After a two-week absence

Sometimes I wonder if you've all given up checking my blog. I realize that I haven't been very regular about posting. And the people that aren't regular eventually get taken off my own "check" list, so I can understand if you've stopped. But I figure there are a few of you who continue to check in... so I'm going to continue posting.

So I'm here at home today - its Sunday, and I have an ADPi meeting at 2pm, so I will try to make a quick update before I have to get ready to go. School starts tomorrow and I feel like I'm ready... or at least as ready as I can be. I have my books, and my schedule (though I don't think I know where my class is tomorrow).

Tomorrow I am going to be at both chapel services. The first reason is that I'm sitting at the freshman retreat table after both services to sign people up to attend. The second reason is that in the absence of the Crowder Band (they are on vacation and so unable to open the chapel semester) we are introducting the entire university ministries staff. At least I think its because the Crowder band can't make it... it might have been part of the plan all along. But anyway, I have to introduce myself and I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to say yet... hopefully in a few hours I'll have thought of something. Sarah is going to help me pick out my outfit, which makes me laugh, but I need the encouragement that something looks cute enough to be on the chapel stage. I kind of want to wear a black dress, but that seems too dressy.

So that's chapel, and school, and that rounds up my Monday, except for the Baptist Student Ministry BBQ that evening - which should be a fun time.

Now, for the last two weeks....
School ended on a friday and I drove up that evening to Dallas with some friends so that I could fly out the next morning. I landed at Sea-Tac around 11, and immediately enjoyed some lovely lunch and catching up with Erin. That afternoon, Bethany picked me up and we enjoyed dinner with Scotty and some former GC football players (so fun!) then hung out with new boyfriend after church. Church at New Song was great and I was refreshed by their enthusiasm and passion, and was as always reminded of my enthusiasm and passion for Jesus.
Sunday I drove to Kirkland and spend the day with my aunts, Gloria and Donna. It was the company picnic for Gloria's office and the day was amazing - very fun (music, BBQ, bingo, etc) and beautiful weather (sunny, no clouds, seafair weekend, 85 degrees). We enjoyed a good dinner of leftover BBQ and then went to see the Bourne Ultimatum (great!). Monday morning I met Kristen, Amy Jo and Verla for breakfast. It was delightful to catch up with all of them, and was food for my soul. Kristen, and I then picked up Janae and Jean and headed north.
We met Larina and Paul Wang in Bellingham and enjoyed lunch together then caravanned (?) to Vancouver (or Richmond, actually) and spent the evening with them in their country of Canada. It was great fun to be all together, talking, laughing, watching movies and getting caught up. I miss those women!!!
We headed back to Seattle on Tuesday and I met up with Gloria and Donna and we had a great dinner together ( I love hanging with them!) and then watched some TV together. We got up early and they took me to the airport... and my trip was over.
So short, so fast and intense, but a great visit over all!!!

Sarah picked me up at the airport and we had a great time on the way home shopping at the outlet mall and getting caught up after my vacation. She's a great roommate. We only had a few days together before she left for Michigan for a week - she gets back today.

I attended the willow creek leadership summit ( baylor was a sattelite campus), after my return. It was incredible this year - Marcus Buckingham, Richard Curtis, Colin Powell, Jimmy Carter, all gave presentations, among a number of other amazing speakers. I was really challenged and hopefully learned a lot about leadership to supplement my class from the summer.

The summit ended and there were a few days where I just worked on getting ready for the school year at work, and then students moved in on Wed and Thursday. Its been welcome week since then, with a variety of activities, and also me at work getting ready for new grad assistants and to start my year with chaplains, etc.

I am so excited for this school year. There is a lot on my plate, but I'm looking forward to all of it!

I'm still working with fraternity and sorority chaplains, but am making a more concerted effort to reach other chaplains as well.
I'm going to be training the small group leaders for freshman retreat - which I'm super excited about - and then I'll be at freshman retreat giving a presentation on keeping your faith while being in a fraternity and sorority.
I'm going to help train a youth ministry team leader
I'm going to coordinate operation christmas child (again)
I'm co-leading a sunday school class at my church (UBC)
and I'm going to have a sale of Amani Ya Juu products in early september.

