Part 3 (1/2)

After the gurney was in the elevator, I went back to the room we had been working in. Just a few minutes earlier, the room had looked like a hurricane had gone through it, but now it was already clean and ready for the next patient. I was alone in the room, finis.h.i.+ng up some doc.u.mentation, when the doctor came back in. He was accompanied by an intern who had been his sidekick during the code. Oblivious to my presence, the doctor walked this young doctor-to-be through the experience, both encouraging him for the things he had done correctly and offering direction and alternatives for areas he felt had been lacking.

I was doing what any good nurse would do in a similar situation: eavesdropping. Then the doctor said something to the intern that I will never forget: ”When the code was over, did you notice the young man from housekeeping who came in and cleaned up this whirlwind mess?”

You could tell by the look on the intern's face that not only had he not not noticed, but he also had no idea why he was being asked this seemingly irrelevant question. I guess irrelevance is in the eye of the beholder. noticed, but he also had no idea why he was being asked this seemingly irrelevant question. I guess irrelevance is in the eye of the beholder.

The doctor went on. ”His name is Carlos. And he is one of the best workers in the entire housekeeping department. When Carlos comes in during or after a code, he gets the room cleaned up so quickly that we can immediately take another patient in the s.p.a.ce.”

The blank expression on the intern's face told the doctor that he still had little to no level of understanding of the point of all this. So the doctor continued. ”Carlos came up from Mexico about three years ago. His wife's name is Maria, and they have four kids.” He then went on to name the children as well as their ages.

”They live in a small rented house in Santa Ana, about three miles from here. The next time we work together, I would like you to tell me something about Carlos that I don't already know. Okay, let's go, we've got other patients waiting.”

Sometimes you get to watch breathtaking leaders.h.i.+p.

When we play favorites, everyone knows what's going on. It is demotivating at best, and devaluing at worst. Most likely you know exactly what I mean, because most of us have worked for leaders who play favorites. It's so obvious it is palpable, yet no one admits it. And this makes the game all the more crazy-making.

Great leaders know the value of doing the right thing, and that includes valuing the contribution of all the players. The power that is released in a culture that values collaboration is so great to see. A leader who knows names, knows individual stories, and honors the role of each person reflexively brings out the best contribution possible.

Obviously the caveat here is that any one given leader can only know so many people. But even in large organizations I have seen leaders do a great job with this. There are many different ways to do it; what matters is that you do it.

One leader I know in the business field asks his direct reports to tell him about a manager or administrative or janitorial staff member who has done a great job recently. He asks them to give him as many specifics as they can. And then he sets aside fifteen minutes every week to leave a voice mail, detailing the behavior and thanking those people for the ways in which they did their jobs in those instances.

He leaves it on their voice mail at home.

I love that. They would certainly expect it more on their work voice mail, but imagine coming home after a long day, hitting the play b.u.t.ton, and hearing the president of the inst.i.tution you work for congratulating you for something you did that week. And then thanking you for helping to create a great organization.

That's just one way of valuing collaboration. There are a lot of ways to notice people, especially people whose jobs do not put them in the limelight often, whose work often goes unnoticed and unappreciated. People get weary doing that kind of job week in and week out. They begin to feel as if they are in the middle of a giant game of rock, paper, scissors. Just when they think they are the rock, along comes paper . . . and they lose.

Great leaders refuse to play that game. They find ways to notice, to appreciate, to praise, to thank. They don't do it in ways that manipulate or control. They authentically understand that everyone has a job to do, and when someone does it well, it should not be overlooked. Max DePree often reminds board members that they should know at least one name of someone who works on the cleaning staff-his or her name and story. Powerful stuff, not to be underestimated.

Funny how doing the right thing so often goes hand in hand with releasing astonis.h.i.+ng power in both people and organizations.

