Category Archives: BookNotes

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

How to Show Appreciation to Your Team by Building Two-Way Respect

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As the leader of a team of three – or three hundred – do you think your team feels appreciated by their coworkers – and you?

Studies have shown that while we expect to get paid for the work we do, and we would all like to make more money, the number one factor in job satisfaction is not the amount of pay but whether or not the individual feels appreciated and valued for the work they do.

There is something deep within the human spirit that longs for appreciation. Without a sense of being valued by supervisors and coworkers, it can be easy to feel like you are a part of a machine or just a number.

While communicating appreciation to employees and colleagues may sound easy, there is more to it than just saying “thank you.”

THE QUICK SUMMARY

Reward and recognition programs can be costly and inefficient, and they primarily reward employees who are already highly engaged and productive performers. Worse still, these programs actually decrease employee motivation because they can make individual recognition, rather than the overall success of the team, the goal. Yet many businesses turn to these measures first – unaware of a better alternative. So, when it comes to changing your organizational culture, carrots and sticks don’t work!

What does work is Dr. Paul Marciano’s acclaimed RESPECT model, which gives you specific, low-cost, turnkey solutions and action plans– based on seven key drivers of employee engagement that are proven and supported by decades of research and practice―that will empower you to assess, troubleshoot, and resolve engagement issues in the workplace:

Carrots and Sticks Don’t Work delivers the same proven resources and techniques that have enabled trainers, executives, managers, and owners at operations ranging from branches of the United States government to Fortune 500 corporations to twenty-person outfits to realize demonstrable gains in employee productivity and job satisfaction.

When you give a little RESPECT you get a more effective organization, with reduced turnover and absenteeism and employees at all levels who are engaged, focused, and committed to succeed as a team. In short, you get maximum ROI from your organization’s most powerful resource: its people!

A SIMPLE SOLUTION

Author Paul Marciano believes that as our level of respect grows for an individual, so does our level of engagement. Conversely, when we lose respect, we disengage. Therefore, it is difficult, if not impossible, to feel a sense of commitment to a person, team or organization that one disrespects.

Marciano goes on to say that the essence of being a powerful and effective leader is having loyal followers who willingly do what is asked of them. Such real and enduring power cannot be demanded or coerced. It comes from a lifetime of quietly caring about, respecting, and serving others.

In other words, a culture of respect.

The RESPECTTM Model is an actionable philosophy base on the simple principle that when people are treated with respect they engage and work harder to achieve the goals of the organization.

The RESPECTTM Model is defined by seven critical drivers that influence an employee’s internal assessment of respect and subsequent level of engagement.

Recognition: Employees feel acknowledged and appreciated for their contributions. Supervisors regularly recognize deserving team members, and people are rewarded based on their work performance.

Empowerment: Supervisors provide employees with the tools, resources, and training to succeed. Employees experience high levels of autonomy and are encouraged to take risks. Supervisors take the initiative to communicate with employees and ensure that they are equipped to succeed, not fail.

Supportive feedback: Supervisors provide employees with timely specific feedback in a supportive, sincere, and constructive manner. Feedback is delivered for the purpose of reinforcement and improvement – never to embarrass or punish.

Partnering: Employees are treated as business partners and actively collaborate in business-making decisions. They receive financial information, understand the big picture, and are given wide latitude in decision-making. Supervisors serve as advocates for their employees’ development and growth. Team members and departments actively communicate and share information with one another.

Expectations: Supervisors ensure that goals, objectives, and business priorities are clearly established and communicated. Employees know precisely the standards by which their performance is evaluated and are held accountable for meeting their performance expectations.

Consideration: Supervisors, managers, and team members demonstrate consideration, caring, and thoughtfulness toward one another. Supervisors actively seek to understand employees’ opinions and concerns and are understanding and supportive when employees experience personal problems.

Trust: Supervisors demonstrate trust and confidence in employees’ skills and abilities. Employees trust that their supervisor will do right by them. Leaders keep their promises and commitments and, in return, are trusted by employees.

