10-80-10 Delegation Model

One of the most important aspects of leadership in any organization is the ability to delegate authority to others.   Delegation is especially key for both leadership development as well as maintaining a healthy work/life balance.   At some point in a growing organization it is literally impossible for one decision maker to make all of the decisions and the sooner others are able to learn how to make decisions and handle authority, the faster they develop the leadership skills necessary for both the individual as well as the organization to succeed.

While these numbers, 10-80-10 have been used to describe other processes or aspects within organizations, I use these numbers as percentages that conveniently equal 100% to intentionally describe how to identify when the leader and subordinate need to connect and when the subordinate is ‘on-their-own’ in developing and coordinating tasks, projects and ongoing processes.

10% Leader Directs

The first 10% is critical as it allows the leader to direct and clarify the objective, the scope, the resources and the time expectations of any new project, task or assignment.  For example, the purchase of a new piece of equipment is task that is assigned to the subordinate by the leader.    The purpose, function, use, and budget is discussed as well as any important factors.   Both the leader and the subordinate utilize and sharpen their communication skills as they discuss and listen to each other as the purchase is envisioned.

80% Subordinate Collects

The middle 80% is the duty and responsibility of the subordinate as the project, task or assignment takes shape.  In the example of the purchase of a new piece of equipment, various alternative products are compared, prices reviewed and some initial negotiation takes place.  The subordinate may have already been delegated some authority to purchase within specific parameters or from specific vendors.  Alternatives, options, pricing and timing are considerations that need to be fully understood, processed and ultimately communicated with the leader in the final 10%

10% Leader Reflects

The final 10% provides the leader with all of the information necessary to reflect on all of the information collected in order to make the right decision.   When the 10-80-10 is functioning effectively, a thoughtful and articulate recommendation is presented by the subordinate that makes it easy for the leader to understand any important aspects of the project, task or assignment and gives the leader the opportunity to fine-tune any detail (i.e. color, timing, placement) either based on preference or for standardization.

The 10-80-10 Delegation Model works just as well, if not even better for ongoing projects and assignments.   It provides for a quick review at the beginning and the end of any cycle (i.e. class, calendar or fiscal year, purchase, season).  The advantage is that if scheduled intentionally, it provides a framework for continuous improvement in communication (both oral and written), process, and leadership development.   Leaders can have confidence that they will have the first and the last say on all important projects, tasks or assignments and subordinates get a clear understanding of the desires, wishes and concerns of the leader.

The Power of Intentionality

According to Ken Keis, President and founder of “Living on Purpose, ” a Canadian consulting resource group,  95% to 97% of all people live their lives on autopilot . . . he claims that the vast majority, nearly all of us, don't consciously even think about most of the things we do each day.  

This gets to the heart of my teaching on the power of intentionality.   While intentionality is a central concept in philosophy, it is also central to living a life of faith.  We learn this primarily from what we know about God.  God was intentional in sending Jesus.  The bible says it was because of His love for mankind that He sent His Son.   Jesus was so intentional in going to the cross at Calvary that the Bible says he “set his face towards Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51).  In more modern translations it says Jesus “resolutely set out for Jerusalem.” (New International Version)

Living an intentional life is all about living a life on purpose, not by happenstance.

There are three keys to learning how to live intentional.  In understanding these three keys, any individual will discover the power of intentionality

Key #1 – Remember that you were created for a purpose:

The very first chapter of Pastor Rick Warren’s “Purpose Driven Life” says clearly that “It’s not about you”.  These are actually the very first words in his book.   He goes on to tell us that there are actually five purposes that each man, each woman have that are all given by God.   These purposes include Purpose #3 (to become like Christ) and purpose #4 (To serve God).

These two purposes alone can provide a day’s worth of intentionality, every day. 

Key #2 -  Strive to have more impact on the culture around you than the culture has on you.  

Culture can be defined as including 1) Language, 2) Symbols, 3) Borders and 4) Values.   As we travel internationally, we quickly can see the differences in culture as soon as we go through customs and immigration and are greeted by the border agent who speaks a unique language.  The country has it’s own unique symbols and often the values vary greatly from country to country or from region or group.    When my kids were young, they often wanted to go places, have friends or attend activities that their mother and I felt were not beneficially.  I remember telling my daughter that she could go and participate anywhere when she had more impact on the people and places than they had on her. 

Key #3 – Know and live your mission. 

Each of us has been given not only a mission but also many missions over our lifetime.  Often, these missions are but for a season.   A young mother, for example, has no greater mission than the care and nurturing of her children.  This mission takes priority over all others but lasts but for a season.  It is the mission where we focus our time and our energy.   We learn quickly that all else either aids in the development of the mission or is a distraction. A life of intentionality identifies each, embraces the one and dismisses the other.

