Monday Morning Meditation #30: Lead As Jesus Would

As I read about the successors to Solomon in the middle chapters of the book of I Kings, a clear pattern emerged: not only did these kings sin, but they also caused Israel to sin, much in the manner of Solomon sinning and causing Israel to sin at the end of his life, an act that caused God to be angry with him. With Solomon, it began (in earlier chapters of I Kings) with Solomon's taking of foreign wives against the commandment of God, a command with which God had sought to prevent Solomon being converted to foreign gods through the love of foreign wives and concubines.

Reading: I Kings 15: 33-34
Meditation: It may seem like a bit of a stretch to apply this history to modern leadership, but since modern leadership is the stuff of my every day life, I do see parallels and lessons nearly everywhere, including in I Kings. As was written about Baasa, he "did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, and walked in the way of Jeroboam, and in his sin wherewith he made Israel to sin," so can it be that leaders of all sorts do evil in the sight of the Lord and in their sin make their followers to sin.

As a senior leader, it is easy to forget the influence that one has over the thinking and beliefs of one's subordinates. More than one display of anger, and some junior leaders will consider that heavy-handed approaches are permissible ways to manage. After all, it is easier to demand and to be angry when one's demands are not met than to share governance, listen patiently to someone you just know is wrong, and to compromise when you just know you are right. A lax interpretation of rules and regulations for self benefit tells both junior leaders and employees that cheating is okay if it is only "a little thing." Remembering that deeds speak louder than words can keep one from self-exemption in acting in accordance with moral and ethical standards especially when one thinks one is not being seen. It is much like with our children. If our words and deeds do not match, our children are more likely to emulate what we do than to follow the principles we hope to inculcate in them through education.

It is far easier than we think to lead those who follow us astray, whether that be astray from moral standards, scrupulous adherence to regulations, or willing obedience of God's commands and taskings. For that reason, I ask God to help me at the beginning of every day (often several times during the day as events unfold) to keep me not only from hurting anyone but also from leading anyone astray. I also ask that His love flow through me and splash onto those around me, that both my words and deeds honor Him, and that I set the kind of example for junior leaders and employees that He would have me set. (Of course, even with God's help, I do not always succeed for human emotions intervene from time to time, causing me to forget to refer the given situation back to God.)

In trying to lead as God would have me lead, I find two sources of leadership development helpful. One is the Bible. Just as the passage from I Kings can provide excellent guidance, so can much throughout the Bible -- those situations where leaders excelled and those where they failed. There is another book that I have found to be quite helpful and that I recommend to any leader: Jesus on Leadership (C. Gene Wilkes). For leaders who are not Christians, a very similar book is put out by the Greenleaf Center, The Case for Servant Leadership (Kent Keith, the author of the Paradoxical Commandments that Mother Theresa loved, otherwise known as "Do It Anyway"); while foot-washing is not mentioned in it, it does reflect principles that God taught to leaders and hoped and expected from them throughout the Bible.

These books help me a lot. God (and prayer) help me even more. And the rest I mess up all by myself -- and go running to God to help me fix it!

And that is far as I can go with you this Monday morning. I must retire to prayer to continue to ask for guidance every minute of every day as I interact with junior leaders and rank-and-file employees, to repent for those times that I have set a bad example, to thank God for so often setting straight with my employees what I do wrong, and to give praise for the way in which He leads me and my subordinate leaders to assist and support those who work for us, the ways in which he ensures that we do not harm any of them exceedingly much, and the way in which He has brought much spirituality into our workplace. After that, I will spend time in contemplation, my favorite part of the day, letting God take over the direction in which my relationship with Him moves.

I will now leave you to your prayer and contemplation, but first, I would like to bring to your attention a Monday morning prayer post that you might enjoy:

Fr. Austin Fleming, priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and pastor in Concord, Massachusetts, posts a prayer each Monday morning that he calls "Monday Morning Offering." I enjoy his prayers very much. I hope you also will find them inspirational. He has graciously given me permission to include a link to his blog on my Monday Morning Meditation posts.

For additional inspiration throughout the week, I would point out two sets of blogs: (1) the list of devotional blogs that follow the enumeration of Monday Morning Meditations on the sidebar of this blog and (2) my blogroll, where I am following a number of inspirational priests and writers about spiritual matters. I learn so very much from all these people. I highly recommend them to you.

