40 Great Leadership Books to Read

Verse 2-5: “Make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves. Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus.” (New American Standard)

These verses are not just related to your specific team, but also the “team” you work with in impacting your city, your region, and the global large C Church. So try these virtues on for size!

1. Be like-minded.

2. Be loving.

3. Be united.

4. Be focused (on one purpose).

5. Be selfless.

6. Be humble.

7. Look out for others before yourself.

8. Have a great attitude.

9. Be Christ-like.

Teamwork 101.

A simple call to action from Paul but incredibly difficult to put into action.

My favorite athletes right now

August 27th, 2011 by bradlomenick in Misc. 2 Comments

A few athletes I love cheering for and enjoy following:

1. Bubba Watson- PGA Golfer

2. Landry Jones- quarterback for the OU Sooners

3. Kyle Korver- shooting guard for the Chicago Bulls

4. Derek Jeter- Yankees

5. Tony Romo- quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys

6. Phil Mickelson- PGA Golfer

7. Ryan Broyles- wide receiver for the OU Sooners

8. Josh Hamilton- outfielder for Texas Rangers

9. Sam Bradford- quarterback for St Louis Rams

10. Albert Pujols- 1st baseman for St. Louis Cardinals

11. Rickie Fowler- PGA Golfer

My thoughts on BE PRESENT

August 24th, 2011 by bradlomenick in Misc. No Comments

I’m so excited about Catalyst Atlanta and our theme of “Be Present.”

So what does Be Present really mean to me?

- Focused and Undivided. Focused on what is right in front of you.

- Engaged In Your Community.

- Focused on Your Family & Marriage. In the mess.

- A Close Community of Accountability & Friendships.

- Leading where you are. Staying in the moment and not losing focus on the here and now.

- Embracing the role and opportunity God has given you right now where God has placed you for this season, vs. focusing on what’s next.

- Creating margin that allows for interruptions and moments of inconvenience, which can be moments when God does the greatest work through us.

- Having consistent connection with your organization, team, and staff.

- Being consumed by Jesus and the presence of the Holy Spirit. Because He is Present.

- Balancing a culture of distraction and consumption with a commitment to solitude and thinking.

- Being vs Doing. What should I do? The tension of a cause driven culture saying do something now vs. the contented state of “being.”

- In the TODAY. Yesterday is gone, tomorrow is on it’s way. But today is the present. Focus on Today.

- It’s about staying. Showing up and not leaving. Having a presence in a place, a location. About context. Connected to an address, neighborhood, city, zip code.

- Where you are. Wherever you are, be all there. It’s our responsibility to embrace what God has put squarely in front of us. Take action right where we are. Being fully present in one place.

Be Present. We get caught up with what happened yesterday and preoccupied with what will happen tomorrow. We live in a constant state of being plugged on, plugged in, status updates, requests, and real time perspective. Is this really the real you though? What if the people in your life knew the real you? What if you stripped back all the layers of fake, and fluff, and façade? What would people see? What would people think? To know this purpose, we must first know Him, Jesus, and living life fully in who He has called us and created us to be.

Let’s strip away all the “stuff” and be real. Aware of what is happening around us, within us, and through us. Be Present.

And we want you to BE PRESENT with us this October for Catalyst. Register by tomorrow Thursday, August 25, to still get the discounted rates on tickets. After tomorrow, prices go up. So don’t delay in registering you and your entire team! It’s going to be an amazing time and I hope to see you there.

The Way I Get Things Done

August 22nd, 2011 by bradlomenick in Misc. 6 Comments

I’m a big fan of David Allen‘s Getting Things Done, and Scott Belsky‘s Making Ideas Happen, and Michael Hyatt’s tips on his blog.

I’ve established my own system that seems to work for me. Thought I would share it. Let me admit- I don’t necessarily recommend the system I’ve instituted for myself. I would recommend implementing a system the experts recommend. Whatever your preference- just establish some kind of system! That is the key in my opinion… having a system that works for you.

But for me, the following system works.

1. I keep a “to do” list in my drafts on my entourage. Right now I have around 75 items on this list. This is where every task, to do item, action item, or follow up is recorded. If not at my computer, I will record in my moleskine or iphone and then put in the to do list once a week.

2. I keep three folders on my desk – Action items folder, Reference folder, and Backburner folder. This is taken directly from Scott’s book and his methodology. These folders are for papers, documents, printed emails, etc that need to be kept in physical format, not just digital format.

