Colin Powel’s rule #8:  Check the small things.

At a certain point, I assumed that someone else would do this.  Checking small things feels like something that eventually I wouldn’t have to deal with.  I have learned just the opposite, over and over again.

During the first building project I was ever a part of, I assumed that the professional building people would take care of the the things that mattered most to me.  I figured that surely I wasn’t the smartest person in the room on some of this stuff.  They do this for a living, I am just the end user.  What do I know?

The reality is that I am the most knowledgeable person on the thoughts that pop into my head.  If nobody is bringing something up, but I am thinking about it, I need to speak up.  I notice that this mostly happens around small things, and if I assume that someone else is going to take care of it, I am wrong.

Don’t assume that what is running through your head is registering to anyone else.  Don’t move onto the next thing without voicing your opinion, if it hasn’t been voiced then probably no one else is thinking of it.  Don’t sit passively wishing that someone would bring up your concern.  It might be a small thing, but you might be just the person to bring it up.

Many times, it is the small things that make the difference between something good and something amazing.  It can also be the difference between success and failure.

Checking the small things must be done by someone.  If you are thinking of them, you need to take care of them.

Next rule:  #9 Share Credit

Colin Powell’s Rule # 5 – Be careful what you choose. You may get it.

It seems like a “grass-is-always-greener” type of statement.  This rule also feels like a double edged sword to me.

Wishing for more

My first thought is that, generally speaking, most tech people are looking for a new piece of equipment that will solve all their problems.  Sometimes a new piece of gear is exactly what is needed to advance the ministry of your church.  Sometimes it only seems that way.

When Kensington met in a high school, I would often have set up and tear down volunteers say things like “I can’t wait until we have our own building, so we can leave all this stuff set up.”  I remember thinking that I agreed with them to a certain degree, since it would be nice to not have to wake up at 3:30am on Sunday any more.  However, I also remember thinking that when we have our own building we would suddenly have a space that people and ministries will want to use 24/7, 7 days a week.  At least right now, we only had one really long day.

From a ministry impact standpoint, Kensington was able to expand by having our own building.  From a production work load stand point, our workload just grew exponentially, and in some ways , the perceived need for volunteers diminished, making it more difficult to attract and retain volunteers to do all the work that had been added to our plate.

We got what we were asking for; I didn’t wake up 3:30 on Sunday morning any more, and we didn’t but now I was working on some kind of production most every day of the week.

When asking for more, are you being honest with yourself about the true costs involved?

Not even trying

Because I have seen some of the downsides of getting what you ask for, I have noticed that I am hesitant to dream about what could be, because I start imagining the downsides.  Suddenly, the negative outcomes become my first thought.

I don’t know what it is about my personality, but I am pretty wary of the color of grass other places.   As a real life example, the grass in my yard looks pretty good from across the street.  Once you start walking on it, the dead spots and the weeds are hard to miss.

I know that things aren’t always as they appear and I like the problems I already have, simply because I know what they are.  Who knows what kind of problems exist elsewhere?

To be paralyzed with the question of what might happen, isn’t a great place to live in either.

How can I balance out dreaming for the new with being more “realistic”?

This leads right into rule #6 for next time:  Don’t let adverse facts stand in the way of a good decision.

Colin Powell’s rule #4:  It can be done!

This past weekend, one of the producers would ask me if we could change something technically.  Each time they asked, I hesitated.  I then gave a very lukewarm, middle of the road, “maybe” kind of answer.

At one point in the day, this producer remarked that I kept saying “no” to their requests.  Afterwards, we had a conversation about how I didn’t feel like I was saying “no”, but that I was processing out loud while I was trying to get the answer out.  The producer understood my point and said we were all good.

Later on, the production team was debriefing the service and I had a change to give the stage manager.  I could tell he was slightly hesitant with how to answer, but what came out of his mouth was like music to my ears:  “Yep.  Got it.  No problem.”

As a leader, his get it done attitude was exactly what I needed from him.  I realized that he had some figuring out to do, but he had a great first response.

This was so eye opening to me.  This is the kind of response my producer needed from me.  This doesn’t mean that I say “yes” to everything, or “no” to everything with a quick answer.  It means that I respond with confidence and with something immediate.  The vague answers I was providing didn’t instill confidence in me or my team and weren’t a great way to get to a solution.

