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Andy Stanley - Mastering Change Essential Strategies for ForwardThinking Leaders · Andy Stanley Sermons

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Okay, one of the questions. My name is Andy. I'm from Atlanta,
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Georgia. I've lived there most of my life, originally from North Carolina.
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No, okay, anyway, a real quick question. And for those
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of you who are watching in remote sides, that love for you to participate
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as well. How many of you this is your first Leader Cast event.
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I'm just curious. Oh yeah, a lot of the new folks who don't
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know what to I should. I could have repeated last year's content if I'd
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known that. Anyway, It's good to see all of you, and for
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those of you who have joined remotely, thank you as well. I absolutely
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love this topic. In fact, I love the I mean the theme.
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I love the theme so much that I'm gonna have a hard time sticking with
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my notes, but I'm gonna make myself do that because I want to honor
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my time. But this is that the whole idea of Shift is so extraordinarily
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important, because, as we're going to see in just a few minutes when
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I jump into my actual content, we have experienced something that previous generations did
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not experience, in that we were forced personally family business, nonprofit for profit
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marketplace. We were all forced into a shift. We had to shift or
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we died. We had to shift, or we didn't survive. And the
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natural reaction to coming through something very very difficult is always, at the end
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of it, to relax and to try to go back to what we knew
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before, and to go back to doing the way you know things, the
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way they've always been done before. And even though you know that you shouldn't
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do that because you're a leader, that's just the natural tendency, that's the
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natural response. So when Leader Cast invited me again, and I'm so grateful
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to Joe from inviting me back, when they told me what the topic was,
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I thought, this is the perfect topic because now more than ever,
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now more than ever, we cannot forget what we've learned, and we can't
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go back to what we've always done, and we have as business leaders,
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especially in nonprofit leaders, we have to figure out how to create a culture
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that not only takes forward what we've learned, we've got to create a culture
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that is so nimbs that the whole idea of shifting becomes second nature. Because,
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as we've already discovered in the last few weeks, in the last few
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months, this is not over. And great leaders understand that tragedy is an
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opportunity, that negative things are an opportunity that unforeseeable that you know, the
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unforeseeable interruption in what we're doing is there's always opportunities to be had there.
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But the only individuals, the only leaders who take advantage of that are the
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ones who have created a culture, either personally or within their organization that thrives
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on change and thrives on the shift. So that's what I want to talk
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about for just a few minutes. And I want to go ahead and start
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with actually some terminology that leader Cast created when they created this event, and
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so this is right out of the leader Cast playbook. This isn't original with
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me, but I loved it so much. I just thought it'd be a
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great place to start, and we'll throw this up here. Leaders must make
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major shifts in order to move forward to achieve their purpose. Changing direction is
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hard, duh, right, risky, and expensive, have added, but
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it's the only way to get to where we need to go. The future
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will be created by fearless, innovative leaders who have the courage to shift.
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And we've seen that historically. We've seen that personally. We've watched in you
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know, the culture in general, as some extraordinary organizations have made that shift
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and others have not. I love this quote by Alvin Toffler. He kind
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of dovetails into what we just read. The illiterate at the twenty first century
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will not be those who cannot read or write, but those who cannot learn,
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unlearn and relearn. And because of some of you know, I'm a
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pastor professionally, I couldn't help but add a cs Lewis quote. But this
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is so relevant to what we're talking about. Here's what C. S.
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Lewis wrote a long time ago. We all want progress. In fact,
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what makes you a leader is the fact that you're just so dissatisfied with the
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status quote. I'm surrounded by young leaders, like a lot of you are.
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They're never happy or satisfied with anything. And it bugs me and it
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motivates me. And I try to allow it to motivate me more than it
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bugs me, because once upon a time, I was that twenty five year
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old kid that just drove every everybody around me crazy because I just, you
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know, we just weren't moving fast enough. We all want progress, But
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if you're on the wrong road. Progress means doing an about turn and walking
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back to the right road. In that case, the man or woman who
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turns back the soonest is the one who is most progressive. Now, we've
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all lived long enough, we've all been business in the marketplace nonprofit long enough
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to know what happens to organizations, especially large organizations that have get a lot
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of attention, what happens when they don't shift. I mean, well know
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the Blockbuster story, we know the BlackBerry story. In recent years, we've
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watched what's happened to music distribution and film distribution and even filmmaking when companies weren't
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willing to make those shifts because the refuse to shift when the marketter culture requires
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it. What happens is we end up getting in our own way that when
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we look back on our own story, or people look back on the organizations
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that we work for, or even the industry that we're in, they look
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back in the story goes like this, It wasn't the economy, it wasn't
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the marketplace. It it was the people in the organization that weren't willing to
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change quick enough, or weren't nimble enough to make the change, or weren't
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willing to make a shift when everything and culture said you've got to shift.
