Leadership Summit 2016: Chris McChesney

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Leadership Summit 2016: Chris McChesney

Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Chris McChesney, Bestselling Author and Executive at Franklin Covey, gave one of my favorite presentations at the Summit this year. The ability to lead teams and organizations to execute sets great leaders apart from good leaders.

The 4 Disciplines of Execution

What do leaders struggle with more: strategy or execution?
What are leaders educated in more: strategy or execution?
The most difficult thing a leader will ever do is to drive a strategy that requires a change in human behavior.
We tend to blame the people on our team instead of look at ourselves.
Any time the majority of the people behave a particular way the majority of the time the problem is not the people it’s the system, culture, and leader.
We don’t get to blame the people.

#1 Focus: on the wildly important

With too many goals people might love you but they can’t hear you
“There will always be more good ideas than there is capacity to execute”
What makes a wildly important goal is the treatment in which you give it.
What are the fewest battles necessary to win the war? When you’re tackling something big, don’t go big go narrow.
Maintain normal operations and blow the door off of one thing. 1 Goal per team at the same time.
People have to have their say but they don’t have to have their way.
Deadlines move from concepts to targets.
Execution doesn’t like complexity.
Simplicity and transparency are the two best friends of execution.

#2 Leverage: Act on the lead Measure

Lag measures what happened
Lead measures predict the future and are influencable by the team
There is a rare difference between knowing a thing and knowing the data behind a thing.
Bad news: data is hard to get
Good news: people will be engaged
Bad news: they’re going to forget about it in 3 days

#3 Engagement: Keep a Compelling Scoreboard

People play differently when they are keeping score
We’re looking for a players scoreboard not a coaches scoreboard
The number 1 driver of morale and engagement is whether people feel like they are winning or not
Do the people who work for me feel like they are playing a winnable game?

#4 Accountability: Create a Cadence of Accountability

Execution is so frustrating because in the moment the urgent always trumps what’s important
Report on last week’s commitment
Review and update scoreboard
Make a a commitment for next week
Secret: let people come up with their own commitments for the next week
Great execution is about creating a pull, not pushing action.

Create a winnable game and let the players go win the game
Do the people who work for me feel like they are playing a winnable high stakes game?

Posted in Leadership

10 Indicators You’re Leading an Outsider-Focused Church

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

There is a tension that exists in most churches in America, a tension between being outsider-focused and insider-focused. The majority of churches I’ve worked with would affirm in principle that the bible teaches us that the Church should be focused on what Jesus is focused on, and that’s people who are outside of the faith meeting and following Him. However in practice most churches focus the majority of their budgets, staffing, energy and efforts not on reaching outsiders but keeping insiders happy. This leads to churches being insider-focused and missing the mission that Jesus has called His Church to.

Not every church is insider-focused though. Some churches do a great job embracing the mission of Jesus and being outsider focused. In fact, here are 10 characteristics I’ve observed in churches that are outsider-focused.

1. Attenders aren’t Embarrassed to Invite Friends

Simple enough. Regular attenders know that if they bring their friends who are unfamiliar with Jesus and His Church that they’re going to have a great experience and that it’s going to be helpful to their everyday life. There is no cringe-factor that is preventing them from bringing their friends.

2. Guests are Showing Up

Guests are actually showing up and you know it when they show up because you’ve developed a system and strategy to make it easy for first time guests to self-identify and receive the help that they need to navigate your church for the first time.

3. Guests are Coming Back

This is big. Guests had such a good experience the first time that they came that they actually came back. You know they came back and you thank them for coming back.

4. New People are Saying Yes to Following Jesus

Again, seems simple enough. You know your church is outsider-focused if people who are outside the faith are meeting Jesus. This means you’re being intentional about presenting the Gospel and giving people the opportunity to respond.

5. New People are being Baptized

Healthy growing churches in America are baptizing 10% of their total weekend attendance. That means a healthy church that averages 500 people on the weekend this year will baptize 50 people. But of course you’d know that if your church has participated in the online version of the Health Assessment tool provided by the Unstuck Group and has bench-marked the health of your church.

6. New People are taking Next Steps

An unappreciated evidence of an outsider-focused church is that they have intentionally thought through next steps and people are moving forward in their spiritual development by getting into groups, volunteering, and giving.

7. Attendance is Increasing

May sound like a no-brainer here, but outsider-focused churches are growing churches. Is your church not growing? You may not be on mission with Jesus as much as you thought you were.

8. They make the Bible Accessible

Outsider-focused churches understand that people who are unfamiliar with Jesus and His Church are also unfamiliar with the Bible. And so they are very deliberate about making the language that they use and concepts that they talk about biblically accurate while remaining accessible and understandable to the culture they are in.

9. They work hard to be Simple not Simplistic

They create systems that make it clear, simple and intuitive to get into a group, or volunteer, or give financially to the church. Notice I didn’t say simplistic. The Apple iPhone is simple and intuitive to use, but it’s not simplistic.

