"Failure is an absolute, complete necessity."

I first heard this message during the live webcast in November 2013. Now it is available online. GOOD! I can listen again and again, and I post this now as a "note to self." These are some ideas gleaned from Craig Groeschel at the 2013 World Leader's Conference regarding "Leading Through the Fear of Failure."

"Failure is not an option, it's an absolute complete necessity because when you've stopped failing you've stopped taking risks, and you will stop growing and you will stop taking ground."

The paradox of the fear of failure:  "The fear of failure drives you to stop taking risks, but not taking risks ultimately leads to failure."

In spiritual terms:  "To lead without faith, it's impossible to please God. If I am so consumed with the fear of failure, that I will try to lead without faith, and without faith it's impossible to please God."

In the parable of the talents, the one who buried his, effectively said, "I was afraid, so I didn't take the risk."

"The path to your greatest potential is often straight through your greatest fear."

4 Principles:

1. Failure is often the first step toward success.

• We learn more through failing than through succeeding.
• "Never ever waste a failure!"
• "If you haven't failed recently you're playing it way too safe."
• "We could not know and do what we do today had we not learned from the mistakes that we made. Some people hesitate to try because ... it may not work, and sometimes it needs to not work so you can learn what would work the very next time."
• If you're not failing every now and then, you're playing it way too safe! 
• When is the last time you failed?
• When is the last time you launched an idea?

2. Your team needs permission to fail.

• Ask this on annual reviews: Where did you fail this year?
• Create a culture of experimentation, trying new things.
• There might be something you failed at before and it's time to try it again.
• "The antidote to the fear of failure is not success, ...it's small doses of failure."

3.  Failure is an event, not a person.

• When you do fail, and you're tempted to feel devastated...remember this...
• Don't personalize and internalize a failure, learn from it.
• Don't blame yourself for the declines, or one day you'll take credit for the increase.
• "A failure may be exactly what you need so that you can grow as the leader you're supposed to be."
• Shake it off... Step on up...
• If you're not dead, God's got more for you to do.
• You are not what you did...just shake it on off and step up. 
• "I wonder how many people have a burden and could actually impact this world, but never ever try because they're afraid to fail. What are you supposed to do?" Peter...for a moment, walked on water, but you have to get out of the boat.

4. You have to step out to find out.

• Feel the fear and do it anyway. 
• When I don't feel a little bit of that fear, that's when I get really afraid, because I've stopped leading aggressively and stopped believing and trying things that take faith. 

 
"I pray you fail. I pray you fail often. I pray you fail big. I pray you learn. I pray you adjust. I pray you do what others believe cannot be done and that you succeed for the glory of God and His kingdom."

How much will I lose? (Remembering the Journey)

(Remembering the Journey--written July-August, 2012)

If I lose heart
How much will be lost?

How much will I lose?
And how shall I regain
That which is lost?

Would I be the only one to lose?
Would others?

And how much would that hurt?
What would be the cost?

If I crash
Where would I fall?
Would I survive?
How much pain?
Would there be anyone to pick up the pieces?

I don't think this is what You meant when You said,
"Anyone who loses his life will find it"
But just maybe it is part of the process

Maybe the better question is: 
How can I not lose heart?

-----------------------

I drafted most of the above in the past week or two, wrestling with some realities and struggles. Today (Aug. 5, 2012) I listened again (perhaps my fourth time to listen to this message) to Bill Hybel's 2011 Global Leadership Summit "Holy Discontent" message.  He tells us to find what "wrecks" us, and then do something about it, because it is probably "wrecking" God too. But there is the need to be careful, need to do self-leadership really carefully, because what "wrecks" us, can really wreck us, we can burn out, it can die, we could give up, and what a loss that would be.

What do I need to do, to keep myself from losing heart?  This is the question I have been pondering much. I desperately need to learn to better lead myself.

"Remembering the Journey"--posts discovered in 'drafts'. Posted now for me to remember...remember the journey...where we have been, where He has brought me...

How? Through circumcision?

How is it going to happen Lord? You spoke to me so powerfully through Isa. 58. And I know it's for more than just this past month or two, but something I need to keep listening for. A friend this week ended her email with:  "May your light truly break forth like the dawn. May your bones be strong and you be well, well-watered. And may you know the glory of the Lord as your guard and defender." Yes, from this same chapter.

And I find myself wondering, how are you going to strengthen my bones? I feel like I'm getting weaker and weaker. The plans, the methods that seem good for going forward...are just lacking about 5-10 more people helping put them into practise at this point. Okay, well 3 or 4 would even be good.

Yesterday morning I listened to Mark Buchanan's all day workshop on "Spiritual Renewal" from Breakforth 2013. He talked about Joshua and the army heading to Jericho, they have just crossed the Jordan River, and the angel of the LORD comes... And the strategy is not rally the troops and charge. First, it is circumcision. Why then? Why not weeks or months earlier on the other side of the Jordan? They are effectively incapacitated, and vulnerable for weeks. If word of this leaks out to the enemy, they could be slaughtered so easily (remember Dinah, Shechem...Dinah's brothers). Then Buchanan asks: What is your Jericho? What is before you that needs a strategy from God?