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They weren't willing to spend the money or as we're going to talk about for
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a few minutes, they were so in love, and this is something we
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all have to guard against. They were so in love with the way they
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did things. They weren't willing to quit doing things the way they had learned
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to do them and became known for doing them. Now, in my industry,
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because I'm a pastor, the church probably struggles as much or more than
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any industry if you can think of the church as an industry with change or
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shifting. And I think part of the problem is, and this isn't a
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dig because I love what I do, but our product is two thousand years
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old. Okay, think about that. When you start messing with a two
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thousand year old product that's an international product that has been sort of viewed the
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same way for two thousand years. When you start talking about change or shifting,
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everybody gets really, really, really nervous. And yet in church world,
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the tension is reflected in the business world world in this way that if
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we're not careful, we have become we become so comfortable with how we do
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what we do that we lose side of why we're doing it and most importantly,
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who we're doing it for. And in every business, in every industry,
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the gravitational pull is to become enamored with how we do what we do,
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not why we do it or who we are doing it for. And
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when an organization, private or non private market place or again private or publicly
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hell private hill, when the leaders in an organization fall in love with the
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how and lose sight of the what and the who or the why and the
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who, there is an automatic, invisible, intangible resistance to shifting. So
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in the few minutes I have with you today at the end, I'm going
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to give you three questions that just rattle around in my head in fac Two
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of these sit on my crodenza and have for years to help me not fall
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into this trap, because even though I'm up here talking about it, I
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am, in fact, because our organization is twenty six years old, I
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am as susceptible to this, and I am more set up for this than
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ever before. I wrote in my notes that we're all just one refusal to
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shift away from irrelevance and solvency or a whole will never dig ourselves out of.
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And again twenty highlighted all this because the pandemic was an accelerant what we
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experience. What we experience is sudden change that we really had no control over.
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And many of the changes were good. But what happened is, and
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you're smart, you know this, things that were slowly moving in a direction
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anyway, suddenly it all got speeded up. And then they hit the brakes
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and suddenly we're you know, we're almost into the future without even realizing it.
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I'm Scott Galloway. I don't know if you've read his book, Post
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Corona. I highly recommend it. Here's what he says about this. I
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love this quote. The whole book is fascinating. He says, we registered
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a decade of e commerce growth in eight weeks. You got to read the
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book for the context, but here's this point that in a specific eight week
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period in the summer, specifically the summer of twenty twenty, that in terms
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of e commerce, there was a decade of growth which required a decade of
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change, and the changes were underway anyway, but suddenly it all got fast
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forwarded. Take any trend, whether it's social, business or personal and fast
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forward. He says ten years, and that's what happened in eight weeks.
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Now. The point is this, during twenty twenty, a lot of us,
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either personally, corporately, marketplace, whatever you do in your industry,
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were forced to make quick changes and there was virtually no There was virtually no
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resistance because it was shift or die right, it was shift or be left
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behind. It was shift or you become almost overnight irrelevant. So the goal
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for us, I mean again in my world, the churches that immediately were
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able to shift to online services in online communication. We did find. The
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churches that weren't able to make the shift or didn't have the infrastructure to make
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it, they suffered. The churches that automatically we went to online giving or
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had already moved to online giving because that was a future trend, they did
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pretty good during twenty twenty. The churches that didn't had a difficult time.
