In the country of the blind the one-eyed man is king.

There is a difference between being obeyed and being followed. You are not a leader simply because people do what you say.

It is much safer to obey than to rule.

The longer I am out of office, the more infallible I appear to myself.

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.

Never tell people 'how' to do things. Tell them 'what' to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.

Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way.

NAPOLEON: What shall we do with this soldier, Guiseppe? Everything he says is wrong. GUISEPPE: Make him a general, Excellency, and then everything he says will be right.

Amid a multitude of projects, no plan is devised.

The tough part of a preacher's job is that the congregation don't really know what they want, but they know for certain what they don't want.

One seldom sees a monument to a committee.

The leader is the example, not the exception.

Let's Imagine - It's time to elect a world leader, and your vote counts. Here's the scoop on three leading candidates. Candidate A: + Associates with ward healers and consults with astrologists. + He's had two mistresses. + He chain smokes and drinks 8 to 10 martinis a day. Candidate B: + Was kicked out of office twice. + Sleeps until noon. + Used opium in college. + Drinks a quart of brandy every evening. Candidate C: + Is a decorated war hero. + He's a vegetarian + Doesn't smoke, + Drinks an occasional beer + Hasn't had any illicit affairs. Which of these candidates is your choice? You don't really need any more information, do you? Candidate A is Franklin D. Roosevelt Candidate B is Winston Churchill Candidate C is Adolph Hitler

Not Reading Pitino is a Choice by Joe Lavin -- http://joelavin.com Let me just say up-front that I like Boston Celtic basketball coach Rick Pitino. He is one of the best basketball coaches around, but, Coach, I have just one small request. Stop writing the books. Please. Pitino's Success is a Choice is another in a string of sports/business books which include Pat Riley's The Winner Within, Phil Jackson's Sacred Hoops, and Bill Parcells' Finding a Way to Win. These coaches are no longer content to write merely about the X's and O's of sports. No, instead, they have a more important agenda. These books are about how to succeed in life, how to motivate the workforce, and how lessons learned from the world of sports can be applied to the world of business. This is clearly unfortunate. Think about it. Do you really want your boss to use a coach as a role model? "No, TWO-SIDED, you @#$%!!!! What the @#$% were you thinking you @#$%ing moron? Get back to your @#$%ing desk! Tammy, go in for Bob at the photocopier, and don't you @#$%ing screw up either, or I'll ship your ass outta here so fast you won't know what the @#$% hit you!" Well, I suppose coaches do more than just yell. They also teach. "Bob, you gotta work on this photocopying. It's dragging the whole office down. I want you to stay after work and practice the fundamentals, okay? Here make 500 copies of this collated on 3- hole paper. And if you get it right, then maybe I'll let you photocopy for real." "Okay, Coach." Something tells me that if enough supervisors take lessons from coaches, we'll probably all turn into Latrell Sprewells. But the real problem is this: the lessons learned from the world of sports just can't be applied to the real world. (You remember the real world, Coach. You know, that complex thing where people don't play for a living.) The real world and sports have nothing in common. It would be just as efficient to have an accountant write a book about basketball. "Chapter Six: How accounts payable knowledge can be applied to the execution of the fast break." One of Pitino's favorite themes is the importance of motivation, and I have to hand it to him. He is an impressive motivator. After all, he somehow managed to motivate a publisher into publishing this crappy book in the first place. That right there is a major motivational coup in itself. But I still don't understand what he can teach us about motivation. Just because Rick Pitino can motivate a seven foot basketball player who has been dreaming of the NBA all his life doesn't mean he can motivate some slacker in the mail room. "Come on. Let's win one for the team." simply won't cut it in the mail room. Sure, there may be a few Sprewells and Rodmans in the NBA, but for the most part NBA players are only upset when they are not allowed to do their job. "Look, Coach, I'm a much better copier than Tammy. You've got to put me back on the machine. I've earned it." is not something you'll ever hear in the office. Trust me. But then again, Coach Pitino wouldn't know about job malaise. Its very notion is completely alien to him. Here's a man who clearly loves his job. He is constantly babbling about staying late after work, working the weekends, and preparing for the next day's work the night before. And while at work, all the other distractions of life must be ignored. "An athlete. . . wouldn't think of showing up for an eight o'clock game at seven fifty-five. . . . What you should be doing is arriving at work a half an hour earlier and getting all of your social conversations out of the way, getting your newspaper read and getting your coffee poured, so that when the workday starts you'll be ready. . . . When the workday is in progress that should be where all your energy is focused." It's a lovely plan, but you have to wonder how many others will be at work a half hour early every day. "Hey, where is everyone? I have to get my social conversations out of the way before the workday is in progress. Guys?" Even when you do succeed, Pitino won't let you relax. This is the same man who held a meeting with his coaches at seven in the morning the day after his Kentucky team won the national championship. Hard work is not only the impetus of his system. It may also be the reward. Still, if you follow his "ten steps to overachieving in business and life," Pitino firmly believes you can accomplish practically anything. You can lose weight. You can grab that promotion. You can motivate lazy teenagers. ("You know the type: poor grades, earrings or noserings, dyed hair.") Hell, you can even write wise ass attacks on popular sports figures like Coach Pitino. But, of course, successful wise ass attacks don't just come overnight. You have to earn your success through hard work, putting in those extra hours so that your wise ass attack on Coach Pitino can be the best wise ass attack on Coach Pitino ever. And so as I reach the end of this article, we should remember that in wise ass attacks -- just as in basketball -- the time to put up your best effort is at the end. Sure, there may be more pressure writing the conclusion, but I know I cannot be afraid of that pressure. Instead, I must thrive on it. Yes, it's time to put my best foot forward and work extra hard to create an absolute zinger of an ending, an ending that's so completely entertaining and informative that -- Aw, screw it. I think I'll just go grab a beer instead. Wanna join me? _________ Copyright 1999 by Joe Lavin

"Market to the elite, and eat with the masses. But market to the masses, and eat with the elite!"

MAJOR U.S. RESEARCH UNIVERSITY DISCOVERS NEW ELEMENT!! The heaviest element known to science was recently discovered by investigators at a major U.S. research university. The element, tentatively named Administratium, has no protons or electrons and thus has an atomic number of 0. However, it does have 1 neutron, 125 assistant neutrons, 75 vice neutrons, and 111 assistant vice neutrons. This gives it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together by a force that involves the continuous exchange of meson-like particles called morons. Since it has no electrons, Administratium is inert. However, it can be detected chemically as it impedes every reaction it comes in contact with. According to the discoverers, a minute amount of Administratium causes one reaction to take over four days to complete when it would have normally occurred in less than one second. Administratium has a normal half-life of approximately three years, at which time it does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which assistant neutrons, vice neutrons, and assistant vice neutrons exchange places. Some studies have shown that the atomic mass actually increases after each reorganization. Research at other laboratories indicates that Administratium occurs naturally in the atmosphere. It tends to concentrate at certain points such as government agencies, large corporations, and universities. If can usually be found in the newest, best appointed, and best maintained buildings. Scientists point out that Administratium is known to be toxic at any level of concentration and can easily destroy any productive reaction where it is allowed to accumulate. Attempts are being made to determine how Administratium can be controlled to prevent irreversible damage, but results to date are not promising. Appolog

We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation in life by re- organizing. A wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization.

You must get involved to have an impact. No one is impressed with the won-loss record of the referee.

Dakota tribal wisdom says that when you discover you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount. Business, however, pursues other strategies with respect to dead horses: 1. Buy a stronger whip. 2. Change riders. 3. Explain that "This is the way we have always ridden this horse." 4. Appoint a committee to study the horse. 5. Visit other sites to see how they ride dead horses. 6. Increase the standards required to ride dead horses. 7. Appoint an action team to revive the dead horse. 8. Implement training sessions to increase our riding ability. 9. Evaluate the state of dead horses in today's environment. 10. Simply declare "This horse is not dead." 11. Hire contractors to ride the dead horse. 12. Harness several dead horses together for increased speed. 13. Convince others that "No horse is too dead to beat." 14. Provide additional funding to increase the horse's performance. 15. Complete a cost analysis to see if contractors can ride the horse cheaper. 16. Purchase a product to make dead horses run faster. 17. Adopt a position that the horse is "better, faster and cheaper" dead. 18. Form a quality circle to find uses for dead horses. 19. Revisit the performance requirements for horses. 20. Explain that the horse was procured with cost as an independent variable. 21. Promote the dead horse to a supervisory position.

ROBERT CLINTON ON LEADERSHIP Robert Clinton has spent a major part of his life studying, writing, and teaching about leadership, especially biblical and ministerial leadership. Two of his books, The Making of a Leader and Connecting, are essential when reading about leadership and mentoring. In December 1999, Clinton participated in a Leadership Network sponsored forum on leadership development and after the forum responded to a series of questions we posed on leadership. EXPLORER: 20-25 years ago we didn't talk about leadership or pastors as leaders. How has that interest developed? CLINTON: Secular society has had a lot of influence on talking about leadership. Early on in the '60s there was a real thrust toward the manager, which is one form of leadership. The whole concept of management by objectives and doing job descriptions for people so we know how to hold them accountable swept over from the secular world into the parachurch world, not as much in the church world. Then I think the culture itself was talking more about leadership, and that influenced the '80s. In the mid-'80s we had major leaders fall, leaders that everybody knew and it just demolished confidence in leadership. It's been particularly devastating in the Christian world because you expected more from them not to fall. So leadership became a focus. At the same time, beginning in the early '80s giftedness became important, and when you start studying spiritual gifts, you begin to recognize that certain people have certain kind of gifts and those people lead. EXPLORER: What's your definition of leadership? CLINTON: A leader is a person of God-given capacity and God-given responsibility to influence specific groups of people towards God's purposes. In some sense all people are leaders as they use their gifts, but the difference in that and what I'm talking about is responsibility to God for the people. They have a burden for it and they're going to answer to God for it. They influence. That's the dominant thing, not their position. EXPLORER: From your observation of churches that are doing an effective job of developing leaders, what are some common elements regardless of their denomination or size? CLINTON: One, they're intentional about it. They have pools from which to select, some way of finding out who in the pool should be selected. Most of them have some kind of training process they send people through. They have some sort of structure for doing it but in churches that are developing leaders, they can immediately put the training into application. In some, not all, mentoring is important. They have personal relationships, small groups, sometimes mentoring in a group context or individual mentoring. That's the dominant way that people are most effectively trained. EXPLORER: What's different now about skill sets for pastoral leaders than say ten years ago? CLINTON: In the United States in the last 15 years, multi-ethnicity or cross-cultural understanding is the major difference. We have to be much more culturally sensitive to lots of things such as structure, how we operate with people, and our congregation. Another one that leaders have to know something about now, which many of them do not, is change. How can we implement things in our church? In the old model you just did it. You told people and they did it. Some people came along and some got off the bus. In the future, people are going to have to know more about how to lead change and how to bridge into it, how to lead people into it so that when change happens, they can get ownership and less trauma. A third thing is they've got to learn how to develop leaders. Senior pastors on the whole don't develop their staffs. They have staff meetings. The staff has programs that they are running and report on. They pray together. They love each other, but they don't think about developing enough leaders. How do I train people to do what I do as opposed to how do I do it? EXPLORER: Why is it so hard for pastors to make the shift from a doer to a developer of people, or a doer to an equipper of others? CLINTON: I think it is because of the models they are taught and have seen. People basically teach as they were taught and operate as they have seen others operate. Most were not taught about developing leaders. They learned exegesis, homiletics, and philosophy rather than people skills. EXPLORER: We talked about new skills of recent years, but are there skills that are essential to being effective in the future? CLINTON: This is not a skill but an attitude that will result in skills. It is adopting the concept of learning posture. If you don't have a learning posture, you're not going to make it because things are changing and you've got to be able to learn. What you learn isn't as important as how to learn. People have to have a learning posture in order to be flexible about learning what's needed as situations change. Also, leaders in our culture, which is an egalitarian culture, are going to have to learn more about how to operate in a participative team context without losing their ability to make decisions as leaders. EXPLORER: Can you unpack that a little bit more? It seems that many pastors talk team, verbally value team, but they can't build a team or operate as a team. CLINTON: That's true or at least not a consensus model. I don't think a consensus model is a good model because one person can control everything. Basically what you want is one among many, and the leader's right to countermand decisions of the many sometimes. A wise leader will make decisions that generally flow with the team but there will be times when the leader will say, we're going to go this way anyway. You need a combination of that but there has to be a sense of ownership and participation at both levels. EXPLORER: What trips up most leaders? CLINTON: Few leaders finish well. The ones that don't finish well predominantly lose it in the middle game, not in the end game. In looking at leaders who don't finish well, I have identified six barriers that stop them. One is pride. There is a proper pride in recognizing who you are and operating out of what God's done for you, but there is also the danger of an inordinate pride, a pridefulness. Abuse of power is another. It happens when leaders operate unjustly or unfairly with people or because of their position and they start taking privileges or they influence people wrongly. A third one is lack of integrity with finances. That includes everything you can think of, embezzling, using funds that were earmarked for something else, not good accounting. Family issues, all the way from divorce or dysfunctional relationships between husband and wife or children, are a fourth barrier. Sexual issues are the fifth barrier and I'm not talking about simply adulterous affairs. I'm talking pornography and other sexually related issues. The last barrier is plateauing. Some plateauing is good. If you've been through something intense, it allows you to take a step back but over the long haul, you've got to move on and off the plateau.

