By Allen Haynes • August 12, 2024

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Andy Stanley (00:02):
Hey everybody. Welcome to the Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast, a conversation designed to help leaders go further faster. I’m Andy Stanley, and before we get into today’s content, I wanted to thank Factor Meals for sponsoring this episode Factor Meals are ready to heat and ready to eat no hassle meals. And they are absolutely delicious. And I’ll be honest, I was a bit skeptical, but I am skeptical no longer every time Sandra is out of town. This is my dinner. So head on over to factor meals.com/aslp 50 and then use code a SLP 50 to get 50% off your first box of food plus 20% off your next month while your subscription is active. And of course, why A SLP? It’s the Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast. So again, go to factor meals.com/aslp 50 and use code ALP 50 to get 50% off your first box plus 20% off your next month while this subscription is active. And now let’s dive into today’s podcast content.

Suzy Gray (01:07):
Welcome to the Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast reverb, a conversation that digs deeper into this month’s podcast topic, all designed to help leaders go even further faster. I’m your host, Susie Gray, and this month we’re continuing our conversation from last week on managing tension in your organization. I would definitely encourage you to listen to last week’s episode before diving into today’s because they are going to be so complimentary. But Andy, to get us started, let’s give a quick recap of the role positive tension plays in organizational life.

Andy Stanley (01:37):
Yes, everything that lives lives with tension from our bodies to our families, to our organization. Tension does not go away. Tension is often perceived as a negative word. It is not necessarily negative. Every successful organization is managing tensions. And if we’re not careful, and this is what we talked about last time, there’s a tendency to confuse problems to solve with tensions, to manage. Tensions are managed and monitored. Problems are solved, but to bed and you move on. So as leaders, it’s part of our responsibility in our organization is to help people, especially new people, especially people who are new to our industry or our organization to understand knowing this industry in this company and this type of company, here are the tensions we manage and here are the problems that we solve. And if you solve a tension, you create a problem and things don’t go better, they go worse.

(02:32):
So sometimes tensions are negative, sometimes tensions are positive, but they are necessary and they never ever go away. And that’s okay. And mature leaders and mature people understand that and just learn not just to live with it, like I just got to get by, but learn to leverage those tensions. Anybody that exercises understands the power of tension. If there’s no tension, there’s no progress physically, you don’t get stronger. By avoiding tension, you actually get stronger by embracing tension. So what’s true physically, what’s true in our bodies is true organizationally as well. And great organizations recognize the important tensions and they manage them and they monitor them well. And then the other thing we talked about real quick is giving the people in our organization language around this. Years ago we did this, we introduced this concept. We say, Hey, is this a problem to solve or is it attention to manage? Is it a problem to solve or attention to manage? And even beginning conversations or meetings with, Hey, today we’re going to talk about a problem to solve or today this topic, this is attention we manage. It just sets the stage so everybody knows what we’re trying to do. Everybody understands what the goal is. It’s either to find the perfect place in terms of managing attention or hey, we’re going to solve this and we’re going to stay on this until we solve it and it goes away. That’s kind of the recap.

Suzy Gray (03:54):
And that’s so key because that creates clarity, and clarity is kind to the organization of what we’re trying to do, whether we’re trying to solve a problem or just manage attention. So for today’s episode, let’s drill down on this idea that there’s some tensions that you need to manage as a leader instead of solve. And to get us started, I’d love to talk a little bit about leadership styles. Do you think there’s certain leadership styles that are more adept at navigating this than others?

Andy Stanley (04:21):
Definitely, definitely. Because of my personality. I like things to be talked about one time and then we don’t have to talk about them anymore. I really do. In fact, one of the things we said in the last conversation was one of the ways you’ve stumbled upon attention to manage rather than a problem to solve is it doesn’t go away. Tensions don’t go away. I don’t care. They just don’t go away. They keep coming back. So when something keeps coming back, it’s not that you’re an inefficient problem solver, it’s that you’ve tried to solve attention. Again, anyone who’s had this discussion at home with their spouse about how much time to spend at work, how much time to travel, how much time to spend with kids, it’s a constant conversation every season of life with different age kids, this conversation comes back over and over. And any parent who says, honey, we’ve already talked about the calendar. We’ve already talked about the schedule. They’re trying to solve attention, right?

