Missional Canadian

ACT! LEARN! REPEAT!!! Thoughts from the Global Leadership Summit 2011

Since it began in the summer of 1995, I have attended every Leadership Summit but one. You’d think they would eventually get stale and boring!! But for me, what is now called the Global Leadership Summit has proven to be a much needed annual reminder to stay focused on the basics of spiritual leadership, while always providing me with a number of profound new insights that aid in thrusting my leadership journey forward. I guess I’m a slow learner who needs a good annual refresher course while being challenged with a few new ideas at the same time.

I came to the Summit this year after a year of seeing the big ship Redwood slowly begin to move in a direction where we are catching a bit more of the wind of the Spirit. Once again we are beginning to move forward with a little more ease. This comes after a couple of years in which from a leadership perspective we’ve experienced a bit of the doldrums. Nothing hugely disastrous, just not enough movement forward for a variety of reasons including my own leadership inadequacies.

For Redwood the years 1995 through to 2006 were pure adrenaline. The charts kept pointing up and to the right – increased attendance, increased giving, increased involvement, yada, yada, and the ride was pure exhilaration. It led to our moving into a new facility and establishing a ministry to the poor and disenfranchised in our city through the Opportunities Centre in our old facility. Life could not be sweeter.

By about 2008 the city of Thunder Bay was working through a massive economic downturn including significant population loss while I had hit a lid in terms of my own leadership capabilities. That deadly combination created a great deal of stress for myself personally that while not felt throughout the church, was certainly felt by the leadership core. God chose to work in those years through the Global Leadership Summit in particular to give me both the tools and the passion I needed to work through the issues, so that I myself and Redwood would be in a better position to catch the life giving wind of the Spirit.

I came to the Summit this year with a sense that we are just on the cusp of catching something a bit more robust than just the gentle breeze of the Spirit that we have begun to be more recently blessed with. At the same time I remain very much aware that we continue to live in uncertain times for the North American church as a whole. And while Thunder Bay is doing better economically, a sense of uncertainty is still very much here. So all this and more contributes to a bit of uncertainty still lingering in the air at Redwood. The question is: “Will this slight breeze of the Spirit, sweet though it is, yet again become the gust we so long for?” This twinge of uncertainty left me wondering what role the Summit would play in the life of myself as well as those attending the Summit with me that would impact the future of Redwood.

Quickly the Spirit ambushed me through the speaking of inspiring leaders from both within and beyond the Christian community. Let me touch on just a few of the multiple highlights and God moments for me.

Perhaps some of the most helpful teaching from this GLS targeting what I’ve been wrestling with came from LEN SCHLESINGER, current president of Babson College, who has 20 years of teaching experience at Harvard, as well as hands on executive experience in companies including Limited Brands. He pointed out the half-life of a Fortune 25 Company is a mere 10 years!! The problem from his perspective is that we were taught in school to learn and base our strategies on cause and effect, thinking that the future can be extrapolated from the past. His point was passionate and strong, “the future is not a linear extrapolation of the past.” And his plea was equally strong, “If you can’t predict the future, create it!”

For those issues that we are passionate about, and we in the church certainly are passionate about a few issues, Schlesinger calls us to simply launch into action without over-thinking!! Just take action with whatever financial and human resources you have in hand and take a small smart step toward your goal and see what happens! Then evaluate what you learn and if you like the results, take another step. His mantra: ACT. LEARN. REPEAT. Wow, talk about counter-intuitive!!

BRENDA SALTER-MCNEIL and STEVE FUTRICK continued this theme with a call to interpret these catalytic times we find ourselves in through the eyes of faith and then act. Popular blogger SETH GODIN drove it home with a plea that “if it’s worth doing, do it!” What I heard from many of these speakers was a strong bias towards action. Act now in the direction of your goals. Next evaluate whether it works or not. Then take a next step, act again. And for the Christ follower, do so in tune with the leading of the Spirit.

BILL HYBELS AND HENRY CLOUD both gave some very practical tools on how to work with our teams and key leaders for the accomplishment of these goals that we need to act on. Cloud divides the world into wise people, foolish people and evil people and gives a very different strategy on how to work with each group, reminding us that we are all fools sometimes. Very helpful thoughts here, especially his loving but firm approach to “fools,” which includes all of us from time to time.

And then as we launch into action with this audacious faith, it only happens effectively as we lead with humility and vulnerability. Australian rector JOHN DICKSON as well as business consultant PATRICK LENCIONI simply restated the obvious that leaders like myself need to be called back to time and again. Like I said, I’m a slow learner, and I just need this basic stuff over and over again.

