We have already spent a good amount of time talking about finding your people and boarding the right bus, but even the right bus has some wrong people on it, and every great family has a crazy uncle. Therefore, it’s imperative that you proactively decide whom you give access to your heart. The fact is, the people who are allowed to influence you will determine whether you become a world-changer or a miserable failure! You read me right: if you surround yourself with idiots, you will become just like them. Too harsh, you say? Consider these proverbs:
He who walks with wise men will be wise,
But the companion of fools will suffer harm.
(PROVERBS 13:20)
I love how The Message puts it:
Become wise by walking with the wise;
hang out with fools and watch your life fall to pieces.
Leave the presence of a fool,
Or you will not discern words of knowledge.
(PROVERBS 14:7)
We may not say it the same way, but we all know this instinctively. We have all said things like, “He’s a good kid; he just got in with the wrong crowd.” That’s right, the wrong crowd can wreak havoc on a good kid. The apostle Paul said it best: “Bad company corrupts good morals” (1 Corinthians 15:33).
Lost in Space
God promised the children of Israel a land flowing with milk and honey, but the people refused to believe Him. Consequently, all of them, except for two, died in the wilderness. What’s the moral of the story? It’s simple: if you hang around the wrong people and let them influence you, then your promises may be delayed or even deleted.
Joshua and Caleb are perfect examples of two guys who were faithful. They both loved God, and they believed in their divine destinies, but they entered their promised land forty years late because they hung around with fools. The truth is, they had to wait until the last fool died off before they could even set one foot on their promised territory.
Let me be clear: we are all called to help the poor, love the needy, and heal the brokenhearted—no matter what condition we find them in. We all know that. We are also aware that Jesus hung out with sinners. In fact, some of His own disciples were not the sharpest knives in the drawer. But there is a big difference between ministering to people and letting them influence you.
“Oh, Kris, this just doesn’t feel Christlike!”
Well, maybe your perspective of Jesus needs to be expanded. Consider what Jesus said to some of the religious leaders of His day:
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.
Woe to you, blind guides, who say, “Whoever swears by the temple, that is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple is obligated.” You fools and blind men! Which is more important, the gold or the temple that sanctified the gold? (Matthew 23:15–17)
Whether you like it or not, Jesus confronted fools. He certainly didn’t have a ton of patience for them. To be clear, I share a harsh quote from Jesus just to remind you that He didn’t pull punches with people who were enslaving others with their lies. But I am not talking about being harsh; I am talking about inviting honesty, not foolishness, into your inner circle.
Nowadays, under the guise of free speech, people spew the most foolish, ridiculous nonsense without so much as a kind rebuttal. For instance, women are no longer carrying babies. They are pregnant with a fetus which, consequently, is only human if she decides to give birth to it! If it’s aborted, even in the third trimester, it’s only tissue. What?
Personally, I would rather be right than be politically correct. We owe the world the truth. It’s the truth that sets people free! If the truth sets you free, then it must be lies that imprison you. So, as you’re considering who to invite into your life, note the difference between people who speak what is popular and people who speak what is true.
The Art of Taking Counsel
How do you avoid being bound by lies? You learn to take counsel from the right people. Let’s say you’ve avoided allowing foolish people to speak into your life. Great! But if you create a culture around you where truth-telling is costly, you will silence your wisest counselors. I can’t tell you how many times people have invited me to speak into their lives and then later punished me for my opinion.
If you want to be a world-changer, you will need to learn the art of taking advice. If you ask for input and then argue with the people who are counseling you, you are sending them a clear message that you don’t value what they have to say.
The other way you send that message is by giving them the silent treatment after they advise you. When you pout or avoid your advisors after they have shared their opinions with you, you can bet they’ll think twice before they ever advise you again.
Here are five questions you can ask yourself that will reveal if you are acting like a fool or carrying yourself in wisdom:
1. Are you a know-it-all who thinks that you are always right, or do you instinctively and intuitively ask for input?
The way of a fool is right in his own eyes,
But a wise man is he who listens to counsel.
(PROVERBS 12:15)
2. Do you let people correct you, or are you hardheaded?
A fool rejects his father’s discipline,
But he who regards reproof is sensible.
(PROVERBS 15:5)
3. When someone is giving you input that you don’t like, are you thinking of your rebuttal while he or she is talking, or are you listening from the heart?
