Category Archives: BookNotes

Do You Ever Feel Like You’re Living Out the Movie “Groundhog Day” at Your Church?

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Groundhog Day is a celebration of an old tradition – Candlemas Day – where clergy blessed and distributed candles for winter, representing how long and cold winter would be.

Groundhog Day is also a 1993 movie starring Bill Murray that popularized the usage of “groundhog day” to mean something that is repeated over and over.

Many churches find themselves in their own version of groundhog day, living out a dream and vision that was once relevant, but now is long in the past. Unwilling or unable to face reality, they are simply repeating the past over and over.

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Church leaders who find themselves in this situation have an excellent resource in Cracking Your Church’s Culture Code by Sam Chand.

“Cracking Your Church’s Culture Code” offers a practical resource for discovering the deficits in an existing church’s culture and includes steps needed to assess, correct, and change culture from lackluster to vibrant and inspirational so that it truly meets the needs of the congregation.Cracking Your Church's Culture Code

The book includes descriptions of five categories of church culture (Inspiring, Accepting, Stagnant, Discouraging, and Toxic) as well as diagnostic methods (including a free online assessment) that church leaders can use to identify the particular strengths and needs of their church.

One particularly useful section of the book deals with the seven keys of CULTURE:

  • Control – it isn’t a dirty word; delegating responsibility and maintaining accountability are essential for any organization to be effective
  • Understanding – every person on a team needs to have a clear grasp of the vision, his or her role, the gifts of the team members, and the way the team functions
  • Leadership – healthy teams are pipelines of leadership development, consistently discovering, developing, and deploying leaders
  • Trust – mutual trust up, down, and across the organizational structure is the glue that makes everything good possible
  • Unafraid – healthy teams foster the perspective that failure isn’t a tragedy and conflict isn’t the end of the world
  • Responsive – teams with healthy cultures are alert to open doors and ones that are closing; they have a sensitive spirit and a workable system to make sure things don’t fall through the cracks
  • Execution – executing decisions is a function of clarity, roles and responsibilities, and a system of accountability

Understanding your church’s culture is not an easy task. Cracking Your Church’s Culture Code is a very helpful resource for the leader who wants to delve below the surface of church as usual and lead it to greater impact.

Old School Thinking – Translating New Testament Principles into Present Day Practices

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It’s been awhile since I’ve had the opportunity to browse through used bookstores – a regular pre-pandemic practice, not only in the Charlotte region where I live but also a regular part of business trips. The second step of my business trip planning – after securing a flight, rental, and hotel – would be to search the area for used bookstores. The third step – looking for local, one-of-a-kind restaurants – I’ll save for another day!

In lieu of bookstore visits, over the past year I have upped my game in online searches as well as going back to my shelves to revisit books I haven’t read in some time.

I can’t imagine someone really enjoying a book and reading it only once.

C.S. Lewis

I was recently rereading the treasure of a book, “Building Better Churches” by Gaines S. Dobbins, prominent Southern Baptist educator from the 1920s-1950s.

He asks some great questions:

  • What sort of church would it be that undertook intelligently and fearlessly to fashion itself according to the basic principles of the New Testament?
  • On what vital functions would it major?
  • What would be revealed to be its strengths and weaknesses?
  • What would it give up as encumbrances inherited from a traditional past but clearly of doubtful value in the living present?

His answers? He thought the church should be a:

  • Regenerate body – an inward change growing out of a personal experience in which the shift of life’s center has been from self to Christ
  • Beloved community – sacrifice for the common good is the essence of true community; love cannot flourish in an atmosphere where some assume an attitude of superiority over others as their inferiors
  • Company of worshippers – the object of worship is the God of the Lord Jesus Christ made real through the presence of the Holy Spirit. The practice of worship is in spirit and truth; the purpose of worship is to maintain vital unity between the worshiper and God through the mediator, Jesus Christ, and the illuminator the Holy Spirit. A church may do much else besides worship, but it will do little else of consequence without worship
  • Winner of believers – the process of intelligent persuasion began with Christ’s invitation to “come and see.” It continued throughout His ministry and Paul expanded it. There is no mistaking the proposal of the New Testament that believers be won to saving faith through persuasion
  • Teacher of disciples – preaching and teaching are indispensable means of leading toward Christ, to Christ, and into the service and likeness of Christ. A church is essentially a school with Christ as the Great Teacher; the Holy Spirit as His interpreter; the Bible the chief textbook; the minister the chief officer of the school with other leaders gathered around him as teachers and staff; every believer an enrolled student; and all others who can be reached are sought as learners to be led toward Christ
  • Server of humanity – the early Christians caught the spirit of Christ and like Him, “went about doing good.” It must send regenerate men and women out into an immoral society to transform evil into good, wrong into right, injustice into justice, not so much by political measures as by the leavening process of Christian influence
  • Agency of the Kingdom – the Kingdom of God is a present and future reality. It is not an organization to be promoted, nor a movement to be advanced, nor a social ideal to be realized, but a relationship to be entered and a spiritual order into which others are to be brought through persuasive witnessing

Dobbins, after a lifetime of service to the church, but writing this in 1947, had this final thought which I leave for you to consider:

courtesy the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

Christianity is a religion of change. Jesus’ call in Mark 1:15 (the kingdom of God is at hand) was a call to change – change of mind and heart, of conduct and character, of self and society. By its very nature Christianity is a religion for a changing world and has always had its greatest opportunity during times of upheaval.

The Christian leader has no option; he must face a changing world. If the leader is to render maximum service, he must both adjust himself to the phenomena of change and address himself passionately to the business of producing and guiding change. 