I could keep going, so much good thinking packed into a couple of days, but let me wrap up with two other thoughts. Kudos to Bill Hybels who demonstrated godly leadership in his gracious response to Starbuck’s CEO Harold Schulz’s withdrawal from the Summit because of pressure from the Gay community. Check it out by clicking here. This was not only a great leadership moment, it was for me a proud moment to be called evangelical.

And the ultimate highlight for me? Hands down it was just the chance to spend a few days with the team from Redwood. Ten of us in total, 8 from the staff team, one board member and my son Graeme. It was just sweet to hang out with this dedicated group of leaders, who love God, love each other and are passionate about the mission Redwood is on. It was great to talk leadership and dream about the future!! It was also not too shabby getting to a Cubs game at the historic Wrigley Field after some classic Chicago deep dish pizza at Giordano’s.

A great few days with an awesome team!! I’m really looking forward to what God does with it!!

And to the folk at the Willow Creek Association, both in the US and Canada, thanks for all you do to feed and inspire guys like our Redwood team and myself.

But I’d better stop writing and start doing!! Now is the time to ACT, LEARN and REPEAT, seeking the gusts of the Holy Spirit to lead us.

The Redwood GLS Team with Tim Taking the Picture

August 16, 2011 Posted by Doug Doyle | Church, Leadership, Leadership Summit, Local Church Thoughts, Redwood Park Church | 2 Comments

The 2010 Willow GLS: Leadership in Transition

The WillowCreek Leadership Summit, now called the Global Leadership Summit has been a staple in my summer diet for 14 out of the last 15 years of the Summit. I am never disappointed. Always I find myself inspired and challenged deeply by the event. This year through the diversity of speakers I could visibly see the transition taking place between the leadership thinking of modernism and what is beginning to develop with the emerging post-modern generation.

The Summit did start a bit slow for me. I found the first day of the two-day event to be good but not as captivating as in previous years. One of the contributing factors was the lack of emphasis on worship and the arts on that particular day. I found it intriguing that that lack had such an impact on my experience, despite some amazing teaching and presentations. The second day was much stronger on the arts front and contributed to my ability to better take in all the material that was presented. That contrast between day one and day two was a significant educational “take home,” for me about the power of the arts as well as the release that comes from spending a significant amount of time in corporate worship. I don’t think some of my staff team who were not at the Summit would have made it through day one with the almost “all business approach” to the day.

But the lack of arts and worship on day one aside, the Summit proved once again to be an invaluable contribution to my own leadership journey. I commend the Willow team for putting together such an excellent teaching team or as they like to call them, “faculty.” Let me just list a few of the many “take homes,” that impacted me. It’s too long for many of you to read all at once, just scan down and see what catches your attention:

• I had already been in a setting where BILL HYBELS did a test run of his Summit talk, but I was struck anew by the intensity of his passion for knitting together teams of what he calls “fantastic people,” folks who you would go out into the hall and vomit if you ever heard they wanted to leave your organization!
• Hybels has now added a fourth “C” to his team-building list, that being “culture,” in addition to character, competency and chemistry. He distinguished between chemistry as being inter-personal, and culture being the DNA or ethos of your organization.

• “Good is the enemy of great,” was the renewed rallying cry of JIM COLLINS, who once again was mesmerizing in his presentation.
• As a part of his presentation on why some “mighty organizations” fall, Collins built on Hybels session by emphasizing that we must have all of our key seats filled with fantastic people, that we must resist any attempt to move ahead or grow until we have those fantastic people occupying those key leadership seats.
• The signature issue that separates great leaders from good leaders, leaders who are often able to prevent “a catastrophic fall,” are those who are marked by humility.
• With passion Collins said that if we desire to be truly useful as leaders, then we must never capitulate, never ever give up on the idea of creating a great church or organization, never ever give up on the discipline of creating our own future, while being willing to embrace loss and endure pain in the journey towards those goals. You might have thought he was a preacher!

• DR. PETER ZHAO XIOA’s presentation was simply fascinating. He became a Christ follower studying the American economy for the Chinese government and concluding that biblical values make for a stronger economy. He is proud of his Chinese heritage and looks forward to China becoming once again one of the dominant nations in the world. His call is for us to not fear China, but to work to strengthen Christian presence in China, which will only benefit the nation and the world.

