day 1132: Silent Skill

“Hold on to the pattern of wholesome teaching you learned from me - a pattern shaped by the faith and love that you have in Christ Jesus.” I have written before about the skill of having pattern recognition.  I more and more think that this “silent skill”, that is usually deftly put to work without fanfare or hubris, may be one of the most powerful business skills that one can have.  What do I mean?  Well, if you have the skill of being able to zoom out enough to recognize patterns of a business, then you should be able to zoom in on almost any business situation and have a pretty good idea of what needs to happen to grow or fix the business. Sure, every industry and company has their idiosyncrasies and unique attributes, but when it comes down to the basics they really do start to look familiar.  It’s kind of like using some sort of online city map. If you put in the address and it zooms you right down to street level, you don’t really have a clue as to where this address is in relation to anything else. You don’t know if it close to downtown or on the other side of town.  You don’t even know that moment if there is a highway anywhere close.  But, when you start to zoom out and put the address in relation to the rest of the city you see the thoroughfares, etc. and you begin to feel confident in your ability to navigate successfully. I would go as far to say that most of us now have had enough experience with online maps that if we start zoomed all the way out that it doesn’t take us very long for our own pattern recognition to take over and we know, almost like instinctively, where there is a downtown area.  We have learned the patterns of city and highways and how we travel through them.  The same can be said for business patterns. If we spend as much time zoomed out to learn and recognize patterns as we do zoomed in fixing the specific problem without context, then we can develop a silent but very critical skill for success. God’s Word is filled with life patterns for us to recognize and modify our lives for or against the pattern. Read the Old Testament and see the patterns of blessing, riches, power, defiance, defeat, and punishment leading to death.  See the New Testament and learn the patterns of imperfect men  surrendering, following, believing, overcoming, and sacrificing.  And, of course see the pattern of Jesus who gave, forgave, loved, sacrificed and delivered. Let’s zoom out today a bit and see if we can put our life pattern against the patterns that we know we should be following.  What is it that we need to do to reinvigorate our work to bring glory to God?  Recognizing the pattern is the first step in being able to change and influence one that is different. Reference: 2 Timothy 1:13 (New Living Translation)

day 896: Success Patterns

"Meditate on it day and night so you may be sure to obey all that is written in it. Only then will you succeed."

I wrote about it last week and it continues to dominate the business sections.  That is the Facebook IPO and all that surrounds the event. As I write this now, the stock is down 13% from it's offering price and all of the skeptics are pounding on their chests.  Many like to say that the success of Facebook, and other internet companies, has come too easily and that because of this we shouldn't value these companies as highly as those that have been around for many decades, if now not centuries.  I would point out though that even though Facebook has only been around for eight years that the person hours that have gone into that company might rival that of decades of an established company. A pattern of success for start-ups is the commitment and sheer energy, hours and cycles that go into the company.  Anyone who has studied Mark Zuckerberg knows that he has been nearly one-dimensional over the last eight years with his work on Facebook dominating everything else in his life.  It certainly has paid off for him and I believe he has earned his success. His success pattern has been one of extreme commitment, dedication and devotion to something he loved, his business.

Joshua gave us a verse about a success pattern for our own lives and that is in how we utilize God's Word.  Think about if we were as committed and devoted to God's Word as we were to the other things in our lives, what might happen for us?  Joshua says that we need to meditate and obey to receive success.  So, simply, think this way about the Bible:  Adopt the pattern of "reading, thinking, speaking and doing" to achieve success.  Read God's Word.  Think about the Bible day and night. Speak out what we have learned and know from the Bible (verses, lessons, etc.), and then do what God's Word says.  It is then that we will find the success that God wants us to have.  It's a simple, but not always easy pattern to follow, but one that we should not ignore.

Reference: Joshua 1:8 (New Living Testament)

day 676: Pattern Recognition

"Then, as accompanied by the disciples, Jesus left the upstairs room and went as usual to the Mount of Olives."

Recently I have been presented the opportunity to do some consulting with numerous businesses. These businesses span a number of different industries. The people are different, the names of the companies are different, and what they produce is different, but at the root, they are the same. What is different about companies is the outside, but on the inside the patterns of business are the same. Businesses run on patterns that they have designed and continue to use over and over to ensure that the business runs the same way as consistently as it can. Once we can see the pattern and recognize it then we can apply the learning from other companies to their pattern. It takes time to hone the skill of pattern recognition and you have to see enough patterns to ensure that you aren't seeing something for the first time. Every now and then, we can be surprised at an innovative way of going about the conducting of business, but for the most part, the patterns are set and we can learn and build from what we have seen and know. How much time are we putting into learning and knowing the pattern of our business? It's important to know and understand if we are ever to make improvements and bring best practices into our companies. I know too many people who try and apply new ideas and concepts on top of a pattern they don't really understand and then who leave a business frustrated because their ideas wouldn't take hold.

