A Parent’s Nightmare: Lessons from an 11 year old’s bike accident – Part 1

Yesterday was a day I will never forget. My oldest son had just left on his bike for the bus stop, and I was firing up my laptop next to my other two sons while they ate breakfast. All of a sudden, in the dark, someone started pounding on our door and frantically yelling for help. We quickly came to find one of our neighbors who rushed to tell us that our son had just gotten hurt badly on his bike. My wife and I quickly changed and took off.

We arrived to find many neighbors we didn't know circled around our son. He wasn't moving, his eyes were shut, and he was lying in a large pool of bright red blood. Needless to say, this was not a scene I was ever planning on seeing. Some neighbor ladies began consoling my wife as I knelt down and started talking to him. He responded immediately but didn't move or open his eyes. One of the neighbors had his right hand wrapped in a towel while applying pressure. They told me that the ambulance was on its way. I noticed a disturbingly deep laceration on his right knee that had gone unnoticed. Knowing we needed to act quickly, I talked to my wife and she quickly gained her composure and went to sit beside our son as I went home to change and get ready to ride with him in the ambulance. One of our neighbors took our younger boys to school and then my wife joined us at the hospital.

From 8am to 6:15pm that night we met many doctors, nurses, and hospital staff in fact we spent half the day at one hospital and the other half at a second one due to the severity of the wound on his knee. I won't go into the gross details of the day, but all-in-all he got 10 stitches on his right hand and 17 stitches on his right knee. The pain he endured between getting his wounds cleaned out, to countless pulling and pushing of the lacerations to the severe testing of his knee joint would make the toughest person squeamish. He was AMAZING.

As I've started reflecting on yesterday's events some lessons and insights have begun to surface. I'm going to share one in this entry and another in the following entry. Here goes:

When my son hit the pavement and saw that the back of his right hand was completely split open, he started screaming. Some of the surrounding neighbors came out of their homes and found him on the ground rapidly losing blood by the second. What's interesting is that they weren't the first to find him. At least one car saw him and drove right by. We only knew one of the neighbors that helped our son that day. We didn't know the man who found him. We didn't know the man who called 911. We didn't know the lady who brought out a blanket to cover him. We didn't know the man who stood in the middle of the road to warn oncoming traffic to be cautious and slow down. What compelled those people to help our son – a neighborhood boy they didn't even know?

Meeting new people can be a challenge at times. We typically establish new relationships with caution because we want to guard ourselves. I know when we moved into our community we didn't go to the 40-50 homes on our street and insist on door-to-door introductions. Did you? Highly unlikely. How weird would that have been? I find it intriguing how something mortally urgent, scary, or tragic can immediately tear down our walls and unite us. Do you remember the days, weeks, and months following 9/11?

So what is the difference? I think we get an idea when we start to try to understand the image we were created and crafted in. God ultimately wants what's best for us and desires to help us. The writings in the Bible talk about Him as our "rescuer" and how He is a "strong tower". My neighbors were rescuers and they worked to protect our son when we weren't there as if they were a strong tower. They heard him scream (which still haunts my thoughts and brings me to tears) and immediately responded. That desire to respond when someone is in need is not an accident but a real portion of us – our maker's fingerprints on our deepest parts.

Where have you had the chance to act and help someone in need? This is the time of year it seems everyone is asking for help. Many times we act like the car that didn't stop and make up excuse after excuse. But….inside of you and me is that small voice that tugs at your heart and tries to nudge you forward to act. Let's try listening to it and see where that action takes us. You want to change the world don't you? You were designed to respond. So what are you waiting for?

Narrowing the Pie Wedge

Over the years I’ve been in a lot of meetings. At times, I would force myself to come up with questions to ask, showing my engagement, because every good leader asks meaningful, thought provoking questions, right (ala Jim Collins’ Qualities of a Level 5 leader)? Yes…except when they don’t care. That’s right, I said it. Don’t get me wrong, I tried hard, but I struggled connecting my passion with the subject matter much of the time. “Why don’t I care?” I would ask myself. It made me feel ashamed. “There must be something wrong with me. All these other people ask much better questions than I do. How do they come up with these?” This remorse and confusion lasted for YEARS.

