Summit Reflections (Part 9)

What if a great athlete only got feedback on performance only once a year?

That was Daniel Pink on motivation, talking about the yearly performance review. When our staff leadership team completed the Leadership Practices Inventory, with feedback from ten other staff and volunteers for each of us, my lowest scores were in the category of "encouraging the heart." My first thought was, "These people around me are so needy. Why can't they be self-motivated like I am." That was my second and third and fourth thought...until I got over my anger. Then I realized how much I love and seek feedback from others. I love to be encouraged. I'm not nearly as "self-motivated" as I think I am. Besides, I scored myself lowest in that category!

With that realization and admission I set out to be a better encourager of our staff leadership team and others. I set out to let people know how much I appreciated them (to move it from my heart to my mouth) and to do more coaching along the way.

This will probably never be one of my strengths because of the way I'm wired. I'm pretty task-driven and I'm an information hound ("Input" and "Learner" are two of my "signature strengths" in StrengthsFinder). But I've been told more than once that I'm improving. And it is vitally important that I improve because I've got great people on our leadership team. Like great athletes, they're hungry for coaching, encouragement, pastoring and feedback from me. 

Declaration: I will prioritize encouraging, praying for, coaching and pastoring our staff leadership team.

Reward motives not work well for complex tasks
A leader defined by followership...never arrives
Everybody thinks everyone else only cares about money
Our nature is to be active and engaged
Management is a technology from the 1850's designed to get compliance
20% time (gmail, Google News)
What if a great athlete only got feedback once per year