The following are notes from Craig Groeschel’s talk at #GLS20. Use them to help you apply the content you learned at the Summit.
In this session, Craig Groeschel talks about leading through the dip. There will be times you hit a ceiling when what you have done in the past isn’t working, and you have to take a risk knowing there might be a downturn in productivity or efficiency to have an upturn. In this talk, Craig helps us understand the power of unmaking promises, leading with confident uncertainty, obsessing with the why, and having the courage to do some things that may feel like a step backwards so that we can take several steps forward.
- Leadership always matters.
- Our world needs humble, confident, integrity-infused leadership.
- We feel the indescribable weight and burden of leadership. Our world is desperate for leaders like you to step in and step up like never before. Leadership is never easy, but is always important.
- What is leadership? At its core, leadership is influence. It’s never about title or position. It’s always about trust or influence.
- One of our strongest values is humility. Leaders can learn from anyone. Pastors can learn from business leaders. Business leaders can learn from pastors. Youngers can learn from older, older from younger.
- We humbly ask for a spirit of humility, understanding, openness.
- Let’s agree that every single one of us will grow in our leadership.
- Your leadership matters. What do you have? You have God-given strengths, burning passions, innovative ideas, and ability and responsibility to impact a world desperate for hope. You have the opportunity to cast a vision for a brighter future.
- With everything within us we will lead with humility, serve sacrificially…
- Everyone wins when the leader gets better.
- Life is really a big cycle. Everyone is born, they grow, most mature, age, then one day they die. Life is a cycle. Life will not last forever.
- The same is true for organizations. All organizations have life cycles.
- First is birth. Giving birth is difficult. It’s painful. You are unsure if you have enough resources.
- Then you go through a growth cycle. It’s difficult, but for different reasons. We’re trying to find the right people, the right cash flow. It’s difficult, but fun.
- Maturity, Prime, The Flow. We have the right people, the structure, it’s fun.
- Then organizations hit decline, the rut, the treadmill. Morale may become low. Frustrations become high. Bureaucratic log jams everywhere.
- If you don’t change and adapt, you hit the death cycle.
- What happens when you’re between maturity and decline, you think we need to do what we always did, but just better. Our world has significantly changed. Because our world has changed, we, too, need to change.
- Bad news: Every major crisis creates unexpected problems. You know that.
- Good news: Every major crisis creates unprecedented opportunities, if you have eyes to see.
- Wherever you are in your life cycle, you’d be wise to be agile. You’d be wise to pivot. You feel the weight of the time. If you make the wrong decisions, you might accelerate the decline.
- Sometimes things have to get worse to get better. Another stage of the life cycle is reinvention. If you have the courage to lead through the dip.
- What does it take to adapt, pivot to lead through the dip.
- Last year we talked about bending the curve. We talked about GETMO.
- You might delegate to a new staff member. They may not be great yet. You may have to go through a developmental dip.
- You might be overhauling the systems. You might have to go through an efficiency dip.
- You might be changing the culture of the church. You might have to go through an attendance dip to reach more people.
- You will need courage to lead through the dip.
- How do we lead through the dip?
Change How You Think About Change.
- People don’t hate change. People change hair styles, how/where they travel. People ask for help in changing.
- People don’t hate change. They hate the way we try to change them.
- I’ll give you an example. A lady named Fran (not her real name). I was an Associate Pastor. I brought some young guys and they made the mistake of sitting in Fran’s seat. “Every single church has one fiery, old lady.” When my friends came, she ran them off. I tried to change the way Fran thought about it. “Do you have any young people that you care about?” “My grandson.” “I’ll pray for your grandson. And any time you see someone that reminds you of him, or his age, you love them like they’re your grandson.”
- People don’t hate change. They hate the way we try to change them.
- For things to get better, we need the courage to lead through the dip.
- If you’re struggling right now, we are tempted to blame someone or something else.
- It’s COVID-19’s fault. It’s my staff, lazy Christians, the devils, or if all else fails, blame millennials. And the millennials said, “OK, Boomer.”
- Great leaders don’t cast blame. Great leaders take responsibility.
- As leaders, we don’t say “Our people won’t…” We say, “We have not led them to…”
- You can make excuses or you can make progress, but you can’t make both.
- We are tempted to dig our heels in.
- Your desire to hold the fort will cause you to lose the war. There are new threats and new opportunities.
