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Andy Stanley (00:00:02):
Hey everybody. Welcome to the Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast, a conversation designed to help leaders go further faster. And before we jump into today's content, I want to tell you about a special offer from our friends at belay. If you're ready to scale your business, you're also probably dreading the extra hours you'll need to maintain it, right? I mean, after all, going bigger means working overtime. Going overtime means less time at home. So belay has a solution because the best leaders know that setting boundaries doesn't hinder growth. Actually setting boundaries often accelerates growth, as we talk about all the time on the podcast. So when you're overworked, you aren't operating at your best too many hours, make an unfocused, foggy, stretch, too thin leader, we know that, and Belay wants to help you fix that. And with their expert, US-based assistants, you can bring margin back into your life.
(00:00:50):
Belays assistants are flexible, they're remote, and they are matched to you specifically so you can get the exact support you need to focus on vision, mission, and scaling. And Belay is offering a free resource to help you craft a balanced schedule. They call it the 40 hour CEO Work week guide. It includes goal setting, tools, templates, and an ideal work week builder. So if you want to learn how the top CEOs do, download this resource today to claim this offer. Just text the word Andy to 5, 5, 1, 2, 3. That's ANDY to five five. 1, 2, 3. And now let's jump into today's content. So this month we're doing something a little different. In October, I had Jason Jagger on the podcast. You may remember that. And we talked about what it means to go beyond high performance. What you don't know is that I recently joined Jason on his podcast. That discussion turned out to be a lot of fun, exceptionally practical, and I thought it was thought provoking. So much so that I wanted to share that conversation with you on the Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast. So here's my conversation with Jason Jagger from the Beyond High Performance Podcast. Enjoy.
Jason Jaggard (00:02:02):
Andy, thank you so much for spending some time with me. I've been looking forward to this, and I'm very excited to introduce you to our audience. Many of the people in our audience, of course, are going to know who you are. And a lot of people, this will be their first time getting to experience you. And so we'll put all your books and things in books, not all the show notes, all books, most of
Andy Stanley (00:02:23):
Your books, selective S Selective books,
Jason Jaggard (00:02:25):
A curated list,
Andy Stanley (00:02:26):
The two I actually like.
Jason Jaggard (00:02:27):
Oh
Andy Stanley (00:02:28):
No,
Jason Jaggard (00:02:28):
I'm kidding. That's a
Andy Stanley (00:02:29):
Fun. Yeah, the two worth that I'm sure are worth reading the rest.
Jason Jaggard (00:02:32):
So I've read more than two and I liked all of them.
Andy Stanley (00:02:35):
And still we're doing this
Jason Jaggard (00:02:36):
And here we are. So you know that it wasn't that bad. And so I want to start here, especially for folks who are listening who don't necessarily have a church exposure or maybe have limited church exposure because you have been able to create with a team, one of the largest and most influential faith communities in the world, I think in the top 10 faith communities in the world. And we did got to do an interview with Diane, your assistant. She's here somewhere.
Andy Stanley (00:03:09):
Well, you got all the scoop in.
Jason Jaggard (00:03:11):
You got the scoop. Yeah.
Andy Stanley (00:03:12):
Yeah.
Jason Jaggard (00:03:14):
And we talked a little bit about how when we're talking about the Big five and stock and Nvidia and Apple or whatever, we don't really do that for nonprofits and things. And North Point, if you were North Point goes in that space because I got to be a pastor for 10 years. It was one of the greatest seasons of my life, by the way. Just hang tight at questions on the horizon. And with our firm, we work with hundreds of companies and we get an intimate look there. And I believe that local church leadership is the hardest, most complicated, most difficult, most challenging form of leadership in the world. And that's not necessarily obvious to people if they're just looking at it on the outside.
Andy Stanley (00:04:00):
No, it looks easy. They wonder what we do other than on Sundays.
Jason Jaggard (00:04:03):
Yeah, that's right.
Andy Stanley (00:04:03):
What do you do the rest of the week?
Jason Jaggard (00:04:04):
Yeah.
Andy Stanley (00:04:04):
Yeah.
Jason Jaggard (00:04:06):
So if you're listening to this, North Point belongs in the pantheon of Apple, Nvidia, and other faith communities. It also belong in that it is incredibly difficult. It has all the complications of business for-profit, government education where 50% of the population hates you when you say something. It hates you if you don't say something. And it is very hard to do. And so you are one of the best in what you do. And I think oftentimes people know you as a speaker and they know you as a writer and talking to people behind your back who know you, they would be like, Andy is of course, he's a world-class speaker. Of course his books has sold millions of copies, all the things. And you are a world-class leader. And so I'm excited to walk through a few of your isms today together. And there are isms that have shaped my life. There are isms that our firm knows, and I quote you often to them. I quote you to my clients, our coaches quote you to our clients. You've had a profound impact on me personally and on our coaches, whether they realize it or not, and our clients.
(00:05:17):
And so I should say the thank you for the end, but I wanted to start with a thank you for everything that you've done and your leadership. And so I want to jump in and start talking about some of the isms. Can we do that?
Andy Stanley (00:05:28):
Yes. And thank you for saying all that. That's encouraging. And in terms of the challenge of doing what I do, it's so interesting you say that. And we don't have to talk about the details, but we're right in the middle of one of those in this very moment. So yeah, my meeting before this was when you try to get it right, you get criticism from both sides. And that's how I feel like you're doing the right thing because most people live in the middle. Nobody lives in the extremes. So as my staff would say today, here we go again. Here we go again.
Jason Jaggard (00:05:59):
Yeah, that's right. And I like that maxim because most people, I heard a quote one time, I don't know the secret to success, but I know the secret to failure, try to make everybody happy. And it sounds like what you're saying is the opposite of that. You're doing something right when everyone's a little bothered by
Andy Stanley (00:06:12):
It. Yeah. I have a friend who started a church in Atlanta a few years ago and about, I don't know, six weeks in, a few months in, he texted me, he said, what do you do about criticism? I'm like, the only way to avoid criticism is don't do anything. And then somebody will criticize that as well. But you'll get less criticism if you just don't do anything.
Jason Jaggard (00:06:29):
That's right.
Andy Stanley (00:06:29):
So that's just the nature. But that's true of just about everything, not just ministry.
Jason Jaggard (00:06:34):
And are you familiar with, there's a book called Leadership Pain, I think that's what it's called. The theory says that your capacity to lead is based on your capacity for criticism. And so at any given time, about 10% of the people you lead won't like you. And so if you can only handle one person not leading or not liking, you
Andy Stanley (00:06:53):
Should only have 10 employees.
Jason Jaggard (00:06:54):
Right. And so if you can stomach, does that sound accurate to you or how does that resonate?
Andy Stanley (00:07:00):
Well, the whole idea of trying to keep everybody happy, it's impossible. And different temperaments feel that differently. It doesn't learned that it doesn't bother me as much as it bothers some other temperaments and some other personalities. And if you look at whether it's Enneagram, there's a variety of personality tests and strategies. But when I'm okay with me, it's easier for me to be okay with the fact that I'm not okay with other people. Clear conscience. You feel like you're doing the right thing, but you learn that over time.
