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We often spend lots of time planning ahead for service flows, event rentals, equipment upgrades, and so much more. But there are plenty of times that Murphy’s Law rears its head, and what can go wrong, will.
I think we sometimes believe that excellence is only attainable one way: by planning ahead and having strategy and structure well-defined.
What if that isn’t necessarily the case? What if excellence is a mentality that can be applied to any circumstance, even those where things are being developed on the fly?
“Everybody’s got a plan until they get punched in the mouth." - Mike Tyson
If excellence means doing the best you can with what you have available, then yes, there is certainly value in being able to plan ahead and strategize to maximize the output of whatever resources can be gathered.
However, if I’m having to adjust last-minute or scramble to pull things together amidst shifting expectations, I have the ability to do my best with my available resources in that situation too.
Yes, it’s possible to attain excellence through long-term planning. And it’s also possible to be excellent if you have to fly by the seat of your pants.
I can pursue excellence while also being flexible.
I can pursue flexcellence.
This is not to excuse a lack of planning or forethought because to do so wouldn’t really be doing the best we could. We had the opportunity to plan ahead but chose not to. That’s not really an excellent spirit.
But a power outage? Sick pastor? Last-minute declines from volunteers? Those are situations where the plan goes out the window and I just have to do the best I can with what I’ve got.
As boxer Mike Tyson famously once said, “Everybody’s got a plan until they get punched in the mouth” (or bitten in the ear, I suppose).
And the point is true in church tech ministry as well. We often spend lots of time planning ahead for service flows, event rentals, equipment upgrades, and so much more. But there are plenty of times that Murphy’s Law rears its head, and what can go wrong, will.
Even though we may be adjusting in the moment when things go sideways, that’s when the backbone of an excellent spirit can still shine through.
An understanding person well, understands, that they might not be able to control their atmosphere or the circumstances, but they sure can control how they respond.
We have an organized storage room with gear neatly placed and labeled, so if we have to mic a ukulele last minute, it’s easy to find the necessary gear to do so. We can be flexible because of our excellence.
A volunteer had to bail and now a rookie has to step into a new role? No problem. We have developed a thorough training process to teach new volunteers all the ins and outs of a role so they can step in with confidence instead of being thrown into the fire. We can be flexible with our staffing because of the excellence we focus on during our training.
Problems setting up a portable church and we have to scramble to get gear working? Fortunately, we documented all of our processes, labeled cables and patch panels, and uploaded a bunch of “how-to” videos to Dropbox. We can be flexible in the moment as we try to troubleshoot because we were excellent in our mindset as we used the calm moments to plan ahead for the inevitable storm.
Oftentimes, having to be flexible in a moment of chaos can rattle us if we don’t have a solid foundation to fall back on. That’s why athletes, military members, first responders, professional musicians, and so many more trades focus so much on training and planning. Certain things need to become second nature so that I can do them without panicking or wondering what to do.
When the variables change and the circumstances are no longer calm and ideal, I can be both flexible to adapt to those changes and excellent to continue to do things at a high level of quality.
I can be flexcellent.
Proverbs 17:27 (Message paraphrase) says that an “understanding person remains calm.”
An understanding person well, understands, that they might not be able to control their atmosphere or the circumstances, but they sure can control how they respond.
Instead of making excuses or blaming others, that understanding person assesses the situation, accepts the new variables, and presses forward, relying on their training to guide what they do. They have documented systems, developed Plan B scenarios, and most importantly, they’ve embraced the idea that they can still do their best regardless of what’s happening around them.
Does that mean they have to be perfect? No! On this side of heaven, nothing we do will ever be perfect. But they can have a positive attitude, a calm response, and an excellent spirit.
They can adapt to changes because they don’t whine about their circumstances or fuss about being victimized. Their only focus is continuing to do things they best the possibly can.
An attitude of flexibility.
A spirit of excellence.
Flexcellence.
