day 1400: Are We Really Listening?

While I am on a pilgrimage walk on the Camino de Santiago (St. James Way) in Spain, I have asked some of the most committed and courageous faith-driven business leaders I know to guest contribute to Purposed worKING.  Enjoy! - Rusty
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“A wise man will hear and increase learning, And a man of understanding will attain wise counsel.”

There is one thing that seems to be a common thread for me this year – “hear all sides before creating an opinion.”  Throughout all areas of my life, whether it’s in my day-job in executive recruiting, as a board member, or as a parent, I have seen how easy it is to form an opinion or pass judgment.  In today’s world of connectivity and loud chatter there is no shortage of opinions. Just read your Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn feeds. Read the WSJ, NY Times, the forbidden People Magazine or listen to the office gossip. We are bombarded with messages and assumptions… “I can’t believe they let her go?” “Why was she promoted instead of him?”  “That’s an awful yelp or glassdoor review!” “We should retain XYZ firm, they rocked the presentation.” “The Board of Directors’ decision was ridiculous – why would they ever pursue that path.”  Personally and professionally we develop opinions and make assumptions as fast as Drew Brees can throw a touchdown pass (couldn’t help but mention my ‘who dat’ team!) If we make key decisions without hearing both sides or digging deeper for clarification, we risk making unwise decisions. We are striving to be wise leaders, leaders that people can trust. Alan Alda once said, "Listening is being able to be changed by the other person."

Catch yourself now! As you hear or see something or if you are close to “jumping on the band-wagon” -- seek counsel, ask clarifying questions, seek references just to confirm your initial assessment. Acquiring wisdom and knowledge through wise counsel takes a bit of extra time. Having the courage to ask tough questions can’t be underestimated when you have significant decisions to make. As His Word tells us in James 1:5 “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.”  This pushes us to partner closer to God as we listen first and then take His direction. Before passing judgment by only hearing one-side-of-the-story, take heed to the Word to listen, remain teachable and have a receptive attitude.  With all the messages being sent to us every day, filter out what the Lord is telling you.  We need to allow His word to develop us to be the wise leaders Christ calls us to be.

Reference: Proverbs 1:5(NKJV)

Cecelia Gonzalez

day 1391: A Hack for Life

While I am on a pilgrimage walk on the Camino de Santiago (St. James Way) in Spain, I have asked some of the most committed and courageous faith-driven business leaders I know to guest contribute to Purposed worKING.  Enjoy! - Rusty

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"He makes me lie down in green pastures"

In Silicon Valley, everything is subject to being “hacked”.  Silicon Valley folks love to make anything they can get their hands on smaller, smarter, faster, stronger, or less expensive.  I have friends working to build everything from a driverless car to a monitor that tells you how many calories your dog burned while you were at work.  Wired, Fast Company, TechCrunch, Engadget, RE/Code, and a host of other magazines and websites have created an entire industry dedicated to reporting the latest and greatest innovations in technology.  The need for instantaneous news updates and social connections have created billions of dollars in market value for companies like like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.  Apple employees go to work at 1 Infinite Loop and Facebook employees at 1 Hacker Way in case they forget the goal is to always innovate and move forward.  

But, could it be possible to go too far too fast and for too long?  The same media outlets listed above are also filled with stories of burnout, questionable business and personal decisions, and intellectual stagnation made by the same companies and employees that had been previously praised as the best and the brightest.  How does this happen?  Should the employees work harder or smarter and figure out a new hack for management and work style?  Should companies replace their management or board periodically to bring fresh thoughts and energy to the front lines?  How can we engineer our way out of the inevitable future obsolescence?

My suggestion is that every manager and employee stop and think about one key word in the Verse 2 of Psalm 23 - “ He MAKES me lie down in green pastures.”  God doesn’t suggest, prod, or offer that we take five every now and then for a quick touchbase.  He tells us specifically that we have to stop and spend time with him in his green pastures and by quiet waters.  Only when that happens deliberately and regularly are we fully available and able to have God refresh our soul (v.3), guide us along the right paths (v.3), live life with confidence (v.4), nurture and heel us (v.5), and bask/share in his eternal glory (v.6).  

The Bible is filled with verses and examples of people stopping and seeking God and the promises of Psalm 23.  Jesus is described as stopping and seeking God at all times of the day, on land and water, in public and private, and alone and in groups.  Sometimes He took hours or days to be with God.  Other times, He is quoted saying simple, straight forward prayers during the rush of the day.  

I encourage you to stop what you are doing and "hack" your calendar to regularly stop and just spend time with God.  No need to send an email invite or set up a video call.  Prayer and time with God is the original killer mobile app and is available anytime and any place.  

