The Best Message on Humility I Have Ever Heard
John Dickson’s message today on humility is the most insightful and helpful I’ve ever heard on the subject. Dickson is Director of the Centre for Public Christianity and Sr. Minister, St. Andrews Anglican Church, Sydney, Australia. Here’s a brief overview of his talk, and below are my notes:
Are prestigious titles and powerful positions prerequisites for impactful leadership? “You don’t need structural authority to be a leader of influence,” according to historian and social commentator John Dickson. “The leader’s strongest tool is humility,” he says. “It intensifies credibility.” Dickson, the author of Humilitas: A Lost Key to Life, Love, and Leadership (May 2011), investigates the crucial role humility plays in a leader’s life—and its theological, historical, and practical implications. Dickson issues this challenge: Navigate the complex intersection of leadership and humility, and learn to lead through persuasion, example, and influence rather than positional authority. Dickson offers practices to help you cultivate deeper authentic humility on your team—and in your soul.
“Humility is the noble choice to forgo your status and use your influence for the good of others. It is to hold your power in service of others.”
The best leaders are marked by humility. Humility is what makes the great, great.
5 evidences of this:
1. Humility is common sense
It is a reflection of the deep structure of reality. None of us is an expert at everything. What we don’t know and can’t do, far exceeds what we do know and can do.
2. Humility is beautiful
It is a simple psychological reality: we are more attracted to the great who are humble, than to the great who know it and want to know us too. “Presumption diminishes greatness. Humility enhances greatness; is greatness.” The same is true in any context.
But did you know that humility has not always been admired? In ancient Rome, humility was a negative word associated with defeat. Humility before the gods and emperors was advised, but humility towards an equal was regarded as ill-informed. One of the prized virtues was “love of honor.”
Academic research found that a humility revolution took place in the middle of the first century. Not only because of Jesus’ teaching. Jesus’ crucifixion changed the way people understood greatness and humility. The cross of Christ was contrary to the understanding of greatness in the ancient world. The early Christians had to deal with this question: Did his crucifixion mean he wasn’t as great as they thought? No. They realized: “If the greatest man we have ever known sacrificed his life on the cross, then greatness must consist in willing sacrifice and holding power for the good of others.” And of course this is Matthew 20:28 and Phil 2:3-8.
Interview with a researcher: “The admiration of humility comes entirely from Christian influence. Entirely.” Western culture has been profoundly shaped by the cross of Christ — even long after it ceased to be explicitly Christian.
3. Humility is generative
It generates new knowledge, new abilities. The logic is easy: the proud person (say, at a conference like this) will go away with less than the humble person, who is looking to learn. This is even true in science. Think about how science works: it is basically a humble confession that you can’t just observe the world and describe it; you have to test your theory.
The scientific revolution is the result of a humility revolution. Humility generates science.
True also in business. John Kotter tracked the careers of 115 of his students from the Harvard Business School. One student was average in class, but ended up being an incredible leader. Lucky break? No. What took him further was his humility. “Confronting his mistakes, he minimized the arrogant attitudes that often accompany success.” He watched more closely and listened more closely than others. “The humble place is the place of growth.”
4. Humility is persuasive
The textbook on persuasion for 2,000 years boils down what persuades to 3 things: logos (intellectual component), pathos (aesthetic or emotional), and ethos (character of the persuader). Aristotle said: the character is the most significant. “We believe good-hearted people to a greater extent and more quickly than we do others on all subjects in general and completely so in cases where there is not exact knowledge but room for doubt. Character is almost, so to speak, the controlling factor in persuasion.”
5. Humility is inspiring
“The real power of effective leadership is maximizing other people’s potential, which inevitably demands ensuring they get the credit. When our ego won’t let us build another person up, then the effectiveness of the organization goes down.”
When leaders appear aloof and unapproachable, we admire them, but we don’t imitate them. But humble leaders: We don’t just admire them; we aspire to be like them.
Four tools of leadership: ability, authority, character, persuasion. Some of the most inspiring leaders in history had no structural authority. They just had truckloads of ability, character, and persuasion. “Sometimes you don’t need the power of the hire and fire. You don’t need armies to change empires or individuals.”
The Other Leadership Summit Guest Bloggers
Here are the other live bloggers for the Summit that I’m working with. You can check out their blogs for their angle on the conference and the sessions as well (which I would highly recommend!):
And, the Willow Creek Association blog features one post per session, so you can get a quick sampling of the different blogs there as well.
Henry Cloud: Three Kinds of People
“Not everyone is the same, and therefore you cannot deal with everyone you lead the same.”
3 categories of people (“Now, I hate classifications that force people into certain categories. But these are true and biblical.” Also: “We all have all three of these areas in our hearts, including the foolish and the evil, but some people make a career out of one of them”):
1. Wise
Correct them and they change. (Assuming you are correct! Not always the case.) And, they thank you. So what do you do when you’re leading a wise person? You talk to them. Someone’s listening. So you coach them, give them feedback, resource them. With the wise person, the challenge is to make sure they are a match for what you need. And you have to give them good feedback in coaching, and you have to keep them challenged. Easy.
