Leadership Summit 2015: Jim Collins

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Leadership Summit 2015: Jim Collins

Monday, August 10, 2015

If you missed the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit this year, no worries I’ve got you covered. I’ll be posting my notes and thoughts from each presenter over the next couple of days.

Jim Collins, a Summit favorite, delivered 7 Questions he learned to ask from West Point.

Bonus: you never stop being a “young leader”

1: What causes you to serve?

If you have a charismatic cause you do not need to be a charismatic leader,
Level 5 Leaders are ambitions and fully committed. They are serving, humble leaders.

2: Will you settle to for being a a good leader or will you grow to become a great leader?

Well managed organizations are the only obstacle of tyranny.
You don’t manage a network, you lead it.
We are moving from organizations well managed to networks well led.
True leadership only exists when people follow when they otherwise have the right to not follow.
- As a leader you must know what must be done
- It’s not about getting people to do what must be done but getting people to want to do what must be done
- It’s not a science it’s an art
Most great leaders don’t start as a great leader but they grow into a great leader.

3: How can you re-frame failure as growth in pursuit of a BHAG?

“I am not failing, I’m growing” and that is the point of the climb

4: How can you succeed by helping others succeed?

At West Point everybody is failing at something
You are never alone
- Service: to a cause or purpose that you are willing to sacrifice for
- Success: communal success built into the culture, we only succeed by helping each other
- Growth:

5: Have you found your personal hedgehog?

3 Circles:
- What you love doing
- What you are encoded/made for
- Your economic engine
What is more powerful, one computer 1,000 times more powerful than another computer or 1,000 computers in the hands of 1,000 creative people?
True creators stay in the game, even when you get a bad hand.
If you believe life comes down to a single hand you can lose really fast, but if you believe life is a series of hands you have a shot.
When you get decked, that’s when you need to stay in the game…you love to do it, you’re made to do it, you’re called to do it, so no matter what hand you get you stay in the game

6: Will you build your unit into a pocket of greatness?

Great CEO’s became great CEO’s by not focusing on their career but by focusing on building their unit into a pocket of greatness.
Be rigorous, not ruthless about your people decisions.
Instead of taking care of your career, take care of your people, and your people will take care of your career. Life is people.
When you’re suffering at the end of the race, you’re not running for yourself.

7: How will you change the lives of others?

The greatest leaders find a way to make a contribution and impact on other people’s lives
Life is people

Posted in Leadership

Leadership Summit 2015: Bill Hybels

Sunday, August 9, 2015

If you missed the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit this year, no worries I’ve got you covered. I’ll be posting my notes and thoughts from each presenter over the next couple of days.

If you’re unfamiliar with Leadership Summit, more than a quarter million leaders participated in this world-class experience designed to help leaders lead better and embrace a grander vision – the reason God called you to lead. The event was broadcast live in HD from Willow’s campus near Chicago to more than 375 sites in North America and later around the world.

Willow Creek Community Church Founder and Senior Pastor Bill Hybels opened the Summit addressing The 5 Intangibles of Leadership. The following are leadership quotes and lessons from this incredible session.

Leadership is about moving people or an organization from here to there. From where it is to where it needs to go.
Leadership is not about protecting a position.
The highest value at the Leadership Summit is humility…
Armed with enough humility, leaders can learn from anyone

8 Basic functions of leadership

Casting Vision
Building Teams
Motivating & Inspiring
Solving Problems
Change Management
Establishing Core Values
Allocating Resources
Developing Emerging Leaders

5 Intangibles of Leadership

#1 Grit: Passion & Perseverance over the long haul…unrelenting long-term tenacity. Gritty people play hurt, expect progress to be difficult, but progress to be made. This is the key that unlocks the ability for less talented people to win. Those with more grit undoubtedly accomplish more in life than those who do not, regardless of talent.

