(00:02) Stephanie Warner: Welcome, everyone, to Season 4, episode 55. Hello, Father.
(00:08) Marcus Warner: Hello, Daughter. We’ve had fifty-five episodes in one season? That feels like a lot.
(00:10) Stephanie Warner: You know, we had more in season one, so we haven’t quite caught up with season one yet, but we’re trucking, we’re trucking along.
(00:38) Marcus Warner: That’s an impressive number.
(00:10) Stephanie Warner: Yes. We’ve got a lot of content. You cover a lot. In a recent episode you did on the Taylor Welch podcast, you were talking about like, yeah, I was a pastor, you have to have your sermon series and your sermon, you know, all the different books that you write, and all the different topics you cover. It’s just, yep. And also I would be remiss – I must give a shout out to our illustrious producer, happy birthday, Ben. This is Ben’s birthday week and…
(00:56) Marcus Warner: Yes. Hello, Son. That would be the…
(00:59) Stephanie Warner: Exactly. Yes, yes. Say it again. Say it again.
(01:02) Marcus Warner: Yes. Hello, Son. Happy birthday. Yeah, there we go.
(01:05) Stephanie Warner: We love you muchly, Ben, and thank you for all you do. Man, hope one of these days we need to get him on here and introduce him to…
(01:14) Marcus Warner: Yeah, if you get him on camera, it will shock everyone. ‘Cause he looks nothing like me, right? It would be very, yeah, it would be a good thing.
(01:21) Stephanie Warner: Oh, he’s good. He’s good. All right. Well, and oh man. And this week we’re heading to the Hope Together conference where we’re going to see Hope Together friends and also Deeper Walk friends that are Deeper Walk intensive. I’m so excited. This is going to be so much fun. So anyway, lots of relational joy to be had. And let us know, are we going to see you there?
We can jump into the topic at hand though. So this series, we are working through Rare Leadership, written by Marcus Warner and Jim Wilder. And we are in chapter five. The goal of this series is to equip you to live and lead with more emotional intelligence and resilience on your walk with God. And we have a free discussion guide in the description that you can check out if you want to go through this book as a group or with a book buddy. Something – a little bonus.
So chapter five: “Don’t Take Your Eye Off the Fast Track: When You Know Who You are, You Get Results.” All right, Father. When you know who you are, you get results. What does this mean?
(02:38) Marcus Warner: So yes. When it comes to leadership, most of us think almost exclusively in terms of getting results. Like if I’m in sales, I’m hired to produce dollars, right? If I’m a coach, I’m hired to get wins. Results matter, and there’s no getting around the fact that results matter when it comes to leadership. Well we’re arguing in this chapter, is that while results matter, we actually shoot ourselves in the foot if we make it the top priority. Because what happens is that results are to culture as the fast track is to the slow track. So let me unpack that a little bit, right?
So the fast track is that part of my brain where my identity is contained, where my relational skills are contained, where my ability to regulate emotions and feel intuitive things and my character shows up. Fast track contains, essentially my character, my identity, and who I am and everything that I bring with me that shows up, that I then bring into problem-solving, and creating narratives, and coming up with strategies, and coming up with the things that help me get results. So that’s slow track conscious thought thinking.
So here’s probably the most famous quote that connects these, is that quote that says, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast”, right? It’s usually attributed to Peter Drucker. I don’t think he actually said it. I think it was somebody trying to sum up what he teaches. But it’s a true statement. And the idea is that fast track is going to focus on culture, and focusing on culture means let’s focus on our group identity. Who are we? What does it mean to be us? How do we act like ourselves? And that if your culture is not healthy, if your culture is not clear, if your culture is not. you know, really functioning well, it will sabotage whatever strategies you put together to get results.
(04:45) Marcus Warner: And so people who tend to focus only on results often find themselves unintentionally creating very toxic atmospheres. Because if you only focus on results, you almost always find yourself motivating with fear. And that is, we better win or else. We better get these numbers or else. If we don’t win, it is going to be horrible. We won’t be able to deal with you know, the negative emotions. If we don’t get the results, you know, not sure we can handle that or have the capacity to deal with it.
