The New Kind of Worker Every Business Needs

The New Kind of Worker Every Business Needs

Great article describing the amplified individual.

She punched her newborn baby in the face

My jaw dropped as he told me about a case of a young mother who was impregnated by a family member that subjected her to years of abuse and neglect. On the day of the child’s birth the mothers accumulated pain, stress and anger climax into her reaching across delivery table and punching her new baby in the face.

As I struggled with my emotions about the story I couldn’t help but to notice the almost nonchalant attitude of my friend, almost a callousness towards the situation. When I asked how does he work in these situations he shrugged his shoulders and said, “People are messy.”

The Symptom:

Months later I found that my friend was involved in mess of his own and brought the same callus into his own life. As a result his callousness ended up alienating and hurting many friends and families.

The Issue:

I realized that if we don’t appropriately handle our own trauma and the trauma of our world we too can one day treat the things that should be precious with violence.

The Solution:

1. Let trauma break your heart

• If we keep ignoring our feelings we will one day forget them.
• Callousness isn’t the answer confrontation is.
• Just because we are made to help others doesn’t mean we are impervious to the impact of their problems
• Never see yourself better than another person’s ‘mess’. Always find yourself inside of their trauma. Remember at any given time we can be one catalyst away from their struggle.
•  Our heart has to remain sensitive enough to allow the people closest to us to hurt us. Our eyes have to be open to see how we hurt others. We still have to gauge and reciprocate the emotional demands of our environment.

2. Be processed by the trauma

• The natural pull of life is to lead us to place of instability and ignorance.
• The natural progression of our professions is supposed to make us emotionally exhausted, cynical and divorced.
• If we are to beat the natural pull of life and profession then we must be  conscious and deliberate.
• We have to know how and when to deny our professional lives access to our personal lives.

3. Be defined by the things you value rather than the trauma you encountered.

• Identify the root behind the trauma and determine the principles that contradict it. (sacrifice VS selfishness; community VS isolation)
• Be conscious and deliberate about making a plan to uphold the principles in place of the hurt from the trauma.
• Let your actions and decision be based on a principle and not an occurrence. Remember I am therefore I do. In other words, function emerges out of identity, my identity is not dictated by function.

If you want people to succeed don’t make it so difficult

Any person that works in human services is bound to have “success” as a key indicator in their work. We are going to want to see people succeed. That success maybe a person transitioning from poverty to middle class, graduating high school, or saying please and thank you. Some transitions are harder than others and some more important than others.

But we don’t realize that our passion to see change and desire to see success can actually work against those we serve. If we find ourselves too dependent on results we can find that our methods become too “teacher focused”. We then resort to using ourselves as the benchmark for our learners. Rather than having our learners “memorize” our best practices let’s instead have them internalize our best principles.

Here’s how we do it:

Own Yourself

How often are you engaged in a conversation or in a meeting and you find that you’ve completely lost your sense of self. In a moment and without realizing it you have lost your personal identity. Here are some instances we see this happen:

• During an interview
• During a meeting with your superiors
• In a room full of people you do not know
• In the presence of a “celebrity”
• In the presence of a someone you admire

Here is my suggestion: Own Yourself

What does that mean?

• Ensuring that your personal reference point is unconquerable
• Carrying confidence in what you have to offer
• Not feeling a need to apologize for who you are
• Becoming conscious in every environment you enter
• Be unyielding in your value system
• Refusing to easily forfeit your preferences

Social Class Competency Part 3 of 4

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DE8UVsGpAs&w=500&h=395%5D

This training will take a specific look at understanding the poverty class. It will define poverty, social class rules and practical tools for resource parents, partners and mentors.

Part 3 covers the social class rules.

Social Class Competency Part 2 of 4

This training will take a specific look at understanding the poverty class. It will define poverty, social class rules and practical tools for resource parents, partners and mentors.

Part 2 covers the causes of poverty and a definition for poverty.

Social Class Competency Part 1 of 4

This training will take a specific look at understanding the poverty class. It will define poverty, social class rules and practical tools for resource parents, partners and mentors.

Part 1 focuses on a training overview and biblical perspectives

Leading People Who Are Better Than You

1. You need them——> to be effective: the greatest value of collaboration is having someone fill in your weak spots. In the multitude of counselors there is safety, so more collaboration = a better result. Chances are one of those people might be a better organizer, note taker, idea maker, more humorous or even a better leader.

