Andy Stanley - Gaining and Sustaining Momentum

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey, everybody, Welcome to the Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast, a
conversation designed to help leaders go further faster. I'm Andy Stanley,
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(00:44):
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And now let's dive into today's podcast content. Today we're

(01:07):
talking about momentum, getting it, keeping it, leveraging it, and
then regaining it when you sense it slipping away, And
of course, joining me today to unpack this important topic
is my co host Susie Gray. Welcome Susie. Thanks Andy.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
That is quite an ambitious category of things for today,
so let's really get to it. As you alluded to,
momentum is something every leader craves. It's crucial for any
organization striving for greatness, regardless of the industry. When we
have it, we feel great, and when we don't it
can cause frustration from the top down.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
Let's talk about that. Yeah, organizational leaders, we love progress
and momentum. Really, momentum is really synonymous with progress, or
at least it feels that way, so much so that,
as many of you know, John Maxwell insists that momentum
is actually the leader's friend. And if anybody doubts that,
just wait until you lose it, right, It's like losing

(02:05):
a friend and you don't know what you've got till
it's gone. So so anyway, so here's why I said
that momentum is emotional. It creates its own emotion. You
feel it when you have it, you experience it. It
feels good, it's comforting. And when you have momentum, organizationally
the feeling of progress. It kind of permeates the entire organization.
I mean, if you've ever worked with a team with momentum,

(02:26):
everybody feels it. I mean it's intangible, but it's it's
real even though it's intangible. Right, hiring is easier because
while you're actually hiring, you're growing. Right. But the challenge
is there's a sense in which momentum is seductive, it's deceptive.
It makes leaders feel like they're really good leaders, and
they may be, but they may not be. We've all

(02:47):
seen poor leaders who just happen to run out front
of a parade that was already moving down the street,
and they got all the credit and they said, look
at me lead when actually, you know, they just dropped
in in the middle of something, right at the front
of something that was already good. Move it. Yeah, that
was that was already good. So again, it makes leaders
feel like good leaders, and again they may be or
they may not be. But the real test of leadership
is not leading in a season of momentum. That's easy, right,

(03:10):
You just get up, you show up, and then try
to keep up. The challenge is when momentum begins to
slip away and that's what we're going to spend a
lot of our time talking about today. But you know,
the great thing about momentum is there are always problems organizationally,
but when you have momentum, the problems are good problems generally, right,
their growth problems, even the not so good problems are
easier to navigate when you have momentum. Right, momentum makes

(03:34):
us all look a bit better than we really are.
And a lack of momentum, while it can cause us
to doubt ourselves and our decision making ability. Oh that
is so true. Been there recently? We really so would
you like to elaborate? Nope, moving on, Well, we've all
been there, whether recent or not. I mean, come on,

(03:55):
coming out of COVID, I mean, it's no wonder that
so many CEOs took the money and ran right, because again,
you're leading, things are going well. Suddenly the whole world changes.
And there are many leaders, especially founders sometimes who have
never led out of the trough. They've never experienced going

(04:16):
into the trough. And again we're going to talk about
this later. The leadership skills that are so important when
it comes to starting something are often a very different
set of skills than are required to fix something or
to correct something, and not every leader has, you know,
an infinite toolbox of skills. So we're going to talk
about arts.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
What if I heard that said before. I've heard somebody
say you can be a starter, you can be a stoker,
you can be a maintainer of the fire.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
Usually not all three. Yeah, you're not all three, And
in different seasons of organizational life, it requires a different
kind of leader.

Speaker 2 (04:49):
Leader.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
And when momentum stalls or reverses, again, as I said,
leaders begin to feel like failures. What's wrong, what's wrong
with me? Boards, you know, look for someone to blame,
which is generally I don't think a great idea. But
that's just what happens because there are so many factors
outside of a leader's control. The economy, outdated systems, sometimes
the weather, depending on the industry, right, competition. But again,

