What's Best Next

At the core of leadership is trust. Do people trust you? Do they trust who you have empowered to lead in your organizations?

To the extent that you are trusted, you are free to lead. To dream great dreams and go from here to there. When you lose trust, it’s game over. You can no longer lead. It all comes to a grinding halt.

Integrity = trustworthiness.

How are you doing? Is there anywhere in your leadership and your life where you are not fully trustworthy?

Is there anyone in your organization with whom you think you need to have a conversation about their trustworthiness? “One of the biggest regrets in my organization is knowing some people are off track and not going and talking to them right away. And then by the time I have talked to them, lots of damage has been done.”

Or maybe you’ve already had the conversation, and it’s time to take them out. They hurt too many people, they don’t tell the truth. Give first warnings, give second warnings. At some point, you have to take action.

Ury is one of the leading world experts on negotiation and conflict. He is the co-author of the best selling Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In and a faculty member at Harvard Business School. Here are my notes on Jim Mellado’s interview with him. 

Jim: How did you get started in this?

William: I grew up during the cold war under the shadow of the bomb, and I could never understand why we were willing to put all of humanity at risk. The question I’ve devoted my life to is how do we live with our deepest differences?

Jim: Why is this relevant to everyone?

William: I see negotiation very broadly. Think of your own lives and who you negotiate with in the course of your day. Your kids, your spouse, your employees, your co-workers, your board. You spend a lot of time each day in the act of back and forth communication, trying to reach agreement on various issues. We are negotiating from the time we get up to the time we go to bed at night. Many of our decisions are made through a process of shared decision making. This is why negotiation is so central. It is a core competence for leadership.

William: Conflict isn’t necessarily bad because no injustice or anything gets resolved without conflict. We need to hear lots of different views that are very different. The question is can we deal with conflict in a constructive way, or are we going to handle it through destruction?

Jim: What is the biggest obstacle to negotiation?

William: It is not what we think it is. It’s not that difficult person out there. It’s us. We are the biggest barrier to us achieving success. It is an all too human characteristic to simply react — to act without thinking. The key foundation of successful negotiation is to get up on the balcony — a place where you can get a larger perspective. A place of clarity where you can see the ultimate goal. That’s key.

One of the greatest powers we have in negotiation is the power not to react.

Jim: What are the most significant skills we need to get good at to negotiate well?

William: You need to focus on underlying needs. You need to be creative. And you need to rely on objective criteria.

So the first is to separate the person from the problem. We often end up being soft on the people and soft on the problem. Or we make the opposite mistake, being hard on the problem and hard on the people. But you find successful negotiators drawing a line between people and the problem. They remain soft on the people while dealing hard on the problem. The harder the problem, the softer you need to be on the people. Soft on the people means listening, putting yourselves in the shoes of the other side, understanding how they feel (how could you change someone’s mind unless you know what it is?), and respect. It costs you nothing to give someone basic respect, and it means everything to them.

Jim: When I first read your book, I thought that was especially significant because one of the fruit of the Spirit is kindness.

William: Yes, this changes the game from face-to-face confrontation. You ought to see yourselves on the same side of the table, side by side, tackling the same problem together.

Jim: Unpack the second principle, focusing on interest, not position.

William: There is often a difference between interest and position. The key is to probe behind the specific position a person has to the underlying aims they have. Sometimes the aim can be accomplished in a different way. So the key is to always ask the question “why?”

Jim: Talk about the importance of developing multiple options.

William: What we bring to negotiation is our ability to be inventive. Once we see the interests, rather than just position, we can see that there are many ways of doing that. Creative options that meet the interests of all sides.

Jim: How about the power of objective criteria and fair process.

William: Often people think in terms of a fixed pie. But in the inventing process, you’ve asked “how do we expand the pie?” But now that’s say you’ve done that, and it is time to divide up the pie. How do you deal with that? In a merely positional process, this tends to be a question of will and ego. The alternative is to use standards that are independent of will and ego, objective criteria. You don’t have to “give in to the other side,” but defer to an independent standard of fairness that is objective.

Jim: What do you do if you aren’t able to reach an agreement?

William: We should go in to negotiations with what we call a BATNA — a “best alternative to a negotiated agreement.” This isn’t negative thinking, but positive alternative thinking. If you have an alternative, you are going to have more confidence. And this also gives you a way to measure the value of your agreement. Many times, people reach an agreement that is worse than their alternative.

