Dr Paul Allen

Performance and Efficiency Evaluation and ... efficiency of an experimental Outboard Marine Corporation (OMC) rotary combustion engine (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Author: Tony Morgan. One of the most frequently asked questions I receive is this: “Do you have any sample performance evaluation forms you can send me?” To be honest, I  do  have samples, but I never send them. Why don’t I send them? Well let me ask you. Have you ever seen a traditional performance evaluation system that actually improves performance? Probably not. To my knowledge, no such form exists. You don’t need a sample form. Instead, you need to lead well. There’s a perpetuating myth in leadership circles that every good leader does annual performance reviews. That’s not true. You can be a great leader without going through the agony of filling out your annual HR evaluation forms. From my previous conversations, it seems performance evaluations are started because leaders know there are one or t...

Image via Wikipedia WHY DO LEADERS EXIST?  This is perhaps one of the most simple yet profound questions we can ask about leadership. But until we answer this foundational question, leadership tips and techniques won’t make much sense. My answer to the question is this:  LEADERS EXIST TO CREATE A SHIFT IN REALITY . SHIFT THE DRIFT  Without leaders, things drift along. Every stream has a current. Throw a twig or a piece of paper into the water, and it will drift with the flow. This is natural. It is simply the way things work. Organizations and churches are similar to streams. They too have a flow. That flow is the organization’s culture. When people enter into that culture, they usually move along with the current. It is called “the drift.” Do you want to know what the drift is in your organization? Ask, “What are people saying about [fill in the blank]?” For example, I used to have a colleague that no one respected. You could often hear his peers and subordinates say th...

Image via Wikipedia WHY DO LEADERS EXIST?  This is perhaps one of the most simple yet profound questions we can ask about leadership. But until we answer this foundational question, leadership tips and techniques won’t make much sense. My answer to the question is this:  LEADERS EXIST TO CREATE A SHIFT IN REALITY . SHIFT THE DRIFT  Without leaders, things drift along. Every stream has a current. Throw a twig or a piece of paper into the water, and it will drift with the flow. This is natural. It is simply the way things work. Organizations and churches are similar to streams. They too have a flow. That flow is the organization’s culture. When people enter into that culture, they usually move along with the current. It is called “the drift.” Do you want to know what the drift is in your organization? Ask, “What are people saying about [fill in the blank]?” For example, I used to have a colleague that no one respected. You could often hear his peers and subordinates say th...

Cover of Leading Change Every time I teach or work with church leaders the topic of managing change comes up. With that, I decided to go back and take a look at a classic book on the topic,  Leading Change  by John Kotter . I highlighted so many key passages that it was impossible for me to narrow my favorites down to just one post. With that in mind, here are the first set of highlights that grabbed my attention. I’ll share the second set tomorrow. “Transformations always fail to achieve their objectives when complacency levels are high.” “ Vision plays a key role in producing useful change by helping to direct, align, and inspire actions on the part of large numbers of people. Without an appropriate vision, a transformation effort can easily dissolve into a list of confusing, incompatible, and time-consuming projects that go in the wrong direction or nowhere at all.” “Whenever you cannot describe the vision driving a change initiative in five minutes or less and get a rea...

Cover of Leading Change Every time I teach or work with church leaders the topic of managing change comes up. With that, I decided to go back and take a look at a classic book on the topic,  Leading Change  by John Kotter . I highlighted so many key passages that it was impossible for me to narrow my favorites down to just one post. With that in mind, here are the first set of highlights that grabbed my attention. I’ll share the second set tomorrow. “Transformations always fail to achieve their objectives when complacency levels are high.” “ Vision plays a key role in producing useful change by helping to direct, align, and inspire actions on the part of large numbers of people. Without an appropriate vision, a transformation effort can easily dissolve into a list of confusing, incompatible, and time-consuming projects that go in the wrong direction or nowhere at all.” “Whenever you cannot describe the vision driving a change initiative in five minutes or less and get a rea...

Image via Wikipedia In the opening session of the 2010 Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit , Bill Hybels went back to the basics and asked:  "What do leaders do?"  "What are the fundamentals of leadership ?"  Rather than delve into new leadership territory, Hybels decided to go back to the drawing board of leadership and give us some new insights on the basics of leadership. Hybels, who is a brilliant student of leadership went on to give the following four answers to those questions: 1. Leaders Move People From Here To There. This is not just about the vision -thing.  I used to think the first step for any leader is to cast a vision.  Years of experience have shown me that is not the case because even after casting the most compelling vision some people will respond, "Bill, we really like here better than there."   The first step play is not to make "there" sound phenomenal, the first play is to make "here" sound horrific and into...

Image via Wikipedia To implement this, you should do these kinds of actions NOW. Why? Because it will take longer than two minutes to write the action down on your to-do list , organize it, get back up to speed later, and complete the task. Instead of going through that whole rigmarole, you just do it and move on to the next task. It is a huge productivity booster. And it will keep your to-do lists  much  shorter. How can you cut your to-do list in half? Here are four strategies: Understand the five basic decisions.  With any given input, there are only five action you can take: You can  DO  it by taking action now yourself. You can  DELEGATE  it to someone else who is better qualified or has the bandwidth. You can  DEFER  (or schedule) it to do later. You can  FILE  it for later reference. You can  DELETE  it and forget about it. Make a decision and then act.  This is the most important part—make a decision. ...

Andy Stanley wrapped up day one of the 2010 Leadership Summit. Here are some of the highlights from his talk: “Every organization has problems that shouldn’t be solved and tensions that shouldn’t be resolved.” “If you resolve some tensions, it’ll lead to other tensions.” “Progress doesn’t depend on the resolution of tensions but on the management of those tensions.” “If it’s a problem that keeps resurfacing, it’s a tension to be managed.” “The role of leadership is to leverage the tension for the benefit of the organization.” “Often times the right person doesn’t win the argument, but someone wins the argument.” “Certain tensions are the key to progress.” for leaders… “Continually give value to both sides, and don’t weigh in too heavily with your personal biases.” “Don’t allow strong personalities to win the day.” “Don’t think in terms of balance – think in terms of rhythm. “As a leader, never try to be fair.”

Image via Wikipedia These are the key thoughts from  Dan Pink’s  session at the Leadership Summit that grabbed my attention. Dan is the author of  Drive , a book I’ve highlighted  here  and  here  in recent weeks. “If-then rewards work really well for simple tasks. However, they don’t work very well for more complicated creative tasks.” “One of the problems that we have in our organizations is that we make the wrong assumptions about people.” “One of the false assumptions is that people are machines.” Another false assumption is that “human begins are blobs.” “Our nature is to be active and engaged.” People need: autonomy, mastery and purpose “Management wasn’t delivered to us from God.” “Management is a technology designed to get compliance.” “We want engagement. Management doesn’t lead to engagement. Self-direction leads to engagement.” “Give people autonomy over their time, team, task and technique. That leads to engagement.” “Making pro...