2012 Global Leadership Summit - Chicago Review

From a former US Secretary of State to the two foremost world class business consultants, to leading edge pastors, the speakers at this year’s Global Leadership Summit are outstanding.

In his usual inspiring and down to earth way Bill Hybels challenges us make the most of the privilege that we have as leaders, and reminds us that there is no greater force on earth than the local church when it is working well.  Condoleezza Rice reflects on her story of humble beginnings to become a leading academic and then US secretary of State.  Jim Collins in new groundbreaking research shares the factors that have contributed to the long term success of great companies.  Patrick Lencioni draws on his experience to share of the vital place of organisational health.  Pastor Craig Groeschel exhorts us to create a culture of honour between generations, and Pastor John Ortberg reminds us of a leader’s influence as he unpacks the remarkable influence of Jesus as a leader.  The impact that a leader can have is demonstrated in the stories of Pranitha Timothy bringing hope to vulnerable women in India, and Geoffrey Canada an educational campaigner championing the cause of children in America’s poorest communities.

In powerful video cast presentations this year’s Summit presenters will inspire, encourage and equip you to grow in your leadership vision and capacity.  Join us at one of the 13 locations around the country and be ready to have your minds expanded and hearts engaged.   

For more reflections on the Summit, check out these posts of Chicago Day One and Chicago Day Two by Stu Cameron, Facilitator and Host Paster of the Gold Coast Summit Site.

Andrew McCafferty

CEO, Willow Creek Australia

Bill Hybels’ hardest years

As one of the founders of Willow Creek Community Church, Bill Hybels knows the sacrifice that comes with starting a church. At the 2012 Exponential Conference on April 25 in Orlando, Florida, he spoke with church planters about their early successes and struggles planting Willow. And he invited his wife, Lynne, and two grown children, Shauna and Todd to join him for the interview.

“The first five years after Willow started were one of the hardest experiences of my life,” Bill shared with church planters. “I did a lot of scrambling. In the first five years it was like 25, 100-yard dashes a day.” 

Willow Creek began meeting in a theatre in Palatine in 1975 with approximately 100 people in attendance—most of them from a youth group who had met in the suburbs of Chicago. After six years of steady growth, the church took a leap of faith and committed to build a building at its current location in South Barrington. 

“When I look out at a crowd like this and see how many of you are in the first five to ten years of a church plant, I just want to sprinkle pastor dust all over you and wish you well,” he said. “I think [church planting] is inherently messy. I think it’s inherently confusing. I think it’s inherently complex. We can help, and council, and bless each other, but one of the toughest things I’ve ever been through is the first five or ten years of planting Willow,” he said.

It was hard on his family, too. “We didn’t have anybody giving us any direction or council,” Bill’s wife, Lynne said. “We weren’t a part of any organization. There were no church planters’ organizations that we knew of back then.” 

But as a family they were still able to make some good decisions. “We made a decision that if we had to choose between disappointing people in our congregation or our kids, we would disappoint the congregation because if they don’t like us they can go to another church, but our kids are stuck with us,” said Lynne.

“It was important for us to keep focused on our family while building into the church we were planting,” said Bill. “When our two kids arrived, nothing ever touched me as deeply. The thought of leaving these kids in the jet stream of a fast-moving church was unconscionable to me,” he said. “[My family] is my ultimate, lifelong small group. They are my permanent community. What do you have when you drive away from your church after 35 to 40 years if you don’t have an ultimate community?”

With a belief that after a church planter has established the fundamental commitments and isn’t going to quit, Bill believes it is becomes a matter of managing the commitments. “The idea of bailing on this, and I don’t mean this unkindly, I think it’s the coward’s way out. I think it requires more courage to be a covenant keeper—your covenant with your calling to God, your covenant to your marriage, and your covenant to your children,” he said. “I had to pray to God, that unless you take my life or release me from my call at Willow, I’m going to serve this church with my heart, soul, mind, and strength every day. I’m not breaking that covenant.”

reposted from http://www.wcablog.com

William Ury: A Yes Man Says No

The co-author of Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In (1981), William Ury knows a few things about mediation. For 30 years, he has served as a negotiation adviser and mediator in conflicts around corporate mergers, wildcat strikes in a Kentucky coal mine, ethnic wars in the Middle East, the Balkans, and the former Soviet Union, and even family disputes. With former President Jimmy Carter, he co-founded the International Negotiation Network, an organization dedicated to ending civil wars around the world. Along the way, he has taught negotiation skills to thousands of corporate executives, diplomats, labor leaders, and military officers helping organizations reach mutually beneficial agreements. 

