Monday, May 30, 2011

Lead with LUV ... one in Spirit

by Dale Shumaker
4spirit@gmail.com


Lead with LUV
by Ken Blanchard and Colleen Barrett (President Emeritus of Southwest Airlines)

reveal through dialogue her secrets of being a Love Manager. Southwest Airlines, with LUV as its stock market symbol, lived in a love relationship with each other, customers and stock holders. During Barrett's servant leadership as president until 2008, Southwest's culture was all about love.

As Southwest's LUV leader and followers of the Golden Rule, her VP of marketing said this
of Colleen. "Colleen teaches us that love is what matters and that you have to lead with your heart and know that the heart will take you in the right directions."

Servant leadership is about love. Although this view is seen in the corporate world as a soft idea.
Love is a powerful driving force. Loving your mission, customers, your people, yourself, so others can be magnificent. The true servant leader deals with vision/direction, strategic leadership to see that everything goes in the same direction.

The servant leader has a triple bottom line. Treat your people right as your most valued customer. the employees then treat the passenger (the customer) as their most valued person in warmth, caring, and a fun spirit. The customer tells others and comes back, so then the shareholders benefit from this love cycle. As the employer of choice, the provider of choice, the investment of choice, the triple bottom line yields the financial bottom line.

Make your people your business partners in every way.

Servant leaders run with a compelling vision which includes a significant purpose (what business are you in?), a picture of the future (what it will look like if successful?), clear values (what guides your behavior and decisions daily?). It tells you who you are, where you're going, and what guides you in getting there. People admire your strengths, but they respect your honesty regarding your vulnerability.

Servant leadership is love in action. How are you defining love?

Patient. Patience is helping people down on their luck, rebuilding self-confidence.

Kind. Kindness seeks to be useful, and searches for opportunities to do good.

Generous. Generosity rejoices over others' success, recognizing and rewarding
acts of courage, determination, sacrifice, or goodwill.
Courteous. Courtesy is to be love in little things, promoting the happiness of all.

Humble. Humility does not call attention to itself, bloat up with self-conceit,
take credit for ideas. People with humility don't think less of themselves, they just think of themselves less.
Unselfish. Unselfishness never neglects others. Consider others, their welfare, satisfaction
and advantage to be above its own. Never advancing, aggrandizing, enriching, gratifying itself at the cost of others.
Good temper. Love restrains passions and is not exasperated, never angry without
a cause. Anger cannot rest in a heart where love reigns.
Guileless. Love thinks no evil, sees the bright side, puts the best construction on
every action.
Sincere. Love takes no pleasure in doing injury or hurting others, or broadcasting
someone's miscues. It doesn't gossip or bear false witness, taking time to thank people for their worthwhile contributions.

The true test of a servant leader, who maintains a healthy culture, one with everyone
involved in feedback, is to have other servant leaders who are wiser, freer, more autonomous, healthier and better able themselves to become servant leaders.

In summary, Colleen loves this company, loves the employees, the customers.
Commonly referred to as a fun-LUVin company, leading with love is a different (and fun) way to create success.

"Every dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength,
the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world."

Ken Blanchard's website:

http://www.kenblanchard.com/

Oswald Chambers is a classic prolific inspirational writing. His devotional My Utmost
for His Highest reflect his insights to vibrant Spiritual living. Ponder these excerpts from May 22 through May 29. Current daily devotionals appear at
http://utmost.org/

God reveals in John 17 that His purpose is not just to answer our prayers, but that through prayer we might come to discern His mind. Yet there is one prayer which God must answer, and that is the prayer of Jesus. . . that they may be one just as We are one . . ." Are we as close to Jesus Christ as that?


Jesus prayed nothing less for us than absolute oneness with Himself, just as He was one with the Father. Some of us are far from this oneness; yet God will not leave us alone until we
are one with Him— because Jesus prayed, “. . . that they all may be one . . . .”

Jesus summed up commonsense carefulness in the life of a disciple as
unbelief. If we have received the Spirit of God, He will squeeze right through our lives, as if to ask, “Now where do I come into this relationship, this vacation you have planned, or these new books you want to read?” And He always presses the point until we learn to make Him our first consideration. Whenever we put other things first, there is confusion. “. . . do not worry about your life . . . .” Don’t take the pressure of your provision upon yourself.