Thankful Thursday #1: A Grateful Heart in Kiev

Since it has been a brutal day for me, having spent more than three hours on foot (taking the metro and marshrutny taxi -- the express mini-bus -- does not eliminate a lot of walking in Kiev), more time in chairs meeting with people, followed by facility tours (more walking beyond the three hours), very little down time, and limited Internet minutes, I have decided to join the Thankful Thursday crowd this week because I am thankful for so much these days. More information about two-year-old Thankful Thursday meme can be found at the website of Grace Alone. So, here is what I am thankful for today.

• In keeping with yesterday’s post, I would have to say that I am thankful again and again for all the times that God takes care of me. I have come to rely on that, whether at home or traveling the world. After all, the entire world is home to God.

• On a pragmatic level, I am grateful for the purse-size Korean hand-fan that I purchased on a whim in Korea; without air conditioning here in Kiev and with the temperatures soaring to unseasonably high levels, I am putting that little fan to good use.

• I am grateful for people who let me know when I have made their lives easier; for example, the young professor who was assigned to be my escort when I visited the university told me she did not sleep at all the night before because she was anxious about our meeting, but once she had met me, she really enjoyed the time we spent together and was quite relieved that things turned out differently from what she had worried about; a hug took away any remaining reservations.

• Of course, in recent days, I am thankful for the health of Shane and Nikolina (and even Nathaniel and Doah, who have had their small issues); we could have lost them both, but we were reprieved (once again, spoiled).

• This week I joined Face Book (under my real name) and found many old friends there, including a number of high school classmates; I also have found new friends; for every single person, I am grateful.

• We got a little bit closer to finding Ksenya this week, and I am very grateful for that.

• I had lost contact with my friend from Austria, and up she popped on my email the morning I was leaving for Ukraine and Germany; I would have been shouting distance from her and not have seen her; instead, after mass on Sunday, we are going to meet in Austria, in the Alps, just across the German border for lunch; I have not seen her for nearly ten years!

• Recently, one of my employees at a branch site became very ill (cancer) and used up all his sick leave, with no end in site; I donated two days of leave to him and asked all 400 of my employees, if they could, to follow suit with one hour or however much they could afford; the payroll clerk tells me that we got many donations (some went straight into the system without going through her so I only know about those anecdotally and some I don’t know about at all); I am very proud of my employees and very thankful for their generosity.

• In the same vein, I am pleased and grateful that nearly all the managers I supervise understand the difference between doing things right and doing the right thing and consistently choose the latter; it makes the working atmosphere so much better.

• I am also grateful that I no longer have any non-believers among the managers in my division; that was not anything I caused or planned; rather, I assume that God is spoiling me again.

• I am grateful that God intervenes in my work place, creating miracles and positioning people to help one another.

• And finally, coming back to where I started this post, I am grateful to God for being in all the strange and familiar places to which I travel so that I am never alone, never without help, and never without someone to talk to.

For what are you thankful this wonderful Thursday?

Work and Spirituality

I read a post today on Catholic Spiritual Direction, a wonderful blog, listed on my blogroll in the right sidebar, to which I would refer anyone interested in very insightful posts on living a godly life in today's world. The question a reader had posed was "how do I deal with issues of advancement and self-promotion at work?" The answer was splendid, and I suggest you wander over there to read it.

I have often commented on work issues on 100th Lamb, and its predecessor blog, Blest Atheist. As with anything else, if one lets go and lets God, as the saying goes, work goes better. One does not need to tout one's accomplishments. God will ensure that they become known and noticed when that is important, and otherwise it is not important. Among the things that I have noticed when it comes to inviting God to take over my work life are the following (far from a full litany of benefits and blessings):

(1) Servant leaders become powerful leaders even though that is not their intention. Jesus showed us the way to be good servant leaders when he washed the feet of his disciples. I ask of those managers who work for me that they think constantly of when the feet of their employees need washing and to tend to that task with alacrity. Recently, a would-be leader who had run into some complications with his team members asked me as someone he considers his mentor how to handle the situation, and I told him he needed more humility, to throw his inflated ego in the trash because it was doing him no good, and forgive those who were creating problems for him. Oh, he found that hard, but he tried all of it. He even sent me a self-learning plan for developing humility, at which point I called him to my office to explain that one does not achieve humility; humility simply comes as a result of something that is so easy that is almost impossible for some people: always put others first. Others can say whether or not our actions are examples of our humility; we cannot begin to measure our own level of humility without being arrogant about it. A strange characteristic this humility! But so desirable!