Jason Jaggard (00:07:38):
And is that the hack? Because I struggle with that.
Andy Stanley (00:07:41):
Yeah. Well, this two days ago I had this conversation with a leader. I said, no, actually it was yesterday on the phone. I said, you have to find a place that you can retreat to and retreat's kind of strong step back into to realize what's most important. Why am I doing this? Is my conscience clear then? And when I realize that I'm wrong, I'll be the first to apologize. You won't have to come looking for me. Because as we get older, I think, well, as I've gotten older, I am actually encouraged when I realize I'm wrong because then I'm not wrong anymore. So that is, I think it is easier for me and part of it too, and I know this is what we're going to talk about, but my dad was a pastor and a successful pastor. So in some ways I feel like I live my life twice because I experienced so much of what I saw and observed. And that is so helpful.
(00:08:35):
So again, I think we all in leadership have to find that place that we retreat back to regain our balance, recenter, and then go forward. And if somebody doesn't have that, the stress of leadership, it'll crush you after a while, especially if you're trying to make everybody happy. And the leader who decides to make everybody happy eventually compromises. They violate their own conscience, then they have to pretend, and then they're dishonest. And that's just a bad place to wake up in.
Jason Jaggard (00:09:08):
It compounds.
Andy Stanley (00:09:09):
It definitely compounds. That's the right word. Yep.
Jason Jaggard (00:09:11):
I heard Ben Affleck say one time I wanted to be a director because I wanted to be able to fail on my own terms. And there was the idea of if I'm going to fail, I want to at least fail doing what I believe versus trying to make everybody happy. And then I don't even get to have what I believe in the table, on the table. That's fascinating. Okay,
Andy Stanley (00:09:27):
That's good.
Jason Jaggard (00:09:27):
So isms. So we're going to walk through a few of them. I'm going to couple two of 'em together. I were going to kind of slice and dice 'em a little bit. One is because I'm getting massive deja vu, I read, this isn't the first book I'd recommend in the list of books that I would recommend, but it was the first book that I read, which was Next Generation Leader. I was 21 years old. I got my first job, had no, I had an office, I had an assistant, no clue what I was doing. And I buy your book, it's rebranded now as a silver book. And I open up and one of the first things I read is this maxim that says, only do what only you can do. And I read that and I remember thinking, I have no idea what that means. So can you talk a little bit about the phrase, only do what only you can do?
Andy Stanley (00:10:12):
Yeah. It's generally impossible. It's the impossible dream. But I think it's important for leaders to keep that out front because the goal is to hand off everything we're not good at. And we can't do that initially because when you start an organization, you do everything whether you're good at it or not. But the idea of only do what only you can do is to as quick as possible, reduce the number of tasks, not the responsibility. The responsibility is there all the time for everything and everybody. But in terms of what I'm spending my time on and what I'm focusing on, I need to focus my time and energy on the things in the organization where I bring the most value and spend less and less time on the things that don't bring as much value and that other people do better than me anyway. So it's kind of the impossible dream, but I think it's extremely important to keep that out front to only do what only you can do. So that's behind that.
Jason Jaggard (00:11:04):
So then I remember as a young person reading that thinking, great. So then my boss is asking me to do all these things.
Andy Stanley (00:11:12):
You just let 'em know. That's not
Jason Jaggard (00:11:14):
My,
Andy Stanley (00:11:14):
Yeah,
Jason Jaggard (00:11:15):
Yeah, it'll worked great. So obviously what you're not saying is don't do other things.
Andy Stanley (00:11:21):
Yeah. I'm not saying don't do your job, but it is part of, I'm glad you brought that up. And I think even in the book, the Next Generation Leader I talk about, when you discover within the context of a specific job, Hey, of the broad responsibility I've been given, here's where I add the most value. I think it's not incumbent, but I think it's wise for an employee to at some point sit down or during the one-on-one say, Hey, can I bring something up?
(00:11:46):
This is the scope of what you've asked me to do. Here's where of all the things I'm responsible for, and of all the tasks you've assigned me to, here's where I think I add the most value. Can we experiment with giving me more time on fewer things to see if I add more value to what you're doing here? So I think introducing that conversation is a way that somebody who's not the leader of the organization can bring the idea of do more of what I'm best at. Because we all know when a person finds the right seat on the bus to echo Jim Collins, it is just better. So this isn't just for the point leader, I think regardless of where a person is in their career, again, it's the impossible dream, but to keep it as sort of a north star to direct careers towards.
Jason Jaggard (00:12:37):
Well, and so then I imagine that is different in different phases. And if we can, I'd like to use you as a model for that. So early days North Point, I remember I heard a story one time where you went to a retreat and you wrote down all the job descriptions for a giant influential faith community, and they started, and then what did you do after that?
Andy Stanley (00:12:55):
Yeah, so we were reading the E-Myth. Well, the E-Myth and the E-Myth revisited Michael Gerber. Is that right?
Jason Jaggard (00:13:01):
Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
Andy Stanley (00:13:02):
So it's one of the first books we read as a team. And he said to do this, he said, it's a book about franchising, and this was his instruction. Go ahead and create an org chart for what you see the organization being someday. So we did on a board, we created an org chart. There were five of us, and we all put our initials in every single box on an org chart that represented a really large successful church. And then we began trying to work our way out of those boxes, but having that as the template, and this was easy for us because we had all come out of a large successful church. So again, this, we weren't just making this up, it was an informed imagined church
Jason Jaggard (00:13:44):
Scenario.
Andy Stanley (00:13:46):
Yeah. And then you begin working your way out of those boxes.
Jason Jaggard (00:13:49):
So then for you, what would you say are the key things that only you can do? And then how did that shift over the last couple of decades of leadership?
Andy Stanley (00:13:57):
Yeah, this is so important because again, it's kind of the impossible dream that's important to dream. So early on in organizational life, the leader has to set the pace, the standard of excellence to answer the question, this is how we do it here. It's orchestrate and evaluate, orchestrate and evaluate, orchestrate. This is how we do it here, evaluate how can we do it better?
(00:14:21):
Do you have to orchestrate and evaluate or you have chaos? And if you don't ever evaluate, you just fall behind. So that's kind of the rhythm of the organization. So early on in terms of what's being orchestrated, you have to be involved in all those details. And one of my faults or, and one of your questions I think later is, what do I wish I had done different? Or maybe everybody just asks me that all the time. And I always have the same answer is I didn't give things away quick enough. I held on, and my assistant who's sitting in our studio audience, if we can call it that,
(00:14:52):
She would tell you at times, she's had to pry things out of my hand. But she's worked with me for 20 plus years, almost 30 years. So she knew, and too, I'm surrounded by people where the communication's fluid and they're, they have not been shied. Let me know you're not really good at that. Thanks. And what I was going to say is to a fault, I would feel like, well, since I don't really want to do this, nobody wants to do this, so I'm going to graciously do the stuff nobody else wants to do. Meanwhile, there are people that are dying to do that because they're gifted for it and equipped to do it. And it took me too long to recognize that. So every once in a while, when Diane and I are meeting, I will say, and this doesn't hurt her feelings, I don't think, I haven't asked her, but I will say, because we're going over the mail and the schedule and just the stuff, and I would say, I would really hate your job. And she smiles and she says, and I would really hate yours, but again, what's difficult for me is a dream for somebody else. So anyway, it just took me too long to figure that out.