(05:12):
that's why we need leaders to lead in such a
way to create momentum, to sustain momentum, and then to
fix it when the momentum stalls. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
Well, and that actually surfaces another deceptive facet related to momentum.
It's easy to become enamored with here and now, what's
right in front of me, right, or so busy managing
the current success leaders stop looking around at all, stop
anticipating the future.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
And that's a problem too, isn't it. Yeah, Because again
it's seductive. I mean, things are going our way and
things will always go our way, and everybody's coming to
learn from us, And who's got time to look too
far into the future because the assumption is it's always
going to be this way. So warning to the leaders
out there, especially the young leaders, it's not always going
to be that way. Whatever that way is, it's just

(05:59):
not always going to be that That's just the reality.
And we experience this in our organization in twenty sixteen
and seventeen because we had extraordinary momentum for so many
years and then you know, things began to change. But
we had, just like organizations do, we had kind of
settled into a why fix it if it's not broken mentality.

(06:21):
We had less innovation, we had less experimentation. We were
just riding the momentum and trying to keep up with
the growth, and then things began to change. The point
being to fuel and we're going to break this down
in a few minutes, to fuel or maintain momentum, Organizations
have to evaluate constantly and refuse to follow, as we
talk about all the time, to refuse to fall in

(06:42):
love with our models, to refuse to fall in love
with the way we've always done things. But that's so
hard to resist when your model is killing it? Right?
Why begin to evaluate? Why look too deeply? Why do
an autopsy on our success? Again, especially if there's if
you're really growing fast, you're just trying to keep up.
But if you fall in love with your model, the
momentum clock is ticking backwards. Because every model has a

(07:05):
shelf life.

Speaker 2 (07:06):
And really, that is why it's so important, as you
just said, for organizations to do an autopsy of their success.

Speaker 1 (07:12):
Yeah, because if you don't know, we say this all
the time, if you don't know why it's working when
it's working, you won't know how to fix it when
it breaks and everything breaks and everything eventually breaks down.
It's it's just the way life works, right, is.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
Well, I've actually heard you say there are three components
for gaining and sustaining momentum. So why don't we Why
don't we talk about those three components?

Speaker 1 (07:32):
What are they? Yeah? New, improved and improving getting right
to it. Yeah, new, improved and improving, and I will
go ahead and admit to our podcast listeners that is
a bit simplistic, but it is memorable, right, New, improved
and improving. And the reason I came up with that
many many years ago is I wanted some sort of

(07:53):
formula to keep in front of our teams and to
keep in front of me because we were experiencing momentum.
And again, I'm just a fanatic when it comes to
stopping and saying it's working great, Why is this working.
We're gonna give an illustration of that later on that
actually happened this morning. You know things are working well,
Why is this working so well? We have to document this.
We have to pay attention to this because if you

(08:14):
don't know why it's working when it's working, you can't
fix it what it's broken. So I came up with
these three words, and I actually got this idea walking
through a grocery store. When I was thinking about this,
it was many many years ago. But it's momentum is
the formula is anything new creates momentum, Anything new and
improved has the potential to sustain momentum. But in terms

(08:37):
of long term sustaining momentum, it has to constantly be improving.
So that's kind of the formula. And we early on
we had momentum because what we were doing was new
in terms of the kind of church we created, and
it was also in the eyes of many people, an
improvement over, you know, their church experience. We didn't create church,
we didn't create a category. We just came up with

(08:59):
a new, new, and improved version of an existing product.
And for most of our podcast listeners and for most innovators,
that's what most people do. Very very few people have
the privilege or the brilliance to create a brand new category. Essentially,
we're dropping into industries and markets and we're looking for
new ways to do things that for in most cases
have been being done for many, many years, or just

(09:20):
a different way, just to do it in a different way. Right,
So it's new, a new approach, an improved product or
improved approach, and then constantly looking for ways to improve.
And I knew we had to keep improving on our improvement.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
Yeah, so let's unpack those and what that actually might
look like.