Patterns are also important in our personal and spiritual lives. No better example of a pattern maker was there than Jesus. There are a number of places in the Gospels that we learn of His patterns. Jesus had a pattern for His life that we can follow and apply to our own lives. He was a reader of the scriptures (Luke 4:16), He had a set time each day for his prayer time (Mark 1:35) and He had a place that he went to pray, as we read, in Luke 22:39, that he regularly visited. The New Living Testament says that this was the "usual" place that He went. Let's step back and see if we can recognize a pattern and apply it to our lives? If Jesus, of all people, had a pattern, then why wouldn't we follow the same one? It's a simple pattern to recognize: Read God's Word and pray and do both of these regularly and in a pattern of when and where, so to make it a habit. It's a simple but so powerful pattern to recognize and follow and of course, apply to our own lives.

Reference: Luke 22:39 (new Living Testament)

day 617: Pattern Recognition

"Hold on to the pattern of wholesome teaching you learned from me - a pattern shaped by the faith and love that you have in Christ Jesus."

Much of business comes down to pattern recognition. As much as we all would like to short-cut experience to gain our own patterns, much of it still comes with time. Of course, there are ways to accelerate this by reading business books, studying business cases, listening intently, hanging out with other business leaders and learning about their companies and what they are going through, etc. But, at the end of the day, being able to say, "I've seen this before", becomes invaluable. So, why is it that there are many people who have worked for a long time but they don't make the connections or they don't carry over the transferable learning from one situation to another? It starts with truly wanting to be a learner and looking at every day as your "laboratory" for experiences that you can carry from one place to another. It's an attitude and outlook decision. If we just go through our work from day to day and not look at each day as the opportunity to add something to our backpack of knowledge, then we are missing part of the joy of work. Instead, we should look at every new day, every new job, every new assignment, every new co-worker, every new boss, as new ingredients and materials that come into out laboratory.

Finding the right patterns that can be carried through life is part of our human success story. God has given us a chocked-full Book of knowledge that we can find our life pattern if we so choose to do so. There is no greater pattern of life than the one that our Lord set for us. If we are committed to becoming His followers and students then we can take that pattern and apply it to all parts of our lives and yes, even our work. What pattern are you following today and if not the right one, then make today the day that the pattern shifts to one that others will recognize as the image or Christ.

Reference: 2 Timothy 1:13 (New Living Testament)

day 251: Patterns

Within Purposed worKING, we have discussed before the importance of routines and predictability and how these can affect others and the perceptions of each of us as we try to live and work with purpose. Patterns are all around us and we work within these patterns each day. I think about one pattern that we each likely count on each and every day. Each time we power up the computer in front of us, we depend on those who have created the operating system to provide a predictable and consistent experience so that the machine powers up in a way that every program, process and application starts the same way each time. Yet, as humans, we are so unpredictable. We start the day, work throughout the day, and end the day in ways that are different, or close to different throughout the days of the week. And then we wonder why those around us become curious, and sometimes frustrated, that they can't count on us to be the same with each of them so that they can know when to expect or or predict with some certainty what we will do next. Why is this so important? Most of us operate at our best when are we within environments that are comfortable and expected. We get anxious, tense, and worried when the ground beneath us is unstable. We also all live our lives in a busy time where daily there is more on our plate than we can handle, so we need to be able to look out in front of us to plan and anticipate what is next. I was struck by a verse that I read recently in the book of Mark. In Chapter 6 of Mark we hear of story of how Jesus was received and treated in his hometown. But the verse I found most interesting was the 6th verse of Chapter 6 when Jesus was leaving and Mark writes of Jesus departing to go teach from village to village. The New Kings James Version says; "Then He went about the villages in a circuit, teaching." He didn't go randomly. He went on a circuit, which would mean that those who saw Him teach before, or who missed Him on His last visit, could expect to see Him again and again. As people began to get to to know Jesus He allowed them to do so in a way that they could predict when and where He would be next. With this pattern had to have come some level of comfort in the knowledge that He would return to be with them again. As we think about today and the pattern that we use in our work, are we creating a circuit or a routine that others can expect from us? Are we being predictable in the responses and the outcomes of how they approach us? Have we begun this day in our own pattern of time with Him before we start the day with others? Today would be a good day to reevaluate our patterns to be sure that we are doing all we can to be accessible and comforting to those around us. If our patterns are not the ones we like, then there is no better today than today to start making changes.

Reference: Mark 6:6 (New King James Version)