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The restaurants that immediately went to take out, that immediately went to drive up
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in curbside service, that immediately went to QR codes, I mean, all
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of those trends were already in the works. Things were already moving in that
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direction. But because of the the COVID and because of twenty twenty, suddenly
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all of that gets speeded up. But when there's an emergency, When there's
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emergency, you just shift. When there's an emergency in your family, you
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forget the schedule and you focus on that child, You focus on your marriage,
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you focus on you know, getting out of debt, whatever it might
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be. So the lesson and the reason this is such an important topic and
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why today is so important for those of us in leadership, we have experience
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being forced through, you know, the tempest of an environment and a disease
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that caused us to shift. The question is this, are we will now
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that we've seen the benefits and what happens if we don't. Are we willing
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to now go back to work and create cultures organizational cultures that are not shift
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adverse. But understand now that shifting is actually a growth engine. Shifting is
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actually a growth engine. I think for the rest of my life, when
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I sit down at a restaurant, there's going to be a QR code and
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the middle of the table. I'm glad. I don't want to pick up
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a menu anyway, right. I think so many of these changes they're permanent.
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So the challenge for us, and the reason I love talking about this,
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the challenge for us is can we make personal shifts, corporate shifts,
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maybe industry wide shift depending on where you sit in what you do that positions
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you not only for what's happening now, but sets you up for the pace
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of change that will continue to accelerate. It is not going backwards. The
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problem is the challenge, and I deal with this constantly in my own heart,
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my own organization, is that success builds a natural resistance to any major
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shift. That success builds a natural resistance to any major shift or any major
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change. There's organizational muscle, ministry muscle memory, there's ingrained cultures. Success
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just makes this risk adverse. Or the way I say it to our staff
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all the time, remember this, I say, organizations do what they're organized
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to do, whether it's what needs to be done or not. Organizations.
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I mean, if you're a manager or a leader, are you run a
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franchise, you know the frustration of standing up in front of your staff and
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casting a very compelling vision. Here's where we're going, here's how we're going
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to get there. Everybody's cheering, and then you've got swag and a shirt
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and a bag, and everybody's excited. And then when that raw rods cheerleading
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sessions over, everybody goes back to work and they do what you hired them
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to do, because organizations do what organizations are designed and created organized to do,
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whether it's what needs to be done or not. So for the leader
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who gets this, and for the leader who embraces the content that you're going
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to hear today, and for the leader, as I'm saying this year than
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I already knew this. I already knew this. I already knew this.
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For the leader who decides, I'm going to go home figure out how to
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infuse this into our organization. For the leader who gets this right, you'll
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go home and not just make a speech. You have to go home and
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make organizational technical, day to day change because at the end of the day,
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regardless of what you believe in what you do, your organizations, like
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my organization, is going to do what it's organized to do, whether that's
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what needs to be done or not. And this is why this event's called
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leader cast Because you don't generally manage organizations to change. In fact, you
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manage organizations to sameness. This is the constant tension. Won't get into this
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day, that constant tension between leadership and management. You got to have both.
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The leaders are messing things up, the managers are fixing it. The
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leaders like, let's change it. The manager's like, hey, we need
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systems. So there's predictability, and you need predictability and you need change.
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But as the leader, we're the ones that have to create the momentum internally
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to drag our organizations full or otherwise we miss the extraordinary opportunity that culture is
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constantly providing us because the things we have basically no control over. One of
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my favorite quotes, I think it's because I read it. It's my first
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leadership book I ever read, back in I think the late eighties, on
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the leadership challenge, and this quote has has framed it. It sits on
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Microdenz, it has for many many years. It says this, leaders that's
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us, that's why we're doing this. Must challenge the process precisely because any
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system will unconsciously your your organization is unconscious. I mean, you can't even
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show me your organization. But there's a there's a dynamic right that controls behaviors
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systems control behaviors. System systems control behaviors. The leaders the challenge process precisely
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because any system will unconsciously conspire to maintain the status quot and prevent change.
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So this isn't easy because everything in our organizations and everything in our systems is
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conspiring against us. And this is why we need leaders, and this is
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why your organization and needs you. And that's why today, a day like
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today, is so important because every organization or every industry has a prevailing model.
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Every industry has shared assumptions, which means every industry is stuck, not
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broken, stuck. And here's the thing that should scare us out of our
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apathy. Somebody somewhere is challenging the assumptions in your industry, and they're messing
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with the rules that have always been the rules in your industry, whether it's
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profit, nonprofit, church, banking, construction, whatever it is, and
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they're messing with the rules to the prevailing model. And your goal and my
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goal, is to recognize that and embrace it and not resist it. And
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that has a lot to do with leadership in the cultures that we create.
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So that means we can't fall in level with an idea or a product,
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a model, or an approach, that we have to stay focused on the
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problem our ideas and our products and our models and approaches we're designed to solve.
