Throwing The Whole Kitchens Sink At It

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What happened off the field in the Patriots vs Browns game is a window into the leadership culture that causes the results on the field. But, I believe Kitchens leadership might be more relevant for the future. It's just that he does it badly.

Culture is a result of what you choose to do and what you choose to tolerate as a leader. That is the premise of leadership podcasts like Craig Groeschel and others. I agree.

This past week's Browns vs Patriots game is a classic example of that. 

Freddie Kitchens is the coach for the Cleveland Browns. It seems he allows his players space to find their level of commitment. Commenting on the loss to the Patriots he said the following:

"We actually beat ourselves with turnovers and penalties. We expect to clean up a bunch of that this week. We have been focused on trying to clean those up and it has not gotten done yet so we got to continue to harp on it. Each individually has to make a commitment to doing that on an everyday basis. That is where it is going to start because you have no chance to win a game if you do those things, which is very evident." (https://www.clevelandbrowns.com/news/freddie-kitchens-talks-penalties-nick-chubb-and-more-press-conference). 

They have been focused on it since training camp with little change.

In a separate issue, he commented on the fines players have received for complaining about officials, showing another leadership decision about how players comment publicly:


"If they want to give their money to the league, they can do it. It does not matter to me either way. I would like for them to keep their money, but I also like our guys to be passionate about what they are doing. They have a decision to make, I guess." (https://www.wkyc.com/article/sports/nfl/browns/i-like-money-cleveland-browns-coach-freddie-kitchens-doesnt-talk-about-officials-to-avoid-fines/95-3367af8b-be4d-47fd-bb0a-aba217724e99)

Players need to decide.

The culture he has created is one where players have decisions to make, about when, where, and how they show up. He is clear that he wants more, but cannot seem to get it. It's a bad form of collaborate leadership and the results are showing. The Browns have a losing record.

Compare that to the Patriot coach, Bill Belichick,  who doesn't show any form of collaborate leadership (at least from the outside). Players show up with excellence or are cut (consider the recent cuts to Nugent, Gordon and others). Players who speak out of turn lose playing time or are cut. They have strict guidelines about what they say and how, with stringent enforcement. He shows a successful form of transformational leadership. Patriots are undefeated so far this season.

Two different cultures with clearly two different results.

BUT,  I believe the form of Belichick leadership (transformational but dictatorial) will be less successful in the future while Kitchen's style (collaborative leadership) will be more successful. Kitchens just has to do it better.

Collaborative leadership as a style does not mean democratic decision making, or tolerance of bad behavior. The sooner Kitchens works this out the sooner I believe the Browns will start winning.

Here are two examples of what I mean:

1. Decision making: transformational leaders make all the decisions. In fact, this is often seen as the very skillset that makes a leader a leader. Leaders make decisions. So say multiple books, articles and conferences of the transformational leadership arena. Collaborative leaders don't deny the need for decision making, but where transformational leaders make the decisions, collaborative leaders know who needs to make the decision and empower them to make the decision.

2. Boundary setting: transformational leaders set strict boundaries and enforce them ruthlessly. As shown above, Belichick sets clear rules about media engagement, player code of conduct etc. And failure to follow those rules is met with strict punishment - benching Butler in the Super Bowl for example. Collaborative leaders also know the importance of boundary setting. But where the transformational leader decides what the boundaries are and enforces them as he/she sees fit, collaborative leaders work with the team to decide what the boundaries are, and how they will be enforced. They also determine who enforces them, together. This might mean that in a specific instance the collaborative leader is tasked with enforcing the boundaries and from the outside might look no different than the transformational leader. But it's those on the inside who know the difference and that is what matters most.

While good transformational leaders build great movements, most of those movements die when the leader dies. They are movements for a time. Collaborative leaders, when done well, build movements that last beyond their lifetime or tenure. I believe we need more collaborative leaders today. People who will build great movements in education, business, medicine, science, government and religion.

We need movements building a better world.

We need collaborators not tyrants.

We need you!

We need you to rise up as a leader and make a difference where you are, because leadership is a skill that can be learned. Stop looking for the leader who will make a stand and start being that leader now.

Lead where you are.
Working with those around you.
Start a movement and change your world

Where have they gone?

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I believe the missing ingredient to America's successful political future is the centrist.

Where have they gone?

Pushed out by extremists on both sides, victims to the demand for ratings, sidelined by hot takes and gossipy soundbites, centrists are a dying breed in America - or at least a silent breed.

How can we get them back?

