The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast
CNLP 021 - 90 Days To Momentum - A 10 Step Process to Regaining Lost Momentum. An Interview With Brian Dodd
(upbeat music) - Welcome to the Carrie Newhoff Leadership Podcast, a podcast all about leadership, change, and personal growth. The goal? To help you lead like never before, in your church or in your business. And now your host, Carrie Newhoff. - Well, hey everybody, and welcome to episode 21 of the podcast. My name is Carrie Newhoff. I'm so glad that you're here, and I really hope our time together today helps you lead like never before. And if you have ever struggled with momentum, I think you're gonna be glad you tuned in today. And I mean, if you've been in leadership for more than 10 minutes, you've probably struggled with momentum. I know there have been seasons where at the church where I lead, we've had incredible momentum, and there have been seasons where it's just been really, really hard to find. And if you're like me, having seasons where it's really hard to get momentum, you get discouraged pretty quickly. And then when you have it, you're just so encouraged. And like as Andy Stanley says, when you have momentum, it makes everything look better than it is. And when you don't have it, it makes everything look worse than it is. And what I love about the interview that you're gonna hear from Brian today is he actually breaks down momentum into 10 steps, 10 learnable, executable steps. And what's really cool is he shows you how you can regain momentum in 90 days. And you're like, well, how does he know he can do it? 'Cause he did it, and it's a really cool story. So if you haven't met Brian, you're gonna really enjoy him. He writes an incredible leadership blog recently named one of the top 100 speakers in the world, Leadership Speakers by Inc Magazine. Like, how cool is that? And so Brian's gonna also tell you about the Orange Conference, who happens to be today's sponsor. And I wanna thank the Orange Conference for that. If you have never been to the Orange Conference, I wanna invite you this year. In fact, I've actually put together the senior leader track for the Orange Conference. And if you go to the orangeconference.com/seniorleader, you can find the details there. So you're gonna recognize some of the speakers. If you're a regular listener to this podcast, for example, Jeff Henderson, who you met in episode 16, is gonna speak on the senior leader track. So is Josh Gagnon from episode 17, Jenny Catrin, who's gonna be featured in an upcoming episode. She's gonna be on the senior leader track. And so is Perry Noble, who is episode two. And so we are really excited. You're also gonna hear from Terry Scalsetti, Todd Clark. I'm gonna teach there. You're gonna hear from Judd Wilhite at the conference. Also Reggie Joyner, Doug Fields, John Acuff, Donald Miller. It's gonna be amazing. And what's really cool, 'cause you're a podcast listener, is I've got a special discount just for you for the senior leader's track. So if you go to the orangeconference.com/seniorleader and use this code, you will get the entire conference for a $259 flat fee. And here's the code. OC15, CN podcast. It's just OC15, CN podcast, no spaces, all put together. And if you use that, you're gonna get the very special rate. It's time limited, so make sure you act now. We'll tell you more about the orange conference later. And if you're driving right now, or not able to take that down, just go to the show notes afterwards. Everything Brian talks about, and also the details on the orange conference are gonna be at kerrynewhough.com/episode21, and you can get it there. So without much further ado, it is a thrill to be able to introduce you to today's guest, Brian Dodd. - Well, I'm super excited today to have Brian Dodd with me. And Brian is a prolific blogger. And if you don't follow him at Brian Dodd on leadership, you need to, all the links will be in the show notes. He also, just as we're recording this interview, a couple of months ago, now by the time it broadcast, was named to the Inc100 greatest leadership speakers that you need to have at your next conference. Like, that's a crazy list, and named one of the 50 top leadership blogs in the world. And he gets to be on this podcast. That's incredible, Brian, welcome. - Well, Kerry, I am honored to be here. I've watched your blog grow and your influence grow, and the launch of the podcast, just so thrilled for you. No better leader in the world than you. And you've heard me say that publicly and privately. I truly believe it, and I'm just honored to be a part of this. - Well, Brian, it's a thrill to have you here, and thank you, that's very kind. You know, the other thing is, you're part of a very, very small club, because you did a podcast interview with me that never got broadcast, because I was thinking of doing the podcast. And I just couldn't quite do it. So you and Jenny Catrin are actually part of a very, very small club. It has a membership of two. People who did what we'll call the fake podcast club, because you're willing to do an interview when I didn't really have the podcast put together. But now you're back for a real one that people will actually hear. How about that? - Well, I don't prefer to call it the fake club. I prefer to call it your podcast launch team. - Oh, you were on my launch team. That's a much better way to spin it. That's awesome. - Brian, tell us a little bit about what you do and a little bit about your leadership travels of taking you all over the place. So if someone's just getting to know you, tell us a little bit about your background, and then what you're doing. - Yeah, from a ministry standpoint, I cut my teeth on being a youth minister. I did two tours as a youth minister at various churches. And as I was coming up, John Maxwell was my hero as he was many people. And I'm from the south, if you can't tell by my accent. So we have a Canadian and a Southerner on this. - Yeah, that's right. Most people can figure out I'm not from the south, by the way I talk. - Exactly, and most people can figure out I'm not from Canada. And so John announced he was coming to Atlanta, and I just really wanted to work for John. I mean, he was my hero. I love leadership, loved the