Reference: Psalm 23 

Kevin Miller
Coitcom

day 1377: Almost Not Good Enough

“I have worked hard to provide materials for building the Temple of the Lord—nearly 4,000 tons of gold, 40,000 tons of silver, and so much iron and bronze that it cannot be weighed. I have also gathered timber and stone for the walls, though you may need to add more."

I recently had a customer service issue with an airlines (welcome to the club, you say?). Just after the issue I tweeted the airlines to let them know my displeasure.  They were great and asked me to report it to the customer service website.  After asking way too much information I was able to distill down my complaint into the number of characters that their input field allowed.  I checked the box that I would like to hear back from them.  Off the message went and I didn't really expect to hear anything back, but today I did and it was a very understanding email, with a "goodwill gesture" (their words, not mine) of a few thousand frequent flyer miles.  But, they missed the point of my complaint so I clarified to the person who had written the note (her name was Brenda) what had made me most unhappy and then hit send on the reply email.  The tone of Brenda's email to me was that of wanting to improve so I thought I would lend an extra few minutes for the clarification. A second after I sent the email,  the email bounced back saying that this inbox doesn't accept incoming emails and directed me to the customer service website, which of course wanted me to start all over.  The lesson?  It's the last part that matters.  Almost is not good enough in customer service, or in much of our businesses.  Cutting that last corner, or not closing the loop fully can be worse than never starting it at all.

I like to write about the importance of believers and followers of Jesus being people who follow through and do their work as best humanly possible. I do this because all of the world around us is taking the short cuts and are okay with "almost".  If we are to be bringing glory to God in our work and in our lives, then for those things that we can control, "almost" is just not enough.  I'm not talking about sin or failings, which we know we all have.  I am talking about tasks and earthly work with which we are entrusted.  The extra hours and effort that we put in to provide excellence in what we do, is the example that others will watch and demand when it comes time to talk about what it is that drives us to be our best.

Reference: 1 Chronicles 22:14 (New Living Translation)

day 1327: Hashtag This!

"Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see."

There's a very funny TV car commercial about the guy who finds himself dreaming about all the things he missed out on in life, while the car salesman is trying to sell him a new car.  He missed out on the girl who grew up to be a model.  He missed out on investing in Twitter.  This is the one that is funny.  He's sitting at his desk, talking on the phone and says, "140 characters?  I just don't get it."  The next scene is him standing on the deck of his friend's yacht, which is named, "Hashtag This".  The first time I saw it, I laughed out loud because I too had the same reaction to Twitter when I first heard of the service.  (BTW, I wasn't pitched on the investment).  When Twitter showed up it was the time of an explosion in blogging; long-form self-expression.  What could at all makes sense in that time for saying in something when limited to 140 characters.  Well, I was wrong as was the character in the commercial.  Sometimes, things that are so far fetched come along that only a few people can see their potential.  Occasionally we might be on the side of being the predictor, but in most cases we will be the naysayer or the unbelieving. The trick is to stay open to the pitches.  Don't turn down the meeting with the young entrepreneur or the wet behind the ears new person in the company. Staying open to the unforeseen and the unbelievable is the only way any of us will be able to be in touch with the future.

Our faith is all about being open to what God has done, will do and wants to do in our lives. Close our minds, heart and spirit to those things that we can't see or are hard to believe and then we don't have faith.  Praying with suspicion that God will answer?  Then likely that prayer won't be answered.  If we approach God like He is less than God, then we aren't really giving Him all of us.  Let's imagine and believe that today, God will show up and do something amazing in our workplace.  It might be that the person who hasn't smiled in weeks because of a loss, smiles from the encouraging and caring word that you offer.  It might be that because you have prayed for things to go smoothly in the big meeting, that they do.  It might be that you find yourself with the idea and approach that unblocks a problem.  It might be that you leave the office this afternoon feeling full and satisfied that you worked and acted in Christ like ways, all day long.  I'll be curious to hear from you on how today goes!  Expect that God can deliver those assurances on the things we can't yet see, and then He will.

Reference: Hebrews 11:1 (New Living Translation)

day 1314: Predicting The Future

"Yet I want your will will not mine."

I read with great curiosity of the new company, "300" and what it is supposed to do for the music industry.  Founded by longtime music executive, Lyor Cohen, the idea is that 300 will mine Twitter's database of tweets and that information will play the role of a music A&R person who scouts for the next big hits, trends, bands or artists of interest.  It's like listening in on the conversations of people streaming out of a nightclub after hearing a new band and seeing what they are saying, who they are telling, and what they think. Will it work?  Who knows.  I tend to think that what people talk about on Twitter is more negative than positive, so maybe it will help negate false positives better than the random process today of discovering new artists and music.  What this boils down to is another "better way" to predict the future.  We all want the data, science and ability to do so for our businesses, that is why we spend all that money and time on surveying and research.  At the end of the day, data does matter and the future is many times found within the unknown that can't be predicted any other way.