Ours is an age of revolution. Inevitably the churches are undergoing change. Why not seize on this opportunity to make changes back to the New Testament rather than farther away from it?

Even though this was written almost 75 years ago, it is so relevant today.

Leaders of churches – your church is changing whether or not you “want” it to. Will you lead changes back to the New Testament rather than farther away from it?

Leadership Lessons from Visionaries, Part Two: Steve Jobs

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January 1, 2020.

It was the beginning of a new year, and most would say, a new decade.

Many people, and certainly most leaders, look at the beginning of a new year to look ahead to what might be – to dream.

Since it was a new year, many of those dreams might even be worded as “resolutions” – or goals – for 2020.

Of course, looking back to January 2020 from the vantage point of early 2021, no one on earth could have predicted what the year was going to turn out like.

In spite of that, no, even BECAUSE of the way the year went, the team at Auxano would like you to focus instead on clarity.

Clarity isn’t everything, but it changes everything.

To help you understand clarity from a different perspective, this issue of SUMS Remix departs from our usual format of a common problem statement, with solutions from three books and accompanying action steps.

Instead, we invite you to take a brief look into the lives of two of the most brilliant, creative, and clarity-practicing geniuses: Walt Disney and Steve Jobs.

Though born in different generations, and living vastly different lives, Disney and Jobs have influenced millions of people through the respective outputs of the companies they founded, the Walt Disney Company and Apple.

The first installment was a look at Walt Disney. The second installment of the four-part series is a brief excerpt from a select biography of Steve Jobs, giving you background on his excellent of use of “vision” and “communication.” The third and fourth installments will give you a brief excerpt from other books that illustrate these two concepts, each with action steps to help you do the same.

As you look at some specific events of their lives through the lens of “vision” and “communication,” it is my hope that you will be inspired to live and lead 2021 with clarity.

THE QUICK SUMMARY – Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

Based on more than forty interviews with Jobs conducted over two years – as well as interviews with more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues – Walter Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing.

At a time when America is seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge, and when societies around the world are trying to build digital-age economies, Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination. He knew that the best way to create value in the twenty-first century was to connect creativity with technology. He built a company where leaps of the imagination were combined with remarkable feats of engineering.  

Although Jobs cooperated with the publication of Steve Jobs, he asked for no control over what was written nor even the right to read it before it was published. He put nothing off-limits. He encouraged the people he knew to speak honestly. And Jobs speaks candidly, sometimes brutally so, about the people he worked with and competed against. His friends, foes, and colleagues provide an unvarnished view of the passions, perfectionism, obsessions, artistry, devilry, and compulsion for control that shaped his approach to business and the innovative products that resulted.

Driven by demons, Jobs could drive those around him to fury and despair. But his personality and products were interrelated, just as Apple’s hardware and software tended to be, as if part of an integrated system. His tale is instructive and cautionary, filled with lessons about innovation, character, leadership, and values.


VISION COMMUNICATION ILLUSTRATION

While Apple co-founder Steve Jobs is remembered in many ways for the successful innovations he led Apple to accomplish, undoubtedly his most memorable public moments were the product introductions he unveiled over the years.

An Apple product unveiling by Steve Jobs was not a dry, technical recitation. Instead, Jobs electrified his audiences with his incomparable style and showmanship. He didn’t just convey information in his presentations; he told stories, painted pictures in the listener’s minds, and above all, shared a vision of what could be.

A presentation by Steve Jobs was a transformative experience that his audience found unique, inspiring, and unforgettable.

Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything. Today we’re introducing three revolutionary products of this class. The first one is a widescreen iPod with touch controls. The second is a revolutionary mobile phone. And the third is a breakthrough Internet communications device. Are you getting it? These are not three separate devices, this is one device, and we are calling it iPhone.              

Steve Jobs

The Apple II Launch Event – April 1977

It is important to “impute” your greatness by making a memorable impression on people, especially when launching a new product. That was reflected in the care that Jobs took with Apple’s display area. Other exhibitors had card tables and poster board signs. Apple had a counter draped in black velvet and a large pane of backlit Plexiglas with Apple’s new logo. They put on display the only three Apple IIs that had been finished, but empty boxes were piled up to give the impression that there were many more on hand.

The Macintosh Launch Event – January 1984

The lights dimmed as Jobs reappeared onstage and launched into a dramatic version of the battle cry he had delivered earlier during the Macintosh’s development.

“It is 1958. IBM passes up a chance to buy a young fledgling company that has invented a new technology called xerography. Two years later, Xerox was born, and IBM has been kicking themselves ever since.”

“It is now 1984. It appears that IBM wants it all. Apple is perceived to be the only hope to offer IBM a run for its money. Dealers, after initially welcoming IBM with open arms, now fear an IBM-dominated and –controlled future and are turning back to Apple as the only force who can ensure their future freedom. IBM wants it all, and is aiming its guns at its last obstacle to industry control, Apple. Will Big Blue dominate the entire computer industry? The entire information age? Was George Orwell right?”

As he built to the climax, the audience went from murmuring to applauding to a frenzy of cheering and chanting. But before they could answer the Orwell question, the auditorium went black and the “1984” commercial appeared on the screen. When it was over, the entire audience was on its feet cheering.

With a flair for the dramatic, Jobs walked across the dark stage to a small table with a cloth bag on it. “Now I’d like to show you Macintosh in person,” he said. He took out the computer, keyboard, and mouse, hooked them together deftly, then pulled one of the new 3½-inch floppies from his shirt pocket.

The theme from Chariots of Fire began to play, the word “MACINTOSH” scrolled horizontally onscreen, then underneath it the words “Insanely great” appeared in script, as if being slowly written by hand. Not used to such beautiful graphic displays, the audience quieted for a moment. Wild cheering and shrieks erupted from the audience, followed by a five-minute standing ovation.

