There are three topics covered here, the first being how we can use meetings to maximize our productivity and the second being One on One Meetings, and thrid using the input from others in coordination to focus on the goals. Starting with "Meetings Can Be Maximally Productive" there is six basic steps that the book lists to help beginning with: 1) What's the purpose we are here or the agenda?, 2) Get peoples opinions, ask them for their thoughts, 3) Use your knowledge and know the facts, 4) Decisions need to be made for or against, to move forward or not, 5) Hand out tasks to each person, everyone needs to play a part, and 6) Be willing to follow up with each to mark progress or to discuss problems. One on One Meetings is short with 4 clear points ranging from having a clear focus, listening to each, affirming what the other person said, and agreeing on what the next steps should and making them clear so no neither person is confused.At the end we Coordinating Input From Others: Keep It Focused and how the leader of employees, volunteers, or fellow staff takes their input then uses to help project the goals of the group. There are different paths each person will take that the leader is guiding in sharing their input, but the trick is keeping everyone on task, making sure it's relevant to the topic at hand. Here are four basic steps to ensure the input is on track with the topic.
There are a couple things to draw from this section that directly correlate with my experiences not only with the Army, but in life in general the first being utilizing the meetings for maximum efficiency. To often than not meetings are long, drawn out processes that don't really accomplish anything therefore when being in meetings that are actually working toward a goal there is a relief. I have found this to be true in my life when being a volunteer, in the Army National Guard, and working with other volunteers at times to understand the tasks at hand. One on One meetings are tricky in my opinion simply because if the leader isn't well versed in these type of meetings the other person can be left feeling unheard. It is necessary to have skills in one on one meetings
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
Blog: Death by Meetings
The basic thoughts behind this podcast is at what point do meetings become pointless and how can we as leaders keep them beneficial because there seems to be a point where meetings become useless. We've all been in meetings that have been painful to sit through and that nothing was really accomplished, so the challenge is to only have meetings when it is really necessary. Also the need to understand when people disagree with your ideas or have a negative response; that it's not an attack on your person. There becomes a point when people hate meetings, that is what needs to be avoided and I think there needs to be an evaluation of how the meetings are going to help understand what is happening or not happening.
Personally I have been a part of mandatory meetings which have been the death of me, but never meetings in a corporate or work setting because most of my jobs haven't required them. This podcast however highlights necessary information for those who are facing these meetings which are causing them to hate their jobs. The leaders or whoever is running the meetings needs to take ownership and figure out what needs to change in the meetings for them to be effective. Meetings are meant to be a time of information sharing or brainstorming ideas that can be used to further organization or business's projects and plans for the future.
Personally I have been a part of mandatory meetings which have been the death of me, but never meetings in a corporate or work setting because most of my jobs haven't required them. This podcast however highlights necessary information for those who are facing these meetings which are causing them to hate their jobs. The leaders or whoever is running the meetings needs to take ownership and figure out what needs to change in the meetings for them to be effective. Meetings are meant to be a time of information sharing or brainstorming ideas that can be used to further organization or business's projects and plans for the future.
Monday, September 28, 2015
Blog: IYH 646-665
Communication is necessary when working others to complete goals, tasks, or just sharing personal information with a friend. However there are proper ways to communicate and then there are wrong ways to communicate and in this section there are desirable ways along with examples listed along with their definitions. Right a way there are three basics for ongoing communication: why, their task, and result, each playing a different role when working with others, this lets your co-workers or the people you are leading know that you care. TLC2 talks about two seperate equations for TLC, the first being Two-way, Leading edge, and Circular; the second Tools, Leadership, and Consideration.
Basically what is being outlined in this part of the book are effective tools for proper communication and ways to acknowledge the people you are leading that they are being heard. With poor communication skills co-workers, volunteers, and employees will go about being frustrated and not feeling like you or I am hearing what they have to say. There are plenty of times in my life time when poor communication has caused serious issues between individuals or two parties which causes a lot of unnecessary frustration on both parts. This book and the material in it share very basic concepts, but are still valuable tools. I know I talk a lot about my military experiences, but communication was paramount and in some cases life or death. So when we talk about communication there needs to be an application to what we are learning or what good does it do? We go about reading it, but really do we learn anything?
