Leaders Adjust

The word of the day is “adjust.” This is one of the most important lessons I learned when I joined the Army. Talk about being frustrated. We would be set to do something, and then, at the last second, the world would fall apart, and then we would suddenly do something completely different. It was not ideal, to say the least. Then I talked to one of my buddies, and he told me that if I did not get used to this way of life, I would not make it. So, I adjusted.

"Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face." -Mke Tyson

My question is: Where do you need to adjust in your life? What I do know is that we all need to make adjustments. It’s just a fact of life. As a leader, you will be put in situations that require you to change and adapt. In the Army, we call this "adjusting fire." And, as we see in the quote above from Mike Tyson, life is not always nice to us. So, I encourage you today to be ready for the unforeseen. It is not a matter of if but when. As leaders, we need to make changes when necessary so that our teams can have faith that we will get them through the tough stuff. Lead well.

Winning in Leadership

Defense wins championships. That’s what the great Paul Bear Bryant once said.  That's all there is to it. I think everybody tries to make it more difficult than it is. Sure, the entire football world has gone to new styles of play where they just scored a bunch of points, and they hope that they can have more at the end of the game in the last one. I mean, offense is sexier for television and brings out the fan base and your ship. But that still means you must have a good defense because letting the other guys score too much will not bode well. What does that mean for leadership?

It means that although you want to get out there and do all the fun things, like speaking in front of people to be the hero, the reality is you aren't doing enough of the boring work that never gets seen. Championships are one by doing the slow of a problematic, not this everyday work. For leaders, that is stuff like reading a ton of clips, listening to other leaders, and taking enough time to analyze what is going right and wrong in your industry. I want you to win. I want you to be a champion in your field. So, let me leave you with a great quote by one of my favorite competitors ever, which I think will do well for you to post on your computer screen or bathroom mirror…

“The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses - behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights.” ~Muhammad Ali

Know the rules, ask good questions...

Playing sports as I grew up we lived in a culture where whatever the coach said was gospel. Sure, we asked questions from time to time, but for the most part we just did what he told us to do. In fact, when I began coaching years later, I remember having to get a hold of my coach to ask him the ins and outs of what I needed to do to help athletes be successful. It was really the first time in my life where I had good solid conversations about finding out why we do what we do.

Fast forward to today’s youth, and young people in general, it is a much different culture. There are a lot of questions and it doesn’t matter what industry that you are in, people are going to want to know why you do what you do. And a lot of people that consult with me say they get very frustrated with this “new way of doing life.” I remind them that putting focus on such thoughts will only lead to more frustration.

Young people are going to ask questions, and we need to get used to it, and find out how we can help them understand the importance of following rules, which is ultimately for their own good and life growth. I just started reading through the Bible again, as I do each year, and there was an excerpt from a little-known and not very popular book, one that has a ton of great lessons if people would only read it. Here’s what it says:

“If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments, and perform them, then I will give you rain in its season, the land shall yield its produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. . . . I will walk among you and be your God, and you shall be My people.”

 ~Leviticus 26:3–4, 12

God puts it out there, plain as day… follow His commandments. But for some reason, like many of the young people I coach today, the Israelites decided to not listen. They had a nasty habit of not just asking good questions, but also downright abusing God’s grace and love to the point where they couldn’t help but gravitate back towards a life of sin. 

I think a lot of us are the same way today. I realize that back when I used to play sports, as long as I was listening to what the coach told me to do, I was doing pretty good. But it was only when I decided to ask too many questions and think that I knew a better way did I start to trip up and make mistakes. So I guess my question is: What are the rules that you have trouble following? My prayer is that in your pursuit to ask good questions, you do not forget that there are others out there that know more than you and if you grab a hold of them, and follow their advice, you might just be better off. Find those people, and never let them go.

Praying for you,

MO

Are you attractive...

I have taken pretty much every assessment known to mankind - strengths, personalities, gifts, you name it. One of the fun parts of working with others and helping them understand their abilities is that I have to make sure to know my own. However, before I entered that intentional time in my journey, I learned early in Kevin’s ministry that I really enjoyed the way that he ran the youth group. In fact, it was because of his understanding of how to run a “program” that I fell in love with that part of the process.

I never really knew it while I was moving through Kevin’s high school ministry, but by the time I was on the leadership team in my later years in high school, and later as a paid staff member, I was learning to run a midweek or weekend program that was both fun and effective. Kevin was always about program. Start times, and times, everything in between, resources, people, and the like. He was so passionate about getting all of these pieces of the puzzle to fit perfectly that I began to value the same. And that’s what leaders do.

Because Kevin was such a program guy, he attracted people that had the same passion. Now, of course that is not the only quality that I was attracted to when it came to his leadership style, but it was definitely a big factor. I really appreciated that he paid attention to the details, without micromanaging. I never liked micromanagement, and Kevin knew that. I still think back and wonder how difficult it must of been to deal with all of my shortcomings and failures. I am just glad that he never kicked me to the curb.

Kevin made ministry fun. And, all of the people who were on staff, from college kids all the way up to adults, felt like they were part of the process, and that they had a stake in the game. We were all important in our specific capacities in making that program run. We were all different cogs of the same machine. Peter understood this facet of leadership…

“For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins.” ~ 1 Peter 1:5-9

Wow, talk about a guy who knew what kind of people he was looking for! So the question is: do you possess the qualities of the people that you hope to attract to walk the road with you? Remember, we attract who we are, not who we want to be. If you find yourself wanting people on your team or inner circle that have better, or even different, qualities then my encouragement is that you take an introspective look and figure out what you need to do to become the kind of person that you want to attract. Just like two great leaders did, Peter and Kevin, my encouragement is that you decide what kind of people you want to have on your team, and then do everything in your ability to master those qualities. 