Many of us do not continue to grow spiritually because we prefer to choose on the basis of our
rights, instead of relying on God to make the choice for us. We have to learn to walk according to the standard which has its eyes focused on God. And God says to us, as He did to Abram, “. . .
walk before Me. . .”

Our thinking about prayer... The correct concept is to think of prayer as the breath in our lungs and the blood from our hearts. Our blood flows and our breathing continues “without ceasing”; we are not even conscious of it, but it never stops. And we are not always conscious of Jesus keeping us in perfect oneness with God, but if we are obeying Him, He always is. Prayer is not an exercise, it is the life of the saint. Beware of anything that stops the offering up of prayer. “Pray without ceasing . . . " maintain the childlike habit of offering up prayer in your heart to God all the time.


The attitude of receiving and welcoming the Holy Spirit into our lives is to be the continual attitude of a believer. When we receive the Holy Spirit, we receive reviving life from our ascended Lord.

If anything is a mystery to you and is coming between you and God, never look for the explanation in your mind, but look for it in your spirit, your true inner nature, that is where the problem is. Once your inner spiritual nature is willing to submit to the life of Jesus, your understanding will be perfectly clear, and you will come to the place where there is no distance between the Father and you, His child, because the Lord has made you one. “In that day you will ask Me nothing.”

“. . . whatever you ask the Father in My name . . .” “That day” is a day of peace and an untroubled relationship between God and His saint. Just as Jesus stood unblemished and pure in the presence of His Father, we too by the mighty power and effectiveness of the baptism of the Holy Spirit can be lifted into that relationship—”. . . that they may be one just as We are one . . ."


Put trust in God first. Being one with Him, we have all His ever expansive universe as part of our life as we live to be His instrument on earth.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Tell to Win ... the greatest story ever told

by Dale Shumaker
4spirit@gmail.com


Tell to Win by Peter Guber is about how to connect, persuade, and triumph with the hidden power of story.
Everyone is in the emotional transportation business. Purposeful stories, those created with a specific mission in mind, are absolutely essential in persuading others to support a vision, dream or cause. Guber is from the movie industry and he has learned what works in movies, we can learn similar principles that work when we communicate to others with the power of the story. In any environment, place, you to can create a compelling story that connects and persuades.

The components of a good story, whether told in person, on a page or via actors, are challenge, struggle, and resolution.
First, get the listener's attention with an unexpected challenge or question.
Next, then give your listeners an emotional experience by narrating the struggle to overcome the challenge,
or find an answer to the opening question.
Finally, galvanize your listeners' response with an eye-opening resolution that calls them to action.
From Guber's movie experience he says you are skunked if the three part story-listening experience is not delivered.

What fuels emotional transportation?
1. True heroes are sympathetic and recognizable characters. Your hero in the story is the conductor. The
more sympathetic to this person, the more we feel bound to the story.
2. Drama gets your story moving. Once we have our hero, what keeps us spellbound is wondering
what will happen next. Create tension between expectation and uncertainty. Emotional tension makes you think it might go this way, or go that way, so your listener hangs with you to find out. It's that we want something to turn out one way, but with the situation it could have several outcomes. This is emotional tension that keeps us in the story to find out. The "what happens next" is a compelling story telling component that keeps the audience glued to you.
3. Get people from "ah" to "ha." Or moving the emotional to the ahha, "I got it".This is what is going on
and how it turned out.
4. Move from the me to the we factor. That the story is shared by the other person too. It now becomes
a shared experience between you, another person or a group. The teller and listener feel the benefit of the experience. We align in interests and others know what's in it for them.

The meat of Win to Tell details the art of the "tell" which is ready... set... tell.

Ready... To tell a great story preparation is key. Do your homework and demonstrate authenticity and congruence,
the rails which your story rides. Aim for the heart and emotionalize your offering. Be interested in what your listener is interested in. Then they will find your story interesting and compelling. Know your audience and what interests them. Be aware of your listeners' prejudices, pet issues. Overlooking this can hijack your whole story.

