You’re more likely to invest the energy needed to master skills when you deeply understand their true value.  Master these skills to better position you and others for highest value delivery:

Efficient communications practices (email, calendar, routine updates, etc)

 >> More time for thinking

Effective task and project management

>> Superior results with less inputs

Practices for deepening relationships

>> Greater trust and social capital

Learning plans and professional development

>> Be prepared for opportunities when they surface

Principles for decision-making, business practices 

>> Freely adjust tactics without sacrificing integrity

Managing your personal and team energy

>> Limit wasted time and effort, without missing critical issues 

Self-Assessment Guide – print a copy and tuck in your Bible for daily use

“Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong. Do everything in love.”  (1 Cor 16:13-14)

Be on your guard	Have I been on guard? What have I noticed?  Where do I need to pay more attention today?
Stand firm in the faith	Did I stand firm in the faith yesterday?  Where did my faith rub against the world?  What challenges can I anticipate for today, and how will I respond?
Be courageous	Did I make any courageous decisions yesterday?  To what extent did I just go along with things?  What courageous decision might I face today?  Have I imagined how I will respond in that moment?
Be strong	Where did I use my strength, and the strength of the Lord yesterday?  Where was I successful in self-control? What will I do today to increase my strength?
Do everything in agape love	Did I experience agape love yesterday, and share it?  Were there any times I was aware of God’s love for others around me?  What will I do today to be a better agape lover?

God has no confidence in you. He has perfect confidence in Himself working in and through you.  Put your trust in Him.  He loves you just as you are but is not content to leave you there. He is never far away.  He is always working.

I recently had a long conversation with an entrepreneur friend.   He’s a driven workaholic coming out of a fatherless upbringing. His body is rebelling (newest symptoms: intestinal pains and extensive eczema) and the more his relationships disintegrate the more he retreats to work.   

I passed on what my mentors have drilled into me: 

It’s not about “earning” the weekend or vacation. 

The weekend powers your week. 

The vacation powers your work. 

The Jewish day begins at sundown.  Evening is time for being with family, then a night of rest before the work day begins.  Deep wisdom here:  relationships and rest come before work.  But they had to be told this, it wasn’t a default behavior. 

Sharing in case you need this message, too.  Play the long game.  Rest has ROI.  

I advocate reading large portions of the Bible or the whole Bible relatively quickly. You can’t get clean by showering with a cupful of water a day. Why do we think we can develop a comprehensive understanding of the most important book in the world in small dollops? Try reading Luke and John in one morning. Read the Psalms in 3 days. Read Genesis on one Saturday.

I challenge you to read the whole Bible in 30-40 days. Look for themes, broad strokes, and relationships between characters. Don’t read for details, just read and absorb God’s story. Make this a separate activity from your personal devotions. It helps to partner with someone else doing this at the same time. It will take about 2-3 hours of reading time per day to do this, so go ahead and give up reading newspapers, magazines, and watching TV while you immerse yourself in Scripture. My usual warm-up is to read Psalm 119 each day for four days before beginning Genesis.

Here is a 30-day reading plan that you can follow or adapt to your schedule:

1: Genesis 1-39

2: Genesis 40 – Exodus 26

3: Exodus 27 – Leviticus 22

4: Leviticus 23 – Numbers 26

5: Numbers 27 – Deuteronomy 28

6: Deuteronomy 29 – Judges 5

7: Judges 6-1 – Samuel 16

8: 1 Samuel 17 – 2 Samuel 21

9: 2 Samuel 22 – 2 Kings 4

10: 2 Kings 5-1 – Chronicles 12

11: 1 Chronicles 13 – 2 Chronicles 24

12: 2 Chronicles 25 – Nehemiah 13

13: Esther 1 – Job 42

14: Psalms 1 – Psalm 73

15: Psalm 74 – Psalm 150

16: Proverbs 1 – Ecclesiastes 9

17: Ecclesiastes 10 – Isaiah 33

18: Isaiah 34 – Jeremiah 4

19: Jeremiah 5 – Jeremiah 37

20: Jeremiah 38 – Ezekiel 14

21: Ezekiel 15 – Ezekiel 48

22: Daniel 1 – Amos 9

23: Obadiah 1 – Malachi 4

24: Matthew 1 – Mark 5

25: Mark 6 – Luke 16

26: Luke 17 – John 21

27: Acts 1 – Romans 9

28: Romans 10 – Ephesians 6

29: Philippians 1 – 1 Peter 4

30: 1 Peter 5 – Revelations 22

Those who diligently apply themselves to reading the whole Bible in 30-40 days will be blessed through the experience. We learn about the tone and quality of God’s voice, and the “my ways are not your ways” nature of His working, as we seek the broad perspectives through His Word. These experiences help us fall in love with Christ and His Word all over again.

It’s common to hear “we don’t have enough resources for _____.”  You’ve probably said this yourself. 

A challenge question:  Is there truly a lack of resources, or is that the self-reinforcing narrative?  

In case you immediately became defensive:  It could be true.  You and your organization might lack something essential or helpful.

Critical insight for leaders: We believe the stories we consistently tell ourselves.  We too often end our story by repeating that we lack resources.   There is another way.

80/20 is fractal; the 20 has its own 80/20, and so on.  This leads to what some term the 5/67 principle: 

5% of your effort generates 67% of the value

5% of an issue is creating 67% of a problem

Knowing what is in the 5% is the trick, of course, but you must begin by assessing the unequal distributions of input and output.  It’s always there.

Many leaders have learned that cutting back effort 5% somewhere is eminently possible, and you can reallocate that effort elsewhere.  Note I say “effort” not money.  You can reduce effort by stopping some work, reducing scope, shortening time investment, or automating.  It may be that this 5% becomes the margin your team needs for long-term health.  Or you may decide to pick up new and better work.

Try converting the story that ends with “we don’t have enough” to a story that begins with “where could we recover 5% of our efforts for a better purpose?”  This will help you and your team stand out. 

(Republishing this — still a critical message!)

[I hope some people reading this will be truly ticked off.  I aim to hook a nerve, and yank.] 

We’re desperate for leadership.  

All leadership begins with self-leadership. 

Self-leadership is a function of self-discipline.   

We need self-discipline about our eating, sleep, exercise, and nourishing our minds and hearts.  You already know what is best.  Do that. 

Today, at least in the US, we face a combination of trends which will require a new level of discipline: 

• Infatuation with style over substance.  Style matters, but increasingly passes as a substitute for substance.   
• Ascending post-modern worldviews are dominant in education, corporate leadership, governments.  Fewer people accept the idea of absolute truth.  Dialog about truth is swiftly converted into arguments about power.  Opinion is frequently honored above truth.  
• Diminished context.  Social media largely operates outside complex context.  Subject lines, headlines, text messages, and soundbites are sufficient to reinforce mindsets.  
• Declining trust in most institutions.  This is understandable — many institutions are recognizably corrupt.  
• Large percentage of the population spends hours every day immersed in information streams, weirdly compelled to “keep up.”  
• We swim in abundance of stuff, food, sanitized environments, and information.  Many of us are not handling abundance well. This is proving to be unhealthy.  
• Far more remote work, less time at the work-site.  Distractions abound, peer pressure is physically absent, the benefits of face-to-face social interaction are missed.   

T.S. Eliot captured it well in his “Four Quartets” poems: 

Distracted from distraction by distraction 

Filled with fancies and empty of meaning 

Tumid apathy with no concentration 

Men and bits of paper whirled by the cold wind 

You might be saying, “But not me, Glenn, no, I’m different!”  Are you sure?  Let’s test it out: 

• How do you feel if you sit perfectly still, no sound, no flickering images, for 5 minutes? 
• If you searched and couldn’t find your smartphone for 15 minutes, what’s your panic level? 
• When was the last time you turned off your phone for any length of time while you were awake? 
• If I demanded that you read nothing but books more than 400 years old for a week – no news, no social media, no podcasts – what’s your first reaction? 

Full candor: I fail these tests, too.    