And so, results focus tends to breed fear in a culture. It makes it much more likely that I’m going to have toxicity in the culture. And so you’re kind of got this tension, right? I got to get results because results matter in leadership. It’s a big part of why I’m there. But there is this kind of ironic twist that says the best way to get to those results is actually not to focus on them. It’s the focus on the culture that you’re trying to build. And so you want to build a culture and a plan.
But you want the plan to grow out of your identity, and to grow out of who you are as a group. And when those things fit well and they flow together well, you get the best possible combination and put yourself in the best position to get the results you’re after.
(06:05) Stephanie Warner: Yeah, you still want a competent culture, but you’re going after the culture and it’s kind of like when we say it’s not about left or right brain, it’s about being whole brained, right? You want it all to be working together.
(06:17) Marcus Warner: Right. So I will say in Christian ministries in particular, stereotypically you get one of two things. And that is you either get a group that is so relationally-oriented they don’t accomplish anything. And like everybody loves each other and everybody likes being together and they’re a big happy family, but they get no results and, you know, they’re always underfunded and they’re, you know, not getting the reach that they want to reach. And that’s kind of classic. It’s like the small little, we’re a happy family, but we’re not accomplishing the mission we really want to accomplish at the level we want to accomplish it.
On the other side, you get the classic Christian ministries where they are getting tons of results, but they are famous for chewing up and spitting out people. It’s like results trump culture. And that is, as long as we keep growing, as long as the mission keeps being successful, you know, we can burn through as many relationships as we have to get there. And that’s tricky. And so what I found is, though, that A, you can’t save every relationship no matter which approach you take.
Okay, sometimes those are unrelated. And I look at it this way. I remember the first time I heard Jim Wilder say, you know, you can’t save every relationship. The example he gave was Jesus. It’s like Jesus couldn’t save every relationship. If Jesus being perfect couldn’t save every relationship, who are you to think that you can save every relationship? And so the key thing is not to use it as an excuse to just burn through people, but it is to realize that the goal here isn’t just to be relational. We do want both.
(08:08) Stephanie Warner: When you say keep relationships bigger than problems, it’s not yeah.
(08:11) Marcus Warner: Yeah, you want to keep the relationship bigger than the problem and you want to have a flow that starts. So if you follow the brain, the brain starts on the right, flows to the left. Starts with the fast track, flows to the slow track. In the same way we have to start with culture, flow to results. If we flip that, things don’t work properly.
(08:30) Stephanie Warner: Mm-hmm. In the chapter, you guys set up two targets. Target one, identity, target two, results. And then underneath those, you put leadership in the identity category and you put management in the results category. Can you talk about that a little bit more?
(08:47) Marcus Warner: Yeah, the number one job of a leader is to make sure that people know who, you know, who are we? How is it like us to act? What does it mean to be part of this team versus some other team? What is our identity? And that gets into what are our values? How is it like us to act? And that sort of thing, versus management is specifically what are the strategies that we’re going to use to get the results that we’re after.
So management tends to be strategy focused. Like how are we going to execute these strategies? What are the systems that are going in place to make sure that these things are done with excellence? But the culture is how you make sure, identity is key to the culture. So you’ll hear me use culture and identity almost interchangeably because identity is like the core that it’s like the reactor core, right? That makes the culture run.
And so that’s kind of what we’re after here is, how do you create identity in a culture? So let me give you a couple of examples, because I think sometimes this thing’s better caught than taught. And the first example that always pops into my mind when I think of an identity is the Marines.
Okay, it’s like that classic story about the military recruiters were at a high school and the first guy went way too long and then the second guy took a lot of the rest of the time, and finally, the Marine recruiter got up with like one minute to go, and he just stands there and stares at the audience, and then after about thirty seconds of silence he says, I see two, maybe three of you here good enough to be Marines, right? I want to see you at the booth.
Well, guess who had the busiest booth afterwards, right? Everybody who said, okay, the identity of a Marine is, we are the best. We only take the best. Where, you know, if you think you’ve got it in you to step up to this level, then you come in it. So that’s what I mean by identity. So the identity shapes culture. And then you take that, you got in the Army Rangers and the Navy Seals and all these other, kind of like we are, you know, you got to be special to be a part of this group. And that’s what we mean by identity. It’s like, who are we?