How assuring and comforting it is to know what our future with Christ will be.  God's Word is clear on how we will spend eternal life with Him. If we use that as our end point and then work ourselves backward to today, then it becomes much clearer on what our priorities and daily undertakings should consist. As we look at the calendars in front of us today and we compare what we have planned and what we think God has in His will for us, where are the conflicts?  Remove one or all of those conflicts today and you will find that your walk with Him will deepen and strengthen.  Our future is predicted and secure for us.  Our daily walk is now up to us.

Reference: Matthew 26:39 (New Living Translation)

day 1305: Hopscotch

"I waited patiently for the Lord to help me, and he turned to me and heard my cry."

One of my favorite bloggers, Seth Godin, had this to say recently about the pace of how we we now work:

"We skip reading the whole thing, because it's easier to jump to what we assume the writer meant.
We skip engaging with customers and stakeholders because it's quicker to assert we know what they want.
We skip doing the math, examining the footnotes, recreating the experiment, because it might not turn out the way we need it to.
We better hurry, because the firstest, loudest, angriest opinion might sway the crowd."

Guilty as charged?  Sure, we all are, and we need to know the same about our consumers, customers and employees.  Internally, we spend time and energy on things that demand deep-thinking and reading the fine print for success to happen and then we are frustrated when our people say, "I didn't know".  This is not going to get better. With a 140 character, Snapchat, Instagram world, we are only experiencing the tip of the iceberg when it comes to attention-span deficit and hopscotching through work and life.  What to do?  We must adapt without losing the ability to place emphasis where attention must be held.  It can be done and those who master this will win the day.  Consider the power of visuals, sounds and stories that make one think and ask follow up questions.  If you have read this far...the answer lies somewhere there.

Our God is not a hopscotch God, thankfully.  He doesn't cut a corner or abbreviate His love and patience for us, but He also in return doesn't let us off the hook with how we go about developing a real and vibrant relationship with Him. There isn't a 140 character way to deepen a relationship.  Just like when we need to get real we put down the texts and we look up and into a face of someone who matters, the same can be said about our relationship with Christ. We need to get real for Him to be real.  God's Word, prayer, fellowship with other believers and time in church are the touchstones that we can't skip over.  If you are feeling like a few "things" have been skipped and hopped over that have left you unsettled at work or home, consider that it might be that you are skipping over the critical and most important and it is time to go back to the basics that will always provide comfort, peace and direction.

Reference: Psalm 40:1 (New Living Translation)

day 1276: 404 Error Messages

"Indeed, we all make many mistakes."

There is no shortage today of talk about web sites not working.  When a website doesn't load or the page cannot be found, we get what is called a "404 Error Page".  At the beginning of internet time that message read, "Room 404 Error" because at the CERN headquarters in Switzerland where the internet was created (sorry Al Gore), any errors were routed to a room on the 4th floor, room 404.  And so it was, a message we all will see was created.  Today many companies try and be creative with their errors. Twitter had the "Fail Whale".  MLB.com shows players getting hit by balls in bad places. The point is that the internet gives us license to make a mistake and get through it. Sometimes I wish I could wear a 404 Error T-Shirt under another shirt so that when I make a mistake, which I make too many, I could flash my error message and move on. But we tend to not to allow that in our work.  We like to dwell on a problem and many times make a mountain from the mole hill. How much better would we be if we fessed up, defined the error, and explained how the mistake wouldn't happen again, all without drama.

As we go to work today and start planning how we are going to sprint between now and the Christmas break, we might as well accept and expect that mistakes are going to be made. And, unfortunately, some of those mistakes will be hurtful to others and ourselves. But this is where God becomes our only salvation. Jesus came to give us a way for our sins to be forgiven. If we are honest with God and ourselves we can accept our errors, offer them to Him for forgiveness and move on.  Today, and this holiday season, let's not dwell on our errors and allow them to set up back or get us down. Instead, let's let God do what He wants to do with us and lift us up and out of our human 404 errors.

Reference: James 3:2 (New Living Translation)

day 1251: Cooler Heads Prevail

"They must not slander anyone and must avoid quarreling. Instead, they should be gentle and show true humility to everyone"

Work is filled with moments that get us ruffled and upset. With all the different kinds of personalities and personal agendas swirling around each day it is hard to not fall into the trap of finding ourselves irritated by the smallest word or action and sometimes just downright angry at a co-worker over an email, something said in a meeting, or a decision made that did not take our opinion (or feelings) into account. We've all been there and somehow I think in today's age of email, text message, and twitter communication it is easier to misinterpret and misconstrue things more than ever. I wish I could count the number of times, but I can't because they are too many, where I received an email that sent me over the top and in typing the response back if the keys weren't made of the hard plastic that they are, they would have broken from the striking pressure from each angry keystroke. I did learn long ago, the hard way, that those messages must immediately go to draft and must sit for 24 hours in their cooling off period, otherwise they cause lots more trouble. The cooling off period is even harder when we are on our phones. It's better to lock the thing in the glove box and go on into dinner than think you can respond in real time with anything close to resembling civility. But, civility, diplomacy and humility is what we are called to demonstrate.