Getting to YES focused on finding acceptable solutions through “principled negotiation.” 

But after nearly 25 years of getting to yes, this yes man said no. As the father of a baby with serious medical problems, he realized that in order to make positive choices about her health, he would have to oppose new medical procedures that he felt were inappropriate.

In The Power of Positive No: How to Say No & Still Get to Yes, Ury offers the following tips:

1. Uncover your deeper YES (a core interest, need, or value), express it to the other person, and stay true to your yes.
2. Deliver a respectful NO. Keep your tone neutral and matter-of-fact and empower your NO with a Plan B.
3. Negotiate to a healthy YES. A healthy YES yields a positive outcome. Follow your NO with a positive proposal and facilitate a wise agreement.
“In order to say yes to what’s truly important, you first need to say no to other things,” says Ury. “No is the new Yes,” he says. “And the “positive no” may be the most valuable life skill you’ll ever learn.”  

reposted from http://www.wcablog.com

 

Geoffrey Canada’s Thoughts on Leadership

If you saw Waiting for Superman, a documentary on the state of public education in America, you might recognize Geoffrey Canada. The president of Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ), Canada transformed the organization in the late 90s into a center that actively follows the academic careers of youths in a 24-block area of Harlem. The model was so successful, that today the area covers 97 blocks. The New York Times calls it “one of the biggest social experiments of our time.” President Obama announced plans to replicate the Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ) model in 20 other cities in the US.

Harlem Children’s Zone isn’t simply helping children beat the odds, it’s helping to change the odds.

• Leadership by consensus sounds good, but it’s difficult because persuading everyone to do one thing is almost impossible.

• When you move away from a “leadership by consensus” model, people might not like you. They’ll think you’re in charge and want to do things your way. Being a good manager and having people like you aren’t always the same thing.

• Trying to persuade people to do things your way can be a waste of time. You might be better off to thank them for their difference of opinion, suggest they do something else with their life, and proceed with the people who are ready to move forward.

• A leader’s approach should be to respect people’s opinions and listen to the issues, but once a decision is made, people have to make it their job to carry it out. 

• Sometimes leaders have to make decisions that are risky, but risk-taking can be important in moving your organization forward. 

• A leader must drive the team to innovate. Help them figure out how to do things better and smarter. It’s a constant process.

• Innovation doesn’t last forever. In fact, it will last for about 18 months. If you don’t come back and reenergize it after 18 months, it will go downhill.

• People get excited about brand new ideas, but you must pay attention to the things that are fundamental to your business or organization. 

• Assure people on your team that there’s no negative side to bringing up a problem and asking for support. 

• To manage well, a leader must understand the underlying dynamics of a group. Be transparent with your team and that will help neutralize some of the anxiety in a group, then you can be about solving problems. 

• Be willing to learn from those who are doing things better than you are.

• No one wants to have “difficult” conversations and few are trained to do it. But a leader must be willing to tell people the truth. 

• Work with people who have struggled to do difficult things. Someone who has never experienced a setback may have a tough time working for your organization. Hire people who are the best and who are on a mission to make your business or organization better than it is. 

• Steer away from hiring people who see the job as an extension of their ego or who want to use it to their personal advantage. 

• Hire people with a decent sense of humor. Most of us work hard doing hard work and are under a lot of stress. If the workplace has a healthy sense of humor, you can take yourselves seriously and make fun of yourselves at the same time.
(Adapted from “The Corner Office” by Adam Bryant, Times Books)

View Geoffrey Canada in a segment of Meet the Press that addressed Education Nation.

reposted from http://www.wcablog.com

Meet Patrick Lencioni

Advantage: Lencioni
To lead your organization, church, or team to long-term sustainable success, you need an advantage. And Patrick Lencioni knows what it is. In his newest book, The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business, he makes the case that organizational health will surpass all other disciplines in business as the greatest opportunity for improvement and competitive advantage. Lencioni is bursting with high energy leadership wisdom and we’re thrilled to have him back at the Summit to train and encourage you right where you’re leading today.

Messy, Imperfect, and…Healthy
An organization is healthy when it is whole, consistent, and complete; when its management operations and culture are unified. Healthy organizations are free of politics and confusion, and provide an environment where star performers never want to leave.

