Live from #Next2015

Atlanta, GA

Day 3

“Greatness hinges on execution”   Rich Matherne

Execution is critical to success. In fact, without it extinction will shortly follow.

After the Boston Celtics won the NBA Championship in 2008 after adding two very high-profile free agent signings (Kevin Durant & Ray Allen), it became very popular for teams to look for quick fixes by paying big money to sign free agents that could bring a Championship quicker. But as Andrew Cathy pointed out, there was another team that had been together for years, a team that’s coach and core had won 4 championships before that Celtics team had won its first: the San Antonio Spurs. The Spurs had won in 1999, 2003, 2005 and 2007. But, then this collection of superstars came together and won in 2008. This sent a false message across the basketball landscape–overpay for high-talent, put them together and win championships. This was a short-lived strategy and in 2014 the San Antonio Spurs were largely still together and executed by out-passing their opponets all the way to their 5th Championship.

The lesson learned is two-fold (1) don’t assume a collection of highly talented people will automatically get results and (2) build your entire team from top-to-bottom for execution and results. 

There are no short-cuts to greatness. Lasting and truly great results do not come overnight they come over time.

What the San Antonio Spurs have done consistently better over time than so many other teams in the same span has combined selfless behavior with superior execution. 

How selfless are you? How selfless is your organization?

Most leaders and organizations are full of the “me first” mentality. Organizations and leaders that truly get to the next level are those have discovered how to lead and instill “me last” or selfless principles as part of the core culture.

Superior execution that leads to great results is often born from hard work, organizational alignment and unity. Many organizations, leaders, teams find greater precision in their planning than in their execution. It is critical that organizations and leaders do the work that the plan calls for both expected and unexpected. Peter Drucker says “Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degnerate into hard work.” Intentions are ideas without legs. Intentions are cars without drivers!

Jack Welch relays, “Good business leaders creat a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision and relentlessly drive it to completion.”

I would ask who or what is driving your business? Then, who are what is driving the execution?

Organizations must activate the entire team towards superior execution. Don’t miss excellent execution is exercised by the entire organization. It is easy to merely rely on a few key cogs in the organization, but this strategy ultimately caps the organization at the ability of a few. It is imperative that organizations train their team for mastery of the essentials, not just familiarity of the essentials. Mastery dennotes the ability to accurately teach the information or skills needed for completion. Loose familiarity among your team creates gaps in execution that will impair and hinder your business results and most certainly keep you from greatness.

The Power of Team works in multiplication. What are you multipying? Strength. Helen Keller said this well, “alone we can do so little, together we can do so much.” It’s the law of tug-of-war. One person, even a really strong person, will have a extremely difficult time defeat a team that has the combined of much more than the single, yet super-strong individual.

The Power of Team works in projection. Not only does the power of team multiply your efforts, it also severly increase your ability to project or magnify your message, your mission and your execution.

It is critical for leaders and organizations to combine control and speed as they drive toward the execution of change.  Dribbling the ball out of bounds, throwing an errant pass or dropping a wide open pass are all embarassing. There is a danger in organizations that rush to execute without the proper mission, movers and metrics in place.

 “Speed is fun and exciting, but crashing is embarassing.” Jon Bridges

The Daily Next

#Next2015 Atlanta, Georgia

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life. Proverbs 13:12 (NLT)

It is a sad sight to see an individual who is bankrupt of hope. A malaise, a bitterness or a jadedness has descended upon their heart and soul and the stench of foulness often ascends up and out of that pit. Hopeless people are miserable people. Often it is the call of a great challenge that will lift their soul from the slough of despair unto the heights of hope.

Mike Hensley quotes a sailing proverb that says, “the pessimist complains about the wind, the optimist hopes the wind will change, but the leader adjust his sails.” Winds will shift, blow and change in our lives, relationships and organizations, but it’s the leader who doesn’t vainly wish for change but meets the challenge with resolve, determination and hope. Many a good person has been destroyed for a lack of challenge. Notice, not destroyed by the challenge (true, that does happen), but there is great danger among the sons and daughters of God who never accept the gauntlet of the great challenge.

The Gauntlet of the Great Challenge

What is this gauntlet? It is the acceptance of a truly worthy and noble dream, desire or goal that comes with cost and caution. It is a weight that that descends upon your soul that is a collision. It is where inspiration collides with desperation. Something that is currently out of reach, probably out of sight, but not out of your mind or heart. In fact, it is the singular acceptance of your soul to achieve, to conquer and to summit that mountain that seems to most insurmountable, unscalable, and indefatigable. The mind has a hard time grasping it. Others may even disdain your desire to pursue it. It is your great challenge, not the challenge another co-dependently has thrust upon you. In fact, most others may not even understand that this great challenge has gripped your soul.

Greatness is not discovered in the opinions of others nor is it revealed posthumously in obituaries.  Greatness is the opportunity your heart and soul grasp in the purview of the steps you take, the dreams God gives you and the obedience he calls you to. It is easy to confuse a having a great challenge with being great.

