Dave's tweet

i saw this tweet from Dave Ramsey a while back:

"If a dog bites you forgive him. But don't reconcile with him until he learns not to bite. You can't build a quality team without trust."

& a reply from someone else:

"so there's no reconciliation, eh?"

& then from Dave again:

"Forgiveness is different . As a person YES, keeping them as an employee, NO"

wow. how many times have we seen this with employees on a team! it feels like a tension because we've gotta forgive & reconcile with PEOPLE no matter what.

We've GOTTA forgive people, but it doesn't mean they still need to work on the team.

no matter how much you love your dog, how many times are you going to let him bite your kid? you may forgive the dog but you will not let it keep happening.

vision casting that makes you want to paint your face blue

vision casting is essential for any leader of any movement.

vision casters have this crazy burning passion for the world to be different and they actually have a clear picture of how the world could be and should be... and they paint this picture for others to see & invite them to be a part of.

every time i watch Braveheart i am blown away by the vision casting skill of William Wallace. there are tons of examples throughout the movie, but here's a brief one:

every single time i hear his vision casting speeches like this one it makes me wanna stand up, pump my fist, & sign up to go fight in the Scottish army.

and i'm not even Scottish.

but i'm like "Give me a sword and some blue face paint and let's go!"

that's what a powerful vision caster can do. they can spark something in the hearts of people. they can paint a picture of a preferred reality that's so clear it compels people to rise up for the cause.

i want to be a vision caster half as good as William Wallace.

all out positivity & confidence

i heard a story recently... and honestly i'm not sure what it's intended point was... you know, i'm not sure what "the moral of the story" was, but i just made up my own. applied it in my own way.
i tend to do that a lot.

the story went something like this:

a little boy was playing out in his back yard. he was maybe 9 years old.

he's playing baseball with himself - you know, throwing the ball up in the air to himself and trying to hit it.

as he's doing this he keeps saying “I’m the greatest hitter in the world. I'm the greatest hitter in the world. I'm the greatest hitter in the world.” Over & over.

he tosses the ball up... swings & misses...

Strike 1.

“I’m the greatest hitter in the world."

he tosses the ball up again... swings & misses...
Strike 2.

“I’m the greatest hitter in the world."

for the third time he tosses the ball up... swings & misses...

Strike 3.

The boy stands there for a second... then throws both arms up in the air and shouts

“I’m the greatest pitcher in the world.”

Someone was actually standing there watching all this happen. That person asked the boy, How do you know you're the greatest pitcher in the world?

the boy answered

“because I just struck out the greatest hitter in the world.” 

i think it's a great story. i really like it.

i think all of us could learn something from this guy.

about reframing situations.

about all out positivity and confidence.

i want to live my life with this kind of confidence & undying positivity... no matter how many times i strike out.

is there a better way?

is there a better way to do this?

how often do you ask that question? how often do i?
probably not often enough.

i think that when we're doing anything that matters and we STOP asking the question "is there a better way?" then we're already done. our time is almost up.

this is a really important question to ask - to ask yourself and others.
because if what you're doing DOES matter, then wouldn't you want to know a better way?

so WHY don't we ask this question?
is it because we already think we have the best way? no better way exists?
i hope not. i hope that's not the reason. because that's pretty arrogant and at that point we are SO far gone that a conversation on this subject is pointless. if we find ourselves thinking that we already have the best way then we can probably just quit at that point.

so, i'm not convinced that's the reason. i push back all the time on having to ask myself and others this Q. i don't like to ask this Question. but why?

WHY do we not like to ask "is there a better way?"

it's hard

it takes more TIME

more effort

it makes it obvious that we're not the expert/ we don't know everything

it's very uncomfortable

it takes a little bit of humility

if we discover there is a better way then we'll have to STOP doing it our current way and make the necessary changes.

and that is hard.

so, it is EASIER to just keep doing it the same way and not even rock the boat.

but again, let's ask ourselves - is this something that MATTERS? is it worth doing? then it's worth doing better right? if it really matters that much.

maybe the best question to ask ourselves in these moments when we want to bail on doing the hard work of figuring out a BETTER WAY is...

what's at stake if we don't find a better way?

innovation and all his friends

(you can read some of my earlier thoughts on innovation HERE & HERE.)

whether you realize it or not, innovation is vitally important to the world we live in. i would argue that it is foundational to this increasingly postmodern world.

and the NECESSITY for INNOVATION will only INCREASE, imho.

Some futurist experts say this about the way our world is changing:

“For the foreseeable future, information will be the business resource, and innovation the work.”