(11:08) Marcus Warner: And you could take this to even church identities. In talking to my local church, one of the things I was pitching was like we needed a clear identity of who we are and what we’re trying to do. And I was recommending the idea like we want to be the best disciple making church in our county. And that might sound competitive, but the idea is I’m not so much worried about how I compare to the others. I just want to say, we want to be the gold standard for, if you want to go deeper in your walk with God, you want to be the most effective disciple for Christ you can be, there is no better place to be than here.
So with that vision in mind, with that identity in mind, now we build the systems to get there. And that’s an example of why identity matters, because identity is directly related to that vision. It’s directly related to, this is who we are, this is what we’re all about. And then once you have that in place, the strategies may shift seasonally. They may shift throughout time, but that identity doesn’t change. Like this is who we are. This is how we go about what we’re doing..
(12:16) Stephanie Warner: So press into that more. How do you actually build identity?
(12:20) Marcus Warner: So one of the ways that you build identity is by establishing expectations, right, within your culture. And that is the expectations start with, how is it like us to go about what we do? What are we here to do? So you got to get your mission clear, and then are your vision clear and your values? So you’re like, how is it like us to do things?
So I think it’s really helpful to actually write out an identity document. And the identity document has statements in it like, we are a people who…, like it is like us to…, right? Those are the kind of statements that go into an identity document. So you’re like, we are a people who keep relationships bigger than problems. We are a people who, you know, sacrifice happily for the group, because we believe in what we’re doing. We are a people who look after each other and don’t leave any, you know, no one’s left behind.
And so if you stop to think about it, what kind of a statement might the Marines or the Navy SEALs or a group like that put together? And you get statements like, you know, no man left behind. We, you know, we do everything with excellence. We are disciplined. It’s like, what are those statements? And then if you can take it to the next level, you want those statements to be phrased in an inspirational manner. And that is, okay, yeah, like we’re the best that you could get. It’s like I love the idea of being, you know, this sort of a person. I love the idea of belonging to this kind of a group.
And so my identity should be motivational too. Like, yeah, I definitely want to be a part of that. Like we are involved in something good, and I’m glad to be a part of this. So if I have a clear identity and I’m excited about that identity in my, and then you add to that belonging, and these are my people and we are all in this together. I am much more likely to sacrifice for my people than I am for a cause.
You see this in war all the time. It’s like after a while, the cause you’re fighting for kind of disappears. You’re fighting for the guy next to you. You’re fighting for the guys in your unit. You’re fighting for the… There’s this great scene in Band of Brothers where they’re interpreting the final speech of a German general to his troops.
(14:40) Marcus Warner: And you’re struck by the fact like, this could be an American general talking to the American troops. He’s just talking about the common experience of being a soldier in battle and being bonded to your brothers, and what you’ve gone through together, and how these relationships will, you know, be with you for the rest of your life. That’s what we’re talking about.
When you get belonging and you get identity, like together, it is a transformational engine that says we will, you know, make any sacrifice necessary, not just for the cause, but because this is who we are, this is how we do things, and we’re in it together. And that’s why we say if you can create a culture like that, you’re going to get results. And that’s what we’re trying to encourage people to do, is build inspirational culture that is rooted in an inspirational identity and that you create belonging around.
(15:31) Stephanie Warner: That’s really good. Besides the identity, like group identity statements, which are really helpful, and help you hone and focus and such, What are some practical things that people can do to begin building belonging in their group?
(15:44) Marcus Warner: Yeah, so belonging starts with inviting, and that is people need to be noticed enough to be invited in. And so when you’re talking about belonging, it starts with this idea of, am I an insider or am I an outsider? And you see this a lot in churches where people will attend a church for a long time and still feel like an outsider. And you’re like, well, what does it take to go from being an outsider to an insider? Well, first thing is you need to be invited.
And so like I’ve been to churches where the first Sunday I was there, I got invited to three different homes. I got invited out to lunch by two different people. And immediately you’re like, wow, this is really amazing that all these, you know, people are inviting us to do things. It feels like, okay, I am wanted here. And so it begins with invitation.
