Innovation Infusion

Wow, had a GREAT TIME at the Orange Conference in Atlanta, GA this past week. I met SO many passionate Family Ministry leaders, wholly committed to helping moms, dads, kids and teens grow in their relationship with God and with each other. The overarching theme of this conference was Collide, and stirred my thinking big-time about my interactions with others. You know when there's a collision, it causes change, so...are people different because they see Christ in me? Have I left the imprint of Christ in every one of my conversations? Am I just about helping people, or has my collision with Christ caused me to be radically consumed with loving them like He would? Wow, gonna take me some time to process those.

I had the tremendous fun of sharing a process we've developed at Leadership Network to help infuse new into areas of ministry that may have grown old, in this case Family Ministry. Here were some of the things I talked about, which can be applied to ANY ministry area:

Innovation is hard. There are 5 big roadblocks to Innovation:

• Working on the wrong problem: Did you know researchers say we diagnose the problem wrong 80% of the time?
• Judging ideas too quickly: Convergence follows divergence, but to land on that great idea, you have to consider more than one and look at ALL the options
• A sloggy climate that discourages new ideas: Most organizations don't have creative spaces designed for collaboration and playing that encourages outside the box thinking
• Getting stuck in the weeds: When obstacles loom large, we usually just quit.
• Delayed traction: The lag time between ideation and implementation can kill even the greatest idea

 

So what can we do about it? At Leadership Network, through our Innovation Labs, we're helping churches with a 5 step E-process we've designed that kicks the above roadblocks to the curb. Each is designed to give church teams the time, space and tools to look at the effectiveness of their ministry area and evaluate their effectiveness and see where new ideas are needed. Around this process we've designed a Think!Pack that gives questions to stimulate your team's discussions, great book suggestions to stir your thinking and stuff for you team to actually DO to get innovation going. Our Think!Pack is an internal tool for church teams that participate in our Innovation Labs, but shh, I leaked a few of the good ideas and reads here:

Examine the Now and the Next: Here's where your team starts, by looking closely at what you're doing now

To Do: Take your team on a field trip to expore popular related environments and compare them to yours (Children's Min: Visit your area most popular play place) Why do kids come? What are the most popular attractions? Do we offer anything like this/

To Read: It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want to Be by Paul Arden

Engage Your Creative Spirit: This is GREEN LIGHT Thinking

To Do: Create your own Ministry Thinkubator (Check out this one)

To Read: Aha! 10 Ways to Free Your Creative Spirit and Find Your Great Ideas by Jordan Avan

Explore Your Best Options: How do you find which idea is best?

To Do: Rate your ideas on an X/Y axis, with X representing effort and Y representing reward

To Read: Smart Questions; Learn to ask the Right Questions for Powerful Results by Nadler, Chandon

Establish Your Path: Now formulate your plan!

To Do: Spend a few minutes playing the game Chutes & Ladders. List your ladders (next steps) to carry out your idea. List your chutes (your obstacles). Note that in the game EVERY chute can be overcome.

To Read: Strategic Thinking by Wooten, Horne

Evaluate Your Progress: How are you doing?

To Do: Develop a traffic light indicator to use color to represent your progress on each of your steps you outlined in Establish

       red: we're stalled!; yellow: we've hit a delay; green: we're on target;

To Read: Our Iceburg is melting by John Kotter

 

If your ministry area is looking for help to infuse new ideas into a ministry area or getting fast traction in starting a ministry area, check out our Innovation Labs at Leadership Network

http://innovationlab.leadnet.org

Comments

[Red Wing Work Boots]

So fun article is! I know more from it.