PLANNING

I read the other day that if you want to make God laugh, tell him about your future plans. I can just see him laughing at me and saying, “Sure you are…..no Cam, I know the plans I have for you.”

It is funny how some of my most productive days happen when I just clear my desk and plan. I spend time re-prioritizing and outlining the next day or the next week or the next month. That kind of organization is cleansing in some respect.

For the Y, we have had almost 17 years of what I would say has been successful. Not always have we been successful because of a carefully calculated plan. In fact I would say mostly we have been successful just because we have been good. In a sense we have often had good people, working hard and serving a mission that the community has embraced. Some may call that lucky or timely, but I just call it being good. In Jim Collins book, Good to Great, he discusses the fly wheel approach and how the momentum of success creates more success. I think that exemplifies the Y.

In saying all of that, I am sure that when we have been most organized, most efficient and most impactful, it has been the direct result of a carefully orchestrated plan. Not just creating a plan, but efficiently executing the plan. I am sure Louisville’s women’s basketball team had a great game plan to beat the Connecticut team, but executing is an entirely different deal.

This has taught me that if we are to become all that we are capable of being organizationally, it is important that we be good and work hard; but we also must realize that we be intentional about how we plan and execute the plan. Planning places effort where effort is most needed. Organizations that put hard work, planning and execution together have a firm foundation to execute their mission.

Good planning and hard work lead to prosperity, but hasty shortcuts lead to poverty. – Proverbs 21:5

Great organizations, great teams, and great employees stay committed to establishing and maintaining times for reflection. We must listen to God so that we can discern HIS plans. Our mission has to be at the forefront. The synergy of combing our hard work, our god given talents with careful planning not only furthers our mission but HIS Mission.

Hard Work

One funny thing that came out in the staff satisfaction survey is that staff watches each other work. Staff looks at when they come to work, when they leave and what they do while they are here. It is a constant measurement about “are they working as hard as I am?”

Hard work is a funny thing. You always hear the good salesman talk about how he doesn’t work hard but he works smart. Just recently we witnessed Tyler Hansbrough being honored for working so hard. Half the people loved what he stood for and others detested him for being overrated. Are the detractors just jealous and lazy? I think it is funny that the hard worker is the unusual and not the norm.

There is no substitute for hard work. Most people have a tendency to look for shortcuts or at least for the easiest way to complete a task. If we only put out a minimum effort we might get by in some situations, but in the long run we won’t fully develop the talents that lie within us.

Good planning and hard work lead to prosperity, but hasty shortcuts lead to poverty. – Proverbs 21:5

I love those days when at the end of the day I am tired. But I can reflect back and see that I not only worked smart, but I worked hard. And all that I accomplished led me to be thankful. I am thankful that I used myself to the BEST of my abilities as God intended.

Our jobs and our lives are not about working just harder than the people beside us. Or measuring them and working only as hard as our peers. I hope that our daily work is about honoring God by committing ourselves to hard work so that we can become all that God created us to be.

Try and view the effort you give as a God’s gift to you. Learn that you are working to honor God and not measure up to the people around us. Honor God’s plans for us by working to the BEST of your abilities.

Happy Birthday April

Dear April,

I hope today is a great day for you. I am sorry that I am out of town. But you know that after 20 years of marriage even when I am gone you are never far from my heart.

I have to thank one of my old high school buddies for connecting me with this song. Wanted to save it until our anniversary in December but just can't wait. The words are so perfect. Just click on the Happy Birthday link below and watch my Youtube birthday present.

"WITH THE STRENGTH THAT WE SPEND IN THIS LIFE, IN THE HOPE THAT IT GOES ON FOREVER WE BELIEVE AS WE PROMISE TO TRY, THAT OUR LOVE IS ONE LOVE THAT WILL NEVER FADE AWAY."

Happy Birthday

CAM

Authentic Leadership

I don’t know if I would have said this 25 years ago when my YMCA career started but today I feel that my faith and my leadership are so integrated that they are now hard to separate. Somewhere over the last decade I have felt a sincere calling from God to develop and focus on my leadership. I have had to sit and pray about my spiritual gifts and to ask if leadership is one of them. Some people may doubt leadership as my spiritual gift and in all honesty sometimes I doubt it myself.

Early in my Y career I had a kid in our after school program exclaim, “I am gifted and talented!”

“You are?” I responded.

“Yes, my teacher has me in the gifted and talented class,” he beamed.

Don’t you wish every kid could feel that way? That everybody could feel that way?

One of my Y staff often talks about the inverted triangle and that leadership is not top down but often bottom up. My faith has helped shape my belief that as a leader I cannot be more important than the organization. The people around me need to trust me and my leadership. I have said the word servant more in the last five years than I have said in my life. Being a servant leader is my responsibility and it is my calling. Not that I am great at being a servant all the time, but that is definitely the new goal line. So by being a servant leader I have to focus on empowerment. My daily challenges have changed from tactical stuff like conducting a meeting to more strategic stuff like helping branches stay aligned and focused with our mission. Today I try and focus on empowering staff and volunteers to meet organizational goals. As the CEO my day should fill up with serving the people around me.

Being a leader at the Y has provided so much significance in my life. We recently heard a leadership speaker talk about how we should follow our compass and not our clock. I used to think that it was all about bigger budgets, bigger buildings, bigger donors and bigger dreams when it is really about significance.

Not quite sure when this all happened but today I pray for my leadership. Today I pray for your leadership. My prayer is that we all understand the purpose, the power and the strength of our leadership. It takes commitment to focus inwardly and to gather input so we can become more aware of our gifts and talents. It is funny how today our job searches have become less about skill and more about values. I have found that I am now motivated by other people finding joy, meaning and success in their work and feeling that I have some small part in all of that. I can only be as good a leader as the leaders that work beside me every day. That ONE thing constantly garners more focus.

The most difficult part of leadership is taking these same skills to my house and leading my family the way I lead my organization.

Thank God for prayer.

And thank god for you!