STRATEGY CENTRAL

Still working my way through Peter Drucker’s The Effective Executive.  It is PACKED full of great stuff.  Check this one out.  What if I asked these two questions of everyone I’m working with:

• What contribution from me do you require to make your contribution to the organization?
• When do you need this, how do you need it, and in what form?

Think outcomes might be different?

We’re working on org charts and employee evaluations right now, developing a more strategic structure that will enable sustained growth.  Wouldn’t it make sense for me to add these two questions to the initial reviews and incorporate their answers into my own next steps?  I think it would.  What do you think?

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Great post today over at Velocity on the four secrets of great leadership teams.  If you’ve ever been part of a team where you really felt like you were in on the movement…you’ll resonate with Dave’s first point.  If you haven’t…you’ll start looking for a way to connect with this kind of team!

Be sure and check out the beginning of a great series of posts!

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Leaders.  We’re all looking for them.  Can’t grow an organization without ‘em.  Where do you find them?  Can you grow your own?  How can you attract them?  We’re all asking the same questions!

Is there a way to proactively develop your organization’s culture so that it will attract high caliber leader types?  According to Wayne Cordeiro, pastor of New Hope there is!  In a great post on developing a culture that attracts leaders he develops 4 important musts:

1. THE CURRENT LEADERS MUST BE OF HIGH CALIBER.

2. THE CURRENT LEADERS MUST TRULY BE "DREAM RELEASERS."

3. MUST BUILD A CULTURE THAT IS COMMITTED TO BIBLICAL HONESTY.

4. A CULTURE THAT IS COMMITTED TO WINNING THE LOST, NOT JUST EXPANDING THEIR BORDERS.

Check out the whole post on developing a culture that attracts leaders.

Thanks to Dave Ferguson , pastor of Community Christian Church in Naperville, IL, for the link!

In recent days I’ve thought a lot about the things that started me on the path I’m on today.  And I keep coming back to Tom Peter’s book In Search of Excellence.  I don’t remember now why I read it.  I was already committed to the adventure of building the church.  I was in seminary (of all places).  Somehow I picked up a copy and began to read it.  I still have my beat up paperback copy, full of underlined passages, starred sections, and cryptic notes in the margins.  I remember thinking page after page how relevant it was to what I was preparing to do.  And I mark that book as being the first cause that led me to this place…where I am constantly on the lookout for insights that help me see more clearly what we could be doing.

In today’s post over on Tom Peters’ blog he takes another cut at what his basics of excellence are today, 23 years after publishing In Search of Excellence.  Take a look:

• A Bias for Action is Job One.  (Create a discipline/culture of excellence!)
• Decentralization!  Accountability!  (Tom’s Top Two: 1965 – 2005)
• Fail. Forward. Fast. ("Reward Excellent Failures, Punish Mediocre Successes.")
• "Metabolic Management" Matters! (Hustle! Adapt! EAT CHANGE! Win the "O.O.D.A. Loop" War—Confuse Your Competitors!)
• INNOVATE or Die. ("Game-changers" or Bust! Lead the Customer! Just Shout "No" to Imitation!)
• A Damn Good Product. (Pursue "Dramatic Difference.")
• A Damn Cool Product. (Design Rules!)
• Ride the Value Added Curve to the Sky! Sell "GamechangerSolutions"; Provide "Scintillating Experiences"; Become a "Dream Merchant"; Strive to Be a "Lovemark.")
• Relentlessly Pursue the "Big Two" Markets. (WOMEN Buy Everything. Boomers & Geezers Have All the Money!)
• Best "Talent"/Roster Wins! (HR Rules! Everyone a Leader! Women Lead Best! "Weird" Matters Most! A Workplace to Brag About! Educate for Creativity!)
• Wanted/Demanded: Radical Technology Strategies! ("Incrementalism" Is for Wimps!)
• Hard Is Soft! Soft Is Hard! (People! Passion! Enthusiasm! Wow! INTEGRITY! TRUST! Good Citizen.)
• Accept No Less Than EXCELLENCE! (Excellence, Pursuit thereof, Is the Only Thing That Vaults Everyone Out of Bed in the Morning.)

What do you think?  Do you see the relevance?

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One of my new favorite bloggers is Mark Batterson over at Evotional.com.  Mark is the Senior Pastor of the very innovative National Community Church in Washington D.C.  Today’s post, 5 Keys to Creativity is a typical post for him.  I love his first line:

"I have a personal mantra that I repeat pretty frequently: one of the greatest dangers we face is learning how and forgetting why."

Of course, he’s talking about ministry, but it’s really true in all that we do.  If you’re passionate about what you do, if it makes your heart beat fast, but you’re not really careful…the day could come when you really are an expert at what you do but no longer remember why you’re in the game.  And that’s scary!

One of my favorite quotes from The Leadership Challenge by Kouzes and Posner could fit in the same powerpoint:  "Are you in your job to DO something, or are you in your job for something to do?"  I never want to be in a job just for something to do.  And I hope you don’t either.

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One of the blogs that I check out whenever there’s a new post is The Leadership Blog by Josh Sargent.  He’s got a great series of short interviews with some of the most innovative pastors and leaders out there.

What caught my eye today was a clip from Pastor Billy Joe Daugherty of Tulsa’s Victory Christian Center.  Very good reaction to a tough situation…being punched in the face during a service!  Take a look.

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Where are you going?  Where is your organization going?  Does it feel like you’re actually moving?  Or do you look around and have the feeling that you’ve been right here, in this exact spot before? 

Carl George once said that "leaders allocate the finite resources to THE critical growth path."  Those 10 words are huge.  But there are some very significant pieces that must be understood.  First, it’s clear that you need leadership to make this decision.  Only a leader can.  Only a leader will.  All others waffle, hem and haw, and stall.  And not just any kind of leader.  This is one that is both pragmatic, strategic AND visionary.

The second piece that must be understood is that only a pragmatic, both feet on the floor leader says that we have finite resources.  They can have God-sized faith.  But are clear on the fact that resources are limited.

Which leads to the third aspect and that is the leader must be not only pragmatic but visionary at the same time.  Knowing that resources are limited doesn’t mean there isn’t a destination in mind.  There must be!  You have to be going somewhere.  And that leads to the fourth insight which is that there is a critical path that leads to the place you’re going.  And that is a very significant concept.  Can there be three critical growth paths?  I don’t think so.  Can there be two?  No.  A leader must be able to determine where we’re going and then allocate resources to the path that will get us there.   A miss on any of the four and you end up in a completely different place.  Or never taking the journey at all.

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How do you know whether you are really a leader?  Someone has said to be a leader there needs to be people following you.  Makes sense.  But are there recognizable indicators that you’re NOT a leader…really?  Here’s a great post by Tony Morgan on the 10 Easy Ways to Know You’re Not a Leader.  Check it out.  And let him know what you think!

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