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And if we do that, we we'll see the pressure to shift as
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an opportunity instead of something to push back against. So what I want to
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do for the next few minutes is Shane, who's running my slides for me,
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I want to skip this next illustration because I want to spend some more
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time on these three questions in a minute. So let's just jump jump past
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all that if that's okay. So here's what happens, and then I'm going
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to give you these three questions our time and our focus. And as a
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leader, I live in this world every day, so I'm not up here
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as the expert who's figured this out. Our time and our folks and our
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energy and are even our hiring. It drifts towards and I understand this,
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It drifts towards creating better margins with our current solution. Because I'm all for
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margins and you're all for margins, right But unfortunately, because of organizational life
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and because we tend to manage things to sameness over time, our focus and
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our energy and our hiring drifts toward creating better margins with our current solution rather
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than exploring new and better solutions. So our obsession drifts from solving problems to
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generating revenue, which makes perfect sense. The problem is when the shift comes
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along, or when the opportunity or the need for a shift comes along,
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it doesn't fit that model, and it doesn't fit well within that context because
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a shift is changed, and change is expensive, and change is risky,
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and you don't know if it's gonna work. If you knew it was gonna
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work, you would have already done it. So everything about organizational life conspires
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against what we're talking about today. And yet we have just experienced in twenty
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twenty and even beyond, how extraordinarily important it is. And we've also experienced
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that we can do it if we need to. The question is well we
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do it when we don't need to? What? We do it because we
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know it is the thing to do, because somebody out there is devoting one
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hundred percent of their time and their resources to a new and better solution.
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Now, if you've ever been a part of a startup, you totally get
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this, because in a startup. For the most part, a startup is
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like one hundred percent shift, right, It's just one undred percent shift.
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I mean, Tesla, of course is the best example. How many gas
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engines and gas you know, you know, carburetor driven you know cars did
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Tesla may well, of course none they did. They didn't transition, They
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didn't shift from a traditional vehicle to electric. It was just all shift.
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And do you remember the first thing? Remember what you used to think about
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electric vehicles. Maybe I'm just saying too much, but I just thought they're
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so cute. But who's gonna do that? I mean, I you know,
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I'm a truck guy. This is what I thought. I'm gonna have
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an f Ford F one fifty. I'm a truck guy. I thought,
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well, that's cute for all the people who aren't truck people, but they're
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not going to make an electric truck. And of course they have. So
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a startup is one hundred percent shift, and a successful startup is one hundred
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percent a threat to any organization or industry that doesn't understand how to blend this
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into the culture of the organization. And I think one of the reasons I'm
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so passionate about this and why I think appropriately disturbed me is that when we
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began our church twenty six years ago, actually twenty six years ago this month,
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it was a startup, and it was one hundred percent shift. We
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just abandoned everything in the Southeast that churches normally did and we just did a
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completely different thing that we were told wouldn't work. And we were extraordinarily successful
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and we had extraordinary momentum. And it wasn't because we were brilliant. It's
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just because we were the only one. So here's a leadership tip that may
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be worth the price of the day. If you have the only hot dog
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stand in town, your hot dogs do not have to be that good.
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Let me say that again. This might be the most profound thing I say.
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If you have the only hot dog stand in town, your hot dogs
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don't have to be all that good. And so the innovative entrepreneur, the
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startup generally speaking, it's the only hot dog stand in town, it doesn't
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even have to be that good. So, having experienced that twenty six years
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ago and watching other churches kind of slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly begin
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to make these shifts in my arrogance, you know, as a twenty eight
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year old leader thinking what is wrong with these people? Why can't they just
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you know, shift and be nimble and catch up? Total arrogance, Because
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now twenty six years later, I have this. I'm part of this big,
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large unualty campus, you know, nonprofit organization, and I find myself
19:17
worried that we will fall so in love with how we've done, what we've
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done through the years. Now we teach what we've done through the years,
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and other people come to learn from us because of what we've done through the
19:26
years, that we will fall into the same trap, that we will be
19:29
more become more obsessed with how we do what we do, rather than why
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we do it and who we do it for. So, in my final
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few minutes, I wrote in my notes, and you'll understand why I said
19:41
this in just a minute, my goal is to remain appropriately paranoid, appropriately
19:47
parentoid. You can be so paranoid that people are afraid of you, or
19:49
you can be so apathetic they wonder if you have a pulse. But in
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leadership there is an appropriate amount of paranoia that no matter how successful you are,
19:57
no matter what you've accomplished, who who's out there breaking the rules?
