Being a sports fan and living in Africa has been a little complicated. Unfortunately, I have no affiliation for soccer - the most popular (or only?) sport for the majority of the world, including Mozambique. So, websites, podcasts and phone calls with my father-in-law have been the life-lines keeping me connected to the American sports scene.
One
of my favorite NFL commentators was Mike Lombardi, who regularly appeared on
Bill Simmons' podcast before taking a job in the Cleveland Browns' front
office. Besides having a great football
name (!), Lombardi used a number of memorable phrases on the podcast in
evaluating the different teams.
I
enjoy the way sports can make helpful connections to life and ministry and have
written about connections between missions and baseball and basketball. Here, I wanted to share some
thoughts about how Lombardi's diagnostic tools for football teams could serve
to increase the effectiveness of cross-cultural mission teams.
A proverb - "Don't confuse hope
for a plan."
This
is my favorite Lombardi-ism. He would
often talk about football teams whose whole strategies or long-term vision
would be based on the 'hope' that player 'X' would develop into a star. Lombardi would belittle that approach saying
that while hope may be a good thing, there still needed to be plans in case
that hope never became a reality.
In
missions, it can be easy to fall prey to false hope. We may invest time and resources in immature
and unfaithful people with the hope that eventually they will figure it out and
turn their life around. While hope and a
reliance on God's power to transform are foundational, we still need to take
seriously the powerful forces that keep people from moving forward. In working towards long-term goals we need to
plan for the fact that many we work with will fail to meet their potential.
A metaphor - "A great team's
playbook looks like a first-class French restaurant menu: a small selection of
dishes that are all excellent."
So,
while good teams do a few things well, Lombardi would contrast that with an
underperforming football team whose playbook looks like a gigantic menu from a mediocre
restaurant. Sure, they serve a bunch of
dishes, but are any of them really good?
He emphasized the need to pick a few things and do them consistently
with excellence. In evaluating a team's
playbook, one should look for quality over quantity.
In
missions we can sometimes get pulled into doing lots and lots of activities,
all of them are good and there are needs all around us. But, I think we should draw from the example
of successful teams and businesses that do only a few things really, really
well. Teams should concentrate on the
things that they are: the most passionate about, the most qualified for, and
would have the most impact.
A question - "Who are the 'blue
chippers' in your organization?"
For
a number of years, Lombardi made lists of the elite players ('blue chips') and
near-elite players ('red chips') at each position across the NFL. Then he would add up the number of those
great players on each team and use that as a way to predict how well that team
would perform that year. Lombardi said
that most teams don't do a good job of evaluating their own talent. They tend to overvalue and overpay them to
the detriment of the organization. Great teams, though, are skilled at making
objective evaluations about their in-house talent. His counsel would be to know who your elite
players are and how to use them well.
In
missions, especially working with multiple churches on a regional level, it is
extremely important to know who the blue chippers are and how to help them be
most effective. It is challenging to objectively discern the intersection
of capacity (what is this person capable of?) and craving (what is this person eager
to do?) in a church leader. Like Jim
Collins example from Good to Great, we must make sure that the right
people are on the bus and that they are in the right seats on the bus.
Well, thanks for indulging my inner
sports fan for a few minutes. My hope is that these
three football diagnostics - the proverb, the metaphor and the question - may
be a helpful addition to our toolboxes, aiding teams in becoming better at
fulfilling the mission.
Peace,
Alan
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