Basically what is being outlined in this part of the book are effective tools for proper communication and ways to acknowledge the people you are leading that they are being heard. With poor communication skills co-workers, volunteers, and employees will go about being frustrated and not feeling like you or I am hearing what they have to say. There are plenty of times in my life time when poor communication has caused serious issues between individuals or two parties which causes a lot of unnecessary frustration on both parts. This book and the material in it share very basic concepts, but are still valuable tools. I know I talk a lot about my military experiences, but communication was paramount and in some cases life or death. So when we talk about communication there needs to be an application to what we are learning or what good does it do? We go about reading it, but really do we learn anything?
Friday, September 25, 2015
Blog IYN: 248-251
Sometimes there are challenges which almost seem impossible when alone, but there are times when a group of people working together runs into those same challenges. This is when the competency of the group is outweighed by the size of the obstacle or challenge. What needs to happen to overcome the challenge is a higher level of competency, but some observations must be made before that can happen. When empowering people, the challenge must be lower then the competency, when the challenges are beaten then they get higher and so does the competency, and for one to maintain the empowerment competency must improve. There are other problems that one can run into when empowering employees is they can reach capacity of their skills or the empowering plateaus in which case they need harder challenges.
In my life there has been times when I had to face obstacles where in my eyes the obstacles were bigger than anything I could climb, for a long time it burdened me. Then something happened as I was getting ready to deploy to Iraq, my squad leader called me out. Even when I came back to Christ obstacles just seemed to be another piece of the puzzle with managing school work and life. Empowering people doesn't just impact them, but it directly impacts everyone else they come into contact with because they see what you accomplished and they push the limits in their lives. My story seems like one challenge after another honestly, but I'm a better person for it.
In my life there has been times when I had to face obstacles where in my eyes the obstacles were bigger than anything I could climb, for a long time it burdened me. Then something happened as I was getting ready to deploy to Iraq, my squad leader called me out. Even when I came back to Christ obstacles just seemed to be another piece of the puzzle with managing school work and life. Empowering people doesn't just impact them, but it directly impacts everyone else they come into contact with because they see what you accomplished and they push the limits in their lives. My story seems like one challenge after another honestly, but I'm a better person for it.
Blog: IYH: 60-69
When working with employees to reach their goal one needs to take a certain look at what is needed and this part explains five helpful tips that you can teach your employees, volunteers, and ministry workers. There are five basic skills 1) Communication, 2) Initiation, 3) Direction, 4) Education, and 5) Delineation. Starting with communication this is something that needs to be constant, but not overbearing in the sense that they think you are micro managing them and they need to know that they can ask you questions. The only stupid question is the one that's not asked. Initiation is the being able to start the process, to be willing to volunteer yourself for projects knowing that this will not only benefit you, but others around you. Direction is simple, by showing others where they need to go or what the best path for them to take you give them a vision. Direction is key when working towards a common goal. Education is the means of having proper training so your employees know that they have been equipped. Delineation is the ability to allow your employees to make contributions and not putting the organization at risk.
This section is pretty self explanatory honestly, it just highlights what you need to instill in your employees, volunteers, staff, and so on to have a successful organization, but the reality is here is how many business miss this. The five skills that the book highlight are good, but my experiences don't really line up with them, but there are definitely aspects of these five that I've learned in my life and they have helped me when working with others toward a common goal. One job stands out specifically this summer where me and two co-workers were helping this lady pack her belongings so she could move back to Texas. My boss who just happens to be my friend leaves me inside to help them as I am the more experienced packer/mover which allowed me to make decisions on what goes where and work closely with the client and her mother. I had all the skills necessary to accomplish the tasks that were before, it was rather humbling in the sense because not only did the client trust me, but my friend did which was great because the job went smoothly. Everything this sections talks about I would say is much needed in the working world and in our churches because sometimes I think we forget about our staff at our churches and they may not be sure of themselves when they get tasked with a big project. But this is applicable to every day life as well, to mentoring and I would even say raising children.
