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My articles for Building Church Leaders are all about caring for your soul, nurturing your relationship with God. I’m convinced that most of us just soldier on, and don’t really think about caring for ourselves. We’re busy caring for our families, earning a living, leading at church. We care for the people or children we lead, our families, friends, but we back burner our own needs.

Suppose you decided you needed to improve your physical health. How would you do it? Perhaps you’d read a book on diet and exercise, even talk to a personal trainer. Or, you might just decide to skip desserts and go for a walk every day. You know that reading a book or even talking to an expert will only get you so far—you have to put the advice into practice in order to see change.

How is your spiritual health? Can you even tell? Ministry productivity doesn’t necessarily equal spiritual health, especially if productivity is the result of working too much or ignoring relationships in order to accomplish tasks. Church attendance isn’t necessarily a way to measure spiritual health, although going to church regularly can help us grow.

To improve our spiritual health, then, we must begin with honest assessment: What do we need? Where are things “broken” or unhealthy? What steps would put us back on track?

Spiritual practices like prayer, study, service, worship—all these feed our souls. But so does a practice that seems like a non-practice: rest. It’s an interesting soul care strategy, perhaps one we should pay attention to. In the midst of a hectic and productive ministry season, Jesus told his disciples, “Come away by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”

Jesus invited his disciples to care for their souls. He is inviting you to the same thing. Perhaps you can’t hear him above the din, or you just murmur, “I couldn’t possibly …”

I recently went away for a three-day weekend with friends. (In spite of the fact that a little voice in my head said, “I couldn’t possibly …”) I had time for prayer; time for walks in nature, which fed my soul; time to write; time to sleep. My kids and my husband did not say, “Wow, you look tired. Why don’t you go away for the weekend?” Nope. I had to stake out territory for my soul, explain briefly that I would not be available for a few days, and get in the car and go.

Maybe you can’t get away for three days. But could you get away for one day? Or an hour? Could you take your lunch hour to simply walk in a park or sit in a library by yourself?

When it comes to taking a day off or even an hour to ourselves, so many times we think, I couldn’t possibly do that. People need me. No one will let me.

You’re right. No one is going to give you permission, no one is going to dismiss you from your obligations. No one except—you.

How would you complete the sentence, “I couldn’t possibly …”?

Now, figure out a way to do the thing you think you can’t, but that your soul is longing for. Especially if that means taking time for rest, for solitude, for refreshment: simply taking a break. God calls us to work hard, to give him our best effort. But he also invites us to rest. Are you doing both? If not, what keeps you from taking time to rest?

Keri Wyatt Kent is a speaker and retreat leader, and the author of nine books, including Deeper into the Word: Reflections on 100 Words from the New Testament. She is a founding member of Redbud Writers Guild. Connect with Keri and read her blog at keriwyattkent.com.

For further insights into your spiritual health, we encourage you to take our free How Is Your Soul? interactive assessment.

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“When your Daemon is in charge, do not try to think consciously. Drift, wait, and obey.” — Rudyard Kipling

In a culture obsessed with measuring talent and ability, we often overlook the important role of inspiration. Inspiration awakens us to new possibilities by allowing us to transcend our ordinary experiences and limitations. Inspiration propels a person from apathy to possibility, and transforms the way we perceive our own capabilities. Inspiration may sometimes be overlooked because of its elusive nature. Its history of being treated as supernatural or divine hasn’t helped the situation. But as recent research shows, inspiration can be activated, captured, and manipulated, and it has a major effect on important life outcomes.

Inspiration has three main qualities. Pyschologists Todd M. Thrash and Andrew J. Elliot have noted these core aspects of inspiration: evocation, transcendence, and approach motivation. First, inspiration is evoked spontaneously without intention. Inspiration is also transcendent of our more animalistic and self-serving concerns and limitations. Such transcendence often involves a moment of clarity and awareness of new possibilities. As Thrash and Elliot note, “The heights of human motivation spring from the beauty and goodness that precede us and awaken us to better possibilities.” This moment of clarity is often vivid, and can take the form of a grand vision, or a “seeing” of something one has not seen before (but that was probably always there). Finally, inspiration involves approach motivation, in which the individual strives to transmit, express, or actualize a new idea or vision. According to Thrash and Elliot, inspiration involves both being inspired by something and acting on that inspiration.

