Sayings

Don’t expect what you don’t inspect. (Source unknown)
In any organization, what is watched or counted tends to be what gets done. The lay leadership of a church, for instance, will notice if the minister does not show up for the Sunday service. Yet, they may be oblivious to the fact that the visitors’ restroom could be used as a location set for a CSI episode. If it matters, monitor.

Make everything count twice.
We all know that there are not enough hours in the day or days in the week to do everything we want to do for our organizations. The work of faith-based, community, and membership organizations is by definition a work without end. So, make your investments in time pay at least double. A staff meeting is a time to inform and to listen. A broadcast e-mail can serve to announce a subject and to gauge interest about it. A lunch with a major donor can cultivate the next gift and be a way to research new sources of support.

Once is efficiency, twice is courtesy, three times is a problem!
In talking through the particulars of an assignment with an individual staff member or volunteer, it behooves a leader to be as clear and thorough as possible in explaining the task the first time. Still, friendly reminders and other follow-up are often helpful to keep forward momentum going. When it becomes necessary to go over a particular issue a third time, however, that is a sure sign that something else besides the assigned task is going on. It’s time to investigate the dynamic behind the scenes. Is it confusion? Reluctance? Something else? Whatever it is, you will want to know…and address it.

It is as important to know what you are hearing as it is to know what you are saying.
This is my own variant on Stephen Covey’s Habit #5 (from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People): “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” My version is particularly good advice to the know-it-all on the team.

Every day, look ahead two weeks. Every week, look ahead two months. Every month, look ahead two years.
This is the rule underneath managing strategically as well as efficiently. We all recognize the danger in letting the demands of the day push aside the aspirations of the future. (It is what Covey refers to as the urgent getting in the way of the important.) Cultivate a habit of thinking ahead continuously…or getting ahead is not likely ever to occur.

And the last is like unto the one before it…

Look to be thanked three years from now, not just three days from now.
Except in times of real emergency, having an impact requires a long view.