The John Maxwell Shuffle

I love John Maxwell. He is a mentor, teacher, and friend. He recently took a bunch of folks to Israel.

Seeing this makes me love John even more…..

A Brand Gone Bad

Toyota is losing its brand. They are crumbling right before our eyes. The latest meltdown came just last night after a man driving a prius in California lost his brakes and could not turn off the engine going 90 + mph for several minutes on a CA freeway. Add this on to the last two months of recalls and testing and bad press.

It’s not good for Toyota. Brand equity is rapidly dissipating. Toyota has been #1 in brand loyalty among car customers for several years. Toyota owners love their cars. The American public used to hold the Toyota brand in the highest regards. But this is changing. Once a respected and admired brand, they’ve lost credibility, billions in market share, and continue to make wrong decisions in pr and response to this nightmare.

How quickly a brand can go bad. Literally overnight.

A couple of things I’ve noticed about this whole situation which might speak towards how we can avoid brand meltdown in our organizations:

1. it seems that Toyota has gotten lazy. That is pure speculation, but a good guess I believe.

2. Quality and excellence still matter. Loyalty can only get you so far. You still have to deliver a great product. That’s what the Toyota brand has stood for in the past.

3. Authenticity wins. Putting Toyota executives on TV doesn’t show authenticity. The stiff guys in the suits just make us more leary that they are covering something up. Let’s hear some honesty- “yeah, we messed up. we’re gonna fix it.”

4. Shut up, own up, and fix it. There seems to be a lot of finger pointing among the brass at Toyota. The only person who seems willing to own up is the founder and Chairman, Mr. Toyota himself. But all of his top brass are trying to pass the buck. Someone needs to step up and be willing to change the game.

5. Find, recruit and create scouts. This is pretty simple, but find trusted leaders inside and outside your organization who will constantly look for areas, issues, problems that could potentially become a brand killer. These have to be leaders who will tell you what you may not want to hear, vs. just telling you what you already know.

10 minutes with Margaret Feinberg

Margaret Feinberg is great people. She’s the real deal. A great writer, author, speaker, Bible teacher, next-generation expert and friend.

We gave a copy of her most recent book Scouting the Divine to everyone in attendance at Catalyst this past October.

In this interview, we talk about what she’s working on next, bowling, the current state of church leaders, and great perspective on farming at 4:30 into the interview. Great stuff from Margaret!

Tyler Stanton book now available

Maybe the most average book ever. Actually a below average read, but a great tool for other everyday items like holding important papers or swatting a fly. And a great coaster for your cold drink.

Ok. Just kidding.

Tyler Stanton‘s first book Everyday Absurdities is now available. You should buy it. Read it. And buy more copies of it for your friends.

Tyler helps us with lots of Catalyst stuff, is an emcee for our Catalyst West event, is part of lots of funny videos, a great writer, and a good friend.

It’s only $8.99 this week if you use promo code H5J74D59 when you buy it. If you’re like me, you can’t remember that code, but don’t worry. It’s on the page where you purchase, so you don’t have to remember it now.

If still not convinced, just watch this promo video. That will definitely make your decision easy!!!

Best Movies Ever

In honor of the Oscars happening this evening, I thought I would release my favorite movies of all time (or at least during my lifetime that I have watched). This list is purely my favorites, and I have no authority whatsoever to be a movie critic. So take this list like you would a Vitamin C pill……

Greatest Movie of All Time:

Star Wars

Greatest Sports Movie:

Rudy and Hoosiers (it’s a tie)

Greatest Miniseries:

Band of Brothers

Greatest Western:

Lonesome Dove

Greatest Scary/Thriller Movie:

Silence of the Lambs

Greatest Comedy:

Caddyshack

Greatest Romance:

Titanic

Greatest Action/Adventure:

Indiana Jones series (except for the last one)

Greatest Drama:

The Shawshank Redemption

Greatest Inspiration and Motivation Movie:

Braveheart

Greatest Sci-Fi Movie:

E.T.

Agree/Disagree?

Books I am Reading

1. Linchpin- by Seth Godin. An instant classic. Seth challenges us with the question, “Are you indispensable?”

2. Making Ideas Happen- by Scott Belsky. Releases next month. This book should be read by every person who is required to move things to completion.

3. Plan B- by Pete Wilson. I’ve said before, and I’ll say again, Pete is the prototype Catalyst leader. This is his first of I’m sure many books.

4. Rediscovering Values- by Jim Wallis. Subtitle is A Moral Compass for the New Economy.

5. The Me I Want to Be- by John Ortberg. A spiritual formation book. Classic Ortberg style, which is always great.

6. Take Your Best Shot- by Austin Gutwein. The story of Hoops of Hope. Austin is a hero of mine, and only 15!

7. Drive- by Daniel Pink. One of my favorite business authors out there.

What’s on your nightstand?

160,000 hours of service for San Diego

Had the chance to catch up with Miles McPherson recently. Miles is the senior pastor of The Rock Church in San Diego, and author of the book Do Something. In 2009, inspired by the book and the Do Something Campaign, The Rock Church provided 160,000 hours of service from the members of their congregation to the city of San Diego. Amazing!

The great thing is, any leader in any community across the country can do this as well. A practical way for all of us to get involved in making our communities better through local Churches.

Hear more regarding the Do Something campaign and ways you can get involved in the interview below.

Are you a CEO of something?

What are you CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of?

Recently read a great article from The New York Times that Scott Harrison had recommended.

The article is an interview with Mark Pincus, founder and CEO of Zynga.

In the article, Mark talks about the importance of each member of your team determining what they are CEO of. This is a really helpful exercise, and one I am doing right now with our Catalyst team.

In quoting Mark Pincus in the article:

“I’d turn people into C.E.O.’s. One thing I did at my second company was to put white sticky sheets on the wall, and I put everyone’s name on one of the sheets, and I said, “By the end of the week, everybody needs to write what you’re C.E.O. of, and it needs to be something really meaningful. And that way, everyone knows who’s C.E.O. of what and they know whom to ask instead of me. And it was really effective. People liked it. And there was nowhere to hide.

I think that was a big lesson for me because what I realized was that if you give people really big jobs to the point that they’re scared, they have way more fun and they improve their game much faster.”

Obviously there are only a few leaders over the course of their career who will ever have the title of CEO next to their name. But this is a great exercise, and a great way to engage your team/staff in embracing their areas of responsibility/ownership.