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Showing posts from July, 2016

What To Do First to Make a Profit

The PF Women Team at our Annual Team Retreat  ~ 2018 Today on Seth Godin's blog, he said: It's tempting to decide to make a profit first, then invest in training, people, facilities, promotion, customer service and most of all, doing important work. In general, though, it goes the other way. Yes, it does. If you are waiting to make a profit before you do these things, in my experience you're  not going to make a profit. So many organizations, ministries and churches are struggling with financial issues. I know your pain. As anyone who follows our story knows, our ministry was in a ton of debt four years ago when I came on as director.  Since that time, we've gotten out of debt and turned a profit every year.  God has done amazing things through out team, for which we give Him the glory! I find that what Seth is saying here is absolutely true, with one disclaimer. For Christian leaders, spiritual disciplines must always be first. Before we started i...

When The Walls Speak To You

  Dustin moved out on Sunday night. I always expected I would break down and sob when this happened. Instead, I was too preoccupied with the tasks at hand, to have a meltdown. I'm sure Dustin was grateful. Since there was only a day to get the room ready for Lexi and Brody to move in, I had to get busy. Everyone knows how much I adore Dustin. Not that I don't adore all my kids, for I do! However, everyone remarks about how much Dustin and I are alike and it's true.  We are both INFJ's. Musicians. Poets. Preachers. Writers. We both crave quiet spaces and places. Being away from noise. Out in the woods. Books. We are hard working people. (Neither of us can stand laziness.) We both go to the wall for what we believe. We'd die for it. We're both deeply introspective introverts. We interact with people when we need to in order to lead. Because we can't help but lead. It's in our blood. In our bones. We came out of the womb ...

The Value of Group Norms

“Avoid meetings, if you can…they are a waste of time.”  I’ve heard some prominent leaders say this. Some people are part of the school of thought that meetings have little value, failing to produce anything significant. My experience with meetings is that they are a key factor of success over my years of leadership. My pattern as a leader has always been to clearly establish a purpose for meetings and make sure initiatives are developed before we adjourn. Then, I inspect what I expect over the coming weeks and months. When I became leader of the current team I serve with, it became clear we would need some new guidelines to have successful meetings and make the reaching of our goals a reality.   I was thankful when Joy Conley, one of our team members, shared the idea of  "Group Norms" with us. Group Norms are the four rules of every meeting that Joy utilizes in her teacher meetings at the public school where she serves a teacher trainer. We tried Group Norms and...