Speaker 1 (09:39):
Yeah, new, improved, improving. Let's start with new. This is
that you may push back on this or resist this,
but just think about it. Anything new creates some sense
of momentum. It doesn't have to be good, it can
be bad. But new triggers momentum always because anything new
triggers interest, It gets attention initially anyway, and that has

(10:00):
its own sense of momentum. So new, by definition, generates
some kind of momentium. It can be positive or negative.
This may be a terrible illustrator, Suzi, so you may
edit this out later, but just just go with me.
Imagine if Chick fil A announced the Chick fil A burger.
They and they marketed this new idea around the chickens
get their revenge as they would. Yes, right, okay, so

(10:24):
this is probably a terrible idea, but it would create momentum.
Initially people would try the Chick fil A burger. They
would sell a ton of Chick filabor even if they
were terrible. They wouldn't even have to do much marketing.
Word would get out. There would be all this interest
in the Chick fil A burger, even if it tasted
terrible and it was a terrible product. I just say

(10:46):
that to say, anything new again carries its own sense
of momentum. This is the power of new. Now here's
an actual example. Some of you listening can remember this.
Do you remember the New Coke? Ah, yes, you're staying
with the atlantathem. I see, yes, the New Coke. I
remember New Coke. And that wasn't even the name of it.
That was just the nickname. Because what they did. For

(11:07):
those of you don't remember this, what happened around nineteen
eighty five or so of the mid or late eighties,
Coca Cola had been losing market share to diet soft
drinks actually for several years, because consumers began to prefer
the sweeter taste of other products, especially I hate to
even say this, in the city of Atlanta, Pepsi cola. Yeah,
Pepsi right, So, Coca Cola, have you remember this? They

(11:31):
actually changed the recipe formula. They changed the formula for
Coca Cola, right, and it got so much attention. There
was initially all this interest and hype and momentum, but
the Coca Cola fans hated what became branded as the
New Coke, and the company reintroduced the formula. This was shocking.

(11:53):
I looked this up because I couldn't remember. They reintroduced
the old formula in three months. It was that quick.
I remember it was quick. I didn't think it was
that quick. They only let the new formula run for
about three months, and there was so much backlash, but
there was so much interest. There was, in a negative sense,
momentum again, everybody paid attention, everybody sat up straight. And

(12:16):
and then here's the I don't know if this is
an irony or not, but then when they went back
to the original formula, Coca Cola sales skyrocketed. In fact,
the sales went up so much people began to wonder
if maybe this was a marketing scheme that they had,
this was a ploy they had actually messed with, which
I don't think that's possible. They messed with the formula

(12:38):
on purpose in order to do all this, I don't
think so.

Speaker 2 (12:41):
No, the reality, it's probably they got the new part.
They just didn't get the improved part.

Speaker 1 (12:45):
Right. Well, there you go exactly that. Hey, what a
great segue. Right, They got new, but it wasn't improved,
but it still generated interest because new creates its own momentum.

Speaker 2 (12:57):
Right, So in this case, they got the new part right,
but they definitely did not get the improved part.

Speaker 1 (13:01):
Exactly. The new code created its own momentum as and
it got attention, but it did not increase sales because
it wasn't improved.

Speaker 2 (13:09):
So while we're on new, new doesn't actually have to
be a new product.

Speaker 1 (13:13):
Right right, because a lot of people aren't in the
product business. It's products, their services. Organizational momentum actually is triggered,
just as I've studied this by usually one of three
new things. It can be new leadership, it can be
a new direction for an organization. Or again, it can
be a new product or a new line of products,

(13:34):
or a new service. So it can be new leadership.
It could be a new direction or a new line
of products and services. But momentum is rarely triggered by
and this is one of the things that I think
we struggled with when we found ourselves losing momentum. Momentum
is rarely triggered by maybe never, but I'll just say rarely.
Momentum is rarely triggered by tweaking something old. It's always

(13:57):
creator generated by embracing something new. Again, doesn't have to
be a new product or service. It could be new leadership,
new direction. But tweaking doesn't create momentum, even though that's
necessary from time to time, it needs to be something
that at least is experienced as brand new. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:13):
Yeah, But in organizational life, I feel like when momentum lags,
organizations tend to default to replacing the leader with a
new leader or leaders.