- Clarke & Crossland

factory jobs and technical skills used to be IT. that was the type of jobs everyone worked. those were the skills in demand.
now the world is very different. KNOWLEDGE WORK is king (information) and therefore INNOVATION is the skill that is required.

“Innovation is creativity in its working clothes. It has experimentation as a coworker and failure as a strategic partner."

did you catch that? Yes, innovation appears sexy from the outside looking in, but 2 key components to true innovation and creativity are EXPERIMENTATION and FAILURE! are you willing to be an innovator since it means those 2 will be your friends?

and let me be clear what i mean by innovation. Technology doesn’t guarantee innovation. it's just a helper. When i talk about innovation, i'm saying that only the practiced discipline of innovation will produce innovative results.

this is a discipline which requires carving out space to create. it's a discipline that by its very nature requires EXPERIMENTATION and FAILURE!

and if you're afraid of that or think there's another way, i thought this was an awesome "encouragement" from Henry Petroski:

“no one wants to learn by mistakes, but we cannot learn enough from success to go beyond the state of the art."

of course, we would like to be innovators without the hard work of EXPERIMENTATION and FAILURES, but it simply isn't possible. we can't experience one without the other.

While failure can be painful, innovative people and organizations EMBRACEthis pain.

simply put by Clarke and Crossland:

“If you want more innovation, allow more experiments.”

how many experiments (and therefore how much innovation) are you allowing?

my 2012 reading list

for the past several years i have posted my Reading List for the upcoming year.

this year my "reading list" will be a lot different in that much of it will be handed to me via required reading lists for my graduate classes. so i won't actually be personally choosing most of the books i read.
Over 20 books already that i've been required to read just for this 1st semester! at that rate i'll read over 60 books in required reading alone for school this year!
Instead of including those in this reading list, i'll attempt to keep them all up to date in my Visual lists on the right side of this blog = books i'm currently reading & books i recently finished. i usually try to write a little summary of what i thought of them too.

So, as you'll see below, i'm trying to keep my personal picks for a reading list to just over 10 for 2012.

+ I always reserve the right to pick up a different book & bump these off the list & insert the good/better stuff! There's a good chance a book will come out in 2012 that i will want to read, but below is my best attempt to keep me focused on what i need most.

here are just 10 or so i hope to read by my own choosing:

Naked Spirituality - Brain McLaren
He's probably my favorite author, so i try to read at least one book from him every year. this is his newest that i started reading last year and it has affected me "spiritually" maybe as much as any other book i've ever read. powerful. and i'm obviously reading it very slowly... trying to take it all in. most excited about this book.

Start Something That Matters - Blake Mycoskie
Trying to do this very thing in 2012 and thankful to learn from someone who did it recently and did it well.

Radical - David Platt
Very expectant. looking for this to shake me up even more. i don't think we can ever be radical enough, so i'm not scared in the least.

Entreleadership - Dave Ramsey
No secret i'm a big fan of Dave. As much for his leadership genius as his $ genius. thankful to have that leadership style in a book now. i've been called a "Ramsey-ite" so i'll let you know if i am on the leadership side as well.

Parenting Beyond Your Capacity - Reggie Joiner and Carey Niewhof
Been planning to read this book for years to help us better partner with parents at Ridge Church. now i'm reading it for 2 reasons.

Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard - Chip and Dan Heath
These guys wrote the best book i read in 2010 - Made to Stick. so if this one is half as good as that one i'll be elated.

The Power of Full Engagment: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal - Jim Loehr and Tony Schwarz
i carried this one around for about a month last year and never got started on it. need to read it this year!

Real Marriage: The Truth about Sex, Friendship, and Life Together - Mark & Grace Driscoll
Every year i read at least 1 book on marriage and 1 book on sex. This year i'm killing 2 birds with 1 stone + i know i'm pretty much guaranteed Driscoll will make me laugh.

How to Write a Great Business Plan - Harvard Business Review
In this process as well... figured i should try to learn how to do it right.

The Love Dare - Stephen Kendrick
Crystal and i are going to try this again in 2012.

The 17 Indispensable Laws of Teamwork - John Maxwell
Desperately want to master and leverage creating and sustaining great teams. almost finished with this book.

The Pocket Guide to Adulthood: 29 Things to Know Before You Turn 30 - Jason Boyett
really NEED to read this one this year! it's my last chance...

Holy Discontent - Bill Hybels
thinking and hoping it's much like Andy's Visioneering... just shorter and easier.

