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Leadership
for Saints,
Part 16: Planning & Organizing: An Evolving Process by
Rodger Dean Duncan and Ed J. Pinegar
As your sense
of vision evolves, undergirded by a well-developed personal mission
statement (see Part 11), you’re
better able to make the myriad of daily choices regarding your time
and other resources. This is an evolving process, not a flash point
event.
And one thing
is certain: as you honor the law of the harvest you will enjoy the
fruits of continuous improvement. When you genuinely do your best,
your “best” gets better and better.
Values clarification,
visioning and time management are critical elements of your leadership.
Effective organizing and planning cannot happen unless and until
you are very clear about what you stand for (and what you will not
stand for), what you hope and what you dream.
Make no mistake,
big hopes and big dreams are not just the province of prophets,
presidents, kings and others whose leadership is global in nature.
Big hopes and big dreams can bring power and energy to any of Heavenly
Father’s children. Including you. Take your cue from one of
our favorite bumper stickers: “Think globally, act locally.”
The purpose
of organizing and planning is to help us reach goals.
Goals. Now there’s
a word that puts some people to sleep. Goal setting can sound pretty
boring, especially if your experience with it has been less than
successful.
How many times
have you seen goals announced with great fanfare in a meeting, only
to disappear and never be mentioned again?
How many times
have you heard someone announce a goal that was so unrealistic that
everybody knew from day one that it could never be accomplished?
How many times
have you seen a goal that was so vague and nebulous that it would
be impossible to know if you ever reached it?
Goals That Get You Somewhere Meaningful
When it’s
done right, goal-setting provides direction and purpose. Goals help
you see where you’re going and how you can get there. After
all, if you don’t know where you’re going, how will
you know when you get there?
Lewis Carrol’s
wonderful book Alice in Wonderland offers some pertinent
lessons. You may recall the exchange between Alice and the Cheshire
Cat about the importance of setting goals. Consider this passage
in which Alice asks the Cheshire Cat for advice on which direction
to go.
“Would
you tell me please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That
depends a good deal on where you want to go,” said the Cat.
“I don’t
much care where—” said Alice.
“Then
it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
“—so
long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation.
“Oh, you’re
sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long
enough.”
It really takes
no effort to get somewhere. Just do nothing, and you’re there.
If you want to get somewhere meaningful, however, you must
know where you want to go. Then you need to make plans on how to
get there.
Suppose, for
example, that you’re in a Relief Society presidency and you
have a vision of consistently providing high quality visiting teaching.
How would you go about achieving that vision? You can hope and pray
and show up on time for meetings and some good will be accomplished.
But if you hope and pray and show up on time for meetings and use
a planned, goal-focused approach, your chances of real success are
greatly enhanced.
Here are some
reasons to establish goals whenever you want to accomplish something
significant in your marriage, family community, business and Church
calling:
• Goals
provide direction and traction. For the example just used
(consistently providing high quality visiting teaching) you can
think of dozens of ways to improve visiting teaching. To get something
meaningful done, though, you must have a definite road map—a
target to aim for and to guide the efforts of you and the other
sisters. Then you can translate that vision into goals that take
you where you want to go. Without goals you are sure to spin your
wheels going nowhere. With goals you can focus energy and effort
on the activities that provide the best traction.
• Goals
help make your overall vision attainable. Most visions
cannot be reached in one giant leap. You need many smaller steps
to get there. If a bishop’s vision is for every endowed member
of the ward to hold a current temple recommend, he probably can’t
expect to proclaim his vision on January 1 and then see every adult
member on the ward temple trip in February. Many intermediate goals
must be accomplished—from reactivation, to building faith,
to strengthening marriages, to re-teaching the law of tithing, to
scheduling interviews and counseling—before the overall vision
can be attained. Goals enable you to achieve your overall vision.
How? You divide your efforts into smaller pieces that, when accomplished
one by one, add up to big results.
• Goals
provide measures for success. Goals provide milestones
along the road to accomplishing your vision. If you decide “consistently
providing high quality visiting teaching” requires five intermediate
goals to reach your destination and you complete three of them,
you know you have one intermediate goal remaining.
• Goal’s
clarify everyone’s role. Effective goal setting helps
people avoid duplication of effort. Effective goals help you integrate
and coordinate the use of your people resources, your time resources
and your budget resources. Effective goals include a designation
of who does what. They bring clarity to mutual expectations. That
way, each person understands his accountability and what others
are depending on him to provide.
• Goals
give people something to stretch for. When people are properly
led and motivated, goals give them a sense of direction and purpose.
And goals that require people to stretch—remember President
Kimball’s call to “lengthen your stride?”—tend
to bring out the best performance.
In the next
installment we’ll explain how to establish “SMART”
goals that dramatically boost the likelihood of achievement.
