• Hi, I’m Brad Abare

  I'm a make-it-happen guy working with big idea people. I design teams and orchestrate strategy so that great ideas I believe in get done.
  
  I am Jamaica's husband, Foursquare's comm director, Personality's founder, and a catalyst for CFCC.
  
  
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For those of us who work regularly in environments that are church/para-church related, it’s not unusual to participate in moments that are rare elsewhere. I have yet to find a job in another industry that makes prayer, worship, devotional time and communion a part of the regular rhythm. This integration of faith into the workplace can be good and bad, especially when it comes to the leadership within these kinds of organizations.

I’m seeing three types of leaders found in church/para-church organizations…

Managers
Whether brought up from within, imported from the mainstream workplace, or transferred from a similar organization, good managers understand how to lead people well. They understand what it means to be a corporation, establish a healthy culture, pursue a worthy cause and promote good communication. They like integrating faith into the workplace, but they struggle with how best to do it. A good manager is trusted for their competence and appreciated for their care and concern for people, not just projects.

Ministers
These are the leaders within an organization that can be so focused on the cause, that the corporation, culture and communication aspects to their job tend to take a back seat. Ministers are often seen as the top of the food chain because they are the pinnacle of perspective. They must be closer to God because how else could they serve so sacrificially, so often! They love integrating faith into the workplace because they are uncomfortable otherwise. A good minister is trusted for their care and concern for people, and forgiven for their lack of competence in key areas.

Manipulators
Manipulators are the leaders who are managers on the inside and ministers on the outside. They can’t figure out who they want to be, so they try and do both. They like the esteem that being a minister brings, and they love the results from being a manager because things seem to be getting done. These insecure leaders have a difficult time differentiating between their will and the will of God which makes faith in the workplace very confusing. A good manipulator is not trusted for their competence, or care and concern for people, because no one knows who they are.

I’m still sorting through the implications of these different leadership styles and, more importantly, what might be a better approach to leading these types of organizations. I’m intrigued by the concept of Prophet, Priest and King from the Old Testament. Perhaps more, later.

We’ve all seen it happen. The band or artist with a number one song, relegated to a one-hit-wonder. The best-selling author who can’t get anybody to notice subsequent books. The successful movie that should have never been turned into a sequel. The must-have product that becomes over-exposed after too many attempts to capitalize on its initial success.

I was in a meeting recently with a former Disney executive. We were discussing strategies about how to make future gains on a person or project that has already benefited from a strong following and sales history. He recalled many stories from his past, and was quick to say that we must not confuse success in a certain market with success from having a special story. In other words, the success of the original is often tied to an intangible that is difficult to duplicate. Whether that’s the emotional state of the market, the unique story of the artist/author, or that nothing else was going on during that time so people gave it a try, success is never quite a given.

This is an important lesson. I regret how many times I have wanted to attempt to duplicate a previous success, only to figure out that it had less to do with the market making it successful, and more to do with the mark on the market at the time.

Seth Godin wrote a great post yesterday about finding the right size for your team/organization. It’s something I think about a lot, for the variety of hats I wear.

Seth suggests that the reason many businesses are in trouble these days is because “they’re the wrong size.” “A newspaper that only had a few dozen employees would be doing great today. But they have hundreds or thousands of employees because that was an appropriate scale twenty years ago.”

At Foursquare, we just went through another “reduction in workforce.” Between last year’s layoffs and last week’s second round of layoffs, my team has been cut more than half (from 18 people to 8). Re-grouping and re-building—in light of a climate that is understandably low on morale—is absolutely necessary to staying the course. We’re in the middle of seeing our size as an asset, not a setback.

At Personality, we reorganized the entire business model a year ago and it is no longer dependent on full-time centrally located employees. We could have never built what we did without the former model, but we could never do what we’re doing now without the current model. Personality’s future is looking very bright.

At CFCC, the organization is powered by a network of people around the world that believe in the mission. It’s built by the people who benefit from it, and we’re getting ready to roll out some things that will make participation even more accessible to people who want to get involved. CFCC is being structured so that its size and momentum are always running parallel. Too many people without momentum is a packed train heading nowhere meaningful. Too much momentum without any people to carry it is an empty train headed off a cliff.

