I am starting a series of Leadership Lessons from Andy Stanley. I have a tremendous amount of respect for Andy as a leader and a communicator. While his primary leadership role is in a church his gifts extend well beyond into all realms of leadership.
Today we are starting with assumptions. I would suggest listening to Andy’s podcast and following along in the series. This can be found on in the Apple iTunes store under “Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast” – Now for the notes:
The Role of Assumptions in an Organization:
Remember, assumptions work underneath the surface, therefore as a leader we have to work to first:
- Identify the underlying assumptions in your organization
- Bring underlying assumptions into light with your team
- Align them with your organizations plans, goals and rocks
In the process you MUST keep this phrase in mind:
“The assumptions a team has held the longest or most deeply are likely to become its undoing”
One of the best ways to identify your underlying assumptions is to ask this question, which is a question Andy Grove (the founder and former CEO of Intel) asked his team: “If we got kicked and the board brought in a new CEO, what would he do? Why shouldn’t we walk out the door, come back in and do it ourselves?”
Will you ask this question? Many times we won’t because ALL of us are emotionally in love with the way we do things. Even though the way your are doing things may not even be working, you love it anyhow! We are all guilty of this.
So, then ask yourself: “What if someone with fresh eyes and no emotional attachment walked in, what would they do different and why don’t we do it instead?” The answer is because long after our methods are ineffective we stay emotionally attached.
Next Step: Ask yourself these two questions:
- What is in decline in our organization?
- We are you manufacturing energy around something in decline?
Once you ask those three questions (What if someone else looked at it, and the two above) you will begin to unearth and be able to start to evaluate all of your underlying assumptions.
Keep in mind the danger of these assumptions – they are usually those things that are driving our decisions and we don’t even know it anymore.
Once you have taken these steps, next you have to:
- Acknowledge what’s not working.
- Own up to why you aren’t willing to do anything about it.
- Next, actually go do something about it!
Final thoughts:
Anything you created you fall in love with and therefore you will naturally extend its usefulness. Therefore, instead of falling in love with what you created, fall in love with the mission and vision of your organization and don’t go beyond infatuation with your own ideas.