+ i know i'll be reading several more parenting books... just haven't picked them out yet. and i'm reading a few baby sleep & schedule books per Crystal's request. can't remember the names of them though?


ok, & below is another list of books i'll read this year, but they don't really "count" in the above list that i tried to keep to 10. BECAUSE they're either my 1 Fiction/fun book for the year, or an audio book, or a book i'll read in "waiting" time in shorter segments.

here are those extra 9 books i'll read this year:

What the Dog Saw - Malcolm Gladwell
The Grand Design - Stephen Hawking
A Briefer History of Time - Stephen Hawking
SImply Strategic Volunteers - Tony Morgan & Tim Stevens
Making It All Work - David Allen
Taste and See - John Piper
Knowing God - J.I. Packer
SuperFreakanomics - Levitt & Dubner
and last but not least...
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - J.K. Rowling

i would LOVE to know YOUR 2012 reading list AND any thoughts on mine above... have you read any books on my 2012 reading list and would you recommend them or tell me i'm wasting my time?

amazing people (repost)

(It's cool that even though i wrote and posted this over 2 years ago - January 19, 2010 - it is still exactly the same today. even more true i think. thankful for these amazing peeps...)

AMAZING PEOPLE

they're all around me. I'm nothing special, but I have really special people all around me.

that's the secret. There's no way we could do what we're doing without them. I'm so thankful.

God has done amazing things through Ridge Church and i am pumped about what i know He'll be doing through us in 2010... but it's not me and my talent and ability... it's the awesome peeps around me. They are so talented, passionate, and AMAZING!

I am humbled and honored to serve with them!

(off to a creative meeting with a handful of these peeps right now...)

Do you have any amazing peeps around you?

pas-sion

Pas-sion. noun. [pash-uhn] - "any powerful or compelling emotion or feeling"

i've been accused of being too passionate. i've been accused of having too much of this thing we call passion.

i take that as a compliment.

but sometimes this compliment meant as a negative can play tricks on me in the back of my mind and it could possibly cause me to hold back or play down my passion. i can think in my head "maybe i'm being too passionate?"

no more of that for me though. i'm gonna let it flow. i refuse to suppress the passion in me. i'm going to let it run wild.

because i believe that people HAVE to see your passion. they have to see it loud and clear. it can't be held back. so i don't wanna hold it back.

because...

People respond to passion. it demands a response from them. it may freak them out a little, but hopefully it inspires some similar passion in them.

People follow passion. i won't and i imagine no one will follow a "passionless" leader. not for long anyway. why would you?

People are pumped by passion. i can't think of many things that pump me up more than watching/listening to someone else who is passionate.

People NEED to see your passion. hopefully this should be obvious from the 3 above. but peeps need YOU to show your passion. don't hide it.

other people feed on your passion. let it out.

learning from the mastermind behind starbucks

we would all do well to take a page from Howard Schulz's book. Schulz was the mastermind behind Starbucks.

this was his mantra & i love it. the world would be different if many of us adopted it as our mantra as well:

care more than others think wise

risk more than others think safe

dream more than others think practical

expect more than others think possible

back to school (GCTS, Harvard, & a little flavor of Cambridge)

after a "short break" that has now lasted OVER 4 YEARS... i'm headed back to school to finish my Master's Degree.

My 1st class starts Monday. I'm currently a little over halfway through the degree. It's a Master of Arts in Leadership or a Master of Arts in Religion with the focus in Leadership... haven't quite figured out which i am technically doing because it's the exact same classes for both.

it's at the same seminary i started at = Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. i love that place and my time there so far has been awesome. It's actually located up in Boston, but there is a really nice campus here in Charlotte and the professors are amazing.

i've only got 9 classes left + a Thesis to write.
i'm going to try to be on the fast track and knock this thing out in just a little over a year by going full time this Spring, Summer, & Fall.

i'll actually take 1 or 2 of my remaining classes at Harvard up in Boston. Gordon-Conwell is in some type of partnership with Harvard that allows students from either school to take a certain number of classes at the other for their degree.
i'm definitely looking forward to sitting in a Harvard classroom.

i'm pretty pumped about some of the awesome classes and profs i'll have here at GCTS too.
For example, starting Monday i am in a class all week with a prof i'm really excited about. He is actually a long time Cambridge Professor in the PhD department! And he just comes to Gordon-Conwell to teach this class in his specialty... then heads back to Cambridge for the semester. should be awesome. never had a Cambridge prof before.

some more of my remaining classes include:
The Leader as Communicator (focus on casting vision & creating organizational culture)
Foundations for Leadership
Team and Team Building
Issues in Sexual Ethics and Bioethics
Managing the Non-profit Organization
Biblical Theology of Leadership
Managing Conflict
just to name a few.

i'd like to go ahead and make this clear. i don't really give a rip about a degree. a certificate with my name on it & some letters after it is worthless, imho.
trust me, the pursuit of a degree is SOOOO not why i'm subjecting myself to all these THOUSANDS of pages of reading, staying up late & getting up early working on school stuff, pulling all-nighters to write research papers, and spending a ridiculous amount of money on tuition.

so why go back?

the #1 reason that far outweighs all others = to grow, learn, improve, better myself, to be a better leader, and to hopefully gain tools that will help me on this world-changing mission i'm on...