In The Advantage, Lencioni takes a holistic, comprehensive approach to improving organizational health. And how does he define a healthy organization? Healthy companies are messy and imperfect. They argue, make mistakes, and try things that don’t work. But they know who they are, what they believe in, and what they’re trying to accomplish Employees want to work there, they have loyal consumers, and extremely humble leaders who know why they are there and what the organization is all about.

Fable: Business and management meet the fictional narrative

Lencioni has become the king of dealing with management issues within the context of a fable. “I thought readers would be able to relate to the characters and issues they were facing in their businesses if I wrote the books as fables,” he says. And writing fiction came easily for him. As an amateur screenwriter, he knew how to bring ideas to life by using characters and dialogue.

In The Advantage, however, Lencioni takes a U-turn from styles of his other management books. “The nature of the subject matter is too broad to fit within the context of one story,” he says. Previous books focused on more limited issues—teamwork, meetings, employee engagement.

The Vulnerable Leader
What is the first thing people can do to improve the organizational health of the company where they work? According to Lencioni, it starts with the individual and their team. “Leaders need to understand what it is to be vulnerable. Vulnerability inspires trust on the leadership team and that trust is the foundation for teamwork—one of the cornerstones of organizational health.” The concept of vulnerability has a trickle-down effect. If a leader refuses to be vulnerable, refuses to admit mistakes, shortcomings, or weaknesses, others will follow suit. “When that happens,” says Lencioni,” organizational health is impossible.”

Lencioni, a business consultant with a diverse base of clients including a mix of Fortune 500 companies, churches, the military, professional sports organizations, non-profits, and universities, speaks to thousands of leaders each year, including the Willow Creek Association’s Global Leadership Summit. His most recent books are Getting Naked: A Business Fable About Shedding the Tree Fears That Sabotage Client Loyalty (2010), The Three Big Questions for a Frantic Family (2008), and The Advantage (2012).

reposted from http://www.wcablog.com

Introducing John Ortberg

reposted from http://www.wcablog.com

Laura Ortberg Turner is a writer, speaker, and employee of Fuller Seminary. She lives in Palo Alto with her husband and writes at loturner.com

“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand.”—Henri Nouwen, The Road to Daybreak

When I was growing up, my favorite days were Donut Run days. Every once in a while, my dad would rouse us out of bed early in the morning with little direction–just to come downstairs quickly, to get in the car; yes, we could stay in our pajamas, yes, we could go back to bed, but only if we wanted to miss something great. We would groan in feigned exhaustion, but we knew we were in for something special. And it wasn’t just the chocolate long johns or the pink-frosted numbers, but the goodness of being with someone in our pajama-clad, bed-headed smallness. Someone who had other, important things to do but chose to be with us.

When someone has shown you tenderness of heart and great care, you will do anything for that person. You will remember their sacrifice. You will be shaped by their generosity of spirit. There is a certain tenderness of soul that a good leader must have, a way of understanding the people and dynamics around them that builds trust.

The best leaders I have ever come across aren’t the flashiest or the most well-known. They are kind and generous in spirit. They are thoughtful, humble, and committed to sharing the truth in love. They care for the hearts of the people around them.

I am especially lucky that, for me, my father has been chief among those who have cared for my heart.

As I grew up, Donut Runs morphed into lunches and long drives, conversations about career and the future, and a new kind of friendship. Our relationship has gone this way not because my dad has continued to lead me (which, now that I am an adult, is exactly what he shouldn’t be doing), but because he has shown me how to lead myself.

Love yourself, encourage yourself, and hold yourself to high standards, he has told us.

Sometimes we still go get donuts together on Saturday mornings at our local Krispy Kreme. And there are moments when, sitting across the table from each other, I can hardly believe my gratitude at the example of this imperfect, kindhearted, vulnerable person. It has been said that people will walk through fire for a vulnerable leader, and it is true. But we will also walk through life with them. Love yourself, encourage yourself, hold yourself to high standards. Learn from those who love fiercely and sacrificially. And then, go and do likewise.

A Voice For The Voiceless

reposted from http://www.wcablog.com

Pranitha Timothy is changing history. The International Justice Mission’s (IJM) director of “After Care” in Chennai, India has the courage to lead teams into life-threatening situations and the perseverance to free victims of modern-day slavery—no matter what the cost. Visit the IJM site to to stay up-to-date on their work in India.

