Session 2b – Manage Differently NOW (Gary Hamel)
Wow – John Ortberg is a dead ringer for a middle-aged Edward Norton. I’ve never noticed that before. Ortberg is introducing Gary Hamel (WSJ’s 2008 “World’s Most Influential Business Thinker”). I took a lot of notesduring this one because he’s talking about something I spend a lot of time reading and talking about.
Our non-Christian friends can see that we’re not really different (confirmed by Barna study)
Is the Gospel failing us or is it our institutions?
Should we decry secularism or thank God for the opportunity?
Talks about big corps and how they are faring badly because they got stuck in the mud
Their employees are “locked in a cell by the custodians of convention”. The Custodians of Convention – nice phrase.
Turbulence is not met with resilience – there is more turbulence and less resilience meeting at the same point.The incumbents get left behind.
“Success s a self-correcting phenomena.”
Cultivate the ability to change and morph and evolve.
In most of our orgs, the only path to change is the same as in a badly governed dictatorships. The leaders must be violently overthrown.
Four Keys to Outrunning Change
1. Overcome the temptation to take refuge in denial
- “Every organization is successful, until its not.”
- Avoid the cycle of – Deny Rationalize Mitigate Confront
- Show people the hard data
- Face the facts and be open to questions
2. Listen to the renegades
- Do we welcome dissent or try to stifle?
- Learn from the positive outliers
3. Generate more strategic options
- We get stuck in the present because we fixate on what we have
- Generate crazy ideas, diverge a lot
- Invite participation “How do we increase our impact?” from church as well as community
4. Deconstruct what you already believe
- Question your orthodoxies (not meaning creedal ones)
- If things aren’t changing, ask why?
- Open-source the sermon – put scripture out there, allow people to contribute to the sermon prep (check – doing that)
- Take notes during sermon (“Why not? It happens in every university class.”)
- Be unconventional
- Are we more committed to redemption, renewal, reconciliation or policies and procedures?
- Surrender cherished orthodoxies
Organizations fail because the mental models of leadership team depreciate faster than their authority. Their understanding of the world is past its expiry date. Don’t give a small number the ability to hold back change.
Change comes from bottom up. Are there structures other than top-down?
Yes – Gore-tex management system
- no hierarchy
- no corp language
- cards say “leader”
- You become a leader when your team asks you to lead them
- “A leader with no followers is just a guy taking a walk” (From West Wing last night)
- Mobilize, connect, support is now the leader’s job
Most orgs are not built to be adaptable. They were built when we were working on making people into robots
Authority is derived from the quality of output/content – nobody asks on YouTube if you are a filmmaker, Flickr – photographer (you are these things, the question is how good are you?)
People want to work in orgs that reflect the ethos of the web.Churches are trying to work like F500 companies. This is typically 25 years behind.
The early church was communal, organic, and institutionally weak.
We won’t get better at changing lives until we get batter at changing our churches.
The church is God’s hope for humanity. No plan B – we’re it!
Great session!