And while i do those things, I'm also going to be working on my classes, reading a TON (we have 13 books this semester) and writing, and trying to have a life.

And for myself I'm going to be attending BSF on Monday nights. :)

I can't wait!

Blessings to you, and especially those of you who are starting new things this year or at this time.

Leadership Journal - Week IV (and final)

Wow. Writing a journal every week sure speeds up the time. I think that probably also had to do with participating in Line Camps for the last three weeks - I know that last week went by at the speed of light.

I have almost finished reading The Leadership Challenge, by Kouzes and Posner. This week we read about Enabling Others to Act and Encouraging the Heart.

As I process through these chapters, there are a number of points that the authors make that directly apply to a situation that I was talking with a friend about last week. We are going to call my friend Jim, so that if someone googles his name this story won't come up and hurt his office.

Jim is the manager of a staff of 5. He is a clinician and supervises two other clinicians at his same level (essentially, though Jim is the preeminent clinician in his field and is the most senior of his staff). He also supervises three technical support roles. Jim works in the military - he is a civilian, and his staff are civilians, but they serve soldiers. The problem with this is that due to the heirarchical nature of the military, Jim didn't have any "real" power over his staff - in the sense of firing and other disciplinary actions. Unfortunately for Jim, his office was having some "real" problems - and he needed to solve them in a positive way.

Jim, his wife, and I were talking about this earlier this summer. The problems in his clinic were:

* communication difficulties between the clinicians and the techs

* poor quality work as a result of the poor communication

* finger pointing and a lack of ownership of projects and product

* possessive nature of different areas of the office

* lack of a "team" atmosphere due to new members and new office situation that reduced casual interactions between team members

* one specific tech/clincian relationship which was in great tension and disarray

I told Jim about some teambuilding and communication that our cohort had done earlier this year. In one class our professor took us through an excercise where we each had a chance to speak about the things in our group that were a problem, and then we each had a chance to speak about the things that were good. And then we set some expectations for behavior to address some of the issues. I also mentioned some other ways that team building could be done - i.e. manufacturing interaction time in the form of staff lunches and regular meetings to get everyone on the same page, staff "fun" activities as well.

Jim's response was admirable. One of the things I learned about leadership from him in this conversation we had was that a good leader is a learner as much as a teacher. Jim was really interested in solving these problems, because his office was suffering and so was his sanity, but more importantly he realized that to solve the problems he was going to have to humble himself and ask for suggestions from others. I think sometimes leaders think that they need to have all the solutions when if we humbled ourselves and asked around we wouldn't have to reinvent the wheel.

As the conversation progressed, Jim caught the vision for what we were all talking about and decided to implement some changes in his office immediately. Some things can't be changed - for example, he can't change the location of the clinic and the tech's offices. The design was too expensive and "state of the art" to make any changes to proximity of individuals. Additionally, his preference was not to fire anyone if possible - for a number of reasons (stability and workload of remaining staff, belief that the individuals in the office are capable of doing great work, etc).

Prior to this discussion, Jim had arranged the Techs and Clinicians into pairs or teams - each one working with another on a regular basis. Jim's wife suggested that rather than always having the same two work together, the techs took on rotating tasks, for a month each. That way they were always working on their skills on a variety of areas, they were not getting bored with one type of skill or task, and they encountered all the clinicians (and all the clinicians encountered all the techs). That way if there was a problem with one individual it would be more noticeable because it would affect either all three clinicians or all three techs - and would not look like just one clinician complaining about one tech's behavior (or vice versa). This initial suggestion was pretty revolutionary in the field, and so we talked about innovation and the idea of creating something that was bigger than just this particular clinic.

I really like process improvement. I love thinking the best way in the world something can be done (I'm a developer and arranger) and then implementing it (I'm also an activator) and seeing if it will work. I love the idea that the solution may be unique and may help other people improve their processes as well. I think we were all pretty jazzed about thinking outside the box regarding how the office was set up to run. This led us to discuss Jim himself stepping out of a clinician role into more of a coach/consultant role (and replacing himself with a less senior clinician who could be trained up and sent out) - then Jim could consult and work with difficult cases and step in when people were over their heads, but could also be better equipped to handle the administration of the office.