way John presented it. And it took me five years, but in 2002, I got to join Enjoy Stewardship at that time called Services. - Yeah. - And I also did a tour of duty with Casey Graham and the Rocket Company. Casey's been on your podcast. - Yes. - But with the exception of the time I've been with the Rocket Company for 12 years, I've been helping churches with leadership development, generosity, and capital campaigns. And what's really unique about that, Carrie, is I only talk to growing churches. You know, churches that are stagnated are not doing anything or declining. They're not returning my calls. They're not returning my emails. They're not responding to podcasts and webcasts that we do or conference activities. So for the last 12 years, it's really given me a unique glimpse into leadership at the local church level. And what's interesting as well, in the industry that we're in, people that talk to church leaders, it's a very small industry cause all our conversations are one-on-one. We don't have platforms where we're talking to 10,000 people at a time. So in the course of 12 months, if I don't talk one-on-one conversations to more church leaders individually than anybody in America, I'm in the top 10. - Yeah, that's very true. And something interesting, which I think positions you to speak into leadership, both in your blog, on your book, which we'll link to in the show notes, and also in interviews and conferences, is you really only talk to growing churches. And so in terms of extracting principles and seeing trends, and also seeing things that are not helpful, you're in a very unique seat. God has positioned you to be in a really unique seat. So that's why I always enjoy our conversations, Brian. - Andy Stanley says leadership is stewardship and it's for a season. And so what I try to do is, I don't know how long God's gonna have this season and this window of opportunity open for me, but I just try to be a good steward of it while I can. And what I try to do, especially through the blog, Jerry Seinfeld got famous doing observational comedy, and I don't do comedy, but I try to just say, okay, here's things I'm seeing from across the country and through various leaders, here's issues they're dealing with, here's how they're handling things, and tell as many of those stories as humanly possible. So other church leaders can glean from that and just become better leaders and run more effective ministries. And so that's primarily what I try to do from the blog standpoint in terms of serving truth. - That's cool. So that leads us to sort of what we wanna focus on today. And I'm sure we'll go in different places, but when I talk to you about, what are we gonna talk about? What are we gonna drill down on? You said, you know, I've got some passion around this whole subject of gaining, creating, and sustaining momentum, which is a big issue. And I think that's true if you lead a church. I think it's true if you lead a business, like all of us are interested in momentum. None of us really got into this to be less effective, right? And at the end of the day, if you're gonna be effective, hopefully momentum is on your side. And you're in a pretty unique place to see what's happening. So walk us through that. What are you learning about momentum these days, Brian? - Yeah, I'm learning kind of live. And I wanna do one thing, take about 30 seconds before I dive into momentum. - You know, you did a podcast with Derwin Gray a couple of months back, fantastic on multicultural, multi-ethnic, administering. And at the very beginning of that, you said, "Brian Dodd says orange conference "is the best conference for leaders in America." - I did. - You should go to. And I believe that 100%. A lot of conferences I go to carry, it's almost like, okay, if I walk out with one good idea, it was worth it. The thing about the orange conference and for all pastors listening to this, this is completely unsolicited. The pastor's track for orange, you know, you'll take everybody for the children's ministry and things like that. But you yourself should go in your pastor and executive pastor and business administrator. Carry puts together a lineup of the best practitioners of specific elements related to ministry. Like Ron Edmondson did something on how to lead and just make sure the pastor's wife is taken care of. Derwin did multicultural, multi-generational ministry. Jeff Sarat did an entire thing on multi-site ministry. Martin Batterson did something on prayer. And the pastor's track, these sessions are like 50 to 60, maybe 75 pastors. So it's very intimate. The material is top notch in the absolute best. So pastors, business administrators, executive pastors, the best thing you can do for your personal development is to go to orange and be part of carry senior pastor track. - So appreciate that, Brian. I'm so glad. I mean, that's our heart is we just want to serve senior leaders and we want to help make senior leaders who often feel very isolated, just get better at what we do. And so I appreciate that, Brian. Thank you. - Oh, anytime. Well, what I'm passionate about is what I'm kind of living right now. And that's the issue of regaining loss momentum. And I was with enjoy for over 10 years in Casey Graham at the rocket company. He gave me a call and wanted to really be engaged with the rocket company because they do a lot of things and deliver it online, but they didn't have really anybody to talk to senior pastors and help them with their issues. - Right. - So I went to work for Casey for about 15 months. And after about 15 months, one of the principles of ISS, a guy named Ken Fryer sent me a text and said, "Hey, do you want to have lunch?" And I said, "Sure." And Ken and I went out, we did the introductions. And then he said, "All right, Brian, it's time for you to come back to the ISS family." And he basically said, from a business standpoint, we're going to be able to do X next year, but we should be able to do Y if you'll come back and join us. - Right. - And so what happened to hear our owner, Joe Sengo, who you're very good friends with. - Yes. - Joe said, "Brian, we're stuck." And when you come back and help us kind of regain that momentum and move us into the future. And so, you know, I've prayed about it, me