• The concept advanced by ANDY STANLEY, that great organizations have problems that shouldn’t be solved and tensions that shouldn’t be resolved, is a keeper! He argued that we need to identify those critical problems and tensions, that if held in a creative both/and balance, bring progress for the organization. While tensions are organizationally specific, they include things like: time with family/ time at work; reaching the unchurched/maturing believers; led by the Spirit/ attentive to logic. He calls the balancing of these unresolvable tensions a “third category,” that when artfully handled, propel the organization forward.

• Throughout the Summit there was an emphasis on creating environments of collaboration. This came out brilliantly in TERRI KELLY’S, the CEO of what we know as Gore-Tex talk. The culture of Gore and Associates really grabbed my attention, where it is a peer-based organization where everyone understands that it is their job to make everyone else in the organization successful. Her presentation of what a peer based organization based on personal relationships and the power of small teams is all about, where there are more coaches than bosses, where every staff member has a sponsor in addition to a supervisor who is committed to the betterment of the person, really got my mind going on overdrive. Yeah she stretched me big time, and it was good to be stretched!!
• Again the whole issue of hiring the right people was emphasized. The need for the right kind of behavioral interviewing that assures that the people you hire fit the culture they will be working in.

• And if I thought Terri Kelly was brilliant then I’ve run out of strong enough adjectives to describe the thinking of DANIEL PINK. His work on what it is that truly motivates us was simply captivating. I bought both the audio and print editions of his book, “Drive”!!
• Pink uses three concepts to describe what he calls “enduring motivations”: autonomy, mastery, and purpose. He argues that most organizations use lesser motivations like reward and punishment, including financial profit and money. He calls “management theory,” an outdated 1800’s concept designed to get compliance when folk yearn for autonomy, that we need to find ways to give folk autonomy over their time, teams, tasks and techniques. This leads to the need for an individual to develop mastery in what he or she is doing that reflects their personal passions, and mastery is motivated as people see they are making progress. Pink like some of the other contrarian thinkers at the Summit is very hard on traditional performance appraisal systems, opting instead for an ongoing process of encouragement, where the individual is motivated to monitor his or her progress with the help of a supervisor/coach.
• Pink then moves on to purpose, which many of us resonate with who think of faith in terms of “the purpose driven life. Pink is strong that even in business purpose trumps profit every time.

• Tom’s Shoes with it’s CEO BLAKE MYCOSKIE is a great example that purpose trumps profits, in a for-profit business venture. His buy a pair of shoes, and we’ll give a pair away to someone in need in the majority world has impacted both the churched and unchurched community. It’s become a viral movement capturing the heart of the younger generation that truly want to make a difference. I’d love to see Tom’s Shoes in Canada!

• Listening to JACK WELCH helped me to better understand Bill Hybels. There’s a unique combination of old school and new school leadership thinking that Welch represents that has impacted Hybles, who re-reads Welch’s “Winning” every six months. He isn’t the most studied CEO of the 20th century for nothing! Welch brings to leadership an amazing combination of energy, candor, as well as passion for the individual. However he takes a more hard lined approach to performance appraisal that clearly grades the individual in relationship to the rest of the employees, so that he can abundantly reward the top 20%, care for and grow the core 70% and remove the bottom 10%. Hybles takes a softer approach on this than Welch, but similar. After listening to Daniel Pink and Terri Kelly, I sensed that on this issue, the Welch performance appraisal system’s days are numbered.

• The summit wrapped up with a resounding message by Bishop TD JAKES. I’ve heard him speak before and was not all that enthused to hear him again. I personally find wumped up enthusiasm, and what for me is trite clichés, to be a bit grating. This time, Jakes surprised me and totally engaged me. There was a level of humility in his speaking that captivated me. He was well worth the risk Hybles took in brining him back to the Summit.
• Several of Jake’s statements that stayed with me include: “You cannot lead someone who cannot read you, you have to transparent enough to be understood, you have to show your wounds.” “They learn as much from your troubles as they do from your strengths.” “Lord I need a me! That’s someone who is safe to encourage me as I encourage others.” Jakes lamented how few “safe encouragers” there are out there for pastoral leaders.

So yeah, a lot of good stuff!! I hope to bring some of these sessions to the Redwood staff team and the Christian and leadership community at large in Thunder Bay through a series of “LEADERSHIP LUNCHES,” at Redwood’s Thunder Bay campus. I just have to check with Jane and see if she’s willing to put the soup on for us! I should have more information come September.

August 12, 2010 Posted by Doug Doyle | Church, Leadership, Leadership Summit, Local Church Thoughts, Redwood Park Church | 5 Comments