In baseball the term ‘small ball’ refers to a team that is doing the little things to win the game. Specifically, it applies to a team scoring runs one base hit, one sacrifice bunt, or one walk, or one stolen base at a time. The team might mix in an extra base hit every once in a while, but they are not piling up home runs to score. They are simply moving runners one base at a time.

Small ball doesn’t necessarily get you on Sportscenter or get you noticed. I watch Sportscenter because I want to see the home runs, the big shot, the touchdown, or the goal scored. But none of those things matter if a team can’t do the little things to put themselves in a position to win.

In leadership small ball can be tough. It’s the daily, personal disciplines necessary for growth. It’s the ability to follow-up and complete the last 10% of the project. It’s the planning and the calendaring, and all the little touches.

More than anything else in leadership small ball is about one thing; relationships. It’s the extra phone call or text to the staff member or volunteer to give them encouragement or recognition. It’s walking slowly through the office (or in my case, the church) and not being in too much of a hurry.

If an organization is feeling disjointed, disconnected, or all in all out of whack, it may be because everyone is waiting on the home run or the big event. They are great when they happen, and everyone gets high fives, but if that is all there is then you are just a flash in the pan.

What does it look like for you to play small ball as a leader, as a parent, or wherever you influence?

Everyone Belongs,

Paul

Over the years I’ve written a few things about prayer in moments where God was teaching me specific lessons. I have been reminded of many of them over the last several weeks. I thought I would make them available in the hope that it would encourage someone else today to go to the next level in prayer.

Praying Scripture
When You Don’t Know What To Pray
Listen
Be still

If you live in Northwest Atlanta don’t miss the last week of this series at one of our three locations. We have a great prayer and worship service planned that brings together what we have been learning most recently.

Everyone Belongs,

Paul

Pat Lencioni
Organizational health

I am absolutely convinced that the most important competitive advantage and opportunity for any company is free, accessible, and virtually untapped in most organizations. It is organizational health.

3 bias that prevent organizational health
Sophistication bias – Most leaders believe creating organizational health is beneath them
Adrenaline bias – ‘I need something I can do right now!’
Quantification bias – Because I can’t measure it, I can’t exactly figure out how important organizational health is

Any organization that succeeds has to be smart (marketing, communication, make good decisions, etc.)
Any organization that succeeds has to be healthy – minimal politics and strong relationships. (Not in a touchy feely sort of way)

You can’t build a competitive advantage on knowledge. You can use the internet and copy anything quickly.
Competitive advantage taps into the knowledge you already have.

If your organization is healthy, you make better decisions. You have to build amazing culture.
Building culture is a rigorous process.

4 disciplines to build a healthy organization
#1 – Cohesive leadership team – the key is vulnerability
Great leaders are vulnerable. That creates trust, and every leadership team needs it to be great.
If the leader of the team cannot be vulnerable first then you won’t get it from the rest of the team.

#2 – Create Clarity
6 questions to create clarity
Why do we exist? How do we behave? What do we do? What is the thing that makes our organization unique? What’s the most important thing we do right? Who needs to be doing what in order for this to work?

Be brutally intolerant around those two or three core values that make your organization what it is.
You know you have a core value when others want to punish you for it.

#3 – Overcommunicate the clarity you create.
Never get tired of repeating your message.
We have to be comfortable overcommunicating
If your people can’t do a good impression of you when you are not around you are not communicating enough.

#4 – Reinforce clarity
By the structures you put in place (how you hire, how you fire, etc.)

Apply these principles at home
The leadership team (Husband and Wife) have to be completely vulnerable with each other.
Be clear about who you are as a family. Come up with family values.
Communicate them to your kids all the time.
Put just enough structure in place to enforce this.

Great leaders are humble and willing to do the vulnerable things.

@soledad_obrien

Give a voice to everyone. It’s not just a good thing. It’s critical.
If you desire to live your life with dignity others will eventually follow your lead.

When you discover what you are called for, do it as if God himself has ordained it.