In Titus 3:2 Paul exhorts believers to act in a manner that is above the fray. He says, "They must not slander anyone and must avoid quarreling. Instead, they should be gentle and show true humility to everyone". Gentleness and humility are not usually personality traits that show up on our business performance appraisals as ones that will get you ahead. But, that is what we are told to be when faced with those moments when everyone else talking behind the backs of others or losing their cool and going after each other. Today, when the scuffle starts see if you can be the cool headed one in the group. The one that wards off the fight by gently bringing the conversation back to where it should be and/or with great humility move the position of argument to the center where it can be resolved. Use this moment today to test yourself and for others to see that you approached the situation differently than others and in fact become the example of what Paul asks us to be.


Reference: Titus 3:2 (New Living Testament)

day 1247: What's New?

"History merely repeats itself. It has all been done before. Nothing under the sun is truly new."

Why do we read trade magazines and online "news" like TechCrunch, Mashable, etc?  Why do we try and keep up to date with innovation?  Why do we Follow on Twitter those that get to the news first?  Our culture is obsessed with what is new.  And, even in the sharing economy we still are curious to know what is being developed and what is on the horizon.  We don't have to look any further than the lines of people who wait for the midnight delivery of new technology or new entertainment.  Our culture rewards those who are there first and who can rush out and tell everyone else their experience.  Technology has given us instant access to share, so our perceived rewards to being there first has been heightened.  When was the last time you delivered to your consumers, customers, or employees something so new that they rushed out to tell everyone else?

God is new to us every morning but always the same!  Read that again.  He is new every morning but always the same!  The newness is what we can receive from Him in our lives.  But, as we read in Ecclesiastes, nothing is really new. Why that is important is that every day in the world we live someone is pitching something new and in that pitch trying to pull us away from our walk with God.  We are challenged in our work to create new products, services and offerings.  That is fine.  But, we are not to try and create God anew in our image of what we think He should be.  That is the way those around us would like it to be.  We are to stand firm today and call upon what is not new, but instead what has been and will be eternal.  Today we start a new week.  Let this week be one where our commitment and courage is renewed!

Reference:  Ecclesiastes 1:9 (New Living Translation)

 

 

day 1242: What We Do And Who Is Watching

"Try to please them all the time, not just when they are watching you. As slaves of Christ, do the will of God with all your heart."

How many times a day do you look in on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn?  If you say more than a few times a day, you are not alone.  We are now seeing numbers that would look like social media sites are becoming a large percentage of our discretionary time. I know that I personally, check in at least three times a day to Facebook, maybe five times on Twitter and even though less so, once a day to LinkedIn. I am not a big user of Instagram or Pinterest (although I do stuff there) but lots of people would say they are on these services once or more than once a day as well.  Every time we frequent these sites we are providing and leaving data that they can turn around and use for their own revenue and growth purposes.  Yes, from even what website we leave to enter a service is tracked, as well as where we go next.  As everything gets more and more personalized, we should imagine that our social media sites of choice will become sirens that call to us to come to them from wherever we are on the internet.  And, we should be aware of this as we make our choices.  This past week, Facebook started making available their data to the major television networks about our behaviors and action on their site.  For Facebook this crosses the range of activities like comments and shares that we might have about TV programs (please no spoiling as we are in the time-shift era and you can’t assume I have seen the last episode yet) and their prize jewel, the “Likes” to do what they can to entice new and more TV advertisers. Facebook says (and I believe them) that the data is collected and provided in aggregate to protect the privacy of their users.  That said, this not going to go away and this is not just for TV.  We can get and do the same with our own companies.  I was working with a small company last week who hadn’t thought of those who “liked” a picture of their business as potential customers who can be sold to in a tailored way, based on the subject of the picture they liked.

I write a lot about how we are to be Christ-like examples to others with whom we work. I emphasize this because I see the power of this every day and in every workplace I enter.  We are each building a big data set of reputation points that others are trying to figure out and apply to their own lives.  With each each action and word we leave behind a trail and history of who we are to date.  Others see that data and try and project who they could be from who we are.  If we are Christ-like, love life and make the most of what we have been given, then they want to know how and what they need to do to have that type of life.  If we are inconsistent, or leave trails that are muddied by bad choices, bad words, bad actions, then they can’t make sense of what we say we are and who we really are. Today, leave a data trail that others want to follow.  If you ask God to help you do so, and you commit to doing so, you will make a difference for the Kingdom!

Reference: Ephesian 6:6 (New Living Translation)