Summit Bound

This is one of my absolute favorite times of the year for one reason...Willow Creek Leadership Summit. I am getting ready to leave for this and I can't wait (we will be attending at a satellite location in our community).

It seems that each year, they seem to top the previous year. If you have never attended, you owe it to yourself to check it out. Great stuff!

Hire For Attitude, Train For Skill

I was reviewing my notes yesterday from the Willow Creek Leadership Summit I attended in 2005. When looking over the notes I took from the interview Bill Hybels did with Colleen Barrett (President of Southwest Airlines) I was struck by something simple she said.

She said that when hiring someone they do their best to make sure that the prospective employee has a great attitude above all else. In fact she said that they, “hire for attitude and train for skill.” Pretty simple but it obviously works for them (they consistently outperform most other airlines in almost every category).

This is a list of characteristics Southwest looks for in people:

1. Want to serve from the heart
2. Altruistic and caring
3. Sense of humor—take business seriously but not themselves
4. Common sense
5. Make eye contact with others
6. Mix well with others – introduces themselves…

Again, pretty simple and filled with a lot of common sense. Do you know anyone who could benefit by taking on these characteristics? I know that I plan on sharing this list with each of my children as I know it will help them to be not only better employees someday but also better citizens.

All In

Do you want to live life the way it was meant to be lived? I mean do you really? Even if it might be painful at times?

Yesterday I attended the Willow Creek Leadership Summit which was incredible. Today is the final day and I am looking forward to it very much.

Bill Hybels yesterday shared something during his talk on The High Drama of Decision Making. It is something that I have heard before, but for some reason it really struck me yesterday.

He said, "You will never live life that is truly life until you are fully and uncompromisingly devoted to Christ." This means in every area of your life.

Pretty simple, right?

So let's do it! Let's be like the poker players on TV and go "all in."

Words To Lead By (And To Live By)

Some of you have probably heard me say that we are all leaders because we influence others daily. I totally believe this.

At my church, we are on a campaign to encourage people to sign up for the Willow Creek Leadership Summit which is what I consider to be the best of the best when it comes to leadership development programs. We know that anyone who attends this will come away deeply impacted and it will help them in their daily lives, no matter what they do for a living. I like to tell others that it is really a summit on how to lead your life.

I recently received this 3 minute video in an email. I wanted to share it because it reveals some incredible leadership principles and, much like the Leadership Summit, it does it in such a way that anyone who views it could benefit. I hope you enjoy! Click here for the video.

Eating Humble Pie

I was at a meeting about the Willow Creek Leadership Summit yesterday afternoon. In addition to talking about the conference, the subject of some changes at Willow Creek Church came up.

They did something last year which surprised a lot of people. They did a survey of their congregation as well as the congregations of six other churches to find out what was working and what was not working. What they found surprised them.

They found that people were not growing in Christ the way they thought. As a result they are making some changes to the way they "do church." This is impressive to me. Not only are they willing to set their pride aside and say, "We were wrong about a few things" but they are willing to admit it to the world. (To read more about this go here.)

Bill Hybels, the senior pastor at Willow, has taken an incredible amount of heat over this. There are many who are laughing at him for being wrong. Many are inferring that because he was wrong in a couple of areas that he is wrong about everything.

That could not be further from the truth. What Bill Hybels and the leadership of Willow have shown is strong leadership - admitting when an error has been made, making corrections and moving on. We can all learn from this!