Posts Tagged ‘attitude’

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Labor Day in the US, Celebrating Workers

September 5, 2016

Today is a national holiday in the US. Called Labor Day, it was designed to celebrate the people who formed the backbone of our manufacturing power, yet who were otherwise ignored and put down.

The job market has changed dramatically over the past 50 years. Manufacturing jobs are still little celebrated but much better jobs than they were. People working retail and at many clerical-type jobs are the ones today who have a tough time. Working hours organized to keep them at part-time status so that the company can avoid paying for benefits such as health care (which has become so expensive that many companies would go out of business paying for it). Feeling like just part of a vast machinery in huge companies is the state of many.

Part of my reading in my master’s degree work was labor–partly philosophy about how people became “alienated” from the fruits of their labor, and partly the politics of the labor movement from the late 1800s to the mid-1900s.

The idea of alienation came from the rise of “capitalists”–those people with sufficient money (capital) to build manufacturing plants and organize the production of goods. Prior to that, products were designed and produced by crafts people working usually alone. Think of the village blacksmith. People went from building products where they felt it was a little piece of them to just a cog in a machine.

Today, many people still fee that way.

However, today often it is more attitude than slavery to capitalists. Adam Grant writing in “The Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World,” (I’ve just begun the book, but the first few chapters are interesting) looks at how some people bend certain rules or find unique ways of approaching their work and find much more satisfaction.

As in so many things, it is our attitude and approach to work that determines the satisfaction and performance.

So, today we celebrate those who do so much for us and yet remain often unsung and anonymous.

 

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Unleashing Energy, The Creative Leader

September 2, 2016

You’ve seen it, I hope. The type of leader who unleashes the energy of everyone around. The organization may have been lethargic. Or complacent. Or dying.

The someone new comes in. She has a vision of success. He is transparent–no hidden agendas, no spies among the employees, no sudden directives.

There is something about a feeling of trust that is darn near undefinable where people can have ideas and share them. You feel you’ll be listened to. In fact, you feel encouraged to come up with ideas.

These leaders pop up all over the place. Perhaps not enough, but they exist.

There is a leader whose blogs I read and podcasts I listen to who is such a leader. He exudes energy and positive emotions. He’s driven to provide the best solution for his customers. He’s also driven to find ways to unleash the creativity of his employees.

There exists a pure joy of learning and applying what he learns. Try an experiment. It works, great. It doesn’t, well, scrap it and try something else.

The point is for all of us, how do we achieve that as leaders?

  • Vision of what constitutes success
  • Create trust by doing what you say
  • Constantly encouraging
  • Quick feedback designed to help not tear down
  • Celebrate the little victories along with the big ones
  • Constant messaging of the vision through every means available
  • Always inviting others to go along on the journey

What could you add?

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Power To Decide What You Say

August 15, 2016

Garbage In, Garbage Out. — Ancient Computer Science Wisdom

God In, God Out. — Eileen Hix, pastor

What food do we feed our bodies?

Does this reflect in how we look and how much energy we have?

With what do we fill our minds and our attention?

Does this reflect in our attitudes?

Are we perpetually angry or bitter or envious or sarcastic or negative or hateful?

Or, are we perpetually helpful, gentle, kind, gracious, filled with joy, peaceful?

What we fill our minds and attention with will relate directly to our outlook on life.

But our outlook on life determines what kind of person we are. And that determines what fruits come out of our lives. And often to what we say to others.

I think all of us have experienced those two lines of computer code (since we began with that topic):

100 Open Mouth

200 Insert Foot

I’ve seen people commenting in places like Facebook or Instagram about how they should be able to have the freedom to say anything they please. This “political correctness” where they can’t speak derogatorily about groups of people “cramps their style.”

Then I think (like I think about ALL the freedoms of the US Bill of Rights), with a freedom or right comes a responsibility. If you have a freedom to speak, you have a responsibility to do so properly.

Paul is all the time describing what a person should be. In Ephesians 4 he says, “living a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love.”

Between the thought and the voice (or fingers on a keyboard) is an instant. In that moment of time we determine what we are going to present to the world as our being. The type of person we are. In that moment, we have power. The power to choose what we say.

