a Good to Great TO DO list

Below is a TO DO List Jim Collins gave each of us at Catalyst '11. it is awesome if we follow it.  These won't make a lot of sense without reading my previous 4 posts or hearing Collins' talk.

1  Go HERE and run the Good to Great diagnostic on you, your team, and your organization. This is a vital evaluation process.

2  Answer these Questions = how many seats do you have on your bus and what is your plan to have 100% of those seats filled with the right people in 1 year?

3  WHO will you allow to mentor me? Build a personal board of directors.

4  Get your personal HEDGEHOG right before it's too late. (a Good to Great principle = the coming together of your passion, design, and how you can make a difference.)

5  Once you have your Hedgehog, set your 20 mile march and stick to it! (Collins set weekly time goals.) What is your organization's 20 mile march?

6  Fire at least 6 new bullets by the end of the year. Navigate uncertainty with bullets.

7  Turn off electronic gadgets at least 2 days every 2 weeks. now that is a biggie! (it's impossible to "be present" with your iPhone in hand.) we need to be focused and gadgets rob us of our focs.

8  STOP Doing List. "True disciplined action is not what we choose to do, but what we choose not to do." *maybe you find it kind of ironic to have an item on your to do list that says "have a stop doing list" ? maybe humorous, but vital.

9  Double your reach to people half your age ALWAYS  by changing your practices without changing your values.

10  Set a BHAG that makes you really useful. (big hairy audacious goal)

Which of the 10 TO DOs is most needed for you? which scares you the most to do?

creativity, innovation, & pioneering

i'm prepping to launch something. i'm going to pioneer something. it's a big grand vision. it could go splendidly awesome or it could be a complete bust. i have no idea.

so i perk up and pay special attention when gurus and experts like Jim Collins talk about STARTING something and about pioneering and innovation. (i perk up and listen when YOU talk about it too... promise.)

2 days ago i wrote about Collins' analogy for empirical creativity = fire bullets! and keep firing bullets until you hit the target. THEN shoot the cannon ball.

because if you fire the cannon ball 1st... *how many cannon balls can i fire with limited gun powder? (and that gun powder represents 100 different things)
SO, we need to test what we pioneer very carefully.

and fascinating thoughts around the whole idea of pioneering that i'd heard Jim say before...

*"Pioneering innovation is extremely important for society, but lethal for the innovator."

very encouraging words for someone prepping to do what i'm prepping to do. (psych. as the kids used to say.)

so being the pioneer on something is GOOD, but rarely works. the innovator dies off. but the thing may continue.

the thing is, i'm actually cool with that. i don't need my name on it. i'm gonna die off anyway. i'm more concerned that the mission continues.

which is good because 64% of pioneers "die" outright. i.e. - they don't see their innovation come through - although it does come through. (for example = the things Apple has "pioneered" failed for them. they were a bust. although that thing may be a success. the things Apple is successful with - they did not outright pioneer. interesting, eh?)

and we are ALL innovators. we are all creative. we create. we have ideas. some of us are even pioneers with that creativity.

BEFORE you try to argue with me and say you're not creative = think back to when you were 5 years old... we were all creatives when we were 5 years old! i promise you were. we were constantly creating when we were 5. it was natural.

somewhere along the way that maybe died off for you. it was suppressed by "the system" or by you personally. and now you're just disciplined but not creative.

back when we were 5 we were all creative but none of us were disciplined.

"Marrying creativity to discipline makes creativity come alive!"

- Jim Collins

and that is 1 of the greatest secrets i've ever heard. MARRY them. that's key. it's the only way. (i've got pages and pages of thoughts on this i just can't wait to drop out here.) What if SPACE for CREATING were built right into your 20 mile march? (wow is what.)

basically we need to marry the 5 year old US and the 25 or 35 or 45 year old US. disciplined in our creativity and creatively disciplined.

then there will be more innovation. more PROBLEMS being solved. the world will keep changing. there will be more PIONEERS.

and i promise - if the thing/mission you pioneer is WORTH DOING and IT succeeds, but you don't - it's ok. 

if it's worth doing then just do it.

straight butta

"straight butta" is what we used to call something back in the day that was just amazing. it was so smooth and "pimp" that only the phrase "straight butta" would suffice to describe it's awesomeness.

so this stuff below from Jim Collins' talk at Catalyst '11 a few weeks ago is straight butta. my last couple (and the next) blogs have been thoughts from that talk and these thoughts below are the random ones that don't really fit into a topic.
so the topic for these thougths is "straight butta" - because that's what they are.

ya feel me?

The signature of mediocrity is Chronic Inconsistency!
This is true when you look at areas of your life or organizations across the world. Chronic inconsistency (or i would be witty and say consistent inconsistency) can be found in the mediocre leaders and organizations everywhere you look.

