As a kid, I loved playing Whac-A-Mole at the arcade (yes, I was a child of the 80s). In this game, moles pop up randomly out of various holes in the ground, and you have to smash them on the head with a mallet before they go back underground. The longer you play, the faster and more frequently they pop up, which makes the game as challenging as it is fun. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
For the purpose of this post, let’s let the moles represent problems<\/em> that pop up in our leadership. When problems rear their ugly head, many leaders simply knock them back underground (i.e., make them go away temporarily<\/em>) vs figuring out how to kill them (i.e., make them go away permanently<\/em>). And this is what Sam Carpenter, is his book Work the System<\/em>, calls Whac-A-Mole leadership. <\/p>\n\n\n\n About a year ago I realized I was practicing Whac-A-Mole leadership related to my weekly post-sermon work. You see, after I write my sermon each week, my work is far<\/em> from done. After I write the sermon, I then have to…<\/p>\n\n\n\n There’s more but you get the idea. As this list grew over time it became harder and harder to remember all the steps, and each week I would miss something. One week I’d miss item 1, the following week item 3, the week after that items 6 & 8, so on and so forth. This created a problem for the Creative Arts Department, who had to keep coming back to me asking for the translation for a certain verse or asking me to upload the video that was supposed to be in Drive, etc. In response, I would smash the mole back underground (i.e., I would get them the translation, I would upload the video). But when it kept happening, to the point of embarrassment, I finally decided to kill the mole (i.e., come up with a plan for how to permanently<\/em> fix the problem). I thought about it and realized that a checklist (if followed) would permanently<\/em> fix the problem. So I went into Asana and created a task called “Sermon Follow Up” and added the above items as subtasks. Now, every week, when I finish my sermon, I go through each and every item, checking them off one by one, until I’ve completed everything on the list. Problem solved! <\/p>\n\n\n\n This is an illustration of what we should do anytime<\/em> a problem pops up. Don’t just solve it for<\/em> now<\/em>. Solve it for all time<\/em>! Many leaders don’t do this because it’s time-consuming. Let me be clear, it does<\/em> take time to permanently fix a problem. But let me be equally clear that it never takes as much time<\/em> as solving the same problem ad infinitum. So even though fixing a problem may require us to hit pause and take time out of our busy day, it’s totally worth it. A leader who doesn’t permanently fix problems will find him\/herself busier and busier. Conversely, a leader who takes the time to permanently fix problems with find him\/herself freer and freer. In this way, the benefit far<\/em> outweighs the cost. <\/p>\n\n\n\n DISCUSSION QUESTION: Where are you practicing Whac-A-Mole leadership and which specific problem will you choose to permanently fix today<\/em>? <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As a kid, I loved playing Whac-A-Mole at the arcade (yes, I was a child of the 80s). In this game, moles pop up randomly out of various holes in the ground, and you have to smash them on the head with a mallet before they go back underground. The longer you play, the faster […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-790","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-leadership","7":"entry"},"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Mike","author_link":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/author\/mike\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=790"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1167,"href":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790\/revisions\/1167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n