon prep to crisis situations, being a pastor requires frequently switching gears to serve your church.  And no matter how much you love Christ and want to serve his people, productivity challenges and seasons of overload can happen to the best, most faithful pastor. Constantly switching gears between “the urgent” and “the necessary” can be exhausting. It becomes almost impossible to work projects to completion and gain a sense of momentum.

Join Matt Perman next Wednesday in this 60 minute live webinar as he explores the unique aspects of pastoral productivity, guiding biblical principles, and practical tips for managing your workflow, protecting time for what’s most important, and how to get back on track when things zoom out of control.

The Details

  • Presenter: Matt Perman
  • Date: December 9, 2015
  • Time: 9:00 am CST ; 2:00 pm CST
  • Cost: $34
  • Login details: After signing up, your registration will be approved within 48 hours and we’ll email you details for joining your choice of the the morning or afternoon session on 12/9 (via GotoWebinar).

Productivity Tip: Ask “What’s Best Next?”

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“What’s best next” is both a statement and a question (and it’s a productivity tip in and of itself).

“What’s best next” is first of all a statement about that which is best next, which is doing the will of the Lord.

What is the Lord’s will in our daily work? We know that ultimately what Jesus wants from us is love (Matthew 22:37-40), so that’s always what’s best next. All of our productivity needs to be grounded in love—first, in terms of our motives (seeking the good of others) but also in terms of how we make decisions at all.

This is often overlooked: love isn’t just our motive in what we do, it’s also a guiding principle by which we decide what to do. What is best for the other person? That’s the question love asks, and it’s the guiding principle of true productivity. We don’t make choices based on what’s best for ourselves next, we make the welfare of others the motive and criterion for deciding what to do.

And so “what’s best next” is also a question we can use to help guide us. We can’t do everything that might possibly be next. We need to do what’s best next. A core principle for getting things done is to do what’s most important first. So when you have a thousand things to do, slow down and ask “what’s best next?” Then do that. Likewise, don’t do what’s easiest next; do what’s best next.

“What’s best next?” is a question you can continually use to guide your daily work.

Collaboration is More than “Everyone Plays Their Part”

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You’re likely working with other people to produce or create something this week.

God has put us in this together—different skills and experiences coming together to accomplish way more than we could accomplish on our own.

As Christians, we understand this at a foundational level. We know the call to use our different gifts to serve as “good stewards of God’s varied grace” (1 Peter 4:10). Or how, in the body of Christ, “the eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you'” (1 Corinthians 12:21).

We believe deeply in coming together for a common mission, and we want the benefits that come from strong collaboration, whether in our church or our workplace.

But in practice we can miss out. More than that, we can experience tension or even conflict with our teammates when we approach “teamwork” or “collaboration” in different ways without realizing it.

As I’ve led and worked in different teams over the years, I’ve noticed two basic levels of collaboration and the challenges that come when we apply collaboration differently.

Here’s what I mean:

Level 1 collaboration looks something like this: 
  • “Everyone needs to play their part for us to do this well.”
  • “I’m responsible for making this decision.”
  • “You do this, I’ll do that, and together we can make a big difference.”
Level 2 collaboration, on the other hand, looks more like this:
  • “You’ve only been here a few weeks, but I really want your perspective.”
  • “Can I suggest another way to think about it before we make that policy shift?”
  • “I read about this new software. Wanted to make sure you knew about it…”
  • “That’s my idea. How can we make this stronger?”

We can limit our productivity as a team if we operate solely in Level 1. And we can actually be counter-productive when some of the team are operating in the former and others are aiming for the latter.

Level 1 collaboration has it’s place, but don’t settle for that. Level 2 collaboration is where the really good stuff happens.