(2) Power grows the more you give it away. This fact is one of the most counter-intuitive realities with which immature managers must cope. Most new managers want to hang onto power. They want their employees to defer to them, even sometimes to call them "sir" and "ma'am." They want overt respect. As a result, they get the titles, the overt behavior, and the public respect. What they don't get is the implicit respect that is not demanded but freely given, the love and support that comes with it, and the willingness to go the extra nine or ninety yards, as needed. I am tickled pink with employees who point out some shortcoming or inconsistency in my behavior. It means that we are working as a team, and teams are more powerful than individuals. I also notice that when both responsibility and authority are delegated to them, employees are willing to do whatever it takes to accomplish the tasking. In turn, if the manager asks them to do something that they would prefer not to do, they do it anyway, without grumbling, because of the bond between them. That is real power. The power that comes with position is multiplied a thousandfold when it is bestowed upon a manager not by his/her superiors but by his/her subordinates.

(3) Dealing with difficult people becomes easy, fun, and rewarding. I have said it often, and I truly mean it. I love difficult people. They are my greatest reward for being a manager. Watching a disaffected employee become a contributing team member produces one of the warmest fuzzies that any manager could ever want. I have very few difficult people among the 400 or so who work for me although four years ago when I began this position the division was considered riddled with difficult people. Now the division is called the "black hole" of our organization by the EEO office and by the Union because even people who used to practically live in those places, complaining about their supervisors and work conditions, no longer visit. They are happy contributors to their teams' work. Once a senior manager, who no longer works for me, asked how to deal with difficult people. I told him that the key was so simple that most managers won't use it: genuinely love them. He told me sorrowfully that he could not do that and not long after resigned. I replaced him with someone who could do that, and the 30 or more chronic complainers in that particular subdivision now appear in the corridors and at group meetings with big smiles. When the new manager first appeared, many stopped me in the hallway to thank me for the change in leadership. Now when they are unhappy about work conditions, they do not run to the Union or the EEO officials for help; they come to their supervisor.

(4) The workplace becomes a place of worship as well, a place where people are inexorably drawn and from which they do not wish to depart. Many a night I have chased people home with the words, "we work to live; we don't live to work." Actually, it is not the living to work that compels people to stay in the office after hours. It is the palpable presence of God in our workplace. Who would want to leave that? Once I had a manpower team from headquarters visit for a week for the purpose of determining staffing needs -- were we understaffed (yep), overstaffed (nope), or staffed just right (not that, either). After spending a week of visiting and talking to employees, during which the visitors had open access to everyone, thanks to a building schematic and names/titles of employees that I gave them with the invitation to go wherever they wanted whenever they wanted and talk to whomever they wanted. They did. The head of the visiting team came to my office at the end of the week, ostensibly, I thought, to talk to me about staffing levels. Instead, she told me that she wanted to talk about the atmosphere in the work place. "I have read about places like this," she said, "but I have never actually seen one -- where people love to come to work, support each other, and willingly remain to make sure that all tasks are completed and everything is ready for the next day. I wish I could work here." There is nothing to my credit in what she found. Rather, that is what happens when one lets God into the workplace.

(5) Moreover, once God is in the workplace, God does what God does best. Miracles happen. Chestnuts get pulled out of the fire by unseen hands. Cutting-edge and seemingly-impossible-because-no-one-has-ever-done-it-before work gets done with amazing ease. Where task and mission require, 48 hours of work finishes itself in eight hours. Pride in the accomplishment of the division and not in the accomplishments of individuals appears; employees give credit to each other, supervisors to employees, and employees to supervisors. People talk about God and even pray together -- in an institution where separation of Church and State is the norm, the expected, the required. The most amazing, though, are the real miracles. We have had several people literally on the brink of death who have reappeared in our midst. I have blogged before about some of them, among these being Jackie, who ended up with a blog clot in her lung and comatose after surgery but survived and will be returning to work, and Tareq, an Iraqi immigrant to the United States who suffered from cancer and heart failure and did eventually die but not before a miraculous post-surgery recovery that gave him an additional year at work and at home, a year he desperately needed to put his family matters straight and save the life of his son who had to be rescued from Iraq when he was personally targeted by insurgents. For all these people, we have had employees of several faiths praying together, our own little ecumenical world, where religious flavor and fervor come second and God and each other come first.

