By Allen Haynes • June 9, 2025 Listen to the podcast. Suzy Gray (00:03): Welcome to the Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast reverb, a conversation designed to help leaders go even further faster by digging deeper into this month’s episode. I’m your host, Suzy Gray. Last week, Andy had a conversation with Dan Heath about what it looks like to hit reset in your organization when something just isn’t working. And one of the big ideas from that episode that’s been bouncing around in my head all week is this, you don’t need new people or new resources to make things better. You can often get dramatically better results with the same people and the same tools. You just need a new approach. And Andy, that is a hopeful idea, but it’s also a little challenging. It puts the responsibility back on leaders and means the fix might be right in front of you, but you have to know what to look for. Andy Stanley (00:52): And that’s what’s so great about this book. Exactly. It assumes that the answer is there. The ruby red slippers are right there. You just got to put ’em on and tap your heels together. Suzy Gray (01:01): You have to know to say there’s no place like home, Andy Stanley (01:03): But if you do it at the beginning, there’s no story to tell. Suzy Gray (01:07): That’s right. Andy Stanley (01:07): Anyway. And so that was a challenge because a natural response to something that’s not working, I need to find somebody else to come work. Suzy Gray (01:14): Right. Andy Stanley (01:15): And that’s why this book is so helpful because the assumption is you probably have what you need. You just need to do something different or you’re going to stay stuck. And we’ve all been there, and of course the typical response is, I need to find somebody new. We need to move somewhere new, we need a different product. And sometimes those are the solutions. But before we hit the nuclear button, that’s what makes this book so helpful. It gives us some steps to rethink what we’re doing, how we’re doing it with the people that we’re currently doing it with. Suzy Gray (01:43): Exactly. So Andy, let’s talk about where we’ve felt stuck as a team and had to reset and what did or didn’t work in that. Can you share an example of the moment of this isn’t quite working and needing to reset? Andy Stanley (01:56): Yeah, that’s a very relevant question because as you know, we are right in the middle of this right now. And so let me paint the picture for our audience. We’re 30 years old as an organization. Things are going great. We’re sort of an industry leader in terms of the kinds of things we do, but we realized we had some really big opportunities that we should take advantage of. And we got to the point where it’s like we’re doing something wrong if we don’t take advantage of these opportunities. Suzy Gray (02:22): Yeah, it’s irresponsible if we, Andy Stanley (02:22): Yeah. Yeah. We felt irresponsible. We’re like, we’re bad stewards. For a long time, we tried funding a lot of this out of margin, but we just didn’t get much traction. And we knew we had big potential, and if we were going to get it done, we were going to have to do something completely different. And the other thing we realized is we weren’t good at telling the opportunity story to the people in our organization. So consequently, they weren’t have a vision for this Suzy Gray (02:46): Because they didn’t even know about it. Andy Stanley (02:47): They didn’t even know about it. We never talked about it. So this is all on us. This is all on us. So we needed a reset in order to paint the picture of what was possible if people got on board with this. So again, we went outside the, we hired a consultant. She had a great plan. She helped us kind of pull out of the whirlwind to implement this because we couldn’t just keep doing what we were doing and get any of this done. And so we said, Hey, we’re going to do this by the book. And consequently, people responded like crazy. It wasn’t like pulling teeth. People didn’t resist this. They were like, Hey, we’re glad to know about it and we’re happy to participate, Suzy Gray (03:21): Be part of it. Andy Stanley (03:22): But again, if we’d continued to do what we were doing, we just weren’t ever going to get there. So in a sense, we were kind of stuck, but we weren’t solving a problem. We were trying to figure out how to take advantage of an opportunity. And that’s true for a lot of businesses. Suzy Gray (03:36): Exactly. Well, Dan actually talked about the idea of leverage points, and you have to understand where’s the biggest leverage point in order to identify how to get unstuck, if you will. And one that stood out to me was asking, what is the goal of the goal? Is that a question you ever used before as a leader? Andy Stanley (03:57): No. Suzy Gray (03:58): Okay. Andy Stanley (03:58): No, I’ve never asked a question like this, but here’s what resonated with me