Be The Fruit

Leadership Summit Day 2

by Bill Blair on 11/08/07 at 5:18 am

Day 2’s lineup was great again.

Session 1 featured Michael Porter who is a Harvard Strategy Professor.  He was described as the leading expert in strategic management.  Today he focused on community projects that a Church or organization might take on.  His emphasis was that we need to consider effectiveness when we do charity work.  He used an example of a food bank.  Food banks are good, but if your costs of collecting food end up at $100 per person fed then you would be better off giving money and sending them to a restaurant.

Key thoughts

• Don’t think of it as charity work.  Try to add value.

• Set clear goals & objectives.

• If you can’t do it well then outsource to somebody who can.

• Worthiness of the cause is not a good determinant of what you should do.

His overall point is that you need to have strategy when you do charity work, because if you don’t you will be at best ineffective and at worst make the problem you came to fix worse.

Session 2 featured a recorded interview of Colin Powell by Bill Hybels.  They talked about the “Powell Principles” which are short sound bites that sum up his leadership skills.  There were too many to keep up with, but the most important thing I learned is that a leader needs to promote honesty and encourage a clash of ideas.  All of his principles point towards a culture where his followers feel encourages to share their ideas and to be honest.  Great interview!

Session 3 featured acclaimed author and pastor John Ortberg.  His speech was titled, A Leader’s Greatest Fear.  The fear is that the leader’s true Godly vision gets sabotaged by their shadow mission.  The shadow mission is the authentic mission that is hijacked by your ego and wounds.  He went through the story of Esther and contrasted the characters and how dwelled in their shadow mission and some were tempted by a shadow mission but overcame them by trusting God.  He stated that he believed that Jesus was tempted by the shadow mission to be the Messiah without the suffering.  Can you imagine that temptation?  Powerful stuff.

Session 4 featured an interview of filmmaker Richard Curtis by Bill Hybels.  This was the most convicting message so far.  To start with Bill indicated that Richard is still in a seeking phase in his spiritual life.  The interview centered on Richard’s amazing work to help the hungry.  He uses his skills as a filmmaker to capture images of the needy so people can truly grasp how bad it is.  I think Bill said he had raised $1 billion.  The convicting part was that here was a seeker filmmaker teaching a large group of christian leaders how to feed the hungry.  Bill ended the session challenging the audience to rethink their budgets and their missions.  Amazing stuff.