Staff Retreats are great opportunities to take a look back, plan for the future and continue growth in an organization as well as create a stronger team.

Organizing a retreat is a big responsibility. Here are some ideas to make your retreat a success.

• Select your site with care. The best way to reduce distractions is to host your retreat away from your organization.
• Distribute your vision for the organization with a list of objectives and issues for the retreat ahead of time to give your team plenty of time to prepare and get their creativity flowing.
• For larger organizations, involving others in the planning process is a great way to develop future leaders.
• Don’t do all the talking, encourage everyone to participate.
• Include some fun activities to encourage bonding as a team and a celebration at the end.
• Allow enough time between activities for discussion.

Staff Retreats can give a powerful boost to the spirit and effectiveness of any group.

How many of you have come home from a staff retreat thinking it was pretty much a waste of time? I know I have, even a time or two when it was my staff retreat!

Staff retreats can be a strategic part of building a highly productive team. However, the difference between a mediocre staff retreat and a great one is having a good game plan. To help with planning your next staff retreat, here are 5 keys you want to make sure  are part of your plan:

• Pray - You would think we would never forget to make this a key part of a staff retreat, but that’s not always the case. Don’t take this one for granted. Spend time in prayer both before and during your retreat.
• Evaluate - A key to any strategic plan is an honest evaluation of your current situation. Take the time to evaluate as a staff and make notes of what you’re doing well and what you want to improve.
• Plan - Staff retreats are a great time to dream and plan your future direction. Be sure your plan has well defined action steps and responsibilities so everyone knows what’s expected when you get back to the office.
• Learn - A well balanced team has a wealth of knowledge. Don’t forget to tap into that knowledge and learn from each other.
• Laugh - Nothing like laughter to draw a staff closer together. Relax, laugh and enjoy the time together.

If you’re going to invest time and money into having a staff retreat, doesn’t it make sense to  do everything possible to make it a great one?

Let’s face it, we all mess up and drop the ball sometimes. No individual or business is perfect. At Ridgecrest, our staff works very hard to provide an environment conducive to life change, but we still make mistakes. Mistakes are going to happen so here’s the real question. How do you handle things when you mess up?

I recently had lunch with my family at one of our favorite places, Sam’s Sports Grill at The Streets of Indian Lake. Their hamburgers are awesome and I always look forward to having one.

Unfortunately, on this day, the burger was not so good. Without going into the whole story, suffice it to say there was a problem. The kitchen tried to fix it and only made it worse. Finally I politely told our server it simply wasn’t a good experience.

From there she turned it over to her manager (good training) and he did a great job handling the situation. In fact, here are 3 things he did right that anyone should do when they mess up.

1. Own the problem - Being an old food guy, I knew they were having problems in the kitchen and appeared to be short-staffed. When the manager came over to apologize, he shared that it was his fault they were short-staffed. I have no idea if he was the one who actually made out the work schedule for that day, but he took full responsibility for not having enough help in the kitchen.
2. Take action to fix the problem - After apologizing, he offered to bring me a fresh burger or anything else I wanted. He also let me know he was going to take the burger off my bill. I felt that was fair, so I was satisfied with the outcome at that point.
3. Help me to forget about the problem - A couple of minutes later he came back by our table to let me know he appreciated our business and the way I had handled my complaint. He then hit me with his WOW factor, a $10 gift card to use on our next visit. Totally unexpected and definitely appreciated. As a result of this simple, low cost gesture, I walked out of the restaurant thinking about when I could come back to use the gift card, not the problem we had just encountered.

Problems are going to happen with your conference or event. The mistakes may or may not be your fault, but when they happen, do you ignore them or make excuses and pass the buck? Or, do you own it, fix it and overcome it? The choice is yours and people are watching to see what you do.

What do you do when you mess up?

Recently my wife emailed me a devotional she had come across. Not because she was trying to tell me something, but because it had a sports reference (guess she figured that might get me to read it). For those of you who know my wife, you know this was a bit unusual. First, she’s not big into technology (although she now wants an iPad) and secondly, she’s definitely not a sports fan.

The sports reference was a quote by Ron “Jaws” Jaworski. Recently, on ESPN Radio, Jaworski made this statement, “We have too many historians and not enough pioneers”. His point was  there are way too many people who relish the opportunity to arm-chair quarterback and critique past events, but not too many folks out there willing to try and make a positive difference.

I definitely agree on this. Too often I’m in meetings and people will focus all their attention on what didn’t work. Or instead of looking at what could be, they focus on all the reasons why something won’t work. I don’t know about you, but this drives me crazy!

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying we shouldn’t have a critical eye when analyzing the past, but we must do so in a way that moves us forward. Instead of just taking the critical shots, we need to be investing time and energy into coming up with solutions to the problems we’ve identified. This is how an organization improves and moves forward.

