The Attacker’s Advantage

 

Issue No. 332 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (Nov. 5, 2015) features a powerful—and mind-rattling—book about uncertainty and how to recognize the bends in the road ahead. It will be on my Top-10 book list for 2015.  Perceptual Acuity Dinners  Huh? What’s a “perceptual acuity dinner?” Before I tell you why five CEOs have dinner together four times a year, let me mention that this issue’s book, The Attacker’s Advantage: Turning Uncertainty Into Breakthrough Opportunities, by Ram Charan, will certainly be on my Top-10 book list for 2015—and might be my book-of-the-year. Buy it! I’m privileged to serve as board chair at Christian Community Credit Union [2026 update: CCCU is now Adelfi and I no longer serve on the board.) This summer at our board’s annual planning retreat, we all read Charan’s latest book, in advance, and then every board member shared a 10-minute chapter review. It was energizing—because the book is so current, mind-bending, and alarming. (This is the third Ram Charan book our board has read.) Mike Pate, executive director of Transformation Ministries Camping (three camps in California and Arizona) just took his leadership team through the book last week. [2026 update: Pate is now general manager of Arrowhead Lake Association.] Ram Charan writes: “Uncertainty has always been a challenge to business, but never before has it had the intensity and potential to change industries and destroy companies as it does today. Business leaders can be on the defensive, or they can be on offense, prepared to lead decisively. The ability to deal with uncertainty is perhaps the paramount skill leaders must have to be successful in this era. Without it they risk becoming personally obsolete and driving their companies off a cliff.” Do you know the difference between operational uncertainty and structural uncertainty—and why it matters? (From Ram Charan’s website): “…Ram Charan shows what skills are needed to be able to spot the disruption that is coming, and what actions are necessary to take advantage of these changes. While many leaders know how to cope with operational uncertainty—when, for example, revenue fluctuates—the same cannot be said for dealing with structural uncertainty that can alter the money-making patterns of a company, industry or entire economic sector.”  The reviewer adds, “Charan demonstrates the huge upside offered by structural uncertainty and provides the concepts and tools—such as being able to spot the catalysts of disruption, building organizational preparedness, developing a financial understanding of the consequences—to take advantage of forces that are creating new customer needs, market segments and ways to make money.” Just look at the chapter titles. How can you not read this book?    1. Bends in the Road    2. Why Structural Uncertainty Is Different    3. The Mathematical Corporation: The Algorithmic Revolution and the Rise of the Math House    4. Searching for Early Warning Signals    5. Building Perceptual Acuity    6. Identifying the Catalysts of Structural Change    7. Seeing What Catalysts See    8. Tools to Build Perceptual Acuity    9. How Tata Communications Expands the Organization’s Lens   10. Going on the Offense   11. Defining the Path   12. A Mind-set for Offense   13. Kaiser Permanente’s Path Through the Turmoil in Health Care I plan to read this book again—because while it’s very well-written, the concepts cannot be mastered in a quick read or a cursory review. The insights and the principles from the book are now part of the lexicon at every meeting of the Christian Community Credit Union board of directors. Heed these warnings:    • “Uncertainty is not something to fear.”    • “Taking control of uncertainty is the fundamental leadership challenge of our time.”    • “The advantage (in businesses) now goes to those who create change.”    • “Taking advantage of the emerging landscape will almost certainly call for significant changes in how you define your business.”    • “The greatest risk of all is that leaders who face the need for radical change will deliberate too long and discover that the world has passed them by.” And more elbows-in-the-ribs: "No matter how successful it has made you, your past experience won't ensure success in the new world.” “Most of the 360-degree evaluations companies use focus on essentially the same traits. I have yet to see one that includes those qualities that I believe are now crucial for meeting the fundamental challenge of our time: perceiving the sources of uncertainty ahead of others, taking advantage of uncertainty to go on the offense, and preparing and steering the organization to adapt in tune with sudden changes in the environment.” “He [G.M. Rao, the chairman of GMR, India’s largest infrastructure business] once told me that every bend in the road contains a message about a future growth trajectory that someone could explore and exploit if he or she looked at it though a different lens without being controlled by an existing core competency.” “People often miss these early warning signals because they’re ‘flying at low altitude,’ immersed in the daily operating details of the business.” On perceptual acuity (a big theme throughout the book), Charan gives this definition: “Perceptual acuity is your human radar for seeing through the fog of uncertainty so you can act before others do.”  