Embarking

I just finished reading the book Obstacles Welcome: turn adversity to advantage in business and life.  This book by Ralph de la Vega is part autobiography, part leadership history, part leadership principles, part self-help, and part personal development.   de la Vega, President and CEO of AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets has been responsible and overseen everything from the move to mobile to the proliferation of the iPhone.  The book starts out, though, with stories from de la Vega’s youth in which he emigrated to the United States without his parents through a last minute glitch at the airport.  At the age of 10, he began his life in the United States without his parents.

I really enjoyed reading Obstacles Welcome.  It was a really accessible and easy read, and de la Vega takes the complexity of managing a huge corporation and a gives simple but not simplistic look into how he does it.  I also appreciated the type of leadership de la Vegan seems to exhibit.  He appears to be a person who values people, virtue, integrity, hard work, and determination.  After reading this book, I thought to myself, “de la Vega would make a good mentor” and that is exactly what he does through this book, becoming  a personal and leadership mentor.  If you’re in a leadership position, it’s worth a read.

from Willow Creek Leadership Summit 2008: Session 9, Bill Hybels, Relentless

Mother Teresa: God’s radar located Mother Teresa’s carte blanche yieldedness, or willingness and openness to Him.  She was committed to…

• Little practices of love
• Little sacrifices
• Little fidelities to Scripture

Sobering Question:  If you were God, would you pick you for additional opportunities to make a difference in the world?
Sobering Question:  If in the next 15 minutes, God called you to serve the poor and destitute in Calcutta for the rest of your life, how would you respond?
Sobering Question:  What do you do when God taps you on the shoulder and asks you to step up?

Mother Teresa’s response was elation and carte blanche yieldedness.

There is a direct correlation between carte blanche yieldedness, white flag surrender and receiving a fresh assignment from God.

Some people take the assignment God’s given and put it on a scale and weight out what’s on the other side (comfort, security, money, fame, ego) and the scales tip… just not God’s way.  Don’t let that be your story.  Don’t every extinguish the new thing that God is trying to do in the world through you.  Refuse God nothing… you will never regret it.

When you are so enflamed with the excitement, there is usually a phase of time that is brutally difficult and in which there are many obstacles in the way.  This is a purifying time for the leader because it causes the person to deal with a bunch of questions:  How much am I willing to sacrifice?  Do I really believe that God has the power to do this?  This is the waiting period of dream-fulfillment, a time of frustration, but of important formation.

When a leader reaches the kind of clarity about the singularity of their heart for what God has called them to, God will often open up the doors.  Outlast the opposition. Be relentless.  God will release you into what he’s called you into.

How bad do you want it?  How serious is your calling?

from Willow Creek Leadership Summit 2008: Session 8, Brad Anderson, Best Buy, An Uncompromising Focus on People

In each person is a seed of greatness waiting to be grow.

Employee Engagement:  how do we let the uniqueness of the employee connect with the uniqueness of the customer.  If our employees are highly engaged, our customers are likely to have greater satisfaction.  Employee engagement increases all the other factors (customer satisfaction, sales, etc.) 

“If I’m not serving my employees, I really shouldn’t be in this job.”

We have an image of leadership in which we think we are going to get a lot of good feelings about ourselves.  True leaders get a higher fulfillment out of empowering others than about accomplishing something themselves.  How do you inspire employees?

Marcus Buckingham talks about the “destruction of human capital.”  Those aren’t neutral words.

The biggest part of the job is treating people as full human beings.  You can take people out of the fabric of the work.  Performance, numbers, results, processes are all connected to people.

In response to the question about how to motivate employees, Brad said he would ask, “How is the employee coding what they’re doing?  What is the base out of which you lead from?  How healthy is it?  Do you see it as significant?  Do you believe in the core of the work?  This is key to ongoing satisfaction.”  Financial incentives are powerful, but thin, or incomplete.  Financial incentives are the scoundrel’s way out, leadershipwise.

ROWE – Results Oriented Work Environment (a new program Best Buy is testing)

1. Company Value – your family comes first
2. As long as you got your results done, no one is going to monitor where you are at 8am.  Tests show that this works.  The manager has to work harder because he has to keep a closer monitor on the work.