Well, this is not at all the post I had planned to write today, but the writing of it took on a life of its own, inspired by my reading of Fr. Todd's response to the questioner on Catholic Spiritual Direction, and here it now is. So, I shall post it. Tomorrow I will post what I had planned to put up today.

(Note: I know that the image is not entirely appropriate, but it is also not entirely inappropriate. I found it on the web and could not resist including it!)

Going to the Ball

As I emulate Cinderella and head off to this year's ball, I will leave a post for the sharing in my absence. First, let me say that I am not the ball type. I would rather be hiking mountains than sipping tea. But, I do not always get to choose. As one of the more visible leaders of our organization (combination of high post and big mouth), I cannot ditch the annual ball, much as I would like to.

Last year I wrote a post that garnered a fair amount of comments and discussion about my dilemma in what to wear. (I had actually been able to avoid earlier balls for acceptable reasons, but I had no acceptable reason last year, and so I appeared upon demand.) I could not bring myself to spend hundreds (or dozens) of dollars on the required attire: tuxedo or gown. There was so much more I could do of value with that kind of money, and there was also that Franciscan vow of poverty. So, I decided to wear a dress from Jordan that I had purchased there for $5 and that would look dressy in the USA although I had some serious doubts when I arrived and started to mix in among the tuxedos and ball gowns. (You can read the post here: VIP or VOP or Both? It includes a larger discussion of the decision-making process and results).

The most evident result was the reputation I gained by wearing ethnic dress. Everyone who did not attend the ball heard about it. This year, a few weeks ago, several people who had been to their home countries in the last few months brought me local dresses, asking me to wear them in honor of their culture. (I ensured that they had bought them for $25 or less, the ethical limit our organization places on gifts from employees to supervisors.) I understood the intent. They were not bribes; they just wanted to feel that their senior supervisor respected and even liked their cultures. Of course, I do. I have been to most of their countries and speak most of their languages. Wherever I am, I try to blend and often succeed. I felt honored by the requests. The situation, however, contains its own dilemma: which of the six ethnic dresses and four ethnic shawls should I wear?

Actually, I have decided on none of them. I will wear that $5 Jordanian dress again. Then, I will find other occasions to honor all those who have requested it through the gift of their ethnic attire.

Interestingly, I may have started something. This year's ball announcement again listed tuxedos and gowns as acceptable attire but added "or culturally appropriate attire." Never think that one person cannot create change!

[Note: Image above drawn by Tom Dubois -- click here to see more of his beautiful art work, which is for sale.]

Monday Morning Meditation #36: The Difficulties Leaders Have in Following God

After reading about all the kings who either did good but allowed the worship of Baal or did evil in the sight of the Lord, I began to wonder whether it is possible for royalty to be good/godly. While that may be a discussion for another place and time, with someone possessing greater knowledge of the topic than I, the failure after failure, especially with individuals who started out successfully, resonated with me. And so, I stopped my reading this week at the end of II Kings.

Reading: II Kings 7-25

Meditation: On a daily basis, I attempt to develop the leadership skills of a couple dozen middle and senior-level managers, using concepts associated with servant leadership. While one aspect of developing good leaders involves teaching them how to care about their people, understand those who work for them, and follow and apply organizational rules and regulations, there is another part that is rarely, if ever, discussed widely: God's role in our work.

Personally, I am fortunate. All the senior managers who report to me are believers and willing to discuss issues in spiritual terms, as well as pragmatic and legalistic ones.

The senior managers are not so fortunate. They must provide direction to a range of junior managers, some of whom are committed to personal ambitions that lead to self-centered/self-promoting decisions. Reaching down to these new managers, to help them understand that any decision that does not put God at its center is not likely to be the best possible decision in the long run, is difficult. First, organizational policies do not permit these kinds of discussions, the closest we can get being a discussion of servant leadership, which reflects principles from all three Abrahamic religions. Second, some junior managers, particularly those without any spiritual beliefs, do not want this kind of discussion; they do not want to think about what role God should play in their/our work. Separation of church and state can make leading godly lives as managers and leaders very difficult.