Jason Jaggard (00:16:02):
And I'd imagine then, as you whittle, obviously Sundays giving a compelling talk when people want to come back next week.
Andy Stanley (00:16:09):
Yes. Number one in our organization, because in every organization there's a critical event, at least one. The critical event is that if that goes well, everything goes well. If that doesn't go well, it doesn't matter how everything else went. And for us, the critical event is an hour on Sunday morning that we repeat twice and sometimes three or four times, depending on what's going on in the year. That has to be amazing.
(00:16:34):
And of that hour and five minutes, they give me 35 of those minutes. And so that has to be, that's the priority. And it's not the thing that only I can do, but it's the thing that is the greatest value add to our organization.
Jason Jaggard (00:16:50):
It's the biggest lever.
Andy Stanley (00:16:51):
It the biggest lever, and more so than my leadership of the organization is my performance, if I can use that term. Anytime you have a microphone on, it's a performance. That's right. Okay. I'm not taking away the sacredness of church, but you got to be on,
Jason Jaggard (00:17:07):
You're showing up. Yeah.
Andy Stanley (00:17:07):
Yeah, I'm showing up. So that 35 minutes has to be, so again, in terms of prioritizing the rest of the week, that gets the bulk of my attention more so than just leading the organization. And that's a unique thing for an organization like a church, unlike a traditional organization.
Jason Jaggard (00:17:24):
But it's a great question for, I'm thinking of my clients. It's a great question for them to ask, which is, where are the highest leverage? Where are the biggest levered things? What are the things that have to go when these things pop? I like what you said. When things pop, everything works out. If this doesn't pop, it doesn't matter what you do, nothing's going to work.
Andy Stanley (00:17:39):
And married to that is the idea that my fully, and this is true of everybody, but I'll just personalize it. My fully exploited strength is a far greater value than my marginally improved weakness. And again, early on in leadership, I felt like I need to be a good administrator. Whatever, anything that has to be done, I need to be good at it. I'm setting the pace, I'm leading the way. No, I finally realized, no, my fully exploited strength will always be my value add my greatest value to the organization. And that's true for everybody. And the earlier in our careers that we can discover what is my strength? How do I fully develop that strength rather than trying to prop up a weakness? Because if you spend time propping up a weakness, you'll begin to wing it in your strength and you'll never fully develop that strength
Jason Jaggard (00:18:29):
That's worth double clicking on. And this took me a while, and actually Mark Jordan, who, if you're listening to this, you don't not know who he's necessarily, but he was a part of North Point in the early days, him and his wife, and they've become mentors of mine on the east coast or on the west coast. And he has a saying that you may have said as well, which is, you can have anything you want, but you can't have everything that you want. And I hate that as a young leader, really. And he told me this probably five, six years ago, really rebelled against that. And it finally clicked for me because one is, and I don't have a very competitive mindset, but is like if you're a public speaker and you're winging it, there's somebody else out there that's giving everything they have to that, and that's compounding over time. And you'll lose the spot, the space, the microphone, the platform, whatever. If you don't steward you greatest strength with your greatest time. And I think it's not intuitive for people to, I'm reflecting on myself. You do. You're like, I'll just wing it. All the things that I'm really good, I'm going to wing it.
Andy Stanley (00:19:35):
Well, yeah, because you're good at it.
Jason Jaggard (00:19:37):
Yeah. And versus this gets into this second ism in some ways, which is, and the second is the less you do, the more you accomplish. And that's a fun one to misuse as well. You can tell a brand new employee, and the less you do, the more you accomplish. Great. I'm going to clock in one hour a day.
Andy Stanley (00:19:54):
It's a principle. It's not part of your job description.
Jason Jaggard (00:19:57):
So I'm going to come back to that in a second, but so tell us a little bit about what that means. The less you do, the more you accomplish.
Andy Stanley (00:20:02):
Yeah. Well, again, my fully exploited strength is going to be my greatest value add. So the organization's going to be better when I'm better at, I'm naturally gifted to do, and not only me, but everybody in the organization. And when I would teach this in the past, I used to be able to juggle three balls, not anymore. So I would take three tennis balls and say, and I would've four tennis balls. I would put one on the floor and I would juggle three. And I would say, I can juggle three, not four. If I try to juggle four, how many do I drop? All of them. All of 'em.
Jason Jaggard (00:20:35):
Yeah.
Andy Stanley (00:20:36):
It's best to leave that one on the floor and wait for somebody who likes that particular tennis ball to come pick it up and carry it for the organization. But if I insist on juggling four, I have just robbed someone of an opportunity to exploit their strength in our organization. So in my attempt to do everything, I limit the potential of the organization. So anyway,
Jason Jaggard (00:20:59):
Do you have a good heuristic for what balls are okay to put down or let drop or, because imagining people who are juggling like crazy right now and they're like, well, everything's important. I can't put anything down.
Andy Stanley (00:21:11):
And we feel that it's not necessarily true. And I can answer that question within the context of church world. I certainly can't answer that within the context of every type of organization. And maybe this is helpful,
Jason Jaggard (00:21:27):
Please, maybe you
Andy Stanley (00:21:27):
Can edit it later, but when I would meet with church planters, they want to start a new church, they would want to start a church and have something for everybody. I'm like, no, that's a terrible idea. You should do what you can do with excellence and be comfortable telling people, I'm sorry, we don't have that here. You're going to have to go to another church to find that.
Jason Jaggard (00:21:46):
Yeah
Andy Stanley (00:21:46):
Because you have got to find your uniqueness in the community, a hundred churches in your community. And it's not about competition. It's about if you're going to be successful, there has to be, you have to have something unique to stand out in the community. So do the thing that you can be unique at with all of your heart and all of your resources and your limited resources. And over time, develop a fuller menu over time. But that's hard when the expectation is as you said, Hey, if we're going to be a technology company, if you're going to be whatever kind, we got to do it all.
Jason Jaggard (00:22:23):
Well, that's,
Andy Stanley (00:22:25):
It's hard to discipline, to focus, but focus wins every single time. Right?
Jason Jaggard (00:22:31):
Yeah. I hate that. I know it's true. And it's incredibly relevant to the business world because product creep is real. Oh, yes. It's like, well, let's do this. Let's do this. Even on our phone,
Andy Stanley (00:22:42):
One of the other books we read early on was Al Reese's book Focus. Then years after we read the book, we realized he lives in Atlanta. We should have just had him come in and sit with the staff. But again, some of those early books were so instrumental, and that was one of them, let's do what we can do well, and let's get comfortable saying, Hey, maybe one day. But we don't have that. We don't have that. But hey, what we do have, we're going to be the best in our community because of what we feel called to do for organization.
