#7 - First Break All the Rules

I just finished reading First Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently by Marcus Buckingham and Curtis Hoffman.Now, I'm not a proponent of reading secular management books for guidance regarding pastoral ministry. However, it is amazing to me how the best managers follow biblical principles of godly leadership. For example, the best managers are humble (Phil 2:3-8). They are are servant leaders trying to bring out the best in their workers and seeking the success of their workers and not their own benefit at the expense of their workers (Mark 10:42-45). They care about their workers and meet with them regularly - 1 on 1. That is, they know each individual worker and how best to help them succeed in their role similar to a husband knowing his wife and how best to help her succeed in her role (1 Peter 3:7).

With that understanding, some of this book was not biblical and not worth reading. Some of this book had great ideas but just needed the terms to be translated to a pastoral context, ie - talents and strengths could be spiritual gifts. And some of this book, was right on with biblical principles that could and should be applied to both secular leadership and pastoral leadership.

Without going through everything in the book, one really fascinating point that the book made was that typical managers try to focus on the weaknesses of their people so as to improve them. The latest conventional wisdom is that we should be well rounded individuals. However, their research found that this method actually discourages people and reduces productivity. Instead, we should focus on people's God given strengths (and for Christians - spiritual gifts) and help them flourish in those roles.

Granted, when people are in sin, as Christians, we should exhort and encourage them to repent. But if people simply have a weakness in an area, we should focus more of our time helping them excel in their strengths and work around their weaknesses. This was very encouraging to me personally. As a pastor, often times people want you to be good at everything and focus in on something they don't like about you or that you're not good at. As a leader, this gave me more incentive to help the people I serve with to excel at what they enjoy and are gifted at, supplying them with others who can complement their weaknesses so that as a team, they are well rounded.

This book has very valuable insight and practical wisdom for managers/leaders including lots of classic mistakes poor leaders make. For those in leadership, I highly recommend it but with the caveat that it will require some spiritual discernment.