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That's going to disrupt this industry, who's out there working around the edges that's
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going to disrupt the kind of business that we're in. And again, creating
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a culture that can do what you've designed, what you've designed the organization to
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do, while at the same time your eyes wide open and your hands wide
20:15
open to what the future holds. That is the balance, and that is
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the call for leaders, especially in this culture. So real quick, I
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want to give you the three questions again. Two of these sit on Microdenza
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and have for years. These are the questions that keep me appropriately paranoid and
20:30
appropriately stirred up to where I don't become complacent because of success or because I'm
20:34
just tired, or because hey, I don't really have to deal with these
20:37
things if I don't want to. That keep me moving forward and help me
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listen to the leaders around me. Number one, the first question is this,
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I'll give them to you quick. What would my replacement do? What
20:48
would my replacement do? I adapted this question from Andy Grove's book. He
20:52
passed away in twenty sixteen. He was the third employee. This is amazing.
20:55
He was the third employee employee of Intel. Andy Groves was, and
20:59
he was the third ce OH of Intel. In his book, only the
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Paranoids Survive. That's why I love that word, Only the paranoid Survive.
21:07
The title of the book is as good as the book. He tells this
21:11
story, and it's where I got this question. In the eighties, Intel
21:15
was making computer chips, that's what they were known for, and he loved
21:19
making computer chips, he says in his book, he said. The problem
21:22
was the Japanese were making them cheaper, so he decided, we'll make them
21:26
faster. And then the Japanese made them cheaper and faster, and then he
21:30
decided, we'll make them even faster, he said, and we kept speeding
21:33
up, and then the Japanese would catch up, and we'd speed up.
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They'd catch up. But anytime they came to market with new chips, the
21:38
Japanese they just undercut the market. They could just they just made them cheaper
21:41
and sold them cheaper. So this was driving him crazy and he was trying
21:45
to figure out what do we do. And in the book he tells this
21:49
story, and I'm just gonna read it to you and show it to you
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because it leads up to the importance and kind of galvanizes their underscorees the importance
21:56
of this question. They were they were just they'd spent so much money.
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He tried to stay ahead, and you know, make and tell the preeminent
22:03
chip maker, not only just the premanive chip. He said, I looked
22:06
out the window that the fairest will. I look out the window the Ferris
22:10
Will of the Great American Amusement Park outside their offices, revolving in the distance.
22:12
And I turned back to Gordon. Now, Gordon Moore was the CEO
22:15
at the time, and Andy Groves was his boss. He said. I
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turned back to Gordon, and I ask, here's this a great question.
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If I got kicked out, If we got kicked out and the board brought
22:27
in a new CEO, what do you think he would do now? If
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you like to scare yourself to death as a manager, no matter where you
22:37
are in the organization, if you sit back in today and you thought this
22:40
is going to bother you all day, I hope. So it's a wonderful,
22:41
terrible question. If I got fired and the board brought in or my
22:48
boss brought in a new person to take your job, or a new person
22:51
to sit in your seat, what do you think he would do. That
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question oftentimes brings such extraordinary clarity that it will give you the energy and the
23:00
courage to embrace the shift. Gordon answered without hesitation. Andy says in the
23:04
book he would get us out of memories, or he would get us out
23:08
of the chip business. And he says, I stared at him numb,
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and then I said, here it is. This is the gold. Why
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shouldn't you and I walk out the door, come back in and do it
23:21
ourselves. So here's the question for you today. If during this day,
23:26
or even during this talk, or during the next few weeks, it dawns
23:29
on you. You know, if I lost my job, I know what
23:30
the next person would do. I want to challenge you to walk out the
23:33
door, come back in, and just do it yourself, because you know,
23:37
but you know too much. It's the curse of knowledge. You know
23:41
all those people, you know the way it's always been done. You know
23:42
what you're famous for. You know what the organization's famous for. You know
23:45
it's both the bread and butter is. But if in the back of your
23:48
mind you have the intuitive, the intuition of a leader, you kind of
23:52
know, then you walk out the door or you come back in. That
23:53
quote said to Microdenza because it challenges me constantly. Andy, don't be a
23:59
coward, don't get lazy, don't get used to the success. If there's
24:02
some better way to do it. And if the next person walks in,
24:04
you know the next person would walk in. They don't have relationships with all
24:07
these wonderful people you love, and they would make the change. Walk out
24:10
the door, come back in. Do it yourself. The way I say
24:12
it to leaders all the time is marry your mission, date your model.