CNN owner Ted Turner had it by seeing the future of 24-hour news, while “SONY’s leaders slept through the dawn of digital music: a stunning lack of perceptual acuity from the company whose Walkman was one of the groundbreaking products of the 1980s.” Charan notes, “The greatest test of perceptual acuity is the ability to pick out catalysts and seeds even when the signals are weak, meaning that they are intermittent or seem irrelevant. Retailers lacking perceptual acuity might, for example, have underestimated the significance of Apple’s bringing in Angela Ahrendts as senior vice president of retail and online stores in 2014.  “What sort of nuttiness, one might ask was it to hire the highly successful CEO of Burberry, one of the world’s best brands, to run a mere division—one that is not even Apple’s largest revenue generator? “The perceptual acute person would immediately ask questions:    • Why would such a creative and accomplished executive give up a role as CEO to take on a lesser job?    • Is she perhaps a catalyst who will totally reconceptualize what the stores do?    • What might her intentions be?    • One hypothesis would be that she may convert them into a mecca for fashion and luxury, not just for hardware and software. [More on page 40!)    • They should add to their mental data bases the fact that Apple invited fashion journalists to its September 2014 unveiling of the Apple Watch.” (The editors at Fortune magazine may have read Charan's book. Read the Sept. 10, 2015 article, "What the Heck Is Angela Ahrendts Doing at Apple?") Charan shares practical tools for practicing perceptual acuity because it’s “now part of your job and will raise your value as a leader.” He adds, “You need to be on the alert for what is new and what is an anomaly, contradiction or oddity.” Yikes! This review is already too long…and you’ll miss oodles of important stuff unless you buy this book. So…what about those perceptual acuity dinners? “Your social group, too, can sharpen your antennae. Surrounding yourself with people from different industries and backgrounds, with different cognitive bandwidths and attitudes about risk-taking, helps you see the same world through different lenses. Discussing your external perceptions lets you test them against theirs, so you have a better chance of being accurate.” In his chapter, “Tools to Build Perceptual Acuity,” he highlights a mid-forties CEO, “Clare,” who meets with four other CEOs four times a year for dinner. “Their meetings, and informal conversations between get-togethers, serve as a sounding board for each to cross-check thinking and provide a foundation for superb foresight.  “In addition, they all make it a habit to seek out and listen to people whose endeavors or expertise gives them insight into external change. They create a multiplier effect magnifying each other’s power of observation.” There are dozens of weapons in the attacker’s arsenal—and (have I mentioned this?) you must read this book, perhaps, to even survive. To order from Amazon, click on the title for The Attacker’s Advantage: Turning Uncertainty Into Breakthrough Opportunities, by Ram Charan.   Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions: 1) To develop a mind-set for offense, the author says it will “almost always require taking action before you have a crystal clear picture of all the factors your success will depend on.” Where is your organization or department on the continuum between Still Learning versus Bold Leaping? 2) Assess your team members, board members, and/or volunteers: who already demonstrates the paramount skills required to deal with uncertainty? What can you do to inspire, encourage and resource them? (Step 1: buy this book!) Plan B (for Bruises) As we cycle through the 20 buckets, here is a reminder from the Strategy Bucket, Chapter 3, in Mastering the Management Buckets. According to Mike Tyson:   “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face!"   For more insights and resources, visit the Strategy Bucket webpage.   MORE RESOURCES: • BLOG: Pails in Comparison • SUBSCRIBE: Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews • JOHN'S REVIEWS ON: Amazon  • WEBSITE: Management Buckets • BLOG: Governance of Christ-Centered Organizations • PODCAST: John Pearson's Buckets Podcast   ECFA BLOG on “Governance of Christ-centered Organizations” – Add your thoughts and comments to John Pearson’s blog, "Governance Stew." NOTICE! As of Oct. 1, 2025, all 657 eNews issues archived on Typepad.com are slowly (!) being moved to this blogsite.