Speaker 1 (14:23):
Yeah. Why why do you think that is? Well, it's
the easiest thing to do. Yeah, I mean that is true.
Fixing an actual problem that's too much work. It's so much,
so much, well, discovering the actual problem, right, and then
so much work then having the courage to fix it. Yeah,
and too. In the fifth discipline, Peter Singe, I think
that's how you say his last name. He talks about
that it's human nature when it comes to blame, to

(14:45):
begin by blaming a person. Then number two is you
might blame human nature, that's just how people are. And
then number three you actually blame systems. And he says,
you got to flip it. You should always begin with
systems human nature to the person. But an organizational life,
especially corporate life, is like, let's just fire this guy,
let's fire her, get somebody. Yeah, that he or she

(15:06):
has to be the problem. So it's just human nature
to blame a person again. Replacing a leaders easy compared
to real systemic change. It's quick, it feels like progress.
We're changing things around here, And while changing out leader
can certainly be the right move, it isn't always the
right or the wisest move. Right sure, thing's flagged on
their watch, A wise border manager is going to pay

(15:27):
attention to factors beyond the control of any individual leader.
But when it's apparent that a leader is out of tricks,
you know they just aren't going to be able to
fix this thing or turn it around. That maybe they
appeared more competent than they really were because of all
the positive factors that they inherited. Right when they got
in front of this parade that they had no control over,
you know it may be time to make a change again.

(15:48):
I don't want to downplay this. There's obviously a time
and a place for a new leader. And when you
bring in a new leader, there's going to be some momentum.
Even if you bring in the wrong leader for a minute.
For a minute, right, a new leadership well create some momentum.
New leadership causes everybody to sit up straight and pay attention.
That's always a good thing. But they better have more
to offer than a new last name on the door,

(16:10):
which if I can, which I think this is important.
This brings us to something I know we talk a
lot about on the podcast, but it so intersects with
this topic. We stay have the time that organizations do
what they're organized to do. Organizations do what they're organized
to do, not what the leader of the organization tells
the organization to do. The point being that new leadership,

(16:31):
even good new leadership, isn't enough to create momentum or
fix the momentum problem if they're not willing, as you
alluded to a few minutes ago, to dig down deep
and make the systemic change that is usually the problem
related to that. And then here's the bad news, a
dose of reality to all of you organizational leaders out
there or department managers. And you may want to write

(16:52):
this down later. I used to have this written somewhere
where I looked at it all the time, but I've
replaced it with more positive things. Your organization is perfectly
designed to get the results you are currently getting. Isn't
that a depressing thought unless you.

Speaker 2 (17:09):
Haven't any.

Speaker 1 (17:11):
This is the reality check, and this is why it's
generally not enough to just bring in a new leader
unless they're willing to dig down and make the difficult,
the difficult decisions your organization. Our organization is perfectly designed
to get the results we are currently getting. So if
there's a loss of momentum, your organization is perfectly designed

(17:32):
to maintain back your loss of momentum. If I wanted
to lose momentum in your industry, I could just study
your company and go Hi, there's how it works, right again,
A new last name on the door is going to
change that. New faces combined with existing systems and products,
they generally yield the same results. So, and this is
a big topic when considering a leadership change in an

(17:53):
area organization that lacks momentum. Owners, boards, decision makers. They
need to decide ahead of time what they're willing and
not willing to give up or change or throw out
or abandon Otherwise you know this. Otherwise the new leader
isn't going to be empowered to lead or make the
changes that are necessary to fix the problem. It wouldn't
work anyway, exactly. They won't have the leverage they need

(18:15):
to pull the org out of the nosedive. On a
previous podcast, years ago we talked about the old couches.
You know, people fall in love with things about the organization.
They bring in the new leader. We want to change things,
it's all. But you can't change that not bad thing.
Maybe I'm hyper sensitive to that because in our industry,
my industry, the church industry, this happens all the time. Yeah,

(18:38):
you know, the church says, oh, we want to change,
we want to reach young families, we want to reach
new people. And they bring in the young pastor and
the young pastor and his wife, and oh, we're just
so excited. We want change. And everybody wants change until
you change something, until it's something they care about exactly.
Everybody loves change until it change begins to happen. So

(18:59):
an organizational life, sometimes there's a little bit more leverage.
In church life. It can be a disaster. But if
momentum is a problem, and if a new leader is
the solution, the leader has to have the leverage or
be given the leverage to make the changes because tweaking
something old does not create new momentum. That never ever works.