We need a space in politics that allows us to cross the divide between topics. I don't lean left on all political subjects, but I don't lean right on all of them either. And some won't like this, but for me, as a Christian, neither the Republican nor the Democratic platforms cover the depth or breadth of Christian responses to claim that they speak for me. I disagree and agree with each platform depending on the subject.

For years I have felt that America needs a third party in the electoral vote (no, not that party). We need a third party somewhere between the extremes of the right and left. And maybe a fourth or fifth. Ok, maybe that party too!

Democracies are vibrant systems that foster debate, learning and the changing of minds for the betterment of our society.

But currently, our democracy is a bloody fight with losers on both sides. People who change their minds are called flip-floppers and seen as liars. And centrists who want to make a difference are forced towards extremism to get a voice.

Imagine a discussion where we can learn from each other, find agreement on solutions, rather than winning points in a debate. What if we worked towards something and built a better society for all of us. Let's get that third party...I'm Dorian Botsis, and no, I'm not running for anything in 2020 - well, maybe for a chocolate bar at the store.

A Moment of Clarity: on death and religion

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You may or may not believe me, but I had a moment of clarity today. You know those times, when you become aware that something meaningful is happening to you. I had that.

I had just finished lunch with a person attending Faith Framingham who buried his wife of decades jus a month earlier. He is devastated, trying to make sense of his life without his life long love, facing the mountain of grief and a lifetime of separateness. We ate lunch, spoke about deep things, minor things, a host of topics but just being together. The time with him was good, and I couldn't quite understand why, until that moment of clarity.

As we ended our time together, and made a decision to meet again in a couple of weeks, it struck me what was good about it. I was doing what I was called to do - pastor. And that's when this verse struck me: 

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world - James 1:27 (NIV) . 

Pastoring is when people allow you to walk with them through the hardest and most painful times of their lives because they trust you. The verse says that all those who call themselves Christians are called to look after the powerless, hurting, grieving people of this world in their hardest times. This person let me do that for them today. It was a deep privilege, one I do not take lightly.

And it made me think of how many hurting people out there would just love for someone to give them an hour to talk, listen, laugh, cry and just be together. Do you have an hour to spare this week for someone in your life who is struggling? Give them a call, take them to lunch, have a cup of coffee. Let's perform some pure and faultless religion this week, TOGETHER.

Now about that "...keeping oneself from being polluted from the world..."

Ahem! I think I need to fold some laundry!

Woman Rise Up and Lead

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In light of the recent posts about women in leadership and the responses of some people: I was asked for my biblical case for women in leadership.

Well, here it is, a document I wrote many years ago, but I edited for today. 

My Biblical Case For Women in Leadership

In pursuit of a legacy

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Leaders like to leave legacies. John MacArthur hoped his legacy would be about 50 years of teaching the Bible and that "truth matters". At least, that was the plan. At a conference designed to honor him for his 50 years in ministry, he was asked to play the respond to one word game.

In a previous occasion he was asked to comment on Steven Furtick, to which he replied - unqualified. That didn't turn out well, and Steven Furtick wrote a best-selling book with that title. This time MacArthur was asked to comment on Beth Moore. What followed was one of the most disheartening, childish, immature, dehumanizing and mysogynistic displays of character I have ever seen. It was terrible and disgusting. Some have even said sinful.

I struggled with what to write, and thought for hours about how to respond to what was written. I ended up choosing to encourage the women preachers and leaders I know. So I want to rewrite what I wrote here:

To all the women preachers and leaders I know:

Stand up.
Rise up.
Lead.
Preach powerfully.
Be better than you have been treated.

Men, support them, encourage them, cheer them on louder than ever before.

I don’t agree with the audio content of John MacArthur nor do I agree with the chuckles and laughter that accompanied it. Whether it was really John MacArthur or not does not change what was said or how others responded. And if it was fake I don’t agree with the person creating it.

To women leading and to women everywhere I am sorry for the way you have been treated. To Beth Moore specifically, I am humiliated by my gender and sorry for your persecution. I pray it stops and I pray for those doing it, that God might deal with them as he sees fit and that they would stop too.

So to the amazing women leaders I know - lead on, preach on, stay the course, be incredible as you already are.

John MacArthur, you thought your legacy was going to be about 50 years of bible teaching, instead it is going to be about your sexism and two simple words "go home".

As for the woman I know, may your legacies be powerful and incredible, carved into the lives, careers, companies and people you change because of how amazing you are. May that be your response - great leadership, inspired teaching and changed lives.

How I will vote in 2020.

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2020 is a new election year - as if anyone could have missed it!

