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Junkyard Management

Prophets vs Leaders

A friend of mine is sometimes described as more prophet than leader; he’s excellent at preaching truth in cultural context, but weak at organizational leadership. He can cast a vision and challenge us, but he can’t implement that vision.

You probably know people just like this. A lot of them are in ministry. Like prophets, they make passionate and loud calls for change. But they aren’t so good at actually leading people into making the change.

You know what the cheaper and less impressive modern day version of a prophet is? All those people who describe themselves as thought leaders.…

Junkyard Management,

Junkyard Negotiation

Every interaction at a junkyard ultimately comes down to who pays for the donuts or who eats the most donuts. Okay, so not really, but almost all conversation involves some kind of negotiation or competition. Of course this is true in most business settings. Or anywhere people exist for that matter.

There are the obvious negotiations that all businesses have: price, terms, salaries, and of course how many donuts it takes to appease the boss. There are also the usual competitions, from who has the highest sales in a given day to who can dismantle the most parts in an …

Junkyard Management, Random Thoughts,

Blues Brothers, Junkyard Style

Remember the scene in The Blues Brothers when John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd drove the decommissioned police car through Chicago in a classic chase scene? The other day I had a flashback of an experience like that, but without the police chasing me.

I was in high school and my Dad had purchased a decommissioned police car at auction. It still had the distinctive black and white paint like the California Highway Patrol. It also had the souped up engine that flat out flew.

Dad asked me and my buddy Mike to pick it up in the East Bay …

Junkyard Management,

Six Ways to Motivate

Last year I was invited to write an article for Outreach Magazine about how to motivate your team. I’ve reworked the article to make it a little edgier and shorter for my Junkyard Wisdom audience.

Oh, and the photo of our new puppy Holly above? No connection at all to this article. I just liked the photo and thought you’d enjoy seeing her!

Anyway, here goes:

1. Don’t Make Lists of six or ten or any number. Seriously. Who wants to feel like they are being managed by a list? Nobody. The thing about lists is that they’re always linear, …

Junkyard Management, Leadership, Salvaged,

Make a Small Mess

Make a small bet. It’s an organizational maxim meaning to test an idea or run an experiment on a small scale before investing significant time or money.

It’s a great practice that has saved me from big mistakes.

One of the chapters I didn’t write for Salvaged was Make a Small Mess. It’s the same principle, but in a distinctively junkyard mindset. Whatever you might do is likely to create a mess. So keep it small. See if the results are worth the mess. Experiment with a small mess before making a really BIG mess.

Pretty cool idea, don’t you …

Junkyard Management, Leadership,

What Do You Want To Learn?

In my upcoming book Salvaged there’s a chapter focused on the power of asking good questions. A recent question I asked of a young man who wanted to be mentored is a case in point.

He’s in his mid-30’s, an intelligent guy, married with kids, doing his best to live a faithful life. There’s much to admire about this young man, and I wanted to say that up front because I’m about to make him sound really stupid.

He asked to meet with me, and the timing worked, so I agreed. Eventually, awkwardly, he got around to asking me if …

Junkyard Management, Leadership,

The Opportunity to be Wrong

A simple way to broaden your leadership impact is to give your team the opportunity to be wrong. The old mantra “you learn from your mistakes” can be taken to an extreme of course — we should probably learn far more from our successes. But being wrong about something and having it blow up in our face is a huge growth opportunity. And we need to give our team the opportunity to make those mistakes.

A few years ago I was enjoying a glass of wine (and probably a cigar) with a leader who had built a successful organization. He …

Junkyard Management, Leadership,

Ownership Matters

Hopefully we can all agree that ownership matters to the success or failure of an endeavor. But I think we still undervalue the importance of ownership.

You may have heard the old maxim, “Leadership casts a long shadow.” Indeed it does. Anyone who has worked under wise and responsible leadership knows how it can permeate an organization with healthy values. Alternatively, anyone who has worked under foolish and irresponsible leadership knows how corrupting it can become.

So yes, leadership casts a long shadow. But ownership might cast an even longer one. Certainly this is true in business — who owns …