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Andy Stanley - How Vision and Focus Multiply a Leaders Impact · Andy Stanley Sermons

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Andy Stanley leadership podcast Reverb, a conversation
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  Speaker 1: designed to help leaders go even further faster by digging deeper.
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  Speaker 1: Into this month's episode, I'm your host Susie Gray. Last
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  Speaker 1: week we did something a little different. We shared an
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  Speaker 1: episode from Jason Jaggard's podcast Beyond High Performance, a show
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  Speaker 1: that helps leaders go beyond high performance and explore what
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  Speaker 1: they're capable of. It was an episode where Andy and
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  Speaker 1: Jason had a great conversation about key leadership principles, and
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  Speaker 1: today we want to go a layer deeper. We're going
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  Speaker 1: to revisit a few of those key ideas with the
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  Speaker 1: lens of what do they mean and more importantly, why
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  Speaker 1: do they matter? So Andy, let's start with a principle.
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  Speaker 1: A lot of our longtime listeners will recognize, only do
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  Speaker 1: what only you can do? You said in that conversation.
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  Speaker 1: It's an incredibly important goal because leadership naturally drifts toward
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  Speaker 1: management and away from margin. So let's unpack that a bit.
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  Speaker 1: What does only do what only you can do mean
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  Speaker 1: for leaders day to day and why is it so
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  Speaker 1: critical to protect that space?
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  Speaker 2: Well, I want to clarify one thing about the statement.
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  Speaker 2: In the past I've referred to that as a goal,
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  Speaker 2: and that's not really it's not really a goal. It's
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  Speaker 2: more like a north star. And ancient times, and ancient times,
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  Speaker 2: a navarc rarely or an ancient mariner rarely ventured out
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  Speaker 2: at night for multiple reasons. They were superstitious to begin with,
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  Speaker 2: but primarily because there was no visibility and there was
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  Speaker 2: nothing to navigate by, with one exception, which of course
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  Speaker 2: was the North Star, or actually the stars named Polaris.
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  Speaker 2: It's also called the Pole Star because it's located nearly
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  Speaker 2: directly above the earth North Pole. Consequently, the North Star
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  Speaker 2: appears almost stationary at night, which of course serves as
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  Speaker 2: a reliable guide for finding north and determining latitude. So consequently,
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  Speaker 2: they navigated at night when they ventured out, which was
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  Speaker 2: very rare to sail or to row at night. But
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  Speaker 2: when they did, the North Star was a point of navigation. So,
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  Speaker 2: and again for clarification, although our audio knows this, the
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  Speaker 2: North Star was not a destination point, obviously, but it
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  Speaker 2: was a reference point. So in the same way, this statement,
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  Speaker 2: only do what only you can do is a reference
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  Speaker 2: point for leaders, and we should navigate by it. Specifically,
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  Speaker 2: we should prioritize and calendar by it. So that's the
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  Speaker 2: idea that we should aim toward or work toward, doing
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  Speaker 2: as few things as possible, the things that fall into
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  Speaker 2: our sweet spot, and only do what only we can do.
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  Speaker 2: But it's a navigation point, and you can't get it
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  Speaker 2: perfect again, navigating you're a little bit too far one
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  Speaker 2: way or too far the other way. But keeping that
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  Speaker 2: front and center is so important. And that was a
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  Speaker 2: fun conversation to have a jacent around that.
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  Speaker 1: So, Andy, why do you think it's so important for
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  Speaker 1: leaders to protect that space?
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  Speaker 2: Well, my fully exploited strengths, and we say this all
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  Speaker 2: the time. Our fully exploited strengths are always going to
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  Speaker 2: be a greater value add than our marginally improved weaknesses, right,
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  Speaker 2: And so only do what only you can do. Is
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  Speaker 2: a reminder that I need to make sure that I'm
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  Speaker 2: I'm giving my best time and my best energy to
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  Speaker 2: the things that make the biggest difference in the organization.
