If I had seen a Christian living what Christ taught, then I myself may have followed and become a believer in the beautiful teachings of Jesus. Mahatma Gandhi
The Lost Art of Backward Planning
Jesus had a plan…and he executed it right on time.
As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. Luke 9:51 (NIV)
Short of the divine knowledge Jesus possessed, few of us would be able to deliver exactly on time with as far to travel and as many things to do. Along the way he taught parables, eased Martha to the better choice, confronted demons, expressed woes to the pharisees, healed people, dined with his disciples, and prayed all night before being arrested…right on time.
Granted, the things we do day-to-day don’t have eternal consequences for all of humanity, but why do we seem to always miss deadlines, cram all night to study or finish a project, or flat out miss deadlines? We’ve lost the art of backward planning.
Backward planning is the process of determining the right time to start something by subtracting from the finish point the time required to complete it .
Here’s a simple example: It takes 2 hours to drive to your mothers and you need to be there by 7:00pm. Subtract 2 hours from 7pm and you need to leave at five. WAIT, WAIT…don’t stop reading, it gets better.
What we fail to do is apply this simple concept to more complex projects like the yearly report, your masters degree thesis, or even family panning. Here’s some simple steps to backward plan your next project.
- Determine the finish point
- List all tasks that must be done in order
- Estimate the length of each task
- Subtract each length from the finish point
Stephen Covey – Big Rocks: Put First Things First
Real Teams
A real team, in my view, is something very specific. It differs from the more common ‘single-leader unit’ in three important ways. First, all members of a real team have an equal level of emotional commitment to the team’s purpose and goals. Second, the leadership role shifts easily among the members based on the skills and experience they have and the challenges of the moment, rather than on any hierarchical positions. Third, the team members hold one another accountable for the quality of their collective work. Members of real teams subordinate their informal affiliations, personal prejudices, and loyalties to the team’s purpose and goals. – Jon Katzenbach www.strategy-business.com
Outside the Walls of the Church Building
The single most important thing to remember about any enterprise is that there are no results inside its walls. The result of a business is a satisfied customer. Peter Drucker
Why Churches Fail to Change
- Allowing too much complacency
- Failing to create a sufficiently powerful guiding coalition
- Underestimating the power of vision
- Under communicating the vision by a factor of 10 (or 100 or even 1,000)
- Failure to remove obstacles to the vision
- Not systematically planning for and creating short-term wins
- Declaring victory too soon
- Failure to anchor change in the organizations culture (more…)
Making a Change at Church: Eight (not so) Simple Steps
In a previous post I quoted John Maxell who observed that older and “insecure leaders view change as a threat rather than an opportunity. ” But what if you have to change.
Many small churches are facing declining membership because their traditions have not changed in decades. The prevailing belief is worship traditions are Biblical and any deviation must certainly be a sin. Even though largely attracted to the spiritual (review the popular movies today) , younger generations are increasingly turned off by what they see as rigid and irrelevant. (more…)
Change: Threat or Opportunity?
Nobel Prize-winning author John Steinbeck asserted, ‘It is the nature of man as he grows older to protect against change, particularly change for the better.’ By its very nature, empowerment brings constant change in that it encourages people to grow and innovate. Change is the price of progress. Insecure leaders view change as a threat rather than an opportunity. – John Maxwell
New Moment Resolutions: Why New Year’s Resolutions are Irrelevant
NOTE: Originally posted on thepracticalCHRISTian.net
The New Year is a time of renewal reminiscent of the fresh starts each school year brought when we were children. Starting fresh is intoxicating to those of us encumbered with a litany of bad habits and regrets we would like to leave behind. Overwhelmingly those who resolve to leave baggage behind each new year fail. Most can make it a couple of weeks, a few for a couple of months, and a small minority past six months.
As the habits and regrets each day mount, we trod along hoping for another fresh start fix. Like junkies we crave a fix and decide to move, or change jobs or one is forced upon us through the tragedy of divorce, fire, or death. With each start we once again resolve to change only to fail again. Our hope for the next new year renews and the cycle repeats.
There has to be a better way.
(more…)
Leading from the Outside
Unless you are prepared to see things differently and go against the current, you are unlikely to accomplish anything truly important. And to go against the current, you have to be something of an outsider, living on the edge, a member of a small but vibrant counterculture. You must free yourself from habitual ways of looking at things, cultivate an independent and questioning perspective, and be ready to embrace alternative and counterintuitive points of view.
Dove Frohman in Leadership the Hard Way: Why Leadership Can’t Be Taught – And How You Can Learn It Anyway (J-B Warren Bennis Series)
