ARE WE A PEOPLE AT HALF TIME? - Leadership Network

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Building Your Company’s Vision by
James Collins and Jerry Porras. Harvard
Business Review, September-October,
1996. Reprints are available for $5.00 from
HBR at 1-800-988-0886. Ask for reprint
96501.
“Building An Enduring Church” is the
cover story of the Church
Champions Newsletter, Vol.2, No.1,
which can be found at
Participant Learnings
In small groups and the large forum,
participants discussed the principles and
findings of Built To Last in light of their
own experiences in leadership and
ministry. What follows is a sampler of key
learnings.
On clock building and time telling...
“I realized that to be a clock builder, you
have to step back from the organization...and
be able to give up the rewards of
the organization and the system.”
“I am struck by two things: the charismatic
leader being a liability as much as an asset
and how much growth can pull you away
from who you are.”
“For me, it has been discovering the
distinction between ‘building to last’ as
opposed to preservation.”
“I am going to work on a “stop doing”
list...to try and stop dealing with the things
that don’t matter for the next 50 years.”
“We need to start a generation of new
churches that are ‘built to last’ from the
beginning.”
“I had to ask myself the question, “How
much of what I do in my daily schedule
will build strength in 50 years”
On preserving the core...
“While we have a great group of elders, I
realized we have done nothing to develop
the next level of leaders...leaders with our
core values.”
“We need to reexamine
core valu
e s ,
structure, and
strategy...I don’t
want to tie future
leaders to our present
strategy.”
“I see the need for
an annual orientation
for staff,
whether they are
new or not, about
our purpose, values,
and why we exist.”
“I realized how important it is that we not
build our values around issues.”
On alignment and BHAG...
“Before we assign a value, we need to be
sure that it can be lived out in the life of
our church...this will be even more important
in the coming century.”
“We need to quit appreciating the past and
move on to the future...the values are clear
but the vision is not...we need a BHAG.”
“It is time for me to provide more visionary
leadership...to address the BHAG...and
to think more creatively about staffing patterns.”
“We have to be more intentional about
instilling strong mechanisms that will help
us achieve alignment.”
On succession...
“It is time to seriously think through the
issue of succession with our leadership and
staff.”
“I am near retirement and beginning to
realize what I have lost in getting too close
to the institutional side of church.”
“As I begin to think about my successor, I
need to help our church understand the
importance of operational systems and
structure. The real strength is in equipping
people, not running programs.”
Core
Ideology
=
Leadership Network recently
asked several participants at
the Built To Last forum how
they had applied what they
had learned during the
forum. Here is
some of their
response.
Austin, Texas
Core Values
+
Purpose
Core Values = The organization’s essential and enduring tenets—
a small set of general guiding principles; not to
be confused with specific cultural or operating
practices; not to be compromised for financial
gain or short-term expediency.
Purpose = The organization’s fundamental reasons for
existence beyond just making money—a perpetual
guiding star on the horizon; not to be confused with
specific goals or business strategies.
George Cladis,
Senior Pastor of
Covenant
Presbyterian
Church
“Collins helped me understand that if you
can express the mission, goals and purposes
of the church, even its core values, in
picturesque ways, you need to then stick to
the description and emphasize it repeatedly.
You build ministry and structures and
missions off of those words. It has been
interesting to me that some of our new
members who have come into our church
and gone through a new member process
look at what I am doing in presenting the
comments are continued on page 5
mission of the church and say, “You know,
this looks like the stuff Jim Collins talks
about.”
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