and my wife, we got Casey and Michael Lukaszewski's blessing. And so we went back to ISS in April. - Mm-hmm, that's a 2014, if you're listening. - Yeah, 2014. So what happened since I'm a blogger and all that, I'm like, "Okay, I'm going to be involved in helping an organization regain lost momentum." At the very least, this could be a good series of blog posts. Best case scenario could probably be a book. So I began taking extremely copious notes of everything I did, particularly during the first 90 days. And so I think when it comes to regaining lost momentum, the first thing, whether you're leading a church, a business, non-profit, sports team, anything, leadership in your family, number one, you have to recognize and admit momentum has been lost. I think a lot of times pastors that I deal with, they'll begin to see trends, they'll begin to see things, begin to happen, they'll begin to feel things intuitively. But it's like, I'm just going to power through it, I'm going to preach through it, we're just going to pray about it. They don't come to grips with the fact that momentum has been lost. - So what is that? Is that like denial? Is that like nobody really wants to look at the truth? Why do you think that is? 'Cause I've seen that too, Brian, I think that's very true. - Yeah, you know, Bill Habel says the fundamental role of leadership is to evaluate reality. - Yes. - And I think what happens is I give Joe such credit when he said we're stuck. Well, when you admit that momentum is lost, it forces decision making. Well, Joe's decision was let's call Brian. - Yeah, sure. - And do some other things. But if you're at a church and momentum's lost, they're probably going to have to be some changes in the ministry or changes in your schedule or changes in how you communicate or changes in staff. And I think a lot of times the admission of reality will create a series of decisions that many senior leaders just are not mentally or emotionally geared up to deal with. - Yeah, take some humility, right? To be able to say, hey, under my leadership, we lost momentum. That's a big step. And I think a lot of us, particularly in a not-for-profit or a church setting, we're a little bit nervous because it sets out ripples in the organization, right? It could be a crisis of confidence. It could be like if personnel changes are coming or the leadership changes are coming. You kind of feel like you live under a microscope, don't you? You know, if it's a privately held company, that's a little bit different. You haven't got shareholders, you haven't got a congregation. But if it's a church, it's kind of like, well, if we do this, then will people just be upset? And sometimes it's easier to live in denial. - Yeah, exactly. - Okay, I don't want to derail you. That was a really good point though, and I didn't want people to miss it. So that's the first step, is admitting that you've lost momentum. Take us to the next one. - Yeah, the second thing that I did is, okay, I planned for a good start, okay? I'm going to give you some 2014 dates, but my start date was going to be April 28, 2014. - Okay. - I actually started on April 21st. I gave the company a week, you know? I just went ahead and went to work. Here's the thing about admitting momentum is lost. One of the things that always is an indicator of that is numbers. - Right. - When the numbers start to decline. Well, the first thing I did is, number one, I started early. I ensured some things like our pop line was in place, lead magnets were in place. In other words, the things that drive the business or the ministry. I ensured that they were in place and they were sound. - Let me bounce something off you for a second. - Yeah. - I don't want to keep interrupting, but this is interesting. The numbers tell a story. And I can't remember exactly what context this happened in. So if you're listening and that was you, I'm not trying to throw you under the bus, but I've talked to a number of leaders recently who said we've just stopped counting. Attendance doesn't really matter. And part of me is kind of like, yeah, I don't know. I like to see 30% up into the right all the time. And there are times I look at the numbers and I don't like the numbers. I get mad, but do you think an organization should ever stop counting? - No, I think facts are your friends. Depending on the complexity of your church, and I'll get anything I call count what counts in a little bit. - Okay. - But yeah, I mean, the reality of it is attendance does matter. - Right. - You know, baptisms do matter. How many people are in small groups do matter? How many people are serving in your community? That matters. Depending on how you wanted to get into it, the ages of those attending our church matters, the ages of our staff matters. - Yeah. - And depending on how far down you want to drill into the numbers, I mean numbers tell a story. - I tend to agree. That's good. Okay, so you wanted to start well. You're a week into your leadership. What's going on? - Yeah. So what happens? I've studied the numbers and everything. Well, the first thing I knew is we needed to improve our systems. - Okay. - Casey Graham taught me this. Systems over silver bullets. And so what I wanted to do is improve our systems. I'm reading a book right now. And I know you're not a sports fan, but there's this great book called The Quarterback, The Making of Modern Quarterbacks by Bruce Feldman. - Just about everybody who listens is a podcast. Is a sports fan? I'm just the weirdest. Brian, just so you know. - Exactly. - And I interview NFL players. It's like, I don't know what to ask. Anyway, I know. - NFL quarterback is the most leadership intensive position in pro sports. In terms of knowledge of the game, leading people, quick decision making, complex environments, dealing with conflict. And so I'm fascinated from a leadership perspective by the position. But a quarterback coach named Tom House wrote this. He says, if you have a bad process and end up with a bad outcome, well, you deserve it. If you have a bad process and end up with a good outcome, you're lucky. Ever been around a player who says I'd rather be lucky than good run from them. If you have a good process and end up with a bad outcome, you're unlucky. But if you have a