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  Speaker 2: And the tendency is to just fill our schedules up
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  Speaker 2: with whatever, you know, whatever comes along. You know, people
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  Speaker 2: have requests. I mean, there's so much going on before
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  Speaker 2: I know it. I mean, we're always busy, nobody's sitting
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  Speaker 2: around looking for something to do. So consequently, if we're
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  Speaker 2: not careful, we will be very busy, but we won't
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  Speaker 2: be focused, and we won't be bringing our best energy
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  Speaker 2: and our best time to the thing that makes the
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  Speaker 2: biggest difference. And there are only a few things the
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  Speaker 2: leader does that makes that big difference. So again, the
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  Speaker 2: north star is to only do it only you can
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  Speaker 2: do and if there's somebody else that can do it,
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  Speaker 2: and especially if there's somebody else that can do it, better,
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  Speaker 2: let them do it. And focus on the things that
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  Speaker 2: you know add the most value to the organization. And
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  Speaker 2: of course that means a leader has to discover what
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  Speaker 2: those things are. Then a leader has to discipline themselves
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  Speaker 2: to schedule so that you know, that's where they're spending
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  Speaker 2: the majority of their time. And oftentimes people talk about
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  Speaker 2: this in a minute. I know for me, we need
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  Speaker 2: help doing that because it's just too easy to say yes,
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  Speaker 2: you know, to whatever comes along.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and Andy, you've talked about before about how day
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  Speaker 1: to day tasks can eat leadership alive. That without intentional margin,
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  Speaker 1: vision disappears. So for the leader who feels like they're
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  Speaker 1: chuggling everything where can they even begin to apply this
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  Speaker 1: principle of only doing what only.
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  Speaker 2: They can do? Well, I can tell you how I
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  Speaker 2: did it, Susie, and you can tell me if this
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  Speaker 2: is applicable to everybody else. I think it is. Of course,
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  Speaker 2: I had to ask for help. I had to invite
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  Speaker 2: somebody into the process. And this is where Diane Grant
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  Speaker 2: who amazing. Yeah, it has worked for me, you know
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  Speaker 2: for almost thirty years as my admin assistant. When I
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  Speaker 2: gain and this is years ago, when I gave Diane
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  Speaker 2: control of the calendar. What she kept asking for and
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  Speaker 2: I kept saying no, I want to control the calendar.
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  Speaker 2: When she finally convinced me, Andy, if you'll give me
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  Speaker 2: the calendar, let me control the calendar. It will help
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  Speaker 2: me do a better job, I'm like, okay, now I'm
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  Speaker 2: being selfish. She finally found the button push. When I
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  Speaker 2: gave her control of the calendar, she became a helpful
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  Speaker 2: advocate and a buffer. Now there was someone to discuss
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  Speaker 2: things with before they went on the calendar, rather than
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  Speaker 2: me putting things on the calendar that she had to
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  Speaker 2: attempt to take off the calendar, which often meant awkward
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  Speaker 2: phone calls because I didn't take the big picture into consideration.
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  Speaker 2: But more importantly, it's not just a matter if there
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  Speaker 2: wasn't time to do the things I wanted to put
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  Speaker 2: on the calendar. By putting things on the on the
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  Speaker 2: calendar that shouldn't be there, it ate up my margin,
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  Speaker 2: the time I needed to spend focusing on the things
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  Speaker 2: that only I could do. Because, as we've talked about briefly,
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  Speaker 2: I know in the past, if we're not careful without margin,
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  Speaker 2: you cannot lead. When a leader doesn't have margin, they
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  Speaker 2: are forced to simply manage because there's no time to
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  Speaker 2: vision cast. There's no time to think about the future,
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  Speaker 2: there's no time to explore, there's no time to be creative,
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  Speaker 2: there's no time to imagine. So giving her the calendar
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  Speaker 2: that was one of several decisions I made early on
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  Speaker 2: that helped me focus on doing what only I can do,
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  Speaker 2: because her having the calendar forced a conversation, multiple conversations
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  Speaker 2: that always went back to not simply do you have
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  Speaker 2: anything on Thursday, but rather, what's most important for you?