Praying for you,

MO

How you should be...

I was a bit of a loud mouth growing up. No matter what I did I felt like everyone needed to listen to me because, well, I was much smarter than them and everyone could use a little bit of my great ideas. I played sports and would try to command the team to listen to me, whether it was on the field or in the pool.

I remember in one of my water polo games during my junior year when I first began to realize the error of my ways. I had recently accepted Jesus into my life and was struggling to be as popular as humanly possible at school, be the best at sports, and be on the leadership team at church. As you might imagine, this did not work out so much for me. Well, this particular game was getting out of hand and I was not happy with my teammates and their play. Of course nothing was my fault and everyone else was the problem. I got more and more ticked off as the game went on, and we only fell more and more behind, until our ultimate defeat was sealed with a crushing loss.

On the bus ride home I gave a great lecture about needing to be better and that people had to be more committed… and so on. I was pretty proud of myself. So proud that the next day at church I told Kevin about my great leadership skills; he was going to be so proud of me too. Well, he only had one question for me, as was customary in our relationship, “Wow, how did your teammates respond?” Uhhh… silence.

That’s all it took for me to realize, for seriously the first time like ever, that no one ever listened to me. I mean, why would they? All I did was give away blame, puff myself up, and now worst of all (and I still blame this on Kevin for introducing me to Jesus), give Christians and my church a bad name. What an idiot I was! I stewed all night, knowing that I had absolutely zero influence over any of my guys. I was embarrassed, humiliated, and ashamed.

But here is the cool part, the lesson that I learned from all that was that I had been bloviating for so long and trying to assert my great leadership, and only made myself look stupid. Kevin, on the other hand, asked a simple question, without trying to make me look stupid; he genuinely wanted to know. My way vs. Kev's way was night and day.

You see, Kevin was leading out of who he was, and that showed through his humility even in that situation. He was leading out of his very being. And that is the mark of a great leader - one who is more focused on “being” than “doing.” Proverbs 11:30 says,

“Live right, and you will eat from the life-giving tree. And if you act wisely, others will follow.”

Kevin was living right and acting wisely, I was not. You can figure out the rest, I am sure. So my question is: Are you more interested in being or doing? When we focus on ourselves and become better people, it comes out in the way that we speak, act, and live. My encouragement is that you ask a couple of peeps you trust where you are on that being vs. doing spectrum. Love to hear your thoughts.

Praying for you,

MO

Choose wisely

Growing up I made pretty good decisions regarding my friend choices. None of my friends ever really got into major trouble, nor were they on the verge of doing anything illegal. However, it was not until I started hanging out at church that I realized that some of the kids my age were making better decisions than I was.

One night Kevin gave a sermon about choosing the right friendships. He mentioned that people come into our lives to be one of the following: friends for a reason, friends for a season, and friends for a lifetime. After that message I did not really know what kind of friends I had. All I knew was that those were the guys that I hung out with on a day-to-day basis; I had no purpose behind those choices. Kevin’s challenge to me and the kids in our youth group was to be more intentional about the people that we associated with. The verse that I was left with stuck in my head that night was:

“He who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will be destroyed.” ~Proverbs 13:20 (NKJV)

Over the next several months I realized even further that I spent time with a lot of different people, but nobody I really ever wanted to be like. They were all really good people, but none of them were really what I aspired to be. I wanted to be more like Kevin. And the best way to do that was to spend more time at church, because all of the group leaders were trying to do the same. If I wanted to be more like Kevin, I needed to be more like my group leaders.

Fast forward a couple of years, I ended up dedicating my life to Jesus Christ and started walking intentionally. Every person who came into my life automatically had the potential to be one of the three categories above. It was so interesting, and fun, to see the relationships in my life as something more than just happenstance. Little did I know that I was becoming more intentional.

So my question is: What kind of people are you choosing to hang out with, and are they the kind of people that you aspire to be like? My challenge is that you make the conscious decision to invest your time into people that can make an impact on your life, and vice versa. Time on earth is short, and the choices that we make, especially with relationships, are probably among the most important. Choose wisely.

Praying for you,

MO

Giving selflessly...

I started attending Kevin’s youth group towards the end of my freshman year in high school.  I started going because a couple of my friends were there, and of course there were pretty girls.  But the ministry was so incredible that I soon found myself enthralled with the entire group, and especially the leaders.  The young men and women who hung out with all of us high school kids were so committed, it was crazy.  But of course, I did not know that back then...  I just thought that was normal.  Fortunately for me, I was in a great ministry system that did not really exist in too many places.  This youth group, and its staff especially, were unique.

As I began to spend more time at the youth group during both the midweek program, and eventually the weekend service, the leaders always seemed to be there.  They ranged from college kids all the way to adults with kids themselves.  But this leadership team was committed to all of us high school students even though they themselves were super busy with life.  They gave up night after night, weekend after weekend, and even time beyond that... it is no wonder the youth group flourished and grew, both in size and in faith.  They were very unselfish with their time, and were always ready to give more to others. There selflessness reminded me of what Paul wrote to the the church in Philippi:

“Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.” ~Phil 2:3-4

Because of the time invested in me by these men and women, it spurred my love for youth ministry and wanting to give back.  My question is: who are the people who have given selflessly to you in your journey?  My encouragement is that you reach out to them and let them know that you appreciate the time that they have put into you.  If it weren’t for them, you would not be the person you are today.

Praying for you,

MO