good process and end up with a good outcome, dot, dot, dot, dot, not. Okay? - That's a great quote. - Yeah, that's a great quote. So what I did is I said, okay, I want to make sure all our systems are in place so that if we start doing the right things, we will be a success. It just hasn't shown up yet. - Brilliant. Can you give us something tangible around what you, just an example of what you saw in the system that might have been broken? - Yeah. You know, the first thing I saw is we had good people. Okay? - Sure. - So there wasn't going to need to be any people change. You know, that's the Jim Collins right people on the bus. - Yep. - And sometimes that's what needs to happen. Sometimes the answer to every problem is a person. Fortunately, I did not have to make any of those decisions. There were good people in place. The second thing I discovered is that the pipeline of churches we were needing to talk to was in place. - Okay. - Okay. And from a church perspective, that means, okay, we are in a place where lost people and unchurched people exist. Okay, so what we needed to improve was what happens after we have the initial contacts with the churches. - Right. - And so by going through the process, doing the study, talking to the people on the team, that's what I discovered we needed to fix. Now that leads to this next thing. - Sure. - When you're in sports, there's this concept called we deal with failure. And, you know, for instance, a baseball player, if he fails two out of three times, he's in the hall of fame. - Yeah, true. - So you deal with failure. And here's another house quote. He says, "In a game of failure, coached by negative people in a misinformation environment, you have to create your own confidence." - Mm. - And so the first thing I did is I said, okay, we've got good people. We've got a good lead generation process. We need to improve the backend. We'll talk about that in a little bit when we talk about a reorganization. But I was going to make sure I instilled confidence in everybody on our team. I was gonna build on their strengths. - So they didn't feel confident you got a manufacturer. And I think that's a huge issue for pastors, Brian, where we kind of lose confidence and then every day leaks whether you say it or not. That's a good point. - Yeah, and the reality is when you walk into a room, what happens? Okay, this is for pastors. When you walk into a meeting, what happens in the meeting? Does creativity shut down or go up? Do people continue to smile? Or are you a ray of sunshine or dark cloud? - Yeah. - And the reality is I was gonna make sure that I did everything I humanly could to bring out the best in our people. - It's good. - Okay, the next thing though, you got to count what counts. That's number four. - Okay. - One of our primary measurements is what's called a BP, a board presentation. In other words, we're meeting with church boards to talk about how to serve them. - Right, because I assess basically those capital campaigns for churches, right? That's the knob of your business. - Yeah, we do some other things, but that's the bread and butter. - Yeah. - And so what I needed to do, I mean, you brought up a good point. And this happens in churches all the time. Good things are enemies of the best things. And there's a lot of good things every church could be doing, but what is unique to your church? Well, what's unique to us is talking to church leaders about how we can serve them. - Right. - As much as I wanna spend time doing a variety of different things, I had to count what counts. And there was some things I did to really promote that philosophy is number one, I established personal and team goals around that measurement. - Okay. - I started doing webinars around that central topic. - Around board presentations, is that what you're saying? - Yeah, and if you need to do a capital campaign or you need to do a generosity initiative or you're expanding, here's webinars specifically addressed to discuss that topic. And I said, okay, let's keep the main thing, the main thing. - So how many understand here just for a second? I'm just trying to break this down. And I'm just a pastor in a local church. I'm trying to figure this out. The reason you focused in on board presentations is twofold. Number one, they're critical to the leader who wants to see some momentum, but they're also critical to ISS. If you fail at the board presentation, that's sort of the heart of, are we gonna retain a company like ISS or not? Is that how that goes? - Yeah, definitely to apply it to a church, 'cause we got pastors listening to this, but let's use a very famous example, Andy Stanley. - Sure. - We create environments, un-church people would love to attend, or we create services, un-church people would love to attend. All right, well, let's lock in on that. Is everything that is happening over these next 60 to 75 minutes, would it un-church people, would un-church people want to do that? Would they wanna experience that? Would they wanna go to that? Would they wanna come back to that? And then another measurement of that is, okay, how many un-church people are coming to services? How many un-church people are returning to services? And I guarantee you, if Andy was on this, he'd say how many un-church people are returning and bringing a friend? - Yep, you're right. - There's no need to talk about anything else. - Yeah. - That is what we're here to talk about, right? - So whatever your metric happens to be, and I think that's partly so important, is that you're counting what counts, Brian, but you went to the heart of something that was really important for ISS, but also really important for the local church leader, which they might not even see as being that important. Really, really good strategy. - Right, well, once we got aligned mentally and philosophically, we then needed to organize and realign to make that a reality, and that's number five. And on that, we changed some of the responsibilities of people on the team. We increased training, you know, that's huge. I can't recommend that enough. We implemented New Daily Standards. So we started talking about, okay, how today did my activity make our corporate activity become more reality? - Right. - Now, the one thing that I