Category: Reflection on Bible & Life

Teams and Teamwork, Part Four – Energy & Empowerment

teamwork with graphicI’ve worked with some great team leaders who energized and empowered their teams. I’ve also worked with some who seemed to be aloof, seldom scheduled team meetings or gave direction, and knew how to suck the energy out of the room whenever we did have a meeting. I’ve also been a team leader, and although my intentions were always to energize and empower, I am certain I fell short on many occasions as tunnel vision, deadlines, and distractions got in my way.

Today Michael Hyatt posted some excellent observations on, “5 Ways to Energize Your Team.”[1] Michael has a way of succinctly stating the obvious in a fresh manner, so I am listing his five points and will close with a couple of thoughts:

  1. Assume others are smart and working hard.
  2. Listen intently and ask thoughtful questions.
  3. Acknowledge the sacrifices others have made on your behalf.
  4. Express gratitude for their effort and their results.
  5. Remind them why their work is so important and the difference they are making.

Number one above helps us avoid the fundamental attribution error that occurs whenever we assume our own intentions and actions are good even though circumstances may cause us to be a little off our game (we are smart and working hard), but erroneously assume that others are just slacking off.

Number two is essential for a collaborative environment where people are free to share ideas without judgment. Some people never speak because they know no one is listening. The team loses whenever that occurs. We encourage the hearts of our team members when they know they and their ideas are honored, listened to, and respected.

Number three and four seem to go together. Success is seldom a solo accomplishment. Everyone appreciates a little appreciation, and team leaders need the humility and ability to share the wins by shining the spotlight on the team. Leaders also need to acknowledge what is going on behind the scenes, and how some team members may persevere and discover crucial solutions that could be hidden in obscurity if they are not prone to sing their own praises. For a team leader to keep silent or take credit is a sure way to breed resentment and change the dynamic from team to group of rivals.

Number five is all about the mission, and keeping the purpose in view at all times. Jesus encouraged the hearts of his team members (disciples) in each of these ways. It would be a good Bible study to discover the specific references in the Gospels where he modeled these five behaviors. Here’s one example: “For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” (Matthew 12:50 NIV) Leadership requires discipleship, which requires follower-ship. As we follow Christ, we will learn better ways to equip and empower our teams and in the process make and become better disciples.

Teams and Teamwork, Part Three

teamwork with graphicWe’ve been talking about teamwork, specifically how working as a team makes harvest possible from a spiritual perspective. To a certain extent, the harvest is the bottom line for the farmer, and it is also true in the church. All of our efforts at cultivating, sowing, and tending a crop are in vain if there is no harvest. Jesus made his purpose clear: “to seek and save the lost.” (Luke 19:10) In church teams, our ultimate mission and purpose must be in alignment with Jesus’ mission and purpose. And do you remember the importance of prioritizing purpose from the Leadership Network report on church teams mentioned in the last post in this series?

Here is another excerpt from my upcoming book, Growing Disciples Organically: The Jesus Method of Spiritual Formation. In it I discuss these principles and also share more about my neighbors, Granny and Gramps Plake.

A harvest is always anticipated. No one plants a crop and expects it to fail. The investment is too great. The Bible uses the metaphor of fruit to describe intentionality. “Be fruitful, and multiply,” God told Adam and Eve (Genesis 1:32). Jesus called us to “go, and bring forth fruit” (John 15:16). “The fruit of the Spirit” (Galatians 5:22) describes the qualities of maturation that result from organic growth.

Blank white book w/pathWhen it comes to spiritual formation, we should expect to become fruitful followers of Jesus. At any given point in time, an organism is either dying, declining, living, growing, or thriving. The same is true for our spiritual growth. Where do you see yourself in that continuum? What would it take to change? How can you engage more fully in your own spiritual formation so you can expect to be a participant in the harvest?

Obedience to Jesus Christ opens the door for growth, and obedience often means working to bring in the harvest. It is understood that proper nourishment, cultivation, and environment are all necessary for sustained growth at every stage of development. Faith, life, and community lead to fruit, the organic result for harvest. When this is not the case, or when growth is stunted, it’s time to get back to basics. The writer of Hebrews spoke to this issue:

In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. (Hebrews 5:12–14)

Spiritual formation and the resulting harvest have a lot to do with sowing and reaping. If you don’t invest much on the sowing end of things, you won’t reap much of a harvest. But even a small investment can reap great dividends if we invest in the right things.