To continue... Jim went to work the next day and called a team meeting for the following day. He told them to clear their afternoon for that day and he ordered in lunch for the staff. At the meeting he discussed the fact that he was aware there were complaints on either side of the office. He took responsibility for this situation, because his expectations had not been presented clearly. And then he asked them to talk about what they did not like about working in the office, what problems they had, and asked them all to listen to the others. He wrote these complaints and issues up on a big note pad at the front of the room. And added any issues that he had heard before but which didn't come up in the conversation. He later told me that they went around the table 6 times completely before the group was spent of complaints. Then he had them go around and talk about what they liked about working there.

After this, he presented his expectations for the office. He had prepared a number of them in advance, and in large part they addressed the issues that were brought up with some new processes for paperwork and documentation which held different members of the teams accountable for giving the correct information to their teammates. To this the team contributed other expectations, giving them some buy in into the process and the solutions.

When I was reading The Leadership Challenge this week, K and P discussed fostering accountablity in the organizationn and modeling the behaviors to you hope to see. I think setting expectations for Jim's office was a great way to begin to foster accountability. By incorporating solutions to current goads as expectations for behavior, there is a now a way to give appropriate positive and negative feedback as needed.

This process has helped Jim's staff to work together. And it had another benefit. It has also helped to identify individuals who are either unable (due to lack of skills) or unwilling to conform to the group's expectations and behaviors. This has created another issue that would be discussed in later journals - any maybe they will be, but not today.

However, there was a follow up conversation as Jim reported the results to me. He, his wife and I discussed the value of recognizing contributions to the team. Kim, his wife, mentioned how valuable it could be to identify the positive contributions individuals are making and try to insert a reward system. She even mentioned that if they had to they could find a way out of their own money (if he didn't have any funds at the clinic) to make some meaningful rewards.

K and P discussed that two in the "Encourage the Heart" section. They talked about the importance of recognizing contributions to the team. The first its important to start with clear standards (check) and then give positive feedback. One suggestion I really liked was an example of a "brag board" where the supervisor posts notes of acclaim or praise about specific individuals on a bulletin board that everyone can see - I thought that might be a great place to post pictures of service men with their prostheses and their techs and clinicians, and/or letters that were written by servicemen or their families, so that the reward of working with people is always at the forefront of the minds of the staff.

The last few things to mention were things I heard at church and read in Parker Palmer's book (Let Your Life Speak):

* Parker says, "A leader is someone with the power to project either shadow or light onto some part of the world and onto the lives of the people who dwell there.... A good leader is intensely aware of the interplay of inner shadow and light, lest the act of leadership do more harm than good." (p.78)

* and... "I now know myself to be a person of weakness and strength, liability and giftedness, darkness and light. I now know that to be whole means to reject none of it, but to embrace all of it." (p.70)

The last note I have for today is: Sometimes to be a leader you have to sacrifice and give even when you are at your most tired, or when you think you have nothing left to give.

That is what I learned last week at Line Camp. :)

Leadership Journal Week III

Its Monday night, and I will confess that I'm later than normal in getting this journal written. I was out of town this weekend and though I took a few notes, I was not around earlier today to synthesize them. And then there was Hairspray. We saw it tonight and I can barely focus on leadership with the soundtrack running through my head (ok, and on my computer...).

Despite the toe-tapping, I do have a few things I'm thinking about this week:
* How much does a good leader communicate? Is there a point where there is too much? (I think we all agree there are plenty of leaders who don't communicate enough)
* When is it appropriate to step out of a situation, trust others to take care of it and leave, so that you can get rested up for the work you have the next day?
* How to "squash crickets gently"?
and maybe a few other things as they come to mind.