#2 - to finish what i started.

#3 - to not waste what i've already done = half a degree. all that time, hard work, and MONEY.

#4 - my wife made me. she said now's the time to go back when Keira is so young and i'm not missing her soccer games or ballerina performances or whatever it is little girls do. this is pretty much my last & best chance.

so it's back to school time for me. gonna be a lot busier for a while, but i'll manage.
& hopefully i'll emerge at the end of this journey as a radically better leader. that's the goal.

push them from the very bottom of your soul

when you think of James Earl Jones you think of that AMAZING voice. right? that's a God-given GIFT of speaking right there. too bad i wasn't BORN with that.

but James Earl Jones wasn't born with it either. His family moved from a farm in Mississippi to Detroit when he was only 6. (thanks to Boyd Clark for this story, btw.) 
this move was pretty traumatic for him & it prompted a stuttering crisis for him. a BIG stuttering crisis.

he hardly spoke a word for 8 years!

did you catch that? from 6 to about 14 this kid hardly spoke! that's pretty hard core. probably not the kid who's at the top of your list of kids who will grow up to become great orators.

In his high school English class they all had an assignment to write an original poem and then present it in front of the class. BUT James Earl's stuttering was SO BAD that his teacher was going to let him SLIDE on the reciting it to the class part! i never had an English teacher like that :)

but the teacher also called him out a little saying that the poem was SO GOOD, he wondered if James really wrote it, or just copied it from somewhere?

here's what Jones wrote about that:

"My honor was at stake. Plagiarism was bad business. I had written every word of this poem myself... I was shaking as I stood up, cursing myself. I strained to get the words out, pushing from the bottom of my soul. I opened my mouth--and to my astonishment, the words flowed out smoothly, every one of them.

My classmates were amazed, not so much by the poem as by the performance."

it's hard to think of a more important lesson for a communicator or a leader that communicates to learn...

Make sure the words are yours.

    
Push them from the very bottom of your soul.

         
The performance will take care of itself.

winners quit all the time

i read a book a couple years ago that full on lines up with my philosophy on everything.

i was born with (maybe inherited) an ALL or NOTHING personality. my natural bent with anything in life is to go all in or not go at all. so i like what Seth Godin had to say about Vince Lombardi's famous statement:

“Quitters never win and winners never quit.” 

– Vince Lombardi. 

but Seth says:

* “Bad advice. Winners quit all the time. They just quit the right stuff at the right time.”

To sum up this whole book and my philosophy as simply as i can = Don't Quit or else Don't Start.

so, be sure you're going all the way when you start or else you're just wasting precious time, energy, resources, etc... but if you do realize you need to quit then do it ASAP!

here are a couple awesome lines from Seth's great little book called The Dip:

“Extraordinary benefits accrue to the tiny minority of people who are able to push just a tiny bit longer than most. Extraordinary benefits also accrue to the tiny majority with the guts to quit early and refocus their efforts on something new. In both cases it’s about being the best in the world. About getting through the hard stuff and coming out the other side.”

Quit the wrong stuff.

Stick with the right stuff.

Have the guts to do one or the other.

“Strategic quitting is the secret of successful organizations.”

“The stupid thing to do is to start, give it your best shot, waste a lot of time and money, and quit right in the middle of the Dip.”  

“If you’re going to quit, quit before you start.” 
* “Don’t play the game if you realize you can’t be the best in the world.”  

and i LOVED this part:

‘Never Quit’ = “What a spectacularly bad piece of advice. That ranks right up there with ‘Oh, that’s a funny dirty joke, let’s tell the teacher.’

Here is the advice that Lombardi and all these other peeps MEANT to give us = “never quit something with great long term potential just because you can’t deal with the stress of the moment.” Now that’s great advice!

“In order to get through the Dip [of the thing you're called to] you’ll need to quit everything else.”

ouch.

it's all about focus.
it's the 3 sport star who quits 2 sports he loves for the sake of the one he loves most and can be the best at.
it's the organization who quits 8 things they're doing well for the sake of the 1 thing they can do BEST.
and example after endless example...

what do YOU need to START?