What are the narratives that are a part of the lives of great leaders?  What are the crucible events?  How are we narrating our lives and what story do we see ourselves living into?

from Willow Creek Leadership Summit 2008: Session 7, Catherine Rohr, Founder & CEO Prison Entrepreneur Program, Risk Taking, Barrier Breaking, Bold Leadership

Catherine Rohr goes into the prison system, loves inmates, and trains them in business practices to be able to be functional in society when they get out.

“Yeah, my life is on the line, but it’s a calculated risk.”

1 out of 15 Americans go into prison in their lifetime.  Prisons have a 95% failure rate.  “It’s the organization with the greatest failure rate of any that I know.”

PEP is only 4 years old, but has 1000 CEO’s involved, and a 0% recidivism rate, which is generally 50%.  Employment rate is 98%, and 4 guys making over $100,000 in their first year out of the program.  47 men have started their own businesses.  70% of the graduates are donors back to the program.

“God doesn’t need me.  He just needs me to follow instructions.”

Her pastor says to her: “Just show up in the morning and get your orders for the day and then execute with obedience.”

Talking about her personal life:  “I sacrifice privacy for accountability.”

“I’m just a regular person with a skill set who gave it to God.”  “We sang, ‘I’m going to give you my everything, Jesus.’ But how come we don’t just do that?” 

“I dare you, pray, ‘bring it on God,’ and see what God will do.”

Comments:  Catherine has hutzpah!  Wow, I was impressed by her passion, excellence, diligence, commitment, risk-taking, and creativity.  She is a primary example of a next generation leader in the Kingdom.  It’s people like her who give me hope for the church.  She really challenged us to actually “be” and “live” what we “say” as Christians.  But, even more than that… this Christian woman could be a key to prison reform throughout America.  Think about.  What if, seriously, we implemented on a large scale across the country what she’s doing in prison ministry?  What if we got serious about prison reform that was committed to people transformation, grace, love, and renewal? 

from Willow Creek Leadership Summit 2008: Session 5, Chuck Colsen, Breakpoint, Defending The Faith

We have bought into a lie:  we’ve transferred our allegience from truth to therapy.

Leadership lessons from the marines:

• The test of leadership is to serve your troops.
• Then you give them the bigger vision.
• Follow me.

If you are a shepherd, your job is not to pander to your people, it is to lead them.

Don’t be ashamed of truth.  Defend the law of non-contradiction.

Stop blaming the culture for everything that’s going wrong in the world today.

God’s judgement comes first on the people of God.

In our country we are in Babalyonian Captivity.

Defend the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

What is Christianity? 

• It is a worldview, a system, a way of seeing all of life through Jesus Christ. 
• Abraham Kuyper:  “There is not a square inch on the whole plain of human existence over which Christ, who is Lord over all, does not proclaim: ‘This is mine.’” [Souvereiniteit in Eigen Kring, 1180, p. 32.]
• It rests on basic truth claims.  1)  It starts with a very simple declaration, “God is.”  It is the most rational choice.  Alvin Plantinga: “The first presupposition about reality is that God is.”  2) God speaks.  The bible is authoritative and inerrant.  3) The fall.  When asked the question, “What’s wrong with the world today,” GK Chesterton said, “I am.”  4) The incarnation.  5) Conversion/ transformation is essential.  6) The Trinity. 7) Unity – we are reconciled to one another. Judgement
• The Christian view must propose rather than impose. [axiom}