24:17
Marry your mission, date your model. If you marry your model, the
24:19
time is ticking backwards on your industry or your business. You marry the mission.
24:25
Why are we doing this? Who are we doing it for? Why
24:27
are we doing this? Who are we doing it for? The how is
24:30
simply the model. And when we fall in love with our models and our
24:34
way of doing things, we will miss the shift. We will resist the
24:38
shift, and the people that are more inclined to embrace the shift will eventually
24:42
leave us as well. So that's the first question, what would my replacement
24:45
do? Number two? So who am I listening to? In other words,
24:48
who has access? Who is the most who is the most persuasive person
24:52
or the most persuasive people around you, and are they the right people?
24:56
And here's a warning, Okay, the people who are closest to you that
25:00
you listen to the most, if their financial security, if their tenure,
25:06
if their reputation is tied to the status quo, they will empower you to
25:12
resist change and resist the shift because they have too much at stake. One
25:18
of our core leadership practices in our organization that's been this way for years we've
25:22
written about it is listen to outsiders. Listen to outsiders, Listen to outsiders,
25:26
people outside our industry, outside of our organization, new people, younger
25:30
people, our reason. His book Focus made this statement. This is another
25:34
statement that actually hangs in another part of my office. He says, the
25:37
next generation product almost never comes from the previous generation. The next generation product
25:44
almost never comes from the next from the previous generation, Which means people in
25:47
some of our seasons of life, we need to shut up and listen.
25:51
Because once upon a time I had all the new cool ideas. I have
25:53
not had a new cool idea in twenty years. In fact, the best
25:57
thing for me to do is sit in meetings and keep my mouth shut and
26:00
listen to the people who are smarter than me and younger than me, and
26:03
to figure out how to fuel their initiatives because I just haven't had a great
26:07
idea lately. And I'll tell you a secret, and don't let this leave
26:10
the room, please. Okay, those of you who in remote sites,
26:11
this is a deep, dark secret. If you'll keep your mouth shut and
26:17
you'll fuel the next generation products that the next generation people in your organization come
26:22
up with, people will think it's you. It's wonderful. Okay, I
26:26
didn't say that anyway. No, So I'm constantly saying I'm constantly telling that
26:30
wasn't my idea. Wasn't my hani that was so great? Wasn't my idea?
26:32
Any I can't you believe y'all were doing that. Hey, I think
26:33
it's great too. I gotta tell you whaten't my idea. Haven't had a
26:36
great idea in a while because the next generation product rarely comes from the previous
26:40
generation, and at my age of my season of life, I'm the previous
26:42
generation. I may be the reason our organization that I started and I love
26:48
so much refuses the shift. If I don't listen to the right people,
26:55
the next thing too, as far as listening is, you got to listen
26:56
to the people closest to the critical event. I wish I had a lot
26:59
of time to talk about this, my critical critical event. I mean this,
27:03
in your industry or your business, there's a critical event. There may
27:04
be two or three, but there's surely one, but there may be two
27:07
or three. The critical event is the event in your industry or your organization
27:12
that if it doesn't go well, it doesn't matter what else goes well.
27:17
Do you know what it is? As soon as I said that, it's
27:18
like, oh yeah, it's right there with a check out. Oh,
27:21
it's right there in those calls with the consultants, it's right there, in
27:22
that first encounter. It's right there. There's a critical event. And if
27:26
the critical event, the critical events are the things in your business organization.
27:30
If those don't go right, it doesn't matter how well the rest of it
27:33
goes. For us, it's Sunday morning. If Sunday morning is great with
27:36
children and adults, we're good to go. Monday through Friday. If Sunday
27:38
is you know, if the gatherings on Sunday don't go well, it doesn't
27:42
matter Monday through Friday. So your organization has a critical event, you need
27:47
to make sure you are listening to the people closest to the critical event.
27:51
And the curse of organizational life is this, moving up generally moves you away.
