All posts in intentionality
What Phil Jackson Would Say In Your Leadership Meeting
When it comes to winning championships, we often think of the great athletes that inspire us. They are the ones that, if you can afford it, you pay to go see. No one pays to go see a coach. The greatest NBA team of all time was none other than the 1996 NBA Champion Chicago Bulls team that went 72-10 in the regular season. The team was coached by Phil Jackson. In case you’re unaware, going 72-10 in an NBA regular season is right next to impossible. It’s easier to win a championship than it is to pull that off, and the Bulls did both.
When Phil Jackson, who also has 10 other NBA titles along with this one, was asked what he would attribute to their success that particular year, his response was surprising. He didn’t say, “Well, we did have the greatest basketball player ever in Michael Jordan“, or “Dennis Rodman’s rebounding is what really kept us together that year“, or “Our defense was spectacular. You know, defense wins championships.” He said, “We simply stayed healthy for a whole year. No one really got hurt. If a good team can stay fully healthy for a year, they can do wonders.”
No matter what career path you’ve found yourself on, I would suspect that you love winning, right? I think what Phil Jackson would say in your leadership meeting is, “Stay Healthy.” If you were to ask your colleagues about the culture of your organization, would they say it was healthy? You can be as talented as you want to be, and you can recruit as much talent as you want, but if your talent isn’t healthy, they can’t win. Some say that Phil Jackson isn’t just a great basketball coach, but that he was the greatest manager of talent and could coach the uncoachable. Part of creating a healthy culture is also managing personalities well.
2 Ways to Create a Healthy Culture
1. Anonymous Evaluations – You have to be able to get honest feedback from those above, around, and below you. If you’re in a Christian organization, most people, ironically, will lie to you because they want to be nice. You have to retrieve HONEST feedback to get better, and to stay healthy.
2. Staff Getaways – Find an inexpensive hotel that may only be an hour away or anything and just get away with your staff. You can’t manage people well if you only really know them in the context of ministry. Too often we find out too late that somebody’s marriage was struggling because our only conversation with them was based on how they’re small group was going.
What are some ways you think you can create a healthy culture?
Open Mic
One thing I’ve noticed in my life since I was a teenager was that whenever I encourage someone, 9 times out 10 they say, “I really needed that.” A lot of these people were strong “joyous” Christians yet they found themselves in a place of discouragement. Discouragement isn’t a sin, but what is it? I would define discouragement as the enemy replaying negative thoughts in a person’s head over and over again to get them to a place where they lose focus of what God has called them to do. Whenever I meet someone who would honestly say they’re discouraged, I would simply say they’ve believed lies.
I heard Bishop Jakes say, “Never give your stage to the devil.” He was referring to being very cautious about what outside issues you address in church and which ones you do not. When I think of discouragement, I think of a person’s mind being a stage, it’s open mic there, and the enemy is going to town. “You’re too young, you don’t have enough experience, you don’t enough swag, you’re too radical, you’re not unique and people want unique, you’re good but not great.” And here’s the deal, every single time you read the Bible, it’s like you’re giving God the mic on a stage in your head.
Stop giving your enemy a mic in your head. It’s dumb. He doesn’t belong on that stage.
Customer Engagement
Starting a business or a church can be tough. They both often run into the same organizational issues, but simply use different terminology to describe them. Businesses use words like “products” and “customers”. Churches use words like “first-time visitors” and “ministries”. Once a church or a business has had a particularly successful amount traction, the way they connect with their congregants or customers changes drastically.
The need for new products/ministries and services challenges a staff to adapt systems that were put in place during simpler times. Although people are creatures of habit, thriving organizations need flexibility to remain alert to the people who are coming through their doors and market trends.
One system that we all need to be aware of is how we continually engage our customers. We have to be able to stand in their shoes, or better yet, have them tell you about the experience they have had with your church or business. Bringing in church members into the organizational design process allows you to re-think how you engage with them. Whether it is transactional or consultative, you know you are engaging effectively with your customer when they echo back the things that make you special to them.
Here’s 4 indicators you have a healthy organizational culture that engages “customers” well:
- When people know where to turn for help when they need it. (user-friendly website and customer service at the office)
- When the experience people have with your organization reflects the values your organization
- When the service (or product) delivery is consistent and meets (or beats) people’s expectations
- When people understand the value proposition of what you provide
Save The Best For Now
“What’s new?”
It’s a two word question that gets us out of bed everyday to search for the answer. Back in the day… before I was a live… NOTHING WAS NEW. Everybody had their same job for 30 years. There wasn’t much to chase. I’m not intending to discourage a dream, or forecast despair upon the go-getter, the entrepreneur, or someone who aspires to be remembered, but rather, I’d like to encourage all of the above (which I’m in) in their current season.
It’s as if we’re all saving our best for a later engagement, a future event, or a fast-forwarded version of ourselves where we are really doing what God called us to do. We are saving our best for the dream job we’ll have where we feel all of our gifts and talents are being utilized. We feel the gravity and pressure of having something “new” to share, but I would propose that we take inventory of our current season and give it everything we have. For who we are in this season, is but a preview and practice for our next season.
