This is the second of two posts based on reading Daniel Pink’s book “To Sell is Human”.   In the first post, I talked about Dell’s consulting practice value of having a bias for action.  Their second value is:

Be Easy to Work with.

This is like a serious one-two punch.  Being motivated to get stuff done, and be great to work with!  Are you kidding me?!  I want to work with those people! 

Why does this sound so refreshing?  When you are talking about the people I want to work with, of course I want them to be easy to work with.  When you are talking about me, it seems a little trite:  “Just be easier to work with.”  If it sounds refreshing to me, why wouldn’t it also sound refreshing to someone else who has to work with me.

I don’t often think about how easy I am to work with, I usually just fixate on how difficult other people are.  If being easy to work with were a value of mine, would I behave differently day to day?  For the people that I find easy to work with, what are the characteristics that I appreciate?  What is it about them that makes me want to work with them?

Here are just a few ideas:

Solution oriented.  Like I mentioned in the last post, are you a problem solver or do you just like to point out problems?  Coming up with answers puts you in the “easy to work” with category.  Being someone who likes to roll up their sleeves and figure stuff out makes you someone that people want to work with.

There is also a component of being solution oriented that involves learning how to give feedback well.  Sometimes an idea just won’t work.  How am I communicating that information?  Does the other person still feel like I am for them?  The people that I don’t enjoy working with, make me feel stupid with their feedback.  Their point might be accurate, but I generally don’t like working with those people.

Life is hard.  Have fun.  Normal, everyday life can be a drag sometimes.  Wouldn’t it be nice if we could work hard solving problems and have fun along the way?  To build some margin into the schedule to leave some space for not taking ourselves too seriously.

Sometimes fun can take over and we aren’t getting serious work done.  I’m not suggesting we go that far, but when we say every weekend is like the Super Bowl, and every little thing is an opportunity to lose this big game, that’s just not sustainable in my opinion.  Let’s enjoy ourselves while getting some serious work done.

Common agenda.  For those of us a part of a larger organization, being on the same page is critical for being easy to work with.  I have worked with people in the past that have their own agenda.  Sometimes this would line up with the common purpose, but every now and then it would be very difficult to get work done because they had an alternative agenda.

For the technical artists amongst us, are you more interested in your own boundaries than the mission of your church?  Are you driving for the best equipment over any other concern your church has?  Does technical excellence matter above all things?

Having boundaries and driving for the best equipment aren’t bad things, but if they exist has your highest values above the common good, you might need to take a look at why you work there.  These things get in the way of being a person that others want to work with.

I love working with people that have a bias for action and are easy to work with.  Why wouldn’t I try to be one of those people also?

I have to admit it, I love the church technical arts community.  The last few days of #gurus13 have been some of my favorite.

After not being very diligent with writing for this blog, I’m sitting down to dive back in, and I only keep thinking about all the amazing interactions I had this week.

It feels strange to try to think about something new to write about, when so much has happened that is worth talking about.  It is difficult to narrow down to a single post.

If I had to pick a single take away from Gurus, it would have to be the servant attitudes and actions of so many amazing technical artists.

I know that as a group, we are known for serving the needs of others.  Maybe we aren’t always known for serving with a great attitude, but the fact that someone has an idea and we pull it off, is pretty standard.

The difference this week was all of the presenters, the worship teams, the staff of Willow Creek Church, were falling all over themselves to serve the technical arts community.

For those of you who attended Gurus, and gleaned from the wisdom of this crowd, I hope you have some idea of what a privilege it is to learn from people like Lighting Designer Bob Peterson, or North Coast’s Dennis Choy, or any number of incredible technical arts minds.

I can’t even imagine how different my life would be if I had access to all this knowledge when I was first starting out as a technical artist in the local church.  Once we have all the sessions up on the Gurus website, you definitely need to share it with your teams.  Don’t miss the opportunity to share this amazing content with the people around you.

If you were one of the technical artists that shared your knowledge or served the community in some way, you blow my mind.  To use your free time to pour yourself out for the benefit of people you don’t know and may never see again, is an incredible example to me.  This is taking the idea of servant leadership to a new level.

Not only do we all have something to learn from the knowledge those of you in this group, but the idea of giving back to the technical arts community is something we can all be a little better at.

