Andy Stanley Dissects the Process He Uses to Make Decisions

[Music] welcome to the carrie new hoff leadership podcast on youtube my name is carrie newhof and my goal is to help you lead like never before so what i do every week is i sit down with world class leaders and church leaders business leaders and i talked to them about what made them who they are and try to have the conversation with them that you would have if you got to sit down for lunch with them or have dinner with them or really got to spend some time with them so we go into the back story and we explore what made them who they are and some of the principles they've learned along the way so if you enjoy this episode i would love for you to like it to subscribe and also to share it with your friends and in the meantime here's today's episode well andy welcome back it's uh it's great to have you on the podcast i appreciate you inviting me on your podcast it's a and it's always good to see you we used to see each other more but hey this is this is great yeah i haven't flown anywhere since march and oh really yeah well actually i haven't either i hear it's uh i hear it's been less crowded and now it's you know people are starting to pick up a little bit yeah do you miss it is there any part of that like getting on airplanes and the whole thing that you miss i do not like to travel unless i'm going somewhere fun and i'm fortunate living in a big city as you know so many events happen here our standard line is hey andy can't come but if you ever have your event in atlanta please call us again which um i don't know i just it's just not my favorite thing to do so yeah i hear you it's been a big reset for me but not one that i'm hating by any stretch i hope to get out to some extent in the future but you know it's not so bad andy you actually you know what i'm headed up to um visit with bruxy um it's i think my first flight it's not until january seriously i'm looking forward to bruxy cavey at the meeting house that's like an hour from my house you're kidding oh really yeah yeah yeah try to be there in january i've never met him personally he's an online friend and um i just love that guy and we were gonna do something like this and i said you know what i would just love to come see what you're doing so i'll be up in your neck of the woods well that's amazing no i've known bruxy for years and uh his former lead pastor and i are really really good friends so tim uh but no they're doing great stuff in the meeting house and has made a huge contribution internationally too well that's fun andy uh let's talk about um decision making so your new book better decisions fewer regrets talks about sort of a new framework for decision making it's a great book i'd love to go back to younger andy and how you made decisions as a young leader as you know like on your platform we've got a lot of young leaders listening so i'd love to talk about the evolution if you can use that word of decision making in your life how did it start out and how has it changed well i'll you know stop me if i head off on too much of a rabbit trail um in the book actually i start with this story about my dad who um had this terrible habit and his habit was he wouldn't answer my questions or he wouldn't help me figure out what to do or he wouldn't tell me what to do right i think he might have started too early with this honestly i've tried to do this with my kids but early on i would say you know dad what do you think i should do um and he would say well what do you think you should do and then he would say this what if i weren't here to help you or what if i weren't here to tell you and i would always say but you are here to help me and you are here to tell me and he wasn't trying to neglect his role as a father he was trying to teach me early on how to make good decisions and then his default early on it's amazing as a parent when i think about the freedom he gave me he would say well why don't you pray about it and whatever you feel like god wants you to do just do that and my mom would be like no no no no you know that's it's too early who knows what he's going to think god told him but he he was so great about pushing the and here's the key pushing the responsibility and the consequence of the decision and the freedom to make the decision back in my court and of course he did this when the stakes were very very low um you know when i was a child middle school in high school and so consequently i just grew up with the the the um appropriate pressure to you know understand the importance of making good decisions and early on understood that really my decisions and this is true for all of us my decisions are like the steering wheel of our lives i mean we are where we are for for the most part because of decisions we've made or decisions other people have made um about us or for us that we have then responded to with our own decision so either way you cut it um our decisions you know it's they determine the direction and the quality of our lives and so i was fortunate to early on not be left on my own to make decisions but to grow up with a dad and a mom after she sort of got on board with this to say hey well what would you do if i wasn't here what would you and so um that's the early part in terms of the leadership part um and you and i have known each other a while so you and i feel like you're the same way i learned in leadership that the goal wasn't to make the decision and this is you know leaders get a little um confused about this especially young leaders leadership's not about making decisions leadership is about making sure that the decisions that are made are the right decisions so the leader that feels like oh since i'm the leader i'm supposed to make the decisions no that's not leadership that's generally a bad idea so great leaders surround themselves with people who are smarter than they are right jim collins said aspire to be the dumbest person in the room i heard him say that one time at a conference aspire to be the dumbest person in the room so in terms of leadership listening and learning from people who are smarter than us or who have insight we don't have i mean that's that's the way forward and then as the leader i have to own the decision i have to stand up front and i take all the bullets or in some cases too much you know credit for decisions that have been made so those are kind of the sort of the underpinnings of my experience and then again never never feeling the pressure as a leader to feel like i'm the one who has to make the decisions i'm the one who has to own it and then take responsibility for it you know andy i don't know whether you go into this in the book but just because we have known each other for a long time and i know you know your circle and everything like that it's interesting because you became a lead pastor when you were what in your late 30s mid-30s kind of thing when you started north point 7 38 yeah 37 38 and prior to that you worked with your dad uh but a lot of the team that you had when you worked on your dad's staff is the team that went on to to start north point a lot of them are still there today i mean to this day could you go because the the reason i'm thinking about this you just made me think about it in the way you were framing the answer to the question uh have you been a team-based decision maker almost since day one in leadership even when you were in student ministry can you talk about this yes and um when people ask me this question here's what i traditionally say and it's true i really don't have enough confidence in my ability to make solo decisions i just it's it's not so much a leadership strategy even though i think it's a good one to not just build consensus but to just listen as you've you know as i have become famous for saying i don't know where i first said it you know leaders who refuse to listen will eventually be surrounded by people who have nothing helpful to say if you refuse to listen