“It’s tempting to get bigger. But is bigger better? In many cases, it’s worse, particularly when you can leverage reliable systems that are cheaper and faster and more stable in the outside world. If you can make your product better by assembling it yourself, you should. But if that action makes it worse, why do it?”

I’d rather have a small team making a big difference than a big team making no difference.

I’ve had the privilege of building and leading several teams in my short life thus far. From staff and volunteer teams, to project-specific and virtual teams, I’m a lifelong learner of what it means to build and become a remarkable team.

One of the dilemmas I find myself in when building a team is answering the question about what comes first. Does the cause come before the team or does the team come before the cause? My experience has taught me that either can be done. I’ve built teams that figure out the cause, and I’ve identified causes that need a team to accomplish. Jim Collins would argue that building the team should come before figuring out where to go.

I tend to agree with Jim and I’ve been heeding his advice ever since I read it in Good to Great. But I’m not convinced this always works.

One of the teams I lead now was built on Collins’ premise of getting the right people on the bus (and the wrong people off the bus), and then figuring out where to go. So far so good. But the problem we’re experiencing is that where we’re headed might not be in sync with where the overall organization is headed. It’s not that we’re going in different directions, it’s that we’re taking different paths to get there. I’m not sure if this is good or bad.

I do know that it’s causing some consternation on the team because although everyone shares the same corporate purpose, our team is climbing a different side of the mountain to get there. That can be fun for some and frightening for others.

What do you think?

One of the things people notice when they come into my office is the absence of chairs. I do have a conference table six feet away from my desk that is surrounded by a few chairs, but there is no place to sit in front of my desk. Many find this rude because it appears as though I am not very inviting or social. Although I’m in counseling dealing with such issues, I learned many years ago how much more efficient I can be simply by getting rid of chairs.

The logic of my lunacy goes a little something like this:
When there is no place to sit, people must stand.
When people stand, meetings are usually shorter.
When meetings are shorter, more work gets done.
When more work gets done, everyone wins.

I read somewhere that when you hold a pencil in your hand—not a pen—when standing and talking, people are more likely to finish the conversation early because it appears you are busy. I’m not so convinced this works. However, I have noticed that if I stand when someone comes in, the conversation does usually go shorter than if I am sitting.

Conversations may also be shorter because I walk toward people and back them out of the door.

Only joking.

Now that I’ve publicly clued my team to this “secret,” I’m sure they’ll collaborate a rebellion. In the meantime, I’ll enjoy the pace of productivity.

In 1998 I started a company (known today as Personality) that provided design and marketing services to a handful of great clients. They were from relationships I had built over the years through a publishing start-up I helped to found. Although that publishing company eventually went out of business, the relationships lived on and helped to start Personality, which I have been building ever since those early days in Chicago in the late 90s.

Shortly after I moved to Los Angeles in 2000, I realized quickly that design and marketing was not really the business I was in. Sure, that’s what clients thought they were paying for, but it didn’t take much looking around to see that the work I was providing was just as good—if not worse—than the next guy’s. The difference was in how I delivered the work. I was dependable, trustworthy and fast. I made things happen. I brought together the right people to make the project work. If I didn’t know how to do it, I figured out how to do it. I hardly ever said no.

And the business grew.

After five years into the life of the company, it was time to take things to the next level. The design and marketing business was consistent work, but it wasn’t what I was wired to do nor was it my dream. I did it because it was a bridge to what was next. If the business was ever going to be all that I dreamed for it to be, it was going to take more than just me to dream it and build it.

It’s been a bumpy ride ever since I made that shift five years ago. Where we’ve landed is better than I would have ever imagined, but the ride hasn’t been easy. It’s been full of risk at every turn.

When I read Seth Godin’s post earlier this week on building an albatross, I immediately resonated with his journey building Squidoo. Using the example of an albatross bird, Seth distills two great points that I have been following but never put it into words quite like Seth does:

1. Plan for the long slow ramp up. That means super low overhead and patience and not trying to launch with a huge splash because you’re impatient.