And then there’s a second thing that you need is some kind of an initiation. And initiation usually had three three steps to it. There’s some kind of obstacle to overcome. There’s a celebration of overcoming that obstacle. And then there is a new title or identity that you are given as a result of that. So you think, like, and again in the military, you got to get through boot camp. That’s the obstacle. If you survive the boot camp, there’s a celebration, congratulation, and now you have a new identity. You’re one of us. You’re now a soldier or a sailor or a marine, whatever the thing is, and you’re in, you’ve got the new identity.
So it’s not quite that strenuous, right, with everything. Some are super strenuous and some are not so much, but there is the idea that I have passed something that I needed to pass in order to be here. And that could be as little as I can sign off on the mission statement, I can sign off on the doctrinal statement. I can sign off on my, you know, commitment to, what I’m willing to commit to to be a part of this group.
And it could be that small, and then you can go on up from there. Like, what’s the obstacle that I have to overcome? Maybe I got to watch a class or join a class or, you know, graduate from something. But there’s a celebration and there is the granting of an identity. So that’s what we mean by initiation.
(18:00) Marcus Warner: There has to be something where before that process I’m an outsider and after that process I know I’m an insider. So, those are two of the big things that create belonging. I got a whole list. I think I have an acrostic on the word MINCE.
(18:12) Stephanie Warner: You do. I was trying to think if you have it anywhere besides H course, Heart Focus Community Course. I’ll link that below.
(18:16) Marcus Warner: Yeah, yeah. So I’m not sure I could pull off the top of my head every single one of these, but it would get close. But those two are good places to start.
(18:28) Stephanie Warner: Mm-hmm. So as leaders, how have you seen culture lead to better results? You know, for people who are still like, okay, sounds nice, but like, bottom line, guys.
(18:41) Marcus Warner: Yeah, I tend to start with the sports world, right? And that is, in the coaches, like you listen to coaches in the NFL and they sound like a broken record after a while, right? And that is like we’re all about the culture. We’re building a culture here. We want to build a winning culture. And what they’re doing is, they mean by that is, we got to get people to buy in.
The most dramatic example of this is our home state school, right? Indiana University, who just came off of one of the most historic seasons in history where they went from being the losingest college program in the history of college football to an undefeated national championship. And it took the coach two years to get there. And everything that he talked about when he came was, I got to change the culture, I got to change the culture. He didn’t talk in, and the goal was winning. But he said, We’re not going to win unless I change the culture. And so that was his focus, and that was where he put his energy.
And it wasn’t just yelling at the players, we got to win, we got to win, right? It was no, we’re going to change the way we do everything, and that creates identity, creates belonging, creates buy-in. and when you believe in your identity, you’re willing to sacrifice for it, but it’s a sacrifice coming out of joy. It’s a sacrifice that I love these people and I love who I am in connection with, and because of that I will sacrifice for people that I love, in a way that I won’t sacrifice for people just out of fear.
(20:21) Stephanie Warner: And sacrifice, it might be cliche to say, but it’s you know, a lot of times we talk about who you’ll die for, but sometimes it’s harder to say who you’ll live for, right? Like there’s the, who are you going to put in the day in and day out? What is the mission that you are going to live for, that you are going to be putting in the hard work for?
(20:42) Marcus Warner: Right. Well, you can tell the difference in the culture though, because when you have this kind of culture, you have to send people home at the end of the day. And when you have a toxic culture, people are just going through the motions and putting in their time, and can’t wait to get on to something else. And so that’s why culture is so important. It gets back to motivation and what is motivating people to do what they’re doing.
(20:56) Stephanie Warner: Mm-hmm. When I was going through this chapter, one of the things that stood out to me was this idea that leaders with high emotional maturity will be community builders. Can you talk about that a little bit?
(21:22) Marcus Warner: Yeah, I think maturity and community kind of go hand in hand. And that is like if I’m at an infant level maturity, building community will be a very foreign concept to me. I’m like, I don’t know why that’s necessary. Like just let me get my task done. If I’m a child level maturity, kind of the same thing. It’s like people who are emotional children have a difficult time understanding why culture matters and why community matters. It’s like, just let me get my tasks done and go home.