Breakthrough

 

Issue No. 319 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (March 13, 2015) suggests that nonprofit leaders present “the good, the bad, and even the ugly” when inspiring donors to fund a big dream. Read about Randy Samelson’s six-step plan, courtesy of King David.    Log Jams and Planning In his new book on planning, Randy Samelson quotes military planner Helmuth Von Motke who said, “No plan survives contact with the enemy.” If you’ve ever endured a strategic planning process, you might add:    • No plan survives…contact with the board of directors.    • No plan survives…a major donor’s pet project.    • No plan survives…a wordsmith’s 17th revision of the mission statement.    • No plan survives…a simple request, “How can we make this better?” There’s help! Breakthrough: Unleashing the Power of a Proven Plan is simply that—a breakthrough for leaders! Brilliant and biblical, this six-step planning model is concise, yet comprehensive.  Every chapter is filled with the holy—and the practical (very practical). The wisdom and insights are PowerPoint-worthy, but delivered with humility and life-in-the-trenches experience.   Samelson says that “most dreams get stuck along the way to becoming reality.  ‘Stuck’ is where dreams go to die.” To get unstuck, he asks leaders to discover a 3,000-year-old template “to help you break through the barriers that will inevitably confront you.” Founder of Counsel & Capital, a nonprofit that “invigorates Christian ministries and donors by advocating biblically-based principles of governance and giving,” Samelson has inspired hundreds of nonprofit leaders by helping them merge a credible plan with a credible ask. He believes a credible plan includes three elements: 1. It is written. 2. It is measurable. 3. It is responsive to the unexpected. Serving both nonprofit ministries and givers to nonprofits, Counsel & Capital helps people identify key opportunities or obstacles. They focus on the “Key Log.”  Borrowing the perfect metaphor from Fred Smith, Sr., the author explains: “…in the lumber industry when trees are cut and floated down rivers, they are susceptible to log jams. Over time, the industry learned that through satellite images and computer modeling, they could identify the one key log that if blown-up would release the log jam allowing the logs to move toward their destination.” “Individuals and organizations also experience the equivalent of ‘log jams.’ Progress is stopped.” Samelson says “there are biblical principles that can be used to identify the key impediment and wise strategies to eliminate it.”  So grab your pen (or request help online)—and answer this brilliant question in 15 words or less (his rules!): Key Log Question “Other than money, what one opportunity (or obstacle) if captured (or removed) would most advance your mission/vision?” Using the six-step plan in 1 Chronicles 28-29, Samelson shares his color commentary on King David’s baton pass to his son, Solomon. This is one succession plan that actually worked! The temple was completed. Solomon thrived. Outgoing CEO David did not whine in the background. Skip the six-step plan, warns the author, and you’ll face at least three problems when approaching givers:    • Problem #1: “You may lose your one chance to make a good first impression. You don’t often get do-overs when you ask people to support your dream.”    • Problem #2: “You risk appearing unprofessional. Enthusiasm and passion will not trump adequate preparation.”    • Problem #3: “You fail to respect your audience. If you go public before doing the legwork, you’re wasting everyone’s time. If you are unable to provide the basic foundation of a dream, a plan, a leader, and initial funding, you don’t have the right to ask for anyone’s hour, let alone their check.” Oh, my!  In my early leadership years, I gave over 100 talks from 1 Chronicles 28-29, a favorite passage. Little did I know—I barely skimmed the surface of this profound model of biblical planning. To my silent suffering audiences—please forgive me!  But now…you must read this book and go deeper.  Randy Samelson's insights and practical planning wisdom will expand your vision and enrich relationships with your team, your board, and your givers. I’m recommending it to all of my clients. To order from Amazon, click on the book title for Breakthrough: Unleashing the Power of a Proven Plan, by Randon A. Samelson.  Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions: 1) Samelson says if you read King David’s speech (1 Chronicles 28 and most of 29) out loud, it only takes about three-and-a-half minutes to communicate the vision, the plan, the right leader, and the initial funding. How long is your speech? #2. “Conventional wisdom,” says the author, “suggests you should try to communicate only the good things about your organization, but you actually gain trust when you communicate things that go wrong. (Sophisticated donors know every organization has problems.)” How transparent are you? We Energize People With a BHAG!   In my cycle through the 20 buckets, here's the core competency from the Strategy Bucket, Chapter 3, in Mastering the Management Buckets: "We plan, believing the results are up to God. We energize our people and customers with a Big Holy Audacious Goal (BHAG). We're systematic--never negligent--in our strategic planning. We know our mission statement by memory, and our programs, products, and services are in alignment with the mission." For more resources on planning, including a four-page worksheet, "The 7 Reasons Why Strategic Plans Fail," visit the Strategy Bucket webpage. MORE STUFF! • BLOG: Pails in Comparison • SUBSCRIBE: Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews • JOHN'S BOOK REVIEWS: on Amazon • WEBSITE: Management Buckets • BLOG: Governance of Christ-Centered Organizations • PODCAST: John Pearson's Buckets Podcast  ECFA BLOG on “Governance of Christ-centered Organizations” – Add your thoughts and comments to John Pearson’s latest blog, "How Would Your Board Invest One Extra Hour?"

