Monthly Archives: September 2016

Momentary Troubles

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Mentoring, coaching, succession planning and employee development are the latest challenges for today’s organizations. The baby boomers are leaving the workforce, new managers need additional skills to lead the Millennial Generation and Millennials have workplace needs like no other generation before them. Leaders have a responsibility to develop their staff regardless of what the retirement picture looks like in their organization. A number of years ago, I was tasked with developing a program to build “management perspective” for our staff. We had several young supervisors and several more to promote. We created a series of supervisory programs that exposed these young leaders to a variety of “business” and leadership topics.

A mentoring program was created which allowed employees to function in supervisory positions under the guidance of their existing supervisor then on their own. These employees endured 120 hours of classroom training and countless hours of field training from the time they started the program until they completed their probationary year as supervisors. The bottom line is that with or without a formal program, leaders have an obligation to develop people to achieve all that they are capable of.

“For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” 2 Corinthians 4:17

As Disciples of Christ, more than the word of God is mentoring us in our lives. The trials and tribulations of this life are making us stronger for what lies ahead in eternity. Our troubles are momentary but they sometimes seem to pile up. It’s not what is happening to us that matters, it is how we react to it that counts. St. Paul is telling the Corinthians and us, that our troubles are light and momentary.

For those that believe in Christ, we know that no matter what is happening, we will have eternal life in Heaven. We all struggle with the concept of “momentary” as if we are applying it to our understanding of time. A moment to God could be years for us. Open the bible and find peace for what the troubles that are burdening you. Stop looking for the meaning in “why” and start looking at how you can react, with God at your side, to the troubles you are facing. Giving up your control and letting God work in your life is very hard. We have been promised eternal life through Jesus Christ; not an easy life here on earth. Celebrate the gift and live to His glory – the glass is half full.

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Discipline and Compassion

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Discipline comes in many forms. For some of us, it is the focus that drives us every day. For others, discipline means teachable moments and for a few, it means punishment. Supervisors “discipline” people as part of their duties. What do the people who you discipline take away from the experience? If the punishment was punitive, chances are they just took away a little bitterness. Our job as leaders is to be sure that the punishment fits the crime. If they didn’t know how to or were not equipped to do the job, how hard should you be on them? A friend once told me that we shouldn’t kill an ant with an anvil. It was good advice about compassion.

People often think of compassion as being soft on others or caring about them. When we say, “I feel sorry for them”, we think we’re being compassionate. The word is derived from the Latin phrase: suffer with. The thesaurus lists: empathy, care, concern, warmth, love, leniency and kindness as a few alternatives. What version of compassion do you most often associate with? Supervisors should exercise all of them. I would argue that we all should exercise a little compassion with each other rather than just suffering with a person in our minds.

“As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him…” Psalm 103:13

Discipline takes on two roles – punishment and order. The order that discipline brings is getting out of bed every day at 5am to go to the gym for that dreaded spin class or the order that breeds commitment to seeing a job through to the end. Not wanting to repeat myself but the work we do is pleasing to God, we should have the discipline to do our best – always.

On the other side, fear and punishment are not often thought of when we think of our Father in Heaven. We all received punishment for the original sin of Adam and Eve. Child labor is now painful, we have to work the fields for our food and the price of our daily sin is death here on earth. We should fear God! The good news in this passage is that the Lord will have compassion on those of us who fear Him. God loves us and He has proven that by sending His son to die for our sins. We no longer have to fear the punishment of our sins; Jesus Christ did that for us on the cross at Calvary. God wanted His children close to him and while we will not stay in this life for eternity, we will share eternity with our Father in Heaven. A pretty fair punishment if you ask me.

