Archives for August 2011

As is well known by now, Howard Schultz, Chairman and CEO of Starbucks, withdrew himself as a speaker at the Leadership Summit this week. Starbucks did not say why, but most speculated it was because of an online petition by an activist group accusing Willow Creek of being “anti-gay.”

Bill Hybels ended that speculation and addressed this issue at the Summit on Thursday. His response is a model of combining graciousness with truth and conviction. Here are two key quotes:

“If the organizers of this petition had simply taken the time to call us, we would have taken the time to explain to them that Willow is not only not anti-gay; Willow Creek is not anti-anybody. Our church was founded on the idea that people matter to God — all people. People of all backgrounds, colors, ethnicities, and sexual orientation. The mat at every door on this campus reads “welcome”. . .

“Now what is true is that we challenge homosexuals and heterosexuals to live out the sexual ethics taught in the Scriptures which encourages full sexual expression between a man and a woman in the context of marriage and prescribes sexual abstinence and purity for everybody else. But even as we challenge all of our people to these biblical standards, we do so with grace-filled spirits, knowing the confusion and brokenness that is rampant in our fallen world.”

Ed Stetzer and Adam Jeske also provide some helpful reflections.

Tough Callings

• Tough Callings
• Tough Callings: Jeremiah
• Tough Callings: Jeremiah, Part 2
• Up Now: Mama Maggie Gobran

Michelle Rhee

• Up Next: Michelle Rhee on Educational Reform
• Interview with Michelle Rhee, Former Chancellor of DC Public Schools and Education Reformer Featured in Waiting for Superman

Henry Cloud

• Henry Cloud: Three Kinds of People

John Dickson

• The Best Message on Humility I Have Ever Heard

Patrick Lencioni

• Patrick Lencioni Up Now
• Patrick Lencioni on Vulnerability

General

• The Other Leadership Summit Guest Bloggers
• That’s a Wrap

The summit is just ending now, and I’ll be heading back home shortly.

This has been a lot of fun and an excellent experience. I’m grateful to the Willow Creek Association for the opportunity to have been one of the guest bloggers here at the leadership summit. I learned a ton, and I hope that all of you were able to follow along a bit through the posts. This has been quite a packed two days!

I am pretty tired right now, but if I can I’ll write up some concluding thoughts when I get the chance.

Talking about vulnerability. Good follow-up to a talk on humility.

How he came to this view on the importance of vulnerability: His faith, the example of his dad growing up, experience as a consultant right out of college — they were told “always look smarter than your clients, etc.” Wasn’t real.

The desire to avoid vulnerability in our society stems from our over valuing of avoiding suffering and difficulty. People say “no, always be on, always make yourself strong.” But there is something attractive about people that are humble and vulnerable.

The three fears that keep us from being vulnerable.

1. Fear of losing the business

Another way to say it: Fear of being rejected.

Rejection is something we are called to — Christ was rejected. We have to be willing to be rejected. “Enter the danger.”

We have to speak the kind truth. Can’t have “terminal niceness” in our churches. We fall into it because we don’t want to be rejected.

People are hungry for those who will tell them the kind truth.

Don’t be afraid of being rejected. 8 out of 10 times you won’t be. But sometimes you will — and you have to accept that.

[My observation: Just make sure you really are accurate about the truth and what needs to be done and how you are assessing the situation. If you tell the kind truth, but are actually wrong, that’s not helpful!]

2. The fear of being embarrased

When we’re serving others, we have to do things that could embarrass us. We need to be willing to say “I don’t understand that.”

Your job is not to look smart, but to help them do better. If you are editing yourself to manage your own image, people will not trust you and you will not inspire them.

Be willing to ask dumb questions!

Celebrate your mistakes.

3. The fear of feeling inferior

Be willing to put yourself in a lower position. This is what Jesus did: washed the disciples feet.

Sometimes people aren’t going to reward you for doing the dirty work. But you should do it anyway.

This is about honoring your client’s work: being so interested in them that you care more about their success than your own.

There’s a standing ovation for Lencioni.

(Note: Lencioni just found out he was speaking this week, as he took Howard Schultz’s slot after he withdrew.)

Really looking forward to Patrick Lencioni’s message. He has been a major influence on my thinking.

Here are a few posts influenced by and interacting with his thinking:

• Bad Meetings Generate Real Human Suffering
• A series I started on The Three Signs of a Miserable Job
• A New View on Non-Profits
• Don’t Aspire to Mediocrity

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.”

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!):

• Adam Jeske
• Tim Schraeder
• Jenni Catron
• Justin Wise

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.

“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.”