LEADERSHIP QUOTE:

"The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities." Stephen Covey

A LITTLE BIT DEEPER:

It's December, the last month of 2024. Over the past few months we've talked about INFLUENCE, VISION, and STRATEGY. I thought I'd end the year with a few quotes on the topic of PRIORITIES.

You can read past blogs HERE.

This is a "classic Covey quote". If you've read any of his books or heard him speak in the past, he talks a lot about priorities.

I remember reading his book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People in graduate school, and I had never heard or understood the concept Covey lays out in his 3rd Habit: Put First Things First.

The simple idea of Quadrant II Leadership is all about priorities. Covey talks about how we allow urgent and not important things to get in the way of the things that are really important, and these things are classified as Important and Not Urgent.

Most of us live in Quadrant I which is full of Urgent and Important things, but it's often driven by crisis and problems which results in stress and burn-out.

Read the book. He explains it so much better.

Quadrant II living is a life where priorities help you focus on aspects of prevention, proactive problem solving, relationship building and planning.

As to Covey's quote above? He's saying that if we aren't guided by priorities, we'll be guided by our schedule.

How do you handle priorities in your life and do they make it to your schedule first?

LEADERSHIP QUOTE:

"What if today, we were just grateful for everything?" Charlie Brown

A LITTLE BIT DEEPER:

This week, as we celebrate Thanksgiving in the United States, I simply want to pause to not only reflect on all that I'm thankful for, but to actively be about thanking God for his goodness and others for their gracious generosity in my life.

"Be cheerful no matter what; pray all the time; thank God no matter what happens. This is the way God wants you who belong to Christ Jesus to live." 1 Thessalonians 5:18 (MSG)

Today, be grateful for everything! And then again tomorrow, and the day after that.

LEADERSHIP QUOTE:

"There's no shortage of remarkable ideas, what's missing is the will to execute them." Seth Godin

A LITTLE BIT DEEPER:

It's November, and if you're like me, as we approach the last weeks of the year, you begin to think about what's next. I'm in the middle of budget planning, calendar planning, and project planning, yet the most important aspect of planning is simply asking questions around STRATEGY and what will get us where we want to and need to go. This month, let's look at strategy a little bit and see what we can learn.

We're exploring the concept of STRATEGY but when I saw Godin's quote above, the idea of EXECUTION jumped out at me.

"Strategy is the overarching plan for an organization, while execution is the process of putting that plan into action." Unknown

Last week, I participated in a Barnabas Board Meeting. This is the organization I lead here in Orange County California. At the meeting, we did our normal business, but then we spent some time doing some brainstorming around strategy. Some great ideas circled the room, and as I drove home, I spent time thinking, dreaming, praying, wondering, and processing some of those strategic ideas about where we're wanting to go as an organization and a Community.

The next day, when I woke up, I shifted into the reality of execution. What would it take for one or two of those ideas to actually make it from the brainstorming process into reality? This is Strategic Execution. They go hand in hand.

In your personal leadership, do you lean towards the "STRATEGY" side of thinking, planning, dreaming or do you lean into the "EXECUTION" side of moving into action? Or both?

LEADERSHIP QUOTE:

"Strategic Planning does not deal with future decisions, it deals with the futurity of present decisions." Peter Drucker

A LITTLE BIT DEEPER:

It's November, and if you're like me, as we approach the last weeks of the year, you begin to think about what's next. I'm in the middle of budget planning, calendar planning, and project planning, yet the most important aspect of planning is simply asking questions around STRATEGY and what will get us where we want to and need to go. This month, let's look at strategy a little bit and see what we can learn.

But first, today is election day in the USA, and while all of our readers aren't in the USA, I am, and the quote above connects with our election as well as the conversation we'll have around strategy.

My prayer today for the United States is that we would have a peaceful election and that we would consider the decisions we're making TODAY that will affect our TOMORROW! Pray with me today for the process we're in and for the Leaders that will be selected to lead us forward!

Here's a great definition of strategy I've carried with me. Not sure where it came from, but I like the flow of it:

"Strategy generally involves setting goals and priorities,

determining actions to achieve the goals, and mobilizing

resources to execute the actions."

When Peter Drucker makes a statement, people stop, listen, think, question, and then act. I do.

I have a book from Drucker called The Daily Drucker, and sometimes when I get stuck on something, I just open up a page and it causes me to step back and think again.

I came across this quote about 2 months ago, and I've been carrying it with me trying to figure out how it applied to me. First, I had to look up the word "futurity" which I didn't think was a real word, but it is, and it simply means "the future time; a future event".

Before I comment on Druckers quote, how does it land with you?

LEADERSHIP QUOTE:

"Great vision without great people is irrelevant." Jim Collins

A LITTLE BIT DEEPER:

This is the final quote on the theme of vision we'll share this month. Click Here to see past posts.