Collins says that VALUES are what can remain consistent. only VALUES endure. therefore, the bottom line from his 1st book (which is really a SEQUEL to Good to Great), Built to Last, is "Preserve the Core AND Stimulate Progress."

*which is what missional churches and contextualizing "missionaries" have been trying to do for hundreds of years.

The KEY is understanding the difference between practices and values. Change 1, never the other.
never changing values but ever changing practices can make something enduring and great!
wow - that feels like a direct address to churches & missional people. it feels as though it applies to us twice as much as business organizations. unfortunately, we're pretty bad at it.

Collins once asked the famed Peter Drucker (who happened to be Collins' mentor) which of his 26 books he was most proud of? - Drucker answered, "The next one." [i love that]

Andy Stanley interviewed Collins (again) at the end of his talk. he mainly talked about the difference between RIGOROUS and RUTHLESS cultures. especially as it relates to people in the seats on the bus (in our orgs) / firing people who don't need to be on our bus/ moving people who are in the wrong seat.
A rigorous culture is all about service to the cause. We make big RIGOROUS decisions for the sake of the cause - the sake of the mission. we should ask the question "what REALLY is compassion in this situation?" many times, firing is the most compassionate (yet hardest) thing we could do.
because if someone is failing in a seat, they're not in their Hedgehog (a Good to Great idea) - so helping them is getting them out of that seat. fast.

well, i wrote a lot more random thoughts into this "straight butta" article, BUT they just developed into blogs all by themselves. so, tomorrow i'll share some more "straight butta" Collins had to share on CREATIVITY.

3 traits in great leaders

those 3 traits of great leaders (according to Jim Collins) are:

1  FANATIC DISCIPLINE

2  EMPIRICAL CREATIVITY

3  PRODUCTIVE PARANOIA

you can catch up on the 1st trait in yesterday's post HERE. + you have to read that 1st post to understand the framework story used to show these 3 traits = the 2 teams and their leaders racing to the South Pole.

2  EMPIRICAL CREATIVITY

When most leaders are unsure or in a time of chaos - they don't know what to do so they just do what others are doing/have done in the past. that's our natural response as average and even good leaders.

great leaders figure out how to marry their creativity with empirical data = combine their creativity with what is PROVEN to work (not just what others are doing/have done). make sense?

they work hard to figure out what WORKS. maybe it's not the most popular method... in fact it's probably not or else we wouldn't be in the time of chaos or season of being unsure.

i would prefer to call this CREATIVE PRAGMATISM. Jim's phrase sounds smarter, but mine makes more sense to me.

it's the realization that i am NOT smart enough to outsmart this, but there are people with empirical, practical evidence.

and then you make your move based on this empirical, creative pragmatism.

and looking in from the outside - the moves these leaders make may appear to be rash, crazy, BOLD decisions... but they are simply creative decisions based on the empirical evidence of what works.

and i LOVE Collins' analogy around this - it is EXTREMELY relevant to me in this moment of my life. he said it's like a ship back in the day at war on the open seas with another ship.

they can straight up fire a couple cannon balls to blow up the other ship -- but if their aim is off just a few degrees... and they miss... well, they're out of gun powder. you only have enough "powder" to fire a few cannon balls.

so, the better way is to fire bullets. test shots. get the right trajectory and then fire the cannon ball with all that gun powder you still have left.

try with a little. and again. and again. then you hit the mark... THEN go big. that's empirical creativity.

3  PRODUCTIVE PARANOIA

in an uncertain world you really do have to be prepared for what you can't predict.

These great leaders are always sitting around wondering "what if" -- while channeling that energy into being PRODUCTIVE!

(most of us do just the opposite = paranoia & "what if" wondering paralyzes us and we do nothing.)

the team who actually made it to the South Pole put out 10 mile wide black markers at every depot stop! and you better believe they didn't miss a single one. THAT is productive paranoia.

(the other team just put a flag on top of the depot itself. they all died.)

some famous guy, CEO of a company - can't even remember who, but he had an awesome quote = "We predicted 11 of the last 3 recessions." = again, THAT is productive paranoia. that company was OK in every single recession. they're still doing fine. (wish i could remember who it was?)

they were being (some might say) OVERLY paranoid. but it was productive paranoia, so they put plans in place and they have been OK in every single recession.

so, the GREAT leaders have Fanatic Discipline, Empirical Creativity, and Productive Paranoia. 

i have a lot to still be developed in me. how are YOU doing with these 3 in YOUR leadership?

tomorrow i'll post more leadership takeaways from Collins & on Thursday i'll post the 10 point TO DO list he gave all of us!

20 mile march'n it again...