This will reflect what we’ve been feeding our awareness. Will we spit out garbage? Or speak in a way to help and uplift people? We have that power.

Or maybe we need another line of computer code:

300 Beg Forgiveness

We need a lot of that!

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So What’s Next?

August 4, 2016

So, Paul, you’ve told me about spiritual formation beginning with the death and resurrection of Jesus. Now what?

Spiritual formation only begins with belief in the resurrection. Jesus said that we would know his followers by their fruits. When the rich young man approached Jesus and asked how he could inherit the Kingdom of Heaven, Jesus sensed that he only followed the rules because of duty or maybe because of trying to prove he was better than others.

Jesus said, “Sell all you have and give to the poor.” The man went away sad. Now we know his heart.

Paul follows exactly in that tradition.

After his introduction in the letter to the Ephesians, he proceeds to talk about what’s next.

He tells us to live in love. To put behind us the lusts of our past lives. Thieves, he said, should stop stealing. He gives us lists of examples

The scary thing is that there exist people (actually in all cultures) who would like to take those lists, capture the government, have the government pass all these things and more as laws, then use the police and courts to force people to “behave like Christians (or Muslims, or Hindus, or whatever your culture is)”.

That worked so well for the Pharisees in the first Century, right?

Paul always placed this in the context of spiritual formation. Laws cannot force us into spiritual formation. They can attempt to force behaviour. But that does not work all that well.

So first we decide to walk with God with Jesus as our guide.

Then because our heart is right with God, then we start to re-orient how we live. Jesus and Paul seldom talk about life after death or after the arrival of the New Earth. But they talk extensively about how we live this life on this Earth with these people around us.

Back to Ephesians. Paul said that Jesus gave us gifts. Gifts of talents–maybe being apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers. Why? To equip and build up people.  We are to speak the truth in love. Be angry but do not sin. Give up stealing. Do not speak evil, but grace. Be kind to one another, forgiving one another. Be imitators of God.

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Unity In The Spirit

August 3, 2016

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience. — Pierre Teilhard

Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a French Jesuit priest, paleontologist, theologian, and philosopher. Those Jesuits, they’re always over achievers. He is also one of my favorite writers.

I love it when people observe something and turn it on its head.

This seems to fit what Paul was praying for in Ephesians that I pondered yesterday. He prayed that we would be filled with God’s spirit.

But Paul continued just after his prayer to say, “I beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called.” And “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all in all.”

Teilhard loved that phrase “all in all.”

Paul warns us a little later to remain focused on that which matters. To be filled with the Spirit speaking the truth in love. We are spiritual beings, and Paul keeps trying to show us how to live like spiritual beings.

And we resist.

We don’t want to grow up. We don’t want to break down those prejudices, those walls, within which we’ve grown quite comfortable.

I’ll never forget reading John Calhoun, an early 19th Southern American (US) writer who proved conclusively from the Bible that black people were actually a sub-human race of beings who were deserving only of slavery. In fact, slavery was a step up for them.

Vestiges of that thought line continue among some Christians even unto today. I’ve sat with people who would fervently identify themselves as Christian, yet they disparaged black people, Middle Eastern people, and all manner of other non-white, non-American peoples. And they could blithely continue speaking of Christian values.

Let’s go back to the source. Listen to Paul’s prayer for us. Be filled with the Spirit and then speak in love.

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Just What Are Spiritual Disciplines?

July 12, 2016

Spiritual Disciplines are merely activities that we do to enable us to receive more of Jesus’ life and power. –Howard Baker writing an introduction to Galatians in the “Life With God Bible”

Ever listen to little kids (under 10 or so) organize to play? There’s always at least one who assumes the burden of making up the rules of the game. Sometimes they spend more time discussing the rules than actually playing–or so it seems.

Then again, I know an adult who makes up rules all the time–well, actually, I know many–that include other people. Yet they may not always tell them. Then they are upset or worse if the other person doesn’t keep the rule.

Organizations and even societies make up those rules designed to differentiate outsiders from themselves.

