Developing the Leaders Around You: Week Three
Futures church exists to plant churches develop the greatest people leaders and reach people who don’t know Jesus. The goal is 200/10,000/100,000.
The future of our church depends completely on TEAM leadership. Without skillful discovery development and deployment of teams, we will hit the wall at some point. Teams create the possibilities of exponential growth.
You can hire expert advice but it takes team leadership to get the job done. The focus of this course is team leadership and how to discover and develop the people around you so that as a team, you can do incredible things. Individuals do small things, teams do big things.
How many of you debriefed this week?
Tonight we are going to go deeper with a couple of concepts that I think are the essential ingredients and often overlooked in team building.
Let’s review the Building analogy of TEAMS.
The 5 I mentioned last week:
- Architect (Vision/Design)
- Systems Designer (MEP/Infrastructure)
- General Contractor/Builder (Execution)
- Logistics/Trade Coordinator (Resources/Scheduling)
- Site Superintendent
The concept of an ideal team size has been studied extensively across different fields, and interestingly, research often points to 4-6 people as being the sweet spot.
Here’s why: It’s small enough for speed and big enough for the span of knowledge.
This pattern of teams appears across various domains and industries:
- Military special operations (as discussed: 4-6 operators)
- Amazon’s “two-pizza teams” (6-8 people)
The core concept is simple but powerful: if a team can’t be fed by two pizzas, it’s too large. This typically translates to about 6-8 people.
- Successful startup founding teams (typically 2-5 people)
- Emergency response teams (often 4-6 people)
- Agile software development teams (recommended 5-9)
There are also 5 letters in TEAMS and no I’d.
Character essentials that I look for:
- Teachable
- Honest and Truthful (Trustworthy)
- No drama
- Good starting skills.
- They really care
- Able to work with others.
- Loyalty
Learning to lead teams that you have been given rather than the ones you have picked is an amazing challenge.
First step. UNITY.
Team Development Stages
Forming
- People are polite and careful
- Everyone wants to be accepted
- Not clear on their roles
- Looking to the leader for direction
- Avoiding conflict
- High dependence on the leader
- Low trust levels
Storming
- Conflicts emerge
- People challenge each other
- Question authority/leadership
- Compete for positions/influence
- Resist team structure
- Express frustration
- Test boundaries
- May form cliques
Norming
- Accept team roles
- Start working together
- Develop team rules/norms
- Build trust
- Give constructive feedback
- Share responsibility
- Improve communication
- Support each other
Performing
- Work effectively together
- High trust levels
- Focus on achieving goals
- Flexible and adaptable
- Share leadership
- Solve problems well
- High team spirit
Debriefing
Here’s a list of a few well-known companies who have made debriefing weekly a part of their culture.
- Spotify
- Microsoft
- Goldman Sachs
- HubSpot
- Netflix
- Atlassian
- Intel
- Adobe
- McKinsey
- Accenture
- Salesforce
- Intuit
Team assignment: I want each of you to spend 5 mins personally researching NETFLIX and the role DEBRIEFING played in turning the company around in 2010 from primarily a DVD mail service to the streaming giant it is today. How did the power of the debrief help in transforming the company?
Let me share this Netflix study.
REED HASTINGS AND MARC RANDOLPH
- Netflix (2010-2012)
When Netflix transitioned from DVD rental to streaming, they got crushed. Stock dropped 77%. Pure pain. Reed Hastings created the 1 on 1 debrief. Not just what happened but why. No delayed debriefs. Vulnerability was required. Honesty was expected always. Nothing could be allowed to fester. In order to go fast, they had to process quickly. They had to get rid of all the barriers that stop productive conversations. So many people want growth but don’t want feedback or they want feedback but no confrontation. Real feedback is the engine of excellence. Feedback and growth are inseparable. And it’s not criticism. It’s about growth growth growth. In Netflix both the boss and employee had to bring feedback and questions and comments to each meeting they had. Every day was debriefing day. Every leader, every big call – what were you thinking? No defensiveness allowed. Just truth. They killed star ratings, tweaked algorithms, and doubled down on originals. Each move driven by learning from debrief data.
By 2013 – first Emmy nominations
By 2015 – stock recovered and then some.
Debrief learnings became part of the famous “Netflix Culture Deck.”
