We humans have built in 90-minute rhythms, according to Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz in their book, The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal.

Our productivity has a natural ebb and flow. About 90 minutes into a task that requires concentration we begin to lose concentration. However, if we take a break for a few minutes, we recover and we’re ready to concentrate again.

In their book, Loehr and Schwartz mention an executive who experimented with breaks and discovered that if he periodically stopped to juggle for a few minutes, he had renewed focus and energy. The juggling took his mind completely off his work and when he returned to the task at hand, he increased his productivity.

Since I spend a lot of time writing, I’ve begun experimenting with taking breaks to make a move in online chess games. Chess uses an entire different part of my brain than my usual work. ChessCircle is a great website that makes it possible for me to play 3-4 games at one time. I usually make one or two moves in each game each day as part of my work-renewal rhythm.

Lately I’ve been reading a brutally honest book, Leading with a Limp: Turning Your Struggles into Strengths by Dan B. Allender, Ph.D.

“Leaders are dangerous. They can bite without provocation,” he says, “or at least without logic, and it is best to stay out of their way or you’ll have to deal with the consequences.”

In the early 1990’s I discovered how dangerous leaders can be. For six years I worked closely with one of the founders of Plow Creek. I looked up to him and learned much from him. He had a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and many gifts as a leader.

When he took a position in our denomination, I succeeded him as lead elder. He continued as a member of our communal group and was supportive of my leadership.

Then he disclosed a secret history of sexual misconduct that included abuse of children. He disclosed the misconduct when he realized he could no longer silence the family of one of the victims.

Talk about betrayal. Our community went into shock. I struggled to pick up the pieces. People kept coming to me and pouring out their stories of pain–not only pain from the actions of the Plow Creek leader but also the missteps and betrayals of other leaders.

I remember sitting in my office at 3:00 a.m. weeping after having heard a particularly painful story told by a woman the night before, a story where I could easily imagine myself making the same mistake as the leaders who had wounded her so deeply. “Who can possibly be a leader?” I wondered.

Reading Allender’s book, I thought of that dark night of the soul. Out of that painful crisis I continued to lead but with much more humility. I became what Allender calls, “a reluctant leader.

“Reluctant leaders don’t aspire to hold power;” Allender says, “in fact, they avidly work to give it away. They attempt this even as they use power to create a context where power is used fairly, wisely, and with checks and balances.”

This morning Charletta and I did 1 ½ hour workshop at the P.A.P.A. Festival on the 7 Paths of Thriving Communities. Many of the thousand Festival goers are part of intentional Christian households and communities. Most are in their twenties.

We presented for an hour and then spent 35 minutes fielding questions and listening to reflections on community life and the 7 Paths.

The most intriguing comment was in response to the humble hierarchy principle:

Humble hierarchy leaders have little personal ambition, an unwavering will to help the organization transform the lives of those it serves, and a passion to create space for all to thrive.

A tattooed young man said that he as been part of several communities. He then said that he thought you would have to be single in order to have an “unwavering will to help the organization transform the lives of those it serves”. If you are married, he pointed out, you put your family first.

Charletta made a good response. She said that the role of humble hierarchy leaders is not to do everything but to be leaders of leaders, making it possible to be a leader and a family person.

I added that for millennia there is one additional option besides single leaders and leaders who are pulled between leading and family–leaders whose children are grown and who can move from focusing on family to caring for the whole community.

As I’ve been thinking about growing Evergreen Leaders and beginning to serve nonprofits in the Chicago area I’ve begun thinking that the next position we need to fill is Co-CEO.

What’s a Co-CEO? I just Googled it and, of course, came upon blogs that knock the idea. One issued a challenge: “I challenge you to think of a single company with ten million dollars in sales that has two co-CEOs.”

My answer? Research in Motion, the company behind the Blackberry, has Co-CEO’s.

Here are three reasons I’ve been thinking of Co-CEO’s for Evergreen Leaders:

• I’ve worked within such a model for twenty-five plus years in our communal group.
• The model honors that fact that no one person has sufficient strengths to lead in all situations.
• I have two major health issues and I want to build an organization that can thrive long after me.

This winter, my husband Tim Nafziger and I served with Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) in Colombia. CPT works to reduce violence in regions of lethal conflict. Much of our work in Colombia is solidarity, to be a watching presence to deter violence, to support local initiatives to build sustainable peace, and advocate for human rights.

CPT operates with a collaborative model that reflects some of the ideas of the humble hierarchy path. This teamwork ethos played out on the ground in a way that offered flexibility for the constant coming and going of rotating team members. In preparation for service as a reservist or full-timer, we trained for a month with part of the focus being on healthy principles and practices of working and living together.

Once on team in Colombia, I was immediately incorporated in a set of tasks I could learn and do effectively from the start, such as posting newsletter items to CPTNet, helping manage editing and email. It was good to feel useful and needed in a cause I care about.

Because we work and live together, we also had household tasks to negotiate. Even while we had clarity of roles such as editor or email management or being in charge of cleaning the kitchen, all these tasks could rotate flexibly as needed. We knew what we were responsible to oversee.

We were busiest when an international delegation came to see our work. Without breaks, we kept on with our accompaniment duties. On Sunday that week, I had editing duties, but my headaches urgently signaled the need for rest. While it my role to make sure the task was completed, I could ask for help.

With clarity of role, but a team effort in completing all tasks, I could give myself permission to let go of the task. This clarity of roles mixed with flexibility allowed us to be available for urgent requests for accompaniment, while ensuring routine tasks were completed. At the end of the day, it was a team effort.

Christian Peacemaker Teams’ Mission: “Getting in the Way.” What would happen if Christians devoted the same discipline and sacrifice to nonviolent peacemaking that armies devote to war? CPT seeks to enlist the whole church in organized, nonviolent alternatives to war and places teams of trained peacemakers in regions of lethal conflict. Donate