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You are at:Home»Perfect Quotes

June 21, 2017 0

Complacent organizations can coast along for years before anyone notices the enormity of the problem — and that coasting is one step away from irrelevancy.

Lisa Bodell

June 21, 2017 0

Leaders do not need answers.
Leaders must have the right questions.


Security for children’s areas in the church is receiving increasing attention. Greg Atkinson visits many churches to help them see things as an outsider that the churches may be overlooking. Some of the questions he asks as he reviews children’s space include these related to safety.

How easy is it to get to the nursery, classrooms, or child bathrooms?
Is there a proper ratio of children’s workers to children?
Do the children get escorted out of the classroom and to the bathroom?
Is there a back exit or entrance where children can go outside? Is it secure?

June 20, 2017 0

Complacent organizations can coast along for years before anyone notices the enormity of the problem — and that coasting is one step away from irrelevancy.

Lisa Bodell

June 20, 2017 0

Leaders do not need answers.
Leaders must have the right questions.


Security for children’s areas in the church is receiving increasing attention. Greg Atkinson visits many churches to help them see things as an outsider that the churches may be overlooking. Some of the questions he asks as he reviews children’s space include these related to safety.

How easy is it to get to the nursery, classrooms, or child bathrooms?
Is there a proper ratio of children’s workers to children?
Do the children get escorted out of the classroom and to the bathroom?
Is there a back exit or entrance where children can go outside? Is it secure?

June 13, 2017 0

Out of intense complexities, intense simplicities emerge.

Winston Churchill

June 13, 2017 0

Leaders do not need answers.
Leaders must have the right questions.


Alan Hirsch uses two questions with churches seeking to revitalize their ministries.

If you could start all over again, would you do it the same way?
If not, why are you doing it the same way now?

June 6, 2017 0

Find what energizes you and keep learning.

Jan Singer

June 6, 2017 0

Leaders do not need answers.
Leaders must have the right questions.


Many leaders, especially those at or near the top of leadership in their organizations, find that they are often insulated from the kinds of critical feedback or clues that previously they relied upon to shape their planning and actions. Hal Gregersen suggests some questions for leaders who think they may be in this situation.

How many barriers do people have to cross to talk directly with you?
How much of your typical workweek is spent outside your office or organization?
In a typical conversation, how many questions do you ask and how many statements do you make?
How many times this week have you said, “I don’t know” in response to a question?

May 30, 2017 0

The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.

Alice Walker

May 30, 2017 0

There is a temptation to make decisions that seem right in the moment but may not be the best for the future. Suzy Welch has a method to help put immediate feelings in a longer perspective. It is called 10/10/10 and utilizes three questions to ask about decisions.

How will we feel about it ten minutes from now?
How about ten months from now?
How about ten years from now?

May 23, 2017 0

As diverse and idiosyncratic voices become a part of our external community, leaders have the challenge of cultivating communities where trust binds people together and diverse views are welcomed.

Hayim Herring and Terri Martinson Elton

May 23, 2017 0

All of us have a bias toward the familiar. Chip Heath and Dan Heath suggest questions that can mitigate against doing only what first comes to mind.

How can you expand your set of choices?
How can you get outside your head and collect information that you can trust?
How can you overcome short-term emotion and conflicted feelings to make the best choice?
How can we plan for an uncertain future so that we give our decisions the best chance to succeed?

May 17, 2017 0

When we have been in a leadership role for a while, it becomes harder to see things with fresh eyes. We keep working within the bounds of what we have done to address challenges. Try this question to get a different perspective.

If someone new took over this position today, what would they probably do that we’re not doing now?

May 17, 2017 0

Without change, we live in a stagnant pool of water. Without continuity, we are in permanent white water, without a paddle or a raft.

Kenneth H. Carter, Jr.

May 10, 2017 0

It is impossible to overstate the importance of the leader to the high performing organization.

Paul C. Light

May 10, 2017 0

Getting started in a new role or place can be a challenge for leaders. While you want to respect current practices, you also want to use this moment as a chance to encourage creative alternatives. Terry J. Fadem suggests these questions:

How does this work?
What do I need to know about this now that I’m here?
Who else might be able to help us?
How has this problem been resolved before?
Who has the most experience tackling this problem?

May 3, 2017 0

Weak leadership does not promote vital lay ministry; it compromises the health of the entire body by failing to provide laity with the basic spiritual guidance they need in order to be effective leaders themselves.

Christopher A. Beeley

May 3, 2017 0

When discussing what to do next in a ministry area, these discussions often sound much like previous conversations. A way of changing the dynamic is to ask the group (or, even better, divide and use multiple groups) to pretend that they are consultants engaged by the congregation to do an analysis of the ministry topic at hand. They are to prepare a response to this question:

Given what you have learned about our church, what are your most objective observations and what are your best recommendations for the next steps our church might take?

April 27, 2017 0

When did you ever learn the most in your life? What experience? I guarantee you’ll tell me it was a time you felt at risk.

Ginni Rometty

April 27, 2017 0

A fruitful exercise is to name as a group where you most hope God will lead your church in this next year. What will be different a year from now? What will increase? What will change? After doing this exercise, then you are ready to use this question to see how much attention you have given those things you most want to happen.

What do we monitor regularly?

April 26, 2017 0

A fruitful exercise is to name as a group where you most hope God will lead your church in this next year. What will be different a year from now? What will increase? What will change? After doing this exercise, then you are ready to use this question to see how much attention they are receiving:

What do we monitor regularly?

April 26, 2017 0

When did you ever learn the most in your life? I guarantee it’s a time you felt most at risk.

Ginni Rometty

April 19, 2017 0

Lee Kricher asks which of these statements would people be most likely to hear you say?

1. “If it was good enough for me, it will good enough for our children.”
Or
2. “Let’s do whatever it takes to reach the next generation.”

April 19, 2017 0

People are looking for leaders who will write the vision plain enough for a distracted and anxious culture to read, and they become upset and angry when those in traditional positions of authority seem as lost and confused as everyone else.

Cynthia G. Linder

April 5, 2017 0

There is a temptation to spend all of our attention on tasks and activities while forgetting our purpose. Scott J. Jones offers three questions for meeting agendas to help churches and ministries remember why they exist.

1. What is our mission?
2. How are we doing?
3. What are we doing that is not contributing to our mission and thus we can quit doing it?

April 5, 2017 0

Sincerity more than aggressiveness is a quality of leadership.

Mary Parker Follett

March 28, 2017 0

We’re trying to sustain hope by being a hope. Hope is not simply something that you have; hope is something that you are.

Cornel West

March 28, 2017 0

While “All Are Welcome” messages abound outside churches, Carey Nieuwhof says that “increasingly unchurched people think about walking into a church the way you might think about randomly walking into a wedding to which you weren’t invited.” Convinced that in the future about the only way non-Christians will enter churches is through personal invitation, he suggests that the next time you drive by a church building you ask:

“What would it take to convince me that I can walk in uninvited and participate in what they’re doing?”

March 13, 2017 0

This is not the first time the Spirit has substantially disrupted the established patterns of the church’s practice and place in a culture, and it will not be the last.

Alan J. Roxburgh

March 13, 2017 0

Thomas G. Kirkpatrick says most people enter a meeting asking two questions. The meetings you lead will be more productive and fulfilling for everyone if you go into each meeting knowing these two questions are foremost in the minds of your participants.

Why are we meeting?
How may I participate?

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