Managing Transitions

 

Issue No. 357 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (April 5, 2017) features a book I first reviewed in 2007. The new fourth edition includes a foreword by Patrick Lencioni and celebrates 25 years in print with sales of over 650,000 copies. And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies). Change Is External. Transition Is Internal Imagine this! Patrick Lencioni at age 23: “I first met [William Bridges] before I knew he was a world-renowned author and thinker. I was introduced to him for an informational interview of sorts, just to learn about the world of organizational consulting.” Fast forward to Lencioni’s foreword in the 25th anniversary edition of Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change, by William Bridges, PhD with Susan Bridges: “All too often, people and organizations that are confronted with change find themselves struggling and don’t know why. They’ve applied every practical solution, quantitative method, and technical approach to managing change, and they’re at a loss for why it’s not working." Lencioni adds (with gratefulness), “And then they learn about the Bridges transition model and realize that change and transition are very different animals.” I never met William Bridges, but here’s what I said in my 2007 review of this national bestseller: Bridges writes, “Imagine that the change [you’re planning] is a cue ball rolling across the surface of a pool table. There are lots of other balls on the table, and it’s going to hit a few of them, some because you planned it that way and some unintentionally. Try to foresee as many of those hits as you can.”  When this book was first published in 1991, it was recognized as the definitive guide to dealing with change. It still holds that position. If it’s not on your organization’s resource shelf, it needs to be. William Bridges notes, “It isn’t the changes that do you in, it’s the transitions. Change is not the same as transition. Change is situational: the new site, the new boss, the new team roles, the new policy. Transition is the psychological process people go through to come to terms with the new situation. Change is external, transition is internal.” Being the boss is not always what it’s cracked up to be. When the book was first published, according to Bridges, employees were winning more than half of the wrongful discharge cases filed. “Stress-related disability, including the claimed stress of working for you, is another increasingly common complaint.” The 25th anniversary edition describes the book as “the best-selling guide to dealing with the human side of organizational change.” I've recommended the book to almost every one of my clients. Change is a given—but how thoughtful leaders, managers, and board members handle the psychological impact of transitions requires both understanding the problem and executing three critical steps: Step 1: Understand that transition begins with letting go of something. (See also Henry Cloud's insights in Necessary Endings, my 2011 book-of-the-year.) Step 2: Enter the neutral zone (the no man’s land between the old reality and the new). Some will abort in this zone, not wanting the pain. But it’s also the place where creativity, renewal and development will often occur.  “The neutral zone is thus a dangerous and opportune place, and it is the very core of the transition process.”   Step 3: Celebrate the new beginning, but it’s often torpedoed because leaders don’t mark an appropriate end to the neutral zone (or skip it altogether). The new beginning can only be effective when your people go through the first two steps. I love books that include pithy quotations—and I counted a whopping 87 quotes in the generous margins, including this from G.K. Chesterton: “An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly understood. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly understood.” Before you announce the next big change at your organization, order this book from Amazon by clicking on the title: Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change, by William Bridges. And…check out the free resource, “Getting Them Through the Wilderness,” by William Bridges, describing how Moses transitioned the Israelites out of Egypt and into the Promised Land. Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions: 1) Think back over some of the more significant changes we’ve made here in the last 12 months. How did those changes affect you: physically, emotionally and spiritually?  Were you surprised at the effects of those changes? #2. How much training, orientation or briefing have you had on the psychological effects of change and transitions? Would you invest two to three hours to read a book or listen to an audio book on managing transitions? Why or why not? Beware the Emotional Effects of Transition Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit Managing transitions is core to the Systems Bucket (Chapter 18) in Mastering the Management Buckets. One key idea in the core competency reads: “We have a heart to create systems that serve people, not the bureaucracy!” For example, as you lead your people through the three phrases of transition (Ending Zone, Neutral Zone, and the New Beginning), you must recognize that your team could be experiencing any one of 23 different emotions! (For more, read my governance blog: “Beware the Emotional Effects of Transition.”) For more resources in the Systems Bucket, visit the webpage. NOTICE! Effective Oct. 1, 2025, all 657 eNews issues, previously archived on Typepad.com are slowly (!) being moved to this blogsite   MORE STUFF! • BLOG: Pails in Comparison • SUBSCRIBE: Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews • JOHN'S BOOK REVIEWS: on Amazon • WEBSITE: Management Buckets • BLOG: Governance of Christ-Centered Organizations • PODCAST: John Pearson's Buckets Podcast ECFA BLOG on “Governance of Christ-centered Organizations” – Read John Pearson’s 2017 series on Max De Pree's book, Called to Serve. The former CEO of Herman Miller preaches, "Like a good leader, a good board doesn't inflict pain; it bears pain."

