Maurilio Amorim

Author: Maurilio Amorim

Managing the Decline

“She was hired to manage the decline.” I heard those words over a year ago and they have haunted me ever since. I have lived a life where advance, growth, opportunity, were the words used to describe the next idea, product or ministry. I was hired once to turn a money-losing summer day camp around and within 2 summers we had tripled the enrollment and had enough profit to cause an internal fight on how to spend the excess cash. But I could never imagine being told to manage the decline.

The more I learn about people, businesses and ministry, the more I run into people who are managing the inevitable death of their organizations, product lines or even entire industries the best they can. These are not lazy or bad people. While some are smart enough to know that the end is inevitable, they are either powerless to change it or don’t have the willpower to pay the price it takes to make the shift towards something new.

Remember the typesetters of years ago? These were massive machines where fonts were created out of metal and wood and loaded in as a specialized typist created plates for the printing press. Once the personal computer hit the market, the days of the typesetter machine manufactures, typists, film developers, maintenance workers were numbered. Overnight, and entire industry disappeared. Someone managed that decline. Knowing the end was near, but holding down the fort because it was his job to do it.

I side with the old poet Dylan Thomas as he cried: “Do not go gentle into that good night. . . Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” So I rage. I refuse to believe I’m done. I still want to learn, to grow, to run faster to work smarter, to meet new people and to dream new dreams. While I often congratulate my team on accomplishing so much, I push them toward doing what’s going to make us great tomorrow. Today’s celebration was yesterday’s victory, but we still must win tomorrow’s.

Please don’t ask me to manage the decline or to maintain the status quo. I’m not that guy. I just can’t do it. I once remember trying to do it. It lasted less than a month: “We either grow or I’ll get fired trying.” I left less than a year later on my own but there were a lot of people happy to see me go.

Have you ever been put in a position that you knew you were managing the decline?

June 3, 2011
Why I Need Balance

I struggle with finding balance in my life. I’m driven, performance oriented and competitive. Those traits don’t mix well with balance, but I understand that without balance in my life, I tend to focus on the urgent and forget to take care of the important.

I’ve heard someone say recently that balance is overrated. Throw caution to the wind and, as the romantics would say, “carpe diem.” But what a balanced life ultimate offers all of us is the ability to look soberly at our circumstance as well as to where we are headed. Balance tells us that we are working too hard, or neglecting loved ones, or that we are not spending enough time and resources to those who cannot help themselves. A balanced person looks at the dashboard of his or her life where the physical, emotional, spiritual and relational gauges tell a complete story.

It’s easy for me to go full throttle on performance-driven areas of life life professional and even physical and neglect the others. But we were created to live balanced lives and when we don’t, there’s always a price to pay. Often it’s a much greater price than we ever thought.

I am writing this post mostly as a reminder to myself that I must take a sober look at all the gauges of my life even those I often neglect.

How do you create balance in your life?

June 2, 2011
The Problem with Positional Leadership

We can distill leadership in two of its basic foundations: positional and influential. Understanding them will dictate and help you successfully navigate through leadership waters. You can be given the position but unless you also have the influence, you are not really a leader.

Positional leadership is given, while influential is earned. While they are not mutually exclusive, some never make the connection. It took me a while before I got that lesson, but once I did, I understood the power of influence.

Anyone can get a job managing a person, or a group of people. My first job as a manager was as a part-time music director at a church while going through graduate school. I had to lead a choir, which I was prepared to lead; however, the choir was not the problem, Rosie, the organist, was. I remember my first day on the job when one of the choir members half jokingly said, “all the other choir directors before you are buried behind the gym.” While not all of them were, I’m certain at least a couple had to be there. After all Rosie had been there for nearly 30 years and none of them were around. Her organ shoes were older than me.

I quickly realized that while technically I was Rosie’s boss, she was going to do whatever she wanted unless I moved from being a positional leader to an influential one. It took me a couple of years of hard work on our relationship and earning her trust, but finally Rosie and I became a team. She trusted me and in the course of a few years, I was the person in charge, even though I was still in my 2o’s and Rosie was well into her 60’s . As a matter of fact, before I left that job, Rosie retired.

Positional leaders without influence are dictators at worst and poor managers at best. People will “follow” them until they find something else to do. If you’re not sure you have influence, ask yourself “would my employee, team take my advice and direction if I were not the boss?” If you cannot answer with a resounding, “yes,” chances are you’re managing from a positional place and not leading from influence.

Have you ever worked for a positional leader? What happened?

June 1, 2011
Are You Communicating or Trying to Impress?