One of my last posts before Keira was born was this below - my thoughts from Jim Collins' awesome talk at Catalyst 2011. i was going to post the rest of my thoughts on it the next week, but Keira had other plans. that was about 3 weeks ago now! so i'm reposting the 1st one below and i'll follow up with the rest tomorrow.

diving back into my 20 mile marches myself, so this is good for me to dive back into & keep writing tomorrow...

when it comes to greatness there are 3 inherent traits that set GREAT leaders apart from the others...
& These are according to Jim Collins' STELLAR talk at Catalyst '11 last week. (and probably from his newest book Greatness is a Choice)

i'll just give you those big 3 traits straight up & then explain what he was talking about as we go:

1  FANATIC DISCIPLINE

2  EMPIRICAL CREATIVITY

3  PRODUCTIVE PARANOIA

The story and framework he chose to build this talk around was a study of the 2 teams who were in a race to make it to the South Pole back in the early 1900s. the leader whose team made it exemplified each of these 3 traits. the leader whose team all DIED did not.

each leader and each team faced the SAME environment and the SAME circumstances... one made it and one DIED. these 3 traits made the difference... and they make the difference in a long line of Great vs. Good leaders and Great vs. Good organizations.

Here is a little more context and discussion around these 3:

1  FANATIC DISCIPLINE

Jim told a (made up) story as a GREAT example of this trait. Let's say there are 2 guys who are going to walk from the California coast all the way across the country to the East coast of Maine. that's a long walk. they both set out on the same day.

The 1st guy sets a pace for himself of 20 miles per day. he is committed to his 20 mile march. he is fanatically disciplined about it. the 1st day he walks 20 miles. the 2nd day he walks 20 miles. the 3rd day he completes 20 miles and is tempted to keep going... he feels good, the sun is still up, he can probably walk 40. but nope. he sticks to the 20 mile march. he hits Colorado and there is snow all over the ground and he wakes up early and wants to sleep in inside his tent... but he does his 20 mile march. no matter what. fanatic discipline.

he makes it to Maine.

The other guy just gets after it. he walks 40 miles the 1st day. then blazes ahead for 57 miles on the 2nd day! he's dead tired on the 3rd day so he just sleeps in and lays around all day knowing that he can make up the ground later. he hits the snow in Colorado exhausted and takes a 3 week break to let the weather clear up. he hits the trail again and does 60 miles, but can barely walk the next day. he never makes it to Maine.

the team who made it to the South Pole had a 20 mile march and their leader made them stick to it no matter what.

THAT is fanatic discipline.

and that is what i need. 

for those of you familiar with Good to Great, this is a repackaging of the FLYWHEEL principle.

my main takeaway = i desperately need to KNOW what my 20 mile march is. i'm going to spend the time and the hard effort to land on the right 20 mile march for every area of my life and then i'm going to freaking hit it every single time... no matter what!

we'll talk about the other 2 traits in the coming days, but for now - anybody know their 20 mile march?

20 mile march

when it comes to greatness there are 3 inherent traits that set GREAT leaders apart from the others...
& These are according to Jim Collins' STELLAR talk at Catalyst '11 last week. (and probably from his newest book Greatness is a Choice)

i'll just give you those big 3 traits straight up & then explain what he was talking about as we go:

1  FANATIC DISCIPLINE

2  EMPIRICAL CREATIVITY

3  PRODUCTIVE PARANOIA

The story and framework he chose to build this talk around was a study of the 2 teams who were in a race to make it to the South Pole back in the early 1900s. the leader whose team made it exemplified each of these 3 traits. the leader whose team all DIED did not.

each leader and each team faced the SAME environment and the SAME circumstances... one made it and one DIED. these 3 traits made the difference... and the make the difference in a long line of Great vs. Good leaders and Great vs. Good organizations.

Here is a little more context and discussion around these 3:

1  FANATIC DISCIPLINE

Jim told a (made up) story as a GREAT example of this trait. Let's say there are 2 guys who are going to walk from the California coast all the way across the country to the East coast of Maine. that's a long walk. they both set out on the same day.

The 1st guy sets a pace for himself of 20 miles per day. he is committed to his 20 mile march. he is fanatically disciplined about it. the 1st day he walks 20 miles. the 2nd day he walks 20 miles. the 3rd day he completes 20 miles and is tempted to keep going... he feels good, the sun is still up, he can probably walk 40. but nope. he sticks to the 20 mile march. he hits Colorado and there is snow all over the ground and he wakes up early and wants to sleep in inside his tent... but he does his 20 mile march. no matter what. fanatic discipline.

he makes it to Maine.

The other guy just gets after it. he walks 40 miles the 1st day. then blazes ahead for 57 miles on the 2nd day! he's dead tired on the 3rd day so he just sleeps in and lays around all day knowing that he can make up the ground later. he hits the snow in Colorado exhausted and takes a 3 week break to let the weather clear up. he hits the trail again and does 60 miles, but can barely walk the next day. he never makes it to Maine.

the team who made it to the South Pole had a 20 mile march and their leader made them stick to it no matter what.

