Barnabas File

A coaching client was not only a pastor, but a military chaplain.     He had served a period of time on active duty and had taken the opportunity to pursue the training that would complement his experience so that he could advance in rank but also in impact.    What he learned about the difference in tactics and strategy helped me to understand what leaders must do to expand their capacity to lead.   The chaplain who thinks tactically asks questions like, “What am going to do for chapel services next Sunday?” or “Who can I get to lead this group?”  On the other hand, the chaplain who thinks strategically asks, “How can I staff to meet the spiritual needs of the airmen in my squadron?” or “What are the added responsibilities I face if we are deployed?”  One is thinking short term and one is thinking long term.  Short term thinking gets the job done; long term thinking prepares for the next challenge.     Strategic thin...

An old adage goes, “Plan your work and work your plan.”   Planning is important but follow-through is, too. In visiting with a friend recently, we talked about the strategic plan that his judicatory had developed with the assistance of a consultant.  His evaluation was that the plan was good but those charged with implementing it had little enthusiasm and were inclined toward deferring to executive leadership to take care of it. As individuals and organizations, we need to have a clear direction for the future.  Whether we call it long-range planning, strategic planning, vision casting or something else, we need clarity about where we will invest ourselves and our resources.  At the same time, we need the motivation and enthusiasm to move forward without plans. Developing a plan is the easy part.  The hard part is implementation.  This requires motivation.  I have found that this is true whether I am coaching an individu...

I put my foot in my mouth recently.  You know how that works—you make an off the cuff statement and suddenly realize that you may well have offended someone in the room.  I was leading a training session for lay leaders in a congregation and I said something to the effect, “I don’t really think much of long range planning.” I immediately realized that this evoked a reaction among those present, and then it was driven home when one person said, “Well, I guess he just stepped on your toes, pastor.”  Rather than explaining what I meant, I pushed on. The pastor and I are still friends, but I should have clarified  the difference between several terms we use interchangeably. First, “long range planning” is still a very popular term in corporate America, even though most companies have no idea where they will be a year from now much less 5 to 10 years down the road.  The world is too unstable to assume that plans and goals set today will have any meaning in a re...

  “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.”—Lewis Carroll As a coach, I often see people who have good intentions, a lot of options, and numerous ideas, but they seem to be stuck in one place.   There are so many good things out there to do, but they have a hard time making choices.   In a coaching relationship, they have the opportunity to identify their values, clarify their needs, discover options, and then set goals for themselves. Yes, I know that most people don’t like goals.   I think that one reason that we don’t like goals is that when we set them, there is an expectation that we will have to move out of neutral into drive and get down to work. In The Experience: The 5 Principles of Disney Service and Relationship Excellenc e, authors Bruce Loeffler and Brian T. Church share this story: “In 1953, a group of researchers interviewed the graduating class of the Harvard School of...

Time to face reality—strategic planning is dead. It has been for a long time, but few have been willing to acknowledge its demise. Things change too fast to develop a three, four, or five year plan of action. The environment, the markets, personal interests, and technology make it impossible to set specific goals for an unknown and unknowable future. I work with a consulting group that provides planning services for churches and not-for-profit organizations. When I first became part of the group, I was reluctant to call what I offered “strategic planning” because I realized the futility of promising anyone that you could help them come up with a hard and fast route to their desired future. We do a visioning process with our clients. You may say, “That’s still planning,” but it is more of a way of thinking that takes into account the realities of a changing world.  We need to be open to respond to opportunities that come our way unexpectedly.  We also must be ready t...

Strategy planning is not what it used to be.   There was a time when governments, businesses, and even churches planned for the future as if what happened next would be a natural consequence of what had gone before.   Of course, this kind of linear thinking no longer applies.   Instead of assuming that the future will be like the present, we recognize that change is all around us and we try to ascertain trends that will impact what we will be doing five, ten, or twenty years from now . . . and sometimes it works.   Of course, most forecasters missed the impact of the personal computer, the Internet, and social media, but we still try! In a recent blog titled “5 Unexpected Factors That Change How We Forecast The Future, ”  Jamais Cascio suggests that although we often think about the future in terms of technological changes, we would do better to look at social, cultural, and environmental changes.  These are factors that are likely to significantly i...