Our present missions may be the greatest key in living a life of intentionality.   Mission intentionality goes beyond what we are doing or even how we may be doing it and answers the question why.   When we know why we (teach, preach, lead, buy, sell, visit, fish, bowl, swim, love, help, create, direct, manage, etc.) we have the key to the power of intentionality.   In this, we not only live a life of intentionality but also find our purpose and our passion.

Resolving Conflict vs. Solving Problems

I’m often asked about how leaders resolve difficult issues.   One of the things that leaders are required to do, if they lead well, is to be able to handle the more difficult issues in a way that brings reconciliation and resolution.

When I was in industry, one of the common responses I heard too often from many of the managers is that a particular difficult decision was, “above their pay-grade.”

Resolving conflict is an issue that Jesus addressed as well.   Jesus recommended that a person giving a gift at the altar go quickly and resolve a conflict (Matthew 5:23).  In Matthew 18 the instructions that Jesus gave to the church included 1) going directly to the individual, 2) bringing others into the issues when necessary, and 3) finally, telling it to the church.

We all need to follow the Biblical instruction on resolving conflict.   One of the additional comments that I offer in these circumstances is that there is a difference between resolving an issue and solving a problem.

Leaders would benefit in understanding that not every problem can be solved, however, leaders have the opportunity as well as the responsibility of resolving conflict and making the difficult decisions.

Resolution doesn’t mean the issue has been solved; it means that leadership has made a decision.   They have dealt with the issue conclusively.  As it has been resolved, it is finished or done.  The resolution can then be communicated where necessary, and it is no longer an issue that needs to be addressed.

Often, the resolution may not be ideal but may be necessary based on the present understanding, resources and needs of the organization.    Leaders can and must make the tough decisions.   Leaders are unfortunately often the last to know when and others are looking to them to act and act decisively when conflict is becoming destructive or even distracting.

When Ordinary People Do Extraordinary Things

When you think about it, the old idiom “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” is just dumb. Today we understand how harmful words can be. Recently CBS did a special called “Bullying: Words Can Kill.”[i] Even as a child, I knew that words can and do hurt. Children find this out very quickly when they experience and often join in on name calling. Simple and complete nonsense words such as Dumbo, Dopey, and brainiac can cause embarrassment and a feeling of being an outcast. Children learn the stylistic and memorable quality of consonance early, and I’ve noticed with my children and now my grandchildren that names such as Fat Freddy, Smelly Sally, and Nerdy Nelly never seem to go out of style.

            

        I was in third or fourth grade at St. Joseph’s Catholic School when a small group of us decided to form our own informal club. Some of the older boys in some of the upper grades had started a Secret Agent Club. Sean Connery starred as James Bond in the 1965 theatrical release of Goldfinger. Our mothers wouldn’t allow us to see it. The Catholic Church had a posted list of movies that were OK and those we were to avoid. Their ratings, from A to L and O (for offensive), preceded by decades today’s ratings of G, PG, PG-13, and R and carried a lot of weight with Hollywood in general and my mom in particular. Since we couldn’t see the movie and the older boys didn’t want us in their club, we decided to start our own.

            My friends and I all enjoyed comic books, so we started a club that was all about them. We would buy DC and Marvel comics for only twelve cents. However, the price soon changed to fifteen cents, and a double issue was easily a quarter. My friend Mike Baron came up with the idea, and about half of the boys in Sister Annunciata’s class were part of our club, which we ended up calling the Legion, short for the Legion of Super Heroes. Each of us had our favorite hero or villain. In reality it was a comic book exchange club, but to us it felt like something heroic.

My favorite was always Superman, and I wasn’t that particular about whether he was the younger Superboy or Superman, or whether he was the Clark Kent of Smallville or Metropolis. He could fly and bend steel with his bare hands; bullets bounced off of him, and he was my hero.

            I think all of us love heroes, as they have a way of encouraging us to do things we normally wouldn’t do. When it comes to real-life heroes, someone very wise once said, “Heroes are not extraordinary people but ordinary people doing extraordinary things.”

            In the early church, God called a group of ordinary people to do extraordinary things; we call them martyrs. The word martyr comes from the Greek word mártys and originally just meant “witness.” However, when these early converts to Christianity found themselves with the choice between recanting their faith and denying Jesus Christ or remaining faithful, they remained faithful. This was a life-and-death decision. Even the historical accounts are hard to read, as the martyrs often faced death in the Roman Colosseum as morbid entertainment for the masses. The more fortunate were killed by ax or sword, but many, perhaps thousands, were lit on fire as human torches by Emperor Nero, whose use of many Christians in this manner to give light in the evenings in Rome is very well documented.