27:57
Moving up generally moves you away from the critical event. You make more
28:03
money. You know, you're surrounded by you know, different kinds of people.
28:06
You got a corner office. You have no idea what's going on?
28:10
Right. I learned this or I got a great example of this from my
28:12
friend Frank Blake. Frank came in in two thousand and seven and rescued Home
28:17
Depot, who base right there in Atlanta, And he said, when he
28:22
got there, he realized, you know, he's he's in corporate office on
28:25
the seventh or eighth or ninth floor or whatever it was, and he's like,
28:26
Okay, what happens in this office is irrelevant to the success of Home
28:30
Depot. He realized, the critical event happens where you and I show up
28:33
at a Home Depot, The critical event happens walking the floor, and the
28:37
critical event happens when people are checking out. So he said, I realized
28:40
I had to figure out, as the CEO, how do I get closer
28:42
to that critical event, and how do I help influence that critical event?
28:47
And so he did, and I thought, that's that's the beauty of leadership,
28:51
and that's the power of a good leader. It's like, even though
28:53
moving up moves me away, I'm going to figure out a way to get
28:56
closer and I've got to figure out we have to figure out how to listen
28:59
to the people who are closest to the critical event. So the question is
29:03
who do you listen to? Who you listen to? Do you listen close
29:07
minded leaders? Close minds? And if you close minds, your innovators will
29:14
leave. The people who love to shift will leave. And do you know
29:18
who will be left with? The people who love this status quo and they'll
29:22
never do anything wrong, and they'll never do anything great, and you'll wonder
29:27
what happened and you won't shift? Is number one? What my replacement do?
29:32
Number two? Who am I listening to? And number three I pulled
29:37
this right out of the Paradigm's book or Future Edge some of you read that
29:40
way back by Joe Barker. Here's the question, what do I believe is
29:42
impossible to do in my field? But if it could be done, it
29:45
would fundamentally change my business. This is another one of those questions that says
29:49
on micro does it drives me crazy? It keeps me thinking forward. What
29:53
do I believe is impossible? Well, that can't even be done? Well,
29:56
that's it. Well, yeah, if somebody figured that out, that
29:59
would change everything. That's it. Oh yeah, Well if somebody figured out
30:03
how we could do that and didn't have to do it, didn't cost so
30:03
much, that would change every that's it. As a leader, you need
30:08
to have an answer to this question. Not the solution to the problem,
30:11
but you need to have an answer to this question because this question has the
30:15
power to keep you looking forward, keep your hands wide open, and get
30:19
the people around you to keep their hands wide open and their minds wide open
30:22
as well. We all need to have an answer to that question. It's
30:26
a reminder that a shift may be on the horizon. End. Here's the
30:30
thing. You may actually solve it if you decide you even knew what it
30:33
is, but for sure you will be quicker to recognize it when somebody else
30:40
comes along and solves it. An illustration, Pandora solved it. Spotify picked
30:45
up the ball and ran with it. Pandora solved the problem, Spotify exploited
30:51
it. So if you know what the problem is, if anybody solved it
30:55
would change your industry. If you're asking that question, you may not be
30:59
the one you're cour your organization may not be the one that solves it,
31:00
but you will be open to the fact that when somebody begins breaking the rules,
31:04
working around the edges, you'll be open to embracing this shift instead of
31:10
folding your arms and go, well, that'll never work. Those kinds of
31:11
things never actually pan out. In the book, he says this as well,
31:17
and I'll close those who say it cannot be done should get out of
31:21
the way of those who are doing it. Those who say, well,
31:25
that can't be done, they should get out of the way of those who
31:26
are actually doing it. So here's the three questions, what my replacement do?
31:33
Who am I listening to? What do I believe is impossible to do?
31:38
Your responsibility as a leader is to create a culture. It's not afraid
31:41
of those questions. While at the same time you get your job done.
31:45
You know, look at the margins, you look at the spreadsheets. You
31:48
kind of do the daily stuff, the blocking and the tackling all the while,
31:52
your eye is on the future, because there are shifts that are coming,
31:56
and the organizations that embrace those, they'll thrive. The organizations that miss
32:00
those will perhaps die. And it has nothing to do with the industry.
32:06
It has nothing to do with the organization. It has everything to do with
32:09
leadership. And that's why you're here, and that's why today is so extraordinarily
32:15
important. Thank you.