Link to the Prezi Graphics

The green movement will never make significant reductions in CO2 until it does three things. The first is to tackle the built environment which produces 48% of green house gases. Second, it must tackle the existing building stock of 4.7 million buildings. Third, it must focus on a new model for project delivery that takes the waste and inefficiency out of the process to bring the current payback of 15+ years to under 5 years.

Take a look at this new application for more effective eye examinations using the iPhone. Imagine the impact to third world countries. It is called the NETRA and works with the Android phone.

For a link to the article click HERE.

See the video below.

Then I stopped breathing, at least that is what she perceived. I pay all of my bills online through my other bank, I have my direct deposits set up, my kids accounts, my credit card, debit card – and I know exactly who to complain to over there if I wake up and just feel ornery that day.

She saw it written all over my face. Our nice and flowing conversation suddenly became disjointed and fidgety. She immediately jumped in and said, I’ll handle all of those transfers for you, I’ll set up all of your bill payments, I’ll make sure nothing falls through the crack… I could feel oxygen reaching my brain once again.

The reason I began shutting down in the bank is that I was coming to terms with having to change my entire banking mindset; my habits, relationships – everything. Barb became my bridge.

I was with group of Boomer and older leaders. When the topic of Twitter and even texting came up it was – “so what’s the big deal?” As long as it was seen as something irrelevant – no problem. We could talk and joke about it as some kind of anomaly. However, when I showed them what some of their competitors were doing with Twitter and social networking they began to fidget, I could see oxygen leaving their brains. One person said, “The train has left the station and we’re not on it. Now how do we do it?”

I wish I was as prepared as Barb to make the transition smooth for this audience. However, that wasn’t my role for this presentation. I do see a need and a role for these transition specialists. I’m not talking about Organizational Change Consultants – there are a bunch of these and they are expensive. I’m talking about people on a micro level, more personal and ubiquitous.

The best example I can think of are the Apple Genius’ and their One-to-One program. You can sign up and get help on anything as long as that help is remotely related to something Apple.

I’m working on a program with a large institution to develop Reverse Mentors. A cohort of transition specialists like Barb or an Apple Genius.

Okay folks – the change is not going to slow down anytime soon. We will either need to become good at serial-transition or find transition specialists to survive.

Bucky Fuller, the departed genius from Southern Illinois University, prescribed an insightful way to bridge the mindset transition: “…if you want to teach people a new way of thinking, don’t bother trying to teach them. Instead, give them a tool, the use of which will lead to new ways of thinking.”

My youngest son, Tyler, found this interesting clip that illustrates the challenge when confronted with something new and foreign. Below is a Youtube clip of the first movie shown in France: “The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat.” It’s less than a minute but when first shown overwhelmed the audience, creating fear and in some cases panic because of a realism never before experienced.

“Hellmuth Karasek in the German magazine Der Spiegel wrote that the film ‘had a particularly lasting impact; yes, it caused fear, terror, even panic.’”

I think the future bodes well for transition specialists, reverse mentors, Geek Squads for living, Apple Genius’ and my account representative, Barb.

Some will unfortunately feel pressed, alone and or will have shifted their worries to 2010.

If your world hasn’t been shaken in the last 18 months you certainly know people who have had their world turned upside down.

Our family and I want to wish you the blessings of Christ and for His transcending peace to pervade your home and extend outward to others. We truly feel for those who have been hit hard by life over the past few years. We haven’t been immune to being tossed around both from the outside and the inside. Our faith is deeper, our friendships stronger and our hope is encouraged because of the first two. I like this quote from Margaret Wheatley:

We cannot know the future… but we can prepare for it by knowing each other.

This is something I’ve held on to for several years and see the profound wisdom of it even more in these times.

I hope you have time to count both the blessings and miracles that have crossed your path in 2009. Lisa, the kids and I did some of that this morning while we talked about the incredible event of Christ’s birth.

I hope you have time to reach out to some friends who are struggling. The challenges of the world and the extraordinary circumstances of our times have uprooted many and they do appreciate knowing that others care.

I hope you have time to listen to or watch something truly inspirational. Emotions are stirred this time of year. They are not far beneath the surface of our expressions. Those core emotions simply need a nudge and they’ll come forth and offer a new window into ones soul.

I hope you’ll have time to gather with some old friends and some new friends. One for remembrance and the other for discovery.

I hope you’ll have time to write down a few lessons learned for 2009 and some aspirations for 2010. Without a rudder its impossible to steer and without a vision its impossible to navigate and stay the course.

I’ve been spending time each day just reading through my New Living Translation, a wonderful rudder. Oswald Chambers casts a challenging vision each day that consistently brings me to the feet of Christ.

