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Part II: The 6 Questions for Leading People Through Change

I believe leadership is one of the most widely talked about subjects and at the same time one of the most elusive and puzzling.  

Especially most elusive and puzzling, when you think of it in the context of leading a church (volunteer organization) through a journey of transition and change.  GREAT leaders have to continue to reflect, learn, grow, and find ways to continue to lead better in those "organizational transitioning seasons."  

These are some of my observation of what I learned from the 6 questions, the board meeting, and the process and challenge of leading organizational change:

• Organizations (churches) can be in decline; experience low morale, waning attendance, struggling finances, ineffective in the community, and STILL not make significant changes.

•  Never assume that everyone in leadership positions is ready for change.

• Leaders get stuck in comfort zones.  People in leadership may not sense the need to really make some significant changes.

• It's the job of the top leader to get the church ready to embrace the journey of transition and change. 

• You can’t reach everyone...nor should you! 

• Creating and implementing internal changes can take its toll on the leadership.

• Get buy-in!  Personally talk to key influencers (staff, boards, key business, and lay leaders) before you launch a change process.

• Creating a sense of urgency in people is critical in inspiring and motivating them to change.

•  Vision casting for change must be strategic, intentional, consistent, and creative.  Lack of creative vision casting from the leader hurts the change process.

• Saying you WANT change, and DOING change is as different as night and day.

• Building an effective team takes intentional work. The team are the leaders who will initiate changes in the workplace.

• Allowing ineffective church programming to go on for too long will hurt organizational momentum.

• What holds leaders back from making changes? Answer: Submitting to fear, complacency, and insecurity of what people might think, do, or say.

• Complacency must be confronted daily.

• When leaders are in the process of strategic change – share the “wins” in a creative way as much as you can.

 

 

 

The "6" Questions for Change - Part I

Scott Hodge, (friend of 17 years) pastor of The Orchard Community in Aurora, Illinois, gave me 6 amazing questions for organizational change about three years ago.  Scott, had also used these questions to help him navigate a "ninety-year-old church from a painful, yet rewarding journey of change."

I remember using these questions for the first time when I was invited into a church board meeting; the focus was on organizational and strategic change of the church.  

Here are the six questions:

1. Who do I believe God is calling us to reach?

2. Are we reaching them? Currently and consistently?

3. If not, what do I need to change? Be specific – what do we need to stop doing? or what do we need to start doing? 

4. What is holding me back from making these changes?

5. How could those changes impact us organizationally?

6. How could those changes impact me (as a leader) personally? Am I willing to pay the price to make those changes? 

 

The 6 Questions for Change Part II: What I learned from these 6 questions, the board meeting, and the process and challenge of leading organizational change coming next post! 

 

Part 2: What does the circus and church have in common? "The Show Must Go On!"

 
It can be a powerful moment in your organization when your able to look at the programs and environments in your organization, not only from the standpoint are they working, but are they working together, and are they leading people somewhere.

It is crucial for leaders to have the ability to articulate and explain the strategy simply to the people.  The top leader has to be able to connect the dots (tell people why we do what we do - streamlining) the resources, programming, staff, and volunteers in the organization.   This process is crucial to creating trust with high-level leaders in your organization.  Great leaders need to know why you do what you do.

 Good leaders also need to be international about alignment – you have to be intentional about figuring out strategically where you want things to go and how you want things to end up.  Decide where you want people to be.  In the light of life-change, and what you want to happen in the hearts and lives of people - where do you want them to end up?  We need to start to evaluate everything on the basis of where we want people to end up? 

 Many leaders, in organizational life, tend to have a “need base and programmatic mindset.”  This means they tend to create as many programs to meet needs – a random style of programming – they end up meeting some needs, but really don’t take people anywhere.  This kind of “the show must go on” strategy ends up: burning out leaders and volunteers and facilitates organizational misalignment, which results in an ineffective organization.

Why churches don’t carve out time for thinking through their strategy? (Process from Reggie Joiner):

•  It’s not critical – it’s not demanding your attention.

• It’s not a relevant issue – we don’t look at strategy as being integral to the idea of staff, moral, giving, and momentum.

• It’s not spiritual – What we need to understand strategically where we are going, and what this is about, where we are heading, and what we are doing, and how the pieces fit and move together.

Practice #1 –Clarify the Win: Define what is important at every level of the organization.

As long as the win in unclear, you force your team to guess at what a win looks like. If the win is unclear, you may force those in leadership roles to define winning in their own terms.

When you clarify the win you help your team stay on the same page.