Suzy Gray (05:13):
Never solving that one.

Andy Stanley (05:15):
No, it’s not supposed to be solved. It’s to be monitored and managed. Monitored and managed. So one thing a leader can do is to recognize their natural capacity for living with tension. We all have different tolerance levels for tension to manage. There are things that I have very little tolerance for messiness, I just don’t do well in messiness. Same before I work, I clean up my workspace. Same other people. You walk in and you’re like, how can you get anything done? Well, they just have higher tolerance for, and it’s not right or wrong, it’s just different. Well, in the same way, every leader needs to acknowledge what is my tolerance for tension? If you have high tolerance, then things that shouldn’t bother you won’t bother you because you can manage the tension. You’re comfortable with that tension, you’re comfortable with unresolved tension because tension is never resolved.

(06:10):
If you have low capacity for this or if you have low tolerance for this, you need to know that and acknowledge it. Otherwise, you may force the people around you to try to solve once and for all something that can’t be solved once and for all, because it’s attention to manage and attention to monitor. So that’s really important that self-awareness is huge. Otherwise you’ll drive people crazy. Again, everything’s a problem to solve. And then when it comes back up, because as we talked about, it’s never going away, you’re going to be so frustrated, we talked about this. Haven’t we put this to bed? We resolved this. And the people who have a higher tolerance for tension are like, Hey, welcome to our world. This is how it’s going to be. This is how it’s going to be. This is never going to go away. And also, and this is probably another conversation for another day when we interview people for specific jobs, there are jobs where there is very low tension.

(07:08):
They’re just, this is what you do. And when you do that, you’re done with that and you move on to the next thing. And so people who have a low tolerance for tension should not be given responsibilities where there is just an ongoing unresolved. Most jobs are not like mowing the lawn, you mow the lawn, you’re done at least for a couple of weeks and you’re back out there. So recognizing our personal capacity for managing tension and recognizing in others, their capacity for managing tension is so important because if you get low capacity in terms of managing tension, if you get those people in an organization on different sides of an aisle, we talked about research and development versus marketing. If you get low capacity or low tolerance, people on both sides of that argument, they’re never going to be happy until they get their way. But if either gets their whole weight,

Suzy Gray (08:02):
The organization loses you

Andy Stanley (08:03):
Created a problem, right? So anyway, I think that’s an important part of this is we think about specific job responsibilities. And as we think about growing an organization, because in a growing organization there are always new tensions to manage growth creates tension. Tension

Suzy Gray (08:19):
Definitely

Andy Stanley (08:20):
Progress creates tension. New ideas create tension. And again, those are good tensions.

Suzy Gray (08:26):
And it’s interesting because I feel like on some teams there’s people that lean into the tension and have no problem openly debating it. And then you’ve got people that are like, ah, this tension feels like conflict and pull

Andy Stanley (08:40):
Away. It feels like conflict. So

Suzy Gray (08:42):
What do you do for those people that are like, ah, this feels like conflict. I don’t want to engage in that. How do you

Andy Stanley (08:47):
Manage that? That’s so important, Susie. Two things. First, it goes back to something I said, introduce the conversation for what it is. We’re not solving something. We’re trying to find the right equilibrium, the right place to be in terms of managing this tension. And we’ve talked about this on the podcast before. In fact, this happened today in a meeting earlier today. We’re talking about a situation, lots of tension because this is something new we’ve never done before. So we’re trying to figure it out. And anything new brings its own element of tension. And there was a gentleman who I love and have so much respect for. He’s sitting almost directly across from me at the conference room table. Three or four people have weighed in and I can tell he’s thinking hard. He hasn’t said a word, anything. He hasn’t said a thing. And he’s not staring me down, but he’s kind of staring past me and I’m thinking, I know him well enough to know he’s not daydreaming. He’s in this conversation, but it’s all in his head and he hasn’t said anything. And so I just said his name and said, what are you thinking right now? I want to know. Called it out, what’s in there? And then he shared what was on his mind. And of course it was very important and maybe he would’ve gotten around, but I’m like, no, we need all the cards on the table. We need all the input, all the information,

Suzy Gray (09:59):
Actively inviting him.

