Will Mancini

Joel, my 14-year old son, and I went fly fishing last week on our trip to the Teton country. We hired a guide who schooled us on what would be our first full day out and first time holding fly rods.  It’s not too hard to pick up the basics, but as experience fisherman will share, you can spend the rest of your life mastering the art of nuances fly placement. 

For hours we worked the angles, trying to lock in on the 10 and 12 o’clock positioning of the ideal fly cast. The amazing thing is when you feel the perfect cast, you discover that the fly rod does all the work in projecting the fly forward. To achieve this dynamic, two things are important. First you need to stop the backcast at the right position. Second you need to delay for a moment to let the fly line extend all the way backwards before bringing it forward.

It’s quite startling when you realize how little you need to exert force to get the best cast. All morning I was working 2-3 times harder than necessary. What did my guide say that made the difference? He said, the last 10% on the backcast makes all the difference.  Sure enough, as I focused on the last 10%, the results were huge and almost effortless. The fly jumped way ahead with much less muscle.

The parallel to clarity  in the life of the leader is stunning. Often  a leaders works 2-3 times harder than necessary. Better results are possible with less effort. That’s not an exaggeration: better results are possible with less effort. How can that be? Clarity enables you to focus energy and attention in the just the right place to maximize your return.  It removes distractions, eliminates side-ways energy and allows all the “people and parts” of the organization to be fully utilized (like the fly rod). The last 10% is particularly applicable when it comes to articulating vision. Most highly gifted leaders stay 70%-90% clear. But when you close the gap of the last 10%, exponential results will follow.

Just like my casting.

So many people today throw out the baby with the bath water when it comes to mission. They say that mission statements don’t mean anything. And if you look at common practice that is a reasonable conclusion. But mission can and should live at the center of your life as a leader and your organization in an amazing way, in the same way that it did for Jesus and his 12 disciples. No one was ever clearer about the origin, their mission and their destiny than Jesus. What is your mission? Chapter 12 provides everything you need to lead with mission, as we define it as a missional mandate.

“The ultimate guide to articulating vision” is how I think of Part 3 of Church Unique. If you haven’t checked out the book yet, click on the link to the right and get the sample chapter. Here is the opening parable of three brick-makers.

In the last month, I spent time with two megachurch leaders that most readers would recognize. After extended conversation, I learned that both of these leaders had a high self-assessment on their organizational clarity and vision. But my assessment was different.

For example, one church, known for its innovation and cutting edge communication, couldn’t answer the simple Vision Frame questions of “How do you accomplish the mission ?” (strategy)  or “What kind of disciple is our church designed to produce?” (life-marks).  If these are unarticulated, then there is some clarity work to be done.

 Why the gap between the leaders self-assessment and my own?

 My best guess is that they mistake momentum and vision. It’s actually quite common among growing churches. The underlying assumption of the senior leader is that growth must be caused by a strong vision. In reality, momentum can be driven by things unrelated to vision, like personality, extreme spiritual gifts, impressive facilities, growth in the surrounding community or a failed church down the street.  

How else could you describe this momentum-vision deception? Imagine zooming down the road in your convertible even though you don’t have a clear destination or a good map. It’s easy to feel good driving fast; the euphoria of acceleration and speed alone can satisfy.   If someone is sitting in the passenger seat and asks a question about destination, the driver’s unspoken thoughts would be “Look at how fast we are going!  Quit bothering me about a map and feel the speed. Do you really think we could be driving this fast without knowing where we are going?”

 If you are experiencing momentum in your church right now, fantastic! How might this blessing be blocking the need to do some clarity work?

Why should you believe in vision today? Here are a few bullet points from Chapter 5. Remember, clarity isn’t everything but it changes everything!