And so it starts to get more into the adult level that you understand, like, I need to be in a healthy culture. I want to be a part of a whole healthy culture. I’m going to actively help create that culture. And then you get to the parent level and you’re like, okay, I want to participate in creating this culture. I want to be one of the leaders who’s helping to make this happen.
And that’s why this is so, I think, so important is that it takes a certain level of maturity as a leader to have the skills to build a community. There are relational skill sets that are just needed in order to build a healthy culture. And that’s why you can’t always just give people a one, two, three, this is how you do it. Because somebody with a high level of relational capacity, is going to do this naturally. And people who have a low level of relational capacity are really going to struggle to do it, even if they’re trying to follow all of the steps. And so it’s directly related.
(23:00) Stephanie Warner: And the people who are doing it naturally can still use refinement or like, oh, that’s a great thing, but what if somebody’s listening to this right now and going, Oof, yeah, I can’t picture, you know, like I think I’m in that lower maturity level, but I want to change, I want to to grow, I want to, you know, what are one or two next steps for somebody like that who’s self identifying?
(23:25) Marcus Warner: Yeah, so the first thing you’re looking at is, you know, what is your personal motivations and that is, maybe you don’t care, because you’re in a group that doesn’t have a clear identity and you’re not motivated by your group’s identity. And so you really just don’t care because you’re in a group that is already pretty weak, with a pretty weak identity and pretty low motivation. And so it can be difficult to envision what that would be like.
Or you might be thinking, I have no control of what’s going on here. So what I tell people is the first step is to find ways to motivate yourself with joy in the work that you do have to do, whether your group you’re in is joy motivated or not. And that is, you got to find your own joy motivations for what you are doing. Or you’re going to burn out, it’s not going to last very long. You’ve also got to commit to being the most relational person you can be regardless of whether other people are not.
There was a fascinating study that I read about a couple of years ago. In this study they hired an actor to intentionally sabotage the cooperation of the people on the team. And so like one time the guy just like folded his arms and went to sleep, and just ignored everybody. Another time he was argumentative. Another time he was, you know, different strategies to disrupt team. And there was every group he was able to disrupt but one.
And when they went into that group to figure out what was going on, it wasn’t the leader. There was just an ordinary member of the team who just had a high relational IQ. And this person just kept finding a way to validate what was going on and get people back on track. And the actor actually said later that he forgot why he was there and became excited about participating in accomplishing what needed to be accomplished.
And it wasn’t even the leader of the group who was doing that. What they found is just dropping one relationally high IQ person into the setting changed the entire dynamic of the group. And so you may think that you have no ability to change what’s happening in your culture, but you might be surprised.
(25:52) Stephanie Warner: Oh, that’s epic. I love that so much. That’s hope. That’s hope. That’s really good. Well, I encourage everyone, if you haven’t read this book yet, this chapter has a lot of good stories in it. So go read this chapter and next episode we’re going to be getting into the second half of the book where we’re going to start getting even more exercises and like practical steps and unpacking RARE and the acrostic RARE and such. So looking forward to that.
And I also just want to say thank you for everyone who is here with us, everyone who’s on the trail. We love walking this trail with you. We love going deeper on our walks with God with you. You encourage us, you inspire us, and we hope we can offer the same. So yes, thank you. Thank you everyone who is sharing with friends and praying with us and donating and keeping us here. Like thank you. Father, do you have any final thoughts for this episode?
(26:49) Marcus Warner: Yeah, you know, it reminds me back when I was a pastor and your mom and I used to have this conversation all the time. She’s like, You are too, too preoccupied with growth. You know, you keep wanting the church to grow, you keep looking at the numbers, you keep worrying about the results. And we would go back and forth about it because I didn’t yet have this paradigm in my mind. And I just felt like a failure if I wasn’t getting those numbers. And I didn’t know how to get there other than better strategies.
So coming to understand the importance of culture. And beginning to have that, you need a strategy for culture building, was really a paradigm shift for me. And it’s been hugely helpful to understand like if you build the culture, sooner or later the rest of it is going to come. And I would just encourage people, all you can do is start where you’re at and take an honest assessment and start focusing on the priorities.
(27:46) Stephanie Warner: That’s a good word. See you back next week.