3. Moleskine for capturing ideas, taking notes and thinking/dreaming. Any to do items are transferred to my to do list on entourage once a week at least.

4. Email inbox- I keep my inbox to under 20 emails daily. If it gets to be more than that, it becomes too much of a distraction. I don’t use my inbox as a “to do” list. Anything that can go on a “to do” list goes on the “to do” draft in #1 above.

5. Evernote to capture notes from meetings, cool websites, videos, etc. Mainly use evernote for capturing things from the web.

6. I receive all of my email. But in terms of responding to email and other requests, I try to forward as much as possible to my assistant. Not because I don’t want to respond personally, but more because it frees me up to focus more of my time on items that only I can do- speaker selection, programming, strategy, planning, new business development, strategic partnerships, etc.

7. I keep a very detailed system of folders in my inbox. But more for reference, and not for follow up or action. Emails only go in these folders once they have been completed or followed up on. But having them in folders for reference is incredibly important, especially when trying to remember what’s been done in the past.

8. One excel spreadsheet that is a “catch all.” Your name is probably on it!! I have a spreadsheet for capturing names, speakers from the past, speakers for the future, bloggers, influential leaders, young leaders, etc. It drives my assistant crazy, but it works for me, as this is the place where I can braindump every name or idea or new relationship.

9. Creative boards for planning and programming. I’ve mentioned the creative boards before. They are instrumental in programming events, as well as planning for the future. Provides a visual strategy that is easily changeable.

10. Our team does very FEW meetings. We don’t meet “just to meet.” We meet only if needed. This helps tremendously in allowing time to move things towards completion and ultimately getting things done. I’ve found that many organizations put meetings on the schedule just because it’s been done that way before. Not with us.

(portions of this post were taken from a previous post in 2010)

7 Thoughts on Collaboration

August 19th, 2011 by bradlomenick in Misc. 1 Comment

Collaboration is crucial to getting things done.

Lots of individuals and organizations talk about how they are great at partnering and collaborating, but most really don’t do this well.

So here are some keys to collaboration from my perspective, that you can hopefully put into practice:

1. It’s about us, and we; not I, or me. Personalities and personal agendas have to be set aside. Organizations built around personalities usually don’t partner well. Keep this in mind.

2. The true leaders have to model collaboration. If the influencers lead the way in collaborating, then others will jump in and follow. The industry leaders have to be “first in the water” and lead out on this. Influencers influence.

3. It’s about creating win/wins. Have to create win/wins. Ultimately, partnering well means combining efforts to achieve something greater than what can be done separate or apart from each other. And both sides have to see the collaboration as a win, not just one.

4. Generosity is the new currency in our culture. Sharing is in. The business world and our culture in general continues to move towards open source, generosity, shared influence and collaborative projects. Collaboration and partnership and open source are defining where we’re going.

5. Collaboration means you are giving up something. True collaboration can and many times does involve pain of some kind. If you are a true collaborator, you don’t always get your way and might have to give up something. Unity and collaboration are different in this way. Unity is more about agreement, collaboration is more about achievement.

6. Appropriately understanding the scale of your impact and influence. Many churches and Christian ministries refuse to collaborate with others in their community because they feel so strongly about their own vision, and end up inadvertently neglecting the greater vision of the global Church and larger agenda happening in their communities. Understanding the scale of your vision vs. a bigger vision is incredibly important. In this case, Large C church vs. the small c church. For example, LifeChurch.tv does an incredible job of collaborating, and seeing their church’s vision in partnership with others, both in their community and around the world.

7. Define the wins, and create clear expectations and agreements. Make sure all parties involved are clear on what is expected, and what looks like success. It’s always easier to clearly define the expectations before you start instead of once involved in a partnership.

Bill Hybels explains Summit change

August 17th, 2011 by bradlomenick in Misc. 3 Comments

Many of you may have already seen this, but wanted to post it here in case you haven’t. I understand the tough situation that Willow and Leadership Summit had to manage last week regarding a late cancellation of one of their speakers.

Bill explained the situation and talked about how best to respond, both as Christians as well as Leaders.

His explanation was graceful, honest and appropriate. While it was unfortunate that Howard Schultz had to cancel, what could have been a really awkward and unproductive moment turned into a chance to be the Church.

I’m proud to count Willow Creek Community Church, the Willow Creek Association, and the Leadership Summit as partners and co-laborers with us at Catalyst. We will be there on November 17 at Willow Creek for our Catalyst One Day event featuring Andy Stanley, Craig Groeschel, and Bill Hybels. You won’t want to miss it.