Mistakes leaders make (6/10)

I’m working my way through a book, The Top 10 Mistakes Leaders Make, by Hans Finzel, and I’m really enjoying the challenge. So for the next ten Saturdays I want to work through these ten mistakes, knowing that they apply to CEOs, ministry leaders, parents, teachers, coaches, pastors and just about anyone in any kind of leadership role. I promise to keep my summaries short(ish), and I would love to interact with your thoughts as we go along. These mistakes are listed in order of how they occur in the book, not necessarily how I would arrange them. Overboard Leadership requires an honest self-evaluation of each of these shortcomings (sins?) of leaders. Looking for missed posts, click here: Mistake #1, Mistake #2, Mistake #3, Mistake #4, Mistake #5)

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Mistake #6: Dirty Delegation

I’m convinced that there are few more defeating mistakes made by leaders, than the mistake of dirty delegation. A top-down leader can dominate followers into frustration. A paperwork leader elevates task over people. A non-affirming leader has followers that aren’t sure if they are valued. A leader who rejects Mavericks has a team that is constantly stuck. A dictator robs his team or family of their creative freedom. And a dirty delegator creates a defeated, broken-spirited, culture.

What is dirty delegation? It’s the not-so-fine art of giving projects to personnel, only to add someone to the team, or invite someone else to do the same project, without communicating your intent. It’s asking a team member to work on a project, then outsourcing it to someone else or bringing in outside eyes to evaluate without communicating your actions. Top-down leaders and dictators can easily fall into the trap of dirty delegation...along with anyone else who has ever led a team.

Why? Because delegation is hard for many leaders! Maybe you relate to one of these fears about delegation?

1. Fear of losing authority
2. Concern for the quality of work (no one can do it as well as you, right?)
3. Fear of work being done better (uh-oh...someone else might do your job better than you!)
4. Unwillingness to take the time
5. Too disorganize to even give necessary details about the area needing delegation
6. Lack of leadership training or other positive delegation experiences
7. Fear of losing value within the organization

Theodore Roosevelt said, “The best executive is the one who has the sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.” Dirty delegators usually push the good men and women away from their group because they lack the self-restraint to allow them to produce. Good leaders recognize the delegation allows for personal ownership and investment, and this is crucial for: happiness in the home or workplace; inspiration for creative new ideas; freedom for personal expression and the opportunity to learn from mistakes.

Kaleo Korner (By Justin VanRheene, founder of Kaleo Media)

I’ve had jobs and have watched friends be employed in places that have managers that succumb to the fears above. Its very frustrating. Here are a few ways I’ve seen help bringing clarity, and empowering productivity.

Start with why. One principle I start with on all new clients is, start with why? Having a clear understanding of the big idea will help bring freedom to employees as you begin going after the four parts of delegation that Finzel states: assignment, authority, accountability, and affirmation.

“Because I said so?” As a parent, coach, teacher, etc. I’m sure you’ve said, or wanted to say, when questioned about a project, assignment, or task, “Because I said so!” Being in a position of authority, that seems like a great thing to say because you’re the boss. There is an older volunteer I work with at my church, who said one time, “Has that ever worked?” I’m not sure it has but I’m in my 30s and I heard it when I was a kid.

But so many of the things we’ll be involved in as a leader demand more than a “because I said so.” They require vision. And believe it or not, those who struggle with dirty delegation, don’t have a vision for their organization. In many situations, their identity is their organization and to leave their reputation in the hands of someone else is just not possible.

If anyone had the right to over-manage, it was Jesus. If anyone was confident he could do a job better, it was Jesus! And yet, as His ministry progressed, He began to release more and more opportunities for His disciples! On one occasion in the Gospel, he sent out 72 disciples to spread the Good News all over Israel, and He gave them power and authority to do miracles, to heal sick people, to cast out demonic spirits and to put a blessing (or curse!) on the towns they entered (Luke 10:1-24). Jesus delegate real opportunity, real authority and gave his followers a chance to experience the joy of ministry (10:17, 10:21).