about that. And it’s kind of the same thing. We talk sometimes about the why behind the what and the why behind the what is often really the goal behind the goal. It’s kind of the same thing. And the why behind the what is oftentimes where the energy and the passion comes from. So behind all this fundraising, I mean, we had a fundraising goal, so we didn’t call it, it’s not really a fundraiser, it was a generosity initiative. But behind all that, the goal behind the goal was to maximize our impact as an organizationally, locally, nationally, and globally. (04:35): So that was the goal behind the goal. The fundraising, I mean, that was out there out front, but behind all of that, it wasn’t just we wanted to raise a bunch of money, we wanted to get something done, and if there was another way to do it without raising all the money, we would’ve done it that way. So that was the goal behind the goal. And where that’s important, especially when we’re casting vision for people in our organization, is to make sure we identify that and surface that. Because again, that’s kind of where the passion comes from. And in our world, fundraising, it’s fundraising, but to maximize our impact as an organization locally, nationally, globally, and then paint the picture of what that looks like, that was motivating the goal behind the goal. Suzy Gray (05:15): Yeah, absolutely. Well, another big tenet of the model and the framework that Dan shared was restacking resources. Andy Stanley (05:22): That was a new idea. Suzy Gray (05:24): And not just adding more, but just using better what you already have. And so where did you see that at work in this whole opportunity? What are some of the most overlooked resources leaders tend to under utilize? Andy Stanley (05:38): I think the answer to that is probably organization and industry specific Suzy Gray (05:42): Yeah Andy Stanley (05:43): In terms of, Suzy Gray (05:43): For sure. Andy Stanley (05:43): But you know what it was for us as I processed through that was influence. That we had influence with the people in our organization and with our congregations. We just weren’t using it because as you experienced with us, when we painted the picture over and over and over for small groups of people, large groups of people, here’s the opportunity they were like we’re in. And again, we had influence that we weren’t leveraging because again, we didn’t have to sell anybody on this. It was as you said a minute ago, they just didn’t know. (06:12): That was totally on us. So exploring some of those intangibles, those soft skills, those areas of resource that we don’t think in terms of these things being resources, they are, again, to get unstuck or to have a restart, all of those things need to be on the table. And then to the point of the book to prioritize those, or as he says, stack those in such a way that we’re using them effectively is so important. Suzy Gray (06:38): It’s so important. And it’s interesting. Another thing in that whole section of restacking resources, he says, you should discontinue efforts that don’t serve the mission. And that section of the book and Restacking resources really reminded me of when we had Cheryl Batchelder on our podcast years ago, and she was talking about her time at Popeye’s, and she said she just had to come in and start unfunding things. In other words, to get the energy to move where the organization needed to head. She just removed the resources from areas that no longer serve the mission and moved it to areas that would, and Andy Stanley (07:14): The thing too, I remember about that was she tried other things. She tried purely vision, cast, mission speeches, all the stuff. And then when she would finish, they would all just go back Suzy Gray (07:25): And do what they’ve been doing. Andy Stanley (07:26): Do what they’ve been doing because they love these projects. And so finally she just unfunded them, she said, and suddenly I had everybody’s attention because they couldn’t do all those things they had been doing, and those weren’t the things we needed to be doing. I thought, well, again, it’s kind of the nuclear option, but it worked. And she got everybody in line to make the changes that needed to be made. So Suzy Gray (07:47): Yeah, so she recycled waste by getting people to move in the right direction and go where the projects that were funded were. Andy Stanley (07:54): And that’s so difficult because especially as a founder, I think everything we’re doing is mission critical. If I didn’t think it was mission critical, we wouldn’t be doing, wouldn’t be Suzy Gray (08:05): Doing ’em, Andy Stanley (08:06): But that doesn’t mean it’s all mission critical. And trying to do a reset, which requires extra energy focused on a specific area, perhaps. Again, we don’t have extra people and you don’t want to spend extra money. You got to work with what you have. So that restacking and reprioritizing, it’s