Inspired people share certain characteristics. Thrash and Elliot developed the “Inspiration Scale,” which measures the frequency with which a person experiences inspiration in their daily lives. They found that inspired people were more open to new experiences, and reported more absorption in their tasks. “Openness to Experience” often came before inspiration, suggesting that those who are more open to inspiration are more likely to experience it. Additionally, inspired individuals weren’t more conscientious, supporting the view that inspiration is something that happens to you and is not willed. Inspired individuals also reported having a stronger drive to master their work, but were less competitive, which makes sense if you think of competition as a non-transcendent desire to outperform competitors. Inspired people were more intrinsically motivated and less extrinsically motivated, variables that also strongly impact work performance. Inspiration was least related to variables that involve agency or the enhancement of resources, again demonstrating the transcendent nature of inspiration. Therefore, what makes an object inspiring is its perceived subjective intrinsic value, and not how much it’s objectively worth or how attainable it is. Inspired people also reported higher levels of important psychological resources, including belief in their own abilities, self-esteem, and optimism. Mastery of work, absorption, creativity, perceived competence, self-esteem, and optimism were all consequences of inspiration, suggesting that inspiration facilitates these important psychological resources. Interestingly, work mastery also came before inspiration, suggesting that inspiration is not purely passive, but does favor the prepared mind.

Inspiration is not the same as positive affect. Compared to the normal experiences of everyday life, inspiration involves elevated levels of positive affect and task involvement, and lower levels of negative affect. Inspiration is not the same state as positive affect, however. Compared to being in an enthusiastic and excited state, people who enter an inspired state (by thinking of a prior moment they were inspired) reported greater levels of spirituality and meaning, and lower levels of volitional control, controllability, and self-responsibility for their inspiration. Whereas positive affect is activated when someone is making progress toward their immediate, conscious goals, inspiration is more related to an awakening to something new, better, or more important: transcendence of one’s previous concerns.

Inspiration is the springboard for creativity. Inspired people view themselves as more creative and show actual increases in self-ratings of creativity over time. Patent-holding inventors report being inspired more frequently and intensely than non-patent holders, and the higher the frequency of inspiration, the higher the number of patents held. Being in a state of inspiration also predicts the creativity of writing samples across scientific writing, poetry, and fiction (as judged by a panel of fellow students) independent of SAT verbal scores, Openness to Experience, positive affect, specific behaviors (e.g., deleting prior sentences), and aspects of the product quality (e.g., technical merit). Inspired writers are more efficient and productive, and spend less time pausing and more time writing. The link between inspiration and creativity is consistent with the transcendent aspect of inspiration, since creativity involves seeing possibility beyond existing constraints. Importantly, inspiration and effort predict different aspects of an activity. Individuals who exerted more effort writing spent more of their time pausing, deleted more words, wrote more sentences per paragraph, and had better technical merit and use of rhyming in poems, but their work was not considered more creative.

Inspiration facilitates progress toward goals. In a recent study conducted by Marina Milyavskaya and her colleagues, college students were asked to report three goals they intended to accomplish throughout the course of the semester. They then reported on their progress three times a month. Those who scored higher on the Inspiration Scale displayed increased goal progress, and their progress was a result of setting more inspired goals. Therefore, people who were generally more inspired in their daily lives also tended to set inspired goals, which were then more likely to be successfully attained. Importantly, the relationship between inspiration and goal progress was reciprocal: goal progress also predicted future goal inspiration. As the researchers note, “this suggests that goal progress and goal inspiration build on each other to form a cycle of greater goal inspiration and greater goal pursuit.” Finally, inspired individuals reported experiencing more purpose in life and more gratitude.

Inspiration increases well-being. In another study, those who were exposed to Michael Jordan’s greatness experienced higher levels of positive affect, and this increase in positive affect was completely explained by their score on the Inspiration Scale. This inspiration was not transitory though, predicting positive well-being (e.g., positive affect, life satisfaction) three months later! Inspiration was more strongly related to future than to present satisfaction. The extent to which inspiration lasted was explained by self-reported levels of purpose and gratitude in life.