This section is pretty self explanatory honestly, it just highlights what you need to instill in your employees, volunteers, staff, and so on to have a successful organization, but the reality is here is how many business miss this. The five skills that the book highlight are good, but my experiences don't really line up with them, but there are definitely aspects of these five that I've learned in my life and they have helped me when working with others toward a common goal. One job stands out specifically this summer where me and two co-workers were helping this lady pack her belongings so she could move back to Texas. My boss who just happens to be my friend leaves me inside to help them as I am the more experienced packer/mover which allowed me to make decisions on what goes where and work closely with the client and her mother. I had all the skills necessary to accomplish the tasks that were before, it was rather humbling in the sense because not only did the client trust me, but my friend did which was great because the job went smoothly. Everything this sections talks about I would say is much needed in the working world and in our churches because sometimes I think we forget about our staff at our churches and they may not be sure of themselves when they get tasked with a big project. But this is applicable to every day life as well, to mentoring and I would even say raising children.
Thursday, September 24, 2015
Blog: IYH 404-423
This section covers a few different subjects from getting people engaged to the point they are locked, charisma and how it is actually a learnable skill vs something that people are born with, and how to keep people motivated from start to finish along the path. For getting people engaged there has to be an understanding and knowing that they can make an impact, that they have skills, and the objective is of importance. On charisma there is ten teachable or learnable skills, each one playing some significant role with how they can be used when interacting with people, this can help filling ministry roles. Sometimes there are hard paths we travel down to get to where we are going, but they can lake encouragement so leaders need to come along side those to encourage or motivate them to reach their goals.
The basis of the section is how leaders can come along side their volunteers, staff members, or anyone else for that matter and teach them skills, motivate them to reach goals, or help them understand why it is necessary for people to be full engaged. It's funny when I read this book because in so many ways before enrolling in this class there has been times where I've been doing this or currently am doing this in my life. My time before North Central I not only a soldier, but a student and a volunteer at my church back in Duluth, MN where I'm from and these were things that I just picked up on. I've been going to school far long than most people will ever want or would dare too as I started in the fall of 2008 and it's now fall of 2015 and by the time I will graduate it will be close to 8 years if not more since this journey started. People have kept me motivated from one semester to the next especially in the middle of the semester when everything closes in around you. This book has a lot of great tips and tools, it's just a little bland when a student as the experiences of someone who's older than the normal student by eight or nine years maybe more. So tell my fellow students I say to them stay the course, don't loose sight of who God is turning you into, and follow him wherever he leads you.
The basis of the section is how leaders can come along side their volunteers, staff members, or anyone else for that matter and teach them skills, motivate them to reach goals, or help them understand why it is necessary for people to be full engaged. It's funny when I read this book because in so many ways before enrolling in this class there has been times where I've been doing this or currently am doing this in my life. My time before North Central I not only a soldier, but a student and a volunteer at my church back in Duluth, MN where I'm from and these were things that I just picked up on. I've been going to school far long than most people will ever want or would dare too as I started in the fall of 2008 and it's now fall of 2015 and by the time I will graduate it will be close to 8 years if not more since this journey started. People have kept me motivated from one semester to the next especially in the middle of the semester when everything closes in around you. This book has a lot of great tips and tools, it's just a little bland when a student as the experiences of someone who's older than the normal student by eight or nine years maybe more. So tell my fellow students I say to them stay the course, don't loose sight of who God is turning you into, and follow him wherever he leads you.
Warfare: When Spiritual turns physical
So over the past year there has been a series of spiritual attacks which I've experienced beyond anything previously experienced in my walk with Christ, something that people may not put a lot of stock into. It has been an eye opening experience and a humbling one because it's forced me to rely on God even more, to the point where in my dreams when there has been something demonic in them I've cried out physically as if my spirit knew what to do. This is not meant to scare you, but to inform you that, "The devil roams around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour." 1 Peter 5:8. That as Christians we must put on the full armor of Ephesians 6:10-18 and walk with God in a way that is more intentional than ever before, because with him and through him we have victory. Because Christ is the victor, the devil has been defeated and so has death and in the end we will be there in heaven with Christ, resurrected in our new bodies.