“Organizational health is the single greatest competitive advantage in business. It is virtually free and accessible to any leader who wants it, and yet it is virtually untapped in most organizations.”

The reason? “Too many leaders think it’s beneath them.”

What is organizational health?

The best way to understand it is to contrast it with something we are more familiar with?

In order for any organization to be effective, there are two requirements for success. First, it must be smart. Strategy, marketing, finance, technology, etc. This stuff is important. Nobody should ever tell you it’s not important. The problem is it’s only half the equation, yet it gets 80% of the attention. If we are going to maximize our organizations, we also need to make them  healthy. A healthy organization has minimal politics and confusion, high morale, high productivity, and low turnover.

“When I show most CEOs this slide, they say ‘I’d give my left leg to have the right side of that slide — organizational health. But I don’t know how to do that. They didn’t really teach us that in business school. Let’s go to the left side of that slide and tweak some stuff.'”

Many leaders are more comfortable in strategy and finance than organizational health. But if we want to change our organizations, we have to make them healthier.

“Every organization I work with has enough domain expertise to be wildly successful, but few tap into it because they aren’t healthy. There are politics and confusion.”

Southwest Airlines is an excellent company, but it’s not because they’re smarter. They are great because they are so healthy as an organization. As a result, they use every bit of knowledge that they have.

So, how do we make our organizations healthy? There are four organizations you have to master. They are simple, but hard.

1. Build and maintain a cohesive leadership team

Trust, conflict, commitment, accountability, results. Leadership teams must be cohesive. [See his book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.]

2. Create organizational clarity

Many people this is just about mission statements. But many mission statements don’t work because they try to do too many things. Here’s an example: [Wait, it’s too long and boring — I’m not going to type it! Just imagine the most boring, hard to grasp sentence you’ve ever seen. It’s from . . . Dunder Mifflin! And yet it’s surprising how close to reality it is for many organizations.]

What you need to do is answer six critical questions. If you can answer these six questions, you can create clarity in your organization and the result is true empowerment.

1. Why do we exist?

This is your core purpose. This is not just a restatement of what you do. For example, the purpose of Southwest Airlines is to democratize travel — making it cheap and possible for everyone to fly. Your core purpose helps you make all your decisions. For example, in the issue of whether to charge fees for checked luggage, Southwest asked “would this help democratize air travel?” The answer was no, so they don’t charge.

2. How do we behave?

These are  core values. You can’t list every positive value here, however. That is too much and overwhelming. Get down to the one, two, or maybe truly endemic behaviors. So we need to distinguish different types of values. For example, there are aspirational values. These are things you aspire to, but which aren’t true of your organization right now. When you make these core values, you lose credibility. One of Enron’s core values, for example, was integrity! That was not a true core value for them. A core value is something you are willing to be punished for. You will hold to it even if it would be to your detriment.

When someone asks you to violate a core value, you lovingly recognize that this is not the place for them. This is how you know you believe in something — if you will hold to it even if it wouldn’t benefit you (externally).

Churches really struggle here. This is because they confuse core values with permission to play values. These are the minimum standards. For example: telling the truth. This is more of a minimum standard. Of course you won’t hire people who lie. Minimum standards are critical. But this isn’t what we’re talking about when we talk about core values. Here, one church is often very different from another. Everyone should be able to worship at your church, but this doesn’t mean anybody should be able to work there. There must be a core value fit.

“To work in a church, you should never do it because you have to have the job.” It should be only because you are able to contribute to the mission. [If you are there just to have a job, please leave as fast as you can! I know some people like this and there is no faster way to ruin a church!]

3. What do we do?

Many executives actually aren’t on the same page here.

4. How will we succeed?

This is the issue of strategy. Strategy boils down to three anchors, which become the filter for every decision you make. Every organization can do this. For example, at Southwest: make the customers fanatically loyal, don’t make the plane late, and keep fares low. They tell everyone in the organization these three things, and say: “As long as you do these three things, you can make whatever decision you need.” This empowers employees.

Most employees’ strategy boils down to this: I’m just going to try to avoid getting in trouble. This is why most customer service is so bad.

5. What is most important, right now?

6. Who must do what?

3. Over-communicate clarity

You need to hear something 7 times in most organizations before people believe it.

