Little Mosque on the Prairies

Last night I watched the new CBC show (no, I can't believe I just typed those words...) "Little Mosque on the Prairies" - and it was truly hilarious!!! In fact, I think I will have to add it to the "required watching/reading" for the show on pastoring in rural churches that I talked about in a previous post. I confess that as a non-Muslim, I wondered if the show may have been offensive, and if so, the Muslim faith is NOT what I found entertaining about the program. It was the small-town, "redneck" approach to religion and anything new in town, esp that was from "the East" - the East being Toronto!

Learning from Job Interviews

I have been involved with three job interviews this past week and they have been wonderful experiences - both in meeting new people and in learning about myself, organizations, and how to lead. For the sake of anonymity/confidentiality I will just refer to the three candidates as A, B & C. They are all interviewing for different positions and not at the same organization.

For the organization to NOT hire Candidate A would be insane. While it is a good organization, for them to have a chance to hire CandA is amazing. This would be an incredibly good hire!!! CandA was a good communicater, answered the interview questions well and also showed some good insight in the questions that were asked of the interview committee. CandA has the necessary education and experience for the position and was comfortable with the uniqueness s/he would bring to the organization.

Candidate B was fairly good in the initial interview (not for the same position as CandA) and then really showed well in a second portion of the interview. Again, s/he has the necessary education and experience and would seem to be a good fit for the organization. Most interestingly, CandB knew s/he needed a change from the current work context for both career and lifestyle reasons and believes that the new position and the new organization would help that change happen. CandB's honesty that s/he was "giddily excited" about the possibility of serving the organization in the position was refreshing - and one wondered if it was a bit too idealistic. But then again, would you really want someone joining your organization who was pessimistic or hesitant to work with you?

Candidate C had a fairly decent interview also, though it was again different from the other two. It seems that CandC has the raw tools to do a good job in the position, but s/he doesn't actually have the experience in the context. S/he certainly has the education for the position and has shown most of the skills necessary for the position but in varying contexts. I think the organization may be willing to give CandC a shot at the position on some sort of contract basis or short-term contract which would seem to be reasonable. CandC seems like a good quality individual who has good talents and would be a good person to have in the organization, but whether s/he can totally fit the job is still a question.

So that's been an interesting week. Now its off to watch Hockey Day in Canada. I'm thinking I'd like to offer an elective course sometime for pastors in rural communities in Canada. The pre-reading would not be reading at all - it would be watching 2-3 episodes of "Hockey Day in Canada" and then watching all three seasons (now available on DVD) of "Corner Gas." Here's my title for the course: Dog River Shepherding: Corner Gas, Culture & Canadiana. Any takers?

Canada Three-peats at the World Juniors

As noted a couple blogs ago, one of the best parts of any Christmas season is the World Junior Hockey Championships on TSN. And once again, for the third year in a row, its a GOLDEN celebration today after Canada defeated Russia 4-2 in the gold medal game. A couple great leadership stories...

1) Carey Price who allowed a soft goal two years ago in the final of the U18 world championships and was then cut from last year's Canadian team, not only provided solid goaltending for Team Canada, but was named the top goalie of the tournament and the tournament MVP. In other words, times of testing and hardship will come. Its how you respond that either builds character and makes you stronger (or makes you give up).

2) Brent Sutter coached the last two world junior champions for Canada and last year Craig Hartsburg was one of the assistant coaches. This year Hartsburg was the head coach and did a fantastic job keeping the Canadian team focused and playing well. Hockey Canada seems to do a super job of succession planning!

3) And last but not least, how can you NOT be proud to be a Canadian when your Prime Minister is interviewed live during the first intermission and provides good hockey analysis, and yet is so clearly cheering on the team, and even is glad to make jokes when James Duthie (TSN announcer) says, "we profusely apologize for any troubles caused in the economy this afternoon by Canadian hockey fans skipping work to watch the game" and PM Stephen Harper replies, "oh that's okay. I imagine I'm not gonna get too many answer to some of my phone calls today either!"