How to Run a Killer Workshop

Ok, overstatement.

This weekend I'm running an event on Starting a Business worth Building and Taking it Somewhere worth Going. I know practically nothing about the subject. But I know how to put an event on, and I know people who know the subject backwards.

As part of the program, four wonderful people are running workshops. They're all (in my opinion) pretty brilliant at what they do, but they're not all confident with actually chairing a discussion--running a workshop. So here's (some of) the advice I've just emailed to them.

• Think of a specific “who”. It helps to prepare with a specific person/case in mind. Describe to yourself how they’ll benefit from your workshop, what problem they’ll be equipped to overcome.
• ...or two.It may help to specifically think of two/three different kinds of folks: the beginner, the expert. Again, think of specific people in those shoes and imagine what they’ll be looking for from the workshop.
• Beyond “knowing”. Aim for more than your attendees just “knowing more about…”. Aim for their “gaining confidence to…”, “developing enthusiasm for…”, “becoming relaxed about…”, “feeling prepared to…”
• I'm no expert... If you don’t feel like the expert, in a workshop (especially) that’s actually fine. It can help disarm fears and get conversation rolling to make your icebreaker, “The challenge I’m facing in my business right now is…” 
• Decide in advance what's essential. The ‘body’ of your workshop will need to be elastic enough to adapt to varying levels of contributions on different topics. The key thing here is usually knowing which topics you feel you must cover, and when to simply stop conversation on topic A and move to topic B with that purpose in mind.
• Plan to use specific, prepared questions. Questions can function very well as topic-changers. e.g. “Ok, I’m going to change topic now to talk about handling criticism. Here’s a question for you: “A visibly-irritated customer walks back into your cafe and slams their take-away cup down on the counter, loudly complaining about the ‘tide being low’.” What would a bad way to handle that situation look like? What would a great way to handle that look like? Ideas?”
• For each topic, come armed with at least:
• a clear question to get the group discussing it
• your top bits of advice on the topic
• the very best example of it you’ve seen (what you aspire to)
• the pitfalls to avoid, the beginner mistakes.
• If you’re armed with those, then you’ve probably got enough for your folks to seriously grapple with.
• Which topics to include? There are two contributing factors here: 
• the needs of the workshop group (you’ll figure this out on the day). 
• the overall goal of the workshop from your point of view. This latter factor means being able to say, “Let’s talk about topic X now, because this workshop is all about W, X, Y, Z."
• Drawing a blank? Can’t think of memorable ways to put that idea? Call on your heroes. We all have our favourite people on a given topic or in a given field. Refresh your memory on how they say it and grab yourself a quote from them that you can share on the day. If your heroes live locally and you know them personally, pick up the phone. Seriously.

What have I missed? (Apart from, "Coffee").

A Guy who gets the Difference

Preachers spend a lot of time trying to get their hearers to really *get* the difference between (a) and (b). Specifically, to ditch (a), and to embrace (b):

(a) Do lots of good stuff in order to make God like you.
(b) Because God loves you, you will/can/want to/even must do good stuff.

We go to great lengths to highlight the difference. We dream up illustrations. We analyse the motivations and thought-worlds that drive all of us toward each. We thump pulpits...

So it's kinda weird to read that whole (a) vs (b) thing taken-up as an illustration in a thoroughly secular setting. Guy Kawasaki casually drops it into his new little book for entrepreneurs. Here it is:

"... don’t revise your product to get prospective customers to love it. Instead, revise it because customers already love it. Let me put it in religious terms: Some people believe that if they change, God will love them. Others believe that since God loves them, they should change. The latter theory is the prototype to keep in mind for how to get going and keep going for startups." Guy Kawasaki, The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything, 13 (my emphasis).

Weird.

For the record,

"This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." 1 John 4:10-11.

It's (b), not (a). *thumps pulpit*

There I go again ;)

Agile Results - Dipping My Toes In

Why bother checking out yetanother-fixall-productivity-organisational-workflow-listy-keeptrack-ohsosimple-changeyourlife system? Two things convinced me to take at closer look Agile Results.

One, it *gets* that long lists of next-actions arranged by context--thorough, as they may be--are uninspiring.

Two, the guys at Asian Efficiency--themselves huge fans of GTD (the backbone of my organisational system)--give it big props.

Qualifier: I've only begun to check it out. I don't even sense I've got the whole yet.

