Do Right. Fear Nothing.

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Good Business and Informed Constituents

Introduction

All organizations desire a strong-nit, competent team. Teams within an organization do not build trust, credibility, or understand each other’s personalities overnight. It takes time. The same is true for loyal customers, partners, and potential customers of an organization. According to Charlene Li in her book, Open Leadership, it takes leaders that are willing to be open with their constituents and especially their team to produce a good product. Along with one’s team, the leader must be open to learn, dialog, and support the experience of people and social technology. While there are still quite a few skeptics about social media, the reality is that it works and is very beneficial to organizations and people in general.  

 Learn

Everyone in an organization must be willing to learn and relearn. Such learning should take place from a variety of areas. With social giants like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, learning what others think should be fairly easy. Organizations will benefit by learning from employees, customers, and partners before stepping towards any direction. When individuals are heard and are given an opportunity to contribute to a new product, project, or service, they will most likely take ownership and invest to see entrepreneurial idea succeed. No organization should live in a vacuum. Instead, they should listen and take notice of what the people closest to it are saying. When it all said and done, the outcome will supersede what was originally imagined with more because time was invested in listening and learning from others.

 Dialog

Meaningful dialog happens when people are fully engaged. Li says that without prompting, when people like something, they will naturally create a buzz about their new found excitement. One aspect to consider is the internal dialog. What are team members saying about the latest development? Are they hesitant about release or confused about how it fits into the overall big picture? Li says that the team needs to a clear understanding of the latest happening to be able to promote it well. The second aspect to consider is the external dialog. What are loyal customers and people in general thinking about the latest endeavor by the company?  Such feedback is a helpful gauge to make each opportunity to move its bests. A dialog gets more information and more information leads to a better product.

 Support

Support makes everyone feel better about their life experiences. Sometimes team members in an organization need the support of leaders as they go through a tough time in life. Other times team members need the support of colleagues when they feel stuck on a certain element of a project. In another vein, customers need both the in-store and online the support of company employees for various transactions. Customers seem to love or dislike a company based solely on the company’s support services which is customer service. Regardless of the type of support, when people feel like they have been properly helped, it makes for a good experience and loyalty.

 Conclusion

Open leadership and social media are beneficial to everyone connected to an organization. It makes for good business and informed constituents.

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Is Less Really More?

 Introduction

Decision making is easy at times. On the other hand, it can be painstakingly challenging, complex, and leave one with a bit of anxiety. Whatever the case, there are times when people need solicited and unsolicited input to make the best possible decision. Then, there are times when the advice givers have to stand back, watch, allow the ones making the decision to go for it and await the consequences. In his book, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix, Edwin Friedman makes the case that less involvement is needed in a person’s life, in that, it takes away and stunts their emotional growth and thwarts the maturation process.

To a fair degree, I agree with Mr. Friedman that there are some people whose intended influence may be a bit overwhelming in the maturity process of others. In other words, there are some people that simply feel the need to be needed.

 Boss & Employee

For a new team member on the first day of job, it is understood this person will need training from a supervisor, some basic oversight for a while until they adjust to the day-to-day operations of the organization. To me, such training helps to build confidence and to set the new worker up for success. This also says that this new employee is not left with the expectation to figure out the job alone. Even so, they key word here is training and is not intended to indicate a lasting dependency.

Now, two years later, if the same employee is still in of need similar supervision, there may be a major problem. Either the boss has made the worker too dependent on his approval, extending no trust to learn a little by trial and error or the worker is not able to make decisions and follow through. In both instances, this is a major problem for the organization. The level of productivity and money lost by having to constantly looking over an employee’s back or redo their work can take its toll. If the boss does not feel competent about the employee’s work, then change needs to happen. If an employee is not able to handle the job at hand, some alternative needs to take place. The goal at the end of the day should be for the employee to become self-reliant and know when to contact his leadership when needed.

 Conclusion

People are the heart and soul of any organization. The level of experience varies amongst employees, but they all have talents to bring to the table and contribute to the organization. It is up to the leadership to provide clear directions and communicate preference and vision. At the same time, the leadership has to provide space for the employees to grow and make some mistakes to add value to the employee and the organization at large. At the end of the day, the decision to teach, learn, and trust the employee will make for strong relationship with the leaders and the organization. Such concepts highlight the need for empowerment.