Being a technical artist in the local church can be lonely.  For those of you who benefitted from your time at Gurus, don’t just go back into your little corner, but expand your corner and include those around you.  Whether from other churches or your own volunteer team.  Reach out.  Give back.  Invest in the lives of other tech people.  Pour yourself out for each other.  Inspire each other to carry on.

God designed us to live in community.  We had the joy to live in the larger technical arts community for the last few days.  There are people in your immediate area just waiting to be gathered and poured into.  Don’t wait for the next big thing to experience investing in others and being invested into.

For some good online community, sign up for ChurchTechLeaders.org.  It is a great place to ask questions and share answers and to keep the community going.

Also, don’t forget to keep checking back to Gurusoftech.com for audio and video of sessions to share with the rest of your team.

photo credit: Loren Javier

No, not Moses.

Momentum.  It’s that thing you can feel, and everybody wants, but is so elusive, that nobody knows for sure how to get it and keep it.  One night while watching the Chicago Bulls try really hard to close the gap with the Miami Heat is a great example.  Of coarse the Bulls want it, so just go get it.  If only.

I have always taken momentum for granted.  I have been fortunate enough to be apart of teams or organizations that have had it, usually in seemingly unlimited quantities.  We were going somewhere and that somewhere was good.

As a leader in a large environment, it is interesting to look around the organization and see ministries that are growing like crazy and amazing things are happening; while once thriving, unstoppable ministries are struggling to gain their footing.

When all I cared about was production and the work load I had to worry about, and the exact right process for what was best for me, I could care less about momentum.  To me, having to figure out where to move the high school ministry because they are too big for their current room, was more of a headache than something to celebrate.  Positive momentum usually meant more work for me.

Now that I lead something bigger, I am all too familiar with how difficult it is to gain momentum…at least the positive kind.  Negative momentum is everywhere, always pulling down. Now add onto this that Satan isn’t a huge fan of what we are doing at our churches, and no wonder positive forward movement is so difficult to obtain.

In Exodus 17, the Israelites have to fight the Amalekites, and the only way that can keep momentum in their favor for Moses to raise his arms up with the staff of God.  Pretty soon, he’s so tired, he needs a couple people to hold up his arms or else the battle is lost.

When I am reminded of how difficult it is to keep positive forward movement going, I often think of this image.

Am I supporting the leader who is trying to keep momentum going or am I just wishing they would get it moving?

Am I “holding up the arms” of the person responsible for the leadership of my church?  Or even the leader of the ministry I’m a part of?

How can I support the work of my leader to keep positive momentum going?

As someone who needs the support of others holding up my arms, please do everything you can to lift up the leaders you work for.  Once lost, momentum may never come back.

Colin Powell’s Rule #10:  Remain calm. Be kind.

A few years ago, I ran into an audio engineer that I used to work with.  After introducing him to the people around me, he started to tell a story that began with, “My biggest memory of Todd was…”.  I remember thinking, “Oh, crap.  What is he going to say?!”  To my relief, here is basically what he told everyone:

We were in the middle of a service and a particular song started.  Pretty soon into it, Todd leaned over to me and said “strings!”  I responded by bringing up the fader for the strings, while mentally kicking myself for missing the cue.

While I was settling into the mix, Todd leaned back over to me and said “vocals”.  I had been so caught up in missing the strings, that I had forgotten to bring up the vocalist’s mic.

At this point in the story, I am wondering what the punch line is going to be…

I couldn’t believe how calm Todd was, even after I missed the second cue.  I so appreciated not being yelled at and berated.  I was already feeling awful about messing up, and Todd’s response helped me to move on and continue mixing.

What a relief!

As a leader, this situation reminded me of 2 things that matter to me in situations like this and that follow this particular rule of General Powell.

Remain Calm.

The first time I saw the “Keep Calm and Carry On” posters that are now everywhere, I couldn’t believe it.  I have been in the habit of saying this to myself for years and suddenly its on a coffee mug.

People look to the leader to see how they respond when all hell is breaking loose.  Am I going to lose my cool, or am I going to calmly solve the problem?

In this example with the audio engineer, I can remember freaking out that we had missed the string quartet cue, but that me yelling at the guy at FOH would probably just fluster him  more than he already was in that moment.

I figure that most people want to do a great job.  He didn’t want to screw up, so telling him to not screw up doesn’t feel like the right answer.  Freaking out would not have solved anything.  In my opinion, freaking out usually just makes things worse.

Be Kind.

I have worked in a few environments where people were motivated to do their very best out of Fear.  Fear of screwing up.  Fear of disappointing someone.  Fear of being yelled at.  These all feel less than ideal to me.