And then, admittedly, there are those times when I really do not want to listen. I know what God is telling me, but just for the moment, I really want to have my anger over some event, some person's failure to perform, or some behavior that has irritated me. And so I turn a deaf ear -- after which, of course, I feel horribly guilty and penitent. But that moment did take place, and there is no way to return to it and make it not take place. One can apologize, take actions to remediate/alleviate and otherwise try to mitigate the damage, pray, go to confession, and otherwise be willing to set things right with God and any individuals involved, but the fact that these moments occur (and probably will continue to occur) point out just how fallible one can become in a leadership position -- and I am far, far, far below the level of king. So, I find it easy to understand how the kings of the Old Testament failed and how the kings of today (whether royalty or just business/political leaders) fail.

There are also those times that the God-directed decision is not the popular decision or even the accepted decision by the uppermost level of management. Surprisingly, those are the easiest situations for me although they have not always been so. With the passage of time and the following of God's direction where I have been able to discern it, I have found that "selling" the "right" decision is possible. Moreover, God rewards us when we follow Him. I have often told subordinate leaders that sometimes to be a good leader one must be willing to lose one's job for making the right, rather than the popular or required, decision. I know whereof I speak. I have lost a job in that manner -- and God found me a better one. Since then, I have had complete trust in God when it comes to work. I don't have to watch out for me because God watches out for me.

And that is far as I can go with you this Monday morning. I must retire to prayer to ask God to intervene when I want to keep my anger or otherwise react in a non-servant, un-godly manner at work (or at home), to thank Him for his daily guidance, to praise Him for the wonderful ways in which He has been present for me and for the leaders in my organization on an every-minute basis, and to repent for those times that I have ignored His presence through inattention or desire to "do my own thing." After that, I will spend as much time as I can in contemplation, my favorite part of the day, letting God take over the direction in which my relationship with Him moves.

I will now leave you to your prayer and contemplation, but first, I would like to bring to your attention a Monday morning prayer post that you might enjoy:
Fr. Austin Fleming, priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and pastor in Concord, Massachusetts, posts a prayer each Monday morning that he calls "Monday Morning Offering." I enjoy his prayers very much. I hope you also will find them inspirational. He has graciously given me permission to include a link to his blog on my Monday Morning Meditation posts.

For additional inspiration throughout the week, I would point out two sets of blogs: (1) the list of devotional blogs that follow the enumeration of Monday Morning Meditations on the sidebar of this blog and (2) my blogroll, where I am following a number of inspirational priests and writers about spiritual matters. I learn so very much from all these people. I highly recommend them to you.

The Extra Manager at Today's Meeting

We are reading 1 Samuel in our Bible Studies class through an interdenominational scripture class published by SEEK. Tonight, we discussed chapter 23, in which David twice seeks the counsel of the Lord. One of the personalizing questions posed in the SEEK study materials is "When was the last occasion that you went before the Lord with a decision that needed to be made? Did you have a sense that God did lead and guide you?" (For me, that would be, ah, like, every day, given the life complications that I routinely run up against.)

The question immediately brought to mind the first meeting I had had this morning. Without revealing confidential information, I can share that two senior managers and I, their supervisor, had been called by our Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) office to a pre-mediation discussion with our organization's attorney and Human Resource director about an age discrimination complaint that had been filed by an employee from one of our branch offices who had been fired for absenteeism and poor performance by his first-line supervisor, Shirley. Prior to this meeting, I had, as usual with such meetings, asked God for guidance. (I don't like to play with people's lives without that kind of assistance.)

Once assembled, we introduced ourselves and our roles since our organization is quite large and not everyone knew everyone. The role of most of the members of the assembled group was clear. Roger was Shirley's supervisor, and I was Roger's supervisor. However, why Marvin had been called in was a puzzle to everyone, including to the EEO specialist who had set up the meeting and sent out the meeting invitations. Marvin, like Roger, was a senior manager, but he was not in Shirley's chain of command. We all agreed that it looked like an accident that Marvin was there, but he might as well stay because he had ridden there with Roger and me and would be stranded until we were ready to leave, anyway.

