"The role of leaders in the equation? Well, once again this goes back to Heifetz’s understanding about the nature of adaptive leadership. Adaptive leadership moves the system to the edge of chaos, not over, but to the edge of it. As was said before, the leader’s role is to ensure that the system is directly facing up to the issues that confront it. Issues that if left unattended, will eventually destroy it Because if people in the organization never seriously face the problem, and stay with it for a reasonable time, they will never feel the need to move to find a genuine and more lasting solution—hence the idea of a burning platform. We teach the Forge interns this simple formula. It is the role of transformative leadership to ‘sell the problem before you try evoking a solution’ because it is this being at this ‘edge of chaos’ where real innovation takes place." read the rest here.
Attended a remarkable training on CPM (church planting movements) hosted by City Team Ministries in San Jose. A dude named David Watson (featured in David Garrison's book Church Planting Movements) was the primary trainer & facilitator for the week - he looks & often sounds like a college football coach straight out of East Texas - training people with the intensity of a savvy field general (though he's wisely wary of co-opting military terminology for leadership). And if you are being personally trained by Watson you are issued a 2 strikes and you're out of the training policy. I love it. He says he doesn't have time to mess around with people who aren't continually moving ahead on the leadership path. Coffee once/month sure no problem - but training with Watson requires consistently proving your gumption. I'm sure this strikes some of our shepherding & overly nice-evangelical types as somewhat harsh. But it was weirdly refreshing for me to hear & be challenged with.
One aspect of the conference that struck me so forcefully is how fundamentally vital it is to constantly get to that edge in both our individual as well as our collective lives. Alan Hirsch writes about this extensively in his books & it was a predominant theme during this past week of training. Without movement to the edge we are in a downward movement toward equilibirium & stasis - death to put it more succinctly. I'll have more thoughts on the training later. . .
One thing that must be noted is how truly remarkable the folks at City Team are - they have a radical predisposition toward hospitality. They gave away this training to folks like myself at no charge (including meals, drinks, snacks, & training resources). This carries with it the strong aroma of Kingdom work being advanced. And this is one of the first trainings I've attended in the states where people from all backgrounds (from Kenya to Nicaraugua, from Mexican barrio to the streets of Oakland & Philadelphia to the tech halls of Silcon Valley). I met a couple dudes who were only 2 & 5 years ago on the streets doped up & dropped out - but now they're cleaned up and living the edge of being gospel planters in similar communities they came from. That is, they are not extracted away from other substance abusers - they are with them, serving, befriending, planting the gospel among them in the name of the King. Certainly no organization is perfect but City Team seems to be constantly striving to get to the edge & there institutional ethos of discipleship is just rather jaw-dropping. Thank you to my table-mates from City Team - Carole, Trudy, Dick, Jonathan, & Tom it was a true honor to meet each one of you. And thanks to my afternoon laborers - Elton, Massoud, Mike, David, Tom, & Arash it was likewise a great privilege to have shared some of this journey with you.
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