& what do YOU need to QUIT?

a Good to Great TO DO list

Below is a TO DO List Jim Collins gave each of us at Catalyst '11. it is awesome if we follow it.  These won't make a lot of sense without reading my previous 4 posts or hearing Collins' talk.

1  Go HERE and run the Good to Great diagnostic on you, your team, and your organization. This is a vital evaluation process.

2  Answer these Questions = how many seats do you have on your bus and what is your plan to have 100% of those seats filled with the right people in 1 year?

3  WHO will you allow to mentor me? Build a personal board of directors.

4  Get your personal HEDGEHOG right before it's too late. (a Good to Great principle = the coming together of your passion, design, and how you can make a difference.)

5  Once you have your Hedgehog, set your 20 mile march and stick to it! (Collins set weekly time goals.) What is your organization's 20 mile march?

6  Fire at least 6 new bullets by the end of the year. Navigate uncertainty with bullets.

7  Turn off electronic gadgets at least 2 days every 2 weeks. now that is a biggie! (it's impossible to "be present" with your iPhone in hand.) we need to be focused and gadgets rob us of our focs.

8  STOP Doing List. "True disciplined action is not what we choose to do, but what we choose not to do." *maybe you find it kind of ironic to have an item on your to do list that says "have a stop doing list" ? maybe humorous, but vital.

9  Double your reach to people half your age ALWAYS  by changing your practices without changing your values.

10  Set a BHAG that makes you really useful. (big hairy audacious goal)

Which of the 10 TO DOs is most needed for you? which scares you the most to do?

creativity, innovation, & pioneering

i'm prepping to launch something. i'm going to pioneer something. it's a big grand vision. it could go splendidly awesome or it could be a complete bust. i have no idea.

so i perk up and pay special attention when gurus and experts like Jim Collins talk about STARTING something and about pioneering and innovation. (i perk up and listen when YOU talk about it too... promise.)

2 days ago i wrote about Collins' analogy for empirical creativity = fire bullets! and keep firing bullets until you hit the target. THEN shoot the cannon ball.

because if you fire the cannon ball 1st... *how many cannon balls can i fire with limited gun powder? (and that gun powder represents 100 different things)
SO, we need to test what we pioneer very carefully.

and fascinating thoughts around the whole idea of pioneering that i'd heard Jim say before...

*"Pioneering innovation is extremely important for society, but lethal for the innovator."

very encouraging words for someone prepping to do what i'm prepping to do. (psych. as the kids used to say.)

so being the pioneer on something is GOOD, but rarely works. the innovator dies off. but the thing may continue.

the thing is, i'm actually cool with that. i don't need my name on it. i'm gonna die off anyway. i'm more concerned that the mission continues.

which is good because 64% of pioneers "die" outright. i.e. - they don't see their innovation come through - although it does come through. (for example = the things Apple has "pioneered" failed for them. they were a bust. although that thing may be a success. the things Apple is successful with - they did not outright pioneer. interesting, eh?)

and we are ALL innovators. we are all creative. we create. we have ideas. some of us are even pioneers with that creativity.

BEFORE you try to argue with me and say you're not creative = think back to when you were 5 years old... we were all creatives when we were 5 years old! i promise you were. we were constantly creating when we were 5. it was natural.

somewhere along the way that maybe died off for you. it was suppressed by "the system" or by you personally. and now you're just disciplined but not creative.

back when we were 5 we were all creative but none of us were disciplined.

"Marrying creativity to discipline makes creativity come alive!"

- Jim Collins

and that is 1 of the greatest secrets i've ever heard. MARRY them. that's key. it's the only way. (i've got pages and pages of thoughts on this i just can't wait to drop out here.) What if SPACE for CREATING were built right into your 20 mile march? (wow is what.)

basically we need to marry the 5 year old US and the 25 or 35 or 45 year old US. disciplined in our creativity and creatively disciplined.

then there will be more innovation. more PROBLEMS being solved. the world will keep changing. there will be more PIONEERS.

and i promise - if the thing/mission you pioneer is WORTH DOING and IT succeeds, but you don't - it's ok. 

if it's worth doing then just do it.

straight butta

"straight butta" is what we used to call something back in the day that was just amazing. it was so smooth and "pimp" that only the phrase "straight butta" would suffice to describe it's awesomeness.

so this stuff below from Jim Collins' talk at Catalyst '11 a few weeks ago is straight butta. my last couple (and the next) blogs have been thoughts from that talk and these thoughts below are the random ones that don't really fit into a topic.
so the topic for these thougths is "straight butta" - because that's what they are.

ya feel me?