Ready to do Good

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Being a good follower is an important characteristic of being a good leader. We must learn to follow before we lead. The notion of us following someone often depends upon whom we are following. If we don’t respect our supervisor or the company owner, it is hard to follow them. Conversely, if we believe in the person then we have little trouble following them. However, following does not mean that we do it blindly. We have to obey the rules established by our employer, the city or town we live in and those of our federal government. While we don’t always agree, we are obedient for no other reason than to maintain order within our society. Being a follower has responsibilities too. We shouldn’t accept someone because they are in a position of authority or because someone else has elevated them to a leadership position. The proof is often in their words and actions. Look carefully at whom you choose to follow. The bottom-line is that we are all followers at some point in our careers or lives but it is more of a role rather than a position we hold.

Those who are better followers are generally tapped to become the next leader when the opportunity arises. These are typically the people that others trust because they follow direction or take orders and get along with their peers. These are the traits that people look for in their leaders. Google the word “followership” and you will find thousands of resources; look for one that sings to your heart. Today, it is easy to fall blindly behind someone because they are popular or because they represent a group that you belong to. Ensure that you are following them because they represent the values and beliefs that you hold.

“Remind the people to be subject to rules and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good…” Titus 3:1

The verse today should sing to your heart as well. The 10 commandments tell us to be obedient to our government leaders. Jesus Christ even told the Pharoses to “give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s”. He was teaching us to be obedient. Titus then reminds us to be subject to rules and authorities and then be ready to do what is good. God is reminding us to be good followers; be a living example of Christian living. Are you ready to do whatever is good?

I’m sure that if someone asks us for help, we’ll be there. Most of us rarely look for ways to help; it is easier to react to a call for help then it is to generate support for one. There are a lot of people who need our help, especially at this time of the year as we approach Fall and the start of yet another holiday season. Whether you lead or follow, be ready to do good. Consider becoming a leader, this might be your opportunity. Martin Luther was credited with saying, “God doesn’t need your good works but your neighbor does”. As the U.S. enters the final eight weeks of our Presidential Election season, we must remain focused on being ready to do whatever is good and focus less on blind obedience.

The Beginning to the End

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I have been reading a lot lately about companies who are eliminating their annual performance appraisal processes. This is making employees and supervisors happy as both dread this annual event. But it leaves us with the question, how do we track what our people do from the beginning of the year through the end of it? Many organizations use some form of performance tracking or performance appraisal tool to do it and if it goes away, what will replace it? There are a number of strategies to accomplish the goal of measuring performance against an employee’s job description, their core competencies or their assigned goals. Whichever one you choose to use, there are a couple of common threads to consider.

Performance assessments should be continuous throughout the rating period. A common pitfall is when a supervisor only rates the employee on what recently happened or what they recently remember. We all (leaders too) ebb and flow in our work intensity, which is why all aspects of our performance should be measured and not just the highs or lows. In order to make these appraisals valuable to an employee, supervisors need to create a tool to assist them with documenting their employee’s work all year long. Whether you are a supervisor or an employee, don’t rely on your memory; it will let you down in almost every case. A reliable system will provide you with good documentation and not take up too much of your time to do. While generally referred to as an annual performance review, you can easily fall into the trap of it becoming the “most recent memory” review. Good documentation is the key.

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from the beginning to end.” Ecclesiastes 3:11

“This is taking an eternity to finish!” A phrase we all utter at some point. We have no concept of what “eternity” really is. God works on His own timeline and not one that we can understand. Stop for a moment and look back over your life, do you see how God has worked in His plan of your life? The seemingly unrelated events and circumstances may now appear to be connected to form an experience or opportunity. God is at work in and through us every day; bringing us closer to Him for eternity.

People are often afraid of the things that they’ve done and become so discouraged that they give up pleasing God. He doesn’t use a system to document our “job performance”. If He did, none of us would pass an annual review. God has a record of everything that we’ve done from our beginning. It must be a pretty scary list if you think about it. Fortunately, God also has us “documented” as His children and as such, He sent us a Savior to wipe clean our sins. Faith in Jesus Christ, combined with God’s grace, cleanses us from all sin. We cannot fathom the extent of God’s love for us as He forgives ALL of our sins – from the beginning to the end. We are free from all of them. God works in His time. We can’t understand that so why do we think we can understand the depth of God’s love?