Andy Stanley (10:00):
And of course there’s some personalities you want to turn down, turn down down other people you want to turn up again when there’s tension and when it’s personal and when it’s, yeah. But if you get your way, I get less of my way. That’s when we as leaders have to step in. We have to get over is it about me or is it about we? And everybody around the table has got to decide, is this about me or is this about we? And when you’re at the table and you’re representing a lot of other people that you’re going to have to go back to and say, here’s what was decided. Of course you’re going to argue your case. And again, as we talked about last time, we want people who are raving fans for their department, their division, their people who at the same time are willing to say, Hey, we compromise for the sake of the organization. And I think we found a good place to organization win. So again, we’re managing tensions.

Suzy Gray (10:48):
Well, it’s interesting because I’ve heard you say, and I’ve witnessed it many times, allowing when there’s a tension in the room to be unfiltered, debate. And the unfiltered debate I think allows people to say, you know what? I was heard and I didn’t have to hold back and whatever the decision is made, at least I know that I represented as well. How did you get to that place of understanding that part of managing this tension is to allow unfiltered debate?

Andy Stanley (11:21):
I think because for the first, I don’t know, 10 years of my professional career, I worked in an organization where that was not allowed. And you just sat there and realized not only do they not want to hear what I’m thinking, it won’t be received well, I might even be penalized for it. Again, another podcast for another day. There were so many times I would think, and take this the right way if I’m ever in charge, here’s how I would process this. If I’m ever in charge, I don’t want anyone who works with me to feel what I’m feeling right now. And there are two or three categories of those emotions that I found myself thinking, I don’t want anyone who ever works for me to feel what I’m feeling right now. And this was one of ’em to feel like, I think I have an idea that would help this organization be better. And you’re not really interested in what I have to say. I mean, you only have to experience that a little bit. And then you find yourself looking around the table thinking, I don’t want anybody. One of the other ones is, this is a different topic, but I don’t want anyone ever going home day after day after day with frustrations about work that they have to address at home. And there’s no place to address them at work

Suzy Gray (12:40):
Because they feel attention and they don’t feel like they have a voice. So they got to let that tension outside.

Andy Stanley (12:44):
Well, they don’t want to gossip, they don’t want to undermine, they don’t want to ruin their reputation. They don’t want to lose their job. So they take this unresolved tension home, tension home because day after day after day after day, I would drive home, pour out my attention to Sandra, and she would finally say, honey, I love you. I can’t help you with that. I like, I’m not asking you to fix it. I just don’t have a safe place to talk about it without feeling like I’m being disloyal or So again, there are two or three of those things. So this is one of them. And so I want to know what everybody’s thinking. And that’s the only way to manage and monitor certain tensions that aren’t ever going to go away. And to the point you made Susie mature people, if they are heard and their perspective and their opinion is factored in, that’s generally enough.

(13:32):
And one of the things I try to always say when I realize, okay, I got to make a decision. I’m going to disappoint half the people in the room. Are we going to disappoint two thirds of the people in the room? I’ll say, this is what we’re going to do. This is what I think we need to do. And if it turns out I’m wrong, I’ll be the first to acknowledge it. And I think that’s just my safety valve to say, look, I don’t think I’m the smartest person in the room, but we have to make a decision and I’m going to own the decision. And if it’s wrong, you won’t have to tell me. I’ll acknowledge that, but we got to move forward. And most mature people are like, okay, that’s great. Let’s move forward. Because doing something together, even if we don’t all agree, is better than doing nothing or debating endlessly. And the reason I go off on that, that oftentimes is the way to move forward with a tension because there are strong opinions on both sides, and nobody’s necessarily right or wrong, but you got to make a decision. You got to move forward. You got to move forward, move forward. Yeah, you got to move forward.