eventually the people who have something to say they go somewhere else because who wants to work for somebody who's not willing to listen or to receive feedback so um consequently that has been uh uh you know something i've done for a long time and honestly kerry um i was convinced i mean you know the people i was surrounded by reggie joyner and bill willetts and lane jones and julie arnold and others i was surrounded by extraordinary people who in their sphere really genuinely were more they were smarter and had greater insight into their lane than i did so why in the world would i feel like i have to be the leader in all the lanes and try to lead in areas where i don't have competence because again the goal is to get in our lane stay there that's where we make the greatest value add and to let the other people you know drive their lanes support them remove obstacles but not try to make decisions for them so you know early on at north point i was surrounded by some really really great people smart people people who hey just give them the resources get out of the way watch them go and you know make sure everybody gets the credit they're due so i've never felt the pressure oh you're the leader you need to make all the decisions but i going back to what i said at the end of the day once the decision is made i'm the one that stands up and announces it the buck stops with me and i take 100 um ownership but never 100 of the credit that's i mean that's sort of how i've rolled and again part of it isn't just again a leadership strategy it's part of it i think is insecurity in my ability to make a solo decision except for a few occasions very few occasions where i just knew and i think every leader who has any kind of leadership intuition has have these moments don't claim to have them too often please don't say god told me just every once in a while you just know and when you have that those moments you just say to your staff you know what you say to your team i'm sorry this is something i just know we need to do this is what we're going to do that's happened maybe three times in 25 years at north point community church so that is not my style of leadership and i think because of that in those few moments the staff around me are like okay this is different this is you know this isn't andy just you know trying to have his way and you know those three occasions i was correct but that is not that is not the norm believe me so can can you i don't want to put you on the spot but like what would an example of one of those times be when you just kind of knew it's like okay this is it um well one of the one of them we talked about recently was the decision to you know not have um sunday morning services from you know the end of july to the end of the year um i just knew i just this is what we need to do and i went into the meeting with 15 people thinking i might have to convince them but i don't i really don't like to try to convince sharp leaders of anything i want everybody to feel the freedom i don't want them to feel like i came in with an agenda so i came in with three options tried to be as neutral as i possibly could and as i shared before clay scroggins said well i think and i'm like that's it that's where i hope this conversation landed because i said i just sensed this is the thing to do the other time was we had a lead pastor who had a moral failure this is years ago and um he was the lead pastor at one of our big churches they're all kind of big and um the the day after i'd met with him that night late into the night and tried to figure out what's next for him i was sitting on my couch and i knew andy you need to step into his role and become the lead pastor of that local church so i said sandra here's what i need to do and she said well what about your other jobs i said i said i don't know but i just know with that with certainty i need to show up sunday explain what's happened and then step into his role and so i did and i served as lead pastor there from well actually a little over two years and loved every minute of it and it was helpful to me and the other jobs got done um but those those occasions are few and far between but as leaders you got to listen to that still small voice or that instinct but day to day i don't i don't lead that way so andy this is fascinating um you know you've only done that a handful of times and one of them and by the way we can link back in the show notes to the interview i did david kinnaman and i did with you about the decision to close thank you okay um so but but what i'm interested in drilling down on andy is um you walked into the room [Music] with the decision you kind of knew but you let the team make the decision so i i went through the four disciplines of execution about a year ago with my staff which actually prompted in part by a series of interviews you did on your leadership podcast with i think it's chris mcchesney is that his name yeah anyway it was really good made me dig into the book again and i'm like ah we got to do this and you've got to come up with a wildly important goal and i led my team through a retreat with it and i'm like oh please pick this one please pick this one but i didn't want to drive it right right yeah and sure enough after a day they picked exactly what i would have picked and maybe got a little more aggressive with it there's a lot of leaders who wouldn't wait that long i wonder if you could just speak to the dynamic of walking into a meeting where you kind of knew where you wanted everyone to go uh but what is the benefit of letting the team get there on their own well this is really important conversation or a really important segment of our conversation most of your viewers or listeners are somewhat familiar with enneagram and enneagram eights are really really really good decision makers i'm not an eight i'm a one eights are good decision makers but they are impatient and they are able to see what needs to be done generally quicker than everybody else but their problem is unless they have a lot of maturity is they're not willing to wait for everyone to catch up with them and i actually have two eights that have been in my inner circle for um quite some time one from the very beginning and i actually have had to sit down with him early early on and this is what i said it's rick holiday rick is brilliant he is so smart he was i've known rick since college i would sit in the middle on the front row and take notes rick would sit against the wall so he could put his head against the wall and go to sleep in class and straight a he is so brilliant and he gets to what needs to happen so quickly but in the early years when we were first starting he did what we all did it's like well why can't why can't everybody see as clearly as i can see and i would say rick please just give the rest of us time to catch up with you because you're rarely ever wrong but and to the point of your question if people don't have time to process and walk out of a room with some ownership then as you know the execution generally um the execution just doesn't happen the way that it should but when a group is galvanized around being either slowly and appropriately convinced or at least convinced enough to say you know what um even though i'm not 100 i'm 80 i'm 90 and let's just let's just do this um that there has to be ownership for us to to own not just the decision but then you know how it is in organizational life you make a decision but that's the easy part now you got to you know do all this work make all these changes so um allowing the the core people it's core team to have input and to feel like there's ownership it's not we're not being duplicitous we're not this isn't some sort of scam this is just just good leadership and of course you always learn things along the way so for people like me it comes a little natural to go slow make sure i've got all the cards on the table that i've you know pulled everybody into the conversation for other people