Comments:  I get what Colsen is doing, and I think defending the faith is important.  However, as you can see in previous posts, introducing people to a system or converting them to a system or a set of propositions as our manner of apologetics or evangelism is not my preferred modus operandi and I don’t think it speaks to a postmodern culture.  He’s not wrong, by any means.  I just think the strong emphasis on this type of apologetics and propositional truth defense isn’t so helpful these days, but rather something that makes us feel pretty good because we’re defending the faith, which is important, but we aren’t necessarily reaching people through it.  He quoted a lot of people I love (Alvin Plantinga, GK Chesterton, Cornelius Van Til), but we take different approaches to these things.  I also am a huge fan of both cultural engagement, of Christians living as a peculiar people in the culture, and of people understanding a Christian world and life view, especially being able to articulate how the Lordship of Christ makes my life different because of the commitments I have.  However, I still think that spending the bulk of our time defending propositions and a system to our current culture creates a barrier of entry for those outside.  Our time should be spent introducing people to the Lord Jesus, allowing the Spirit to work in their hearts, and then helping them to understand what a commitment to Jesus and a transformed life requires.  I would say that we pretty much agree on foundational elements, but we probably disagree on where to place emphasis in our current postmodern culture.  To put is succinctly, I’m less interested in contending for propositions or even for Christianity than I am for Jesus Christ.

from Willow Creek Leadership Summit 2008: Session 5, Craig Groeschel, lifechurch.tv, IT: How Leaders Get IT and Keep IT

Intro:  We’ve all been to churches that don’t have “it.”  They’re flat.  We’ve all been to churches that have “IT.”  It is that something special of God that is so real that lives are transformed by the very Spirit of God in a special way so that people meet Jesus Christ, and want to tell their friends about it.

Sometimes you can have the same things (same people, same form), and one group has “IT” and another doesn’t.  Example:  same forms of worship, same kinds of teachers, same types of ministries.  The same can be true of teams within a church or organization.  You can have IT, but lose IT.  So, what is “IT“?  Don’t know.

Theories about IT

• God makes it happen.  It is from him, by Him, and for his glory.
• We can’t created, produce it, or manufacture it.
• It is rare that one person will bring, but it’s common for the wrong person to kill it.
• It can’t be taught, but it can be caught.
• It’s not a system or a model but can be found in all types of churches.
• Whereever you see it, you see transformed lives.
• It attracts critics.  People misunderstand it.
• “It happens!”  But often, it doesn’t.
• If you have it, it doesn’t meant you’re going to keep it.
• If you don’t have it, it doesn’t mean you can’t find it.

Early church had IT.  (Acts 2:42-47)

• Try to kill them, it grows.
• Dude falls out window, you just raise him up from the dead.
• People sell their stuff so other people can eat.

4 Qualities when IT is present

• Organizations that have IT are laser focused.  Jim Collins:  “What can you be the very best at?“  To reach people that no one is reaching, you have to do things that no one is doing.  But in order to do things that no one is doing, you can’t do what everyone else is doing. [axiom]  “Planned abandonment.” Don’t do more.  Do better.  How do we stop entertaining people from other people’s ministries?  lifechurch.tv does only five things well: weekend services, small groups, children’s ministry, student ministries, missions.
• Organizations that have IT see opportunities where others see obstacles.  They see potential when others see problems.  They believe they have everything that they need to do everything that God wants you to do.  You have it.  (Again… a Collinsism modified).  God often guides by what he doesn’t provide. [axiom]  Meaning, he’s trying to show you something through your greatest limitations.  He may have another route you need to go.
• Organzations that have IT are willing to fail.  Failure is a necessity. [axiom]  Failure is often the first step into seeing God.  Example:  Peter failed, was restored, got it, and then preached and 3000 were saved. 
• Organizations that have It are lead by people who have it.  You have to have it for your ministry to get it.  You can have it, and then ministry can sometimes kill it.  When you have it in your heart, you tend to get it around you because it tends to draw people.  If you have it inside, you get it outside.  AFterwhile you begin to think that if you get the outside you’ll get what’s inside – you misunderstand it and lose the very things that are necessary to have IT.  “I had become a full time pastor and a part time follower of Christ.  I lost IT.”  Your ministry will not have it if you don’t have it.  If it’s become more about your ministry than about His Kingdom, you’ve lost it.”

4 Questions:

1. What are you doing that you need to stop doing?
2. What problems or obstacles might actually be potential and opportunity?
3. What has God called you to do that you’re afraid to attempt?
4. If you don’t have IT, what are you going to do to get IT?

Closing Prayer (Franciscan Prayer)

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.

May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain in to joy.