2. Fools
May be very bright and gifted. This is why they’ve gotten as far as they have. And they really do produce a lot of times. But here’s the problem. With the wise person, when the light comes, they adjust themselves to the light. With a fool, when the light shows up, they adjust the light. It hurts their eyes. They’re allergic to it. They try to dim it and they try to adjust the truth. The wise man changes himself; the fool tries to change the truth. “This wasn’t a big deal.” “It’s not like that.” Or, they shoot the messenger. Whenever you give feedback to someone, and the first reflective move is defensiveness, let that be a warning sign. They are squinting. They deny that it’s reality, the minimize it, they externalize it, they shoot the messenger. They aren’t happy to hear it, and a lot of times they get angry. You become the problem.
Every time you talk to a person like this, they do not own it. When you get hopeless about that with them, that is one of the best things you can do as a leader. A wise responsible leader initially has hope that the person will start listening. But this person just keeps not listening. You gotta give up here.
Here’s what the Bible says, and all research validates: “With a wise person, talk to them. They will love you for it and listen and get better.” But then the Bible changes its tone. It says “do not correct a fool, lest you incur insults upon yourself. Do not confront a mocker, lest they hate you. Etc.” These verses describe reality like you’ve never seen it before. They say: “Here’s your strategy: Stop talking.” Why? They have stopped listening. Their allergy to reality is now in charge. It’s your job as a leader to take stewardship over this and stop the insanity.
So you have a conversation. “You know, Joe, how we’ve talked about A and A and A and A. I want to talk about a new problem. The problem that talking with you about problems doesn’t help.” And you begin to get out of the weeds, and take it up to the patter. “I don’t know how to give you feedback in a way that changes anything. I’m hopeless. So let me tell you what I do when I’m hopeless. I’ve got to protect our vision. We’re going to do something different. We’re going to have some limits. What I want to know is how I can talk to you in a way that makes a difference.” It may be they are foolish for reasons you can address. Maybe you can give your feedback differently. But then to second question: “What do we do if we have this conversation again, and nothing has changed.” If they don’t listen again, you have to have consequences. They may get moved out of the position. There are extreme consequences, there are minor consequences.
Here is the principle: Fools don’t change when truth comes to them, but when the pain of not changing becomes greater than the pain of changing. “I’m a recovering fool. All of us are foolish to some degree. Jesus died for fools.” You can redeem their position and role and giftedness.
The leadership challenge here is to limit your exposure, make it clear about the consequences, give them a choice, and follow through. Need to say “I need someone in this position that can hear reality. I hope that’s you. I want you to be in that chair. But that’s what that chair is going to require, and you get to make the choice.”
3. Evil
They want to inflict pain. I’ve seen this, and you have to believe it. There truly are bad people in the world. I’ve seen it in board meetings, I’ve seen it in high levels of leadership. Paul writes: “Reject a divisive person after a second warning. Have nothing to do with them.” Strategy: protection mode.
“God has called you to lead people. Sometimes it’s not about the plan, but about getting the people to work the plan. Take the challenge to not let somebody’s character problem stop the mission God has called you to.”
Interview with Michelle Rhee, Former Chancellor of DC Public Schools and Education Reformer
This interview with Michelle Rhee here at the Global Leadership Summit was highly, highly impressive. She is an amazing, clear-minded, hard-headed thinker and reformer when it comes to education. Many of you may be familiar with her from the documentary Waiting for Superman, which tells the story of her relentless quest to reform the public education system in Washington, DC. Here’s a brief bio:
Leaders know that change isn’t easy—and it doesn’t come overnight. That’s why, for the past 18 years, Michelle Rhee has stayed the course with a single objective: to give children the needed skills to compete in a changing world. Rhee, who served with Teach for America, founded The New Teacher Project, equipping school districts to transform how they recruit and train qualified teachers. During her three years as Chancellor of the Washington, D.C. Public Schools, students’ scores and graduation rates rose dramatically. Today, Rhee is CEO of StudentsFirst, a movement to transform public education. She holds firm to her conviction that teachers are the most powerful driving force behind student achievement.
This is a paraphrased summary of the interview — I tried to type the highlights as I could keep up.
Question: You had a lot of opposition against you as you brought about the reforms as Chancellor of Washington, DC public schools. Why didn’t you bail?
Answer: I loved my job. Every day I loved it. The children in the district were receiving such a disservice. More than half of the children weren’t graduating. It was really criminal what was happening. And to think people were avoiding addressing the problem because they were afraid, I said “I can’t let this keep happening on my watch. If you want to yell at me, fine, but this won’t keep happening on my watch.”
Question: How did you get to where you are?
Answer: My parents always emphasized the importance of gratitude. We grew up with a mindset of how do you help others and cure the injustices and do as much to that end as you can.
Question: You ran into Teach for America after college.
Answer: Yes. In my senior year of college, I had no idea what I was going to do when I graduated, and I was watching a PBS documentary about Teach for America. I thought “Wow, here’s a place were people are seeking to change the world through public education. I want to do that.”
Question: You got assigned to inner city Baltimore.
Answer: I was not such a good teacher my first year. I realized what most do: It is literally the hardest job you can possibly have. Coming to school each day and seeing to it that all 36 kids receive the education they need. [Applause]
Question: [I missed it]
Answer: Yes, some people came and said “you might want to think about a career change.” That was hard, because I’d been a success at everything I’d done so far.
Question: But things changed quickly. 2 years later, 90% of your students were at proficiency levels in reading and math. When you started, it was at 13%. What did you do?
