Watercooler Wednesday-Leadership Summit- Greatest Moments #2

I continue today with my reflections on past Leadership Summit talks that have impacted me.

Andy Stanley: Making Vision Stick (2003)

Andy is a gifted communicator and this talk was probably one of the very first talks that I had heard about vision.  Before this vision was such a unreachable term and so undefined in my life.  However, Andy made it clear with these points.

Making Vision Stick
"Vision does not stick without constant care and attention."
"It is up to each one of us to make sure there is alignment between the activity and the vision of our enterprise."
"If it's a mist in the pulpit, it's a fog in the pew." -Howard Hendricks
"If the vision is too complicated for people to embrace, nothing changes."
"Every vision is a solution to a problem." "What is the need or problem my vision addresses? and What will happen if those needs or problems continue to go unaddressed?"
"To make vision stick, a leader needs to pause long enough to celebrate the wins along the way."
"What's celebrated is repeated."
"Vision, not people's random ideas, should determine programming."
"What people complain about communicates their understanding of the vision."
"We pray for what we are most burdened for"

HT: Eric Thompson

This talk was so important to me.  Little was I to know that the coming months of 2003 and the rest of 2004 would be spent understanding the importance of the term Vision.  Our church was getting ready to enter an extreme period of transition without Sr. Leadership, without a clear and compelling vision and without a cadre of prepared leaders to shepherd the ship (me included).  This leadership summit talk was just the primer for me on the importance of vision in an organization.

This post is part of Watercooler Wednesday's over on Randy Elrod's blog, Ethos.