Han says there are four parts to real delegation: Assignment, authority, accountability and affirmation. These four parts answer the main questions most followers have. What am I supposed to do? An assignment answers the question that is tops on most children, team mates, employees, managers or coaches, the question about activity. What is my job?

Once they know the “what”, they want to know if they will have the freedom and authority to execute that task: Will you let me do it? If you assign the brand redesign to an employee, but don’t provide the time or financial resources to accomplish the task, they will fail. Do they have the authority to do the task? The next question is, Will you help me when I need it? It’s the question of accountability and follow up: will you help them through the process and check on their progress along the way?

Finally, the fourth question employees ask is, Will you let me know how I’m doing? Every follower wants to know that their work is valuable, helpful and contributing to the overall goal! Does the word affirmation mean anything to you (Mistake #3)??

Of course, every follower has a different capacity for delegation. Not all followers can handle, or even desire, stand alone work. Some players are just more efficient, effective and happy when working under closer supervision. Others want a long leash and only occasional check-ins. Learning how each of your team members works is crucial, and honestly, it’s why many leaders don’t delegate. The work of learning who your team members operate, is sometimes harder than the work of releasing the labor!

I love the list Finzel ends the chapter with, giving 9 guidelines for clean delegation:

1. Choose qualified people
2. Exhibit confidence in your team
3. Clarify duties
4. Delegate proper authority for the work
5. Avoid telling them how to do the work you’ve just given them
6. Set up accountability points throughout the project
7. Supervise according to their work style
8. Give room for mistakes
9. Give praise and credit for work well done

Delegation can be challenging, but if you want to multiply your effectiveness and influence, it’s a skill worth mastering.

So go ahead and take the plunge, your leadership will be better on the water!

Joe Castaneda

Mistakes leaders make, 7/10

Special thanks to Justin VanRheenen, friend and founder of Kaleo Media. If you want to increase your online presence, or improve your social media content and skills, contact Justin and learn from him!

"My life has no meaning."

“Thank you...now my life has no meaning.” “What the h*** am I supposed to do now?”

“Life officially sucks.”

I read these statements in regard to a recent national tragedy. Which one? The financial crisis? The execution of Americans oversees? The Iraqi war? No, none of those. This was the event that devastated our entire country earlier this week: the Netflix blackout of 2014.

Seriously.

And there were more. Like this man who wrote, “This is B*** S*** Netflix, I just started my free trial and I better get credit for this loss of time.” Or this was written by a woman, “The kids are gone, [name] is away and now I have nothing to do while I’m home alone.”

I know some of the responses were tongue and cheek, but I also know far too many of them were far too serious. In the first hour of the black out, there were over 10,000 posted comments on the one site I visited. Many of those people were angry, hurt and -- yes, I’m saying it -- despondent over the loss of Netflix.

Coincidentally, I picked up a magazine two days ago that featured some of TVs hottest shows. In one article, the author did a comparison of the amount of time it takes to watch an entire series on DVD or Netflix (or Hulu or Amazon Prime etc...) versus other activities. It caught my eye immediately, because one of my favorite shows, NCIS, was listed in the top-5.

I was enjoying the piece until I read this line in the article: In the time it takes to watch all 11 seasons of NCIS, you could earn your airline pilot’s license. Seriously? I could be a licensed pilot today if I had taken those 44-minute blocks and studied to fly instead of watching Gibbs smack Dinozzo on the back of the head?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big advocate of down-time, and taking intentional time to rest. I don’t have a problem with watching a show, enjoying a movie or reading a book or taking a nap. Rest is important. What I do work on in my own life, is making sure that “taking a rest” or “having down time” doesn’t become the thrust of my life. In other words, when Netflix goes down, I want my life to still have meaning, I want to still have a plan for what I’m going to do, and I surely don’t want the suckiness of life to hinge on whether or not I can see if Ducky’s most recent autopsy solves the crime or not.

