3 Exit Goals for Growing Young Leaders [PODCAST]

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Young Leader 2

In this podcast I talk about about hiring and working with young leaders.

[pullquote]Many employers know how to harness the energy of young leaders but few know how to grow young leaders.[/pullquote]

Click Here to Listen

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (15.7MB)

Here are the talking points from the podcast:

  • I share a recent reconnect with a former employee of mine that reminded me how important it is to grow young leaders.
  • A young leader is a 20-something who may be recently out of college and lacking long term work experience.
  • Young leaders often make up in energy what they lack in experience. It’s important to grow a young leader and not just benefit from their energy.
  • I have hired several young employees over the course of my career, many of them for leadership positions.
  •  If there is a wrong way to hire a new employee, I have done it.  I’ve made all the mistakes at one point or another.  I am thankful for fellow leaders and even employees who cared enough along the way to share with me the inadequacies of my hiring practices.
  • I share how one employee gave me an exit interview that changed my hiring practices.
  • I explain why first-chairs should NOT manage the hiring process, especially first-chair pastors.
  •  Two reasons why the mindset of “Waiting on God to give you the right person” is not a beneficial hiring strategy.
  •  3 EXIT GOALS to keep in mind for when a young leader leaves your organization.

 1. They should leave better because of you and not in spite of you.

 2. They should leave better and not just better off.

 3. They should leave knowing they are better than you at something.

Here is Melissa’s tweet


Follow my former employee Melissa Hawks and her current boss Matt Craig and his company Beast Social Media.  Check out the Beast Social Media group online.

Join the Conversation: Were you ever a young leader? Were you better because of or in-spite of a senior leader?

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What Church and Prison Can Have In Common

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prisonPrison is a terrible place, but one thing prison offers is an institutional structure.  Some inmates eventually cannot function outside of that structure. Referring to prisons, Craig Haney notes, “…institutionalization renders some people so dependent on external constraints that they gradually cease to rely on their own self-imposed internal sense of structure to guide their actions…” (p.41).

[pullquote]What church and prison can have in common is an unhealthy institutionalization.[/pullquote]Unhealthy churches can attract similar “saved inmates” who need a church culture that creates a structure of “external constraints” and removes the need for a “self-imposed internal sense of structure.” What church and prison can have in common is an unhealthy institutionalization.

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What has happened to our conviction?

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Bonhoeffer

This 3 min video by poet Taylor Mali humorously asks, “What has happened to our conviction?”


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEBZkWkkdZA

My favorite lines:

 

[pullquote]I have nothing invested in my own opinions.  I am just like inviting you to join me on the bandwagon of my own uncertainty.[/pullquote]

Invisible question marks and parenthetical “ya knows” have been attaching themselves to our sentences.

Infected by this tragically cool and totally hip interrogative tone.

What has happened to our conviction?  Where are the limbs on which we once walked? 

We are the most aggressively, inarticulate generation to come along, since…you know…along time ago.

Because contrary to the wisdom of the bumper sticker it is not enough these days to question authority, you got to speak with it too.

 

Join the Conversation:  Do you think Taylor Mali is saying we should never re-exmine ourselves or question our own beliefs? Leave a comment.

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Walter and Matthew

Walter Brueggemann and Matthew Johnson

It was a great privilege to hear and meet Walter Brueggemann this week.  Dr. Brueggemann spoke at a seminar presented by the Center for Clergy Care & Education whose director Dr. Don Winslett has done much to help improve the “life-health” of clergy in my community.

If you are unfamiliar with the work of Dr. Brueggemann you can go here for audio samples of his work including lectures and interviews. In short, Walter has made enormous contributions to our understanding of the prophetic and psalmist voices in the Old Testament.  He has authored almost 60 books, including his 2013 new release Truth Speaks to Power: The Countercultural Nature of Scripture.

Here are some highlights from Dr. Brueggemann’s talk on the Psalms. Continue Reading…

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Avoiding Productivity Porn

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ProductiveLast 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…

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Viruses, Riots and Velcro

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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.

virus riots & velcroCraig 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.

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What does Coffee have to do with Forgiveness?

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Watch this powerful video for Land of a 1000 Hills Coffee from Orange Conference, and see what coffee has to do with forgiveness.  1000 Hills practices “conscious capitalism” by growing coffee in partnership with the farmers of Rwanda.  I like their slogan “Drink Coffee, Do Good”.



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Why Your Church Needs to Mention the Boston Bombing this Sunday

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FPC Easter

When your church comes together this Sunday, I hope there are comforting words spoken about the tragedy that happened in Boston.  Here are my two reasons your church needs to say something about Boston, or Texas, or any other headline tragedy on Sunday…

Continue Reading…

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3 Types of Dysfunctional Teams

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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?

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Ben Stroup

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