Maximum Impact Highly regarded Leader authors

by Dale Shumaker
4spirit@gmail.com

A recent Maximum Impact Leadership simulcast by John Maxwell featured several leading authors on leadership and exceptional performance principles. Here are some of my "take aways " from this idea packed day-long presentation.

Andy Andrews, author of The Traveler's Gift, has 7 decisions that determine success. One of the seven is Choose to Be Happy. To be a happy person, be grateful. Find what's going right and talk about that. No one wants to be around a whinny person. When you have a grateful spirit, exude happiness, people like to be around you and come your way.

Choose to be a person of action. A butterfly can send small wind currents that start affecting many wind currents. All small things can begin a change response that can eventually be a mass of power. Everything you do matters. Someone is affected by what you do, no matter how big/small it is.
Smile a lot. People like people who smile a lot and this increases your influence with people. Be a person others want to be around. Be likable. Decide to be happy, take action and carry a smile that magnetically draws people to you.

Andy has more for you at
http://www.andyandrews.com/

John Maxwell's new book, Leadership Gold, has 26 lessons he learned as a leader. He calls it Gold, because after all his years and books on leadership, he feels these are the most golden principles that have time-tested seasoned wisdom. A few he mentioned included:

The best leaders are listeners. You need to be able to walk through a crowd and hear people and see where they are. Leaders listen, learn from what they hear, and then lead. Then you cut off potential big problems at the pass keeping problems from escalating... when you listen.

Don't send your ducks to eagles school. Put the right people in the right position. Those who want to soar in ideas and visions, will get frustrated swimming around in a duck pond.The ducks who like to swim in the duck pond will be unnerved to have to fly. Ducks get frustrated when asked to do things they can't do. Eagles will get frustrated when they can't fly. And you will become frustrated with their frustrations. So put the right people in the right places. Then the ducks and eagles will be more successful.

You can't manage time. You can only manage your life. Time goes on, although we can manage what we do. Count your days and make them count. When you help a leader, you go from addition to multiplication.

People will summarize you in one sentence when you die.
Pick it now.

John Maxwell's Injoy site has several free newsletters:
http://www.injoy.com/

Mavericks at Work: the new business agenda by Bill Taylor features a new logic of business leadership. Create great economic value and reflect personal values. The best way to predict the future is to invent it yourself.
Stand for something special, that's original, with a clear sense of purpose.
Southwest Airlines didn't create a business model like everyone else. They created a distinctive business model and made it happen. It's not just a company but a cause being led by thought leadership.

Customer success today is about passion, emotion, identity, sharing your values. Real magic is making your company more memorable to do business with... emotional, psychological connections with customers. When you do this you create your own edge. We miss the point when we replace people with technology. People like to interact with people, to know someone who is real, who cares. Small gestures send big signals.

Innovation is about many being one. No one person is as smart as everyone together. Innovation comes out of those who do things for the love of it. In open source, we share what we know with many and ask them to share what they see. Solving problems is not just you or your company, it's those outside who don't even know you or your company, but see things you don't or in a way you don't.

Be a solution finder. Find those who can give solutions. When you expect others to be generous with their ideas, you be generous with your return. The smart take from the strong and out-think the competition.
http://www.mavericksatwork.com/

Andy Stanley coming from a church background shared vision process... especially Making Vision Stick, his book.

1.To make your vision stick state it simply. When vision doesn't stick it leaks. People remember simple. Success is tough on vision, because the more we get the more we tend to lose focus and the vision leaks. Memorable is portable. It is something you can carry with you and state easily, simply, that others see it too... in everyday terms.

2. Cast it convincingly. When you define the problem offer a solution, then explain why and why now, so it gets in the brain. Position and present your vision as the solution to a problem that must be addressed immediately.

3. Repeat it regularly. Discover the best time in the rhythm of your organization to cast the vision. Repeat it, repeat it, repeat it.

4. Celebrate it systematically. When someone gets it, share their experience with many. Celebrate when others reflect they are getting it, and find ways to do this systematically.

