A ministry and marketplace leader shares how to build winning teams: set high standards to filter out complainers, dismiss mediocrity before it spreads, and actively remove whiners so winners can thrive. He learned this visiting Alcatraz with a group of business leaders.
Chapters
Super good day to everyone. Listen, I— this is a leadership moment I wanted to share with leaders, whether you're a marketplace leader or a ministry leader. I've had 35 years of ministry leadership and marketplace leadership. And last year on one of my outings, I had an opportunity to do some work with the people at Alcatraz, amazing project they got going on out there in San Francisco. And so we were there and we got a chance to share with some marketplace leaders while we were there. And just really speak some things into their life, some kingdom principles to help them move the direction of that vehicle that they were working on. And so while we were there, one of the questions that was proposed to me, I was asked, so how is it do we separate the complainers from the winners in our organization? Well, I was so glad to answer that question because over my 35 years of leadership, I have dealt with tons of complainers. But the first thing I did, I said, let me rephrase your question. I said, I want to ask it like this: how do you separate winners from whiners? Because the complaining becomes whining because people are not getting their way or they're not really bought into the vision. So what I told them was, if you want to separate winners from whiners, the first thing you got to do, you got to take control of the narrative of your organization. Watch this. By setting high standards. Listen, if you set high standards, you control who you lose, because the people that don't meet those standards, they won't be able to stay anyway. So set high standards so you're in total control of who you lose. Secondly, you must dismiss mediocrity. If you allow mediocrity to keep hanging around, you're eventually gonna lose your winners anyway, because people that are bought in and have a winning mentality, they're not gonna wanna tolerate the drama, and eventually they're gonna be out the door. So take my advice, take this wisdom, get the whiners out, set high standards, and build your dreams. I love you guys. Peace.