It is easy to forget this and to start weighing the contributions of people according to what you you value, or even based on what value, or even based on what you you would have done in their situations. ”Be like me and you will get attention” is often a forceful but unspoken value in a corporate culture or ministry environment. Great leaders push themselves to understand the unique and valuable contributions of everyone on the team. would have done in their situations. ”Be like me and you will get attention” is often a forceful but unspoken value in a corporate culture or ministry environment. Great leaders push themselves to understand the unique and valuable contributions of everyone on the team.

I remember vividly an Axis meeting where we were faced with a problem. It was a significant issue, and the meeting included a mix of staff and key volunteer leaders. As I explained the problem and my desire to use this meeting to talk about problem solving, I noticed that the guy sitting across from me had that ”whenever you stop talking, I have something to say” look. Surprised that he didn't find my vision casting so compelling that he completely forgot what he was going to say, I called on him when I finished.

Right away he said, ”I've been thinking, and I have a plan sort of sketched out. Would you mind if I drew it up on the whiteboard and quickly talked us through it?”

Mind? Well, yes. First you need to acknowledge that what I have just said is the most brilliant contribution to this problem to date. It was like he hadn't even heard a word I had been saying. It was like his mind, and his own unique perspective, had been launched into work even as I was still talking.

And the worst of it was this: His idea was terrific. No, seriously. I mean his layout of a strategic plan, divided into timelines, with specific names by each area, was amazing both in its scope and its potential to solve this problem. Actually, maybe the worst of it was that I wasn't the only person to notice it. Everyone else around the room was vigorously nodding their approval and admiration.

I should have been ecstatic. I knew that. I should have been delighted that in such a short time, such a great mind had done the work of wrapping itself around the dilemma and coming up with a workable solution. Except that I was jealous. (At this point, I am thinking about publis.h.i.+ng this book under an a.s.sumed name.) How pathetic was my response?

While the green-eyed monster had my tongue, otherschimed in according to their own particular areas of giftedness and offered to contribute in a variety of ways. Some offered to organize people around each of the leaders of a strategic segment, some committed to making sure the communication was clear and aligned. Others said they would get people together who felt called to pray for these efforts, and still others said they would be involved in either teaching or putting together teams for the administrative details.

In the time it took to evaluate this man's idea as a team and gain consensus that this was indeed the best way to go, everyone fell into place according to his or her best contribution and just filled in the blanks. It really was a beautiful thing to watch, and if I hadn't been so focused on myself, I might have seen the beauty in it.

Fortunately, I recovered enough to save face and not say anything stupid before the meeting ended. The drive home was quiet. I was the only one in the car. But there was no shortage of conversation going on in my head. I was ashamed of all the internal positioning I had done, even though no one else knew about it. (I have been a Christian long enough to know how to sin on the inside.) I felt like a child, wanting all the attention and the credit. Wanting my gifts to be given the number-one prize. Wanting everyone to be directed and led by me so that even their contribution could be directly tied to my efforts. I wanted everyone on that team to think I was indispensable and responsible.

That's the bad news. And I am embarra.s.sed to put it into print. But unless I am terribly mistaken, I am not alone in having had those less-than-brilliant leaders.h.i.+p moments.

Here's the good news. It didn't even take me the full drive home (only about three miles) to realize how ashamed I was of myself. At least I had had the good sense to keep my mouth shut, or maybe it was just my good fortune that this all unfolded so rapidly I didn't have time to make a fool of myself. I was the only one who knew.

But I did know. And once I was able to admit, to G.o.d and myself, how immature my reactions were, I was able to start moving past them. I was able to see what happened in that meeting as the great thing that it was. I was able to applaud this man's contribution and subsequently the contributions of so many others who rapidly got on board. I was able to be grateful for the team that was coming together in spite of me. I was freed from the terrible burden of feeling that everything was dependent on me, which is too much weight for any one person, really.

Getting me out of the way of my own team was one of the best things that ever happened. Equally valuing and needing the various contributions each person had to bring was life giving and put us on the right path to solving our problem. Months later, I did admit what had been going on deep inside me that night. That kind of vulnerability is good for leaders. Difficult but good.