“There are 27 million slaves in our world today,” she says. Even though a brain tumor left her with what she calls a “strange” voice, she is proud to be a voice for the voiceless—including the millions who toil under burden of harsh manual labor. Working in bondage to Brahmin slave masters, millions struggle from dawn to dark in places like rock quarries and brick mills, even though bonded labor was made illegal in India more than 30 years ago.
IJM is on a mission to free slaves and restore them to a life of dignity and wholeness.

In April, 2011, government officials, IJM staff, and police entered a brick kiln to liberate laborers held by force. They estimated it would amount to 200 people. They were wrong. More than 500 workers assembled to hear freedom was at hand. Facing the throngs of slaves, Pranitha Timothy shouted, “Who wants to come out?” Hundreds of hands shot up.

The owner of the brick kiln was arrested and four trucks were arranged to transport the laborers to a nearby school where their releases could be processed. Four trucks weren’t enough, so a truck belonging to the former slave master was confiscated.

More than 500 men, women, and children are now living in freedom thanks to the largest anti-slavery operation in IJM’s history.

Read the full story in this article in the Times of India.

15 Things You Didn’t Know about Condoleezza Rice

reposted from http://www.wcablog.com

You probably know Condoleezza Rice as the first female African-American US Secretary of State succeeding Colin Powell in the position. Before joining the Bush administration, she was a professor of political science at Stanford and later Provost of the university. She joins the faculty of The 2012 Global Leadership Summit.

You may know Rice’s professional accomplishments, but did you know:

1. Her name comes from the Italian word con dolcezza, an Italian musical term meaning “play with sweetness.”

2. Rice grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, “the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States” (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.). At the age of eight, one of the girls in her school was killed when white supremacists bombed the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. (September 15, 1963)

3. She was the only child of a school teacher and Presbyterian minister who couldn’t eat at the lunch counter at Woolworth’s because of segregation laws, but they believed their daughter could be President.

4. She skipped first and seventh grades and graduated at the age of 15.

5. Her grandfather was a sharecropper who went to college and paid his tuition with cotton.

6. She changed her major to political science after hearing a lecture about Joseph Stalin taught by Madeleine Albright’s father. (Albright was Secretary of State 1997-2001).

7. When Rice became Provost at Stanford, the school’s budget was $20 million over budget. Within two years, the deficit was wiped out and the university’s coffers were nearly $15 million in the black.

8. Her father coached football and hoped his unborn child would become an all-American linebacker. When he had a daughter, he taught her all about football. She compares football to warfare because both involve the use of strategy and the goal of taking territory.

9. The best way to win her heart is to spend Sunday afternoons watching football.

10. After serving on the Board at Chevron, the corporation honored her by naming a 129,000-ton tanker SS Condoleezza Rice. (It was renamed Altair Voyager.)

11. One of her prize possessions is a first edition of Tolstoy’s War and Peace—written in Russian. (She has read it twice.)

12. A concert pianist, Rice has played for Queen Elizabeth and has performed with cellist Yo-Yo Ma and Aretha Franklin.

13. Her favorite composer is Brahms and her favorite band is Led Zeppelin.

14. Her dream job? President of the NFL

15. Rice attends Menlo Park Presbyterian Church where John Ortberg is senior pastor.

2012 Global Leadership Summit Speakers Announced!

Bill Hybels

Founder and Senior Pastor, Willow Creek Community Church

- Founded The Global Leadership Summit, now in 450+ cities and 85 countries

- Passionate about the local church, he is committed to developing and mentoring leaders worldwide- Best-selling author of more than 20 books including his most recent, The Power of a Whisper

"If it's the last thing I do, I will give every ounce of the rest of my life to helping leaders and churches get better."

Condoleezza Rice

Former U.S. Secretary of State

- Professor of Political Science at the Stanford Graduate School of Business

- Former Stanford University Provost — responsible for a $1.5 billion annual budget and the academic program for 1,400 faculty members and 14,000 students

- Author and co-author of numerous books, including: No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington

"I use the word power broadly. Even more important than military and economic power is the power of ideas, the power of compassion, and the power of hope."

Jim Collins

Nationally Acclaimed Business Thinker and Author

- Relentlessly curious student of enduring great companies, he is the author of the leadership classics Built to Last and Good to Great

- Former faculty at the Stanford Graduate School of Business

- His newest release, Great by Choice, answers the penetrating question, Why do some companies thrive in uncertainty, even chaos, and others do not?

"Throw leaders into an extreme environment, and it will separate the stark differences between greatness and mediocrity."

