Catching the Future (The Leadership Challenge)

The next speaker was Gary Hamel. His bio alone was exciting ...

Gary Hamel was ranked as the #1 Business Thinker of 2008 by The Wall Street Journal and called "the world's leading expert on business strategy" by Fortune. An author, speaker, professor, and innovative management consultant, he is most widely known for originating concepts such as "strategic intent" and "core competencies." The founder of Strategos, a worldwide strategic consulting company, his vision for the workplace revolves around releasing human potential and creativity. Hamel will address the paradigm shift needed to fully engage the potential of people and explain how tomorrow's most successful companies will be organized. He is the author of Leading the Revolution and The Future of Management.

His presentation was FANTASTIC. It was so good I was mesmerized and missed some of what he was saying in my notes, but I captured enough. Gary spoke to his audience of church leaders, but like most of the Summit, the message applies to any organization.

• Are you [your organization] changing as fast as the world around you?
• Are we all walking the talk as Christians?
• A church [organization] needs to be: ... a nurturing environment for new believers, not just a place for existing christians ... a place to grow ... a place that is relevant.
• The world is changing so fast. It's becoming more turbulent faster than organizations are becoming more resilient.
• Conquer denial
• Face the facts
• Questions your beliefs [practices].
• Listen to and learn from the renegades/dissidents/outliers

"The future has already happened, it's just unequally distributed."

"We clutch the current because we can't see alternatives."

• It takes 1000 ideas to have 100 experiments that turn into 10 projects that become one [1] winner!
• Ask your people [audiences, teams, etc.] "how to __________."
• Look at what you do and identify what hasn't changed.
• Compare your [self, organization, etc.] to others and ask "what is identical?"
• A leaders job is to mobilize, connect, and support. It's about being part of a community vs. a hierarchy.
• The facebook generation doesn't want organized religion OR big business. They want "cause".
• Shoot for being spiritual powerful and institutionally weak. Be vibrant .. resilient .. flexible ..

"We won't get better at changing lives until we get better at changing our churches."

"Humility is a survival mechanism."

"If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together."

Gary has provided more information and an interactive blog on the Summit's Next Steps section.

Here's to learning and growing. J