I’m not trying to make a political commentary – these are the trends in our cultural environment, which is where we must exercise our leadership work.  

We’re deeply in this reality.  Yet we have agency.  We can make choices.  

I challenge you to be an intentional leader rather than passively absorbing every aspect of cultural trends.  I challenge you to be a free man or a free woman, rather than a slave to circumstances and circumstantial evidence.  We desperately need leaders who think for themselves, who speak outside echo chambers, who call out bullshit, who love fiercely, who rally people without manipulating them, who command respect from others even as they wrestle with constructive disagreements.  

This level of leadership comes at a price, beginning with your self-discipline.  Practice stepping up and out of the swirls of information and emotion which captivate most people.  Recognize that the statement “Your truth” is actually “truth and your opinion.”  Fast from incessant mindless activity and task completion.  Do something which makes you physically uncomfortable every day – a cold shower, fasting from a meal, sitting in a hard chair, exercising in a new way, studying a difficult subject, talking with people who hold a completely different worldview. Select for quality and depth of information and insights. Invest time in measured reflection and meditation on events; Experience is not the best teacher – evaluated experience is.  Demand context and alternative perspectives.  Demand evidence of truth statements.  Live more generously with people than they might deserve.  Don’t fall in love with the idea of “the people” and then fail to interact with actual flesh-and-blood messy people.  

98% of the people around you may be slaves to their inbox, smart phone, and information as someone-with-an-agenda presents it to them, but purpose to be in the 2% who strive for freedom.  It’s a both-and situation – understand the reality of where the 98% are living, and live differently.  

Pursue this self-discipline and you’ll become the leader that the people in your sphere of influence actually need. Model this self-discipline, and your sphere of influence will increase.  

It’s helpful to know metrics like these to help you make decisions on projects, priorities, and trends:  

Your “per hour” and “per month” salary and benefits cost to the organization  

The salary and benefits cost for your working teams (and subteams if you have a larger group) per month  

Profit margin of your key products / services  

Your organization’s revenue in a quarter, or for a particular region  

These become proxy values in making estimates.  For example, I recall a VP who listened to a proposal for a big initiative, and thoughtfully asked aloud, “This investment is equal to all our sales in northern Illinois for two years.  What’s the minimal payoff over 3-5 years?”  Several times I had internal clients who wanted “just a few enhancements” to software they only used occasionally.  “Would you pay $12,000 out of your budget for that?” I asked – because I could ballpark the salary estimate of the developer time.  (They wouldn’t.  End of request.)  And you can think about the value of your time when considering how to prioritize your work.  What’s going to be worth 3-10x your salary to your organization?  Do that.  

You should also practice valuing your contributions, especially the indirect but real contributions as a leader.  Consider your long-term influence on the people, rituals, processes, and working culture (the default behaviors and practices) of your organization.    

A useful question to ask:   “What would not have happened without your contribution?”  Follow this with “How do I know?” 

It’s long been understood that animal trails follow the lowest energy route. 

Two other observations from the natural world:

1. Passive movement is along the path of least resistance.  Consider water and electricity.
2. Creatures (from single cells to the most sophisticated animals and plants) respond to gradients.  They move towards water, nutrients, light, attractive pheromones, prey.  They move away from toxins, and predators.  Plants and trees, which have limited movement ability, still respond powerfully to gradients – roots grow towards water and nutrients, and shoots and leaves orient to light.

A large fraction of all creature behavior can be explained by energy conservation, paths of least resistance, and response to gradients.

Consider how many of our worst human impulses are failure to respond in healthy ways to these parameters.  We indulge in known toxins. We ignore signals that others are preying on us.  Instead of gravitating towards the light we cherish the darkness.  We seek out the wrong kinds of stimulation. We burn energy foolishly rather than getting rest and recovery we need. 

It’s a reminder that we need to be taught how to sense and respond to gradients correctly.  We seem deeply wired to ignore them or respond backwards. 

You can apply this to your own situation.  Ask yourself “What gradients am I navigating correctly?  Where am I ignoring the behaviors which let me thrive as I’m designed to?”

