Leadercast Flashback: Andy Stanley
One of my favorite days of the year is the first Friday of May. For more than 10 years this has been the date for one of my favorite leadership training events, Leadercast. Each year I come away inspired with a notebook full of new insights to help me grow and successfully overcome the challenges that leaders face.
Make sure you take part in this event! Join more than 125,000 leaders from all around the globe May 7,2106. The year’s theme is, “Architects of Tomorrow”. This event will inspire you and encourage you in your growth as a leader and a person. You will learn at the feet of leaders who are known around the world for their accomplishments and leadership abilities.
This one-of-a-kind event will be broadcast live from Atlanta and simulcast into communities across the globe. For me details and to register check out their site: Leadercast.com
In anticipation of this coming Friday’s Leadercast event I am re-posting some of my favorite content from past events. Below is one of my favorites each year Andy Stanley from 2013 event.
Best-selling leadership author & communicator
Here are my summary notes from Andy Stanley’s talk at today’s Chick-fil-A Leadercast where over 120,000 people attended world-wide today to learn and grow together as leaders.
Simply Lead
As a leader I have to come to the point where I realize I am never the smartest person in the room!
1. As a leader you must work to take complicated things and make them simple.
- One thing that I have learned is that dumb people try things, the B & C students are more willing to fail.
- B or C people surround themselves with people who are smarter than themselves
Jim Collins recently stated that Level 5 leaders have the humility to aspire to be the dumbest people in the room
- Making leadership simple must be a priority for every leader.
- If you are in a growing organization you will find yourself in a state of growing complexity.
- You must realize that wherever there is growth there is complexity.
- If you are a part of a family that grows over time you have noticed that the complexity grows with the addition of each new family members. When your family grows it gets more complex. Just imagine the complexity that parents with 6 kids experience. Just imagine the complexity getting shoes on all those kids.
2. Complexity is the enemy of ____________?
- Complexity is the enemy of everything! You can put anything in the blank.
Complexity is the enemy of clarity
- Complexity Destroys clarity
- In Marcus Buckingham’s book, The One Thing You Need To Know, he makes the argument that clarity is most important thing in business today.
- When complexity grows, clarity erodes. Complexity erodes your ability to move ball down the field.
- Not matter how smart you are you need a way to keep things simple for you and your organization.
- This is north star to keep the leader oriented and focused on the right things.
3 Things to Make & Keep Things Simple
Ask these 3 Questions:
1. What are we doing?
2. Why are we doing it?
3. Where do I fit in?
1. What are we doing?
Andy went to the Ritz Carlton school for maids, cooks, and bellman and learned these lessons:
- Every person for Ritz has a mission statement. “We are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies & gentlemen”( Ritz Purpose Statement)
There is extraordinary power in knowing what we are doing! This brings clarity!
- This caused these people to rise to the occasion and meet the demands of the job.
- Everybody in org needs to know what I am doing
- If you don’t solve the issue of complexity in your organization the mist in your eyes will become fog in your eyes if you don’t have clarity in your organization.
- If you don’t know exactly what you are doing your will have difficulty doing it.
Steve Jobs return to Apple “We are going to make easy to use Computers” walked into complex industry at complex company and made it simple with this statement
- When things are going crazy you need to be able to retreat to the simple idea of “what are we doing?’
- The reason don’t have a simple answer to the question of what I am doing because you have not worked on it long enough and hard enough
2. Why are we doing this?
This is where the emotion resides,
Here is where your motivation resides!
- What would happen in your community if your business or organization ceased to exist? What would happen to your world…? What void would be there if…..?
- You need to realize once upon a time your company did not exist, it was only an idea, why did the founders start this business?
- If you asked the founders these questions you would hear a compelling “why” you are doing what you are doing?
- This answer to the “why” question needs to fight through the complexity of your organization and it needs to harness the hearts of the people who make up your organization.
If the people who report to you don’t know the answer to the “why” question then they are just employees.
3. Where Do I Fit In?
Once you answer the first two questions you need to determine your answer for you on the 3rd question. This is not your job description, this is irrelevant. Most people don’t know where this is a week after they have been on the job.
In light of what your organization is doing you must determine where do you fit in?
- What is your critical role?
- What is your unique contribution to the organization?
- What is your core responsibility?
- What is it that only you can do?
In your organization the answer to first two questions should be the same for everybody in the organization.
- Answering the last question, you create for yourself and direct reports a one sentence job description.
- Why should you do this? Because this is simple and it provides clarity.
- If you don’t do this your team will do whatever comes next, not necessarily what you want or need them to do.
- This takes a lot of time and is hard work.
Some Examples:
- Andy’s: “inspire our staff and congregation to remain fully engaged in our mission and strategy”
- Andy’s CFO: “to create implement, and monitor systems that ensure our org remains fiscally secure.”
- Andy’s Admin Assit. “Keep Andy’s path clear of nonessential tasks and decisions so that he can do what only he can do.”
This statement is what you run to in case of emergency in your organization and you break the glass and push that button, this is your guiding force for deciding what is the most important thing, core thing that you do day in and day out.
Every leader needs a place to retreat to, a place to recalibrate, recenter, refocus and get back on track. This is your North Star, keeps it simple, provides clarity in the midst of chaotic situations. A leader needs to retreat when things get crazy.
Steve Jobs: “We are making easy to use computer”
Northpoint Church: “We create churches unchurched people want to attend”
If you take the time to work through these it will give you a place to go and keep clarity in times of chaos and great complexity.
Complexity is enemy of clarity
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