Buchanan talked more about the 'incapacitated' part of circumcision, and I wondered if we are in that place now--our forces have certainly been weakened.So I have been wondering and asking You what this is supposed to mean for us. I have sensed these two months need to be a time of rest and recovery, but...I don't know that we are getting there. At least I'm not. Should we just lay down and recover?  What would that mean?

But if I think back on that passage, I think there was  purify yourselves, consecrate yourselves part to it. That is more the point of circumcision--being God's holy people, set apart. Maybe it was a time to check their hearts and their commitment. And...being weakened, also put them in a place of having to trust in God.

Today I purpose, at least for these two days before getting into the next work of planning, to rest, and to wait.

Leading yourself

Leading yourself is largely about living a rhythm of life that renews the life of God in us. It's about doing what it takes to know God and enjoy Him and follow and trust Him. It's about being utterly convinced of His goodness. It's about passion and energy and joy that come out of that center.

~Nancy Ortberg, Unleasing the Power of Rubber-bands: Lessons in Non-linear Leadership, p. 127

Learning from Me

It's kind of fun, and it's scary.

The fun part--I've noticed lately, the staff who work with me have started to pick up a love of reading, of learning and gaining from books! Here, the way they grew up...they didn't really have an opportunity to know how good books can be, to know the delight and inspiration and...so much more. No parents reading good night stories--their parents, or at least most of their moms, could barely read themselves. In elementary school, and even through junior high and high school, the only book exposure was school books, and other books bought to help improve school work. 

Ah, but when you come to work with me...I'll be forever telling you about good books, ramming them down your throat!  Some have been required reading for the staff. They read in the local language, I read English, and then we chat about the ideas therein.  It took us a year to get through (read and do) Marcus Buckingham's Go Put Your Strengths to Work, but we gained from the process. In more than a year we only finished about half of Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, before moving on, with all of our students too, to the easier teen version by his son. For our upcoming staff retreat they're reading Eat That Frog and The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, and enjoying them. Outside of work reading, they are reading and learning--their lives are opening up and they are growing at their own initiative and by the things they are discovering.

But...they are also learning something else...working long hours, not knowing when to stop. This is not good. This is something I have not figured out, and now staff are following. Several times I have been close to burnout, and now I have to guard staff against it. Actually, I'm more scared of them going there. I have a network of people and friends, I'd be okay if I crashed (believe me, I really don't want to go there myself either!), but they don't have quite the same level of support. Besides, I want them to stay healthy and fresh so we can keep working together for a long time. So...sometimes I just make them drop stuff, and take time off.

And then they look at me. Aren't you supposed to be leading by example? Yeah, that's what I preach all the time. However in this one I haven't yet figure out how to do it.

Things have got to change. I have got to change. They will learn from me, and there are some things I don't want them to learn.

This is What I've Been Doing

Times of extended retreat give us a chance to come home to ourselves in God's presence and to bring the realities of our lives to God in utter privacy. 

This is important for us and for those we serve. 

When we repress what is real in our life and just keep soldiering on, 

we get weary from holding it in, and eventually it leaks out in ways that are damaging to ourselves and to others. 

But on retreat there is time and space to attend to what is real in my own life--to celebrate the joys, grieve the losses, shed tears, 

sit with the questions, feel my anger, attend to my loneliness

--and allow God to be with me in those places.

These are not times for problem-solving or fixing, 

because not everything can be fixed or solved. 

On retreat we rest in God and wait on him to do what is needed. 

Eventually we return to the battle with fresh energy and keener insight.

(p. 123 Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership, R.H. Barton)

This is what I've been doing in my time away. "Fresh energy and keener insight", this is what I've been hoping for.

Leadership is...

We were coming back from a countryside school where there was a new principal. Just a couple of days earlier, at another school, my colleague found that their principal was new too. The second one confirmed that this was the same for a lot of schools in the county. Sitting beside me on the bus was someone who works in one of the townships, and has been moved around to different ones and in different leadership positions. Questioning him about that, he replied, "There are some things that are just hard to do, so you need to change often." For his positions two years is about how long he is one place. I still thought it strange. Wouldn't you be able to lead better once you were there longer and understood the local situation better? He finally spelled it out real clearly: "When you're in a place and people know your weaknesses, then they don't listen to you." Ah...so that's it.

I've been doing a lot of reading in Colossians lately--"the kingdom of the Son He loves" jumped out at me. I've been pondering this King, and what His leadership in His kingdom looks like--primarily from how those 3 years with His followers looked. He did not 'lord it over' others. He was completely authentic. He was so patient with His slow to learn followers. He won them over by who He was.

Today we had a meeting in our office. One hour of the time was devoted to each one (three of us) bringing up ideas from "Transform Your Workplace," that we could see could be applied or done better in our work situation. Ouch, some of it was hard, as some of MY 'weaknesses' came to light. I still don't know what to do in response to some. Gee, life would sure be easier if those I lead didn't know me so well. Maybe it's time for a switch of positions. Nah. I must choose another way, a way that requires more of me. How I need King Jesus to teach me humility. I need to listen for the truth in what was said, and change and grow where needed. Are there things that the other doesn't quite understand of the other side of the picture? Maybe, but I need to be careful not to 'spin' in my favour.