Quotes by Andy Stanley

Started tweeting (seriously if you don’t know what that it is you need to Google it) some of these quotes but they are so good I am just posting the whole thing that was a live blog by Tony Morgan.

Ones in BOLD resonated with me.

• 3:46 PM tonymorganlive - “I don’t see things until they happen.” (referring to the song & dance before he spoke.)
• 3:47 PM tonymorganlive - “Systems create behaviors.”
• 3:51 PM tonymorganlive - “Leadership is not about making decision on your own. It’s about owning decisions once they are made.”
• 3:51 PM tonymorganlive - “As leaders, we gravitate to voices we want to hear.”
• 3:52 PM tonymorganlive - “Leaders become insulated and isolated…and they like it.”
• 3:54 PM tonymorganlive - “The leader shouldn’t make all the decisions. The leader should just make sure the decisions are good ones.”
• 3:55 PM tonymorganlive - “You are probably not the smartest person in the organization. You’re just the leader.”
• 3:57 PM tonymorganlive - “You have got to create a mechanism to listen to the right people.”
• 3:58 PM tonymorganlive - “What and who you listen to will determine what you do.”
• 3:59 PM tonymorganlive - “Your private decisions will be judged publicly.
• 4:03 PM tonymorganlive - (Andy is talking about the decision process of cutting budgets during the recession.)
• 4:04 PM tonymorganlive - “The more sense of input that people have, the less the push back.”
• 4:05 PM tonymorganlive - “Leaders are attracted to environments where ideas and opinions are heard.”
• 4:05 PM tonymorganlive - “If you want great leaders, you need to create systems for listening to great leaders.”
• 4:06 PM tonymorganlive - “Leaders want more than assignments. They want input into the decision-making process.”
• 4:07 PM tonymorganlive - “Leaders want to influence their own destinies.” [amen.]
• 4:08 PM tonymorganlive - “Leaders who refuse to listen will eventually be surrounded by people who have nothing important to say.”
• 4:09 PM tonymorganlive - (oh my… I hope you’re paying attention. This is good stuff. It’s so true.)
• 4:10 PM tonymorganlive - “The wisest man in the world [King Solomon] had the most to say about getting good counsel.”
• 4:13 PM tonymorganlive - (Andy is talking about the challenges of a highly hierarchical organizational structure.)
• 4:15 PM tonymorganlive - “Eventually a seniority structure leaves the seniors in charge.”
• 4:16 PM tonymorganlive - “Your structure has to change or your structure will impede information flow.”
• 4:20 PM tonymorganlive - “I don’t want anyone to live with the frustration that I used to live with in the lower levels of the organization.”
• 4:20 PM tonymorganlive - “You have to rethink your systems.”
• 4:21 PM tonymorganlive - “Please don’t live with an organizational structure that impedes information flow.”
• 4:23 PM tonymorganlive - (I could listen to this type of leadership, systems thinking all day long. Great stuff.)
• 4:23 PM tonymorganlive - “You want the best thinkers and the most strategic people at the table with you.”
• 4:24 PM tonymorganlive - “Fairness ended in the Garden of Eden. Never shoot for fair. When you shoot for fair, you’ll be unjust. Shoot for right.”
• 4:27 PM tonymorganlive - (Andy is talking through North Point’s current organizational structure.)
• 4:28 PM tonymorganlive - “You need to listen deep in your organization. That doesn’t mean you have to meet with everyone in the organization.”
• 4:32 PM tonymorganlive - (Now Andy is talking about how he connects with about 150 volunteers on a quarterly basis.)
• 4:34 PM tonymorganlive - “Resist the urge to lead every meeting you attend.”
• 4:34 PM tonymorganlive - “What we don’t want to hear is generally what we need to hear.”
• 4:35 PM tonymorganlive - “The people we don’t want to hear from are the people we often need to hear from most.”
• 4:36 PM tonymorganlive - (Session is concluding. Battery is dying. Continue the conversation and questions. I’ll catch up with you later.)