Can grit be developed? Yes. But the archenemy of grit is ease. Grit development demands difficulty.
Overcoming physical challenges is one way to grow grit, and any area you develop grit in spills over to other areas of their lives.
Young leaders grow when volunteering for extra work assignments and then delivering and over delivering above expectations.
When Sr. Leaders push themselves hard teammates and followers notice and they begin to push themselves to the next level.
The whole organization gets grittier, and gritty organizations are unstoppable.

#2 Self Awareness: Who are you trying to impress? Without understanding the decisions and how they’re tethered to your past you destroy your future.

Under-performance is connected to leaders not being self aware.
Blind spots: stuff that leaders think they’re good at but everyone else knows that’s not true…they’re making a laughing stock of themselves.
Something someone believes they do well but everyone else on the team is aware of.
On average every leader has 3.4 blinds spots.
The danger is you really have no idea that they exist.
Everyone will win when you grow in self awareness.

#3 Resourcefulness: (learning agility), quick learners, tinkerers,

People with a high learning agility are promoted more than 20% more than others.
Resourceful people may not know the right answer but they stay at it until they figure it out.
Resourcefulness can be developed, but only by putting yourself in difficult situations and experimenting and trying to figure things out until you do.

#4 Self-Sacrificing Love: serve them, invest in them, pray for them by name, pull down the professional veil.

Vision & strategy are not at the core of leadership. It’s self-sacrificing love.
Love never fails.
Love is what melts teams into families instead of just work-groups.
We live in a day with narcissistic blood flowing through the veins of most leaders, trust in organizations is low, and at the root of it is a lack of love that must begin in the heart of the Sr. Leader.
Gallup measures what separates healthy organizations from toxic ones with one simple question: “Do workers feel personal concern coming from their managers?”
The quality of your “loving” sets the tone of the culture in your organization.

#5 Sense of Meaning:

Start with Why / Simon Sinek / What How Why
People want a “why” to come to work…a compelling reason to do what you do at your organization…what’s worth giving your life to?
What is your “white hot why?”

Posted in Leadership

4 Strategies to Start in 2015 that will Change your Church

Sunday, January 4, 2015

It’s January and the gyms are packed. They’re making money hand over fist this month with everyone making New Years Resolutions to finally get in shape. And when I go to the gym in February it will be back to normal. People are notorious for making huge goals at the New Year and then not following through. That’s why I want to give you a couple of small changes you can realistically make this year that will change your church in 2015. You’ll be surprised by how small degrees of change that you make in your trajectory today can pay dividends in the future. So here are 4 small changes that can make a big deal in your church in 2015.

1. Start Hand Writing Notes

Every week set aside 30 minutes to write a couple of notes and send them in the mail. It can be a thank you to a generous giver or a volunteer. It can be encouraging words to a staff member. You can send a note to say thanks for visiting to a guest. Or send a simple “I prayed for you today,” to someone going through a difficult time. Nothing beats a handwritten note. It’s a simple personal touch that says you care and it makes you more authentic and accessible as a leader. Yes, this means using an actual pen to actually write something and put it in the mail. Not an email, not a text, not a direct message on social media but an actual letter.

2. Build an Integrated Ministry Calendar

Get your ministry staff or leaders together and spend the time to build one integrated calendar for the year. Include weekend teaching series, all church events, and segment ministry calendars like Children’s Ministry and Student Ministries. You’ll quickly discover where ministries are in competition with each other, fuel islands of strength, and you’ll be able to simplify your efforts and make sure everyone is moving in the same direction.

3. Evaluate, Evaluate, Evaluate

Take some time with your team to build a list of every ministry at your church (this might actually take a lot of time for some teams). Then ask 4 simple questions about them: 1) What’s Working? 2) What’s Wrong? 3) What’s Confusing? 4) What’s Missing? Then optimize what’s working, change what’s wrong, clarify what’s confusing, and add what’s missing.

4. Join a Leadership Coaching Network

The whole church gets better when the leader gets better. You can be inspired at a leadership conference and hear a lot of leadership theory; or you spend the time to be around other leaders who are in the trenches, engage in leadership exercises, read and discuss great leadership books and trends, and discover new systems and strategies that you can implement in your local church context. Here’s a link if you’re interested in taking this step.

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