It will be my second national election in the USA. So as I prepare for the onslaught of calls, ads, social media pushes and promotions of the various candidates I am considering doing something I have not done before: actually categorizing and prioritizing my voting issues and criteria. In my previous elections here in the US and in South Africa I voted based on a candidate's appeal, as long as they were not directly opposed to a specific value or core belief of my own. But that is too simplistic these days.

So, that gets me to a question: how do you prioritize or categorize your voting issues?

I'm a novice in this area and open to learning, so please share what you think.

Here are my current thoughts about issues important to me (not ranked by priority). These are stated more as subjects to think about, rather than positional statements. In future posts I hope to explore these subjects and evaluate candidates against them:

• Government size:a government large enough to care (provide, support, keep safe, grow and develop) those within its border, but not so large that it becomes a burden to those same people. This would include infrastructure, healthcare, taxes, education, judicial, legislative and executive powers.
• Security:the maintenance of peace within the borders and protection from attack beyond the borders, but not to the point of policing or fighting pointless battles in foreign countries. Included here is the development of privacy and security online as well as offline as well as foreign policy.
• A Global Worldview: focused on securing the safety and health of the entire world collaboratively with other nations. In this section I would resist nationalism generally, but extreme nationalism specifically, as a value. It would include the environment, the space race, scientific endeavors and the eradication of dangerous global events.
• Religious Freedom: the right for all people to practice what they believe as long as that does not impose on the practice of others.

Those are my current top issues. What would you add, delete, change or improve? And far more importantly, how would you be informed about these issues?

Let's talk about sex or CNN, Porn and the Church

Porn is teaching our children what sex is, and it's one of the worst teachers, because it's about fantasy entertainment and money, not education.

I recently watched This is Life with Lisa Ling on CNN in her Porn Ed edition. It was an interesting study on the impact of porn on our society and the widening response beyond faith communities to deal with the epidemic of pornography. From growing therapies and support groups helping sex addicts recover from their addiction, to education efforts (they highlighted the city of Boston for groundbreaking education groups discussing porn) to adult websites showing real consensual sex as a means to offer an alternative to the fantasy of porn.

As I watched the episode I was struck by this question: if porn is one of the worst teachers about sex, where do our children (or ill-informed adults for that matter) go for sex education, and can the Church say something other than "sex is taboo"!

Well, here are my thoughts about where they can go:

Children, talk with your parents and parents talk with your children. That's not groundbreaking. That's how it's always been done. But here's the problem. The introduction of internet accessible devices for children now shows that the average age for a child to be introduced to porn is 11. If parents are NOT talking about sex (often and regularly) with their kids before this, porn becomes the teacher. And those dating today will freely share how porn is setting the standard for activity, duration, expectations and language for sexual activity between people. And please note, this isn't about THE TALK. It's about many conversations, over time, with openness, awkwardness and vulnerability. Let's do it parents!

There is no second to this, but if your parents are unwilling or unable, I recommend you find a safe, mature adult who you can talk to about this (aunts, uncles, youth leaders, pastors, doctors, therapist or others you deem safe and mature).

What about content?

I have not researched this extensively, but here are my top 6 topics for sex conversation:

1. Healthy body image based on the belief that each human being is created with worth, love and purpose.
2. Purpose of sex: for enjoyment, procreation, intimacy and relational health. Sex is beautiful, wonderful and made to be enjoyed...so enjoy it.
3. Affirmative consent is a pre-requisite for all sexual activity, even within marriage. Marriage does not do away with consent. Affirmative consent is the position that when, and only when, a person says yes is sex ok. Silence is not affirmative consent. Maybe is not consent. and no is definitely not consent. Men, suck it up in this regard and stop believing the lies we were told!
4. Healthy sex: what it is, what it looks like, feels like and can be. Discuss how healthy sex develops intimacy and self image. Cue the awkwardness for the parent and child, but the more you talk about it, the easier it becomes.
5. Unhealthy sex, what it is, what it looks like, feels like and can be. Discuss how unhealthy sex damages intimacy and self image. Cue more awkwardness.
6. Healing from sexual damage: share how to recover from the damage sex can cause: this is a larger topic where you can discuss medical, therapeutical, spiritual, social and emotional recovery. For example, STD's, safe sex, birth control, break-ups, forgiveness, loneliness, abuse and assault are all potential topics here.

Your own cultural norms and religious beliefs will guide you in these topics, but have a healthy dose of critical analysis of what you believe and think is normal. Unfortunately, what we believe is normal or right is not as normal or right as we think.

