Proper Placement

Proper Placement
 
© 2022 Dr. Samaria M Colbert
 
Placement simply means to put something or someone in a particular place that is fitting. Placement is dependent upon your talent, skill, ability and need. As a warning placement of people in your life is NOT solely based on need. For example, let’s say you go to a restaurant and the service is slow due to not having enough cooks in the back. You don’t volunteer to cook there if you can’t boil water. Why because even though there is a need you are not qualified to address it.
 
Proper placement of people in your life is vitally important to your success and can impact whether you succeed or fail. You can’t bring everyone and everything into your inner circle. Wrong placement can mean failure in every area of your life.
 
Proper placement is a biblical principle dating back to the beginning of time. Whenever God instructed his people to build something he always used skilled people to accomplish the task.
 
Principles that govern proper placement
 

1. Proper placement means appropriate estimate of someone’s skill , ability and history to determine where they belong. What’s your history? What’s your expertise, experience, and resume? (Previous proficiency)
2. From an organizational perspective, there are two different levels of functioning. There is crisis mode. For crisis mode, in the human services field we are required to respond to emergencies, natural disasters, and calamities. In essence all hands-on deck, regardless of your position, title, or place within an organization. Then there is the strategic mode. This is where you are intentionally positioned based upon your previous work, skill, ability, and experience. You are trained in an area that best fits. This is where you are positioned to grow. There is nothing wrong with either. However, for long sustained growth within an organization we can’t have a crisis mode mentality. We must be trained for crisis, but if we want to sustain and grow intentional placement is a must. Strategic placement is based upon the goals, mission, values and skill of the workers to accomplish the vision of the company.
3. Individual placement.
   • You don’t date your assignment or broken people.
   • Who has close proximately to your heart matters.
   • You have to determine who is in your inner circle versus your outer circle.
   • Your inner circle must be comprised of like-minded individuals.
   • Inner circle people are also those who can appropriate deal with your weakness, vulnerabilities, and humanity honorably.
   • You must have boundaries.
   • Everyone can’t have access to you.
   • Broken people don’t qualify for placement in your inner circle, although you have great empathy for them. You can’t successfully build anything connected to broken people in your inner circle.  This is why therapist are taught professional boundaries.

 
Stay focused on your assignment, don’t get distracted. Reference Acts 6 for your life example and then properly place people.
 
Acts 6:1-6 Living Bible
 
6 But with the believers multiplying rapidly, there were rumblings of discontent. Those who spoke only Greek complained that their widows were being discriminated against, that they were not being given as much food in the daily distribution as the widows who spoke Hebrew. 2 So the Twelve called a meeting of all the believers.

“We should spend our time preaching, not administering a feeding program,” they said. 3 “Now look around among yourselves, dear brothers, and select seven men, wise and full of the Holy Spirit, who are well thought of by everyone; and we will put them in charge of this business. 4 Then we can spend our time in prayer, preaching, and teaching.”

5 This sounded reasonable to the whole assembly, and they elected the following: Stephen (a man unusually full of faith and the Holy Spirit), Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, Nicolaus of Antioch (a Gentile convert to the Jewish faith, who had become a Christian).

6 These seven were presented to the apostles, who prayed for them and laid their hands on them in blessing.

Ten questions you need answered (both individually and organizationally) for proper placement

*What is your (their) assignment, purpose, and destiny?
*Where are you (they) in fulfilling them?
*What is your (their) resume (spiritually and professionally) that qualifies you (them) for position in my life, organization and or ministry?
*Where are you (they) in their healing journey? You cannot accomplish anything with someone with unhealed, broken wounds.
*What is your (their) plan?  Is it in alignment? Are we equally yoked?
*What do you (they) value? Is it aligned?
*What is your (their) skill set?
* What stands out most about you (them)? How are they (you) uniquely a fit or not.
* What are your (their) previous patterns?
*What have you (they) accomplished up unto this point?
*Who are you vs who you say you are? Who are they versus who they say they are? Remember if you have accomplished anything, you will come across people who want to align and impress you so they will hype themselves up to be what they are not or they will minimize huge frailties.  You can’t build a relationship, a company a ministry on something you pretend to be.
What’s your (their) plan for strategic growth? Is it in alignment?

For Organizations:

 Consider using assessment tools to gage placement. Warning assessment tools only give you a start but shouldn’t be used as the sole deciding factor people change, evolve, and grow. Their value cannot fully be measured based upon a man-made assessment tool.

Gallup strengths assessment
Spiritual gifts survey (faith-based organizations)
Meyers Briggs survey
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For individuals:

What has your previous pain taught you about you and who, what needs to be properly placed in your life? I learned that I can’t do personal relationships with people who don’t have emotional, mental, or spiritual capacity if I am going to fulfill my kingdom assignment. I also can’t do relationships with people who are not driven by God’s purpose for their life. What has your pain taught you?
 
© 2022 Dr. Samaria M Colbert