The US Constitution made federal law-making hard for good reasons.  Our legislators torque the process into pretzels for their purposes.

A modest proposal for legislation:

No omnibus bills with a large collection of individual items; each item must stand alone for an up and down vote.  Each bill must have fewer words than the US Constitution.  Legislators must attest that they have read each bill before they’re allowed to vote. 

[I hope some people reading this will be truly ticked off.  I aim to hook a nerve, and yank.]

We’re desperate for leadership.

All leadership begins with self-leadership.

Self-leadership is a function of self-discipline. 

We need self-discipline about our eating, sleep, exercise, and nourishing our minds and hearts.  You already know what is best.  Do that.

Today, at least in the US, we face a combination of trends which will require a new level of discipline:

• Infatuation with style over substance.  Style matters, but increasingly passes as a substitute for substance. 
• Ascending post-modern worldviews are dominant in education, corporate leadership, governments.  Fewer people accept the idea of absolute truth.  Dialog about truth is swiftly converted into arguments about power.  Opinion is frequently honored above truth.
• Diminished context.  Social media largely operates outside complex context.  Subject lines, headlines, text messages, and soundbites are sufficient to reinforce mindsets.
• Declining trust in most institutions.  This is understandable — many institutions are recognizably corrupt.
• Large percentage of the population spends hours every day immersed in information streams, weirdly compelled to “keep up.”
• We swim in abundance of stuff, food, sanitized environments, and information.  Many of us are not handling abundance well. This is proving to be unhealthy.
• Far more remote work, less time at the work-site.  Distractions abound, peer pressure is physically absent, the benefits of face-to-face social interaction are missed.  

T.S. Eliot captured it well in his “Four Quartets” poems:

Distracted from distraction by distraction

Filled with fancies and empty of meaning

Tumid apathy with no concentration

Men and bits of paper whirled by the cold wind

You might be saying, “But not me, Glenn, no, I’m different!”  Are you sure?  Let’s test it out:

• How do you feel if you sit perfectly still, no sound, no flickering images, for 5 minutes?
• If you searched and couldn’t find your smartphone for 15 minutes, what’s your panic level?
• When was the last time you turned off your phone for any length of time while you were awake?
• If I demanded that you read nothing but books more than 400 years old for a week – no news, no social media, no podcasts – what’s your first reaction?

Full candor: I fail these tests, too.  

I’m not trying to make a political commentary – these are the trends in our cultural environment, which is where we must exercise our leadership work.

We’re deeply in this reality.  Yet we have agency.  We can make choices.

I challenge you to be an intentional leader rather than passively absorbing every aspect of cultural trends.  I challenge you to be a free man or a free woman, rather than a slave to circumstances and circumstantial evidence.  We desperately need leaders who think for themselves, who speak outside echo chambers, who call out bullshit, who love fiercely, who rally people without manipulating them, who command respect from others even as they wrestle with constructive disagreements.

This level of leadership comes at a price, beginning with your self-discipline.  Practice stepping up and out of the swirls of information and emotion which captivate most people.  Recognize that the statement “Your truth” is actually “truth and your opinion.”  Fast from incessant mindless activity and task completion.  Do something which makes you physically uncomfortable every day – a cold shower, fasting from a meal, sitting in a hard chair, exercising in a new way, studying a difficult subject, talking with people who hold a completely different worldview. Select for quality and depth of information and insights. Invest time in measured reflection and meditation on events; Experience is not the best teacher – evaluated experience is.  Demand context and alternative perspectives.  Demand evidence of truth statements.  Live more generously with people than they might deserve.  Don’t fall in love with the idea of “the people” and then fail to interact with actual flesh-and-blood messy people.

98% of the people around you may be slaves to their inbox, smart phone, and information as someone-with-an-agenda presents it to them, but purpose to be in the 2% who strive for freedom.  It’s a both-and situation – understand the reality of where the 98% are living, and live differently.

Pursue this self-discipline and you’ll become the leader that the people in your sphere of influence actually need. Model this self-discipline, and your sphere of influence will increase.