Willow Creek GLS--David Livermore on Cultural Intelligence

(Notes from the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit)

I want to share a story with you.  I was in China speaking for 10 days straight and on the 3^rd day I’d started to find my stride. I started my presentation well and didn’t know my speaker wasn’t translating my story. The translator was actually cuing the audience when to laugh.  I thought I was culturally relevant!  Often our mistakes teach us more than our successes.

Cultural Intelligence=Capability to work and relate effectively in culturally diverse situations

Described by—

1)   CQ Drive—your level of interest, persistence, and confidence during multicultural situations; can I see the situation through the eyes of the others?  Exercise perspective taking—can I see their perspective?

2)   CQ Knowledge=Your understanding about how cultures are similar and different—studies done about how Christians in different cultures view Jesus’ teachings—in story of prodigal son, why does he end up in the pig pen: Russians—he ended up there because it was a famine;  Tanzania—because no one gave him food; Americans—because he squandered the wealth he’d been given (the actual text supports each of these perspectives) The benefit of different voices is the various perspectives we gain.  Maybe convene a diverse group of leaders to discuss a leadership topic together.

3)   CQ Strategy—Your awareness and ability to plan for multicultural interactions.  Many times what happens is we don’t teach strategy. You make the situation worse if you just teach diversity with no strategy. Before doing a routine task sketch a brief plan about how to approach this with an unfamiliar culture and make adaptations.

4)   CQ Action—your ability to adapt without going too far

To Adapt or Not?—

1)   Is it a ‘tight’ or ‘loose’ culture?—how much difference will it make if I adapt or not?

2)   Will adapting compromise the organization or me?—sometimes the cultural norm may be something I’m unwilling to do because of my values

3)   Will retaining the differences make us stronger?—too much adaptation may be patronizing or harmful

Diversity doesn’t always lead to innovation. Homogenous teams generally innovate better than diverse teams unless the leaders have high cultural intelligence. 

How do you know what your Cultural Intelligence is? Visit culturalIQ.com/gls for one complimentary self-assessment.

Everyone who desires to can improve their cultural intelligence.

Willow Creek GLS--Rasmus Ankersen

(Notes from the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit -- whew! This leadership stuff can get complicated!)

I want to start by showing you something (old model cell phone Nokia.) In many ways it embodied resiliency, quality, and innovation. It led to a case study at business schools around the world. Nokia is not just a story about success; it’s also a story about a company that lost their mojo.  Maybe we don’t talk enough about the challenges that follow success: arrogance, complacency, resistence to change.

Human beings are living longer and longer but companies live shorter and shorter.

As leaders we need to think about how we keep our organization relevant and fresh? How do we reinvent from a position of strength?

If it can happen to Nokia, it can happen to you too.

Two stories—one about football and one about a statistician.

Outcome bias= we assume good results always come from superior performance

Newcastle United football (soccer) club plays at St. James Park and has 50,000 fans at the stadium every week.  In 2012 they finished 5^th in their league—an amazing performance for them.  They rewarded the head coach with an unbreakable eight year contract and tried to keep the squad together.

The following seasons they dropped to 16^th place. Nothing had changed yet they dropped 11 places in a year. In football there’s an old expression “The League Table never lies!”  But it’s not that simple according to a gambling pro—an Oxford grad in physics.  We discussed whether gambling strategies/predictions would apply to predicting football success.

What you need to understand is “The League Table ALWAYS Lies” because football is a very random game. The fewer goals there are in a sport the more impact there is from random events. The best team wins less often in a low-scoring game like football.  The way a gambler deals with this he looks at underlying performance that has more predictive value.

All goals in football are important but not all are equally important.  This is called goal differential. Another statistic gamblers look at is shot differential.  They look at these rates to see which teams are most likely to have sustainable success. 

We can assume that good results are always the result of good decisions or performance, BUT

“Success turns luck into genius.” 

Successful organizations should think more like good gamblers. Why were we successful?

Lego has been willing to evaluate their success. After they sent out 30,000 sets of police station Legos and all were sold they realized one piece was missing in each set. Less than 2% of the people who bought it called for a replacement part and the rest may have just bought a competitor’s product the next time.  When we hear from 5,000 complainers there may actually be a million complaints.

1)   Never trust success

Second story  --4 Ethiopian runners winning gold medals in the London Olympics and all came from Bekoji, Ethiopia that has 17,000 people and produced many gold medals.  

35% of the world’s best female golfers are from South Korea. 

What can this teach us about how to develop high performance success?