Have the Courage to Unmake Promises
- If you want to effectively lead through the dip, you’ll have to unmake promises.
- Two of the most unifying statements on planet Earth, “We will never…” or “We will always…”
- I’m guessing you’ve done that. “We will never beat like them.” “We will always put customers over profit.” “We will always treat employees like family.” “We will never close this department.”
- If you are not careful, your boldest declarations could become your greatest limitations.
- New opportunities demand a change of thinking.
- When an old mindset is limiting your future, have the courage to unmake a promise.
- We do have integrity. We kept the promise. Now because we know more, we have new threats, we are changing the strategy. We are unmaking the promise and changing our strategy.
- In 2006, Life Church launched a church online. “We will never do church online.” We gave away the platform. Enter a change in the world. A lot of churches changed their mind. We now have 27,000 churches signed up to use the free, online platform.
- A business example: when you think of music, you may have had a mix tape. You might remember walking all the way to the television to change the station. You might remember talking on a landline. If your family had the money, you might have had a stack of National Geographic magazines. They published their first magazine in 1888. They were stable for a century. They started to struggle in 1990s. Leadership did not stick to a model. They grasped around the mission. Their rally cry became: “Expand the yellow borders.” Their rally cry was not “Print better magazines.” They made some changes, revenue dropped. Now they are a powerhouse on social media.
- To lead through the dip, you might need to unmake some promises both organizationally and personally.
- Have you made any personal promises limiting your leadership potential?
- The world has changed. Tell yourself the truth. Confront the brutal facts. You cannot correct what you will not confront.
Obsess Over the Why
- Why is it that we are doing this? Why is this that we are dipping in hopes that we might rise again?
- Two reasons people change: desperation (when someone has to change); inspiration (when someone wants to change).
- As leaders, we want to inspire our people to change before they have to.
- Every time you start to lead through change you’ll have three reactions to change: Critics (I hate this). The Loudest boos come from the cheapest seats. Just because they are the loudest does mean they are the most. Bystanders. Advocates.
- The Why disarms the critics, educates the bystanders, empowers the advocates.
- A reasonable critic might hear your why and think huh.
- It educates the bystanders. When you clearly give them a why, they might engage and it empowers them. The why empowers the advocates. It gives them language, data, statistics. It’s the why.
- We can tolerate the pain as long as we know there is a purpose.
- If your marriage is struggling and you’re at counseling, remember why you’re there.
- Some of you have to furlough employees, remind them why. It could lead to a better long-term result for them.
Lead with Confident Uncertainty
- You are most vulnerable when you are the most confident.
- Right now: I have no clue where things are going. I am confident I’m around a great group of people to see the threats, opportunities and lead.
- You’re frustrated, emotionally exhausted and depleted and you’re leading through the dip. We’re leading in uncharted territory. Limit the length and the depth of the dip.
- When things aren’t working well, we’re going to fail quickly. We’re going to adapt quickly.
- Feel the fear and lead any way. As leaders, we get comfortable leading without complete confidence. When things are unsure, that is when leadership is needed.
- The pathway to your greatest potential is often straight through your greatest fear.
- Have the courage leaders. Leaders lead, that’s what we do.
- How are we going to apply this talk? Three very clear application questions.
- What is no longer working and needs to be changed?
- What’s one promise you need to unmake? (If you haven’t unmade a promise recently, you’ve probably plateaued in your leadership.)
- What’s one risk you need to take in your leadership?
- This has been the most difficult year ever in my leadership. I’ve been depressed. There are tons and tons not coming. There is a spiritual weight. And I feel like a failure. This is the how. This is the why. I’m clear on the why but the how is unclear. I’m in the dip. I had a conversation with one of my mentors and he said one thing that helped me snap out of it. It might help snap you out of it. My prayer is that you will have at least one life-altering, paradigm shifting moment. “We make money. We find value. We create value.” When he said it, something snapped. “We reach people. We make disciples. We preach the gospel. We’re leaders, we lead. That’s what we do.” In this season of the life cycle, we reach people and we led. It’s what we do. It’s who we are.
- I follow a leader who led through the dip. I follow Jesus. He died, was buried and three days later rose. He led through the dip.
- Our world needs confident, humble and integrity-infused leaders. Everyone wins when the leader gets better.
- You can lead to a better tomorrow. Not only can you but you will. Why? Because leaders lead.