On Leading Well

Year: 2009

  • How Do We Lead Gen F?

    Gen F – the Facebook Generation.

    Facebook hit 200 million users this week, in 40 languages.  That’s doubled from 100 million just 8 short months ago. [Update: Facebook hit 500 million registered users in the summer of 2010.] The NY Times graphed the progress, including the generational element. If Facebook were a country, it would be the world’s 5th most populous nation, following China, India, the USA and snuggled between Indonesia (220 million) and Brazil (190 million).

    The under-25’s are the people that have never known a time when they couldn’t know more about a subject than their professors could teach in a 45-minute lecture simply by exploring the top 10 Google hits. No wonder this group is a bit skeptical of leadership authority culture based on traditional currencies such as age, position or tenure.

    If you are currently hiring, leading, serving or parenting Gen F’ers, you’ve already begun to experience the quantum shifts unique to this group and how they rub against our 20th century norms. We need to adjust our expectations to lead, love, learn from and serve well this flexible, well-connected, highly-social group that longs to change the world.

    Gary Hamel of the Wall Street Journal says: If your company hopes to attract the most creative and energetic members of Gen F, it will need to understand these Internet-derived expectations, and then reinvent its management practices accordingly. Sure, it’s a buyer’s market for talent right now, but that won’t always be the case—and in the future, any company that lacks a vital core of Gen F employees will soon find itself stuck in the mud.

    Gary includes an excellent list of 12 principles to help guide and shape our leadership culture. Here are the first six (the whole article is here):

    1. All ideas compete on an equal footing.
    On the Web, every idea has the chance to gain a following—or not, and no one has the power to kill off a subversive idea or squelch an embarrassing debate. Ideas gain traction based on their perceived merits, rather than on the political power of their sponsors.

    2. Contribution counts for more than credentials.
    When you post a video to YouTube, no one asks you if you went to film school. When you write a blog, no one cares whether you have a journalism degree. Position, title, and academic degrees—none of the usual status differentiators carry much weight online. On the Web, what counts is not your resume, but what you can contribute.

    3. Hierarchies are natural, not prescribed.
    In any Web forum there are some individuals who command more respect and attention than others—and have more influence as a consequence. Critically, though, these individuals haven’t been appointed by some superior authority. Instead, their clout reflects the freely given approbation of their peers. On the Web, authority trickles up, not down.

    4. Leaders serve rather than preside.
    On the Web, every leader is a servant leader; no one has the power to command or sanction. Credible arguments, demonstrated expertise and selfless behavior are the only levers for getting things done through other people. Forget this online, and your followers will soon abandon you.

    5. Tasks are chosen, not assigned.
    The Web is an opt-in economy. Whether contributing to a blog, working on an open source project, or sharing advice in a forum, people choose to work on the things that interest them. Everyone is an independent contractor, and everyone scratches their own itch.

    6. Groups are self-defining and -organizing.
    On the Web, you get to choose your compatriots. In any online community, you have the freedom to link up with some individuals and ignore the rest, to share deeply with some folks and not at all with others. Just as no one can assign you a boring task, no can force you to work with dim-witted colleagues.

  • Brokenness & Transformation: A Lent Meditation


    Our old bathroom had two rooms: one for vanities, the other a toilet and tub.
    Dark and confining. Functional not inviting.
    Cheap white tile and brown stick-on linoleum,
    green walls, pickled cabinets, bisque porcelain.
    Displeasing dissonance. All must go.
    Potential: Could it be better? Brighter?

    An afternoon with Jack, Travis and a reciprocating saw begins a radical transformation.
    The right tools make the job much easier.
    Demolition brings dust and splinters and draws some blood.
    Ominous stains lurking behind the tub, the stubborn wall –
    they fought hard but they’re gone now.
    Brokenness: Things must get worse before they get better.

    Virgin wall board, stylish tile, fresh paint, polished granite, new hardware.
    Color. Space. Light. Life.
    Restoration and Invitation: Come on in and stay awhile.

    My heart has two personas: one for my vanities, one that longs to be clean.
    Anger and love. Competition and compassion.
    Functional but not always inviting.
    Stubborn habits, selfish ambitions, proud defenses, carnal passions.
    My talents, my dreams, my experiences, my strengths,
    me, me, me, me.
    Displeasing dissonance. All must go.
    Potential: Could it be better? Brighter?

    An afternoon with Jesus on the cross begins a radical transformation.
    The Roman tool of punishment makes the job much easier.
    Death brings dust and splinters and draws much blood.
    Ominous stains of my sin, my stubborn will –
    they fought hard but have been crucified.
    Brokenness: Things must get worse before they get better.

    True faith, fresh hope, pure love, new freedom.
    Color. Space. Light. Life.
    Restoration and Invitation: Come on in and stay awhile.

    klc, 3/09

  • Becoming A Man of Prayer…Again

    In January 2003 I became a man of prayer. It happened in this way….

    A few days before Christmas I had received an urgent phone call. A last-minute cancellation provided an opportunity to teach a week-long class on the Pentateuch to a handful of national staff members living in a creative-access country. I had another fairly consuming day job and I would only have a week to prepare. We’d be going six mornings in a row, 8-noon in class, with afternoons open for assignments and evenings dedicated to fellowship and tutoring. Duty and my need for a fresh challenge called, so I accepted.

    As is often the case in creative-access contexts, we met in a walled, secluded compound about an hour outside of the city. It was freezing cold – outside and inside. We needed to maintain a very low profile. Once inside the gate, there would be no coming or going for the week. No email. Splotchy cell phone use. Self-imposed isolation. Instant monk.

    The first two days I felt antsy. After teaching in the morning and sharing lunch with the students, I had nothing to do while they studied in the long, bitterly cold afternoons. I napped. I read. I cranked through my email backlog. As God would have it, John Piper’s excellent, practical sermon entitled “Be Devoted To Prayer” made it into my inbox before the communication blackout. God had also been working in my heart over the past few weeks in conversations and articles I’d read, creating a deep longing – a yearning – to bring far more of myself and my burdens before him in prayer.

    So I began to pray. I discovered that the more I prayed the more I enjoyed it.

    Free and Formed. Desperate and Delighted. Explosive and Extended. I had always carried a prayer list for my family, my team, key issues, etc, but something new occurred to me. At the time my team was responsible for overseeing ministry efforts in over 100 locations by teams from a dozen countries. I was learning distance leadership skills. I knew I could never personally visit each team. But I sensed the Lord saying: “Ken, I am an expert at leading over distance. And there is no reason that you cannot personally pray for every one of these people, name by name, on a regular basis. Bring them before me.”

    So my personal development plan for 2003 was forged. The plan was very simple. Every Thursday morning from 4 – 6 am I would rise, open the Bible, and read until the Spirit impressed me with a passage. I would open my laptop, load our database, and simply pray that passage into the life of every person and team across our ministry. Some days it felt a little like a chore. Most days I felt a sense of peace, relief, and increased confidence that God was at work and everything was going to be all right. What surprised me was the increased levels of energy and awareness – my sensitivities to all other areas of the ministry began to grow, as did my love for people. At the end of that year, I remember thinking “Why haven’t I been doing this more often?”

    Now I have a different job with a broader scope. God is beckoning me to become a man of prayer…again.

    “There is no better way to learn about prayer than by praying… It is good to debate the mysteries of prayer, to ponder the profundities of prayer, to learn the methods of prayer. It is better to pray.” — Richard Foster