THAT is fanatic discipline.

and that is what i need. 

for those of you familiar with Good to Great, this is a repackaging of the FLYWHEEL principle.

my takeaway = i desperately need to KNOW what my 20 mile march is. i'm going to spend the time and the hard effort to land on the right 20 mile march for every area of my life and then i'm going to freaking hit it every single time... no matter what!

we'll talk about the other 2 traits in the coming days, but for now - anybody know their 20 mile march?

greatness

One of the 1st lines in Good to Great  that wrestles you down and grabs your attention is:

“Greatness is not a matter of circumstance.  Greatness is largely a matter of conscious choice."

That is what i am talking about. that is echoes of my Father & Grandfather from years past.

and that is one of the lines Jim Collins kicked off his stellar Catalyst '11 talk with last week. for me, it was the best talk of the whole conference.

a lot of it was great reminders after reading Good to Great a few years ago, but those in-your-face reminders have kicked my butt back into gear. but some of it was also reframed in different ways - probably from his newest book Greatness is a Choice. (that i can't wait to devour, btw.)

so, back to that statement. "Greatness is not a matter of circumstance. Greatness is largely a matter of conscious choice."

we can see that from the pure data/evidence. because if 2 organizations are in all the same circumstances and 1 stays good while the other goes to great... obviously something they did made the difference.

WHAT makes that difference though? why do some leaders and organizations thrive in chaos? it is NOT what happens to you; it's the choices, actions, and disciplines you choose.

the rest of his talk was about a lot of those choices, actions, and disciplines that makes a great leader. 

and it was all pure gold. i'll be breaking it down and processing my takeaways from it here at renown the next few days, but for now i'll just leave you with another sliver...

It all starts with PEOPLE.

Get the right people on the bus. that's the famous chapter/phrase from Good to Great. it's all about the right people on the bus and then having those people in the right seat. So...

Try to change every WHAT question to a WHO question.

and that's just 1 of the 5 principles that cause leaders and organizations to go from good to great, but i think if we rigorously acted on just this one... wow. there would be a world of difference.

and this may seem off topic but it was a simple/profound/brilliant quote in context. because a lot of times we make bad people decisions... but we have good intentions... our hearts are good...

"Bad decisions made with good intentions are still bad decisions."

yep. right on Jimmy. more coming soon. and it's all the really good stuff. i'm saving it.

what do YOU think so far?

dave ramsey's talk part 2

this is part 2 of my takeaways from Dave Ramsey's talk at Catalyst 2011 last week. you can read part 1 HERE.

the continuation of Dave's Core philosophies for his organization

5 Things that Caused Us to Win

3  Slow and Steady Matters 

do not let your pace go faster than your resources.

i love this simple line of thinking that i need to be reminded of SO often = "Either God is gonna send me the money to do the deal... or i'm not gonna do the deal." simple as that. i needed that.

this principle is echoes the children's story of The Tortoise and the Hare. we live in a culture full of Hares, but every time i read the book the Tortoise wins the race. there's something to that.

i'm definitely a Hare though. trying to sprint in this marathon. i don't know what it takes to remind myself and discipline myself to be slow and steady.

nothing happens fast. START today, but it's a marathon. just go at it slow and steady every day. and then one day...

4  Financial Principles in Your Organization Matter

Dave said, "you didn't think i was going to talk all this time and not mention money at least once did you?"

to be honest, i was still writing about #s 1-3 and pretty much missed everything he said about this. just being honest.

5  A Higher Calling Matters

if we're in it for something beyond the money then that makes a big difference in our org. we get a date on our tombstone that we're born and a date on our tombstone when we die. hopefully mine looks something like 1982 - 2080.

Dave repeated a question about this that could seem cliche, but in context it was not:

"what are you going to do with the dash?"

more great stuff from Catalyst 2011 on the way.

let the takeaways begin

i was at Catalyst 11 last week. awesome as always.
last year i was in Kenya and it was the 1st Catalyst conference i had missed since 2006.
i love Catalyst a lot and value it big time because of what it always produces in me.

maybe more on the conference as a whole later. for now, i'm just going to dive right into processing my learnings and takeaways. really for my sake, but if it works out great for you to have some "2nd hand learning & growth" then that's awesome too.

i'm processing Dave Ramsey's talk from day 1 right now. (i don't even feel the need to take time giving my props and gratitude to Dave for all he's done for us... you can just read HERE, HERE, and HERE if you must.)
for me, his talk was probably the 3rd best talk of the week. i love his leadership stuff as much as his $ stuff. and he gave ALL 13,000 of us a FREE copy of his book that just released, Entreleadership. (now i can take mine back to the library.)

he spoke about his organization's 5 core philosophies or core values. he simply called them:

5 Things that Caused us to Win

1  People Matter - There is a high correlation between success and relational IQ.

i see this big time everywhere i look. everything i've ever read or experienced myself backs this up.

opportunities come through people. plain and simple.

it was awesome to hear Dave talk about how amazing they treat their people that work for them. that's why they work so hard to hire the right people who will be around for a long time... because they are going to POUR into them & treat them right.