When circumstances called for a leader. Dr King was present, not remarkable.

Dr King’s “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington D.C. was actually called, “Normalcy never again.”

The speech was about standing with marginalized people. The words “I have a dream” were ad libbed when someone from the crowd shouted, ‘Tell ‘em about the dream’

True Leadership is about going off-script and blunt conversation.
True Leadership is not about change that comes tomorrow or the next day. It is about change that takes time.

We have an obligation as leaders to listen to others.
We cannot shut out the people we disagree with – that’s not being a leader, that’s being an obstacle.

“Ultimately a genuine leader is not a searcher of consensus, but a molder of consensus…conscious ask the question, what is right.” (Soledad quoting Martin Luther King Jr.)

Professor Roland Fryer (Economics Professor at Harvard University)

America spends the 4th most in education @ $13k per kid. Our performance is ranked about 20th.
10% of African American students can read at grade level in Atlanta.
In Detroit 3% African American students can do math at grade level (among 8th graders)

Things learned from the best charter schools (vs. those who don’t perform nearly as well)
They spend more time in school (longer school days and years)
Develop them, but if they can’t be developed they have to go.
Who the teachers are. (the secret ingredient in education)
They use data to alter the pace of instruction.
Good schools teach and test kids quickly to check to make sure they are learning what they are supposed to.
We need to know in real time where kids are

These schools create high expectations and a create a culture of no excuses
Kids will live down or up to whatever expectations we have for them.

After other cities turned him down, 100% of the kids in 20 High Schools in Houston, TX implementing Roland Fryer’s research made it to a 2 or 4 year college.

Our country has to figure out how to educate our most vulnerable citizens.

We all have to be for a solution. The arguing has gone on long enough.

How do you change a culture of low expectations? Show people what’s possible.
(Kids will rise to our expectations)

Introduction by John Hull, President of Equip. He is speaking of things he has learned from John Maxwell.
“The choices we make dictate the lives that we lead.” John Hull, President of Equip

What is your personal growth life plan?

If you want to bring transformation to a culture it has to happen in the life of the leader first.

(Dr Maxwell starts speaking here)
We make a decision that is important and then we manage that decision the rest of our lives.

15 Laws of Personal Growth

The Law of Intentionality
The Law – Growth doesn’t just happen
We have to grow on purpose. It’s not an accident.
No one automatically gets better. The only thing automatically in your life is death! (thanks Dr. John!)
There’s a choice you have to make in everything you do. So keep in mind the choice you make, makes you. (John Wooden)

Put your money where your values are.
Everything gets better when you yourself get better
You can’t ‘microwave’ leaders. You have to ‘crock pot’ leaders.

The key to the law of intentionality is to do it every day.

The secret of your success is determined by your daily agenda. Be intentional every day.

Your Growth plan must be simple, basic, applicable, and something I can do every day.

The greatest investment you will ever make is in yourself (personal growth). If you wouldn’t bet on yourself, then why should anyone else.

The Law of Awareness
The Law – We must know ourselves to grow ourselves.
The only way you can grow people differently is to know them intimately.

Requirement – What is required of me? What expectations do other people have of you that need to be met
Return – What gives me the greatest return? What do I do well?
Your personal growth effort should be put to your strengths, not your weaknesses.
Reward – What is rewarding to me? What is it that you love to do?

When requirement, return, and reward line up they equal passion.

The Law of Environment
The Law – Growth thrives in conducive surroundings.

What is a growth environment? (I caught 9 of the 10)
1. A place where others are ahead of me.
If you are at the head of the class you are in the wrong class

2. A place where I’m continually challenged.
3. A place where my focus is forward.
Of course yesterday happened, but yesterday ended last night.
A growth environment is where I am and where I’m heading.

4. A place with other like-minded individuals (who want to grow)
5. A place where I am often out of my comfort zone.
It’s good to be out of your comfort zone, but not out of your gift zone.
6. A growth environment is where I wake up excited
7. An environment where failure is not my enemy.
8. where people want to change. The only way you can grow is through change.
9. A place where growth is modeled.