Colin Powell’s rule:  “It can be done!” slapped me in the face this week.

How are you responding to requests?  How can you look at life through a “It can be done!” lens? 

Next rule:  # 5 – Be careful what you choose. You may get it.

This is part 2 in the series of blog posts about Colin Powell’s 13 rules.

In the last post, we talked about Colin Powell’s rule #1, which was “It ain’t as bad as you think.”  The title of this post is rule #2:  “Get mad, then get over it.”

For those of you who know me, it is difficult to imagine me getting mad.  (Maybe you should talk to my kids about this, though.)  But like many technical artists, my “mad” manifests itself in more of a passive way.

When working on a production, there are so many opportunities to get angry about something that isn’t going my way.  For the Leadership Summit a few years ago, we had created a set that made it very difficult for the audio team to do their job to the best of their ability.  Fortunately for me (sarcasm), the team didn’t hesitate to get mad about it to me.  Unfortunately (not sarcasm), by that time it was too late to change it, and we needed to just push through.

Once the event was done, we talked about it some more, and we were able to build trust that we would keep the audio team in the loop better next time.  The other thing that I communicated was that the needs of audio aren’t always the most important, and that the specific event is always going to cause us to compromise in some way.  There needed to be trust that I would fight for what they needed, and trust that I would take the heat if audio failed because of a decision I was making.

Don’t let anger build up.

This story is probably a backwards way of talking about this value of getting mad then getting over it, but what I loved was that someone did get mad about this situation and now we have gotten over it.  So often, tech people hang onto their anger and let it build up.  That build up get then cause us to get mad way more than is normal.

Express your anger at an appropriate time.

The other great part about this story is that they got mad at an appropriate time.  There weren’t any blow-ups in a rehearsal, in front of the whole team.  They didn’t show their anger to all the volunteers.  They talked directly with me, the leader.  We were able to talk about this on the side and figure out how to move on without dragging the whole team down.

Getting mad can help create momentum

There is nothing wrong with getting mad.  There are many times that getting mad helps move me from my complacency.  Sometimes getting mad helps me take a good risk that I might be too afraid to take.  Sometimes getting mad helps me stand up for what I need instead of just taking another one for the team.

The trick for us technical artists is getting mad, working it out, then getting over it. 

Staying mad about something that happened months or years ago, doesn’t help anyone.

It is what makes so many tech people cynical and bitter. 

For those of us doing technical arts in the local church, this is not what Christ had in mind when he designed you, or what he wanted His church to look and feel like.

Read Matthew 18.  It’s a great framework of how to get mad, then get over it.

The next post is about Colin Powell’s #3 rule:

Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.

I’ve been listening to Colin Powell’s new book, “It Worked for Me”.  There is quite a bit of great stuff in there.  Besides the fact that I love it when the author reads their own book, General Powell’s 13 rules are amazing.  He has written about them before, and he even did a Leadership Summit session about them.

As I listened to him talk about them this time, I was reminded of how useful they would be in my own life.  And since this blog is mostly a chance for me to work out my own issues, I’m going to break these down for myself, starting with rule #1:

It ain’t as bad as you think. It will look better in the morning.

So often, my first reaction to a situation is to imagine the worst.  The bad thing that could happen, or trying to figure out how to do something within my current constraints or if I have that tough conversation, it will go bad.  There is usually a great idea waiting just outside of the obvious, things will generally not turn out as bad as I can imagine, if I will just let my brain go there first.

What I love about this rule, is that letting some time pass is a great exercise.  Jonah Lehrer’s book “Imagine” talks about letting an idea marinate in your brain helps to connect the dots to a solution…(even though the book has been removed from the shelves, it still has some good ideas in it.)

Fear and despair are so easy to give in to.  Allowing yourself time to examine every angle can help push these first reactions to the side.  I have tried to discipline my own thinking, to start positive, to think first about how something could be done, before I start figuring out why it can’t be done.

As a tech person, I am all about solutions and figuring out how get something done.  Instead of waiting for tomorrow to calm down and look at something in a new light, I have been trying to start there.  Instead of shooting holes in an idea right off the bat, I am trying to embrace the idea and run with it as we figure out how it can be done.

How can we start with “It ain’t as bad as you think” instead of jumping to crisis mode?  Let’s stop waiting until the morning to realize that we can figure it out.

Check back for the next post about rule #2:  Get mad, then get over it.