When you clarify the win you can manage your resources effectively.

1. Sum up the win in a simple phrase

2. Keep the win as specific as possible

3. Restate the win frequently and creatively

4. Meet to clarify the win at every level

Practice #2 –Think Steps, not Programs: Before you start anything, make sure it takes you where you need to go.

1. Every step should be easy

2. Every step has to be obvious

3. Every step must be strategic

Practice #3 –Narrow the Focus: Do fewer things in order to make a greater impact. You have to do less if you want to grow more.

1. Some churches have bought into a ministry “menu” philosophy.
2. Churches feel constant pressure to provide programs on the basis of needs.
3. Individuals have been allowed to build their identity around a program, not a mission.
4. Church leaders fear the fallout of eliminating certain programs.
5. Resist complexity and pursue simplicity.
6. Choose what potentially works best over what is presently working.
7. The more you focus the environment, the greater the relevance, the better the connection, the higher the quality, and the stronger the impact.

 

 

 

 

 

What does the circus and church have in common? "The Show Must Go On!"

I was listening to a great leadership talk by Reggie Joiner on strategic thinking.  Joiner challenged leaders (especially pastors/church leaders) that somewhere along the line, leaders have to decide to spend time and energy on this issue of “strategy.” What is strategy? Strategy is a plan of action with an end in mind. It doesn’t matter how great or noble your mission, if you don’t have an effective strategy you will have frustrated people, staff, employees.  I have seen and experienced that kind of frustration in church leadership before.  The church/non-profit will have a great vision and mission, but have little to no strategy to back it. 

Joiner says, "Sooner or later you have to decide…what is the end? Where are we going?  Where do we want to take people? And how are we going to get there?  In ministry, we do this event, and this program, and soon as we finish, we go to the next one, and then we go to the next one…there is no connection between them, no destination, no end where they’re all guiding us and leading us to.”

 “The show must go on" is a well-known phrase in show business, meaning that regardless of what happens (such as the lead performer breaks a leg), the show must still be put on for the waiting patrons.  In religious organizations, there is the same kind of attitude that can permeate within its leadership  - “the show must go on” - it’s preached from the highways, byways, and rooftops.  What is the problem with that mentality?  If you have a strategy that is ineffective, over time, you will have disillusioned leaders, misaligned departments, frustrated people, lose people and money, your staff moral will become low, and the organization will experience little to no momentum.  We do the same thing, the same way, and get the same results…sounds like the definition of insanity. Religious tradition has a way of having president over sound, effective leadership in church world sometimes.

CHURCH LEADERS say, “The SHOW MUST GO ON… traditional programming must not stop!”

The SHOWMUST GO ON…even if our strategy is outdated…

THE SHOW MUST GO ON…even if our programming is ineffective and boring…

THE SHOW MUST GO ON…even if we are not reaching unchurched people…

THE SHOW MUST GO ON…even if we have losing people, resources, and momentum…

 

 

 

"How in the _______ did I end up here?"

I was re-reading Andy Stanley's, The Principle of the Path.  The book challenges your vision and disturbs your procrastination, both at the same time. 

What is the Principle of the Path?  

• The principle of the path is direction not intention determines our destination.

• There is a real disconnect between our dreams and the paths we take to get there.

• Whatever road your on determines your destination.

• Your direction ultimately determines your destination. Your direction not your intentions, dreams, or hopes determine your destination.

• "I don’t know how I got to where I am.” Sometimes it’s financially, sometimes it’s relationally, sometimes it’s with their marriage, their kids, their parents, academically, professionally, whatever. So they ask, “How in the world that I end up here?”

Andy Stanley was interviewed by Christianpost.com and was asked the question, 

Why do so many people live disconnected lives, not recognizing that decisions they make will have effects on their life in the future?

Stanley: Part of it is because we are surrounded by people who all are moving in the wrong direction with us. As you look at what is happening in our country financially, lots and lots of people made the same bad decision – whether it is too much debt, too big a house, not enough savings – and when everybody around me is doing the same thing I’m doing it is easy to deceive myself to think that it will work out.

So we really deceive ourselves and make emotional decisions and when we end up where those decisions take us, we are just baffled as to how this can happen to us. Well, it is the direction we chose.

The reason I wrote this book is in order to take what is a very obvious principle in the realm of driving, or hiking, or biking and say the same principle applies to living. That the direction you choose has a predescribed and predetermined destination.

So if you want to end up in a good place, you have to move in the right direction. And as obvious as that is and as easy as that is to see in the lives of other people, especially if you have children, it is very difficult to see this in the mirror.