would suggest to all pastors that I learned from this process, is a concept called skill to task. - Okay. - Put your best people on your most important task. - Oh, that's such a good leadership principle. Say more about that, because it's counterintuitive. I'm tracking with you right. We tend to spend most of our time with our challenged people and talk more about that. What do you mean exactly? - Yeah, for instance, if you're doing something in ministry, a lot of times in ministry, we have such grace for people and compassion for people and sympathy for people that will give them opportunity or will prop them up or something of that nature. And it hurts the entire ministry and it hurts the entire team. - Yeah. - And if you want to regain lost momentum or you want to generate momentum, you have to put your best talent and your best resources into that, which will produce the most fruit. - That's just solid. That's solid, Brian. - I'll give you a classic example. I live in the Atlanta area. - Yep. - When Louis Giglio was launching Passion City Church, it just felt like Chris Tomlin was leading worship every week. - Yeah. - If you go down there now, I mean, this ain't much of a drop off, but now it's, you know, Christian Stanfield or Brett Yonker or somebody like that. - Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. - I mean, they're, I mean, let's just be honest. They're amazing, but Chris Tomlin, you lead to generate momentum. You just lead with your most talent. - Right. And so he was thinking, and I agree, I mean, I know Christian, he's an amazing worship leader, and, but what he was saying is what is going to generate the most momentum out of the gate? It's probably going to be Chris Tomlin because he's extremely well known. And so he led with him almost every weekend until momentum was established. And so with that even translate then into creating special team, and there's almost a sports analogy. Are you impressed? I said special teams. - I know, I'm impressed football. - That's not bad, eh? - You're right. - That's pretty good. That's pretty good. So Brian, I think one of the things that people would say as well. Yeah, I've got like, let's say five high-capacity people I can think of, but they're already really busy. I mean, they're already serving here. They're already serving there. How do you respond to that? - Where they're serving, will their input generate the most output for the fulfillment of the mission and vision of the organization? - That's a great question. - Because that may be a situation where you've got the right people on the bus. They're just not in the right seat on the bus. - So you would then take them out of that area and say, hey, for the next 90 days, for the next six months, the next year, I need you to be here and I need you to be working. - Yeah, and I'd get their buy-in and I would attach them to mission. That's a whole leadership topic. They're getting high-capacity leaders to buy into something and be engaged with it. But yes, without a doubt, now remember, we're under the subject now of regaining loss momentum and generating momentum. And there are times that leaders need to get under the heavy end of the lock, so to speak. And yes, casting a vision about why a reassignment of them for a season and the eternal impact and the good that that can do in the lives of people, yes, without a doubt, I think it's a leadership responsibility to leverage your resources to their fullest potential. - So, okay, that's really helpful and you said it better than I did, but basically it's get your best people on it. Just get your best people on it. Okay, good. - Yeah. - And then the next thing, this number six, celebrate wins, anywhere you can find the win, celebrate a win. - Yeah. - Anything that's even an incremental step in the right direction celebrated in a major way. - So, I know that's common language, in part thanks to Andy Stanley, to celebrate wins, but what does that look like concretely? So, I'll tell you a dialogue I have with one of my key leaders at Kinexas Church. It's like, we are so progress-driven and we are so A-type, we have a hard time celebrating. So, Jeff and I will probably end up just ignoring the win rather than really sitting back and throwing a party. We're already onto our next challenge. So, what do you do with people who just don't really know how to celebrate? - Okay, first of all, I wanna say this, for many high capacity leaders, type A personalities, they're weak on the celebration. - Yeah, yeah. - And here's why, here's why. And this is for all leaders unite, we're all gonna feel good about this. - Yeah, yeah. - Leaders are always looking forward. Yeah, to a later life is an oval track, not a straight sprint. You know, you don't run 100 yards and you're done, you're on an oval track. - Yeah, that's right. - You know, hey, guess what? We just had a great Christmas program. Well, you know what? We got a financial series coming up in January. - Yeah, that's right. January kicked off and then here comes Easter and then whoa, what do we need to do to keep momentum up during summer break? - Exactly, so Sundays come around every seven days. And as leaders, quite frankly, we're taught not to look in the rear view mirror, but always look in the windshield. And you know, we're taught that and we're raised that way as leaders. And so it's extraordinarily difficult. But if you're gaining loss momentum, it's critical you develop that skill. - Okay, so what did you do? Give us some tangible examples. How did you celebrate some wins? - I'll give you a tangible thing. My first official day at InJoy was the 28th of April, 2014. - Yeah. - Well, the 30th of April, 2014, I was attending the Orange Conference. - That's right. - That could be in that arena. - We were hanging out. - If you remember, I was bringing people from my team 'cause I just wanted to expose them to other leaders, pour into them from a leadership perspective. - I do. - And you know, I'm there on the front row and some people would come up and speak to me. And believe it or not, we scheduled two presentations on the front row there at the Orange Conference. - That's great. - And I gave them to the guy I brought 'cause I wanted him to get wins. So there we are, three days in, two