4. Reinforce clarity through human systems

Do things in creative ways that reinforce and demonstrate the values.

I hope that someday organizational health will become standard in organizations. That will change the world. Until that happens, this represents an incredible opportunity for competitive advantage.

Craig Groeschel is up now, pastor of Lifechurch.tv, one of the largest churches in the nation. Here is my summary.

Sometimes people say to me, “Craig, how did you come into ministry?” I would not be doing what I am doing today if it had been for my pastor who took a risk on me at 23 and said “I believe God can do something special with your life.”

Tragically, there is not enough of this today. I want to talk to the older generation, and then the younger generation. I think I can maybe do this for a bit because I’m about in the middle right now.

How do you know if you are in the older generation? Let’s just say if you have to ask that question, you probably are.

To the Older Generation

Don’t look down on the next generation, don’t resent them, don’t look down on them. Believe in them because they need you.

Know that even though some in our society don’t always value maturity, God values maturity. If you’re not dead, you’re not done.

If you’ve got breath, keep going. I’d dare to say your best days are before you.

One of the most innovative and impacting ideas he’s learned came from a guy who was 75.

How can you hand ministry over to the next generation? The key is in delegating. Don’t just delegate tasks to the next generation. If you do this, you create followers. People who simply do what they’re told. Delegate authority, because then you create leaders. And that’s exactly what my pastor did to me.

Embrace the season you are in. Don’t try to be something you aren’t. The younger generation can smell a fake from a million miles away. Be yourself. With the younger generation, authenticity trumps cool every single time. “There’s nothing worse than some fat, fifty year old preacher wearing skinny jeans. Just say no.”

You can be a spiritual father to those who come behind you.

To the Younger Generation

You need those who have gone before you more than you can imagine.

A characteristic of the younger generation is the sense of entitlement. This is not your fault necessarily — you were coddled. One result of entitlement is over estimating what you can do. But most people over estimate what they can do in a short time and under estimate what they can do in a long time.

Showing honor publicly results in influence privately. The younger generation, however, often doesn’t show honor, and this is hurting churches and ministries.

One reason we have failed to honor people because we have failed to honor God for who he is. When we honor God for who he is, we will more naturally honor those around us.

Honor builds up; dishonor tears down. Honor values others; dishonor tears down. I would argue that in our churches and organizations, because of a lack of honor and love, we are limiting what we are able to do.

Some people say “if my pastor (or boss or etc.) was honorable, I’d show honor to them.” But it’s respect that is earned; honor is given. Treating people with honor is often what leads to them becoming honorable. Some of you in the younger generation need to repent of how you have treated those above you, because you have dishonored them. If you want to learn to be over, you need to learn to be under with integrity.

How Do We Do This?

Both generations must be intentional about this.

1. Create ongoing feedback loops. For example, each week I go over my message with a group that has people from the older generation and from the younger generation. Then after teaching the first one on Saturday night, I go back into a room and have it critiqued by those older and younger. You need to create intentional opportunities to get feedback. And think what it says to your church when a senior leader says to a 23 year-old “I value your opinion.”

2. Create specific mentoring moments. For example, yesterday I had a chance to sit with one of the major business leaders in our country. I was taking notes and writing as fast as I can. Recently we had a gathering in our church of the older and younger meeting together. These meetings do not happen by accident. You have to plan for them. This is one of the most important things you can do to develop strength in your organization. If you are younger, ask someone older, “will you mentor me?” Then ask them questions like crazy. Don’t try to copy what they do. Learn how they think.

3. Create opportunities for significant leadership development. For example, at our church we had a developmental weekend where we wanted to help develop new speakers. In a single weekend, we trained 38 new speakers to proclaim God’s word, and sent a resounding message that we are a church that values the next generation.

My Thoughts

This was a truly fantastic message. Review this. Learn from this.

This is my paraphrase/summary of Jim Collins’ excellent message on his latest book, Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck–Why Some Thrive Despite Them All.

Why do some enterprises thrive in uncertainty and chaos and others do not? Why do some leaders prevail in the most difficult circumstances, while other leaders fail to achieve greatness, or maybe even fail outright, in those same circumstances?