they just know now one more thing on that when i've learned through enneagram study how good um how quick reds are excuse me um eights are or and if you think in terms of temperament you know the high d or the red temperament um when i discovered that i have leveraged that and when we're you know when we're trying to make a decision that's gonna take days or weeks i will go to those red eights or those eights and say okay when you what are you what are you thinking what are you thinking and when a couple of eights or as we call them red eights when they're in sync that's generally the right decision now then it's up to me to shepherd everybody you know in that direction so i you know there's for those of you who say hey you're talking about me i just i just see it quicker than everybody else that is a gift use it leverage it but make sure you bring the team along and if you're not the team leader if you're not the team leader use that to help your team leader because sometimes team leaders just need the confidence you know to get the team across the line in terms of actually making the decision so all of these things you know come together when a leader is patient enough to allow them to come together i would just say to young leaders sorry to go so long on that no no no no this is a master class so i'm an enneagram eight um i wish someone had told me that when i was 30. um why because i would walk in the room and you're right you just kind of and you're wrong sometimes but you're right a lot and it's just an intuition thing and andy i steamrollered over people in my 30s and just kind of like this is where we're gonna go and you don't get the buy-in that you do no when even on that day when you kind of walked in and thought i know where this decision needs to go but i'm gonna let these people buy in and clay spoke up and others spoke up and said this is what we should do and you're like okay that took me forever to learn so you just saved a lot of heartbreak and a bunch of resignations but you and at some point you know gary you should you should talk about that because for young leaders um here's what happens if i can go back late 20s early 30s mid 30s if you're if you're wired the way you are you it's not an arrogance or pride thing you come to the conclusion pretty quickly i think i'm smarter than most people i think i'm smarter than most people in this room and they're all older than me these old people and suddenly that gift that intuition that is so valuable becomes a liability because you learn less you you don't stick around as long and people consider you a troublemaker and instead of coming to you for advice which they should it's like oh he's so contrarian he always has to talk why does he you know and you know it's and for people with strong personalities it's easy to shut other people down so for young leaders this conversation is so important and maybe something to follow up on later on so i i think you're you're on to something there because you know it's easy and sometimes it comes across as arrogance definitely you know you got to watch that but sometimes it comes off as just why don't these people get it like what is wrong right right yes that's why people see it so let me ask you this if you don't mind you're sitting so let's not talk about the big three decisions but let's just say you come in you're you're equality and les mcewen who i think you know would say quality team based decision making is the key to scaling you can't do it without scaling uh you can't do it without quality team-based decision if it's your way or the highway you're kind of you're kind of out you're never really going to grow but let's say you walk into a meeting it's just normal meeting it's a normal tuesday at leadership team and you kind of have a sense of where things are going it's not a hill to die on but where is the line for you where you let the team make decision the decision or you walk in and say hmm i don't think so because ultimately you have to sell it right you're the person with the microphone trying to raise money or people or justify the decision do you have a line or like a working knowledge about when you kind of pull out the veto card or the redirection card that's a good question um i have been outvoted so to speak by our elders twice and on both occasions they were really big decisions and i was the one that had to step up on a sunday morning to our campus or campuses and say this is what we've decided this is what we're going to do and in both cases i disagreed but i trusted the process and this is another big lesson right if you have a good process i say leaders all the time look trust the process just let the process play out if you have a board and it's a talented board and you have the right people if you have a group of elders and it's the right group of elders listen and just trust the process and um again on those two occasions one was something we were going to put in our building and the other one was basically you know the whole a whole building um because we were gonna end up doing two capital came campaigns at one time and i'm like no this is financial suicide and our board was like no we can do this i'm like wait a minute this is what i told him i said do you realize um we can make this decision i can announce it we can announce and launch two multi-million dollar capital campaigns and then the next day all of you guys can resign and disappear into the dark of night and the headline will be andy stanley bankrupts north point community church because of this hair brain idea he had of trying to raise too much money i said so i'm listening and i want to be open but you realize this sits on my shoulder so i kiddingly said so none of you guys can leave the church until all this money is raised but they said no we can do this and you know what i just decided i'm going to trust the process this group of men and women are here for a purpose they see it they it was unanimous i was i was the only outlier i said okay let's do it i stepped up let it as if it were my idea and um it worked and they were correct and i was wrong and if i'd had my way it wouldn't have destroyed the organization but it would have slowed us down tremendously and you know for me it was just fear and the horror stories of what happens to churches when they bite off more than they can chew we're you know we're both familiar with those stories so um i say trust the process if you have a good process trust it i i don't want to keep going down a direction if it's not helpful but how did you in those situations do the job of convincing your congregation that was the right decision because you almost had to sell yourself right you were outvoted 12 to 1 or 8 to 1 or whatever the number was and now you got to stand up and you can't have a plastic smile on your face like you gotta you got to believe it it's got to come from your heart how do you how did you do that well in that particular case i went down to buckhead church that was meeting in a grocery store and cast a vision for their capital campaign then back at north point the cast vision for the capital campaign to buy a piece of property or to build a building 20 miles north of us so it was two different congregations right but again they were each going to do their own you know three year end capital campaign and i'm like oh brother here we go and you know the smart men and women who were the numbers people looked at you know our financials and said we can do this and i'm like all right so off we went maybe it's just because i'm an enneagram mate but i would lie there at night thinking that was a really dumb decision and now i'm backed in this corner and how am i going to sell it like did that dynamic cross your mind or like how did you get through it no but honestly i trusted these yeah this group and so i just felt like hey god has spoken we this is the process this is this is how it works so that's good andy and and people who who hang around you