Answer: It wasn’t rocket science. We did what every school in this country that is seeing those results do. We built a very strong work ethic. We taught them there is no easy way to do this. Come in before school and after. Engaged their parents so they understood what we were doing and why. I sometimes had my kids do two hours of homework a night, and the parents though I was nuts. Now, right now I have a daughter and 20 minutes is hard to get through! So maybe it was too much at the time. But the things we put in place changed the way they did things. It was their hard work that brought the change.
Question: You went to Harvard and were involved in [something with policy.] But you couldn’t get over your time teaching.
Answer: . . . I founded a new organization called “The New Teacher Project.” The idea was that we would work with educational departments and etc. and see how we could get more teachers into inner city schools.
Question: You encountered some myths in some studies.
Answer: The biggest myth that existed at that time is that there aren’t enough people who want to teach in the neediest schools. One statistic said the nation would need 2 million teachers over the next decade, not enough applicants. We quickly found that was not true at all. You do a recruitment campaign, and you get thousands of applicants. The problem was the bureaucracy. The best candidates could not get hired. Their applications got lost, [other stuff].
Question: [Missed it]
Question: Your organization became very effective. In the meantime, this stuff is happening in DC. Some direct authority was given to make some changes, and you were called by that guy. Why did you say yes? You were having such a phenomenal time with the new teacher project. You initially resisted. How did he get you to say yes?
Answer: I said no several times, and being a superintendent was the last thing I wanted to do. And I had never run a school, much less a school district. I was the least likely person to choose. Ultimately I took the job because in a heart to heart with the mayor I said “you don’t want me for this job. Your job as a politician is to keep your constituents happy. If I come in and do what’s necessary to turn things around, I would cause you heartache and headache.” And he said: “As long as the things you are doing are the right things for kids, that is fine.” “I had never heard a political say this. I said ‘what are you willing to risk for this?’” And he said “everything.”
Question: Give us a sense of what things were like when you stepped in.
Answer: 8% of the 8th graders were on grade level in mathematics. Chances of graduating from college upon entering freshman year 9%. At kindergarten, the students were on par with other students in other districts around the nation. But the longer they were in our system, the more they would fall behind. It was almost better if students would have just stayed home all day. We bought computers that first year for the whole district, and I got a call that first day saying “this isn’t going well.” And they said “many of the classrooms can’t plug them in, because they only have two-pronged outlets.” So there was a huge amount of dysfunction; it was very broken.
Question: What did you zero in on as the core problem you were going to address?
Answer: We wanted to clean up some of the basic issues first: make sure everyone was getting paid, on health care, had their books. Then the things we really focused on was … we really elieved the way we had most impact on our students was to make sure there was an excellent teacher in every classroom and excellent principle in every school. So our emphasis was on human capital.
Question: What moves did you then make?
Answer: We decided to close 23 of the schools, 15% of our inventory. At the time that we did that, no district had done it to that extent before. They had wanted to close that many schools, but 3 a year. I cut the central office administration in about half. When I started there were 1,000; when I left, there were 500. I removed about 2/3 of the principals in the district . . . there was a lot that was going on. Separate from those numbers, the main thing I tried to do was address the culture. We wanted to think about every child the same way we think about our own. One day we were having a policy discussion about a new teacher evaluation system we were going to put in place. Question was if a teacher was regarded as ineffective, how long do we let them stay? Some people said “let them stay for 2 or 3 years.” I said “If we let an ineffective teacher stay a second year, I have to be comfortable knowing that person would be teaching my kids. I would never let that happen. If I came to school on the first day and the principal said ‘Here’s Olivia’s teacher. She’s not so good. But we are trying to develop here, and this is good for the system.’ There’s no way I would let that happen.” If this was not a policy I was not willing to subject my own children to, that was not a policy I was willing to let any other parents in the district have their kids subject to. [Sounds like the Golden Rule -- Mt 7!]
Question: [Missed it]
Answer: A good educator who walks into a classroom with a good teacher can tell it almost right away. The teacher is writing on the chalkboard, saying “Fred, don’t pull Sue’s hair,” and you didn’t even realize that was happening. Etc.
Question: What does value added mean?
Answer: This is a term that has just come in. We want to evaluate our students on the basis of how students are growing. I looked at the performance evaluation of the teachers, and 95% were great — at a time when only 8% of the students had a chance of graduating. How could that be? The concept of value add is you measure a teacher and the students at the beginning of the year, and the end, and make sure there’s growth. It creates a fairer system. If you set an absolute goal, “90% of your students have to be here by the end of the year,” you might be at a school where 90% are already on grade level at the start, and another is at a school where only 10% are. So it is more fair to measure if the students grew.
Question: Lots of people lost jobs. Then you got picketed. Did that wear on you? How did you handle that?
Answer: One day they even came to my house. My mom said “there are some people here, and they’re really excited about something.” I said “Mom, they’re here to protest me.” One day we opened the Washington Post and there was a two page spread on all the school closures, news shots of me getting yelled at, etc. My mother walked into the kitchen that night as I was making a peanut butter and jelly sandwhich and she said “Are you OK?” Then she said “when you were a kid, you never used to care about what other kids thought about you. I feared you might become anti-social. But now I see that that is serving you well. 
”
You have to be OK with criticism. This is not the profession for you if criticism makes you feel super bad. I would much rather have had a room full of people yelling at me, than the opposite where no one cares. I would much rather deal with anger than apathy.
Question: And you can’t lead if change isn’t happening. It’s the very nature of leadership. So the million dollar question: If you had to do it over again, would you change that fast? What would you say to leaders: incremental change, or revolution?