A fool does not delight in understanding,
But only in revealing his own mind.
(PROVERBS 18:2)
4. Is talking to you a big waste of time because you never change, or do you actually act on wise people’s advice?
Though you pound a fool in a mortar with a pestle along with crushed grain,
Yet his foolishness will not depart from him.
(PROVERBS 27:22)
5. Are you overconfident, arrogant, and egotistical; or are you humble, teachable, and able to be influenced?
He who trusts in his own heart is a fool,
But he who walks wisely will be delivered.
(PROVERBS 28:26)
The Truth Hurts
Let’s be honest, sometimes the truth really does hurt. Proverbs says,
Faithful are the wounds of a friend,
But deceitful are the kisses of an enemy.
(27:6)
Your counselors may not always be right, yet the Bible says, “in abundance of counselors there is victory” (Proverbs 11:14). Every world-changer must create a culture of invitation, where wise people are proactively invited to speak into your life whenever they perceive it’s necessary and also when you ask for it.
Did you notice there are two different times when wise people should speak into your life? First and foremost, when you ask for counsel; and second, when they see something in your life that you don’t see. Think about it: if you create a culture around you in which wise people can only give you advice when you ask for it, then you will never get past your blind spots. Obviously, you don’t see or perceive your blind spots; that’s why they’re called blind spots.
It’s often in the places where you are unconsciously ignorant (you don’t know that you don’t know) that you actually need the most input.
IT’S OFTEN IN THE PLACES WHERE YOU ARE UNCONSCIOUSLY IGNORANT THAT YOU ACTUALLY NEED THE MOST INPUT.
A Foolish King
The biblical character who probably squandered the greatest opportunity by ignoring counsel was King Solomon’s son, Rehoboam. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, his grandfather being the famous King David and his father being the wisest man who ever walked the earth. Yet Rehoboam was an idiot king because he rejected the advice of his wise counselors and instead listened to his foolish friends. Ultimately he lost his authority.
King Rehoboam consulted with the elders who had served his father Solomon while he was still alive, saying, “How do you counsel me to answer this people?” Then they spoke to him, saying, “If you will be a servant to this people today, and will serve them and grant them their petition, and speak good words to them, then they will be your servants forever.” But he forsook the counsel of the elders which they had given him, and consulted with the young men who grew up with him and served him. So he said to them, “What counsel do you give that we may answer this people who have spoken to me, saying, ‘Lighten the yoke which your father put on us’?” The young men who grew up with him spoke to him, saying, “Thus you shall say to this people who spoke to you, saying, ‘Your father made our yoke heavy, now you make it lighter for us!’ But you shall speak to them, ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s loins! Whereas my father loaded you with a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke; my father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions.’” (1 Kings 12:6–11)
And so the king answered the people harshly, forsaking the advice of the elders and following the advice of his buddies, saying, “My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke; my father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions” (1 Kings 12:14). This began the rebellion of Israel against the house of David.
Rehoboam had an opportunity to be a part of an amazing legacy called the United Kingdom of Israel, which began when King David unified all the Israelite tribes under one king and which extended through the reign of Solomon. But Rehoboam listened to the fools he grew up with instead of his time-tested elders. Ultimately, he squandered the opportunity of the ages and will forever be known as the king who broke Israel in half.
Build a Wise Counsel around You
I have a friend named Doug Coe who is the director of a believer’s organization called the Fellowship. He has been referred to as the “stealth Billy Graham.” In 2005, Doug was named one of the twenty-five most influential evangelicals in the United States by Time.1 He has counseled world leaders and may be one of the wisest men alive today. In 1990, at the National Prayer Breakfast, President George H. W. Bush praised Coe for his “quiet diplomacy.”2
Hillary Clinton met with Coe on many occasions during her time as the First Lady of the United States. Clinton has written that Doug Coe is “a unique presence in Washington: a genuinely loving spiritual mentor and guide to anyone, regardless of party or faith, who wants to deepen his or her relationship with God.”3 Former Vice President Al Gore has referred to Doug Coe as a “friend.”4
Last year I had the privilege of introducing two world leaders to Doug. One of them was the mayor of one of the largest cities in America, and the other was the leader of a foreign country. We made small talk for a while, and then one of my two friends asked Doug a question. “What advice do you give most often to world leaders?”
