Leadership Summit 2017: Juliet Funt

Tag Archive - pastor

Leadership Summit 2017: Juliet Funt

Wednesday, August 16, 2017

Juliet Funt, a globally-recognized consultant and speaker, founded WhiteSpace at Work with the mission to unearth the potential of companies by unburdening their talent from busywork. She and her company help high-achieving teams execute better within the “Age of Overload” through light and enjoyable micro-learning digital courses. Teams that incorporate WhiteSpace mindsets and skill-sets increase productivity and engagement, reclaim lost capacity and execute at their finest.

In the flow of our days we are all getting less comfortable with “the pause”
This loss of time without assignment…the pause is where our best thinking and get our best ideas…it’s where we do our best work
This pause is the most endangered species
100% exertion and 0% thoughtfulness
When talented people don’t have time to think business suffers
#1 we are too busy to become less busy
#2 we don’t count the cost
There is a HUGE cost of worshiping the false god of business
Does work have to be this way forever?
Whitespace is the secret ingredient to improve productivity
Whitespace is a strategic pause taken between activities
Great leaders naturally use whitespace
You can’t rush the cooking of a great idea
Strategic pause

3 Things that are not Whitespace

#1 it is not meditation
#2 it is not mind wandering
#3 it is not mindfulness

It is giving yourself permission to think the unthunk spot
Decrapify your workflow

Become conscious of the thieves (four thieves)

Busyness always feels like its our fault
Busyness is not a personal problem it’s a society problem

1. Drive

2. Excellence

3. Information

4. Activity

These are also linked to our personality
They all have values and faults
Your time in the presence of the thieves is a space that will be filled

Defeat them with the questions
- Is there anything I can let go of?
- Where is “good enough” good enough?
- What do I truly need to know?
- What deserves my attention?
whitespacegls.com (tool)
When’s the best time to plant a tree? 20 years ago…when’s the 2^nd best time? today

Posted in Leadership

Leadership Summit 2017: Laszlo Bock

Wednesday, August 16, 2017

Laszlo Bock served as Google’s Senior Vice President of People Operations, growing the company from 6,000 to more than 75,000 employees. Google has been recognized more than 150 times as an exceptional employer, including the #1 “Best Company to Work for in the United States” every year since 2012. Bock’s New York Times best-selling book, WORK RULES!, has been published in more than 20 languages and has garnered numerous honors.

Every place I worked there was a gap between the values leaders talked about and what they actually lived out and how they acted and led
Find the best people, grow them as fast as we can, and then keep them at the company as long as we can
We spend more time working than doing anything else in the world
The experience of work should be meaningful
If I don’t work at Google how can we do these things? How can these things be universal?
But this stuff works everywhere because humans are the same everywhere
Treat your people right and they will do great things for you
The most important thing = Give you work meaning
Have a mission that matters
1/3 of people feel meaning in their work 1/3 do it because they need $ 1/3 do it as a game (get promoted)

#1 Figure out why you are doing why you are doing the work you are doing and remind youself of it daily

#2 You don’t need to inspire everyone, find out why people are doing what they’re doing and have them tell their stories

#3 Have people come I who are the beneficiaries of the work you do

#4 Do it again and again and again

Trust, Transparency and Voice
Do you believe human beings are fundamentally good or evil
The only thing that really improves and drives performance is goals
Bureaucracy busters: ask people and let them solve it…trust people
People who are doing the work know more about the work because they’re actually doing the work
Giving people more autonomy and more freedom increases performance…
If you are a leader give people more freedom than you are comfortable with
Give people more freedom and they will be happier, stay longer and do more for you organization
Recruiting and hiring is how you transform organizations
In recruiting we make snap judgements and then the rest of the interview we subconsciously trying to affirm those snap judgements

2 Simple Hiring Rules:

#1 Don’t let the people interviewing make the hiring decision and instead have them write it all down and give it to someone else
#2 Have a rule to only hire someone who is better than you in some way

Let your people know that you trust them and you’re on their side

Posted in Leadership

The Difference between Credibility and Ability

Tuesday, August 8, 2017

There’s a big difference between ability and credibility. I’ve had conversations with many young leaders who think they should get a shot at an opportunity or they deserve be promoted because of their ability. But what many young leaders fail to understand is that real leadership is recognized not appointed.

This is not about “paying your dues,” but rather figuring out 3 big leadership lessons…

Learning to be Patient: the art of timing is essential in leadership
Submitting to Authority: you can’t be in authority without learning to be under authority
Delivering Consistently Over Time: building the credibility to lead, not just having the ability to

Ability is an unrealized ceiling that you have based on your potential.

Just because you have the ability to doing something doesn’t mean you have done it or that you will do it. You have an upside because someone sees something in you. You have the potential to deliver, but you haven’t delivered yet…at least not consistently over an extended period of time. You’ve shown flashes of greatness but can you deliver that day in and day out?

Credibility is what you have when you demonstrate ability over time.