Granny and Gramps, mentioned earlier, knew the value of investment in things that truly matter. While you’d never have known it by looking at their humble home and surroundings, they were storing up eternal treasures by investing in people. They raised many of their own grandchildren whose parents had died, and their kindness extended beyond their family to neighbors and even strangers who were welcomed to partake of Granny’s meals.

Granny and Gramps were a team during nearly seventy years of marriage, up until the end of their lives. Everyone thought that Gramps would go first, even though he eventually gave up his smoking habit. But somewhat surprisingly, the spry and seemingly healthy Granny ended up in the hospital and then an extended-care facility because of congestive heart failure. I visited and prayed with them often, and was there the day Granny went to heaven. Grief-stricken Gramps went home and the next morning a grandson found him slumped over in a chair with a smile on his face. Their separation had not been long, as both were reunited at the feet of their Savior. At their combined memorial service, hundreds of relatives, friends, and neighbors paid tribute to this humble couple who teamed up to make a difference in the lives of others. (From Chapter 13: Teamwork Makes Harvest Possible, Growing Disciples Organically: The Jesus Method of Spiritual Formation, Deep River Books, ©2013 Don Detrick)

Teams and Teamwork: Part One

teamwork with graphicA new report authored by Warren Byrd and Ryan Hartwig from Leadership Network and Azusa Pacific University shows the results of surveying 125 church teams last year to get their input about what works and what doesn’t work in their experience. Their report provides insight on 5 proven indicators of successful teams, their top 10 findings, and 7 suggestions to strengthen your team.

Their 5 proven indicators are:

  1. Being a real work team, rather than a team in name only. Such a team has a stable membership, and high levels of interdependence among members.
  2. A clear, compelling, and consequential direction for the team’s work.
  3. An enabling team structure with well-designed team tasks, norms, and composition.
  4. An organizational context that offers necessary reward, information, material, and educational resources.
  5. Access to expert internal or external coaching in teamwork.

You can access the entire report here:  http://leadnet.org/resources/download/searching_for_strong_senior_leadership_teams_what_145_church_teams_told_us

The findings of the report may or may not be surprising to you. However, if you take another look at the 5 proven indicators of successful teams, I think you’ll discover that Jesus modeled them all with his team of 12 disciples, his senior leadership team. And he did so organically, without access to any of the technology, bureaucracy, curriculum, charts, or institutional metrics that we utilize today. He didn’t even have an office, virtual or otherwise. I’ve included a chapter on teams and teamwork in my upcoming book, Growing Disciples Organically: The Jesus Method of Spiritual Formation. The book will be available the last part of April, 2013. I’ve included an excerpt below in this post and will include Part 2 in my next post.

Blank white book w/pathRegardless of the type of farm, the overall operation rises and falls on the harvest. A successful mission or season of farming depends upon the harvest. Staying on mission means focusing on properly executing all of the steps necessary to bring in the harvest. Every farmer knows that if he fails to bring in the harvest, no matter how good he may have been in planting, weeding, or pest control, he has failed.

Although we seldom used the word, virtually everything we did on the farm involved teamwork. Family members, which included at times extended family members, worked together to accomplish tasks that would have been impossible for any one of us to do alone. From bringing in the hay, to building a barn, to cutting and wrapping meat or canning produce or hauling firewood, we worked together.

When there were really big projects to accomplish, such as building a bigger barn or building, we often worked with neighbors as well. Together, we toiled and everyone did his or her part to accomplish the goal. There existed no particular hierarchy, with middle-aged men working alongside teenagers or senior citizens, each doing what he or she could do best according to their own level of skill or expertise. Artisans with years of experience willingly and without cost patiently taught younger members of the team skills that would greatly enhance their lives with the expectation that they, in turn, would train another person down the road. Thus, healthy tradition and craftsmanship continued on in an organic fashion, without bureaucratic paperwork or organizational bylaws.

Jesus showed us how teams work. He never appointed a committee or chaired a board meeting, but he was the undisputed leader. He led by example and did not try to micromanage his disciples’ activities. He empowered them to succeed and encouraged them when they failed and coached them when they needed to take the next steps in the journey. (From Chapter 13: Teamwork Makes Harvest Possible, Growing Disciples Organically: The Jesus Method of Spiritual Formation, Deep River Books, ©2013 Don Detrick)

The Tree of Life and the Life of Trees

Large Cedar Trees Grove of Patriarchs Mt Rainier Lower Res July 9 2012“It is what it is.” We often use those words to express angst, frustration, or exasperation about circumstances that we cannot control. Do you ever wonder what “what is” would be if Adam and Eve had not eaten from the forbidden tree, but instead eaten from the tree of life? In that defining moment of disobedience mortality became the destiny of all living things.