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Evangelicals and Different Positions

A friend once told me about his first opportunity to enter a vineyard owned by a friend of a friend. He said that it was just breathtaking to see the vines run for miles and how sweet they looked on the outside. The taste of the grapes was even better and a bit addictive too. Like a kid in a candy store, he was given his liberty to simply enjoy himself. Before his new encounter came to a close, he said that he took a cluster of grapes, as many as he could grasp in one hand, and just squeezed until he could no more.

 After browsing through some of the thoughts about Evangelicals from various angles, it triggered my memory about the cluster of grapes and the juice they produced as it dripped down my friend’s hand.

 Evangelicals are like a cluster of grapes. While at the core they are connected to the same vine, Christ, there are multiple extensions or branches with different positions. With that, we have today Evangelicals all over the board politically, socially, financially, and even practically when it comes to how their spirituality plays out in today’s culture. Defining an Evangelical is not necessarily the easiest these days, although there several core elements that bind them together. One of them is that Christ is the only means for salvation and forgiveness of sin by way of His work on the cross. The cross of Christ was one filled with unimaginable suffering, agonizing pain, as well as a life-giving hope to all.

 I have often asked myself and this question popped up again after reading the various angles and positions that Evangelical hold to regarding life in general. What if Evangelicals focused more on what they had in common and use that as the momentum to make a difference in the society to combat hunger, the foster care system, and better gerontology, to name a few social issues? However, it feels like so often that the individualistic nature stands out stronger that than the cluster of people altogether on the vine. Can this diverse group not join together in making an overall positive impact on society? The collective potency of action, good deeds, and justice can be stronger than any cultural differences that may exist between them.

 Understood, many would say that this sounds like a naïve stance. But for just a moment, imagine the unity, momentum, and eternal impact that can be made with such intentional efforts. Collectively by serving others and representing the Vine, this cluster of people, who at their core, are about serving others, can offer a sweet experience that many will not soon forget. And just like the vines in a healthy vineyard are miles long, Evangelicals with a common goal and mission can make a sustained impact that can live on for future generations.

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Hope, Needs, and Deeds

During the spring of 1989 two missionaries came to my neighborhood with primarily one mission in mind – to extend a lifeline of hope to the children through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Each week they would reach out to thousands of children living in the poverty sector of public housing. The missionaries built relationships with parents, grand-parents, local school staff members, local gang members, and local authorities to gain rapport in the community. As they served the needs represented in the local communities, they also took every opportunity to show and tell of the love of Jesus to anyone that would listen. As one of the children impacted by their ministry, I took a liking to their personalities and their mission. Today as an adult, I now see that the missionaries gave their time, talents, and resources to impact and expose others to the Gospel.

In the next few paragraphs, I will speak to how the missionaries impacted the local communities by way of conversion and activism - two of David Bebbington’s components as recorded in his work Evangelicalism in Modern Britain.

Conversion

Your inner man matters and it needs to be transformed by Christ. This is the message they proclaimed throughout the community. The missionaries also pointed to Jesus as the one to help us overcome poverty. They did not introduce Jesus to us a good luck charm or a type of Santa Claus. Instead, they spoke the hard truth that life is unfortunate and tough at times, but there is a God who wants to help us walk through it. I am thankful that they did not portray Christ as a consumer genie. Instead, they made it known that discipleship is critical in following and becoming more like Christ. I can still here the resounding question they often asked, “What have you been feeding your inner man lately?”

Not only did the missionaries have a vision for their community to serve Christ as Lord, they also made it a priority to meet the needs of the community. As they encountered many needs each week, they often responded with deeds.

Activism

This couple was adamant about taking the church to the people. Each week, Tuesday through Thursday, the missionaries and their team were found out in the community more than the Jehovah Witnesses. In fact, they would often feed us kids, allow us to ride go-carts, and play basketball with us while demonstrating what it means to have a Christ-like attitude during competitive games.  After one basketball game, we read a fifteen minute Bible story that eventually lead to one of my friends becoming a Christ follower for the first time. In fact, he is still serving faithfully today and serving in the military. Words and deeds are needed. Sometimes the deed will pave the way for the Word to be heard.

It seems like a simple lesson but it requires intentionality. The truth is that every Christ follower has something to offer potential converts about Christ. We are to be an extension of Christ, touching and transforming lives at any given time. May we find ourselves always making disciples and playing an active role in their lives as they journey toward a richer relationship with Christ.