day 922: "I Want.."

"The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want..."

In consultation with a good friend who is a senior executive of a large company he was recounting about an employee who approached him wanting to to be transferred to a new job after having only been in the position for a year.  This employee said to him, "I want a new job that is going to challenge me".  My friend asked his employee what about their current role did they not find challenging as according to him this employee was only doing a good job and and was meeting some, but not all of their objectives and therefore had not yet earned an above target or great rating.  The response from the employee was without substance or rationale other than there was a "want" to do something different.  What my friend saw was an employee who had their success standards at the wrong level. The employee defined their success as having done the job.  The boss defined success as mastering the work and exceeding expectations.  As you can imagine, it was not a fruitful conversation and ended with the employee not getting their "want" fulfilled.  How often we end up in these conversations where the "wants" are mismatched and no one walks away happy or satisfied.  How might we turn the conversation around to not what "I want" but instead, what "others want" to see if we can't find how best to meet everyone's needs.

How can we "want" when all has been given to us that we need?  David's most well-known Psalm starts with teaching us that when we have the almighty shepherd that we shouldn't have any wants. The danger of a want is that we mix it up with our needs and then we miss God's blessing.  What is it that we could sit and write down and define as the difference in our wants and needs.  We would be well served to know the difference so that we don't end up one of those people at work and home who is all about our "wants".

Reference: Psalm 23:1 

day 356: Careful What You Ask For!

I was on the phone with a senior executive who was telling me about one of his employees who he is having some trouble. Apparently, the employee is being very demanding and is pushing for each and every part of his responsibility to be defined, described and codified to the point that most of the conversations that are taking place now are about this employee's role and job and not how the work the is to get done. The senior executive is at his own point of frustration now that he has gotten specific and detailed as requested but much of the fun and joy of managing this person has disappeared. As the conversation unfolded the executive said to me, "I want to give him so much more, but at this point, with what I feel is a lack of trust, I am just giving him exactly what he asked for, no more". What the executive in this situation really wants is to be trusted by his employee to the point that the executive can heap on as much as he wants and be able to delight his employee. Instead the employee, with his demanding and distrustful ways, has without recognition of the fact, limited what could have been his and more. It seems we all do this to some extent. We want to dictate the terms and the rules and then be sure we get what is coming to us. I sat in a devotional session recently where a pastor dissected this attitude Biblically and taught a strong lesson on what happens when we work and live to this attitude. We will explore this lesson over the next couple of days. In the situation with my executive friend his employee ended up getting less than what he could have because of not trusting his boss to do the right thing. We can be the same way with God. In Psalm 106:15 David writes; "So he gave them what they asked for, but he sent a plague along with it." Here we sit all day long telling God and others what is best for us but not knowing that with a little trust that God and others might have bigger plans than we can imagine. God will give us what we ask for, but we might get more than we bargained because we tried to do His work versus leaving it up to Him. Today, think through the areas in your life where you are trying to tell others and God what is good for you and see if with a little bit of an attitude adjustment you can't see a difference in what start coming your way.

Reference: Psalm 106:15 (New Living Testament)