- Good is the enemy of the Great
- Greatness is largely a matter of conscious choice and discipline
- What causes the Great to fall?
- The greatest leaders are the most humble and know it is NOT about them
- Understand: ANYONE can fall
- 5 Stages of Decline (Largely self-inflicted)
- Stage 1: Hubris Born of Success
- Outrageous arrogance that neglects our primary calling and fails to renew itself. Failure to recognize that the blessing did not come from ourselves. Those great leaders who did not fall into this showed one thing: Humility in a leader.
They are also ambitious, passionate, and willing to do whatever is required to fulfill the mission
Stage 2: Undisciplined Pursuit of More
Too much, too soon; breaking ‘Packard’s law’ -- which is that you must not grow too fast for the leaders you have in place. You must get strong "Fantastic People" on the bus and in the key seats for things to move forward.
We must resist expansion and growth until the right people are ‘on the bus’ and in the right seats. THEN figure out where to drive the bus.
Stage 3: Denial of Risk and Peril
Failing organizations are in denial about the reality of failure and struggle around them. Numbers, feedback, grim realities etc. are denied because things still look great. See chart from book ‘How The Mighty Fall’ (Teams on the Way Up vs. Teams on the Way Down)
Unhealthy optimism that denies reality and is unwilling to confront the most brutal facts. Strong leaders are willing to have faith that the mission will succeed but face the facts that right now things are not going that well. The accurately see the present reality but never give up believing that they will prevail. - Stage 4: Grasping for salvation.
Leaders at this level are looking for a silver bullet. They think they will get a new vision or hire a great new charismatic leader to solve the problems. What they fail to realize is that greatness is never a single event or breakthrough, but a cumulative process.
Healthy turn around comes from restarting the flywheel of growth. This is done by careful disicpliend consistent intelligent progress - turn upon turn, push upon push; disciplined choice upon disciplined choice — excellent decisions over and over and over
Stage 5: Capitulation.
When you get here it’s over. You just give up. You have squandered financial, moral, relational capital, etc. and you have no more options.
To avoid this pattern of decline ask yourself what would be lost if we disappeared? Why MUST you continue to endure, struggle, persist? Be driven by large noble purposes beyond money and success -- churches ought to have something to say about this! - Your grand purpose must then be rooted in core values that will NOT be compromised. What do we stand for that will never give up on? Are we willing to change anything in order to realize our larger purposes?
- Never forget the genius of the AND!
- Great leaders are always big on AND -- it is not either change methods or stay true to our mission -- it is AND!
- Ten ‘To Do’s’
- Do your diagnostics. (www.jimcollins.com has free assessment for "Good to great")
- Count your blessings. Literally. (When we see all of the blessings that we did not cause = humility)
- What is your personal "questions to statements" ratio? (Learn to ask the right questions, and have more questions than answers. Be more concerned about being interested than about being interesting!
- How many key seats are vacant/filled with Fantastic People on your bus? What seats have yet to be filled, and what is the plan to get to 100% right people on the right bus in the right seats?
- Do the Teams diagnostics (from Teams on the Way Up vs Teams on the Way Down) with your Fantastic People
- With the right team of Fantastic People create an inventory of the brutal facts about your enterprise now.
- Create a “Stop Doing” list. (What do we have the discipline to stop doing?) this is more important than your TO Do list.
- Define the results you seek and the careful steps to get there and measure the milestones and significant points of progress along the way.
- Double your reach to young people by changing your practices without changing your core values.
- Set a BHAG rooted in your purpose so that your work will never be done.
- Ten ‘To Do’s’
Peter Drucker wrote 1/3 of his many books before age 65 -- 2/3 after age 65!
“The path out of darkness begins with those individuals (leaders) who are constitutionally incapable of capitulation.”
Again thanks to Eric Spangler's Blog for the basics which I was able to massage with some of my own comments etc. I have been having issues with editing the format -- sorry about that.
The content is still good stuff.
GHT
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