These findings show that inspiration matters a lot., which may cause someone to feel pressure to become inspired and helpless to do so considering the evocative and spontaneous nature of inspiration. The writer Elizabeth Gilbert rightly expresses this concern in her inspiring TED talk. I agree with Gilbert that one should not put pressure on oneself to become inspired. These key scientific findings suggest that inspiration is not willed–it happens. Knowing this should free you from the pressure to make inspiration happen.

This does not mean that inspiration is completely outside your control. Contrary to the view of inspiration as purely mythical or divine, I think inspiration is best thought of as a surprising interaction between your current knowledge and the information you receive from the world. There are things you can do to increase the likelihood of inspiration occurring. Research shows quite clearly that preparation (“work mastery”) is a key ingredient. While inspiration is not the same as effort, effort is an essential condition for inspiration, preparing the mind for an inspirational experience. Openness to Experience and positive affect are also important, as having an open mind and approach-oriented attitude will make it more likely that you will be aware of the inspiration once it arrives. Small accomplishments are also important, as they can boost inspiration, setting off a productive and creative cycle.

Another incredibly important, and often overlooked trigger of inspiration is exposure to inspiring managers, role models, and heroes. As Gregory Dess and Joseph Picken note in “Changing Roles: Leadership In The 21st Century,” our competitive global economy requires leaders to shift their focus from efficient management to effective utilization of a company’s diversity of resources. They argue for five key roles of leadership:
1. Using strategic vision to motivate and inspire
2. Empowering employees at all levels
3. Accumulating and sharing internal knowledge
4. Gathering and integrating external information
5. Challenging the status quo and enabling creativity

Steve Jobs is the quintessential example of an inspiring manager, and he undoubtedly checked each of these boxes in spades.

To become personally inspired, the best you can do is set up the optimal circumstances for inspiration. As a society, the best we can do is assist in setting up these important circumstances for everyone. An easy first step is simply recognizing the sheer potency of inspiration, and its potential impact on everything we do.

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Sometimes a promotion can suddenly change your relationship with co-workers from “peer” to “boss.” It’s not an uncommon scenario, particularly in companies with strong succession plans. However when this happens it often creates an awkward and uncomfortable set of dynamics, and there’s no blueprint for how to manage them.

Here’s an example*: Peter was the divisional CFO for the consumer unit of a global products company. Although he was a relative newcomer to the firm (hired three years earlier), he was considered a potential successor to the divisional president. Two other members of the management team also had aspirations for the top job: Sarah who headed operations and had been with the company her whole career; and Stan, the SVP of sales, a veteran sales guy who was widely considered the driver behind the firm’s current success. As members of the senior leadership team, these three managers worked well together on business issues although they were not personal friends. When the Board surprised everyone by promoting Peter to the top job, Stan immediately decided to take early retirement while Sarah agreed to stay on for the next year.

Peter’s appointment as president triggered two common challenges with peer promotions: rapid re-contracting followed by rapid restructuring. Re-contracting relationship ground rules is necessary, because in the aftermath of a promotion social and hierarchical relationship dynamics will inevitably shift. Peers can joke around, gossip, gripe, and poke fun at each other. But when one of those peers is promoted, these behaviors need to be tempered. The former peer is now responsible for setting direction, handing out assignments, holding people to deadlines, assessing performance, and determining pay. Yes, she can still be friendly with these subordinates, but only to a point. Some amount of distance needs to be created so that the new boss can give feedback and make decisions that the former peers might not agree with. To do this, the new boss needs to re-contract the rules of her relationships with each member of the team; and if anyone cannot accept the new contract, then they will need to go elsewhere.

In Peter’s case, the process of re-contracting was made difficult by Sarah, who was both a peer and a competitor. She had different views on how to lead the division and was disappointed that she didn’t get the job, for which she thought she was more qualified. So their relationship needed to change even more than others, both intellectually and emotionally. This required Peter to spend considerable time with Sarah talking through their concerns. As it turned out, Sarah worked very hard initially to support and help Peter in his new role — but after a few months concluded that she could not report to someone whom she felt was less qualified, and took a package to leave. Two other members of the leadership team — who had wanted Stan to be their boss — also left within the first few months.