Answer: I’m not an incremental girl. I certainly didn’t think it was appropriate for the context we were working in. When I was responsible for a school district that was failing a vast majority of its children, I wasn’t going to stand for that. Some people would say to me “you are going too fast, like a bull in a China shop.” But I always noticed that their children were not in the DC schools. If you have your children tucked up in a private school, you can afford to let this slide in the DC schools a bit. I never heard a parent of a child in the district say “you’re moving too fast.”
Question: [Missed it]
Answer: If you look at the education agenda in this country, it has largely been driven by special interests. And the problem in that scenario is that there is no organized interest on behalf of kids. So seeing that void and believing that the only way we will see change in this realm is to have that voice out there, I decided I would motivate people towards that. So I started an organization called Students First, and it is a movement of people across this country who know that our education system is not serving children well in this country and put pressure on public officials for change.
Question: One more question while we change. Some final parting words of challenge.
Answer: As I think about what needs to happen in this country, it really is about putting students first. Go to our website at www.studentsfirst.org to find out more about what is happening. I’ll close on this. I was meeting with a state legislator a few weeks ago. He said “I understand what you’re trying to do. I just wnat you to understand this is really hard. The union will be picketing, etc.” I looked at him and said: “But as an elected official, your job is to represent all your constituents. If you just turn your attention to where the yelling is the loudest, you will be turning your backs to kids. Because kids don’t vote. Kids don’t hold rallies and protests. Proverbs 31:8: “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves.” The children cannot go out there and represent their own interests, so we as the adults need to be the ones who stand up and do something about it.”
[WOW. Fantastic.]
Answer: I would describe myself as an aspiring Christian. My fiance is a strong man of faith and evangelical Christian. There are a few things holding me up. I was talking to a pastor recently, and he said “I can tell that you’re close. What’s the problem?” I said [missed it.] He said “this is a journey between you and God. Don’t pay attention to what other people are saying and doing.” The other thing is I’m a very linear and rational sort of person. I have a hard time turning things over. So this concept “let go and let God,” right, is a tough one for me. Going through this workbook Experiencing God. There is one day we did this together and talked about the concept of letting Go and letting God, and the lesson was talking about Sara in the OT, and she took things into her own hands to fulfill the promise God had made. My fiance said, “see, that’s what you do. You can’t do that. Let go!” So that’s where I am in my spiritual journey.
Up Next: Michelle Rhee on Educational Reform
Michelle Rhee is an educational reformer, whose story is partly told in the documentary on the state of modern education, Waiting for Superman. Here’s a brief bio:
Leaders know that change isn’t easy—and it doesn’t come overnight. That’s why, for the past 18 years, Michelle Rhee has stayed the course with a single objective: to give children the needed skills to compete in a changing world. Rhee, who served with Teach for America, founded The New Teacher Project, equipping school districts to transform how they recruit and train qualified teachers. During her three years as Chancellor of the Washington, D.C. Public Schools, students’ scores and graduation rates rose dramatically. Today, Rhee is CEO of StudentsFirst, a movement to transform public education. She holds firm to her conviction that teachers are the most powerful driving force behind student achievement.
Tough Callings: Jeremiah, Part 2
Hybels is giving lots of examples of tough callings.
The president of World Vision: Was asked once: “What’s the hardest thing about leading World Vision? ‘It’s just having your heart exposed to misery again, and again, and again.’”
A woman who went to Somalia to work with the poorest of the poor.
Jim Mellado: “Was on the fast track of corporate stardom. I met with him one day and said ‘There are lots of churches that will never reach their potential, because they aren’t sure how to lead. What if we started a training organization, and you led it, and we helped train leaders all over the world, especially where no one will go, in the most under resourced areas of the world. And now for 17 years he has showed up every single day, gave up an unbelievable career to accept a tough calling from God, to simply help make churches better.”
“Some of you have been nudged by God to go in a direction of a tough calling. Do you have the courage to do that?”
“Those who came into the sessions today, at every venue all over the world, received a piece of a shattered clay jar (ties in to the illustration from Jeremiah Hybels just gave — not recorded here). Write the date on it. Let this be a reminder that this world is not going to get fixed unless leaders, leaders like us, are available for tough assignments — like Jeremiah was. Some of you have been prompted, but have never had the courage to say yes. We’re going to give you some time to reflect.”
A Few Thoughts
I really appreciated this session. It is easy for people to get the notion that good leaders will always see things going great — if you just learn enough about leadership, things will always go “up and to the right” for you. And people can get the wrong idea that the point of leadership conferences is to reinforce this idea.
So this session was a good reminder that effective leadership doesn’t equate with things always going smooth. Leaders will have tough times. Good leaders will not always see things go well, and leadership is not about finding success as traditionally defined. Some of the best leaders may hardly be known this side of eternity. That’s because true greatness is about character and faithfulness. Recognition and success are secondary, and may not match up perfectly (or even very well) with true greatness in this world. The Christian leader seeks to please the Lord, looking forward to what is to come, and ultimately the “well done” that comes from Christ on the final day.
A good final word from Hybels: “I’ve never known a single leader who regretted accepting a tough calling.”
Tough Callings: Jeremiah
Hybels is talking now about Jeremiah, as the third tough calling we are looking at in this session.