Without a second of hesitation Doug responded, “I have studied world leaders all my life, and I have found that the great ones all have one thing in common. Do you know what it is?”
We all shook our heads and motioned for him to continue.
“Well,” Doug said with his matter-of-fact demeanor, “They have all developed a wise counsel of people around them who advised them all their lives. That is the secret to success: assemble a company of smart, experienced, and wise people around you and invite them to speak into everything you do.”
My friends left that day determined to build their own teams of wise counselors.
Meet Our Dream Team
By the grace of God, I have been blessed with a world-class dream team. God has empowered us to influence the world together. Several of us have been walking alongside each other for more than thirty-seven years. This kind of longevity gives us unique perspectives on one another’s lives. We know each other’s flaws, weaknesses, and failures well; but more importantly, we have a great understanding of one another’s strengths, expertise, and places of competent wisdom.
If you knew us, you would probably wonder how we stay in the same room together, much less collaborate on the same team, because we are all so incredibly different. Let me introduce some of our team to you.
There is Bill Johnson, who is the deeply spiritual leader of our team. He is a fifth-generation pastor who kind of reminds me of Moses. He speaks to God face-to-face (or at least it seems that way). He is a serious internal processer who is prone to not say much, but like E. F. Hutton, when he speaks, everybody listens. His ability to perceive life from heaven’s perspective is uncanny.
I think Charlie Harper has been with us since the dinosaurs became extinct. He is quiet like Bill, but his wheels are always turning. He is educated, and he grew up in the banking and real estate worlds. Charles is wise with money, and he actually loves reading legal documents. Yuck! He is methodical and patient, so he is great at managing projects . . . such as our $60 million building project he is leading right now. He is also extremely diplomatic; he thinks long and hard before he opens his mouth (not a trait I possess, unfortunately).
Steve De Silva is our anchor. He has great faith but hates taking risks! Steve is usually the one who challenges the visionaries on our team the most. He is a licensed CPA, and he is our chief financial officer. He is the point man on Bethel’s multimillion-dollar budget. Steve is highly educated in corporate tax law and is an excellent people manager. He loves to process vocally, but he rarely does so unless someone invites him to give his input.
Kathy Vallotton is a world-class administrator. She can figure out how to accomplish anything. I believe she could run the entire country. Kathy is the only true executor on our senior leadership team (I am not talking about killing people. I mean she is our get-’er-done leader). She can drive us nuts with practical questions the rest of us wouldn’t think to ask if you left us alone in a room for ten years. She oversees the entire administration of our ministry school, which has more than two thousand full-time students and an $8.4 million budget.
Paul Manwaring is our British guy. I just like listening to him talk. He is an amazing strategist who thinks that most of the problems in the world can be solved with a strategic plan. He was a psychiatric nurse before he was the governor of a juvenile prison in England, where he earned top honors. I guess God felt Paul needed that kind of training to thrive on our team! He gets along with everybody; he knows no strangers. He oversees our network of churches called Global Legacy, among other things.
Then there’s Dann Farrelly. How do I describe Dann to you? Well, to begin with, he is the brightest and most highly educated person on our team. He is our theologian and historian; I guess you could say he is our Bible guy. Curiously enough, he’s probably one of the least ambitious leaders I have ever met. I don’t think I have ever seen him compete with anyone. Dann, unlike some of our team, loves to process verbally and is respected by everyone.
Eric and Candace Johnson are the senior leaders of our church of eight thousand people. They are young, hip, and forward thinking. They both have strong personalities and are also ambitious, capable, and exceptionally creative leaders. Eric and Candace are sincerely passionate about people, especially families. Eric has what I call a “persistent pursuit of excellence.” He always wants to get it right and do it perfectly.
Brian Johnson is quiet, like his father, Bill. He is prophetic and forward thinking. He is the founder of Bethel Music, an artist, a musician, and a writer. Brian is sensitive, and he speaks with great authority. He and his wife, Jenn, have a hundred artists and musicians on their team, which is a lot like herding cats.