Evidently, an obvious outcome of re-contracting is the need — or the opportunity — to bring in some different people and/or redistribute responsibilities. One replacement that is always needed is for the person who is promoted, or Peter in our case. Other open positions come from people who leave as a result of the re-contracting, such as Stan and Sarah. The challenge here is to not necessarily replace each position individually, but rather to look holistically at the work to be done, figure out the best way to match it with the skills of the remaining team members, and then see what gaps are left. Restructuring in this way brings people into the team who were not part of the old relationship patterns. More importantly, it provides promotions for the veterans on the team, if not to new titles then at least to new responsibilities or challenges. This too will create new relationship patterns that make it easier to let go of the past.

In our case, Peter promoted one of his people to be the CFO, but reassigned some of his previous responsibilities to others. He also divided Stan’s sales job so that one person led “direct” and one led “indirect” sales. When Sarah left, Operations also was reconfigured. The end result was that Peter and the team were able to function effectively without being dragged down by bad feelings, jealousy, and awkward relationships.

It’s not easy to make the transition from peer to boss. But going through the process of re-contracting and then restructuring can improve the odds of success.

What’s your experience with the dynamics of peer promotions?

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On May 28, 2011, the Boston Globe reported that Carney Hospital President Bill Walczak fired its entire staff of 29 health care delivery employees from a 14-bed locked unit for troubled teens. It appears that the hospital had violated patient safety in serious ways. Not all 29 employees were identified as having performed poorly. The president believed, however, that it was in the hospital’s best interest to staff the unit from ground zero.

Given the negative publicity surrounding lack of patient safety, Carney Hospital became an albatross company — a company with a negative reputation in the market. Innocent professionals who were fired had to then engage in a job search with a dead, stinky albatross called Carney Hospital draped around their necks.

Addressing the Albatross in the Room

Recruiters have a simple way of dealing with albatross job candidates: avoid them. Adding such candidates to the pool poses a risk, so most recruiters simply refuse to do so.

So, what’s a job seeker from an albatross company to do? When dealing with recruiters, try to avoid a direct approach. You will be too easily dismissed. Instead, have a third party write a letter on your behalf focusing on why you are exceptional in a positive way, despite having worked for an organization that has a reputation for being exceptional in a negative way.

If you do get to see a hiring authority, it’s only natural to hope the albatross issue doesn’t come up during the interview — the topic is uncomfortable. And, you may be angry with yourself for having stayed so long at this albatross company. Be sensitive that the discomfort is mutual. Hiring authorities like to avoid unpleasant discussions like the following: “After twenty years serving a discredited company, will you bring this company’s ‘winning ways’ into our business? And if you say, ‘Of course I won’t,’ how can I believe you?”

Whether they address it with you directly or not, you can be sure that it’s exactly what hiring authorities are thinking. If they broach the topic, consider it good news. It means that they’re comfortable enough with you to tell you what’s on their minds. If they fail to bring up the issue, consider it a bad sign. It means they want a polite conversation, and polite interviews do not work in your favor.

Being negative about your former employer also won’t get you offers. The rationale is: “Today she’s saying negative things about her former employer. What might she say about me if we part company?”

Useful Interview Tactics

Here’s a format we’ve found useful with our clients from albatross companies:
During an interview, you should ask: “What Do You Know About My Company?” This question allows you to gauge how large an albatross the other person perceives you to have around your neck. If the person says, “I know very little about the company,” then you can begin to frame your time with the albatross your own way. If the person says, “Here is what I know…” let the hiring authority go into the details about what he/she thinks is known about the albatross company. Don’t interrupt, and don’t disagree.

Here’s a common scenario: the hiring authority states that the albatross was tired, dysfunctional, and inwardly-focused, and that they responded poorly to changing business conditions. You respond with, “You’re right. But our company was complex. And within my area of responsibility, we did some exciting, innovative things. I’d like to talk to you about that with an understanding that I’m interested in helping you be the best company you can be. I have no intentions of bringing my former company’s ways of doing business to your company.”