Idea Summit Rolf Smith has spent a career thinking about how people think. Now, he is helping people at some of the world's most powerful organizations to generate big ideas -- and to rethink their whole approach to creativity. by Anna Muoio photographs by Sam Jones from FC issue 31, page 150 "This is not a meeting. This is not a training session. This is not an exercise," declares Rolf Smith, who is standing before the Face 2005 Team -- 22 chemical engineers, biologists, and project leaders from Procter & Gamble Co. with a mandate to develop new products that will redefine the future of cosmetics. "This is an expedition. And there will be no whining. No sniveling. No excuses." If Smith, 59, speaks with military authority, that's because he spent 24 years in the U.S. Air Force. His military career has included working with the Electronic Security Command, becoming an expert in artificial intelligence, and launching the air force's first Office of Innovation. ( Indeed, by the time Smith retired from the air force in 1987, after declining an assignment at the Pentagon, he was known throughout the ranks as "Colonel Innovation." ) But Smith doesn't just talk the military talk. He walks the walk. His baggy, khaki-colored cargo pants are zero fashion and all function. The dozen pockets of his safari vest are filled with gear. As flute music from the Bolivian Andes plays in the background, Smith paces around a room that's cluttered with tents, backpacks, and climbing ropes. Outside, a narrow path stretches toward the Potomac River. The P&G people are puzzled -- and on edge. They are about to embark on a long, arduous, and potentially rewarding expedition. A Thinking Expedition. And Rolf Smith is their no-nonsense guide. "Please take off your watches," he instructs, "and place them in this basket." "Give up our watches?" a few mutter. "You've got to be kidding." He isn't kidding: "We will return them to you in five days." The genuinely exciting news about the new world of business is that there is more room for creativity than ever. Smaller and smaller groups of smart people can do bigger and bigger things. Just ask the people who developed the first Netscape browser when they were kids just out of college, or the pair of Stanford graduate students who started Yahoo! as a way to postpone writing their PhD dissertations. Now the sobering news: You're only as good as your last great idea. The half-life of any innovation is shorter than ever. People, teams, and companies are feeling the heat to think up new products, services, and business models. What's the reward for one round of successful innovation? Even greater pressure to revisit your success, and to unleash yet another round of innovation. That's precisely what these 22 P&G employees from Hunt Valley, Maryland are facing. They are part of P&G's high-stakes effort, dubbed Organization 2005, whose goal is to double the company's revenue ( to $70 billion ) by that year. Cathy Pagliaro, 34, an energetic associate director for P&G's cosmetics-product-development department and the woman responsible for launching this expedition, explains the challenge that her group faces: "Our CEO, Durk Jager, has declared that Organization 2005 is about three things: stretch, innovation, and speed. The challenge for our small group is to help make those words a reality. My department has a charter to do new and different things to help fulfill our revenue goal. But to do that, we can't think about things the way they've been thought about inside P&G for the past 162 years. The only way we can change is if we start to think differently. I don't know exactly where that will take us, but I do know that it looks different from where we are now." Rolf Smith's job is to help the team begin to think differently -- and to turn what can feel at times like a crushing burden into a thrilling ( if exhausting ) intellectual adventure. Through his Virtual Thinking Expedition Co., based in Estes Park, Colorado, Smith has guided teams from some of the country's largest organizations -- IBM, DuPont, Ford, AT&T -- on expeditions driven by the human desire for a sense of adventure in the pursuit of the next big thing. "Americans instinctively understand the concept of an expedition," says Smith. "The history of the world is built on one expedition after another. It is part of our makeup and our psyche." A Thinking Expedition combines creative problem solving with challenging outdoor experiential learning -- similar to an Outward Bound boot camp for the mind. "It's an accelerated unlearning process," Smith explains. "The days are intense, full, and demanding. There are no scheduled meals, no scheduled breaks. We deliberately design the expedition to push people out of their 'stupid zone' -- a place of mental and physical normalcy -- so that they can start to think differently, explore what they don't know, and discover answers to mission-critical problems." To really grasp the design of a Thinking Expedition, you first have to understand how Smith himself thinks about thinking and change. If you want different results from the creative process, he argues, you have to do things differently. Before you can do things differently, you have to think differently. To think differently, he adds, you first have to think about the way you think. The capacity to think about your thinking is what Smith calls a "third-order mind shift." It may sound like semantic gymnastics, but Smith believes it's a fundamental ingredient of creative breakthroughs. "Metacognition is the first step in the process of change," Smith argues. "But to take this step, individuals or organizations first have to overcome a major obstacle -- an overwhelming fear of thinking." If you listen carefully to Smith's ideas about how companies can prosper in this change-or-die environment, you realize that he almost never summons the two words that are used incessantly by every other guru in his field: "creativity" and "innovation." "Among businesspeople, I've discovered that the word 'creativity' can derail a conversation in one second flat," he says. "It's too touchy-feely. It isn't about results. In the air force, I learned that the word 'innovation' scares people. It implies too dramatic a change -- the kind of change that threatens to leave people behind." So Smith developed a different way of thinking ( and talking ) about the nature of change and the process of unleashing new ideas. He explained those ideas in a book, "The 7 Levels of Change" ( Summit Publishing Group, 1997 ). The book's central proposition is deceptively simple. Although not all change is the same, there is one common element -- thinking. When you break down the process of thinking into a manageable number of steps, you reduce the perceived risks associated with change. These seven levels of thinking, Smith is quick to stress, require seven corresponding levels of action. "Being creative is when you think about your thinking," Smith says. "Being innovative is when you act on your ideas." Level One is effectiveness -- doing the right things. Level Two is efficiency -- doing things right. Level Three is improving -- doing the right things better. Level Four is cutting -- doing away with things. Level Five is copying -- doing things other people are doing. Level Six is different -- doing things no one else is doing. And Level Seven is impossible -- doing things that can't be done. Smith's goal for every Thinking Expedition is to move a team along this continuum. Smith has incorporated another crucial piece of his worldview into Thinking Expeditions. Breakthrough ideas, he believes, come from the edge -- that uncomfortable point at which levels of stress, tension, and exhaustion are pushed beyond the comfort zone. "People are more creative when they're on the edge," explains Smith, who often works with teams well into the early-morning hours, guiding them into new creative territory. "People like to complain that they don't think well when they're tired or hungry. I take those people aside and tell them, 'That's the whole point. We don't want you to think well. We want you to think differently!' " Don't Clean Up This Mess! "You are not who you were yesterday," Smith tells the members of the P&G team, who are now outfitted in safari vests with the logo "Think expedition" stitched across the front pocket. The first day of the expedition, which ended at 11:30 PM, is now behind them. They have been briefed on the mission, the ground rules, and their roles. The main objective, Smith insists, is not to solve the specific product-development challenges that the team faces -- no one is going to invent a new mascara or face cream in the next five days. Rather, it is to define and refine the challenge itself -- or, as Smith likes to call it, "the mess" that the team faces as it tries to invent new products. Quoting Albert Einstein, Smith says, "The formulation of a problem is often more essential than its solution." Even though it's early in the morning, and breakfast hasn't yet been served, this statement perks some people up. "Most people are convinced that they already have the solution to every problem," says Smith. But invariably, he tells the group, after a few days on an expedition, the nature and depth of everyone's understanding of the so-called mess change significantly. Smith and the P&G team began working on the mess long before they arrived here. Each participant had filled out an Expedition Visa, a detailed questionnaire with open-ended and fill-in-the-blank questions. The visa serves two functions. First, it gives Smith a richer understanding of the creative challenge from the perspective of the entire group, as opposed to how his initial contacts at the company see things. Smith and his team leaders then use those insights to design the overall flow, timing, and route of the expedition. They read each visa like detectives reading clues, gaining deeper insight into how each person thinks. "By the time the team walks through the door, we know enough to bond with people very quickly," he says. "The secret to guiding is to establish trust -- fast. From there, you have to learn how to read the group in terms of all the different personalities, types, and styles that members bring with them." No one needs a visa to read Jeff Leppla, 37, the idea man behind a breakthrough technology for one of P&G's innovative ( and still highly secret ) beauty-care products. Leppla has enough energy to power a locomotive -- and to run his own horse-breeding and -racing operation in Lexington, Kentucky on the side. His enthusiasm is infectious. At dinner the night before, he rallied the people at his table like an indefatigable football coach. Referring to Smith, Leppla boasted, "Guys, we're going to break this dude in!" But even he recognizes the scale of the mess that he and his colleagues face. "There has to be a crisis to push us to take a risk. But often we lack a sense of urgency. And in a company as big as ours, urgency can be a difficult thing to feel." Indeed, generating a sense of urgency is one of the main design principles behind Thinking Expeditions. That's why Smith had advised Cathy Pagliaro to begin creating -- through a flurry of cryptic emails to her team -- a sense of mystery and anticipation weeks before the expedition. "I didn't tell anyone what we were doing, where we were going, or what to expect," she admits. "All I told them was to block off several days to go off-site. It was a huge risk to keep people in the dark. A lot of them couldn't handle not knowing. But you want to nudge people out of their comfort zone, because that's when real growth happens." She then adds, with obvious satisfaction, "I sure pissed off a lot of people!" Smith plays his part like a master puppeteer. From the moment you walk into his staging room, you are imprinted with a sense of both urgency and difference. Contact with work or home is not prohibited, but it's strongly discouraged. Days run far into the night, and nights run into the early morning. And throughout the expedition, Smith and his team rely on an ongoing stream of multimedia props to spark and energize the flow and ideation -- and to maintain the feel of a real expedition. For instance, film clips from "Mountains of the Moon," about Captain Sir Richard Burton's search for the source of the Nile in the 1850s, are used to show the orchestration of expeditions -- how teams are formed and how they prepare for the leap into the mapless unknown. The scene from the movie Apollo 13 in which panicked scientists avert disaster by making a lifesaving fix from whatever is on hand is shown to illustrate Smith's Level Seven, doing-the-impossible thinking. Slides, photographs, and music -- from Mozart to the Gypsy Kings -- are used to shift mood and thinking direction. And then there is the staple of any Thinking Expedition: blue slips -- Smith's tried-and-true tool for capturing ideas. A blue slip is a piece of light-blue paper measuring two and three-quarter inches by four and one-quarter inches ( deliberately not three by five ) that expeditioners carry with them at all times. Smith is adamant, almost to the point of obsession, that a fresh supply of blue slips always be on hand. The key to capturing an idea, he stresses, is to write it down: "Ideas can come from anywhere and at any time. The problem with making mental notes is that the ink fades very rapidly." To hammer this point home, Smith cues one of his trusty visual clips -- an old advertisement for Canon copiers that conveniently asks, "Where is a thought if it isn't written down?" In fact, Smith believes that in both work and life, the only things that get done are those that get written down. So the hundreds of blue-slip ideas that the Face 2005 Team will generate over its five days are gathered to create the "Trail Ahead Travel Log." The log is divided into sections that list the team's discoveries, results, vision, and concepts of operations, as well as what to do to keep the sense of the expedition alive when people return to P&G. "I wanted to make sure that we not only had a different experience but also discovered and created a tangible output," says Pagliaro. Smith also knows that it takes smart, thought-provoking questions to inspire the kind of thinking that generates breakthrough ideas. So a slide appears on the screen at the front of the room: "The average child asks 125 probing questions a day. The average adult asks a mere 6." So during an expedition, Smith asks a lot of questions. Some are focused on specific problems; others are intentionally vague, open-ended -- and even, on the surface, a bit silly. One of his favorites: "What's a thought that you've never thought before?" Smith recalls that during one of the first Thinking Expeditions that he led -- this one for Exxon Corp. in 1994 -- one of his obtuse questions ended up saving the company millions of dollars. A team of engineers assembled to focus on several of Exxon's offshore oil-production sites. "Most engineers live in a world where projects are done efficiently, effectively, and with slight improvements," says Smith. But he had a different agenda. "Several sites were in the ice, in the middle of nowhere. At that time, building roads to the sites would cost roughly $1 million a mile. I wanted to push those engineers into a higher level of thinking. We asked team members to think of a completely crazy idea -- something that they believed couldn't be done or wouldn't work. You know, one of those stupid ideas." One engineer came up with a stupid idea with radical implications. "Let's stop building roads to the sites altogether!" he declared. It was a complete mind shift for the team. After elaborating on the idea, the group discovered a more innovative ( and cost-effective ) way of reaching offshore locations -- a "stupid" idea that had the potential to save Exxon $50 million per production site. Thinking about Thinking Rolf Smith has spent virtually his entire career thinking about thinking. Back in 1963, at age 23, he left his job as a physics teacher at a boys' Catholic high school to join the U.S. Air Force. After a stint as a computer-communications officer at Strategic Air Command headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska, he was dispatched to complete his master's degree in computer science at Texas A&M University. That's where Smith first became interested in doing things that couldn't be done -- and operating in the realm of seventh-level thinking. For instance, he became hell-bent on doing his master's thesis on artificial intelligence. Specifically, he wanted to program a computer to play chess. But he had a hard time finding support for his project. "The professors told me that there was no one at A&M who knew anything about artificial intelligence, so I wouldn't have an adviser. Then they told me that I shouldn't waste my time -- that computers couldn't think." Eventually, the head of the department, an avid chess player himself, decided to humor Smith. He agreed to be his adviser on the grounds that Smith would create a chess program to give him some stiff competition. "Dr. Wortham began playing against the computer one day at 6 AM," says Smith. "It beat him soundly. And I got to finish my project." Smith's chess-inspired interest in pattern recognition and in analyzing the tactical and strategic implications of positions had wide ( and obvious ) applications in his work in the air force -- and also, he later realized, in his work on thinking in business. But it was not until 1984 that Smith, then a lieutenant colonel and director of long-range planning for the Electronic Security Command ( now called the Air Force Intelligence Command ), consciously began focusing on the process of innovation. And it was at this point that the air force's chief of staff made a bold request: Make the air force more innovative. "No one thought we could do it," says Smith. "A lot of people said that there's no way you can teach people to be creative and innovative. They're either born with it, or they're not." But with a letter from his boss, Brigadier General Grover Jackson, authorizing him to go anywhere in the world and to do whatever it takes to "make innovation happen," Smith created the U.S. Air Force's first Office of Innovation. Its purpose? To spread innovative thinking and practices around the world -- in places like the Strategic Air Command, the Space Command, and U.S. Air Force operations in Europe -- and to create a global network of innovation centers in the field. "Our group had license to jump the chain of command to get things done. We were on a fast track for bold ideas." The impact was immediate -- and huge. Smith and his team received, on average, 600 ideas per year from 13,000 enlisted men and women "in the trenches" worldwide. But it was one young airman on the Kelly Air Force Base, in San Antonio, who taught Smith the most important lesson in cultivating an environment in which breakthrough ideas actually are allowed to break through. The first creation of Smith's office was something called Form Zero ( bucking an air-force rule that all forms had to be numbered beginning with the number one ). Anyone in the force could use Form Zero to submit an idea. One day, Smith received a form from this airman: "Put speed bumps in front of the barracks," it said. "I'm on night shift and have to sleep during the day. I can't get any sleep because people speed down the street in their cars." Though admittedly this was not a breakthrough idea, it was a reasonable request, so Smith's office worked with the airman to implement a solution. A few months later, the same airman sent in another form: "There's only one pay phone in the hallway of my barrack. Every time I talk to my girlfriend, everybody stands in the hall, listens, and laughs. Let's get a phone booth outside the barracks." Again, Smith's team worked with the airman to come up with a solution. Like clockwork, a few months later, they got yet another idea from the guy. "But the third time around," Smith says, "it was one of the biggest operational ideas we ever got. It absolutely blew us away. It solved a problem that I can't talk about -- but that the air force had been working on for a long, long time." The lesson? "If you show that you truly pay attention to ideas -- even the small, seemingly insignificant ones -- then you'll create an environment in which people feel comfortable generating and offering them." The Long Climb to Creativity The day is hot, humid, and overcast -- the kind of day that frizzes hair and dampens spirits. Everyone hopes for rain. Some hope that it will bring relief from the heat; others pray that it will postpone the day's agenda -- rock climbing. Harnessed, helmeted, and with all the appropriate legal waivers signed, the Face 2005 Team starts hiking down a narrow path in Virginia's Great Falls Park toward the Potomac River -- and toward a sheer rock face at the water's edge. Admittedly, the P&G crowd looks more like the grown-up cast from "The Bad News Bears" than like a team of scientists on a serious expedition. It turns out that climbing is also an integral part of Thinking Expeditions. Mike Donahue, 53, founder of the Colorado Mountain School, introduced Smith to the power of climbing in 1991: He guided Smith, along with Smith's family and partners, up Longs Peak, a 14,255-foot mountain in Colorado. Since then, Donahue and Smith have been guide partners. They complement each other perfectly. Donahue is tall and trim, with a face that looks like it's been weathered from the outdoors. Where Smith quotes Einstein, Tom Peters, and Margaret Wheatley, Donahue prefers to emphasize his points with more personal references or ancient quotes. He's particularly fond of one Himalayan saying: "When the explorer is ready, the guide will appear." For Donahue, the power of climbing is that it's a perfect metaphor for work and life. "Climbing is an ongoing process of making decisions and moving forward," he says. "One of the easiest ways to change is simply to alter your position -- to focus on the one-inch square in front of you and put one foot in front of the other. But to go forward -- on a cliff, on a project, or in your career -- you sometimes first have to take a step sideways, or even a step back." It's dark as the Face 2005 Team hikes back up the steep trail after hours of climbing. But everyone's elation is palpable. Some made it to the top of the cliff, others did not, and some fell off trying ( luckily, everyone was protected by safety ropes ). Still, everyone is pumped. Over a dinner that lasts well past midnight, Donahue and Smith are quick to capitalize on that energy, and they push team members to express what they learned from the experience. Despite groans from a blue-slip-fatigued group, Smith prompts the usual flurry with his pointed questions. One woman shares her insight: "We're conditioned to think that small steps aren't good enough. But I realize that small steps are just what you need to get to the top." But getting to the top is just the first of two main objectives in climbing; the descent is equally important -- in real climbs as well as during a Thinking Expedition. It's also just as challenging. "It's just as far getting down a mountain as it is going up," Donahue says. On an expedition, the "long trek home," as the descent is called, represents the work required to turn the big ideas that were generated at the summit into pragmatic action items that can be implemented when the team returns. "On an expedition, the driving force is the summit," Smith explains. "Once it's reached, the focus then becomes getting back down. But this direction reversal is one of the most dangerous points of the expedition." It's during this leg of the adventure that Level Seven hypoxia ( when the body's tissues are deficient of oxygen ), as Smith calls it, can set in. Team members are tired, they want to get home, and worse, they stop thinking. The danger is that they return to their organization with the "high" of climbing but without the "how" of getting things done differently. The Face 2005 Team experienced several breakthroughs ( and breakdowns ) during its Thinking Expedition -- not to mention a 2 AM trip to the emergency room. Tia Steele, 50, a research psychologist at P&G, reached a personal "summit" that literally pushed her over the edge. Soon after her successful climbing experience ( which she had once vowed that she never would do ), she felt that she could tackle anything -- including the rope swing that hung from a tall tree in the field next to the Catoctin Inn, in Buckeystown, Maryland. Steele gave new meaning to Smith's expression "fall off trying" ( as a means to demonstrate that you can learn from your failures ), as she swung out high on the rope but did not have the strength at 2 AM to hold on. Early the next morning, as the rest of the team was gathering for another day's adventure, Steele was sitting at her table with both rope-burned hands tightly bandaged -- but with an enormous smile on her face. Steele's accident, like climbing, was an apt metaphor for the idea-generation process. Smith looks at his role this way: The guide is connected to each person on the expedition by an invisible rope. His job is to keep the right amount of tension on those ropes, so that everyone is right on the edge of stress. But guiding is a delicate business. "Sometimes," he says, "we'll pull the group a little too hard, and we'll have to go in and fix things." And sometimes those ropes snap. At 11 PM on day two, the invisible rope connecting the Face 2005 Team did just that. It was late. People were grumpy. And Smith was orchestrating yet another think-fest, placing individuals at tables for an exercise. Participants at each table had to come up with a list of their strengths, and they had to determine which skills the group as a whole lacked, those that might be needed when implementing product ideas later on. That's when the "troublemakers," as they came to be called, started flying high. This team insisted that it lacked no skills. Team members listed everything from technical savvy, to packaging design, to project priority setting, even to psychic abilities. But their confidence was starting to disturb some of the others -- and finally long-buried tensions exploded. There was crying, pouting, yelling, finger pointing, and even some door slamming. "Our team truly felt that it could dream up and make anything happen," explains Jeff Leppla, one of P&G's project leaders and also a hair-on-fire troublemaker. "And if we didn't know how to do something ourselves, we knew others who could help us. We could get funding, write business plans, conduct market research, and come up with product, packaging, and process design. All we needed was a lawyer. But I realized that our confidence provoked an enormous defensiveness from the rest of the group. I see now that we must have come across as a bunch of know-it-alls." It was a major blowout that served as a perfect lesson -- one that Smith could not have planned better himself. In fact, it granted department head Cathy Pagliaro one of her biggest take-aways. "The 'troublemakers' had no idea how they were being perceived," she says. "And the rest of the group was pissed off because they felt unvalued, cut off, and unappreciated. This stuff happens all the time in the real world of work. For me, there was no clearer way to demonstrate the power of differences among teams. And once you understand that power, you can leverage it when forming teams or tackling a problem. When you experience it as we did, it drives the lesson home as no lecture ever could." Anna Muoio ( amuoio@fastcompany.com ) is a Fast Company associate editor. Contact Rolf Smith ( thinking@onramp.net ) or Mike Donahue ( summits@earthnet.net ) by email. Learn more about the Virtual Thinking Expedition Co. on the Web ( http://www.thinking-expedition.com ). Sidebar: Monday-Morning Creativity For some fire-in-the-belly change agents, returning to the daily grind of work after the thrills of a Thinking Expedition can be too much to bear. "We lose some people during reentry," concedes Rolf Smith. "They want to change everything right away." Smith calls this impulse the "shiny-bead syndrome." Here are his cures. To move 'em, "ootch" 'em. Real change does not happen fast. Smith advises "ootching" people by starting small. "It's important to help people pinpoint how they could perform one low-level function better," he says. "Then they'll say, 'That's neat. What else can you do?' " Meetings matter. Running a good meeting is a skill that few businesspeople have mastered. But in the real world, most ideas get hatched at meetings. Smith has perfected the art of the five-minute meeting. He believes that the crux of a meeting can be boiled down to five basic questions: What's the most interesting idea or subject in front of us? What are the most crucial issues facing us? What are the most pressing challenges you, as an individual, face? What opportunities do these ideas, issues, and challenges present? What actions can we take now? The guide passes out blue slips, asks one question at a time, and allows 45 seconds for a response. Talk less, listen more. "Sometimes it's hard to get people to listen to one another, especially when they feel that the person talking is terminally stupid," says Smith. How can you listen better? Play a game. Smith pairs people up to play a game called "Do You Mean?" It goes like this: One person says something. The person who's listening rephrases that statement by asking, "Do you mean ... ?" The other person then responds with a simple yes or no. As the listener, you win the game by listening to a statement and accurately rephrasing it three different ways.