The signature of mediocrity is Chronic Inconsistency!
This is true when you look at areas of your life or organizations across the world. Chronic inconsistency (or i would be witty and say consistent inconsistency) can be found in the mediocre leaders and organizations everywhere you look.

Collins says that VALUES are what can remain consistent. only VALUES endure. therefore, the bottom line from his 1st book (which is really a SEQUEL to Good to Great), Built to Last, is "Preserve the Core AND Stimulate Progress."

*which is what missional churches and contextualizing "missionaries" have been trying to do for hundreds of years.

The KEY is understanding the difference between practices and values. Change 1, never the other.
never changing values but ever changing practices can make something enduring and great!
wow - that feels like a direct address to churches & missional people. it feels as though it applies to us twice as much as business organizations. unfortunately, we're pretty bad at it.

Collins once asked the famed Peter Drucker (who happened to be Collins' mentor) which of his 26 books he was most proud of? - Drucker answered, "The next one." [i love that]

Andy Stanley interviewed Collins (again) at the end of his talk. he mainly talked about the difference between RIGOROUS and RUTHLESS cultures. especially as it relates to people in the seats on the bus (in our orgs) / firing people who don't need to be on our bus/ moving people who are in the wrong seat.
A rigorous culture is all about service to the cause. We make big RIGOROUS decisions for the sake of the cause - the sake of the mission. we should ask the question "what REALLY is compassion in this situation?" many times, firing is the most compassionate (yet hardest) thing we could do.
because if someone is failing in a seat, they're not in their Hedgehog (a Good to Great idea) - so helping them is getting them out of that seat. fast.

well, i wrote a lot more random thoughts into this "straight butta" article, BUT they just developed into blogs all by themselves. so, tomorrow i'll share some more "straight butta" Collins had to share on CREATIVITY.

3 traits in great leaders

those 3 traits of great leaders (according to Jim Collins) are:

1  FANATIC DISCIPLINE

2  EMPIRICAL CREATIVITY

3  PRODUCTIVE PARANOIA

you can catch up on the 1st trait in yesterday's post HERE. + you have to read that 1st post to understand the framework story used to show these 3 traits = the 2 teams and their leaders racing to the South Pole.

2  EMPIRICAL CREATIVITY

When most leaders are unsure or in a time of chaos - they don't know what to do so they just do what others are doing/have done in the past. that's our natural response as average and even good leaders.

great leaders figure out how to marry their creativity with empirical data = combine their creativity with what is PROVEN to work (not just what others are doing/have done). make sense?

they work hard to figure out what WORKS. maybe it's not the most popular method... in fact it's probably not or else we wouldn't be in the time of chaos or season of being unsure.

i would prefer to call this CREATIVE PRAGMATISM. Jim's phrase sounds smarter, but mine makes more sense to me.

it's the realization that i am NOT smart enough to outsmart this, but there are people with empirical, practical evidence.

and then you make your move based on this empirical, creative pragmatism.

and looking in from the outside - the moves these leaders make may appear to be rash, crazy, BOLD decisions... but they are simply creative decisions based on the empirical evidence of what works.

and i LOVE Collins' analogy around this - it is EXTREMELY relevant to me in this moment of my life. he said it's like a ship back in the day at war on the open seas with another ship.

they can straight up fire a couple cannon balls to blow up the other ship -- but if their aim is off just a few degrees... and they miss... well, they're out of gun powder. you only have enough "powder" to fire a few cannon balls.

so, the better way is to fire bullets. test shots. get the right trajectory and then fire the cannon ball with all that gun powder you still have left.

try with a little. and again. and again. then you hit the mark... THEN go big. that's empirical creativity.

3  PRODUCTIVE PARANOIA

in an uncertain world you really do have to be prepared for what you can't predict.

These great leaders are always sitting around wondering "what if" -- while channeling that energy into being PRODUCTIVE!

(most of us do just the opposite = paranoia & "what if" wondering paralyzes us and we do nothing.)

the team who actually made it to the South Pole put out 10 mile wide black markers at every depot stop! and you better believe they didn't miss a single one. THAT is productive paranoia.

(the other team just put a flag on top of the depot itself. they all died.)

some famous guy, CEO of a company - can't even remember who, but he had an awesome quote = "We predicted 11 of the last 3 recessions." = again, THAT is productive paranoia. that company was OK in every single recession. they're still doing fine. (wish i could remember who it was?)

they were being (some might say) OVERLY paranoid. but it was productive paranoia, so they put plans in place and they have been OK in every single recession.

so, the GREAT leaders have Fanatic Discipline, Empirical Creativity, and Productive Paranoia. 

i have a lot to still be developed in me. how are YOU doing with these 3 in YOUR leadership?

tomorrow i'll post more leadership takeaways from Collins & on Thursday i'll post the 10 point TO DO list he gave all of us!