i've heard this so many times it's like andy's a great communicator but he's an even better leader and i think we're we're cracking that open right now and trying to see the process behind it so so thank you for that and thanks for being so open and transparent one of my favorite lines i think this was in another book um you you might remember i've quoted a million times it's that people make emotional decisions and backfill them with logic you know i got my new car it cost me fifty thousand dollars but it's better on gas it's like that's not a financial decision that's an emotional decision that you backfill with logic and um in your new book you pick that up and talk about you know selling yourself on a bad decision can you explain the dynamic behind it because that is so true yeah so in the book basically what i do is provide readers with five questions to ask every time they're making an important decision um because and this is one of the things i learned from my dad as well there is an extremely important relationship between questions and decisions and we don't all often connect these dots when here's when we connect them we connect them on the back side of a bad decision we make a bad decision and we say to ourselves or to someone else i should have asked more questions right well i should have been more curious so in the book i basically say i'm going to give you five questions to add to your arsenal of questions that you should ask every single time you make a big decision and one of the reasons this is so important is because we all have an internal sales person that constantly is selling us on what it is we have decided we want to do because we think we are rational beings and make rational decisions so once we have gotten our heart all entangled with something or someone we say to our brains hey brains i need some justification because i can't make an emotional decision and our brains are so smart that's why their brains and our brains come up with all kinds of reasons for the decisions that we make but they're not really reasons they're justifications as you just said so one of the most important things especially in leadership for us to do is to get in the habit of telling ourselves the truth because you would never hire a liar you fire a liar and yet for all of us there's a little liar that lives on the inside of us that lies to us about why we're doing what we're doing and so the sooner we can call the liar out and become leaders who are honest with ourselves the better we are in every arena of life but really especially leadership and it comes back to something we've talked about before carrie and that is self-leadership and you can't lead other people well until you lead yourself well and you can't lead yourself well if you're lying to yourself so part of the book is to help us learn how to shut down the internal salesman or salesperson and one of the things i say in the book is this um you almost never have to sell yourself on a good idea so as soon as we sense that we're selling ourselves it's generally a bad idea there we've gone again we've gotten our heart entangled with something and we've got our brain going to work to justify what it is that we've got our heart set on so being honest with ourselves um is really one of the it's perhaps the best decision making habit but it's one of the hardest before we get into the five questions you know when you when you send me the book i wasn't 100 sure like you know you did best question ever which is a great book and some of those ideas are in here but it's really a it's a fresh set of questions it's a fresh selection of questions and i'm curious how did you develop and how like the process behind the book and collecting these ideas are these things you've collected over the years is it further refined i just love some of the back story to how these became the five questions well one is a question my dad asked me my whole life we'll get to that in a few minutes um two of them are questions i found myself asking my children early on and so we'll get to those as well um one of them just comes straight out of you know this this um i don't know somewhat of an evolution that we've been going through as a group of churches for about 10 years in terms of jesus new covenant command and how central that needs to be in all of our lives so it has been um a collection of things over time and and you know how this is you you have a theme in your life sometimes but you don't have words for it and then later on what has been there all along you finally find words for it and so some of some of these questions are a little bit of that but these these are not new um again they're things i've been i was raised on things i've tried to teach my kids and again anybody who reads the books of the book they're intuitive but again here's and this is why the book's so important knowing the right thing to do has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not we do the right thing but again in our minds we think well once i know i'll do but that's not true otherwise we would all eat right and we would all exercise consistently right and but we don't so this this that's a falsehood the correlation between oh now i know so now i'll do it's not there because we're so good at selling ourselves on bad ideas i love the line i underlined it in my copy of the book you can't lead yourself if you're lying to yourself that's so true what are some of your disciplines to stay ruthlessly honest with yourself andy well it really comes down to the first of the five questions and i asked myself this question and i asked this is weird i asked myself this question out loud and the question is am i being honest with myself and then i add the word really or why more specifically you know why am i doing this really why am i deciding this really why am i purchasing this really you know why am i doing this really i know what i've told everybody else i know what i've told myself but come on it's just the two of us in the mirror andy even if you don't follow through be honest with yourself why are you doing this really and one of the things i little exercises i do in the book as i say to readers i say imagine going into a retail outlet and a salesperson saying out loud to you the things that you say to yourself in your head you would be so offended imagine a re you know somebody in a retail um context saying hey if you get home and don't like it just donate it i mean who would say that but we say or how about this you know this one is pretty much exactly like the one you already have only this one's newer i mean what what kind of sales pitch is that but it's the kind of thing we tell ourselves all the time so once you can kind of get it out there in the real world and see it and think about it we realize we're not really good salespeople we just fall for the most ridiculous sales pitches when we're pitching ourselves so why am i doing this really why am i going really why am i purchasing this really why am i wearing this really why did i say that really no it's been so helpful to me uh and again it was an idea of years i stumbled on years ago and i think the example whether it was a talk or a book it was like purchasing a car and i'm a bit of a car guy like i'm you know detail at that kind of thing and you were like you know we use well the other one you know needed needed 500 worth of work or the gas mileage wasn't very good but you go out and buy a thirty thousand dollar vehicle and justify a five dollar gas mileage difference it probably isn't the most solid and and i think you said you know why don't you just say i really just wanted a new car and i've found that so liberating sometimes why'd you get a new car you know what i just wanted a new car yeah at least you're being honest with yourself well and and it takes a lot of the weirdness out of conversations doesn't it well yeah because let's be honest nobody falls for our strange reasoning right i mean people smile and