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Blessings from California in United States! I’m Elaine Kung, I’m excited to start this learning journey with you on how to SHINE Your Talk! at work. Actually, many of the communication tools can also be applied for family, community and church as well. And sharing with you based on my 33 years of career and also 47 years of ministry over the last few decades, based on my work experience especially education and ministry journey. So, SHINE Your Talk! is a new series theme. We want to help you to excel in your communication using biblical and practical tools and build up your leadership and influence at work. So, we're gonna start giving you a very brief overview so that you know what to expect, what is SHINE Your Talk! about, ultimately helping you to build trusted relationship with your managers, your co-workers and subordinates and your customers.
Among these relationships, I believe the most important is communication with your boss so that you are clearly aligned, understanding what your manager expects of you, so that you can be effective in leading your subordinates and building relationship and partnering with your peers. So, you start with good understanding of your boss and how to communicate. And then we'll also talk about speaking up with confidence, being able to persuade and share your points of view and earn respect and conflict resolution, strategy and gain agreement.
And then when you are not heard, you're not seen, how do you overcome those frustrations? We'll also have a series of very sticky and real work situation. How do you use some wise communication tools? So, SHINE Your Talk! stands for these five main topics, and we start with S - Speak with SINCERE, 8C, REASON, PREPARE to Lead Up, SOAR, one-on-one meeting. That's the S in the Shine. And that is all about key practices of communicating with your boss. For example, here's some sticky situations, difficult and sensitive. How do you SHINE Your Talk? How do you put Matthew 10:16 into practice? As shrewed as snakes and innocent as doves? You're gonna see these examples and how do we communicate using some very biblical and practical tools?
Before we start, I want to set the stage. When we think about work, it's important to realize that God is actually our CEO. He isn't just your boss. So all relationships, the most important is actually with God. And whatever you do, work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord, not for human masters. So, we want to work for a good job with our human master. At the same time, God is our CEO as Colossians 3:23 tells us. So, while we are at work, and when I worked in my 33 years of career in a fortune 500 company, my two goals were to glorify God and to bless others so that I am honouring God on what I do and do what I do so I can bless others, and also learn to receive blessings from God and be a blessing to others.
So, it's not just about doing good work, but really doing good work by pondering with God. Because God helps us, He blesses us. So, it's not the typical prosperity gospel. It's how we experience God’s intervention, His presence, His interaction, and co-labor with God at work. So that gives us great purpose and great meaning in our work. And that helps us to better communicate. And then remember to practice servant leadership of integrity that I live while I serve and I serve as I live. So that is a 360 ° leadership, and we'll define that more in the future session. So, because of this important meaning of work that God is our CEO and our work is to honor God and bless others, it is so important that during my 33 years of career, we founded Called to Work in 1996, 25 years ago, and that we help people to learn how to respond to God as we all are called to work.
God didn't just call your pastor to be a pastor, he called some of us to be housewives, some of us to be teachers, engineers, accountants, founders, chef, police. We are all called to a particular vocation and that we can say, thank God it’s Monday when we learn how to take Jesus to work. So, this is our website CalledToWork.org, CalledToWork.org. We have resources and these different online groups and youtube to encourage you with practical resources, to equip leaders, to even grow workplace ministry to encourage others, not just being encouraged, but also bless others and then to expand networks, so that we can partner with other ministry, leverage with various resources.
Now we have in english and in chinese. So, this is available on audio, video and text. And then our ministry in the last 25 years is a very exciting journey of seeing how God started us launching in 1996. Blessing a couple of hundred people every year in a conference. Then 15 years later in 2011, we waited in a new season. And then we went into a Prepare season that we can just hold conferences. We actually got invited by other people to go to all the conferences in the US or overseas. So, we ended up blessing more people, hundreds and thousands of people over time. Then in 2016, when we moved to Dallas, we got to make many new ministry partner connections in a growth season. Then 2019 was a breakthrough season, it's a movement,it’s no longer just a moment with certain conference or events. We can see worldwide movements. Then now with the COVID in the last 3 years, we really see the movement accelerated. Then Jesus is coming back soon, so we should quickly get on to, the state and what ministry and bless all the workers to know how to take Jesus to work.
And now, during COVID, we're able to partner with many ministries around the world and give 30-some talks a month and 20 some one-on-one coaching a month. And then we're training the trainers so that we multiply leaders to help them to bless their churches. We're very excited to really impact thousands and tens of thousands. And all this is based on how God has blessed me with a bi-vocational ministry, that I am not just at work as an engineer or director. I'm also a minister at work that I can be a channel of blessing to others. And all of us are called to be bi-vocational minister. And that we have these 3Cs - we have our Career; we have our Calling, what God has called us to do, what gifts, like mine would be a teaching gift and learn how to communicate well; And then our Community, that's our family and our public community in other boards and ministry that we’re involvement in. And all these three Cs actually converge. They are not separated. And each of the Cs builds on the other Cs experience.