20 mile march'n it again...

One of my last posts before Keira was born was this below - my thoughts from Jim Collins' awesome talk at Catalyst 2011. i was going to post the rest of my thoughts on it the next week, but Keira had other plans. that was about 3 weeks ago now! so i'm reposting the 1st one below and i'll follow up with the rest tomorrow.

diving back into my 20 mile marches myself, so this is good for me to dive back into & keep writing tomorrow...

when it comes to greatness there are 3 inherent traits that set GREAT leaders apart from the others...
& These are according to Jim Collins' STELLAR talk at Catalyst '11 last week. (and probably from his newest book Greatness is a Choice)

i'll just give you those big 3 traits straight up & then explain what he was talking about as we go:

1  FANATIC DISCIPLINE

2  EMPIRICAL CREATIVITY

3  PRODUCTIVE PARANOIA

The story and framework he chose to build this talk around was a study of the 2 teams who were in a race to make it to the South Pole back in the early 1900s. the leader whose team made it exemplified each of these 3 traits. the leader whose team all DIED did not.

each leader and each team faced the SAME environment and the SAME circumstances... one made it and one DIED. these 3 traits made the difference... and they make the difference in a long line of Great vs. Good leaders and Great vs. Good organizations.

Here is a little more context and discussion around these 3:

1  FANATIC DISCIPLINE

Jim told a (made up) story as a GREAT example of this trait. Let's say there are 2 guys who are going to walk from the California coast all the way across the country to the East coast of Maine. that's a long walk. they both set out on the same day.

The 1st guy sets a pace for himself of 20 miles per day. he is committed to his 20 mile march. he is fanatically disciplined about it. the 1st day he walks 20 miles. the 2nd day he walks 20 miles. the 3rd day he completes 20 miles and is tempted to keep going... he feels good, the sun is still up, he can probably walk 40. but nope. he sticks to the 20 mile march. he hits Colorado and there is snow all over the ground and he wakes up early and wants to sleep in inside his tent... but he does his 20 mile march. no matter what. fanatic discipline.

he makes it to Maine.

The other guy just gets after it. he walks 40 miles the 1st day. then blazes ahead for 57 miles on the 2nd day! he's dead tired on the 3rd day so he just sleeps in and lays around all day knowing that he can make up the ground later. he hits the snow in Colorado exhausted and takes a 3 week break to let the weather clear up. he hits the trail again and does 60 miles, but can barely walk the next day. he never makes it to Maine.

the team who made it to the South Pole had a 20 mile march and their leader made them stick to it no matter what.

THAT is fanatic discipline.

and that is what i need. 

for those of you familiar with Good to Great, this is a repackaging of the FLYWHEEL principle.

my main takeaway = i desperately need to KNOW what my 20 mile march is. i'm going to spend the time and the hard effort to land on the right 20 mile march for every area of my life and then i'm going to freaking hit it every single time... no matter what!

we'll talk about the other 2 traits in the coming days, but for now - anybody know their 20 mile march?

20 mile march

when it comes to greatness there are 3 inherent traits that set GREAT leaders apart from the others...
& These are according to Jim Collins' STELLAR talk at Catalyst '11 last week. (and probably from his newest book Greatness is a Choice)

i'll just give you those big 3 traits straight up & then explain what he was talking about as we go:

1  FANATIC DISCIPLINE

2  EMPIRICAL CREATIVITY

3  PRODUCTIVE PARANOIA

The story and framework he chose to build this talk around was a study of the 2 teams who were in a race to make it to the South Pole back in the early 1900s. the leader whose team made it exemplified each of these 3 traits. the leader whose team all DIED did not.

each leader and each team faced the SAME environment and the SAME circumstances... one made it and one DIED. these 3 traits made the difference... and the make the difference in a long line of Great vs. Good leaders and Great vs. Good organizations.

Here is a little more context and discussion around these 3:

1  FANATIC DISCIPLINE

Jim told a (made up) story as a GREAT example of this trait. Let's say there are 2 guys who are going to walk from the California coast all the way across the country to the East coast of Maine. that's a long walk. they both set out on the same day.