The iPod – October 2001

When it came time to reveal the product, after he had described its technical capabilities, Jobs did not do his usual trick of walking over to a table and pulling off a velvet cloth. Instead he said, “I happen to have one right here in my pocket.” He reached into his jeans and pulled out the gleaming white device. “This amazing little device holds a thousand songs, and it goes right into my pocket.” He slipped it back in and ambled offstage to applause.

Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs

A NEXT STEP

Set aside some time to view these launch events, and take notes on how you might adapt Jobs’ techniques to upcoming events in your organization.

Watch videos of Steve Jobs and select product launches by clicking on the links below:

Excerpt taken from SUMS Remix 135-3, released January 2019.

Part of a weekly series on 27gen, entitled Wednesday Weekly Reader

Regular daily reading of books is an important part of my life. It even extends to my vocation, where as Vision Room Curator for Auxano I am responsible for publishing SUMS Remix, a biweekly book “excerpt” for church leaders. Each Wednesday on 27gen I will be taking a look back at previous issues of SUMS Remix and publishing an excerpt.

>>Purchase SUMS Remix here<<

>> Purchase prior issues of SUMS Remix here<<

How to Transform Your Communication Using Data Stories

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Most church leaders, especially the senior pastor or teaching pastor, rightfully view their skills as a communicator to be one of the most important aspects of their position. From the weekly sermon to regular leadership meetings to training and development presentations to special, one off events, the spoken word is of paramount importance to church leaders.

With all the information in data form available to you, how do you communicate it?

To be the most effective communicators we can be, leaders must learn to use the data we need to communicate as a powerful narrative – a narrative that others will recall and retell.

 

THE QUICK SUMMARY – Data Story, by Nancy Duarte

Scientists have proven that stories make the brain light up in ways no other form of communication does. Using story frameworks as a communication device for data will help make your recommendations stick and be acted on.

Organizations use data to identify problems or opportunities. The actions others may need to take today from your insights in data could reverse or improve the trajectory of your future data. So, communicating data well drives very important outcomes.

Even though most roles depend on data, communicating well is the top skill gap in roles using data. The essential skill for today’s leaders (and aspiring leaders) is shaping data into narratives that make a clear recommendation and inspire others to act. 

Almost every role today uses data for decision-making. As you grow in your career, you can become a strategic advisor and ultimately a leader using data to shape a future where humanity and organizations flourish.

Duarte and her team have culled through thousands of data slides of her clients in technology, finance, healthcare, and consumer products, to decode how the highest performing brands communicate with data.

Data Story teaches you the most effective ways to turn your data into narratives that blend the power of language, numbers, and graphics. This book is not about visualizing data; there are plenty of books covering that. Instead, you’ll learn how to transform numbers into narratives to drive action.

  • It will help you communicate data in a way that creates outcomes both inside and outside your own organization.
  • It will help you earn a reputation as a trusted advisor, which will advance your career.
  • It will help your organization make faster decisions and inspire others to act on them!

Nancy Duarte is one of the preeminent storytellers in American business and the acclaimed author of Slide:ology, Resonate, and the HBR Guide to Persuasive Presentations comes this book that will help you transform numbers into narratives.

A SIMPLE SOLUTION

Author Nancy Duarte poses this interesting question in her book, Data Story: “What if you sliced data and found a huge problem or opportunity?”

She goes on, saying, “Data did its job, but now it needs a storyteller. How insights are communicated could reverse or improve the trajectory of data. The actions you ask others to take today change your future data.”

The best communicators make data concise and clearly structured while telling a convincing and memorable story.

Data doesn’t speak for itself; it needs a storyteller.

With prolific digital devices and technological advancements, every person, place, thing, or idea can be measured and tracked in some way. But without identifying the story emerging from the data, it’s of little to no value. 

Why is storytelling so important? Because the human brain is wired to process stories. By transforming your data into vivid scenes and structuring your delivery in the shape of a story, you will make your audience care about what your data says.

Story is the primary method used to engage hearts and spur action. Storytelling makes the brain light up in a way no other form of communication does. Story has the ability to help the listener embrace how they may need to change, because the message transfers into their heart and mind.

Stories engage our senses

When we find ourselves hooked to a particular storyline, that resonance begins in our brains. This is the first trigger to enabling a physical and emotional response.

Stories bring us closer together

If you’ve ever felt a wave of emotion while listening to a story, that’s because our brains are naturally activated and eager to physically process the emotion associated with oral description.

Stories move us to feel

Giving your audience a vicarious thrill puts them at the center of your story, making them feel like they are the hero themselves.

Stories move us to act

Stories that capture our attention cause us toe emotionally connect with others and feel motivated to embark on a course of action.

Nancy Duarte, Data Story

A NEXT STEP 

Author Nancy Duarte suggests the following ideas to help transform numbers into narratives. Try these out the next time you have to communicate data to your audience.

Attach the data to something relatable. To help your audience understand the magnitude of the data, compare it to things that are familiar to them.

Develop a sense of scale. While data must always be precise, trying to help others understand it doesn’t have to be. Approximations help convey the scale of the number quickly.

Connect data to relatable size. Common measures of length, area, and volume can be compared to relatable objects in our lives.

Connect data to relatable time. Time and speed, because of their familiar use in our lives, are a good source of comparison.

Compare data to relatable things. Along with size, time, and speed to understand a number, compare various nouns to one another to comprehend quantity and scale.

Express how you feel about the data. Let your emotions about outcomes show.

Excerpt taken from SUMS Remix 133-2, December 2019.