shake their head but they know and when we hear other people kind of giving us their ridiculous reasons for the things they did here's why we moved in here's why i'm moving out you know here's why i called him you know we shake our head because we're polite but we know that's that's not really why you're doing that so if other people know we ought to know so why why am i doing this really yeah and then that goes into like why are you why are you launching another location why like you can get into really dangerous territory there quickly why am i preaching on this topic really that's a that's a tough question andy you know when you really question your motives it's been a gift to me over the years because it really means why am i posting this why did i write this why why did i say this why am i sharing this on social right do i really want to make other people envious oh gosh yeah social media really that would reduce about half of what's on social media right do you want to walk us through the five questions just quickly give us the overview then we'll we'll we'll double click on that we've already talked about the first one i call it the integrity question that is am i going to be honest with myself the first question is why am i doing this pause really so that's that's the integrity question the other one is the legacy question this is the one that i have i have gone over and over with my kids and the legacy question is what story do i want to tell what story do i want to tell this is so important and we're old enough to be able to appreciate this but our kids and you know people early on in leadership early on in their career or early on in a marriage miss this that every decision we make becomes a permanent part of the story of our lives and our lives are not disconnected dots or disconnected events every single decision every single event becomes a chapter in the story of our lives and one day and i'll say this to all of your listeners one day whatever you're going through right now with your kids in your marriage at work with your money whatever it might your health whatever you're going through right now one day is not going to be anything other than a story that you tell so the question is what story do you want to tell when this is just a story that you tell and what this does this pulls me out of my immediate context to my ultimate context of my entire life what story do i want to tell what story do i want to tell my kids when my kids are old enough to tell this story you know or my grandkids in the book i i tell a story about a dear dear friend who um went through a long protracted expensive expensive divorce and when his heart was first broken when he discovered what was happening we were having dinner and this was going to go you know he was i've known him since he was in the ninth grade and he's just been very successful um in what he's done in atlanta and i said to him i'm trying not to say his name i said look i know this is hard to imagine but one day you're gonna look back in this whole divorce and all the yuck and all the complexity and all the anger it's just gonna be a story that you tell and one day it's gonna be a story that your kids are gonna want you to tell at a different level when they're older i said so please please please please make every single decision with this in mind what story do i want to tell when this is nothing more than a story that i tell and about every two weeks he would text me and he would say andy i can still tell my whole story andy i can still tell my old story and this was years ago but he would tell you that thought is what kept him from um lashing out from poisoning his kids about what his ex-wife was doing about so many things that he could have you know would have been justified but he thought it's justified but is that the story i want to tell so um if we can just remember that what what story do i want to tell when this is just a story that i tell so that's the uh the legacy question um can i uh can i why don't we just take them one by one because that that was so rich andy um you know when you first frame the question it's easy to see that as a prevention question like we think about all the headlines that could have been avoided the stories the broken hearts the the dissolved families the pastors the stories nobody thought would be told right because nobody when you when you read about it in the headlines or a congregation gets heard or victims step forward nobody intended to tell that story i'm not sure that you know graduating from high school they're like this is how it ends but i think the way you frame it as a recovery story like okay so some really bad things have happened so this did not work out you got fired or the marriage is over you did something inappropriate but but that question can speak into those low moments as well right yeah because this is just a chapter this is not your story this is just a chapter in the story of your life and we get to have in most cases new chapters so what story do you want to tell when this is nothing but a story that you tell and you know there are more stories there are more chapters to write so again realizing that what's happening now does not have to define you but again it's it's once as soon as we begin to think about our lives we don't think this way naturally as soon as we begin to think about our lives as a story that there's a story art and we're just in a chapter suddenly what's what's immediate is differentiated from what's ultimate and when we can make decisions based on ultimate rather than immediate we make better decisions we live with fewer regrets and that's the power of the what story do i want to tell if we can just um you know there's some leaders right now uh who are opening up a brand new year and uh when this airs and they're like yeah andy you know 2020 was hard enough but 2021 like you should see what's going on in my life uh i think back to my burnout which you know about we met around the time in 2006 it was just it was just a hard time and um and i just remember thinking this is not the story i want to write for my sons this is not the story i want to write for my ministry and of course when you're in the pain of burnout as i was that year um it's a really hard thing to imagine you'll ever get out of but here we are all these years later and things are really different you're right it's painful story but it's a story it's a chapter in a story so for those leaders who are opening um 2021 a brand new year going gosh i wish it was a better story do you have anything you want to say just from a pastoral or friend perspective to them yeah yeah and it's you know what it is it's this if you're in ministry it's the same advice you've given other people it really is it's that realizing that everything there's everything has a season and if this is a bad season that's what it is it's a bad season but it's not the entire story so please and here's the thing please don't make a permanent decision about a temporary problem please don't make a permanent decision trying to address what really is a temporary problem and it doesn't seem temporary because it is as big as your entire life right now but here's what you know because you're smart if somebody came to you with your story you would have the context and the breadth of both your experience and see enough about what's going on in their life to understand hey this is a bad season this is a bad moment please don't make a big permanent decision in light of the fact that you're going through a difficult season so um it really is about perspective it's about surrounding ourselves with people who've been there done that and survived and got on the other side of it that's so extremely helpful because sometimes we just need to know there's light we just need to know there's hope we just need to know this isn't the end it is a season one day you're going to tell this as a story what story do you want to tell and decide according to