Paul Marciano, Carrots and Sticks Don’t Work: Build a Culture of Employee Engagement with Principles of RESPECTTM

A NEXT STEP

Author Paul Marciano believes that people follow leaders they respect and by whom they are respected. Respected leaders inspire followers to engage in the work that needs to be done to fulfill the mission and vision of the organization. Many leaders, however, assume that respect should be automatically bestowed upon them based on their position.

In truth, leaders must earn respect by treating those around them with respect every day.

Using the RESPECT acronym above, spend focused time reflecting on how you as a leader are accomplishing – or not – each specific action listed. After reflection, rate yourself on a scale of one to five where one equals “This is missing in my leadership” and five equals “I consistently demonstrate this action.”

For every four or five rating, congratulate yourself in keeping up the high standard, but also consider how you might become complacent. List ways to become even better in these areas.

For each three rating, you are sitting on the fence. Review the actions, and list things you can do that will immediately put you on the way to a four and maybe even a five rating – and do them.

For each one and two rating, list actions that will help you move in a positive direction. Challenge yourself to implement at least one action in each of the areas each week, in order to be a leader who respects your team.

After a two-month period of taking the above actions, revisit the lists you have made, and note your progress.

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<<

Follow These Five Steps to Deliver a Great Guest Experience

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First impressions of your campus and facility last.

First impressions are automatic – taken in and recorded by our senses, often registered for later recall. More often than not, they make an immediate impact on our decision to participate and to return – or not. We may not agree with it or not, but the consumer mentality of the world we live in has moved full force into our church world. Our churches don’t compete with the “world” so much as the experiences of the world.

As you live your life day in and out, you are living the life of a consumer.

  • Where do you consume?
  • Where do you shop?
  • Who provides service for you?
  • Most importantly, why?

You may stop at your favorite coffee shop for a good cup of coffee – and the conversations you have with the barista and the other regulars in the shop. Your supermarket always has good value and a wide selection of the food your family likes. Clothes from a particular shop just fit better – and the sales associates are always helpful with suggestions. The point is, you have established expectations of each place and the people who work there.

Is it any different for Guests and attendees at your church?

If your goal is to create a space and an experience that will positively impact people, you must first plan and evaluate it from the perspective of its quality. You start that process by examining the daily places and routines in the offices, retail, and recreation spaces of the people you are trying to reach. The homes they live in, the offices they work in and the stores they shop in all communicate a level of expectation they have for their space.

Close your eyes for a moment and think about the last time you truly had a great experience with a company as a consumer, an experience that captured your heart, soul, mind, and spirit. What about it was special? Call it “X” – that “je ne sais quoi” that makes something so special.

Here’s another unique retail establishments that are game changers in the customer experience world.

But what do these organizations – and others who are providing exceptional customer services – have to do with your church’s Guest Experience?

I happen to think they are a timeless reminder that experience still matters.

THE QUICK SUMMARY

Zingerman’s in Ann Arbor, Michigan, is a beloved deli with some of the most loyal clientele around. It has been praised for its products and service in media outlets far and wide, including the New York Times, Men’s Journal, Inc. Magazine, Esquire, Atlantic Monthly, USA Today, and Fast Company. And what started out as a small deli has grown to a flourishing restaurant, catering service, bakery, mail-order operation, creamery, and training business.

Booming business and loyal customers are proof enough that the Zingerman’s team knows a thing or two about customer service. Now in Zingerman’s Guide to Giving Great Service, co-founder Ari Weinzweig shares the unique Zingerman method of treating customers, giving the reader step-by-step instructions on what to teach staff, how to train them, how to implement the training, how to measure their success, and finally, how to reward performance.


A SIMPLE SOLUTION

Seemingly small things like going the extra mile, remembering customer’s names, noticing a nice order and saying “thanks,” taking time to show a new customer around our place of business – those individual acts are still the things that make great service a reality.

Great service is still given – and will always be given – one customer at a time. They come in, are engaged, and are won over one by one.

In terms of translating what we’ve believed from the beginning into a model that genuinely works in the real world, there are five major parts to what we do. While many organizations do one part or the other, my belief is that all great service providers do all five well.