First - how much does a good leader communicate.
Last week I mentioned Scotty Kessler, one of the leaders I would (and did) move across the country to work with. He was an "over-communicator." Let's just call it like it was. He communicated everything, from his rationale for decisions to the concerns he had no his mind about a myriad of issues, to his thoughts or feelings about players and how to help them. The problem, I think, came when he overcommunicated his fears and worries to the staff. There are times when a leader needs to be confident toward his or her staff, even when he or she doesn't feel so sure about the future. Scotty would occaisionally reconsider his decision to stay on staff - and he would verbalize this to the group. My impression of this was a dad on a camping trip, who was lost, and then told his boy scout troop that he was lost - instead of just confidently walking to the left for a while until he figured out his plan, or even just making a camp out where they were until he came up with a plan.
This is a classic leadership mistake, I think. I think that once we get liberated into communication (and we do need this liberation, because mostly in America we undercommunicate, and the leaders of the world seem to be the best at keeping things close to the vest) we often hang our banner on communicating everything, so that we don't fall back into under communication. However... I think that most people want to know about the here and now, and they want to know the vision and values of an organization, but they don't want to know that someone doesn't believe in the vision, the values, in them; they don't want to know if their supervisor is afraid. As leaders, somehow we need to learn to be honest and still positive in situations that cause us anxiety or worry. At least, until the inevitable comes and then we need to communicate that information as positively as possible.
Here's my real life example before I move on: When I was at Eddie Bauer, we went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy (or Ch.7 - OK, I'm not sure...). We knew there was going to be lay offs, and then one day there was a big meeting and they announced that they were going to be laying off people that day. Yuk. I was middle management, with two direct reports. I was pretty confident that they were not going to lay off anyone working for me, though I thought my job was in jeopardy (in the Lord's goodness, however, I already had a job waiting for me and was one week from giving my two week's notice!). One of my analysts, Matt, was very concerned about his job. He had just gotten married and was one of the newest analysts on the team. I assured him that it was going to be OK, and his job was safe. Later that morning, I was laid off, along with all the other store planners. It was sad and hard for all of us, but it was OK. Until I realized that they were laying off the most recently hired analysts (they hadn't told us if any of our staff would be laid off) - including my Matt. At that point, I immediately went to him and told him that I was concerned about his job. I don't know it I did it exactly right - I don't know if I should not have assured him at the beginning or told him before the end. But I think that had I told him I was worried about his job earlier (if I had been), he would have been very concerned, unproductive and unconsolable. Instead, he was OK until our conversation and then prepared when they called him into the office to speak with him. (epilogue: he was immediately rehired by EB, after going through an interview process, and though I have lost touch with him, I know he has a big future ahead of him)

Second: delegation.
I think knowing when to delegate is difficult. I think also that when you like to be in the middle of the fun (this is one of my burdens), its doubly difficult to leave before everyone else has left - at least when you are one of the responsible people. I've been proud of Matt and Keane that there have been a few late night events where they are not present (i.e. the coffee house) until midnight. However, I wonder if they are at home sleeping or just in the office working on preparation for the next day. And I wonder how much work could be differently distributed to allow them, and Candice, and Carrie, etc to sleep.
I know that I have a threshold for tiredness, when I just want to go home and go to bed, and where I need to. But I think back to football camp and in-season and I remember the nights when I felt like I needed to be there until the bitter end. I am really grateful in hindsight that I was part of a staff of servant hearts, who were all willing to do the work together so that we could all go home a bit earlier rather than later. I'm also grateful that the Lord gave Scotty a heart of trust in me (and thus let me do things while he slept so he could be the face of our team), and that I had a heart of trust for Dave and Jared and some of the others - without whom I would have been miserable and trying to take care of little details all the time. And not getting any sleep. I need to remember to look for opportunities to delegate tasks, and to let others run the show, so that I can help them develop their skills, feel trusted, and rest up in order to lead. I also need to remember to look for opportunities to let others rest and work late or early so someone else can be in the spotlight!