As a production leader, I am pretty aware that I couldn’t mix as well as this particular engineer.  I was also aware that our team/church really needed him to bring his best to our services.  If he were living in fear of me coming down on him every time he screwed up, pretty soon he is working to just not screw up, versus bringing his best for the sake of bringing his best.

There might be more control associated with coming down hard on people, and a little less control involved with people bringing their full self to the table.  You name the day, and I would take people bringing the entirety of who they are and what they can do, and deal with the messiness that comes with it.  I want people to be motivated internally, not by some heavy hand that will squash them when bad things happen.

I know that I want to bring my full self to whatever I am doing, so how can I lead in such a way that encourages that from others?

Remain calm.  Be kind.

General Powell’s rule #9:  Share Credit

If you are a TD in the local church, this can be difficult.  If you are leading groups of technical artists to create life changing moments through the fusion of the technical and creative arts, you spend most of your time setting people up to win, rather than doing something yourself.

As a result, it is very easy to actually not get credit for anything, let alone be given the option of sharing credit.

time of affirmation

On Saturday night, the production team sits around and after debriefing the service, we have the  “Time of Affirmation”, where people talk about great things they noticed other people doing.  There are 2 constants in this part of the meeting.  The first one is that someone has to say “Best monitors ever.”  It doesn’t matter if they were or not, but we all feel guilty that no one ever says anything to the monitor engineer.

The other, less obvious constant, is that I never get affirmed.  If someone starts their affirmation with “Todd…”, it usually means that our amazing volunteer stage manager also named Todd, is in the meeting.

I don’t bring this up so that my team can start making me feel better by making up a bunch of crap on how my contribution made a difference in the service.  I bring it up, because it is secretly my goal, that lines up with this particular rule of Colin Powell.

the set up

As a leader, I view it as my job to set up my team to succeed.  My goal is to make sure the way is clear for people to do what they do best.  I don’t always do a great job of this, but when things are going right, I hope to never take the credit.

I have a pretty health respect for my own lack of ability and I know that most of what I am involved with wouldn’t be happening without the amazing people around me.  I am happy to share credit all day long.  Without a great team, it doesn’t matter how good I am; none of it would happen.

On the flipside, when things go wrong, it is probably due to the team not being set up to win, and therefore I take the credit for those things.

If you are a person who grasps at the credit for all the good things, people know it.  The people that work for you know that you hog the spotlight and the people that are above you will eventually see through your shallow grabbing at all the glory.

Also on the flipside, if you are taking the responsibility when things are not going well, the people that work for you will know that you have their back, and the people you work for will know that you aren’t the type to throw your team under the bus.

Not getting credit is the reality of a leader, especially a TD.  The best type of leader is one who is comfortable enough in their roll to keep giving the credit away.

Next up:  #10 Remain calm. Be kind.

I had a vision the other day.  I’m not really a vision kind of a person, but I am still thinking about it a week later, so I figured it was worth writing down.

My vision had a big funnel in it.  Like the kind my dad used when we put gas in the tractor.  Stainless steel, pretty big, maybe the only difference is my vision funnel didn’t smell like gas.

In my non-gas smelling vision, God had opened up heaven and the funnel was there to catch God’s power, blessing and whatever God was pouring down.  The funnel was used to catch and focus His blessing and favor onto His people.  God doesn’t need the funnel, but for whatever reason He decides to use it as a way to communicate His love to this world.

The top of the funnel changes from larger to smaller allowing more or less of God in.  The bottom of the funnel is larger or small allowing more or less of God out.

I am the funnel.

The top of the funnel is how much I am willing to open myself up to what God would have for me;  how much I receive what God is throwing my way.  The bottom of the funnel is what I do with it.

Top of the Funnel: Am I opening myself up to God and allowing Him to speak into my life?  Am I trusting Him to do all He said He would do?  Am I filling up myself with God’s word on a regular basis and having it affect my daily life?

Bottom of the Funnel: Am I restricting what God wants to do in this world or am I freely giving away what He has given to me?  Am I comfortable?  Am I keeping all the knowledge, experience and perspective to myself or am I ready to give it all away to help someone else on their journey?   Are the choices I make affecting people around me positively?  Am I acting on what I feel God is calling me to be about?