Part of a weekly series on 27gen, entitled Wednesday Weekly Reader

Regular daily reading of books is an important part of my life. It even extends to my vocation, where as Vision Room Curator for Auxano I am responsible for publishing SUMS Remix, a biweekly book “excerpt” for church leaders. Each Wednesday on 27gen I will be taking a look back at previous issues of SUMS Remix and publishing an excerpt.

>>Purchase SUMS Remix here<<

>> Purchase prior issues of SUMS Remix here<<

Leadership Lessons from the Vision of Walt Disney, Part One

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January 1, 2020.

It was the beginning of a new year, and most would say, a new decade.

Many people, and certainly most leaders, look at the beginning of a new year to look ahead to what might be – to dream.

Since it was a new year, many of those dreams might even be worded as “resolutions” – or goals – for 2020.

Of course, looking back to January 2020 from the vantage point of early 2021, no one on earth could have predicted what the year was going to turn out like.

In spite of that, no, even BECAUSE of the way the year went, the team at Auxano would like you to focus instead on clarity.

Clarity isn’t everything, but it changes everything.

To help you understand clarity from a different perspective, this issue of SUMS Remix departs from our usual format of a common problem statement, with solutions from three books and accompanying action steps.

Instead, we invite you to take a brief look into the lives of two of the most brilliant, creative, and clarity-practicing geniuses: Walt Disney and Steve Jobs.

Though born in different generations, and living vastly different lives, Disney and Jobs have influenced millions of people through the respective outputs of the companies they founded, the Walt Disney Company and Apple.

In this first installment of the four-part series is a brief excerpt from select biography of Walt Disney, followed in the second installment by that of Jobs, giving you background on their excellent of use of “vision” and “communication” respectfully. Then, the third and fourth installments will give you a brief excerpt from other books that illustrate these two concepts, with action steps to help you do the same.

As you look at some specific events of their lives through the lens of “vision” and “communication,” it is our intent that you will be inspired to begin 2021 with clarity.

A QUICK SUMMARY – Lead Like Walt by Pat Williams

Whether you are building a small business from the ground up or managing a multinational company, you can learn the 7 key traits for leadership success from one of the greatest business innovators and creative thinkers of the 20th century: Walt Disney. Whether you know him as the first to produce cartoons in Technicolor, the mastermind behind the theme park Disneyland, or the founder of the largest entertainment conglomerate, Walt’s story of creativity, perseverance in spite of obstacles, and achieving goals resonates and inspires as much today as it ever has.

Author Pat Williams began studying the life and leadership example of Walt Disney as he struggled to build an NBA franchise, the Orlando Magic. Since he was trying to accomplish a goal similar to so many of Walt’s—starting with nothing and building a dream from the ground up—he realized that Walt could teach him what he needed to know. And indeed he did.

Through Walt Disney’s leadership example, Pat found 7 key leadership traits that all great leaders must possess: Vision, Communication, People Skills, Character, Competence, Boldness, and A Serving Heart. Through never-before-heard Walt stories and pragmatic principles for exceeding business goals, you’ll learn how to build those skills and implement them to be effective in any leadership arena. As you discover the life of this great leader, you’ll realize that no goal is too great and no dream too daring for anyone who leads like Walt.

VISION APPLICATION

To many people today, Walt Disney is not seen as a man, but instead as a nameless, faceless entertainment giant which owns the intellectual properties of the Disney Studios, Pixar Studios, Marvel, LucasFilms, and Fox. While that is all true, the man named Walter Elias Disney rose from humble beginnings to found the studio that bears his name in 1923.

After several years of barely scraping by, and one disastrous setback, Disney put together a string of successes. By the early 1930s, Disney had reached what many industry leaders considered the pinnacle of success for an animated short features studio.

However, Walt Disney wasn’t at the top; he was just getting started.

I dream, I test my dreams against my beliefs, I dare to take risks, and I execute my vision to make those dreams come true. – Walt Disney

In the spring of 1934, thirty-two-year-old Walt Disney decided to bet his studio on an idea everyone around him said was crazy. He was going to produce a full-length animated film.

Walt Disney’s wife Lily and older brother Roy tried to talk Walt out of his dream – but when they saw that he was totally committed to it, they gave up. Once Walt made a decision, no one could change his mind.

Within days, Walt gathered forty of his top animators. Opening his wallet, he handed each man some cash, then said, “I want you fellas to go have dinner and relax a little. Then come back to the studio. I have a story to tell you.”

The animators walked out of the studio, buzzing among themselves. After dinner, they gathered in a recording stage where Walt had set up folding chairs in a semicircle. The room was dark, like a movie theater, except at the very front. There stood Walt, under a single light bulb, bouncing on his heels, a secretive smile on his face. Once everyone was present, Walt began to tell the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Walt didn’t merely tell the story. He performed it, acting out every part. He became every character. His eyebrows arched, and his features twisted into those of the evil Queen. He tilted his face toward the bare light bulb, and its soft glow transformed his fact into that of Snow White. Each character had a distinct voice and personality.

Reach the end of the tale, Walt paused – then said, “That is going to be our first feature-length animated film.” If Walt had said those words at the beginning of his presentation, his artists would have thought he was crazy. Everybody knew there was no audience for an all-animated feature.

But after watching Walt act out the story before their eyes, they believed it was not only possible, but practically an accomplished fact! Walt had the whole picture in his head – all they had to do was animate it.

Pat Williams, Lead Like Walt

A NEXT STEP

Not all visionaries are leaders, but all leaders are visionaries. You can’t lead people without a vision of where you are taking them.

What is your dream, your vision?

