[00:00:00] I think what happens in that is your progress probably won't be as fast as the sled dogs
[00:00:06] want and it will be a little too fast for the break people.
[00:00:11] But when you tell the story of the progress that is being made and you celebrate that
[00:00:16] together, everybody kind of goes, kind of goes, okay, it's working.
[00:00:20] Welcome to episode 324.
[00:00:22] When leading change, you discover quickly that some people want to run forward as fast for us to think about bringing people along on the journey with us. We get to be a big part of it as leaders and shape things and maybe generate the core focus of an idea or something, but it's so much more fun when a team wins instead of just one person kind of getting their way. So yeah, really appreciate it last week and looking forward to our leadership conversation this week.
[00:01:42] Yeah, me too.
[00:01:42] So you have this wonderful image
[00:01:45] that we're gonna get into.
[00:02:44] So long as they're willing to move things forward. And so we're gonna use this image of the dog slide
[00:02:47] to help us think about the kinds of people
[00:02:49] that we have in our congregations,
[00:02:51] in our leadership teams,
[00:02:52] and how is it that we can actually work together
[00:02:55] to move the mission forward,
[00:02:57] sustainably, wisely, down the pathway
[00:03:02] and avoid some of the pitfalls of just going crazy
[00:03:05] and going nuts and avoiding the pitfall
[00:03:08] of not doing anything at all. ministry or, you know, how we're going to deal with online church in the post pandemic era and like, or whatever it is, change if it's changed, they're on board, they're can't wait, they're eager. And sometimes they're so chomping at the bit, they would just run in whatever direction, you know, it doesn't matter. We're just ready to go. They're impatient to get started.
[00:04:21] They are ready for the work.
[00:04:22] Now, I think as leaders, we're kind of drawn to those kinds of people because we
[00:04:26] go, we're getting traction with, the vision of the moment. And we wanna see that thing make progress toward its destination. And so you're gonna need the dog sleds to pull the sled down the trail. And so picturing whatever your current project
[00:05:42] or vision or mission is,
[00:05:43] what is that thing that's sitting on the sled
[00:05:46] that you wanna see get down the trail
[00:05:47] and to make progress on? in our denominational churches, I think we have people that maybe once upon a time were dog-slade kind of people, but now are snow break kind of people that are people who are slow to change, cautious, they're always asking things like, what are the unforeseen consequences that we might encounter, or what might happen if we know, or whatever. They tend to like things the way that they are.
[00:08:20] They tend to be people who are now resistant to change, not so eager to get started. They no break and we're not going anywhere. Now here's the beautiful thing about a dog sled, I think, and why this image really works if we're trying to move that payload of our mission or vision or project down the road is that we actually need both. We need the break and we need the dogs out front leading the charge. And I think sometimes I don't like the idea
[00:08:23] of the break people because they're just kind of
[00:08:26] feels like they're getting in the way So this is a really dorky leadership image. I get it. I love it. I love it. I love it. And I want us to just think for a minute. If we only value the dogs that are out in front of the dogs land, if we only value the sled dogs, in fact, we say, take the break away altogether. What's going to happen?
[00:09:40] What's going to happen?
[00:09:42] We're going to crash.
[00:09:43] We're going to be in trouble.
[00:09:45] We're going to go flying down the trail, right?
[00:09:47] It's going to be the finish line. It derails because there wasn't enough buy-in from the whole congregation and a few people were leading the charge and running really hard. And then you look up and you go, this isn't sustainable. I think a lot of times when we think of change in the church and we want to revitalize and
[00:11:04] change the church, we go in hard up. I couldn't wait to begin to make progress on it. And I think we were right on the edge of launching this idea and sharing the vision with the congregation when our children's ministry director walked into my office and said, what are we gonna do with kids during this whole thing? And I was like, oh yeah, that's a pretty good question.
[00:12:20] What are we gonna do with all these kids?
[00:12:24] Well, we are so focused on getting the mission down the road,
[00:13:24] saying, I like the idea. I like the mission or the project that we're working on. But have we really asked all the questions? Have we really vetted this? Have we generated enough
[00:13:30] buy in from the congregation? Now, here's the thing. If you get rid of the dogs out
[00:13:36] front, all you're going to have is a sled stuck in the snow, basically, right? Yeah,
[00:13:42] you can't have all break and no dogs led of like that when you're all breaking no dogs. First of all, the dogs go find another sled to pull. Yeah, they sure do. Yeah, they will because they can't. That's they're made to race down the trail.
[00:15:00] I mean, that's what they're for.
[00:15:02] Right?
[00:15:03] That's what they want to do and they're passionate about.
[00:15:05] And but the break fully deployed. They're just stuck and forgot that the goal is to move down the trail. It's not to sit in the snow and get covered by snow and then eventually, you know, you've
[00:16:20] missed the mission there.
[00:16:21] And so the lesson for me is really to learn you're including in the conversations, you can decide about who gets to be part of the conversation at what point. But at some point, you're going to need both of those in order to really get to the place where you've thought it through and you're ready to have a rational explanation of how it is we're going to bring this about. You can actually, as we're going to talk some more,
[00:17:41] I think next week about overcoming resistance to change,
[00:17:44] I think you can do that when you've shown that we've
[00:17:46] included some snow break kinds of people in this process that toward our mission. I think what happens in that is your progress probably won't be as fast as the sled dogs want. And it will be a little too fast for the break people. But when you tell the story of the progress that is being made and you celebrate that together, everybody kind of goes,
[00:19:01] kind of goes, okay, it's working. We helpful image over the years. So I don't know, Jason, maybe this is a helpful analogy for you. But it's just another thing for us to keep in our tool belt for how to talk about change
[00:20:24] management with our congregations. that we have and all of that. I think there's something when we get to tell a story like this, or whatever illustration or analogy we can come up with, that kind of repositions all of it away from the actual people in the room onto this concept that just says, no, we care about moving things forward, and it takes all kinds of people to help do that.
[00:21:41] And then we get a reflect and go, who am I in this story
[00:21:43] and all the things that we do with those sorts of illustrations?
[00:21:46] So anyway, I found it to be helpful,