Antidote to Stagnation

Image source: pieria.co.uk

I watched Wall-E with the kids tonight.  I wasn’t too impressed with the movie, but the Special Features (Behind the Scenes, etc) were awesome!  Although everything on the Bonus DVD was (of course) carefully scripted, I was amazed at the number of times they talked about taking risks.

At one point, one of the producers mentioned that the Pixar team begins to ask questions if you don’t “fall off your bicycle.”  They ask questions such as, “Are you not taking enough risks?”  They feel that is the only way to avoid stagnation.

Think about that… the expectation that you will make some mistakes along the way.  They consider failure to be a valuable part of the process – something to be expected, not something to be feared.
What does this mean to us as we lead or serve on teams?

• We have to make our teams safe places for people to take risks… places where (acceptable) risk, and “failing forward” is celebrated.
• We have to lead our teams into thinking out of the box… this is often done by change of environment (place, time, structure, etc).
• We have to be willing to take risks ourselves.  This requires that we deal with our insecurities and limitations - often a leader’s worst fear!

We can’t expect yesterday’s methods to reach today’s culture.  Oh that we would keep this in mind… especially as we lead organizations whose mission is attempting to direct a lost world toward Jesus Christ.