The choices I made (in my life’s journey of leadership) felt authentic.
Authenticity is your most precious commodity. If you lose your authenticity you lose everything.

Leadership Development in the Age of the Algorithm

Every one who is developing content has got to answer one question about their customer, Who are you?

The algorithm model is so prevalent you can tell where it is not being used.

You can teach anyone leader concepts (Catch excellence reflect it back)

In teaching concepts people often miss the concept and go right to the technique, like blowing a whistle when you catch excellence.

The techniques of one leader are hard to transfer to another.

We need a way of developing leaders at scale yet accommodate for the fact that every leader is different.

The Point of StandOut (Marcus Buckingham’s new book) was not to describe style (like Meyers Briggs, and other test) it is to help you find your style.  StandOut: The Groundbreaking New Strengths Assessment from the Leader of the Strengths Revolution

StandOut will measure you on 9 strengths roles:
Advisor – What is the best thing to do?
Connector – You see things in others they don’t see in themselves. You can connect people to each other and to ideas.
Creators – What don’t I understand? I need time to process.
Equalizers – What is the right thing to do? I want to make things right. You do what you say you will do.
Influencers – Pretty much every conversation for you is a sale. I am making a decision that some how fits your own agenda.
Pioneer – What’s next? What’s around the next corner? It could be disaster, but we will never know. The world is mostly a wonderful and happy place.
Provider – No one gets left behind. You are asking others are you ok? Leader creates an environment of trust
Stimulators – How can I raise the energy in this room? You feel responsibility for the emotion in the room
Teacher – How can I learn? How can she learn? People are never done learning. Everyone is a work in progress.

The Standout test ask questions that put you in different situations and ask what would you do?

The summary of your results from StandOut is how other people see you.

There is no perfect leadership profile. There are only perfect practices that fit your profile.

The challenge when it comes to leadership is not to bless yourself with uniqueness. You have to learn to take what is unique about you and make it useful.

Angela Ahrendts – Burberry (Interviewed by John Maxwell)

Embed our values at our locations around the world
Rediscover our core

How do we attract new consumers into the brand? We would have to speak their language and that would be a ‘digital’ language.

The choices we have made are the company we would be become.

It’s one thing to make a choice. It’s another to put them into practice (John Maxwell)

As a leader it begins with people. Burberry is in the human business. We had to put the right people in the right places.

In a digital age, we have to be laser focused.

We made a choice to make technology our greatest differentiator.

Relationships had to permeate our entire culture. Not just on the Senior level, but all throughout.

We pulled the youngest leaders in our company together just to dream
We took the ‘more middle aged’ folks and gave them the job to execute.

This takes a great deal of trust across the generations.

“The younger are not supporting the older. The older are supporting the younger.” John Maxwell’s summary of what Angela Ahrendts was explaining.

“Culture trumps vision. It’s behavior.” – John Maxwell

We have no greater responsibility than to build a great culture. A great culture touches everyone the employees come in contact with; their family, their friends.

Ask yourself what is best for the brand. It removes egos, and gives everyone a higher purpose.

Burberry’s challenge was to change 150 years of brand perception. Here is what they came up with, in the US, http://us.burberry.com/store/

How have your feelings and intuition shaped Burberry? (Question from John Maxwell)
“Intuition is the greatest output of trust in a strong culture.”

“We value feelings over knowing.”

Social media platform the Art of the Trench was creating by honoring that value http://www.artofthetrench.com

We don’t want to become a great brand. We want to become a great company.

Our vision is that the true measure of our success is how many lives around the world can be transformed by the power of our performance.

Burberry’s values
Protect
Explore
Inspire

“Leadership and trust empowers good people.” John Maxwell

Urban Meyer and Tim Tebow
Health and family were the reasons Coach Meyer left the job at the University of Florida.