EDUCATED INCAPACITY Ken and Marjorie Blanchard, pioneers in the leadership and training development field, were Chief Scouts at LN’s recent Exploring Off The Map Expedition and spoke on lessons learned from creating their company’s Office of the Future. Ken Blanchard: What became real clear to me is that you can’t have the same people doing tasks of both the present and future. I see organizations that have people who are running the organization going off on retreats trying to plan the future. The reality is that people with present responsibility planning your future will kill your future because they are already overwhelmed with the present. Realizing this and that Marge is the ultimate learner of all time, she stepped up from being president of our company to leading our Office of the Future. Marge Blanchard: We live in what I would call a polarity world, a both/and world. We want and need both things but both things come with negatives. When you talk about the need for speed, you also hear someone like Meg Wheatley talk about relationships or slowing down. There are polarities of decentralization/centralization, and people act as though they are either/or and they really are both/and. I was struggling with the idea that for every trend there’s a countertrend, and was beginning to feel like I was going crazy. The other thing that I started realizing was that I had been in our industry a long time. I had been a trainer, I had been running our company, and I had what I now call "educated incapacity." I knew so much about how things had been, and so much about what had worked and hadn’t worked in the past, that I could not forget the past enough to be able to see the things that were new, to be able to see the things that were at the edges. One of the things we have learned is not to ask doctors about the future of medicine, nor to ask lawyers about the future of law, and probably not to ask educators about the future of education because they’re seeing it from their eyes. Their eyes are very wise eyes but they are old eyes. They can help, but I knew that I needed to see things from childlike eyes. We have trained our leadership in this idea of polarity management because I think that’s what keeps organizations from moving forward. They see one direction, but they sort of intuit the problems of that direction. They know there are problems in what they have now, but there are some good things that they have now. This basically paralyzes an organization. So we’ve really tried to think, "How do you do both/and?" So when I think of technology, I think, "How can technology be a relationship’s friend? How can speed be a balance of life friend? How can structure help us surrender? How can one-on-one attention create critical mass? And how can a focus on the future be a present-time friend?" What this has done is free us up to be able to both learn and push the organization. I keep asking our organization, "What would take us back to zero? Who could put us out of business totally?" That’s not a very comfortable question to ask people, but you would be amazed at how creative people can get if we look at a situation from childlike eyes. Audiotapes of the Blanchards’ complete remarks and the total EOTM expedition are available through Convention Cassettes by calling 800-776- 5454. Look for a recap of Exploring Off The Map, including other journal reflections, in the forthcoming issue of NEXT. To be placed on the mailing list for NEXT, call 800-765-5323 or visit http://www.leadnet.org.