The first step of in accepting the gauntlet of greatness is humility. This feels paradoxical, but this is simply because of the flawed judgment the world lays upon us. For somewhere, somehow, we have begun to value more highly an individual who can jump higher or farther than one who is physical unable to even jump. We pay millions, have parades, and even give great honor to those who entertain us! Think of this and you will see how quickly we have become Roman.

It is more noble in the gauntlet of greatness, to stand with the lowly when you could soar with the great. I observed this last night when the CEO of Chick-fil-A, Dan Cathy (@dancathy) anonymously put on a Grady High School JV marching band uniform and stood shoulder to shoulder with students who barely knew what a razor was to play his trumpet as a member of the band. He could have been on stage, he could have sat a position of prominence (after all he is the CEO of a nearly $6 billion organization) or he could have arranged for his own recognition. But, he didn’t. He played with the band. If you didn’t see it was him, no one made mention, no one have recognition, and no one gave him a reward or a certification of participation. He simply put on a uniform and played his part, his role.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “a great man is always willing to be little.”

The path to the true heights of greatness often leads first and often through the valley of the lowly. After all, this is not only the doctrine Jesus taught, it was the example the He lived while here on earth. He didn’t seek recognition, reward or prominence. He sought to do the will of His Father. There is no greater example of living in the guantlet of greatness than Jesus. Philippians says that He “emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (2:7, ESV).  We must empty ourselves of us. We are often our own worst enemy for our biases, presuppositions and predictions can hinder and hamstring us in accepting the gauntlet of the great challenge. There is a removal and or filtering process that must occur both in us and in our pursuit of our challenge (the Bible calls this sanctification). This is the second step and it can often introduce pain.

Shane Benson relayed that “leaders take us from here to there.” The problem, in respect to the challenge, is “here” is often a place of comfort and there has the prospect and perception of being uncomfortable. Leaders who wont risk calculated discomfort threaten their organization with stagnation and indifference. According to Benson, “the leader’s ability to communicate the why (are we leaving here) directly impacts the teams ability to see the way.”

Perhaps, you have been holding back, resisting the acceptance of what your soul knows to be a noble and lifting challenge. Perhaps, it is in the accpetance and addressing of this challenge that will draw you closer to Christ or closer to your goal. The soul is designed to soar from the heights of hope, but a hopeless heart leads to unfruitful and unfulfilling existence. Your family, your organization, those all around you will benefit from your hope and your acceptance of this guantlet of great challenge!

Live from #Next2015 (Atlanta, Georgia)

The Daily Next

“I’d like to be remembered as kind, as generous…I hope to have an impact on a lot of people” –Truett Cathy

The Love Leech — Codependency

If you are busy heaping up and storing up, then you are a prime candidate to lock both your resources and your love away so that it becomes an unaccessible commodity. Too many people in this life have acquiesced to the pursuit of fixation on treasure, pleasure and self, which all lead to unfilling result of frustration, weariness and emptiness. When we should, rather, be concerned with what we are pouring out not heaping up. We must break our own fleshly co-dependencies of leeching the love out of others.

Ted Cunningham (@tedcunnigham) says when you have a limited supply you become desperate. We must recognize that we are in fact limited (feel free to ask your spouse if you need clarification) and we must be receiving from the One and Only Source Christ Jesus. He also said poignantly, “Do you want great relationships? Remove the expectations of receiving anything in return.” This is the secret of Psalm 23:5 of your “cup running over.” Christ pours into you, you pour into others with no expectation of return or reward! 

Pouring out? Yes, Pouring out in praise, pouring out into others, pouring out love into a broken and hurting world. Pouring out kindness, generosity, and graciousness. The world, our families and our organizations are in desperate need of those selfless servants who are leaders and influencers who set the thermostat on this kind of living and loving.

No Goal is Too High If…

Dan Cathy (@dancathy) reminds us that “no goal is too high if we climb with care and confidence.” But, don’t miss this, the joy of the goal is best experienced through the struggle of the climb. Does the fellow who helicopters to the top of El Captain have the same joy, same appreciation or same sense accomplishment the one who makes a 19-day ascent?

Dan Cathy advocates this kind of leading, living, loving and thinking when he says,”Uncommon thinking leads to uncommon results.”

For the Christian, a significant portion of the pursuit is about the journey—what you learn about yourself, others and your God along the way. For many of us, we have become far too common. Often it’s our comfort that makes us common. We are inclined towards a bent of comfort and ease. But, nothing great was ever built by comfort. No Dawn Face of El Capitan was ever scaled by comfort. And no follower of Christ ever picked up a comfortable cross. That’s why organizations like Chick-fil-A resonate with so many people: We are so dang uncommon!

Jesus said, “for even the Son of Man came to serve and not to be served and to give his life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). How are you serving? Who are you serving? And what is your expectation of return?