We have captured the differences in a triangle. At the center is that they are Level 5 Leaders. What separates an exceptional leader from an ordinary leader is not personality, but humility. Combined with will. We have spoken about this before. Acknowledging that this is the center, I want to focus on what else you need. There are three distinctive leadership behaviors that sit on top of that:

1. Fanatic discipline
2. Empirical creativity
3. Productive paranoia

Fanatic Discipline

How do you exert control in a world of chaos? Imagine you are marching across the country. Some march only on the days when the wind is at their back. Others do 20 miles every day, no matter what, no matter how they feel or what the conditions are.

Fanatic discipline also means not stretching too far, not leaving yourself exposed when unforeseen things hit you.

All of our 10X companies had a standard of performance to hit and marching philosophy they would hold to even in the harshest conditions.

If you were to read just one chapter in his new book, he says it should be the chapter “The 20 Mile March.”

You have to manage yourself well in good times so you can do well in bad.

The 20 mile march is all about consecutive performance. Hit your mark not as an average, but as consistent, consecutive performance.

The biggest levers of change in the world are those who are enormously consistent in their approach.

The signature of mediocrity is not an unwillingness to change (though you will fall if you are unwilling to change). The signature of mediocrity is chronic inconsistency.

Still, discipline alone is not enough. We must also create. We must find new ways of doing things. We must make big creative bets and do new things.

How do the 10Xers create different from those who are mediocre?

Empirical Creativity

You bet on something you know is going to work. Validate things based on reality. We came to call this “fire bullets, then fire cannonballs.” If you fire a cannonball first, and it misses, you are out of gunpowder. But if you fire bullets first, refine your line of site, and then fire a cannonball, you will hit your target.

Comparison leaders didn’t fire enough bullets — enough little things — to identify what will really work. Had a tremendous penchant for firing big, uncalibrated cannonballs.

At critical junctures in its history, Intel did not have the most innovative chip. But Intel beat it’s industry by a factor of 46. I’m not saying stop innovating. It’s a genius of the and. What these folks have is the ability to blend creativity and discipline. And it turns out creativity is not the hard thing.

Creativity is natural. Discipline is not. The challenge is not how to become creative, but how to get rid of the stuff that’s in the way of your creativity.

The really rare skill is the ability to marry creativity to discipline such that discipline amplifies your creativity rather than kills it. And how do you do that? 20 mile march and firing bullets, then cannonballs.

Productive Paranoia

Be optimistic, and realize the world is full of danger. Take that paranoia and turn it in to buffer. It is what you do before you are in trouble, before difficult times come, that determines how strong you are when people most need you.

If you are only strong when conditions are good, that is called malpractice.

You have to keep yourself strong so when people need you, you are there.

The SMaC Recipe

Every company had a set of concrete practices they implemented consistently. Never forget Burlanmanson’s Law: “The greatest danger is not failure, but being successful without realizing why you were successful.”

You have the discipline to follow your practices, the productive paranoia to always be evaluating to make sure they are still working, and change things — but only based on empirical evidence of what works.

Always remember to preserve the core and stimulate progress. If you lose your values, you lose everything. But you must distinguish practices from values. Practices you need to change and develop. Your values should never change.

The Twist

I’d like each of you to think of an event that hit you or your church or enterprise that meets three tests:

1. You didn’t cause it
2. It had a potentially significant consequence (good or bad)
3. It was in some way a surprise

This is, of course, life. As a leader, how well did you perform in the face of that event? Would you give yourself an A? a B? a C?

What is the role of luck? Is the difference between 2X companies and 10X companies luck?

I realize the concept of luck may not resonate in the faith world! Stick with me for a sec here, though. Translating this to the faith world: the key is to see luck as a specific event that meets three tests — the three tests above. “When I was working on the research I had a conversation with Bill Hybels, and he said, ‘you know, Jim, not to upset your research, but did you realize your definition also applies to a miracle?'”

We asked two key questions: Are the 10X winners the recipients of luck? And second, what if anything did they do differently about it. What we found, using secular language, was that the great leaders were not luckier. Didn’t have better spikes, better timing. We asked the question, though, what was their return on luck? The question is not whether you get those events, but what you do with them when they come. The underperforming companies had an amazing tendency to squander them.

For example, Bill Grates was in a great position in the 70s. But weren’t many others also in those conditions? But who dropped out of college, worked 20 hours a day, and got the first PC out? That’s the return on “luck.” Thousands could have. He did.

The comparison companies had an amazing opportunity to fail to recognize and squander the good opportunities, and to be unprepared for the bad ones.