Jason Jaggard (00:23:10):
That's great. Even from our organization, what's the thing that we do better than anyone else?
Andy Stanley (00:23:15):
What is our unique contribution? That's an important question. Even if you don't have an immediate answer, what is our unique contribution? Are we just doing what everybody else is doing? Then maybe we need to rethink why we're doing this.
Jason Jaggard (00:23:27):
Yeah, no kidding. Okay, so then I want to go back to the less you do, the more you accomplish. Because again, I think people think it's the opposite. I think it's the more I do, more is more. More is more. And I guess we've already explored that. Is there anything else in terms of for a leader on their journey? Almost always with the folks that I am working with, I'm reminding them, your job isn't to go to meetings. Your job isn't to be everywhere. Your job isn't to cut all the ribbons. Your job, that's not your job. It's almost, and actually this is a little bit of a riff off of what you've said and what I've learned from you. I'm curious if it resonates or if you tweak it, which is your job is almost to not do things. Not to do things.
Andy Stanley (00:24:09):
Let me dive into that a little bit. So what happens in leadership is if I have too many things I have to do, I will shift from leading the organization to managing the organization. There's no alternative
(00:24:26):
Because the days are full. There's so many meetings and I'm going to do all these things, and I feel successful because I'm very busy. I'm so busy, I'm tired at the end of the day, what a great person I am. But if you have to have margin to lead, you have to have thinking time to lead. You have to have wasted time to lead. And again, this isn't about being lazy. This is about loving the organization so much. I'm going to stay in the leadership seat. But if you're sitting in the leadership seat and you find yourself responsible for too many tasks, you will shift into a management mode rather than a leadership mode. But you won't know it. The vision begins to flag, but you're still so busy, and then you wonder what happens. And the other thing that can happen, and this is personal, even though you have more to do than you've ever done before, you can get bored all at the same time because you're bored with what you're doing because you're no longer leading and you're wired to lead. So the less you do, the more you accomplish. Because the less task I'm responsible for, it's not responsibility. The responsibility sits there 24 7, but the fewer task that I have assigned myself, the more margin I have. And the margin time is the leadership time. It's the envisioning time, it's the how do I make it better time? It's not just working in it. It's working on it. And if you're always working in it, there's no margin to work on it. You're managing, you're not leading.
Jason Jaggard (00:25:53):
Now, I know it probably depends, this is going to be context specific, but in general, if you were coaching a bunch of CEOs, how much margin time would you recommend? As a percent?
Andy Stanley (00:26:05):
As much as possible. Why not? Because again, the assumption is you have a strong work ethic. You're not lazy, you're not going home early. It's okay. I have responsibly delegated some responsibility. But again, I keep coming back to this. It is 24 7. If you're the leader, it's 24 7. In the world that I live in, I can't schedule people's emergencies, but I have to respond to emergencies or our organization does. So this isn't about lazy. So the more margin a leader has, because they have delegated responsibly, the more margin they have to think in terms of the future and to dream and to try and to have ad hoc meetings and last impromptu meetings to think. And if you don't have that, you're going to manage. You're not going to lead and you won't know it except you'll get bored, you'll get angry. That residual kind of anger that has nothing to do with your organization, it's going to come out somewhere. It's just not healthy. And having allowed myself to be scheduled into those seasons, I know firsthand it's not a healthy place to be. And the organization suffers.
Jason Jaggard (00:27:21):
And I want to stay here for a second. I think this is gold. And by the way, the first book that I would recommend on the books that I've read that I would recommend is visioneering. And it's interesting, it sounds like what you're saying is a big part of this is is going to sound obvious. A big part of leading is the visioning piece, the dreaming of the future. And I suppose one question is, if you are not dreaming of the future of your organization, then who is?
Andy Stanley (00:27:45):
Well, everybody has a plan.
(00:27:47):
I mean, everybody has a picture of what it should be. And vision is a mental picture of what could be fueled by a passion that it should be, could be is a wish, and a dream should be is a vision. And you're like me, you've met people. I call 'em, they're going to do it anyway. People, you've met people who have a vision and passion for something and you think he or she, they're going to do it anyway. I might as well help them. I might as well fund them because they're going to do it anyway. And so again, because there's a could be, and I should be, this is a problem that must be solved. This is something that we can't ignore, that kind of passion, that's vision. And so consequently, the visionary or the person that carries that vision or who's responsible for carrying the vision, there has to be margin. Otherwise all that passion and all that activism gets sucked into the daily routine of running the organization. And again,
Jason Jaggard (00:28:42):
Well envisioning is harder than it looks. I think if going back to what we were talking about earlier, if you're pretty good at vision casting, you can a pickup game of vision on the side between things, you could wing that. And you wrote a whole book on visioning and vision casting. Some of my favorite talks we talked about this last time, are like vision casting talks. Vision casting is an art form the same way playing a guitar or being world-class.
Andy Stanley (00:29:09):
Yeah, there's a formula.
Jason Jaggard (00:29:11):
And I guess what I hear you saying is permission giving for leaders to create the space, to get really, really, really, really good at this thing that most people just give the leftovers to. Would you mind saying the formula?
Andy Stanley (00:29:25):
Yeah. And I'll tell you where I got the formula, and again, where I bumped into what dawned on me, oh, this is, as you just said, this is gold. So when we started the church, we had a vision for what we wanted to do. And our original vision was we wanted to attempt, we didn't know if it was possible. In fact, we were told it's not possible, especially in the Southeast. We wanted to create a church that unchurched people would love to attend. This isn't a church for unchurched people. A church is a church. It's for Jesus followers. That's what a church is.
(00:30:01):
And that gets confusing sometimes with this language. So our vision statement that, and that's a whole nother thing, crafting a vision statement, was to create a church unchurched. People love to attend and it didn't exist. So this was what we wanted to create. So I decided to do a message series on the book of Nehemiah, which is where the book visioneering came from, because Nehemiah shows up in a city where the walls have been broken down, the city of Jerusalem, and the gates have been burned for over a hundred years, and everybody living in the city, that was just Tuesday. This is just normal.
(00:30:36):
This is just where we live. We don't have the authority to repair our walls, we don't have the money to repair our walls. And everybody in that generation was born or moved into a city with broken down walls and burned down gates. And Nehemiah hears about this, it's a long story. He gets permission shows up in Jerusalem, and he sees what they can't see even though they're living there. And he puts into words what they should be concerned about that they had not been concerned about. So to summarize, here was the formula that here's what he did. He pointed out the problem and he made them feel it.
(00:31:11):
He gave them a solution, and then he explained why we need to do something, why we're the ones to do it, and why we need to do it now. So here's the problem, here's the solution, because a vision is a solution to a problem. And when we can pitch the vision as a solution, this must change. This needs to be done. This company must be created. This is a service people need, this is a product people need. Here's the problem, here's the solution, and here's why we are the ones to do it and why we're the ones to do it now. So that's about seven verses in the whole book of Nehemiah. But when I read that, I thought, there it is.
