Faith

6 Things It Takes to Lead a New Organization

Today, I’m excited to share a conversation with two courageous leaders – Dan Smith and John Gilfillan – who are each rising to the challenge of using their leadership gifts and talents to start new organizations – church plants.

Starting a new venture of any sort is hard work (we have experienced this first hand at Next Level Performance), and statistically, church planting ranks with the likes of restaurants and retail stores as one of the most difficult new organizations to start and successfully sustain. Yet, Dan and John are already off to a strong start. Why? Leadership. In a new organization, everything rises and falls on it, and these two men are both leading well and learning a lot every step of the way.

Dan and John graciously took some time to share the most important things they are learning about leadership through the challenges of starting and leading a new organization.

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3 Things Leaders Do With A Position Of Power

3 Things Leaders Do With a Position of Power

3 Things Leaders Do With a Position of Power“Men, we have quite a responsibility to Michael,” Coach Murray said. He paused to let the words sink in, extending his right fist forward slightly toward the center of the locker room for emphasis.

“He’s listening every time we play.”

Meet Michael Kuras. Michael is 24 years old and lives in Southwest Michigan. An avid football and hockey fan, Michael never misses watching or listening to a game of his three favorite teams—the Detroit Red Wings, the Kalamazoo Wings, and the Western Michigan University Broncos. Even if they play on the same night.

“He’ll follow all three,” Michael’s mom Debbie told me. “He’ll have the Red Wings on TV, the K-Wings on one radio, and the Broncos on another radio. All at the same time.”

These days, in his early 20’s, Michael should be enjoying the fun, the challenge, and the adventure of the “prime years” of his young life—complete with plenty of hockey and football games. But Michael has been dealt a different hand. He is in the midst of a challenge and adventure that is anything but fun.

Michael is battling cancer.

I first learned of Michael’s story when a friend of mine connected me with Michael’s uncle. Determined to make a memory for Michael and provide him with some hope during the throes of chemotherapy, Michael’s uncle asked him, “What would you like Michael?”

The answer?

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4 Things To Do When Something You Love Ends

4 Things to Do When Something You Love Ends

4 Things To DoTis the season…for football coach firings.

Unless you have been exposed to the wild and crazy business of coaching, it’s easy to graze over the roller coaster ride many coaches and their families experience this time of year. At the collegiate or professional level, most coaches invest a minimum baseline of 80 hours a week (or more) into the game and profession they are so passionate about. Job security is non-existent as progress and success are defined by one thing—winning—and just a few bad bounces, often outside of the coach’s control, can lead to being fired. And being fired means the uncertainty of scrambling for a new position in a job market where a limited number of vacancies exist, while helping family navigate time apart, moving, and a new scene with new friends.

This holiday season I’ve reflected on this wild ride more than ever as I’ve watched it affect many of my friends in the coaching profession, as well as many men I played for during my career. One of those men is Scott Shafer, who made a meaningful investment in my life during his time at Western Michigan University. Coach “Shafe” is a quality man who coaches for the right reason—to take teenage boys and use a physically and mentally demanding game to build them into men ready for life. His Syracuse program finished 4-8 this year, losing to #8 LSU by only 10 points, losing a 3OT heartbreaker at Virginia, losing on a last second field goal to Pitt, and dropping a game to the #1 team in the country, Clemson, also by just 10 points. A different bounce of the ball in any 2 of those games and Coach “Shafe” is preparing for a bowl game right now. But despite his meaningful mission, “Shafe” was dismissed from his position and coached his final game at Syracuse just a couple weeks ago. True to form, he left with gratitude and class, as evidenced by an emotional and inspiring letter to his players.

At a personal level, I can relate to this rejection as I experienced the door closing on my dream of playing professional football over and over and over again. I had no plan B. In my mind, I was going to spend at least a few years in the NFL doing what I loved. The road had been long and challenging, filled with injuries and surgeries, but unless I was physically unable, nothing was going to stop me from achieving my goal. Or so I thought. I had to learn the hard way—despite my best efforts, there was a different and better plan for my life and career path.

But you don’t have to be an athlete or coach to experience these type of painful transitions. All human beings experience these life changes in some form. Whether it is job loss, retiring, a medical diagnosis, being denied entry to school, getting cut from the team, experiencing foreclosure and financial uncertainty, or something else unmentioned, we will all face these type of circumstances at some point during our lifetimes.

The harsh reality is this: on our temporary planet and in our fleeting lives, there is NOTHING this side of heaven we can do or have forever. Absolutely nothing.

So what do we do when something we love ends?

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The Best Leader You’ve Never Heard Of

The Best Leader You’ve Never Heard Of

Leader You've Never Heard OfMeet Nick Johnson. He’s probably the best leader you’ve never heard of.

Coach Johnson is the head football coach at Earlham College, a liberal arts institution in Richmond, Indiana. Earlham is home to just over 1,000 students, and its Quaker athletic programs compete in the NCAA Division III Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference (HCAC). The Earlham football program’s results on the field can be summarized in a single word:

Abysmal.

