Monthly Archives: September 2011

Reading Right Now…

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I’ve always believed that active and diverse reading is a necessity for creative leaders. Really putting in practice this week…

On Optimist’s Tour of the Future: One Curious Man Sets Out to Answer “What’s Next, by Mark Stevenson

Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Foundation of the U.S. Navy, by Ian Toll

Culture: Leading Scientists Explore Societies, Art, Poetry, and Technology, edited by John Brockman

Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn, by Cathy Davidson

Missional Communities: The Rise of the Post-Congregational Church, by Reggie McNeal

To Transform a City: Whole Church, Whole Gospel, Whole City, by Eric Swanson and Sam Williams

AND: The Gathered and Scattered Church, by Hugh Halter and Matt Smay

The Case for Antioch: A Biblical Model for a Transformational Church, but Jeff Iorg

Democratizing Innovation, by Eric von Hippel

Zarrella’s Hierarchy of Contagiousness: The Science, Design, and Engineering of Contagious Ideas, by Dan Zarrella

The Elements of Cooking, by Michael Rhulman

I’m trying to emulate Thomas Edison, who believed that voracious reading was the key to self-improvement. He read books on a remarkable range of subjects to address his endless queries. As Edison noted, “I didn’t read a few books, I read the library.”

I prefer to think of it as creating innovation literacy.

 

The Hardest Work There Is

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It’s the work of making far-reaching change in long-established organizations.

One of my dream jobs would be a change architect. I’ve been fortunate to be able to practice change in several different venues – from family life to church staff positions to my current consultant role. Each one brings something different to the table, and each one has been instructive for the next one.

As I’ve often said to churches I work with, change is a constant reality. It’s not meant to be an oxymoron, but some would see it that way. Change is a matter of life – biological (while you are reading this tens of thousands of cells have been created in your body) to our physical world (the season of fall is here) to organizational (restructuring, new plans, etc).

We are constantly undergoing transformation in all areas of our existence.  To that end, a few comments from William Taylor, co-founder of Fast Company magazine and author of the book “Practically Radical” are worth repeating.

Five Truths of Organizational Transformation

  1. Most organizations in most fields suffer from a kind of tunnel vision, which makes it hard to envision a more positive future. The first challenge of change is originality – for leaders to see their organization and its problems as if they’ve never seen them before. with new eyes, to develop a distinctive point of view on how to solve them.
  2. Most leaders see things the same way everyone else sees them because they look for ideas in the same places everyone else looks for them. Why do you want to look at your competition and develop benchmarks for comparison? Instead, learn from innovators outside your field as a way to shake things up.
  3. In troubled organizations rich with tradition and success, history can be a curse – and a blessing. The challenge is to break from the past without disavowing it. The most effective leaders don’t disavow the past – they reinterpret what’s come before to develop a line of sight into what comes next.
  4. The job of the change agent is not just to surface high-minded ideas. It is to summon a sense of urgency inside and outside the organization, and to turn that urgency into action. The opposite of urgency is complacency, and complacent individuals, unfortunately, see themselves as behaving quite rationally.
  5. In an environment that never stops changing, change agents can never stop learning. The best leaders, regardless of their field, experience, or personal style, are insatiable learners.

Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them.

 – Albert Einstein

If all you ever do is all you’ve ever done, then all you’ll ever get is all you’ve every got.

– Unknown Texas Genius

Are you ready to roll up your sleeves for the hard work of change in front of you?

Expanding Your Capacity

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Earlier this summer, I reintroduced some thoughts on “capacity.” You can read them here.

Last night in our community group, the concept of capacity came up in our discussion of the current series our church is in. Entitled “The Prodigy in Me,” it’s all about discovering the invaluable gifts God has placed in each of us.

Picking up where the earlier post left off, our group realized last night that being emptied by serving and therefore being able to be filled again was only part of the understanding.

God wants us to have MORE capacity over time.

 If we are growing as disciples, our capacity to be filled AND to serve others should be growing as well.

How’s your capacity?

Innovation? Or Same Ol’ Same Ol’?

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One of the latest Internet movements is based on offering deals with local merchants. The leader of this trend is three-year-old Groupon.

However, Groupon and all its competitors may be popular, but they are hardly a true Internet revolutionary. According to Wired magazine’s Steven Levy, Groupon and company are less a revolution and more like a web version of everyone’s coupon-clipping grandparents.

It begs the question: Is this innovation in reverse – finding new ways to continue doing things the way they’ve always been done?

I’m deep into a project now that tackles this question head on. You’ll be hearing more about it in a few weeks, but for now, here are a few questions for leaders in ChurchWorld:

  • Are you content to keep doing the same things the same way?
  • Would you consider doing the same things a different way?
  • How about doing different things the same way?
  • Or are you leading on the innovative edge, doing different things different ways?

How you answer those questions will determine your direction for the future.

 

Good Cooking is Simply a Series of Problems Solved

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The title of this post is actually a quote from one of the instructor chefs at the CIA’s cooking school. Author Michael Ruhlman, in “The Making of a Chef,” chronicles his time at the legendary cooking school, the oldest and most influential in America.

The comment came in response to a student’s unique suggestion of how to keep hollandaise sauce at just the right temperature to keep it from “breaking”. The chef had never thought of his idea, and encouraged him (and the rest of the class) to approach a problem from a unique angle (outside the box” thinking?).

This line of thought falls right into a post by Seth Godin entitled “Sell the Problem.” He noted that many business to business marketers tend to jump right into features and benefits, without taking the time to understand if the person on the other end of the conversation/call/letter believes they even have a problem.

The challenge is this: if your organization doesn’t think it has a  problem, you won’t be looking for a solution. You won’t wake up in the morning dreaming about how to solve it, or go to bed wondering how much it’s costing you to ignore it.

And so the marketing challenge is to sell the problem.

I’m passionate about helping churches thrive by turning challenges (problems) into opportunities. It’s very personal with me – I want to understand prospective clients so well that I know their situation almost as well as a leader or staff member. In fact, that statement, made a couple of years ago by a pastor, is one of the highlights of my career!

It’s my job to understand their problems.

When a prospect comes to the table and says, “we have a problem,” then you’re both on the same side of the table when it comes time to solve it.

All I have to do now is follow the recipe – a series of problems solved.