Prayer and Bifocals

The end of the year is always a time to try to throw away, clean up, and prepare for the new year. Part of that preparation is deciding what my focus will be for the next year.

I've decided on PB. Not peanut butter, but Prayer and Bifocals. Prayer is pretty self explanatory. I want to do more of it, and I want people to pray for our ministry unceasingly! Every time I pray, I include our ministry and the LSC family, which includes each person touched in any way by our ministry (clients, residents, families, staff, visitors, etc!) Won't you add your prayers? Please add LSC to your personal, church, prayer chain, and any other opportunity.

Now let's talk bifocals. Not the glasses, but the vision. I plan to practice bifocal leadership for the coming year, which we'll define as the ability to focus on the near things and the far off things.

Near vision includes communication, customer service, and waste. No organization works harder than LSC at communicating with everyone, but it's never enough. My goal is for everyone to know everything about everything. While impossible, we can strive for it!

The LSC team can put our customer first every time, and every one reading this is a customer. We can smile at each other and treat each other as we want to be treated. That smile is also part of our security plan, believe it or not. If a teammate smiles and makes eye contact with a stranger in the hall or a person standing in front of a group home or in front of our offices, they are aware they have been identified. We can easily welcome the friend and warn off anyone bent on doing harm.

Waste should be the enemy of each of us. Ben Franklin is still right, "a penny saved is a penny earned." We should: not print documents unless necessary, recycle old file folders, never throw away files till we've saved the paper clips, commute together to meetings, turn out the lights, recycled plastic, only buy absolutely necessary office supplies, and on and on! We are over a $100 Million organization! Ink pens add up! The day my time is too valuable to haul the trash to the dumpster is the day I don't need to work here any longer. More importantly, I'd rather spend money on caring for people!

Bifocal also refers to the long vision. We have to keep an eye on the little things and we have to keep our eye on the horizon. Our country and our profession are in the midst of great turmoil. In that turmoil and crisis there exists danger and opportunity. Prayer will allow us to skirt the danger and take advantage of the opportunity. LSC has to keep one eye on the long view to survive and thrive.

So when you hear me talking about PB as we move into the new year, join me in prayer and vision.