5. Embrace it personally and publicly.

Vision has no autopilot. Got to work constantly to make it stick. Vision requires constant care.
For more on Making Vision Stick check Andy Stanley's publisher:
http://www.zondervan.com/cultures/en-us/home.htm

Rediscover play, bring fun and passion back into your life. Kevin Carrol, couldn't find someone to publish his colorful creative book, the Red Rubber Ball. So he published it himself, then was discovered by ESPN and is on the road again. His favorite play was his red rubber ball and he finds that when play stays in your life, you will see yourself constantly bouncing into new opportunities. The Red Rubber Ball has 7 lessons of play and rules. Human potential is boundless and endless. As he dribbled through his presentation he outlined his 7 points.
1. Commit to it. It must come from deep within what you want.
2. Find encouragers. You cannot do it alone. Find people who give you permission to dream big. Grandma's are great who love you and believe in you.
3. Work out your creative muscle. It won't be easy to follow your dream. Get fit for the full court press.
4. Prepare to shine.
5. Speak up. Never accept the boundaries before you. Alter the course when necessary. As Grandma said, "a closed mouth don't get fed." Be a great story teller, be transparent and authentic.
6. Expect the unexpected. Some things unfold outside what you think. Incidences, material assistance will come your way. Ingenuity, not just technology, may be your new highly valued product.
7. Maximize the day. You have 86,400 seconds or times to maximize your red rubber ball daily.
Live life where there is little division between work and play. Find things you like to do for fun, things that tickle your brain. Ideas come when your are enjoying yourself.

Kevin has more to say at:
http://www.kevincarrollkatalyst.com/

John Maxwell interviewed Dan Cathy, president of Chick-fil-A. Dan Cathy shared these insights to a servant-based company. When external change exceeds internal change, disaster is imminent.

Use ideas from other businesses not of your industry. Creative applications out of their ideas keep innovation fresh and advance sure.

It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. We change for pain, fear of consequences, for vision.

They are retouching the whole business model based on what Jesus had to say. For example, going the extra mile is a premium customer service principle. The first mile is transaction, the second relationship.The first is the head, the second mile is the heart. Doing what we know to do, then doing more because we care.

See the background on Chick-fil-A at founder Truett Cathy's website:
http://www.truettcathy.com/

The Game of Life by Dick Vitale is about 3 E's...energy, enthusiasm, excitement for life. His presentation was a demonstration of that. Some of his one liners included:
Don't allow "can't" to be part of your life.
Never ever believe in can't.
Do these things... persevere, respect competition and have intellectual decisions.
Then these four things will get you there... desire, dedication, determination, and discipline of body and mind. You find a lot about people in adversity. Write goals down, feel it and then see the unbelievable ability to make the goal a reality. Be compassionate and extend a hand to the less fortunate.

His website has more about his foundations and desire to help the less fortunate. Note:http://www.dickvitaleonline.com/

They played "take this job and shove it" as Patrick Lencioni came out to talk about the Three Signs of a Miserable Job.

The ministry of management... you are ministering to your employees. Jobs are one of the greatest senses of hopelessness in their lives.

The 3 signs of a miserable job.
Anonymity. When you feel anonymous in your job, don't feel like a person, is the first sign of being in a miserable job.

People want us to know them. We need to be recognized and be known.
Get to know your people. They want you to know who they are and that you care about them.
Irrelevance. You don't feel like your job matters to someone else, that it makes a difference.

Minister of management is to give a little hope to those they see and help them make a difference and feel like they make a difference. Everyone wants to know what they do matters.
Immeasurement. You don't know where you stand on your job, and don't have anything that lets you know.

It's the inability of an individual to access for themselves if they are succeeding. We need feedback for our work and lives.

All three are free.
Get to know, help find relevance, give them a measure. It takes time to build, but destruction can be quick.

Patrick Lencioni has all kinds of resource helps at:
http://www.tablegroup.com/

There are heroes in the Spirit that seem to walk a while before they come to the forefront. One of these is R. A.Torrey(1856-1928) whose works have stood the test of time. With an inspired heart for prayer, he not only shows us how powerful it really is, and how, when prayer lives in the center of our lives, it produces a power beyond what we can fathom. From How to Pray (1900), here are Torrey's 11 reasons why prayer is such a center force that should be in our life unceasingly. The following are extensive excerpts of his reasons for prayer.

"Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching there unto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints." Ephesians 6:18

Paul realized the natural slothfulness of man, and especially his natural slothfulness in prayer.
I wish that these words "being sleepless unto prayer" might burn into our hearts. But why is this constant, persistent, sleepless, overcoming prayer so needful?

1. First of all, BECAUSE THERE IS A DEVIL.
He is cunning, he is mighty, he never rests, he is ever plotting the downfall of the child of God; and if the child of God relaxes in prayer, the devil will succeed in ensnaring him. "For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places."
(Ephesians 6:12)
Then Paul brings all to a climax in the 18th verse, telling us that to all else we must add prayer -- constant, persistent, untiring, sleepless prayer in the Holy Spirit, or all else will go for nothing.

2. A second reason for this constant, persistent, sleepless, overcoming prayer is that PRAYER IS GOD'S APPOINTED WAY FOR OBTAINING THINGS, AND THE GREAT SECRET OF ALL LACK IN OUR EXPERIENCE, IN OUR LIFE AND IN OUR WORK IS NEGLECT OF PRAYER.
"Ye have not because ye ask not." These words contain the secret of the poverty and powerlessness of the average Christian -- neglect of prayer.

3. The third reason for this constant, persistent, sleepless, overcoming prayer is that THOSE MEN WHOM GOD SET FORTH AS A PATTERN OF WHAT HE EXPECTED CHRISTIANS TO BE -- THE APOSTLES -- REGARDED PRAYER AS THE MOST IMPORTANT BUSINESS OF THEIR LIVES.
All the mighty men of God outside the Bible have been men of prayer. They have differed from one another in many things, but in this they have been alike.

4. But there is a still weightier reason for this constant, persistent, sleepless, overcoming prayer. It is, PRAYER OCCUPIED A VERY PROMINENT PLACE AND PLAYED A VERY IMPORTANT PART IN THE EARTHLY LIFE OF OUR LORD.
Turn, for example, to Mark 1:35. We read, "And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, He went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed." The preceding day had been a very busy and exciting one, but Jesus shortened the hours of needed sleep that He might arise early and give Himself to more sorely needed prayer.
Evidently prayer took much of the time and strength of Jesus, and a man or woman who does not spend much time in prayer, cannot properly be called a follower of Jesus Christ.

5. There is another reason for constant, persistent, sleepless, overcoming prayer that seems if possible even more forcible than this, namely, PRAYING IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THE PRESENT MINISTRY OF OUR RISEN LORD.
If we then are to have fellowship with Jesus Christ in His present work, we must spend much time in prayer; we must give ourselves to earnest, constant, persistent, sleepless, overcoming prayer. I know of nothing that has so impressed me with a sense of the importance of praying at all seasons, being much and constantly in prayer, as the thought that that is the principal occupation at present of my risen Lord.
The hard driven man of business can have part in it, praying as he hurries from duty to duty. But of course we must, if we would maintain this spirit of constant prayer, take time -- and take plenty of it -- when we shall shut ourselves up in the secret place alone with God for nothing but prayer.

6. The sixth reason for constant, persistent, sleepless, overcoming prayer is that PRAYER IS THE MEANS THAT GOD HAS APPOINTED FOR OUR RECEIVING MERCY, AND OBTAINING GRACE TO HELP IN TIME OF NEED.
Heb. 4:16 is one of the simplest and sweetest verses in the Bible, -- "Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need."
That way is prayer; bold, confident, outspoken approach to the throne of grace, the most holy place of God's presence, where our sympathizing High Priest, Jesus Christ, has entered in our behalf. (Verses 14, 15.)
Be constant and persistent in your asking. Be importunate and untiring in your asking. God delights to have us "shameless" beggars in this direction; for it shows our faith in Him, and He is mightily pleased with faith.

