Within your world of creativity, with something you’ve written, produced, conceived or presented, it’s good to ask “how could this be better?” rather than only “what do you like about this?”. The pathway of constructive criticism should lead to better output. Not discouragement.
It’s like this within leadership. And within our churches. Often times we will say we want to ‘go up a level’ or to ‘go deeper’ or to ‘go on further’ than we have before, but how often do we really mean that, or really want that?
British Telecom get it.
I was reading their job description yesterday for their world class leadership programme, BT’s MBA, and one of their phrases jumped out to me. BT are looking for the cream of the crop – they’re looking for leadership and business talent, people with drive and skill. But they’re not looking for people to cruise along the status quo of ‘same old, same old’, or ‘yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir’. Let me show you what they’re looking for:-
“We require individuals with a proven track record in stakeholder and delivery management in disciplines such as strategy, business/product development, operations, or innovation.”
And:-
“We look for disruptive thinkers that challenge the status quo and deliver change.”
BT deliberately look for people to join their teams and services who will unsettle the norm and who will bring change and growth – who will be disruptive thinkers.
This doesn’t mean they go looking for renegade mavericks who don’t understand or respect authroity; it means they don’t just want someone to fit in and ‘obey’ – they want world-class candidates who will both work as part of a team, and under a vision, but who will also be released and given permission to disrupt.
Our churches would do well to understand that disruption isn’t necessarily an ugly word, and that co-operation isn’t necessarily a beautiful one.
Jesus messing things up, on the grand scale that He did, shows that The Kingdom is more about disruption than it is co-operation.
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