How to Differentiate Yourself: Don’t Insult and Don’t Defend

Your mission is not to change other people’s views about your albatross. Your mission is to differentiate yourself from the public perception of that albatross company. Consider saying something like: “There is no question that there was a great deal of short-sighted thinking going on at the top of the organization. The operation I worked in, however, was different from the rest of the company. I’d like to talk specifically about what we accomplished.”

We All Wear an Albatross

Albatrosses do not have to be confined to companies with poor reputations; age discrimination, staying too long with one employer, and physical disability are also common issues.

The best way to deal with your own personal albatross is to confront it head on:

The Age Albatross

Concerns about age may reflect a desire to have a youth-oriented culture and a perception that you just wouldn’t fit it. Or, your age may cause a hiring manager to assume that you are wedded to ideas/technology that worked in the past, that you lack the flexibility to learn new ways, or that you are too rigid to unlearn all the bad habits you learned over the years. You cannot win the job search game by assuming that silence is a good approach. Address the issue head-on.

The Job Duration Albatross
If you stayed too long at one company, it may reflect a concern that you had one solid year of experience that you repeated twenty times. Is that true? Can you be flexible? Can you unlearn? You need to address these potential concerns head-on. An employer may have similar concerns if you left a job after a seemingly short duration.

The Physical Disability Albatross

Physical disability is a topic most employers will not address because of its potential for legal liability. You have to confront the issue. For example, one of our clients had a club foot. He walked into the interview with very large shoes. As predicted, interviewers would notice the shoes and make no comment. My client said, “You must have noticed these large shoes. I have club feet. The good news is that it has no impact on my ability to do the job, my drive, or my stamina. It has no impact on my general health or my life span. The bad news is that you don’t want me on the company soccer team!” Confronting the issue with humor made the issue less threatening. He got hired.

As a consequence of experience, we all wear an albatross. Don’t try to ignore it and hope others will. Show that you know how to dance with it.

Maryanne Peabody and Larry Stybel are co-founders of Stybel Peabody Lincolnshire, an Arbora Global Company. Larry also is Executive in Residence at the Sawyer Business School at Suffolk University in Boston.

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The business news is full of stories about the fact that large corporations are expanding at breakneck speed outside the U.S. while the domestic economy stagnates. And the best and brightest employees are seeking opportunities to work overseas in order to accelerate their upward trajectory.

But for most rising executives, leading successfully in global markets is easier said than done. Recently, I spoke with Linda Sharkey, an author and expert in global leadership development and culture change, to chat with me about this issue. She described some of the common traps that new leaders working in overseas markets can fall into:

The Mirror Trap. You fall into this trap whenever you assume that the rest of the world thinks like you do. The leaders at Facebook mistakenly did this when they assumed that beliefs and attitudes about open space communication are the same all over the world. Wrong! Falling into this trap has made their foray into China a huge disaster. (This is the most obvious trap – yet you’d be surprised how many people still get stuck here.)

The Superficiality Trap. You fall into this trap when, mindful of the Mirror Trap, you attempt to understand and adapt to the culture around you, but you only understand this culture at a surface level. Think about Disney when they first tried to go global in the 1990s. They spent an enormous about of time and energy trying to make EuroDisney embody the culture and style of the French. They thought they were immersed in the new culture, but they merely took on the exterior trappings and maintained their core U.S.-based beliefs about what people wanted in entertainment — and it was a $200M catastrophe.

Fortunately, Disney’s leaders appear to have learned from this experience. Venturing into Shanghai, they have used local talent to help design the park. They completely changed the flow of the park to deeply reflect the Chinese entertainment norms. They learned the cultural requirements and beliefs about entertainment and leisure time in China and, in so doing, appear to have avoided past mistakes that had landed them in the Superficiality Trap in Europe. (The park has yet to open, so it remains to be seen whether the lessons really take effect.)