The other day I was sitting in a nice little storefront Middle Eastern restaurant. A gentle and humble woman and her husband owned and ran it. She was so nice to us, if I lived in the town, I’d go back to eat. Oh, she was Muslim–from Palestine. Came over here for a better life. Works hard. Has a good business. Great Turkish coffee.

While sitting in that restaurant, I opened Facebook to check on something for business. But the “news” stream pops up first. The first post was a “photo” of a saying from a politician about how bad all Muslims are and how we need to ship them all back to where they originated. Someone made up one of those “rules.”

The irony was too much. When we stop labeling and start meeting, then we see that people are people. Name your group–Christian, Muslim, police, black man, liberal, conservative. Some are good. Some are filled with hate, anger, evil. Every group includes some of both.

Paul wrote Galatians to teach us how to live beyond rules. “Live for God,” he said. “The law (rules) was our disciplinarian until Christ came,” he added.

Spiritual disciplines pursued with an open, loving heart, bring us closer to Jesus and to the ability to live a life focused on God. We don’t need to focus on others and how we’re better than them. We only focus on God. Open our hearts to God. Then when we leave our prayer room or chair and live with others in a way pleasing to God.

Disciplines? Study–not to reinforce prejudices but to learn something new about God daily; prayer–to focus our minds on God; worship–for the joy of singing and praise; service–to be like Jesus was during his  ministry physically on earth.

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Spiritual Discipline of Humility

July 7, 2016

Jesus makes it impossible to think you’re righteous because of what you do.

After Matthew introduces who Jesus is in his book, he dives right in to report Jesus’ teaching. I say report because much of chapters 5-7 are quotes.

I have been returning to Matthew this year and also Mark to search out just Jesus’ words. Not the stories or drama. Or to pick on poor Peter. I thought that this year I’d throw out the theologies and commentaries and just focus on his words.

You can read these chapters as a set of instructions. Remembering that the Pharisees also had a set of instructions. Or they called them “Laws.” It was like a checklist of things to do today. Except that for the Pharisees it was a checklist of about 630 items. Imagine trying to check those off every day!

So, looking at Jesus’ words. His checklist in Matthew is smaller. But then stop and contemplate what he’s saying:

  • If you’re angry at someone, it’s the same thing as murder
  • If you obtain an easy divorce, not only you commit adultery, you force your spouse to do so as well
  • If you hate your enemy, so what, that’s easy; love your enemy
  • If someone forces you to carry their packs (think Roman soldiers) for a mile, carry it two
  • If someone asks for a small thing, give them a big thing
  • And there is more…

When you look at Jesus’ checklist, it’s impossible to do on your own. Even more impossible than that of the Pharisees.

This is all leading up to a conclusion–it’s all about the status of your heart. Is your heart cold and methodical? Just intent in checking off the list so that God will think you’re great? Or is your heart focused on God?

You cannot checklist your way to righteousness (being right with God). That means you cannot compare yourself to others, saying ‘I’m better than those sinners.’ No, you cannot do that.

Changing your heart’s focus from self (ego) toward God with the outlook of helping others–that is called humility and that is the path to righteousness.

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Spiritual Discipline: Overcoming Emotions

July 6, 2016

…if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire. — Jesus (Matthew 5: 22)

Emotions are neither good nor bad. They just are. How we handle them, well, that’s the subject of many books, advanced degrees, time spent in therapy, time that should have been spent in therapy.

I wrote a series of posts a few years ago based on the book, Emotional Intelligence. I’ve spent a lifetime overcoming some of the emotions I was exposed to as a child–anger, anxiety. I bet you all have your own set of emotions that, when they capture too much of our energy.

When it’s time to grieve, grieve. And when your friend grieves, grieve with her or him. When it’s time to move on, move on. And so it is with other emotions. Sometimes it is right to be angry.

But out of emotions riding unchecked, come things that hurt others and ourselves. We say things we shouldn’t have said. We expose our lack of maturity.

Don’t we all see things, read things, hear things that can ruin our day–or at least set us back a little? The other person was just giving vent to unbridled emotions.

