Video Transcript: Own the Awkward

Being an effective manager. Qualification number four, mastering the awkward II Samuel 12, the Lord sent Nathan, the prophet to David. When he came to him,  he said there were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. The  rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, but the poor man had  nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it. It grew up with  him and his children. It shared his food and drink, drank from his cup and even  slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him. Now, a traveler came to the rich  man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to  prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe  lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come  to him. David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, as surely  as the Lord lives, the man who did this must die. He must pay for the lamb four  times over because he did such a thing and had no pity. Then Nathan said to  David, you're the man. You're the man. Now it's interesting to me that David  didn't get it. David had committed adultery, and then to cover up his adultery, he  had the husband murdered. Okay, so he's just done these things, and now  Nathan tells a story that is exactly what he did, and he doesn't get it. He doesn't  get that. It's about him. Nathan has to say it to him, You are the man. I thought  about this story recently, because a week ago, one of the people in my church,  he's having a trouble with his landlord, and and the landlord is supposedly a  Christian, and they're having this problem, and they're struggling and and  they've been fighting for six months, and they haven't talked. And I keep telling  them, You got to go talk to them. So anyway, he wrote a letter. He wrote a letter,  and then he showed me the letter, and the letter was just scathing. It was just  and I said, Okay, if you just want to vent and and you want to be kicked out of  the house and be done with it. You just want to vent. Then this is a really good  letter. But if you actually want something, if you want to settle something, or you  want him to do something for you, this letter is not going to work at all. I mean,  you have to be, you know, I think, well, he won't listen. I said, Well, I don't know  he's, he's a Christian. He goes to church, you know, you know, appeal to  Scripture. I did that. He said, I one time, I left a note, and I just put down this  passage, this passage that I just read to you. He said, Well, I left him that  passage, and it didn't come to anything. And I said, Well, okay, you left him a  passage that said that he's like King David who just committed adultery and  murder. So, I mean, you basically left a passage that said, you know, I judge you as a rotten, horrible person, yeah, but he didn't listen. I said, Well, why would he  listen? I mean, this passage is perfect example of why people or how people  don't listen. This passage was directed to David. David has just done these  horrible things. It's totally about him. And when he read it, or when he heard it  from Nathan the prophet, he didn't even know that it applied to him. So what  makes you think if you give it to your landlord, he's going to think it's about him. I mean, if David didn't get it, your landlord isn't going to get it either. So, you 

know, he has to rewrite the letter. It's a difficult thing, but it must have been  difficult for Nathan to do this too. I have to go to the king. I have to point out it's  his fault. I'm telling this story. At some point, David should get it. He should fall  down his knees and and beg God for forgiveness. Instead, he gets angry at the  person. It's like, I have to, I have to explain to David that this is about you. It's an awkward thing. It's an awkward thing to challenge people that are in a higher  position to you, there's a lot of awkward moments. If you're a leader, or you want to be a leader, there's a lot of awkward moments. And as a leader, you have to  master those awkward moments. Most people are going to run away from them.  They're going to delay them, and ultimately, they're just not going. Do them.  Awkward Moment number one confrontation, you have a co worker. You're not  getting along. He's not following through some you know, there's some issue  that you need to sit down and talk. You asked for something, he didn't deliver.  You did all kinds of favors for him, and then the one time you need him, he can't  be bothered and he's busy with something else, whatever it might be, you know,  and as leaders in the church or even in any organization, we tend to let these  things go. We let these things go. Why? Because it's going to be awkward. How  am I going to confront when am I going to confront? Do I just call him on the  phone? Is that the right thing to do? Do I call him on the phone set up a  meeting? But if I do that, he'll ask, what's the meeting about? Then I have to say, well, let's just talk about it, and then I'll worry about it. He'll worry about it. I  mean, all these issues keep us from doing it, and then we get madder and  madder and madder, and we get more and more frustrated. And so finally we do the confrontation. But we didn't decide to do it today. It decided to do it for us  today. We just blow up, we erupt. And then, of course, the person feels attacked, and then they attack back, and the whole thing doesn't work because we didn't  own the awkward moment when there's a problem. We own it, and I'm not. I'm  not going to do it tomorrow. I'm not going to delay Well, you know, I think next  week will be better because I'm busy today. No, do it right now. Do the do the  master the awkward moment apologizing. I hate apologizing. I grew up in a  home where my father was always right, and so naturally I wanted to be right  too. So, you know, we have this desire to be right and to apologize means you're wrong. I didn't see it modeled, you know, I didn't know how to do it, and so I  didn't see it. I don't do it very well myself. So it's something that I have to master. You know, when I know that I've hurt some I know I've offended someone, you  know, I come late to a meeting, and, you know, I'm the senior pastor, so I come  late to a meeting. I'm late because of important things that I've got to do. I don't  feel like saying I'm sorry, really, because I feel like, you know, I am so busy. It's  just lucky that I got here at all. So it's just hard for me to walk into the room and  say to the people that I'm leading, you know, I'm really sorry. I know your time is  valuable, and it's as valuable as my time. And you know, something happened. I, you know, I, you know, I'll try not to let it happen again. You know, I have to 

