1. What is your leadership challenge at work?

• Under challenged, Appropriately challenged, Dangerously over challenged
• At what level do you do your best work? Just a little above the appropriately challenged level.

Knowing that leaders do there best work just above the appropriately challenged level:

• If you are under challenged, do what you have to do to bring yourself up
• If you are dangerously over challenged, you have to do something quickly to fix that

What is the challenge level of your associates?

• Good leaders will leave if they are under challenged

What is the challenge level of the organization?

2. What is your plan for dealing with challenging people in your organization?

• If you lost 50% of your revenue, who would you keep/say goodbye to?

The key to an organizations future is their ability to attract and keep fantastic people. The same is true on the other end of the spectrum; an organizations future also depends on letting people go that need to be let go.

• How long do you let someone with a bad attitude remain?  30 days max, it is addressed as soon as you see a pattern develop
• How long do you keep someone who is under performing? 3 months. Put on a performance plan and address as soon as you see the pattern develop
• How long do you allow someone to remain when the organization outgrows that leaders capacity? These are tough calls to make. This almost always leads to heartbreak. 6-12 months are given to develop or redeploy. If they have to leave, you should honor them for their service and give them a generous severance.

If you don’t deal with people that have a bad attitude, you will discourage and defeat your fantastic people. You have to deal with challenging people quickly.

Challenging people, deep down, are not happy people. When you have these tough conversations many times they will come back and thank you later.

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

• Real leaders face and resolve the problems. It builds trust in the organization.

Ideas and programs will only last so long. Everything has a life cycle. The things that are booming and that have momentum now will eventually decorate and tank, becoming a problem that will need to be faced. They key is to reinvent before something tanks.

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

• Great leaders ask are we all about?
• The Bible is clear, the church is in the life-changing business.

5. Have you had your leadership bell rung recently?

• Leaders rarely learn anything new without having their world rocked or their bell rung.
• It is easier to make excuses than to create solutions to move your organization from here to there.
• Keep moving things forward. The way you end is the way you are remembered.

• Every new term that comes out tells us we’re doing church wrong. So “Missional schmissional and Attractional Schmactional!”
• 40% of people are attracted to and will come to the “box,” and that number is shrinking.  Tim says that the number holds true for Granger and its community.
• Granger did not exist 25 years ago, and now it runs over 5000.  But has it made a dent on the statistical number of unchurched in the area.
• Granger does not have all the answers, but here is what we know at Granger right now:

o   We must begin reaching the 60% of people that are unchurched in the area

o   We must reach more of the 40% that will go to church

o   We must help the 40% reach their 60%

• In the past we wanted to get the community into the church, in the future,, we want to get the church into the community
• In the past church was defined by the weekend service, in the future, church is defined by where you are
• In the past, it was primarily centralized, top down structure, in the future, it is a decentralized, organic structure for quick growth
• In the past, there was no designated giving, in the future,, there are lots of ways to give to your passion
• In the past, people have come to the building to do their ministry, in the future,, ministry isn’t confined to a building. It happens everywhere you are.
• In the past, buildings  served the church, the community is invited to join, in the future, buildings serve the community, the congregation also meets there.

The community at large should no longer look at the church as a last resort, but the first place to go for hope and help!

• Missional people + Multiplying churches = Missional movement

Creating a culture for missional movement

• Ordain every Christ-follower. Live the priesthood of believers.
• Lead with a “yes”. Allow others to live out their dream.
• Make heroes of everyday people.  Tell people’s story. When people see everyday people doing something it inspires them and releases them to do what God has birthed in them.

We’re plagued by the curses of the vs. They are all around us – including in how we think we have to do church.

Before we were plagued by the “curses of the vs.” but now, we’re opening up a can of the Power of The AND. The thought process that church doesn’t have to be missional OR attractional – it’s the power of AND instead of OR.

• External Focus
• Cultural Relevance
• Priesthood of believers (every member a minister – focus on service)
• Church as an institution

Missional 101

• Educates and sends members out to where the people live
• People do not come to the church, the church goes to the people
• Church as a movement

The tone over the last many years has been one of being either or; being opposed to one another.

Transactional model of mission

• Pay another organization to send out missionaries
• May even have some of our people tag along for short term work
• Based and focused on the organization

In the book of Acts, we see missions done through the local church, not an external organization.  Missional is the responsibility of the church itself.

• We need to move from cultural relevance to cultural embedment.
• Do we have to see church as institution and church as movement as being against each other.  The can exist together in a healthy relationship.
• God’s Spirit empowers and gives life to both expressions of the church.