2  An Incredible Team that Demands Excellence Matters 

Pretty cool reminder that Dave's 1st step in their hiring process is to PRAY. his prayer = "Lord, keep your crazy children away." lol. start praying ahead of time for God to send us the right one. *Because we don't want anyone on our team who is working a J.O.B.

definitely some pretty funny, quotable 1 liners when Dave was talking about this section:
"I don't put up with drama. I'm not running a beauty parlor... I want to GET THINGS DONE!"
He said people tour their place all the time and say "wow. all your employees are such nice people." Dave replies, "That's right... we fire the other ones."

Dave's always good for some brilliant leadership principles + a laugh or 2 in the middle of it. i'll drop the next 3 values on you tomorrow. until then, What do you think of these first 2 so far?

teams that work

(i think this will be my last post on my takeaways from Drive 2010. You can catch up on tons of my thoughts and takeaways over the past 9 posts!)

the 1st breakout i went to was "Developing Teams that Work". it was probably the best breakout session ever. (And i've been to hundreds!) the content was masterful!
it was with Clay Scroggins (aka - the "Scrog Dog") who's in the student ministry, but i think he said this was developed by Reggie Joiner & Kendra Fleming at North Point. And i'm almost positive i've read it before from one of them...

The subtitle explains it better. These are "5 Critical Responsibilities EVERY Ministry Team Must Monitor to Stay on Track"
(So, we've got 7 Core Values + 7 Practices we live by... but these are 5 things that MUST BE PRESENT on our team! i am working this out currently in my head. trying to figure out how our teams can improve...)

These 5 responsibilities are simply necessary in order to accomplish our mission. they are probably directly related to the success of our mission. When stuff goes wrong or when we want to improve it will usually come back to 1 of these 5 areas.
I am now convinced that every team needs to have an expert in each of these 5 areas! here they are...

1  Refine the Environment - we've got to have an environment person. Somebody who can practice "Vuja De" = always see the environment with fresh eyes. (It's a George Carlan joke... the opposite of "Deja Vu" where you've never been to an environment but feel like you have. "Vuja De" is a unique ability to have been in an environment hundreds of times, but still be able to see it for the 1st time.) We all know that the environment is HUGE! We must have peeps from the outside speaking into our processes and environments! ("Listen to Outsiders.")
If we don't continually do this 1st one with expertise then ultimately a generation will be lost! it's a pretty big deal.

2  Nurture the Leader - we need an expert leader of leaders. "Coached leaders go further faster." - Andy. we just need an expert leader coaching the top leaders... and then everyone leads a few... all the way down. this expert has gotta be a people person.
I'm thankful that if we're a part of any culture in this North Point system, we're a part of a leadership culture!
Speed of the leader = speed of the team. Our quality and growth will be determined by the quality of our leader!

3  Value the Team - We need a relational guru who can motivate with vision and appreciate the heck out of the individuals on the team! (I feel like #s 2 & 3 might have a little overlap.) ***Everybody needs to value everybody else's role! Connect every single person's role to the big vision! (remember we're a body like Paul said in 1 Corinthians...)

4  Inform the Crowd - We need a marketing genius like Seth Godin on our team! (i wonder if he's looking for a job at a small church plant in NC? seems like that'd be right up his alley...) somebody who can communicate & market to the masses.. how else are they gonna know?
i can't tell you how many times i've thought (and i'm not the only one) - "i just wish more people would have experienced that!" (it's the marketing experts job to make sure they do! or at least know about it.)

5  Perfect the System - Oh yeah, we need a systems nerd. An orgizational guru! someone who says "How are all these disorganized people [like me] even Christians??? Disorganization is so ungodly!" i want that person on my team!! Because they are the opposite of me.
if we don't perfect the system we "waste critical resources ($) and time."


I think we need somebody who MAJORS in each of these 5 areas on our teams!
*When these 5 are working it simply removes most of the barriers so that the Holy Spirit can work.

***I have not stopped thinking about this for over a week now. i can't get it out of my mind. i know we've got to step it up in some of these areas because the mission is that important!

*some other great leadership stuff during this breakout:
-  "The longer something is neglected, the greater the damage and the harder it is to fix." [man we need to keep that in mind!]
-  our job in every environment is to "Build a bridge and turn on a light." - Reggie Joiner
-  "Teams need a rallying cry." - Patrick Lencioni

what do you think of these 5 responsibilities for teams that work?

agree/disagree? anything left out? 

i would love to hear your thoughts!

"the funnel" (continued...)

