Peace, hope, and love

Got a Facebook message on Thursday from a student at WSU:

I have something I would like to ask prayer for. I'm going to be sharing the gospel with a really good buddy of mine [friend's name]  (who many of you know). If you could be praying that God would be speaking through me and working in his heart in preparation for our conversation. I believe, as I'm sure most of you do, that prayer is so powerful. God listens to us, and he can open hearts and transform lives. I love [my friend] so much, and I want more than anything for him to know the peace, hope, and love that comes with a relationship with Jesus Christ. Please join with me and keep him in your prayers. I know that God will do a great work in his life. Thank you!

Pardon the cliche, but...this is why I do what I do.

More from "Break all the rules"

It's not hard to guess why the following paragraph resonated with me...

"The manager role is the 'catalyst' role. As with all catalysts, the manager's function is to speed up the reaction between two substances, thus creating the desired end product. Specifically, the manager creates performance in each employee by speeding up the reaction between the employee's talents and the company's goals, and between the employees talents and the customers' needs. When hundreds of managers play this role well, the company becomes strong, one employee at a time." - First, Break All the Rules

Breaking all the rules - 12 questions

From the chapter in First Break All the Rules entitled "The Measuring Stick":

"Measuring the strength of a workplace can be simplified to twelve questions. These twelve questions don't capture everything you may want to know about your workplace, but they do capture the most information and the most important information. They measure the core elements needed to attract, focus, and keep the most talented employees."

Initiated by my director, these twelve questions were asked of all US Campus Ministry operations staff, both full-time and intern, at the end of October this last fall (low=1, high=5). The results are below.

(The 14 Greater Northwest respondents are those on my office operations team as well as operational leaders in the field that report to me.)

A few of my thoughts:
- The lowest numbers, relative to the national average, were the first two. This is troubling, but makes sense; we haven't had operations leadership in our region for the last couple years. Hopefully these numbers will improve this spring when we do the survey again, though I suspect number two relates to funding. This may take longer, and more effort, to turn around.
- The lowest number for both our region and the nation was the "best friend at work" question. Why would that be? Is that unique to operations? To Campus Crusade? To non-profits? Or is that the lowest in other industries, too?
- The highest number was the mission/purpose question. Gladly, people in the GNW (and US) feel their job is important.
- This information will get increasingly helpful as we ask these questions again in the future. Patterns and trends will emerge that will help me/us know what we are doing well and what needs attention.
- For the immediate future: I'd love to get question number one quickly up in to the 4-5 range. I want my people to know what is expected of them, both by me and the organization. Not knowing what is expected at work is a recipe for frustration.

What do you think of this info? Have you ever used these questions in your workplace? Any tips/insights you want to give?

Books for an Ops team (Part II)

Way back in May of 2010, I posted about books I was considering having our Ops team read in the upcoming year. I've since moderately adjusted the list.

The following are currently being read by one person on the team and will be summarized in a 10-20 minute book report to our operations team answering the questions "What did I like? What did I take exception to? How could the concepts/ideas help our Ops team perform better?  Our whole region?":

Radical - Platt
Death by Meeting - Lencioni
Jacob and the Prodigal - Bailey
I once was lost - Everts and Schaupp
Drive - Pink
Seven practices of effective ministry - Stanley
Switch - Heath
Linchpin - Godin

What do you think of the list? You read any of these?

Majoring on Majors?

When I was staff on campus at Washington State, a lot of time went into thinking about what year our students were (Frosh, Soph, etc.) and where they lived on campus. Much less time went into thinking about their academic focus. I think that may have been a missed opportunity.

A sampling of the majors that attended our recent Winter Conference is at right.

How might ministry look different for a business major vs. a nursing major? Outdoor recreation vs a math major? 

What about when they get to the workforce?

In thinking about our conference next year, one beneficial tactic might be to get people of like/similar major together. Imagine a room full of business majors. How could they minister to their peers within the department? What skills/talents/strengths do they have that could serve their campus ministry? Could a group of them connect post graduation to help reach a workplace (or even a city)? What would ministry look like in this area of the workforce? 

Do you consider majors as you work with students? How could we better incorporate this into how we win, build, and send students?

12 things I've learned while managing a conference Facebook Page

Third child? Check. Annual Winter Conference? Check. Blog updated? Here we go...

My friend Matt already did a post about how we used Facebook to build engagement and community before, during, and after our regional Winter Conference. Here is our January 10th page stat summary:

And here are twelve things I learned over the last few weeks as I helped manage the page:

1. Giveaways are great for building engagement (again, see Matt's post).

2. It takes time for people to feel comfortable posting on your page. They need to trust you first.

3. It is ten times easier to get someone to "like" a post than to comment. Duh. But if they "like" stuff enough eventually they'll comment.

4. The page administrator is like a host at a party. You need to keep things moving, facilitate conversation, build interest, make introductions, help people feel at ease...but avoid dominating the scene.

5. Take lots of photos and post them quickly. Tag a few people to get people's attention (we had a great team helping on this front).

6. Facebook's default setting for Pages is to have photo tagging turned off for fans. For a student conference, you're going to want to get that turned back on real fast.

7. Tag pages and people in status updates and link to relevant sites as much as possible. This adds a dynamic look and feel to the page and is another way to draw attention to your page from other places.

8. Add related pages to page favorites (screen shot at right). This puts your page in context and relationship with others.

9. Video is always going to be a hit. (Matt did a post about this, too)

10. The conference Facebook page will likely be a strategic tool for building community and promoting ministry opportunities around our region all year.

11. In our Greater Northwest context, Facebook is still the place to be if you want to interact with students.

12. Actively managing a ministry Facebook page is a way to disciple people. By what you link to, highlight, how you relate and interact...it is another way to influence people towards Christ-centered community and mission.

There are many more, but I'll just add this one: It's a lot of fun. :)

If you manage a Facebook page, I'd love to learn from you. Comment with what you've learned or just link to your Facebook page so we can see an example!

"Never pass the buck"

Over the next couple days I'm going to be communicating out a change related to financial policy with which some of our staff may take issue. This change was initiated by those several levels up from me organizationally, and while I think the change makes sense given the information I have, there is a temptation to distance myself from it in order to engender allegiance from those I lead and work alongside.

The timing then was appropriate, and perhaps providential, for my starting in tonight on the book "First, break all the rules - What the world's greatest managers do differently". In the introduction, an interview with a very successful restaurant manager is recounted in which he shares a few helpful management tips he has picked up during his 15-year career. All of the tips were insightful; one struck a particular chord...

"And especially important: Never pass the buck. Never say, 'I think this is a crazy idea, but corporate insists.' Passing the buck may make your little world easy, but the organism as a whole, sorry, the organization as a whole, will be weakened. So in the long run, you are actually making your life worse."