Issue No. 45 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting will give you a creative blast before tackling your next project. Robert Byrne said, “There are two kinds of people, those who finish what they start and so on…” If you rarely finish a book, this week’s recommendation from my son, Jason Pearson, will be the exception. Reminder: you can read the mini-reviews of more than 40 books at my Buckets Blog at www.JohnPearsonAssociates.com.
This week’s book promises “101 tips for creativity on command.” That’s a tall order—but Sam Harrison’s 150-page quick read delivers. He quotes Pascal, “All of man’s troubles stem from his inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” The author urges us to escape our routine frequently and “find a convenient hideaway.” His promise: when you totally disconnect from all communications technology (including that nifty new iPhone), you’ll find “big ideas sizzling with zing.”
The page-popping graphics and surprise-at-every turn layout pull you into his five simple steps: 1) explore, 2) freedom, 3) pause, 4) embrace, and 5) life. In the last section, he warns that elegant ideas must still be sold. Harrison recommends a one-page “Missile Defense System” report before you sell your next idea, product, project or program. “Under Missile, list possible objections and questions. Under Defense, articulate your responses.”
This is a no-brainer book for your team’s resource library. Order it today: Zing! Five Steps and 101 Tips for Creativity on Command.
Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
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1. On his Zing Zone website, Sam Harrison says that “People have never been bored into buying anything. We have to entertain. Craft compelling stories. Dramatize the truth. Create dreams.” How often do we bore people with our products, programs and services (including Sunday morning services!)?
2. On our flipchart today, please share your best idea for the “Top 20 Ways to Keep the Creativity Flowing.”
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Insights from the Management Buckets Workshop Experience
Don Parrott, president of Finishers Project and Paraclete, recommends an affirmation exercise for team building. Seat your staff, or your department, in a circle. Then with a large ball of string, hold onto the end of the string and toss the ball across the circle to a team member. Share an affirmation about that person and the unique contribution he or she makes to the team.
Then ask that staff member to do likewise to another person by holding onto the string and tossing the ball again. Once every team member has been affirmed and is holding a portion of the string, you’ll have a memorable visual image (the crisscrossed string) of the interdependence you share and the powerful synergy of a team that needs and appreciates each player.
Romans 12:4 (The Message) says, “Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around. The body we're talking about is Christ's body of chosen people.”
Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions: The Hoopla Bucket
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1. Who do you need to thank today for their powerful, but often quiet service as a member of our team?
2. Review the spiritual gifts described in Romans 12. Is our work best accomplished through Lone Rangers and Supermen and Wonder Women or through teamwork?
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Note: Future dates will be announced this month for the Management Buckets Workshop Experience (two days) and the Nonprofit Board Governance Workshop (one day) at the scenic Blue Lantern Inn in Dana Point, Calif. If your organization would like to co-host a workshop, please email me.
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