Nuggets #24

An Unstoppable Force by Erwin McManus
Do Not Pass Go!
The fourth step in the process of effective transition is energizing the possibilities.

Many leaders make the mistake of beginning with what rather than why, so the what is quickly rejected. Sometimes the reason we as leaders do this is because we've thought about the why so much that we think it's obvious to everyone.

It is when we move from the strategic to the tactical that the people of God can be most powerfully unleashed.

The Creative Enterprise
As tightly as a leader must grasp the purpose of the church, he must equally relinquish his grip on the creative process of how the church accomplishes the mission of Christ. Too many times, we confuse a call to leadership as a monopoly on the creative process. Just as some churches are unwilling to follow genuine spiritual leadership, some pastors find it difficult to entrust and empower God's people.

...perhaps our most important role is to be able to identify a great idea when we hear it.

For creativity to flourish, it has to be nurtured and affirmed so that people get a clear sense of whether their ideas are genuinely valued. You can energize an environment in which the best ideas emerge by allowing questions, affirming ideas that are not your own, and asking questions rather than giving answers. Perhaps most important of all is inviting people into the process before you get too close.

This is so true. I like the line about pastors finding it difficult to entrust and empower God's people. This is also true with staff and ministry leaders who haven't been trained in how to do this. Sometimes it is a mindset, but sometimes it is a lack of knowledge.

When it's a mindset, I think fear and pride can play a role in it. It may be that these leaders are afraid of losing their position in the church, so they don't encourage others to succeed and rise above them. The best thing to do is try and out-position yourself. In the corporate world we call this succession management. You will be more valuable to the organization the more things you can do, the more flexible and willing you are to learn new things. If you are the only person who can do what you do, and you leave, the organization suffers, and that is selfish.

In my corporate experience, the company would identify individuals (usually MBAs who played golf, who were young, good-looking, and never challenged the way things were done) who were willing and flexible and would take them through a variety of different jobs, rotating them around the organization. This gave them a great exposure, not only to business processes but also to individuals, from vice-presidents to secretaries. After several years of this, they got to decide what area they wanted to work in most, and that's where they landed. But they could also be picked up and moved anywhere else at anytime that was needed. This reduced the cost to the company of hiring and training another high paid MBA. Everyone just rotated around. The lessons learned from this experience and exposure were wide and quick.

So, the moral of the story is to develop the leaders around you and put yourself out of your current position. But you need leaders who are not territorial, or fearful, or prideful. You need mature individuals and a plan to carry this out. The organization will be much stronger and more protected from people leaving abruptly.