Innovation’s Dirty Little Secret

In my experience, there are few writers on anything related to leadership who demonstrate the wisdom and insight of Larry Osborne. I read anything he writes, and I almost always benefit. Innovation’s Dirty Little Secret is no exception. While his focus is on innovation, in many ways it’s a book about leadership from a fresh angle.

His description of the difference between mission and vision was especially helpful. Those words are constants in almost any tome on leadership, but in my experience, I have found them to often be misused, confused, or plain unhelpful because of a lack of understanding about each of them.

Simply put, mission is why your organization exists—why are you here? What are you supposed to accomplish? Vision is what that looks like in practice. Lots of churches have “make disciples” as their mission, but it can look markedly different in different places (think Pentecostal vs. Baptist). Why does it matter if you get them right or not? Let me quote Osborne:

“If you have a clear mission statement but no corresponding detailed vision of what success looks like or how you plan to get there, the result will almost always be a confused and splintered team. Each member will seek to fulfill the mission in their own way, taking the path that seems best to them. If you have a detailed vision without a clear mission statement, the result will almost always be lots of activity without any means of determining whether it’s accomplishing anything. At the end of the day, there will be no way to measure success.”

In the same vein, his insights into how vision develops were helpful. Much of the literature out there seems to imply that “vision” comes out of the womb fully formed. My observation is that it is more often discovered over time than decided in a day. Over time we discover the things God has put in the depths of our hearts; we also learn what is truly ours and what sounds good but is really something we adopted from someone else. Osborne puts it like this:

“Unlike mission, vision often starts out fuzzy. It’s a lot like an old-fashioned Polaroid picture; it becomes sharper and more focused over time. It can’t be rushed. But if allowed to fully develop, it provides a clear and detailed description of what success looks like.”  

The second thing I’ll mention is the wisdom and humility implicit in recognizing that innovation often comes from people or organizations outside our own tribe. It is so easy to fall into thinking that if it doesn’t originate with “us,” it isn’t legitimate. I’ve certainly fallen into that at times. But what is old news for others may be revolutionary for us; we need to have enough humility to learn from others—especially those groups we secretly feel condescending toward. As Osborne puts it:

“The fact is, most of the new paradigms, programs, and innovations that will be crucial to our success in the future are already being tried somewhere.”

One of the difficult things about this book was how many great nuggets there were. Often I would find myself stopping and chewing on something that was almost a side comment but that really struck me.

I’m eager to hear what you thought of the book and what struck you. I’m also interested in hearing what you’ve learned about innovation that might not have been mentioned in the book.

-Dave Frederick

Leadership From the Inside Out

I loved the title of Cashman’s book, Leadership From the Inside Out. That captures the basic truth that leadership is about more than just developing a set of skills; it is just as integrally connected to the kind of people we are. A basic leadership truism is that “we reproduce who we are.” We reproduce ourselves in both people and organizations that we lead. So, paying attention to who we are, and letting that flow into what we do, is a critical ingredient for success.

There were two particular insights I grabbed hold of here. The first is the importance of relationships for leadership success. Cashman said it this way:

Many of us have a difficult time breaking out of the self-limiting illusion that we are “the ones that make things happen.” All too often, successful, achievement-oriented people mistakenly believe they are the prime movers, the origin of accomplishments in their groups or organizations. Unfortunately, many driven leaders fail to comprehend how nothing is accomplished without engaging in relationships and appreciating the unique contribution of many, many people.

That is not to minimize the importance of what we personally bring to the table or of our efforts to make things happen. But every major achievement or success I can think of in my history has required the efforts of many other people, and none of them would have happened if it all depended just on me. To be effective as leaders, we must invest in relationships and in honoring those who work hard to make things happen. It appeals to our ego to be “the guy,” but if we don’t get past that, few things will happen the way they could.

The other thing that struck me was the importance of finding time to be quiet. I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately and have become convinced of the importance of being quiet for a leader to be effective. Cashman said it this way:

With no silence, there is no reflection. With no reflection, there is no vision. With no vision, there is no leadership. As counter-intuitive as it may seem, silence and reflection are actually performance pathways to more expanded vision and more effective, innovative leadership. As leaders, how often do we take the time to relax and to think?