But more importantly, this Netflix outage begs the question: What are you doing with your spare time? How are you and I investing the precious hours God has given us?

Every September I like to take time to recalibrate my life. I take the 30-days of the month to refocus on a number of areas including my health, my spiritual growth, my professional growth and, especially, how I manage my time. I usually attack the month with a pretty sharp laser-like focus and eliminate a lot of mental clutter, in order to tackle projects/dreams/goals/ideas with a little extra intentionality. Like running, I usually dread the oncoming month, but -- like running -- I’m always thankful for the results when I’m finished.

This September is no different. I’m gearing up for 30 days of extra focus and I’m eliminating some things that hinder my effort. Look for my detailed list to emerge in this blog before the end of August, and I would love your feedback. What about you? Could you use a little more intentionality in your life? What would it look like for you to shave a little time here or there, in order to achieve something significant?

My friend Danny Ray has always heralded a 15-minute time-management plan. Work on something for 15 minutes at a time and see what you can get done. Rotate between projects and tasks and see what you can accomplish, 15 minutes at a time. In the book, The Compound Effect, Darren Hardy states that in 20 minutes a day, you can become an expert at a task in just a couple of years. (Imagine moving from 20 minutes a day to 60 minutes a day...your mastery increases at a rapid pace!) Basically, taking advantage of our time, in bite-sized chunks, is crucial to developing influence in the world around us.

I’ve started working on a few pretty simple card tricks. Danny Ray, a world-class illusionist, recommended a book for beginners like me, and I’ve started chipping away at it, 20-minutes a night. After a couple of months I’ve learned how to do a pretty impressive shuffle, three fairly decent card tricks and I’ve found another way to connect with the people for whom I speak at camp each week. No, I’m not working on becoming a world-class magician, but by harnessing just 20 minutes out of my daily schedule, I’m learning a new skill and enjoying a hobby.

How could you fine-tune the minutes of your life to learn something new? Let’s take it a step further -- how could you harness 20 minutes a day in order to make a bigger impact in the world around you? Most full-length TV shows are between 42-44 minutes long, so what would it look like for you to take those minutes each day, and direct them towards something more productive like...Writing a letter? Learning a skill? Reading your Bible? Preparing a meal for someone else? Visiting the elderly or those in a hospital? Exercising? Writing a book? (If you wrote for 20-minutes a day, you could easily write a book in six months!)

Let’s harness our time to make the most out of the life that God has given us. If you want to join me on your own 30-day journey in September, please do! And please let me know so that I can encourage you (and you can encourage me!) throughout the month. The effectiveness of the Overboard Life will be multiplied when you capture the loose minutes of your day and make them even more valuable. Then you can enjoy things like Netflix in the proper place, and if there is another service blackout...your life will still have great meaning!

Go ahead and take the plunge, life is always better on the water!

What are you dying for?

I’m a closet fan of extreme sports. I find myself drawn to the high-flying, danger-flaunting, I-can-do-better-than-you mentality of extreme sports athletes. I love their flair for the dramatic, and when someone truly rises above the rest of the competition, it is a thing of beauty and amazement to see -- something that showcases the incredible capacity of the human body to push boundaries further than anyone thought reasonable. I have a subscription to a magazine that frequently showcases extreme sport athletes. Unfortunately though, over the past year of issues, there have been several deaths of men prominent in their particular sport. While most extreme sport's injuries involve broken bones, potential hospital visits and a few extra scars to be proudly worn by their owner, death is always looming in the shadows of the adrenaline-driven sports. And it’s this flirting with death that is part of what makes any extreme sport so captivating; and so tragic when things go wrong.

In two particular stories, I was caught by a line spoken by the spouses of the deceased husbands. Both men died gruesome deaths. One passed away instantly after falling from a significant height, and the other died following hours of suffering after being crushed by an object weighing more than a thousand pounds. What did both these wives say about their husbands’ deaths? “I’m just so glad he died doing what he loved.”

