Category Archives: Leadership

Emulate Chefs

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With the culinary art/leadership connection going on, and the fact that I’ve been rereading Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson’s great book “Rework“, I thought the following post from last year would be appropriate again.

You’ve probably heard of Emeril Lagasse, Mario Batali, Rachel Ray, Paula Deen, Bobby Flay, Jacque Pepin, or Julia Child. They’re great chefs, but there are a lot of great chefs out there. So why do you know these few better than others?

Because they share everything they know.

They put their recipes in cookbooks and show their techniques on cooking shows. They want you to take what they have developed and make it your own.

Great organizations should share everything they know, too. Don’t be paranoid and secretive, but be open and generous.

A recipe is much easier to copy than a business idea. Shouldn’t that scare someone like Mario Batali? Why would he go on TV and show you how he does what he does? Why would he put all his recipes in cookbooks where anyone can buy and replicate them? Because he knows those recipes and techniques aren’t enough to beat him at his own game. No one’s going to buy his cookbook, open a restaurant next door, and put him out of business. It doesn’t work like that, but many organizations think that’s what will happen if others learn how they do things.

Emulate famous chefs. They cook, so they write cookbooks.

What do you do? What are your “recipes”? What’s your “cookbook”? What can you tell the world about how you operate that’s informative, educational, and promotional?

What’s cooking in your “kitchen” that you should share?

 

Pursuing Excellence…

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Always.

From an instructor at the Culinary Institute of America:

Cooking is an inexact science, and this is where the art comes in. You’ve got standard ratios that work up to a point. There are always variables, as far as: Did you cook all the roux out? How high was your cooking temperature? How much evaporation did you have? How much did it reduce? You have to take all those things into account, and see what your final product is, and figure out how to fix it. You have to be not so stressed out or under pressure that you can say “I know it’s not right and I need to fix it.”

“You can’t ever send a product out if it’s not right,” he continued. It doesn’t matter how busy you are – your reputation is on the line every time you put a plate out. If you send it out hoping they won’t notice, then that’s the kind of chef you will be all your life.

“So. Start. Good habits. Early! Do it right. Take your time.”

As Tom Peters would say:

EXCELLENCE.

Always.

If not EXCELLENCE, what?

If not EXCELLENCE now, when?

Excellence is not a goal – it’s the way we live, who we are.

What’s up at your place, excellence-wise? Are you content with the same old, same old? Is is good enough? Or are you pursuing excellence?

Strive for excellence – ignore success.

Making a Leadership Emulsion

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Some of the most flavorful, satisfying, and versatile sauces in the culinary world are an emulsion – but you’ve got to work to make one.

This is an emulsion: an agreement between two unlike elements (butter and water), achieved by heat and motion. If you get it slightly wrong – as when the sauce starts to dry out, destroying the balance between the fat and the liquid – the unlike elements pull apart and break up. When that happens, it takes more work to get the emulsion back to where you want it than it did to get it in the first place.

As a ChurchWorld leader, you are, in effect, an emulsion.

Both leadership and management are necessary skills to bring your organization forward. While many people separate “leadership” and “management,” they are both necessary.

Leadership involves inspiring, motivating, crafting a vision, setting direction, strategic thinking, and bringing out the best in your people.

Management involves planning, tracking, and measuring – in short, handling all the nuts-and-bolts of day-to-day business operations.

People in positions of responsibility and leadership – like you – need to do both well in order to be successful. This need dramatically intensifies during times of economic uncertainty, shifting internal and external forces, and the constant need to do more with less – like now.

You need to be an “emulsified leader:” building solid skills in both leadership and management AND the ability to switch gracefully between the two.

I’m Hungry

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I love food. This love of food runs in, and through, my family. It began with my mother, a transplanted Midwesterner who adapted to Southern cooking in the mid 1950s and honed the craft with family and church for almost 60 years. It continues with two of my sons: the oldest, a restaurant chef and regional trainer with Outback; and the youngest, a first year student in Johnson and Wales University’s Culinary Arts/Food Service Management program.

And of course, I practice cooking when I can: old standby recipes that have become family favorites, new ones pulled from magazines or off the Web.  One look at me and you see I don’t miss too many meals!

Then there is the learning part: I read food magazines, culinary books, first person narratives about life in the industry, and so on. When I eat out, I focus on the food – and the people preparing and delivering it. It’s always instructive.

Beyond the simple love of food, I think that the food and culinary industry can be a great teacher as well. For instance, ChurchWorld leaders would be well advised to emulate chefs. They also would benefit from having a great “stock.” And of course leaders should use all their senses – just like a good chef does.

Over the next few days, I want to invite you on a food journey that focuses on leadership. I hope to uncover some new dishes, revisit some old classics, and hopefully give you some ideas that will help you create just the “menu” you need in your organization.

I suppose Bon Appetite! is too corny – but it rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?

Inspiration is perishable

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We all have ideas. Ideas are immortal. They last forever.

What doesn’t last forever is inspiration. Inspiration is like fresh fruit or milk: it has an expiration date.

If you want to do something, you’ve got to do it now. You can’t put it on a shelf and wait two months to get around to it. You can’t just say you’ll do it later. Later, you won’t be pumped up about it anymore.

If you’re inspired on a Friday, swear off the weekend and dive into the project. When you’re high on inspiration, you can get two weeks of work done in twenty-four hours. Inspiration is a time machine in that way.

 

Inspiration is a magical thing, a productivity multiplier, a motivator. But it won’t wait for you. inspiration is a now thing. If it grabs you, grab it right back and put it to work.