that question well yeah and that's great that is not your legacy a tough season doesn't have to be your legacy that's so good to remember and you know obviously if you have the opportunity to write a better story why wouldn't you do that in a good season right rather than veering off into some ditch which we're all tempted to do from time to time take us to the third question what's the third question andy yeah the third question is the conscience question the third question is is there a tension that deserves my attention is there a tension that deserves my attention and here's why this is important we've all been in the midst of making decisions where on the left side of the ledger everything lines up perfectly in terms of reasons why this is a good decision and then as you get closer to making the decision based on maybe even wise counsel the numbers line up as you get closer there's just something on the inside that's just kind of as my dad would call it a check in your spirit or a red flag and the problem with it is there's no reason there's there's no logic it's just a hesitation that's all it is it's an internal hesitation when you look at everything on paper it's like this is a no-brainer everybody's like yes but if there's something inside of you any kind of hesitation the point of this question is don't rush by that don't brush by that don't ignore it and don't talk yourself out of it pause and let whatever is bothering you bother you and if you pause in that tension long enough eventually information will begin to fill in some of those blanks so is there a tension that deserves my attention um in the uh in the book i talk about this very famous familiar story of david as he creeps up behind king saul the slit sauce throat and everybody in the cave is cheering him on i mean when saul's out of the way he'll be king god's already anointed david is the king i mean this is a no-brainer in fact god had told david i'm going to deliver my enemies into your hands he even had a verse and he had shared the verse the promise with the guys in the back of the cave because they quoted it to him they're saying this is the day where the lord promised he's going to deliver your enemies to his hands and there's your enemy and when you walk out of this cave with king saul's head hanging from your hands all of his soldiers are going to immediately proclaim you king and there's going to be a transition of power with very little bloodshed i mean this is a god thing right and as david creeps up imagine this moment as he creeps up behind king saul there's just something and and at the last moment he recognizes wait a minute i'm about to kill the king this can't possibly be god's way forward for me to kill the king my father-in-law and so he changes plans at the last minute in the text it's interesting the text says that he was conscience stricken there was just some unease it didn't make any sense in the moment but he paid attention to that tension and he eventually became king but without having to kill the king besides that would not be a story he wanted to tell his grandchildren granddaddy how did you become king well tell us the story about king saul sitting on the potty when you you know so again i say to leaders i have to remind myself it doesn't have to be rational it doesn't have to be logical if there's a tension pay attention to that tension so the third question is is there a tension that deserves my attention does the tension because we i've felt that numerous times does the tension automatically mean no i mean clearly and kill the king it does but what what like can it ever just resolve or what do you do i i think the the point is you just pause you pause and here's what my experience has been when i've been willing to pause which oftentimes frustrates people especially in a leadership context because part of leadership is i don't want to hold other people up so if they need answers i need to give them answers if they're ready to move forward i don't want i want to facilitate progress not get in the way of progress but in those leadership contexts or with family especially with kids when there was just that something when i've been willing to create space it's amazing how often in fact almost every situation new information surfaces it's not that i knew something and forgot it but in that space something surfaces that begins to create questions about some of the things that were so clear on the left-hand side of the ledger so sometimes it's just a matter of time and um pay attention to that tension even if it doesn't make any sense to you and even if nobody else can appreciate it the impatient enneagram eights thank you um andy i've had uh i've had those times where definitely i paid attention to the tension and it's been like oh wow i'm so glad i didn't say yes yesterday that makes sense you slept on it talk to your wife talk to your team prayed about it there are other times though where the tension isn't fully resolved and where i'm like and it's not moral it's not like black or white i'm not gonna kill somebody i'm not gonna take something that isn't mine but it's like is this wise or is this not wise is it smart is it not smart and there are times where some i'm just being honest here i'm trying to think of the exact circumstance but maybe it was a partnership or whatever direction for what i'm doing with leaders where it's like i've talked to the team talked to my wife i'm praying about it is this faithful or not we can't find any reason not to do it it feels right but i'm not 100 sure so in those moments i'm kind of like okay god i'm just going to have to trust that this is in obedience any thoughts about that like when you have that attention that tension and it's not fully resolved yeah but you and the answer is a little bit and the way you ask the question you you didn't ignore it it's the person that's like i just you know because one of the things i talk about in the book is uh you know we're 100 you know we're 100 in on something and then our mom calls or a good friend calls and asks us a question and there the information they give us is not helpful but it creates a doubt in our mind and it just and i give a couple of illustrations in the book of stories from my life where somebody asked a question and it was so irritating i was mad at them but at the end of the day they got me to thinking and sure enough i made the decision that um was different than the decision i was going to make just because somebody came along and just put a little bit of doubt in my mind about a path i was going down and i and again it's easy to you know to dismiss the source of the information well they've never done this they don't know they don't understand and it's true they don't understand they've never been where you and i are but you know what it's so foolish to ignore those questions so yeah i think as long as we're creating space and again it goes back to the first question why am i doing this really right why am i doing this really is there a tension that deserves my attention so these questions all work in tandem and that's why in the book i say if you'll just integrate these five questions into your decision-making repertoire of questions because one of the other things i talk about we actually all have a list of questions we subconsciously ask ourselves every time we make a decision some of them are actually bad questions like will anybody find out will i get caught i mean those are the kinds of questions we ask ourselves so these five questions work in tandem again i think to create the space sometimes we need for other information to surface or to recognize something perhaps we've dismissed okay well um one of the things i'm noticing uh now even hearing you talk about the book having read the book but also seeing your decision making matrix a lot of that is like time and space to breathe and paying attention to differing views and the wisdom of not just like yeah this is the way to go large