Here’s a thought. The next time you start to voice a criticism, stop and think. Think about what solutions you could offer instead of only critiquing. Imagine how much more could be accomplished when we focus on solutions rather than criticism and blame.

Here are a few good books we have been reading here at LifeWay Conference Centers.  We’d love to hear what you’ve been reading, please share a few of your good books in the comments…

You Lost Me: Why Young Christians Are Leaving Church… and Rethinking Faith
By:  Dave Kinnaman

Close to 60 percent of young people who went to church as teens drop out after high school. Now the bestselling author of “unChristian” trains his researcher’s eye on these young believers. Where Kinnaman’s first book “unChristian” showed the world what outsiders aged 16-29 think of Christianity, “You Lost Me” shows why younger Christians aged 16-29 are leaving the church and rethinking their faith.

Read This Before Our Next Meeting: The Modern Meeting Standard
By:  Al Pittampalli

How many times have you dreaded going to a meeting either because you viewed it as a waste of time or because you weren’t prepared. Dread no longer: Read This Before Our Next Meeting not only explains what’s wrong with the meeting,  and meeting culture, but suggests how to make meetings more effective, efficient, and worthy of attending. It assesses when it’s necessary to skip the meeting and get right to work.

EntreLeadership: 20 Years of Practical Business Wisdom from the Trenches
By:  Dave Ramsey

Your company is only as strong as your leaders. These are the men and women doing battle daily beneath the banner that is your brand. Are they courageous or indecisive? Are they serving a motivated team or managing employees? Are they valued?

Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy’s Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back
By:  Todd Burpo

When Colton Burpo made it through an emergency appendectomy, his family was overjoyed at his miraculous survival. What they weren’t expecting, though, was the story that emerged in the months that followed-a story as beautiful as it was extraordinary, detailing their little boy’s trip to heaven and back.

I read a great article today in the Connect Magazine for meeting planners.  I thought I would share it with you here.

Becoming A Better Leader

Companies today often operate with skeleton staffs where employees are asked to juggle multiple jobs with less pay—a recipe for burnout. Whether you manage a staff around you while planning meetings or you started your own events business decades ago, it’s your job to keep the people around you—and yourself—happy. If there is discontent on your team, maybe you need to become a better boss.

Be the Leader You Would Follow

Begin by knowing and understanding yourself. “Know your strengths and weaknesses, your vulnerabilities and your blind spots,” says Jennifer B. Kahnweiler, Ph.D., executive coach and author of “The Introverted Leader.” “Self-awareness helps you to be more effective because you’re able to supplement your team with the people that complement your strengths and weaknesses.”

John Brubaker, performance consultant, speaker and author of “Overtime Victory: Success Strategies from the Locker Room to the Board Room,” says higher-ups should ask themselves one question: What characteristics would I like to see in my people, and how would I like to see them change? Maybe the answer is a positive attitude, greater resilience or servant leadership. Perhaps it’s communication or relationship-building skills. Then cultivate those traits in yourself. “Great companies [have a] person at the top [who] is modeling what he wants from his sales managers, his VP and his customer service representatives,” says Brubaker. “No one is going to buy anything you’re selling unless you own it yourself first.”

Get Personal

Regularly connect with each team member on an individual level. “Get to know the people behind the jobs: what their personalities are like, what their interests are, what makes them tick,” says Kahnweiler. “Know what drives [them] and makes them want to stay and work harder. All effective leaders are great listeners. When they listen they not only build trust and credibility with their teams, but they also, usually, elicit terrific ideas.”

Brubaker points to a real-life example of servant leadership at CleanBrands, where CEO Gary Goldberg does something similar to a physician’s rounds in a hospital. Goldberg goes through the sales department asking, “What’s the one thing I can do right now to help you with what you’re working on?” Every day, he checks in on his employees. “You’re making an investment of your personal time and your willingness to put down what you’re doing, to make sure you help other people,” says Brubaker.

Maximize Your Human Resources

Brubaker and Kahnweiler agree: Great bosses make their people look good. They tune in to their employees’ talents, play up those strengths and maximize each individual’s ability to succeed.

By getting to know, and listening to, your team, you’ll know what motivates them, says Kahnweiler. “For one person, it may be getting to go to a new training course that’s going to ramp up his skills, where [for another person] it might be getting to have some time off so she can be with her kids more. You can then recognize and reward people with what matters to them.”

Kahnweiler encourages deliberate job-design to play up individual strengths. A planner should know, for example, that more introverted team members shouldn’t be placed on a trade-show floor to interact with sponsors and attendees. Rather, that person may be better suited to go behind the scenes and help with logistical planning, office duties and housing issues. “People are motivated when they can use what they already do well.”