Quotes
to Remember
The daily choices
we make are the foundation stones of our mansions of exaltation,
or the perilous sands of calamitous failure. – Archibald
F. Bennett
Are you
farsighted? … This means "insight." …the
ability to sense the long range values—to plan for them and
to sacrifice the immediate pleasures for faraway rewards. –
Mary Brentnall
… most
people do far too little goal setting, including the reflecting
that precedes the setting of such goals. – Neal A.
Maxwell
… goals
give purpose and direction to life. – Carlos E. Asay
A prerequisite
for "doing" is goal setting. Actions are preceded by thoughts
and planning. – Marvin J. Ashton
Just as faith
without works is dead, likewise, works without faith are dead. We
can cause righteous desires to come to pass, for in the words of
our Master, “According to your faith be it unto you.”
(Matthew 9:29) – A. Theodore Tuttle
One ship drives
east and another drives west with the selfsame winds that blow.
‘Tis the set of the sails and not the gales which tells us
the way to go. — Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Progress is
measured by milestones. What many good people lack are markers that
might tell them how they are actually doing. Goals can become a
ritual or a fetish, but in the right measure they can give us some
much needed reference points. – Neal A. Maxwell
Recognition
of intermediate goals reinforces our resolve to complete our annual
goals. —Victor L. Ludlow
Never look down
to test the ground before taking your next stop: only he who keeps
his eye fixed on the far horizon will find his right road. –
Dag Hammerskjöld
It concerns
us to know the purposes we seek in life, for then, like archers
aiming at a definite mark, we shall be more likely to attain what
we want—Aristotle
This empowerment
process requires … modeling Christlike behavior; building
caring, trusting relationships; setting up clear role and goal expectations;
identifying sources of help; and requiring accountability. –
M. Russell Ballard
Our goals should
stretch us bit by bit. – Neal A. Maxwell
Note:
The excerpts of Leadership for Saints posted on Meridian
are only a fraction of the contents of this 349-page book. To learn
more about this ground-breaking book and to order copies, click
here.
Contents
Section 1: Understanding the Role of Leadership
Chapter 1
- What Great Leadership Is
Chapter 2 - What Great Leaders Are
Chapter 3 - What Great Leaders See
Chapter 4 - What Great Leaders Do
Section 2: Getting
the Results You and the Lord Want
Chapter 5
- Planning the Work, Working the Plan
Chapter 6 - Councils: Strength in Unity
Chapter 7 - Creating a Climate of Hope and Energy
Section 3: Skills
That Help You Sleep at Night
Chapter 8
- Communication: Building Bridges to Their Hearts
Chapter 9 - Stewardship Delegation: The Great Multiplier
Chapter 10 - The Power of Influence
Chapter 11 - Gatherings of Saints: Think Purpose, Not Meeting
Section 4: Special
Challenges and Opportunities
Chapter 12
- Discernment: The Gift of Great Price
Chapter 13 - Personal Balance: Your "Being" vs. Your
"Doing"
Chapter 14 - Common Questions, Humble Responses
About
the Authors:
Rodger Dean
Duncan, a descendant of 19th century Protestant evangelists, was
baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at
the age of 18. Early in his career he was an award-winning journalist,
editor and syndicated columnist. He has been a consultant to cabinet
officers under two U.S. presidents, members of the U.S. Senate,
and senior officers of major corporations. He earned a Ph.D. at
Purdue University, and is founder and president of The Duncan Company,
a consulting firm focused on leadership development and organizational
effectiveness.
Brother Duncan
has served on several stake high councils, twice as bishop, as stake
president, and as stake mission president. Under President Spencer
W. Kimball he served on the Advisory Council that first recommended
the subtitle to the Book of Mormon, "Another Testament of Jesus
Christ."
Brother Duncan
is married to Rean Robbins-Duncan, a fifth-generation Latter-day
Saint. They have four children and two grandchildren. The Duncans
live in Missouri, only a short walk from Historic Liberty Jail.
Ed
J. Pinegar, a dentist by training and vocation, graduated from Brigham
Young University and attended dental school at the University of
Southern California. While practicing dentistry, he taught seminary
for several years, then taught the Book of Mormon and Gospel Principles
and Practices courses at BYU for 18 years.
Brother
Pinegar's Church assignments include stake high councilor, bishop
(twice), stake president, member of the General Board for Young
Men, and member of the Missionary Programs Advisory Committee. He
also presided over the England London Mission and the Missionary
Training Center in Provo, Utah. He is author of several books for
the LDS market.
Brother
Pinegar is married to Patricia Peterson Pinegar, former General
President of the Primary for the Church. They are parents of eight
children and have 32 grandchildren. The Pinegars live in Orem, Utah.