So about January after watching a T.V. show on a family that experienced a possession of their child by a demonic being that is when this all really took, but it really started when I made the commitment to come to North Central. A commitment to follow God wherever he took me, to be willing to the point if he asked me to lay down my life for the cause of the Gospel I would which details back to my discipleship. So in early August of 2013, I was laying asleep in my bed when my right ear began to ring intensely and when I woke up there was a dark figure standing in my door way, being that I couldn't move I called out to Jesus and it stopped. Later that week at church, there was a few people who I shared my events with and the prayers were helpful.
Then fast forward to either the fall of 2013 or spring of 2014, I was yet again sleeping or just just about to fall asleep, my head was in my pillow just enough that when this backward force was trying to push my head into the pillow I resisted. For a while everything went quite then in January of this year after watching a tv show about a real exorcism everything flared up where there was times when I was just about asleep then my feet would get grabbed waking me. This went on for a month or two, maybe more, but one morning after a rough night I texted a friend who came over and we prayed over my apartment and me. After that time spent praying everything went quite through the summer, but in late August of this year it started up again with the grabbing of my feet, crazy dreams that either had demons in them or crap, and noises in my apartment. So since then there has been people praying for me constantly and here's a little teaser in case you didn't know; the devil doesn't win. Yup!, he has already lost when Christ was killed on the cross then rose again three days later because death was defeated and we have a restored relationship with our God who created us.
Through this entire course there has been days of little to no sleep and in general a lack of sleep, but something has happened that I'm not sure satan could of anticipated and that is me drawing upon the word of God more than I have for sometime. The moments with God have been sweeter and the intimacy in the relationship has grown, but just because someone is experiencing spiritual attacks doesn't mean they are doing something wrong, quite the opposite they are doing something right. To the point that satan sees them as a threat and uses fear, lies, and anything else to take over us; fills our minds with lies; our emotions with guilt, condemnation, and shame; our hearts with fear and rejection.
God is seeing me through this time and continually shows up even though I "feel" lonely or isolated and the reality is that we aren't. The more time I've spent in scripture, the deeper the connection with God and Christ thus being able to see the lies much clearer than before. The fight doesn't get easier, but relying on God in all things becomes easier because he can do anything and his yoke is easy. You see satan likes take jabs at us where we are the weakest and exploit the weaknesses, from that point he then just begins to enter garbage into your life and spread all sorts of nonsense. A few of my weak points are distinguishing lies, when I'm tired, and emotions. In the past weeks these have all been flaring up, but each day I stand in the armor of God and fight against these attacks. Quoting scripture and worshiping are some of the best ways, but what has helped me is getting other people to pray for which means telling them what has been happening. God is stronger than satan will ever be and his love is perfect and perfect love casts out all fear.
So whatever you are going through reach out to others and start getting people to pray for you because there is strength in having other believers pray for you. Get friends to pray for you and pray over your house, door room, or apartment if necessary. Stay in the Bible, it's your firm foundation, and the gates of hell will never overtake you. Stay connected with other Christians, but above all else keep your relationship with God going.
Hope you've found this help! Take care and God bless!!
So about January after watching a T.V. show on a family that experienced a possession of their child by a demonic being that is when this all really took, but it really started when I made the commitment to come to North Central. A commitment to follow God wherever he took me, to be willing to the point if he asked me to lay down my life for the cause of the Gospel I would which details back to my discipleship. So in early August of 2013, I was laying asleep in my bed when my right ear began to ring intensely and when I woke up there was a dark figure standing in my door way, being that I couldn't move I called out to Jesus and it stopped. Later that week at church, there was a few people who I shared my events with and the prayers were helpful.