Jason Jaggard (00:31:47):
There it is.
Andy Stanley (00:31:48):
There's the interesting story. You may know Frank Blake, have you met Frank? Frank was CEO of Home Depot for I think seven years. Came in after when Home Depot was in disarray, never been a point leader. He had been on the board and had worked at Home Depot. He selected, this is his first point leader job, you're CEO of Home Depot. He was shocked. And he said, when I interviewed him on the podcast, completely unprepared. And he's like, what do you do? I mean, it's like 30,000 or 300,000 associates, I don't know. Enormous.
Jason Jaggard (00:32:25):
Enormous.
Andy Stanley (00:32:26):
And his, so this sounds like I'm bragging, but I'm proud of this. I should say his wife had heard me give a talk on creating vision at a conference hands, Frank, the DVD Frank, this is Frank. He's told me this many times. He said, I watched the DVD thought that's what I'm going to do. So what's the problem? What's the solution? Why us? And why us now? And stood up and gave his vision speech and has given me credit for that ever since. And we became friends through all of that. But it's really Nehemiah. I mean, it's been sitting there for 3000 years. Here's this formula. But the point is it's transferable. And it's transferable in any context. What's the problem? We've come to address, we are the solution, but why us and why now? And when you can get words around that genuine, not hype, and again, we've all seen leaders use vision for self-aggrandizement or to enrich themselves, and we're just going to put this language. But when you're willing to lay your life on the line and not your life, but when you're willing to lay your time life on the line, people want to be a part of something bigger than themselves. And a vision is always bigger than ourselves because it doesn't exist. It's a future. So anyway, there's room for that, I think in any context.
Jason Jaggard (00:33:47):
Well, what I love about that, and what I've not thought about until you and I are talking about it now is that's a full-time job
Andy Stanley (00:33:54):
To keep it front and center
Jason Jaggard (00:33:55):
And hot. Yes. It takes time. It takes energy, it takes creativity.
Andy Stanley (00:33:59):
There is no autopilot for vision.
Jason Jaggard (00:34:01):
That's right.
Andy Stanley (00:34:02):
And the minute we take our foot off, because we get distracted, we get busy, get complacent, it flags.
Jason Jaggard (00:34:09):
And I may have heard you say one time, well, I think vision leaks and then also it's almost impossible to do it too much. Every leader, I'm thinking of people that I know who are amazing leaders probably right now they're listening thinking, yeah, yeah. And it's like, no,
Andy Stanley (00:34:22):
No, I said that once. I said that last week. Yeah, no, I suffer from that. In fact, I wrote a tiny little book called Making Vision Stick, where I just took kind of the synopsis of what I just said, and it's a tiny little book. And so you're going to think this is absolutely true. So three weeks ago, Holly Goddard, who runs this campus, and she's a fabulous leader, she said, would you meet with the MPCC staff and just talk about vision? I'm like, sure, I haven't talked about that in a while. So I sit down to put together a presentation for our 60 person staff at this particular campus, and I pulled out, I don't know if you do this, I have bought, I've purchased all my books on Kindle because it's easy search. That's search. Yeah, it's great. So I thought I should look at my book making Vision Stick. So I sat there one morning and read the whole book and felt so convicted by my own book because it leaks so quickly. And I told the staff that I'm like, this assignment forced me to read my own book and to take my own medicine and to practice what I preach. And I'm so glad Holly asked me to address this because I needed the refresher because again, I'm busy and it's meetings and it's sermons and it's all this stuff. So anyway,
Jason Jaggard (00:35:40):
Well making Vision Stick, by the way, I highly recommend
Andy Stanley (00:35:43):
It's cheap and it's little. You can read it in 45 minutes probably.
Jason Jaggard (00:35:46):
So confession is hopefully copyright police won't come after me because the first talk I ever saw you give was the Making Vision Stick Talk, and I couldn't find it anywhere years later. And so I bought the DVD and then ripped it onto my computer so that I have it. And it's on my to-do list actually right now for our executive team to watch the talk and go through that stuff because it is so good. And essentially in some ways what we're talking about now, and as we pivot into the third ism, I just want to remind people that the little vision thing isn't a nice have.
Andy Stanley (00:36:19):
No.
Jason Jaggard (00:36:19):
It's a must have. Yes. It is the furnace. And it takes anytime that you're doing something that you should be delegating, you're robbing the organization of you getting better at this indispensable thing. Yes.
Andy Stanley (00:36:31):
And you know that you could speak to this better than I can, but the arena where this is the clearest is athletics. Athletes have to get better. They have to, unlike us in business, there's an actual scoreboard. There's an actual audience. There's actual positive pressure to win, to get better, to improve. And in organizational life, it's easy because there's not that dynamic, but there is that dynamic. We just don't hear it and see it. And keeping that front and center keeps me continuing to want to get better as a leader. Again, I was very convicted last week reading my little book that I so believe is true, but
Jason Jaggard (00:37:23):
I love that. That's fantastic. Alright, so the next ism is actually one I should have asked before because I think you said it. I'm hoping that you said it
Andy Stanley (00:37:31):
If it's good. I did.
Jason Jaggard (00:37:32):
Okay, great. Yeah. And this one is more controversial, and I talk about this with our team a lot. And so when you're talking about the definition of what is leadership, you've got John Maxwell's leadership is influence, and then you have other worst definitions about, oh, I heard, I'm not going to say the author, everyone will know who he is. I think he's been on your podcast before. He's great. And he wrote an article in The Atlantic where he said that leadership is finding out where people want to go, then helping them get there.
Andy Stanley (00:38:03):
Yeah. That's politics.
Jason Jaggard (00:38:04):
That's right.
Andy Stanley (00:38:04):
That's not leadership.
Jason Jaggard (00:38:05):
No,
Andy Stanley (00:38:06):
That's my opinion.
Jason Jaggard (00:38:07):
And I would agree.
Andy Stanley (00:38:08):
You didn't say that, did you?
Jason Jaggard (00:38:10):
No, I did not. No, I did not say that. And I remember reading it thinking Steve Jobs popped in my head, and it's like people don't know what they want until you show it to them. It's like that's not leadership. And so when I heard your definition of leadership, I thought I latched on this maybe 10 years ago. I was like, that is a meaty definition of leadership. And so the definition is leadership is getting other people to do what you believe needs to be done and is juicy because it's easy to like, oh, that's manipulative or that sounds forceful or that sounds coercive or all these things. But talk a little bit about what this means and why it seems like you are comfortable with having something that has more teeth to It.
(00:38:48):
Than what most people's definition of leadership
Andy Stanley (00:38:50):
Is. Well, the reason, and I remember years ago when I first became fascinated with leadership, I felt the pressure to define all these things, come up with my personal values, my personal mission statement, Stephen Covey, all this stuff, which was so healthy and so formative in those early years. And I did, I felt like, okay, if I want to be a leader, what is it? And I think the reason, just the way my mind works and the way I'm wired, I needed a handle. I didn't need something ethereal and intangible. I need, okay, what am I doing? And I'm convinced this is what needs to get done, and I want people to want to do this. I want people to feel like, okay, yeah, I have a job description and I get paid here, but this is more than a job. This is a mission, this is important. And again, you can rent people's hands. You can't rent their hearts.