Team of Teams

Issue No. 345 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting (June 28, 2016) notes that when he faced Al Qaeda in Iraq, Gen. Stanley McChrystal quickly discerned that “efficiency was no longer enough” against the “networked mayhem of the 21st century.” And this reminder: click here to check out my  20 management buckets. And listen to this "explainer" video. Maps to Whiteboards: The 21st Century Metaphor  “When musician Dave Carroll's guitar was broken by United Airlines baggage handlers, he spent nine months navigating the company's telephone-directory maze of customer service representatives to no avail, so he wrote a song called ‘United Breaks Guitars’ and posted the video on YouTube.  “Within one day the video had racked up 150,000 hits and Carroll received a phone call from an abashed director of customer solutions at United. Within three days the video had more than a million hits and United's stock price fell 10 percent, costing shareholders $180 million in value—600,000 times the value of the guitar."  Within a week, the song peaked as the number one download on iTunes, and the company made a public show of donating $3,000 (the cost of a new guitar) to the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz at Carroll’s request (the makers of his broken instrument, Taylor Guitars, sent him two for free after watching his video). Click here to watch the entertaining 4-minute video, "United Breaks Guitars." Gen. Stanley McChrystal, U.S. Army, Retired, shares this story on page 63 of his amazing/terrifying/trend-bending book, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World.  Amazing…because the airline customer service debacle is just one of dozens and dozens of memorable stories that you’ll talk about with your team for months and years to come. “United Breaks Guitars,” by the way, now has almost 16 million YouTube views, a website, a book, a case study, and more entertaining videos—all focused on “how social media has changed customer service forever.” Terrifying...because Gen. McChrystal’s war on Al Qaeda (AQI) was unlike any the U.S. military had fought before. Any!  He writes, “When we first established our Task Force headquarters at Balad [in Iraq], we hung maps on almost every wall. Maps are sacred to a soldier. In military headquarters, maps are mounted and maintained with almost religious reverence. A well-marked map can, at a glance, reveal the current friendly and enemy situations, as well as the plan of future operations. Orders can be conveyed using a marked map and a few terse words.” But to out-think and out-gun Al Qaeda, everything had to change. “For most of history, war was a bout terrain, territory held, and geographic goals, and a map was the quintessential tool for seeing the problem and creating solutions,” the general notes. “But the maps in Balad could not depict a battlefield in which the enemy could be uploading video to an audience of millions from any house in any neighborhood, or driving a bomb around in any car on any street.” Then… (and here’s my favorite metaphor for all organizations that must move from “complicated to complex”): “In place of maps, whiteboards began to appear in our headquarters. Soon they were everywhere. Standing around them, markers in hand, we thought out loud, diagramming what we knew, what we suspected, and what we did not know. We covered the bright white surfaces with multi-colored words and drawings, erased, and then covered again. We did not draw static geographical features; we drew mutable relationships—the connections between things rather than the things themselves.” The lack of hierarchy and “adroit use of information technology” was a game-changer. McChrystal quotes military analyst John Arquilla, “We killed about 20 of Al Qaeda’s ‘number threes’ over the past decade, but everyone in a network is number three.” The old organizational charts (“what we were designed for”) mandated new strategies and new solutions because of “what we were facing.” The chart on page 25 is terrifying—both for the U.S. military and for our outdated management approaches: Trend-bending…because this book will rock your comfortable foundation. McChrystal writes, “When we realized that AQI was outrunning us, we did what most large organizations do when they find themselves falling behind the competition: we worked harder. We deployed more resources, we put more people to work, and we strove to create ever-greater efficiency within the existing operating model. “Like obnoxious tourists trying to make themselves understood in a foreign country by continuing to speak their native tongue louder and louder, we were raising the volume to no good end.” So as you and your team are facing uphill battles on multiple fronts and the myriad issues in the military acronym VUCA…    • volatility    • uncertainty    • complexity    • and ambiguity …what’s your plan? McChrystal has some solutions for you. In his chapter, “Leading Like a Gardener," the general messes with my favorite movie, The Hunt for Red October, starring Sean Connery as Capt. Marko Ramius, the cool-headed CEO of a new Soviet nuclear submarine. McChrystal says we must reject our love affair with “heroic leaders.” Not easy for a four-star general, who led the Joint Special Operations Command in Iraq during the Persian Gulf Wars, and retired in 2010 after serving as commander of all American and coalition forces in Afghanistan. Confessing to his own struggles, he writes: “Although I recognized its necessity, the mental transition from heroic leader to humble gardener was not a comfortable one.”  