And last but not least there is Danny Silk (who formerly pastored Mountain Chapel and a few years later joined us at Bethel Church). Danny is like our team psychologist. He has an extraordinary gift for understanding what motivates people, what lie at the roots of their challenges and struggles. He is famous for getting between us in times of conflict and helping us to understand one another. He always takes the lead whenever there are people problems in our organization or congregation.
Now add me to the mix, and you have a recipe for disaster—or the Mission: Impossible team, depending on how we choose to conduct ourselves. I am a verbal processor; I come to conclusions by talking things out, which sometimes means I am not committed to the ideas that I seem passionate about at first. (Sometimes this drives our team crazy.) I am an extreme risk taker who is a prophetic visionary, entrepreneur, and builder. I have a great passion and love for people, but sometimes I am impatient and not compassionate. In my pursuit to accomplish a task or fulfill a goal, I can unknowingly run over people. Without this team around me, I think my life would be a trail of tears.
I truly love our team! Through the years I have learned that the strength of any leader lies in his or her ability to attract and keep very capable people around. The challenge is that we don’t tend to draw the people we want (or need); we are more likely to attract the people who are like us. This can be a good thing in that our team needs to have shared core values, DNA, and vision. Yet we need people with diverse gifts, perspectives, and abilities.
Here is the challenge: if, for instance, you are really bad with money, it can be hard to hang out with wealthy people who know how to steward finances. This is true for a couple of reasons. First, the mere contrast of being around people who have money tends to remind you of your poor condition. Second, you probably don’t have the financial capability to participate in the activities that wealthy people can afford to do. Yet the only way to learn how to overcome your weaknesses is to hang out with people who are good at the things you are bad at. Therefore, you must brave the pain of contrast and proactively solicit the assistance of great leaders. This is the key to building a world-class team!
The DTR Dance
If you assemble the right kinds of people around you, that strong council of capable people will help you become tremendously successful. The good thing about choosing a strong team is that you will receive lots of great advice when you need it. The bad thing about this team is that you will receive lots of great advice when the members think you need it. No, that’s not a typo. The truth is, if you surround yourself with weaker people, you probably won’t have much trouble managing them. On the other hand, if you assemble a strong team and give fellow members permission to speak into your life, you might feel that they are controlling you instead of advising you. Therefore, there will always come a time when it will be necessary to define the relationship (DTR).
THE FOUNDATION OF ALL RELATIONSHIPS, WHETHER PERSONAL OR CORPORATE, IS TRUST. TRUST IS BUILT WHEN WE CREATE EXPECTATIONS THAT WE FULFILL.
Let me explain. The foundation of all relationships, whether personal or corporate, is trust. Trust is built when we create expectations that we fulfill. But too often, whether consciously or unconsciously, we create expectations that we never fulfill. This results in a history of broken relationships and ultimately leads to a life of regret. Most of this destructive conduct can be avoided by an honest DTR.
When we define our relationships with people, we give each other honest assessments of what we can expect from one another. This begins the dialogue that ultimately leads to an agreement of what we are willing to do (and be) and not do (and be) in the lives of one another. Thus our relationships are built on solid foundations of trust that give us confidence in our interactions with each other.
Besides marriage, I can’t think of any other type of relationship that is more important to define than the one you have with your Council of Leaders (COL).
Here are seven core values and seven relationship definitions that must be present for your COL to be fully actualized in your life:
1. Core value: Everyone must carry a can of gasoline and a pail of water. The goal must be to surround yourself with people who will pour gasoline on the fires of your dreams and drench the flames of your fears with water.
DTR—Make it clear to your potential COL candidates that you are not looking for dream killers or fear mongers. Let them know that you have specifically chosen them because they are wise, full of faith, and have proven character.
2. Core value: The team must cultivate a culture of honor. Honor means that you value each other for who you are, without stumbling over who you are not. Honor dictates the way you behave in your interactions with each other, especially in your conflicts. Honor demands that you show one another a high level of respect when you disagree, as well as when you agree. Honor doesn’t control people; the idea that “if you honored my counsel then you would do what I told you to do,” is just a smoke screen for manipulation. Honor values the rights of others to control themselves. Remember, although God is in charge, He refuses to be in control of us. Yes, God has a sovereign plan, but He uses freewill agents to accomplish it.
