What does it take to be a formal organization? Charter? Budget? 501c3 filing? Affiliation to Greenleaf? Funding strategy? Value proposition? Definition of success? How success measured? Scope? Target audience? Reach the leaders who will reach the masses OR reach the masses who will reach the leaders?
How do we best serve community? Directly, indirectly?
Agreed that training/mentoring should be inward and outbound. Giving and getting. Heavy youth involvement and growing young servant leaders.
How do we overcome the challenges/resistance/stigma to the term Servant Leadership?
Explored the strong business case for Servant Leadership.
Agreed on importance of surveying potential membership (~500 emails) for their needs.
Follows is a very loose, imperfect capturing of the dialogue. All errors are of the transcriptionist only.
HD – how do we package? How do we communicate that we want to exist?
GS – education, action, recruiting, tech
LS – learning piece so we can learn more about being a S~L~
GS – very first action to mentor kids and be mentored by them (inward/outward mentoring)
GS – concern was that all chiefs, no Indians, no tribes whereas actually this is across all cultures, hierarchies – enlightening
BD – building an organization. What does it take to be a formal organization? Charter? Budget? By-laws? Greenleaf guidelines. 501c3
PU – lessons learned from AMC (e.g., survey)
GS – Survey Committee, not to be discussed specifically by core group. To discuss, “In what areas, do we need leadership?”
MT – What’s the funding strategy? What’s the value proposition? What’s the definition of success? How defined and how measured?
(DCh – to show if we’re moving in right direction)
MT (cont) – What’s the scope? All of Texas? Or wider? Reach leaders who will reach the masses OR reach the masses who will reach the leaders? Target audience?
(GS – rather reach 3 school teachers who will reach students.)
BD – how do we best serve community? E.g. Greenleaf’s conference this summer is hosting a service project.
HD – what do we perceive needs to be? “We as a group see as need(s) we hope to meet ….”
MS – but before we do that, define what’s community?
DCa – who do we serve directly and indirectly? Rather broad scope, pool.
GS – we train leaders to go out and do service projects; pass on the concept, make it repeatable, VIRAL
TC – blending it with what’s already there, projects already existing
DCh/SMH – we are the service project. Taking S~L~ inside corporate America.
GS – sometimes in corporate America, easier to not tell them it’s S~L~ and just have them do it
DCh – Collins said we can’t call it S~L~ [Ed. Because of the baggage], so we call it Level 5. Stigma. It’s an oxymoron. We’re in business to make money.
GP – what happened at 7/11. “S~L” term is what got people excited about it. S~L~ starts with each and every one of us, with you, yourself.
HD – bring them [non-adapters] into the fold, educate them
GS – label what people are already doing; early adopters
HD – ask, “what are you doing?” à that’s S~L~
DCa – so, help people find commonality with what they’re already doing
GS – we need a tagline, a quick identifier
LS – yes, but it’s a journey, not quick
DCa – S~L~ understanding – what are the challenges/resistance? How do we overcome them? Help others understand S~L~ from their own perspective.
PU – it’s a better way to lead. People do more when they’re led by S~L~’s. It’s financially viable. We actually all want to do better and make money. Benefits of S~L~ many. But very real challenge to get past the $/stigma.
BD – S~L~ is actually a better way; makes business sense.
GS – people like mutual respect à engagement, ownership, they pay better attention, higher employee retention.
SMH – “leaderful”. Business case is important facet to me. I’ve always gotten the so-called warmer/fuzzier aspects.
DC? – [workforce is typically] protective about staying in a command and control environment; i.e. not having to take responsibility
MT – greatest benefit … shared ownership. People don’t follow people. They follow ideas.
MS – important to know your own strengths. Carry teaching through your strengths on to the kids because we’re missing a lot of talent and leadership. So, communicate strengths to people who may not know they have them.
MS – remember Quality Circles? They were successful at employee involvement.
GS – more intellectual property when you open it up.
DCh – PPT terrible for creating org charts. Look like top-down pyramids as opposed to circles or flat, where everyone is involved.
MS – make sure that everyone has a chance to lead.
DC – shared leadership responsibility. Create a template for leadership – mentoring, charitable focus, empowerment/individual strengths focus
GS – generational disconnect – cross all the disconnect. 4 people responsible for getting Millenials prepared for workforce: kid, parents, teachers, employers (us).
DCh – does this group want to be part of Greenleaf?
PU – survey really important. 500 People [approx # emails of TX-based ’07 conference attendees, to whom we’ll send survey] “Holy Cow”. The people in this room can’t possibly know what they want.
GS – always add location of meeting to the agenda.