10. They Embrace the “New”

Outsider-focused churches create a culture that embraces “the new.” They know that everything has a natural life-cycle so they become incessant tinkerers. They’re not afraid to start new things because they know new things attract new people. They are robust in their evaluation about their ministry environments and are candid about whether a ministry offering is reaching outsiders or developing insiders and if the answer is neither than they stop doing it.

Posted in Leadership

10 Signs your Church is Headed for Decline

Sunday, June 21, 2015

When I was young my Aunt purchased a brand new car. I didn’t have a car yet so even though it wasn’t red and it had 4 doors instead of 2 I thought it was really cool. And because she had a car and I didn’t she by default was cool too.

Everything was cool until she forgot to change the oil. Truth be told, she never changed the oil. From the day she drove the car off the lot to the day it died (which was much, much sooner than it should have), that car never experienced a single oil change. Routine maintenance wasn’t her strong suite. And most of us are just like her. We put off going to the doctor for our annual check-up, we postpone going to the dentist for our 6-month check up, and yes we put off routine maintenance on our automobiles.

We just keep going until it hurts enough that we are forced to stop and go in for a check up.

Unfortunately most church leadership teams operate the same way. They put off routine check ups and maintenance until it’s too late and decline starts to set in. What if there were early warning signs (flashing lights on the dashboard) that helped indicate that trouble was ahead? In my experience Coaching Church Leaders and Consulting with Churches across the country I’ve seen the following 10 indicators of an impending decline over and over again.

1. High Staff Turnover

When a church has trouble keeping staff, the church is in trouble. Some attrition is natural over time as the church grows, the staffing structures adjust, leaders hit lids, or vision shifts. But when turnover shifts from being a season to being the norm there is a cultural problem at play.

2. Fuzzy Vision

Without a doubt the single most life-threatening indicator that a church is in trouble is a lack of clarity. Clarity provides a church with the power to make decisions efficiently and align the organizational components of the church to move forward. If you don’t know where you’re going, and can’t state it clearly, you’ve got no chance to get there.

3. Complexity

When the church is growing it’s exciting! Staff members are hired, ministries are started, buildings are built and people are meeting Jesus! But it’s not as exciting when all of that growth and fun naturally lead to complexity. Growth naturally leads to complexity and complexity slows everything down.

4. Inward Focus

I’ve said this many times before, the most dangerous place a church can be in their life cycle is when the ministry they are doing is having a big impact with insiders (people who already know Jesus and are inside the church) but a low impact with outsiders (people who don’t know Jesus yet). It’s dangerous because it’s comfortable. It feels like things are going well and you have momentum because people are happy, they’re regularly attending, and they seem to be “all in” with what you’re doing. But if you aren’t reaching new people, your church or ministry is already moving towards unhealthiness and decline.

5. Defending the Past

When a church is busy defending the past instead of building the future it is headed for decline. When a church becomes risk averse and starts making choices based on who they are going to keep as opposed to who they are going to reach, the church is in trouble. The real danger in playing defense is that it becomes a cultural mindset that actually stands in opposition to the Gospel. You see the Gospel was never meant to be or does it need to be defended it’s intended to be unleashed.

6. No Strategic Plan

Strategy answers the question, “How are we going to get there?” It’s planning for tomorrow today. Little is more demoralizing to a church staff team than a bunch of empty inspirational talk that never materializes into real courageous action.

7. Leadership Void

There are a lot of challenges facing the modern church, but perhaps the greatest challenge is a leadership challenge. The modern church is simply an anti-leadership organization. It doesn’t attract, develop, or keep leaders. Leaders by their very nature are change agents. Because the unstated goal of most churches is to preserve the past, church leaders often times find themselves fighting the family instead of fighting the enemy.

8. No Spiritual Maturity Pathway

I’ve observed that some churches are stuck or declining not because they have a difficult time attracting or introducing new people to Jesus but because they have no plan in place to move people towards spiritual maturity or the plan they’re working is broken.

9. Policy Trumps People

Policies shrink the box of creativity. They set the standard for how we do what we do every time we do it. Policies tell everybody in the organization what they can’t do, and leaders are solution oriented not excuse or problem oriented. A church with a lot of policies will consistently find it difficult to attract and keep good leaders. It’s very possible to policy your way right into decline.

10. Volunteer Scarcity

One of the things we’ve learned through our research at the Unstuck Group is that the average church in America is mobilizing somewhere around 43% of their adult and student population in volunteer opportunities. The reason it is so critical for churches to address this and take steps to move their culture in the right direction is because volunteering is discipleship. It’s not about filling roles and getting ministry done through people. It’s not about what we want from people, but rather what we want for people. It is discipleship. Because volunteering and living an others first life is the very essence of what it means to live like Jesus.

It would probably be worth some time discussing this list with the Sr. Leadership Team at your church and evaluate where your church measures up in each of these 10 areas of health.

What can we do about it? Engage the Unstuck Group in a Ministry Health Assessment. Discover islands of strength to build on and areas of opportunity to work on before they become serious and decline sets in.

By the way…leave a comment; I’d love to hear about what you’d add to the list!