so incredibly important. Important. And again, I remember years ago we were about, I don’t know, three or four years in, and staff wanted to hire new staff, and so they collect all the information and it was 15 more people. And so I sat down with our board, and I remember Kurt says, Andy, do you really need 15 more people? And I remember what I said. I said, no, we don’t, but we need this one and we need this one, and we need this one. And I went through the whole list because each one was critical, but then put it all together, 15 people. We don’t need 15 people, but we need this one and this one. So that’s the dilemma when it comes to shifting focus to get things done in order to do a reset, it’s just difficult to get people out of the whirlwind in order to focus on these new projects or what’s critical to the success or maybe critical to the survival of an organization. Suzy Gray (09:20): It’s difficult, but so important. Andy Stanley (09:21): Yeah. Suzy Gray (09:21): So Andy, as we wrap up, if a leader’s listening today and wanted to try this out, where would you suggest they start? Andy Stanley (09:28): Well, specifically we’re talking about a reset. There’s something in your organization that’s not working, it needs to work. Where would you start to pull from the content of Dan’s book? I would say I love the Miracle question. Suzy Gray (09:39): That’s a good one. Andy Stanley (09:39): And again, if you didn’t listen to last week’s podcast, here’s the miracle question. You imagine that you woke up this morning and whatever needed to be reset was reset. Suzy Gray (09:50): It’s a miracle. Andy Stanley (09:51): It’s a miracle. And the way you knew that it was fixed or that it was reset is the first thing you notice was, and you fill in the blanks. How would you know that it was fixed? How would you know that was a reset? What would be the first thing you notice when you walked in the office? Or what would be the first thing you noticed when you looked at the spreadsheet? What would be the thing? Oh, it’s fixed. I think that’s such a clarifying question because that’s sort of the end game. And sometimes we need to start with the end in mind because sometimes that’s where the tension point is, because that clarifies maybe where we need to start, but specifically it allows us to define the problem. So I thought that was such a great takeaway is it’s fixed. How do I know this is how I would know? Let’s start there and maybe work backwards. Suzy Gray (10:42): Yeah, that whole idea of what must be true, what does this look like? What must be true for this to have happened? So yeah, no, that was a great one. Andy Stanley (10:50): What about you, Suzy? If you’re the consultant and something’s just not working, they need to reset and you’re pulling from the content of this book, where would you tell them to start? Suzy Gray (10:59): I think this thing that stood out to me a great deal from the book, and actually something we’ve already put on our leadership team agenda to talk about was in the Targeting constraints section. He says, try asking yourself this question. If you were allowed to hire one person to help you achieve your goal, what would that person’s role be? The role you identify might be at the epicenter of the constraint. And I think that is a really, really helpful exercise. What is the thing? Because even if you don’t hire that role, identifying what’s at the epicenter can help you think about the problem better and differently. So I think for us as a team, asking ourselves that question and saying, what are we trying to solve? If there’s only one hire we can make in the next year, Andy Stanley (11:51): And they gave their undivided attention to this Suzy Gray (11:53): Role to solve this problem, what would it be? Wow. That’s the epicenter of the constraint. Andy Stanley (11:59): That’s great. Suzy Gray (11:59): I think that’s a very powerful (12:01): Way to think about it, and that is where I would start. Well, Andy, thank you so much, and as we wrap up today, I’m really excited to share something really fun with our audience that we have in mind for our next episode. We’re planning a special audience q and a next month, and we want to hear from you, our audience, whether you’re with a team, an organization, or just stepping into leadership. We’d love to know the questions you are asking right now. So just go to the link in the episode description and submit your question. We will read every question, and while we may not be able to answer all of them, we will be sure to address the main themes that come up most. And thanks as always to our listeners for listening to this episode of Reverb. If you found it helpful, be sure to leave a review or pass it along to another leader. And as always, subscribe wherever you listen, and check out Andy stanley.com/podcast for more resources to help you go even further faster. Comments are closed.