I was on the Internet before there was a Web (yes, there was such a time). And there were groups (called UseGroups) where people gathered to share information on a topic. And, lo, there came “trolls” who would say hurtful things. And then came the Web and blogging. And people shared information and thoughts. And, lo, the trolls followed to the new medium. And hurt people deeply. It’s so easy when it’s late at night and your emotions are riding high, and it’s just words on a screen.

And then came new ways of sharing such as Facebook and others. And lo, we could all become trolls in general, venting forth our anger, fear, hate.

And people have not changed despite teaching, research, books.

2,000 years ago, Jesus dealt with this:

You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’ and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgement.’ But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgement; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire.’

Keeping your peace when you feel like venting is a Spiritual Discipline. It’s that moment between the urge and the keyboard or mouth when you have the opportunity for a deep breath. In the pause, you can reflect, “Of what use is this that I am about to say? Does it uplift? Or tear down?”

In that pause, we have the opportunity to show the true status of our hearts.

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Power Others Have Over Us

June 20, 2016

Charles Shultz’s Peanuts cast of characters includes Pigpen. Pigpen is a boy who always has a cloud of dust around him.

Have you ever met someone who is similar except that the clouds are dark clouds of impending storm of negativity, criticism? They just seem to suck the energy right out of you.

I’ve been on a reading binge. Finished four books in two weeks (plus three murder mysteries). The books all took a look at personal productivity and leadership.

Henry Cloud is one of my favorite writers. He blends study, experience, and deep thinking and produces helpful books of good prose that are easy to read.

The Power of the Other contains the usual blend of research and insight from his practice of executive coaching.

Looking at my example, we all have people in our lives that suck our energy reserves. However, have you considered the people who seem to energize you?

Research confirms that relationships with the right kind of people actually boost our energy.

Relationship, the connections between people, not only enhances our mental functioning, but actually works to impart it, to provide it. Capacity is built through energy and intelligence.– Daniel Siegel, Pocket Guide to Interpersonal Neurobiology: An Integrative Handbook of the Mind.

Cloud explains the quote, “I love the definition Siegel uses borrowing a phrase from physicists. [Energy is] the capacity to do something.”

Can you believe it? People–the right relationships–not only give us more energy, they also enhance our mental functioning. That reminded me of engineering school. The best score I received on a chemistry exam followed a couple of days of studying with a small group.

Recently I was working at a coffee shop near a table of young women. The energy around that table actually helped mine, and I didn’t even know who they were or what they were studying. Turns out they were Registered Nursing graduates studying for their State Boards. I think they all did well.

The same principle applies to Bible study.

Surround yourself with people who have positive outlooks and impart energy. As Cloud said in an earlier book, Necessary Endings, find a way to end dysfunctional relationships. Get out. Run.

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Don’t Abdicate Responsibility For Decisions

June 17, 2016

Have you ever been part of a leadership team trying to achieve a reasonable consensus on a decision and have someone (or several) pass on contributing to the decision?

I’ve observed a phenomenon over many years of professional and personal life where someone who has the chance to contribute to a decision abdicate the throne and let others decide.

In this way, they also avoid responsibility for the outcome. Usually it means they also avoid responsibility for doing the work–one way or another.

There is another side to the dynamic. After the decision is made, these same people delight in continual criticism of the decision. I’ve seen it so often. In families, in committees, in churches, in business.

When I was younger and early in my career, I’d listen to these complainers thinking maybe they had some insight. But it didn’t take me long to discover that this was actually a strategy for avoiding decision-making, contributing to the effort, and responsibility.

It is as if they are trying to stay out of the way in case the decision was wrong. Yet, they’ll try to take some of the praise if things go well.

These people are to be avoided. Well, if you married one, then you’re probably stuck with constant criticism I guess. It’s a personality type. If they are on a committee or department or team you lead, try to marginalize them or even move them on to somewhere else.

Frank and bold discussion about decisions is to be welcomed. Snide comments and grumbling after the fact undermines leadership and the team. It is to be removed.

If you are a self-aware person, then recognize when you start to become one of those grumblers. Stop it and stay  quiet. Resolve to be part of the solution the next time.

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