According to author Pat Williams, great leaders are people of vision. Without a vision, how will you know what success looks like? How will you know how to get there? Your vision is your definition of success.

Look at the quote by Walt Disney above: “I dream, I test my dreams against my beliefs, I dare to take risks, and I execute my vision to make those dreams come true.”

Author Pat Williams breaks the quote down as follows:

  • “I dream.” Walt began with a vision, a dream of the future.
  • “I test my dreams against my beliefs.” Walt made sure his vision was consistent with his beliefs, his core values, and his integrity.
  • “I dare to take risks.” He acted boldly, betting on himself to win.
  • “I execute my vision to make those dreams come true.” He focused all his energies, and those of his organization, on turning his dreams into reality.

At Auxano, we have developed some tools to help you assess your vision and make time to reflect, discern and articulate. Download the Vision Frame overview as a litmus test for your vision. If you cannot answer all five questions of the irreducible minimums of clarity, then schedule one day per month to work on your vision.

Learn more about the Vision Frame.

Part of a weekly series on 27gen, entitled Wednesday Weekly Reader

Regular daily reading of books is an important part of my life. It even extends to my vocation, where as Vision Room Curator for Auxano I am responsible for publishing SUMS Remix, a biweekly book “excerpt” for church leaders. Each Wednesday on 27gen I will be taking a look back at previous issues of SUMS Remix and publishing an excerpt.

>>Purchase SUMS Remix here<<

>> Purchase prior issues of SUMS Remix here<<

It’s Time to Read the Year Out

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2020 was the year of reading for me.

2020 wasn’t the year I learned to love reading; that occurred long ago.

2020 wasn’t the year I read widely because I had to; that occurred first in college, and then, to an extent, in seminary and post-graduate studies.

2020 wasn’t the year I read because there wasn’t anything else to do, because of COVID-19 travel restrictions, lockdowns, and quarantines – though there was plenty of “extra” time because of those things.

2020 wasn’t the year I read because my job requires it, though that IS part of my job, and one I look forward to every day.

So why is 2020 the year of reading for me?

It’s best expressed in these thoughts from Anne Bogel in her great little book, I’d Rather Be Reading (on sale for Kindle for $1.99 through the end of the year!).

We are readers. Books grace our shelves and fill our homes with beauty; they dwell in our minds and occupy our thoughts. Books prompt us to spend pleasant hours alone and connect us with fellow readers. They invite us to escape into their pages for an afternoon, and they inspire us to reimagine our lives. Show me a cover of any book I’ve read, and it will take me right back to where I was when I read it.

Anne Bogel

Books are portals to all kinds of memories.

And so, 2020 is a year full of book-inspired memories.

In 2020, those books came to me like this:

  • Books acquired this year: 287
  • Books borrowed from the library: 173
  • Digital books acquired this year: 12

As I have always been clear to point out, I have not read every page of the 472 books that have been in front of me this year. 

With such an immense (and pleasurable) task in front of me (see below), and knowing there is more to my life than reading, I have to resort to some method of finding out what an author is trying to say without reading the whole book. There’s dozens of the total in which I only read the “highlights,” following methods I’ve learned over the years. In about 15 minutes, I can tell whether I will be reading the book, deep-diving into the book, skimming the book, or maybe just returning it (mainly library books).

If a book captures your attention after using whatever method of “quick review” you choose, you should read it.

The converse is true: if a book doesn’t capture your attention after a few attempts, stop reading it. Pick out another one on the topic – there are always more waiting for you!

With those caveats in mind, my “cover-to-cover” reading for 2020 was 217 books.

For the curious, like picking your favorite child (I have four), or favorite daughters/son-in-law (I have four), or grandchildren (I have ten), I don’t typically make a “Best of” list for the year. I find some value in almost every book I read, and for me, that’s good enough.

I talked about that in a podcast with Bryan Rose. You can listen here.

A Little More About My “Book-Inspired” Memories from 2020

In my vocational role, I am responsible for publishing SUMS Remix every two weeks. SUMS Remix is a modified book excerpt in which I develop solutions to a common problem faced by church leaders from 3 different books. So, preparing SUMS Remix in 2020 alone means I have gone through over 100 leadership and organization development books to arrive at the 81 used in producing 27 issues this year. All together, we have published 161 issues, covering 482 books, since 2015. We have just released 6 collections, covering all 161 issues, available for purchase as a downloadable PDF. Find out more here.

Other parts of my role require reading current trends books, used for team research, Navigator support, social media content creation, and other content writing.

I have had a passion for Guest Experience for decades. It’s taken a more-refined shape over the last fifteen-plus years of client work, particularly through constant research in the area of customer experience books for application for churches. Through that, an ongoing project is building The Essential Guest Experience Library, currently over 300 volumes.

A project that has been in development for over three years just became public this year: First Place Hospitality. This is a movement to help church leaders “bring hospitality home” through members building bridges to their neighbors. In addition to research needed for weekly posts, white papers, tools, and social media content, I am also building The Essential Home Hospitality Library, currently at just under 200 volumes.

I am a Disney Fanatic, plain and simple (though my wife says there is nothing plain nor simple about it). From boyhood exposure to the magical world of Walt Disney in the early 1960s, to my first of dozens of theme park visits in 1975, and especially in conversations with current and former Cast Members, I am alway seeking to learn more about Walt Disney the man, and the empire which he started. Of course, that extends to building a Disney library, currently over 420 volumes and growing! A lot of that library contains excellent material that can be applied in Guest Experience, leadership development, and organizational improvement.

Finally, there’s just the pure pleasure of reading – an almost nightly hour or two in the late evening reading a wide range of books, both brand new and classics, fiction and nonfiction. A bulk of the library books listed above fit into this category. This type of reading also helps expand the subject libraries also mentioned above, and helps start new ones!