Things start out, and nothing seems to be going right for Jeremiah. “They just keep telling him to shut up. He gets beat up and put at the gate for all to see. He has a problem with this, and was frustrated. He cries out to God ‘you deceived me.’ Meaning: ‘This isn’t what I had in mind when I said yes to you.’” Perhaps Jeremiah was thinking things would go well, that things are supposed to go well when God calls you. He is in such despair he even curses the day he was born. “But then he gathers his wits about him, and says to God ‘you did call me, and I did say yes.’”
“He is torn between his calling, and his ache for success. I want to do what God wants me to do, and I want it all to go up and to the right. He is right at the intersection of wanting to be faithful, and wanting to be successful.”
“He says ‘I’ll keep speaking your Words.’ Has a little lower expectations in round 2, which is a good thing because people get angry and recalcitrate. This time they throw him in the bottom of a mud-filled cistern. Thrown to the bottom, gets covered up, and is left there to die. Jeremiah is bewildered by this. ‘Things should go better with God,’ right? Some time later some people had pity on him, and brought him out and cleaned him up. And he said to himself ‘I cannot deny that God called me to be his spokesman. I have to give up the aim to be successful, and just let the chips fall where they may.’”
“So he goes out again, and speaks the word of God day after day, month after month, and they never change. After all this derision of him, one day the enemy comes over the hill and carries everybody, including Jeremiah, into captivity. And some time after that, Jeremiah sits down and writes a book, a book of lament — Lamentations.”
“At the end of the lament, he says ‘throughout all of this, God’s mercies were new to me every morning.’ What he did was hard, and never successful in the eyes of the world, but he felt the sweetness of God underneath it all.”
“I’m not worthy to have my name said in the same sentence as Jeremiah. Part of what’s been a ball about leading Willow is that for most of the 35 years it’s been going up and to the right. I had an easy calling, really. I got to lead a church in a suburban area in one of the most affluent areas in the nation. People who come here are sharp and trained. When I travel internationally, when I’m with leaders of businesses or NGOs or churches who are in oppressive situations and in under resourced areas, and have to run for their life every day, I just say ‘I’m not worthy.’”
“Our world is in tough shape. The fixes are not easy assignments. The fixes are going to take decades or lifetimes. And all throughout history, and in today’s environment, God is looking for some strong-shouldered leaders who say ‘If there’s a tough assignment anywhere in this world to be attacked, I’m available. I don’t have to …”
Lost the train of thought here — just heard that Mama Maggie, who just spoke before, is trending on Twitter.
OK, back to the message here in the next post.
Up Now: Mama Maggie Gobran
“She has been called ‘The Mother Theresa of Cairo.’ Has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize at least three times. Founder and CEO, Stephens Children Ministry.”
I have not heard of her before, but I’m quite impressed right off the bat. She seems to have an amazing humility.
“Christians in Egypt pay the highest price for their faith. Egypt is the country that has sent to heaven the largest number of martyrs in all history. I am a product of this land.”
“25 years ago I heard my tough call, and I never imagined what I’m going to say. The Lord took me step by step.”
Here’s a short bio from the Summit site:
“Mama Maggie Gobran led a comfortable life in Cairo. A Coptic Christian from a prominent Egyptian family, she taught computer science and lectured at Cairo University. But following a conviction from God, she started a ministry to serve the poor in her city. A Nobel Peace Prize nominee this year, Mama Maggie has spent 20 years serving the poorest of the poor.”
“When one has nothing, God becomes everything.”
Tough Callings
Hybels introduces this next session (a bit of a paraphrase, because I was trying to finish up that last post at the same time):
“We often get the impression that if we get better as leaders, everything we lead will just always keep going up and to the right. But what if that’s not always true? What if God calls some people to lead in really hard realms where there may be little signs of visible success in this world.”
“We are going to talk about how addicted some of us may be to the narcotic of growth. Many of us are ready to step into leadership opportunities that promise success and perhaps an easier road, and some of us may like being leaders because we get to lead stuff like that. And I think it’s possible that we can get hooked on the narcotic of growth. So we are going to look at 3 leaders who have led through tough callings.”
Wes Stafford of Compassion International is up now.
Summary of Posts from Day 1 of the Leadership Summit
Here’s a list of all my posts from the first day of the Leadership Summit yesterday:
General Reflections at the Start
- Blogging the Leadership Summit Today
- Why Worship Matters at a Conference on Leadership
- Why Christians Should Learn about Leadership from Secular and Christian Thinkers
- A Photo
Bill Hybels
- The Danger of Being Overchallenged
- The Danger of Being Underchallenged
- Is it Possible to Over-Rev an Organization?
- The Value of Good People
- How Long Do You Tolerate Someone with a Pervasive Bad Attitude?
- How Long Do You Tolerate Underperformers?
- What Do You Do When Someone Lacks the Talent Elasticity in Your Organization?
- Hybels: Don’t Lose the Core of Christianity
- Hybels Five Words Summarizing the Core of Christianity
- “There is Too Much at Stake in This World for Leaders to Have a Defeatist Mindset”
Len Schlesinger
- “The Leaders is Committed to a Reality that Does Not Yet Exist”
- “Entrepreneurship is Not Magic; It’s a Discipline”
- How Successful Entrepreneurs Act — It’s Not What You Think
Cory Booker
Brenda Salter-McNeil
Seth Godin
- Seth Godin Up Next
- Godin has 140 Slides
- The TV Industrial Complex
- The Revolution
- Godin: Is this the End of the Job?