MEMO FROM THE PASTORAL SEARCH COMMITTEE In our search for a suitable pastor, the following scratch sheet was developed for your perusal. Of the candidates investigated by the committee, only one was found to have the necessary qualities. The list contains the names of the candidates and comments on each, should you be interested in investigating them further for future pastoral placements. Noah He has 120 years of preaching experience, but no converts. Moses He stutters; and his former congregation says he loses his temper over trivial things. Abraham He took off to Egypt during hard times. We heard that he got into trouble with the authorities and then tried to lie his way out. David He is an unacceptable moral character. He might have been considered for minister of music had he not fallen. Solomon He has a reputation for wisdom but fails to practice what he preaches. Elijah He proved to be inconsistent, and is known to fold under pressure. Hosea His family life is in a shambles. Divorced, and remarried to a prostitute. Jeremiah He is too emotional, alarmist; some say a real pain in the neck. Amos Comes from a farming background. Better off picking figs. John He says he is a Baptist but lacks tact and dresses like a hippie. Would not feel comfortable around him at a church potluck supper. Peter Has a bad temper, and was heard to have even denied Christ publicly. Paul We found him to lack tact. He is too harsh. His appearance is contemptible, and he preaches far too long. Timothy He has potential, but is much too young for the position. Jesus He tends to offend church members with his preaching, especially Bible scholars. He is also too controversial. He even offended the search committee with his pointed questions. Judas He seemed to be very practical, cooperative, good with money, cares for the poor, and dresses well. We all agreed that he is just the man we are looking for to fill the vacancy as our Senior Pastor. Thank you for all you have done in assisting us with our pastoral search. Sincerely, The Pastoral Search Committee.

"In this world no one rules by love; if you are but amiable, you are no hero; to be powerful, you must be strong, and to have dominion you must have a genius for organizing."

When Joe Paterno first began coaching the Penn State Nittany Lions, they got off to a dismal start. During his second year (1967), he noticed that his starting players were just going through the motions, playing without commitment or intensity. He also noticed that the sophomore replacements played with enthusiasm. Paterno realized the time had come to prove himself as a coach. He made a decision to "get rid of the sluggards." During the next game against Miami, he replaced each going-through-the-motion senior with an eager sophomore. By the end of the first quarter he had a whole new team on the field. They played with such intensity that Penn State upset the highly favored Hurricanes. That season, the Nittany Lions began a winning streak that continued for 31 games-it didn't end until after all the "Sophomore Wonders" had graduated. Paterno proved himself as a coach, and his young players proved to everyone that enthusiasm is a team's greatest weapon.

Peter F. Drucker: (on what are the most important lessons he's learned) ----------------- I hope you don't mind if I give you four lessons. - The first one, I call Harry Truman's maxim. Which I heard him say many times. "If it has to be explained, it won't work." It will only work if it's so simple that everybody says it's obvious. - And second, say 'please' and 'thank you,' manners matter. They are the lubricating oil of human intercourse. They make it possible for people to work with one another. - Third, one that applies to me, as a professional writer, but it applies to anybody. If a sentence doesn't gel, don't rewrite it. It's not that the sentence is not right, your thoughts are not clear or not thought through. - And finally, never ask who's right. Start out by asking what is right. And you find that out by listening to dissenting, disagreeing opinions. Those are the four most important things I learned.

THREE CHURCH GROWTH MYTHS by guest columnist John C. LaRue, Jr. Do you need alarming statistics to motivate your church into being more evangelistic? I hope not. There's already plenty of evidence to indicate that many people still need to be evangelized, so there's no reason for exaggerating. That's why I'd like to dispel a number of myths currently being circulated. Myth #1: The percentage of adults in the United States who attend church is decreasing. (See statistics below.) The fact is churchgoing in America has been very stable for 60 years. True, according to the Gallup Poll, church attendance surged in the 1950s and trailed off in the 1960s to an average of between 40 to 43 percent. And it's true that in 1996 only 37 percent of those surveyed by Gallup said they attend church weekly -- the lowest percentage ever recorded. But in 1999 - - the last year for which statistics are available - - 43 percent of Americans said they had attended church in the past week. So church attendance actually increased by 16 percent in just 3 years. Myth #2: More churches are closing than opening every year. Actually, there are more churches in the United States now than there were 20 or even 100 years ago. According to yellow pages statistics there are currently more than 350,000 listings for churches in this country compared to about 300,000 twenty years ago. This growth in the number of churches reflects the growth in the U.S. population during the twentieth century. Perhaps this misperception arose because there has been a dramatic decline in the church-to-population ratio in the past century. According to the "1993-1994 Almanac of the Christian World" there were 27 churches per 10,000 people in 1900 compared to just 12 churches per 10,000 people in 1990. However, churches are getting larger. Church growth expert Lyle Schaller reports that various denominational records indicate the average church size has tripled in the past century. So even though there aren't as many churches per capita, many people are attending larger churches. Myth #3: Conversions to other religions and dropouts from Christianity are escalating. (See statistics below.) The truth is, according to Gallup research, the number of Americans who describe themselves as born-again or evangelical Christians has grown dramatically in the past quarter century -- especially in the 1990s. In 1976, 34 percent of Americans were classified as evangelicals. Twenty-five years later, in 1999, this number was up 12 percentage points to 46 percent. In conclusion, be cautious with reports that cast church growth statistics negatively. Try to step back and get the whole picture. We already have adequate motivation -- a biblical mandate -- to go into all the world with the gospel until Christ returns. And the fact is regardless of upward or downward trends there are plenty of people left that need the good news. About the Research Gallup statistics in this report come from "Emerging Trends," a monthly publication of the Princeton Religion Research Center utilizing the research facilities of Gallup International. Most studies from which these statistics were generated consisted of nationwide random samples of 1000 adults in the United States between 1939 and 1999. John C. LaRue, Jr., is Vice President of Internet Research and Development for Christianity Today International, and Your Church Special Report columnist. To reply, write: Newsletter@LeadershipJournal.net 60 YEARS OF STEADY WEEKLY CHURCH ATTENDANCE Year % 1939 41 1950 39 1955 49 1962 46 1967 43 1972 40 1977 41 1980 40 1985 42 1990 40 1996 37 1999 43 EVANGELICALS ON THE INCREASE Year % 1976 34 1981 38 1992 36 1995 41 1999 46

A December 2000 Fast Company article by David Dorsey focused on a change agent named Jerry Sternin. His job with Save the Children was to the change the face of malnutrition in Vietnam. I will refer you to the excellent article available online to tell the rest of the story. See: http://www.fastcompany.com/online/41/sternin.html The approach claims that one can never bring a permanent solution from the outside. "In every community, organization or social group, there are individuals whose exceptional behaviors and practices enable them to get better results than their neighbors with the exact same resources." The approach is almost the opposite of the "best practice" model of change agentry. Here are the steps in the article. "1. Don't presume that you have the answer." I think this is the biggest one for a change agent to remember. We become almost jaded by hearing the same stories and thinking we have some solutions. The first task is to always listen and learn. Solutions must come up within the culture or social set addressed. "2. Don't think of it as a dinner party." While it is true that we can learn from diverse backgrounds and approaches, in the case of most churches, the practices or innovations needed must come from another church that is viewed as a peer. They must identify with the other organization. They must feel they are working with similar enough circumstances and resources. It is possible to be inspired by a church very dissimilar from another church, but very difficult to implement some of their practices. "3. Let them do it themselves." The article advises change agents to set up situations where people can learn on their own. Change agents should raise questions, highlight or platform some of the positive deviants but let the group of those that need to change take it from there. "4. Identify conventional wisdom." In some ways this means clarifying what the average church in the group is doing. Many times conventional wisdom was very productive in a previous era, but is no longer. In the case of the Vietnamese culture, certain foods were deemed low class, even though they were nutritious. By showing how the positive deviants used these foods to improve nutrition, others then could lay aside their previous bias. "5. Identify and analyze the deviants." As you look at a group of churches, you can identify those that are getting the results that you seek. If you have defined the group correctly, then the rest of the group can as well. This allows the group to investigate the deviants for different practices. Help the group identify those behaviors that are leading to success. "6.Let the deviants adopt deviations on their own." The task of change agents is not to transfer the knowledge but to design an intervention that enables the targets to practice the new behavior. In the case of the Vietnamese villagers, they were invited to a cooking class held at the home of the positive deviant where they cooked meals using the low class foods for the entire group. In the case of churches, a change agent would have to enable a team from one church to learn from the deviant and then try the new practice over a period of time. "7. Track results and publicize them." The results from each village were publicized. There was a communications effort. But then the task is to wait until other groups are interested enough to want to learn for themselves. Turning the process into a program does not help aid change. A target group has to be ready to change themselves, curious about what could help make the changes, and willing to invest themselves in studying those that are positive deviants. Then they have to practice applying the behaviors. "8. Repeat steps one through seven." Disseminate the best deviant behaviors across the system but help people go back and look for new behaviors constantly. The answers are different for each group but they can form new groups with different peers. This article further pushes me in the direction of teaching congregations that serve as positive deviants where other churches can learn. However they must feel enough like a group in order to learn. These churches would have to examine their own conventional wisdom about what should work but isn't working now to bring the changes they desire. I am reminded of the model that New Hope Church uses through their practicum program as well as the "Doing Church as a Team" program. Both programs allow visiting groups to look behind the scenes, ask questions and watch the behaviors of a variety of persons at the church. The conference is the conference they do for their new members and attenders, they merely allow outsiders to be a part as well. The practicum allows pastors to follow their pastors around for 5 days and learn as they go. Then, pastors can adopt or try certain behaviors for themselves. It is not a perfect fit to the situation, but it's getting there. I am sure that most of you can create and devise even more interesting and important ways to apply this idea. After you try one, send it in, I would like to hear what you have learned in the process. A lot of this information is found around the nutrition literature. Here are a few resources for you for further research. http://www.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/80697e/80697E00.htm#Contents http://www.unicef.org/pdeduc/education/pdf/vol1.2_nov98.pdf

Consider Shamgar (Judges 3.31) Use what you have Start where you are Do what you can It will be enough

There are three key components of leadership: who a leader is (character) how a leader thinks (vision) what a leader does (influence)

[speaking to Dean Acheson] "I shall expect of you the most complete frankness, particularly about myself. I have no feelings except those I reserve for Mrs. Marshall."

Because of the large increase in the size of the air force, General Marshall suggested that Arnold select a few relatively junior air corps officers to be jumped in rank, thus preparing younger talent for effective leadership. Arnold replied that if he promoted these officers, he did not believe he could sustain the morale of the World War I flyers among the senior colonels. Many of these had been reduced from wartime rank in 1919 and had served as long as seventeen years as lieutenants. Jump-promoting "youngsters" in their thirties, he thought, would shatter the morale of the older, more experienced group. Marshall, therefore, proceeded on his own, immediately promoting Lt. Col. Laurence S. Kuter, age thirty-six, to the rank of brigadier general. Kuter had been a lieutenant colonel for only about three weeks when this promotion was made. Arnold was then instructed to place the thirty-six year old Kuter in a high position on his staff and be less concerned about the morale of the older officers and more concerned with providing incentives for the younger ones.

USAF General White quoting General Freiherr von Hammerstein-Equord, former head of the German War Department "I divide my officers into four classes as follows: The clever, the industrious, the lazy, and the stupid. Each officer always possesses two of these qualities. Those who are clever and industrious I appoint to the general staff. The man who is clever and lazy is destined for high command because he has the nerve to deal with all situations. Use can, under certain circumstances, be made of those who are stupid and lazy. But, whoever is stupid and industrious must be got rid of at once."

General Carl "Tooey" Spatz was the first chief of staff of the separate air force. I asked him why, in his opinion, he was a successful leader. He responded: "I drink good whiskey and I get other people to do my work." There is more than humor in this thought. He meant he delegated authority to others. His assistant vice chief of staff was Maj. Gen. William F. "Bozo" McKee. In an interview, McKee related Spaatz's policy of decision making: I'll tell you a significant story about General Spaatz, and then you can see why he was so successful. When General Spaatz was chief of staff, Harvey S. Vandenberg was vice chief and I was assistant vice chief. By that time I had gotten to know Spaatz quite well. It was a Saturday morning, and Vandenburg was gone. I had three papers that had to be signed by the chief of staff, or at least I thought they had to be signed by the chief of staff. So I took these three papers in to General Spaatz shortly after eleven o'clock that morning. I said to him, "Sir, I've got three papers here that require your signature as chief." "I was a major general at the time, and General Spaatz looked up to me, and he said, "Bozo, didn't you just get promoted?" I said, "Yes, sir." "Who promoted you?" "You did, sir." "Why in the hell do you think I promoted you?" "Sir, I don't know." "Well, I'll tell you. I promoted you to sign papers like these. Do any of these papers have to do with war starting tomorrow?" "No, sir." "Then you sign them. If you make a mistake, I'll forgive you once. If you make a mistake two times, you're fired. Furthermore, I'm in a hurry because I'm due to meet some friends at eleven forty-five and I've got to go. So you sign those papers." I went back to the desk and read those papers three more times with great care before I signed them, and that was the last I heard of it. The reason I tell this story is that General Spaatz, when he had confidence in somebody, believed in the world's simplest fundamental of leadership--that is, to give your subordinates authority. Spell it out and then let them discharge it.