(19:19):
But there's always the temptation because tweaking is less expensive,
tweaking is less disruptive and tweaking is far less risky.
But overall change are overhauling an organization, making big change.
It's usually very expensive and very painful and very very emotional.
Back to our conversation in just a moment before that,

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(21:09):
now back to today's episode, let's talk.

Speaker 2 (21:14):
About the second component of momentum, which is improved, new
and improved. How can leaders ensure that their initiatives are
significant improvements over the old ones and not just different
for different sakes.

Speaker 1 (21:28):
Yeah, we we just touched on that. A little bit
of tweak never works, and that's the case. How do
you know what enough is enough? Yeah? Different isn't always
an improvement. Sometimes different is just different. I mean, the
new Coke was new, it just wasn't an improvement. So
the new must be and must be effectively marketed to

(21:48):
be an actual noticeable improvement. Let me say that again,
whatever the new is, it must be an improvement. But
more than that, it has to be marketed as an improvement,
and it has to be an actual noticeable improvement. When
people pick up the new product or the new version
of the product, they need to come away thinking, while

(22:08):
this really is an improvement. It's an improvement over what
you used to sell, and it's an improvement over what
the competitor sells. It's not a new category, but it's
a new, improved version of whatever it was that I
was using before, a service that I was using before. Again,
this illustration has been used in so many ways. I
almost didn't put it in my notes, but I mean,

(22:29):
the iPhone wasn't a tweak. No, it wasn't like, oh,
it's a better flip phone. It was what is that exactly?
It was not a tweak. Well, eventually it became a
new category, it did, but initially it was just a
different kind of phone. But it was new, and oh
my goodness, it was improved. Right, It was essentially a

(22:49):
new and vastly improved product. So, you know, looking back
on our own organization, our approach to church thirty years ago.
Hard to say that thirty years ago was new and
we were convinced anyway that it was a significantly improved
version of church. Church wasn't new again. We didn't create
a new category, but our approach was it was new

(23:10):
and it was improved. Our approach to children's environments and
communicating new and improved. Again, we didn't create a new category.
We created a new and improved version of an existing
category again, which is the context that most of our
podcast listeners are working in. So new and improved, but
it has to be noticeably improved. It has to be
marketed as improved, and then it has to be experienced

(23:33):
as improved, new and improved.

Speaker 2 (23:35):
So we're leading a department or an organization and we've
introduced something new and we've confirmed that's a noticeable improvement
over the old, but we're still not done yet. Continuous
improvement is so crucial for a sustained momentum, which brings
us to the third component that you mentioned at the top,
which is improving.

Speaker 1 (23:52):
Yeah, and this is this is the harder one, I bet. Yeah.
Is this never ends? Right? Yeah? Always? You know many
people they if we're lucky enough, we get to ride
the momentum maybe once in a lifetime of something new
and improved, right, I mean, it's it's rare, and it's difficult.
But even if you have new and improved, it has

(24:13):
to be improving. So let's talk a little bit about that.
And here's here's a field trip suggestion. Okay, and this
is where I got this idea all those years ago.
Go to the grocery store and look for the following
on boxes and packages, new and improved, new and improved.
And what you discover you'll see new and improved on
products that have been around for decades, decades, especially detergents. Yeah,

(24:38):
cleaning products, cleaning products, cleaning products, new and improved, new
and improved, and they are probably actually improved, but who knows, right,
But even putting that on the labels effective, you think
as a show, and they know that. Marketers know whether
it's actually that or that improved. If it says new
and improved, I'm more prone to pick that up than
even the same brand that does that say new and improved.

(25:02):
And what it communicates to the customers this We're still
working on it. We're still working on it. We're still
working on it. We're still working on it to make
it better. Stick with us, Stick with us, stick with us.

Speaker 2 (25:12):
We care about you.

Speaker 1 (25:13):
We're trying to make it better for you, right for
riding our past success. We're constantly trying to make this better.
Consumers are unaware of the exact value offered by new
and improved. We want it, but we want it and
then we consequently we stick with stick with our brand.
So there's something emotional and mental about that phrase new
and improved. My point is even the perception of new

(25:34):
and improved helps sustain momentum. So new improved it's best
if it's actually improving. But even if customers think it's improving,
there's something about brand loyalty and the idea of their
making it better. They're making it better.