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  Speaker 2: Is there's somebody else that can do that? Is that's
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  Speaker 2: something I can handle for you? Hey, before we put
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  Speaker 2: your name there, what if I get so and so
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  Speaker 2: to call them and then let's just see if they
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  Speaker 2: can you know, handle that instead. So it forced conversations
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  Speaker 2: we weren't having before and that was a huge help
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  Speaker 2: because she knows what my priorities are and she knows
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  Speaker 2: my value add to the organization. And now I had
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  Speaker 2: a partner and that made a tremendous difference. And I've
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  Speaker 2: talked to other leaders through the years who handing off
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  Speaker 2: that calendar. It's not just a control thing, but part
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  Speaker 2: of it is why would I have somebody else do that? Why?
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  Speaker 2: I mean, I can make phone calls and I can
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  Speaker 2: you know, I've got friends and so anyway, and the
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  Speaker 2: other thing too is every time our organization embraced a
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  Speaker 2: new growth opportunity or we were about to, you know,
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  Speaker 2: go from one thing to the next thing and do
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  Speaker 2: something big. Every time that happened, and it looked like
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  Speaker 2: my responsibility was going to shift a little bit, and
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  Speaker 2: it usually meant taking on more responsibility. As we grew,
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  Speaker 2: Diane would ask this question every single time. She'd say, Okay,
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  Speaker 2: now that we're going to do this, what are you
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  Speaker 2: going to stop doing? She would just literally say, okay,
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  Speaker 2: so what are you going to stop doing. And I
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  Speaker 2: would never ask myself that question because it sounds lazy.
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  Speaker 2: And I'm the leader. I need to take one for
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  Speaker 2: the team. I need to be the busiest person, you know,
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  Speaker 2: the last person to leave all that nonsense, right, But
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  Speaker 2: I would never ask myself that question. But having somebody say, Okay,
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  Speaker 2: what are you going to stop doing? Forced healthy conversations
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  Speaker 2: because you got to give up to go up. You know,
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  Speaker 2: you got to do less to accomplish more. And if
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  Speaker 2: the organization is going to get bigger, which means more
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  Speaker 2: complex and more complicated, I need more margin to lead.
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  Speaker 2: So having a partner in this for me was critical
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  Speaker 2: and a game changer. And it doesn't have to be
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  Speaker 2: an individual person. It could be a leadership team. You know,
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  Speaker 2: it can be more than one person. But I think
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  Speaker 2: we all need somebody to bring us back to reality.
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  Speaker 2: Especially if you're a hard worker and you have a
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  Speaker 2: strong work ethic, you're just going to take on more.
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  Speaker 2: But at some point you take on so much you're
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  Speaker 2: not leading anymore. You're just managing and going from one
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  Speaker 2: thing to the next, and you're not only doing what
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  Speaker 2: only you can do, and you're doing things other people
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  Speaker 2: could do. In some cases what other people could do better,
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  Speaker 2: because you know, we don't all have the same strengths.
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  Speaker 1: Well, and that idea connects directly to something else that
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  Speaker 1: you talk to Jason about, which is the less you do,
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  Speaker 1: the more you accomplish. And it feels so counterintuitive, especially
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  Speaker 1: to a new or high capacity leader who thinks the
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  Speaker 1: key to success is doing more, not less. So why
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  Speaker 1: is that such an important mindset shift.
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  Speaker 2: For well, it overlaps when you know on this other one,
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  Speaker 2: the whole idea is by doing less, you can spend
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  Speaker 2: more time on the things that make the biggest impact
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  Speaker 2: in the organization. And in most cases there are just
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  Speaker 2: two or three things that make all the difference, and
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  Speaker 2: if those things go right, you can fix everything else.