A simple illustration, which I learned many years ago from managers at Kollmorgen, demonstrates my point. Imagine that you have two roller skates, attached to one another by a spring. You use the first roller skate to control the motion of the second. It’s a bit tricky, but doable. Now, add a third roller skate, attached with another spring--and, moreover, give that new spring a different "spring constant" (i.e, make it either easier or more difficult to to extend than the first spring). Now, try to control the third roller skate by moving only the first. It's much trickier. Keep adding roller skates, each attached by springs with different spring constants. It doesn't take long to give up any hope of controlling the roller skate at the far end of the line. Organizations are infinitely more complex than this simple line of roller skates and springs. You can begin to see why one person dictating orders from "one end of the line" cannot possibly control what happens in a complex organization.

Imagine that your organization is an ocean liner, and that you are "the leader." What is your role? I have asked this question of groups of managers many times. The most common answer, not surprisingly, is "the captain." Others say, "The navigator, setting the direction." Still others say, ""The helmsman, actually controlling the direction," or, "the engineer down there stoking the fire, providing energy," or, "the social director, making sure everybody's enrolled, involved, and communicating." While these are legitimate leadership roles, there is another which, in many ways, eclipses them all in importance.Yet, rarely does anyone think of it. The neglected leadership role is the designer of the ship. No one has a more sweeping influence that the designer. What good does it do for the captain to say, "Turn starboard thirty degrees," when the designer has built a rudder that will turn only to port, or which takes six hours to turn to starboard? It's fruitless to be the leader in an organization that is poorly designed. Isn't it interesting that so few managers think of the ship's designer when they think of the leader's role?

[When the leader acts as designer they don't get as much credit because] the "problem" of inconsistency in values and vision simply never develops; it wasn't "solved," it was "dissolved." This is the hallmark of effective design.

"Do those served grow as persons, do they while being served become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous (self-reliant), more likely themselves to become servants? And what is the effect on the least privileged in society; will they benefit, or, at least, will they not be further deprived?"

How Brad identifies leaders in the ministry--he has the leadership team scan the XA directory & for each person identify how many other people in the directory they influence.

4 Keys to Perpetuating Ministry Embrace: be a gatherer of diverse ministry--this requires the abilitity to recognize those with leadership potential Encourage: equip & build people to fulfill their destiny--this requires mentorship Endorse: influencing the body to support them--this requires giving authority Empower: creating a vehicle to accomplish ministry--this requires giving tangible resources "accountable autonomy"

"I once worked for a manager who was very flexible--he could use all four leadership styles--he just used the wrong style with the wrong people at the wrong time." "Really?" asked the entrepeneur. "Yes," said Marshall. "He was always telling his best people what to do because he knew his career depended on them, but they resented it because they already knew what to do. With his poorer performers, he didn't respect them so he left them alone. Since they didn't know what to do, they floundered."

A decade ago, I became involved in leadership development within my denomination. I soon learned, however, the mental models, language, and metaphors I acquired, as an Air Force officer and corporate CEO were inadequate. An aggressive reading program focused on church leadership was disappointing; most materials spoke to a culture like my own. The good resources I found were little known and not readily available to most church leaders. I opened a "bookstore" to pull together resources available on leadership and offer them at a discount. My quest touched a need of many. Today, the market place is both rich and saturated; demand is strong, and church leaders have good access. Good books abound, but there are also a lot of "Ho-hummers." A lot of books promise "how to" answers. While potentially useful in the short term, such books tend to reinforce dependence on "authority", diminish the deeper learning that results from the hard work of personal discovery and experience, and postpone or cover over the real change that needs to occur. My denomination is littered with congregations that have sought to embrace any number of dynamic church leaders' materials and failed because their situation, personality, gifts, and call are not the same. Kurt Lewin said, "There is nothing quite as practical as a good theory." I believe that. In this series I will share with you the books that have provided me "good theory" and concepts, models, language and metaphor, and practical guidance and those who have simply spoken to my soul. Robert Greenleaf wrote Servant Leadership, A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness or see Seeker and Servant, Reflections on Religious Leadership, the Private Writings of Robert K. Greenleaf, by Fraker and Spears. I believe every church leader should read one or both of these books. Neither are religious both are spiritual. But both bring the Biblical image of servant as leader into our contemporary world. The transformative power of Greenleaf's thought is in the premise that leadership is best understood and evaluated by looking at the served and asking the question: "Are the served becoming healthier, freer, wiser, more autonomous and more likely themselves to become servant leaders." and the paradox of "servant" and "leader". Like many words in the leadership lexicon of today, "servant" is misused and over used. In Greenleaf's view a "servant" is not weak or powerless but power-filled. Control and conformity give way to growth and development. To understand Greenleaf I believe that you must also understand the Situational Leadership model Paul Hersey, and Ken Blanchard offer in Management of Organizational Behavior: Utilizing Human Resources (5th Ed) Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1988. Servant leadership is not a style; it is a commitment to growth and development of people recognizing that people, their social context, their task at hand, and their "leadership" all differ. What works in one place will likely not work in another. Control and conformity may be appropriate but always as a means and never as an end. The key is continually asking the Greenleaf question and involving all the gifts present in responding to the answer. To me this is the essence of the model Jesus offered us. In The Name of Jesus by the late Henri Nouwen has been equally important because it helped me spiritualize Greenleaf in ways that spoke to my soul. Greenleaf's writings have also encouraged me to see the corporation, which is so fundamental to the social and economic fabric of our society, as a legitimate and necessary goal for Christian outreach. Historically, we in the church have defined ourselves against the state and society, yet today it is the corporate form that dominates our lives. Most churches seem uncomfortable dealing with corporations because it does not fit into the domains of private faith or public faith. Few writers have ventured into this arena (I will have more to say later on the need for churches to see themselves with new eyes). Greenleaf suggests that if we as a society are to care for people in such a way that they are becoming healthier, freer, wiser, more autonomous and more likely themselves to become servant leaders then we will have to do so through the various corporate (institutional) forms in our society. If such changes are to become reality, then we must begin somewhere. Greenleaf singles out colleges and universities, foundations, and churches as the places to start. Seminaries have an especially important role to play. One of my greatest challenges is to find the language and metaphors to clarify, assimilate, and communicate the ideas and concepts that fill my life. Models help me make associations and organize my thinking in coherent ways. The Hersey-Blanchard model for situational leadership has been foundational. Another important model is the Technical- Adaptive Work model Dr. Ronald Heifetz offers in Leadership Without Easy Answers, Harvard University Press 1994. Heifetz writes of senior government leaders and ordinary people facing major decisions. Sometimes their work is "Technical" where the problem is understood, the solution and implementation clear, and the responsibility to often; however, "Adaptive Work" is required. "Adaptive Work" is undefined work where continuous learning is required to understand what is happening, solutions and implementation strategies are unknown, and is it not clear who is responsible. "Adaptive" work is hard work. It requires leadership, it requires a commitment to seeing the potential in people and seeking to develop it, it requires creativity, and it requires a willingness to honor difference in how we think and the commitment to enter into dialogue. The leadership challenge is to connect the source of meaning in people's lives with the challenge they face. While leadership is not limited to people with authority, authority is an invaluable asset in helping an organization work adaptively. Authority enables you to manage the environment, direct attention, define reality, manage information, frame issues, choose the decision making process, and influence the presence and essence of conflict and whether and how to unleash it. The absence of authority allows you to deviate from the norms of authoritative decision-making and focus on specific issues. People who exercise leadership from the "foot of the table" lead across the boundaries of formal organization in networks. Without authority you can shape the stimulus but not the responses, spark debate but not orchestrate it, have a front-line feel but not the broad sense of the multiplicity of challenges. Leadership must draw attention to an issue not embody it. Just as leading with authority requires protecting the voices of dissent; the leader without authority needs to listen. Over the years I have worked from both the head of the table and the foot and along the sides. Heifetz's discussion of leadership with and without authority has been a powerful insight for establishing expectations and boundaries. I find the root of the difficulty many organizations have in responding to change is that they do not differentiate among the type challenges they face and wind up attempting to apply technical solutions to adaptive work and vice versa. Click here for the books mentioned in this article: Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness by Robert K. Greenleaf http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0809125277/leadershipnetworA Seeker and Servant: Reflections on Religious Leadership: The Private Writings of Robert K. Greenleaf Robert K. Greenleaf,Larry C. Spears (Editor),Anne T. Fraker (Editor) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0787902292/leadershipnetworA In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership by Henri J. M. Nouwen http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0824512596/leadershipnetworA Leadership Without Easy Answers by Ronald A. Heifetz http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0674518586/leadershipnetworA

I promised to share some of my notes from our time with Peter Drucker a few weeks ago. The Buford Foundation convened the meeting in order to discuss the topic of "Community Building." The participants included various leaders from Leadership Foundations, Local City Reaching type movements, city serving type movements, research organizations, and leadership training organizations. The common thread was the desire to see a city, or segment of a city changed. I would say most of the participants are effective in their role in changing their part of the city. In preparation for this meeting, Mr. Drucker had done quite a bit of reading, interviewing and thinking. In addition to his noted writings on business, he has devoted the last 15 years or so thinking about the role of not for profit organizations in the life of a community. This includes churches. As you will see in my notes below, they are a little rough around the edges. They are merely my scribbles on what Peter was saying. Our founding Chairman, Bob Buford calls Peter Drucker a social ecologist. He learns and translates the total ecology of a system, in this case, the US Society. Mr. Drucker's first point was that to focus some thoughts on the last 40 years. In his view, in 40+ years we have seen the explosion of not- for-profits, the explosion of mega churches but we have seen no results. If you look at the measurement of statistical figures, there's been no influence on the major key social factors. However, he also said that there has not been a significant decline in the social factors, as one may believe. At a time when the culture has slid downward, the social factors have remained steady. Sot the news is not all bad. There are a number of community organizations with significant results and we should learn from them. Those that have results have a clear definition of what they are trying to accomplish. They are very focused. They concentrate and abandon. In Peter's view the church is the worst offender in this regard. If it doesn't work, we work harder. Effective organizations try three things and one works. That is a good average. Don't worry about failure. His second point was that successful community organizations know how to mobilize community resources. They know how to work with others but also know they have to maintain control. They are leaders. It takes a leader, an embodied person that takes the risks in creating community. It has a center, a person, someone to take initiative and run, and someone who has energy to pass it. That is your role if you want to lead this type of movement. In addition they bring beneficiaries into the activity. The effective organizations don't look as beneficiaries as recipients but as co-laborers, as partners. It is not "give-away" charity but co-development of solutions and answers to problems. The recipients are involved from the beginning not as targets but as co- workers in seeking the solutions. His third point was that effective organizations are composed of effective volunteer groups. The volunteers are the real beneficiaries. In these groups of volunteer workers a healthy body is built and that helps to take care of a many afflictions that arise. They do not achieve results by taking care of social ills but by building a healthy body, a community. His fourth point turned again to the impact on those that serve not those that are served. To turn geography into a community means there will be the commitment and spirit to apply to the problem. There is not a problem in Peter's view to attract and hold volunteers. But there is often a problem to make them into an effective community. It is a community built on a common task that they expand to help renew yourself and your organization. In Peter's mind the difference between successful and unsuccessful organizations, whether they are for profit or not for profit is clear focus. A clear, specific focus helps them measure results. How does an individual start? To start is to see opportunity rather than a problem. Look for local opportunities rather than national. Do you have an opportunity next door? This is an entrepreneurial job. You have to do the work. What about working with the government someone asked him. Peter reminded a participant that in most places government is not a single unit. Non-profits will be the agents of government. Whoever pays the piper calls the tune so be very careful with government. "It's limiting and freeing working with government." Government is paper ridden and rule ridden. What about working with business? Businesses must be taken into confidence. They want to understand what you are doing. They are used to accountability. They want to understand the process. Keep them informed in ways they want to be informed even if it doesn't make sense. Government is used to obfuscation, business to be partners. Keep that in mind.

