Five Critical Questions

Leadership Summit 2011

Session One
“Five Critical Questions” by Bill Hybels

     1. What is my current challenge level at work?                                     

*Under Challenged – don’t have much of a to do list and so don’t get much accomplished at work…spend time ordering things on the computer, spending time on facebook for fun not ministry related, count the minutes until it is time to go home…

*Appropriately Challenged – have a to do list and get most of it done; able to be there for the family in the evening

*Dangerously Over Challenged – upon getting up in the morning you wonder how in the world will I ever get through my to do list in the next month let alone today; when you get to work more things get added to that list and you end up not accomplishing much of anything; you are so stressed that you are no good to your family or anyone around you…very dangerous place to be.

So, where is the best place to be? Bill stated that the best place to be is right above Appropriately Challenged.

MY THOUGHTS: I would have to agree, cause if we stay at Appropriately Challenged then we could become stagnant…we are getting things done and we are serving our family well, but it may not be stretching us to move to the next level and to grow.

We must be challenging ourselves in order to be good leaders. We are no good to anyone if we live in crazy land. We must take time to replenish our leadership bucket.

Could there be times when our job requires us to live in crazy land for a period of time (Bill's example: we have 22 services on Christmas Eve/Easter…lol)? Yes, but try to prepare youreselves for those times and get out just as soon as you can.

What will replenish your bucket? These should be moments away from your work…maybe doing a hobby. This reminds me of the question that Matt asks us on WVC staff, Emotional Goal…What is it that recharges us emotionally?

Organizations could also fit into these categories…offering too many things or not offering enough.

MY THOUGHTS: Especially in a church, I believe we must be offering an Appropriate amount of activities that will keep people involved, moving to the next level and growing in their walk with God and in the calling that He has upon their life.

2. What is the plan to dealing with challenging people in our organization?

*You must determine who those people are. Sit down with the managers of your company and have them put down each person on their team in the order of who they would let go of first if they were told that labor must be reduced by 50%.

*KEY to our future…Keep and Maintain FANTASTIC people and deal with those who are not fantastic anymore.

*How long will we allow people to have bad attitudes? We must deal with this as soon as we see the pattern develop. Once you have sat down and talked with the person than a good time frame could be…in 30 days there must be a change of attitude.

*How do you handle under performers? We must sit down with the person as soon as we see this pattern developing. We coach them, come up with a plan to assist them, encourage them and then decide the time frame to when this must be resolved…possibly 3 months.

*How do you handle a situation where the capacity of a role changes? This happens when the gifts and talents of a FANTASTIC individual no longer has the necessary elasticity in the role. The requirements are above what they are able to fulfill. It is not that they have a bad attitude or that they are an under performer rather it just means that the job they were in has changed and is not a good fit for them with those changes.

Challenging people are not happy people.

If you don’t deal with challenging people then you will discourage the positive and FANTASTIC people and you will lose them.

       3.     Are you naming, facing and resolving problems in your organization?

*Life Cycle Diagram – Accelerating, Booming, Decelerating, Tanking

*Evaluate each ministry to see where it fits into the cycle

*A few that Bill mentioned that they were in the part of Decelerating were…Volunteers, Stewardship, Evangelism…kind of reminds me of where Woodmen is as it relates to Volunteers and Stewardship.

*Bill stated that they put together a team for each of these areas and those teams brought to the table new ideas in order to take them back to Accelerating.

MY THOUGHTS:  What ministries at Woodmen (or in your organization) are moving towards the Decelerating part of this cycle? What events/ministries inside each of our core ministries(OSP; Human Resources; Commarts; Experience Department(Men, Women, Small Groups, Sports & Rec); Students; Children’s; Pastoral Care; Worship Arts) need to be evaluated? How are we currently working towards making sure that some of these things are not headed for the end of the cycle-tanking?

      4. When was the last time that you re-examined the core of what your
       organization is about?

*Is our vision clear?

*What’s at the core of what we do?

*Bill gave an example of a car dealership…The manager sat down with all the employees and asked them what they felt the core of their organization was about. Some of what they started to say…sell cars; sell and fix cars and then one person stated that it was to provide a transportation solution to people. That then became the core of their company.

MY THOUGHTS: This caused them to provide many other services, making them a successful company not only financially, but in how they responded and cared for the needs of people.

*Churches are in the people transformation business. Describe in 5-words, using no hyphenated words and no “God” words, the central message of the good news of Jesus Christ…

Example given by Bill…

1           - Love

2           -Evil

3           -Rescue

c           -Choice

5           -Restore

First and foremost we must love people…there is so much evil in this world and we are in need of a rescue, however we have to make that choice and when we do we will be restored to the person that God has called us to be.

      5. Have you had your leadership bell rung lately?

*Leaders rarely learn anything new unless they have had their bell rung.

*We are tired of being stuck, but we have lost our boldness and our faith, which would allow us to move forward.

*When we are sick and tired of being stuck, it is then that we will bring action in order to move forward.

*Bold solutions to Stubborn problems

*There is too much at stake in this fallen world to be leaders in a fetus state.

*Bill gave an example…He takes the other 4 Founders of Willow Creek for a time away…They were celebrating 35 years…One of them mentioned the thought of who might hang it up over the next 5 years…who will make it to 40…then one guy said…what if we made the next 5 years the best years?

MY THOUGHTS: Why can’t my next 5 years be the best years? Why can't the next 5 years be your best years? What will it take to move you forward?