Could the top of my funnel be bigger?  Without question.  But the top of the funnel is between me and God.  The top of the funnel involves me making time for Him; it involves filling my mind with His word; it involves me receiving from God.

My trouble is the bottom of the funnel.  In my vision, I was keeping the bottom of the funnel very narrow.  Because of my own insecurities and my own hang ups, I was choosing to limit what God wanted to do with my life and in the lives of the people around me.

If the world needs more of God than less, why would I allow my own issues get in the way?  Why wouldn’t I want the bottom of my funnel as wide as the top?  To not restrict God’s power, love and blessing flowing through me?

The people around me need me to stop being a narrow funnel.  My work place needs me to stop being a narrow funnel.  My church, my ministry, the world all need me to stop being a narrow funnel.

This is questionable theology, but it has me thinking differently about how to let the love of God flow through me without restrictions.

If you have made it this far, I’d love to know your thoughts.

General Powell’s Rule #6:  Don’t let adverse facts stand in the way of a good decision.

In my last post, I talked about how I can tend to not make a decision based on my own worst imagination.  What about the good decision that needs to get made, yet you know that some not great things will happen?  There will be side effects.

Leadership is made up of decisions like this.  If the outcome of every decision were nice and pleasant, then more people would probably be leaders.  As a type 9 on the Enneagram (the peacemaker) I am always trying to make decisions that leave everyone happy.  This is not possible.  For those of you, non-9’s out there, you are saying to yourself “no duh!” (do people still say that?)

Much of the time, decisions are about picking the one that has the least number of down sides; the one that is the best of some pretty bad option; or the one that is the best for the organization, but not necessarily for individuals.

If you are a leader, the people that follow you need you to make decisions.

They need you to make good decisions.

Sometimes good decisions have some negative side effects.

Not making good decisions because of bad side effects is essentially the same as making a bad decision.

Wow…this was good for me to hear.  I love this blog!

Next:  Rule #7 – You can’t make someone else’s choices.  You shouldn’t let someone else make yours.

Colin Powell’s rule #3:

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

Ouch!  How many times have I not lived out this rule?  As someone who is passionate about what I do, it is easy to believe deeply about my ideas.  It is also easy to get too attached to them along the way.

having my feelings hurt

Many times, it is easy to feel wounded after having an idea rejected.  The problem with this is that I am taking things too personally.  People aren’t making a comment on me as a person, they just don’t like that particular idea.  One problem with this is that when each idea is rejected, or not taken, it is easy to let this affect my willingness to share another idea when the time comes.

Henry Cloud talks about how some people respond to a given situation.  They take it Personally; they imagine it is Pervasive, that all their ideas are bad; and they make it Permanent, always tending to put themselves too close to their idea.

Having my feelings hurt sounds really childish, and when I think about it, I am embarrassed to even admit that this ever happens to me.

So how can I move past making a rejected idea not destroy my ego, and move onto the next idea?

not getting your way

Being a team player means that you fight like crazy for your idea, but hold it loosely enough that people don’t feel like they have to take your idea.

I have been in plenty of meetings where is someone wasn’t getting their way, the rest of the people were shamed into finally agreeing to that person’s idea, even though it wasn’t the best one.  That feels pretty nasty.

So what happens when you don’t get your way?  Do you push your idea through?  Do you clam up?  Do you try to subtly sabotage the idea that was selected?  Do you just half-heartedly go along with the plan that wasn’t yours?  Are you going to be a sore loser or can your rise above getting your way?

So many tech people I know can use this opportunity to bury their true feelings, to add this to the pile of disappointments that add up to become a passive aggressive, bitter production person.  This isn’t helping you or your team.  Learn how to “lose” well.

jumping on board with the idea that was selected

The tension of fighting for your idea, then holding it loosely is to be able to drop your idea and get fully behind the one that was chosen.  This is one of those tensions that Andy Stanley would tell us to learn to manage.  It will never go away.

This is one of those things that can be very difficult to do, but is something that bosses look for and that say a lot about who you are as a person.  Once another idea has been selected, your character can show through by you giving your very best to whatever idea the team has decided on.

If give the “not your idea” your very best, you will be seen as an amazing team player.  If it fails, like you said it would, and you gave it everything you had, it can’t be said to have failed because you gave it your very least.  AND if you keep your mouth shut and don’t say “I told you so.” you will be trusted that much more for the next idea.

How can you rise above your ego to support the best idea, whether it is yours or not?

Next post:  General Powell’s rule #4: It can be done!

