"He/She can really produce for us but he/she can be such a pain!" I hear that cry from leaders on a fairly regular basis as I coach them on dealing with high performance/high maintenance people on their team. I call these kind of people "thoroughbreds", some of their co-workers call them "nuts" or worse. I don't remember where I got the metaphor but I've used it for years.
The premise is this (at the risk of offending either some people or some animals depending on who you are referencing with this example): To bring out the best in people you must understand their personality and psychological make-up. There is something to be learned by the difference between the thoroughbred race horse and the old reliable workhorse.
You can accomplish a lot of good, steady work with a tough workhorse. The workhorse is bred for just that purpose. Not for speed or show, just good old fashioned strength and endurance to plod along and get the job done. They will take a lot of hard work and even accept a tough taskmaster without a whole lot of complaining. You can yell at them one minute and then love on them the next and they'll just keep plodding ahead. However, you'll never see anyone at Churchill Downs hanging a horseshoe shaped floral arrangement around the neck of one of these creatures.
Then you have the high-strung, high-maintenance thoroughbred. A horse that requires special care but one that delivers special results. This horse works equally as hard as the other in what they do best: flying like the wind. Their performance is what wins accolades and puts the farm on the map (and the prize in the owner's pocket). However, they are sensitive and require special care, feeding, and training. They can be expensive to have around but if they win races the payoff can be grand.
In her article: "Thinking the Way Animals Do", Temple Grandin, an assistant professor of animal science at Colorado State University writes..."Horses with calm placid dispositions are more likely to habituate to rough methods of handling and training compared to flighty, excitable animals. The high-strung, spirited horse may be ruined by rough training methods because he becomes so fearful that he fails to learn, or habituate.
On the other hand, an animal with a calm, nonreactive nervous system will probably habituate to a series of nonpainful forced training procedures, whereas a flighty, high-strung nervous animal may never habituate. Horses who are constantly swishing their tails when there are no flies present and have their heads up are usually fearful horses. In the wild, horses put their heads up to look for danger." http://tinyurl.com/cdgzgk
By now you've figured out the comparison to our people. We have some people who are good, solid players who deserve our love and respect because they get the job done to a certain level without a lot of complaining or high maintenance work. But, if we want our place to really shine at a different level we'll need that other kind of player who, though they require special handling, bring great rewards.
That term "special handling" is the lesson here. If you are going to have a thoroughbred in your barn don't be naive or grumpy about what is required of you. They will need more time and attention than the others. They will constantly be fearful that you don't love, respect, and appreciate them. They will constantly need your help with their insecurities and paranoia about their status. You will have to give them more time and carefully think through every interaction. However, when they run like the wind you can be the BIG WINNER.
Here's the balancing caveat: you have to be sure to constantly calculate the reward versus the investment of time and trouble these players may require. My friend Dave Santrella calls it the "grief to dollar ratio." I ask: "is the juice worth the squeeze?" Either way, only you can determine if there are enough blue ribbons and sweepstakes payoffs to live with the care and training of this kind of team member. You'll also have to work harder as a leader to keep them from tearing down the barn and running off all your workhorses.
Every hard working farm needs some good workhorses. But, if you aspire to have a farm that gets noticed for major accomplishments, you'll need a thoroughbred or two. Each must be handled differently and you, the leader, have to know the difference and "do the math".
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Buck and the Art of the Handwritten Note
It's Sunday afternoon as I write this with Beethoven playing in the background taking me back to a much earlier time. I've just finished writing four hand-written notes, also taking me back to a practice that is now more a part of the past. They were to folks who were kind enough to visit the Sunday School class I teach and one who joined just today.
I was tempted to email them (I had addresses for at least a couple of them). I admit that I really enjoy the efficiency and speed of using internet correspondence plus I'm a much faster typist. But, I felt these notes were important enough that they required ink to paper. So I jotted simple but sincere wishes on personal stationery.
The very act brought to mind a great man I once knew who communicated in this very same way as he cast vision for a whole community. He was the late Buck Mickel, and if you were in anyway involved in the community of Greenville, S.C. prior to the late '90s, you knew him as one of the very "pillars" who "got things done" in that city.
Buck as accurately described in the South Carolina Business Hall of Fame: "retired chairman of Daniel International Corporation and retired vice chairman and president of Fluor Corporation, was respected as a giant in the Greenville community and the world of commerce, but he was an even bigger person when it came to helping others. Friends and acquaintances remember him as a thoughtful and generous person, an outstanding leader, and a willing mentor to those who sought his counsel." (More here: http://tinyurl.com/nxrq42)
This community giant, who with his wife and children played a major role in improving that part of the country, was a master at the art of the handwritten note. I'm a bit of a correspondence "pack rat" and I have many treasured notes from important people in my life in my files. Some of the most special were handwritten notes from Buck.
He wrote them by hand, always in red ink on his own simple personal stationery with his name at the top. Though the address on the envelope was typewritten by his faithful assistant Dottie, the notes were always scrawled in red in his unmistakable script. On one occasion I got two in one day as he had apparently had another thought after the first was sealed so he fired off another.