It appeared that Shirley had done an adequate enough job of counseling the employee and had some documentation to back up the firing. Curiously, the employee had only asked for reinstatement for six months as a redress for discrimination. I moved the discussion away from whether or not we could give a non-discriminatory reason for the firing (we could) and whether or not we could back that up with documentation (we could) to why the employee would only ask for a 6-month reinstatement. Well, it turned out that this was the amount of time he needs to be in the organization in order to qualify for retirement -- and, having started with us pretty late in life, he is already of retirement age. Based on this information, I ventured that we not look at this complaint as one in which we could justify whether we had done things right (all the correct documentation, following the rule book) but rather as one in which we could justify whether we had done the right thing (the humane approach to a person's life). Doing the right thing rather than always doing things right, a leadership concept introduced by Warren Bennis in his book, On Becoming a Leader, is an approach that I vigorously advocate for all the supervisors within my division.

Now, the problem with doing the right thing -- retaining the employee long enough for him to be able to retire (Where else, at an advanced age, would he be able to start the whole process all over again so that he would enough time to earn a pension?) -- is that continuing to work for his current first-line supervisor would be very problematic and probably impossible for a number of reasons that I cannot share. Hmm...Just as it started to seem that there would be no choice except to support the first-line supervisor's decision to cut the cord in advance of retirement and the lawyer and HR officer began moving in that direction, I looked at Marvin and got a "scathingly brilliant idea" as Hayley Mills in the lead role of Mary in the movie, The Trouble with Angels, was wont to say. Marvin is the senior manager of our Internet products, one for which the employee could work from his current branch office location on a flexi-place, short-term basis. Marvin acknowledged that he could probably find six months of work on a special project for the employee and stated that he would be willing to take him on. Voila! A chance to the right thing!

"Now I think we all know why you were called to this meeting!" I told Marvin.

Oh, yes, to answer the question from tonight's Bible Study class, I did indeed get a sense that God did lead and guide me today!

Loving Impossible People

We all have them in our lives: the “impossible” people. They are cranky; nothing is ever right; we are a bad relative or bad boss or bad neighbor whenever we do something that is not quite to their liking; they don’t seem to bond well with colleagues in the work place; they resist new ideas or assignments that they do not like; they may approach us in passive-aggressive ways. I am sure that you have met your share of such people, as have I.

At least in the workplace, I adore them! I seek challenge, and they give me what I seek. Meister Eckhart says that there is a God-seed (a little bit of God) in everyone, and I can see that buried deep down in these “impossible” people. I love watching that seed take root and grow. It makes me feel part of a miracle.

For example, one day at work I noticed that some of my favorite “impossible” people were extra cranky. Food and attention, I have found, usually help in these situations (just as they do with cranky kids – I am convinced that mothering 7 children has immensely helped me to mother my current 307-and-expanding staff). So, I ran out and bought several packages of oreo cookies, dumped them into a big bowl, and began the management-by-walking-about effort to deliver the cookies to each employee personally – not just the cranky ones, but everyone who happened to be in the office and not traveling (60% or more of my staff travels regularly). It took all morning, and my paperwork languished, but I enjoyed catching up on all their stories as they munched on their cookies. First, I enjoy stories – the more the better. Second, their stories tell me a lot about them, and especially with the “impossible” variety of employee, I find some insight into how best to manage them. On the oreo morning, we had a very important visitor from our headquarters, who had dropped in to work with one of our teams. Oops! I had forgotten about that, so when I came upon that team, I offered him a cookie, too. At the end of the day, I ran into him as he was leaving and asked him how his day had been. He offered that it had become “much better after the cookie!”

The “impossible” people returned the favor, as they generally do. One of the teams invited me to their ethnic lunch, in this case, some of my favorite Arabic food. These “impossible” people (and a lot of “possible” people) regularly bring me food (I think that they are convinced that I cannot cook, and they are not far from wrong), invite me to their social events (weddings, birthdays, picnics), scold me when I am ill and don’t see a doctor, and jump in without asking to help when I am attempting some physical work that looks to be beyond my capacity. “Why are you so good to me?” I have asked them upon occasion, and the answer is always the same: “Because you love us.”

Once a middle manager who worked for me asked me how I dealt with difficult people, and I told him that he would not like the answer: you have to love them – sincerely, not just pretend to love them (although sometimes initial pretense leads to eventual sincerity). I was right. He did not like the answer. He looked at me sadly and said, “I cannot do that.” In that case, I fear that he will always be surrounded by difficult people.