I can’t imagine the intense pain and loss these two ladies felt. Both of them had been married to their spouses for several years, and one of them had two small children that would now grow up without their father. Each man was very well respected in his sport, and their deaths were mourned by many. And often repeated by others in the sport was the same line: “He died doing what he loved.”

As I’ve reflected on that idea, I’ve come to a little conflict of heart. On the one hand, who doesn’t want to die in a blaze of glory doing what they love? On the other, what if what you love isn’t worth dying for? No, I’m not casting any judgment on what I believe to be the perceived value or non-value of extreme sports. What I am doing, however, is asking myself the question: If I died doing what I loved, would that love be worth dying for?

When I had been a youth pastor for just a couple of years, I got one of those calls you never want to receive. A young man in our community had been involved in a tragic accident and his life was hanging by a thread in one of Seattle’s premiere trauma wards. After a night of partying, he was too drunk to drive, so another friend who was “less drunk,” had been designated as the driver. Half-way from the party to home, their car crossed the center line and hit an oncoming vehicle head-on. Unbuckled and passed out in the back seat, this teenage boy suffered life-threatening injuries.

I made several visits to the hospital to spend time with him and his family. On more than one afternoon I was alone with him in his ICU medical room, talking to him and praying to God for his healing. I often read Scripture passages to him and frequently shared God’s love not knowing if he could hear me ore not. The family and I spent time together, sharing meals and getting to know each other (prior to this event, I had not had any contact with this family).

After weeks of surgeries and waiting, it became apparent he was not going to survive. So after painful consideration, his parents took him off of life support and prepared for his death. His body fought hard for a little while, but a few days later, he passed away. The funeral was attended by over 500 people from his school and community. Some kind words were spoken about him, funny stories were shared, and many tears were shed as the grieving process unfolded.

Afterward, the family hosted a closed reception for a smaller segment of mourners. They had rented a nearby gymnasium and around one hundred friends and family members gathered together to eat, cry and -- it feels absurd to even write it -- to party.

One of this boy’s family members gave a speech that has a familiar ring to it. I don’t remember the exact words, but the gist was something like this: “[he] lived life to the fullest, and on the last night he was truly with us, he was doing what he loved most -- partying with friends. So that’s how we’re going to honor him today, we’re going to party together!” Then, acting as though his death had not been alcohol related, they busted out a cooler of beer while the DJ kicked up some tunes and the dancing began.

If you had to die doing what you loved, would that activity you loved be worthy of your death? Would you want to die playing your favorite sport? Would partying with friends be the way you’d want to go?

Of course, we generally don’t get to pick the way we go, but these stories get me thinking about the life -- and death -- I want to have. I don’t want to die in a way that dishonors my Lord, shames my wife or embarrasses my family. I hope that whatever I’m doing fits into Colossians 3:17 where Paul says, “And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.” That means that my entertainment, my sports activities, my dates with Traci, the sermons I preach, the fun I have with my kids, the way I spend my money, the blogs I take the time to write and anything else I do has to fit through a super refined lens. Ultimately, every activity of my life has to answer this one question: does this event bring honor to God?

If I can answer that question with a resounding, “Yes!” then I know I won’t mind doing that particular activity when it’s my turn to answer death’s call.

What about you? Do the things you love bring honor to God? At the end of the day, I want to be a guy who dies doing what he loves, as long as what I love is worth dying for. And for me, if my life fits the criteria of Colossians 3:17, then I know I’m ready to go at any time. This is certain: anyone living the Overboard Life is, without a doubt, living out Colossians 3:17 (remember...process, not perfection!). Are you ready?

Go ahead and take the plunge, life is always better on the water!

Have you ever lost a day?

