Tuesday, July 17, 2012

NEED

Please take the poll at right - based on a blog posting earlier this week - only a few hours left now.

I used to be more of a 'need to know' person than I am today.  I still want to know, but I don't necessarily need to know.  Not all the time.  Just sometimes.  About certain stuff.  But not about everything.  Just some things.

When you gather a team around you who is competent and driven and effective, you don't need to know quite so much.

Sometimes Joelene will ask me certain things about the church I pastor and my answer now and then is, 'Uh ... I don't know.'  She used to respond to that with:  'How can you not know?  Aren't you the pastor?'  

ME:  'Uh ... yeah ... but I still don't know.'  


If we have systems at our church that are led and managed and followed through on by motivated people, then I don't need to know everything.  Again, not that I don't want to know; but I don't need to know.

Too many leaders spend their time monitoring all the people in their organization.  If they can't manage themselves then I suppose you have to monitor them, but my goal is to get people who can skillfully lead the activities that will take the church where it needs to go without me looking over their shoulder all the time.

'I don't need to organize the day of a team that knows what it's doing.'

I don't need to organize the day of a team that knows what it's doing.  They need to know the vision and the mission and the purposes and values and focus and model from me, as well as a clear understanding of their own goals. After that, they need the space to get it done.

In the end, it all needs evaluation to make sure the goals were met, but if I'm the only decision-maker in the organization, nothing gets done if I'm not here.  R. Warren said: 'You can structure for control or growth, but not both.'  

So I don't need to know all the time.

But I still want to.

PS - I fully expect someone from our team to copy this posting and tack it up so the next time I walk in asking questions, they can just clear their throat and point to the wall where it is displayed.

And be blessed.

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