Esther Wojcicki is a popular 78-year-old Media Arts teacher at Palo Alto High School who’s raised three wildly successful daughters—CEO’s of major corporations (YouTube and 23andMe) and an epidemiologist/professor (UC San Francisco). Naturally, many have been curious about how Esther’s approach to parenting fueled these public-sector superstars—what’s the “secret sauce” in her strategy? So she wrote a book with an over-the-top title: How to Raise Successful People: Simple Lessons for Radical Results.
Esther was raised in a brutally strict home environment—“If I didn’t behave,” she says, “I was beaten. My father’s philosophy was ‘Spare the rod, spoil the child.’” Determined to never repeat the mistakes of her parents, she came up with her own parenting philosophy and paired it with an acronym—TRICK. It stands for Trust, Respect, Independence, Collaboration, and Kindness. It’s a collection of habits for cultivating effective and ethical leaders, and it unlocks some thought-provoking possibilities for church ministry…
The TRICK approach is the opposite of helicopter parenting. Wojcicki advocates a relaxed, respect-infused pattern of relating to kids—talk to infants as if they are adults, encourage teenagers to explore their passions, and (above all) expect your children to lead. “The ultimate goal of TRICK,” she says, “is creating self-responsible people in a self-responsible world. This is what we’re doing as parents, teachers, and employers—not just raising children or managing classrooms and boardrooms, but building the foundation of the future of humankind… I’m trying to make sure that people understand the power of giving children control of their learning.”
Here’s a personal and vulnerable experiment—in your role as an influencer, as a mentor and guide for other leaders in your church, how would your approach compare to TRICK? Maybe I’m drawn to Wojcicki’s template because, well, I wholeheartedly agree with it. In my own leadership journey, for 10 years guiding a group of two-dozen young people in a weekly two-hour adventure we call “Pursuing the Heart of Jesus, Not His Recipes,” I see all five TRICK imperatives in play…
Trust – Trusting leadership expects all participants to pursue, uncover, discover, and contribute. I call this “co-discovery.” It means the leader (me) creates a plan for an interactive, experiential exploration of the disruptive things Jesus says and does, but the plan depends on everyone in the group digging with me. In fact, they dig first, and my role is to react to what they discover and add “interstitial tissue” whenever needed. I offer surgical input and guidance to what they’re discovering—trust means giving up some of the leader’s control so that others can find and use their voice. Question: In your own leadership environments, how much control do you give away to the participants?
Respect – Closely tied to trust is respect. Respect is the natural fruit of trust. When I trust the people I’m leading to discover great truths and surprising insights themselves, they feel respected. And when people feel respected, they live into their capabilities. Wojcicki says: “If you treat [people] the same way, if you believe in them and give them an opportunity to perform, then they believe in themselves. It is really crazy, but when someone believes in you, you’re willing to take more risks and willing to be more creative.” Question: How do you know the people you’re leading feel respected?
Independence – In a respect-infused environment independence is a natural byproduct. I mean, we don’t hover over or overshadow the learning/growing process. In my group environment, that means I split the large group into micro-groups of two, three, or four and give them each a different aspect of our target for the night to explore on their own. I wander around the smaller groups listening in on their conversations, affirming the amazing things I hear them say, dropping new challenges into their laps, or asking questions that force them to dig deeper. Then we all gather back together to mine their discoveries, all of them recorded on a whiteboard to underscore their importance, and to set up engaged interaction around them. Question: On the continuum between dependence and independence, where would the people you’re leading place the “culture” of the group.
Collaboration – I’ve already spotlighted the crucial role of collaboration in the group environment I’m trying to create. We do everything together, and every voice matters. That’s one of the subtle reasons to break a larger group into two’s or three’s or four’s—the smaller the group, the more natural impetus there is to contribute. And my whiteboard habit (discovered accidentally) emphasizes the value and importance of every voice. When you write it down in front of them, for everyone to see, they know their voice matters. Question: What percentage of your time together is collaborative, compared to the percentage of time participants are simply listening to you? (This is one that’s easy to slip into old, bad habits—I’m well aware in my own leadership…)
Kindness – In a co-discovery environment, where the focus is on the heart of Jesus and the conduit for our adventure is collaboration, kindness grows naturally. Once I had a youth pastor friend ask if he could come observe what we were doing in our group. I said yes, but he’d have to participate, not observe. He came, then stayed with the rest of the group for the “after-party” in our kitchen. I sought him out to get his reaction to the evening. I thought he’d comment first on the takeaways from the evening, but his first questions was, “Are all these young people from the same church or same school?” I said no—they come from seven or eight different schools and churches. I asked him why he was curious about that. “Because they all have such a palpable affection for each other.” And I said, “When you make the pursuit of Jesus’ heart your focus, and do it in a co-discovery environment, you get closer to Jesus while you’re getting closer to each other.” That’s the generosity of Jesus—as you pursue the vertical together, you get the horizontal thrown in. Question: What does “kindness” look like in your leadership environments?
Of course, TRICK is also a fantastic template to offer the parents in your church. Consider organizing an online or in-person book club gathering to read through and explore How to Raise Successful People. But make sure your learning environment matches the priorities and habits of TRICK!
Help Is On the Way!
Fall is fast approaching, and we innovative, practical resources that will help you infuse your ministry environment with “rich soil” for transformation. First up, our just-released new resource Listening to Jesus Together. It’s a set of six carefully crafted “listening encounters” designed for three people to experience together—online or in-person. The goal is to give people in your congregation a weekly “reminder habit” to help them listen to Jesus in the context of a short-term small-community experience. Next, Following Jesus is a curriculum resource you can use with both adults and teenagers in your church this fall—help them explore what an ABIDING/REMAINING relationship with Jesus is like. It’s an experiential, highly interactive, co-discovery way to invite people into deeper intimacy with Jesus. And The Life of Jesus TalkCards is a simple, devotional way to invite small groups into the heart of Jesus.
Meanwhile, don’t forget to register for our FREE September webinar “Don’t Start With Why,” led by Dr. Kenda Dean, Professor of Youth, Church, and Culture at Princeton Theological Seminary and the author of Almost Christian and many other books. Kenda will guide you through an approach to Christian ministry that is both surprising and affirming at the same time. Despite the popularity of Simon Sinek’s “start with ‘why’” strategy, Kenda’s approach focuses more on what we feel than what we think. And that model for a compassion-driven, grace-drenched version of humanity is Jesus. We are not called to build better churches. We are called to be better humans who reflect God’s love. Join us on Thursday, September 19th, 2022 from 4-5 p.m. EST. Register HERE.
Rick Lawrence is Executive Director of Vibrant Faith—he created the new curriculum Following Jesus. He’s editor of the Jesus-Centered Bible and author of 40 books, including his new release Editing Jesus: Confronting the Distorted Faith of the American Church, The Suicide Solution, The Jesus-Centered Life and Jesus-Centered Daily. He hosts the podcast Paying Ridiculous Attention to Jesus.
Listening to Jesus Together is a set of six carefully crafted “listening encounters” designed for three people to experience together. The goal is to give people in your congregation a weekly “reminder habit” to help them listen to Jesus in the context of a short-term small-community experience… Learn More Here