Kevin Martin is the Canon of the Episcopal Diocese of Texas. In addition to his work there, he serves on what we used to call the Church Champions Editors Board. We're not quite sure what to call it these days. Anyway, Kevin is a great learner and translator of his learnings for the churches that he serves in Texas. He writes an occasional email column for the church leaders there in Texas. In a recent edition, he spoke to the issue of trait theory. He mentions an older book, which is still in my top 10 book list on Leadership. I liked it so much I asked if he would share it with you. Here it is, in a slightly edited form. The Myth of Leader Traits If you remember, my question in my last newsletter was who would you nominate as a leader in the church today. (Editor's note: Church Champions Update readers did not see this.) I meant, "living" today. So the names sent me of people who have gone to their greater reward don't count. (There was a list of names here but to save space, I have cut them.) One colleague commented about how few true leaders come to mind. I would comment about how few people outside our country come to mind. All the international leaders on this list came from one person. A second view of leadership is that leaders share certain qualities, traits and skills. This view suggests that if we teach these we can train leaders or at least train them to be better leaders. Christian leadership literature usually starts from this perspective. Authors do studies of various biblical leaders and identify skills shared in common. But Christians aren't the only people writing from this viewpoint. In many ways, this view seems solid until we challenge the conclusions. For example, "leaders are always relational." Well, Paul couldn't even get along with Barnabas! "Leaders are effective communicators." Moses wasn't and often asked Aaron to speak for him. "Leaders are visionary." Many historical leaders weren't, take St. Benedict for example. "Leaders always command loyalty." The disciples fled Jesus at the darkest moment. But this view of leaders is further questioned when we think of people in the 20th century who were ruthless and egocentric like Hitler. Further, many traits identified by writers are contradictory. "Leaders build consensus" vs. "Leaders follow their vision no matter who follows." The problem is that the trait sounds good but often just doesn't hold up consistently. A third school looks not so much at traits but consistent "principles of leadership." These are said to apply no matter the situation. "Leaders are honest", "always take the initiative" or "leaders always exercise moral courage." Stephen Covey's "Principle Centered Leadership" does a good job of arguing that leaders should have guiding principles that they always rely on. By the way, this is what I like about the TV series "West Wing." I am attracted to a president who - no matter what the political pressure - doesn't bow to expediency, but acts on the highest principles. I am attracted to this, but I also have to admit that political leaders are almost always the most effective when they demonstrate the ability to sacrifice a principle for the sake of compromise and results. The problem is that these perspectives still put too much emphasis on the leader and not other issues like timing, circumstances and context. I am not saying that principles, character and skills are not important components. I am just saying that leadership can't be reduced to these alone. All this leads me to the person who I think does the best writing on leadership. This is Warren Bennis. I first discovered him 10 years ago when a friend gave me his book "Leaders, Strategies for Change." In this book, Bennis reported on extensive research that his organization did on leadership in America. First, they identified 80 leaders in a wide range of American organizations. These included political, church, non-profit, and artistic leaders as well as various business people. He asked colleagues to identify the best leaders in their field and then did extensive interviews with the 80 who emerged. He noted four consistent things these leaders emphasized. They were: 1. Leaders define reality by casting vision. This doesn't mean that all leaders were visionaries. Many were not. He just found that outstanding leaders understood the importance of vision for today's organizations, and helped create one. 2. Leaders effectively communicate this vision to others. I've found this critical in my work with church leaders. Most clergy tend to be visionary people, but many cannot communicate the vision effectively, consistently and in ways others can translate into action. For example, I am convinced that Bishop Griswold has a vision for the church, but I don't think he is effective in communicating it into action. (Editor note: Griswold is a National Bishop for Episcopalians.) His liability is that he cannot say things in simple and direct ways. It is the downside of his extensive education and his intellectual ability. 3. Leaders connect this vision, the organization and the needs of the wider culture. Bennis calls this "positioning the organization." To do this, a leader must understand both the internal and external environment. 4. Leaders practice self-discipline! Bennis found that the best leaders did not over-extent themselves. They remained focused on the skills and abilities they brought to their organization. I find church leaders with passion and great vision who are ineffective because they lose focus. Bennis says that most leaders lack the discipline of sticking to what they do best and what they do that only they can do for the organization. Most of all, they avoid wearing themselves out trying to live up to the unrealistic expectations of their followers. Of these four, Bennis believes that this last one is the most critical to long-range success. Let me end this with something that I've discovered about clergy leaders. In the years that I have worked directly with clergy, I have discovered that if I push hard enough, I often find that clergy already "know" intuitively - deep inside - exactly what their congregation needs to do. Why, I have often wondered, don't we commit to this, develop a consistent strategy, and just do it? The answer is two-fold. First, we are afraid of conflict. This fear causes us to hedge our bets, to take low risks and to try and appease people. Second, we pursue too many things, wear ourselves out, balance too many demands, tend to carry out tasks in areas were we are poorly equipped or just not skilled. Sometimes we try to micro-manage every aspect of the congregations life and fail to delegate effectively to others. These dynamics of fear and over-extension render us less effective than we could be. In Bennis' terms, we lack self-discipline. Don't think that I am right? Try this challenge. No matter how busy, hassled, tired or over worked you are, stop! Go off for 3 days and prayerfully ask God and yourself, "What are you teaching me right now as a leader?" Then make a list of the three most important things your congregation needs to do right now to move more toward being the church God wants it to be. Before leaving your retreat, ask God to give you the strength and courage to drop everything else but the persistent pursuit of these three things. You will be astonished at how this will transform your present leadership! That's the end of the article. To respond to Kevin directly, email him at { HYPERLINK "mailto:CanonKevin@worldnet.att.net" }CanonKevin@worldnet.att.net.

A LEADER'S EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE ''Without it (emotional intelligence) a person can have the best training in the world, an incisive analytical mind and an endless supply of smart ideas but he still won't make a great leader." - Daniel Goleman (Harvard Business Review, Nov-Dec 1998) What is the "must have" characteristic of highly effective leaders? That is a question that would stir quite a bit of debate in most leadership circles. One idea that I would not expect to hear is that of emotional intelligence. At lower levels of leadership the issues of ability, intelligence, training and experience play a major role in distinguishing good leaders from very good leaders. But the higher you move up the leadership ladder, the less these threshold components - ability, intelligence, train- ing, experience - matter in terms of separating the good from the great. Think of professional athletes for example. When they play- ed at the high school level, many pro athletes were head and shoulders above everyone else in their league, let alone their team. But when they got to college, the difference between them and other players was somewhat diminished. By the time they get to the pros, the difference is even less noticeable. The same is true for leaders. At the highest levels of leader- ship, the distinguishing factor, which separates good leaders from great leaders, is not primarily their training or IQ but - according to Daniel Goleman - their emotional intelli- gence. Evaluating Emotional Intelligence Goleman studied research on the competency models of 188 different companies ranging from Lucent Technologies to British Airways. The research evaluated the competency of leaders based on cognitive skills (analytical thinking, big picture perspective), technical skills (accounting, systems) and emotional intelligence (working with others, managing change). It was through this study that he con- cluded emotional intelligence is twice as important as other factors and its relevance increased proportionately with movement up the leadership ladder. Those in the study with higher levels of emotional intelligence out produced others both inside and outside the United States. (In other words, they believe this research is not culture-bound.) Five Components of Emotional Intelligence Goleman suggests there are five basic components of Emotional Intelligence as follows: 1. Self-Awareness - Leaders with emotional intelligence know who they are, where they are going and why. They have a deep understanding of their emotions, strengths, weakness- es, needs and drives. They are honest with themselves. They make decisions that are consistent with their values. They set goals - short-term and long - that flow from who they are and where they want to go. They operate with candor and are willing to admit failure. They receive constructive criticism and willingly ask for help. Implications for Christian leaders: Leaders with emotional intelligence are making progress in destiny processing. They are refining an explicit philosophy of leadership (ministry), which empowers their decision-making. They have a learning posture, which fuels a teachable spirit. Want to be a great leader? How are you doing in the area of destiny processing? Refining your ministry philosophy? Personal growth? 2. Self-Regulation - Leaders with emotional intelligence are in control of their feelings and impulses. They have mastered their emotions to the extent that they are able to deal with the unpredictable or even disastrous circumstances of life on an even keel. They radiate an environment of trust, safety and loyalty. Their followers are not afraid to be the one to bring bad news. They are thoughtful and reflective enough to navigate the moguls of life in proper balance. Implications for Christian leaders: Leaders who want to be effective at the highest levels of Christian leadership are passionate about allowing the fruits of the Holy Spirit - in- cluding patience and self-control - to be seen in their daily activities. Want to be a great leader? How would your followers (including your family) rate you when it comes to self-control? How about patience? 3. Motivation - Leaders with emotional intelligence have an inner drive to go beyond the minimum expectations of others. They have a desire to improve, to do things better. They want to keep score so as to be able to measure growth or improvement. They have a buy in to the organization, which expresses itself in loyalty to the cause. Implications for Christian leaders: Christian leaders need a passion that expresses itself in a sense of responsibility. Passion can cover a multitude of sins when it comes to the lack of ability or training. I have seen very average communicators take the house down purely based on the fact they were passionate about what they said and communicated a sense of personal responsibility for the cause. Want to be a great leader? When was the last time you cried over the cause? Is your passion meter stuck on "whatever"? 4. Empathy - Leaders with emotional intelligence thoughtfully consider the feelings of followers in the process of making decisions. They are not governed by this empathy so as to keep them from making the tough call. But they recognize they are dealing with people and that actions have consequences. They go beyond trite statements like, "Deal with it" or "Get over it" when helping followers process change. This kind of empathy is critical in an environment where teams bring with them complex relationships and globalization requires cross-cultural communi- cation. Effective mentoring and coaching on the job grows out of the strength of relationship, which is enhanced by empathetic interaction. Implications for Christian leaders: What Goleman describes as empathy could easily be viewed as servant leadership. Effective Christian leaders realize the most preferred power base is spi- ritual authority, which flows from strength of character and servant attitudes. Want to be a great leader? Try living the golden rule. What is your default power base setting? 5. Social Skills - Leaders with emotional intelligence are purposefully friendly. They are not necessarily sanguine in their personality type. But they are intentional about culti- vating interpersonal communication skills. They have an "others" focus that makes it easy to carry on a conversation. They readily seek common ground and ask sincere questions. Social skills in this context are really a combination of other aspects of emotional intelligence. These skills emerge as the components of emotional intelligence are put to work synergistic- ally in real life. Implications for Christian Leaders: The social skills Goleman describes have a common root in listening. Being a good listener is not always at the top of the priority list of high-energy leaders. Many times as leaders we are busy forming our rebuttal statement after the first three words have been spoken to us. Want to be a great leader? Cultivate good listening habits. Be quick to listen and slow to speak. Final Comments Let me take you back to the opening thoughts in this article. What is the "must have" characteristic of highly effective leaders? If you were in a room with all the other Leadership Minute subscribers and that question was asked, I predict none of us would have ans- wered emotional intelligence. And as a result, few of the practical application comments flowing from this article would have been on our short list of action steps. Review them for a minute. Should they be? 1. Want to be a great leader? How are you doing in the area of destiny processing? Refining your ministry philosophy? Personal Growth? 2. Want to be a great leader? How would your followers (including your family) rate you when it comes to self-control? How about patience? 3. Want to be a great leader? When was the last time you cried over the cause? Is your passion meter stuck on "whatever"? 4. Want to be a great leader? Try living the golden rule. What is your default power base setting? 5. Want to be a great leader? Cultivate good listening habits. Be quick to listen and slow to speak. Assessment and Action 1. Do you agree with Daniel Goleman's assertion that emotional intelligence is the most important distinguishing factor between high-level leaders? 2. Can you think of a high-level leader who is/was very success- ful but did not have emotional intelligence? If yes, who? Did they succeed because of this lack of emotional intelligence or in spite of it? 3. What component of emotional intelligence is least valued by traditional leadership paradigms? 4. Rate yourself on a scale of 1-20 in each component of emo- tional intelligence. Then total your score for each area - a perfect score would total 100. 5. Based on your answer to #4, which component of emotional intelligence do you most need to develop? Steve Moore - Global Leadership Consultant, Top Flight Leadership

Issue # 1...ROBERT CLINTON ON LEADERSHIP EXPLORER: What trips up most leaders? CLINTON: Few leaders finish well. The ones that don't finish well predominantly lose it in the middle game, not in the end game. In looking at leaders who don't finish well, I have identified six barriers that stop them. One is pride. There is a proper pride in recognizing who you are and operating out of what God's done for you, but there is also the danger of an inordinate pride, pridefulness. Abuse of power is another. It happens when leaders operate unjustly or unfairly with people or because of their position and they start taking privileges or they influence people wrongly. A third one is lack of integrity with finances. Family issues, all the way from divorce or dysfunctional relationships between husband and wife or children, are a fourth barrier. Sexual issues are the fifth barrier and I'm not talking about simply adulterous affairs. I'm talking pornography and other sexually related issues. The last barrier is plateauing. Some plateauing is good. If you've been through something intense, it allows you to take a step back but over the long haul, you've got to move on and off the plateau.

