Two years in, Hope Is Alive was growing steadily in its budget, staff, supporters, and clients. Lance knew he needed help.
Your goal should be so clearly defined that you can say it in 8 words or less. And so can everyone else at your organization.
Ordained ministers need to annually document their housing allowance for tax purposes.
We love getting donations, but sometimes getting all the necessary reports to donors at the end of the year can be overwhelming. We can help.
Lead like a pro. Think of leading your organization the way elite coaches lead their teams to victory.
Pope Francis provides an incredible model for leadership—building and nurturing relationships through learning, listening, and humility. I am inspired by a world leader who models knowing people in such an unassuming, openhanded way.
I just got back from my second trip to Ukraine this year. I have found that though the circumstances are different between Ukraine and the U.S., the principles of stewardship remain the same. Leaders still have to figure out how to strategically use their organizations’ limited resources in order to work toward goals.
I facilitate a class of MBA students from the University of Oklahoma who are identifying their unique resources in order to choose and nurture a fulfilling and fruitful vocation (the course objective).
The better we understand our unique design and resources, the better we can use them to get specific and important things done that we are uniquely qualified to accomplish.
![Trust = [(Intimacy + Reliability + Credibility) / Selfishness] (Time)](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54516305e4b023373820a831/1435683667711-HXWRX6A0DAKMMBXOL8B5/image-asset.jpeg)
The Trust Formula
Trust is a must. As effective influencers for good, we want trust to grow among those on our teams so we can more effectively make the WHYs of our organizations happen.
The formula for building Trust equals Intimacy plus Reliability plus Credibility divided by Selfishness times Time. Or put differently:
Trust = [(Intimacy + Reliability + Credibility) / Selfishness] (Time)
You are good with people. People enjoy being around you and generally are willing to do what you ask. Being likable is great, and important, but it will only get you so far. To maximize your influence, you also must be willing to say what needs to be said—not just what is easy to say.
To be successful with the people you serve you must always answer their unconscious-but-ever-present question: “What’s in it for me?”
Yes, your focus should be on meeting someone else’s needs. Every moment of every day every person is asking and answering one question unconsciously or consciously: “What’s in it for me?” It's how we are built. We start asking the question the moment we take our first breath and continue asking it until our last. While this may strike you as egotistical, it is how we answer the question that determines character. For now, just know that your clients are not just looking to you for information. They want you to help them take care of needs they may not even be able to articulate. Here is where your job really begins.
You are the person with the credentials.
You are the one with the experience.
Helping people is your passion.
So when someone comes to you with a problem, you are the expert, right?
Wrong. You are not the expert.
Your clients are the only experts at living with their problems. . . .
Successful stewardship is ultimately a matter of action, intention, and heart for a particular purpose. Through work we build our world and help make the Kingdom of God visible, already present among us. Work is a partnership with our creator—our share in a divine human collaboration in creation. It occupies a central place in our lives as stewards....
To really understand intentional living we must first identify the qualities of a steward:
- Accepting the responsibility for safeguarding, investing in, and nurturing material and human resources
- Using resources for the highest and best use
- Giving time, talent, and treasure in a generous but focused way....
If you have laid a firm foundation by developing your organization’s Why in 8 Words or Less, Future Facts, Manifesto, and SMARTgoals, then you clearly know where you are going. It’s time to build a ScoreBoard to track your team’s progress.
A good ScoreBoard is:
1. Performance-oriented. Include measurable data that shows how you have allocated your scarce and precious resources. It should mark your performance in key areas such as amount in sales, amount in expenses, percentage of expenses from sales, sales dollars divided by number of clients, or any markers that indicate how the organization is performing from a big-picture perspective....
As a make-things-happen kind of person, you want to know whether you and your team are getting important stuff done in the right way, at the right time, and for the right cost.
ScoreBoards help you track this important information.
But before you can know what would be helpful to record on your ScoreBoard, you need to clearly define what your objectives are for your organization. In other words, before you can score, you have to know what the goal is....
In my book The Best Game, I talk about how leading an organization has many similarities to playing a game. Both involve objectives, rules, players, strategies, and competition. In fact, I think leading an organization is the best game there is!
Part of what makes any game fun is the thrill of competition, striving to be better and improve, which goes right along with knowing how you are doing. The score in a game points to the level of performance—against a competitor, a benchmark, or your own best effort....