Key win: Debriefs focused on decision quality, not just outcomes.
2010 Netflix metrics:
- Around 20 million subscribers (mostly in the US)
- Primarily a DVD-by-mail service transitioning to streaming
- Revenue approximately $2.2 billion
- Available in a handful of countries
- Just beginning to produce original content
Early 2024 metrics:
- Over 260 million paid subscribers globally
- Available in over 190 countries
- Revenue over $33 billion annually
- Major producer of original content with thousands of exclusive titles
- Streaming-only service in most markets (DVD service discontinued in 2023)
The Pattern for Team Debriefing.
- Debriefs need teeth and outcomes of the debrief, not just a chat.
- Must be regular, not just a crisis response
- Focus on thinking, not just actions
- Psychological safety-critical
- Insights must drive change
The Lesson:
Personal debriefing isn’t just good practice. It’s a competitive advantage. But only if you’re willing to make it real.
VISION CASTING
Companies Known for Regular Vision-Casting:
- Apple
- Tesla
- Amazon
- Patagonia
- SpaceX
- Nike
- Meta
- Starbucks
- Virgin Group
- Disney
- NVIDIA
- Microsoft (post-Nadella)
- Google (Alphabet)
- Netflix
- Adobe
Spend 5 mins personally researching Space X and the role vision casting played in turning the company around in 2008 from 3 failed launches and almost bankrupt to the worldwide success it is today. How did vision casting save the company?
- SpaceX – When Vision Isn’t Just Talk
People get this wrong. Think SpaceX wins on tech. Nope. They win on vision deployment. Here’s how:
The Set-Up (2008):
- Three failed launches. Nearly bankrupt.
- Industry laughing. Press writing obituaries.
- Normal move? Scale back. Play safe.
- Musk? Doubles down on Mars. Decides to make vision casting about mars the central question of each day.
The Crazy Part
Every morning meeting:
- Mars timeline first
- Today’s work second
Engineers thought it was nuts. Turned out to be genius. Why It Worked:
The vision wasn’t wall art. It was the decision machine:
- “Does this get us to Mars?”
- “Is this Mars-critical?”
- “Does this scale to Mars?”
Three questions. Everything changed. It took the defeat away. It put everything into perspective. When the vision is so audacious of course it’s going to be hard so then you don’t give up. When the vision is small and you fail, you are the problem, when the vision is huge and you fail, you care more about improvement than perfection. Morale lifted. What they were working on was historic. Never been done before. Impossible was no longer a worthy answer.
The Results:
- Built Falcon 9 with a team of 25
- Solved reusability when “impossible”
- Attracts MIT grads at half market rate
- Moves 5x faster than competitors
- Cost vs nasa was 67m per launch vs 2billion.
The Secret Sauce:
- Daily vision deployment
- Kills zombie projects instantly
- Makes priorities obvious
- Drops politics (Mars decides)
- Creates natural selection pressure
Most Companies:
Vision = yearly event
SpaceX:
Vision = operating system
That’s why they win.
That’s why they’re different.
That’s why they’ll probably make it to Mars.
The Lesson:
Vision isn’t just about inspiration. It’s actually about operation.
Do it daily or don’t do it all.
Building Team Success
Key Steps for Leading a Team
- Vision cast. It starts with telling stories and inspiring people to become a system of thinking.
- Select your team carefully thinking of chemistry and skills as the 2 deciding factors, especially for long-term missions
- Team Composition Overview
- For optimal team performance, research suggests:
- High conscientiousness across the team
- At least one highly extroverted member
- Moderate to high agreeableness overall
- Mix of openness levels
- Generally lower neuroticism, especially in high-stress environments
- Instill Belief. Collective Efficacy or ‘shared confidence’
- Build Trust. Need to prove you are in it for them as well as yourself.
- Set Clear Expectations (KPIs)
- For leadership Be results-focused, not process-focused. For management by process focussed. Doers vs thinkers.
- Establish Accountability. High Standards
- Foster Collaboration. (Can people create together or not)
- People who create and delegate
- People who execute someone else’s plan
- People who can create a plan through collaboration
- Have a personal growth plan for each team member
- Always have the meeting before the meeting
- Use personal debriefs regularly to develop the person quickly.