You can read the 1st half of this post HERE. (Seriously take 2 minutes to read that post. This won't make sense without reading that setup. this will just feel cold and rigid and you will probably accuse us of being idiots... you might do that anyway, but just read the last post!)

Today we'll dive into the 8 steps of "the funnel" that looks something like this:

And remember from yesterday's post that the whole point is LIFE CHANGE. but there is no sense in offending people with our crap. The only thing that should ever offend them is the gospel! (the message itself.) So we want to earn the right to challenge people each Sunday by intentionally walking through the steps of this funnel. (Not all 8 steps happen every Sunday.)
1  Pre-Service Experience - this begins in the parking lot. This is the broadest part of the funnel, trying to welcome everyone and make them feel GREAT!

2  Opener - Usually a song or game of some sort or something fun/entertaining... *We want to make people HAPPY they are here! **If we can make them laugh/smile the 1st 5 minutes they are here that's a huge WIN!

3  Welcome - Because there are GUESTS! we welcome guests into our home... we don't load them up with a bunch of info. We want 1st timers to feel WELCOMED, not announced at (that's not the win)!

4  Singing/Worship - (it's all worship... so the musical part of worship is step 4). There is a funnel even within this step of the funnel. we must be sensitive to the emotional flow... don't start with a crazy intense song about the blood of Jesus flowing down... that should come at the end of this step of the funnel. Start with a worship song that's way broader and more engaging.

5  Baptism - the way we do baptisms and the stories will get all the people in the room involved emotionally. You can't argue with someone's story! you just emotionally connect.

6  Tension (Andy calls this a "special") - Goal = to create a tension that the message will address. this is usually a song, maybe a video or interview or something. the tension should not resolve during this step! just create it! **tap into human emotion here. make eveeryone in the room say "I hope someone can answer that".

7  Message - start a whole new funnel here! Start out broad and catch everyone and then funnel down to the point that we RISK challenging them... risk offending with the gospel... for the sake of life change.

8  Closer - the only point is to punctuate the point of the message (or whole series).

Following this funnel/template should allow us to be way more creative!

*Here are some great Rules for the exceptions to the rules!
- It's OK to move away from this template on purpose, but it's not OK to drift by accident! You can decide to do it, but don't do it unintentionally. (we recently did this on purpose at Ridge for "Throwback" in April! It was intentional and we all acknowledged it and talked about it.)

- It's never OK to move away from this template because we're bored, we want to do something "cool", or we just want to change it up... *** "If we can leverage cool fro something good that's awesome, but cool is never the goal."

- When we move outside the template, there needs to be a good reason. (Like Throwback for us or our upcoming "Strategic Service" Sunday.)


There you have it. Our funnel or Sunday morning strategic template.

I would love to hear YOUR thoughts! Where do you agree and disagree??

"the funnel" (steps on sunday morning)

(If you missed the video set up for this yesterday, just click HERE. or even if you just want a good laugh watch the video HERE.)

**Everything we do at Ridge Church we do on purpose. Especially on Sunday mornings. Every single word, action, movement, environment, color, angle, etc... it's intentional. Nothing is an accident. it's all strategic. We have planned and are ready for every person who comes through the doors.

This is modeled for us beautifully by our "mother" church who we are a strategic partner with = North Point. Andy Stanley (their lead pastor & 1 of our teaching pastors) does a better job communicating most things than most people. But he definitely does the best job communicating how intentional we are about what we do on Sunday mornings. Below is my humble attempt to download and think through 2 talks he has done about "the funnel". (The 1st talk was with strategic partnerships in '09 and the 2nd was just last week at Drive 2010.)

This funnel is like a road map or a template for the experience we want to create every Sunday morning. (I think he might call it "Rules of Engagement" now?)
To create this funnel (or template) we have to begin with the end in mind. Which in my very humble opinion and in my limited experience most churches don't do! 

So, on a Sunday morning, one of the goals for us is to have people change their thinking which leads them to change how they live. Goal = Life Change!
We're all about clarifying WINS at Ridge too. When an adult (or student or child really...) comes to Ridge who is not a "church person" and usually not a believer -> a WIN is when that person finds an environment (context) that's welcoming and good and comfortable (familiar) + communication that is engaging and helpful so that it makes them say "I'll come back next week." That's the WIN for us.
But, of course long term the win is life change as they keep coming back again and again.

In our church & no doubt at your church there is a wide range of peeps showing up. Peeps who have never been to church and don't like Jesus and peeps who were born at church and haven't left since.
So, here's a big Question = How do you help such a wide range of people take steps forward spiritually?
Answer = Do what Jesus did... unite them around a common emotion! 

Take 3 minutes and read Luke 15. you can even just click HERE if you don't have a Bible handy.