(00:39:45):
And the heart piece is what causes people to love to come to work and feel like they're doing something purposeful with their lives in their hands. And so leadership is getting people to want to do what you're convinced needs to be done because at the end of the day, they're convinced this is something that needs to be done. And one of the joys of my life in this season, because we have multiple churches and multiple campuses and multiple pastors and multiple leaders and multiple everything, is watching our leaders talk about our vision and realizing if something happened to me today, if everybody says, if you got hit by a bus, but I won. Let's just say I won the lottery and I just decided to move to a villa in Italy. Let's make it positive. I don't have to die. Right? Anyway, I am convinced that what we have built here, and we as a lot of people,
Jason Jaggard (00:40:41):
A lot of people
Andy Stanley (00:40:43):
Will continue because there's hundreds of people that have moved way beyond a job description to this is something that needs to be done. And we are the ones that do it and it needs to be done now. So when I watch them cast vision in their particular arena, I'm telling you, as I say, sometimes I love to watch it work without me. Nothing is more satisfying or gratifying than that. So what starts off as I want to convince you that this is important and get you to do what I think needs to get done at some point, if we're consistent and if we're authentic and if our walk matches our talk that people watch us and realize, oh, this isn't just hype. This isn't to manipulate me to get something done. So Andy benefits or leader benefits, then it's contagious. And once they get the disease, they're carriers. And to multiply vision carriers around something that's important, that's the win. And I'm at a season, this is our, we're about to celebrate our 30th anniversary as an organization, which I can't believe
Jason Jaggard (00:41:50):
It's amazing.
Andy Stanley (00:41:51):
And every time we have an all staff with all the staff from all of our campuses, we celebrate anniversaries. And so we've celebrated 25 year anniversaries. We're about to celebrate a round of 30 year anniversaries in this organization. So that's the win.
Jason Jaggard (00:42:08):
Yeah, that's right. And now that you're saying it dawns on me, I'm always looking for what is leadership really? Because in some ways so ethereal, the people who are really good at it oftentimes don't know. And actually, not to go too far down this hole, but that's one of the things I really like about you specifically, is you have the unique combination of you're really good at something and you can break it down into principles, patterns. And most people who are really good at something can't break it down. And then of course the world is full of people who break it down, aren't good at it,
Andy Stanley (00:42:38):
Make a living doing that.
Jason Jaggard (00:42:39):
That's right. And so I really appreciate you for that. And what I'm thinking of is we have two co-presidents in the firm right now, and it's new and I'm stepping back a little bit or stepping up or whatever, and
Andy Stanley (00:42:52):
They've pushed you up.
Jason Jaggard (00:42:53):
That's right.
Andy Stanley (00:42:54):
The organization has, yeah.
Jason Jaggard (00:42:57):
And it's very exciting.
Andy Stanley (00:42:57):
That's supposed to happen.
Jason Jaggard (00:42:59):
And I'm very proud of them and I'm very excited about it. And what's interesting is watching them being the weeds, the way that I was saying, you got to get out of the weeds, you got to get out of the weeds. And there is this kind of thing, well, what am I going to do? There's nothing to do. And what I found is every time I delegate anything, suddenly my calendar's full again.
Andy Stanley (00:43:16):
Exactly.
Jason Jaggard (00:43:17):
Because there's things to do. And one of the things that you just mentioned is not only how are you getting better at vision casting, but are you creating a visional culture? What is your strategy? And I'm thinking about some people that I work with specifically, they're pretty good vision casters, although I'd want to see them grow, and I think they would want to too. But if I were to ask them right now, what is your strategy for creating a culture of vision casters, they would look at me like, I've never thought about that. When am I going to find the time to do that? I was like, exactly. You need to get things off your plate so that you can train people how to do what you're doing. Can you talk mechanistically a little bit about how North Point's done that?
Andy Stanley (00:43:56):
Tim Elmore, I don't know if you're familiar with Tim's work. Tim says, more time with fewer people, greater impact. I think that's a great formula.
Jason Jaggard (00:44:05):
That's great.
Andy Stanley (00:44:05):
More time with fewer people, greater impact. Because there's a multiplication factor. And you can only do that if you have margin. And you can only do that if you have the freedom to choose the people to invest in and not worry about what everybody else says about who you selected for your inner circle for a season. So that's part of it, but that's not a job description. That's a, oh, that's a every other week lunch. But who has time to think about that or prepare for those lunches? That's the margin. The time's going to get filled up when you hire again, if you hire, well, it solves all the what about and the margin and hand things off. One of our little isms here is if you replace yourself, you'll always have a place. If you replace yourself, you'll always have a place. Because if you replace yourself, the organization's growing. And if you replace yourself, you're a self replacer, we want you in this organization because you're a multiplier.
Jason Jaggard (00:45:00):
And by the way, even because sometimes I've heard things like that in various organizations and then I've whispers are like, that's not really true because of blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, if you replace yourself, you always have a place mostly here, but also maybe someplace else because you're valuable, which means the market's going to value you.
Andy Stanley (00:45:18):
People pick our people off all the time. The time, yes. And we celebrate that. We've decided no. One of our staff values is remain open-handed. Remain open-handed. We don't have people, we don't own anybody. Everybody's a volunteer. Some of them get paid, but everybody is a volunteer because today they can tell me I'm going to go somewhere else to volunteer for a paycheck because anyway.
Jason Jaggard (00:45:42):
Well, and you lose nothing by becoming more valuable. There's nothing
Andy Stanley (00:45:47):
We want people to be. I mean, we have launched lots of careers and we celebrate and we train people. They get good at something, they start contracting with other organizations, they leave us because they can make more money contracting. And then who do we contract with them because they already know our staff and can run our equipment. We've just gotten fine with that. And I am surrounded by staff today. I tell people all the time, we recycle. Hey, you don't like it out there, come on back. We are not one and done.
Jason Jaggard (00:46:15):
Well, and there's a wisdom there, and this is wildly off topic, but I'm really happy we're talking about it, which is letting people leave. Well, so I remember you gave a talk or something somewhere sometime where you said, Hey, when people leave, even if they're mad, even they're frustrated or whatever, give 'em a call. They're not going to answer maybe or they whatever. But you'll always be glad that you reached out or did a thing because a year from now, five years from now, the time heals.
Andy Stanley (00:46:43):
Oh yeah. People forget. What was I so mad about?