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  Speaker 2: If those things go wrong, it doesn't matter what the
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  Speaker 2: other ones are there. And we talk about on the
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  Speaker 2: podcast all the time. There's that critical exchange, there's that
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  Speaker 2: critical event. Every organization has one or two or maybe
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  Speaker 2: three critical events. And if those events and I don't
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  Speaker 2: mean like a Thursday event. I mean and in sales,
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  Speaker 2: it's what happens, you know, at the front of the
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  Speaker 2: store or marketing, it happened, is what happens between the
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  Speaker 2: person who's selling your marketing service with a customer. There's
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  Speaker 2: just critical events. When those go right, you know, the
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  Speaker 2: rest can be fixed. So as the point leader or
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  Speaker 2: a manager of a division, being able to focus our
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  Speaker 2: time and attention and creativity on those critical events is critical,
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  Speaker 2: which means you have to have margin. And the better
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  Speaker 2: I am and the more time I have there or
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  Speaker 2: the less other things I'm doing, the more effective I am,
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  Speaker 2: and the more effective the people are around me. You know.
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  Speaker 2: I always go back to this illustration. You know. MLB
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  Speaker 2: pitchers are generally not known for their batting averages, and
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  Speaker 2: nobody cares. Yeah, nobody cares they're pitching. I don't care,
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  Speaker 2: you know. You know, And in the area of sports,
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  Speaker 2: all these principles we talk about, they make perfect sense.
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  Speaker 2: When there's a scoreboard, there's a time limit, and everybody
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  Speaker 2: has a position that they're you know, they are hired
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  Speaker 2: to do that position. Well, organizational life is no different.
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  Speaker 2: It's just that the game goes on and on and
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  Speaker 2: it's not as obvious. It's not as obvious. There's no crowd,
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  Speaker 2: and the scoreboards are difficult to create and they are
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  Speaker 2: difficult to manage, and an organizational life it's difficult to
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  Speaker 2: remember to even look at the right scoreboards sometimes because
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  Speaker 2: of the whirlwind of organizational life. But the principles are
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  Speaker 2: the same, and the dynamic to some degree is the
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  Speaker 2: same as well.
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  Speaker 1: So how do you know, because it's not as obvious,
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  Speaker 1: how does a leader know if they're doing too much
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  Speaker 1: or if they've slipped from leading into managing.
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  Speaker 2: How do they tell? Well, the short answer I think
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  Speaker 2: is they're busy and bored. You can be busy and
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  Speaker 2: bored at the same time. And whenever I say that
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  Speaker 2: in a group or with leaders, you know, eyes light up. No,
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  Speaker 2: I don't have to explain it, because any leader has
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  Speaker 2: been there's like, I didn't have words for it. But
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  Speaker 2: I remember I was so busy, and I was not excited.
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  Speaker 2: And I used to be excited about this, and I
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  Speaker 2: used to be motivated, and I I I'm bored. And
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  Speaker 2: I may have shared this on the podcast before, but
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  Speaker 2: years ago. You remember don Hurley, she was Diane's assistant
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  Speaker 2: at the time in the office, and we had all
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  Speaker 2: these campuses, we had campus pastors, and I was you know,
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  Speaker 2: I was in charge of the whole thing, but I
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  Speaker 2: wasn't in a role where I was leading a campus.
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  Speaker 2: I was just leading the whole organization and one day
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  Speaker 2: she looked at me, she said, you're bored. I'm like, what, oh, Don,
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  Speaker 2: how dare you speak to me? You know? I love
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  Speaker 2: Don you know yeah, I'm like, what do you mean
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  Speaker 2: I'm bored? Andy, You're bored? And I said, I think
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  Speaker 2: you're right. And here's why. Because the action in our
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  Speaker 2: organization is at the campus level. This is where you grow.
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  Speaker 2: This is where you grow things, that's where you plan things.
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  Speaker 2: It's the critical it is the critical event. And I
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  Speaker 2: had moved or allowed myself to be elevated out of
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  Speaker 2: the tension of the critical event, so I didn't feel
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  Speaker 2: like I was leading. I was managing a whole lot
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  Speaker 2: of organizations that had critical events and I was too
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  Speaker 2: far away. And the moment there was a break, we
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  Speaker 2: had a lead pastor who left. I immediately hired myself.
