Friday, May 7, 2010

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.  

3 comments:

Matt Rich said...

I'm going to write that formula at the top of my whiteboard at work. I have seen that in practice (for better and for worse) dozens of times, but never really thought about the A as being so critical.

Jeff's statement about supporting Andy's success - seems to me that's biblical submission applied to every relationship. We usually use that term in regards to marriage, but that's what it is.

Lots of good stuff in here - your takeaways from Drive are a gift that keeps giving, so thanks for passing it on.

Brian Esposito said...

Hey Patrick! I bet you think that nobody reads your blog, but I do. And I think about it a lot. I pray daily for the Ridge staff. I have been so blessed by this church. Thanks again from a brother!

B

patrick mitchell said...

Matt - yeah, cool formula. the tricky part is how does it work the lesser quality of an idea it is... you know? i think "8"s & up are great all day long and i want to meet them with "10" approval... but a 5or6... i want to kill it before it hits the fan.

& yeah, right on with biblical submission in every relationship. it was convicting to me. thanks for reading & commenting!

Brian - You are awesome man! you are so encouraging. thanks so much for praying for us! That means A LOT! we need it. (& thanks for reading & commenting. it's just a fun place to dump my brain out...)

**Both you guys = & who ever knew both of you had blogs! I'm so excited. i shouldn't be reading them right now because it's past my bedtime on a Saturday, but i'm digging them. good stuff.