You have to be very disciplined to maintain balance in your life.” – Urban Meyer

The thing that sets @TimTebow apart is his competitive spirit. – Urban Meyer

Tim Tebow did not return only to win a championship. He returned to University of Florida because his platform would be bigger if he stayed in college

Soledad O’Brien Question to Tim Tebow – Do you think you are a good leader?
Answer – I just know I really care about what I do. I’m passionate and willing to put it all on the line for what I do.
“Leadership is the ability to influence someone else.” (@TimTebow)

“Someone is watching you. Their life is going to be different (for better or worse) by how you live.” (@TimTebow)

“When your number is called you have to go in and make the most of it.” Principle that Urban Meyer taught (@TimTebow)

“Don’t worry about what you can’t control. You CAN control your own attitude, effort, and focus.” (@TimTebow)

“It doesn’t matter what my future holds because I know who holds my future.” (@TimTebow)

“Are you waiting for every day to end or are you trying to get better and hoping to make someone’s day better?” (@TimTebow)

Pick your passion. Focus on that. Don’t get distracted. Soledad O’Brien summarizing Coach Urban Meyer

Leadership lessons from Tim Tebow.
Love what you do
Be passionate about what you do.

Motivation comes and goes, but passion comes from down deep.

Are you willing to sacrifice?

Andy Stanley
1. What would my replacement do?
Book – ‘Only The Paranoid Survive’, Andy Grove
“If we got kicked out and the board brought in a new CEO, what do you think he would do?”

2. What would a great leader do?
“If we get better, customers will demand we get bigger.”

Great Leader
Self-less
Not in it for me
Not concerned about my own reputation

3. What story do you want to tell?
Every decision that you make is nothing more than part of the story you want to tell.

“Don’t choose anything that will make you a liar for life.”
“Your story is with you forever.”

Question Andy Stanley is asked by his mentor Charlie, “What cha working on big?”

Decision Andy Stanley made early on, “I will never ever sacrifice my family for my career.”

By your decisions you get to decide what story you want to tell.

Make choices.
Ask Good Questions.
Become a Leader Worth Following.

When Work and Family Collide: Keeping Your Job from Cheating Your Family
A new book by Andy Stanley

The last couple of weeks I’ve had the opportunity to read my Pastor, Brian Bloye, and his wife Amy’s first book; “It’s Personal.”

Brian and Amy tell the story of planting a church in a very candid way. After over 14 years of Pastoring the same church, and one that has grown to nearly 5,000 people every week, it would be easy to share all the highs and victories that come with a startup. Brian is too honest to do that. I’ve been around a lot of leaders in my life both in business and in church. Brian remains the most humble and authentic leader I’ve ever encountered. In this book he remains that by sharing many of the ministry challenges he has encountered. Beyond that, Brian and Amy go to the next level by sharing how planting a church has impacted their marriage, their finances, their parenting, and general sanity.

If you are praying about starting a church, reading this book is a MUST! I’d like to tell you this is just a book about Church Planting, but I can’t do that. Because Brian and Amy are willing to weave in the behind the scenes, real world challenges, the book becomes about anyone who is striving to lead, to entrepreneur, to Parent, to love their spouse, and still keep your character intact.

My wife and I were a part of Brian and Amy’s launch team in 1997. I am three months shy of my own 15 year journey of being a part of this church and their leadership. I knew most of the stories, and have heard a lot of the advice and insights in my years hanging out with these guys. Even for someone like me this was a great book to read. I love the format. From the moment you start reading you feel like you are sitting down and just having a ‘Personal’ conversation. One moment they are talking to each other, and the next they are talking to the reader with interactive ease.

When you get the opportunity to sit down with someone who has been where you want to go in life and leadership you do that. You’d be crazy not to! This book gives you the opportunity to do that very thing.

You can download it on Kindle by going here; It’s Personal: Surviving and Thriving on the Journey of Church Planting (Exponential Series)

If you live in Northwest Atlanta and attend West Ridge Church you can pick one up at one of our locations this Sunday, April 29th. All the proceeds from sales go to fund wells in Burkina Faso, West Africa.

It’s still personal,

Paul