If you haven’t found something inspirational to watch and listen I’ve attached this Youtube introduction to Susan Boyle. She is the British singer who surprised and shocked an audience on the TV show Britain’s Got Talent. It has some personal meaning for me. A little over two years ago I was given an opportunity to tackle a project that many felt was valuable but few thought would accomplish much. That all changed on Monday, October 12th.

Peace on earth to men of goodwill!

If so, you already know some secrets to innovation. This video by Dave Snowden will provide three key ingredients to innovation.

1. Creativity is a symptom of innovation, not a cause.
2. The situation needs a starvation of resources, pressure of time and a shift in perspective.

The economy has provided two of these three essential ingredients (scarcity and time pressure). For some, there will be a burst of innovation. Warren Buffet has said that the next great fortunes will arise from this time.

There are three directions a team can head when adversity (starvation of resources) hit.

• They can retrench and by doing so accelerate their crisis. This is the drowning victim scenario – their thrashing and panic hasten their fate.
• A team can hunker down and wait it out; pull back, run silent and hope circumstances change. This is the ostrich scenario – by hoping things will get back to normal ensures that when the NEW normal arrives it will be too late to adapt.
• The third options engages key stakeholders, looks at the brutal facts head on, provides no escape or sense of a white knight riding in with a solution and then lets that pressure cook until a breakthrough is reached.

The premise goes something like this:

Employees who do well get promoted until they finally reach a level outside their competency. Once reached – they stay put. That leaves companies filled with people who have reached their level of incompetency.

Over the last few years we have plenty of examples of failed plans, policy, corporations and our entire financial system. The Peter Principle offers an easy explanation. However, something more profound may be taking place.

When the mindshift consortium looked at the frequency of late construction projects they ran into a brick wall with this line of assessment. As hard as they tried to find a clear culprit – architect, contractor, sub-trade or owner – it was never that simple.

Then the light bulb turned on – the system for design and construction has reached ITS level of incompetency. They took a system that was clearly successful 50+ years ago (the design-bid-build approach) and kept promoting it to more complex challenges. Eventually the complexity of the challenges outstripped the system’s ability to cope.

One member said, “The current system causes good people to do bad things.”

It is time to revise The Peter Principle so that it addresses the deeper source of incompetency – systemic dysfunction.

Unfortunately, we’re trained like heat seeking missiles to find culprits.

Does the same principle apply to churches? Growth can be a two-edged sword.

Pastor Robert Morris, Senior Pastor of Gateway Church, recently shared that as churches (or individuals) grow or expand they must be careful of how they mix with the world. If leaders are not careful their growth becomes a nesting place for the birds of the air and the beasts of the field. This is a common biblical reference to an infestation of worldly and pernicious influences and powers.

It’s a subtle but real shift. In the book The Millennium Matrix, I talk about how our strategies and tools can grow from effective servants to demanding masters. In other words, the tail wags the dog.

Size and complexity can lead to the same unfortunate end. We come to rely on these tools, specialists and strategies instead of relationships and sense of the spirit. The unfortunate part is that it sneaks up on any organization and by the time it is obvious – its too late. Business writers recognize the same tension and warning exhorting to “think big but act small.”

In business this dysfunction is captured in the Peter Principle. Perhaps it should be called the Peter Principality.

Warning signs include:

1. Tight budgets
2. Tired staff
3. Little time for building relationships with the congregation or with other staff
4. Pressure to keep elevating weekly performance
5. Lack of leadership development
6. Passive or unengaged congregations
7. Greater reliance on experts and specialists (professionals) to develop and perform ministry
8. A shrinking percentage of the budget going directly to ministry (buildings projects and staff budgets don’t count)

One way to check and realign is to make sure that the organization does not outgrow the natural gifting and calling of the people carrying out ministry.

Tools, like glasses or a microscope, can also help us see underneath the complexity and find the disconnects. When people are forced to function outside their gifting or calling they eventually lose sight of where and how they fit into the larger purpose of an organization.

The Gallup organization has measured just how easy this disconnection becomes for corporations. Their statistics show that 54% of employees are not engaged in the organization’s purpose and 29% that are actively disengaged. That leaves 17% who are really making a difference for the organization.

How would you break down your organization? Churches also have an additional layer of complexity. The congregation should also be factored into this equation.

If your organization falls into this 20/80 ratio or worse then ask two questions:

1. Do our people know their talents and giftings and how to apply them in their role?
2. Does our structure make it easy or difficult for people to take initiative and engage?

I worked with an organization a few weeks ago dealing with both issues. Two years ago they went through their near-death experience and consequently brought in a new leader. After stabilizing the church has been able to get back on track with most of the same leadership core. With 33% growth and a major expansion planned for 2010 the senior and executive pastors were feeling the stress of an organization bogging down but without insight as to why.