I've shared this quote from Collins before, but it's so appropriate as we navigate through the theme of vision this month. This practical quote just reminds us that sharing our vision with others and inviting them into it is the best way to pursue and achieve that vision.

Collins talks about this concept in his classic book, Good to Great. In this book, he talked about this idea:

"Those who build great organizations make sure they have the right people on the bus and the right people in the key seats before they figure out where to drive the bus."

He's said many different ways to get the right people first, then figure out what to do.

Sometimes this works well. Sometimes a vision is born in one persons heart and people need to be invited in.

Either way, the statement is true: You need great people to partner with you in your vision.

This doesn't mean that you can't do things alone, and there are many great stories of people who launched a solo-vision and pulled it off by themselves.

In my experience, it's always been "sweeter" to share a vision with a team of people, and work together to see that vision realized.

Can you identify 5 people who have come around you to join or to help create a vision that you all then pursued? How did that go?

LEADERSHIP QUOTE:

"A vision without a strategy remains an illusion." Lee Bolman

A LITTLE BIT DEEPER:

We'll do a couple more quotes on the theme of VISION this month. Click Here to see past posts.

This quote from Lee Bolman reminded me of the importance of a plan, which is critical to move a vision to reality.

There's a e-letter I subscribe to that is called, "Today's 5 Ideas". It comes out once a week, and it's simply 5 random ideas with no action steps attached to it.

In a recent edition, one of the ideas was:

"Old-fashioned typewriters that connect to your computer or phone, so you can type on them and still make digital documents."

I thought back to my typing classes in high school, and I remember the sound of the mechanical typewriter I learned to type on. I love this idea. It's novel, it's different, it connects with a good memory I have from years past, but for me, it's a waste of time and energy.

I thought about this for about 10 seconds, then moved on.

There's no risk in having ideas, In fact there are days that I just write down random ideas that are triggered from conversations or from things I see and hear.

Sometimes, however, I do the same thing with vision. I'll treat it like an idea, and at times I'm focused on it, while at other times, I don't pay much attention to it all all.

The difference for me is simply a PLAN.

For an idea or a vision to become a reality, there needs to be a plan and a strategy to accomplish it.

Bolman was right.... without a strategy, it's just an illusion.

Where do you place yourself on the "IDEA METER": A "1" is you only think about real ideas, things that can become real and actualized. A "10" thinks outside the box and you're comfortable having a bunch of ideas swimming around in your head a the same time. Where do you land?

LEADERSHIP QUOTE:

"It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see." Henry David Thoreau

A LITTLE BIT DEEPER:

This Month we're going to explore some quotes on the theme of VISION. Click Here to see past posts.

This simple quote from Thoreau is really about PERSPECTIVE.

2 weeks ago, my wife and I were on a small game drive outside of Johannesburg, South Africa. We traveled to spend time with good friends and ministry partners, Jabulani Africa, then we took a couple of days at a small lodge on our way back to the airport.

We did a small game drive where we enjoyed seeing elephants, giraffes, rhino's, warthogs, and many other animals. It's always amazing to see these animals in person.

As we were leaving, our guide spotted a leopard. We stopped. We spent about 30 minutes looking in the brush from our vehicle. The guide saw the tail. I just saw the brush.

We drove down the road, then circled back again.

We looked again, and just waited.

Then we saw it move. It was incredible. In a way, it just appeared in the brush, and then we saw it move away.

The guide shared that this was only his 2nd leopard siting on that farm in 7 years. We were all pretty excited to see it.

LEADERSHIP QUOTE:

"If you are working on something exciting that you really care about, you don't have to be pushed. The vision pulls you." Steve Jobs

A LITTLE BIT DEEPER:

This Month we're going to explore some quotes on the theme of VISION. Click Here to see past posts.

We shared a few Steve Jobs quotes earlier in the year, but I've been holding onto this one. The power of this quote is so simple:

A Compelling Vision Will Drive You!

A vision that isn't clear, that you're not excited about wilI wear you down!

I'm sure that Steve Jobs probably took this to the extreme, but as I've read about his tenure at Apple, he was clearly driven by the vision he had for their company and for technology. He saw something that others couldn't even imagine, and it drove him to strive for perfection.

I don't always have that level of drive, but there have been times in my life when I got a glimpse of the future, and it was all I could think about: I didn't sleep much, I wrote ideas on little notes of paper, I talked to people, I worked the idea.

Eventually, either the idea died away, or it transitioned to reality and it became something that made it's way into my goals and plans.

When was the last time you experienced something like this?

Have you ever had an idea that PULLED YOU FORWARD? You couldn't ignore it and let it go... how did that feel?