Mike, great post. I agree with you all the way around. Definitely by the third email, I'm on the phone or face to face. But I go one step further on #2. Three times gets understanding and either agreement or intelligent questions, but it takes several more times to communicate ownership or for the listener to take responsibility for the information or the idea. If it's more important to communicate responsibility, I just don't think you can stop at 3. Judging from the way you made the point, I expect you'd agree.

Mike, Thanks for the great post. In our culture, it's too easy to chase and acquire the decorations without any of the substance. Your quote above that we all leave a legacy is a great reminder. We will impact the people who are closest to us. It can't be helped. If that impact is shallow and negative, our legacy ends up shallow and negative too. The people at work and the professional achievements stand on our personal life. Great professional achievements are tarnished against a backdrop of personal failure.

You've helped me a great deal in this area Mike. Thanks for the great reminder. Thanks for a wonderful 2010. I'm looking forward to 2011 and I appreciate your advice and friendship. Mike...

I regret that I too often leave that event somewhere on the fringes of my mind or out of my mind's sight. I am grateful for the people who served in that crisis. I most remember our unity, not just as a nation, but as a people, standing against the wrong. I want my memory to be more about the weeks and months afterward when people all over the world rose up against tyranny, joined together, shared and sacrificed for the greater good.

I want to honor the fallen by permanently BEING different because of what happened. Anything less for me is unacceptable.

Great reminder Mike. No one remains a leader long without being competent. People will not long support someone who's going nowhere. And many young leaders lose focus on the team goal and focus on either being popular with their team or following the rules.

Those that accept responsibility for the team's results and do what it takes to make the team successful eventually succeed.

Doing your job with excellence and looking for people to serve are slight twists on what you said above and others have commented. The hardest thing about that is it takes extra effort they're not paying you for and then you also have to spend additional effort figuring out a way to leave.

But you never know when, because you are excellent in everything you do, that you may get the opportunity to change things or have a significant impact on others. Many see you deliver excellence in the madness and they will ask you how you do it. As others have quoted, those types of outcomes make the effort worth it.
The harder the workplace, the greater the opportunities to stand out and make a difference.

Everything you say on the topic is right on. Wait, am I now just telling you what you want to hear?

Steve Keating talked about Judgecernment - the ability to combine judgment and discernment. It's one thing to be respectful. But politically correct suggests that the truth is sacrificed for safety. Being politically correct is the point at which respect for others turns into cowardice related to the issue or problem. When anyone subordinates the organization's vision for individual comfort, failure is inevitable.

We do need to get where we can handle disagreement and discourse again, but I can't disagree with you much on this topic.

Mike...

It seems like people are tired of positional leaders with no character. Everyone loves a leader who takes responsibility, serves their constituency and helps people win. In our greed over the last few years (or centuries) we will follow some less-than-respectable people. Remember when we all listened to Jeffrey Skilling? We should be quick to point out that the problem lies not in who leads, but in who we choose to follow. Shame on us for following people who aren't worthy of it.

This is a great idea Mike. Sarah often seems to have great ideas and I applaud you for sharing this one.

Blog: Lead Change Group
Purpose: Applying character-based leadership to make a positive difference
Link: http://leadchangegroup.com/blog

Perry, thanks for the quick comment. I am convinced (and was before reading the book) that much of what we call church gets confused with either the "performance" on Sunday, the other programs that engage people who are interested in the performers, or the organization that stages the programs. I realize that sounds harsh, but where we live, that seems to be the story. "Ministry" is the work of full-time, professional, paid-to-be-good Christians (instead of us who try to be good for nothing).

I'm with you on Matthew 18:20. My wife and I long to be a part of a body where everyone is a full-time ministers and we're all helping each other with our works of service.

Thanks again.

Thanks for the great reminder. We all have a "next-thing" to do and we can do it with everything we have. Let's do it!