4 steps to effective vision casting

Tag Archive - crisis

4 steps to effective vision casting

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

An old Japanese proverb says, “Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.” Many churches are stuck not because they don’t have a dream or a vision, but rather because they don’t know how to break that dream down into tangible implementable steps that build culture and drive the church towards a preferred future. Then when stuckness begins to settle in, the leaders in the room start doing what they are wired to do, they lead. But when there is no clearly articulated unifying vision all of those leaders leading the direction that they think is best turns into a nightmare in a hurry. Below are 4 steps you can take to be more effective in casting vision and avoid that nightmare scenario:

Posted in Leadership

What we can learn from crisis

Monday, April 26, 2010

This past weekend I was sitting in a line of traffic waiting for a train to pass, innocently counting the cars on the train when WHAM!!! Once I gathered my wits about me I realized that I had just been hit. I pulled off to the side of the road and the gentleman in the giant tank of a brand new Tahoe that just plowed into me came up to check on me (very polite of him). Later that day the insurance adjuster made it over to the auto shop that the truck had been towed to and what we had speculated about became reality. He told me that it was totaled. He said that the vehicle did exactly what it was designed to do in a moment like that, protect the driver and passengers by absorbing the shock of the impact. With a speed limit of 45mph, and no skid marks, the back of my truck crinkled up like used wrapping paper from my daughters’ 5th birthday party which happened later that evening. It’s interesting to me that they design vehicles these days to absorb the shock of the impact of an accident, and fortunately for me they do.

That statement the insurance adjuster made, that I was lucky the truck did what it was designed to do in the accident made me think, among other things, about crisis. Specifically that you and I can learn a lot about ourselves, the people around us, and the organizations that we lead in a moment of crisis. Here are a couple of thoughts that may help.