“To collaborative team members, completing one another is more important than competing with one another.” John C. Maxwell

Don’t fight the person and envy the skill. Instead, identify the skill, give it value it and then give it space to grow. You will find the person will blossom along with the skill. Create an environment that harbors personal strength. You will find that as people have freedom to function in their strengths and even get opportunities to display them, that enhances the work environment and  improves the product.

2. You don’t need them——-> to legitimize you: your leadership doesn’t need to be validated by any person. If you really believe in a sovereign God then you believe that he placed you in a leadership position despite yourself (weakness and/or triumphs).

“For there is no authority except that which God has established” Romans 13:1

Dont be crippled by their strength, value it and give it room to grow. The biggest mistake we can make is to second guess our own competence or hesitate in our judgement because someone we oversee shows great promise.

3. You are the iron that sharpens them: as leaders we have to focus on developing our subordinates so that one day they can replace us. We want to always be working ourselves out of a job. In leading a person that’s better than you, you may forget that the other person is still a human being with areas of instability and weakness. Begin to ask yourself, “How can I contribute to development in this person’s life?” That ultimately is your one true role in your leadership.

4. They are the iron that sharpens you:  You will always benefit as a leader when you have to lead people that go against the grain of who you are. The more difficult the person the more you need them. Always be open to how the relationships with your subordinates will contribute to your leadership.

The best case senerio is to take the best of your employee and find ways to adapt their skills into your personal set of skills.

Breathe Into the Ground Part 4

We must gain sight into the individual processes of our residents and become strategic through wisdom on how to implement a plan.

For 6 years I worked as a live-in Resident Advisor in a residential program for young men that have aged out of the foster care system. For months at a time I was given the opportunity to invest into the lives of over 20 young men. I’m sure the experience brought more maturity in my personal life than change in those I mentored. In my time there, I wrote a manifesto that outlined my approach to mentoring. I find these ideas also apply to parenting and mentoring. Here’s the last installment:

Our Heavy Ear Dilemma

“For this nation’s heart has grown gross (fat and dull), and their ears heavy and difficult of hearing, and their eyes they have tightly closed…” Matthew 12:15 (AMP)

In his day Jesus knew the processes that the people were engaged into and how that process impacted how they would respond to his “breathing into the ground”. From this place of understanding Jesus knew how to accurately build according to the type of terrain they provided. In this same passage Jesus shares his approach to building due to the current state of the people, “This is the reason that I speak to them in parables” Matthew 12:13

In the same way we should connect this to our responsibilities as RAs. We must gain sight into the individual processes of our residents and become strategic through wisdom on how to implement a plan.

To Jesus the heavy ear dilemma was characterized by the people listening but never hearing. The symptoms included the people’s inability to really understand the wisdom coming from authority and an inability to see beyond the reality of their own lives. According to studies done in developmental psychology, teenagers still think in concrete terms. They have a hard time thinking about the future or about things they have never been exposed to. In other words there is a great tendency to be very tunneled vision. Meaning that they only see what they want and are unable to see the bigger picture. An example of this is if you give a young person a computer they will find numerous ways to entertain themselves but chances are they will not get around to completing that resume. If you give them an extra $100/month they will always have new clothes but probably cannot see themselves buying a car in two years.

In our residents a heavy ear runs rampant. It can be seen as:

Consistently engaging in fantasies	Preoccupation with video games	iPod infatuation
Social Media infatuation	Engaging in self destructive behaviors	Entertaining destructive relationships
Inability to comprehend and execute faith	Consistent numbing of themselves	Fairy Tale expectation of relationships

Speaking in parables becomes Jesus’ solution to the heavy ear dilemma presented by the people of his time. It is very interesting how Jesus always used language that connected to what was important to the population that he taught. In front of the working class he used illustrations such as agriculture and fishing (Matt 13), before tax collectors he spoke about investing (Luke 18), when speaking to Pharisees he used the law (Mat 15).

Paul’s adventures in expanding God’s kingdom are a great demonstration of the use of parable language.  He talks about this in his letter to the Corinthian church,

“For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win the more, and to the Jews I become as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the law, that I might win those who are under the law, to those who are without law, as without law (not being without law toward God, but under law toward Christ), that I might win those who are without law, to the weak I become as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.” (1 Cor 9:19-23 NKJ)

The purpose of parable language is simply to mobilize what you have to say. This is the technology that brings understanding to heavy ears. More important than our residents following through with the lessons that we give them is that the lessons we impart sticks with them. It is important that we sow seeds that will sprout at the time of their inception and years after they have received it.

