Business Leader Elicits Brutally Honest Feedback

After interviewing business leaders at over 100 companies, the authors of a 2012 Harvard Business Review article concluded: "Smart leaders today … engage with employees in a way that resembles an ordinary person-to-person conversation." According to the authors, an essential part of "ordinary person-to-person conversation" involves listening well and getting honest feedback.
They use the following story as an example: James E. Rogers, the president and CEO at Duke Energy, instituted a series of what he called "listening sessions." In a series of three-hour meetings, he invited the people he led to raise any pressing issues. He also asked for their brutally honest feedback about his own leadership performance. The authors of the article wrote: 

He asked employees at one session to grade him on a scale of A to F. The results, recorded anonymously, immediately appeared on a screen for all to see. The grades were generally good, but less than half of the employees were willing to give him an A. He took the feedback seriously and began to conduct the exercise regularly. He also began asking open-ended questions about his performance. Somewhat ironically, he found that "internal communication" was the area in which the highest number of participants believed he had room for improvement. Even as Rogers sought to get close to employees by way of [conversation], a fifth of his people were urging him to get closer still. True listening involves taking the bad with the good, absorbing criticism even when it is direct and personal—and even when those delivering it work for you.

 Boris Groysberg and Michael Slind, "Leadership Is a Conversation," Harvard Business Review (June 2012)

Married Couple Make a Mutual Discovery: "You Can't Satisfy Me"

In his book Fill These Hearts, Christopher West describes a surprising and simple discovery that changed his marriage:
Years ago [my wife] and I were out to dinner and she observed that something was different about our marriage in recent years, something good. She asked me if I had any insight into what it was. After reflecting a bit I said with a smile, "Yeah, I think I know what it is. I think I've been realising deep in my heart that you can't satisfy me." She got a big smile on her face and said, "Yeah, that's it. And I've been realising the same thing: you can't satisfy me either." I imagine anyone overhearing us in the restaurant would have thought we were about to get divorced, but to us that realisation was cause for joy and celebration. We had never felt closer and freer in our love.
I love my wife more than words can express, and I know she loves me. But I can't possibly be her ultimate satisfaction, and she can't be mine.
And that's why our conversation at the restaurant was cause for rejoicing. Only to the degree that we stop expecting others to be "god" for us, are we free to love others as they really are, warts and all, without demanding perfection of them, whether a spouse, a friend, a son or daughter, or any other relationship. And only to the degree that we are free from idolising … human beings are we also free to take our ache for perfect fulfillment to the One who alone can satisfy it.

Christopher West, Fill These Hearts (Image, 2012), pp. 159-160

Identity

You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope, as old as your despair. In the central place of every heart, there is a recording chamber; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, and courage, so long are you young

- Douglas MacArthur

The Greater Cost

Don't fear failure so much that you refuse to try new things. The saddest summary of a life contains three descriptions: could have, might have, and should have

- Louis E. Boone

At the Edge

When you come to the edge of all the light you know, and are about to step off into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing one of two things will happen: there will be something solid to stand on, or you will be taught how to fly

- Barbara J. Winter

Discovery

There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Tough job, Pastor?

It is, according to a ranking of 200 jobs. Careercast.com measured factors such as income, stress level, physical demands, and hiring outlook. Clergy landed at 92, tied with elementary school teacher.
Two notches above at 90, funeral directors have it better than pastors. So do software engineers (1), dental hygienists (4), podiatrists (24), brick masons (72), and vending machine repairmen (88).
At least you're not a corrections officer (129), bartender (162), or lumberjack (200). And if you're thinking of chucking it all for a writing career, don't. Editor (118).

Source

Liturgy with Bite?

A new generation of snake-handling preachers is emerging. Following the deaths of older leaders, their numbers are growing, according to a report from Nashville.
"While older serpent handlers were wary of outsiders, these younger believers welcome visitors and use Facebook to promote their often misunderstood—and illegal (except in West Virginia)—version of Christianity. They want to show the beauty and power of their extreme form of spirituality. And they hope eventually to reverse a (Tennessee) state ban on handling snakes in church."
—Former White House Chief of Staff, head of the U.S. Treasury, and Secretary of State James Baker on Charlie Rose (PBS).
"Part of the Pentecostal Holiness movement," the article says, "serpent handlers have a strict moral code. No drinking, drugs, cursing, or going to bars. No shorts or short-sleeve shirts, no sex outside of marriage. Women wear skirts or dresses, can't wear earrings or cut their hair."
Or get snake bit.

- by Eric Reed, from Tennesseean.com

The Real Message of Unmarried Sex

If you're sleeping with the person you're dating, you're telling each other two things. First, you're telling each other that your relationship with God is not your primary commitment. Second, you're telling each other that you are the kind of person that will sleep with someone you're not married to. Do you think that repeating vows to each other will somehow change that? It doesn't. You will enter into a marriage, if you end up marrying the person that you're sleeping with, already telling each other that you will sleep with someone you're not married to. What happens when he goes on business trips, or when she goes on business trips, and things come up? You already know that each of you is not first and foremost committed to God.