presentations scheduled. And I sent out every great email to the entire company about that I possibly could. - Right, in other words, you publicly celebrated something that otherwise people wouldn't have heard of. Hey, we got two new possibilities on the horizon. - Exactly. And see what happens when you're at a local church and let's say you're a church of 200 people, okay? Well, you know what? If a young family joins the church, that's a big deal. If you baptize somebody, that's a big deal. If you launch a new Sunday school class or a new small group, that's a big deal. If you've entered a new ministry partnership with a church overseas to invest in a global community or a third world country or something, that's a big deal. Anything you do, even in the most incremental sense that advances mission and vision, is celebrated in a big way. - Yeah, yeah. And I think you're exactly right. I think the reason that myself and my friend Jeff, we struggle with that is because we're so driven, right? I'm driven, he's so driven and you're always looking at what's next. We had a cool moment this week, where someone in our church dropped off a significant donation. I mean, one of those that literally took my breath away and it was just a moment to celebrate. And I went down to Jeff's office and I said, hey, you know, this is a vote of confidence in you too. And the mission of the church gave each other a big hug. That's about as close to celebrating as we get. So, there you go. - Yeah, let me give the pastors on this a very practical thing that you can do, okay? - Great, great. - A first time giver, you know, one of the things that I trained pastors on when I was with the rocket companies, you always send first time giver letters. - Sure. - And here's why you do that. It's not to get additional dollars out of them. As a pastor, here's what a first time giver says. It's God's confirmation that new people are excited about the mission and vision, investing in it and advancing it. - Right. - Every first time giver is a confirmation that God's hands-on, you keep going. - Mm-hmm. And that's true. I think you're right. You know, you look for baptisms. You look for a first time attenders. You look for un-church people that showed up and, you know, hopefully a permission to tell their story and you celebrate that. So, that's a great reminder. And I think the more driven you are, the harder that becomes. - All right. I'll tell you a funny story real fast. - Sure. - I'm telling you this so that the pastors and leaders on this call will never do what I'm about to tell. - Okay, that's great. - I came off a record year one year at an organization I was with. And the leader of the organization sat me down for the year end review and the launch into the next year, you know, because that's when you really turn the heat up 'cause you never have to recover from a good start. - Okay. - So he sits me down and he says, "Brod, I want to thank you for the last year." Record year. You gave your all, you just did an amazing job. But here's what I want you to remember heading into the next year. And I thought I was just gonna get this great pat on the back of my future's bright and all that kind of thing. He goes, "You're a wonderful part of our past. "We just need to continually determine "if you're part of our future." - What? (laughing) - Really? - Yes. - Really? - And it was just his unique approach to motivation. - That's unique. That is a classic example of we just sometimes don't celebrate the past, but we just keep moving forward. - Oh, that's great. Okay. Less alert. - The other one, I'll just zip through this very fast. - Sure, go ahead. - Now we created some new resources which new always generates momentum. - True. - You know, I love what North Point does in terms of they shut a lot of stuff down so they can launch new stuff again in the fall. And new always generates momentum. If you're looking to generate momentum, find out what you can launch new, new small groups, new sermon series, new programming, things of that nature, new always generates momentum. This was big and Joe Sangle deserves a lot of credit for this. This is the eighth point. Expand your leadership base. - Okay. - The more leaders you have, the more successful you're gonna be. - Right. - We do a webinar every month. Kind of like you do a podcast every month. - Right. - And for the owner of the company to say, Brian, for the next couple of months, I want you to do the webinar. A lot of humility on Joe's part, a lot of being willing to point to somebody else and say, look at that, look what God's doing there. I celebrate with him. The practical example at a church level and Kerry, you could speak on this better than I could. But expanding a leadership base, a team teaching team or a team of communicators, that went a tremendous long way in terms of us regaining loss momentum. - Well, and I think you're right. Then you get into new, hey, Brian's gonna do this, right? That's new. You also get a collective brain press, don't you? I mean, when you get other leaders around the table, if you're not learning, it's probably not the other leaders who aren't teaching you, you're probably not open. And when you get fresh voices around the table and you deploy other leaders, you get fresh resources on task. That's really good. - Yeah, and like I said, the person that deserves all that credit was Joe. You know, the leader determines the tenor and tone of the church or the organization. - Yeah. - Everybody else will follow the leaders. - Well, look at what Joe did. I mean, number one, he called an Audible. There's another sports term, this is a record personally. I mean, he said that there was, they were stuck, ISS was stuck. I better go get Brian back. And so he invited you back. And then he gave you permission to play, permission to lead. And actually put you into the spotlight and allowed you to generate new ideas. And this is really interesting, critique the organization. I mean, you were doing a critique at the same time. And so if he was defensive, which I know Joe well enough to know he wouldn't be, but if Joe was defensive about that, this could have gotten shut down immediately. - Yeah, and you just actually led to the ninth point, which is to regain momentum, you