DTR—Make it clear to your potential COL candidates how honor looks to you. Describe to them how honor behaves in different scenarios: How does honor behave in disagreements? How does honor convey wise counsel? What does honor require when someone is being corrected? How does honor affect the way you listen to the new ideas of others? When someone fails, how does honor pick that person up? How do you honorably clean up your messes with one another?
3.Core value: The COL must intentionally draw out the deep things of God in each other and then help to activate them in one another. Proverbs tells us,
A plan in the heart of a man is like deep water,
But a man of understanding draws it out. (20:5)
One of the best examples of biblical accountability is the relationship that the apostle Paul had with his spiritual son, Timothy. Look closely at the exhortation he gave to Timothy in this letter:
Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but rather in speech, conduct, love, faith and purity, show yourself an example of those who believe. . . . Do not neglect the spiritual gift within you, which was bestowed on you through prophetic utterance with the laying on of hands by the presbytery. Take pains with these things; be absorbed in them, so that your progress will be evident to all. Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching; persevere in these things, for as you do this you will ensure salvation both for yourself and for those who hear you. (1 Timothy 4:12, 13–16)
Here is a summary of what Paul was holding Timothy accountable for:
• Don’t let people look down on you. Did you get the “don’t let them” concept? That comment alone should stimulate some exciting conversation with your team!
• Carry yourself like nobility. That certainly shoots the “don’t follow me, follow Jesus,” idea in the head!
• You received some special spiritual gifts through impartation. Be diligent to grow what was freely given to you. Enough said.
• Work your butt off until you get really good at using your gifts to build up others around you. In fact, I want everyone around you to see your progress. The idea that you should show up and show off so that people around you can see and be encouraged by how good you are at the stuff that was given to you pretty much flies in the face of everything we have been taught in church about humility.
• Pay attention to yourself and to your teaching, so wholeness will live in you and flow through you to those around you. Wow! Have you ever thought about how important it is to God that you take care of you?
Paul’s instructions to Timothy almost seem self-serving, but the truth is, if you don’t take care of yourself, then the people you are called to lead and serve will pay. On the other hand, when you live in community, everyone in relationship with you benefits from your maturity.
DTR—Make sure everyone on your COL team has a sense of mutual accountability. But remember accountability is giving an account for your ability, not for your disability. I love how Paul Manwaring put it: “Accountability isn’t making sure someone doesn’t smoke. It’s actually helping to make sure they are on fire.” I am not saying members of your COL shouldn’t honorably confront one another when they feel it’s necessary; they really should. I am simply pointing out that the purpose of this team isn’t to give you a character MRI every time you meet. You are not gathering a team of faultfinders who use their gifts of discernment to scan each other’s hearts and examine each other’s motives every time you gather. Rather, your default should be to discover, develop, and empower the gifts, callings, and anointings that are resident in each member of the team.
4. Core value: Ownership is the key to successful exploits in life. John Maxwell quotes Vince Pfaff in his book JumpStart Your Leadership: “People tend to resist that which is forced upon them. People tend to support that which they help create.”5 One of the best ways to build synergy with a team of people is through collaboration. True collaboration requires your team to have a sense of ownership in the decisions you make and in the things you build together.
The truth is, what some people call teamwork is a lot more like slavery. When one person is doing all the thinking while the rest are just carrying out tasks, that’s not teamwork; that is a monarchy. This kind of leadership is rampant in the church. Great teams don’t behave this way! To reach your team’s full potential, you will have to develop plans with them, not for them.
You can tell those who have bought in, because they use inclusive words when they describe the team’s activities. For instance, when they feel a sense of ownership they use words such as us, we, and our, instead of you, your, and their to articulate the undertakings of the team.
In order to have others buy-in and collaborate, it may be necessary for you to adjust the way you present your ideas to your COL. Nothing feels worse than someone asking for my opinion when that person has already made up his mind what he is going to do, and all he really wants is my stamp of approval. Therefore, when you have something in your mind that you really want to see happen, try to leave room in your heart to adjust your idea or even scrap it.
I am struck by the phrase that is used in the book of Acts to describe how the apostles came to decisions. Luke wrote, “It seemed good to us, having become of one mind, to select men to send to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul” (Acts 15:25, emphasis added). The connotation is that the apostles dialogued until they came to an agreement. In fact, this is exactly how Acts 15 describes the discussion that the apostles had concerning how the Gentiles should relate to the law of Moses.