We Teach It

Without effective training, great service is just one more good idea that never really happens. We’re relentless about our service training. When someone finishes our training, they actually know what we expect with regard to service. And – through our classes, seminars, and training materials – we’ve given them a series of very tangible tools with which to make it happen. The more we teach it, the more effectively we can – and do – live it.

We Define It

Treating service as a generic, if desirable, concept isn’t going to help anyone improve the quality of their work. What helps is that we’ve given a clear definition of service – what we refer to as a “recipe” – that works.

We Live It

At the end of the day, this is what really counts. I think that what sets us apart is that after defining it and teaching it, we actually devote enormous energy to walking our talk. Mind you, we never get it perfect. But we constantly work at it, perfecting the alignment between the way we teach it, the way we define it, and the way we live it.

We Measure It

Service measurement provides the service world with the same sort of helpful data that financial statements provide you with for your money. Quite simply, measurement gives us a scorecard for service, a commonly shared language about how we’re doing, where we’re succeeding and where we’re falling short.

We Reward It

It’s imperative that we effectively recognize and reward those in our organizations who go out and give great service. Both formal and informal reward systems will go a long way toward helping to build the service-oriented culture and the effective service delivery we’re so committed to.

Ari Weinzweig, Zingerman’s Guide to Giving Great Service

A NEXT STEP

Using the five ideas listed above, convene a team brainstorming session. Write each of the five ideas at the top of a chart tablet, one idea per chart tablet.

With a blue marker, list as many activities as you can that you and your teams are currently doing with that idea. Repeat for each of the five ideas.

With a green marker, list as many activities as you can that you and your teams would like to do with that idea. Repeat for each of the five ideas.

On each of the five chart tablets in blue (current), circle the top three actions that you can make better. Assign a champion to each, and ask them to develop a timeline for implementation.

On each of the five chart tablets in green (future), circle the top three actions that you would like to begin. Assign a champion to each, and ask them to develop a timeline for implementation.

Ask for monthly updates in each of the areas being worked on.

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<<

The History of America’s Future

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Sometime in the early 1990s, I became aware of a new book by William Strauss and Neil Howe, entitled Generations: The History of America’s Future, from 1584 to 2069. As a student of history, I eagerly dove into the book, studied it, and have revisited it often in the thirty years since.

In Generations, the authors speculate the history of America as a succession of generational biographies, beginning in 1584 and encompassing everyone through the children of today. Their bold theory is that each generation belongs to one of four types, and that these types repeat sequentially in a fixed pattern. The vision of Generations allows us to plot a recurring cycle in American history – a cycle of spiritual awakenings and secular crises – from the founding colonists through today and well into this middle of this century.

Generations come in cycles. Just as history produces generations, so too do generations produce history.

William Strauss and Neil Howe

From the book, a brief description of the four cycles:

Strauss and Howe labeled the four generational types Prophet, Nomad, Hero, and Artist. With one exception, they have always recurred in a fixed order. During a spiritual awakening, Prophets are moving into rising adulthood while Nomads are appearing as children; during a secular crisis, Heroes are moving into rising adulthood while Artists are appearing as children. Later in life, these generations trigger another social moment and thus keep the cycle turning.

The first and third types are what we call “dominant” in public life – Prophets through redefining the inner world of values and culture, and Heroes through rebuilding the outer world of technology and institutions. The other two types are “recessive” in public life, checking the excesses of their more powerful neighbors – Nomads as pragmatists, Artists as ameliorators.

The passage of four generations, Prophets through Artists, completes one full generational cycle over the course of four, twenty-two year phases of life (a total duration of roughly ninety years). From the 1584 Puritan birth year forward, the authors traced five such cycles through American history – of which three (Colonial, Revolutionary, and Civil War) are fully ancestral, a waning fourth (Great Power) comprises the eldest 28 percent of the American population at the beginning of 1991 (when the book was released), and an emerging fifth (Millennial – the name of the cycle, not the name of the generational cohort) includes the youngest 72 percent. Within these cycles, we identify eighteen generations, from John Winthrop’s Puritans to Jessica McClure’s Millennials – and a recurring pattern of awakenings and crises.