and in charge leadership which you know when i think back to how you led at your dad's church and then when you started north point with that team-based decision-making that was pretty counter-cultural in the 90s we're still trying to recover from large and in charge leadership today but that was kind of revolutionary like that you would have been an outlier back in the 90s for that style of leadership i would think i don't know i was just i just didn't have enough confidence to lead any other way honestly and you're right those were you know the big bold you know god told me i prayed about it god showed me you know i went to the mountain i came down from the mountain this is the way we're going that i grew up around a lot of that kind of language yeah and i was never 100 comfortable with it and it was amazing what god said that then things didn't work out but nobody brought that back up so i i think if anything the pendulum in my life kind of swung way in a different direction because i mean you know the the scripture in common sense says there's there's wisdom in a multitude of counselors and listening listen listen listen listening is how we learn and if we're not going to listen and learn we're just eventually not going to make great decisions no matter how smart we are and regardless of our leadership intuition so the next question one that's been asked a thousand times in our home and on good days it's still asked uh you want to take us into the uh what do you call a maturity question yeah the maturity question this is the question i grew up with with my dad from day one andy what is the wise thing to do what do you think the wise thing is to do and the problem with the question is it's so clarifying it's terrifying it's much easier to ask what is the right thing or or is this wrong is this immoral is this illegal you know it's easy to ask those questions because no it's not immoral it might be immoral-ish but it's not exactly immoral it's not exactly illegal it's not exactly unethical okay but what is the wise thing to do this is the maturity question and i call it the maturity question because it takes a lot of maturity to hit pause and to step out of the context of right and wrong good and bad legal illegal and to ask okay but is this the wise thing for me to do and that's the catch is this the wise thing not for everybody but is this the wise thing for me to do and here's something that all of your listeners can appreciate and if you're a parent or a grandparent my goodness this is why as you just said gary it's it's central in our homes bringing up our children ev your greatest regret if you think about it your greatest financial regret relational regret whatever it might be our greatest regrets are almost always preceded by a series of unwise decisions not immoral not illegal our worst our worst weekend our worst moment our that marriage you you regret that relationship you regret that generally speaking our greatest regrets are preceded by a series of unwise decisions so asking the question is this the wise thing to do keeps us away from the edge of disaster and from the the brink of regret and of course as you know people who've heard me teach for a while know i i there's a three parts to this question in light of my past experience what is the wise thing for me to do in light of my current circumstances my current state of emotion what is the wise thing for me to do in light of my future hopes and dreams what is the wise thing for me to do and we have been to ministry long enough to see men and women undermine their own hopes and dreams by making a series of unwise decisions that led them to the brink of disaster and when you live on the edge it just takes one more small decision to undermine our future hopes and dreams so it's the maturity question what is the wise thing for me to do i think occasionally when you see people make disastrous decisions that you know get noticed or make the headlines or disqualify them from whatever it's tempting to think from a distance oh they just had a really bad day and they made a really bad decision but that's rarely the way it works right no no we only get to highlight real which is really the low light we just get the story the juicy part of the story but then when you've tracked with someone through the the process or through their lives or you get the back story it's always a series of really unwise decisions so if we can set the standard at wisdom rather than legal illegal moral immoral we're just gonna make better decisions and live with fewer regrets it's a thousand little compromises that leave you compromised right so i guess the encouragement to a leader who is listening going yeah you know what i'm not over the edge but there's probably some things i don't want anyone to know about would be what what would what would you say to that leader in this moment well that's why it's such a terrifying question it's clarifying we almost always know immediately if it's the wise thing to do and we say that we say well i don't know if it's the wise thing to do well then don't do it you you're never going to go wrong making the wise decision and the proof of that is this again if you have children regardless of their age don't you want them to make the wise decision if you have married children don't you want your daughters and son-in-laws to be making the wise decision as it relates to their relationship with your son or your daughter and everybody's like 100 yeah well come on you've got the wisdom to know how important this is so but that's why it's called the maturity question it's not intuitive a lot of people never get there because you step back from a lot of good opportunities you step away from a lot of things that aren't exactly illegal um years ago i've shared this i don't know if we've talked about it but ron blue some of your listeners know who ron blue is he gave me great advice he said andy talking about finances he said never do anything never make a financial decision don't do anything financially that you wouldn't want to have to stand up in front of your entire church and explain not because it's illegal or immoral but if you would not want to have to explain it don't do it and i tell you what kerry that piece of advice many many years ago sandra and i just been married we've been married you know for 30 years that piece of advice has kept us out of so many good financial deals financial opportunities they weren't illegal they weren't immoral but i thought if people found out about this would i want to have to explain it no just don't do it again that's the power of what is the wise thing to do that's so good that's a really good litmus test i don't think i'd heard that one that uh thanks for sharing that andy okay you got one more question you've got uh what you the relationship the relationship question thank you yeah now this question is different than the other four because there is a payoff with the other four if you if you do the wise thing if you say why am i doing this really you know is what story do i want to tell is there attention that deserves my attention if you ask those four questions you will be better off this question will cost you but if you're a jesus follower this question is the question that sets us up to make a difference in the world and the relationship question is this what does love require of me what does love and here's the catch what does love require of me um when i teach this to students or even to our adult congregation i say hey when it comes to relationships when you're not sure what to say or do you do what love requires of you and again it's like the wisdom question it is so clarifying i know what i want to do i know what she deserves me to do i know what everybody else does okay what does love require of me and again as jesus followers when we talk about love we're not talking about just general love it's the love that jesus demonstrated when he said hey i want you to love others the way that