- Leaders move people from here to there. You have to be able to talk about your current reality (here), and cast a vision for a preferred future (there).
- It is more than just casting vision - telling people how good "there" is. People usually like "here" better than "there."
- The first play in getting people to move "there" is making "here" sound awful.
- Long before Dr. King gave his "I Have A Dream" speech, he gave hundreds of "We Can't Stay Here" speeches about bigotry, injustice, and inequity.
- Bob Pierce, founder of World Vision, would take potential donors to food lines where the food would run out, and then say to the donors: "We can't stay here. But, with your help, we can feed millions (go "there").
- In other words, staying "here" breaks the heart of God.
- Leaders: your job isn't to preside over something, or preserve something from its gradual demise. It is to figure out what God wants to do in this world, and then move people from here to there.
- It takes fantastic people to move others from here to there. You can't do it alone.
- One of the greatest joys of leadership is assembling teams of fantastic people who move others from here to there.
- When assembling a team, look for character, competence, chemistry, and culture. You want people to flourish in your particular culture.
- Hybels and his staff went through their staff and identified which of them were "fantastic" - people who would make them vomit if they decided to leave. Then, they met with their fantastic people and committed to investing in them and requesting them to provide feedback immediately if they were ever dissatisfied or frustrated.
- Assembling, developing, and inspiring a team of fantastic people is a holy challenge. We have to view it as a leadership fundamental, as a privilege.
- Perhaps we need to have some sensitive conversations with fantastic people, and some sensitive conversations with some not so fantastic people for our culture.
- Mile markers and celebrations: how do you inspire people to stay on the journey?
- People are most vulnerable not at the beginning of the journey (when they are first leaving "here"), and not at the end of the journey (when "there" is in sight), but in the middle third.
- In the middle, people forget how bad "here" was, and how good "there" is going to be.
- In the middle, the leader has to refill the vision bucket. Vision leaks, because people have real jobs, have other things to think about, etc.
- In the middle, the leader has to celebrate every possible mile marker that you can. What keeps people on the journey is a sense of hope that they are going to get there someday.
- It's ok to throw a party for being "halfway there."
- Most experts would say that there is a 40% differential in productivity between an inspired teammate and an uninspired teammate.
- When the disciples' inspiration level was low, he would act swiftly: take them away, take them aside, tell a story, cast a vision.
- Whispers from God: John 10:27 - God's people hear Jesus' voice. God's leaders know the mind of God.
- Every leader ought to be a regular, relentless reader of the Bible.
- In addition to the Bible, God speaks to his people through the whispers of His Spirit: a thought, a nudge, a prompting. We have to be attentive and respond to these. They will prompt us to get beneath the surface with others.
- We will miss out if all we do is live out the script that others have for our lives instead of listening to God's whispers.
- If we really believed that God speaks to us today, His Spirit to ours, then we'd take better care of our "antennas" - the parts of us that can and should be able to hear God's whispers.
- From Bill: the wisest leadership moves he has made have come out being attentive to and responding to God's whispers - to not quit, to admit your mistake, to step up, to take the risk, to apologize now, to make the tough decision, to get help, to stop running from God, to slow down, to show your heart, to let others lead, to feed your soul, to bless the team, to make the ask, to do something more impactful, to come clean, to embody the vision, to celebrate the victories, to speak the truth, to pay the price, to count your blessings, to end the secret, to check your motives, to set the pace, to give God your best, to get physically fit, to serve your spouse/kids, to pray, to humble yourself.
Next up: Jim Collins. Stay tuned!
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