Keep in mind that this was written in 1991.

So, here we are in late 2020, and what does the history of America’s future look like?

From above: during a secular crisis, Heroes are moving into rising adulthood while Artists are appearing as children.

That would be today’s Millennials moving into rising adulthood, and Gen Z appearing as children and teenagers.

So, according to Strauss and Howe, a secular crisis looms.

That pretty much describes 2020, don’t you think?

Here is where the life cycle can help. The story of civilization seldom moves in a straight line, but is rich with curves, oscillations, and mood shifts. The ebb and flow of history often reflect the ebb and flow of generations, each with a different age location, peer personality, and lifecycle story. By viewing history along the generational diagonal, by searching the cycle for behavioral clues, we can apply the mirror of recurring human experience to gaze around the corner of current trends and say something instructive about the decades to come.

William Strauss and Neil Howe

Here’s a timeline visualization of the generational cohorts:

image by Brian Niemeier

What do you think?

Looking ahead: more ideas from Strauss and Howe, a look back (and today?) to the Gilded Age, and more!

Inspired and adapted from Generations: The History of American’s Future, 1584 to 2069

Improve Your Appreciation by Accelerating Personal Connection

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As the leader of a team of three – or three hundred – do you think your team feels appreciated by their coworkers – and you?

Studies have shown that while we expect to get paid for the work we do, and we would all like to make more money, the number one factor in job satisfaction is not the amount of pay but whether or not the individual feels appreciated and valued for the work they do.

There is something deep within the human spirit that longs for appreciation. Without a sense of being valued by supervisors and coworkers, it can be easy to feel like you are a part of a machine or just a number.

While communicating appreciation to employees and colleagues may sound easy, there is more to it than just saying “thank you.”

THE QUICK SUMMARY – Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t by Simon Sinek

Imagine a world where almost everyone wakes up inspired to go to work, feels trusted and valued during the day, then returns home feeling fulfilled. This is not a crazy, idealized notion. Today, in many successful organizations, great leaders create environments in which people naturally work together to do remarkable things.

In his work with organizations around the world, Simon Sinek noticed that some teams trust each other so deeply that they would literally put their lives on the line for each other. Other teams, no matter what incentives are offered, are doomed to infighting, fragmentation and failure. Why?

The answer became clear during a conversation with a Marine Corps general. “Officers eat last,” he said. Sinek watched as the most junior Marines ate first while the most senior Marines took their place at the back of the line. What’s symbolic in the chow hall is deadly serious on the battlefield: Great leaders sacrifice their own comfort–even their own survival–for the good of those in their care.
    
Too many workplaces are driven by cynicism, paranoia, and self-interest. But the best ones foster trust and cooperation because their leaders build what Sinek calls a “Circle of Safety” that separates the security inside the team from the challenges outside.

Sinek illustrates his ideas with fascinating true stories that range from the military to big business, from government to investment banking.

A SIMPLE SOLUTION

According to author Simon Sinek, when we feel like we belong to a group and trust the people with whom we work, we naturally cooperate to face outside challenges and threats.

But when we do not have a sense of belonging, we are forced to invest time and energy to protect ourselves from each other, and in so doing, we inadvertently make ourselves more vulnerable to the outside threats and challenges.

Plus, with our attention facing inward, we will also miss outside opportunities. When we feel safe among the people with whom we work, the more likely we are to survive and thrive.

As leaders, how do we learn to know and trust our team?

Perhaps the most truly valuable thing we can do if we are to truly serve our constituents is to know them personally.

It may be impossible to know all your team in a large organization, but to know the name and details of the life of someone we are trying to help makes a huge difference.

Rule 1. Keep it real – bring people together

The added complications of the virtual world often mean we use the Internet as a means to expedite and simplify communication and the relationships we build. The ability to maintain distance, even complete anonymity, has made it easier to stop acting as humans should – with humanity.

Real, live human interaction is how we feel a part of something, develop trust, and have the capacity to feel for others.