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  Speaker 2: Hired myself, and I remember Sandra saying, I remember I
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  Speaker 2: was sitting on the couch at home when I decided, okay,
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  Speaker 2: I need to jump back into that role along with
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  Speaker 2: everything else I'm doing. And she said, wait a minute,
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  Speaker 2: you already have a full time job. I'm like, this
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  Speaker 2: is what I need to do for me. And you know,
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  Speaker 2: ever since then, I have worn both of those hats.
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  Speaker 2: But I'm not bored. I'm not bored, and I am
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  Speaker 2: I'm busy. But again, I think that's when a leader knows, Okay,
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  Speaker 2: you don't have you're not positioned to lead. You're managing.
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  Speaker 2: And if you're wired for management, and again, management is
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  Speaker 2: extremely necessary, but you manage the sameness, you manage the systems,
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  Speaker 2: but you lead beyond sameness, and you lead beyond systems,
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  Speaker 2: you break the systems. So you know, it just depends
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  Speaker 2: on how a person is wired. But for the leaders
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  Speaker 2: out there, you know, things are going pretty well and
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  Speaker 2: you're busy, but you're bored. Board, Yeah, you need to
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  Speaker 2: do fewer things so that you have the margin to
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  Speaker 2: think about what's next. And there's your sign. Yeah, there's
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  Speaker 2: your sign.
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  Speaker 1: Another moment from that conversation with Jason last week that
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  Speaker 1: stood out was your definition of leadership. You said, leadership
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  Speaker 1: is getting other people to do what you believe needs
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  Speaker 1: to be done, and then you added this great line,
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  Speaker 1: you can rent people's hands, but you can't rent their hearts.
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  Speaker 1: That's a really powerful distinction. Can you unpack why that
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  Speaker 1: distinction is important and why it matters for leaders.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, And I would like to make a comment about
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  Speaker 2: the definition of leadership because later on I realized it's
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  Speaker 2: a little different the way I normally say it is
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  Speaker 2: this that leadership is about inspiring people to want to
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  Speaker 2: do what you're convince needs to be done. Real good
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  Speaker 2: leadership is you're inspiring people to want to do what
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  Speaker 2: your convent needs to be done. In other words, we
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  Speaker 2: can hire people to do, but you have to inspire
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  Speaker 2: people to want to do There has to be a
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  Speaker 2: vision piece. And again it goes back to this disconnect
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  Speaker 2: between you two weeks later they get paid for something
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  Speaker 2: versus they get to work and want to do something
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  Speaker 2: because they believe what they're doing is so important. And
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  Speaker 2: that goes to the second part of your question where
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  Speaker 2: you said, I said, you can rent people's hands, but
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  Speaker 2: you can't rent their hearts. And you can pay people
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  Speaker 2: to do things, but great leadership goes beyond that. You
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  Speaker 2: want people who, from time to time would say, you
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  Speaker 2: know what, I would do this for free, or I
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  Speaker 2: would pay to do this. And we've all probably maybe
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  Speaker 2: at some point in our life, said that. But when
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  Speaker 2: you hear people around you say that in our case
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  Speaker 2: because we're a volunteer organization. I mean, people do extraordinary work, extraordinary, complicated,
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  Speaker 2: in some cases technical work for nothing, and when I
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  Speaker 2: thank them, going back to the gratitude conversation, when I
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  Speaker 2: thank them, they're like, oh, I would pay to do this.
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  Speaker 2: So when you've combined people's energy, emotion and passion with
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  Speaker 2: a task and that's leadership.
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  Speaker 1: Well, Andy, that was a great unpacking of those ideas
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  Speaker 1: from last week. Thank you for taking the time and
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  Speaker 1: for our listeners. Thanks for listening to this episode of Reverb.
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  Speaker 1: If you found it helpful, be sure to leave a
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  Speaker 1: review or pass along to another leader, and as always,
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: subscribe wherever you listen, and check out any Stanley dot
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: com slash podcast for more resources to help you go
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: even further faster,