Turns out, everyone on my team had experienced similar feelings at one time or another. Whaddya know?

When we free ourselves up from evaluating and weighing and comparing everyone's contributions, remarkable things happen. It is easy, especially in churches, to put the blue ribbons on people with obvious up-front gifts-the teachers and leaders and singers. Their giftedness putsthem in the spotlight in a way that almost inevitably leads to them getting more attention than they deserve.

When we free ourselves up from evaluating and weighing and comparing everyone's contributions, remarkable things happen.

But as we all know, there are some things that even a sermon or a song cannot do.

For seven of the nine years that John and I lived in Chicago, we worked on inviting our neighbors, Neil and Pat Benson, to church. Neil and Pat were great neighbors, the kind who are pleasant every time you interact with them and whose yard is a pleasure to look at. They were both schoolteachers in the local district, had no children, and put their Christmas tree up every year by Halloween.

So although I'm telling the truth when I say they were pleasant, I will admit that both their yard and their Christmas tree made me feel inferior. I still liked them, and we had a cordial relations.h.i.+p with them. We tried every which way we knew to get them to accept our invitation to come to church with us.

”Hey Bensons! John is preaching this weekend at our church, and we'd love to have you come with us.”

Hmmm . . . we think we have to clip our toenails that day, but thanks for asking. And then that strained smile, with the subtext of ”please don't ask again.”

Undeterred: ”Hey, Bensons, I am preaching this weekend. What do you say you come and then we all go out for lunch afterward?”

Wow, thanks for asking, really. We'll be grading papers, I'm sure.

The kids singing in a choir, Christmas Eve, nothing. So after a while, we just stopped asking. And actually, I think it was the right thing to do. It was getting a bit embarra.s.sing.

Imagine my surprise when one bright spring day while I was standing out in the yard, Neil came bouncing over to inquire what time the Sunday services were, and informed me that he and Pat would love to come to church.

Huh?

He told me about a teacher's a.s.sistant who worked at their school. She was a single mom with three young children whose husband had recently and quite suddenly died. She had no car and struggled to make ends meet on a teacher's a.s.sistant's salary. Both Neil and Pat liked this woman a great deal.

Then they discovered that someone had given her-as in, no charge-a car. A used one, but solid, reliable transportation nonetheless. And that someone represented a ministry from our church that had been started by a guy whose life had been changed by Christ.

Here's the short but wonderful version of his story: This guy had started coming to Willow Creek when his life had hit the skids. His marriage and his job were in shambles. He was struggling with addictions that were seriously interfering with his life. And in that condition, he came to church.

After a period of some months, he understood the salvation of Jesus in that deep way that someone who is desperate understands. His life was truly and radically changed. His marriage survived and flourished, and with some help he wrestled free of his addictions. He regained his standing as a dad his kids could love, and he was incrediblychanged and so incredibly grateful.

So one day he explained to our senior pastor that hehad a strong desire to give back, and although he couldn't preach a sermon or sing, he had an idea. Sp.a.w.ned by grat.i.tude and supported by his abilities as a mechanic, his idea was to start a ”cars ministry” in which he and others would fix up and donate used cars, mostly to single moms.

And all the time that John and I had been inviting the Bensons to church, thinking they just needed to hear a great sermon or listen to beautiful soul-stirring music, their intersection with our church was with a mechanic. A mechanic, gifted by G.o.d, changed by G.o.d, and filled by G.o.d to overflowing.

The Bensons attended our church for the next two years, retired to Florida, and today are contributing members of a flouris.h.i.+ng church in the land of suns.h.i.+ne.

One of the most powerful ways to motivate yourself as a leader is to remember back to a time when someone did it for you. Think back to a boss you had who took the time to notice the work you did, and let you know. That was probably a pretty powerful time.