In that passage Jesus is speaking to a WIDE range of peeps. The craziest "sinners" around who knew nothing about God + the Pharisees and teachers of the law who knew everything about God. How in the world does Jesus engage both ends of the spectrum? He brings them together on common ground with a common emotion! = "Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them..."

The sinner & the teacher are immediately FEELING the same emotion together! they're thinking "ahhh, that would be horrible..." 
**Jesus 1st takes them ALL somewhere emotionally! Doesn't matter if they are learned theologically or a "newbie"... He takes them all to the same place emotionally. Because "We build common ground with emotion, NOT INFORMATION."

He keeps going and creates 2 more emotions like this in order to drive home how he wants their thinking and their LIVES TO CHANGE!

*Jesus skipped giving information. He just got everyone nodding their heads "yep".

So, here are 3 Questions you should ask yourselves as you develope the elements for your template for what your Sunday mornings look like. (you do have a template even if you don't know you do.)
1) How will this make people feel?
2) What do we want people to feel?
3) At what point is it worth the risk to make people feel uncomfortable?
*This is so important because every Sunday we have to earn the right to challenge people.

OK, I hope that got you warmed up to actually see "the funnel." Here it is...

Impressive, eh? 

Tomorrow we'll dive in to the actual 8 elements of the funnel and I'm going to think through some other great thoughts about what our Sunday mornings should look like.

leadership culture (Zappos, Chick-Fil-A, & NPCC)

These are some scattered thoughts from one of the greatest breakout sessions ever this week at Drive 2010 at North Point. It was called "Creating a Culture Where Leaders Thrive". I went to it because I think Jeff Henderson is one of the greatest leaders around... but it wasn't just him! The Chick-Fil-A VICE PRESIDENT (David Salyers) + a big dog with Zappos.com (Donavon Roberson) were also talking with us in the breakout!!!

It was freaking awesome. 3 great leaders from 3 great organizations with great leadership cultures talking leadership culture! like i said... freaking awesome.

So, here are my random thoughts & takeaways as i process them:
- Solomon was the wisest man in the world and he talked more than anyone about getting advice and counsel.

- Chick-Fil-A studies the greatest organizations in the world in order to learn from them. A couple years ago they studied NORTH POINT! Wow! CFA, one of the greatest - studying a church!

- "Endearing actions create enduring organizations." Do awesome things for family of staff, unexpected surprises, etc...

- The bottom line is PEOPLE. never lose sight of that.

- "There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn't care who gets the credit." - Truett Cathy

- Don't motivate people. RELEASE people. I've gotta release the potential of our team! Release them to try, experiment, and lead in their own way (within the guardrails of our mission and core values of course).

- On that above note, i love this formula from the VP @ CFA = Quality of the Idea X Acceptance = Effectiveness (Q x A = E)
10 that is the best idea ever, but the Acceptance is only 5 that = 50. BUT, If the Quality of the idea is only a 9, but Acceptance is a full on 10 the Effectiveness will be 90! that's powerful even though the idea wasn't quite as good.> I hope this is encouraging to all leaders to be accepting of all the half crazy ideas from leaders on their teams.

- "Creating a great leadership culture where the team thrives doesn't cost a lot of money. It does require intentionality." - Jeff Henderson

- We gotta Coach our leaders all the time. If we only do it when something goes wrong then that's really Criticism.

- "We want people to be just as clear on what we want for them as what we want from them." - Salyers. That is great great advice! I am going to start implementing that TODAY!

- ***Probably the greatest thing i took from this whole session was something Jeff said. It convicted me and brought something important back to the forefront of my mind! = "The best thing we can do to lead up is to pray for our leader! My job is to make Andy Stanley as successful as possible."
**I fully agree. My job is to make Chris Brown as successful as possible!
Jeff again encouraged us that we don't have to wait on formal authority! especially when it comes to this. right on. I need to be honoring our pastor & not wait on some kind of formal authority to do this. i need to figure out how to do this practically. working on it...

Those are my random takeaways as i break them down and try to apply them.  

Do YOU have any thoughts on my thoughts?

opposable thumbs & leadership

(This post is simply me processing my thoughts from Andy Stanley's final talk at the Drive Conference 2010. It looks like the guys at Catalyst liked the talk so well they have made it the theme of Catalyst 2010!)
This is brilliant! I'm just trying to process it and take it from my brain to action (via this blog).

"THE OPPOSABLE LEADER"

Why organizational tension is essential to progress (like THUMBS)

*Humans have opposable thumbs and it is an amazing phenomenon. That phenomenon is responsible for much of the good things we do and all the progress we have made through the millennia. It is all possible because we can apply pressure and tension with our opposable thumbs.
**Just like the thumb - the right amount of pressure/conflict/tension lets us make progress! There are some tensions that if taken away, would be like cutting off our thumbs!

