June 20, 2008
Hey LMC Team!
We are doing well...we have used SO much from LMC.
We revised the Life Management Plan so it can be used with our ministry team and had opportunity to test it out on some friends the other night. They loved it! When we have our Team Orientation at the end of July, each person will be required to do a Personal Life Plan.
AND we did the Position Results Descriptions in the LMC manner and have had many people comment about how clear they are.
We talked about Leadership Matters Course so much in various circles that we started getting requests to share the information in a more formal manner.
Just yesterday, we did a training workshop with some managers from another organization - teaching them the Management Skills straight from LMC! We even gave them a set of Management Pocket Prompters. They were so excited because they said they regularly have management trainings, but they are usually about inspiring their staff and never about practical things like delegation and ensuring progress, etc. The managers in the Media & Periodicals Department decided they are going to be teaching the tools to everyone in their teams. (We explained the need for everyone to understand a "Good Delegation" so they can hold the managers accountable.)
We also did a session about Team Building for another non-profit organization. We talked about the power of sharing stories and making intentional space to have people share accomplishments and dreams. It was very good! We can't wait to hear how they use it all.
We just realized yesterday that we have already accomplished everything on our PR Plans of Action from LMC! We literally worked through each from top to bottom without even realizing it - and it is turning out great!
So - be encouraged! What you do is SO helpful - it couldn't have come at a better time for us, that's for sure. We are praying for you as well!
sincerely … (LMC Alumnus)
Showing posts with label LMC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label LMC. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Saturday, January 26, 2008
What Makes For A Unique Training Experience?
It has been a challenge to describe the unique distinctive of the Leadership Matters Course. With so many courses being advertised as leadership training, as graduates of LMC, we need to be able to describe what is different.
If we were to simply give an outline of the materials covered in the LMC curriculum, there may seem to be little that is different to other leadership training courses. The question needs to be answered "What is unique about LMC?"
Many courses that are advertised as training are, in reality, lectures that are given in a teaching mode, rather than a training mode. ‘Teaching’, while very significant, tends to focus on the delivery of prescribed content in a lecture format. But in our context ‘training’ is focused on developing the participant’s skills and doing it in such a practiced way that they will remember the principles.
Participants will remember far more because they have had the opportunity to actually practice the new skill, or apply the new insight, than if they only have a record of it in a handbook.
There are a number of things in the presentation of LMC that make it unique. Four very significant aspects are:
1) The amount of time the participant is actually ‘doing’ and ‘practicing’ the material rather than passively ‘listening’. Each of the trainers is motivated by the phrase ‘Participants will not remember so much what WE say, but they will remember what THEY do’.
2) Participants are asked to practice a new skill only after the trainer has first modeled it.
3) While the trainers do introduce new material, they are committed wherever possible to help the participant discover the answers themselves. Participants do this by sharing their combined knowledge in a very interactive environment.
4) There is a carefully planned structure to the progression of the training which follows a Biblical emphasis.
a. Firstly, we help the trainees recognize their own worth and gifting in God’s eyes as the essential reality for them.
b. This is followed by developing an understanding of Gods concern for them to be loving and caring for other people.
c. With these two in their rightful place we then focus on the situations that as leaders they will need to address.
Being able to guide the discussions and insights from the participants; and balancing the introduction of new content with that, is what necessitates the specialized training given to all the trainers.
Given this background, another helpful way to show the differences between LMC and the many other training courses is to state the outcomes that the graduates can expect when they actively apply the training. The ongoing relevance of the course will be directly related to the ability of the participant to apply it to their own situation.
Warmly in Him,
David Cummings
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Give Us Trainers With Credibilty
The following is a quote from Bill Hybels book 'Courageous Leadership' page 132. It captures what we desire to see in trainers for the Leadership Matters Course.
"I usually hesitate when people ask me to participate in leadership development programs. 'How is it going to work? ' I ask. If they respond in the typical fashion: 'We are going to get Jo Shmo (with a Ph.D. in this or that) to teach on leadership' I tell them the same thing I tell everybody else. 'Most good leaders are not going to want to participate in that program because Jo Shmo is not a leader. He's a classroom teacher. He might even be a great teacher, but he never really led anything. True leaders want more than theory from teacher types. They want to be around other leaders who have actually been in the game, leaders with a few bloodstains on their uniforms. "
This powerfully illustrates the point of why we are intentional in recruiting key trainers for the Leadership Matters Course. We are looking for individuals who have a lot of experience. For each LMC, a team of three experienced leaders, who are good trainers, should be able to lead a successful course. They work together with others on their team who have a little less experience.