I am constantly misplacing things. My poor wife has endured the process of helping me find things for 8 years of dating, and 17.5 years of marriage. My wallet is culprit number one, my keys are a close second, and don’t get me started about the times I’ve put paychecks through the wash, lost receipts in my travel bag or misplaced the car in a big parking lot. You know that sick feeling when you’re wife asks, “Um...Joe...Where are the kids?” I do.  

But over the past 40 years of my life, there is one thing I have lost that my wife has never been able to help me find. She might be able to tell me why I lost it, but she usually can’t tell me where it is and she can never find it, to give it back to me again. It’s something I’ve lost repeatedly, and I’m sure you have to.

Time.

Have you ever lost a day? I mean really, have you ever lost an entire day? I’m not talking about taking a day to rest (Ok you workaholics out there...the Creator God of the universe set the example of six days on, one day off; there’s a reason for that!), I’m talking about losing a day because you just didn’t do anything. You didn’t really rest, but you didn’t really work. You kept thinking, “One more episode and then I’m going to do [insert task you’ve been procrastinating on here]” or “I’ll just play one more level of this game and then I’ll [insert homework assignment here]” or “One more snooze and then I’m going to get up and tackle the day” -- you ever said any of those things?

It’s not that reading a book at night (“just one more chapter and then I’m going to turn out the light.”) or scanning the latest posts on Facebook is inherently bad (“I’ll just spend ten minutes looking at the latest news.”), but it’s amazing how quickly those activities can steal away huge chunks of a day. In fact, sometimes reading a book is vital to your personal growth (and sanity!), and checking in with friends and family on Facebook can be a great way to stay connected to people we love.

What I’m talking about though, is the amount of time that just gets lost in the shuffle, every day, of every week. No matter your cultural status, no matter your birthright, the country you were born in or the amount of money you have in your bank account, all of us have the same amount of time given to us each day, and our lives will ultimately be defined by how we spend our time.

Check out this 1 minute video about time:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luWR5IfS44k

What if we actually broke our days down into seconds? We all are given 86,400 seconds each day (not 84,600 like he said in the video), and each one of them is valuable. How many get lost though, throughout the day, because we don’t think of how precious each little second is? You know, “it’s just one second and I have 84,600 of them to use, what’s the harm in wasting a few?"

I love how the video talks about each second as being a dollar. Would you really throw 3,600 bucks at a game on your phone? Well that’s what you’re doing when you spend an hour running from a demon possessed monkey while collecting coins and power ups, or while you’re trying to get your bird to fly between gaps in the pipes. When your 10 minutes of Facebook stalking...er...reading turns into 90 minutes, would you have given $5,400 dollars to read about what other people are doing (or not doing as the case may be) with their lives?

When you value each second as a dollar, and then put a dollar amount to each activity, it certainly changes the value of that particular use of time, doesn’t it?

Since the average adult reads at around 225 words per minute, a 50,000 word book would take about 3.7 hours to read. So when you dive into your next book it might be wise to ask the question: “Is this book worth $13,333?” (incidentally, it will cost you $16,920 to read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and $130,620 to read War and Peace. Just in case you were wondering.)

By putting a dollar amount to our time, it’s much easier to think about “how we’re spending it” each moment of each day. Here are a few costs for you to consider as you go into your day:

* That MLB baseball game is going to cost you around $10,800 (watch out for extra innings!)

* The average netflix TV show will cost you $2,655

* According to Amazon’s study of books, the average size book will cost $17,040

* That selfie just cost you $13 (because you took more than one, and you checked each image before you posted it!)

* Is the average song on your iPod worth $216?

Here’s a fun task: Take one of your regular activities, figure out how many minutes you spend doing that each day, then multiply by 60 to determine the cost. What are you paying for each day? If you’re brave, post some costs in the comments so others can see! Here’s one of my doozies: My morning news/facebook/twitter-scanning habit costs me $900 each day!