The Gold Mine Effect --  video of Kenya training camp; Jamaican training camp, South Korean golf training camp; -- 6 months I traveled around the world and trained in each of these places.  I wrote a book called “The Gold Mine Effect”

Jamaica—Usain Bolt—fastest man on the planet—people say “there must be something in the water in Jamaica”.  Let’s rule out super-genetics.  I got to the training camp early in the morning and couldn’t see a running track.  Ten minutes later Stephen Francis head coach of MVP track in Jamaica arrived.  He’s never sprinted; he graduated with a statistics degree.  I expected to see a modern training facility but all they had was a grass track and a shack with rusty weights.  Stephen Francis said,  “I believe strongly a performance center must be designed with work in mind and not comfort.” 

The important question is: who cares the most? Who wants it the most?  Sometimes comfort becomes more important than improvement.  Too much comfort=no real improvement.  Can you have too much comfort?  As leaders how can you create the discomfort you need to move forward?

Back to Lego—who is the main competitor? Is it another toy company or is it Apple? Coca Cola won the battle against Pepsi but then said what if we’re competing not just against other soft drinks but against any beverages in general? 

2)   Re-think your potential

Make the world bigger and yourself smaller.

Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit--John Maxwell

(At the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit for some leadership training to help our Operation Christmas Child team.)

Here John Maxwell shares what all leaders have in common...

All leaders see more than others see and they see before others see.

Fast is faster than it’s ever been and forward is shorter.  In the 1980s there weren’t any leadership book; there were management books. Leadership books started in the early 90s.  The question is: if it’s that way, how do we see more and how do we see before?

Let’s just think of getting started first. How Do I increase my “more and before”?

1)   Know that there is more “More and More Before” out there (Think Abundance) – creativity and flexibility. If you don’t think there’s an answer you will quit. Flexibility means there’s probably more than one answer.  As I’m older I have less certainty. The things I’m certain about, though, I am MORE certain about than ever. I’m certain that if we think abundance that there is more and before in front of us.

2)   Develop a process for finding more “More & More Before” – action process with 5 steps (test, fail, learn, improve, reenter)

3)   Put yourself in places & with people who will inspire you to see more “More & More Before.”—the GLS over the years has helped me learn so much.

4)   Intentionally grow every day so you will have capacity for more “More & More Before.”  If you’re still excited about what you did 5 years ago you’re not growing.. I talked to my 96-year-old father last week and he said, “Son, my best years are still ahead of me.” My father is going to live until he dies and not the other way around.

5)   Always have a vision gap that requires you to need “More More & More Before” – vision gap is the space between what you are doing and what you could be doing. 

How do we fill the vision gap?

1)   Ask God to send you the right people (and pray that you will become a better person)

2)   Ask God to do for you what you cannot do for yourself (Ephesians 3:20 from The Message)—this leaves God room—the ceiling of my potential is the floor of God room.  He wants to do in you and me a God room work. One of my mentors said, “Do something so big that people who know you will says that is beyond his ability and only God can do that.”

Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit--Danielle Strickland

Danielle Strickland talks about gender mutuality at the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit

We’re in a strategic cultural intersection where the relationships between men and women are eroding. Women are exposing the pain of sexual harassment. And thank God. I believe the truth will set us free. But that disrupts us and we hate chaos and being out of control. Our reaction is to deny or blame or hide or try to find knee jerk reactions.

For those of us who want to be transformational leaders we’ll see this as an opportunity to create a different better world. Years ago I met a woman who changed Sweden’s mind about prostitution. She said it was easy. She  said there’s two things: 1) to be able to imagine a better world and 2) to understand oppression.

The first day my son came home from kindergarten he said it was boring. We told stories about what we did over the break and I wanted mine to be really good so I made one up.  The thing my son was after is what we’re all after—a better story.  I want to live a better story.

I’ve got a story that’s possible. Women and men are better together. We desire this deep inside of us because we’re designed for this.  When God created He first tried a man by himself in charge and God said, “This is not good.”  Then God creates woman as a helper so we could be better.  The world will be better if we lead together.

Step 1 – Believe it is possible.  If it became accessible for women to achieve their potential it would add 12 trillion dollars or 28 trillion to the world economy.  A necessary foundation for a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world is gender equality.  Believing it’s possible is to refuse despair—to shatter the status quo and believe for the future to change.

Step 2—Do not be afraid.  2/3 of women in the world are not optimistic gender equality can be obtained.  Gandhi said we think the enemy is hate but it is fear.  God’s design is for every single person to be free. Exodus 1 says because Pharaoh was afraid of the Israelites he oppressed them.  If our decisions and dreams are fear-based we will be oppressed or be oppressors. Fear is the currency of oppression. So how do men and women work together without fear.  Difference and mutuality.

Difference=we are not the same. To be human is to be unique. Part of our humanity is difference. When we over-emphasize one difference it leads to a distortion of our humanity. Difference through the lens of fear is a threat but through the lens of faith it’s an opportunity.

