Conversation with Groeschel, Batterson, Noble and Furtick

The interview I did with Craig Groeschel, Mark Batterson, Perry Noble, and Steven Furtick is now up on the Catalyst Website as well as on itunes. You can stream the audio on our website or just download for free on the catalyst itunes page. 

This was a fun interview, considering it was more of a conversation between all four of these great leaders and visionaries. Make sure to check in on the One Prayer Initiative and see the latest happenings. 

A Little Video Fun

Check out the video below from Chad Johnson and Dustin Ahkuoi. Some of you may have already viewed this on Ben Arment’s blog, but if not, enjoy! 

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6685849728786454868

A great quote

“The number one battle for a Leader is overcoming one’s selfishness.”         

                 Jim Blanchard, former CEO of Synovus

Unfortunately, selfishness comes very naturally to all of us. 

My Foursome

In honor of the US Open playoff today….. thought I would create a dream golf day……

Course: Augusta National (where the Masters is played)

Time of Year: spring (late March)

Foursome: Me, My dad, Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus (me and Nicklaus vs. my dad and Tiger)

Outcome: all square (my dad wins in a putt off)

How about you?

Turning ideas into reality

We get asked all the time about how we come up with new and fresh ideas for Catalyst. It’s a pretty simple process that has proven to be effective. This can be useful in any organization or scenario, whether you are launching ideas, or just looking to make sound decisions. Here you go:

1. Create- we spend a ton of time just brainstorming, which is obviously a very important part of the process. The more ideas on the board, the more opportunities for one of those to make it through the process. For example, we have probably 300-350 programming ideas every year for our October conference. And creative meetings are “yes and” meetings, not “but or”. Important!

2. Criticize – every idea, in order to stay in the process, has to be critiqued and criticized significantly. This is key in order to make sure you don’t spend tons of time chasing too many rabbits and driving everyone crazy with lots of good ideas but nothing ever happening. And make sure everyone doesn’t take things personal- criticizing an idea is much different than criticizing the person who came up with the idea. It’s not personal.

3. Optimize- anything that makes it pass the criticize phase has to be built on. In some ways, this is a second and third wave of innovation. Most of the time the original idea will turn into something that looks totally different. This is really the essence of putting icing on the cake. 

4. Validate- every idea has to be validated- financially, operationally, personnel wise, and direction/vision related. Lots of big ideas appropriately get held up in this phase, either to be released later or put on the shelf for good. Conversely, lots of bad ideas make it through this phase because of bad systems and/or leaders who aren’t willing to say no. 

5. Execute- it all comes down to getting things done. Hard work is time consuming and tiring. We take tremendous pride in execution on ideas. If it has gone through the entire process and made it to this point, the idea deserves the attention and focus to make sure it happens. And if every level of the Idea process grid was correctly put in motion, the idea is probably going to be good!

Road trip to Panama City

That is quite a title for a post, huh? Well, we decided to go on the road with the Catalyst creative team and spend the day with Lanny Donoho down at Big Stuf Camps in Panama City, Florida. Reggie Joiner was also down teaching at Big Stuf, so he joined us for our creative time. By the way, Lanny just started blogging, so head on over to his site and give him a warm welcome to the blogging world!

Road trips should always involve plenty of snacks (at least when I am involved they do), so here is a quick glimpse of what was in the trusty snack bag at one of our stops. Plus, a few signs from the Race Way gas station that provided nuggets of wisdom- only in the Dirty South…. 

We attended the Big Stuf Camp opening session, and then spent the day really talking about three major areas for the event coming up in October- the opening session, the music/worship, and some general ideas that are so out of the box that no one would ever believe us anyway. It is incredibly stimulating to be around and be involved with creative people, and to watch creativity and innovative ideas appear. And hanging out on the beach having the ocean as a backdrop tends to spur creativity….

 

Tag it

What’s your tagline? When people ask, “do you know so and so?” and someone says about you, “yeah, he/she is the ______?” What is the fill in the blank? 

I guess the first question is “do you have a tagline?” I have one- “networker.” That defines what I love to do, and hopefully adds value to those around me. But it is the tag that most people use who know me well, as well as those who are simply acquaintances.

Let me give a few other examples, strictly based on my opinion:

John Maxwell- leadership; 21 Laws

Don Miller- blue like jazz

Tony Morgan- strategic blogger

Darlene Zschech- Hillsong worship 

Lanny Donoho- funny emcee

Beth Moore- women’s bible studies

Rick Warren- Purpose Driven

Jeff Shinabarger- ideas 

Mark Batterson- DC coffee shop 

Marcus Buckingham- strengths 

You may argue with some of the “tags” I’ve given to these folks, but the point is, whether you like it or not, you are being tagged. I believe “branding” and “tagging” are different. Branding is more about identity and emotion, where tagging is more about what I do. Sometimes they overlap, but most of the time they are closely associated but not necessarily the same. A tag is the subtitle of your book, if you were writing a biography. A tag is what comes to mind first when people think of you, that split second chance for someone to properly pull your file from their short or long term memory. A tag is no more than 10 words- a quick and concise snapshot of what someone sees you doing.

So are you creating your own tag, or is someone else creating it for you? 

Creating a WOW experience

If you don’t read Mike Hyatt’s blog, then you need to. Mike is the President of Thomas Nelson Publishers, and through his blog puts out some great stuff that is very helpful to leaders. It is one of the few blogs that I subscribe to receive by email, and not just on my bloglines feed. His posts come straight in to the inbox.

In a recent post, he talked about “the how of wow”, and ultimately some steps on how to create a WOW experience for your customers, employees, or just overall network. He gives 4 practical steps and a very practical example of how they’ve done this with their reception area at Thomas Nelson’s headquarters. Worth the read.