The “Avatar” Trap. You fall into this trap when, having shed the Mirror Trap and the Superficiality Trap, you go too far. You open your mind and heart to the new culture, and begin to lose connection to your past. You see everything through the new lens. For example, Nestle Japan localized their offerings to the point that they disconnected from the global brands. They rendered the global power of the company useless because they could no longer leverage Nestle’s massive supply chain or brands. In essence, Nestle Japan acted like a local provider in a local market. They lost their scalable reach, but their overhead still reflected their reality of being part of a big global company – which caused their profits to drop.

Here are three things you should do as you develop your own capacity to lead from a global perspective:
1) Ask yourself: “How attuned am I personally to other cultures?” Take yourself out of your own comfort zone and spend time with people from different cultures, and keep a log of what you notice about yourself.
2) Review your team. Are they all like you, or do they represent diverse and global perspectives? Start insisting that you work with people from other countries. Build cross-functional teams. Hire people with different backgrounds. Volunteer to work with people overseas.
3) Conduct deep listening tours with global customers on their home turf; learn how they think and how they react to problems and issues.

Taking these three steps will open your eyes and get you going in the right direction for global leadership.

How about you? Have you seen others fall into any of these traps? Which one is most common in your company today?

Saj-nicole Joni, chief executive of Cambridge International Group, is a confidential advisor to CEOs and top executives worldwide. The Right Fight, by Saj-nicole Joni and Damon Beyer, (HarperCollins, 2010) is available in book, e-book and audio formats.

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The exhortation to think outside the box has become ubiquitous in business. So much so that it has become the new box inside of which everyone thinks. It pays lip service to the notion of transformation without really understanding the difference between transformation and change, and often without tolerance for the real thinking that must occur for an idea to be truly outside the existing paradigm.

But worse than that, the advice is backwards. You cannot possibly think outside the box unless you understand the nature of the box that bounds your current thinking. You must come to know that nature deeply. You must have real insight into it. You must accept it, and embrace it at some level, before it will ever release you.

There’s a Zen saying, “What you resist persists, and what you allow to be disappears.” Thinking outside the box without understanding the box is a petulant exercise in resistance — every idea that comes from the process has the box written all over it. It’s a reaction to the box. It’s fighting the box. It’s a child of the box. Zune was Microsoft trying to think outside the box, which they saw as the lack of a product to compete with the iPod. The doomed MP3 player became a monument to the real box, which was Microsoft’s inability to innovate. It was screaming so hard “Look, we’re innovative” that it never had a chance of being anything but the antithesis of innovation.

In our work at my firm, Advertising for Humanity, we always start by trying to grasp the nature of the box within which we’re thinking. It is a process bordering on meditation. If you’re not calm, it won’t come to you. The box thrives on your impatience with it.

Years ago, after I had created California AIDS Ride and the other AIDS Rides around the country, we were still struggling for a pithy slogan to describe the incredibly rich, philanthropic, selfless, and yet paradoxically self-nourishing experience that those events were for people. The events themselves were the result of a meditation on a particular kind of box — that box being charities’ always asking people to do the least they could do for their causes. In fact, the charitable-event business was in a race to the bottom to see how little they could ask people to do. Instead of just accepting gifts, charities started making gifts — bribes you might say — to get people to support them: jackets and tote bags and all kinds of other prizes. Once I understood the dynamic, I realized that charities had it backwards. We started asking people to do the most they could do — pedal their bikes 600 miles from San Francisco to Los Angeles, sleep in a tent, ride in the rain and the mud, and raise a minimum of $2,000 for the privilege, with no tote bags, toasters, or other prizes for their efforts. They raised more money, more quickly for AIDS than any event had in history.

But our slogans in the first two years sucked: “The adventure of a lifetime.” Or, “Challenge yourself, and you will grow,” and so on. We began to ask ourselves what we were afraid of. What was the box we were trying to avoid? We realized that we didn’t want people to think the events were too hard — we were afraid we’d scare people off. That was the box confining us. And with that insight, the slogan came to us in a word: impossible. For the average person, these events are impossible. The slogan had been right under our noses all along, sitting inside that box. We saw that there were two words in that one, and our new slogan became two things in one, almost like one of those pictures whose image changes when you move your head to the left or the right: “I’mpossible.” It embodied the deepest truth about the events: that they were impossible, yes, but that in that impossibility you could discover a possibility you never knew existed in yourself. The word was autological.

