Willow Creek Leadership Summit (Day 2) Thoughts

Here are some thoughts, highlights from today's sessions:

• 9:07 AM: hickssound Dave Gibbons, Thinking Forward:


• 9:07 AM: hickssound Who is my neighbor? Someone like me?


• 9:08 AM: hickssound Who is a third culture leader?


• 9:09 AM: hickssound Adaptation....painful adaptation.


• 9:10 AM: hickssound The third culture leader is focused on the fringe...the misfits.


• 9:11 AM: hickssound The masses typically don't lead us...the fringe does, the misfits.


• 9:13 AM: hickssound What hold us back from loving on the fringes?


• 9:14 AM: hickssound It is our metrics. The third culture leader has a different set of metrics.


• 9:15 AM: hickssound Failure is success to God!


• 9:16 AM: hickssound Our Failure is our platform to the world. It is how we can connect to this generation.


• 9:16 AM: hickssound Our failures and weaknesses, are a gift from God so that we can reach this world.


• 9:17 AM: hickssound The most important thing when assessing someone's gifts/skills is their story.


• 9:18 AM: hickssound Weakness guides us more than strengths.


• 9:19 AM: hickssound Relationships trump Vision!


• 9:21 AM: hickssound Is it really what happens inside the building that's important...or is it what happens outside the building that matters most.


• 9:23 AM: hickssound 70% leadership development/ 30% weekend programming/sermon prep/etc.


• 9:23 AM: hickssound Best results are life on life, not through a 5 class program.


• 9:24 AM: hickssound Design/Space Shifts


• 9:25 AM: hickssound The third culture leader believes obedience is more important that passion.


• 9:25 AM: hickssound 4 Acts of Obedience:


• 9:26 AM: hickssound 1. Deeper Collaboration


• 9:26 AM: hickssound 2. Communal Living


• 9:26 AM: hickssound 3. Prayer


• 9:27 AM: hickssound 4. Radical sacrificial love for the outsiders.


• 9:33 AM: hickssound Andrew Rugasira, Thinking Forward: Aid vs. Trade:


• 9:35 AM: hickssound When you hear "Africa" what comes to mind: poverty, AIDS, disease, genocide?


• 9:36 AM: hickssound Andrew's perspective: opportunity, entrepreneurs,


• 9:42 AM: hickssound Candid talk...important when you don't have much money to go with your vision.


• 9:42 AM: hickssound Candid talk provides the integrity that people need.


• 9:48 AM: hickssound 1970 - 2000, Africa has received 400 billion dollars in aid money, but the economy growth has not grown with the aid money.


• 9:49 AM: hickssound Aid money undermines accountability.


• 9:50 AM: hickssound There is way to much time spent reporting on the aid money then actually taking action in the region. (Tanzania wrote 2400 donor reports, and had 1000 meetings with donors in 2008)


• 9:50 AM: hickssound What is the impact of our compassion?


• 9:51 AM: hickssound Stop thinking of Africa as a place needing help, but rather see Africa as a country of consumers, innovators, etc.


• 9:52 AM: hickssound The local people have lost hope in themselves, because they only see support coming from outside the country, and don't believe they can be self sufficient.


• 9:57 AM: hickssound Much like Dave said early, we need to be rethinking our metrics when determining the role of Africa in the world market.


• 9:59 AM: hickssound Wess Stafford, Leveraging Your Past:


• 10:05 AM: hickssound Leadership is a gift...given by the people willing to follow you each and every day.


• 10:07 AM: hickssound People are not going to care what you know, until they know why you care.


• 10:24 AM: hickssound As I sit and listen to Wess share his story, I realize that God has designed all of our failures/stories/experiences of our life to develop our "Story". This is the story that we use to reach others. That allows us to connect with people on a personal level. If we choose to use it. Will you choose to use it?


• 10:25 AM: hickssound What is your cause? What makes you lead? Does it bring you to tears? Tears of sorrow or tears of joy?


• 10:27 AM: hickssound We have worth because of who gives us worth, and not what we do!


