{"id":23946,"date":"2019-09-12T08:56:19","date_gmt":"2019-09-12T15:56:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=23946"},"modified":"2019-09-12T08:57:32","modified_gmt":"2019-09-12T15:57:32","slug":"mckibben-to-thunberg-good-to-great","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/mckibben-to-thunberg-good-to-great\/","title":{"rendered":"McKibben to Thunberg; Good to Great"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was given Jim Collins New York Times bestseller Good to Great<\/em> to read by the Head of Staff at a church I used to work for back in 2007.\u00a0 The book was described as \u201cthe best book he had read on organizational models\u201d and the ideas presented within were what he hoped the large staff would form itself around.\u00a0 We did our best for a few months, and then the recession of 2008 was upon us.\u00a0 We had to make some very difficult decisions and so too did many of the companies Collins studied for this book.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Luckily, the church as able to \u201crebound\u201d out of that disastrous financial time.\u00a0 Unfortunately some places (Circuit City – RIP) have not.<\/p>\n

Many of the ideas Collins discusses have left impressions on me, one of which being the idea of Level Five Leadership. I find it fascinating that two of the main characteristics describing a these leaders are \u201cpersonal humility and professional will,\u201d as humility is such an undervalued leadership trait.[1]<\/a> I struggle to think of leaders who have embodied this trait well that have also been the head of an organization.\u00a0 I can name, however, Bill McKibben, leader in the green movement and author of many books regarding the climate crisis.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Author, Environmentalist, Activist – Bill McKibben<\/p>\n

McKibben led the organization of the largest climate march in the history of the planet back in 2014.\u00a0 Since then, there have been a few different attempts at recreating that energy[2]<\/a>.\u00a0 However the largest and most recent developments in this movement are from a much younger group of organizers, led by high schoolers from around the world.[3]<\/a>\u00a0 Inspired by the work of Swedish student Greta Thunberg, these high school youth are encouraging students to \u201cstrike\u201d from classes and employees to \u201cstrike\u201d from their jobs on Friday, September 20 and are \u201ccalling on millions of us across the planet to disrupt business as usual by joining the global climate strikes on September 20, just ahead of a UN emergency climate summit.\u201d[4]<\/a>\u00a0 Greta Thunberg started these strikes and has become a leading voice within the climate community.\u00a0 McKibben is demonstrating humility by realizing that others have come into the arena with a passion and a voice that is distinct and different from his own, and has intentionally stepped out of the spotlight.\u00a0 He has also demonstrated an incredible will for climate justice by continuing to assist in these efforts, but from a much different place, one of encouragement, support, and praise.\u00a0 The global youth that are organizing the climate strikes on September 20 provide us an incredible opportunity as we can witness their leadership maturation on display.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Activist, Environmentalist, Superteen – Greta Thunberg<\/p>\n

The other element that has truly struck me has been the Hedgehog Concept, an understanding of \u201cwhat your organization can be the best in the world at\u201d while also blending with your passions and economic engine.[5]<\/a> \u00a0I wonder how this looks in most church and faith community settings.\u00a0 It is going to be hard for every church to be the church with the \u201cbest preaching\u201d in the entire world.\u00a0 However, the process of discerning the Hedgehog Concept is fascinating . . . and also very illuminating.\u00a0 It took on average four years for each of the companies Collins studied to discern (my word, not his) their Hedgehog Concept.[6]<\/a>\u00a0 How does that look in a local church that most likely wants things to happen much faster than four years at a time?\u00a0 Clearly one needs to align donors, with collective and congregational passion, and ministry programming.\u00a0 But is that enough? Perhaps this is best made clear in one of the earlier parts of Collins book when he points out that often the organizations that went from Good to Great \u201cdid not focus principally on what to do to become great, they focused equally on what not to do and what to stop doing.\u201d[7]<\/a>\u00a0 Focusing on what not to do.\u00a0 Those are the conversations that are so hard to come by in the church setting, but clearly those are the conversations that must be done from our church leaders everywhere.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Jim Collins, Good to Great<\/em>, (New York: Harper Collins, 2001), 39.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Brady Dennis, \u201cHow is this weekend\u2019s climate march different from its predecessor? \u2018Now, the task is full-on resistance,\u201d The Washington Post<\/em>, April 27, 2017, \u00a0https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/energy-environment\/wp\/2017\/04\/27\/how-is-this-weekends-climate-march-different-from-its-predecessor-now-the-task-is-full-on-resistance\/?noredirect=on<\/a><\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> \u201cAbout,\u201d Youth Climate Strike, accessed, September 11, 2019, https:\/\/www.youthclimatestrikeus.org\/about<\/a><\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> \u201cFAQ,\u201d Global Climate Strike, accessed, September 11, 2019, https:\/\/globalclimatestrike.net\/#faq<\/a><\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Collins, Good to Great<\/em>, 118.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Collins, Good to Great, 119.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Collins, Good to Great<\/em>, 11.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was given Jim Collins New York Times bestseller Good to Great to read by the Head of Staff at a church I used to work for back in 2007.\u00a0 The book was described as \u201cthe best book he had read on organizational models\u201d and the ideas presented within were what he hoped the large […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":108,"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":[1598,1321,668,1599,882],"class_list":["post-23946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bill-mckibben","tag-dminlgp9","tag-good-to-great","tag-greta-thunberg","tag-jim-collins","cohort-lgp9"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23946","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\/108"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23946"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23946\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23949,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23946\/revisions\/23949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}