We never looked back, nor did our customers, who took it on as their life mission statements.

When we were asked to design an event for prostate cancer, the organization felt that a bike ride would be the butt of too many jokes. (Pun dynamics there are infinite.) Instead of resisting that, we leaned into it, so the headline became, “Four out of five men will make jokes about this. The fifth will be diagnosed with prostate cancer.” In the breast cancer fundraising field, it’s all about who can out-hope the competition. Hope, hope, hope is the mantra everywhere. So our campaign for the National Breast Cancer Coalition became: “We’re giving up hope.” The message was that hope is not what overcomes great obstacles. Deadlines and commitment do. And the organization has committed itself to an end to breast cancer in 10 years.

A new campaign we developed focuses on the touchy issue of overhead in the humanitarian sector. Instead of running from it, the campaign embraces it, with ads that show a person looking into camera, stating, “I’m overhead,” and the meat of the ad explaining what that person does and how fundamental it is to the cause — the subtext being that overhead is a catalyst for the growth of our favorite charities, not a drain on it.

So figure out the box you’re in. If you try to get out before you understand the box’s parameters, you’ll just stay stuck inside of it. And that’s exactly what it wants.

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As I’ve spoken with groups of leaders over the last year, I’ve often begun the conversation by asking how many of them would say that the results that are expected of them today are significantly different than those that were expected a year ago. Usually, every hand in the room goes up. Then I’ll ask the question about future expectations. How many of you think that the results that will be expected of you a year from now will be a whole lot different than the results that are expected today? Again, just about every hand goes up.

That’s the point where we start talking about what’s going to have to change for them to get different results. I’ve heard a lot this year about the expectation to do more with less. A few weeks ago, I was speaking with a group of newly promoted government executives including flag officers from one of the branches of the military. No one mentioned the line about doing more with less so I asked them if they felt that was what they’re up against. There were a few moments of silence until one of the flag officers said, “Actually, for a lot of us, it’s going to be doing less with less.”

Most everyone in the room agreed. To be honest, I had not really thought about it that way until that moment but it made perfect sense. To take one example, as Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta notes in an interview with the New York Times this morning, his department will be implementing a $450 billion budget cut over the next ten years. He and his team will have to consider base closings, reallocation of resources, benefit programs and a lot of other options to make the cuts while still fulfilling the DOD mission around the world. That’s not easy.

Doing more with less certainly has its challenges (and will likely be the topic for future blog posts). Doing less with less might be even more challenging because it not only deals with the resource constraints, it also deals with the emotional and intellectual exercises of scaling back expectations.

I’m not suggesting that there are a few easy steps to doing less with less, but here are some thoughts that might help frame the challenge. I’d love to hear what you think and what you’d add.

Engage – Leaders who have to figure out how to do less with less almost certainly need to start by engaging their different constituencies in a conversation about the current and future realities. If you’re in a do less with less environment (or a do more with less environment for that matter), you’re basically leading a big change management initiative. The people you’re leading have to understand the reality and the context to contribute to the solution let alone buy in.

Prioritize – This is an obvious but critical step in the process. Even when resources are flush, leaders have to prioritize. The one resource that is always in limited supply is time and attention. Operating in an environment in which economic resources are limited just makes the need for prioritization that much more clear. Perhaps a good question to start with in determining priorities is “Given what we think we know about the future, what are the have to do’s and what are the nice to do’s?” Not saying it will be easy to get to the answers but the question seems like a reasonable starting point.

Rethink – As priorities become clear, leaders need to encourage people to rethink the way they do business. It’s human nature to continue on with a pattern of behavior or actions that seem to have worked in the past. One of my favorite rethink the way we do things questions is “If we were starting with a blank sheet of paper, how would we design this process?” If people have the right amount of context and the right people are in the room, the answer to that question is usually a lot different than the way things were being done.