Over two days we looked at the talent configuration of each leader, their current role, the logic of that role and the aggregate talent configuration of the team. We then plotted these against the anticipated needs of a larger and more complex organization. For our purposes we used the book Living Your Strengths to uncover the natural talents/giftings of the leadership core. It is an easy book to work with and does not require a high level of expertise to ask if current responsibilities play off one’s natural talents or if one has to function outside one’s natural talents.

For this team we also used a tool developed by CoreClarity.  This allowed us to see clearly that the organization’s growth had moved into a new phase requiring greater Strategic and Execution capacity. The current leadership core had been performing at a very high level of ministry but would need to increase their strategic capacities and ability to execute and coordinate among themselves.

The additional stress on the two lead pastors was manifesting in the form of lack of follow through, details overlooked, coordination issues and missed deadlines. It became clear that the core leadership had talents well suited for what they were currently doing but not for these new needs.

Relief – The senior pastor could clearly see that the source of frustration was not his team but a qualitative structural shift. He was able to avoid going down the typical path of adding more demands, expectations and even corrective action and look at his challenge and opportunity differently. It was liberating.

In simple terms – he had a football team with a strong offensive line but no wide receivers. Instead of forcing one or more of his team to play a wide receiver he could now look for the talent set he needed to fill the gap.

If you would like to find out more about this alignment process let me know and I’ll send a sample executive summary adapted from one of the organizations I’ve recently worked with.

1. Project Initiation
2. Wild Enthusiasm
3. Disillusionment
4. Chaos
5. Search for the Guilty
6. Punishment of the Innocent
7. Promotion of Non-Participants
8. Definition of Requirements

Its the 40th anniversary of the book The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong.

The premise goes something like this:

Employees who do well get promoted until they finally reach a level outside their competency. Once reached – they stay put. That leaves companies filled with people who have reached their level of incompetency.

Over the last few years we have plenty of examples of failed plans, policy, corporations and our entire financial system. The Peter Principle offers an easy explanation. However, something more profound may be taking place.

When the mindshift consortium looked at the frequent failure of late construction projects we ran into a brick wall with this line of assessment. As hard as we tried to find a clear culprit – architect, contractor, sub-trade or owner – it was never that simple.

Then the light bulb turned on – the system for design and construction has reached its level of incompetency. We took a system that was clearly successful 50+ years ago and kept promoting it to more complex challenges. Eventually the complexity of the challenges outstripped the system’s ability to cope.

One member said, “The current system causes good people to do bad things.”

It is time to revise The Peter Principle so that it addresses the deeper source of incompetency – systemic dysfunction.

Unfortunately, we’re trained like heat seeking missiles to find culprits.

Dysfunctional systems AND getting the right people in the right chair require NEW leadership skills.

I worked with an organization this week dealing with both issues. Two years ago they went through their near-death experience and brought in a new leader. After stabilizing they have been able to get back on track with most of the same leadership core using the existing structure. With 33% growth and a major expansion planned for 2010 the organization’s leader was feeling the stress of an organization bogging down but without insight as to why.

Over two days we looked at the talent configuration of each leader, their current role, the logic of that role and the aggregate talent configuration of the team. We then plotted these against the anticipated needs of a larger and more complex organization. Using tools developed by CoreClarity we were able to see clearly that the organization had moved into a new phase requiring greater Strategic and Execution capacity. The current leadership core had been performing at a very high level as specialists for their area.

We were able to avoid a common and often tragic error of pushing these leaders higher into Strategic and Executive requirements that they had previously not functioned in. We also had a tool that showed us exactly how to prepare these leaders to make the move if that is where they thought they could perform at their best.

Organizations confronting strong challenges in today’s economy will need to do more than wait this one out or work harder with what they have. It will require a dispassionate look at whether the system that got you here is suited to take you forward. It will take tools to provide an evidenced based understanding of what your organization is naturally good at. It will take coaching and training to reconfigure and better align with current realities.

If you would like to find out more about this alignment process let me know and I’ll send a sample executive summary adapted from one of the organizations I’ve recently worked with.

This video from Jim Rohn provides a key to adding value – to yourself, to your organization.

My takeaways include:

1. Companies will continue to shed jobs but show improved P&L’s through cost cutting – not growth.
2. Massive loan resets and required refinancing in both residential and commercial real estate will see estimated defaults of $1 trillion in commercial real estate alone.
3. This is not the kind of recession where we hunker down and wait it out. This has radically reset the thinking of companies moving forward. We’re in the trough of a “New Normal.”

When you read the recap below click to the original posting to see the charts that help put the pieces of the puzzle together. You will see the link below at “This guest post originally appeared at the author’s blog.”

If there is a silver lining – perhaps this will bring business, their local communities, civic organizations and churches together to discover new ways to help each other and reinvent ourselves as we move forward.