Every Organization Has Problems That Shouldn't Be Solved and Tensions That Shouldn't Be Resolved. (because to do so would be like cutting of your thumbs.)
Some examples would be:
- Excellence vs. Stewardship = you can't choose 1! that's a tension that needs to stay.
- Time @ work vs. Time @ home = you cannot neglect either one!
- missional vs. attractional = we'll always need both.
- safe environment for unbelievers vs. deeper teaching for believers = this is a tension we will always need to live with.
- and there are hundreds, probably thousands more...

*If we "resolve" any of these tensions...

1) we create a new tension. but that new tension is more like a big problem that will wreck everything! **So don't "SOLVE" it... you're not solving anything, just making everything worse!
2) we create a barrier to progress. because...
**Progress depends not on the resolution of those tensions, but on the successful management of those tensions. (our Pastor tells us all the time all the time = "That's not a problem to solve. That's a tension to manage!" brilliant.)

a Great Question is = Are there mature advocates for both sides? - if so, chances are this is a tension to be managed. most of us grew up where all these necessary tensions ONLY had advocates for one side... so the ministry was screwed!

**We have got to be comfortable managing and leading through these tensions!

The Role of Leadership Is to LEVERAGE the Tension to the Benefit of the Organization.
YES! As leaders we have to maximize the upsides of each view and minimize the downsides!

*Here's some great suggestions for how we can leverage these tensions for the benefit of God's mission:
- "Identify the tensions in our organization." **We dare not let anyone  "win" this argument! if we do then we lose as an organization.

- "Continually give VALUE to both sides."

- "Don't weigh in too heavily based on my personal biases." = I lean to 1 side or the other in all these tensions because God wired me that way. We're all this way. SO, we've gotta give value to the other side!
**As a leader you could naturally champion 1 side & suffocate the other side! "See the Upside of the other side and the downside of your side." that is beautiful, mature advice for ANY situation!

- "Don't allow strong personalities to win the day." Don't let their side win just because they're loudest or complain a lot.
** "We need passionate people who will champion their sides, but mature people who understand this principle."

- "Don't think in terms of balance. Think Rhythm." Managers don't naturally go by rhythm, they lean toward balance and fairness. But rhythm goes by the crazy seasons in ministry...
Balance is equal, but we don't always need the same amounts of things. It depends on the time and rhythm of ministry.

Andy concluded with this:
** "As a leader, one of the most valuable things you can do for your organization is to differentiate between tensions your organization will always need to manage vs. problems that need to be solved."


**This is such great stuff. I feel FREED up to EMBRACE TENSION. Tension is a good thing. It lets us make progress in our mission!

I am stoked to work for a great leader like my pastor and boss, Chris. Andy started this talk by saying he had "never taught on this concept publicly" but had only taught it to his staff, etc... BUT, Chris says this stuff to the Ridge staff ALL THE TIME! maybe Andy passed this on to Chris at some point?
i feel pretty lucky.

I hope this has been helpful! This was awesome for me. In every facet of our ministries we must learn to embrace tensions between all the different kinds of people and ministry ideas and philosophies, etc... 
**Many times it's BOTH/AND NOT EITHER/OR!

THOUGHTS?

Drive 2010 - Day 2

Day 2 of Drive 2010 was amazing. best so far. i wish i could just post all my takeaways, but they will have to be spread out over many many blogs! so much amazing and helpful stuff!

with all the mind blowing stuff, you know what was my favorite part? the fact that we have a team of 26 Leaders from Ridge Church soaking it all in as well! That gets me stoked out of my mind! crazy awesome privilege for so many of our leaders to digest all the great stuff this week.

Chris is the man & brilliant to carve out 2 awesome (and intentional) times today for our team. 1 by the pool at a house to just chill and eat together... and the 2nd by another pool to share takeaways and encouragements from the conference about what we're doing well and need to be better at.
I am freaking encouraged by the people God has called to carry this vision from Him called Ridge Church.
(so freaking encouraged it's why i can't sleep right now when i should be completely exhausted.)
(this is Spanky, one of those leaders, in a jeep he wants to win from Drive 2010...)

So, there were 3 awesome sessions today that i will be writing many posts on with some amazing content/takeaways:
1  Andy's opening main session. He broke down "The Funnel" for everyone. can't wait to has that out of my brain & onto my screen...

2  Scrog Dog on "Developing Teams that Work" = those 5 essentials were worth the price of the whole conference & it was probably the best content in a breakout ever!

3  + a Chick-Fil-A executive, Zappos exec, and Jeff Henderson presented AMAZING stuff about developing a pimp leadership culture. really great stuff! (and free CFA!)

*those are at least 3 posts coming soon to renown! i hope you're intrigued!

How bout i leave you all with at least 1 awesome quote from today = "There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn't care who gets the credit." - Jeff Henderson or Truett Cathy or one of those CFA guys? (I am seeing that lived out all around me!!!)

looking forward to the final day tomorrow!