Suzy Gray (14:28):
It was so funny. I remember this was early on in my career here, so this was probably like, I want to say 2005, and I was in a room with several of the founders and the discussion of the day was around, do we create corporate marks or trademarks or logos that everything looks the same and is just tweaked or everybody gets to do their own expression?

Andy Stanley (14:52):
There you go. I remember that

Suzy Gray (14:53):
There was such strong opinion, and you sat there and let everybody have a voice and everybody argue their point. And then at the end of it, you heard everything and you said, okay, that was helpful. This is what we’re going to do. This is how we’re going to move forward. If it needs to get adjusted, that is going to be on me. But this is a decision. And I remember that was the first experience I ever had with that. And I thought, wow, everybody in that room left heard, but we didn’t leave the meeting unresolved, and that was a big, big deal. So I think that’s a really important point of allowing that unfiltered debate, not allowing anyone to feel like you didn’t even hear me, you didn’t care about my opinion, but also not letting everybody leave with an unresolvable. That was a waste of time. We didn’t make any progress.

Andy Stanley (15:40):
They’re afraid to make decision. And again, for us, and this goes back a little bit to last week’s discussion for us, that kind of conversation continues to happen because we have decided to manage the tension between central and campus. The campuses are church campuses around the city of Atlanta. Their responsibility is to create the best local church for those local communities as they can possibly create with different expressions Central like any organization is to support those. But because they are oftentimes different expressions, we lose sometimes some of the economy of scale, the

Suzy Gray (16:18):
Synergies,

Andy Stanley (16:19):
But at the same time, we can’t afford to lose all the economy of scale. So there’s that tension. That was it. And that was one of those discussions. There was two campuses that wanted to do something very different than the rest different. And I’m like, you know what? I want you to win in your community. I want it to be a local expression, but in this case, we’re not going to do it. We’re not going to do it. We’re all going to do the same thing again, tension to manage again. That type of thing in our organization happens over and over and over. And if I ever got to the point where I’m, Hey, I’m tired of talking about this, Hey, no more, then what happens is central winds, the local expressions are diminished, and what we’re trying to do in local communities is diminished as well. And that’s a loss for the whole organization.

Suzy Gray (17:02):
Definitely.

Andy Stanley (17:04):
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Suzy Gray (18:39):
So Andy, as we wrap up, something I’ve been thinking about is we’ve talked about there’s sometimes you just have to manage tensions rather than solve a problem. But in managing these tensions, how do you know you’re not creating a weight for downstream employees that you actually don’t even feel as a leader?

Andy Stanley (18:59):
This is a really important question, and here is a way, and again, because of the nature of our organization and because of my career track through organizations like ours, there is a sensitivity because I’ve been in those roles, and I think this goes back to what I said a few minutes ago when I said, I don’t want anyone in our organization to feel what I felt. Those really were as negative as those experiences were. They really were defining moments for me as a leader. So I think maybe I have an intuition to ask that question because I do ask that question. We’re all the directors and we’re making all these decisions, and okay, this is what we’re going to do not do. This is not resolve it. This is how we’re going to carry attention because attention is a weight. Yes, it is. Which means somebody’s feeling the weight.

(19:48):
It’s much easier to solve a problem, then it’s done. But so we’ve decided here’s where we’re going to kind of move the equilibrium in this tension, and again, sensitivity to, okay, but who will continue to carry the weight of how we are managing this tension? It’s so important. Two things. Number one, when I know that we’re about to have that kind of conversation, sometimes I will invite people who would not normally be in the meeting to sit in the meeting because I want to be able to turn to them and say, okay, how does this make you feel? Or what do you think? Or how does this affect your day to day? How does that not just affect you, but how does it affect the people who are responsible for what you’re responsible for at multiple campuses or at Central? I don’t want to hear about it later.