I sat in a meeting earlier this year and was a non-stop chatter box. Ideas, insight, innovation and edgy creativity were oozing all over the place. I was on a roll and it was fun! When I was driving home, I started reviewing the meeting and asked myself, “What in the world happened? I didn’t even have to think! How did I come up with stuff? I was automatic!” I never had to strain or manufacture a question in order to feel that I did my part. Instead, it was instinctive and easy.

My oldest son started middle school in August. His day now begins earlier than it did in elementary, and I quickly realized that we’d be eating breakfast around the same time. Immediately I felt this was a divinely orchestrated opportunity for us to read, talk, and start our day together. He’s also still at the age where he wants to spend time with me. In September and October, we have focused on reading a selection of proverbs, discussing what sticks out to us, figuring out how to apply it, and then memorizing one selection a week. Our first week, we chose to memorize, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” The writer uses some blunt language “Above all else,” and “everything”. The last time I checked, there isn’t much that escapes from those terms…including disconnected meetings.

This is where the “no duh” moment comes in because the answer to my question is in the second half of the proverb. Everything I do flows from my heart – EVERYTHING. Therefore, if I am in a meeting and I have to work to engage, it means my heart is not connected to it. Our strength areas are directly connected to our heart. This is a significant litmus test for whether or not we are working directly in our zones of greatest gifting.

Recently I accepted a new opportunity within my organization. A couple weeks ago we had a strategy meeting to discuss our plan of attack for the rest of 2012 and began laying the groundwork for 2013. Not once did I need to think of a question to ask; instead, I was intuitive and intensely engaged. Why? Because this new role is more aligned with my strengths and ultimately has a direct line into my heart. My friend, Tim Elmore once told me, “As you get older, you must continue to narrow your pie wedge so that you find alignment with your strengths, your calling, and your vocation.”

Do you find yourself manufacturing questions and communication most of the time in order to keep up the appearance that you are interested, when you’re not? If you do, you’re not in an environment or a role that feeds on your strengths and connects with your heart. What sorts of interactions, tasks, or opportunities bring out your best, resulting in amazing creativity, meaningful debate, and ground-breaking innovation? Where are you “automatic”? Once you get the answer to the question, it may be time to consider narrowing your pie wedge because too much pie makes you fat and lazy.

Assessing Personal Organization: Tips for Increasing Yours and Improving Others

Have you ever had an employee who was always behind, struggled to manage their time, and couldn't prioritize if their life depended on it? What's worse is when you work for a leader who struggles with the same thing. I worked for and with people like this and it is maddening. When a person with a lack of time management and prioritization skills infiltrates a company it begins to erode trust, confidence, camaraderie, and leadership equity.

If you are a leader with this problem, it's time to get some help. This doesn't mean hire more people, instead this means to reach out to those who successfully handle competing priorities. Odds are you'll learn about their process and how they've built it to suit their personality, demands, etc. As with most things, you can't just assume that one day things will slow down or that you will have an epiphany regarding your personal organization. Humbly admit where you struggle and use your resources. If you don't, you will sacrifice effectiveness and it just isn't worth it.

If you are a leader with followers who struggle with time management and prioritization, good luck! Just kidding! I have made many mistakes over the years, but one of the more common ones in the beginning was not assessing and valuing this trait in the hiring process. Attitude, charisma, and work ethic all have value, but you have to throw personal organization into the mix. What I began to find was that I hired some great people with outstanding attitudes, but when it came down to tactical strength (prioritization, organization, and time management) those same people STRUGGLED. Once I identified this and saw the consequences, I began asking questions in interviews like, "How many emails are in your inbox right now? What do you do when you get an email? How do you organize your inbox?" It's funny how someone's email habits are a litmus test for their organizational skills.

What did I do with the people I had hired who were extremely weak in this area? My leaders and I tried teaching them how to establish methods in order improve. We showed them how to arrange their inboxes. We helped them set up systems to deal with clutter on their desks so that things weren't falling through the cracks. Sometimes it worked and other times it didn't because no matter how you slice it, strengths are strengths and most weaknesses will continue to be weaknesses (ala Marcus Buckingham). Therefore in the end, we released them into the world to be free and find something that better suited them.

So let's prioritize this and do something about it. Assess your own process (maybe you don't even have one) first and then look at your team. Set a due date for action and move. You can't just file this away for the future and forget about it. The time is now.