mike goldsworthy

At the encouragement of a few people, I’ve been thinking about starting a short-term Leadership Learning Community.

I’m thinking of a 6 month commitment with a 1-day midweek gathering each month. We would read books together, engage in some interactive learning experiences, share life and challenge one another. The hope would be that at the end of 6 months that we would have learned from one another, increased out leadership capacity and grown in our understanding of ourselves and our personal leadership.

It would be open to anyone who’s a part of Parkcrest (but we would limit the size of the group), and would also include a small monthly cost that would be for covering expenses.

I’m trying to gauge interest to see if this is something worth pursuing to begin in the Fall…possibly sometime in October.

If it at all sounds interesting, fill out this form to let me know

This past weekend, we had a powerful and moving service as we talked on God’s ability to heal and trusting in his goodness and faithfulness even when he doesn’t heal. We then had a time where leaders in our various campuses and venues anointed people with oil and prayed for physical healing. From what I’m hearing, there was probably a couple hundred people who came up for prayer for some sort of healing.

It was one of those really powerful weekends. But one of the things that you need to know is that the origins of it weren’t mine.

Once a year, a small group of us get away for a couple of days to pray and plan out 1 years worth of message topics. I come with a lot of ideas, but so does everyone else. After processing everyone’s ideas we work through figuring out what we feel like God has stirred in us to talk about and lead the church through for the coming year.

This last series was someone else’s idea. And honestly, I wasn’t that excited about it originally. We did it because enough other people felt like it was right that I was willing to trust them. It’s really turned out to be one of our more powerful series this year, and it never would have happened if I had to be the one with all of the ideas.

I wonder how often leaders miss out on some of the best ideas because we can’t trust other people to have them and we don’t create a context for them to be given a voice.

A phrase that’s made it’s way into multiple leadership conversations that I’ve been engaged in recently is, “Let’s not say no for them…let them decide for themselves”

We talk people out of commitment without them even knowing it, because we talk ourselves out of asking.

I made, what I thought was a huge ask this morning. I almost talked myself out of it, but made an appointment in order to force myself to go through with it. The person I was talking with ended up making a significant and really helpful commitment right away. And I almost didn’t even ask.

We say no for people far too often.

Ben Arment has a great article up on Collide. Heres’s a piece

Here’s an important lesson: never say no for other people. That’s their job. In the pursuit of a goal, everyone has a job. Your job is to dream audaciously, act courageously, and make the ask. Their job is to say yes or no. And this is their job and their job alone.

You can finish reading it here

Stop saying no for other people

I had an abnormally crazy week this week, which was capped off with a crazy weekend. On Sunday, after about 11 hours of being out of the house, I got this voicemail from Isaac.

IsaacVoicemail

Every once in a while you’ve got to have days or weeks like this. But it was a good reminder that every time you say yes to something, you’re saying no to something else.

I was talking with someone today who asked me a question that I’ve rarely been asked. We were talking about books, and I told him that I have a goal of reading 50 books each year. For me it’s a bit of a stretch to read that many, but I know plenty of people who read twice as much as that, but I guess it is still a significant number of books.

He asked me with ministry and family and whatever else, what I do to be able to read that many books in a year.

I’m totally convinced that good leaders read regularly. So, in order to help myself become a better leader, I’ve had to learn to force myself to read more. So, if maybe this is helpful to you, here’s a few thoughts that I’ve learned…

Make it a discipline
Find regular times to read every week, and even times to get away for a several hours or even a few days where you’re able to read and process.

Where you read matters
There are certain rooms or environments that are more conducive for reading than others. In our house, there are rooms that I rarely read in, because for whatever reason I just can’t concentrate on reading there. I’m able to read quite a bit in coffee shops with my headphones in, but I know others who can’t.

You don’t have to finish books
This has been so helpful for me to learn to be ok with not always having to finish a book. It may not resonate with you right now, or it may not be written well or very challenging…if that’s the case, then put it down. You only have so much time to give, don’t waste it finishing a book just to finish it. Also, if there’s only a particular chapter or two that seem to be helpful for you, it’s ok to only read those.

Occasionally read things that are outside of your norm
The majority of books that I read are non-fiction books on theology, leadership, sociology, etc. I force myself to every once in a while read a biography, or a fiction book, which helps me to break out of my norm and to not get stuck in what I’m used to reading.

Read with others
I regularly have books that I’m reading alongside friends or other staff. If I know we’re going to talk about a book or a certain chapter on a specific day it gives me motivation to get it done.

Read at random times
It’s helpful to always have a book with you. The Kindle (and the Kindle app for the iPhone) has really helped this. When you’re waiting for your car to be washed or if you’re early for a meeting, you can grab 5 or 10 minutes of reading if you have something with you.

Watch less TV
Seriously…if you cut out 1 show each night, and read instead during that time, you could probably finish 25 books a year just with that time.

A few things that I’ve learned that’s been helpful for me to read regularly. Anyone else got any tips to help us out?

Following up from yesterday on a few random things that I shared with our staff that I’m learning and processing without much commentary…

Sometimes I need to stop the input and just produce

Twitter, blogs, podcasts, books are all inputs that for me are good, but they can contribute to The Resistance that keeps me from producing.

Sometimes I just need to stop gaining more info, stop the input and instead just produce

I shared with our staff today 12 random things that I’ve been learning and processing. Thought I’d share a few of them over the next several days or so on here as brief thoughts without much commentary…

I was having a conversation with someone not long ago about handling critics and criticism, and one of the things he said to me that resonated and stuck:

You have to outlove and outlast your critics

I think this is going to become one of our new phrases in leadership discussions.

“Provide the but”

We were in a leadership discussion this week talking about how typically no given person will like 100% of everything we do, and there will be things that are inconvenient, but what we have to learn to do is to provide the but. This really is what Parkcrest has done throughout the years.

The parking is terrible, but…

The buildings are old, but…

I don’t like Mike’s haircut, but…

Providing the but is about giving people reason enough to be a part of what we’re doing even when there’s something that we might not totally agree on or something a bit inconvenient. As long as we provide the but, that thing becomes inconsequential.

And really, this is what good companies do, isn’t it? Think about some of the conversations you’ve had at times…

Apple computers are more expensive, but…

It’ll take longer to get it from Amazon than from the store down the street, but…

That restaurant is always so crowded, but…

A part of leading an organization well is learning to provide the but. And plus, how much fun is it going to be to use that phrase in more and more leadership conversations.