That's why we desperately need people with ample life and ministry experience to be the key trainers in each LMC. Our focus is to train leaders in pastoral and mission work. We need people who are leaders in their ministries; who have field experience. They have "a few bloodstains on their uniforms". We have often recognized this. In fact this has been an issue where some have disagreed with us. They say: 'Anyone can teach LMC, because it's about principles and the philosophy of training'. But we said 'No' to this, for the very reason that Bill Hybels so clearly points out to us.
The tendency may be to become somewhat lenient on this point, due to the pressure of our great need for trainers. At the moment, this is not so much an issue, since we have many who want to help out. A few years ago, we recognized that if experienced leaders, with this stature of giftedness and experience, have the desire to do training, they will prove to be the ones that can successfully carry several courses in a given year. We knew that if we worked almost entirely with people with less leadership experience, we would soon find out that the reputation and effectiveness of the LMC would suffer and eventually die a quiet death.
The ongoing involvement of David Cummings for example has been an enormous significance and has been widely appreciated.
In this sense we can't over estimate the value of people like David in the process of making the course as successful and popular as it is right now. We need people with much respect, a clear maturity, obvious skill, and with plenty of ministry background. We want to grow; we want to keep a good reputation and we want to gain admittance into more organizations.
As you read this you can pray that God will give us more of these experienced trainers. We also need them in the French and Spanish language world, as we are purposefully trying to get the course going in those languages. Depending on the level of an individual’s giftedness we can train people in the skills of being a good trainer. We can't train people, however, to have the credibility that comes from a rich life and ministry experience. Only God can bring about that growth. He also needs to call them to be involved in training other leaders. They need to see that with all their experience, the best investment they can make with their life and ministry is to pass on some of the lessons they have learned to others. That is investing in the future!
In Bill Hybel's words: The 'Jo Shmo's’ won't do it because leaders want to learn from leaders!' That is for the 'pillars' in the team.
"I usually hesitate when people ask me to participate in leadership development programs. 'How is it going to work? ' I ask. If they respond in the typical fashion: 'We are going to get Jo Shmo (with a Ph.D. in this or that) to teach on leadership' I tell them the same thing I tell everybody else. 'Most good leaders are not going to want to participate in that program because Jo Shmo is not a leader. He's a classroom teacher. He might even be a great teacher, but he never really led anything. True leaders want more than theory from teacher types. They want to be around other leaders who have actually been in the game, leaders with a few bloodstains on their uniforms. "
This powerfully illustrates the point of why we are intentional in recruiting key trainers for the Leadership Matters Course. We are looking for individuals who have a lot of experience. For each LMC, a team of three experienced leaders, who are good trainers, should be able to lead a successful course. They work together with others on their team who have a little less experience.
That's why we desperately need people with ample life and ministry experience to be the key trainers in each LMC. Our focus is to train leaders in pastoral and mission work. We need people who are leaders in their ministries; who have field experience. They have "a few bloodstains on their uniforms". We have often recognized this. In fact this has been an issue where some have disagreed with us. They say: 'Anyone can teach LMC, because it's about principles and the philosophy of training'. But we said 'No' to this, for the very reason that Bill Hybels so clearly points out to us.
The tendency may be to become somewhat lenient on this point, due to the pressure of our great need for trainers. At the moment, this is not so much an issue, since we have many who want to help out. A few years ago, we recognized that if experienced leaders, with this stature of giftedness and experience, have the desire to do training, they will prove to be the ones that can successfully carry several courses in a given year. We knew that if we worked almost entirely with people with less leadership experience, we would soon find out that the reputation and effectiveness of the LMC would suffer and eventually die a quiet death.
The ongoing involvement of David Cummings for example has been an enormous significance and has been widely appreciated.
In this sense we can't over estimate the value of people like David in the process of making the course as successful and popular as it is right now. We need people with much respect, a clear maturity, obvious skill, and with plenty of ministry background. We want to grow; we want to keep a good reputation and we want to gain admittance into more organizations.
As you read this you can pray that God will give us more of these experienced trainers. We also need them in the French and Spanish language world, as we are purposefully trying to get the course going in those languages. Depending on the level of an individual’s giftedness we can train people in the skills of being a good trainer. We can't train people, however, to have the credibility that comes from a rich life and ministry experience. Only God can bring about that growth. He also needs to call them to be involved in training other leaders. They need to see that with all their experience, the best investment they can make with their life and ministry is to pass on some of the lessons they have learned to others. That is investing in the future!
In Bill Hybel's words: The 'Jo Shmo's’ won't do it because leaders want to learn from leaders!' That is for the 'pillars' in the team.
by Joop Strietman
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