2. Architecture matters. If you intend to build an albatross, you’ll want to design a business where each customer brings you new customers, where the more it gets used, the better it works.

The “slow ramp up” continues for Personality. We’re years away from any sort of splash, but I think the journey and the stuff we’re working on is worth it.

Growing up, my education path was not typical. I dabbled in all of it: public school, private school, home school, no school, college at 18 and college at 26. I finished high school when I was 16; not because I was smart but because I was bored. It was the entrepreneur in me that kept me motivated to learn and keep figuring things out.

In a meeting with my team earlier this week, we were working through ideas for overcoming some significant obstacles in front of us. It’s amazing how easy it is to over-process and over-think so many options. How many times have you had a meeting about a meeting to discuss a meeting’s meeting?

One antidote I’ve learned along the way—and I think it comes from my atypical learning path—is to fail faster. The sooner I learn what doesn’t work, the sooner I’ll stumble upon what does work.

The guys at 37signals are a great example of this philosophy in action. They don’t tinker around with products until everything is perfect. They get it out there an innovate along the way.

I’ll admit, this approach doesn’t make life easier nor is it a path to take if you have problems in the humility department, but failing faster sure does set you up for more successes.

This failing faster approach is not an excuse to avoid learning from others or adopting what’s already working out there. Rather, it’s an attempt at creating a fail-safe in the absence of overwhelming clarity.

I have a great team at Foursquare. Their creativity never ceases to amaze me, and yesterday was no exception. Our associate editor (Marcia) and web project manager (Geoff) are getting married next month. They met before they started working here and it’s been exciting for all of us to see their relationship evolve over the past year.

Because many of us on the Comm team are fans of The Office, we decided to put together a little Office-themed party for Geoff and Marcia. After we donned the character of our Office counterpart, we shared a meal, played a little Office trivia and concluded with a video that says it all.

Go team!

For the past year or so I’ve been researching and writing about the topic of identity and soul, and why that matters for individuals and organizations. It’s been a fascinating journey, especially since so much of what I do revolves around this topic. For example, at Personality, our whole profiling process is built around the ability to understand who an organization is and what to do as a result of that knowledge.

This issue of identity is also a significant pursuit at Foursquare because without a shared understanding of who we are, tribes are difficult to keep together or sustain.

A good chunk of my studying has stemmed from the book The Soul of the Corporation by Hamid Bouchikhi and John R. Kimberly. I reviewed this on the Personality blog.

I also wrote a 4-part series for Church Marketing Sucks that has resulted in a lot of good feedback–both in the comments section and directly to me via email. You can read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.

For my keynote during the Echo conference later this month in Dallas, I’m looking forward to sharing the “live” presentation of this series, including some great videos to drive home the point.

Jamaica and I arrived in Houston yesterday for the annual Foursquare Convention. We’re here for eight days, mostly because of all the pre-convention logistics to work through. So while Jamaica gets some focused study time for her upcoming LSAT, I’m swirling in event minutiae. There are just over 3,000 people registered and we’ll have close to 3,500 in total attendance.

A few things I am anticipating…

• The Monday night opening is going to be quite dramatic. We’ve partnered with the local arts district here in Houston and several singers/actors are helping out.

• Houston Mayor Bill White is bringing greetings Monday night.
• Israel & New Breed are live Tuesday night–almost 20 people in their crew!
• Mr. Smiley (a.k.a. Joel Osteen) shot a video greeting that we’re rolling on Monday night.
• Kirbyjon Caldwell–of recent Bush wedding fame–is speaking Thursday night.
• We’ve got a special guest from NASA sharing on Wednesday night.
• The Foursquare national leader from Myanmar (Burma) in town. He’ll share updates on Monday.
• We’re debuting a new video on Thursday night about Foursquare that people are going to love.

I’m grateful for the hundreds of volunteers that have gathered together from Foursquare churches in the Houston area to help pull this thing off. And special props, as always, to the core convention crew: Steve Cauble, Mitchie Sarmiento, Mike Fullerton and the rest of my team for making the journey enjoyable.

Here we go!

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