I would even go as far to say this: There may not be a next season. We ought to give this season what we would give if it was our last. Save the best for now.
You Never Know
Mary Gillerstad. Unless you’re attending the Passion Conference 2013, I’m pretty sure you’ve never heard of Mary Gillerstad. In fact, I’m not even sure I’m spelling her name right. But her most recognizable earthly assignment was simply being the youth director of Andy Stanley and Louie Giglio in the 70′s at First Baptist Atlanta long before youth pastors were a staple staff position in a church.
Andy and Louie (pictured left) have been good friends since middle school, and I just have to imagine what it must have been like for Mary Gillerstad. As 60,000 college students pack the Georgia Dome to worship the God of the universe for 3 days (led by Louie Giglio) and as 25,000 people come through North Point’s campuses every weekend (led by Andy Stanley), one must conclude that you simply never know who you’re pouring into. It had to have been rewarding for Louie and Andy to bring Mary on stage last night to simply honor her. Louie said, “She always believed in us.” What a simple statement that is perhaps token and tossed around as if it weren’t often true, but when it is true, I guess you just never know what can happen.
I hope I can be like Mary Gillerstad. I hope that when people share their dreams and visions with me, that I’d be a person that believes the best for people. They already have enough haters to do all the other stuff.
What do you think?
The Best New Year’s Resolution You Can Make
Amongst starting a new business, working out more (just playing basketball more often), eating better, and studying the Word more, I’ve decided to add one resolution to the infamous list that doesn’t normally make the cut: Help other people with their’s.
I’ve just decided that the conversation I want to have with people close to me for these first couple of weeks isn’t about merely sharing what we’d like to be better at, but shifting the paradigm to how we might be able to help each other achieve those goals. The biggest mistake you can make with making New Year’s resolution… is thinking you can achieve them on your own. We desperately need our Jesus and we desperately need each other.
Church Homeless
When it comes to finding a church home, there’s so many variables that can be factors in choosing a church home. Do you simply pick the church that has… the most people? The best preacher? The best worship leader? The most creative? The most relationships you have there?
Is it your church home because you work there? As we grow up the variables change even more. The question goes from, “Is this the church for me?”… to… “Is this the church for my family?”
I’ve never been homeless, but I’d imagine that it would suck pretty bad. And I’d think that there’s some people out there that, perhaps, feel church homeless and maybe they walk through the doors of my church and yours this coming Sunday. And I just hope that we’re not trying to sell them on our pastor, our worship team, or our creativity. I would hope for two things: that we expose them to as much Jesus as we possibly can, and that we make them feel at home.
Whether they “join the church” or “become members”… is irrelevant, but my prayer is that we could be a people that would bring people in close to where they feel like they’re family whether they come once or they become regulars.
It’s Lonely At The Bottom
I get to hang out with a lot of people at the “top” of their organization and a theme I often hear is that there some loneliness that comes with their success. Well, I also hang out with quite a few individuals who are in the “middle” or “bottom” of their organization… and a theme I often hear from them is that there is some loneliness that comes… with life.
I don’t think anyone should ever feel like they have to qualify their loneliness or that they should feel ashamed to admit that they are lonely. Loneliness is not a bad thing; how you respond to loneliness is where you can get in trouble.
Here’s a few things to do to best respond to the feeling of loneliness:
1.) Read yo Bible. And keep doing so.
If your mind is a battlefield, you are usually losing when you feel lonely. You think of the dumbest things during this time, and the Bible simply can’t be an under-rated item on your to-do list. Reading your Bible doesn’t fix things, it fixes your thinking.
2.) Look for lonely people, and befriend them.
Proverbs 11:25 says, “He who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.” If you took inventory of the relationships in your life, and looked for a lonely person, you wouldn’t have to search far to find someone. In being the person you want someone to be to you, you will find yourself more secure in your current season of life.
Thinking Out Loud
As a leader, you have a desired outcome of what you want your followers to do and be. Whether it’s pouring into other leaders or training up volunteers, getting people to get things done right can often be frustrating. If you’ve ever done something at a high-level, it’s hard to watch someone do an “eh” job on anything. You don’t want to seem like you’re “better” than anyone else, but if you’re honest in your mind, you simply can do it better.
I was golfing with a Creative Director for family ministries at a large church, Timothy Somers, and I asked him how things were going with his volunteers. His response was sick: “Ryan, I really don’t even have to be at the services for things to run smoothly anymore. They’re able to do without me.“… And I thought he was done. I’m already thinking this is fantastic because isn’t this the goal?! He continued with, “But, man, if I could get them to now THINK like I would, that’d be even better. That’s next.”
He didn’t even need to expound on the thought. I think you get it. And maybe we shouldn’t shift our thinking one way, but simply add to our thought process when it comes to leadership. Train people to do the job right, but when people know WHY “you/we” do the job that way, they’re prone to do things you couldn’t think of on your own. Train people to work with the highest excellence possible, but also give them your thinking behind it. That doesn’t just make a service great, but it helps the people take their own abilities to another level.