Today, I attended the first day of the Willow Creek Leadership Summit. It was awesome in so many ways. I believe very strongly in leadership development, and this is only a small part of my own growth.
Bill Hybels began the day with a talk about casting vision that you would be willing to die for in the church. It was a dynamic beginning. He talked about the new approaches to building vision that is based upon team ownership rather than the old model called the Sinai Model. Many old school pastors remember casting their own vision that they got from on high and then tried to sell it. Doesn't work that way anymore.
Next we heard a conversation between Hybels and the former CEO of HP, Carley Fiorina. This was an interesting engagement talking about character and authenticity. She said that leadership requires passion. Good stuff.
The next speaker, Rev. Floyd Flake was interrupted by this afternoon's storm. We were moved to the basement for the Tornado Warning. Good decision, but we missed the greater part of his opening. He was not as easy to follow.
Finally, the best part of the day was with Marcus Buckingham. if you ever get a chance to read some of his stuff, I would recommend it. He was engaging and dynamic. He was talking about putting our strengths to work in an atmosphere were we always seem to want to focus on our weaknesses. He was talking about Building around strengths and managing our weaknesses. Awesome.
I can't wait for tomorrow when we hear from Colin Powell, and Jon Ortberg among others.
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3 comments:
Sounds awesome...nothing like Willow Creek to get you fired up for ministry.
If you get a chance, expand on what Marcus Buckingham said that inspired you so. I've not read his stuff, but I'd be interested in your take. I know Chris Whitehead has read some of his stuff.
Buckingham again talked about really focusing on strenghts, which is really counterintuitive in our culture. We focus on kids with ADD, we focus on bad marriages, rather than good ones. We talk about sick people, rather than really healthy ones and seeking to find out what makes people really healthy.
He talked about 3 myths that need to be destroyed. The first was that as we grow, our personality changes. Truth to him was that our personalities grow more and more to who we already are. Teh clallenge is to channel that personality. Your core will always remain the same.
Secondly, he said that the mith is that we need to grow most where we are weakest. Truth would be for us to grow most where we are already strong.
thirdly, he siad that great teams put their strenghts aside for the benefit of the team. The truth should be that a great team member should volunteer where they can make the greatest impact.
He then talked about 3 skills we need to learn. First identify your strengths. second, change something in your life by identifying what makes you strong and work to make them stronger. thirdly, be able to talk about your strengths without bragging, and your weaknesses without whining.
I picked up his book Go Put Your Strengths to Work. I read the intro so far, and I am very excited about reading it.
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