Mutuality=the sharing of a feelings, actions, and relationships between people. Ubuntu: the belief in a universal bond between us.  Power and sex are the foes of mutuality.  35% of women living globally hae experienced physical or sexual violence; 1 in 4 women in US will be sexually assaulted during their lifetime.  We hear the pain of women who have suffered inequality, injustice, and sexism on any level. The truth you are telling is essential for us to understand to make the world a better place. 

We believe the future will be better together.  We have to look at one of the main sources fueling that oppression.  Pornography—1 in 6 computer searches are for porn. 60% of men admit to using porn once a week. What happens to the way you view gender if the lens through which you view it objectifies women. Pornography needs to be confronted by a generation that will not be afraid to tell the truth.

Objectification is the opposite of mutuality.

Power is the other foe of mutuality.  Power is the ability to influence the behavior of others.  Abuse: use to bad effect or purpose.  How do we use our power for change?

How we use our power is the measure of our leadership.  Misuse of power is coercion and threats; a good use is negotiation and fairness. 

A misuse is intimidation and a good use is non-threatening behavior.

Isolation is a misuse of power; trust and support is a good use of power.

Minimizing, denying, and blaming is a misuse; honesty and accountability is a good use.

Economic abuse is a misuse; economic partnership is a good use.

Male privilege is a misuse and shared responsibility is a good use.

Poverty is not just about economics; it’s about power. Great leaders use power to empower other people.   If power is a tool, how are you using yours.

This is so clear in the life of Jesus. Jesus’ modus operandi was to give power away. In a culture where women couldn’t sit in a room with men he invited women to sit at the feet of a rabbi.  Jesus invited women to be part of the Kingdom of God. Jesus shows us how to live our lives by using power to empower other people.

Step 3—Start now and start with you—How are we going to do that? I’m part of a movement called Amplify Peace. We listen intentionally to voices we don’t normally hear.  

Step 4—Never, Ever Give up.  –Morgan Stanley—Gender equity is a long term objective with demonstrable goals.  It takes a lifetime of doing things a different way.

Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit--Carla Harris

Carla Harris speaking at the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit about influential leadership.

I am so excited to be here today to talk about influential leadership.  I have learned a few things on Wall Street in 31 years. In my capacity as a banker I’ve taken hundreds of companies public I’ve seen influential leaders and some not so influential.

L = leverage—somebody on your team has the experience or access to a relationship that will help your team succeed. As a leader it’s your job to show your team how to access other relationships. Your job as a leader is to create other leaders.

E=efficiency—Be clear about what success looks like. Even when you’re unsure you need to define success. When you make a mistake, celebrate the mistake.

A=authenticity—authenticity is at the heart of power. No one can be you the way you can be you.  When you are comfortable in your own skin people will gravitate toward you.  Your authenticity is your distinct competitive advantage.

D=decisions & diversity—Make a decision even if you feel you don’t have all the wisdom you need. Every experience will give you the blessing or the lesson.  Diversity—every organization is competing so you need a lot of ideas in the room that will allow you to obtain and retain a leadership position.  Perspectives are born from experiences. Experiences are born from people. To get to innovation you have to start with a lot of people in the room. Diversity takes intentionality, accountability. There should be no lowering the bar. You have to guard against organ rejection. The body will naturally dispel what is foreign so when you bring in diverse people you have to work hard to make sure that person is accepted.

E=engagement—Being inclusive means hearing people and seeing people. When artificial intelligence becomes the norm relationships are the discriminator.

Transformative Leaders are--

Thoughtful

Transparent

R=Risks—You must be comfortable taking risks. Why don’t we take risks? Fear.  Fear has no place in your success equation. If you approach in fear you will always underpenetrate that opportunity.

The one word that goes through all these letter is courage.  It takes courage to take risks, to be intentional, to engage, to be authentic, to define success and to leverage other people’s intellect.  As people of faith you know you should never be deceived by fear.

Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit--T.D. Jakes

(here at the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit for some leadership training that might help us get more Operation Christmas Child boxes to children around the world.)  Here T.D. Jakes shares from his book "Soar."

I’m excited to be here and spend a few minutes with you. I’m amazed by the brain power on this stage.  I want to spend a few minutes talking to the people who don’t have enough time or money or support or energy to get ‘there’. 

A vision can be tormented. A vision should be a little bit annoying and frustrating. If you have a vision everybody believes in it’s too small. You want a vision that you have to  choose who to share it with.

I am the son of a janitor and a schoolteacher. My father was whatever he needed to be to feed our family. My father started a business in 1960 with a mop and a bucket in West Virginia.  Five years later with 52 employees I learned to believe in crazy stuff.

Recently I did research on the Wright brothers’ story and I am amazed at someone who can stand on the ground and say I belong up there in the sky.  You need to think something scary—something you can’t tell anybody about—you need to think beyond your means and dream something so ridiculous it gets you out of your comfort zone. When we’re petrified we’re also electrified.