Educate – Of course, it’s one thing to rethink the way things should be done. It’s another to get that change to take in the organization. Leaders in the do less with less environment need to be the educators-in-chief and make sure that they have a lot of help with that task. The education for the organization on how to operate in the new environment should cover the what, the how as well as healthy, ongoing doses of the why.

That’s my first cut on how leaders might proceed in a do less with less environment. What’s your take? What experience have you had with leading a do less with less situation? What advice do you have based on what you’ve done or seen done?

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Having a perfectionist on your team can be an asset. Perfectionists are driven to succeed, work hard to avoid mistakes, and are always striving to improve. Yet it can be a challenge to manage someone who needs everything to be perfect.

In my work with perfectionists, I often ask, “How do you want others to see you?” The common responses — I want to be seen as intelligent, independent, autonomous, and good at what I do — are much the same that anyone might give. The difference is that perfectionists have a harder time rolling with the punches when they have an off day, didn’t spend enough time on a project to get the best result, or make a mistake.

Perfectionists generally have a strong work ethic. They are driven to succeed and so will persist at tasks until they reach the desired outcome. The downside is that they sometimes get caught up in strategies with poor payoffs. In other words, they are working hard at something but spinning their wheels.
Here’s an example. A patient of mine I’ll call Max was getting into more and more trouble at work by turning his reports in late week after week. When I asked what was the primary obstacle in completing them, Max told me that he was worried about how others would evaluate his writing if he turned in a poorly written report. I asked Max how long he had been working at his current company. His response: “Ten years.” When I asked, “And how does your supervisor currently judge your writing skills?” he replied: “He says I’m the best writer in the department, except that my work is always late.”

When Max starts writing, he believes he must know exactly how to start and that ideas should naturally flow from one to the next. If he can’t find the “right way” to start, he can’t move forward at all. When he finally does get started, he ruminates about minor mistakes or things that aren’t “just right.” As a result, he reviews and re-edits reports long after they were due. Max works hard, but often in the wrong ways.

Giving feedback to perfectionists is tricky business. Here are some ways to approach it:

Be clear about your goals and expectations for their work. When left to their own devices, perfectionists may fall into the trap of setting unrealistic expectations for themselves. Letting them know ahead of time what is most important to you can minimize this. Sometimes the emphasis is on the look and feel of a product; sometimes it is on big, attention-grabbing ideas; and sometimes it is about accuracy and precision. Share these expectations explicitly and directly so the perfectionist doesn’t waste time on aspects of the project you don’t think are that important.

Encourage a perfectionist to share a work-in-progress with you. Perfectionists are notorious for wanting to show only end products, fearing that a work-in-progress might be seen as the best they can do. Working on iterations of a project together creates a sense of collaboration and reduces the likelihood that a perfectionist will get bogged down in unnecessary details.

Perfectionists can be obsessed with not wanting to make mistakes. An unhealthy perfectionist can lose sight of the difference between a minor mistake (finding every spelling error in a 20-page, in house report) versus a major error (misspelling the name of a client in a one page marketing ad). This can be addressed by using the strategies already mentioned (setting clear expectations and collaborating on works in progress). However, some mistakes inevitably occur when beginning a new project or initiative. First run-throughs are inevitably going to have aspects that go well and some things that can be improved upon. In these cases, unhealthy perfectionists sometimes motivate themselves with excessive self-criticism. Although that strategy may work for them on some level, it is demoralizing. As a manager, underscoring the value of focusing on weaknesses as an opportunity to improve performance can be critical in keeping them on track. Also, help to soften or deflect a perfectionist’s excessive self-criticism by highlighting what you like about the work he or she is sharing with you and engage in some brainstorming about ways to address what is still missing.

Sometimes perfectionists get stuck because they use the same strategies over and over again, even when they stop working or aren’t working in a particular context. In this case, acknowledge the individual’s effort (i.e., how hard he or she is working), but encourage a shift in strategy. More is not always better. If more isn’t paying off, it is time to try something different.
With some creative strategies, the challenges of managing a perfectionist will be vastly outweighed by the excellent work he or she wants to do, and can do.

http://www.crystalkeyministries.com
http://www.crystalkeyministries.net
“Leadership Service Through Ministry”

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Crystal Key Ministries – Event Listings

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