In these closing days of 2020, and the beginning of a new year just ahead, why don’t you give yourself a gift?

The gift of reading.

Be sure to check out my other websites for more information on how to “Read the Year Out!”

First Place Hospitality

Guest Experience Design

These Are Not the Worst of Times; America Has Been Here Before

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Over the first six decades of the twentieth century American had become demonstrably – indeed measurably – a more “we” society.

Over the past five decades America has become demonstrably – indeed measurably – a more “I” society.

By using advanced methods of data analysis to combine four key metrics of economics, politics, society, and culture into a unified statistical survey, authors Robert Putnam and Shaylyn Romney Garrett have been able to discern a single core phenomenon – a single inverted U-curve that provides a scientifically validate summary of the past 125 years of American’s story.

The Upswing traces the roots of today’s problems to the last time the same problems threatened to engulf our democracy. It contains an evidenced-based story about how we have arrived at our current predicament. The authors examined how economic inequality, political polarization, social fragmentation, cultural narcissism, racism, and gender discrimination each evolved over the course of the last 125 years.

Putnam and Romney Garrett argue that the state of America today must be understood by fist acknowledge that within living memory, each of the adverse trends they now see were going in the opposite direction. To a surprising degree century-long trends in economics, politics, society, and culture are remarkably similar, such that is tis possible to summarize all of them in a singe phenomenon:

The story of the American experiment in the twentieth century is one of a long upswing toward increasing solidarity, followed by a steep downturn into increasing individualism. From “I” to “we,” and back again.

Perhaps, according to the authors, the single most important lesson we can hope to gain from this analysis is that in the past America has experienced a storm of unbridled individualism in our culture, our communities, our politics, and our economics, and it produced then, as it has today, a national situation that few Americans founded appealing.

But, America successfully weathered that storm once, and the authors believe we can do it again.

If there were ever a historical moment whose lessons we as a nation need to learn, it is the moment when the first American Gilded Age (1870-1900) turned into the Progressive Era (1900-1915), a moment which set in motion a sea change that helped us reclaim our nation’s promise, and whose effects rippled into almost every corner of American life for over half a century.

Putnam and Romney Garrett hope that an awareness of the this moment may find the tools and inspirations needed today to create another American upswing – this time with an unwavering commitment to complete inclusion that will take us toward yet a higher summit, and a fuller and more sustainable realization of the promise of “we.”

Inspired and adapted from The Upswing: How American Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again, by Robert D. Putnam and Shaylyn Romney Garrett

How To Communicate Clearly Through Vivid Thinking

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Most church leaders, especially the senior pastor or teaching pastor, rightfully view their skills as a communicator to be one of the most important aspects of their position. From the weekly sermon to regular leadership meetings to training and development presentations to special, one off events, the spoken word is of paramount importance to church leaders.

But what if you realized that, by communicating only through words, you are effectively ignoring one of the richest methods of communication that draws on the most powerful part of your brain – your visual sense?

To be the most effective communicators we can be, leaders must learn to use the simplicity and immediacy of images to help clarify our ideas for both ourselves and others.

 

THE QUICK SUMMARY – Blah Blah Blah: What to do When Words Don’t Work by Dan Roam

Ever been to so many meetings that you couldn’t get your work done? Ever fallen asleep during a bullet point presentation? Ever watched the news and ended up knowing less? Welcome to the land of Blah-Blah-Blah.

The Problem: We talk so much that we don’t think very well. Powerful as words are, we fool ourselves when we think our words alone can detect, describe, and defuse the multifaceted problems of today. They can’t – and that’s bad, because words have become our default thinking tool.

The Solution: This book offers a way out of blah-blah-blah. It’s called “Vivid Thinking.”

In Dan Roam’s first acclaimed book, The Back of the Napkin, he taught readers how to solve problems and sell ideas by drawing simple pictures. Now he proves that Vivid Thinking is even more powerful. This technique combines our verbal and visual minds so that we can think and learn more quickly, teach and inspire our colleagues, and enjoy and share ideas in a whole new way.

The Destination: No more blah-blah-blah. Through Vivid Thinking, we can make the most complicated subjects suddenly crystal clear. Whether trying to understand a Harvard Business School class, or what went down in the Conan versus Leno battle for late-night TV, or what Einstein thought about relativity, Vivid Thinking provides a way to clarify anything.

Through dozens of guided examples, Roam proves that anyone can apply this systematic approach, from left-brain types who hate to draw to right-brainers who hate to write. This isn’t just a book about improving communications, presentations, and ideation; it’s about removing the blah-blah-blah from your life for good.

A SIMPLE SOLUTION

According to author Dan Roam, our default method of communication is words. Even when verbalizing a thought, we attempt to string words together in meaningful ways, because it’s the best way to share an idea. We also believe that the ability to speak well is the primary cornerstone of intelligence.

In reality, defaulting to using only words quickly leads us down the path of blah-blah- blah.

Roam defines blah-blah-blah as:

  • Complexity – which kills our ability to think.
  • Misunderstanding – which kills our ability to lead.
  • Boredom – which kills our ability to care.

Blah-blah-blah is the overuse, misuse, and abuse of language – anything we say that interferes with our ability to convey ideas.

The reason we are talking more and saying less, hearing more and listening less, learning more and knowing less is simple: We’ve moved off the center of balance between focusing on details and seeing the big picture.

The reason for all the blah-blah-blah is that we’ve simply forgotten how to use both of our minds. As we’ve become increasingly enamored of and reliant upon words, our verbal minds have become heavier and heavier, while our visual minds have gotten lighter and lighter. Now that we are facing some of the most difficult challenges of all time, we suddenly realize that we’ve lost half our minds.