The greatest things that ever happened came through people who didn’t have enough but had a vision bigger than their circumstance.  It doesn’t matter where you start; it matters where you finish.

When we started gospel plays the first three almost made us bankrupt. I finally did a play that got some acclaim and I hooked up with someone else who was trying to get started—Tyler Perry.  We started the play “Woman Thou Art Loosed” and won a festival and got a movie contract that changed the next 15 years of my life.

Things happen out of small places. What started in Dayton, OH ended up in Kitty Hawk because the wind was right.  Sometimes you’ll have a great idea in the wrong place.  You can fail because the wind is not right.  You might have the wrong wind.

I believe you are here today because the wind is right. If you do the right thing in the right wind you can spread your wings and soar. I’m not talking to the winners who have multimillion dollar budgets. I want to talk to the young entrepreneur who can’t figure out how to get off the ground.

So much of what we learn is about winning but what really stimulates growth is losing. You will learn more from losing than you ever will from winning. The things you learn from failure sets you up to fly. Never count your failure as wasted time. What inspired the Wright brothers were eagles.

Eagles make love in the air, they build nests on cliffs, and when the eggs hatch they kick the kids out of the house. Eaglets don’t learn how to fly by flying they learn to fly by falling.  As they flap to keep from falling they find out how to fly.  What do you learn from the failure that gets you ready for the next dimension?  Those are the lessons that enrich your lives.

If you’re making bicycles and thinking airplanes I want to talk to you.  That is what produces the mystery, the majesty. To believe you can stand on the ground but you belong in the air. And if you keep flapping and falling it might look dumb at first but after awhile you’ll get your rhythm.

Soar.  It’s your time. 

Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit--Juliet Funt

(At the Global Leadership Summit for some leadership training for the purpose of getting more Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes to children around the world.)

At last year’s GLS I taught you how to reduce busywork and this year we have a chance to go deeper into that.  We start with a story about my travel photographer husband who just did a book on Cuba. When we go to Cuba we stay with Marcos and every day is a celebration for him.  When we got there we found out the hot water tank was broken. Marcos told us he had installed in our apartment an “electric shower”. We all went to look at it and taped to the shower head with wads of electrical tape with wires hanging out. I said, “Isn’t it a little dangerous?” He said, “The electric current is broken in between the drums. The water droppy-droppy-drop and the current breaky-breaky break so you are no electrocuted.” That night before we tried the shower we said goodbye to each other. My husband got in the shower and when the water went on the lights went out. I found out the colloquial name for this contraption was the “widow maker”. I realized that the casualness of everyone around me is what made me comfortable in that shower.

Casualness can pierce your resolve and make you compliant. The area where this is most important to me is in the area of busyness at work. We are casual that we are wasting the time of smart people and that casualness is killing us.

I want to take you by the shoulders and teach you how to build a true culture of simplicity. We’re just at the leading edge of this change now. In our larger companies we see them do 3 things

--technology improvements

--reorganizations

--

these are bricks but they are missing the mortar. The mortar is the human mindset that is the key to making simplification real in a company.

Three behavioral blindspots

Conformity

Compulsivity

Control

Conformity—symmetric inertia= nobody changes until everybody changes so nobody changes

Candid Camera—produced by my father Alan Funt – best conformity examples you’ll ever see—(example of people facing backwards in elevator)

This mimicry is called social conformity

As a leader run all your actions through the White Space 50/50 rule—when you see yourself following take a small safe contrary action.  One small safe contrary action can start a new trend.

In the old days we women would talk and talk and in the end a quilt would be created. So, ladies, find a girlfriend with whom you can vent and “drain the well.” Someone who can just hear you.  THEN you go to the man in your life and say, “Hello, I have nothing to say to you.”

Compulsivity--Unnecessary communication at work will be reigned in by compartmentalization.

2D versus 3D communication. 

2D includes texting

3D are meetings, phone, being together

If you push 2D into a 3D medium you waste time. If you push 3D content into a 2D medium you waste content.

The Yellow List = a document you keep for each person you work with. You stop before you communicate to them and ask if this needs to be communicated right now. If not, put it on the yellow list for later.

Control—Watch other people do things wrong while you do nothing and this breaks the cycle of control. My new hobby became watching for stupid people doing things wrong so I could NOT be helpful to them. Leaders—“hands off”. While you are practicing that, practice second tier delegation.

2^nd Tier Delegation—in delegating to the 2^nd tier you build the next generation. 

The 4^th “C” is Compliance – I’m going to give you a take-home tool.  White Space refusal strategies—21 ways to train yourself to say “no” – go to whitespacegls.com

Memory is a funny thing. There will be some time when the only thing left in an organization is people’s memories of what you have done and of you.  Legacy is something that is yet to be written but to which you hold the key.  Use the bricks but don’t forget the mortar.