Welcome to the February 7th edition of Faith & Life Lessons.
You will see this email full of tidbits from my week. My goal is simple. I hope that from how I live my life, you can find a thing or two that helps you as you try to live a life that matters. I am always trying to do one thing - make Christ-focused decisions in love, work, and life. And this was my week.
The Story of My Week
This week, I watched an online zoom Bible study session of Bro Gbile Akanni.
The class brought me some nostalgic memories of how bible studies used to be done when I was younger.
The person leading would call out bible verses and different people in the audience would read it out. At some point, we would have some people who seemed to be the only ones reading all the scripture texts the teacher was calling out.
They were labeled the "fastest finders" - they found the texts while everybody else was still wondering where that book of the bible was hiding.
Bro Gbile didn't leave it to the "fastest finders", he would call out the scriptures and share them with different people to read. It was good to hear different voices from different parts of the world reading the Bible.
It raised the level of audience participation instead of all of us just watching Bro Gbile do it all.
I miss that.
Memories from an age long gone.
But it reminds me of why we need to keep finding ways to keep people engaged in the business of studying the Bible collectively not as a one-man-show-with-an-audience.
It's one of the reasons why I am always fixated on raising disciples. Disciples engage more with the material and want to see it work more for them in their everyday lives.
I am always aiming to live the life of a disciple.
A learning disciple that practices everything he/she learns.
But first, he/she learns.
And that is who I want to be.
Every day.
Things I Learnt
1-Find People to Grow you: About a week and a half ago, I had a call with my mentor/coach. We were talking about my plan for focusing my blog towards discipleship and not just pumping out blog posts.
He gave me a challenge - develop a 52-week plan of disciplines that you would like to lead people in. They should not just be write-ups; they should have clear follow-up disciplines that people can work with and live by during the week.
It seemed a tall order for me. But I was talking with someone who had done the same thing. He did a brainstorm with me and I started seeing the picture he was framing for me.
It's easier to believe I could deliver on it because I was listening to someone who had done the same thing.
A week later, I have 44 disciplines and needing 8 more to make a full year.
I probably would not have hit this if he had not pushed me. Add to that, he had modeled it with his life.
It is easier to imitate what you see lived out.
And I hope to keep adding more people into my life who help me do more than I thought I could.
2-Learning from the Things I Went Through: One of the most difficult things that supervisors have to do is appraisals for their subordinates.
The problem is not in the appraisals but in the discussions that they have to do with the staff.
I remember one of the things I used to wonder was why nobody told me about what they thought I wasn't doing well during the period.
Why did they have to wait until it was appraisal discussion time to tell me all the stuff I should have been doing?
Because of my early years’ appraisal discussion experiences, I developed a practice of having mid-appraisal discussions with the people I supervise.
After a while, I learned to introduce it into regular feedback that I gave during the appraisal period.
I just completed an appraisal cycle and I saw that the approach yielded the best result ever - nobody complained about any issue point I raised in the appraisal.
The reason - it had been raised in discussions during the period.
They may not like it but it was not a surprise to see it there.
Now my next job is to continue with the process I started with to try and address these issue points.
The goal is to ensure it's not an issue in the next appraisal period.
That's the extra that comes with leading a team. Not only do I have to deliver results but I have to make the staff better along the way.
I once read that unless it is due to strong external motivations (family, economy, principles, better opportunities, etc.), staff who leave a job are usually first disconnected from their supervisors before they disconnect with the job.
Here is to keeping the guys engaged on the job and with me.
And giving them a great all-around work experience.
Postscript
May you shine your light in a way that reminds the world around you that "Jesus Lives". May you make a difference in the lives of the people around you so they will thank God because of you. (Amen)
Tata,
Tola
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