• 10:30 AM: hickssound Foregiveness does not mean that you forget. However, you can never forget what you can't forgive.


• 10:33 AM: hickssound Wess clearly has great compassion for what he is doing. I think that if more of us were fueled by that kind of passion, the success the "church" could have would be God-amazing.


• 11:42 AM: hickssound Leadership is a journey. We each have to take our own path and get there in our own way.


• 11:42 AM: hickssound There are people who can help us on our journey; friends, mentors, teachers, etc.


• 11:43 AM: hickssound Teachers of leadership can teach you to be a leader. They can make you aware of leadership concepts.


• 11:44 AM: hickssound Some are born leaders, others are given the foundation. Either way you have to get better and you can get better.


• 11:45 AM: hickssound The best way to learn leadership is to be out doing leadership along side of continual learning.


• 11:46 AM: hickssound "Not every reader is a leader, but every leader is a reader" - President Harry Truman.


• 11:47 AM: hickssound It is easy, as a leader, to confuse motion with progress.


• 11:47 AM: hickssound The best leaders are constantly looking at feedback to determine progress.


• 11:48 AM: hickssound One of the easiest things to do is to fool yourself.


• 11:49 AM: hickssound It is very essential to take time to reflect on the activities at hand.


• 11:50 AM: hickssound Go fishing.....!


• 11:53 AM: hickssound Someone who can look further back, can see further forward - Churchill


• 11:54 AM: hickssound Is it possible to be such a "decent" person, that you can't be a leader. No. It is hard to find "decent" people, and they can make great leaders.


• 11:58 AM: hickssound People who can laugh together, can do a lot of other things together, pray, etc.


• 11:59 AM: hickssound Mentors are very important in life.


• 12:02 PM: hickssound You can entrust to the point of detachment from your role as a leader. That is not a good thing.


• 12:03 PM: hickssound The American people are a very forgiving people, if you are straight with them!


• 12:06 PM: hickssound We are all flawed, the growth and maturity comes when we learn how to deal with our flaws.


• 12:10 PM: hickssound We should be more forgiving and less evasive in our leaders private lives, and recognize they are flawed humans like us.


• 12:16 PM: hickssound Speakers/Communication: Who the speaker is, is as important as what the speaker says.


• 12:26 PM: hickssound Personal habits of leaders: Strong self discipline, physically fit (leadership is physically demanding), building time in the day to reflect, build time in the day to spend time with those you cherish and those that cherish you, and realize you cannot do everything in 1 day.


• 12:31 PM: hickssound "When I enter a church I hope that it is a place where I can find inner-peace, where I can learn something, provide good anchors for my life."


• 12:32 PM: hickssound A good spiritual foundation in your leadership will help you to find your moral compass.


• 12:32 PM: hickssound Great anchors in life: faith, family and friends.


• 2:12 PM: hickssound Chip and Dan Heath, Switch:


• 2:18 PM: hickssound If you are trying to minimize change in your life, then don't get married or have kids.....now that is a funny but true statement.


• 2:18 PM: hickssound Change is filled with conflict.


• 2:19 PM: hickssound There is a constant battle in change.


• 2:21 PM: hickssound The elephant and the rider metaphor is pretty amazing. The rider is the do'er/energizer (changer) and they are trying to direct the path of the elephant, which is the status quo....It is a big task for the rider to change/direct the path of the elephant....


• 2:23 PM: hickssound When working through change, stop looking at what is not working, and start studying what is working, and figure out how to duplicate that in the areas that are not working.


• 2:25 PM: hickssound For now, ignore the failing and mediocre and seek out the bright spots. Study those bright spots and learn how to use that in the rest of your areas.


• 2:29 PM: hickssound "Big problems are rarely solved with big solutions. Typically it is solved with many small solutions. The bigger the problem the smaller the solutions."


• 2:30 PM: hickssound Which basically means, shrink the change into small controlled and measurable change.


