The second part of Session 6 featured Dr. Henry Cloud. Henry is a renown author, speaker and psychologist. The presentation he gave is something Bill Hybels said he refers to every day.
Click on the speaker to read my notes from their session: Bill Hybels, Len Schlesinger, Cory Booker, Brenda Salter McNeil, Seth Godin, Steven Furtick, Bill Hybels/Wess Stafford, Mama Maggie Gobran/Bill Hybels and Michelle Rhee.
The Evil, The Foolish, The Wise by Henry Cloud
- I’m going to explain three categories of people that leaders work with all the time.
- It’s not long into conversation, with a leader, where it turns to “that guy”. I have “this guy” or “this woman”. They think this person is unique, but it’s not. Wherever you are, God has called you to be a steward over a vision for the specifici reason of changing something in a family, church, or world. “This guy” is everywhere.
- Are you going to allow “this guy” to stop your vision?
- What does a person do when the truth comes to them? That is the diagnostic question. What does a person do when reality comes to them? A leader needs to figure out reality and make it engage for their team. What do you do if you engage it and your people are allergic to it?
- Feedback is not easy to hear sometimes.
- You make an assumption as a leader as well. As a leader, you are a kind and responsible person. When you receive feedback in a nice way, you have a tendency to lead like that. It wouldn’t be a problem if everyone was like you, but they aren’t. You can’t deal with every person the same as you lead. You have to diagnose who you are talking to and deal with them appropriately so you don’t lose your vision.
- Three categories of people: Wise, Fool, Evil.
- What is a wise person? When the light comes to them, that person adjusts themselves to match the light. When the truth comes to them, they change to match a reality. That’s wisdom. Correct a wise person and they will be wiser still. Wise tweak the formula. When you confront them you get a smiley face. They give you a thanks. “A righteous man will strike me and it will be a blessing.” Coach them. Give them feedback. Resource them.
- With a wise person the challenge is matching them with the need. Give them good feedback and coaching. Keep them challenged appropriately.
- The group we know and love, the fool. A fool may be the smartest person, the brightest, the most gifted, and often they are because that’s how they’ve gotten as far as they have. They are results and charisma, they produce a lot. With the fool, when the light shows up they try to adjust the light. It hurts their eyes, it’s allergic, they try to dim it. They adjust it. The fool will try to change the truth, to minimize it. They shoot the messenger, it’s you. “Well, if you’d just…” “If you, if you, if you…” If that’s their first response, external, let that be a warning. They’re squinting. They deny it’s reality, minimalize, externalize, shoot the messenger. No smiley face. They are not happy to hear this. They get angry. They have a meeting, after the meeting with you, to get with someone to triangulate against you.
- One of the most important feelings you can have as a leader is hopelessness. Hard to solve a problem that’s not in the room. The fool will not own the problem. A nice responsible person hopes the fool will start listening someday.
- Definition of insanity, continuing to do same thing and expecting different results.
- Do not confront or correct a fool, lest you incur insults. They’ll shoot the messenger. What do you do? Stop talking. Why? They have stopped the vision. Their allergy to your reality is now in charge. We stop talking and we have a different kind of conversation. Talk about a new problem, the problem of them. The problem of the pattern.
- Say you don’t know how to give feedback that helps. It’s hopeless for me. I got to protect the vision, the culture. Going to set limits. I have to limit exposure to this, because I cannot lose vision or culture or ministry. I want to know how when I talk to you it will make a difference.
- You do this because maybe they are foolish for shame reasons. Find a way that works. I’ll do that, but what will we do if we do that and there is no change. What is the plan then? You get specific about consequences. They can be extreme or minor. Fools change when truths comes to them that they must camp out in and feel.
- There’s great hope for fools. Jesus died for fools. We are all foolish to some degree.
- Limit your exposure. Clear the consequences. Give them a choice. You have to follow through.
- Evil people have destruction in their heart. They want to inflict pain. There truly are bad people in the world. Reject a divisive person after a second warning. Have nothing to do with them. Lawyers, guns and money. You’ll talk through lawyers, you have to get police for protection, and need money to help with this.
- Take leadership challenge to not let someone’s foolishness stop you.
RamHatter 
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