In the chapter recap (three succinct bullet points summarize each chapter), he cautions,  “The temptation to lead as a chess master, controlling each move of the organization, must give way to an approach as a gardener, enabling rather than directing.” Maybe my most compelling endorsement would be this: I’ll be at board planning retreat next month and all of us are reading Team of Teams and sharing the implications for our roles as board members, such as why moving from “complicated to complex” will require a “robust and resilient” response, per McChrystal. We’ll address this year’s book within the context of the last two books we’ve read:    • The Attacker's Advantage: Turning Uncertainty Into Breakthrough Opportunities, by Ram Charan    • Boards That Lead: When to Take Charge, When to Partner, and When to Stay Out of the Way, by Ram Charan, Dennis Carey and Michael Useem. Sorry—but if you still want to be the leader of your organization (or department) next year, this is a must-read book this year. To order from Amazon, click on the title for  Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World,  by Gen. Stanley McChrystal with Tantum Collins, David Silverman, and Chris Fussell.   Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions: 1) Gen. McChrystal said the “map was the quintessential tool for seeing the problem and creating solutions,” yet everything changed. What “quintessential tool for seeing the problem and creating solutions” are you still relying on—even though everything has changed? 2) Like “United Breaks Guitars,” you may be one video, one blogpost, or one Yelp comment away from immense and harmful social media. What’s your crisis plan—and when is the last time you’ve reviewed it? Who has authority to respond when senior leaders are all on vacation? (Visit The Crisis Bucket.)   "Team" in Name Only? Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit Would “team” describe your culture—or are you a “team” in name only? Or are you a “team of teams,” as Gen. McChrystal describes the opportunity in his book (per above).  Here’s a question: “If your organization or department were on trial for having a ‘team-based culture’ (per Gen. McChrystal, Patrick Lencioni, and others), would there be enough evidence to convict you?” For more resources from “The Team Bucket,” Chapter 9, in Mastering the Management Buckets, visit this webpage, plus check out another leadership/team book and my review of Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t, by Simon Sinek. The review includes a powerful excerpt of a former Under Secretary of Defense’s speech—with his own humbling confession. NOTICE! Effective Oct. 1, 2025, all 657 eNews issues, previously archived on Typepad.com are slowly (!) being moved to a new website here. New book reviews will also be archived at John Pearson’s Buckets Blog. Or, click here for John’s recent book reviews on Amazon.

MORE RESOURCES • BLOG: Pails in Comparison • SUBSCRIBE: Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews • JOHN'S BOOK REVIEWS: on Amazon  • WEBSITE: Management Buckets • BLOG: Governance of Christ-Centered Organizations • PODCAST: John Pearson's Buckets Podcast ECFA BLOG on “Governance of Christ-centered Organizations” – Add your thoughts and comments to John Pearson’s recent blog, "Criteria for the Nominating Committee’s Pipeline."

Well Connected - Partnerships

 

Issue No. 559 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting  (May 11, 2023) asks if you’re up-to-date on effective leadership models and innovative partnership strategies? Here are two books: a classic on partnerships, and new research on global leadership—more provisions for your lifelong-learning journey. And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies). Are you up-to-date on global leadership models and innovative partnership strategies? Here are two books: a new one (just 102 pages) and a classic (352 pages).   2 Books: Global Partnerships and Global Leadership Gut Check! If The Starfish and the Spider was the last book you read on movements, partnerships, and global leadership—the book that everyone was talking about 17 years ago—then it’s probably time to unplug and download some new models and frameworks. This issue features two books: 1) new research from Joe Handley on global leadership and movements, and 2) a related book and tribute to a friend, Phill Butler (1936-2023), and his go-to handbook on building partnerships.  As a reminder, The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizationsspotlighted numerous organizations—not top-down hierarchies (spiders), but starfish enterprises (like AA, Wikipedia, the Quakers, and the Apache) that rely on “the power of peer relationships.” But this issue reminds you to stay current—there’s much more today than just those fish and insects!   The best leaders today are lifelong-learning leaders—always looking around the corner and testing both old and new models lest their leadership skills becomes rusty, archaic, and grossly irrelevant. (Watch out for those flavor-of-the-month Tweeters, gurus, and podcasters. “Lead like this!” “No, lead like this!” “No…just stop leading and listen…to me!”) PHILL BUTLER (1936-2023). I was reflecting on all of this when I received the sad news that Phill Butler passed away on April 2, 2023, at age 86. Read his family’s tribute here and click here for information about the online celebration of life service, Saturday, May 13, 2023. His bio includes this: “Phill was a pioneer in the mission partnering movement and a visionary ministry entrepreneur who launched and led three world-changing ministries over the course of 50 years—InterCristo, InterDev, and VisionSynergy.”  