Trust is not formed through a screen – it is formed across a table. There is no such thing as virtual trust.

Rule 2. Keep it manageable – obey Dunbar’s number

Oxford professor and anthropologist Robin Dunbar arrived at the conclusion that people simply maintain more than about 150 close relationships. That magical number is the number of close relationships we are naturally designed to manage. Any more than that starts to cause a break down if rigid social systems, or effective hierarchy and bureaucracy, are not implemented to help manage the scale.

When a leader is able to personally know everyone in the group, the responsibility for their care becomes personal. The leader starts to see those for whom they are responsible as if they were their own family, and likewise, those in the group start to express ownership of their leader.

Rule 3. Meet the people you help

As social animals, it is imperative for us to see the actual, tangible impact of our time and effort for our work to have meaning and for us to be motivated to do it even better. When we are able to physically see the positive impact of the decisions we make or the work we do, not only do we feel that our work was worth it, but it also inspires us to work harder and do more.

In other words, bosses telling us how important the work is, is nowhere near as powerful as us getting to see it ourselves.

Rule 4. Give them time, not just money

Money is an abstraction of tangible resources or human effort. Unlike the time and effort that people spend on something, it is what money represents that gives it its value. Someone who gives us a lot of money, as our brains would interpret their behavior, is not necessarily as valuable to our protection as someone willing to commit their time and energy to us.

What produces loyalty, that irrational willingness to commit to the organization even when offered more money elsewhere, is the feeling that the leaders of the company would be willing, when it matters, to sacrifice their time and energy to help us.

Rule 5. Be patient – the rule of seven days and seven years

Our world is one of impatience. A world of instant gratification. A world ruled by dopamine. Google can give us the answers we want now. We can buy online and get what we want now. We can send and receive information instantaneously. We have gotten used to getting what we want when we want it.

It takes time to get to know someone and build the trust required to sustain a relationship, personal or professional. There’s no hard data on exactly how long it takes to feel like we trust someone. I know it takes more than seven days and fewer than seven years. It is quicker for some and slower for others. No one knows exactly how long it takes, but it takes patience.

Simon Sinek, Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t

A NEXT STEP

Set aside a two-hour time block in your schedule. On each of five chart tablets, write one of the rules above at the top.

Spend twenty minutes on each value, writing a phrase or action that you can use to demonstrate this rule to your team. If needed, place an asterisk by actions that will need more time to develop.

After the five, twenty-minute sessions, use the final twenty minutes to go over the chart tablets and select the one, single most action for that rule that you can implement immediately – and make a pact with yourself to do so.

After one month of implementing this action, call your immediate team together to ask them if they have noticed any difference in your leadership style. If needed, prompt them with a brief comment about “appreciation.”

After a time of discussion with your team, encourage them to go through the same exercise personally, in order to implement the rules with their teams.

After three months, gather your team for a thirty-minute discussion on the “appreciation temperature” of your organization. Celebrate the successes, and challenge your team (and yourself) to keep the process moving forward.

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 Deliver an Exceptional Guest Experience by Design

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It is relatively easy to provide a great Guest Experience occasionally. You know, those big holiday events or other special occasions.

But in order to create an exceptional Guest Experience, it is vital that you do this every time.

The only way to achieve a consistently exceptional Guest Experience is if the experiences are designed.

To design something means that it is deliberate, not an accident or luck. Deliberate is a strong, proactive word. Stop and ask yourself these questions:

  • Is our Guest Experience process deliberate?
  • Did my team deliberately set out to create and deliver an exceptional Guest Experience?
  • Is the outcome of the Guest Experience one that we have proactively designed?

By observation, research, and onsite studies in organizations of all sizes and types across the country, in many cases the Guest Experience is not deliberate – it is something that just happens.

Guest Experience leaders care about their guests. Many leaders understand guests and have some insight into their experiences and needs. Often, though, these same leaders struggle to turn insight into action.

