I am writing some posts this week on the concept of team idleness. Check out other posts on the blog.

I believe and practice the concept of team leadership.  I want people in our organization that will assume ownership of an individual task and follow through with the responsibility of seeing projects completed well.  We have a shared leadership philosophy at Grace Community Church and I have posted about the need for a leader to “give their vision away” to people he or she trust to make it better.

That being said, there is usually a balancing statement needed for most principles to work in the real world.  When considering team leadership, for example, one thing that must be equally understood is that there comes a time when one person has to stand up and assume responsibility for the project or task. Someone has to lead.    The leader doesn’t always have to be the same person, depending on the task, but one person needs to be accountable for completion and success of the project.  If not, team members are left staring at each other and nothing moves forward.

Does your organization practice team leadership?  How do you assign ultimate responsibility for successful completion?

Marissa Mayer explains how Google succeeds by encouraging employees to think outside the box.

Can your organization learn from Google?  How do you encourage your team to think outside the box?

We are seeing good news about the economy this week. Here is a recap of some I found today:

Florida housing sales up for the 8th month in a row.  Read that story HERE. You will notice that housing prices continue to fall, but remember it was an over-valued market.

General Motors may indeed file for bankruptcy, but they wanted to assure their employees it was part of their reorganization so they actually paid them early.  Read that story HERE.

Wall Street says all the bad news is in now.  That should mean its uphill from here.  Read that story HERE.

Economists think the recession will end this year.  Read that story HERE. (I really think we will find it has already ended months after all the reports are complete.)

Yahoo willing to hold out for big bucks.  Read that story HERE.

And finally, really the one that matters and the one economists have been waiting for, consumers are gaining confidence again. The consumer confidence index had its biggest increase in 6 years.  See that story HERE.

Look for more good news to follow in the coming days.  I don’t know about you, but I’m happy to find some good news!

This year at Grace Community Church we became even more conscious of how we spend money and we have always been conservative with what we spend.  The economy has had an impact on our people.  While our local economy is strong, the perception among people has created a mood of uncertainty and so we are looking for ways to be better stewards of our resources.

At the same time, our church has continued to grow and the needs for our ministries are greater than ever.  This season has forced us to find ways to do more with less.  We need to continue to train our people, learn new ways of doing things and keep up with current trends, but we can no longer afford to attend all the conferences we once could.

Introduce a novel idea. (Why didn’t I think of this first?)  Why not bring first-rate conferences to the churches where everyone who wants to attend can benefit from the teaching firsthand?  Enter Innovative Ministry Leader.

Innovative Ministry Leader is the world’s first web-based training center. It will feature monthly teaching videos in the areas of leadership, worship, marketing, culture and technology from today’s top church leaders including Dino Rizzo, Anne Jackson, Jud Wilhite and Mark Batterson…and the list is growing daily.   During and after the monthly video sessions participants will be able to login to engage with the speakers through features on the website.    All videos will be archived as well, so you can access them at anytime!

It all kicks off in June and comes with a low monthly subscription of $34.99 for unlimited access to everything. Imagine sending all your staff, leadership and volunteers to a top notch teaching every single month.

Act now to get in on this incredible opportunity!

Yesterday I began some thoughts about the term team idleness.  To understand the term fully read that post HERE.

What causes team idleness?  What causes a team to stagnate and fail to move forward towards reaching its goals and objectives?  Here are a few of my thoughts:

• No fresh ideas: If new ideas are not coming to the table frequently the team becomes stale and progress slows.
• Burnout: If team members are overworked or in need of a break their energy level will slow.
• Lost vision: If a team loses sight of the big picture goals and objectives of the team they will lose interest or get off course.
• Wrong team members: Sometimes a vision outgrows members of the team and other times team members outgrow the vision.
• Lack of Resources: If there are not adequate resources to complete the task the team stalls.
• Poor training: Sometimes teams are asked to perform beyond their level of understanding.
• No accountability:  I will write more about this tomorrow, but all teams need someone to assume ultimate responsibility.

Feel free to add your own thoughts.  What are reasons you have seen for team idleness to occur?

I am a blessed man. This picture was taken immediately following Nate’s graduation from high school.  I love my family and I am glad we enjoy spending time with each other.

Watch this short clip with President Obama’s potential Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayer talking about the role of the court in establishing law.  Obviously it is out of context and that should never be the deciding factor in making a decision about someone, but if she believes what if what she says in this clip is her basic understanding of the role of the courts then this is a major dividing line among what people think judges should do.  Do judges set laws or interpret laws?

Somehow I suspect you’ll see this clip again….

President Obama is expected to submit the name of federal appeals judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court replacing Justice David Souter who is retiring.  Read an article HERE.  Sotomayor would be the first Hispanic on the court, which brings with it political pressure for approval of her nomination. Conservatives and liberals have battled in recent years for the political favor with the fastest growing demographic in the country.

Sotomayor certainly has a long record, having served 17 years in her current position, but it appears that her record has favor on some points with liberals and conservatives.  On the abortion issue, which is many times a litmus test for both sides of the issue, she has had opinions that favor both sides.

One thing is certain: the news channels will have something to report on for a while.  Expect gavel-to-gavel coverage on this one.

Do you have any immediate thoughts on the selection?

I have been thinking a lot about teams lately, which led my thoughts to some of the negative parts of team leadership. I will share some of those thoughts here this week.  My goal as a leader of a team is to make sure we avoid many of the traps teams experience without good leadership.

One term that popped in my head that I will play off of is the term “team idleness”.  I am using that term to represent when a team is failing to move forward towards meeting its desired goals and objectives. Team idleness does not necessarily mean the wrong people are on the team or that it has the wrong goals and objectives or that the goals and objectives are unrealistic.  Every team, regardless of their health, can go through times of team idleness.  The term simply means that at any given time there is no forward progress for the team.  Thankfully my team is not currently experiencing this, at least as a whole, so it is a good time for me to think through this issue.  I have witnessed this many times in organizations with which I have been associated and I  can assure you that most teams will deal with team idleness at various times through the life of the team.

Think with me this week about team functions.  Are you part of a team?  Are you currently facing team idleness?  Do you know what caused you to stagnate?  Do you have a solution to get your team started again? Have you been through team idleness before and have some answers for the rest of us?

I am honored to live in a military town. All my life I have known soldiers. Some of my best friends and family have been military-related. Our church has a large military population. I have heard people talk about the burden of military families on a church, because every three years they have to be replaced. The family in this picture was in our community group, but left our church for a reassignment. Cheryl and I could not love a family anymore than we love them and we’ve loved staying in touch with them.

I have always felt our church was stronger because of our military families, for as long as they might stay.  Therefore, as we celebrate military families, here are 10 Reasons why I love the military families in our church:

• They are some of the most dedicated people I know
• They bring experiences with them from around the world
• They have great work ethics
• They are expectant of great things from God
• They are appreciative of any ministry
• They make wonderful volunteers
• They build friendships for life
• They are sacrificial givers
• They raise awesome families
• They are brave soldiers, protecting my right to do what I do

God bless our military and God bless America!