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I had an incredible time at the Catalyst Conference last week. The speakers, music, and total experience were all excellent! One of the speakers this year, with whom I was not familiar, was corporate leadership research guru Jim Collins. Jim’s book Good to Great has sold more than 3 million copies! If you lead people in your job or in your church there is much you can take away from his insight. You can visit his website for free tools and resources. Below is a rambling list of the notes I took while he was speaking.

• Greatness is not a function of chance. It requires intentionality and discipline. Good is the enemy of Great.
  • It took Starbucks 13 years to go to 5 stores.
  • It took Wal-Mart 7 years to go to 2 stores.
• The only way to be prepared for what you can’t predict is to have the right people on “the bus” (your team). You need to be asking Who not What. Get the right leaders at every stage before you decided to go bigger. The moment you feel like you need to micro-manage someone you’ve probably made a hiring mistake.
• Greed for too much (success), too fast will crash your organization.
• Research shows that great companies were lead by level 5 leaders. Level 5 leaders were strong personalities, who all had humility as their central character trait. They were committed to the success of their organizations not their own agendas.
• Every generation needs to find the practices that express the unchanging values that cross all generations.
• Personally we must build in Sabbaths (my words) into our lives -times for retreat and rest. We must create a top 3 priorities list. “If you have more than 3 you don’t have priorities” –Jim. We should also create a stop doing list. (Stop adding things to your life/organization without removing some things)