I had the privilege of serving on the InterDev board for a few years—and I still remember the stunning impromptu mentoring lessons Phill shared in board meetings, often in response to a board member’s probing question. In one meeting, I said to Phill, a consummate lifelong learner: “That five-minute tutorial on global culture was stunning! How many times have you presented those insights?” Phill’s response: “That’s the first time. I just responded to that insightful question.” Our board’s response: speechless! BOOK #1: WELL CONNECTED The InterDev board kept reminding/inspiring (pestering!) Phill to write a book. Gratefully, much of his wisdom on partnerships was captured in his 2006 book, Well Connected: Releasing Power, Restoring Hope through Kingdom Partnerships.  Bob Buford (1939-2018) called Well Connected a must-read. Phill’s book has been published in 11 languages and it remains the go-to “handbook” for facilitating collaborative work among ministries and mission organizations worldwide. “Expect Problems With Partnerships” was the title of my first review of Well Connected (read the review here). While many of us claimed to be savvy about building partnerships, Butler’s book quickly dispelled that myth. If you read the book, be prepared to assess your current partnerships against Phill’s truth-telling principles on what constitutes a true partnership. Charles Handy once said that “the world may admire truth-tellers, but few will want to employ them.” (Did I mention gut check?) You may want to begin by reading the summary (Chapter 1) and then delegating your reading to a team member who will review the book at a future staff meeting. Notes:    • The appendix is worth the price of the book, especially the five-page “Partnership/Network Diagnostic/Evaluation Tool” for your current presumed partnerships.     • Or…you can rate yourself with 10 questions: “Are We Good Partnership Material?” If you score 60 or less (100 is possible), Butler suggests you host a leadership meeting to look at your scores and discuss improvement options.    • Or…check out “15 Critical Principles” of partnerships, including: 2) Lasting partnerships need a committed facilitator. 4) Effective partnerships have limited, achievable objectives in the beginning. 5) Effective partnerships start by identifying key felt needs among the people being served. 8) Effective partnerships are even more challenging to maintain than to start. 15) Effective partnerships expect problems and pro-actively deal with them. To order this book from Amazon, click on the title for Well Connected: Releasing Power, Restoring Hope Through Kingdom Partnerships, by Phill Butler.   BOOK #2: POLYCENTRIC MISSION LEADERSHIP Thank God for thinkers and writers like Joe Handley! The creative leader of A3 (formerly Asian Access), tackled a complex—but fascinating—topic for his Ph.D. dissertation. He explored “…a new theoretical approach to leadership that I call Polycentric Leadership.” His definition: “Polycentric Leadership is collaborative, communal leadership empowering multiple centers of influence, and a diverse array of leaders to meet today's challenges.” He describes six leadership traits in his model:    • Charismatic    • Collaborative    • Communal    • Relational    • Entrepreneurial    • Diverse If you’re a student of leadership and a lifelong learner, you’ll find Handley’s leadership model instructive and fascinating. Chapter 4, “A Model of Polycentric Leadership” notes concrete examples of organizations, including the Wycliffe Global Alliance (100 organizations!), and J.R. Woodward’s “Missional Church Model.” In that model, Handley describes “…how the equipping team leads like geese in flight, who share the leadership load and take turns based on their giftings.”  Hmmm. How about adding “Lead Goose” to your business card?  Yes, this short book (102 pages, plus the robust bibliography) reads like a Ph.D. dissertation because…well…it is a dissertation. But it’s a worthy addition to your lifelong-learning library. (Or at least, as Steve Leveen recommends, add it to your Library of Candidates.) Three Quick-Reading Options: 1) Visit the robust website, “Polycentric Leadership,” for articles, definitions, and more. 2) Read the short article in Outcomes magazine, “Polycentric Leadership: A Leadership Model for a Polarized World.”  3) Read the chapter summaries (and the page 52 chart) in Polycentric Mission Leadership: Toward A New Theoretical Model for Global Leadership, by Joseph W. Handley, Jr.  You’ll note that I paired Handley’s book with Phill Butler’s book (above). Handley references Butler’s wisdom 21 times with a few pokes-in-the-ribs on collaboration. Butler: “Everybody talks about collaboration, but nobody does it. It’s an idealized and realized value—there’s a huge difference.” Butler recommended the Harvard Business Review article, “Who Should Be Your Chief Collaboration Officer?” (That would also look good on a business card—if you actually did the work.) My favorite chapter, “Interviews Within the Lausanne Movement,” was based on interviews with 33 leaders from across the world—both inside and outside the movement. Jason (our son) and I were privileged to have roles at the 1989 gathering in Manila, Lausanne II: International Congress on World Evangelization. Now, almost 35 years later, it was fascinating to read about the internal conflicts, funding challenges, and leadership views (top-down or collaborative?). Maybe…they’ll know we are Christians by our leadership model? Handley doesn’t hold back—and his book also includes critiques of his Polycentric Leadership model. (Who does that?) Looking back at both my CEO years and my consulting years—leading and attending numerous seminars and keynote sessions with gifted global participants—I can vouch for the challenges of collaborating with a diversity of leaders. (Lausanne II hosted 4,300 leaders from 173 countries, including the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe!) I’ve made my fair share of cultural and leadership mistakes in Taiwan, Turkey, Thailand, Hong Kong, Austria and South Africa—to name just a few.   