April 4 One Worry Or Three To Focus On.

As a leader, what do you want at the heart of your team? Remember that a heart has a couple of chambers and one purpose. I like to think that our teams might be most effective if we can narrow our scope to three overarching behaviors that support our value proposition. Do you have three?

I can think of many behaviors that we exhibit both to our customers and our team members. Here is a list of possibilities I will call the “be” list. Be: kind, pleasant, welcoming, open, conversant, communicative, warm, effective, focused, customer oriented, smiley, trustworthy, efficient, on-time, scheduled, organized…… we can go on.

But this list is too large. What three behaviors would you value for your team the most? If we have not established those three behaviors our leadership might be lacking. How can you recruit team members who are strong in those behaviors if you do not know them?

Are we training our team with these behaviors in mind? Our own accountability to the behaviors might be weak as well. If we cannot focus the list down to three, we likely are doing a poor job of measuring how well we are doing them. What is the first thing that you can do about it in the next seven days?

In the Bible we read, “But Jesus told him, “Anyone who puts a hand to the plow and then looks back is not fit for the Kingdom of God.”” Luke 9:62 NLT. There is a clear expectation set here about looking backwards.

That is a behavior that we are being cautioned about doing. In our walk in this world, we are asked to do many behaviors. Often, they are not for our own benefit and nor are they for the benefit of the mission of Jesus Christ. It can be tempting to look back at those behaviors, but I challenge us to look forward today.

What is on your schedule this week that you know to be something that will cause stress, frustration and might even involve a little anger? By looking forward, we can set a different set of expectations.

Could a focuson being humble, forgiving and loving be a possible way to continue to advance your week? Maybe you have a different set of three behaviors that fit your week better if you look forward to them. It is possible that we spend our week looking back at all that was.

Will we decide to spend our time being and looking forward and serving Christ? Where is your focus this week? What is the first thing you can do to develop and deploy them?

Let us pray, Heavenly Father, you only need one behavior from us and that is love. Your greatest example of your love is Jesus. We pray this day for that love. Make the most powerful behaviors we present this week be in conjunction with that love.

Bring them to the top of our mind and the tip of our tongues. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.