Practical Christianity 5: What will it take to be in harmony with God?

Its a world full of people

A client related a great story to me. A woman accidentally shut herself inside a cold room on a Friday afternoon. 

No one heard her shouts and her body temperature was falling rapidly. Then, a good while later, a security guard found her. "What led you here", she asked? 

"Mam", he added, "of all the employees who work here, you are the reason I come to work. You greet me in the morning, you wave to me at night and when you can you chat or give me some food. So I wouldn't have missed anyone else, but I was expecting you to come out of the building and wave to me as you went home, and when you didn't appear I knew something was wrong. I searched all over until I found you down here, in this cold room".

End First

Stephen Covey said that we should always start with the end in mind. The bible does that too. A key example is a verse in Ephesians 4:13, which says "... until we all come into the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man".

Hey you, um what's your name again ... I do appreciate you, now please sign here

During my Master’s studies we did a case study on two banks. Bank A scored 9 out of 10 on its customer satisfaction index – a near perfect score. Bank B only achieved 6 out of 10. The problem was that Bank B still had better market share and customers indicated a continuing preference for the lower-rated organisation. When asked why, they simply stated, “They know my name”.

That most human of gestures is ably captured in an African greeting, which simply translates as “I see you”.

---

We live in such a depersonalized world and wonder why we still battle to sustain market shares and profitability or success in our lives. Even churches have reduced people to numbers – and still wonder why they battle to keep what they have.

Social networks involve a numbers game that will depersonalize us further, to rob the next generation of the power of personal engagement. Its just not good enough though. People are people and until we get that we won’t keep them and if we fail to do that we will have failed in the essence of Godly stewardship, which is “to feed His lambs”.

The emergence of mass production systems has led to canned approaches to service, driven by cold, heartless machines. You don’t agree – well stop paying or buying and see how quickly they turn you off, then you will know how much you matter.

---

Ants work their channels almost as persistently as advertisers do ...

I have an ongoing war going on ... with ants. For some reason the hills where we live are popular with ants and it is very difficult to get rid of them.

I have tried all the tricks, including the removal of food sources (they still find food and trying to keep it away only inconveniences me), poisoning their popular tracks (only works for a short while), poisoning their nests (works longer, but in time they just come back stronger). The problem is, ants leave a phemorone trail that we can't see. It gets reinforced as other ants confirm the merits of the lead and it gets redirected if the route is blocked or disrupted. They are very organised creatures.

---

Their tactics remind me a lot of modern day advertising. As soon as someone cottons on to a good advertising channel, they lift their heads and chug along with merry amusement written all over their faces, their arms laden with the spoils. Their excitement leaves an invisible trail of enthusiasm or success or whatever it is, which others soon discover .. .before you know it, there is a gold rush as tens, then hundreds, then thousands start to use the channel and exploit its rich pickings.

Have you heard?

Have you ever stopped to realise the sheer economic value of communication? The most fundamental driver of all economics is human need and wants. If that be true then, by implication, communication must be right up there with the greatest of all human needs or wants.

By 2005 the global communications market was at 30% of the global processed food market. I suppose the gap between the two will never close given steady growth in the global population, but it will narrow. I cannot establish 2010 statistics but I would suspect that it is close to 40% by now.

Social networking: Good or bad?

During a lunchbreak on the course I am currently facilitating, we got around to talking about social networking. At the table was a deputy headmaster, a CEO, some engineers and two consultants. We all agreed that the younger generation have adopted the new fad very well and the deputy head was quick to add that in his opinion the youngsters at his school, one of the top schools around, were anything but spoilt in terms of relationships and friendships.

That, notwithstanding, kids are becoming increasingly two-dimensional and relationally challenged. They may well find a steep challenge in the workplace - or else there may be other consequences for this generation, including a general state of denial.

I have connections

Somehow I found that one person out there who was somehow better connected to a lot of other people I have known and loved along my life journeys. It was a wonderfully refreshing journey to then work that thread to see faces I had forgotten and read up on people I had lost touch with. Strange how life takes so much away from us through the years, but how delightful to find a way back again.

This all got me thinking that maybe there is a secret key to all relationships, which then brought me to the reality that through one man I am now part of a universal family, drawn from every tribe and nation.

Managing perceptions when blogging

... and now for something completely different.

One of the most fundamental of all marketing principles relates to perception. When a guy sees a pretty girl it is all perception – “she must be great, because she looks great”. Overheard whispers in the pews behind me during a church service, suggest that either the minister is going beyond the call of duty or my new electric shaver is making up for the disuse of aftershave. Actually, I just think gals also form first impressions of other good looking guys.

After the initial phase of seeing and meeting, perceptions give way to deeper issues, where they either confirm initial perceptions or fulfill the worst of fears. It’s like letting donkey speak in Shrek, where he should know that its better to be deemed a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt.

Kill the email monster

Slightly off the subject, yet relevant to my leadership theme, I did some research and wrote about ways to manage the email monster. It really seems to be a case of eat or be eaten. Email is slowly burying people in irrelevancies and may well be eroding our general productivity. It may also make you uncompetetive and lead to redundancy, yet without it you would be redundant anyway.

Click to read more ....

Is connection critical to leadership

So much has been said about the balance between communication and connection and the relevance of either to the role of leadership. It seems logical to correlate connection with effective leadership, yet many of the great leaders of history and of the bible defied that logic.

Click to read more ...