I confess in my Mistakes book chapter, “Traveling Without Preparing” (Mistake #11), that I should have been a more diligent student of global culture. Most books I read too late. (See also the six books in Part 13 of Mastering 100 Must-Read Books.) I was privileged to serve an alphabet of global organizations (WEA, EEA, ICETE, CCI, EMQ, WCA, and more), but if Phill Butler and Joe Handley had written their books earlier—that would have been helpful! Today, I pray for global leaders that their leadership “goes beyond a pulpit”—echoing the aspirations of Grace Samson-Song, a Lausanne board member. I also pray for one country a day from the prayer guide, Operation World, 7th Edition (soon to be updated), and the app. Or pray for the persecuted church with the GCR prayer app. To order the paperback edition from Amazon, click on the title for Polycentric Mission Leadership: Toward A New Theoretical Model for Global Leadership, by Joseph W. Handley, Jr. (Click here for Kindle edition.) And thanks to the publisher for sending me a review copy. YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS: 1) In Well Connected, Phill Butler wrote that effective partnerships have a “partnership champion” inside every church, ministry, or organization in the partnership. Why might that be absolutely critical? How are we doing on this principle? 2) In Polycentric Mission Leadership, Joe Handley reminds us that leading internationally is chaotic and complex—and even more challenging for “social sector” organizations, per Jim Collins (see Book #30 below). Another stunning example: the saga of Carlos Ghosn, who became the world's first person to run two companies on the Fortune Global 500 simultaneously (Nissan and Renault). How’d that work out? Read my review of Collision Course: Carlos Ghosn and the Culture Wars That Upended an Auto Empire and watch for my review of Boundless: The Rise, Fall, and Escape of Carlos Ghosn (I just read this...whew!). What leader comes to mind who emulates the six traits of Polycentric Leadership? How about 4 out of 6?        Mastering 100 Must-Read Books Part 4: The Mount Rushmore of Leadership Legends (Jim Collins) Book #30 of 100: Good to Great and the Social Sectors (just 35 pages!) For your team meeting this week, inspire a team member to lead your “10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning” session by featuring Book #30 in Mastering 100 Must-Read Books.    Good to Great and the Social Sectors:  Why Business Thinking is Not the Answer  (A monograph to accompany Good to Great) by Jim Collins Books #22 through #40 spotlight 19 books I named to “The Mount Rushmore of Leadership Legends” group—featuring Patrick Lencioni, Jim Collins, Ken Blanchard, and Peter Drucker. Part 4 features five books by Collins, including the first book I reviewed in Issue No. 1 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting.    • Read my review (very short!).    • Order from Amazon: Good to Great and the Social Sectors    • Download the 100 Must-Read Books list (from John and Jason Pearson) While Good to Great was written primarily for leaders of for-profit enterprises, this 35-page monograph is focused on nonprofits (the social sectors). The differences for the Good-to-Great Concept: BUSINESS SECTORS: “The profit-driven economic engine makes it possible to create a sustained machine independent of any single leader or funding source.”     SOCIAL SECTORS: “Funding often favors ‘time telling’ tied to specific projects or a charismatic leader, rather than to building a sustainable organization.” My favorite illustration: The Cleveland Orchestra which “…held itself accountable for playing the most challenging classical music with supreme artistic excellence, and doing so even better with each passing year, guided by the BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) of becoming recognized as one of the three greatest orchestras in the world.” What’s your organization’s BHAG?                     PEARPOD | TELLING YOUR STORY. It seems that everyone’s an expert today on telling your story: social media influencers, podcasters, pundits, and bloggers. Who do you trust? AI? The “experts” with tried and true research? Or new, but untested strategies and tactics? We can help! Contact Jason Pearson at Pearpod (Design, Digital, Marketing, Social). Segment Your Customers Prayerfully: The Engel Scale In “The Customer Bucket,” we reference the market segmentation principles from “The Engel Scale,” per James Engel’s and Wilbert Norton’s book, What’s Gone Wrong With the Harvest? A Communication Strategy for the Church and World Evangelism. Read Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook and leverage the six worksheets and resources from “The Customer Bucket,” including the Engel Scale.  NOTICE! Effective Oct. 1, 2025, all 657 eNews issues, previously archived on Typepad.com are slowly (!) being moved to a new website here. New book reviews will also be archived at John Pearson’s Buckets Blog. Or, click here for John’s recent book reviews on Amazon.   YOUR FIRST 37 DAYS! What if you only had 37 days to set the course in your new role as CEO of United Airlines? Read my review of this master class in leadership and culture, Turnaround Time: Uniting an Airline and Its Employees in the Friendly Skies, by Oscar Munoz with Brian DeSplinter.  MORE RESOURCES: • BLOG: Pails in Comparison • SUBSCRIBE: Your Weekly Staff Meeting eNews • JOHN'S BOOK REVIEWS: on Amazon  • WEBSITE: Management Buckets • BLOG: Governance of Christ-Centered Organizations • PODCAST: John Pearson's Buckets Podcast