Fostering Missional Excellence

In our last Interchange session, we asked what future subjects you'd be interested in and we got six separate answers; five of which were all about developing future leaders and developing staff. So that's the subject we're going to discuss this month. The title that I selected “Fostering Missional Excellence” is informative in and of itself and to get the most information from it let's look at the definition of each of the terms.

Foster:  to promote the growth of

Mission:  a purpose that is accompanied by strong conviction or calling:

Excellence:  the fact or state of excelling.     Excel:  to do extremely well: to outdo:

So the big question we're going to pose is:  How might you promote the growth of… a team of individuals… that does extremely well… at a purpose that is accompanied by strong conviction or calling?

The sentiment was expressed by a few of you that: In this labor market, we find ourselves “pleasing people” in order to retain them, yet pleasing them, catering to their need for comfort, frequently produces lackluster results.  A few of the specific tactical questions that were posed at the last session are: How do we get excellence and retention?  How do you do this with the intergenerational workforce we have today? How do you coach people who are not asking for coaching?  These tactical questions are sort of seductive because they do not demand of us any deep self-awareness of who we are being.  However unless we look at the real root causes, any tactics that are created will produce more of the same.

Attached is a one page article we wrote about culture.  It proposes that culture is a comfort zone that is made up of the personal comfort zones of it’s members, especially it’s leaders.  So, the root cause questions to consider are:

How does your personal comfort zone Foster Missional Excellence?

How does the comfort zone of your leaders, as a body, Foster Missional Excellence?

Please bring with you a copy, digital or paper, of your Elevate Workbook. (https://www.phoenixperform.com/elevate-system)

Book recommendation from Lenora Hardy Foster:

Teamflow: The Science of Creating Positive Leadership Practices with Impact by David Drews