Summit Reflections (Part 10)

10 hours at a calling center.

The Jack Welch interview was one of the best sessions for ideas, humor and Hybels' characteristic spiritual conversations with a marketplace leader regarding his spiritual life. When Hybels asked Welch about communicating vision and energizing people, he illustrated what he meant with a recent trip he took to a call center for an online university he's leading. He flew in and spent ten hours interacting with 40 callers making sure these phone recruiters understood and owned the vision of the university. It's like he wouldn't leave until they really got it.

Declaration: I don't make sure people really get it. The greatest thing that happens to me with our team when I lay out vision is that someone plays dumb and asks a bunch of questions to get me to be clear and then clearer and then really, really clear. When the questions come, I start listing all the things I don't mean, I tell stories, I use analogies. But without questions, I just move on. Dumb. No, really dumb. Can I learn? Let's see. I will make sure people get it and not move on until they do so that we all share and own the vision and are energized by it.