Summit Marathon

Before I leave for the GLS my goal is to watch the 8 sessions we'll show in order, so I can be prepared to understand what is happening in the room (since it will be translated into Spanish)and assist the facilitator for the Sessions.

This morning as I'm watching Session One... I'm reminded why I love the Summit and it's got me so excited to take it to Honduras next week. Here are some notes.

Session One – El Gran Dilema para la Toma de Decisiones- Bill Hybels
The Summit promise: we will break our backs to host an event every year that has a lazer focus on leadership. All new material, every session, every year. A faculty of fired up practitioners and not just arrogant theorists, a high intensity, high challenge atmosphere that we don’t apologize for, ever. We dumb nothing down.
We teach leadership from a Christian perspective unapologetically.
We believe that leaderships highest usage is not just the making of money or attaining of power, but that leaderships highest usage is to advance the purposes of God in this world, everything else is alright but that’s just the best thing.
God rock the Summit, rock it with your presence and power, rock every leader, every life, every church, every company, every organization represented here.

Give us the discipline to learn well and to learn deeply.

Anyone who leads makes decisions every day. So much of leadership is making decisions. Some of our decisions have very high stakes. This is part of what leaders do, it’s why God gave some of us the gift of leadership. A leader can master the art of decision making.

Do you have a framework, process that you go through routinely that helps you arrive at an effective God- honoring decision.
1- Does the Bible say anything about this?
2- What would smart advisors advise me to do? Listen to all sides of the counsel but know at the end of the day you have to make the decision yourself
3- PG&E question
a. What have I learned from the PAIN of last decisions? Fresh wounds or old wounds, the pain that I or others have experienced.
b. What have I learned from the GAINS of experiences in the past that would inform you for this upcoming decision?
c. What have I experienced in the past. . Add to the vault of your own wisdom over time as you lead.
4- Is there a prompting of the Holy Spirit? Rely on the promptings of the Spirit. Romans 8:6 when you are in step with the Spirit it leads to life and peace. When you are heading the right direction there will be a vitality of spirit, a serenity in your inner world, even though the decision may have huge implications. Suggest: Make a trial decision before the decision has to be made to see if life and peace are coming as a result of the decision or if a kind of worry and anxiety is present, in which case I can make a change in the decision before the decision is due.

Leaders cannot be decision averse. It’s what they do. You have to take responsibility for the decision.
If the decision turns out well you… thank God, that others, the experience vault, the Spirit, thank everyone.
If the decision turns out bad- you blame no one and you take the hit, you bear the consequences, take full responsibility.
Staying absolutely clear about owning responsibility for the poor decisions you make as a leader is what keeps the learning intensity so high in your life. If you’re fuzzy about who made the bad decision, chances are everyone will be fuzzy about what should be learned so that better decisions are made in the future. And we all want to get better at decision making so take responsibility.

Taking this to the next level:
Some leaders not only have a framework like we described, but they learn to condense/compress them in to self-composed leadership proverbs that give them focus counsel, micro-waved counsel for their decision making. I shared a few of my leadership "axioms" at this post in August.