Jim Collins\u2019 books and franchise are very successful. Regrettably, my experience with the Good to Great<\/i> \u201cframework of ideas\u201d has not been positive. That experience has informed this post.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur five-year quest yielded many insights, a number of them surprising and quite contrary to conventional wisdom, but one giant conclusion stands above the others: We believe that almost any<\/i> organization can substantially improve its stature and performance, perhaps even become great, if it conscientiously applies the framework of ideas we\u2019ve uncovered.\u201d1<\/p>\n
Wow, that\u2019s quite a statement, and it caught the attention of both the business world and the church! What are those ideas that take an organization from good to great?\u00a0 Disciplined People: Humble leaders hire capable people, fire those who aren\u2019t and then organize for forward-progress. Disciplined Thoughts: Thoughtful leaders confront the realities of their current situation knowing and believing that they will prevail no matter the circumstances or the cost. Disciplined Action: Active leaders lead toward high performance. It is a \u201cculture of discipline\u201d aided by technology that leads to, \u201cthe magical alchemy of great performance.\u201d2<\/p>\n
These ideas carry over into Collin\u2019s Social Sector. <\/i>However, he suggests that the social sector might not benefit from taking on the language and concepts of the business world. Instead, both business and social sector should adopt the language of greatness, operating from a \u201cframework of greatness, articulating timeless principles that explain why some become great and other do not.\u201d3<\/p>\n
In some ways, Collins has redeemed himself in writing Good to Great and the Social Sector. <\/i>I use the word redeem because in my opinion, Good to Great<\/i> was harmful to the church in these ways. It gave cause for the language of ruthlessness to enter the church\u2019s leadership vocabulary. It strengthened the idea of success based on a cultural construct rather than a biblical foundation. Its principles have not produced sustainable results.<\/p>\n
Consider for a moment the ruthlessness in the bus analogy. Not only is it offensive on many levels, but it also carries with it the language of ruthlessness, which has no place in the church. This is not to say that before Collins church leadership has been void of the language of ruthlessness, but Good to Great<\/i> gave the use another cause\u2014the cause of greatness. Think of it; a level 5 leader gets the right people on the bus (hire the right people), the wrong people off the bus (fire those who don’t belong) and then gets all the right people in the right seats on the bus. I don\u2019t know what this has to do with humility as much as it does with sheer ruthlessness. People have been hurt and the local church negatively impacted by the language of this and similar analogies and metaphors.<\/p>\n
The way in which the leaders of a church treat those who work and serve with them may be one of the keys to greatness. It may be that teamwork and leadership development on every level is what leads to greatness. 4 \u00a0Of course, there are times when tough decisions must be made. However, these tough decisions should be made in the midst of tears and not in rejoicing for the greatness to come. They should be based on the health of the person and the church instead of the goal of greatness.<\/p>\n
And what of greatness\u2014it is a relative term most often associated with money, size, gains, and losses, all measurable and admittedly not wrong in themselves. However, even though in Social Sector<\/i> Collins moves away from revenue based greatness, he contends that measurement is important even if the results are not tangibly measurable. 5 \u00a0I agree it is good practice to measure, even in the church. The problem with numbers as a measurement for greatness is that they can mislead into thinking that large numbers equate to greatness. I would argue that in the church, health is a better indicator of greatness than numbers. It may not be quantifiable but it can be felt, seen and experienced.<\/p>\n
Finally, the ultimate question is, do these principles produce sustainable results? Though Social Sector <\/i>is much more balanced, the jury is still out on Good to <\/i>Great. Of the businesses that Collins listed as moving from good to great, some are doing well, others are less than great, and one no longer exists. Collins does attempt to address this in his following\u2014 How the Mighty Fall <\/i>and Great by Choice<\/i>, but what of those who have been negatively impacted by Good to Great<\/i>?<\/p>\n
Churches are complex and dynamic organisms. Like human bodies, the variables are astronomical, and like business organizations, it is impossible to explain why some grow to mega-size, and others don\u2019t. In any case, I am convinced there is no \u201cmagical alchemy.\u201d I am also convinced that health is a better indicator of greatness than numbers. Maybe a more significant question for church leaders is\u00a0 why do we aspire to \u201cmeganess?\u201d Why do we choose \u201cmeganess\u201d as the standard of greatness? Are we listening to the voices of a cultural construct? Is it Weber\u2019s \u201cSpirit of Capitalism\u201d speaking to our Protestant work ethic? 6 Are we concerned about our legacy, power, money, things? Or, maybe our desire for greatness is God-given, but our\u00a0cultural voices are misleading.<\/p>\n
It has been said that \u201cThe values and norms of our society become so deeply ingrained in our minds that we find it difficult to impugn alternatives.\u201d 7 \u00a0What then is the alternative? To begin, the first shall be last, and the last shall be first. The least are greatest and the greatest the least. It is not magic alchemy, but the application of these biblical paradoxes that lead to health and therefore a “great” church.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jim Collins\u2019 books and franchise are very successful. Regrettably, my experience with the Good to Great \u201cframework of ideas\u201d has not been positive. That experience has informed this post. \u201cOur five-year quest yielded many insights, a number of them surprising and quite contrary to conventional wisdom, but one giant conclusion stands above the others: We […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":90,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[267],"class_list":["post-13803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-collins","cohort-lgp7"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/90"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13803"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13811,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13803\/revisions\/13811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}