Dr.
Mark Rutland has written a new book, RELAUNCH.
I was so excited to read it that on the first day I read the first four chapters! I have heard a lot of his experiences, and the first three chapters was a great review.
RELAUNCH, is about how to stage an organizational comeback, and it is a must read for all leaders in churches, and very helpful to business leaders as well.
The timing could not have been better, as I was searching for my notes from the classes we took years ago.
It is as if God said, "Lost your notes? Here, I will send you a copy of mine!" Dreams and Visions In chapter four he talks about leadership as an art.
"Leadership, and particularly turnaround leadership, is about defining a dream and tethering all aspects of the organization to it.
"Good leaders should be able to tweak the organization in the right direction, sometimes toward chaos at one end of the scale, and sometimes toward control at the other end of the scale.
A certain amount of chaos is needed to get things moving, and control is necessary to bring things back into balance.
In chapter seven, Dr.
Rutland shared something that Dr.
Paul Walker, his mentor at Mount Paran, used to say, "Don't be intimidated by fads.
Get your operation in alignment, and expand carefully at the edges.
" Dreams and visions are necessary for church growth.
Change is required in order to reach them, but in the process we do not want to be in total chaos or in total control, just somewhere in the middle.
A vision should come from leaders and be repeated over and over until everyone can repeat it.
An ineffective vision may be worse than no vision at all.
In his book, Leading Change, John P.
Kotter gives us the characteristics of an effective vision.
Imaginable: Conveys a picture of what the future will look like.
Desirable: Appeals to the long-term interests of all involved.
Feasible: Contains realistic, attainable goals.
Focused: Is clear enough to provide guidance in decision making.
Flexible: Is general enough to allow individual initiative and alternative responses in light of changing conditions.
Communicable: Is easy to communicate; can be successfully explained within five minutes.
Creating an Effective Vision First draft: The process should, and often does start with a statement from the leader.
Getting others involved: The first draft should be reviewed and discussed by the other leaders in the organization.
Teamwork: The group process never works well without effective teamwork.
Role of the head and the heart: Both analytical thinking and a lot of dreaming are essential throughout the activity.
Messiness of the process: Vision creation is usually a process of two steps forward and one step back, and movement first to the left and then to the right.
Timeframe: Vision is never created in a single meeting.
The activity takes months, sometimes years.
End product: The process results in a direction for the future that is desirable, feasible, focused, flexible, and is conveyable in five minutes of less.
Developing a vision should become part of a Church's long range plans, and special meetings should be conducted by the leaders to establish and hone a workable vision for the future.
The more people that are involved, the better the end result will be, and the longer it will take! However, there is a danger when a group develops the vision.
Quite often you have one big king who rules over a bunch of little rulers, each with his own little department and territory to protect.
Nobody is pulling in the same direction.
As Dr.
Rutland puts it, the comprehensive model is the best to follow.
The above procedure will only work if everyone in the group is pulling in the same direction.
This is usually not the case.
A better approach is having a strong leader cast a vision, and then using each step in the process to bring the church members on board.
Bring up the vision at every meeting, tweak if necessary around the edges, but remember that the vision comes from the leader!
Mark Rutland has written a new book, RELAUNCH.
I was so excited to read it that on the first day I read the first four chapters! I have heard a lot of his experiences, and the first three chapters was a great review.
RELAUNCH, is about how to stage an organizational comeback, and it is a must read for all leaders in churches, and very helpful to business leaders as well.
The timing could not have been better, as I was searching for my notes from the classes we took years ago.
It is as if God said, "Lost your notes? Here, I will send you a copy of mine!" Dreams and Visions In chapter four he talks about leadership as an art.
"Leadership, and particularly turnaround leadership, is about defining a dream and tethering all aspects of the organization to it.
"Good leaders should be able to tweak the organization in the right direction, sometimes toward chaos at one end of the scale, and sometimes toward control at the other end of the scale.
A certain amount of chaos is needed to get things moving, and control is necessary to bring things back into balance.
In chapter seven, Dr.
Rutland shared something that Dr.
Paul Walker, his mentor at Mount Paran, used to say, "Don't be intimidated by fads.
Get your operation in alignment, and expand carefully at the edges.
" Dreams and visions are necessary for church growth.
Change is required in order to reach them, but in the process we do not want to be in total chaos or in total control, just somewhere in the middle.
A vision should come from leaders and be repeated over and over until everyone can repeat it.
An ineffective vision may be worse than no vision at all.
In his book, Leading Change, John P.
Kotter gives us the characteristics of an effective vision.
Imaginable: Conveys a picture of what the future will look like.
Desirable: Appeals to the long-term interests of all involved.
Feasible: Contains realistic, attainable goals.
Focused: Is clear enough to provide guidance in decision making.
Flexible: Is general enough to allow individual initiative and alternative responses in light of changing conditions.
Communicable: Is easy to communicate; can be successfully explained within five minutes.
Creating an Effective Vision First draft: The process should, and often does start with a statement from the leader.
Getting others involved: The first draft should be reviewed and discussed by the other leaders in the organization.
Teamwork: The group process never works well without effective teamwork.
Role of the head and the heart: Both analytical thinking and a lot of dreaming are essential throughout the activity.
Messiness of the process: Vision creation is usually a process of two steps forward and one step back, and movement first to the left and then to the right.
Timeframe: Vision is never created in a single meeting.
The activity takes months, sometimes years.
End product: The process results in a direction for the future that is desirable, feasible, focused, flexible, and is conveyable in five minutes of less.
Developing a vision should become part of a Church's long range plans, and special meetings should be conducted by the leaders to establish and hone a workable vision for the future.
The more people that are involved, the better the end result will be, and the longer it will take! However, there is a danger when a group develops the vision.
Quite often you have one big king who rules over a bunch of little rulers, each with his own little department and territory to protect.
Nobody is pulling in the same direction.
As Dr.
Rutland puts it, the comprehensive model is the best to follow.
The above procedure will only work if everyone in the group is pulling in the same direction.
This is usually not the case.
A better approach is having a strong leader cast a vision, and then using each step in the process to bring the church members on board.
Bring up the vision at every meeting, tweak if necessary around the edges, but remember that the vision comes from the leader!