Issue No. 51 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting might be a life-saver for you. I only recommend books I’ve actually read and ones I highly recommend you read. Make no mistake: today’s book is a no-brainer for your team. Click on the title below and order it today from Amazon. And this reminder: you can read the mini-reviews of the previous 50 books at my Buckets Blog at www.JohnPearsonAssociates.com.
Memo to Everyone I’ve Worked with Over the Last 40 Years: I’m sorry! Honest! Had Patrick Lencioni written this book 40 years ago, when I assumed my first summer management position, I would have been a better leader and more nurturing manager.
It’s not too late for me or you. Click the title to order Lencioni’s hot-off-the-press extraordinary book, The Three Signs of a Miserable Job. Subtitled “A Fable for Managers (and their employees),” this will get your management juices going again. It’s a five-star, must-read, very, very important book. (I’ve just moved it into my Top 10 books of all time.)
In story fashion, Lencioni helps us discover why so many CEOs, senior leaders, managers and employees are miserable at work—and what to do about it. His diagnosis is simple, yet profound: immeasurement, irrelevance and anonymity. (He coins the word “immeasurement” and it’s perfect.) The story gives practical solutions and the book concludes with a this-makes-sense discussion of next steps and case studies. Gratefully, he’s also posted “miserable” resources at www.MiserableJob.com, including the anti-misery worksheet for managers.
Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.When you’re driving home after work, do you know if you’ve done a great job that day or not—without feedback from your manager? Do you have measurements for your work—every day?
2. Describe how your work impacts other people. Does what you do all day at work have any relevance to the lives of other people? How so?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Insights from the Management Buckets Workshop Experience
The Orange County Register’s front page headline on August 25 was eye-catching: “$60,000,000.” That was the entire headline!
Last week, an Orange County, California, couple announced their gift of $60 million to Gordon College, Wenham, Mass. The gift is the largest recorded single gift ever to any charity from an Orange County resident. Though life-long California residents, Dale E. and Sarah Ann Fowler blessed an evangelical Christian college near Boston, not L.A.
According to the newspaper, Fowler chose the college, in part, “because he perceived there was less money for Christian schools on the East Coast than on the West Coast. ‘There are a lot more wealthy (evangelical) people on the West Coast and not so much back here,’” the donor said, who has a summer place in Massachusetts.
So, if you’re on the development team at a West Coast ministry, what’s on your staff meeting agenda for this week? Sending missionaries to the East Coast, or better qualifying donors on the West Coast?
Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions: The Donor Bucket
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. What are the possible reasons that someone might give $60 million to one institution?
2. What’s the largest gift that your nonprofit organization could reasonable expect to receive in the next 24 months? Are you praying about this? Is anyone working on it?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Donor Bucket is just one of 20 buckets we’ll dip into at the next two-day Management Buckets Workshop Experience, Oct. 31 and Nov. 1, 2007, in Orange County, Calif. (where all the money is!). Plus, there are two Nonprofit Board Governance Workshops planned this fall: Sept. 20 (Chicago area, co-sponsored by Awana) and Nov. 2 (Orange County, Calif.). Registration forms are posted at www.JohnPearsonAssociates.com.
Download the Management Buckets brochure
PS. Click “Forward Email” below to recommend this free eNews to a colleague.
