Okay, that’s a big claim. But that’s the category this falls into for me.

I can’t get the question off my mind. I heard Michael Hyatt ask it and it’s proving to be extremely clarifying

The question addresses one of the most serious issues anyone leading anything faces: obstacles that will set you back and discourage you.

Been there?

Before we get to it, let me give you some context.

When you start out in leadership, you see the road ahead as filled with opportunities.As you get a little more experienced, you see that it’s also filled with obstacles.

Between you and the opportunities are obstacles that take out more than the fair share of leaders.

The obstacles leaders routinely hit include:

Lack of money

Slow progress

Criticism

Difficult team members

Personal discouragement

Your limits as a leader

Unforeseen circumstances

It’s easy to end up discouraged, defeated and deflated because things didn’t turn out nearly the way you thought they would.

But the truth is things rarely, if ever, do turn out the way you originally think they will.

The difference between leaders who make it over time and realize their mission and the leaders who don’t is simple: successful leaders learn how to navigate obstacles.

That’s where Michael Hyatt’s excellent question comes into play.

Here’s the question:

Keep reading this post…

My guess is that, whatever you lead, you

Want to lead an aligned organization

See as much agreement in your organization as you can

Find and cultivate consensus

Let me go out on a limb here and guess that it’s been a struggle.

Aligning people around a common mission, vision and strategy is hard work. 

Getting people to agree is difficult.

And finding consensus can sometimes seem impossible. 

I get that. I’ve been there.

The trap I’ve seen so many leaders fall into is that they approach alignment, agreement and consensus backwards.

Many (if not most) leaders try to get:

Consensus first.

Agreement second.

Alignment third.

I’ve tried that too.

The problem with that approach is it almost never works. In fact, it’s backwards.

When you figure out the right order, it can change how you lead forever, and help everyone involved.

If you miss it, it can leave you and everyone you lead floundering.

Consider this: when the automobile was first invented, almost nobody saw how big the car would become. The Literary Digest wrote:

“The ordinary “horseless carriage” is at present a luxury for the wealthy; and although its price will probably fall in the future, it will never, of course, come into as common use as the bicycle.”

Consensus about the car developed after the car was introduced. Not before.

The application to your situation is direct.

So let’s get at it.

Keep reading this post…

I read a survey the other day that made me literally sit up straight as I took notice.

The number of people in Canada (my country) who profess “no religion” is now at 24%, up from 16.5% a decade earlier.

That’s a massive shift in a mere ten years.

As I reflect on it all, I’m left with this growing realization.

People are learning to live comfortably without God. 

Want to see where this might be heading? Go to Western Europe, where people have very comfortable lives and only a splinter regularly attend church. They just don’t see their need for God.

Rather than being met with a wall of hostility, Christians are mostly being met with a wall of indifference and perceived irrelevance. 

I believe that means a massive shift in attitude and approach for those of us in leadership in the local church.

Much of the church’s outreach over the last 60 years has been based on a few assumptions that are less and less true every year:

Young adults will return to church when they have kids. 

People will turn to God when they hit a crisis.

Most people will come back to what they left when they were young. 

When people have spiritual needs, they will look to the church to fulfill them.

Instead, here’s what I see as increasingly true among unchurched people who are learning to live comfortably without God:

Affluence (even many of our poor are affluent from a global perspective) has left people with a sense they have all they need to face life.

People don’t always turn to God in a crisis; they honestly don’t think the church can help.

You can only come back to something you knew; when you are on your second or third generation of ‘unchurched’, there is nothing to come back to for many people.

Personalized, google-able spirituality doesn’t demand the assistance of anyone or anything else. 

So how do you reach a growing number of people who are learning to live comfortably without God?

Keep reading this post…