Set... your hero represents the point of view of your listener. He/she/it is the one your audience identifies with, the
audience experiences the story through the hero. The call to action embraced by the hero will as well be embraced by the audience. Your hero is the person, place, product, or brand that enables your audience to feel the change promised in the story. Metaphors and analogies are great to use. In a single word, in a single image all the emotion and meaning can be delivered. Engaging powerful narratives from books, popular movies, history can emotionalize your call to action.

Tell! Present authentic, contagious energy. Your energy, that's real, is the catalyst for a great story. All audiences
expect experiences. Being vulnerable is an asset, not a liability. Persist if you get a "no", and pressing on in spite of their fear ("no" comes from fear expressed in fight, flee, freeze) and change "no" to "on". Be clear on your goal, use inspiring stories, learn, refine and improve your story with each no. Rejection is just a sign to detour to find the better road to success. Your body talks more than your tongue. Be interactive, arouse curiosity, use props that support your story. Listen actively and responsively, be ready to drop your script when the situation calls for it. The audience needs to own it, so surrender control and proprietorship to your audience. The best raw material you have is your firsthand, witnessed experience.

To sustain a never-ending story, identify the essential elements of your story and the audiences who clearly echo the essence of your story. Multiply that by encouraging these audiences to retell your story through their own voice and through their own experience... their networks, relationships, social media of preference. State of the art technology has its benefits, although it's the state of the Heart technology that's the game changer when you can tell your story in the room, face to face.

More on Tell to Win at:

http://www.peterguber.com/telltowin/home

The Greatest Story Ever Told is a movie produced in the 60's. It was an epic portrayal of the life
of Christ and why He was on earth... the son of God coming to earth in a human being.

It held all the intrigue of a great
story. Jesus came with a challenge... to save mankind. He ran into struggles.... religious leaders conspiring to have Him put to death. Internal betrayal from one of his close associates.

And then the triumph. He was the only person ever to die, come back, and then leave again only to promise us that He would put in us the Same Spirit, that He had, to work in us continually. During the time on earth he deliberately set up a coalition of dedicated followers to spread the message He was sent to share and set up for all mankind.

He gave a bold promise... Jesus said He came to give life to everyone, and give it more abundantly than what we have now. He said that He was the way to this Life, He spoke the truth and showed how this world can work better. He was the light to see a better way. Our minds will be opened to see things like never before and get supernatural insights beyond our human ability. He said to believe in Him and He would give us all of this.

During the whole time while He was explaining how this would work, demonstrating how it worked by healing others and bringing grace into lives, a gang of holier-than-thou folks were out to get Him killed. Ironically, He never committed a real crime and beyond that, not one small sin that God would be opposed to. He was said to be perfect in His human relationships.

The whole time He kept dodging and having to outwit these scoundrels while setting up and training
His team of special forces to carry on after He left the earth. He made a unique promise to His followers. That as a group, remaining unified, they would be like Him, with all the wisdom, power, revelation He had.

As the Greatest Story unfolded, He intensified His efforts to set up His Kingdom on earth, a Spiritual Kingdom, while He knew He was running out of time as these unscrupulous folks tried to capture Him and have Him killed. It was a race against the clock.

They finally caught Him and put Him to death after an unfair trial. Everyone thought His mission had been stopped. But He had the biggest surprise coming. After dying He came back and appeared to His followers, His meticulously trained associates, and gave them final instructions and encouragement to wage the battle of building the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, and to follow His example in how to do it. He told them to wait for a while and the Spirit that was on Him would come on them and all the things He did they would do. Beyond that all who joined in the crusade through the centuries would receive what He left on them. They would do just like Him, be just like Him, and get results like Him.

It was an intriguing strategy that would not ever be outwitted by anyone.
He explained further and pointed out that they would mature in this and grow beyond where He was on earth. Leaving His physical body, He sent back a Spiritual body, made up of "many ones" united, to become bigger than He was while in a physical body as just one person. He said that increasing power will be in this united Spiritual body, and through it His Kingdom, a kingdom like Heaven, would grow and mature more than when He was on earth.

The story doesn't have an ending. It continues on and never dies. It's a never-ending story with its plot still unfolding. Those part of it are alive today, and will live together forever, even after a physical death just like Jesus went through. It's a story that's still alive, the greatest story ever told is still in the making.