Leading My Friends

"Management is about how the job gets done. Leadership is determining what the job is and moving people toward getting it done." - Larry Winget

Larry is a business dude / speaker / consultant who does not mince words. Here I think he is on to something that we should be aware of. It is not about the how.

On DJs blog there is a good discussion of the four laws, but in reality it does not matter what the tool is . . . any tool will do. Invent some more. What matters in leadership is what the job / goal is and then the ability to build systems that unleash and empower people to get it accomplished. Is this the way we handle students on campus? or do we micro them with some 'training' and tools and then program our way forward.

Or, in leading, do we hold high the vision for the campus or city (this equates to the 'job') and then move them toward getting it done by believing in them, serving them and facilitating their dreams for their campus. How do we do it? Let these young inspired leaders figure that out . . that is half the fun of the mission.

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On the broader picture . . . is this how we treat our staff organizationally? Of late, I have felt a whole lot of how and not so much what. All to often I think upper management believes the problem is on the local level and then tries to inform solutions (or like me in ESM . . . borrow some solution from another location and feed it to the whole). The reality is, most local leaders are leading bigger on the local level than any of the upper management ever did at the local level. It is, in fact, a different world - larger schools, broader geography and then the crazy ethnic landscape as well.

Crazy as it may seem, I believe the Cru system is built upon a strange unanimity that is debilitating. It is built to have poor leaders consuming coaching energy and forces good leaders to operate below what they could actually produce without having to navigate the system.

It is built to level the playing field and 'train' everyone to do much of the same things in the same ways. Oooops. The world (and the kingdom) simply do not work well that way. This is why DNA discussions and such are kind of boring and pointless.

"Please . . tell me what you are wanting me to accomplish (results), measure and reward me, and then let me make all the primary decisions (with who, where). Then we will see some new and awesome things begin to emerge."

The manager at Mickey Dees gets to hire his own fry cook . . . why cant the local leader put together his own team (without negotiating it with anyone above I might add).

Great Plains and "The Way Forward?"

I am in Estes Park at the Stanley Hotel with the killer GPI region of Campus Crusade for Christ - they are having a discussion on 'The Way Forward' - the new directional direction from the National Team of the campus ministry.

You can look at the PowerPoint here - but here are some questions being asked by these leaders?

• What systems are in place for coaching these new teams - how does that look?
• What thought is given to getting more people on the ground?
• Tension between organizational control and expansion?
• What is a missional team anyway?
• Are we going to have the same success criteria?
• Does this mean that the local level with have more authority?
• How doest this look in partnerships on campus? Internationally?
• The strategic priorities - what exactly are these?
• Is this initiated at the local level / regional level?
• Is this an expansion of scope / or just a serious allocation to scope?
• Is there a bigger change coming? or is this it?

There seems to be a lot of confusion on missional teams. I love the GPI leadership is because they are honest about the confusion - and not trying to answer questions that they are not sure of the answers to. Good job.

Change in the USCM

I get back into it right as Campus Crusade is beginning their semi-annual gathering in Ft. Collins, Colorado. My good friend Sam Osterloh is one of the keynote speakers for the Campus gathering. He always has something good to say.

Rumor has it (from some decent sources) that there will be some dramatic changes over the next few years in the US Campus Ministry. I would love to see that take place.

As an aging organization, we tend to approach change in a temperamental incremental fashion. Meaning we want radical new results, but we don't want to risk much to get them. We (the US Campus Ministry) especially do not want to risk our current results - we would prefer to add to what we have without having to change much of what already exists. (there is a new wineskin speech in here somewhere).

About 18 months ago I made a pitch for a radical new approach - some thought I was smoking crack, others simply understood it as a pitiful cry for help. I still think it would work to get us to 5,000-10,000 movements. Spoiler Alert: It is built around self organizing teams with a wide range of flexibility, no geographic constraints and no hierarchy.

It is a bit lengthy and a bit too much 'proposal speak' but you can check it out here. (there is plenty of room for improvement - this is part creative thinking, part prayer and part caffeine induced hallucinations)

I would love your feedback if you take time to read it.

