Input From You About DruGroup

I'm considering adding a paid subscription, and would l your take

I don’t spend an inordinate amount of time examining the arcane data on my readers that Substack tracks for me. I spent more time rebooting my internet router in the past week than I spent looking at those stats in the last six months.

I tend to think that too much reader data navel-gazing is dangerous for a creative, leading into the valley of the shadow of click-bait, and other assorted evils. So, I don’t know exactly what is happening with those reading my writings, other than that I have comparatively engaged readers who seem to care. That’s enough for me. Writers write to communicate—and we’re communicating. Great!

So I am here on a Tuesday to ask for your input on something, rather than just offer up another article for your inbox. Why?

Because I am ambivalent.

In general, and specifically, I’m ambivalent.

I am afflicted with ambivalence in general in an age where even the most insipid persons you ever met now parade around on social media with atomic-clocklike confidence in their own accuracy. I tend to be able to see both sides of most subjects, whether that is a gift or curse (see, I’m ambivalent about the gift or curse part too.) You might call it my propensity toward Devil’s advocacy, a term I am also ambivalent about, in that I would never want to grow up to be a lawyer, nor legally represent the One Who Prowls Around Seeking Whom He May Devour in any judicatory proceedings.

This strategic ambivalence is an advantage as a second chair leader and coach for other leaders as I tend to see around the corner at options, and help head off blind spots at the pass, so a leader understands his or her decision and the contingencies in place depending on what happens next. So when I say I’m ambivalent it is in some ways a general default posture for me, not just a specific ambivalence.

Going deeper, I am in fact specifically ambivalent about a decision coming up and I need your advice, counsel, and input. I’d like you to take the time, upon reading this, to reply with your take, or post in the comments, either is fine. Although the comments others can see, so they are rewarded with Extra Superlative DruGroup Merit Badges of Goodwill, which are unfortunately not in my possession yet. Said badges are currently, “Due To Covid,” located on a delayed container ship traversing the Bermuda Triangle and may or may not even exist in the first place, like all things shipped during a pandemic.

The decision I’m ambivalent about is whether to start a paid subscription with DruGroup or not.

Don’t worry, I’m not pulling a fast one on you. I’ll continue to do a free list like this one where I offer my humble musings to your inbox. These free DruGroup installments will continue to be fairly regular, often random, always readable, sometimes funny, intentionally helpful articles that I believe will brighten your day and are worth the read.

But the question is whether some additional writings might be worth “more than the read” and even worth some of your nickels in my writerly tip jar each week.

Near the six-month mark since the start of DruGroup, I am contemplating adding to a subscription-based article that would come out each week of the year, something close to 50 weeks annually. Let me describe what I have in mind so you can let me know what you think.

DruGroup would add, for a small fee that is close to you buying me a cup-o-coffee per month, an ongoing suite of articles centered on the theme:

"What Leadership Looks Like”

This paid subscription would feature practical tools and deeper thinking about leadership that matters. These articles would not be of the more random type but instead would focus on helping leaders get better at their work. My thinking is that it would be “worth your while” because it would be seen as a way to enhance the way you make a living in the first place.

These writings would feature:

1. Innovative Ideas - concepts that could shape the future of your leadership. I have a few drafted already that fit this bill.

2. Visual Tools - ways to boil down leadership principles into charts, graphs, and images, which I think often stick with you longer than just words.

3. Deeper Insights - thinking introspectively about what leadership really demands, and helping us all map our way forward in challenging times.

Some of my writings and even a few full series of articles on DruGroup already fit this mold:

• A series of articles on the Three Domains of Legacy, stemming from my SixQ coaching process, featured a profile on three leaders I’ve worked with who are great examples of strengths in each.

• A pandemic-primed Crisis Decision-Making Quadrant, helping leaders discern the difference between desired actions and required actions in a crisis, and what to do about each.

• The Opportunity Filter tool, also from my coaching toolbox, helps us make decisions about our opportunities, since “time is the only thing you can’t make more of.”

• And finally, I offered a new way toward Thinking Diagonally About the Church in which I attempted to forge a more dynamic path through the woods than the more typical, but problematic, domain or identity thinking about the Church.

If you want more of this kind of leadership stuff for people who think leadership matters, the new DruGroup paid subscription would help get me to deliver it to you.

That’s my brainstorm—been thinking of this for several months. I like the idea because it seems people are more invested in things they pay for, and I like the concept of communicating to a more invested readership. It would mean I could spend more time improving the quality and depth of my writing, and less on other things that, you know, pay the bills (I have two kids in college, for goodness sake).

However, I remain ambivalent about it as I don’t want to distance myself from readers—make them think they have to pay to play or something. I don’t want to expect much from you, even if I expect a lot from myself.

I had an article complete to send out for you today on human resources, hiring, resigning, etc called “Who is your biggest problem, not what.” However, this thought has been on my mind and I figured I should just come out with it. Instead of just dialoguing with my wife, who kinda supports me whatever crazy thing I do, God-bless her saintly soul, I’m asking you since I’m here writing to help you in the end.

As a young writer I was told this:

“If you help people, you’ll never lack an audience.”

So I’m here to ask:

Would this help you?

Would you be willing to pay a bit to have more of it?

Leave a comment here to let me know, or, if you don’t care about the theoretical Merit Badge, just reply to this article in your inbox and I’ll see your thoughts and respond.