And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.

from Willow Creek Leadership Summit 2008: Session 3 Part 1, Bill George, Finding Your True North

George quoted the following wonderful poem called Our Greatest Fear by Marianne Williamson:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. 
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other
people won’t feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.
—Marianne Williamson
[Often said to have been quoted in a speech by Nelson Mandela. The source is Return to Love by Marianne Williamson, Harper Collins, 1992. —Peter McLaughlin]

“Leadership is not money, fame, and power. Leadership is responsibility.” –Peter Drucker

• Give people the opportunity to stand up and lead.
• People are looking for meaning and significance in their work.

4 Characteristics of 20th century leaders

1. Align – people need to be aligned around the vision, not around you.

2. Empower – followership is really about helping others to unleash their power, not follow you

3. Serve – people are not here to serve leaders, but to serve others

4. Collaborators – there are so many large problems in the world today, we need to collaborate with others to bring together the best talent to solve really difficult problems.

Bill really talked alot about being true to who you are, who God has made you, how he has gifted you.  What does it mean to be true to yourself? 

Important things good leaders know:

1. The purpose of your leadership – “follow your compass, not your clock” (another leadership axiom)
2. Gain self-awarness – Why are we afraid to let someone know who we really are?  Get feedback. (from parishioners, from staff)  What are your blindspots?  See yourself as others see you.  Go into a period of self-inspection.
3. Be true to your values.
4. Follow your motivating capabilities – what are your strengths, passions, what fuels you?  What are the intrinsic motivations?  Are you allowing those to come out?
5. Build a support team around you – leadership is very lonely.  Have at least one person with whom you can share all things and be open and honest and get real feedback.
6. Lead an integrated life – Be the same person in every environment.

“Everyone I’ve seen fail as a leader has not failed to lead others, they’ve failed to lead themselves.”

“I learned a lot more working in a soup kitchen than I did working on the board of the United Way.”

When Bill was speaking, a number of times I was thinking about a book that my Children’s Ministries staff read together last year by Henry Cloud called Integrity: the courage to meet the demans of reality.  In that book, Cloud talks about what it’s like “on the other side of me.”  He encouraged his readers to ask friends, colleagues, and others who are in our lives (family, friends, co-workers) what it’s like to be on the other side of us.  How do people experience us?  That is some good feedback, so long as you’re ready to hear it and can accept honest feedback that might hurt. 

From Willow Creek Leadership Summit 2008:  Opening Worship

Isaiah 40:28-30
Do you not know? Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.
He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.

I thought I was going to blog about leadership stuff, but honestly, the opening worship was moving for me.  My family has been through a lot lately, and last night my wife and I talked on the phone about how we both feel at a limit.  I know we’re not, because many people handle more, and we could, too, but it doesn’t feel like it right now.  So, the second song of the conference was a song I love, I think by Chris Tomlin.  It’s from the Scripture above, and goes like this. 

Strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord
We will wait upon the Lord
We will wait upon the Lord

Our God, You reign forever
Our hope, our Strong Deliverer
You are the everlasting God
You do not faint
You won’t grow weary

Our God, You reign forever
Our hope, our Strong Deliverer
You are the everlasting God
You do not faint
You won’t grow weary

You’re the defender of the weak
You comfort those in need
You life us up on wings like eagles

I found myself unable to sing, with tears in my eyes, realizing that this is for me.  God spoke to comfort my heart this morning (notice that verse 1 of Isaiah 40 is “Comfort, comfort my people says your God”, that he will carry my wife and I and my kids, that he will lift us right now when we feel weak.  He will carry us on his wings.  I wish my wife had been with me when they led this song.

If you look back on my blog history, I really resurrected my blog and starting writing (somewhat) more consistently at the Willow Creek Leadership Summit last year, August 2007.  Not too long after that, I imported in a few old blog posts from previous blogs I had with random writings.  Anyway, since the blog was resurrected a year ago at this conference – and I’m back again – and going to try to blog the conference a little bit.  We’ll see what’s on the Summit Blog, and I might interact with that as well.  So, stay tuned for a few posts to come.