More By the Numbers

I drudged this up from an old report I had on ethnic student populations.

• There are approximately 613,000 ethnic minority students in the Northeast Region (Cru defined as all of NY, ME, MA, VM,NH,CT,RI).
• There are approximately 484,000 total students on the 20 largest universities in the Great Lakes Region (OH,MI,IL,IN)
  

By the Numbers

The March/April issue of Worldwide Challenge reports that the US Campus Ministry (of Campus Crusade) had 48,376 students involved for the 05-06 school year. It also says there are 4,133 staff.

A couple of things jumped out to me from these numbers. Fist - that is a lot of students and very encouraging. Praise God! In recent years Cru has been able to expand to locations that always seemed a bit out of our abilities. That is cool.

The second thing is that I think that staff number is a bit high. Bob Francis (national operations director) and I used to discuss how this number was determined. I think the more accurate tally is somewhere around 2,500 - but I must admit that Judy Nelson, editor or WWC, makes very few mistakes - so . . . .

The third thing that hits me is, that if these numbers are right, then Cru has a 1:12 student to staff ratio. If the number is 2,500 then the ratio is more like 1:20. Obviously this is not true on the ground and most of the movement sizes are considerably larger than this.

However, this may be a reflection of how bureaucratic we have become. Before we get to enamoured with the numbers, we must remember what Churchill said ("the only statistics you can trust are those you falsified yourself").

Hirsch, TSK, IHOP and the USCM

I mentioned earlier that Alan Hirsch was in the house last week. Alan was a featured speaker at 2007 National New Church Conference but he carved out time to hang out and connect as well.

On Wednesday morning I arranged a time for Alan (and TallSkinnyKiwi - Andrew Jones) to meet with part of the National Leadership Team of the US Campus Ministry (of Campus Crusade). Marc Ruter, Carrie Walker and Mark Gauthier joined us for some good conversation at our resident IHOP (observation - have you ever seen an International House of Pancakes in a country besides America?).

Alan was his usually drawing and sketching self and it was great to get these leaders connected. Andrew added tidbits of deep knowledge and overall it was a rousing good time (for a breakfast). I look forward to debriefing with Marc, Carrie and Mark.

Three Changes

I think if we made these three changes in the US Campus Ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ, it would greatly increase our effectiveness. Ready . . . hang on.

1. Allow local leaders to hire their whomever they want.
2. Allow a team to go anywhere in the context of the mission (in other words, anywhere there are students).
3. Allow a team leader to be anyone who can get two others to follow them (recognized vs. assigned leadership).

I have a few more additions, but I will hold off. A few things will happen with these changes. We will reduce our dependency on HR systems, we will free young leaders to move to open space and we be freed from any bureaucratic formations that hold us back.

Now, many will say we don't have the problem of people not being able to go where they want. To a degree this is true - in fact, if a young leader asked for a new role it would be considered (I asked to go to Duke, but that blasted Rick Hove scooped me). However, the system does not encourage this activity, but makes it a bit of an anomoly and somewhat presumptious. So then our systems and structures limit the types of leaders who desire freedom to succeed or fail on grand terms. If you want to be assigned something, then we are a great place to be. If you want to go crazy and take some insane turf, you had better get in line somewhere (is that to harsh?). Why did East Asia gather so many good leaders? Successful turf and wide open spaces. Leaders gravitate to the vacuum baby!

The above rules (and many others) are what the church at large operates off of. If you, me and someone's dog want to plant a church . . . . who is stopping us? We can do it in the back of some grocery store, a cigar shop or a brothel. The rules are gone and we gather who we need to gather to get er done. This is why you can drive from Orlando to LA on the back roads and never go through a town that does not have a church. It may not be a great church, but the open system allows them to form anywhere anyway and anyhow with anywho.

Wouldn't it be fun to capitalize on this power!?

For more thinking on this open system thinking read The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations by Ori Brafman & Rod Beckstrom