Getting our balance back on center is simple: All we have to do is take a half-step back from our unshakable belief in the power of words and at the same time give our visual mind a kick in the pants. That’s what Vivid Thinking does.

Vivid Thinking stands for visual verbal interdependent thinking, which means actively forcing our visual and verbal minds to work together when we are thinking, leading, teaching, and selling.

It’s so simple to get our verbal and visual minds working together again that Vivid Thinking really has only three rules.

Vivid Thinking Rule No. 1: When we say a word, we should draw a picture (and vice versa).

Vivid Thinking Rule No. 2: If we don’t know which picture to draw, we look to vivid grammar to show us the way.

Vivid Thinking Rule No. 3: To make any idea more vivid, we turn to the Seven Vivid Essentials.

Dan Roam, Blah Blah Blah: What to do When Words Don’t Work

A NEXT STEP

To help you learn to practice Vivid Thinking, use the techniques below developed by author Dan Roam.

Rule 1

This is at the same time one of the easiest to understand and most difficult to practice. The next time you have an idea, instead of just talking about it, draw it out.

If you say, “ball,” draw a ball.

Learn to actively engage your visual mind each time your use your verbal mind.

Rule 2

“Grammar” may be a dreaded word to many people, bringing back early childhood memories. Yet the fact you are reading this sentence means it worked!

Grammar helps us use words to form sentences, then paragraphs, then pages, which can become a one-page article or a 500-page book. In the same way, Vivid Grammar is the set of rules used to compose a visual idea from a small set of pictorial elements. Learning to use this tool means that when you say a word, you will know which picture to draw to accompany the word.

  • When you hear a noun, draw a portrait.
  • When you hear an adjective of quantity, draw a chart.
  • When you hear a preposition, draw a map.
  • When you hear tense, draw a timeline.
  • When you hear a complex verb, draw a flowchart.
  • When you hear a complex sentence, draw a multi-variable plot.

Rule 3

Words are abstractions – the ultimate mental shorthand. When you know what they mean, words instantly call to mind ideas, images, feelings, and memories. However, we know that the words we use are distinct from the things they represent, and if we are unclear about what they mean, our audience certainly will be.

Roam suggests that you walk your idea through the Vivid Forest:

  • F – Your idea has Form.
  • O – Your idea can be expressed with Only the Essentials.
  • R – Your idea is Recognizable.
  • E – Your idea Evolves.
  • S – Your idea Spans Differences.
  • T – Your idea is Targeted.

Part of a weekly series on 27gen, entitled Wednesday Weekly Reader

Regular daily reading of books is an important part of my life. It even extends to my vocation, where as Vision Room Curator for Auxano I am responsible for publishing SUMS Remix, a biweekly book “excerpt” for church leaders. Each Wednesday on 27gen I will be taking a look back at previous issues of SUMS Remix and publishing an excerpt.

>>Purchase SUMS Remix here<<

>> Purchase prior issues of SUMS Remix here<<

How to Problem Solve with Design Thinking

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Design isn’t just choosing the right images and fonts for your next website revision. It’s a problem-solving process that incorporates the needs of guests, team members, and partners in your mission. It’s a way of working that creates and refines real-world situations.

Design is the secret weapon of organizations that gives them a strategic advantage in figuring out what services their guests need and in defining the exact characteristics of every guest interaction. Design helps you understand how a guest accesses your website, what a guest is likely to do as they approach your campus, and gives you clues about creating a welcoming environment.

Design is the most important discipline that you’ve probably never heard of.

The right Guest Experience changes, implemented the right way, won’t just fall into your lap. You must actively design them. This requires learning – and then sticking to – the steps in a human-centered design process.

THE QUICK SUMMARY – Design Thinking for the Greater Good by Jeanne Liedtka, Randy Salzman, and Daisy Azer

Facing especially wicked problems, social sector organizations are searching for powerful new methods to understand and address them. Design Thinking for the Greater Good goes in depth on both the how of using new tools and the why. As a way to reframe problems, ideate solutions, and iterate toward better answers, design thinking is already well established in the commercial world. Through ten stories of struggles and successes in fields such as health care, education, agriculture, transportation, social services, and security, the authors show how collaborative creativity can shake up even the most entrenched bureaucracies―and provide a practical roadmap for readers to implement these tools.

The design thinkers Jeanne Liedtka, Randy Salzman, and Daisy Azer explore how major agencies like the Department of Health and Human Services and the Transportation and Security Administration in the United States, as well as organizations in Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom, have instituted principles of design thinking. In each case, these groups have used the tools of design thinking to reduce risk, manage change, use resources more effectively, bridge the communication gap between parties, and manage the competing demands of diverse stakeholders. Along the way, they have improved the quality of their products and enhanced the experiences of those they serve. These strategies are accessible to analytical and creative types alike, and their benefits extend throughout an organization. This book will help today’s leaders and thinkers implement these practices in their own pursuit of creative solutions that are both innovative and achievable.

A SIMPLE SOLUTION

In today’s increasingly fast-paced and unpredictable environment, church leaders need to be involved in design thinking more than ever. Design is all about action, and churches too often get stuck at the talking stage.

Face it – despite all our planning and analyzing and controlling, the typical church’s track record at translating its rhetoric into results is not impressive.

Moments matter. And what an opportunity we miss when we leave them to chance!

  • All it takes is a bit of insight and forethought.
  • All it takes is for you to think like a designer.

One of the biggest contributions of design thinking is to hold us in the problem space long enough to develop the kind of deeper insights into the problem that foster more creative ideas later on.