Third: gentleness
The bible says we should be gentle. Paul talks about it constantly - its a fruit of the spirit (Ephesians 5), we should be clothed in it (Colossians 3) and our "gentleness should be evident to all" (Philippians 4:5). And at the same time, John says that both Grace and Truth came through Jesus Christ - so I know that we are supposed to speak truth - but gently.
This week we talked a lot about how to speak truth without crushing people's spirits, how to get them to agree to actions which they may not like without coercing them. On Friday night - about 12 hours before the students would leave - we found another student with a cell phone. I thought Matt did a great job of being firm but gentle when we spoke to the student outside. The discussion centered on not being an exception to the rule, on the idea that breaking rules now (even ones as small as a cell phone) leads to breaking rules when you are at Baylor, and how this is an opportunity to define who you are going to be. It was a dicey situation, to be sure. Our ideal was that he would turn over his phone voluntarily, and enjoy the rest of his stay. The worst case.. he keep it and leave camp. yuk.
But, I was blessed by Matt, who really consciously thought about how to gently talk with the student, who asked me and a baylor bound leader to accompany him to help fill in gentleness and truth gaps as needed (I think), and who listened well to the explanation the student had, but didn't give in to the reasons of the student. He listened, and demonstrated his caring, but then told the student how he could handle that situation in the future. The result was the student voluntarily gave up his phone and the next morning was still at camp and had navigated the 12 hours successfully.
I want to be grace to people all the time - its easier, mostly, and its happier, and it involves less confrontation. But there are times when I know I need to be truth and its OK. Jesus brought both grace and truth, and as an effective leader, I need to find a way to do the same.

That is probably all my thoughts on singleness for now. For you regular readers, I will try to post more on my life soon, in the meantime. Lead well and love well, too. Blessings.

Last week in Photos

Sadly, I didn't get any pics of our visit from Dave Banks when he stopped by last week on his way to a new post in California. But I did take a lot of pictures at Line Camp, where I led a small group and helped out all week.

Here are a few for your review. :) Love, Tiff

my small group from week 1 - they were fantastic!This team went CRAZY when they found out they won the "Bear Food" challenge during "Bearing the Elements" on Thursday night.
During "All-Line Camp Sing 2007" - hysterical.

See... even the guys get into it!

As do the girls...!

Journal on Leadership, week 2

I enjoyed this process last week and am excited to be writing again about leadership and my reflections on it. This week Dub asked us to reflect on the questions "So what?" and "Now what?" as they relate to the study we've been doing of different leadership theories. I also want to discuss characteristics of the most impactful leaders I've worked with and some reflection on servant leadership.


First... Characteristics of the Leaders I would move across country to work with:
a) Marc Adams - Marc was my district director when I first worked for JCPenney - he taught me a lot about working, retail and integrity. Later, we worked together again at Eddie Bauer (randomly).
The characteristics that I remember admiring about Marc, and which would make me willing to move across the country to work with him are: honest, caring, fun, knowledgable, humble, respected, fair but tough.


b) Julie Harris-Cheney - Julie was my director at Eddie Bauer and later in my time there I reported to her directly. It was a blast to work for Julie and we also had great opportunity to talk about spiritual matters (she is Jewish). I appreciated her willingness to listen and share and ask honest questions, in addition to these other characteristics: tough, expects excellence, loves people, respects others, fun, knowledgable, open, stubborn, smart


c) Scott Kessler - Scotty is the former head football coach at Greenville College... I actually DID move across country to work with him. He was a tough boss and a hard worker, but I learned so much from partnering with him in ministry and working with him in the football program. Characteristics of Scotty are: honest, visionary, Godly, wise, risk-taker, caring, respectful, interested.


When I think about leaders I want to follow (and thus, who I want to be), I think of these three people (among a few others) and their characteristics. I think about honesty and openness, respectful-ness of other's views, wise and knowledgable individuals, intelligent but also fun. I also know that while I love working for Christians, I think a person could be a good leader without being one - my mom always says that Christian principles work for everyone, so if a person led using Christian characteristics, I know that I would follow them. Granted, of course, I would prefer to follow someone who I believe is seeking God for the direction of our endeavor, and relying on God's gifts for their abilities - but frankly... I know some who call themselves Christians who may not reflect those things so....


OK, second, servant leadership. Working with Line Camp this week has offered me great opportunity to observe leadership first hand - in the person of its main full-time leaders and in the student leaders.
At check in we realized there was an error on the website, telling students the correct name of the check-in location... but not the right building number on the map. When it was pointed out, Matt tried to correct it on the web, but the server was down. So he decided to go out to the street and flag people down. I asked him why not send a Baylor Bound leader so that he could be at the Heritage House in case other stuff came up (he seemed like a pretty important dude to the process). He said that he would go, and I was left to ponder Servant Leadership. In situations like these, what is the best thing to do? I appreciated Matt's trust of all of us that we could handle it, and I think symbolically it said a lot that he left us there to handle it, and that he went and did this very hot job on his own. I think that I would have sent someone to go do it (or had them rotate) - not because I wouldn't have wanted to - I don't think I would have minded had I been in Matt's place - but because I like to be in the hub in case people have questions or need direction. I was grateful for Matt's example of trust and empowerment in this case, as it gave me a lot to think about. He certainly didn't abandon his post - he came back periodically to check on people and give us encouragement, but then he was gone again - and everything went smoothly.
Later in the week, Matt was very intentional about giving positive feedback to the small group leaders for the work they had done. He was sincere and grateful and I think it made an impact on the group. I've appreciated his enthusiasm, his passion for Line Camp and his ability to convey gratitude.