• 2:32 PM: hickssound Chip used the example of Minor County in South Dakota, and how the high school students developed small steps to raise tax revenue to poor back into the community.


• 2:32 PM: hickssound It is completely turned over the community, and was done with just small change.


• 2:34 PM: hickssound Application: With this down turn of the economy and the fear of how we can make these big changes to keep up with the economy. The reality is to think small. Start making small changes today, and the change will slowly evolve to where you need to be.


• 2:35 PM: hickssound If you are feeling overwhelmed and demoralized when thinking about the change, you have missed the moving of the elephant. However, if you start thinking of small things to get started, and you start to get excited about the change, then you are on the right track and should move forward.


• 2:39 PM: hickssound When we fail, when our ministries are failing, are we looking that as a time of insight or as a time of failure (hell!)? In order to get from the initial hope to the final confidence, you must pass through the valley of insight where you have a chance to grow and learn.


• 2:40 PM: hickssound Growth mindset - With work, I can become better at....


• 2:40 PM: hickssound ....and built into that thought is a "tolerance for failure".


• 2:41 PM: hickssound Failure is a necessity for change.


• 2:41 PM: hickssound Failure is not something to be avoided, but possibly "an early warning sign for success."


• 2:43 PM: hickssound We need to empower people that it is ok to fail, if they are trying.


• 2:44 PM: hickssound We have a habit of looking at the people and not at the situation.


• 2:47 PM: hickssound A gift of good leaders is to evaluate the situation and create situations that allow people to succed, and not focus on the people or a people problem.


• 3:02 PM: hickssound Bono, The Church...Three Years Later:


• 3:12 PM: hickssound 50% reduction in malaria deaths in 3 years. That is God-sized crazy!


• 3:12 PM: hickssound 41 million bed nets distributed.


• 3:12 PM: hickssound "The church has woke up and is making a difference...and we are winning" - Bono


• 3:17 PM: hickssound "A mark of spiritual maturity is when someone begins to release their resources for the kingdom of God" - Pastor Merritt


• 3:21 PM: hickssound "A mark of spiritual maturity is when someone begins to release their resources for the kingdom of God" - Pastor Merritt


• 3:26 PM: hickssound If the story from the church in whittier, ca didn't make you cry, then you definitely have no emotions.


• 3:27 PM: hickssound "We have stopped becoming a place to serve ourselves....but why did it take a rock star to do it?" - Wittier Church


• 3:31 PM: hickssound "What is really hard to take is a 'lifeless ceremony' which is the case in a lot of churches." - Bono


• 3:34 PM: hickssound If you can do it, or if your church can do it, get a copy of this summit. Use it and watch it with your whole leadership team. It will make a difference in your organization!


• 3:38 PM: hickssound "The church tends to find the decisive things that separates the church from others and trumpets those. That is not grace. Grace is when you find the things in common." - Bono


• 3:48 PM: hickssound Rt. Hon. Tony Blair, An Interview with Tony Blair:


• 4:25 PM: hickssound "I felt like a very normal person in a very abnormal position"


• 4:26 PM: hickssound "Conventional wisdom can sometimes just be the comfortable thing to do...and sometimes the comfortable thing to do is the wrong thing to do"


• 4:29 PM: hickssound "If you really think this is the right way to go for your organization, then it is your job to stand for it and communicate that to the group"


• 4:37 PM: hickssound Strategic objectives should be based on principles.


• 4:39 PM: hickssound In a crisis, you have to take the facts, evaluate them very critical and then speak to them and the emotions that the "people" are feeling.


• 4:40 PM: hickssound "As a leader when you are accumulating pain and disappointment, you must look at the blessings that you have received"


• 4:42 PM: hickssound "Leadership is a blessing, a gift you have been given to help others, and no matter how difficult or painful, you are important. Without the leader nothing gets done. The joy and blessings of what gets done makes all the pain worthwhile."


• 4:43 PM: hickssound "There are things that you have to take a stand on, not yield on. You must be prepared to walk away if you are being pressured to compromise on these things."