ARE:A Renewal Enterprise

Four Ways To Get Going When The Going Is Tough

It's a hard time to be in business, whatever your business is. A lot of nonprofit organizations and churches, for example, are experiencing shrinkage in both financial resources and membership. Unfortunately, when the going gets tough, a lot of these organizations don't "get going." Instead, they become:

• more and more inwardly focused;
• less willing to take the kinds of risks that innovation demands;
• more likely to be torn apart by internal conflicts over who gets the share of scare resources;
• more suspicious of outsiders and perceived "competitors";
• less open to new ideas and new people;
• more protective of their customs, traditions, and "the way we've always done it";
• more centralized and top-down in their decision-making;
• a lot less interesting or fun to be a part of.

Sound anything like the organization you're a part of? Here are four things you can do to get yourself (and others) going when things get tough:

Discomfort Can Lead To Creativity

Are you chugging through the same old grind day in and day out. Get out of bed the same time each morning, have the same breakfast, put on our “uniform” and take the same route to the same job to do the same thing as yesterday. Not only is this what life looks like for a lot of people, it's what many people think life is supposed to look like. No wonder we keep tackling problems the same way expecting different results.

You need color in your life – and maybe even a little chaos – for creativity to breed.

Leadership That Sucks The Life Out Of People

It's still pretty common across industries for leaders to think of themselves as being "in charge." The last US president, for example, described himself as "The Decider." 

No where is this view of leadership more common than in church circles. In fact, if you Google church leadership you get bombarded by site after site like this one from a church consulting group called church leadership.org that describes leadership as "the duty and call of the person who is in charge to take charge with courage and character, and to risk leading his/her people where they need to go and how they need to be led."

Does anybody else out there feel like throwing up just a little? 

7 Ways To Prevent Your Team From Leaving For Greener Pastures

Here's something you probably haven't heard many people say lately: I quit. According to researchers, however, that is about to change. In fact, the Wall Street Journal is reporting this week that some staffing firms are "preparing for a massive reshuffling of talent at all job levels in all industries." We believe them. Even at our little company, we get multiple inquiries every month from really talented people looking to make a move to come work with us. 

If this doesn't scare you, it should. 

Surefire Ways To Encourage Creativity

As we were doing research for our next two books - 19 Or More Ideas For Seeing Possibilities and 19 Or More Ideas for Igniting Passion - we stumbled across this list of 20 Surefire Ways To Beat Creativity To A Pulp in your workplace. This list includes gems like:

Five Mistakes Leaders Make After A Crisis

Let's say the organization you care about has just been down a particularly dark road. Money has been tight. You've had to let some people go and those who remain are demoralized and overwhelmed. Your base of support - members, clients, customers - has dwindled. They all have problems of their own. And the PR you've been getting hasn't been all that great. Maybe there's even been some infighting. People within your organization disagree about the direction you should go. Those disagreements have been ugly. That conflict has made a bad situation worse. But now you're starting to come out on the other side. You're not out of the woods yet but you think you can see a glimmer of light. You're starting to breathe a little easier. What are you going to do now?

Here are the five biggest mistakes leaders can make on the other side of a crisis:

Leadership Lessons From Betty White

For years it's been the conventional wisdom that old people get sidelined. Just a year ago, Careerbuilder featured an article titled, "Ageism and the Workplace: How bad is it?" Good question. The answer is: It's mixed. For example, unemployed people 45-years and older wait longer on average to find a job. But joblessness is actually lower among older people than the rest of the workforce. Still, the perception remains that ageism is alive and well, and that older people in particular are at a disadvantage today.

So, how do you explain Betty White?

Meetings That Matter

Does your organization suffer from meeting-itis? Most organizations do. That's how Gina Trapani got a guest appearance in one of our favorite business/leadership magazines. Everybody wants to know how to cure this dreaded disease and she claims to have the solution.

Trapani, author of The Complete Guide to Google Wave, defines meeting-itis as "poorly-run and inefficient meetings that go on too long, happen too often and include more attendees than need to be there." Unfortunately, the "unconventional" advice she gives about how to cure meeting-itis is both conventional (in that it lacks originality or creativity) and dead wrong.

Work Playfully To Be Creative

"Way too flippin' serious."

That's how one of our teammates described the group we were working with, at one point, this past weekend. It was probably partly our fault. (By "our," we mean our own Type A teammate, Kelly Fryer. If you know her, you won't be surprised to learn that her kindergarten teacher once said she has a "playing problem." We are doing our best to break her uber-serious approach to, well, almost everything.) Anyway, we'll own our share. But these folks came in with a pile of stuff on them that made "serious" come naturally. 

Do You Help Others Play Well Together?

Do you play well with others? There are a lot of voices today encouraging you to ask yourself this question. HR expert, Susan M., says "accomplishing work is largely about the relationships you develop." Citing Toyota as a current example, the folks at Working With Others warn that not playing well with others can kill your brand. And Steve R. at All Things Workplace argues pretty convincingly that in terms of professional success, it's more important than anything else, including intelligence, abilities or performance. We wouldn't disagree.

When it comes to leadership in an organization, however, we think there's an even more important question:

 Do you help others play well together?