My wife had cancer ten years ago. You can’t say in the end “cancer is good.” But out of that experience we came away with a life mantra: “Life is people, and time with people you love.” And the more we began to try to remember and live idea, that life is about love and people, time with people you love, we got a high return on what was undeniably a bad event. It was a defining event that made us better. That’s what these leaders do.

You can replace the world luck with miracle, good event, bad event. What we find is that it’s this genius of the and. You pursue what you want to get done, AND when the big unexpected events happen, you ask “what is my responsibility to get the very most of this unexepcted event?”

When the leader steps up and makes the most of it, rather than squandering it, that is a very special brand of leadership. How to use a bad event as a defining moment, that forever transforms things.

If you were granted a miracle, or a blessed event, would it not be the height of your responsibility not to squander it? [Compare Ephesians 5:15-17: “make the most of the time“]

Are our lives mainly a result of what we do, or what happens to us?

It’s not what happens to you. It’s the things you do. We are always finding pairs of companies in the same circumstances, where one excels and the other falls. The great challenge is to accept, from all our research, that greatness is not a function of circumstance, but is first and foremost a function of conscious choice and discipline.

At the end of the day, what is a great enterprise? All that we’ve talked about before from Good to Great and Built to Last still applies. What’s new?

A great organization is:

1. Superior performance. “Good intentions are not an excuse for incompetence.”
2. Distinctive impact. Who would really miss you if you went away and why? That’s your distinctive impact. You don’t have to be big to be irreplaceable.
3. Lasting endurance.

An organization is not truly great if it cannot be great without you. And if it cannot be great through shocks and storms and upheaval. These times we are going through right now are a call to lead at a higher level so people are there when they need you. They are counting on you to be there.

“Bill Hybels has always extended to me a hand of friendship and character. He has always made me feel welcome. There may be no better definition of great friendship, than to be always here for you so that you are never alone. That is what great friends are, no matter what and always. In that spirit, I extend a great thank you to Bill Hybels and to all of you. I hope each of you will connect somewhere in your life to be part of building something enduring and great. Perhaps in your church life or business life or non-profit or even a class you teach, or even building an enduring great family, or being an enduring great friend. But getting involved in something you care so much about that you want to make it the greatest it can possibly be, not because of what you can get but because it must be done, is something we all need to do. It is impossible to have a great life without having a meaningful life, and it is impossible to have a meaningful life without having meaningful work, doing it with people you love doing it with.”

“Whatever failings or flaws anyone has get highlighted when under stress. So it is important in Washington to never neglect the importance of relationships, and not letting differences become personal. Find ways even for people to get away together.”

“The other thing to be watchful of is it’s less the people themselves than the people who are egging them on.”

“Don’t play the resignation card unless you intend to carry through.”

Bill: I noticed from Decision Points that you and President Bush became good friends. Did that make it difficult?

Rice: We did have a very close relationship, and it was for the most part tremendously helpful. You really want to be able to make decisions without having to “call home” all the time, and you can make calls when you understand the president and have the framework worked out. The challenging thing to remember is that he may be your friend but he’s also the president. Second, use the relationship that you have to be a truth-teller for the president. When you are in a position of authority, you need truth tellers around you. You need to do it in a way that is right as well — only in private, for example. One reason I could say difficult things to the president was because he knew it was never going to show up in the NY Times. I knew also that the president valued what I thought. You have to develop a level of trust where your friendship becomes a place from which you can have the difficult conversations.

Bill: There are so many people in the US who believe you are eminently qualified to be president. You have been emphatic about saying that is not going to happen. But I think some of us would be curious, because you have the leadership, the vision, and the experience. There must be a deep and abiding reason you have chosen not to go that path.

Rice: I have never been a great planner, for example saying “in ten years I’m going to be doing this.” Because I’ve always in my life sought guidance through ambiguity. I love policy, not necessarily politics per se. You have to take energy from what you do as a politician, or it will drain you. On the campaign trail, Bush would be energized at the end of the day and I’d be ready to go to bed. The DNA was different. I think I’m called to do something different.

There’s lots I want to do in public service, but it doesn’t have to be elected office.

Bill: You are clear in your book that you are a follower of Christ, and a serious one. When you go to church, what are you hoping will happen to you when you sit down in church?