Since 1889 Earlham football has won just 36% of its games (360-605-23) and a dreary 24% of its conference contests (48-152). In the last five seasons, Earlham has gone 0-10, 1-8, 2-8, 0-10, and 0-10. This past year, the first under Coach Johnson’s guidance, the Quaker defense gave up roughly 58 points per game en route to the program’s second straight winless season.

But before you completely write off Earlham Quaker football, you must study the story behind the stat line. Just 12 short days ago, the unthinkable happened:

Coach Johnson was named the HCAC coach of the year.

In a statement announcing the honor, the conference cited: “respect for Johnson and his dedication to his profession, his program and his personal life” as key reasons for honoring the Quakers’ head coach. The statement continued: “Coach Johnson instills life lessons to his student athletes on the field while embodying real life challenges.”

How is this possible? An 0-10 coach named coach of the year?

Perhaps the better question is: How is it possible that Coach Johnson had the strength to coach at all?

Over the past two years, Johnson’s wife Melissa has spent over 500 nights in various hospitals—from the Mayo Clinic, to Indiana University, to the University of Cincinnati—battling a debilitating chain reaction of health challenges, ranging from severe intestinal problems to cerebral spinal leaking and brain swelling. From life flight helicopter rides to innumerable operations (Johnson said he “lost count after 13”), the Johnson family journey has been about anything but football. In addition to these unfathomable life challenges and the demands of a being a head football coach, Johnson is doing his best to raise Jayden and Jacob, ages 6 and 4, as their mother fights for her life.

When Johnson was offered the opportunity to take the helm of the rebuilding effort at Earlham, after serving as an assistant coach for the previous decade, he made up his mind to turn it down. His commitment and concern for his family outweighed his desire to fulfill his dream of being a head football coach. That is, until Melissa refused to take no for an answer. From her hospital bed she told her husband to fulfill his leadership calling—impacting the lives of young men on the grid iron.

But coach at Earlham? 3-46 in the last 5 years Earlham? Why would anyone want to take on what some might call an impossible challenge?

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The 4 Marks Of A Winning Leader

The 4 Marks of a Winning Leader

4 Marks Winning LeaderThe question made me squirm.

I was sitting in the right rear corner of the room, leaning back in the black leather office chair, stretching my arms above my head, when I suddenly snapped back to proper posture. I shot my glance toward the gentleman asking the question, then back to the screen of the video simulcast. This answer ought to be interesting.

I was in a live interview with a legendary collegiate coach who helped transform a Big Ten program from doormat to dominant in the 1980’s and 90’s. Most of the questions posed revolved around leadership, culture, teambuilding, secrets of success, and of course winning. Lots of questions came up about casting vision, setting direction, finding the right people (both players and coaches), and living by a set of core values. But this question was different and more pointed. The words seemed to hang in the air.

“Coach…what has your coaching career cost you?”

It was as if the inquiry came through the Skype camera like a Mike Tyson uppercut. The coach chuckled for a second—you know the type—the kind of half-hearted laugh we tend to exhale when we are caught off guard or surprised. After pausing for a moment, a distanced gaze came over this hall of fame legend’s face. After a few head shakes, the coach looked at us through misty eyes and said:

“Too much. It has probably cost me too much.”

Winning. Results. Success. It is what we recognize and glorify in our culture. It is what sells tickets and brings contract extensions and pay raises. It is the American Dream. But winning is hard. It is flat out, beyond a doubt, tough to win. Winning comes as the result of work, attention to detail, perseverance, and an unrelenting desire to get better. And sustaining winning over time is whole new level of habitual commitment and dedication.

In short, winning comes at a cost. And in our win-at-all-costs world, sometimes the cost is incredibly high. Consider the ways we’ve seen this desire to win manifest itself in the world of athletics in just the last 12 months:

  • Sports Illustrated found a growing concentration of young athletes using heroin has been linked to their use of painkillers to keep playing through injury.
  • The “Deflategate” controversy continues to stay in the news as the NFL hired one of the nation’s most prominent attorneys, Paul Clement, to challenge the reversal of Tom Brady’s suspension.
  • The demands, hours, and pressure to win take a heavy toll on coaches’ marriages and family lives, most notably and recently Florida State’s Jimbo Fisher and former USC coach Steve Sarkisian.
  • A recent survey published in the Boston Globe found 75% of youth sports coaches say parents put too much emphasis on winning and 95% of youth coaches report they have seen a parent yell at a referee during a game.

The expectation of any leader in any setting—athletics, business, healthcare, education, ministry, and more—is to get results. To produce progress. To win. Leaders must cast the vision, set the direction and then mobilize people to get it done. Why play, why lead, why even show up if you aren’t there to win? Winning is a good, dare I say, even a noble pursuit that is worth our best efforts. But if we leave a wake of damage and destruction behind us on the path to the prize…have we really won?

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