Who are you and what do you do?

There is a children’s classic called “Put me in the zoo” by Robert Lopshire

  (http://youtu.be/AnyZHYiZfWM  click the link & take 4 minutes just for yourself , I dare you ) that tells the story of a spotted leopard who wants to be in a zoo. Aside from the oblivious subliminal messages issues concerning passivity about the loss of freedom and justification of mind numbing acceptance issues, Spot the protagonist is a great example of a leaders need to examine  their organization

When is the last time you reexamined the core of what your organization is all about?

Bill Hybel asked this question anlong with 4 others at a Global Leadership Conference I recently attended.  http://www.facebook.com/wcagls

The world wants to respond but not to the general cry that exist in the background , they want to respond to the sound of their own name or to fill their own personally felt need.

What business are you in ? Can your answer be printed on a t-shirt ?

When you identify who you are and what you do it gives others an ability to separate you from the pack.

Bill also provided us with a great exercise that you can do with your team or organizational leaders .

Draw a large Circle and inside that Circle place 5 numbered blank lines , starting with 1 at the top and ending with 5 at the bottom. Now choose no more than 5 words ( 1 on each line ) that best  describes the core of what your organization is all about.

Just in case you think that your gifts to the world are too complicated, complex or controversial to distill into a mere 5 words , let be leave you with Bill’s example which is that of His very large church.

1.    Love

2.    Evil

3.  Rescue

4.    Choice

5.     Restoration

Having been involved with a lot of churches and experienced the intense passion and wide diversity of perceived purposes commonly found in such places, I can only imagine the verbosity required to arrive at the selection of these five words. Bill says some of them are still debating so he is nto sure waht the final set of words will be , so he just shared his choices of words and why he choice them.

The discussion of the mission reinforces the mission

How do these words represent my ideals? 

How do I apply them to my Client/Customer Relationships?

Is it time to reexamine (or find) our mission statement?