Rice: First and foremost, quiet time with God. I pray every night, I try to have meditation in the morning. But I have to tell you life enters. It enters my mind, it enters my spirit. It is hard to find the quiet time of rest. I find church is a place that that can happen to me.

Bill: (Joking) … so maybe you’d be fine if the preacher didn’t preach?…

Rice: No, no — I’m a minister’s daughter, remember! I’m getting to the necessity of preaching. I don’t want to hear sermons on current events [meaning, I think, politics from the pulpit]. What I especially value is coming away seeing things differently because of the sermon. I’m also a musician, and the music impacts me. Especially in the company of other believers.

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is up now. Her message is called “No Higher Honor.” Here is my summary.

How different is it to be in government than out of government? It is very different. Now, I get up in the morning, read the newspaper, and think “isn’t that interesting.” And then I go on to what I want to do, because I’m no longer responsible for what’s in the newspaper.

It is a challenging and difficult time right now. We’ve been through three really big shocks. The first of course was September 11. If you were in leadership at that time, your concept of security changed forever. Then there was the global economic shock. This brings a sense of economic insecurity. And now we’ve had a third, which we’ve come to call “the air of spring.”

“Anger and fear are terrible ways to make political reform.”

What we are seeing is the universality of freedom. No man, woman, or child, wants to live in tyranny. Everyone wants the basic rights that we enjoy here in America. The right to say what you think. The right to worship. The right to be free from the secret police at tonight.

Freedom is not the same as democracy. Democracy is the institutionalization of those freedoms. And with rights come responsibilities. That is what makes a democracy stable. And it is a hard road from freedom to democracy. We in America ought to be pretty patient with those who are making the journey. Even in America, it has taken time for freedom to become democracy for all.

It takes more than a constitution and rule of law. It requires an understanding that democracy cannot be the tyranny of the majority. The rights of the minorities must be protected. And we must understand that the strong cannot exploit the weak. And that is not just the work of government. Government cannot put into the heart of every citizen the understanding and belief that we have the responsibility that there should be no weak links, because democracy is only as strong as its weakest link.

The strong should not only not exploit the weak, but ought to strengthen the weak.

If the strong exploit the weak, a democracy will not be stable.

Underneath this principle is another: that every life is worthy.

In democracy there are no kings and queens. There are no permanent stations in life. No one is condemned forever to the state in which they are born. Every life is capable of greatness. And if this is so, we have an obligation as citizens of a democracy to make sure the opportunity is there.

As Christians, the meaning of every life being equal is even deeper, because we are not only equals before the law, but equals before God. Our Lord Jesus died for each and every one of us, no matter our station in life, no matter the circumstances of our birth, no matter the depth of our sin, our Lord Jesus Christ died for each and every one of us.

Delivering compassion is the work of those who believe every life is worthy.

With education it doesn’t matter where you’re coming from, it matters where you’re going.

If you are fortunate enough to lead in challenging times, it is important to recognize that there is so much opportunity. So how do you lead from the troubling times like we live in, to those that will be more prosperous and freer? And say when you leave this earth that you have helped leave things better off.

Leadership is not simply about people following you, but helping people to see their own leadership capacity.

We have an example here in Jesus himself. He led his disciples to become leaders of the church.

But you can’t lead if people don’t see in you the belief that the future can be better.

I’ve come to believe that the most essential character of the leader is irrepressible optimism. Nobody wants to follow a sourpuss or someone with a victim mentality. But how do you remain optimistic in difficult times? One of the most important sources of optimism is to keep perspective. When I was Secretary of State, people would often look around and things weren’t going great in the world, but I thought it must have seemed this way many other times. Imagine what it must have been like to lead after WWII, when the question wasn’t whether Eastern Europe would be communist, but whether Western Europe would be as well.

Today’s headlines and history’s judgment are rarely the same. If you are ultimately focused on todays headlines you will achieve nothing of lasting value.

Another key to perspective is to realize that after struggle comes victory. This is a central message to our faith. After Friday, there would be Sunday.

I can’t tell you how often I have had to remember that it is a privilege to struggle. To often you can fall in to thinking it is your own dedication that is the key. But when, as Lincoln says, you have no place to go but your knees, you are driven to a deeper peace. I was often driven to Romans 5:1-10. I can’t tell you how often I read that to remember that it is indeed a privilege to struggle, and that out of struggle can come victory.

