Photo by Jenn Aardsma.

No analogy or profundity here, just a shy creature,  photographed by my wife in our backyard this afternoon.

A friend wrote a comment to me yesterday that got me thinking. Regarding an intimidating change I am making at work, she said

You can always change direction if need be but at least you are moving. Didn’t your blog say something about that. :)

I realized, yes, I did say something about that, and now I am acting where I was too intimidated to act before. Is there a connection?

I think the act of writing these posts is affecting where I focus my thoughts, and perhaps helping me practice what I preach. Maybe it’s helping me put my values into action because my values are more fresh and clear in my mind when I write about them. Journaling is not a new idea, right?

I know many of you are writers. Are you changed by your writing? What’s your insight on how and why? I’d love to hear your comments.

Mission and vision are not the same thing.

A mission is what you do. Every organization needs to know this. Think mission in the military sense. “Your mission is to defend this position.” Here’s Wal-Mart’s: “To help people save money so they can live better.”

A vision is different. It’s about who you want to become and where you want to be at a time in the future. Wal-Mart’s vision at one time was “To be the worldwide leader in retailing.” Notice the difference between mission and vision.

Clarifying and communicating both mission and vision are key tasks for leaders.

If you know your mission but your vision is unclear, try these questions. I asked them yesterday at a church leadership meeting and I think they helped bring our vision into focus.

1. What is our mission in a nutshell?
2. What kind of organization must we be to be great at that mission?
3. If we become that kind of organization and do a great job on our mission, where could we be in 5 (or 25) years?

If you’re like me and you worry about making a decision you’ll regret, let me stress you out even more. Doing nothing is dangerous too. Any sense you have that passivity reduces the risks and dangers of life is an illusion. In fact the opposite is true. Taking action is the most fundamental key to overcoming problems and reaching your goals that I know.

One reason we are attracted to passivity is to avoid blame and guilt. If we do nothing, and the worst happens, we can throw up our hands and say “I didn’t do it”. If we initiate a big change and the worst happens, someone points a finger and says “It’s your fault”, and we feel terrible.

Life is risky and dangerous and you can’t change that. Bad things are gonna happen and some of them will be your fault. Don’t aspire to die having made as few mistakes as possible. Don’t be reckless, stay off the limb, but be brave. Focus on getting the best outcome, not on getting the least blame. Hang around friends who will congratulate you for trying and failing, not those who will condemn you. Be proactive. Doing nothing is risky too.

A group of my peers at Dr. John Townsend’s Leadership Coaching Program reminded me recently that I am made to be an entrepreneur. I am good at starting things. I am not that good at management, running things, or being a corporate guy. With that in mind, I have been spending more time on starting things this month. It is exciting, and productive, and confirms what I am cut out to do.

The strengths movement led by Marcus Buckingham and the Gallup organization is based on this simple yet powerful idea, that putting one’s strengths to work is more productive than working to improve one’s weaknesses. So managers in the workplace, for example, should place employees in roles that capitalize on the employees’ existing strengths. If a waiter lacks the strengths needed to be a good waiter, don’t try to re-train him, move him to a different role or move him out of the company.

If you want to know more about that, read “First Break All the Rules”, by Buckingham. It’s a great, research-based book about management and strengths.

I think the strengths movement is right. But I do think there are times when it is worthwhile to work on improving a weakness. I propose these guidelines:

1. Never work on improving a weakness with intent to specialize in it.

Choose career roles that capitalize on your strengths. Don’t work on a weakness for the sake of making it your specialty. If you are already in a specialty that requires a strength where you have a weakness, start pursuing a new specialty.

2. Invest far more in changing yourself than in changing other people.

For two reasons:

a) It takes a lot of self-motivation to bring about change. If the person you want to change is not motivated, it’s not gonna happen. If the person you want to change is you, you are already motivated, by definition.

b) It’s really expensive to bring about change. It may be worth the investment to change yourself, because you are stuck with yourself and you have the rest of your life to receive a return. If you change yourself, you own the changes.

It’s probably not worth the investment to change an employee, because you can replace them with someone who already has the required strengths, and you only get a fraction of the rest of their life to receive a return. (At best, they will give you 40-50 hours a week until retirement.) If you invest in changing someone else, they own the changes.

3. Invest in improving your weaknesses when they are so general they affect everything.

The more general the ability, the more important it is to have an acceptable competency in that area. A weakness in a very general ability is a handicap in any specialty. But that doesn’t mean try to make it a strength. Some examples:

a) Being unable to read would severely hinder my specialty as an entrepreneur. If my poor reading skills are a handicap, it’s probably worth improving to an acceptable competency because it’s such a general ability. I should not, however, try to become the world’s fastest reader, nor should I choose a specialty that depends on superior reading skills.

b) Being insensitive to the feelings of other people would severely hinder any specialty that involves human interaction. Even though it would be costly, it’s probably worth improving my own empathy to an acceptable competency because it’s such a general ability. I should not, however, try to become a world-class empathizer or choose a career as a psychotherapist. It’s not gonna happen.

c) Being unable to throw a football in anything resembling a smooth spiral does not hinder my specialty as an entrepreneur, because throwing a spiral is not a general ability, it is a very specific one. It is probably not worth investing time and energy to improve my quarterback skills.

The most general abilities are a healthy body, a healthy mind, the things we learn in elementary school, and the things we call character. Some examples: reading, writing, arithmetic, ethics, conversation, empathy, confrontation, problem solving, and physical fitness.