            The Bible records that the believers were first called Christians in Antioch, in modern-day Turkey (Acts 11:26). One of the first bishops and early fathers of the church was St. Ignatius of Antioch. He was a disciple of John the apostle, and the emperor Trajan martyred him in Rome.

The persecution of the early church and the resulting martyrdoms of hundreds of thousands of Christian witnesses started under Roman Emperor Nero (AD 64–68) and, according to tradition, included both the apostles Peter and Paul during Nero’s reign. Initially Rome considered Christianity a sect of Judaism and for years had given the Jews a special exemption to believe and worship as they pleased. This Jewish exemption was not unique, as the Roman Empire actually had been fairly tolerant of various religions as Rome spread its rule across Europe, into Asia and Northern Africa.

These Christian witnesses of the first and second centuries, however, were different. They seemed deliberately hostile toward the gods of the Roman Empire and the sacrifices that were the obligation of all Roman citizens. Ultimately they refused to participate in the offerings to the Roman gods. As a result Romans accused Christians of being atheists. These early Christians called their weekly gatherings “pure sacrifices” as opposed to “offerings to demons,” as they characterized the religion of the pagans. Persecution broke out for a number of reasons against the Christians and lasted for three hundred years, until Emperor Constantine claimed Christianity as his religion, which ended Christian persecution.

It’s important to note that these early witnesses, these martyrs or early Christian saints, were members of the Body of Christ but were likely unfamiliar with the terms we use today to describe the church. Along with the word, Christian, which was first used of the believers in Antioch,[ii] some of the other and more common words to describe early believers in Jesus included the Way and the Nazarenes.

This early group of believers was a mixed group. History tells us many were Jews and Jewish converts who embraced Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah. Their theology was still developing. Often it included a combination of Jewish traditions and rabbinical teachings combined with early Christian letters. These were the words of Jesus and the writings of the apostles Peter, James, John, and Matthew, as well as the other collections that would become the New Testament. Their gatherings and worship services were varied and diverse, without a formal liturgy or established leadership structure. They believed they would see the return of Jesus Christ in their lifetime. They were willing to make extreme sacrifices for their faith, believing that Jesus would soon be coming.

From an excerpt from the book, "Roaming Catholics: ending the wandering to embrace the wonder" available on Amazon and your local Christian Bookstore 

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[i]. CBS News, “Bullying: Words Can Kill,” September 23, 2013, http://www.cbsnews.com/news/bullying-words-can-kill/

[ii]. Acts 11:26.

So that the world may know

       

Since the very beginning, we have tried to divide what Jesus said should be one. In his Gospel, John recorded Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. Here is how Jesus prayed for us just hours before His arrest and His going to the cross:

My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. (John 17:20–23)

Jesus prayed that we would be one or, in other words, united. Unity, or being one, is actually a big topic in the New Testament. Jesus prayed for it three times; the apostle Paul spoke about it often.

For years I have met people who still considered themselves spiritual, still believed in something, but were either no longer attending a worship service or Catholic mass or were not involved with other people on the basis of their faith.

The largest group of Christians in the United States is Roman Catholic. According to the Pew Research Center, approximately 31 percent of Americans, or one in three, were raised as Roman Catholic. However, Pew Research also found that one third of all people raised Roman Catholic no longer consider themselves Catholic,i meaning that approximately 10 percent of all Americans are former Catholics, many of them still wandering without finding another church home or returning to the Catholic Church.

This is unfortunate and a failure of the institution part of the church. All too often we have embraced our denominations, our cultures, and our traditions and mistakenly thought these were the basis of our faith.   Church culture, traditions and church leaders including the Apostles are imperfect and a poor substitute for true faith.

         The apostle Peter, of course, is an easy target if we are looking for an apostle who seemed imperfect. People who are quick to judge Peter are often far from perfect themselves. Peter was a great leader, but he was rash, quick to judge, and too confident in his flesh. Peter denied Christ three times; however, Christ restored him.

          A few years later, the apostle Paul met the apostle Peter in Antioch and had to call him a hypocrite:

When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray. (Gal. 2:11–13)

          Paul was not trying to cause a division in the church. Note that Paul didn’t talk about Cephas (Peter) behind his back but “opposed him to his face.” Paul directed his discipline not only at Peter but also to those who continued to think of the world as consisting of two contrasting groups: Jews or Gentiles. This Jewish thinking was similar to the Greek thinking of “Greek or Barbarian” or even today’s “Catholic or Protestant.”

          It's time we get beyond our divisions and embrace the true wonder of our faith.

From an excerpt from the book, "Roaming Catholics: ending the wandering to embrace the wonder" available on Amazon and your local Christian Bookstore