Then fast forward to either the fall of 2013 or spring of 2014, I was yet again sleeping or just just about to fall asleep, my head was in my pillow just enough that when this backward force was trying to push my head into the pillow I resisted. For a while everything went quite then in January of this year after watching a tv show about a real exorcism everything flared up where there was times when I was just about asleep then my feet would get grabbed waking me. This went on for a month or two, maybe more, but one morning after a rough night I texted a friend who came over and we prayed over my apartment and me. After that time spent praying everything went quite through the summer, but in late August of this year it started up again with the grabbing of my feet, crazy dreams that either had demons in them or crap, and noises in my apartment. So since then there has been people praying for me constantly and here's a little teaser in case you didn't know; the devil doesn't win. Yup!, he has already lost when Christ was killed on the cross then rose again three days later because death was defeated and we have a restored relationship with our God who created us.
Through this entire course there has been days of little to no sleep and in general a lack of sleep, but something has happened that I'm not sure satan could of anticipated and that is me drawing upon the word of God more than I have for sometime. The moments with God have been sweeter and the intimacy in the relationship has grown, but just because someone is experiencing spiritual attacks doesn't mean they are doing something wrong, quite the opposite they are doing something right. To the point that satan sees them as a threat and uses fear, lies, and anything else to take over us; fills our minds with lies; our emotions with guilt, condemnation, and shame; our hearts with fear and rejection.
God is seeing me through this time and continually shows up even though I "feel" lonely or isolated and the reality is that we aren't. The more time I've spent in scripture, the deeper the connection with God and Christ thus being able to see the lies much clearer than before. The fight doesn't get easier, but relying on God in all things becomes easier because he can do anything and his yoke is easy. You see satan likes take jabs at us where we are the weakest and exploit the weaknesses, from that point he then just begins to enter garbage into your life and spread all sorts of nonsense. A few of my weak points are distinguishing lies, when I'm tired, and emotions. In the past weeks these have all been flaring up, but each day I stand in the armor of God and fight against these attacks. Quoting scripture and worshiping are some of the best ways, but what has helped me is getting other people to pray for which means telling them what has been happening. God is stronger than satan will ever be and his love is perfect and perfect love casts out all fear.
So whatever you are going through reach out to others and start getting people to pray for you because there is strength in having other believers pray for you. Get friends to pray for you and pray over your house, door room, or apartment if necessary. Stay in the Bible, it's your firm foundation, and the gates of hell will never overtake you. Stay connected with other Christians, but above all else keep your relationship with God going.
Hope you've found this help! Take care and God bless!!
Wednesday, September 23, 2015
Blog: IYH 260-271
Process and the People, there are times when both of these have to be taken into account when issues arise along the course of an organizations time. This sections covers what is necessary for people involved with organizations and identifies training that would be helpful along with wise decision making on who to hire. A lot of what this section talks about is knowing who is the right person for the job, do they have the right training or are they trained correctly, and do they have the proper leadership skills which encompass the roles they must fill. All procedures for the processes that leaders will need to be clearly defined as to have a better understanding of what it will take to complete tasks in order to assure no severe issues happen. There also needs to be a way to measure and quantify the process so you can measure when things are effective and understand when they are not. Once there is a process defined then steps need to be taken to continually improve the process this ensures that the process will be the effective for the time to come.
Throughout this section we are talking about how to make processes better and how to train our leaders to navigate the process which they will encounter. There is also the need to develop SOPs for the processes and clearly define them as well to make sure that, these are to help the processes and that there will be ways to refine each one. These area all critical because when dealing with people and processes you need to able to identify what is the issues and not misdiagnosing the wrong one, I think this can be an issue when Processes and people overlap in areas. There is also a strong need for solid training for the leadership to help clearly define the issues and facilitate the processes thus having a smooth running organization.
Throughout this section we are talking about how to make processes better and how to train our leaders to navigate the process which they will encounter. There is also the need to develop SOPs for the processes and clearly define them as well to make sure that, these are to help the processes and that there will be ways to refine each one. These area all critical because when dealing with people and processes you need to able to identify what is the issues and not misdiagnosing the wrong one, I think this can be an issue when Processes and people overlap in areas. There is also a strong need for solid training for the leadership to help clearly define the issues and facilitate the processes thus having a smooth running organization.