got to remove complexity. - Yes. - There has to be a speed and a nimbleness in terms of making decisions. And Joe was like, okay, Brian, just stay in budget, you know, and don't do anything crazy, but you just run with it. - Right on. - Once again, Joe deserves a lot of credit there. But if you're in a church that the elders are too involved is too committee driven, there's too many layers of decision-making that has to happen, that is gonna work against you in terms of regaining momentum. You have to remove the complexity and let your leaders lead. - Decision-making is really, really important. And I'm so glad that you flagged that. We are in a building project right now, which ISS actually helped us with, get the funding for. But we had our lead architect tour the site. And he was saying, one of the things that's so refreshing about this project is it's just instant decision-making. I'm like, well, of course, he calls one of our team, Jeff's leading the project, the guy I mentioned before. And Jeff makes a decision, or if he doesn't know, he calls me or somebody else on the team and we make a decision. If it's really complicated, we have a meeting, but like 24-hour turnaround on key decisions, he said, a lot of churches, you have to go to a committee. Well, the committee doesn't meet for three weeks. And then the committee may have a recommendation that has to go to a board. And then the board has to deliberate and it might be two months. And he goes, it's almost impossible to make decisions. And I'll link to this in the show notes, but Jeff, who I've talked about a couple of times, has an amazing post on church government constitutions and how to streamline it for decision-making. We'll make sure that's in the show notes. But churches aren't great at decision-making, are they? Brian? - No, and I tell you a fascinating thing. There's a book out by a lady named Allison Levine. It's called "Leading From the Edge." Allison is a West Point communicator and teacher. - Sure. - She's the only woman who has climbed the highest peak on each of the seven continents and skied to the North and South Pole. - Okay, she wins, great. - Yeah, she definitely wins. Well, here's the interesting thing about Mount Everest. People die primarily in two areas climbing Mount Everest. The second one is really coming down the mountain. - Really? - It took everything they had to get to the top and there was nothing left to come down. - Wow. - That's a place where people die. Here's another place where people die though. People are always climbing Mount Everest and they've got ladders built and trails built up the mountain and things like that. If you have to wait behind somebody who's slow, you lose oxygen, you freeze to death, you die. - Really? - Traffic jams. - And when I read that, I was like, oh my heavens, if that's not a picture for the local church, that when you have to wait, passivity kills momentum, stagnation kills momentum, a lack of urgency kills momentum. And you have to remove all that if you want to generate momentum at your church to see its mission and vision fulfilled. - That's so good, on the way down and then waiting. That's how people die. - That's a really, really great point, Brian. This is super helpful. Okay, point nine. - Yeah, one of us. - One of us, point nine, but here's point 10, just continually improve. - Oh yeah. - I've been working with church leaders, this is my 12th year. In my ability to do it, I am right years ahead of where I was at year eight. - Sure. - And I am praying at year 15, I'll be light years ahead of year 12. - Yeah. - But the interesting thing about the church is God is always moving, God is always advancing. God is the author of creativity. There's always new ideas, new approaches, new ways of thinking about something. But the Bible and the Word of God and the biblical principles is the foundation. But the church is always changing so fast. I have to continually be improving to stay up to date and current with a changing church. And here's the thing too, as fast as the church is changing, culture changes even faster. - Yes, it does. - And I love what Rick Warren said in his TED talk, that if the speed of culture is changing faster than the speed of your church, you are headed towards irrelevance. And you know, that's the same thing for us as individuals. I always have to be changing and growing or in my ability to serve pastors and church leaders. I can get irrelevant very quickly. We as an organization can get irrelevant very quickly. So just having the humbleness to know that what worked yesterday is probably not going to work tomorrow and always be honing your skills, sharpening your acts, that's number 10. - It's kind of like a full loop, right? Like if you look at this, this isn't so much a line as a circle because if you don't do that, if you stop continually changing, you will eventually get to the point where you're stuck again and then you have to repeat the cycle. The fascinating insights, what we'll do, Brian, is we'll summarize those 10 points in the show notes. We'll definitely link to your blog and that's super helpful. If somebody listening is saying that's an awful lot of information at once, I've got to go to the show notes, et cetera, et cetera. But if there's one thing they can do between now and next week, like this week, where do they start? - Isn't naming reality, what do they do? - Well, number one, and I did that sequentially, and by the way, that's the journey I went on. Okay, that was my first 90 days back. Now, the result of doing that, and then I'm going to answer your question, the result of that was the last quarter of 2014 was our best quarter in four years. - My gosh, so in a quarter, in a matter of months, literally, in a matter of months, it turned around. - Yeah, and we blew all our fourth quarter objectives out of water. My prayer is that those 10 principles can be applied at a local church environment, and you can have your best quarter in four years. You can blow all your projections out of the water. But obviously, the first thing, and it is sequential, have the courage, and courage is one of those words that, okay, it's kind of a fighting word, and I don't mean it that way. But yeah, have the courage to say, "You know what, we