The 1st guy sets a pace for himself of 20 miles per day. he is committed to his 20 mile march. he is fanatically disciplined about it. the 1st day he walks 20 miles. the 2nd day he walks 20 miles. the 3rd day he completes 20 miles and is tempted to keep going... he feels good, the sun is still up, he can probably walk 40. but nope. he sticks to the 20 mile march. he hits Colorado and there is snow all over the ground and he wakes up early and wants to sleep in inside his tent... but he does his 20 mile march. no matter what. fanatic discipline.

he makes it to Maine.

The other guy just gets after it. he walks 40 miles the 1st day. then blazes ahead for 57 miles on the 2nd day! he's dead tired on the 3rd day so he just sleeps in and lays around all day knowing that he can make up the ground later. he hits the snow in Colorado exhausted and takes a 3 week break to let the weather clear up. he hits the trail again and does 60 miles, but can barely walk the next day. he never makes it to Maine.

the team who made it to the South Pole had a 20 mile march and their leader made them stick to it no matter what.

THAT is fanatic discipline.

and that is what i need. 

for those of you familiar with Good to Great, this is a repackaging of the FLYWHEEL principle.

my takeaway = i desperately need to KNOW what my 20 mile march is. i'm going to spend the time and the hard effort to land on the right 20 mile march for every area of my life and then i'm going to freaking hit it every single time... no matter what!

we'll talk about the other 2 traits in the coming days, but for now - anybody know their 20 mile march?

greatness

One of the 1st lines in Good to Great  that wrestles you down and grabs your attention is:

“Greatness is not a matter of circumstance.  Greatness is largely a matter of conscious choice."

That is what i am talking about. that is echoes of my Father & Grandfather from years past.

and that is one of the lines Jim Collins kicked off his stellar Catalyst '11 talk with last week. for me, it was the best talk of the whole conference.

a lot of it was great reminders after reading Good to Great a few years ago, but those in-your-face reminders have kicked my butt back into gear. but some of it was also reframed in different ways - probably from his newest book Greatness is a Choice. (that i can't wait to devour, btw.)

so, back to that statement. "Greatness is not a matter of circumstance. Greatness is largely a matter of conscious choice."

we can see that from the pure data/evidence. because if 2 organizations are in all the same circumstances and 1 stays good while the other goes to great... obviously something they did made the difference.

WHAT makes that difference though? why do some leaders and organizations thrive in chaos? it is NOT what happens to you; it's the choices, actions, and disciplines you choose.

the rest of his talk was about a lot of those choices, actions, and disciplines that makes a great leader. 

and it was all pure gold. i'll be breaking it down and processing my takeaways from it here at renown the next few days, but for now i'll just leave you with another sliver...

It all starts with PEOPLE.

Get the right people on the bus. that's the famous chapter/phrase from Good to Great. it's all about the right people on the bus and then having those people in the right seat. So...

Try to change every WHAT question to a WHO question.

and that's just 1 of the 5 principles that cause leaders and organizations to go from good to great, but i think if we rigorously acted on just this one... wow. there would be a world of difference.

and this may seem off topic but it was a simple/profound/brilliant quote in context. because a lot of times we make bad people decisions... but we have good intentions... our hearts are good...

"Bad decisions made with good intentions are still bad decisions."

yep. right on Jimmy. more coming soon. and it's all the really good stuff. i'm saving it.

what do YOU think so far?

dave ramsey's talk part 2

this is part 2 of my takeaways from Dave Ramsey's talk at Catalyst 2011 last week. you can read part 1 HERE.

the continuation of Dave's Core philosophies for his organization

5 Things that Caused Us to Win

3  Slow and Steady Matters 

do not let your pace go faster than your resources.

i love this simple line of thinking that i need to be reminded of SO often = "Either God is gonna send me the money to do the deal... or i'm not gonna do the deal." simple as that. i needed that.

this principle is echoes the children's story of The Tortoise and the Hare. we live in a culture full of Hares, but every time i read the book the Tortoise wins the race. there's something to that.

i'm definitely a Hare though. trying to sprint in this marathon. i don't know what it takes to remind myself and discipline myself to be slow and steady.

nothing happens fast. START today, but it's a marathon. just go at it slow and steady every day. and then one day...

4  Financial Principles in Your Organization Matter

Dave said, "you didn't think i was going to talk all this time and not mention money at least once did you?"

to be honest, i was still writing about #s 1-3 and pretty much missed everything he said about this. just being honest.

5  A Higher Calling Matters

if we're in it for something beyond the money then that makes a big difference in our org. we get a date on our tombstone that we're born and a date on our tombstone when we die. hopefully mine looks something like 1982 - 2080.

Dave repeated a question about this that could seem cliche, but in context it was not:

"what are you going to do with the dash?"

more great stuff from Catalyst 2011 on the way.