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I had a brilliant opportunity at the end of October to attend the Global Leadership Summit. No, I didn’t get to fly to Chicago, but they ran 4 summits around Nigeria using the video packs. I understand that they do something similar in 90 or so countries around the world. I’m writing a series of posts on things that I learnt or observed over those 2 days.
The first session was by Bill Hybels the senior pastor of Willow Creek Community Church and creator of the Global Leadership Summit. He started with talking about the Parable of the Sower, and how 75% of the seed that was thrown didn’t produce fruit. He had been challenged to consider the rate of seed that he had sown and how high his expectations were. He had been challenged to so more seed if he wanted more fruit.
I wasn’t sure how it applied to the ministry of Bible Translation but it did occur to me that we reap what we sow – so if I am determined to sow more patience, more gentleness, more of the things I want to be, maybe I will only get 25% of it to stick, but play the %. The more I sow, the more I’ll reap.
He had a whole lot to say, but the other thing that really caught me was about we influence. (Now just to clarify, ‘influence’ is not the same as ‘manipulate’.) If you are leading a team, you can influence them to be a better team, more productive, harder workers etc. Bill was saying that we can influence those under us, alongside us, or above us. In my roles here, I interact with almost all parts of our office and what Bill said next was brilliant. He took ‘influence’ and said, instead of trying too hard to influence, you need to energize people.
If you energise those below you they will work harder for you. If you energise those alongside, you will be able to partner with them better and they will be more prepared to partner with you. If you energise those who lead you they will involve you in more decision making.
So my challenge, as an INTJ aspie who lacks energy a lot of the time – how can I energise people to write good reports? How can I energise people to engage with strategy discussions? How can I energise people to try new file storage access systems?
Fortunately I don’t think it is about the level of energy that I possess. Rather, do I have the skills (for want of a better word) to enthuse others?
Any thoughts, greatly welcomed!
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