Posted in Leadership

5 Reasons Churches Don’t Grow

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Stuckness is no respecter of the “brand” or “flavor” of a church. All kinds of churches across America are stuck. Large churches, small churches, old churches, new churches, Baptist churches, Methodist churches, Nazarene churches, Presbyterian church and even non-denominational churches are stuck. In fact Thom Rainer, President and CEO of LifeWay Christian Resources has stated in his research that:

“Eight out of ten of the approximately 400,000 churches in the United States are declining or have plateaued.”

While there are all kinds of reasons that churches end up stuck, at the Unstuck Group we’ve identified 5 key contributors that lead to churches being stuck. Through working with churches across America we’ve observed these contributors over and over and over again. You can click on the following headings below to learn more about each of the 5 key reasons that churches get stuck. So here they are in no particular order:

#1 Lack of Vision

An old Japanese proverb says, “Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.” There are a lot of churches out there living a nightmare because while there may be ministry activity, that ministry activity is not aligned to move the whole church towards accomplishing a clear vision.

#2 Inward Focused

One of the most dangerous places a church can be in their life cycle is when the ministry they are doing is having a big impact with insiders (people who already know Jesus and are inside the church) but a low impact with outsiders (people who don’t know Jesus yet). It’s dangerous because it’s comfortable. It feels like things are going well and you have momentum because people are happy, they’re regularly attending, and they seem to be “all in” with what you’re doing. But if you aren’t reaching new people, your church or ministry is already moving towards unhealthiness and decline.

#3 No Clearly Defined Spiritual Maturity Pathway

Many churches are stuck or declining not because they have a difficult time attracting or introducing new people to Jesus but because they have no plan in place to move people towards spiritual maturity or the plan they’re working is broken.

#4 Complexity

It’s exciting when you’re adding staff, adding ministries, building buildings, and more and more people are meeting Jesus. But it’s not as exciting when things get really complex and the fun stops and growth begins to slow down. Growth by it’s very nature leads to lids of complexity.

#5 Lack of Strong Leadership

The greatest crisis facing the modern day church is a crisis of leadership. The modern day Church simply doesn’t attract, develop, or keep leaders. Leaders by their very nature are change agents. Because the unstated goal of most churches is to preserve the past, church leaders often times find themselves fighting the family instead of fighting the enemy.

Photo Credit: heanster via Compfight cc

Posted in Leadership

Why Churches Don’t Grow: #2 The Inward Focused Church

Sunday, April 12, 2015

Last week I started a series of blog posts about the 5 key contributors that lead to 80% of churches in America being stuck or in decline. These key contributors have been observed repeatedly in our work with churches at the Unstuck Group. While churches get stuck and decline for all kinds of reasons, these 5 key contributors are the consistent culprits.

1. Insider Language

The most obvious way to tell if a church is insider focused or outsider focused is the language that they choose to use. It either says that the church is “inclusive” or “exclusive.” And it’s important because words build worlds. There are all kinds of ways this goes wrong in churches. Preaching as though everyone already knows Jesus and comes to the room with basic Bible knowledge, coming up with cool names and brands for ministries that mean nothing to people outside the church, and mentioning people from stage by name without explaining who they are just a couple of them. Two big principles to keep in mind when it comes to the language you choose to use in your church are: clear always trumps cute or cool and you’re always better off just calling things what they are

2. A Poor Guest Experience

Is your church prepared for guests? My wife and I were attending a church for the first time. We have kids, a lot of them. So the first thing we were looking for was where to take our children. But we couldn’t seem to find any clear signage to point us in the right direction or any guest service volunteers that were easily identifiable to ask where to go. Finally, I saw someone walking by and asked where to take my children. Instead of stopping to help us they continued to walk past us and shout and pointed down the hallway. Come to find out later this person was a Children’s Ministry Staff Member. The ironic thing is they had a great children’s ministry. Developing a culture of guest services in your church begins with developing a culture of guest services among your staff.

3. Low Percentage of Baptisms

The average healthy church in America baptizes 10% of their total weekend attendance each year. That is to say in an outsider focused growing church of 500 people (weekend attendance: worship services and kids), on average that church would baptize 50 people in a year. I always think to myself how ironic it is when I hear an insider-focused church criticize growing churches, as if to say “They are doing something wrong and aren’t preaching the Word.” Essentially saying that if they were doing things “right” and “preaching the Word” they wouldn’t be growing.

4. High Giving-Per-Head

It may sound counter-intuitive but in growing outsider focused churches I consistently see giving-per-head numbers around $25-$40 per person. In churches that are stuck and insider focused it’s not uncommon to see giving-per-head numbers between $40-$60 per person. Churches that are filled with people who have been around for a while, know Jesus and are biblically educated to tithe consistently have a strong giving-per-head number. Churches that are reaching a lot of new people are consistently going to lag in their giving.

5. Risk Avoidance Culture

New things attract new people and new churches reach new people. When a church is starting up it’s all about risk (church planting by it’s very nature is risky). Over time however it’s easier (and less risky) to do ministry programs to keep church people happy than it is to continue to reach out to people who are outside of the church. When is the last time your church risked something big for God?

Interested in digging into this topic more with your team? Follow this link for a FREE resource to use with your team.

Photo Credit: BrianTuchalskiPhotography via Compfight cc

Posted in Leadership

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