Les McKeown is back on the podcast, this time talking about the difference between growing organizations and organizations that are ready for scale. The two often get confused, and just because you’re growing doesn’t mean you’re ready to scale.
Les shares the keys to scale, which, coincidentally, also reduces the stress the senior leader and entire team feel. Getting bigger doesn’t mean getting more frenzied. Often, it’s the opposite.
Welcome to Episode 265 of the podcast. Listen and access the show notes below or search for the Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and listen for free.
Rather watch? Watch today’s episode via YouTube.
Guest Links
Predictable Success | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Books
Text “do” to 72000 and receive Chapter 1 of Les’ new book Do Scale and the 4D Flight Plan.
Scale Con 2019: June 5-7, 2019 in Washington, D.C.
Episode Links
94% of churches today are either not growing or not growing at the same rate as their community. Head over to churchgrowthmasterclass.com today and discover why. Whether your church isn’t growing or your seeing growth, but hitting barriers, Church Growth Masterclass can help.
Want to reach more people online? Pro Media Fire has the media solution that’s right for your church at promediafire.com/carey. Podcast listeners receive 10% off for life.
CNLP 112: Les McKeown on Getting Your Church or Organization into a Place of Predictable Success
CNLP 052: How Craig Groeschel Stays Healthy, Relevant and Passionate in Ministry
3 Insights from Les
1. Scaling organizations are rarer than people think
Many people think that experiencing expansive growth means an organization is scaling. Les argues that if an organization is working in an extremely fast pace without implementing systems and processes that empower managers to make decisions, it isn’t scaling at all.
The biggest obstacle in the way of becoming an organization ready to truly scale is understanding the behavioral and mindset changes necessary to implement systems and processes. This will lead a thriving organization that is ready to scale, because scaling can only happen after implementing proper systems and processes to reproduce success.
Once an organization is scaling, the model can grow as large as the market will allow in whatever footprint it chooses – whether that’s local, regional, national, or global.
2. The heart of a healthy, scaling organization is high-quality, team-based decision making
Many organizations think they are scaling, but they are actually still in the Fun Stage of the predictable success model. If an organization is seeing massively overwhelming growth, it’s not scaling.
There is one key thing that all scaling teams must get right: High-quality, team-based decision making. This is key for any scaling organization.
Managers in scalable organizations have learned the skill of lateral management – the ability to work with the people that are on their same level. When groups of managers begin working together to make decisions the organization becomes more capable of scaling. A decision-making process is a key tool that these organizations have to master.
3. As you scale, you have to learn to fly by instruments, not by your gut
An absolutely essential part of having early growth is having a visionary with great judgment. Early on and in smaller organizations, there is a leader that has a Golden Gut. This leader just knows when something is off or the correct decisions that need to be made.
The Golden Gut works for a while, but as an organization grows this leader will no longer be able to see the threats coming against the organization. This shift usually comes when an organization hits 20 full-time employees. This is the time when the leader has to limit the Golden Gut impulses, rely on key analytics to guide decisions and have a team that can implement Fly-by Instruments.
Quotes from Episode 265
Read or Download the Transcript for Episode 265
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Read or download a free PDF transcript of this episode here.
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Next Episode: Carey Nieuwhof & Jeremy MacDonald
What do you do if your church is dead…stuck…stagnant, and simply not growing? And once it starts growing, how do you get ready to scale the growth barriers most leaders never figure out how to scale? Jeremy MacDonald interviews Carey Nieuwhof about the backstory of two decades plus in church leadership, from starting with three small dying mainline churches to the over 1500 people who attend today. Carey talks about how to jumpstart the mission of a dead church, how to recruit leaders, how to get people to stop expecting the pastor to do everything, and how to empower a team to lead the church past 1000 attenders.
Subscribe for free now and you won’t miss Episode 266.