(20:34):
Why not just invite them in? And sometimes it’s, oh, yeah, we can do that, or we’ll have to make some adjustments, but we can do that. Or you know what? If we have more budget dollars, I think we can get some contract labor and we can do that, but I want to know as soon as possible, again, downstream, what extra weight have I put on somebody unknowingly that they have to live with and manage, and they know, oh yeah, somebody in a room I wasn’t invited into made a decision. I wonder if they even knew how this affected me. Did they even take me into account? They even take me into consideration. So asking that question in the conversation at the end of the conversation, and again, it may not be the person who is specifically going to feel that, but their upline manager or somehow they need to be represented in that room.

(21:20):
And for me to remember to say, Hey, I’ll take Angie for example. She’s our service programming director at this particular campus. To say, Angie, how is that going to make your team feel? We’ve just added an event. We are so excited about this event. It’s going to be great, but I’m excited about it, but all I have to do is show up and sit on the front row and go, isn’t this a great event? I don’t have to do anything. So to say, Angie, how does that feel with everything else you have going on? How’s your team going to feel next? Two days from now when you sit down and say, Hey, they just added this thing. I want to know you’re carrying the weight. So you’re exactly right. This is so important and this is good leadership. And again, most mature people, as long as they know that you’re aware that you have added to their plate or they were hoping this was a problem you were going to solve, and lo and behold the tension hasn’t gone away and it looks like it’s never going away, taking them into consideration, providing them with the additional resources or assets they need or support they need for this tension that’s not going away, then again, people can adjust to that.

(22:20):
Again, it goes back to what you said earlier when everybody’s in the room making sure everybody speaks up and turns their cards over when they’re not in the room to make sure that somehow it’s communicated to them, they were taken into consideration. They were represented, yeah, that Andy actually said, how’s this going to affect your team or whoever you are as a manager, you actually ask about it. You’re aware that downstream the tension isn’t going away. In fact, it may have tilted to where there’s even more tension or more responsibility or more to do, super important, but in most cases, just acknowledging it and inviting that feedback or following up later. Or if Angie says, Hey, I’m not sure. Let me talk to them and can I get back to you? Absolutely. I want to know on the front end, I want to know on the front end what I just put on your plate to factor that into this decision.

(23:10):
Those are the kinds of sensitivities that, again, everybody listening, we’ve all worked in different organizations. We’ve all had managers and bosses, the ones that took us into consideration and could to some extent feel what we were feeling. We love those people. I’ll do whatever you need me to do. You took me into consideration the situations where somebody walks out of a meeting and suddenly I have a lot to do, or I have a problem that I’ve got to solve, and I’m not sure my side was represented. That’s just not a good feeling, and in most cases it’s just unnecessary. So yeah, I do think that’s part of it. Wow,

Suzy Gray (23:45):
That is so good. So the two things really are, number one, when possible, make sure the employees that are going to be affected the most by the tension that’s being managed are in the room when possible,

Andy Stanley (23:56):
Or at least represented. Yeah,

Suzy Gray (23:57):
Or represented. And if they’re being represented, make sure that either their department director, whoever was in the room, communicates they were taken into consideration, or if they need to, Hey, we need to go talk to the team first. Let that feedback loop happen before finalizing.

Andy Stanley (24:15):
Yeah, I want to know how they feel about this decision. Not that we’ll change the decision, but I want to know, again, just taking them into consideration. Yep.

Suzy Gray (24:23):
That’s really great. Well, that is all the time we have for this episode of Reverb. Andy, thanks so much for digging deeper into the topic of managing organizational tension and providing a few more insights. And to all our listeners, we want to thank you for joining us, and before we leave, we have one ask, and that is to subscribe. By subscribing, you’re going to help us grow the audience, which allows us to keep improving, bringing you great guests and great content to help you as a leader go further, faster, and also be sure to visit Andy stanley.com/podcast where you’ll find more resources to help you go further, faster.

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