From a pastor perspective, and since Monday's are about faith, what might a pastor contribute to this discussion: start talking about the value, beauty and wonder of sex and less about how bad sex is. Start talking about affirmative consent and healthy sexual practices. And more than ever, practice forgiveness and acceptance for people who have sinned sexually, there are more than you think and they already feel judged.

What do you think? What would you add to the topics? What would you change?

P.S. A personal vent: male pastors, please stop introducing your wives as "my beautiful wife". When you begin with the value of how she looks you are playing into the negative fantasy already on display. I'm sure I've done it too, but it doesn't make it right. Introduce her as a person with worth, not an object of beauty.

For The Lost Ones

I came across this powerful song by Craig Morgan, titled My father, Son and the Holy Ghost. Written to his late son who was killed in a tubing accident. It's powerful, strong, tender and beautiful.

To those parents who have lost children, may you look forward to that day when you wake up with them again.

A Johari Window on Time

You can't do it all so how do you decide what to do?

This was in essence the question I was asked today about how I manage my time.

And let's face it, for some of us, we really wish we could do it and have it all (or is that just me all alone in my ivory tower!)

So, when you are faced with more tasks, requests and lists than you can physically complete in a week, let alone a day, how do you decide what to do.

That got me thinking about how I make decisions about time and planning for my own life. Below is what I said, although it is a guideline and not an exact science so on any given week it may adjust differently.

Here's what I said:

1. Based on Wayne Cordeiro's teaching: I choose vacations and rest first. Those are the first things I plan and the last things I cut. My devotional life fits in here too.
1. A few caveats: I don't sleep well, so I am often operating on 4-6 hours of sleep a night. Resist the urge to comment on that - I know, it's not healthy, but sleep has always eluded me.
2. Based on Andy Stanley's Cheat the Church I prioritize family next (although in honesty, they are completely tied to the first one). I prioritize family in my planning and calendaring.
3. Based on my mentor and uncle Rod Botsis, people come next. As a pastor I try to prioritize time with the teams, colleagues, direct reports and people of the congregation
4. Based on early school learning, I use a Johari Window for task management.
1. Johari Windows are normally used in psychology to describe the four selves. It was first introduced to me as a task management concept and that is how I use it (although it probably goes by a different name). The four windows of task management are as follows:
1. Important and Urgent Tasks
2. Important but Not Urgent Tasks
3. Unimportant but Urgent Tasks
4. Unimportant and Not Urgent Tasks.
2. Time gets sucked up by tasks in category 3 and 4. Tasks in category 1 can become tyrants to your time. Focusing work on category 2 keeps category 1 from getting too large but requires resisting the siren call of category 3 and 4.
3. I schedule category 2 items as a priority in my calendar.
5. I let the spinning plates fall: I no longer work to the slave master of perfection. I work towards growth, but at some point good enough is good enough. I know, Jim Collins disagrees, but this is about time management and going from Good to Great needs to be reserved for the right things, not everything. If it's not in the top four categories, it doesn't get done, or waits for time to get done, but these are typically not important nor urgent items so its usually ok.
6. Apologize often and receive the grace of people: in this process I do let people down. I am human and cannot meet all the demands on my time. So I apologize. And here's the amazing thing I find. Most people understand limitations and offer grace and understanding. Often deadlines can be shifted, or life's ups and downs accommodated. And when you produce good work often enough, the odd failure is understood.

Anyway, this is what I shared. It's not perfect, it may not even be good. But it works for me. And if you're my wife reading this...don't ask where vacuuming falls in the list!

What do you do? How do you manage your time and schedule your life?

Victory Over The Enemy: a political critique

Political discourse has become a vilification of the "other side".

By discourse I mean all of it: debates, social media posts, ads, fundraising, private and public conversations, all of it.

I find myself sickened by the approach of people who dehumanize, degrade and despise those with different viewpoints to theirs. Slogans have become weapons of abuse and differing or changing opinions are seen as betrayals, weakness or stupidity.

Just this past week in America, one side portrayed their position with the massacring of their "enemies" while the other side, in order to evoke a laugh, denigrated a position to be doomed to loneliness and singleness ("if you can find one").

This post isn't about a position on either of these sides: it's about an action. If you really feel the enemy is the person or position on the other side from your position, the best action you can take is to VOTE. This is how you get Victory Over The Enemy. Get out and VOTE.

Marching, rallies, protests might have a place and might create momentum, but change comes from VOTING. Social media posts that are at best yelling at the other side about their position, and at worst, dehumanizing and degrading the people of the other side, might make you feel good but they largely entrench the other side into persecuted.

I live in a world where each side feels persecuted by the other side.
And you know what, they're right. You're right.