i have loved you it is sacrificial that's why the question is what does love require of me and real love always requires something but you know this when two people in any kind of relationship whether it's a business partnership staff relationship marriage relationship brother-sister relationship when two people ask the question okay we have our differences i've been hurt i hurt her she hurt me whatever it might be what does love require for me there is nothing you can't overcome relationally when both parties are asking that question but of course the catch is there's no guarantee the other party is going to ask the question but welcome to christianity welcome to the gospel what does love require of me andy this has been so rich anything else on decision making that you think leaders should be paying attention to well it's the steering wheel for your personal life it is the steering wheel for your organizational life you're already asking some questions internally when you make a decision add these five and for those of you that think oh good i don't need to buy the book because now i have the questions remember this knowing and doing have nothing to do with each other so i hope you'll get the book i hope you'll read chapters of this book to your kids um if you do what sandra and i did for years we would pay our kids to read certain chapters of certain books because we wanted to get that content into their hearts we were not above bribing our kids and so these five simple questions um you will make better decisions you will live with fewer regrets so um if i can two quick questions before we go in good good interviews i always lose track of my notes so thanks for rescuing me earlier when i you know lost track of the questions and all that but there are two heroes yeah uh there are two here on the page that are are really good overthinking so these are really good questions and um some of them are new to me some of them i've i've known for years because i know you and follow you but um you can get into an overthinking part where you're just like well i don't really know like what is a wise thing to do you know what story do i want to write and you just kind of turtle and you don't make any decision overthinking's a real problem today how do you know when to pull the trigger is there is there a rough test yeah well first of all um knowing yourself i mean you know your temptation is to now i know i'm gonna go now that i know i'm gonna go my inclination is i don't have enough information i don't have enough information i you know i because there's an enneagram one i want to make the perfect decision i want to make everything better so i've learned from me i only get about eighty percent now say i'm not making this up because i've shared this publicly when i asked sandra to marry me i was only eighty 80 in fact i might have been less than 80 and she saw it on my face and when i asked her to marry me i was so white and so nervous she said this was her response andy you don't have to do this that's how i came across in my proposal i mean that's just embarrassing right but i know that about myself so 80 i just have to go because i'll never be 100 you know you're you're 100 before you know you you know you've got half the information you know you just you have to slow down a little bit so i think all of us have to figure out our temperament we have to figure out our personalities our season in life and knowing that and then surrounding ourselves with the right people and compensating for that um and again as a leader i don't want to slow other people down in fact at the end of all of my meetings here's how i end my staff meetings whether it's three or four or a larger group what do you need from me what do you need from me to take the next step so i don't want us to leave here and you're like ah if only andy would or if he'd only given me or i asked him to write this thing so what do you need for me so that you can move forward with what you're doing so i don't want to slow people down but at the same time um i because i'm responsible for a lot of things just like your listeners are responsible for a lot of things whether it's family or the organization we have to make decisions and we have to learn our own pace and then we have to compensate for whether we need to speed up or perhaps slow down crisis leadership is a different bird as well so a lot of us have been propelled in the last year into a level of complex decision making nobody ever thought that they would be in or nobody signed up for etc that's for sure yeah anything and and we talked about that we'll link back to the other interview i did with you and david kineman recently about decision making which i thought was so good but anything you'd say as we head into another year that appears to be unstable or who knows what's happening by the time this airs but you know the the balance or the the um the reasonable predictability we used to enjoy as leaders appears to be on indefinite suspension so any thoughts on decision making in the midst of that well it goes back to what we talked about at length in that other conversation we can't bring certainty where there is no certainty and to pretend to is to do people a disservice but the next best best thing to certainty is clarity so where decision making becomes really really really important in the midst of uncertainty or an uncertain season is that to make any kind of decision that gives people clarity around two things here's what we're going to do here's how you fit in here's what we're going to do we don't know what's going to happen but here's what we're going to do i want to be super clear and here's what i need you to do clarity around what we're doing where you fit in for most people for a short period of time that's enough and and in times of uncertainty you know saying hey here's our three-year plan well of course that's a complete waste of time i mean when covet hit we all hit pause on just about everything that had anything to do with the three to five year plan right and we went into short decision making mode the organizations and the nonprofits and the churches that have had the most difficult time are those that refuse to make even short-term clarifying decisions about here's what we're going we know what we can't do here's what we're going to do here's where you fit in here's what we're going to do here's where you fit in and we're going to make these may be three weeks these these may be three months but clarity in the midst of uncertainty but again that is that's decision making and that is leadership in the time in times of uncertainty wow well the book is called better decisions fewer regrets for those of you who are watching uh you can see i got a little picture and it's not a particularly long book like you can actually move through this in a morning or an afternoon if you want to and i think it's one you'll pick up from time to time people can find it anywhere books are sold uh where can they find all things andy these days andy um like everything everybody amazon's your best bet right any online wherever online books are sold it's the best place to get it andy you've helped a lot of leaders today thanks so much for letting me pick your brain i really appreciate it great to see you carrie i hope we do this again before too long [Music] well i hope today's episode was helpful to you you can always get more by subscribing to my channel i also have a lot more content over at carrienewhof.com for leaders and business and leaders in churches and you can get transcripts of this episode there and so much more plus some other stuff i do for leaders so head on over there to discover more at careynewhoff.com and in the meantime i really hope our time together today has helped you lead like never before

Channel: Carey Nieuwhof

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Id: d7BrKnXUQco

Length: 63min 40sec (3820 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 05 2021