Perhaps the greatest source of strength and optimism is to think about all those times that what seemed impossible seems inevitable in retrospect.

There was a time no one believed that so many would emerge in freedom and prosperity and dignity. How could Nelson Mandela have a vision not for a South Africa where those who are black would oppress the whites once they are in power, but of a multi-racial society? Or how could a little girl who grows up in segregated Alabama, where her parents couldn’t take her to a restaurant, grow up to become Secretary of State? You see, somehow, things that one day seemed impossible, seem inevitable in retrospect. That’s one of history’s little tricks.

But we are to be reminded today that those outcomes were not inevitable. They were the work of people who sacrificed sometimes everything for a principle. Those who led by belief and faith and put themselves on the line to make the world better. Who led from impossibility to inevitability because they never accepted the world as it is, but also worked for it as it should be. That is always the calling of leaders.

I am grateful to have served as a leader in challenging times, and I am very grateful for the prayers of so many who would come up to me and say “I’ve prayed for you.” And I am grateful for the faith of my father and my mother, which gave me a foundation from which to take on the challenges of leadership. I wish you the same, and know that together we can make the world be not what it is, but what it should be.

“God doesn’t make you a leader so you can simply preside over something. You are to take people from here to there. Leaders take people to a preferred future.”

Before you try to take people to the future, show why we can’t stay where we are.

Along the journey from here to there, where is the vision most vulnerable? In the early stages, middle stages, or near the end?

His answer? The middle. When you are breaking out of the box, you have a lot of energy. The first 1,000 meters of a marathon are not hard. But “visions are extremely vulnerable in the middle. You need your best vision casting, your best motivating, to keep people engaged.”

Thinking in terms of your leadership career. Be careful in the middle phase. You realize you aren’t invincible. People die. You realize you don’t have unlimited energy. The unexpected happens. Make sure you stay close to God, and he will carry you. You can’t do this on your own.

“There’s not a lot like the local church when the local church is working right.”

“My intention is to leave Willow stronger than it’s ever been.” “My overarching thought about my leadership these days: What a privilege it is to be a leader. What an absolute privilege. If you think about it, only a very small percentage of the human race get the opportunity to lead things. These days I often find myself looking to heaven and saying, ‘Thank you, God. Thank you that I was placed in a family where I got graduate level leadership training at the dinner table. And people who drew leadership out of me. And one day you entrusted me with a vision to start a church in a movie theatre for people far from God.'”

“Have you thanked God recently for the privilege of leadership?”

Every once in a while it is a good thing to step back, reflect, and acknowledge the incredible privilege of leadership. “We get to build teams with people we love like family. We get to solve problems. We get to build up other leaders. We get to direct funds to causes we believe in deeply. We get to advance the purposes of the transcendent God in this broken world.”

“The worst days of leadership beat the best days of just being an onlooker or sitting on the sidelines.”

Advice he received once: “Enjoy every single day you get to lead. Because one day it will be over.”

Talking about the approach to succession planning they are developing (he’s 60).

First, there’s a planning phase. “Every important issue pertaining to succession must get surfaced. Who picks? What is the time frame? Will the pastor have any role after the transition?” And so forth. This should not be rushed.

Second, seek to find an internal person who can be the successor. If you can’t find an internal, then look for an external candidate. But look for an internal candidate.

Last phase is the actual transition itself. You gradually increase their responsibility and decrease yours, over the period of about 18 months.

His feelings on this: “I am extremely proud of our board and how they did the process. I also feel great about Willow’s future. It is also tough to consider.” (Note: They aren’t transitioning; “I still have many years left.” But it’s important to have a succession plan, because no pastor will be pastoring forever.)

“Senior pastors: Do the right thing for your church. When you get into your 60s, make sure that your greatest legacy is that your church is well led after you are done.”

They are in the second stage now — contemplating possible internal successors. “We’ll keep you posted on this in future summits.”

Hybels: “God didn’t make you a leader to respond to stuff all day. God made you a leader to move stuff ahead!”

Love that!

This is fascinating. Hybels just mentioned how he’s met with many leaders — leaders “smarter and more effective than myself” — who say to him “I find it so challenging to manage my work and keep up with things.” This is huge. It shows the importance of knowing how to get things done, especially for leaders. Without an effective approach, it is easy to fall into the trap of always responding rather than also taking initiative to move stuff ahead.