Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

I recently finished reading The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business by Patrick Leniconi. I can already tell you that this is going to be on my top 5 reads from 2013. I deeply resonated with the concepts in this book. You see in many ways this book describes why I do what I do. I love to see all the facets of the Church work together to build an aligned and integrated culture that actually makes vision real!

There is no way for me to share everything I underlined, highlighted and the personal notes I wrote in the margins. So I shared with you my top 20 favorite quotes and ideas from the book that stuck with me.

1. The single greatest advantage any company can achieve is organizational health. Yet it is ignored by most leaders even though it is simple, free, and available to anyone who wants it.

2. An organization has integrity – is healthy – when it is whole, consistent, and complete, that is, when it’s management, operations, strategy, and culture fit together and make sense.

3. If an organization is led by a team that is not behaviorally unified, there is no chance that it will become healthy.

4. Contrary to popular wisdom and behavior, conflict is not a bad thing for a team. In fact, the fear of conflict is almost always a sign of problems.

5. When there is trust, conflict becomes nothing but the pursuit of truth, an attempt to find the best possible answer.

6. Nowhere does this tendency towards artificial harmony show itself more than in mission-driven nonprofit organizations, most notably churches. People who work in those organizations tend to have a misguided idea that they cannot be frustrated or disagreeable with one another.

Posted in Leadership

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take the lid off your church

Sunday, September 30, 2012

I recently caught up with Tony Morgan to talk about his new book, “Take the Lid Off Your Church, 6 Steps to Building a Healthy Senior Leadership Team.” It just released on Amazon! Click here to get your hands on a copy and check out the interview below.

Paul: You recently released the book “Take the Lid Off Your Church, 6 Steps to Building a Healthy Senior Leadership Team.” Why does every church need a Senior Leadership Team?

Tony: Because God designed ministry, including leadership, to be accomplished through teams. He modeled it with the disciples. It was the system he used for for the early church beginning with sending out the disciples in teams of two. In America and even in churches, we tend to think of leadership as an individual. That’s not the way God designed leadership especially within the context of the church. If ministry is supposed to happen in teams, it better be modeled at the top of the organization.

Paul: What is the connection between the Senior Leadership Team of a church and barriers or lids that keep the church from growing?

Posted in Leadership, Staffing

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Creating a Healthy Leadership Culture in your Church

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Culture can be defined as the defining set of values, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of any one group. It is something that is usually unnoticed, unspoken, and unexamined, particularly in Churches. As a result, few churches ever take steps towards intentionally defining and building a desired culture; instead it usually happens by default. It’s very common to see churches fall into ruts and get stuck in the familiar traps of, “Just preach the Word,” “Just reach people,” or “Just build disciples.” The problem is building a healthy culture in a church; particularly a healthy leadership culture is never “just that easy.” As the leader you have to define and create the culture. If you don’t it will default to the strongest personality or loudest voice in the room. So here are four steps you can take that will help you to begin building a healthy leadership culture in your church.