I have been reflecting on a post I had written a couple of years ago, that talked about how Dwight Eisenhower would take the  initiative to lead, instead of just being manipulated by events as they came at him.  The challenge here is that, for those of us in production, so much of what we do is dependent on someone else to take the lead and then for us to respond to it.

So how can I take my own advice and not just be a victim in the circumstances that come at me, versus taking the initiative and possibly overstepping the role of production by becoming the person shaping events?

Here are a few areas I think are within my control to strive for action on, without turning someone else’s idea into something unrecognizable.

Relationships

Building relationships with the creatives I work with is definitely within my control.  Instead of waiting to have someone understand my world, I can reach out and understand someone else’s world.  I can step out of the booth and make the first move to get to know the people on the stage.  I am responsible for my side of the relational equation.  What am I doing to help promote collaboration through relationship building?

Solution Oriented

Tech people are notorious for being perceived as saying “It can’t be done.” or just killing brainstorming by pointing out all the reasons someone won’t work.  In an interview I had with Blaine Hogan, we talked about the idea of “We can’t do that.” versus “How can we do that?”.  The difference in the two is vast.  One is alienating and the other is team oriented.  One is anti-team, the other communicates that we are for each other.  What language I use to help the collaboration process?

Define Reality

So much of the time, I don’t really understand the process that a creative artist goes through to make a service happen.  The opposite is true:  they generally don’t understand my world either.  Constantly communicating what it takes to pull off ideas, and refining the process of how we accomplish a service together is within my control.  Assuming that people know what is involved from a production standpoint doesn’t help making production the most effective it can be.  How can I define reality in such a way that it isn’t driving the process but helping us problem solve together?

Whether you are a member of a team, or the leader of a team, these are just a few ways to take control of your environment and make your situation better, without shaping events that aren’t your to necessarily shape.

I believe that every situation is a chance to either gain trust or lose trust.  I have had many conversations with technical artists at churches all over and trust seems like a common topic of conversation.  Can you trust a volunteer to do a particular task?  Can you trust a band member to be prepared for rehearsal?  Can you trust your 16 year old with the keys to the car?

What informs the decision on whether we trust someone or not?  History.  The collection of events that make up your life and inform others what you will most probably do.

What is your history say?  What do the sum of your choices and responses add up to?  If I were to ask the people you work with, what would they say?  Can your decisions be trusted, or are you known for blowing smoke?

As a technical artist in the local church, I am guessing that you are familiar with the stereotype of tech people…The first reaction is no.  Always complaining about the process not being good enough.  Asking for things that are expensive.  Having an excuse for why something is working right…(need more gear).  If we hope to be a driving force in our churches, and be able to influence how are churches do ministry, we need to have a past history that enables people to trust us.

The challenge is what to do when your leader/boss doesn’t take your recommendation.  It is really easy to feel trusted and a part of the solution when people take your advice.  But what about when someone decides to do the exact opposite of what you think is right?  Obviously each situation is different, but each one is an opportunity to be trusted; another chance for people to add something positive to the history they know of you.

A few instances from my early ministry life stand out, where decisions were made that went against my recommendations.  One in particular involved opening a new video venue in the high school where our church met.  Since we hadn’t really gotten into video until then, I suggested that we have a one week test, where we set up all the cameras and the large screen in the overflow room, before we invited the congregation to attend.  I think you could probably write the rest of the story:  leadership decided to open without a test weekend, the team worked through the night to get the system up and running, the room was packed on the first week and the projector wouldn’t work, we had to ask everyone to go back to the main auditorium.

The natural response for me was to say “I told you so.” and to jump on the idea of how little non-tech people understand my world, and such a typical church leadership decision made in a vacuum, etc.  In reality, I had given my recommendation and they didn’t go with it.  I still put everything I had into trying to make it work, but then when it went south, I didn’t rub my superiority into anyone’s face.  As a result, the leadership above me had a data point that said, “Todd said this was a bad idea, he gave it everything he had and it still didn’t work.  We might want to listen to him next time.”

Each decision, each interaction, each choice you make speaks volumes about what kind of person you are.  It is important to leverage each one, the good and the bad.  Every time you have a chance to speak into something, you should.  You should also know that every one of your ideas will not be acted on, yet how you handle yourself in these moments speaks more about you than handling the good situations. 

Most of us can respond well when people take your advice.  How will you respond when they don’t? 

 photo credit: Profound Whatever