Two disciplines I've adopted so far:

• On Mondays, list three things you'd love to have accomplished by Friday. And put them in terms that actually inspire you.
• Each day, first up, list three significant things you want to do in the day.

Clarity, motivation, focus. I'm less distracted, and less distractable. And these lists aren't replacing my vast organisational system (GTD), they're just giving some texture, some colour to an otherwise vast, grey, flat landscape of to-dos.

Keen to check it out? To be honest, I've found it... awkward to look into. The main website is clunky to navigate around. There's no downloadable book-sample pdf. The best 'way in' is probably Meier's 30 Days of Getting Results website. This post, on his blog, is also a quick way in (long post, scroll to halfway down to '3 Wins to Rule Your Day').

Reflections on DiSC and Church Planting Research

Recently I read over a research paper coming out of the States by Dr Paul S Williams titled, The DiSC Test as a Predictor of Church Planter Success.

I found it here. It was published last year (ish) and interacts with (among others) the NCD survey, Jim Collins of the business world, and previous studies like Ridley's.

It was definitely worth the read. I'm certainly not in a position to critique it from a methodological point of view, so my reflections are just at the level of interacting with the conclusions / comments along the way.

Here are some things that stood out:

• Research Measures (i.e. what was 'success')
• His two key measures were:
• (a) average attendance growth, and 
• (b) per capita giving ($$) growth. (I gather they're very commonly used measures). 
• Attendance and giving were measures at 12 months in, and at three years in to the plant.
• Particular DiSC Patterns and Performance
• The 'Inspirational' (one of the high Di patterns)--which seems to be the darling pattern of many in church planting literature--was vastly out-performed by the 'Persuader' (a high iD pattern) on (a) attendance growth, and came dead last on (b) giving growth. It's not that the 'Inspirational' pattern did poorly at (a), though, it was still top 4.
• 'Persuader' pattern leaders was head-and-shoulders above the pack for growth in attendance.
• 'Creative' pattern leaders were strong on growing giving, but only modest in generating attendance growth.
• Variation was significant:
• "It is important to note, however, that in all but one pattern represented in the study […] there was at least one church that experienced growth equal to or greater than the average growth of the top four patterns." 81. 
• Given his very-small sample-size for some of the 'DiSC patterns', this surely renders some of his 'averages' tentative, at best, I reckon.
• DiSC and Jim Collins. Williams sees the 'Inspirational' pattern leader as a nearest match for Collins' Level 4 leader. So what about Level 5?:
• "From this researcher's knowledge of the DiSC test, it would appear that Level Five leaders would likely score with one of the other strong church planting patterns. Persuader Pattern, Results-Oriented Pattern, and Creative Pattern leaders seem to have the strengths that appear in a  Level Five leader.", 96.
• Fwiw, from my reading of Collins, I reckon a Level 5 leader has to be pretty extraordinary--a real mould-breaker. I'd expect him/her to exhibit a breath-taking versatility of behaviours right around the DiSC. i.e. I'm suggesting that none of the DiSC Patterns provide a neat match.
• Stability of your DiSC over time. Over time, an individual's DiSC assessment of behaviours holds 'very good' over one year, and 'good' over three years (the study length). But the implication from the data is that your DiSC behaviours drift over time, and beyond three years it does drop beneath a level required for a 'good' correlation. I guess that makes sense--patterns of behaviour change over time. We still believe in that, right?!
• Systemic Preclusion? The researcher hints at his own concerns that systemic issues are precluding some DiSC pattern folks from even applying to be church planters (non-'Inspirational' types, particularly). While I'm intrigued and I've wondered the same thing--and I'm certainly wary of letting my own failure of imagination preclude people-unlike-me from taking on big ministry roles--I'd be keen to see some actual research on it. It's too easy to cry 'systemic failure!'.

For the record, I'm High-D, High C, with average (not low) i. That means none of the Classic DiSC profiles neatly matches my behaviour pattern, but I'm kinda two-thirds 'Creative', one third 'Results Oriented'. The researcher fits a 'Persuader' pattern.

MCing at Church - some advice

Mike Jolly's ever-popular post on MCing a church meeting is well worth a read (as is the comment thread there, actually). And I think he's about to post on the topic again, so stay tuned!