Design thinking is a problem-solving approach with a unique set of qualities: it is human-centered, possibility driven, option focused, and iterative.

A learning mindset, empathetic understanding of stakeholders, and an experimental approach to solving problems is what design thinking’s methodology and tool kit are all about.

How is design thinking going to do this? By providing the tools to answer a simple series of questions:

    • What is? explores current reality.

    • What if? generates ideas.

    • What wows? finds the sweet spot.

    • What works? launches and learns.

These four questions build bridges to more innovative solutions via a systematic, data-driven approach to creativity. This might sound like an oxymoron, but we don’t believe it is. By breaking the process into four questions, potential design thinkers can explore the “how to” in a way that feels safe and structured to both leaders who think in details and those who thrive in innovation and creativity.

These strategies are accessible to analytical and creative types alike, and their benefits extend throughout an organization.

Jeanne Liedtka, Randy Salzman, and Daisy Azer Design Thinking for the Greater Good

A NEXT STEP

As a way to reframe problems, ideate solutions, and iterate toward better answers, design thinking shows how collaborative creativity can shake up even the most entrenched bureaucracies, providing a practical roadmap to innovative, achievable solutions.

Use the four-question design thinking process listed above, think of another future Guest Experience action you would like to implement, and write it on a chart tablet.

On four separate chart tablets, write the four questions. Spend at least thirty minutes discussing each question, and write down notes and highlights of each discussion on the appropriate chart tablet.

At the end of the discussion, select the top three items from each of the four questions. As a team, decide how you will proceed with this action, who will lead the effort, and when the target launch day is. Turn them loose on the “how.”

Part of a weekly series on 27gen, entitled Wednesday Weekly Reader

Regular daily reading of books is an important part of my life. It even extends to my vocation, where as Vision Room Curator for Auxano I am responsible for publishing SUMS Remix, a biweekly book “excerpt” for church leaders. Each Wednesday on 27gen I will be taking a look back at previous issues of SUMS Remix and publishing an excerpt.

>>Purchase SUMS Remix here<<

>> Purchase prior issues of SUMS Remix here<<

What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America’s Next Rendezvous with Destiny

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Today is a follow on post to The History of America’s Future, which looked at Generations, a 1992 book by William Strauss and Neil Howe. Generations is a speculation by the authors that the history of America can be seen as a succession of generational cycles.

The Fourth Turning is one of their follow-up books, taking a DEEP dive into what the next “turning” could look like. Keep in mind that this was written in 1997, and uses past history to project a possible future.

A few quotes from the opening chapter sets the tone:

America feel’s like it’s unraveling.

Though we live in an era of relative peace and comfort, we have settled into a mood of pessimism about the long-term future, fearful that our superpower nation is somehow rotting from within.

Not long ago, America was more than the some of its parts. Now, it is less. Where we once through ourselves collectively strong, we now regard ourselves as individually entitled.

Yet even while we exalt our own personal growth, we realize that millions of self-actualized persons don’t add up to an actualized society. Popular trust in virtually every American institution – from businesses and governments to churches and newspapers – keeps falling to new lows. Public debts soar, the middle class shrinks, welfare dependencies deepen, and cultural arguments worsen by the year.

Wherever we’re headed, America is evolving in ways most of us don’t like or understand. Individually focused yet collectively adrift, we wonder if we’re headed toward a waterfall.

I first read these words when the book was released, and readily identified with them. Over the 20+ years since, I think they are even more prophetic.

Here is how Strauss and Howe set up this book:

At the core of modern history lies this remarkable pattern: Over the past five centuries, Anglo-American society has entered a new era – a new turning – every two decades or so. At the start of each turning, people change how they feel about themselves, the culture, the nation, and the future. Turnings come in cycles of four. Each cycle spans the length of a long human life, roughly eighty to one hundred years, a unit of time the ancients called the speculum. Together, the four turnings of the speculum comprise history’s seasonal rhythm of growth, maturation, entropy, and destruction:

  • The First Turning is a High, an upbeat era of strengthening institutions and weakening individualism, when a new civic order implants and the old values regime decays.
  • The Second Turning is an Awakening, a passionate era of spiritual upheaval, when the civil order comes under attack from a new values regime.
  • The Third Turning is an Unraveling, a downcast er a strengthening individualism and weakening institutions, when the old civic order decays and the new values regime implants.
  • The Fourth Turning is a Crisis, a decisive era of secular upheaval, when the new values regime propels the replacement of the old civic order with a new one.

Each turning comes with its own identifiable mood. Always, these mood shifts catch people by surprise.

Strauss and Howe label The Fourth Turning as a book that turns history into prophecy, taking you on a journey through the confluence of social time and human life.

Part One – Seasons – Acquiring new tools for understanding self, life, family, society, and civilization. Learn about the cycles of life, generational archetypes, turnings, and history.

Part Two – Turnings – Revisit post-World War II American history from the perspective of turnings and archetypes. Gain new insight about why the first three turnings of the current Millennial Saeculum have evolved as they have. Read why this saecular journey must culminate in a Fourth Turning and what is likely to happen when it does.

Part Three – Preparations – Explore what you and the nation can do to brace for the coming Crisis. Learn how, by applying the principles of seasonality, we can steer our destiny.

An appreciation for history is never more important than at times when a saecular winter is forecast. In the Fourth Turning, we can expect to encounter personal and public choices akin to the harshest ever faced by ancestral generations. We would do well to learn from their experience, viewed through the prism of cyclical time. Through much of the Third Turning, we have managed to postpone the reckoning. But history warns that we can’t defer it beyond the next bend in time.

Part of a series looking at history and future through the lens of generations