So, now as we look at all 3Cs converge in my last few decades, I now can speak on education, career planning, courtship, marriage, parenting, life skills, and leadership skills. All that can be integrated and converged. That's a bi-vocational minister, that God does not waste anything that can be used to evangelize and to disciple others. So, during COVID in the last 3 years, I was able to teach 20 some courses invited by ministries from around the world. These are examples, the first 2 years, the 15 series, and then 2022, we have these 8 series, some in English, some in Chinese, some a broadcast series, like this one SHINE Your Talk! and some are more of a teaching a series with registration.
So, out of all these contents, we have ten books in progress, capturing all these content into these ten books. So I suggest you take a screen shot and use this QR code to go visit all the different website to see the actual contents and video and audio like this one here SHINE Your Talk! And then some turned into e-book or published book. And that gives you many different tools both in Chinese and in English.
So to set the stage, when we communicate, we want to demonstrate as a Christian, good influence, positive leadership, and good Christ-like character. So these 6Ms is a good way to summarize how we communicate and how we work. First, model godly character. We want to put on christ-like example. Instead of putting on the wolf skin, even though we are sheep, we may just put our wolf skin and go with the flow. Don't do that. Make good work. So do our best and trust god with the rest. Don't just be a mediocre worker. Because when we are Christian at work, doesn't mean that we take the bible around and share the gospel. No. We are paid and hired to do good work. Very important. And that's part of our ministry. We can still share gospel later on when we're on the right. And then third is Minister with grace and love, meaning we can love the unlovable and forgive the unforgivable. Instead of getting mad and get even. The 4th M is Mold the office culture, have a positive influence, positive office politics that are encouraging instead of being just involved in negative politics or reacting to negative politics. And then Mouthpiece for truth and justice that we can speak up for the truth and what is right, what's wrong? And that's how we learn about SHINE Your Talk! with integrity, with wisdom, instead of hiding your faith and be a James Bond 007, secret agent that no one knows that you’re a Christian, so be natural. And finally, Messenger of the gospel, share the faith in actions in our words. So we don't miss the opportunity to answer people, asking what is your reason for your work? So with these 6Ms we can be the salt, adding flavor and preserving the value and the truth from the bible and be the love, sharing God's love with others, because God love us first, and then be the light, shining in the dark.
So with the SHINE Your Talk! series that we would start with the speak with SINCERE and the relationship with your boss. That's the most important one at your work. That way you align to what your boss expects of me, you know how to work with your subordinates, which is the mixing point in relationship. Then your peers because you need to build your team up, and then you point out with your peers.
So let's start with how you communicate with your boss. So that's what you're gonna learn in the first named topic. And we always want to ask these six questions when you have certain communication with the boss, or they may have given you some criticism for something that you don't understand, then you ask the Reason: why do they do that to you? And Empathy to what they need: what is their need? For example, your boss give you more and more work, asking you to do more with less. Address their need: how can I address their need? And Set boundary: Because we need to meet them where they are and also care about their needs. At the same time, we also need to care about our own needs. That's setting boundary, and that's being assertive, and then offer solution. What message do I want to convey? What is the brand? And to Nurture trust. So all these will be used in some very real sticky situation in our detailed session.
Then we're gonna talk about how to Lead Up. So how do you influence your managers to help them to be their best for the greater good, aligned to a shared vision? That's my definition of leading up, not managed up, not manipulate up, but to influence, to lead up, because it's about helping them to be successful, helping them to be their best. For the greater good aligned to a shared vision.
So we're gonna learn about 11 types of bosses, understand their attitude, their approach,and what are the do’s and don'ts? So this a brief summary, and you’ll see each one of these in detail coming up.
And then in leading up with our boss, we need to know how to communicate very clearly. Using the SOAR story approach. You'll hear examples of this just like soar on wings like eagles. For example, for intelligent portion you will say, I'm a fast learner. I enjoy learning new tools and new technologies and solve problems. One time my boss asked me to use a tool that we've never learned. Usually, it would take 13 weeks to learn this tool. I took the initiative to study online for 3 weeks and asked experts, then I learned the tool and I help my team to use the tool and finish the project successfully. That's about less than a minute, SOAR story to talk about the Situation, Obstacle, Action and Result. And you can use it for interviews, or for a quick update with your boss when you have a one-on-one. We’ll go into detail. So here's an example that will go in in the future session. And then this is the one-on-one agenda, how you pro-actively plan this out and go through on this agenda. And we have detailed session to go over that.
So our first session on Shine S - speak with SINCERE and your relationship with your boss. My student summarizes all in one slide. You can see very detail, the 11 boss types and the tools. And the mind map. It's a good checklist for you to recap. Every time I also remind you that what we learn, it isn't just a head knowledge, it’s not just hot conviction, but also hand application. And then they become a habit not just apply once. I believe these 4Hs are very powerful, more powerful than the 5G or 6G
So I encourage us, every time to remind us how to apply the 4Hs. And then every time also remind you to start doing - Plus, new things to learn baby step and start doing. Minus - stop doing something negative. You don't want to do anymore. You've already doing it, you Multiply, do more. Or something you want to do less, Divide. So see you next time.
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