have lost momentum." You know, we're not irrelevant, but we are taking steps to head in that direction. We need to make some changes. And number one, admit that. Once again, Bill Heibels, we started out with it, we'll end with it. A leader's primary responsibility is to find reality. - Yeah. - And then the second thing is, the thing that I'd plan for a good start, you never have to recover from a good start, and mentally say, we are gonna begin reversing this, we are gonna begin reversing it by this day, and here's a series of things we're gonna do, that on that day, the numbers may not show it yet, but internally, we know that we've made the decisions necessary to ensure a productive future. Here's the phrase I wanna give you. Church leaders must be more protective of their future than their past. - Ooh, oh, that's good. And have in that mentality, making that decision, and begin making steps in that direction, that would be the first thing I'd recommend. - Wow, and you know what, I love the word you chose to describe it all, which is courage. I mean, every, I think that is the metaphor, I don't know, that's the word that sort of describes all those steps, because at every stage, I can see it's kinda, okay, big breath, we're naming reality, big breath, we're moving some players around here, big breath, we're setting actual goals that can be measured, because then all of a sudden, you're accountable, big breath, you know, everything you talked about is gonna require courage at some point in the journey, and sometimes after you've been at it for a while, courage is hard to come by. That's really good. - Yeah, let me talk about setting numbers, 'cause that's always a scary thing for people. Here is a great conversation to set numbers. If I did everything I could do, and we did everything we could do, and God did everything He could do, what would that look like? And that's a great way to begin framing, okay, let's just set some objectives, let's set some goals, let's begin working that way, but if I did all I could do, and work like it depended all on me, but we know it all depends on God, what would that future look like? - Well, you know what Brian, this is one more example of why I love hanging out with you, and why I love learning from you, that was rich. And you know what's better about this real podcast than what do we call it? I call it the fake podcast. You had a better thing. - Yeah, that was a launch team. - The launch team, the launch team podcast is, I think I was thinking we'd do 15 or 20 minutes, and I knew we could never squeeze what we needed to squeeze into 15 or 20 minutes. Amazing, this is so helpful, details will be in the show notes. And Brian, people are gonna wanna connect with you on your top rank blog, where will they find you? - Yeah, Brian Dodd-owned leadership, and Brian's with an I, you can obviously reach me there, Twitter @BrianKDodd, and you know, I'll even throw out my email address, it's a public one, Brian D, B-R-I-I-N, D-Is-N-David @Injakoyst stewardship.com, you can reach me at any of those three. And here's another place you can reach me, the Orange Conference, I'll be on the front row live blogging, I would love to meet the leaders and the listeners of this podcast in person, that'd be great. - That happens at the end of April in Atlanta, Georgia, and we'll link to that as well. Brian, I can't thank you enough, you helped a lot of leaders today in the church, but I also know outside the church, and just thanks so much, thanks so much for this. - No, I'll carry pleasure, it's been all mine, God bless. - Well, talking to Brian is kind of like drinking from a leadership firehose, isn't it? And you maybe were scrambling to write everything down, I know when we were talking, I was taking notes, and we've got those notes for you in the show notes, so just go to karaenuhoff.com/episode21, and you can get everything there, including the special promotional code for the orange conference. Again, you can just go to the orangeconference.com/seniorleaders and use the promo code OC15, CN Podcast, that's for podcast listeners only, and you will get a $259 flat rate when you register for the senior leader track, that's OC15, CN Podcast, use that code, you'll get the special rate, it's time limited, so make sure you act, and I really do hope we can host you in Atlanta at the Orange Conference this year, April 29th to May the 1st. So thank you so, so much for listening, and hey, if you persevered through all of this, and now you're at the very end of the podcast, just a fun thing, you might be like, hey, how come the audio quality was off, or maybe you didn't even notice, I mean, I notice all those things, it was just a setting in my microphone. I think we have one or two more interviews where it sounds like I'm in the middle of a tin can somewhere, but it was just a setting in my computer that disabled the good microphone and put the onboard microphone on, but we got that fixed, so that's kind of good, and we're learning and we're growing, and I can't wait for next week. We've got episode 22 coming, and next week on episode 22, you are gonna hear all from Justin and Tricia Davis, and they have a powerful story, just a powerful story about how while they were in leadership and in ministry, their marriage fell apart, and how they built it back together again. So if you've ever struggled at home, if you're struggling at home, if you know somebody who is, or you just feel the pressure of leadership, you're not gonna wanna miss episode 22, that's next week on the podcast. Best way to not miss an episode is to subscribe. Thank you to everybody who's left a rating and review, it really makes a difference. I mean, it just gets this podcast in front of other leaders, and I read every single review, so thank you for that kind of feedback, and let's continue the dialogue on the blog. Just again, show notes, karaenuhoff.com/episode21. We're back with episode 22. Justin and Tricia Davis, next week. We'll see you then, really do hope that this has helped you lead like never before. - You've been listening to the "Karaenuhoff Leadership Podcast." Join us next time for more insights on leadership, change, and personal growth to help you lead like never before. (upbeat music) (gentle music)