Paul Ford's writing always intrigues me for us. Paul looks through the lenses of comparative culture and helps hold our own assumptions based on our cultural setting against those in Eastern Europe. That is a great gift to the church. He shared with me recently that he was working on some material for a new article for Leadership Journal and desired to workshop some of the ideas for our readers. He appreciated the strong feedback he received from his last article to refine his thoughts. So here are some of his thoughts on "The Primary Functions of Leadership." You will find his contact info at the end. "Over the last twelve years I have been watching leadership trends in both the Christian and secular arenas, from Bennis to Drucker to Senge to DuPree to Maxwell to Barna. Add to that the privilege I have of training Christian leaders and teams in eight different cultures ongoing. This year I will work with leaders from four sub Saharan tribal groups in Africa, Kazaks in Central Asia, Russians in and around Moscow, Estonians, several different ethnic Chinese groups in southeast Asia, and even Korean pastors in Los Angeles! It has been a rather interesting journey, to say the least -- particularly as I reflect on my own culture's leadership patterns here in the West after returning from any of the training treks. Out of this process of watching I came up with my own grid for Christian leadership. What functions are really essential to Christian leadership? What activities are strategic for every leader or leadership team to fulfill in a given ministry or church? I call my set the "Primary Functions of Leadership." It will appear in its most updated form in my new workbook called "Your Leadership Grip: Getting a Grip on How you REALLY Lead" coming out May 15 through ChurchSmart Publishers. An older edition of it appears as "Principle Priorities of Leadership" in my teambuilding workbook, "Discovering Your Ministry Identity." The "Primary Functions of Leadership" are my read on what actions are essential to effective Christian leadership in the New Millennium. Since the New Testament does not primarily focus on leadership but rather on equipping and releasing, these five summarize leadership in functional equipping language, all of which are combinations of various spiritual gift sets. No one of the five is valued over another, though each is strategic and essential to the whole process of this activity we call "leadership." Only 30% of the leaders with whom I work have the gift of leadership (Barna uses an even smaller figure), so there must be other combinations of equipping gifts that empower leading and enable the equipping of the saints. The five? Values Keeping, Vision Sharing, Teambuilding, Active Listening and Equipping-Releasing. The first two are more content driven; the second two are more relationally driven, while the fifth is really a combination of content and relationship, depending upon the gift mix of the particular leader. Commonly, I have found that leaders are strong at two or three of the five and less so with the other two or three. While some claim that their strengths among the five vary according to situation, the 90% majority clearly identify two are three as indeed their real power areas. By power I mean what the Kazaks of central Asia understand spiritual gifts to be: where God is powerful in you by His grace. I offer these three observations from the learning track these past 18 months since first using this simple assessment. First, it seems that in the west we have made leadership into a person instead of a series of functions to be fulfilled by a group of people. While it appears God has designed leadership to be activity where the "I" needs the "we," we have chosen the model of making the leader into the five-in-one specialist! Over the past ten years, the emphasis on leaders needing to be that certain kind of visionary leader or powerful upfront presenter appears to have been so strong in Christian media that everybody wants to be a visionary leader. Or they feel guilty that they are not such. This is a new framework of the same old problem that even the Reformation didn't address effectively...the priesthood of all believers just never quite caught on! Thus it will not surprise you that "Vision Sharing" is far and away the highest ranked of the five so far for those 600+ who have taken this assessment. This insight did not surprise me, what with Christian literature setting this course so clearly. What struck me was just HOW strong this trend was/is. Thankfully George Barna and others are now backing off things said earlier about the all-encompassing centrality of visionary leadership. Interestingly, after teambuilding seminars that I do regularly, commonly up to half of the people who came in believing that their strongest Primary Function to be Vision Sharer realize that they only WANT this to be strongest. Their real power is in other areas - and they are actually relieved! They suddenly realize that God has designed them to lead with other powerful strengths and thus do not have to fit the culturally popular styles. Add to this the second, and for me the most challenging insight gained. I was expecting that one of the five would be far and away the lowest - that being the Active Listener. I was wrong. Far and away, the lowest rated of the five thus far is... Equipping Releaser. I was shocked! Of the five this one actually seems closest to the biblical model of leadership. I now believe that we have focused so strongly on the pastor as visionary leader or what I call the "Moses as CEO" concept that leaders seem pre-occupied with the question "Am I a leader?" or "How can I learn to be a visionary leader?" rather than "How can I lead powerfully through who I am?" Everybody wants to be a leader - and one of the fruits of this trend is that many have forgotten about their equipping and releasing of others for ministry! Again, the "I" of leadership in our culture has lost sight of the "we." Everybody wants to be a leader - THE leader -x and the equipping and releasing of the next generation of leaders has been left wanting. This is why I am releasing the new "Your Leadership Grip" workbook - to help leaders re-focus on who they really are and get off this visionary leader as guru kick and back to an equipping/releasing framework. Thirdly, we may be asking some wrong questions when it comes to leading ministry and teams. The questions that leaders in the west commonly seem to ask are "Where am I strong?" and "What seminars can I go to strengthen my weaknesses?" We translate this same strong leader mentality into making even my weaknesses stronger. That's what you do in a culture that focuses on strength and runs from weakness, in a culture that focuses on the strength of the "I" as more important than the power and synergy of the "we" - this in spite of all the teambuilding supposedly going on. I contend that those earlier questions are not the right biblical ones. The critical questions are "Where am I powerful (i.e. my spiritual gifts)?" and "Who do I Need?" That is, equally important to how God has made me powerful is how God has prepared me to need others! For Christian Body Life purposes, God has designed every leader with intrinsic strengths and inherent weaknesses. That is, God has designed each of us to be strong and needy at the same time. The "I" again has been designed for the "we." Our model as leaders is to include how we allow others to come alongside to make our weakness into a strength for the leadership team. Commonly, leaders who have taken the Primary Functions assessment experience a new sense of primacy on asking God to raise up those alongside who create more holistic and powerful leadership model. The hoped for result is a re-centering of the principle of body life ministry driven by the leader who now sees him/herself more accurately as one among called to prepare the troops out of his own needs. I welcome shared insights on this subject as the learning continues." You can contact Paul R. Ford at PaulRFord1@cs.com or through ChurchSmart Publishers (800.253.4276) or ChurchSmart.com. His latest work is "Getting Your Gifts in Gear" lay mobilizing workbook is due out in second edition this summer with the whole "Mobilizing Spiritual Gifts" set for local churches. Paul has given us an assessment workbook for the average lay Christian (Getting Your Gifts in Gear), one for team assessing (Discovering Your Ministry Identity) and one expressly addresses the Leadership function (Your Leadership Grip).

My boss was complaining in a staff meeting the other day that he wasn't getting any respect. Later that morning he went out and got a small sign that read, "I'm the Boss." He then taped it to his office door. Later that day when he returned from lunch, he found that someone had taped a note to the sign that said: "Your wife called, she wants you to bring her sign back!"

Leadership Lessons from the NBA "Playing for yourself wins trophies, playing for your team wins championships." Tommy Lasorda "...entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also." 2 Timothy 2.2 _____________________________________________________ At the conclusion of the 1999-2000 season, the National Basketball Association (USA) named its 1999 Coach of the Year. That honor did not go to the coach that had won the most games; it didn't go to the team with the most marquis players or largest payroll; nor did it go to coach with the longest tenure. It didn't even go to the coach with the most improved record. Remarkably the Red Auerbach Trophy for Coach of the Year honors was given to Doc Rivers, coach of the Orlando Magic. The then 38-year-old coach selected was in his rookie year, coaching his team to a 41 win-41 loss season. Under his leadership despite having the best record in the Eastern Conference the previous year, the Magic failed to make the playoffs. It marked the first time in league history for a coach to win the award without leading his team to the playoffs. But Doc Rivers was selected because under his guidance, the team played far above its expectations and ability. Before Rivers came, Orlando's management launched a massive rebuilding project that began with the trading of four of the five starters from the previous year's team, including All- Star Penny Hardaway. Starting four players who were note even drafted out of college, Coach Rivers worked with the players he had and kept the Magic in contention until the next to last game of the season! All 12 players contributed significant minutes to each game and the Orlando Magic relied on teamwork, hustle, defense and pride to compete on a level far above other's expectations. In examining the leadership style of Coach Rivers, there are at least four lessons he brought to the team that all of us can employ: 1. Set the Bar High Before the season began, Coach Rivers sent every player a Federal Express package that had a single message: "Are you committed?" A second package arrived a few days later with the pronouncement: "We are going to be the best defensive team in the NBA." Successful leaders set high expectations regardless of what the organization or church thinks about itself. Leaders are not satisfied with mediocrity, but with excellence. As football great Vince Lombardi observed, "The quality of a person's life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence." 2. Go With What You Got Rivers didn't have any superstars so he designed the team around things he could control. He designed a hustling, up-tempo style that relied on defensive pressure to create scoring opportunities. He made his players scramble after every loose ball. Effective leaders consider things under their control and within their people's abilities. They help their organization do small things with hustle, desire and excellence. 3. Play as a Team. Can you name a single player on the Orlando Magic starting five from that year? It's doubtful that you can. Despite team management making 37 player transactions involving 38 different players throughout the year, Coach Rivers forced his players to play as a team and to know each of their teammates' skills and specialties. Rivers observed: "If I could explain our team in one word, it would be 'care.' Because that's what they did. They cared about playing. They cared about being coached. They cared about winning. They cared about improving. They cared about being teammates. And they made my job easy." Great leaders instill a sense of teamwork. "One man can be a crucial ingredient on a team, but one man cannot make a team." (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar ) 4. Enjoy Yourself Rivers' philosophy can be described as "cheerful optimism" He carries with him the invaluable ability to keep his head up when all those around are sagging theirs. When the Magic were slated to finish with the worst record in the NBA, Coach Rivers could have joined the doomsday crowd but his optimism resulted in a .500 season, a near playoff berth, Coach of the Years honors and the respect of players across the league. The privilege of leadership should be enjoyed, not endured! Leadership can at times be a daunting task. The future is uncertain, the risks are great and the responsibility is unappreciated. But as a leader, called by God, your work has eternal ramifications! Stay the Course, Greg Morris

No stream will rise higher than its source.

There, right in the middle of our lives, is that which satisfies the craving for inequality, and acts as a permanent reminder that medicine is not food. Hence a man's reaction to Monarchy is a kind of test. Monarchy can easily be "debunked"; but watch the faces, mark well the accents, of the debunkers. These are the men whose tap-root in Eden has been cut: whom no rumour of the polyphony, the dance, can reach -- men to whom pebbles laid in a row are more beautiful than an arch. Yet even if they desire mere equality, they cannot reach it. Where men are forbidden to honour a king, they honour millionaires, athletes, or film-stars instead: even famous prostitutes or gangsters. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served; deny it food and it will gobble poison.

"ADD VALUE" 5 Questions for John Maxwell HOW DO YOU RECOGNIZE FUTURE LEADERS? Everywhere I've served, I've prayed for God to send me leaders to build his church. For fourteen years, at least once every month or so, I'd meet someone visiting our church for the first time. We'd introduce ourselves. Then God would speak to me and say, "John, there's one." That was the most humbling thing in life because I didn't do one thing to bring that person in. After I resigned, I was with about seventy-five church leaders one night for a farewell dinner. I got up and said, "All my life I've prayed for leaders. Let me tell how God answered those prayers with you." Then I went around the room, telling each one about the time I met them, when God revealed, "There's one." By the time I was done, we were all bawling. Someone said, "How could you remember meeting everyone in a church this size?" I replied, "I don't remember meeting every person. I remember meeting you because you were one of those people I prayed God would lead into my life." If you pray for leaders; if you have a heart to develop, lead, and empower people; if you've got a God-given vision, God will give according to your heart's desires. HOW DO YOU APPROACH A POTENTIAL LEADER? I've always asked them to become my prayer partner for at least a year. That gives us time to get to know each other's hearts. In addition, our church board members were asked to mentor a potential leader, their replacement, during the last of their three years in office. On the front end of these relationships, we asked, "Are you willing to reproduce other leaders if I invest in developing you?" This perpetuates the culture of leadership development and weeds out people who probably wouldn't have developed anyway. HOW DO YOU DEVELOP A PERSON WHO HAS A HEART FOR GOD BUT NO LEADERSHIP SKILLS? Provide on-the-job training. If people have the character qualifications, they just need to learn how to maximize their efforts. We worry too much about position and titles. I teach: "Wherever you're working, whatever organization you serve, start adding value to people and begin to gain their respect. They will champion you." When you understand that leadership is influence instead of position, that changes everything. You don't strive to be a leader; you strive to add value to people, and they'll let you be the leader. IS THAT HOW YOU ENCOURAGE LOYALTY AMONG LEADERS? I prefer to talk about respect instead of loyalty, because you won't be loyal to a person if you don't respect her or him. In my dad's day, the pastor got loyalty because he was the pastor. These days, people will not be loyal to anyone unless they respect the person and know the leader respects them. People give loyalty when they can say, "I'm a better person because of that leader." As a leader, I'm always asking, "How can I add value to the person I lead?" I advise pastors not to go to a new church and ask, "Who's going to help me?" Instead, look around, find out who the leaders are, and ask, "How can I add value to them?" HOW, SPECIFICALLY, DO YOU ADD VALUE TO SOMEONE'S LIFE? Adding value comes from listening to people. If I know their heart, then I know exactly where to add value. I develop the part of themselves they want to see developed, not what I happen to need at the time. This prevents me from using people. We all believe that people are our greatest asset when we first meet them; it's a little tougher to believe after we have worked with them a while and have seen their weaknesses. I ask, "What is their unique contribution?" Then I equip people according to their gifts and desires. And part of it comes from asking people to be part of a great vision. Having a cause worth dying for is the greatest reason to live.