Philip Griffin, from the sermon "Broken and Compromised"

Compulsive "Sinner" Cures His Guilt but Not His Sin

There's a story about a man who walks into a restaurant and orders a Coke. As soon as he receives it, he throws it in the waiter's face. The waiter is ready to fight, but the man says, "Oh, I'm so sorry. I have a horrible compulsion. I can't help it. Whenever someone hands me a drink, I throw it in their face. Please, forgive me." Then the guy says, "I'm working hard to overcome this compulsion. Would you bring me another Coke?"
The waiter says, "Do you promise not to throw it in my face?"
The guy responds, "I'm going to do everything I can not to throw it in your face. I'm working really hard to resist."
So the waiter says, "Okay, I'll bring you another one."
Soon the waiter comes back with another Coke, and the guy throws it in the waiter's face. The waiter says, "I thought you said you wouldn't do that."
The guy apologises: "Oh, this compulsion is so strong. I promise you that I will check myself into an in-patient clinic to get some help. Forgive me. I'm so sorry."
The guy felt genuine guilt and sorrow, so he checks himself into a clinic, and for one month he gets intense psychotherapy to deal with his compulsion. When he gets out of the clinic, he goes back to the same restaurant, and he walks in and says, "I'm cured. Give me a drink."
The waiter says, "Wait a minute. I had to change my shirt last time you were here. Are you sure you're cured?"
The guy says, "I know I'm cured. I promise."
The waiter says, "Okay, if you're cured, I'll bring you a Coke." And so the waiter brings him a Coke. The guy looks at it and throws it right in the waiter's face. The waiter says, "I thought you said you were cured."
The guy says, "I am cured. I still have the compulsion, but I don't feel guilty about it anymore."

Phillip Griffin, from the sermon "Broken and Repentant"

Leadership

Someone once said that good leaders take a little more than their share of the blame and a little less than their share of the credit. That's clear in this Civil War story about Abraham Lincoln. After the Battle of Gettysburg, General Robert E. Lee and his Confederate forces were withdrawing to Virginia, and Lincoln felt that they were vulnerable. Eager to get the agony of the war over with, President Lincoln sent word to General George Meade to attack. With his message, Lincoln also sent a personal note. "The order I enclose is not on record," said the note. "If you succeed, you need not publish it. Then, if you succeed, you will have all the credit of the movement. If not, I'll take the responsibility."

The Main Thing

One should guard against preaching to young people success in the customary form as the main aim in life. The most important motive for work in school and in life is pleasure in work, pleasure in its result, and the knowledge of the value of the result to the community

- Albert Einstein

Staying Focused

Even though circumstances may cause interruptions and delays, never lose sight of your goal. Instead, prepare yourself in every way you can by increasing your knowledge and adding to your experience, so that you can make the most of opportunity when it occurs

- Mario Andretti

Happiness

Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us on a wild-goose chase, and is never attained. Follow some other object, and very possibly we may find that we have caught happiness without dreaming of it

- Nathaniel Hawthorne

Perseverance

Many men fail because they quit too soon. They lose faith when the signs are against them. They do not have the courage to hold on, to keep fighting in spite of that which seems insurmountable. If more of us would strike out and attempt the "impossible," we very soon would find the truth of that old saw that nothing is impossible... Abolish fear and you can accomplish anything you wish

- C. E. Welch

In control of...

You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of. You don't have charge of the constellations, but you do have charge of whether you read, develop new skills, and take new classes

- Jim Rohn

Strength

The strongest oak of the forest is not the one that is protected from the storm and hidden from the sun. It's the one that stands in the open where it is compelled to struggle for its existence against the winds and rains and the scorching sun

- Napoleon Hill

Missionary's Efforts Bear Fruit 150 Years Later

The American missionary Adoniram Judson arrived in Burma, or Myanmar, in 1812, and died there thirty-eight years later in 1850. During that time, he suffered much for the cause of the gospel. He was imprisoned, tortured, and kept in shackles. After the death of his first wife, Ann, to whom he was devoted, for several months he was so depressed that he sat daily beside her tomb. Three years later, he wrote: God is to me the Great Unknown. I believe in him, but I cannot find him.
But Adoniram's faith sustained him, and he threw himself into the tasks to which he believed God had called him. He worked feverishly on his translation of the Bible. The New Testament had now been printed, and he finished the Old Testament in early 1834.
Statistics are unclear, but there were only somewhere between twelve and twenty-five professing Christians in the country when he died, and there were not churches to speak of.
At the 150th anniversary of the translation of the Bible into the Burmese language, Paul Borthwick was addressing a group that was celebrating Judson's work. Just before he got up to speak, he noticed in small print on the first page the words: "Translated by Rev. A. Judson." So Borthwick turned to his interpreter, a Burmese man named Matthew Hia Win, and asked him, "Matthew, what do you know of this man?" Matthew began to weep as he said,

We know him—we know how he loved the Burmese people, how he suffered for the gospel because of us, out of love for us. He died a pauper, but left the Bible for us. When he died, there were few believers, but today there are over 600,000 of us, and every single one of us traces our spiritual heritage to one man: the Rev. Adoniram Judson.

But Adoniram Judson never saw it! And that will be the case for some of us. We may be called to invest our lives in ministries for which we do not see much immediate fruit, trusting that the God of all grace who oversees our work will ensure that our labour is not in vain.

Adapted from Julia Cameron, editor, Christ Our Reconciler (InterVarsity Press, 2012), pp. 200-201