Question:

How do you know what path to take in order to take you where you want to be? (time is life).

How do you turn ordinary into extraordinary?

 
Joseph A. Michelli, in his book, The Starbucks Experience - 5 Principles for Turning Ordinary into Extrodinary, says, "Through the principle of Make It Your Own, Starbucks has succeeded in creating a unique (business) model that encourages partners (employees) at all levels to pour creative energy and dedication into everything they do."  Starbucks calls this model the "Five Ways of Being": 

• Be Welcoming: this is essential to get the customer visit off to a positive start. Most important questions are answered in the first moment of a Starbucks interaction - Do the staff members care to get to know me? Do they remember me? Will they take care of my needs? Do I matter? Am I invisible?  Starbucks leadership emphasizes the creation of a welcoming experience precisely to let customers know they are important and attempts to effectively answer these questions.

• Be Genuine: At Starbucks, being genune means to "connect, discover, and respond." This means understanding the art of listening, the art of connecting, discover people's needs and then responding with compassion. 

• Be Conisderate: Starbucks partners look beyond their own needs and consider the needs of others.  When thoughtfulness becomes a part of a company's culture, amazing acts of selflessness occurs, and the lives of all are enriched.

• Be knowledgeable: When Starbucks leadrs ask partners to "be knowledgeable," thety are encouraging employess to "love what they do and share it with others."  Know yourself, know the product, know the mission, know the culture, know the DNA of who we are.  Add value to customers is the art of "being kowledgable." 

• Be Involved: People want to be apart of something bigger than themselves. Starbucks encourages its partners to get involved in the store, in-store improvments, involved in making the business better, be involved in the community...true partnership! 

What can your business, church, and organization learn from this model?             

Hey Leader, Move Fast!

When you think about transitioning an organization (specifically churches), in regards to your mission, model, strategy and focus, it can get quickly overwhelming.  It is the “overwhelming” TENSION the causes so many leaders (pastors/staff/boards) to approach organizational transition with fear and apathy. And it is that attitude of fear and apathy which results in slowness, unwillingness, languidness,listlessness, sluggishness, and lethargic approach to initiate real changes.

To make organizational transition effective, leaders will have to have the courage to make difficult decisions quickly, transitional moves in a very short amount of time (you cannot get consensus on every hard decision).  When it comes to making changes quickly in the organization, every leader will face their fears, people will get upset, it will be hard, people will leave, and is always risky.  However, incremental or slow change can actually be riskier (and most of the time just won't work) than fast change and transition. 

Reggie Joiner, from Orange, made some impacting statements on organizational transitioning (specifically churches in transition) in his podcast at Drive 06. Here are a couple of his statements:

• Organizational "Tweaking" isn’t effective: Tweaking type change isn’t going to work.  We need to be willing to overhaul.

• Who do you model?: Don’t pattern your church after churches that people aren’t attending.

• Simple: The best way to radically change your organization is to radically change your organization. 

• What and Who are you afraid of?: Don’t be more afraid of the people who are going to walk away then the people who won’t be coming if you don’t make the changes.

• Be Intentional: You never have to be intentional about reaching insiders (members inside the church).  You always have to be intentional about reaching outsiders (unchurched people). 

• Take a Risk: We are afraid of radical change – but isn’t that exactly what we are asking people who don’t know God to do everyday?

 

  "Don't pattern your church after churches that people are not attending." - Reggie Joiner

"We can't tap into old systems and old ways of doing things that no longer work.  Somewhere along the line we need to recognize that this idea of changing things gradually, or transitioning people slowly may not give us the outcome that we think that it should. And in the meantime, in the guise of transitioning we are wasting  years and years and years, of resources and time." - Reggie Joiner

    Those two quotes are from a leadership talk by Reggie Joiner, founder and CEO of Orange, a nonprofit organization providing resources and training to help churches maximize their influence on the spiritual growth of the next generation.  In the talk, Reggie was talking about RETHINKING. Rethinking the way we do church, RETHINKING the way we are transitioning our churches, and RETHINKING the way we are creating change in our communities and churches. 

Reggie gave some disturbing statistics about the impact of the American church: 

• 1/3 of the adult population in our country never or rarely attends church. 
• When you move down between the ages of 18-24 over 2/3 of that generational population never or rarely attends church. 
• 75-80 percent of teenagers in our church when they reach adulthood will walk away and go away to college and drop out of church, and dismiss Christianity as and option for there life.             