- Godin: Be Remarkable, and Willing to Risk
- Godin: Stop Making Excuses and Lead
Steven Furtick
Audacious Faith, Part 2
Notes from the rest of Steven Furtick’s message:
“We can learn and position ourselves and get great teaching, but only God can make it rain.”
“I can’t expect God’s blessing on my work unless I do it God’s way.”
“How are we going to get from inspiration to implementation? If all you have are some good ideas does not make you a visionary. It makes you a daydreamer. You need the faith to get started.”
“If your vision is not intimidating to you, it is probably insulting to the Lord.”
“So many of us don’t see any rains and don’t see any clouds, and so we don’t get to work. But faith believes it before it sees it. It doesn’t sit around waiting for it to happen, but digs a ditch.”
“Some of you have let time talk you out of your dream, but it’s still there in your heart. Life can beat your dream out of you, but I believe you are here to have it put back.”
“One of the reasons we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind the scenes with other people’s highlight reel.”
“If you will dig the ditches, God will send the rain. If you will do what you can do by faith, he will do what he can do.”
“I may not have all the resources right now, but I have exceeding promises in God’s word.”
“Sometimes it doesn’t seem like anything is happening. But you don’t know what God is doing behind the scenes.”
“Expect God to do great things through your life.”
Noah: Building a boat until the flood came. “When the vision God has put inside you doesn’t match with what you see, close your eyes and keep going.”
“If you’re a preacher, I want you to preach this weekend like Billy Graham at a Tokyo Crusade in the 80s. Believe God for great things and go do them.”
Steven Furtick – Audacious Faith
Craig Groeschel on Furtick: “He doesn’t know what cannot be done. He’ll call me and say ‘I’m praying for 2,000 people to come to Christ this weekend. And I treat it like my son saying he wants to be an astronaut when he grows up. Then he calls the next week and says 2,400 people came to the Lord.”
“One thing I believe I’m an expert at is being ‘dumb enough’ to believe God can do anything. That is one of the blessings of youth. The other faculty members here will help you get the wisdom you need, and I’ll help you believe you can do anything he’s written in his word.”
“I want to help you raise your faith today. Audacious faith, believing God for the impossible, is the theme of my life.”
At 16 he read a sentence in Jim Cymbala’s book Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire that said “I despaired at the thought that my life could pass without God showing up in a big way. I knew then that God wanted me to plant a church.”
“I don’t just want to have a comfortable life and good retirement account. I want to have stories to tell of God showing up in a big way.”
(You can find Furtick”s blog here.)
Here’s a Photo of the Main Site
Steven Furtick Up Next
Here’s a brief bio of Steven by Justin Wise, a fellow live blogger here with me (and also a fellow alumni of The University of Northern Iowa).
Godin: Stop Making Excuses and Lead!
“We are constantly looking for a reason not to do our art, not to put ourselves on the line. We are OK with something going wrong if it’s someone elses’s fault. But we never want it to be our fault. We are not willing to take the responsibility.”
It’s so easy to look around you and come up with every reason it’s broken. Or you can do something about it.
“Go, make it happen” Make art, give gifts, do work that matters, make a difference.”
“If it’s worth doing, then what exactly are you waiting for?”
“There’s a box. Inside the box, it’s too dark to get anything done. On the outside, there is nothing to lean on. But on the edges is where you can make things happen.”
“If at the end of the day someone says ‘How was your day,” and you say ‘fine,’ you are not leading.”
“What the world is demanding is for you to lead them. I know you’ll do that.”
Godin: Be Remarkable, And Be Willing to Risk
Continuing with Godin:
“If you have a job where the boss is writing down what you do all day, you are replaceable and it can be done cheaper.”
“If all you can offer in your institution is that you are the local one, it’s like cheap — it’s not going to get you where you want to go.”
“The problem with the race to the bottom is that you might win.”
“Bowling is not a spectator sport. What people talk about, what spreads the word, is something that people don’t expect.”
Slide of “Diet Water” up there now. Funny.
“If you are playing by the rules, if you are bowling, don’t expect people to talk about it and spread the word and come from across town. Everyone has seen brown cows. The only cows people talk about are purple cows. You won’t get there by taking someone elses’s notes, or by simply doing what your boss told you to do.”
“We teach people to wait to get picked. Don’t wait. Pick yourself.”
“But you say ‘Wait, I might fail!’ But every project has two sides — success and failure. If you decided that what you are doing is so important that you are unwilling to fail, then success is not possible. Doing art risks failure. You will be criticized. That’s what makes it uncomfortable. That’s why they invented Blackberry’s — just check every 15 minutes and make sure everything is OK. No one has ever done creative work with a Blackberry. Because they are just checking. Not risking.”
Godin: Is this the End of the Job?
Continuing with Godin:
“What we have to think about is: Is it your opportunity?”
Slide of Adam Smith up there now. Talking about the pin factory. I don’t think Godin likes Adam Smith (standardization).
“The person who owns the factory makes the decisions. But now, the means of production is no longer a factory, but a laptop. The thing that lets you connect with anyone in the world. The thing that gives you what every ad agency has. And guess who owns it? The worker. Anyone who has a white collar job has their hands on the world. And you can chose to do something with it if you want to.”
“Is this the end of the job? There is something after the job: being an artist.”
“Don’t just do your job. Make a comment.”
“The receptionist — the one you fired to replace with a voicemail system — she was an artist, because she responded like a human.”