Jason Jaggard (00:46:45):
Yeah. And then to your point is good help's hard to find. And if they're good help and they're transitioning someplace else, I want to be the place where they can come back again. I gain nothing from them feeling they have to burn a bridge or something. And I've always thought about that when we have folks,
Andy Stanley (00:47:03):
And it's not always possible, but I want to err on the side of at least reaching out and even when it's an awkward conversation and I've had awkward conversations. The other thing I tell our, when I do our new staff orientations, as I say, I want this to be the best job you've ever had and that you'll ever have that when you look back on your career, because you may move, your spouse takes a job, a different city, or you just decide you get paid more doing something else. When you look back on in terms of jobs, staff, cultures, I want you to think, wow, that was the best job I ever had. And I'm like, I hope you stay here forever. But in the meantime, we want that kind of staff culture and then we say to our new employees, Hey, you're bringing fresh eyes. You're bringing fresh ears. We need to learn from you before you're just part of the furniture. That's right. Because the longer you are anywhere, the less aware you are of it. The longer you're in a culture, the less aware you are of the culture. Yeah.
Jason Jaggard (00:48:04):
Well, and that's vision casting. Again, you saying we want this to be the best job you've ever had is something that people are like, I can't wait to be here. Who says that out loud? That's fantastic. Alright, so we only have a little bit of time left, so I have to round third, but we actually covered one of the isms implicitly, which is due for one we wish you could do for all. And I feel like where we've mentioned it already is in how you spend time with key leaders. One brief question on that is what's your heuristic for who you decide to bring into your circle? Is it hierarchical? Is it cross-functional? Your best? Thinking on that.
Andy Stanley (00:48:44):
So that has shifted over time, as you might imagine. So two things, and I hope I can remember both of these or talk about both of 'em intelligently. In terms of a leadership team, I've always been a fan of, I don't want two direct reports who have four direct reports, who have eight. I want to be in a meeting every single week with the people who are closest to the critical event in our organization, regardless of who they report to. So I've always had a directional team where there are people in the room who report to each other, but there's just not enough time to chase down information. So there's got to be a group where I'm getting the quickest information about what and in our world, see, it's an every seven day cycle, every seven day, we have multiple critical events that are make it or break it, that are really vision centric to what we're trying to do as a local church. So it's a quick turnaround. So I've always had that group and I've always used that group to read books together, to read articles together, to develop the future together, because I've learned very few people have to be number one in the organization, but there are a lot of people who at least want to be in the meeting where their future is determined
(00:50:02):
That they don't hear about. There was a meeting and we decided here's what you, I mean, that's got to happen to some degree, but you get better leaders when you have a larger group of people who feel like they're in the meeting that determines their own future and their organization. So that's one group of investors that I invest in. The other are, in our case, it goes back to what we said earlier, what's my greatest value add? My greatest value add as it relates to the critical event is public speaking on Sunday morning. So the other group are the primary communicators who again, are gifted and are developing that gift. And I'm good at looking at what they do and evaluating and helping them evaluate that specific slice of skill. So that's the other group that I invest in. So part of it is skill, because this is where I can help organizing events. Nobody wants me to come to that meeting and I am good at evaluating an event. But Andy, everyone in the early days, I would try to help people say, I'll organize that. They're like, no, you don't organize anything. You organize outlines. We got this. We're taking that away. Learn that. So those are the two groups where I feel like I'm making a personal investment in terms of investing, leadership and skill development.
Jason Jaggard (00:51:22):
Okay. So you've mentioned some of the books that have influenced you Focus. I know the Leadership Challenge. Is that the
Andy Stanley (00:51:31):
Yeah.
Jason Jaggard (00:51:31):
Was a big one for you?
Andy Stanley (00:51:33):
That was the first leadership book I ever read.
Jason Jaggard (00:51:34):
Really?
Andy Stanley (00:51:35):
Yeah.
Jason Jaggard (00:51:35):
It started with a good one.
Andy Stanley (00:51:36):
Yeah. Oh, it's like, yeah, that one, the Seven Habits, it kind of covers it, right? Because I think you agree. I like to read leadership books written by leaders who've actually done something. But I also love the leadership books where somebody has done a deep dive and researched opinions, but if you've accomplished something, I want to hear your story and if you've done the deep dive. So those are the two categories of leadership books.
Jason Jaggard (00:52:06):
When you strike me as voracious, I think that you read a lot. A lot. And by the way, that's another thing that goes in the category of what a leader should be doing with their margin. They should be learning, learning. And obviously it doesn't have to be reading. Podcasts, conferences, being around
Andy Stanley (00:52:20):
People, whatever. It's amazing what we have access to.
Jason Jaggard (00:52:22):
Is books one of your main deals?
Andy Stanley (00:52:25):
Yeah. I listen to book, I try to listen to podcasts. They're too long, right?
Jason Jaggard (00:52:31):
We'll shorten this one. No,
Andy Stanley (00:52:31):
No, no. I mean, you know what I mean? People, if you listen to So-and-So I'm like, I would rather listen to a book than a podcast. I feel like a book. It's a book. So I listen, I'm constantly listening to books and podcasts, excuse me, books rather than
Jason Jaggard (00:52:46):
Podcasts. And do you have some key ones? So you mentioned Seven Habits, we've got Focus, we've got Leadership Challenge that have shaped you or do you recommend?
Andy Stanley (00:52:53):
Well, the other book we read early on that shaped us as the fifth discipline, not an easy book, but systems, because we were create, again, systems determine behaviors, period. Systems determine behaviors. And so once you know how you want people to behave, I mean, you can tell people do this that don't do, but systems impact behavior. So we early on decided, okay, what are the behaviors? What system facilitates and inspires a person toward that behavior? So that was a huge read for us. We spent months navigating that book. But wow, it was super
Jason Jaggard (00:53:31):
Influential. I highly recommend it. I can never say the guy's last name, right? Peter? Senge.
Andy Stanley (00:53:34):
Senge,
Jason Jaggard (00:53:35):
Yeah, I got it.
Andy Stanley (00:53:36):
No, no, no. I used to never say it out loud. I knew I was saying it wrong, but from what I understand, it's Peter Senge. Yeah,
Jason Jaggard (00:53:42):
The discipline. It is good. And there's a workbook now. There's a big old thick workbook.
Andy Stanley (00:53:46):
Big old, thick workbook. The book was enough.
Jason Jaggard (00:53:49):
Yeah, but I mean it was great. I haven't read the workbook.
Andy Stanley (00:53:53):
Yeah,
Jason Jaggard (00:53:53):
I didn't think
Andy Stanley (00:53:54):
So. Confessions, I own it.
Jason Jaggard (00:53:57):
I do own it.
Andy Stanley (00:53:58):
I own a lot of books.
Jason Jaggard (00:53:58):
I look at it sometimes and it makes me feel great.
Andy Stanley (00:54:01):
Yeah. Yeah. I have that
Jason Jaggard (00:54:02):
Book. So then the last question I have is around the person of Jesus. And if someone's listening to this so far, they'd be like, this is going to feel like a left turn. But it's not. Because when we think about, and if you're watching or listen this, listening to this, think about the leaders you look up to. There's always the classic 20th century leaders, whether it's Gandhi or King or business leaders, although that's getting a little more controversial to mention business leaders you look up to because it's a crazy time. But still, they're people that people look up to, whether it's people that you know personally or you read their books or either biographies or whatever. And I think most business leaders, perhaps underappreciate, I'm going to start broadly by saying historical, ancient historical figures. Maybe Plato, maybe Socrates, stoicism is really hot right now. And so you've got a lot of people. Marcus
Andy Stanley (00:54:57):
Really is,
Jason Jaggard (00:54:58):
Yeah, that's right. Aurelius. That's right. And Jesus, I think belongs there. And I think you do too. Make
Andy Stanley (00:55:05):
Wait. You believe I do too.
