Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Doing a little for others I took a vacation day yesterday after a last minute invitation to join a group of guys from my church on an all-day trek to Cleveland. That's close to a four-hour cruise, er drive. There is an organization up there called medWish, that obtains old, but usable, hospital equipment and supplies from several hospitals. The hospitals like the arrangement because it greatly reduces the amount of landfill stuff that they'd otherwise generate. All the donated material must be distributed outside the US (thank you, lawyers), but there are huge needs in the world. One of our associate pastors is on the board of a ministry based in Vancouver, BC called Kairos (couldn't find the Website). The director of Kairos has been developing a hospital in a remote mountainous region of Honduras to treat the many poor people, especially women, affected by HIV/AIDS and other diseases. The group of nine of us packed two 40 foot cargo containers with over 26,000 lbs of material. Should have some pictures up on Flickr in a day or so. It's unbelievabe the stuff that otherwise would have been discarded. There were 30 hospital beds, four exam tables, at least 5 gurneys, thousands of syringes, chairs, over bed tables, night stands, crutches, wheel chairs, and more. And Pastor Chuck says there will be more loads in the future. If someone asks out of the blue "what are you doing tomorrow" it might just be an invitation to help the people of the world just a little. Say yes. 12:03:22 PM    comment []

Leadership Twitterer CowboyWisdom just "tweeted," "When you are tired, thirsty and looking for shade..... Remember the horse is doing all the work.... think about his needs...." Over the course of the past two or three years I occasionally wrote about a school principal of my acquaintance who seemed to think that leadership equaled dictatorship. "Shut up and do what I say," was the motto of that school. This was implemented with through a cadre of "tattletales" who would report back if someone said something negative about this person. Well the results are in, and that school ranks in the bottom 10 percent of schools in Ohio for percentage change in test scores. Now, I'm not a proponent of all that standardized testing. I'm not sure what it actually proves (I was an excellent test taker but poor--read lazy--student, see what it got me. Neither rich or handsome ;-)  ) But, I think this does show the fruits of negative leadership. The principal is the single most important person in the system, because that person sets the tone for the building. Given the correct leadership that encourages, exhorts, provides vision, asks for input overall results have proven to be good. After all the knowledge and training given to this subject, the question I ask is -- "how do people like this get hired?" Even more, how do they keep their jobs? And this is just an example. I've seen evidence throughout my career--both good and bad. How about you? More to the point, how are you approaching leadership today? Oh, and if you asked "what the heck is twitter," check out mine. Then you can check on the people I'm following. 11:42:40 AM    comment []