Talks about these artists that create paintings in a village in Europe. That’s art. The people who mass produce a painting by Picasso or such, not artists. Just reproducing, copying.
Culture of compliance: doing something just because boss tells you. In these cases, most people just do the minimum.
Henry Ford: Changed everything in the 20th century because figured out that mass production created productivity. But it was a culture of just having to do what you were told. Faster you went, more money made. Factory mindset is just keep the line moving. Managers and leaders are different. Mangers: Do what they did yesterday, and try to get their people doing it a bit faster. This system of “following the rules” has infected our spiritual organizations as well. The notion of interchangable parts leads to a culture of interchangable people. We create a culture of fitting in, because that’s what makes the factory work. And then you are ignored. Leaders are different.
You have a chance in this post-industrial age to do it differently.
We tend to say to this: “OK, what’s the map.” Wrong question. There isn’t one. “If I could tell you how to do it, it wouldn’t be art anymore.”
Competence is no longer scarce. It is thus no longer sufficient to get a job. You need to be an artist: take initiative. Don’t just comply. Be engaged. Do what matters to you, and be remarkable in it.
The Revolution
How many channels are there now? If you count Netflix and the Web, a billion.
The Betty Crocker notion of make a product, buy TV ads, and it will sell, is gone. We’ve branded ourselves to death.
“This light never turns green.”
There’s a slide up there now of a grave stone that says Santa Clause, with a little kid crying in front of it. Funny. (Pry have to see it!)
“The TV industrial complex is being replaced by an age of Tribes. A tribe is a group of people who share a culture, a goal, an idea. Who want to be together.”
“We used to have just three tribes in our life: spiritual, work, community. Now there are far more”
“Deep in our DNA, we want to be in sync with people. Not everyone in the world, but our people. This desire to be in sync is where tribes come from. And tribes need leaders. Who will connect the people, be clear on where they are going and why they are going there. And this is the opportunity of your lifetime, if you want to do work that matters, because you don’t have to do it by yourself.”
The TV Industrial Complex
“Someone watching here today is going to change everything. They’re not going to do it because someone told them to, but because they decided to and because it’s important.”
“We grew up with this idea that if you have a product, create an ad with some babies or doctors in it, and it will sell. This idea that you promote things from a position of power. The TV industrial complex. Create a product, get TV ads, leading to more sales, leading to more money, leading to more TV ads.”
“Leads to average products for average people (except for maybe Pop – Tarts). Why? Because if you want to make something for everyone, you have to make something everyone wants to buy. Mass is built into our culture.”
“But right here on our watch is a revolution.”
Next post.
Godin Has 140 Slides
They aren’t full of text and bullets, but pictures. During the sound check he made the great point that using PowerPoint as a visual aid hits a different part of the brain than your words, so it works. But if people have to read your text while you talk, they have to do two things at once, and it doesn’t work.
Brenda Salter-McNeil at WCA Global Leadership Summit
Adam Jeske, one of the other guest bloggers I’m working with, took excellent notes on her session, which you can read here.
It’s also worth checking out his blog, Executing Ideas.
Seth Godin Up Next
Godin is up next.
Got to interview him for my book a bit ago as well. It was very generous of him and I am very appreciative! (It was also great insight that goes right to the core.)
I might post the video shortly (3 minutes); or, I might just hang onto it exclusively for the book. I haven’t decided yet. Any thoughts?
Stand Up – Cory Booker
Here are my notes from the Cory Booker’s session:
Brief Info on Cory Booker
Mayor of Newark since 2006. Rhodes Scholar. Degrees from Oxford, Yale Law School. Urban reformer. Founded non-profit Newark Now. 1,000,000 people following him on Twitter. Recently entrusted with $100 million donation from Mark Zuckerberg to address education.
Core Points from His Message
“How do you stand up when everything around you is telling you to let go?”
“The challenge of the lesson I’m sharing with you is that I’m still seeking to be a better proponent of it myself. It’s not something I learned at Oxford or Yale, but what I learned from my parents.”
“You will always face in this life outrageous adversaries. People that will try to trip you up. Friends who won’t act in your best interests. You must be the one who regardless of the storm is willing to stand.”
“You drink deeply from wells of freedom and opportunity and dignity that you have but did not dig. You have a choice: are you going to grow dumb, fat, and happy on the basis of other people’s sacrifice and struggle, or stand up and use all your blessings to move forward and serve?”
“My parents exemplified love in action. Unyielding faith, fearless hope.”
“You are a result of a grand conspiracy of love. People stormed beaches in Normandy for you.”
“Many people will try to seduce you into mediocrity. Don’t fall for it. You were born an original, but most die copies.”
“You have access to untold opportunities, but you must claim them. Don’t accept your existence as it is. Rise.”
“We are the result of people who did not see the world as others saw it. In the midst of sweatshops, they saw workers rights. In the midst of slavery, they saw freedom. We are here because of people who had the extraordinary vision and the courage to stand up and do something about it. To me, what you see in the world is less a matter of the facts that are there than more being a reflection of who you are. Your attitude about the world says nothing about the world, but speaks to your character.”
“I’ve found in my journey that I can talk about the world all I want and deplore the darkness and point fingers of blame real easily, but in truth that is nothing but spitting in the wind. The only way to make change in this world is for it to start with yourself. Now I see people every day in my city exhibiting that kind of courage. We as a people, if we live our values, can create radical transformation. Human history is, and American testimony in particular, is a testimony to the achievement of the impossible. But before you tell me what you teach, show me how you live and give.”