What makes you credible is the fact that you’ve delivered consistently over time. People know what to expect from you. You show up over and over and over again. You are consistent with what you deliver over and over and over again. You know it and everyone else knows it. People know you can do a job, because you’ve proven it.

Posted in Leadership, Spiritual Formation, Staffing

3 Big Reasons Why Missions Pastors are an Endangered Species

Sunday, August 6, 2017

I can remember the first international mission trip that I ever went on. A young up and coming ministry leader with a parachurch organization called the Navigators invited me to spend some time in Singapore and Indonesia with him. My life and friendship with Jesus would never be the same.

Most people go on a trip like this hoping to change the world and the world that ends up getting changed is their own. And this is the greatest value in short term mission trips, discipleship. Short term mission trips have the potential to be one of the greatest catalysts of spiritual growth, leadership development and developing an outsider focused culture in your church.

The problem? More and more churches are dropping the role of mission pastors like hot potatoes.

Come & See Mentality

Instead of a go and tell approach to ministry many churches are adopting a come and see mentality. In more and more churches ministry is something that happens at the church not in community.

It’s easier to send Money than People

It’s a lot easier and safer to just sent money than it is to send people. Mobilizing a team of people to go requires time, energy and leadership.

They Keep Going instead of Sending

Often times people who feel called to “international missions” see more value in going than sending and as a result leave a leadership void in the local church. While there can be impact in going that impact can be magnified exponentially by sending.

Posted in Leadership, Spiritual Formation, Staffing

10 Articles that will Help your Church Make Vision Real

Tuesday, August 1, 2017

Thank you for making July another great month here at Helping Churches Make Vision Real! It’s been great to stay connected with you through social media and hearing that these articles have been helpful. So, thank you for connecting with me through the content on this blog! You made these the top posts from this last month. If you missed out on any of them, here they are all in one place for your convenience!

7 Lessons from a Sr. Pastor Succession Plan that Worked

In 2014, I had a front row seat to the handoff of senior leadership of a multi-mega church from one Lead Pastor to another. Serving on the Executive Team at that time I had the privilege of having a behind the scenes view to the whole thing, start to finish. This post details some of the learnings from that experience.

How to Choose the Next Board Members at your Church

If you’ve led in a church for any length of time you can probably tell some stories of experiences you’ve had with dysfunctional Church Boards. Church Board become dysfunctional for a variety of reasons and there are some basic steps you can take to avoid a dysfunctional Board. The first step is to avoid inviting the wrong people to the Board. In writing this post I’m assuming that you’re already vetting potential Board Members based on the letters the Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy and Titus about selecting church leaders.

8 Reasons Why People don’t Volunteer at your Church

I’ve never worked with a church that has said they don’t need more volunteers. But I’ve worked with a bunch of churches that have trouble getting people to volunteer and stay engaged volunteering.

When to Invest in a Young Leader and when to Ignore them

Experienced leaders are always going to have more opportunities available to say yes to than capacity to meet them. This is true in leadership and this is true in developing young talent. You have to make a choice. So, choose wisely. How do you know who to invest in and who to ignore?

5 Reasons People don’t Sing at your Church

We all want people engaging in worship, but what is really in our control and how can we help people connect through the music? Here is a list of factors that contribute to how people respond and engage during worship in our churches.

The Power of Showing Up

There is incredible power in simply showing up. This is true in parenting, it’s true in coaching, it’s true in teaching, and it’s true in leadership. Over the years I’ve observed many church leaders who overestimate the potential of a pivotal moment and underestimate the power of faithfully showing up every day. When you show up daily, your leadership ends up showing up over time.

The Difference between Preparation and Planning

Do great organizations prepare for the future or do they plan for it? The answer is, “yes.” To be clear preparation and planning are not the same thing, and great organizations become great by doing both.

7 Habits of Highly Ineffective Church Leaders

It’s much easier to identify poor leadership in others than it is in yourself. We have a tendency to judge our leadership based on our intentions and the leadership of other based on the results.

The Difference between a Shepherd and a Leader

I love helping churches and leaders get unstuck and make vision real. In fact out of all the stuff I get to do with churches and leaders one of the things I enjoy the most is Leadership Coaching. Recently I had the incredible opportunity to spend a day coaching a group of Pastors and Church Leaders from Australia (unfortunately their cool accent didn’t rub off). One of the topics we spent time digging into was the difference between shepherding and leading in relation to why some churches are stuck while others move forward. Here are couple of thoughts from the conversation.

The Dumbest thing that Emotionally Intelligent Leaders do

But just because someone has a high E.Q. doesn’t mean they’re necessarily going to be a good leader. They may be talented but that doesn’t make them good. Those are two very different things. No amount of emotional intelligence will compensate for a fatal flaw of character. Void of character a high E.Q. will drive leaders towards manipulation instead of leadership.

Photo Credit: justin fain via Compfight cc

Posted in Leadership