Anyhow, prompted by a conversation with Mike, I'd like to share with you some things I've been thinking about (and working on) in my MCing recently. This isn't a 'balanced' list, in any sense; it hardly mentions biblical input, for example. Hope it helps :)

• Start Strong - the first 30 seconds either sets up everyone else to be heard, or makes their job harder.
• Sustained Eye Contact - make it, and hold it... then move on. Don't flit, flit, flit. Make eye contact with an individual, hold it for several seconds. Move to another. Repeat. That kinda eye contact takes confidence, but it establishes a very 'direct' connection with your listeners.
• Your Own Prayer - without meaning to sound all-pious, make sure you actually pray ahead of the meeting, on your own. And also pray with other key players in the meeting: preacher, band leader, Bible reader, etc.
• Give Feedback - be the guy who courteously but diligently strives for improvement with specific, timely, personal feedback.
• Relationships - the feedback thing reminds me: don't make 'giving feedback' the only time you talk to him/her. People are more important than the 'quality' of their contribution to your church meeting, so reflect that by building relationships that are more substantial than mere feedback-loops.
• Actually say, "Thanks" - I think it's nice to explicitly thank the bible readers, prayers, band leaders, musos, etc. Not necessarily from the stage (depending on the tone of the meeting), but certainly personally. Not every single week, necessarily. And try to make it specific, too, incorporating a touch of positive feedback. "Thanks for leading the band this week. I thought the arrangements in that second song really helped the chorus shine--brilliant!" That kinda thing.
• Deviate - Deviate from your 'habitual tone', sometimes. If you're the 'serious guy', then occasionally do a *really* up-beat angle. If you're the bubbly MC, then occasionally do a reflective, deep, thoughtful, serious kinda angle.
• Thick Skin - Some people will love your MCing, some will prefer the other guy--some might even think you stink at MCing. Be ok with that. It's the same for preachers, singers, musos, every public figure has to deal with it.
• Stockpile your Notes as a Resource - get organised and keep your MC scripts/notes, including prayers, etc. It's fine to reuse them sometimes.
• Prayers should be Excellent - Invest time and creativity into your prayers. They don't have to be long. But they should never be boring, or sound insincere. If you only barely believe what you're praying, then you can be sure that those trying to pray along with you are feeling the strain. "Dear God, thanks so much for your word": Perhaps you could think on it, and find ways to say it that are fresh to your ears, at least.
• Direction and Purpose - know where the meeting is going and take it there with a sense of direction and purpose. Do you *really* need to say all that stuff? Waffle should have been edited out well before you take the stage.

Fear Reality, not your Leader

How scared is my church? And what are they scared of?

Occasionally, I see someone acting scared of a church leader. Not because that church leader is an ogre. And not because of some deep and nasty sin in the person's life. I just mean scared because the person made some little mistake or hasn't got around to fixing 'that thing', and they know their church leader is pretty quick with feedback and has a fair bit of clout.

I recently read, Good to Great, by Jim Collins. It's brilliant. Essential leadership reading, I reckon.

This sentence stuck out to me more than any other in the whole book:

"The moment a leader allows himself to become the primary reality people worry about, rather than reality being the primary reality, you have a recipe for mediocrity, or worse." Jim Collins, Good to Great, 72.

Collins reckons that strong leaders need to face the brutal facts of reality themselves. More: they need their team to do the same.

But there's an obstacle: the very strength of that leader's personality can be the 'reality' that his/her team fears above all. So, Collins urges strong-personality-type leaders to come up with ways to make sure your team doesn't just tell you what you want to hear, out of fear of you.

Ways your smallgroup can Help Would-Be Attenders

Not everyone can make it along to our smallgroups. Illness, work, life-circumstances--ok, there are heaps of reasons. 

Anyway, a little while ago some of our smallgroup (mid-week Bible Study group) leaders put their heads together to brainstorm ways a smallgroup could possibly help a would-be attender.

Here are some of the results:

• Take your smallgroup to them occasionally.
• Send a text to them asking for prayer points that can be prayed by the smallgroup.
• Send them a present on their birthday.
• Send them a hamper.
• Take them a luxury dinner, something really fancy.
• Commit to praying for them individually (at home).
• Send them a picture (MMS or whatever) every week.
• Find a way they can give something to the group: perhaps they bake bread, etc.
• Mow their lawn, clear their gutters, lend a practical hand.

This list is yet another reason I'm so pumped to work amongst our smallgroup leaders team. Thanks gang!