A young second lieutenant at Fort Bragg discovered that he had no change when he was about to buy a soft drink from a vending machine. He flagged down a passing private and asked him, "Do you have change for a dollar?" The private said cheerfully, "I think so, let me take a look." The lieutenant drew himself up stiffly and said, "Soldier, that is no way to address an officer. We'll start all over again. Do you have change for a dollar?" The private came to attention, saluted smartly, and said, "No, sir!"

A fish rots from its head.

I don't have a job description--if you need one you're not the right man for the job. There are three rules: 1) Don't do anything illegal 2) Don't do anything stupid 3) Don't embarass me

Michelangelo was said to have taken forever to select the marble he would use in his sculpture of David. A friend asked why he was taking so long, and he replied that the material he used would determine so much about the final product that he needed to make the right choice. God selects leaders the same way--based on what they're made of.

A leader is not the man who has the best ideas; he is the man who uses the best ideas. (The point is that we need to be willing to learn from others and also to record our own ideas that fly into our head)

S. I. McMillen, in his book None of These Diseases, tells a story of a young woman who wanted to go to college, but her heart sank when she read the question on the application blank that asked, "Are you a leader?" Being both honest and conscientious, she wrote, "No," and returned the application, expecting the worst. To her surprise, she received this letter from the college: "Dear Applicant: A study of the application forms reveals that this year our college will have 1,452 new leaders. We are accepting you because we feel it is imperative that they have at least one follower." Citation: J. R. Love, Ruston, Louisiana

Leadership is the ability to recognize the special abilities and limitations of others, combined with the capacity to fit each one into the job where he will do his best.

Pastors who give their congregations only what they want are seldom able to lead them to new heights. If Moses had listened to his congregation and appeased them, the people of Israel would have returned to Egypt and bondage. A visionary pastor is one who is able to shake and rattle her or his people for the cause of Christ.

A leader is best when people barely know he exists. Not so good when people obey and acclaim him. Worse when they despise him. But of a good leader who talks little when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, the people will say, "We did it ourselves. --

The best things and best people rise out of their separateness. I’m against a homogenized society because I want the cream to rise."

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.

If you wish to see what a man is, place him in authority.

Quality of character doesn’t make a leader, but the lack of it flaws the entire process.

The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.

A frightened captain makes a frightened crew. –

Remember that it is far better to follow well than to lead indifferently. – John G. Vance

I am more afraid of an army of one hundred sheep led by a lion than an army of one hundred lions led by a sheep. – Charles Maurice, 1754-1838

My responsibility is to be a supervisor, not a superworker. -- Fred Smith

Leadership is both something you are and something you do. A mentor is not a person who can do the work better than his followers; he is a person who can get his followers to do the work better than he can. -- Fred Smith

Being president is like a running a cemetery: you’ve got a lot of people under you, and nobody’s listening. -- Bill Clinton

The first task of a leader is to help define reality. The last is to say ‘thank you.’ In between, the leader is a servant. -- Max DePree

Leadership is to be both a speaker of words and a doer of deeds. – Homer, Iliad, 700 B.C.

If a leader demonstrates competency, genuine concern for others, and admirable character, people will say, "I like what that person is doing. I’m going to follow him." -- J. Richard Chase, Leaders, 1987, p. 23

As a leader you provide for people only what they can’t provide for themselves. -- Ken Blanchard

I think of Dwight D. Eisenhower, who many believe was a mediocre line officer and whose career was going no place. He requested to go to Panama, I think, to work under a certain general. That general had a transforming impact on his life as an officer; he taught Eisenhower how to become a competent leader.

Men of power have no time to read; yet the men who do not read are unfit for power.

You’ll have fifteen guys who will run through a wall for you, five you hate you and five who are undecided. The trick is to keep the five who hate you away from the five who are undecided.

Boldness becomes rarer, the higher the rank. -- (Or "the nearer to retirement" or "The greater the number of shares in the stock option plan")

At least 85% of all problems in an organization can be traced to the top management. This is due, in large part, to the fact that the only ones making any decisions are managers. --

He who cannot establish dominion over himself will have no dominion over others.

Demons try to possess people, to own them. A demonic organization is one that tries to take over the lives of its members. As only too many people have found, their jobs can easily possess them, taking countless hours out of their lives and still seeking more. So it can be with our churches.

The Bible says much about leadership. For example, it involves more than giving the people what they want, which was Pilate's model. It even involves more than mobilizing others toward shared goals. As avant guard as that sounds, Aaron tried it long ago and it resulted in the golden calf. By: Craig Barnes Source: Craig Barnes G&P, 10/9/94

Leaders shouldn’t attach moral significance to their ideas: Do that, and you can’t compromise. -- Peter F. Drucker

Any venture into leadership is hazardous. The long and well-documented Christian tradition confirms this. Leaders are necessary, but woe to those who become leaders. In leadership, possibilities for sin emerge that previously were inaccessible, possibilities exceedingly difficult to detect, for each comes in the form of a virtue. The unwary will embrace immediately a new "opportunity to serve the Lord," innocent of the reality that they are swallowing bait, which turns, soon or late, into a curse. "Let not many become teachers," warned James, who knew the perils firsthand. The temptations we face in the early years of our faith are, if not easily resisted, at least easily recognized. If I kill a man, I know I have done wrong. If I commit adultery, I have the good sense not to advertise it. If I steal, I make diligent effort not to get found out. The so-called lower sins, the sins of the flesh, are obvious. But the higher sins, the sins of the spirit, are not so easily discerned. Is a certain instance of zeal energetic obedience or human presumption? Is one person's confidence a holy boldness inspired by the Holy Spirit or merely arrogance instigated by an anxious ego? Is this suddenly prominent preacher with a large following a spiritual descendant of Peter with five thousand repentant converts or Aaron indulging his tens of thousands with religious song and dance around the golden calf? It is not easy to tell. Deception is nowhere more common than in religion. Wiser generations than ours did not send men and women into this perilous country without a thorough briefing of the hazards and frequent check-ups along the way. Even then shipwreck was frequent enough. The foolishness of our times is no more apparent than in the naivet6 with which we grant leadership and the innocence in which we rely on leaders' sincerity and motives. The religious leader is the most untrustworthy of leaders; in no other station do we have so many opportunities for pride, covetousness, and lust, and with so many excellent disguises to keep such ignobility from being found out and called to account. …. The congregation (chapter) is the pastor's (staff worker’s) place of ministry: we preach the Word and administer the sacraments, we give pastoral care and administer the community life, we teach and we give spiritual direction. But it is also the place in which we develop virtue, learn to love, advance in hope. By providing us contact with both committed and frustratingly inconstant individuals, the congregation provides the rhythms, the associations, the tasks, the limitations, the temptations - the conditions - for our own growth in Christ.

Leadership Development That Works By Steve Moore The ongoing effectiveness of every leader is dependent on his or her commitment to keep growing; and the most important growth steps leaders take over a lifetime are the result of self-directed learning. By definition, self-directed learning is triggered by an internal source of motivation. It is the fruit of something within us stimulating a desire to learn and grow. In his book Primal Leadership, emotional intelligence expert Daniel Goleman says it like this: “The crux of leadership development that works is self-directed learning; intentionally developing or strengthening an aspect of who you are or who you want to be.” The Other Big Mo Most leaders associate Big Mo with momentum. The other Big Mo is motivation. And motivation comes before momentum, especially as it relates to self-directed learning. Both Big Mo’s are exaggerators. John Maxwell has said that with momentum, you look better than you are when you have it and worse than you are when you don’t. I would add that with motivation, life appears easier than it is when you have it and harder than it is when you don’t. Imagine this experiment: two people of equal capacity are given the same task, the same tools and the same amount of time to complete the job. The only difference between them is that one is internally motivated to accomplish the task and the other is not. Without motivation, the task will appear to be harder. That’s the power of motivation. String several completed tasks together and you generate momentum. Self-directed learning hinges on an inner, renewable source of motivation to keep growing. Sources of Motivation for Self-Directed Learning Children engage in self-directed learning out of curiosity. They have a natural bent to spontaneously explore their world. But curiosity is a rather unpredictable source of motivation and tends to wane quickly when the exploration ceases to be fun. Chasing a butterfly can give way to picking a flower or digging for worms in a matter of seconds. Curiosity, as a source of motivation for self-directed learning, does not go away as we age, but it does diminish in intensity as it is joined by capacity. Capacity-based learning tends to surface in teens and young adults as they discover their talents. The presence of ability in sports, drawing or debate, for example, generates an inner source of motivation arising from the convergence of interest and skill. We tend to like what we are good at (interest) and are good at what we like (skill). Most of us can remember the difference in results that came from music lessons that were imposed upon us by loving parents (external motivation) as opposed to capacity-based pursuits that bubbled up from springs of desire in our own heart (internal motivation). While curiosity-based learning is spontaneous, capacity-based learning is both spontaneous and structured, as we often pursue a self-directed learning agenda in the context of a team or other organized activities. As adults, curiosity and capacity-based learning should give way to a sense of destiny. Life long self-directed learners tap into a sense of purpose, a greater cause or a life-dream that serves as an inner source of motivation to keep growing. While capacity-based learning is spontaneous and structured, destiny-based learning is often systematic, incorporating a broader combination of structured activities into a comprehensive growth plan. The life-dreams that flow from one’s sense of destiny expose the difference between what is and what could or should be, while stimulating an inner sense of responsibility to do something about it. You show me a person with a big dream and I’ll show you someone motivated to grow. Practical Implications for Leaders 1. Accept personal responsibility for your continued development as a leader. If you are not growing, it is not your supervisor’s fault; it is not your team’s fault. This is an empowering truth that frees you from being dependent on others; no one else can hold back your developmental journey. 2. Nurture all three motivational triggers for self-directed learning. Cultivate curiosity by continuing to explore uncharted waters. Develop your capacity through structured activities. Embrace your destiny and pursue the life-dreams God has put in your heart. 3. Affirm self-directed learning in the leaders around you. When members of your team express interest or potential in a given area, actively encourage them to pursue it. Create space and provide assistance whenever possible. Motivational Triggers for Self-directed Learning Childhood Teen-young adult Adulthood Curiosity-based Capacity-based Destiny-based Spontaneous Structured Systematic Focused on fun Focused on goals Focused on dreams

"Blessed is he who has learned to admire but not envy, to follow but not imitate, to praise but not flatter, and to lead but not manipulate."

If the people lead, the leaders will follow.

Leadership rises based upon providing the scarcest resource. This principle is operating all the time… Do you remember growing up, playing neighborhood baseball? Whatever kid owned the bat and ball—got to play, no matter how awful they were at baseball. Why? They provided the scarce resource the other kids needed. Have you ever participated in a brainstorming meeting with a group of people? Who has the influence? The person who is loaded with new ideas. They may not be the positional leader, but they have influence. Can you recall the last time you drove a rental car in an unfamiliar city, with a group of people? The person with the directions from Map Quest was the one everyone listened to. Why? They had the scarcest resource.

Most men are distressed when placed under the command of ignoble individuals. For no one voluntarily puts up with submitted himself to a master or leader who is a man inferior to himself.

And the things [his men slaughtering pack animals for food] that were happening had not escaped the notice of Alexander, but he saw that the remedy for present circumstances was his pretense of ignorance rather than his knowing acquiescence.

God gave us dominion over everything except other people.

Andy Grove on Leadership

[Note that quote comes from a transcript of the talk that the folks at Harvard gave me (Bob Sutton). I have edited out a few lines, in part, because Grove made some comments about the Soprano’s TV show that were funny, but distract from the main point]. Grove said: "None of us have a real understanding of where we are heading. I don’t. I have senses about it... But decisions don’t wait, investment decisions or personal decisions and prioritization don't wait for that picture to be clarified. You have to make them when you have to make them. So you take your shots and clean up the bad ones later. And try not to get too depressed in the part of the journey, because there’s a professional responsibility. If you are depressed, you can't motivate your staff to extraordinary measures. So you have to keep your own spirits up even though you well understand that you don’t know what you’re doing." Then, Clay Christensen asked, "So how do you work on that part about keeping good spirits or managing emotional response, leading your team." Grove answered: "Well, part of it is self-discipline and part of it is deception. And the deception becomes reality -- deception in the sense that you pump yourself up and put a better face on things than you start off feeling. After a while, if you act confident, you become more confident. So the deception becomes less of a deception. But I think it is very important for you to do two things: act on your temporary conviction as if it was a real conviction; and when you realize that you are wrong, correct course very quickly."

Developing Leaders Hurts You In The Short Run, Helps You In The Long

Unless already serving in an upper-level staff position, during peacetime an [Army] officer does not stay in one position for more than two years, and the time is often less. Since every transfer entails a learning curve, this movement of officer personnel lessens immediate organizational efficiency, but the army consciously accepts this as a price of leadership development.