There have been times when I ignore my own advice, when I get caught off-guard, when I stupidly forget about the God-seed. That happened recently. A very troublesome employee had signed up to see my boss during his open-door hours. He called and asked if I knew what might be the topic. I could guess at a dozen possibilities since she was always complaining about her manager (who worked for me), her assignments, her seemingly slow raises and promotions, concern that management did not understand how far superior she was to everyone else in her division, even the fact that she was expected to come to work on time and put in a full day. I suggested to my boss all the things that came to mind and added several negative comments about the difficulty of supervising her. My boss called after the meeting and told me in a somewhat curious tone, “All she wanted to talk to me about was to tell me how kind you are.” I am glad it was a phone call because I know my face was red with shame.

The most important thing about that event? I lost out on being part of the miracle of seeing the God-seed grow a little more. My boss saw it, but my head had been in the sand that day – and when our heads are down in the sand, all we can see is dirt.

The Plant

Another goodie from the Internet sent to me by my brother. I have no idea where he finds these!As for this and other stories like it, I find that I can always use them at work for leadership training. Certainly, anyone who has been in a leadership position has had parallel kinds of things happen as happened with the retiring CEO and the young managers. As a leader, I always look for the Jims -- I don't find them as often as I would like.

A successful business man was growing old and knew it was time to choose a successor to take over the business.

Instead of choosing one of his Directors or his children, he decided to do something different. He called all the young executives in his company together.

He said, "It is time for me to step down and choose the next CEO. I have decided to choose one of you." The young executives were shocked, but the boss continued. "I am going to give each one of you a SEED today - one very special SEED. I want you to plant the seed, water it, and come back here one year from today with what you have grown from the seed I have given you. I will then judge the plants that you bring, and the one I choose will be the next CEO."

One man, named Jim, was there that day and he, like the others, received a seed.He went home and excitedly, told his wife the story. She helped him get a pot, soil and compost and he planted the seed. Everyday, he would water it and watch to see if it had grown. After about three weeks, some of the other executives began to talk about their seeds and the plants that were beginning to grow.

Jim kept checking his seed, but nothing ever grew.

Three weeks, four weeks, five weeks went by, still nothing.

By now, others were talking about their plants, but Jim didn't have a plant and he felt like a failure.

Six months went by -- still nothing in Jim's pot. He just knew he had killed his seed. Everyone else had trees and tall plants, but he had nothing. Jim didn't say anything to his colleagues, however, he just kept watering and fertilizing the soil - He so wanted the seed to grow.

A year finally went by and all the young executives of the company brought their plants to the CEO for inspection.

Jim told his wife that he wasn't going to take an empty pot. But she asked him to be honest about what happened. Jim felt sick to his stomach, it was going to be the most embarrassing moment of his life, but he knew his wife was right. He took his empty pot to the board room. When Jim arrived, he was amazed at the variety of plants grown by the other executives. They were beautiful -- in all shapes and sizes. Jim put his empty pot on the floor and many of his colleagues laughed, a few felt sorry for him!

When the CEO arrived, he surveyed the room and greeted his young executives.

Jim just tried to hide in the back. "My, what great plants, trees and flowers you have grown," said the CEO. "Today one of you will be appointed the next CEO!"

All of a sudden, the CEO spotted Jim at the back of the room with his empty pot. He ordered the Financial Director to bring him to the front. Jim was terrified. He thought, "The CEO knows I'm a failure! Maybe he will have me fired!"

When Jim got to the front, the CEO asked him what had happened to his seed - Jim told him the story.

The CEO asked everyone to sit down except Jim. He looked at Jim, and then announced to the young executives, "Behold your next Chief Executive Officer! His name is Jim!"

Jim couldn't believe it. Jim couldn't even grow his seed.

"How could he be the new CEO?" the others said.

Then the CEO said, "One year ago today, I gave everyone in this room a seed. I told you to take the seed, plant it, water it, and bring it back to me today. But I gave you all boiled seeds; they were dead - it was not possible for them to grow. All of you, except Jim, have brought me trees and plants and flowers. When you found that the seed would not grow, you substituted another seed for the one I gave you. Jim was the only one with the courage and honesty to bring me a pot with my seed in it. Therefore, he is the one who will be the new Chief Executive Officer!"


* If you plant honesty, you will reap trust.

* If you plant goodness, you will reap friends.

* If you plant humility, you will reap greatness.

* If you plant perseverance, you will reap contentment.

* If you plant consideration, you will reap perspective.

* If you plant hard work, you will reap success.

* If you plant forgiveness, you will reap reconciliation.


So, be careful what you plant now; it will determine what you will reap later.