• The church is becoming more isolated from most people today in the US.
• Most churches in an attractional setting are extracting people from their cultural group, which also removes their influence from Christ in their cultural setting.
• Within 3-5 years of coming to Christ, most people are socialized out of their context and into the context of the church, which removes them from their sphere of influence.
• 40% of the US would be interested in the Contemporary Church Growth Model.
• That means 60% of people are alienated from the Contemporary Church Growth Model.
• The problem? 95% of churches are trying to become like the Contemporary Church.
• Even if every church could pull it off (by becoming a growing church in the CCGM) we would only be reaching out to 40% of the population.
• What is church for the 60%?  What is going to reach them?  More of the same is not the answer.
• The problems of the church cannot be resolved by the same kind of thinking that created those problems.  You cannot do the same thing over and over and expect different results.  That is the definition of organizational insanity.
• We are living in a de-churched cultural society. Most churches do not know what to do with that. They are unsure of what they need to do different.
• Church comes out of mission. Not the other way around.
• We need to plant the gospel and let church come out of that

• When people are passionate about what they do, they are far more effective at what they do.
• People come to church to follow Jesus, and get stuck with you (the pastor)!
• It is vital that when people follow you as the pastor, they do not hear a new sound, a different message than the one they heard that caused them to follow Jesus.
• You cannot be a “me too” leader and impassion people.  You have to be authentic… you have to be yourself, not someone else.
• It is amazing how many leaders think success is just maintaining.
• People follow people that move, not those who are standing still.
• As leaders, we need to do a quality check to make sure that the passion exists from the top down to the bottom.
• If you do something that is from your heart, that gets you out of bed in the morning, everything that comes short, God will make up the difference.
• People need to sense the passion that you have as a leader every day.
• Passion is more than emotionalism.  Passion is the fuel that makes the engine go.
• 2 categories of leaders:
  • Builders – leaders that will build out of nothing.  They are better at building than maintaining.
  • Bankers – These people can manage.  They can maintain the builders vision.
• Both types of leaders are needed.  You need to surround yourself with those that are not like you.
• You do not want people that are just like you, you need people who are good at what you are not good at.
• Good teams complete you, they do not compete with you.  They add to you as a leader.

• Authenticity: You have to be yourself.  You cannot portray yourself as something that you are not.
• Some people think that they get a certain job and they have to behave a certain way.  They are not true to who they are.
• Energy: You have to energize people around you. Energize them around a vision.
  • How do you energize?  It is not hyping them.  It is getting them to feel the vision, to feel where you are going.  That has to come from the leader.
  • One job of a leader is to raise the intellectual level of those around you.  That is why you higher people that are smarter than you.  If you don’t higher people smarter than you, you will not get any smarter.
• Candor: People need to be able to say what they think.
• Differentiation: He rated employees at his organization.  20% are game changers. 70% are team players and vital.  10% are really dead weight.  People are compensated on the basis of where they are at in the percentages.
  • Candor allows for differentiation.
  • People spend more time fixing the bottom 10%.  They cannot get better.  They need to go to another organization where they will succeed.
  • Attitude and behavior of the top 20%: filled with energy, excite people, good values and they have a gene of wanting to see people grow.  They are not afraid to have great people around them.
  • The vital 70%: Smart, hard working. Necessary and vital.
  • The bottom 10%: not a team player, not hard workers, negative.
  • Disrupters and boss haters are different.  They need to be listened to.  They have some brains.
  • The hallway whisperer is more dangerous than the person with candor.
  • You do all you can for the top 20%.  Raises, conferences, etc.
• Nonprofit does not mean non-performance.  (Many work as if it does!)
• Most leaders wait to long to make the change needed.
• Hiring is hard.  Succession is brutal.
• Leaders need to learn to celebrate the small victories.

• TOMS shoes was started as a response to give away shoes.
• Giving not only feels good, but it is a good business strategy, and that is ok.  It is also a good life strategy.
• Not everyone can do what TOMS is doing, but everyone can incorporate giving and serving into their culture.
• Why didn’t Blake start a non-profit instead? (His favorite question) Answer: Resources!  Being for profit gives the resources that are needed to make the greatest impact.
• Blake’s life did not change when he had the idea for TOMS. It changed when he did his first shoe drop and served people by giving to and putting shoes on people.
• TOMS has captured the attention of young people around the world.  Why? Young people today want to have a voice.  They want to do something that matters.  They want to be a part of something bigger than themselves.
• TOMS represents a lot of Biblical principles.  Probably the most important is the principle of giving of the first fruits.  They have given from day one, even when they were losing money.
• Advice to young leaders: start giving now.