Speaker 2 (25:49):
So really, the big question that's in front of us
is how can organizations foster a culture of continuous improvement.

Speaker 1 (25:57):
Well, that's a podcast for another day. That's a huge topic, right,
I mean the whole subject of continuous improvement. I mean
book written. Yeah, books have been written on that. So
just you know quickly, for our organization, our answer to
that is orchestration, evaluation innovation, orchestration evaluation innovation, or organtation
evaluation and then acting on the evaluation orchestrate. This is

(26:20):
how we do it here, evaluate, how do we make
it better, innovate or activates. The other words sometimes we
use is Okay, let's take what we learned in our
evaluation and let's apply it. And so it's that cycle
and building that into the culture of an organization is
how you keep your eye on the ball of continuous
improvement and the other thing. And you know, we as

(26:42):
a group of churches, we don't compete with other churches,
but we constantly learn from other churches. In fact, our
administrative teams they go and meet with teams of people
who are running similar size, multi site churches, and we
learn from each other because it's not competition, but in
the marketplace, paying attention to competition and is another challenge.
It's a kick in the rear end in terms of

(27:03):
continuous improvement. I know that the home depot exects from
time to time walk the aisles and shop at lows, right,
and hopefully the Low's execs do the same at the
home depots or they should, Yeah, because that's where your challenge.
That's when you realize we have to keep up. That's
when you realize if we cloister ourselves and just ride
on our current momentum again, the clock is ticking backwards. Yeah,

(27:27):
and that really is the incentive and what incentivizes us
to pursue continuous improvement. And when you love your product,
when you love your company, when you love the people
you work with, there's something in all of us that
wants to just keep making it better. So it's new
improved in the endless process of improving.

Speaker 2 (27:47):
So, as we've talked about the essential elements of creating
and sinsating, momentum are new, improved and improving. So as
we wrap up today, are there some momentum inhibitors?

Speaker 1 (27:57):
Like anything come to mind?

Speaker 2 (27:59):
Is the leaders should watch out for as they're thinking
about this in their own organization.

Speaker 1 (28:04):
The things that undermine momentum. Yes, yes, again that's a
podcast for another day. I mean that really the list
is endless. I mean we've already talked about some fall
in love with your business model that's an inhibitor, fall
in love with the product, fall in love even with
a process. All of those things are going to eventually

(28:24):
slower kill momentum because things are changing, right, launching a
great product too soon We've seen that launching a good
product or service before it's really ready to be rolled out,
that just oftentimes kills momentum, even with a really great
idea or product or service, or when the product doesn't
live up to the hype, if you overmarke it, overhype it,
that kills momentum, I mean, and oftentimes it's hard to

(28:47):
resurrect even a good product if that's the case. Organizationally,
micromanaging kills initiative, which kills momentum. Organizational complexity can kill momentum. Again,
another thing we talk about all the time on the podcast,
A culture of suspicion kills transparency. If you kill transparency,
it makes communication difficult, which keeps important information for making

(29:09):
us way at the top, which ultimately kills momentum. So
there are so many things that we talk about on
the podcast in terms of creating healthy organizations that if
you don't do kind of the trench work, if you
don't do some of those difficult fundamental things, even if
you have a great idea, the momentum is going to
collapse on the strength of the current systems and on

(29:33):
the health of the organization. So all of these things
are critical the tangible and the tangible.

Speaker 2 (29:40):
Wow, that is a really big idea and I think
that that is going to be something that we can
dig in further and our Reverb podcast next week, because
there's a lot to unpack there. But for today, that
is all the time we have to our listeners. Thanks
for listening, and before we leave, we have one ask
and this is the only thing that we would like
to to ask you on this podcast, and that is

(30:02):
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(30:24):
guide that includes a summary of our discussion plus questions
for reflection or group discussion. And as we just mentioned,
join us next week for our Reverb episode where Andy
and I will dig even deeper into this topic of
creating and sustaining momentum with a focus on the evaluation aspect.
And that's going to happen right here on the Andy
Stanley Leadership Podcast