     I have come to grips it is my responsibility as leader to help create environments that connect and engage people. This is the challenge, it's not always easy, and not always fun. However, it's still our responsibility as leaders to partner with the Holy Spirit to create environments that connect and lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ...right?

    According to Reggie Joiner, we have a lot to talk about.  We have a lot of issues that we need to confront. And we need to get into each others leadership lives, worlds, and faces. Church leaders have to have the courage to make REAL change.  

    The truth is that the church is at a crossroads, at a defining moment, a place in history where we can no longer just TWEAK church programming here, and TWEAK church stuff there, in order to reach the next generation. If we are really going to reach the next generation, somewhere along the line, we are going to have to have the courage to overhaul the existing ineffective church systems.  Have the courage to make tough decisions to reinvent everything in such a way where we can connect with the next generation. 

 

 

Leadership Thought: The Power of A Bruce Lee Kick

  
I came across this quote that was given by Dave Gibbons on Twitter, “I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times (Bruce Lee).”

    The quote impacted me and made me think how it actually applies to organizational leadership. I believe that great leadership requires focus, concentration, and prioritizing...one of the most difficult things to do.  Leaders of organizations (especially pastors) would rather have 10,000 things going on in the organization (all in the name of Jesus), but the programs are complacent, medicore, and not very good.  Why? Leaders love activity, even if that activity isn't taking people anywhere.  

    Leaders have a tendency to lose sight of the power of FOCUS: the shaper it is; the shaper the you are. When the leader knows what his or her priorities are, but lacks focus, they know what to do but never get it done. The result: "practicing 10,000 kicks once!"

    However, when the leader combines focus, concentration and prioritizing; the results are usually momentum and excellence for the organization.  When the leader keeps their focus on keeping the MAIN thing the MAIN thing (even Bruce Lee is fearful) "I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times" 

Five Essentials to Focus (aka the "ONE KICK") (given by Thom S. Rainer & Eric Geiger): 

1. Eliminate Non-Essential Programs (Elimination is a matter of stewardship of time and money).
2. Limit Adding Programs (Funnel the event into an existing program - try meeting needs through existing programs).
3. Reduce Special Events.
4. Ensure the process is easily understood and communicated (As you eliminate or reduce special events, make sure you communicate well with the people). 
5. Keep your main team thinking FOCUS.
6. Communicate Simplicity and Focus as an Organizational Value.

Thinking Different

 U.S. Poet, Edna St. Vincent Miller, said, "If you have trouble thinking outside the box, then blow up the box.  A minute of thought is worth more than an hour of talk."  

Have you ever noticed how many of us in life can get STUCK into patterns and habits that pull us into directions that we never really intended to go. Getting stuck inside the "proverbial" BOX in any area of our lives is a challenge.  Whether, it is in the emotional or spiritual, relationships, business, work, finances, or in our that dreaded fitness and diet program.  

Some of us are so STUCK inside the box within our heart, mind, and soul that in return we are struggling to understand our purpose in life, therefore, we can't seem to gain momentum in fulfilling our dreams and desires we have.  Anyone relate? Do I hear an AMEN? Or am I just alone on this? 

What do we do? Well, blowing up the BOX we live in is a start (but get ready it might hurt). Why? because change is hard.  Next, we need to start to think better and differently.  Some of us are so STUCK in the way we think--that it just doesn't negatively affect our lives, but also those we lead (family, business, church, team, organization).  

If we want to start to think differently, get outside the box, and start to dream again, then we would heed the advice from John Maxwell:

1. GIVE YOURSELF THE TIME TO THINK. Most people keep themselves much too busy.  They confuse activity with accomplishment.  If you want to perform well, you need to think well.  You can't do that if you never set aside time just for thinking.

2. FIND A PLACE TO BE CREATIVE.  I believe that a person who possesses mental discipline can think anywhere.  However, I also know that some environments are particularly conductive to creative thinking.  Figure out what works for you.

3. FORCE YOURSELF TO THINK. If thinking were easy, everyone would be good at it--and everyone would be successful.  The truth is that thinking can be hard work.  That's why you need to make it a discipline of your life.  Give yourself a goal to think for a certain amount of time every day.  

4. CHALLENGE ASSUMPTIONS.  One of the most insurmountable obstacles to successful thinking is the phrase, "BUT WE'VE ALWAYS DONE IT THAT WAY."  

5. RECRUIT OTHER GOOD THINKERS TO HELP YOU. Nobody ever achieved a big dream alone. We are not smart or strong enough to do everything ourselves.