“He’s so smart. I can’t understand half of he’s talking about.” I heard that said of a speaker not long ago. I couldn’t disagree more. Good communication takes into account your target audience and tries to create a bridge between the message and the audience it’s trying to reach. Great communicators do now show off how much they know about a subject to the point of overwhelming or confusing someone else. That’s the fodder of insecure, pseudo intellectuals who want to make sure you know they are smarter than you at any chance they get. One of the challenges I face as a consultant is to help my clients to communicate clearly and effectively.

The longer we are a part of an organization, a movement, an industry, the more likely we are to create and adapt to our own language, ideas, and set of standards that often miss communicate our message to those in the outside. I call it “insider language.” In Christian circles we often use theological terms to speak to non-Christians. Terms like “redemptive” and “eschatological” might win you points with your Bible study or seminary friends, but will, most often, fail to communicate with those outside the faith.

Great communicators do now show off how much they know to the point of overwhelming or confusing someone else. That’s the fodder of insecure, pseudo intellectuals who want to make sure you know they are smarter than you.

In Brazil, people use language as a way to differentiate their social status. The more formal education you have, the more unintelligible you become to those less fortunate. That’s not communicating. It’s snobbery. I’m not, however, advocating lowering our intellectual standards so we can serve the lowest common denominator, but we must be able to change our language, and not our message, for the sake of our audience.

Does your business, ministry or church uses insider language?

May 31, 2011
Summer Essentials: Sunglasses

No summer wardrobe is fully complete without the perfect pair of sunglasses. Guys, the good news it that there are a lot of different styles that you could wear that are in vogue these days. There’s a resurgence for the third time of the RayBan’s Wayfarer as well as strong come back of the Aviator. But before you choose you frame, here’s a few things to consider:

If you have a long face you should stay away from “droopy” frames and go with something of a more horizontal nature. While the Aviator might be making a come back, it might not be a come back for you.

If you have a large head beware of frames that are too small for you. They will make your head look even bigger.

If your face is round stay away from round frames. You’ll accentuate your “roundness” and will end up looking like a living “happy face.”

If you have a small head, wraparounds and large frames will make you look like a child who borrowed his dad’s glasses.

Classic Ray Ban frames are always in style.

These Ferragno glasses work well if you're confident, bold, European, or all them. The timid cannot pull this one off.

Great choice for Noah MIlls. If you have a small head or long face you should pass on these.

These Clubmaster inspired shades never go out of style and tend to look good on most everyone. Mr. Depp makes it work. Well, he makes most everything work including dreadlocks.

Guys are sporting white shades everywhere these days. Just say NO and thank me later.

What style is your current sunglasses? Are you thinking of a change for the summer?

May 27, 2011
The Death of The Advertising Agency

There’s no easy way to say it. The traditional Ad Agency is not going to stay around for long. As the big guys scramble to survive and as the little guys close shop, marketing agencies find themselves in a major shift. Some believe it’s a difficult transition, if not an impossible one under the current way most of these shops are setup.

In order to survive agencies must:

Stop being dependent on the 15% media buying revenue and print markup. The days of clients spending hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions of dollars on traditional media are numbered. The new media mix is a lot more fluid and fragmented and requires more thinking than a media buyer can do in one afternoon. A direct mail campaign followed by radio and/or TV is no longer the answer for every problem. I’m not certain it’s the answer for any current dilemma.

Make technology a core value not an outsourced commodity. You cannot outsource the very core of the way people communicate, otherwise you have nothing unique to offer. Technology and communication are synonymous. If you don’t understand the technology and how to adapt it, you cannot be flexible enough and fast enough to evolve.

Must figure out Social Media and how to quantify results in that space. Even the most skeptical cannot argue with the explosion of the social networks and their tremendous impact in the way we communicate. What they can argue, however, is how effective social media really as a return on investment. New measuring tools, and smart strategies are helping marketers to put real numbers behind social media campaigns, but there’s a lot of ambiguity and among the many self-proclaimed “experts” on the subject.

These are my three big shifts. I’m sure there are a lot of others that I’m not mentioning.

In your opining, what other changes a marketing firm must make to continue to be relevant to its clients?

May 26, 2011
How do You Prepare Your Messages or Presentations?

How do you prepare for your speaking engagements? Pastors have to prepare a message every week, sometimes two or even three messages in the course of a few days. The pressure is always on to deliver something that will challenge, motivate, inspire and ultimately cause people to move from complacency and the status quo into a deeper relationship with God. While most pastors believe that God is the One who does the changing and convincing, they are also aware they’re called to be a spokesperson for things that are sacred and cannot abdicate their responsibility to prepare.

