GrowthStarts

Quotable Quote ... Alvin Toffler

You've got to think about big things while you're doing small things so that all the small things go in the right direction.

HT: Execupundit

Quotable Quote ... Javier Moreno Valle

Not being ahead of time is not being on time.

HT: Execupundit

Organized religion's management problem

Gary Hamel writes with insight on organized religion's management problem and their need to reinvent church. An excerpt:

Over the centuries, religion has become institutionalized, and in the process encrusted with elaborate hierarchies, top-heavy bureaucracies, highly specialized roles and reflexive routines. (Kinda like your company, but only more so). Religion won’t regain its relevance until church leaders chip off these calcified layers, rediscover their sense of mission, and set themselves free to reinvent “church” for a new age.

Doing this is going to take a management revolution. Back in the first century, the Christian church was organic, communal and mostly free of ritual—and it needs to become so again—as does every organization, public or private, large or small.

More here.

HT: Tony Morgan

Free leadership webcast

The National Leadership Forum is coming to your computer for free, but you must register now because space is limited. This webcast takes place September 10-11 and will feature:

• Jack Welch
• T.D. Jakes
• Mark Rutland
• Patrick Lencioni
• Dave Ramsey
• Craig Groeschel
• Megyn Kelly
• Erwin McManus
• Bill George
• Tim Sanders
• Matthew Barnett
• Henry Cloud

This is sponsored by Southeastern University, LifeChurch.tv, and 316 Networks.

Register here.

HT: Swerve

QuickLinks

Some interesting links of late:

• Over at Catalyst, Nancy Ortberg gives three steps to creating momentum to take you to the next level.
• Mark Waltz is in the middle of an engaging series of posts about best practices for the guest services ministry of your church. But the secret is that these ideas are applicable on many other levels. I particularly like this one about always being on.
• Tony Morgan has a new job. He's the executive director of ministries at West Ridge Church (one of NorthStar's partner churches) in Dallas, Georgia.
• Tim Stevens offers up a moving nine-minute video from one of Granger's services. Very creative. The topic: victory via surrender.
• The newest Narnia movie has begun filming in Australia's Gold Coast. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is being directed by Michael Apted.

Quotable Quote ... Doris Kearns Goodwin

For the first time in his public life, [Lincoln’s] remarkable array of gifts as historian, storyteller, and teacher combined with a lucid, relentless, yet always accessible logic. Instead of the ornate language so familiar to men like Webster, Lincoln used irony and humor, laced with workaday, homespun images to build an eloquent tower of logic….Such flashes of figurative language were always available to Lincoln to drive home a point, gracefully educating while entertaining—in a word, communicating an enormously complicated issue with wit, simplicity, and a massive power of moral persuasion.

HT: Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin (New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2005)

Quotable Quote ... Abraham Lincoln

I am slow to learn and slow to forget that which I have learned. My mind is like a piece of steel, very hard to scratch any thing on it and almost impossible after you get it there to rub it out.

HT: Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin (New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2005)

Quotable Quote ... Doris Kearns Goodwin

Lincoln’s abhorrence of hurting another was born of more than simple compassion. He possessed extraordinary empathy—the gift or curse of putting himself in the place of another, to experience what they were feeling, to understand their motives and desires.

HT: Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin (New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2005)

Jeff Henderson on Leading Up

Jeff Henderson, campus director of Buckhead Church in Atlanta, came to speak to our staff yesterday on "A Navigational System for Leading Up." Here are some bullets from his great talk...

• There are two directions a leader can take: either my ultimate aim is my own success, or I can ask: Did I do everything possible today to put my boss in a position to succeed? Did I set my boss up for success?

A Navigational System for Leading Up:

1. Be true to Scripture.

• Navigational tool number one: Pray for your leader.
• This is not a new insight. It is a critical reminder.
• Action item: Pray for your leader for 10 minutes this week.
• How to pray for your leader:
• • For wisdom
  • For spiritual and physical protection (John 17:11)
  • For creativity
  • For a confident humility (Success, not failure, has the potential to become our greatest enemy.)
  • For their spouse, family, and relationships
  • For their leadership
  • To overcome fear
• Navigational reminder: Praying for your leader puts your heart in the best position to lead up.
• On God's agenda for me: Increased humility.

2. Be true to your leader.

• Navigational tool number two: Know your leader.
• Questions to consider:
• • Is your manager a detailed person?
  • Are they energized by being around people or by being alone?
  • What do they hope to accomplish? (What are their dreams?)
  • What are their strengths? (Now, Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton)
  • How do they communicate best? (email? phone? in person?)
• The better you know your leader the better you can lead them.
• Become a student of your leader. (It's Your Shipby Michael Abrashoff)
• The counter-intuitive career track: "If you help enough people get what they want, eventually you will get what you want." -- Truett Cathy
• Don't let problems travel alone. Don't just present problems. Present a problem and propose solutions as well.
• Great question to ask your supervisor: "As you look at our ministry, what keeps you up at night?"

3. Be true to yourself.

• Navigational tool number three: Know and improve yourself.
• One of the best things you can do to increase your effectiveness in leading up is to develop a passion for continuous personal improvement.
• What are you good at?
• • What makes you come alive in your job?
  • What drains you in your job?
  • Complete this sentence: I would experience more joy in my life if I only...
• How are you ensuring that you are going to perform at a higher level this year than last?
• The secret to improving yourself: It doesn't happen by accident.
• Two ways to improve yourself:
• • 1. The books you read
  • 2. The people you interact with
• What does your 2009 personal development plan look like?
• The most courageous thing you can do at work: Think for an hour. (Thinking for a Livingby Joey Reiman)
• The better you become, the more successful your leader can become.
• The better you become, the more influence you will eventually have.
• "The humble improve." -- Wynton Marsalis, jazz musician
• Get a personal board of advisors. (Jeff recently posted more about this on the Buckhead Church blog here, here, and here.)

Potential roadblocks:

• "My boss never listens to what I have to say."
• • This is an influence issue.
  • It may not be what you're saying, but how you're saying it.
  • Be creative on how you say what you say:
  • • Newspaper/magazine articles
    • Write a note
    • Find a book or audiotape and buy it for them
  • Encouragement helps pave the road to influence. Let your leader know when things are going right.
• "My supervisor never has time for me."
• • This issue calls for clarity.
  • How much time do you need? Once a week? How long?
  • Once you determine that, you need to have a conversation.
• "My boss never gives me proper credit."
• • There's no limit to what we can do when we don't care who gets the credit.

Quotable Quote ... Abraham Lincoln

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed, is more important than any other one thing.

HT: Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin (New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2005)