You have $86,400 dollars to spend today. At the end of the day you will give up your left-overs, but tomorrow you will receive another load of cash. How are you “spending” your time? If you want to live the Overboard Life, you’ll have to start valuing your seconds, not just your years, your weeks or your days; you’ll really have to start valuing each second of each day.

Apart from sending Jesus to pay for our sins, the greatest gift God has given us is life. And life is always measured in time. The way you spend your time is the way you are spending your life. We are all spending $86,400 a day...what kind of life are you creating with your investments?

Go ahead and take the plunge, life is always better on the water!

Never Forget

My wife and I had just returned from Spain. We had been home just two nights, and were still catching up on some much needed sleep. Our son AJ was just two months old, and all three of us were experiencing somejet lag. That’s what made a 6am wake-up call so annoying. Until we realized what was happening: our nation was being attacked.

Few of us will ever forget where we were the day the 9/11 attacks happened in New York. The images of buildings crashing down in America’s largest city; the videos of people jumping out of windows giving up on a chance to be rescued; the smoke filled streets and bewildered pedestrians; the courageous firefighters who ran into buildings people were running out of; the broken hearts, shattered dreams and lost relationships that changed our nation.

In the days that followed, there were also incredible stories of heroic rescues and the amazing survival of the God-given human spirit that began moving forward. People who were thought to be dead were found alive, rescue personnel worked around the clock, never giving up the hope that one more person might be found and rescued -- including two people rescued almost 24 hours after the buildings collapsed!

We were all reminded of a lot that day. We were reminded that our country wasn’t as safe as we had always believed. We were reminded that humans have an incredible capacity to survive. We were reminded that evil was very real and very deadly. We were reminded that politics will never unite us like the coming together over tragedy or triumph. We were reminded that life is so short.

James describes our life like this:

“What is your life? It is a vapor…” (James 4:14)

After 9/11 I read countless stories of people who witnessed the events of that day and reflected, “In moments like this, you realize how fragile and how short life is.” I remember one news commentator wrapping up a multi-hour live broadcast from ground zero, stating, “Hug your children and your families tonight. Days like today remind us how precious our time is.” Indeed, time is precious.

In the grand scheme of things, life is short. It’s funny how I used to hear older people talk about “how fast time flies” or, in reference to their adult children, they would say, “I remember when I held you in my arms…seems like just yesterday.” I’m looking at my 12-year-old boy and thinking the same thing: where has the time gone? It seems like just yesterday we were coming home from a three week trip to Spain.

When my friend Richard passed away a few years ago, I remember spending time with him during his last few weeks. He had lived a good life, he had loved God, loved his wife and kids, and served faithfully in many ways. For a short season, he was a pastor, but spent much of his life in education. Richard was gracious and kind, welcoming and inviting, but held on to truth without apology. I’m not sure I’ve ever met anyone quite like him.

And as he was leaving this world, I remember the confidence with which he spoke about the future, and with how little regret he spoke about the past. It wasn’t that he had lived life perfectly (he would have been the first to admit that!), but he had used his time wisely, and had honored God with his greatest resource. I’ve been on the other side of that conversation, watching men and women die with great regret -- it’s a heartbreaking tragedy to watch someone die like that.

Richard understood the shortness of life. He lived it like it was a vapor and when God took him home, Richard was ready. 9/11 reminds me that life is short. I’m not living scared, looking for the next terrorist attack, but I am mindful that the shortness of life may not give me opportunity to ‘right all wrongs’ or restore broken relationships before I’m gone. I don’t want to be breathing my last breath, mindful of all my regrets.

Are you living the Overboard Life today? Are you living all out, knowing that the shortness of life is a reality, and the moments you have today are a precious gift from God? I hope you’ll live like my friend Richard, so that when it’s time, you too will go peacefully home to God without many regrets.

I’m a little somber today as I remember back to 9/11. But I’m also eager to keep living a life, the Overboard Life, that embraces the moments God has given me. Life may be short, but it is priceless and every moment is worth living, fully!

Go ahead and take the plunge, life is better on the water!