Third, So what... Now what....?
This is the hardest part of the journal for me this week. In my written journal I wrote: What will I do with all this info I have learned?

I wrote two answers so far:
a) I want to make informed decisions about how I currently lead and what kind of leader I want to be - are they the same?

What kind of leader do I aspire to be?:
thoughtful, honest, visionary, servant, humble, wise, Godly, knowledgable, interested, respectful, listening, sharing openly, prayerful, fun and passionate (probably among other things).

What kind of leader am I?:
sometimes controlling, not always adaptable, respectful, listening, hopefully Godly, hopefully interested, fun most of the time, passionate, generally thoughtful though sometimes too quick to act.

Perhaps if I keep my "aspirations" in front of me, that combined with my philosophy of ministry will keep me headed in the right direction.


b) I guess I need to think about how I would rank on some of those scales and see if they are where I want to be. Most of the scales we looked at would place "good" management at places that are both task and people oriented (somehow). But good management varies depending on the situation ( I think I talked about this last week - sometimes people need an authoritarian, for example).

More importantly than figuring out where I fit on those scales, though, is figuring out if my leadership style fits in the places I want to work. I don't think I could work in a place where they have only authoritarian leaders and that type of leadership is appropriate. But I also know that I like to get tasks done, and so working somewhere where it was all play and fun would be difficult, too. Thinking of these things makes me think that part of what I could use the recent learning of our class for is to identify questions I would ask of future colleges as I look for employment.

Q's:
a) Describe your leadership style in 3 sentences.
b) What types of leaders succeed in your college or university?
c) How will I be challenged to grow in my leadership skills?
d) How do YOU view success in your organization - is it task-related or people-related?


I also need to answer these questions for myself in a different way:
a) Describe MY leadership style in 3 sentences (right now I have a two page philosophy of ministry... I need something shorter!).
b)What type of leader am I and am I a fit for this organization?
c) Am I committed to constantly changing and improving myself and if so, how am I hoping to improve my leadership skills?
d) How do I view success - my own and those of people who I support or work with?


I don't have answers yet, but its good to be thinking of this and mulling over it as I prepare for class tomorrow.

Finally, and as a bonus... I don't have a definition of leadership yet, but here is Dub's favorite, and some other quotes about what leadership is (from this site linked here):
** Dub's Fave ** Leadership is... "a subtle process of mutual influence that fuses thought, feeling, and action to produce cooperative effort in the service of the purpose and values of both leader and followers." (Bolman and Deal, 1997)
** "My definition of a leader . . . is a man who can persuade people to do what they don't want to do, or do what they're too lazy to do, and like it." Harry S. Truman
** "The superior leader gets things done with very little motion. He imparts instruction not through many words but through a few deeds. He keeps informed about everything but interferes hardly at all. He is a catalyst, and though things would not get done well if he weren't’t there, when they succeed he takes no credit. And because he takes no credit, credit never leaves him." Lao Tse
** "Leadership is the art to of influencing and directing people in such a way that will win their obedience, confidence, respect and loyal cooperation in achieving common objectives." US Air Force
(The next two are from the website linked here)
** "Leadership is a process of giving purpose (meaningful direction) to collective effort, and causing willing effort to be expended to achieve purpose." Jacobs and Jacques, 1990
I like this definition a lot.
** "Leadership is about articulating visions, embodying values, and creating the environment within which things can be accomplished." Richards & Engle, 1986
This definition makes me think of the book we are reading, "The Leadership Challenge," and so I will stop here. I like this definition a lot, too.

Make it a great week. Practice leadership and service. :)