Last week two great conferences took place:  Exponential and Orange.  After I attend challenging and empowering conferences like these, I can’ t wait to get home and implement what I’ve learned.  Conferences are creativity catalysts that help me “work on” ministry and not just “work in” ministry.

But I have to be careful once at home to not allow great conference content to become “productivity porn”.   Vivek Haldar says productivity porn is when we confuse activity for progress. Continue Reading…

There were several great speakers at Orange Conference this year.

If you did not catch Reggie Joiner’s fantastic opening, here are my tweeted quotes.

My favorite speaker this year is someone I had never heard of prior to OC13 named Craig Jutila.  I first caught Craig doing an interview about the new book he co-authored with his wife entitled From Hectic to Healthy.  I was very impressed with Craig’s authenticity.  During this interview, he shared his struggle as a ministry workaholic, and his turning point when he discovered his wife’s diary which contained the entry, “I hate my husband.”   He confessed, “I almost lost my marriage.” I always appreciate those who minister from their pain and not from their projected perfection.

[pullquote]I always appreciate those who minister from their pain and not from their projected perfection.[/pullquote]

Craig continued to share how through counseling he was confronted with the question “Can doing more good bring about more bad?” For example, can giving too much result in not being able to provide for our own family?  I was floored by this question and happy to hear that this “?” is as the heart of From Hectic to Healthy.

Craig did an outstanding workshop at OC13 on Volunteer Leadership entitled Viruses, Riots and Velcro.  Afterwards Twitter lit up with quotes about astronauts and velcro!  To get an audio copy of Craig’s workshop and his notes go here and join Craig’s mailing list.

Teams are great unless they are dysfunctional.  Les McKeown does a great job is this piece for Inc. sharing three types of dysfunctional teams: the Bickering Undertakers, the Grind-it-out Tacticians, and the Blue-sky Optimists.

Are you working for a team that puts the “fun” in dysfunctional?

Is your team stuck in a time warp? Find out here => http://t.co/ogiy5WASTE

— Les McKeown (@lesmckeown) April 17, 2013

Teamwork, Innovation, Preparation and Fairness are some of the current workplace strategies for improving productivity in the office.  Although these are effective strategies, they require more than an “add water and stir” approach and in some cases they are down-right counter productive.

Continue Reading…