The inspirational words above come from the book Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier, the founders of 37signals.

If you don’t own it, you should.

The artwork is by illustrator Mike Rohde.

Learning from the World of Business Bankruptcy and Software Development

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Kodak, the iconic company that was synonymous with pictures, has declared bankruptcy.

When that news came out last week, I knew I would be getting around to connecting it to ChurchWorld. James Emery White, pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, NC, already has: What Business Are You In? is a great post that every ChurchWorld leader needs to read.

As soon as I had finished reading it, my thoughts went back to the Generation Flux cover story from Fast Company that I posted here, here, and here last week. There were several topics that I had marked in it for future research, and one of them ties in nicely to the bankruptcy announcement by Kodak and White’s post.

It’s about being agile.

I’m not talking exclusively about physical agility, the ability to move quickly and with suppleness, skill, and control; I’m not talking only about mental agility, the ability to be able to think quickly and intelligently. It’s really a combination of the two, and more.

Software development used to be developed by what chaos expert DJ Patil called the “waterfall” process:

One group develops the product, another builds visual mockups…and finally a set of engineers builds it to some specification document.

Think Microsoft and their practice of having a designated schedule of issuing large, finished releases of their products (Windows 95, Windows 2000, etc.). Today that process has given way to “agile” development, what Patil calls “the ability to adapt and iterate quickly throughout the product life cycle.” In today’s software world, that concept follows the precepts of “The Agile Manifesto,” a 2001 document written by a group of developers who stated a preference for:

  • individuals and interactions over processes and tools
  • working software over comprehensive documentation
  • responding to change over following a plan

Maybe it’s time for an Agile Manifesto for ChurchWorld.

If Only Things Were Like They Used To Be

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Nostalgia is a natural human emotion, a survival mechanism that pushes people to avoid risk by applying what we’ve learned and relying on what’s worked before.

It’s also about as useful as an appendix right now.

That quote is from Fast Company Editor Robert Safian, writing the cover story “Generation Flux” for the February 2012 issue. He goes on to add:

When times seem uncertain, we instinctively become more conservative; we look to the past, to times that seemed simpler, and we have the urge to recreate them. This impulse is as true for organizations  as for people. But when the past has been blown away by new technology, by the ubiquitous and always-on global hypernetwork, beloved best practices may well be useless.

ChurchWorld, to a great extent, finds itself in that situation right now.

There are huge shifts occurring in the economic, social, cultural, and spiritual fabric of our lives right now. That’s not new – change has always been a part of who we as humans are. But what’s different is the pace of change. It’s not just getting faster – it’s accelerating along an exponential curve.

And the response of ChurchWorld?

Put a fence around your facility and charge admission to a museum dedicated to the 1990s – or 1980s – or 1970s – or 1960s – or 1950s – or…

Oh, it’s not that blatant – but it is obvious.

It’s time to change.

My absolute favorite quote about change is from Will Rogers:

Will Rogers quote

To survive THRIVE in this age of flux, you have to claim what makes your church unique, what sets you apart from 10,000 other churches, what God has uniquely gifted your people to be and do.  Hold onto that – and change any and every thing else that needs to be changed in order to live out God’s calling.

Who is in Your Inner Circle?

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Presidential history calls them the “kitchen cabinet” (Andrew Jackson) or the “brain trust” (Franklin Roosevelt). It’s a group of friends and advisors who serve leaders in an unofficial but very influential capacity.

Every leader ought to build an inner circle that adds value to him or her and to the leadership of the organization they serve. John Maxwell suggests the following mix:

  • Creative people
  • Loyal people
  • People who share your vision
  • Wise and intelligent people
  • People with complementary gifts
  • People with influence
  • People of faith
  • People of integrity

Do those closest to you exemplify these qualities?

Looking Sharp in a Leisure Suit…

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… too bad they went out of style 30 years ago.

That’s not just a fashion statement – it also applies to ChurchWorld. Yesterday thousands of churches across America and the world met and did things the way they’ve always done them, expecting new results.

That is a classic pop definition of insanity.

Tony Morgan, in his latest free eBook “Hanging Up the Leisure Suit” offers a brief but informative view on how to take the steps to become unstuck from your present situation and get new results.

In his typical easy-to-read style, Morgan (veteran pastor and church consultant) offers the following six steps to help your church get unstuck:

  • Making the necessary changes to bring different results
  • Bridging the space between strategies and systems
  • Following God’s blueprint for accomplishing His purposes
  • Building a solid foundation
  • Avoiding an over-reliance on teaching
  • Creating a healthy system in your church

“Hanging Up the Leisure Suit” serves its purpose well – helping church leaders begin to ask the tough questions about the organization they serve. As a matter of fact, while the six sections mentioned above will certainly help you begin to understand how you need to get unstuck, Morgan’s discussion questions at the end provide the most helpful “fashion guide” to actually make it happen.

Isn’t it time for a new wardrobe at your church?

Download your free copy of “Hanging Up the Leisure Suit” today and take a look at yourself – and your church – in the mirror!

 

The Window and the Mirror

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Yesterday our campus pastor was talking with our leaders about being a Level 5 Leader as developed in Jim Collins’ book “From Good to Great.”
 
The conversation triggered a quick revisit to the book, and to this little gem by Collins:

Level 5 leaders look out the window to apportion credit to factors outside themselves when things go well (and if they cannot find a specific person or event to give credit to, they credit good luck).

 
 
 

At the same time, they look in the mirror to apportion responsibility, never blaming bad luck when things go poorly.

 
Every leader looks out the window and in the mirror.

What do you see today?