Catalyst – Dave Ramsey

One of my favorites this year. Dave didn’t come to tell you to cut up your credit cards and get out of debt. He came to bring his country flavor to your leadership. I love Dave Ramsey, he tells it how it is, he doesn’t jerk around with you. He is kind of like a country Mark Driscoll that talks about money all the time. Great stuff. Here it is.

• Unity does not just happen, it is very intentional
• Few churches or organizations experience real unity
• Unity produces a spirit of serving

The 5 enemies of unity are

1. Poor communication
2. Gossip
3. Unresolved Disagreements
4. Lack of Shared Purpose
5. Sanctioned Incompetence

Poor Communication

• You have to create communication and you must work at it
• It can take many forms, but when the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing, strife sets in.

Gossip

• Gossip is degrading and WILL destory a church or organization
• A successful leader develops and maintains a culture in which negatives are handed up and positives are handed down, meaning don’t complain to peers or people under you in an organization, take it to the leader or person you are complaining about.
• Talking to someone who cannot fix your problem is gossip.

Unresolved Disagreements

• Happens when a leader does not konw they existor when that elader avoids confrontation
• If you don’t deal with the issues, they just get bigger
• Not dealing with confrontation is cowardly.
• A little confrontation cleanses the wound
• If you know there are hurt feelings and/or disagreements, ACT QUICKLY!

Lack of Shared Purpose

• Is caused whena leader does not restate the goal, the vision and the mission often.
• Does not create a servants heart.

Sanctioned Incompetence

• It demoralizes
• Do not allow it. If you want to make an impact in the marketplace for Christ, be excellent, do not let people get away with incompetence
• Team members will become demotivated when someone else on the team doesn’t pull their weight and the leader does not take action to fix it.

In conclusion, he said leaders must go to battle early and often with ANYTHING that gets in the way of unity. When its valued the team will rally around the values and keep the enemies of unity outside of the gate. One of my favorites this year. Super practical meat and potatoes as Dave says.