Taking time to be quiet can feel unproductive. In our busy world, it seems like a luxury to take time away, not to work, but just to think (and by that I don’t mean the analytical thinking most of us do.) To take time to reflect, get in touch with the bigger picture or even just our own hearts seems counter-intuitive. But studies are now showing that regular times of non-agenda-driven quiet actually result in greater productivity, more creativity, and more peace, among other things. Rather than being a luxury, it seems like taking time for quiet is a necessity for any leader who wants to lead well.

So what do you think? Do you take time for quiet, or do you think you are too busy? Or was there something else that struck you?

Leading Congregational Change

Leading Congregational Change was a challenging book for me. I tend to be in the “ready, fire, aim” camp—preferring to just get things started and adjust as we go—and the authors here outline a very deliberate approach to congregational change. While this approach is different from my natural style, I can see some of the advantages.

Clearly, if you want to bring deep, wide, long-lasting change rather than just get things moving, you need a deliberate process. I love the way the authors break that process down into clear steps.

The importance of the vision community really stuck out to me. Putting the right people on that team is imperative. They need to be leaders, drawn from a wide range of the church’s members. The challenge for any pastor will be to select the right people. There would be some pressure to pick popular people (who aren’t leaders), or pick people based on seniority rather than gifts or ability. Some candidates would have a difficult time thinking about the whole church rather than their own particular area or department. It seems to me that getting those people on the vision team could significantly hinder the process.

I also thought there was a lot of wisdom in having a small team take the process a long way before bringing it to the whole church. Too many cooks, too soon, spoils the broth. While the church membership clearly needs to be part of the process, the temptation is to bring them in too early, which dissipates the focus. There could easily be pressure that causes a pastor to move too fast in order to include people, when a better result would come from being more patient.

What insights would you add? What have you learned as you have led your church or organization through change?

The Soft Edge

In The Soft Edge, Rich Karlgaard looks at how the “soft side” of business actually gives a huge competitive advantage to those who do it well. While mastering the hard side is important, advances in technology tend to level the playing field, and organizations that develop the soft side of things, such as trust, smarts, teamwork, taste, and storytelling, will come out ahead.

Generally, churches seem to be stronger on that side of the ledger, so it was interesting to think about how Karlgaard’s insights apply to a church. Applying them in a business context was easier, or at least more straightforward. But there were two particular things I took from this book:

The first relates to trust. In our day, the church is not a particularly trusted institution. Right or wrong, churches often have a trust deficit in their communities, which certainly hinders their potential impact. How does a church build trust? Avoiding ethical lapses, of course, but that should be a given.

Karlgaard identifies another way: “…demonstrate real concern. We tend to trust people we believe will care about our welfare. So demonstrate to others that you’ll do the right thing for them, even if it’s uncomfortable or it puts you at risk.” This should come naturally to any church, but too often it doesn’t. But I think it would make a significant difference if churches were known in their community as places that really care about people and go beyond what is normal to help people—especially people outside the church.

Seems pretty obvious, churches doing things that churches should be doing. That builds trust, opens doors, and increases impact. It works for businesses; how much more would that work for churches?

Of course, that raises the question, “Why is that so rare?” That’s more than I can dig into in this post, but it’s a question worth asking for every leader. Is my church or organization doing anything that will build trust in my community? If not—why not?

The second thing that struck me was the importance and power of story. A good story will link an idea with an emotion, which is a powerful way to move people to action. No amount of data or persuasive argument can do that the way a good story can, which leads me to think about both how I teach and how I cast vision. It’s immediately apparent to me that I can get a lot better at using stories. I do use them, but I can clearly do more.

Why don’t I? Well, finding the right story takes work—it takes time, energy, and thought, and sometimes it is just easier not to. However, I, like every teacher, want to see people grow and change as a result of what I do. Remembering that motivates me to put the work in to find stories that communicate. It’s not a new idea; it’s just one I need to put into practice more diligently.

So what about you? I’d love to hear what you are doing to build trust or what other takeaways you have from this summary. Let’s all learn from each other!