leadership

Music and Your Brain, Worship and Your Heart

May 30, 2017 By Daniel Im

My children love to sing and dance. So oftentimes after dinner, we’ll goof around, turn up the tunes, and sing songs with one another.

No, not like the von Trapp family—albeit, we have sung, “Doe, a deer, a female deer” more than once…

One particular evening, I began singing “A Whole New World” from Disney’s Aladdin. I always loved the melody as a child, but while I was teaching it to my children, I quickly realized something about the lyrics—I didn’t agree with them! And I definitely did not want my children being influenced by those horrible lyrics.

“No one to tell us no? Or where to go?”

I didn’t want my children saying that to me! And I definitely did not want them to leave me…at least not yet.

The thing about music is that it deeply shapes us—often without us recognizing the full extent of its influence.

In one study, three professors from Harvard and Boston College discovered that children who had three years or more musical instrument training performed better than those who didn’t learn an instrument in auditory discrimination abilities and fine motor skills. They also tested better on vocabulary and non-verbal reasoning skills, which involve understanding and analyzing visual information.

What’s interesting about this study is that you would naturally expect someone who is learning an instrument to develop in their fine motor skills, which they did. However, you wouldn’t necessarily expect someone who’s learning an instrument to grow in their vocabulary and non-verbal reasoning skills! It’s amazing how the brain is wired and how music shapes your brain.

Similarly, have you ever considered the way worship shapes your heart?

Mars, Contextualization, and Church Leadership

May 9, 2017 By Daniel Im

What time is it on Mars?

I was obsessed with space as a child. In fact, I still have my old books about space, and now my children are reading them! I can assure you that it was their decision, not mine. Going along the theme of loving space, I was naturally into Star Wars, but it was Star Trek that won the day for me. Now I’m definitely revealing my inner nerd, but I even had a manual that talked about all the intricate systems on the USS Enterprise.

I recently watched a TED Talk from Nagin Cox, a Spacecraft Operations Engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In it, she explained what life on Mars was like—she even referred to herself as a Martian! Now before you ask Google, Siri, or Alexa when humans first landed on Mars, let me clarify. She’s a Martian because she works on the team that controls the four rovers that the U.S. has placed on Mars since the mid-90s.

When the rovers are “sleeping” at night—in order to recharge their batteries—Cox and her team are hard at work creating the rover’s program for the next day. So essentially, Cox works the night shift.

Now unlike individuals who work the graveyard shift from 11 pm – 7 am here on Earth, things are a bit different on Mars. This is because a day on Mars is 40 minutes longer than a day on Earth. In other words, it takes 24 hours and 40 minutes for Mars to rotate once.

Not only that, but a year on Mars is almost twice as long as a year on Earth.

While this might sound like a minute detail (pun intended), this has actually created quite a couple of issues for Cox and her Martian colleagues, such as:

When you say the words yesterday, today, and tomorrow, how do you know if someone is referring to yesterday, today, and tomorrow on Earth time or Martian time?
Do you work the 11 pm – 7 am shift according to Earth time or Martian time?

Now what does this all have to do with church planting and leadership in the church?

Faith Like Broccoli

March 28, 2017 By Daniel Im

“What are we going to do? There’s not enough food to feed the children. How did we end up here? How are the children going to react?”

These were the questions the orphanage leaders were asking one another on a hot summer day in Chiang Rai, Thailand. When I was pastoring in South Korea, I had led a team to serve the orphans at this particular orphanage in Thailand. The orphanage had close to 100 children. Some came from poverty-stricken homes where their parents couldn’t afford to feed and house them, and others lost their parents due to one circumstance or another.

These were children who, in the world’s standards, didn’t have much, but that didn’t seem to matter.

Constant laughter, joy, and childish pranks filled this orphanage, whether the children were in school, eating a bowl of rice, or playing games with sticks and vegetables.

…that is, until they ran out of food…

When the orphanage leaders realized they had no way to feed the children, they decided to break the news to the children before they prayed over their last supper.

“Children, we need to pray,” said the orphanage director, “we’ve run out of food, money, and all means to go and buy groceries at the market.”

The childish atmosphere immediately turned into nervous silence.

[Read more…] about Faith Like Broccoli

Why You Shouldn’t Be Worried About “Job Security”

March 21, 2017 By Daniel Im

vitaly-145502

“It’s all about job security, right?”

Over the course of my adult life, I’ve heard this phrase multiple times. And it’s always irked me the wrong way.

Now I understand where someone might be coming from—they want to be irreplaceable so that they’re never faced with a pink slip and are without a job. As a result, they never write down their process or train others to do what they can do. They hold onto “industry secrets” and proudly declare that they were certified or educated to do these certain tasks. If they get hit by a bus, then the organization will suffer, since no one else can do their job.

I guess that’s job security…but it sounds pretty selfish to me.

In today’s open-share economy, do “industry secrets” even exist anymore? Sure, education and certification are proof that you’ve gone through the steps, but they don’t prove whether or not you’re competent in an area. After all, there are plenty of courses that I’ve received an “A” in, but I’ll be the first one to tell you that I’m incompetent in Calculus and Organic Chemistry.

No one wants to lose their job. I get it. I’m in the same boat.

But what if I were to tell you that there was another way to guarantee your job security?

It’s about having a posture of generosity, rather than scarcity

Scarcity is a closed fist approach to work and life.
Generosity is an open palm approach to work and life.
Scarcity says, “Cutbacks are inevitable, so I need to make myself irreplaceable.”
Generosity says, “Those who develop others will never be without a job.”
Scarcity says, “I need to add more tasks onto my list of responsibilities so that I become more valuable to the organization.”
Generosity says, “When I develop others to do what I can do, I’ll be entrusted with greater responsibility.”

One of the most selfish things a leader can do is to refuse to reproduce themselves.

Dealing with Conflict and Criticism

February 28, 2017 By Daniel Im

olga-guryanova-167262 (1)

When collaborating with others, conflict is to be expected.

Conflict is inevitable when you’re actually doing the hard work of collaborating. After all, if there’s anything that’s a guarantee in leadership, it’s conflict and criticism. So how do you respond? Do you embrace it? Or avoid it?

If there’s anything that’s a guarantee in leadership, it’s conflict and criticism.

Click To Tweet

Conflict is not the problem, avoiding conflict resolution is.

So have conflict, and then wrestle to resolution. But whatever you do, don’t avoid conflict; it’s necessary for a healthy team. If you never have conflict on your team, then this might be symptomatic of a deeper issue.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself about your team:

Do people feel the freedom to say what they really think?
Are you, as a leader or manager giving enough ownership to those that you lead that mistakes are inevitable?
Or is the rope so short because you have control issues and you want everything to be “just right”? And by “just right,” I mean it’s your way or the highway?

Whatever you do, don’t avoid conflict; it’s necessary for a healthy team.