One of the ways I get our team to buy-in is to offer my idea as a question. This gives our team members permission to share their thoughts without feeling as if they are killing me. It also ultimately helps me to see my concept from several different perspectives without feeling that I have to defend myself.
Bill Johnson uses a different approach; he will throw out an idea and say, “Tell me why this won’t work.” Either way, the outcome is the same. Everyone feels empowered to share his or her perspective with the team. What I have discovered over the years is that “God ideas” will stand the scrutiny of faith-filled people, but good ideas typically won’t.
“GOD IDEAS” WILL STAND THE SCRUTINY OF FAITH-FILLED PEOPLE, BUT GOOD IDEAS TYPICALLY WON’T.
DTR—It’s important for your COL to understand that whenever your team accomplishes anything, the entire team shares the credit, no matter who came up with the idea. If we win, we win together; and when we lose, we lose together.
Another thing that is essential to understanding the team dynamic is that everyone has an equal voice, but not everyone on your team has an equal vote all the time. What I mean is that certain COL members’ opinions will carry more weight at times, especially when that person has experience or expertise in the specific area you are addressing. In this way you are honoring the gift that’s on a person’s life by acknowledging that, under certain circumstances, his or her opinion carries more authority on the team.
For example, I may be in charge of a certain project; but if a relational issue comes up in the midst of trying to accomplish a task, I almost always defer my authority to Danny Silk because he is more gifted in this area than I am, as is anyone else on our team, for that matter.
5. Core Value: Being a part of a team and making decisions together means that nobody always gets his or her way. Therefore it’s important that you don’t allow the I-told-you-so syndrome to take root in your team. Once a decision is made, no matter who was for it or who was against it, everyone is obligated to do his or her best in two things:
i. Present a united front to everyone your team is influencing and leading. It’s not okay for anyone on your COL to let others know that he or she disagreed with the team’s ultimate decision. This is divisive, undermining, and confusing. This kind of behavior must be confronted.
ii. Everyone on the team must do everything in his or her power to help the decision that was made by the team to succeed. Can you imagine being on a sports team and having the coach call a play that you didn’t like, so you just refused to participate in the play? That would be a quick way to get benched and ultimately kicked off the team.
DTR—Be clear when you are bringing people onto your team that you must have a united front even if things don’t go their way. I learned the hard way that some very gifted people are just not team players for various reasons. Some of them are so needy that they want all the credit for everything. This, of course, destroys collaboration and hamstrings any team dynamic. Then there are people who just don’t have the relational skills to play well with others. Their low Emotional Quotient is so distracting that it undermines any benefit they bring to the team.
With this in mind, I would suggest that you bring a person onto your COL team for a maximum of a year to start with. If the person fits well with the team, then you can extend his or her role as you see fit.
3. Core Value: Diversity is the key to success on any great team. It’s imperative that you find people from your tribe (or on your bus) who have different gifts and perspectives than you have; otherwise you are creating the clone zone. The challenge is that we are often uncomfortable with people who think differently than we do. We have a hard time understanding how they can see the same problem we see and yet come to completely different conclusions about how to solve it.
Author Doris Goodwin captures this concept of diversity in her bestselling book entitled Team of Rivals. It’s the true story of Abraham Lincoln’s diverse leadership team. Goodwin makes the case for Lincoln’s political genius by examining his relationships with three men he selected for his cabinet, all of whom were opponents for the Republican nomination in 1860: William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, and Edward Bates. These men—all accomplished, nationally known, and presidential—originally disdained Lincoln for his backwoods upbringing and lack of experience. Yet Lincoln not only convinced them to join his administration—Seward as secretary of state, Chase as secretary of the treasury, and Bates as attorney general—but he ultimately gained their admiration and respect. How he soothed their egos, turned rivals into allies, and dealt with many challenges to his leadership (all for the sake of the greater good) is largely what Goodwin’s fine book is about. Had Lincoln not possessed the wisdom and confidence to select and work with the best people, she argues, he could not have led the nation through one of its darkest periods.6
Remember, unity is not conformity; it’s a celebration of diversity. The apostle Paul had real insights into believers working together when he wrote, “For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another” (Romans 12:4–5). Reread that last clause: we are “individually members of one another” We must create a leadership culture where the members of our COL don’t lose their senses of identity and individuality for the sake of unity. Like Lincoln, our genius is in building a team of diverse people who can work together for the common good.