“Sometimes you have to fast and pray.”
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
“So now I end with a simple call, that my dad gave me as a boy: Let us now stand up. Let us stand because people stood for us and fought for us and bled for us. Let us stand because … change never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. Let us stand because ‘liberty and justice for all’ must be a passion and purpose every day. And if we stand like this, then we will find a way to get to the roof.”
Three Reflections
1. I loved his emphasis on character. At the heart of character is not seeing yourself as a victim, but as someone who is proactive — someone who can stand up for change. Hardship and adversity will happen to all of us. You cannot make a difference if you respond to that by blaming others and pointing the finger. You have to respond constructively and take responsibility to continue doing the right thing, in spite of adversity. Sometimes people respond cynically to all the problems they see, and they think they are justified in thinking this way because there is indeed lots of injustice in the world. But in reality, “your attitude about the world says nothing about the world, but speaks to your character.”
2. I also loved the fact he did not just talk about character, but exemplifies it. He has clearly made a massive difference for good in his community and as mayor of Newark.
3. I appreciated his story at the end about the importance of sometimes having to fast and pray. We cannot rely only on your own strength, and that’s not what leadership is about. The tasks are too great, and God honors it when we realize that all strength ultimately comes from him, not ourselves.
How Successful Entrepreneurs Act – It’s Not What You Think
“Successful entrepreneurs realize that in a world where you can’t predict the future, what do you do? Act. If you can’t predict the future, create it. Creation-oriented action. There is an academic, real correlation between entrepreneurs and this belief; that is, studies show this is how most entrepreneurs think.
“Indiana Jones is actually a good example here. He’s thrust into the dark. Can’t see. What does he do? You ask: What do I have on me? Where are my feet? Not going to jump around. I’ll take a small step. OK, does it feel like I can take another step? Oh, on my belt I have a flashlight. Maybe that can help me a bit. You, playing Indiana Jones, know exactly how to get out of a dark hole. And these are exactly the rules you need to understand to take entrepreneurial action.
“In the face of unknowability, what does rational behavior look like? Action. You can’t think your way into an unknowable future, so your only way forward is to act. How? Take small steps–not big leaps. Small steps. [Prior point: It is a myth that entrepreneurs are inclined to take huge risks; they are inclined to minimize risk.] Take a small step with what you have in hand. Limit the risk with each step. Then build off what you actually find from taking that step, whether good or bad, and would be nice to have some friends and resources standing by to help.
“Successful entrepreneurs also start with things they care about. The question is not where do you find opportunity, but what is it you would like to do? We start with you. Entrepreneurs are always doing what they want to do, or think will get them what they want. In the face of unknowability, taking any other action is simply foolish. So, given who you are and what you want, what step should you take? Sometimes you might see someone else with an idea, and partner up. 50% of entrepreneur partnerships in their study started simply because the people liked each other — not even a big idea. This works.
“Now we get to the part where the bankers and financial experts in the room will be deeply offended. They have all developed ways to measure risk. We live in a world of affordable loss. To put more numbers on that just makes things more depressing and doesn’t work. How do you decide what to do? Well, how badly do you want to do it. Then you act. Then you bring some other people along. Willow Creek is a good example here actually — take a look at what they’ve been doing.
“Now, what keeps people from doing this? First, they get completely caught up about what they’re trying to do. So how about not worrying about that, but instead thinking about what you’ll do next. Stop worrying about what you want to do, and instead worry about what you should do next. [Sounds familiar -- what's best next!] Second, people fear failure. They think ‘we can’t fail.’ We’ve been educated to believe that failure is a dirty word. That when people fail, we send them away and they disappear. ‘If you fail you go to the desert and don’t come back.’ But in reality, if you take a step and it doesn’t turn out how you expected, quite likely you just learned something that nobody else knows. So for those uncomfortable with calling it failure, call it ‘an exercise in learning what nobody else knows.’”
Solving big problems:
- Baby steps
- Small wins
Multiple simultaneous ventures.
With action trumping everything, you get more at bats in the same elapsed time. And greater aggregate number of ventures for society as a whole, taking us all on a journey towards solutions.
“Entrepreneurship is Not Magic; It’s a Discipline”
“Large organizations often don’t want entrepreneurs.” But let’s look at their performance as a result: Over 30 years, out of the Fortune 25, only 6 remain. Over 10 years, 13 of the 25 have fallen. So the half life of the Fortune 25 is 10 years. They are disrupted by entrepreneurs or transacted out of business. None of you can tell me you can run one business model through your life and career. You have to systematically be going to war with your business model and reinventing it 3-5 times in your career.”
“Focusing on economic outcomes to the exclusion of any other variable is a problematic construct. The notion that we can address economic issues separately, and then only deal with sustainability and social issues if there is anything leftover, doesn’t work. You can’t deal with those things sequentially, but have to do so simultaneously. That requires significant invention and entrepreneurship.”
“Peter Drucker, who shows up in this Summit all the time, says: ‘Most of what you hear about entrepreneurship is all wrong. It’s not magic, it’s not mysterious, it’s a discipline, and like any discipline, it can be learned.’ We are all entrepreneurs, only too few of us get to practice. My job now is to show you how easy it is to practice it.”
About Matt Perman
Follower of Christ. Husband of one, father of three. Director of strategy at Desiring God. This blog exists to help equip Christians in good works, because that's what productivity is really about.
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