Former Greenville Mayor Bill Workman who worked with Buck for many years at Fluor Daniel, described these famous notes as Buck's "red bullets". They were sent to countless community leaders (and who knows how far beyond) with Buck's thoughts and observations of things that needed doing or to show appreciation for what had been done. This from a man who took it upon himself to keep a running list of the things that needed to be done in Greenville to make it a better city. If you visit the downtown area of Greenville you'll see the fruit of a lot of these ideas.
Buck "got it" in more ways than we younger leaders could ever hope to understand. That included the simple but effective power of a handwritten note from a person of vision and leadership and what it meant to those he was trying to mentor. Now more than a decade after his death that mode of communication is still a lesson to those of us who knew him.
In this day of Facebook; Twitter; and Blackberry (some would say I'm more than just acquainted with all three) his example reminds us that sometimes nothing says it better than a handwritten note. There's even a book by Margaret Shepherd by the title "The Art of the Handwritten Note." Though I haven't read it, an excerpt does capture that special experience of opening the mailbox to find one of these missives: "When you receive the daily mail do you jump to open the handwritten envelopes first because you can’t wait to see who has written and why? Or do you hold those letters aside to savor and enjoy after you are done sorting your bills and tossing the junk mail? Whatever your approach, you no doubt recognize the importance of the note that comes in a unique envelope with distinct handwriting and possibly a decoration or two. Indeed, in an age when even birthday greetings are sent by e-mail, the personal letter is appreciated more than ever before."
So am I saying that I'm planning to abandon Twitter or Facebook or email (not to mention this blog)? Not a chance. But I am committing to try to recapture the discipline of following the example of my friend Buck Mickel by putting pen to paper when it really counts!
What do you think?
I was tempted to email them (I had addresses for at least a couple of them). I admit that I really enjoy the efficiency and speed of using internet correspondence plus I'm a much faster typist. But, I felt these notes were important enough that they required ink to paper. So I jotted simple but sincere wishes on personal stationery.
The very act brought to mind a great man I once knew who communicated in this very same way as he cast vision for a whole community. He was the late Buck Mickel, and if you were in anyway involved in the community of Greenville, S.C. prior to the late '90s, you knew him as one of the very "pillars" who "got things done" in that city.
Buck as accurately described in the South Carolina Business Hall of Fame: "retired chairman of Daniel International Corporation and retired vice chairman and president of Fluor Corporation, was respected as a giant in the Greenville community and the world of commerce, but he was an even bigger person when it came to helping others. Friends and acquaintances remember him as a thoughtful and generous person, an outstanding leader, and a willing mentor to those who sought his counsel." (More here: http://tinyurl.com/nxrq42)
This community giant, who with his wife and children played a major role in improving that part of the country, was a master at the art of the handwritten note. I'm a bit of a correspondence "pack rat" and I have many treasured notes from important people in my life in my files. Some of the most special were handwritten notes from Buck.
He wrote them by hand, always in red ink on his own simple personal stationery with his name at the top. Though the address on the envelope was typewritten by his faithful assistant Dottie, the notes were always scrawled in red in his unmistakable script. On one occasion I got two in one day as he had apparently had another thought after the first was sealed so he fired off another.
Former Greenville Mayor Bill Workman who worked with Buck for many years at Fluor Daniel, described these famous notes as Buck's "red bullets". They were sent to countless community leaders (and who knows how far beyond) with Buck's thoughts and observations of things that needed doing or to show appreciation for what had been done. This from a man who took it upon himself to keep a running list of the things that needed to be done in Greenville to make it a better city. If you visit the downtown area of Greenville you'll see the fruit of a lot of these ideas.
Buck "got it" in more ways than we younger leaders could ever hope to understand. That included the simple but effective power of a handwritten note from a person of vision and leadership and what it meant to those he was trying to mentor. Now more than a decade after his death that mode of communication is still a lesson to those of us who knew him.
In this day of Facebook; Twitter; and Blackberry (some would say I'm more than just acquainted with all three) his example reminds us that sometimes nothing says it better than a handwritten note. There's even a book by Margaret Shepherd by the title "The Art of the Handwritten Note." Though I haven't read it, an excerpt does capture that special experience of opening the mailbox to find one of these missives: "When you receive the daily mail do you jump to open the handwritten envelopes first because you can’t wait to see who has written and why? Or do you hold those letters aside to savor and enjoy after you are done sorting your bills and tossing the junk mail? Whatever your approach, you no doubt recognize the importance of the note that comes in a unique envelope with distinct handwriting and possibly a decoration or two. Indeed, in an age when even birthday greetings are sent by e-mail, the personal letter is appreciated more than ever before."
So am I saying that I'm planning to abandon Twitter or Facebook or email (not to mention this blog)? Not a chance. But I am committing to try to recapture the discipline of following the example of my friend Buck Mickel by putting pen to paper when it really counts!
What do you think?
Friday, June 5, 2009
Why Twitter? Leadership and Ministry Folks Who Twitter
I’m getting a ton of questions on why Twitter. You don’t have to be a Twitter subscriber/user to look at what folks are doing on Twitter.
Here are some ministry and leadership types and CCM artists who are Tweating so you can see what kind of things they are sharing.
John Piper on why he's started using Twitter:
Here are some ministry and leadership types and CCM artists who are Tweating so you can see what kind of things they are sharing.
John Piper on why he's started using Twitter:
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