You are persecuted.
And you are persecuting.
Maybe that was harsh, but not by much. Because (in the current political world), for the first sentence to be true, the second one is probably true.

If we want a different world we need everyone to VOTE. We need everyone who is part of our community to turn out and VOTE their values, VOTE their beliefs, VOTE their conscience.

But we also need people to VOTE AND treat people on the other side as PEOPLE (with stories, hopes, dreams and hurts). We need civility, dignity, respect and love back in our political discourse. We need to reduce the voice of social media and mainstream media deciding how we feel and start talking to people like us, different from us, opposite to us, and allow our feelings about the other side come from our personal interactions with PEOPLE from the other side.

Politics in my opinion, (I would say humbly, but I am far too aware of my own arrogance to say that with truth), should be about PEOPLE not POSITIONS. People matter, positions can change.

What if the next election in your area, saw the highest turn out than ever before. What if, the polls were filled with PEOPLE celebrating their right to VOTE and then committing to work with the PEOPLE in their community to make a better world regardless of their position.

PEOPLE first
Positions second

Victory
Over
The
Enemy

VOTE!

A Good Sunday: when a black screen, broken lights and work crew cannot stop forgiveness

Over the weekend we had a different approach to our worship service. We explored the parable of the unmerciful servant (Matthew 18:21-35) by guiding people through a a series of movements:
Movement 1: receiving comfort for our own hurts
Movement 2: receiving forgiveness for our own sins
Movement 3: praying for those who have hurt us
Movement 4: asking God to help us forgive those who have hurt us

The congregation was amazing in their vulnerability, willingness to be guided and focus during the service. We had a monitor that kept searching for new sources and going to a blank screen, a set of lights that fell down during the worship and a work crew fixing entry doors of the school with drills and saws! But the people focused on God and heard Him say to them: I will comfort you, I will forgive you, I will free you as you forgive others.

Well done Faith Framingham...it's a privilege to be your pastor...and to be guided towards my own need to forgive others through your example.

Door's Howl Review: Raising Dion

We just started watching a new show as a family: well, one child is 6 episodes in, another is one episode in with me and the other parent isn't watching at all - so yeah - the "family" is watching it!

Raising Dion is about a young elementary aged kid who discovers he has super powers. Like all origin stories, he has one parent, the other has died and his powers are developing in preparation to save a world catastrophe. But the way the season is shot, the music, the characters are quite different and beautifully done. The pace is unhurried and is interested in character development beyond the super hero. The story gives a wonderful insight into parenting, life and relationships in the modern world.

Check it out! Raising Dion, a Netflix show. I'll let you know more as a I see more episodes.

The Brave New Parent

I wasn't expecting my post about church leaders to spark commentary on parenting but it makes sense that it did. If we are going to impact the world then teaching our children about this "brave new world" and how to navigate it is key.

How do we do it?

Here are 10 thoughts off the top of my head (feel free to critique, they could be wrong)

1. Ask good questions of your children.
2. Listen deeply to their answers.
3. Share your failures.
4. Laugh more.
5. Reduce your protection of them.
6. Let them fail.
7. Know, share and live by your values.
8. Be a place of reduced anxiety.
9. Read more about parenting (find the right books for you).
10. Create a village for your child and you.

What are your thoughts?

Flawed Leadership in a Hyper Critical World

Our tolerance for flawed leadership is getting lower and lower (although not in all spheres). We expect our leaders to be perfect and when they are not, they pay a high price personally and the organizations they lead pay an even higher price sometimes.

I was at a conference yesterday where I heard the same refrain about leaders in the church that I have heard for years: as the pastor goes, so goes the church they lead. I don't agree - or at least, I don't agree that it has to be like that.

Simply put, we are placing too much weight on the shoulders of our leaders and pastors when we say that the future of the organization depends on them. True, they operate this way at times, and as followers, we let them. But it can be different. And perhaps it is time for it to be different.

A quick review of judges will show an ever declining level of moral, skill, faith and character in the judges selected to free Israel. God seems to use whoever is willing, and sometimes at very high personal cost to that selected leader (Samson died for his judgeship). If God uses people no matter their flaws, perhaps we could help our leaders to lead no matter their flaws.

The future strength of an organization, church, movement or industry does not need to depend on the leader. It can also depend on the followers, the environment, the culture and the tenacity of each of these groups to push through towards their goals and objectives. Organizations rise and fall because leaders, their followers and their context all play a role in that rise and fall.

So, leaders, stop taking the weight all on yourself.
Followers, start picking up some weight for the future of the organization.
And everyone, pay attention to the context around you, it plays a role too.

What do you think?