Friday, September 18, 2015
Blog: IYH 212-221 World Class Leadership Skills-"The Sterling Silver Cord"
The basics of this reading was talking about the Sterling Silver Cord which is essentially what a world class leader needs to be able to traverse to provide the best leader style regardless of the task at hand. On each end of the cord you have Strategic Skills and Tactical skills; while Strategic is more big picture thinking and developing the plan, tactical is more about putting the plan into action. Thus creating a working idea of what the strategic planning had been. Along the Sterling Silver Cord there is 5 basic categories: 1) Strong at conceptualizing, but can't execute, 2) Strong Strategically, w/ some appreciation of the impact of the day to day, 3) Excellent tactically, and with some ability to ensure that day to day activities contribute to the strategic direction, 4) Great at today's priorities, but unable to provide clear motivating vision, and 5) Able to appreciate both strategy and tactics and their relationship, but not yet able to sustain this understanding in turbulent times.
As we talked about in class there are various possibilities for someone wanting to create in their work place a leadership style that works well with others, but there is also the challenges that we face when working with others who don't change.The material is well thought out, but something that was ingrained in me while in the Army was knowing the job of the people above me, knowing the mission, the end state, and just about every detail there was. We would walk through on models and we are verbally vomit back the information to our leadership displaying that we understood the task at hand. I was never there at the planning stage for missions, but when working on a squad level of nine soldiers including leadership everyone has a part to play, you have to understand the strategical aspect as well as the tactical if you want the mission to be a success. You're always trying to minimize casualties, collateral damage. and risk, but somethings are unavoidable in war. The fact of the matter as a Specialist E-4 you hand to have a working knowledge and understanding of both Strategic & Tactical leadership. I may not have been in charge of soldiers, but I had to understand this world because my life depended on it. To me that church is depending on its pastors and not only that there are people who need us to succeed because we are called to live misionally in this world, and there will be people who need us.
Geldart, Phil. In Your Hands: The Behaviors of a World-class Leader. [Guelph, Ont.?]: Eagle's Flight Creative Training Excellence, 1998. Print.
As we talked about in class there are various possibilities for someone wanting to create in their work place a leadership style that works well with others, but there is also the challenges that we face when working with others who don't change.The material is well thought out, but something that was ingrained in me while in the Army was knowing the job of the people above me, knowing the mission, the end state, and just about every detail there was. We would walk through on models and we are verbally vomit back the information to our leadership displaying that we understood the task at hand. I was never there at the planning stage for missions, but when working on a squad level of nine soldiers including leadership everyone has a part to play, you have to understand the strategical aspect as well as the tactical if you want the mission to be a success. You're always trying to minimize casualties, collateral damage. and risk, but somethings are unavoidable in war. The fact of the matter as a Specialist E-4 you hand to have a working knowledge and understanding of both Strategic & Tactical leadership. I may not have been in charge of soldiers, but I had to understand this world because my life depended on it. To me that church is depending on its pastors and not only that there are people who need us to succeed because we are called to live misionally in this world, and there will be people who need us.
Geldart, Phil. In Your Hands: The Behaviors of a World-class Leader. [Guelph, Ont.?]: Eagle's Flight Creative Training Excellence, 1998. Print.
Thursday, September 17, 2015
Blog: Podcast - Developing a Strategic Plan
What's needed for developing a strategic plan within a church is willingness to find a direction in which the leadership of the church wants to go. The necessary need for movement regardless if it's positive or negative. It's about setting a determined time and going forward as a team and if necessary coming before the congregation to let them know how the process is going.
When moving about during my time in the Army National Guard while deployed to Iraq we had to develop plans when moving from site to site or mission to mission. There was always a plan regarding our movements and how we would react if things didn't go as planned. Tactics, techniques, and procedures or simply put TTPs was how we operated; the enemy had their TTPs as did we so naturally we are trying to counter their TTPs, but in a real world that doesn't always happen.
When moving about during my time in the Army National Guard while deployed to Iraq we had to develop plans when moving from site to site or mission to mission. There was always a plan regarding our movements and how we would react if things didn't go as planned. Tactics, techniques, and procedures or simply put TTPs was how we operated; the enemy had their TTPs as did we so naturally we are trying to counter their TTPs, but in a real world that doesn't always happen.
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