7. The next reason for constant, persistent, sleepless, overcoming prayer is that PRAYER IN THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST IS THE WAY JESUS CHRIST HIMSELF HAS APPOINTED FOR HIS DISCIPLES TO OBTAIN FULLNESS OF JOY. The Psalmist was not only talking about future blessedness, but also of present blessedness when he said, "In Thy presence is fullness of joy." (Ps. 16.11.) O the unutterable joy of those moments when in our prayers we really press into the presence of God!

8. The eighth reason for constant, persistent, sleepless, overcoming prayer is that PRAYER, IN EVERY CARE AND ANXIETY AND NEED OF LIFE, WITH THANKSGIVING, IS THE MEANS THAT GOD HAS APPOINTED FOR OBTAINING FREEDOM FROM ALL ANXIETY, AND THE PEACE OF GOD WHICH PASSETH ALL UNDERSTANDING.
"Be careful for nothing," says Paul, "but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God, and the peace of God which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." (Phil. 4:6,7.)
One night of prayer will save us from many nights of insomnia. Time spent in prayer is not wasted, but time invested at big interest.

9. The ninth reason for constant, persistent, sleepless, overcoming prayer is that PRAYER IS THE METHOD THAT GOD HIMSELF HAS APPOINTED FOR OUR OBTAINING THE HOLY SPIRIT.
Upon this point the Bible is very plain. Jesus says, "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?" (Luke 11:13.)

Early one morning in the Chicago Avenue Church prayer room, where several hundred people had been assembled a number of hours in prayer, the Holy Spirit fell so manifestly, and the whole place was so filled with His presence, that no one could speak or pray, but sobs of joy filled the place. Men went out of that room to different parts of the country, taking trains that very morning, and reports soon came back of the out-pouring of God's Holy Spirit in answer to prayer.

10. The tenth reason for constant, persistent, sleepless,overcoming prayer is that PRAYER IS THE MEANS THAT CHRIST HAS APPOINTED WHEREBY OUR HEARTS SHALL NOT BECOME OVERCHARGED WITH SURFEITING AND DRUNKENNESS AND CARES OF THIS LIFE, AND SO THE DAY OF CHRIST'S RETURN COME UPON US SUDDENLY AS A SNARE.
According to this passage there is only one way in which we can be prepared for the coming of the Lord when He appears, that is, through much prayer.

11. There is one more reason for constant, persistent, sleepless, overcoming prayer, and it is a mighty one: BECAUSE OF WHAT PRAYER ACCOMPLISHES.

(1) Prayer promotes our spiritual growth as almost nothing else, indeed as nothing else but Bible study; and true prayer and true Bible study go hand in hand. John Welch, son-in-law to John Knox, was one of the most faithful men of prayer this world ever saw. He counted that day ill-spent in which seven or eight hours were not used alone with God in prayer and the study of His Word.

(2) Prayer brings power into our work. John Livingstone spent a night, with some others like minded, in prayer to God and religious conversation, and when he preached next day in the Kirk of Shotts five hundred people were converted, or dated some definite uplift in their life to that occasion. Prayer and power are inseparable.

(3) Prayer avails for the conversion of others. How utterly all of Monica's efforts and entreaties failed with her son, but her prayers prevailed with God, and the dissolute youth became St. Augustine, the mighty man of God. By prayer the bitterest enemies of the Gospel have become its most valiant defenders, the greatest scoundrels the truest sons of God, and the vilest women the purest saints.

(4) Prayer brings blessings to the church. It was so in the days of Knox, it was so in the days of Wesley and Whitfield, it was so in the days of Edwards and Brainerd, it was so in the days of Finney, it was so in the days of the great revival of 1857 in this country and of 1859 in Ireland, and it will be so again in your day and mine. Satan has marshaled his forces.

The world, the flesh and the devil are holding high carnival. It is now a dark day, BUT--now "it is time for Thee, Lord, to work; for they have made void Thy law." (Ps. 199:126). And He is getting ready to work, and now He is listening for the voice of prayer. Will He hear it? Will He hear it from you? Will He hear it from the church as a body? I believe He will.

The complete book on How to Pray by R. A. Torrey is online at:
http://www.freewebs.com/ratorrey/How%20to%20Pray.txt

Prayer is still our greatest weapon for overcoming, accomplishing and seeing all of God's power at work in all we are about.