Your Journey Starts Here

Whether you have already read the book "Through the River" or are interested in the topic of truth and how it impacts your faith and relationships, we welcome you and look forward to interacting with you.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Leading Through Disagreement

If you are a leader then you have had to negotiate between people on your team who disagree. When there are two people together in a room there will always be moments of disagreement. Very few leaders handle these situations well. In fact, over the years some of the biggest complaints I have heard about leaders is their handling of conflict.

Well, conflict has a lot to do with your Truth Lens (the concept from our book Through the River). The way you understand truth defines how you will negotiate between two people who claim they have the truth on their side. In our book we have three communities along a river. The Rock Dwellers believe that all truth is knowable and that there is one way to view everything. The Island Dwellers believe that truth is personal and they do not try to impose their understanding on people from other islands because their are no bridges. The Valley Dwellers live in community and believe there is truth we can know and truth we are learning. That learning requires humble dialogue.

As you can imagine leaders from these three communities will approach conflict in very different ways:
  • Rock Dwellers will assess the two warring factions, weigh the information, side with the one they think is right and negotiate a surrender from the other side. This always leaves the other group defeated and disempowered.
  • Island Dwellers will look for a pragmatic solution that gets people working together again without being too concerned about trying to get to the bottom of the situation - since they don't believe that one answer is attainable.
  • Valley Dwellers will look for the piece of truth that is known and affirmed in Scripture and then build from there to have those in disagreement process their struggles and learn together. They will sacrificially stand in the middle and create an environment of humble learning because the process is just as important as the resolution.
We believe that Leading from the Valley represents a way forward for leaders who have been beat up and torn down by conflict in their organizations. What do you think of the way your Truth Lens might impact your ability to lead in conflict?

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Understanding Leadership in Light of Truth

I had a very interesting lunch with a believer who had read our book and wanted to chat about applying it in their local church. As we talked, I began to frame a new idea that I am very excited about. Our book focuses on helping the broadest group of people understand their truth lens and then figure out how to engage their world with this new-found understanding.

What we didn't spend much time on was "leadership." But as I talked to this reader about the book, I found myself talking about what leadership looks like from the Rocky Shore, the Islands and the Valley. As many of you know these three geographies in the town represent three different truth lenses.

If we have already talked about what it means to live understanding your truth lens, why is it important to think about leadership? Well, the simple answer is that leadership is about guiding people on God's mission (via Blackaby). These people all have a truth lens that defines how they view the world. Our leadership style is impacted greatly by how we view truth.

Over the next few weeks I will be posting some thoughts on what it means to Lead from the Rocky Shore, the Islands and the Valley. I hope you will join me for this discussion.