Jason Jaggard (00:55:07):
I believe with the
Andy Stanley (00:55:07):
Ancient, sorry. No,
Jason Jaggard (00:55:10):
That's okay.
Andy Stanley (00:55:12):
But thank you.Yeah, I'd love to be on that list.
Jason Jaggard (00:55:13):
Ghandi, King
Andy Stanley (00:55:15):
Didn't end well for a lot of those folks. But other than that, I'm happy to be on that list.
Jason Jaggard (00:55:18):
That's true. So I think you agree that he belongs on the list.
Andy Stanley (00:55:22):
Yes.
Jason Jaggard (00:55:22):
Make the case for somebody who's not antagonistic towards that idea, but just never thought of it that way.
Andy Stanley (00:55:28):
Yeah. Well, the challenge is, and this is the angle that I lean into heavily in my preaching and teaching. I'm constantly telling people. In fact, this past weekend I preached at our church out in California, and the point of my message was, don't miss Jesus. Even if you don't believe Jesus, son of God, even if you don't believe Jesus is divine, no one should ignore the teaching of Jesus. No one should ignore the Sermon on the Mount. And so I tell people all the time, just follow Jesus through one of the four accounts of his life, Matthew, Martin, Luke or John, Matthew or John in particular, and just read the story of Jesus. Because there are two or three things Jesus said that if everybody did those, the world changes immediately. There are things Jesus said that if everybody did this, I wrote a couple down because you gave me this list of questions ahead of time,
(00:56:19):
That if people did these things, most of these things we've heard, and then people say, other people have said it. Well, of course they have. They're true that if we would embrace several things, Jesus said, within a month, your community feels different, the world feels different. And I say this all the time in sermons, and I would say this to your audience, my hunch is even though whoever I'm talking to, we've never met that your greatest regret in life, whether it was a season or an event or a weekend or a spring break or a business trip, your greatest regret in life would have been avoided if you had been following Jesus and that season of your life, period.
(00:57:01):
That's how relevant the teaching of Jesus is. And Jesus taught mutual submission. The word submission in terms of evangelicalism especially gets misapplied all the time. The Apostle Paul teeing off of something Jesus said, submit to one another as unto the King. Mutual submission makes my marriage a race to the back of the line. Mutual submission makes my marriage a submission competition. And to bring that, in fact, I have a whole leadership talk I've done on creating a culture of mutual submission within an organization. The org chart is important, but an organization that understands, I'm here for you and you're here for me, and how can I leverage what my resources to make you more successful and how can you leverage yours to make me more successful? Is that not the perfect corporate environment? We are all here to do something together. And yeah, I have a job description and yeah, I'm in a silo, but hey, how can I help?
(00:58:02):
In fact, one of the most impactful questions a leader can ask, especially the further up you are in the organization, is what can I do to help? Because the people that work for you think they're there to help you. No, Jesus flipped the script. I mean, on his way to Jerusalem, his date with fate, he makes this statement. It is such a great little narrative. They're on their way to Jerusalem and he hears his disciples arguing about who's going to be number two and number three in the kingdom, they think when he gets to Jerusalem, he's going to rip off his rabbi robe and declare himself Messiah. And they're like, yeah, but who gets to sit on your left and your right? And he pulls 'em off the road system down and says, let me go over this one more time. He says, you know how the Gentiles talking about the Romans?
(00:58:47):
You know how the Romans lorded over other people? They leveraged their resources to gain more resources for themselves, how they manipulate people for their own benefit. And they're all nodding like, yeah, that's why we want to be number two and number three, we know how the world works. And then he says this, he says it to me. He says, you know how all that is? And they're like, yeah. He says, not so with you. In other words, not in my kingdom. And he flips the script on authority and he flips the script on greatness. And we're still talking about him.
Jason Jaggard (00:59:20):
Finish story, by the way. What does he say? Not so with you.
Andy Stanley (00:59:22):
He says, if you want to be great, here's my words. If you want to be great, you run to the back of the line. If you want to be great, you become a servant to everybody else. And then he says, for even the son of man talking about himself, for even the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. And everybody listening to this podcast knows this. When you meet a person who is genuinely for you at the expense of what's best for them, you admire that person. And you either secretly or publicly want to be more like them. It stirs the human heart and this human soul. So Jesus is not the quote, the model leader in the traditional sense of leadership, but in terms of how he led and how he lived, there is so much to be taken from his story.
(01:00:21):
So I just think anybody, whether you're of a different faith tradition, it doesn't matter. Find a Bible, download the Bible app and just follow Jesus through Matthew, mark, Luke, or John. I would say start maybe John, maybe Matthew, but just follow Jesus through the gospels. And again, there's so much to take away. And as a father and as a boss, and as a leader, my accountability to the teaching of Jesus keeps me centered. And last thing as a Christian, at the end of the day when I'm frustrated or I'm tempted to get frustrated with criticism, people don't understand that on and on and on and on. For me. I realize that I am leading for the approval of one period, my king that is so recentering because if I can go to bed at night with a clear conscience, and if I'm willing to quickly admit when I'm wrong, that's all I'm accountable for, because that's what's required of me.
Jason Jaggard (01:01:25):
Well, and I like, there's words in the scriptures that don't always culturally translate. Even the word, Lord, I don't live not a surf kind of a deal, but when there's language about Jesus where he's like the Lord of lords. And so what I've done in my own, I guess private life is reinterpreted that as he's, there's leaders and then there's leaders of leaders and he's like the leader. He's like, if you're looking for an apex leader, you're not going to find a better example or a better model.
(01:01:58):
And most of the people that we mentioned on the list from the 20th century, like Andy, like King and others Theresa, were obviously profoundly influenced and we're happy to be influenced by the leader that Jesus is. And as weird as it is, I do put you on a list for me of people who are leaders and who lead leaders and who have, I said this to you the last time we talked, but have had a profound impact on many, many, many people. And so I want to thank you. It didn't have to go this way. You could have made lots of different choices. You could have gone lots of different directions, whether it's just picking a different career, but also you could have made worse choices. And I want to thank you to whatever degree your choices are. Great. I want to thank you for that. And I want to also thank you on behalf of a lot of people who have heard your talks, read your books, partnered with you in creating communities. It's really a pleasure to talk with you, and I think your legacy is only just starting.
Andy Stanley (01:03:02):
Thank you. So I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did. As always, thank you so much for joining us. And be sure to visit the Andy stanley.com website where you can download the leadership podcast application guide that includes a summary of my conversation with Jason, along with questions for reflection for you or for your entire team. And make sure you join us next week for our reverb episode where Susie and I will be digging even deeper on this topic right here on the Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast.