You Can Solve Anything With a Picture

No matter what your level of artistic talent is, you can solve any problem with a picture. Consider the health care debate: there are so many different voices, opinions, options, and distractions on the table that it is hard to be clear on what the issue is let alone what the possible solutions look like. Dan Roam has helped sort all this out:

Healthcare Napkins All

View more documents from Dan Roam.

The healthcare debate aside, I believe that any problem in our workplaces, in our churches and in our lives can be solved with a picture.

stop being overwhelmed::start drawing

The White Hat

The white hat is all about information. "The facts, ma'am, and nothing but the facts" is what this hat is all about.

Facts are neutral. There are no feeling with the facts (feelings will come out with the red hat).

The goal of the White Hat is to receive as much information as possible. In a meeting or discussion, facts that would provide helpful guidance for a great decisions get covered up with feelings or side-conversations. By focusing on the facts, you are able to get all the necessary information out in front of you so you can take the next step of interacting with the information using the other hats.

The Point of the White Hat is to be practical.

Danger: too much information is paralyzing.

Examples:

"What are the budget figures for this line item?"

"What was the attendance for this past event?"

"What went wrong with the campaign?"

Leadership Team

My Leadership Team just finished talking about the book "Trust and Teams" by Jane Fryar. As one team member put it, "it ate our lunch". This is a great book which has great questions to help build teams in a religious environment.

Our next book we're discussing is: The No Complaining Rule. That should generate a lot of discussion as well as changing our whole climate of conversation.

Boy, do I complain too much...

Rule the Rules

I recently watched License to Wed and there was a hilarious scene where Robin Williams, playing a priest, is teaching kids the Ten Commandments. Great way to remember them:

God is #1

Cussin the Man is Outta Hand

Say N.O. to Envy

Sunday is God's Fun Day

Dad and Mom are the Bomb

Be Chill Don't Kill

It Ain't Neat to Cheat

Keep it Real, Don't Steal

It Ain't Fly to Lie

Covet? Don't Love it

Of course, now is the challenge to renumber them according to the Protestant numbering and come up with new rhymes. What fun!

Vision

Our church is attending the co::labs offered by Will Mancini. These co::labs walk a congregation through the Church Unique process. We have experienced clarity and have been affirmed that the vision we developed 1 1/2 yr ago is still clear, concise, catalytic, compelling and contextual.

The first step in the Church Unique process is to discover our Kingdom Concept. A Kingdom Concept helps a church to discover the unique actions that a church can do better than any other church around them.

The idea is not for our church to "copy and paste" Saddleback, Willow Creek or other growing churches. The assumption is that we should discover our uniqueness, focus on what makes us unique and do the best we can to live that uniqueness out in to our community.

Click here to discover our Kingdom Concept:

If you want a preview of the book, click here.

My leadership has been to 2 out of 6 sessions of the co::labs. We are very excited about this process and can't wait to dig into the other 4 sessions!