DTR—Let your team know the importance of having a high level of honor and value for one another, especially in the midst of your diversity. There is an old saying: “If you walk in my shoes then you will understand how I think.” One of the best ways to learn to value others is to truly get to know them. Whenever you consider adding someone to your COL, let the other members get to know that person first. In other words, court before you marry. When you’re courting, proactively challenge your team to discover the potential candidate’s true identity, as well as his or her greatest accomplishments. It’s funny to me that when you ask most men who they are, they will tell you what they do. What you do is important, but why you do it and how you do it is much more revealing.
4. Core Value. Visionaries and administrators working collaboratively are necessary for success. Visionaries are the architects of your destiny. Administrators, on the other hand, are your builders, your get-it-done team. But getting visionaries and administrators to work together on the same project is miraculous at best, and impossible for most teams.
The challenge is that visionaries are not always grounded in reality; they are often trying to turn water into wine. On the other hand, administrators are frequently trying to turn wine into water by reducing the vision to something that takes no faith to accomplish.
I have been in more meetings then I care to remember where visionaries and administrators were shouting at one another over a project. The truth is, you can envision anything you want as long as you don’t actually have to do it or build it. It costs you nothing to envision a billion-dollar project in the name of faith. But what often follows “faith ventures” is a trail of tears as the visionary shames those who “refuse to believe God.”
Conversely, I’ve been in many meetings where someone began to articulate a vision, only to be interrupted by the administrators who start telling them all the reasons it can’t work—we don’t have the money, we don’t have the time, the people won’t get behind it, yada, yada, yada!
Paul Manwaring said, “Administration means add to the mission.” Most of the time we are not asking administrators if we should build something as much as we are asking them how to get it done. To truly realize what’s been envisioned, we need administrators to operate at the same level of faith as the visionaries do, and we need the visionaries to heed the counsel of the administrators. Nothing great was ever built without visionaries, but nothing at all was ever built without administrators!
DTR—So the world-changing question is, how do you get administrators and visionaries to collaborate? First, you must develop envisioning meetings in which the visionaries are empowered to proactively, externally process their visions while administrators observe, listen, and receive. If the administrators cannot hold their tongues during these imagining sessions, then they should not be allowed into the meetings.
Next, call everyone together, and let the visionaries clearly articulate the vision to the administrators so they can capture the vision and personalize the mission. Afterward, send the administrators away, and task them with developing plans, goals, and steps to apprehend the vision. Have them make a list of the questions they have for the visionaries and send it to them.
Finally, gather everyone for an administrative meeting in which the visionaries congregate to answer questions posed to them by the get-it-done team. Everyone should be in “negotiate mode” when they gather. The main goal of this meeting is to clarify and establish the priorities of the visionaries. As the administrators articulate the cost and the challenges of the plan, as well as the process of apprehending the mission, the visionaries should weigh in on the importance level of certain characteristics of the vision. The administrators should also grasp the worthiness (or lack thereof) of the costly aspects of the mission.
There will always be compromises when you do or build anything great. That’s why it’s important for collaboration to take place among the dreamers and builders. Sometimes the builders want to diminish or cut something that isn’t negotiable in the hearts of the visionaries. Other times things cost a lot of money and have very little impact on the overall scope of the mission. Unless there’s an infinite amount of money, the administrators might be wise to eliminate or downgrade these sorts of extravagant extras.
Be Proactive
For the first twenty years of my life, most of the high-impact relationships I had happened organically. I had no strategy, plan, or mission to surround myself with a wise council of leaders. As a matter of fact, in my younger years I wasn’t smart enough to understand the impact that prudent people could have on my life.
As I shared earlier in this book, I was fortunate to have “accidently” connected to Bill Johnson, who has been surrounded by great people for his entire life. Consequently, I benefited from the wise people who were following Bill, but it was mostly through osmosis.
Now that I’m older, I realize that great leaders proactively build relationships with wise people; they don’t just wait for them to happen. As I have already stated in several ways, your destiny is determined by who is in you and who is around you. So I exhort you: make some wise friends, and transform your destiny!