humble myself, but it's not just about humility. I have to own that awkward  moment while I'm saying it. I just, you know, it's just hard for me to do, and I  gotta own it. It's awkward, and I just have to, just have to do it, own the awkward moment. Asking for money. I hate asking for money. Now, some people, that's,  you know, they love asking for money. They don't mind it when people say no.  They get a big thrill when people say yes. But for me, I just, you know, we have  a guy, we're doing a renovation, and we needed a sprayer, and he was looking  into one, and he he had some money, and he was looking into one, he found  one for $700 or something, and and he said, I think I found the one. Now, you  know, so how is the church going to pay for this? And I said, Well, you know  what I should have said is, well, can't you pay for it? See that silence is the  awkward moment, see, and I don't, I can't stand that silent moment where I'm  saying, Well, why don't you pay for it? Because I know he's thinking, well,  Buddy, why should I pay for it? Why should I pay for it? Or I don't know what  he's thinking, but I'm wondering all these things that he's thinking. So I hate that  awkward moment. So what I said to him is, tell you, what if, if you pay half, I'll  pay half. And he right away said, okay, and see I didn't want to own that  awkward moment, and it cost me $350 because I didn't want to own that  awkward moment. I could have owned I could have at least tried, and if you  didn't do it, I could have said, Well, why don't we split it? But I didn't want to own the awkward moment, and it cost me. It's it's dealing with that, that that space  where you ask and then you don't know what's going to happen. I have to own  that. I have to go, this is my job. I need to be good at this, and I can't be good at  this without doing it. Number four, asking for help. I'm not an I don't like asking  for help. I grew up in a home where you do it yourself. Up. You know, if  something has to be fixed, I'm going to take it apart, and if it doesn't work, I'll just throw it away and I'll buy a new one. You know, asking for help. You know, my  dad didn't do it, so I have a hard time doing it. It's awkward. I have to call  someone. I have to interrupt their life. They're busy with something, you know,  this Saturday. Could you help me? They had other plans on Saturday. Now I'm  telling them to put all their plans on home hold. And now I want you to help me  even, even for the church, but I have to own that awkward moment. They can  always say no, and I need help. People need help, so I need to own that  awkward moment number five, asking for better service. You know, I've been out to eat with people, and then you order a steak, and then it comes, and it's like,  overdone, and the person goes, you know, I ordered it rare, and this is as done  as can be. Could you please do it again? I would just probably eat it, you know, I think Well, you know, overdone is not that bad. And, you know, I just because I  don't want to go through that awkward moment where the, you know, it's not the  waitresses fault, it's the cook's fault, or somebody's fault, and nowadays they're  sitting there feeling embarrassed. And I hate to make someone feel  embarrassed, but I've been with people who have no problem with that. They 

you know, it isn't what they want. They demand it. In fact, I was had a good  friend of mine, when we would go out, she would demand that it would be free.  Not only will you do it again, but don't you think you should take something off  the bill? And I'm sitting there cringing. You know, that seems like a bold thing.  We need to be bold. If you're a leader, you need to be bold. And if nothing else,  you should just go out for a meal and find something you don't like and say that  you want this redone, just for the practice of it, just to get used to that little sense of Ooh. I'm asking people. I'm pushing people out of their comfort zones. I don't  know what's going to happen. You need to master these awkward moments.  Closing the deal. A lot of people can sell, you know, talking to a person, trying to  get them to church. Hey, you should come to my church sometime. I play  pickleball. And a bunch of different people, and a lot of them don't go to church,  so I'll invite them. Hey, why don't you come to my church sometime? Yeah,  yeah, that seems like a good idea. How do they never do? They never do. Hey,  why don't you buy this product of mine? I think you need it. Yeah. Well, we'll look at it. We'll think about it. Well, they don't do it. Closing the deal is getting them to do it right now. Hey, how about coming to church this Sunday? Well, I have to  see okay, I'll give you a call tonight to see if you can make it and tell you what  we're we'll we'll have lunch afterwards. I'll talk to my wife. I'll call her. I'll call her  now and make sure you know we have food. Are you allergic to anything? I  mean, you just close the deal, make it happen. Now, that can be awkward. I just  want you to think about it. I just it's easy just to say, you know, ask people  something, but then sort of leave it to them, because I'm not really pressuring. I  don't want to pressure you. Generally, people don't do anything if you don't  pressure. So you're never going to close the deal, you're never going to make  the sale, you're never going to get that person to come to church, unless you  close the deal. And closing the deal can be awkward. They may say, No, I don't  want to be put in the position where I force someone to say no, letting someone  go. That is awkward. Okay, you have someone there on your staff. You worked  with them. You've already done the awkward moment of saying, you know, this  isn't really working. Well, you're not living up to our expectations. So try again. I  have that right now with an employee at our church not really working out. I don't see how it's going to work out, but I have to meet, you know, and lay out some  parameters, see if they can actually improve, which I don't think they're going to  do. So it's just awkward. I just, you know, and this week, I have all this taping to  do. I could have had this meeting this Saturday with them, but I'm busy, you  know. I just, I don't want to deal with that. Letting someone go is hard, but the  longer you wait, the worse it all gets. It's, it's it's bad for the church, it's bad for  the organization. It's bad for you personally, and it's bad for the person. They  need to they need to get on and move on and try to figure out something else for their life. So master letting someone go number eight, moving someone down in the batting order. You know, that's sort of a metaphor, if you if you know baseball

or softball, you know batting number one or two or three or four is sort of the  prestigious place to. Bat, but batting 6,7,8, or 8, you know, the coach is really  saying you're not that great of a hitter. And so sometimes, as a leader, you have  to take someone they had this responsibility, but they're really not, they're not  doing it. And so you take that away from them and give it to someone else, and  they're like, it's like a demotion, and they feel it, and you feel it, and you know it's going to happen, but you don't do it. You don't do it because this is going to be  awkward. I'm going to have to deal with it. I'm going to sit down with you. You're  going to argue with me. You're going to resent me for a while. I don't want  someone not liking me, so we're just going to keep going with mediocrity, own  that awkward moment. You know, it has to be done. Do it number nine,  demanding better work. People are not living up to your expectations demand  better work. In the long run, people will appreciate you. I've had coaches in  sports who were laissez faire, didn't seem to care. It was not that fun working for them, and I've had demanding coaches. Ultimately, you enjoy that more, but it's  hard so own that own those awkward moments