Though the number of years in a human life varies, the Bible provides a rule of thumb in Psalm 90:10, “The days of our lives are seventy years; and if by reason of strength they are eighty years, yet their boast is only labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.” (New King James Version) A quick Google search confirms that while nearly 30 countries can boast an average lifespan at birth of more than eighty years (http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/curiosity/topics/longest-life-expectancy-pictures.htm), our planet’s average citizen comes closer to the longevity mentioned by the Psalmist, somewhere around sixty-seven years.

NPR featured a fascinating science story by Robert Krulwich recently about the lifespan of living things on planet earth (http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2013/01/22/169976655/nature-has-a-formula-that-tells-us-when-its-time-to-die?ft=3&f=111787346&sc=nl&cc=es-20130127#update). The research seems to show a simple principle: Life is short for small creatures, longer for big ones. In fact, a paper done in 2007 showed a formula, that when applied to 700 different plants, correctly predicted lifespans. Krulwich states:

It’s hard to believe that creatures as different as jellyfish and cheetahs, daisies and bats, are governed by the same mathematical logic, but size seems to predict lifespan. The formula seems to be nature’s way to preserve larger creatures who need time to grow and prosper, and it not only operates in all living things, but even in the cells of living things. It tells animals for example, that there’s a universal limit to life, that though they come in different sizes, they have roughly a billion and a half heart beats; elephant hearts beat slowly, hummingbird hearts beat fast, but when your count is up, you are over. Plants pulse as well, moving nourishment through their veins. They obey the same commands of scale, and when the formula says “you’re done,” amazingly, the buttercup and the redwood tree obey. Why a specific mathematical formula should govern all of us, I don’t completely understand, but when the math says, “it’s time,” off we go …

It comes as no surprise that redwood trees live longer than ferns, but it is surprising that there is a pattern, a scientific formula if you will, that governs the span of all species of plant and animal life on planet earth. It’s almost as if someone planned it that way. Hmm, I wonder if it might have anything to do with a common Creator? Maybe “numbering our days” is more about theology than mathematics.

Old Maple Tree on Mox Chehalis Road near Malone WA 10-25-12Despite our constant human longing for a fountain of youth, we don’t seem to be able to change the formula and delay the inevitable aging process, or add more years to our life. Perhaps it should give us pause to consider the advice by the same Psalmist after pondering the brevity of our existence: “So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” (Psalm 90:12 NKJV)

In the beginning, there was a garden. Adam and Eve had all the time in the world to tend it and reap the benefits of a weed and disease free environment. They must have been hoping for the promised knowledge when they ate the forbidden fruit. But they did not get what they expected. What they needed was wisdom to make a better choice. Had they known, they probably would have chosen to eat from the tree of life.

In the end, there will be another garden with the pristine environment Adam and Eve once enjoyed, and the fellowship with God that was broken by their act of disobedience. The Apostle John describes that future scene: “On each side of the river grew a tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, with a fresh crop each month. The leaves were used for medicine to heal the nations. No longer will there be a curse upon anything. For the throne of God and of the Lamb will be there, and His servants will worship Him.” (Revelation 22:2-3 New Living Translation) We will learn infinitely more from the tree of life than we will from the life of trees.

It is what it is. Our days are numbered. Yet if we apply our hearts to wisdom and learn to number our days we’ll discover that God has a plan to exchange our mortality for immortality as we trust in Christ’s sacrifice for our sin and disobedience. When we do, we’ll reserve a future opportunity to enjoy the fruit from the tree of life forever. Abraham Lincoln wisely said, “Live a good life, and in the end, it’s not the years in the life, but the life in the years.”

Both tree photos (c) by Don Detrick – the top photo shows cedar trees in The Grove of the Patriarchs in Mt. Rainier National Park. Lower photo an ancient maple tree on Mox Chehalis Road near Malone, WA.

If you are reading this on one of my blogs other than dondetrick.com, you might want to know that I will be posting mainly here in the future: www.dondetrick.com.