Geoffrey Canada

President & CEO, Harlem Children’s Zone

- Pioneering leader in urban education and fervent advocate for U.S. education reform

- Featured in the acclaimed documentary, Waiting for Superman

- Targeting a 100-block municipal area with educational and social services, the Harlem Children’s Zone has become a model for effective community engagement

"You have to be prepared to think outside the box...Stand back and think about what we could do creatively. We’ve got to do that to push the field forward."

Sheryl WuDunn

Pulitzer Prize Winner; Business Executive

- Author of the award-winning book, Half The Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide

- Senior Managing Director of Mid-Market Securities and President of Triple Edge, two social investment and consulting firms specializing in companies run by women

- Pulitzer Prize winner for Asia: Thunder from the East and China Wakes, co-authored with her husband Nicholas Kristof

“One of the best ways to fight poverty and to fight terrorism is to educate girls and bring women into the formal labor force."

Craig Groeschel

Founder and Senior Pastor, LifeChurch.tv

- A pioneer in multi-campus church, LifeChurch.tv holds 76 weekly worship experiences, ministering to over 40,000 people

- Known for leveraging technology to reach a new generation, including the development of LifeChurch's popular YouVersion Bible App

- Author of influential books, including the soon-to-be released Soul Detox

"If we want to be better than normal we must move from good intentions to what I call God intentions."

John Ortberg

Senior Pastor, Menlo Park Presbyterian Church

- Senior leader of a thriving multi-site church in Northern California

- A prominent voice in the worldwide spiritual formation movement

- Best-selling author of numerous books including the upcoming, Who Is This Man? The Unpredictable Impact of the Inescapable Jesus

"God is a God of endless opportunities to do good; the God of the open door."

Mario Vega

Senior Pastor, Misión Cristiana Elim, El Salvador

- Leader of one of the world's largest churches with 73,000 attendees, campuses throughout El Salvador, more than 7,000 cell groups and a staff of 92 pastors

- Misión Cristiana Elim achieved exponential growth in the midst of civil war through the successful implementation of cell group strategies

- Known for his humility, his passion for justice and for the rights of children

"When you have the humility to listen to the Bible it does more than enlighten us, it transforms us."

Marc Kielburger

Co-Founder, Free The Children; Co-Founder & Co-CEO, Me to We

- At the age of 18, co-founded Free The Children with his brother Craig Kielburger

- The world’s largest network of children helping children through education, Free The Children has built more than 650 schools and school rooms in developing regions

- Co-founder and Co-CEO of Me to We, a social enterprise providing better choices for a better world including international volunteer trips, leadership training programs, a socially conscious clothing line and resources that address issues of positive social change

"How are you going to keep your workforce engaged, retained, active and motivated? It all comes down to what kind of meaning and purpose can you provide."

Pranitha Timothy

Director of Aftercare, International Justice Mission, Chennai, India

- Led over 50 slave rescue operations, serving as the chief legal witness in court

- Developed IJM's pioneering aftercare strategy for restoration and reintegration, successfully serving thousands of freed slaves

- The child of dedicated missionary doctors in rural India, she's a brain tumor survivor who describes her resulting feeble voice as a "voice for the voiceless”"

“In my work with International Justice Mission, I free slaves and work to restore them to a life of dignity and wholeness."

William L. Ury

Co-Founder and Senior Fellow, Harvard University’s Program on Negotiation

- A negotiator and mediator, with 30 years practical experience in conflicts ranging from corporate mergers to ethnic wars in the Middle East.

- A social anthropologist and teacher, he is the author of award-winning business books, including Getting to Yes, an eight million copy best seller

- Co-founder of the International Negotiation Network with President Jimmy Carter, a non- governmental body seeking to end civil wars

“Look for opportunities to act inconsistently with their perceptions. Perhaps the best way to change someone's perception is to send them a message different from what they expect."

Patrick Lencioni

Founder and President, The Table Group; Best Selling Author

- A leading organizational consulting firm, The Table Group advises clients with ideas, products and services to improve teamwork, clarity, employee engagement and overall organizational health

- Named by Fortune Magazine as one of “Ten Gurus You Should Know” and by The Wall Street Journal as one of America’s “Most Sought-After Business Speakers”

- His upcoming book, The Advantage, explores the significance of organizational health and why it trumps everything else in business

"The vast majority of organizations today have more than enough intelligence, experience and knowledge to be successful. What they lack is organizational health."