Brubaker calls this strategy “the power of one”: the ability to identify and maximize the one thing that a particular employee does better than anybody else. “If you can put each of your people in a role that maximizes [his or her] ability to succeed, you’ll have the right people in the right roles, with the right goals…the basis for a successful team or department,” says Brubaker. “A leader who can help their people discover their unique talents, and channel those into their work, can have unparalleled results.”

By Maria Carter

I hope you found this as helpful as I did.

“The meeting system is broken. We can fix them. Let’s go.” Strong words from Al Pittampalli. In his new book, Read This Before Our Next Meeting, Al is very direct in calling for a change to the way businesses do meetings. I happen to agree with him and enjoyed reading his book.

If you’re a leader, read this book and then think hard before scheduling that next meeting. If you’re not the one calling the meeting, but you still have to go, read this book and then start holding the person leading the meetings accountable for how they utilize/waste your time.

Meetings are still necessary. Just don’t let them get in the way of doing the work. Enjoy Al’s little video intro to his book.

The Modern Meetings Revolution from Al Pittampalli on Vimeo.

When you take a stand on Biblical truth, it’s not a matter of what will you do IF you’re attacked. You will be attacked. People will say terrible things about you, your organization and/or your church. Things that are untrue, mean-spirited and many times, personally hurtful. How do you respond?

In the following video clip, Bill Hybels (Willow Creek Community Church) does a great job of responding to one such attack. The background here revolves around a last minute decision by Howard Schultz, chairman of Starbucks,  to back out of speaking at the recent Global Leadership Summit hosted by Hybels and the Willow Creek Association. Schultz’ decision was a reaction to an online petition to boycot Starbucks if he were to speak. The driving forces behind the petition believed the Willow Creek Association to be ”anti-gay” and thus did not want Schultz to speak at the event.

After watching the video, I’d love to hear what you think. Do you agree with how Hybels responded? If so, why? If not, how would you have responded?

When a potential customer first comes in contact with your ministry or business, do they encounter a selling or buying environment? For many of us, I would venture to say it’s a selling environment. In other words, you center your marketing and sales efforts primarily on you and your product.

While it’s important to tell people about your ministry or business, this should not be the main focus. Instead, concentrate on creating a buying environment, where the focus is on customers and what they want. A great way to create this environment is through building personal relationships with your potential customers.

At LifeWay’s Ridgecrest and Glorieta conference centers, our sales staff emphasize building relationships with both existing and prospective customers. Our desire is for our customers to connect personally with their salesperson. We strongly believe that people buy from people they like and to whom they feel connected. This means that making sales is all about the relationship.

You can do many things to build relationships with your customers, but here are three to focus on first and foremost:

1. Be a good listener. Too many sales people talk too much. If you do all the talking, then you’re creating a selling environment. Remember, it’s not about you and your facility. The goal is to give your attention to the customer and to create a buying environment. Concentrate on asking questions to get to know your customer. This will help build rapport and get the relationship off on the right foot. Find out what’s important to them, what they want, what they need, etc. The more they talk, the more engaged they become in the possibility of buying from you.

2. Partnership. We are a ministry, serving other ministries. We want our customers to know that we see ourselves as their ministry partner. This means we are willing to do whatever we can to help their ministry be successful, even if that means they don’t hold their event or conference with us. Putting their ministry first, above our desire to sell our facilities, helps us demonstrate our commitment to the relationship. Time and time again, this commitment has resulted in groups looking for ways to buy from us.

3. Frequency of contact. It’s difficult to build a personal relationship with someone you only contact once a year. The same is true in business. Most sales people only get in touch with their customers when they need something from them (i.e. a signed contract, a meal guarantee, rooming list, etc.). Instead, focus on maintaining regular, ongoing contact with your customers. These contacts can be in the form of a phone call, an e-mail, a handwritten note or even a link to an article you think they may find helpful. The “how” is not as important as the fact that you are willing to invest time in building the relationship.

A word of caution when it comes to contact frequency: Just as some friends need to be touched more than others, the same is true here. Be sure to get to know your customers well enough that you know how frequently you need to contact them.

Regardless of who the person you’re speaking to is , they all could be potential customers for your organization. How are you building your relationship with them? The answer to that question could go a long way in determining your ministry’s future direction.

Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.

The form that the observance and celebration of Labor Day should take were outlined in the first proposal of the holiday — a street parade to exhibit to the public “the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations” of the community, followed by a festival for the recreation and amusement of the workers and their families. This became the pattern for the celebrations of Labor Day. Speeches by prominent men and women were introduced later, as more emphasis was placed upon the economic and civic significance of the holiday. Still later, by a resolution of the American Federation of Labor convention of 1909, the Sunday preceding Labor Day was adopted as Labor Sunday and dedicated to the spiritual and educational aspects of the labor movement.