Recently I interviewed Mike Slaughter, Sr. Pastor of Ginghamsburg Church, and he shared with me in the video below how he prepares the message that he delivers 5 times each weekend.

How do you prepare for a message or presentation?

May 25, 2011
Half-Hearted Self Discipline Fails to Deliver

Self discipline pays dividends. In my life I have seen self discipline become the difference between getting an A or a C in school, between doing ok at work or getting promoted quickly, between a mediocre business and a thriving one, between thinking about running a marathon and actually finishing one. Discipline is often the difference between success or failure. But if we are not careful, we can be disciplined and yet not see results.

I don’t know about you, but I tend to play mind games with the things that require my full attention to get to the next level. I’m usually willing to be disciplined in the areas that come natural to me, like exercise, but I often have a tough time committing to pay the price and do what’s not an easy task for me, like having a consistent clean diet. In this case, however, the diet is the more important of the two. Proper nutrition will fuel performance and accelerate the hard work during exercise. Without it, exercise lose its effectiveness and we face diminishing returns for our efforts.

How many hours have I wasted at the gym because my diet worked against me? What kind of gains could I have seen had I been as disciplined with my eating as I was with my workouts?

The price of success, whether be at the gym, at work, or in ministry, is more often a combination of self discipline in several different areas of our lives, and not just the areas that we are most comfortable with. Working late might come easy for you, but you might not be willing to push yourself to engage people and have the conversations that will help your job performance and career way more than all the spreadsheets and reports you can generate.

Stop for a second and take inventory. If you’re like me, there’s an area in your life that you need to commit to be fully in. It might be spiritual, physical, professional or relational. While you’re putting in the effort somewhere, you know that ultimately is not going to be enough to get you to the next level.

What area(s) of your life needs more self-discipline? What would it take for you to do it?

May 23, 2011
Getting Rapture Ready: What to Wear to Heaven

As I try to prepared for tomorrow’s rapture into heaven, I naturally thought of what I wanted to wear to heaven. That’s a big question. Think about it. So I did. But according to some, we would go naked. However, if they are wrong and we did indeed make the trip wearing whatever we had on at the time of the rapture, which I heard somewhere is around 5 p.m. tomorrow, that could be embarrassing. Trying to understand and visualize such event, I googled the rapture so I could see what it would look like. Here’s what I found:

According to this interpretation, Christians will be raptured fully clothed. They also will be dragged up as some of these people look like they are not wanting to go while others are flying up with open arms.

According to this interpretation, Christians that are raptured will look like Tinkerbell and glow from excess pixie dust.

This guy decided that only the slim and athletic will make it to heaven. Or those who are raptured will be turned into slim and athletic people. In this case, pass the ice cream!

I still haven’t answered the big question: What should I wear?

If we go naked, then all bets are off, including our pants and our apparel doesn’t matter. Now if we go up clothed I’m going to wear white. Think about every movie scene shot in heaven you’ve seen. What are people wearing? White. That’s right. Whether they are wearing togas, moo moos, or a suit, people in heaven always wear white. Angels have been sporting white attire longer than we have and they look marvelous. And since we’re going to have new bodies, you don’t have to worry about looking bad carrying excess weight in your revealing whites. Yeah.

What’s your take? Are you getting your best whites on?

May 20, 2011
The Right Stripe For Your Body Type

Stripes have been a staple in men’s wear for decades. We wear them in suits, shirts, pants, shorts and even undergarments. But not all stripes are created equal. You should know what type of stripe works best for you and why. I see a lot of guys wearing vertical stripes when they should be wearing horizontal. Yes, there is a difference. Here’s a simple guide for guys, it works for gals as well, on how to wear stripes:

Horizontal: if you are thin, or tall and want to look wider, horizontal stripes are your friend. Slender, tall frames usually look their best with a wide horizontal stripped shirts. If you are heavy or have short legs, horizontal stripes usually make you look bigger and stubbier. Big or broad guys with short legs should stay away from them.

Vertical: If you are short and/or heavy, vertical stripes are good for you. They create an illusion of height and help you look more “streamlined” or slimmer. If you’re very tall but broad, you can pull vertical stripes well, however.

horizontal stripes on her look great, on him not so much. I'm sure the wardrobe person hates this guy.

Stripes are not helping him. Either he won a prize or she lost a bet.

Tall but broad men can pull off the vertical stripes well.

A big man should stick with vertical stripes. They make you look leaner and taller.

How do you feel about stripes?

May 20, 2011