This principle was the same that God used to communicate with us. In order for the Creator to communicate with his creation he became his creation. It was through Jesus that heaven’s wisdom touched earth’s rebellion. Likewise we must begin asking questions of how can we make heaven touch earth.  This is done through our ability to make things practical, concrete and on their level so that they can fully understand the lesson to be taught.

Breathe Into the Ground Part 3

A good place to keep our minds would be to understand that we are not building for today we are building for tomorrow.

For 6 years I worked as a live-in Resident Advisor in a residential program for young men that have aged out of the foster care system. For months at a time I was given the opportunity to invest into the lives of over 20 young men. I’m sure the experience brought more maturity in my personal life than change in those I mentored. In my time there, I wrote a manifesto that outlined my approach to mentoring. I find these ideas also apply to parenting and mentoring. Here’s the third installment:

The first RA: God the creator. continued…

3. The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground 4. and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, 5. and the man became a living being. (Genesis 2:7)

Extracted Principles

3.   God’s understanding of his resident.

The subject receiving God’s breath was very clearly defined. God used dust from the ground, God knew it was dust and the dust knew that it was dust.

3. Our understanding of our residents.

A frustration to mentoring is when the resident does not understand what position they are in life. More frustrating, I imagine, is when the RAs do not know where the resident is in life. This requires several things: 1.) Time– we must spend time with the residents to learn what is current in their lives 2.) Sight– we must really seek God for each resident to see where they are and where they are going. 3.) Communication– make sure your residents know where they are in their process. Give them sight where sight is needed. If your resident is a ground of stony rocks that must be clearly communicated, if they are being chocked up by thorns then they must understand that that is something that they are specifically susceptible to, if they are good ground then they must also understand their 40, 60 or even 100 fold potential. At the same time use wisdom, in other words, learn to be strategic. We will discuss this later.

4. God breathed out life

Every breath of God was life. God’s ability to speak was as effective has his ability to act, in fact they were one and the same. As he spoke so it was. Therefore, His breath held great importance and was not wasted.

4. We breath out life

Our advice, our mentoring and our word should never be taken lightly by ourselves or by our residents. It should carry a weight to it and deeply move the internal structures of those that we mentor.  Our breath should not be simply wasted by murmuring, complaining or nagging. We will not engage in a power struggle with residents. Instead our words and actions should be positive, strategic, purposeful and always consistent. Our young adults will not always respect us but they will know what we say is what we mean.

We are always breathing out life to our residents. This means that we are always looking for opportunities to build each resident. We do this by promoting progression in the lives of our residents. (Which isn’t always a comfortable task for us or them)

Because you are engaged in a long term mentoring relationships with your residents you will usually find that your life giving work has more to do with the pruning processes. Majority of your difficulties will come from your work of taking away the unnecessary excess that your residents try to hold on to.  These excesses include procrastination, lack of responsibility, lack of cleanliness, poor money management, laziness, and the list goes on. We realize that in order for them to be productive after SOSI or to have life they have to cut off these excesses. We are the iron that sharpens them. (Prov 27:17)

We also build in love. According to acclaimed relationship specialist, Dr. John Gottman, it takes 5 statements of affirmation to balance out 1 negative statement (http://www.gottman.com). Therefore, love is the undertone that we use when we bring life through pruning.

5. God’s Strategy

The purpose of man was clear and the breath being administered was simply a tool to help the subject towards a clearly defined purpose. God’s emphasis to detail was not the instructions of what the purpose will be, in fact the instructions of purpose were very general, instead the emphasis to detail was placed on the process of the subject becoming fully man.

5. Our strategy

A good place to keep our minds would be to understand that we are not building for today we are building for tomorrow. Brick by brick we are laying down life lessons, we are consistently breathing out life, we are advising and directing. All this not for a currently confused 19 year old but rather for that future 30 year old father and husband for that 27 year old mother, for that 40 year old minister or future director of Spirit of Success Institute.

For this reason we must become strategic or wise. This does require that we develop our relationship with God. Becoming strategic is actually very simple all it requires is that you hear God and obey. Hear and obey. What our lives begin to look like are people who are constantly praying, in fact, we learn how to pray while engaged in a conversation with our residents.