{"id":1362,"date":"2011-08-18T16:44:23","date_gmt":"2011-08-18T14:44:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/warriorshepherd.com\/blog\/?p=1362"},"modified":"2011-09-06T17:32:34","modified_gmt":"2011-09-06T15:32:34","slug":"6-steps-to-building-a-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/warriorshepherd.com\/blog\/6-steps-to-building-a-team\/","title":{"rendered":"6 Steps to Building A Team (Like Jesus Did)"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week I was revising some notes on how to build and lead effective teams for a course I am teaching. One of the additions I made to the teaching was to look at how Jesus built his team: the disciples. <\/p>\n

I thought this would be a great example of all of the concepts that I was teaching in class, such as selecting team members with loyalty, drive, wisdom, and influence.<\/p>\n

I was wrong.
\n<\/p>\n

Want to build a team like Jesus Christ did? Then break all of the rules.<\/strong> Go against conventional wisdom, and don’t listen to any of the leadership gurus and best-selling authors. To create a team like Jesus did, here are your six easy steps:<\/p>\n

\"JesusPhoto credit:Tim Jones<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

1. Select unknowns for your team, with questionable abilities, differing belief systems, little to no education, and widely varying backgrounds.<\/p>\n

The disciples? They were a bunch of young, inexperienced, uneducated dudes who were very different from each other. <\/p>\n

Some of the disciples didn’t even rate a description in the Bible… remember Nathaniel? He was “a man of no guile” and Philip’s friend. That’s it. <\/p>\n

James, son of Alphaeus? Nada. Yet these guys were in Jesus’ inner circle.<\/p>\n

2. Live with them. Not only teach, but model.<\/p>\n

Christ slept, ate, and traveled with his team. He was a teacher, but they got to watch him in every situation he faced: At parties, alone, frustrated, worshiping, angry, teaching, in huge groups, or with children on his lap. There was no off time for Jesus, he taught by both words AND actions.<\/p>\n

Jesus couldn’t be aloof or disconnected. He had a relationship with each of them, knew their family situations, knew what made them tick and found out what they needed for their personal enrichment. <\/p>\n

3. Tell stories. Speak in riddles that confuse your followers but that they will understand 2-5 years from now.<\/p>\n

That’s right… most of the time, the disciples had no idea what Jesus was talking about. Maybe we should be just as cryptic with our followers.<\/p>\n

4. Give them an impossible task. Make it global and filled with danger and unknown frontiers.<\/p>\n

Go to the ends of the earth. “Oh, really? Sure, sign me up.” (At least that’s what the cynical side of me thinks how the disciples might have responded.)<\/p>\n

But here’s the thing: They accepted that task. They went. To the extremes of the known world–India, Europe, Ethiopia, the Caucasus. And they brought the gospel to thousands.<\/p>\n

5. Understand going in that there will be varying levels of success, failure, and some may even betray you.<\/p>\n

This is the one that is really an eye-opener. As the leader of a non-profit organization with the goal of training, discipling, and sending people out, I see this every day. I have to realize that there will be varying levels of success, and even some failure. But that’s okay. <\/p>\n

6. Change the world.<\/p>\n

Sounds easy, right? Well, I know I would have a problem making a team under these guidelines. But Jesus made it work. In some ways, it’s how we already do it at the G42 Leadership Academy<\/a>. <\/p>\n

What would you add to this list? In what ways did Christ go against conventional wisdom?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week I was revising some notes on how to build and lead effective teams for a course I am teaching. One of the additions I made to the teaching was to look at how Jesus built his team: the disciples. I thought this would be a great example of all of the concepts that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1370,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,42],"tags":[232,230,231],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/warriorshepherd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1362"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/warriorshepherd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/warriorshepherd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/warriorshepherd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/warriorshepherd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1362"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"http:\/\/warriorshepherd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1441,"href":"http:\/\/warriorshepherd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1362\/revisions\/1441"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/warriorshepherd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/warriorshepherd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/warriorshepherd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/warriorshepherd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}