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 – Outside In, by Harley Manning and Kerry Bodine

Customer experience is, quite simply, how your customers perceive their every interaction with your company. It’s a fundamental business driver. Here’s proof: over a recent five-year period during which the S&P 500 was flat, a stock portfolio of customer experience leaders grew twenty-two percent. 

In an age when customers have access to vast amounts of data about your company and its competitors, customer experience is the only sustainable source of competitive advantage. But how to excel at it? 

Based on fourteen years of research by the customer experience leaders at Forrester Research, Outside In offers a complete roadmap to attaining the experience advantage. It starts with the concept of the Customer Experience Ecosystem—proof that the roots of customer experience problems lie not just with customer-facing employees like your sales staff, but with behind-the-scenes employees like accountants, lawyers, and programmers, as well as the policies, processes, and technologies that all your employees use every day. Identifying and solving these problems has the potential to dramatically increase sales and decrease costs.

A SIMPLE SOLUTION

Organizations that want to produce a high-quality guest experience need to perform a set of sound, standard practices. Harley Manning and Kerry Bodine, in their book Outside In, have developed six high-level disciplines which can be translated into guest experiences: strategy, guest understanding, design, measurement, governance, and culture.

These disciplines represent the areas where organizations that are consistently exceptional at Guest Experiences excel.

Restating a comment from above, the only way to achieve a consistently exceptional Guest Experience is if the experiences are designed.

If you want to deliver an exceptional Guest Experience, you need to begin with the discipline of design.

The discipline of design is key because it lets organizations understand the current customer experience they provide, uncover opportunities for improvement, and track progress over time. It connects the dots starting with what needs to be done to improve customer experience, all the way to the benefits of what has been done.

The human-centered design process starts with research to understand guest needs and motivations. It’s all those activities in the discipline of understanding guests. Analysis is next – synthesizing the data into useful forms. The next phase is ideation, which is just what it sounds like – coming up with ideas. After that, it’s time to prototype – ranging from a simple redesigned guest survey to a full-scale mock-up of your typical guest experience on the weekend. Next, these prototypes are put into action with real people while you observe the results. Finally, you must document the features of the resulting product or service that has evolved.

The practices in the design discipline help organizations envision and then implement customer interactions that meet or exceed customer needs. It spans the complex systems of people, products, interfaces, services, and spaces that your customers encounter in physical locations, over the phone, or through digital spaces like websites and mobile apps.

Design spells the difference between a symphony orchestra performance and a garage band jam session. The orchestra performance is carefully arranged, rehearsed, and executed – just like the customer experience at top organizations. The jam session just sort of happens, with varying levels of quality – like what we’ve all encountered at companies we’ve stopped doing business with over time.

Design Practices

Follow a defined Guest Experience design process any time a new experience is introduced or an existing experience is changed in some way

Use guest understanding deliverables and insights to focus and define requirements for projects that affect Guest Experiences

Engage guests, team members, and partners as part of the experience design process

Use iterative ideation, prototyping, and evaluation as part of the experience design process

Identify the set of complex interdependencies among people, processes, and technologies that shape interactions with guests (the Guest Experience Ecosystem)

Harley Manning and Kerry Bodine, Outside In: The Power of Putting Customers at the Center of Your Business

A NEXT STEP

At your next Guest Experience team leader’s meeting, make the discipline of design the primary topic.

First, write the six words in bold from the first paragraph above (research, analysis, ideation, prototype, action and document) down the left side of a chart tablet.

Next, come up with a single Guest Experience action you are not currently doing but would like to implement in the next six months, writing the action on the top of another chart tablet.

Now, walk through each of the six steps, writing down ideas or actions needed for each step. At this stage, you don’t have to fully develop the proposed action – you are just creating a “design criteria list” for follow up.

After you have exhausted all ideas, go back and circle no more than three items under each step, representing the most important ones to do.

Identify one leader and two additional members from your team to take the proposed action and run with it. Using both the six steps and the five “Design Practices” noted above, they will recruit additional team members as needed to follow the actions as outlined, and bring a ready-to-proceed recommendation back to the larger team for a decision.

Excerpt taken from SUMS Remix 125, released August 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<<