Canoeing the Mountains by Tod Bolsinger has been on my shelf for quite a while. However, I’m grateful to report that I read it when I needed it most. As a leader in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve been pushed to chart new territories and to take new ground. What a blast to learn more about the Lewis and Clark adventure and how that led to the leadership principal rooted in the fact that you simply cannot canoe through the mountains!
“God is taking us into uncharted territory to transform us.” Bolsinger, p. 217
I highlighted several things while reading and have posted those notes below…
- How do we lead a congregation or an organization to be faithful to the mission God has put before us when the world has changed so radically? p. 13
- What are the tools, mental models, the wise actions and competing commitments that require navigation? p. 13
- What transformation does it demand of those of us who have been called to lead? p. 14
- The purpose of this book is…
- to reframe this moment of history for Christians in the west as an opportunity put before us by God for adventure, hope, and discovery–all the while embracing the anxiety, fear, and potential loss that comes from answering this call.
- to recover the calling for the church to be a truly missional movement that demands leadership that will take up the gauntlet of Guder’s charge: “If western societies have become post-Christian mission fields, how can traditional churches then become missionary churches?”
- to discover–even more than the uncharted territory around us–the capacity for leadership within us. p. 14
- This book is structured around five vital lessons that everyone leader of a Christian congregation or organization has to learn to lead in uncharted territory:
- Understanding uncharted territory: The world in front of you is nothing like the world behind you.
- The on-the-map skill set: No one is going to follow you off the map unless they trust you on the map.
- Leading off the map: In uncharted territory, adaptation is everything.
- Relationships and resistance: You can’t go alone, but you haven’t succeeded until you’ve survived the sabotage.
- Transformation: Everybody will be changed (especially the leader). p. 16
- What we all have in common is that our old strategies no longer work. p. 19
- “What got us here wouldn’t take us there.” Marshall Goldsmith p. 19
- “Conceptually stuck systems cannot become unstuck simply by trying harder. For a fundamental reorientation to occur, that spirit of adventure which optimizes serendipity and which enables new perceptions beyond the control of our thinking processes must happen first.” Ed Friedman, A Failure of Nerve p. 24
- President Thomas Jefferson had indeed commissioned Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery for just this moment, declaring that they should find the cherished water route that everyone believed existed and would insure the young nation’s prosperity: “The most direct and practicable water communication across this continent, for the purposes of commerce.” p. 25
- In the words of futurist and Distinguished Fellow of the Institute for the Future, Bob Johansen, after centuries of stability and slow, incremental change, in less than a generation our world has become VUCA: volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. This VUCA world will only become more so in the days ahead and will require all leaders to learn new skills. p. 27
- As pastors, we were trained to teach those who come on their own, to care for those who call for help, to lead those who volunteer and to administer the resources of those who willingly give and participate. Now we are called on to minister to a passing parade of people who treat us like we are but one option in their personal salad bar of self-fulfillment. p. 28
- While I am indebted to the missional thinkers of our day, it’s become apparent a missional mind shift alone doesn’t lend itself to the capacity building that actually brings change. p. 31
- The answer is not to try harder but to start a new adventure: to look over Lemhi Pass and let the assumptions of the past go. p. 33
- As he stepped off the map into uncharted territory, Meriwether Lewis discovered that what was in front of him was nothing like what was behind him, and that what had brought him to this point in the journey would take him no farther. Lewis faced a daunting decision: What would he do now? Lewis and Clark and their Corps of Discovery were looking for a water route, but now they had run out of water. How do you canoe over mountains?You don’t. If you want to continue forward, you change. You adapt. Meriwether Lewis looked at the miles and miles of snow-covered peaks and knew that to continue his journey he would have to change his entire approach. The same is true for all who are called to lead beyond the boundaries of what is known. We go through a personal transformation of identity and mission intention. We go from being river rats to mountain climbers. We keep on course with the same goal, but change absolutely everything required to make it through this uncharted territory. We ditch the canoes, ask for help, find horses and cross the mountains. And when the time comes, we make new boats out of burnt trees. p. 34
- In the Christendom world, speaking was leading. In a post-Christendom world, leading is multi-dimensional: apostolic, relational, and adaptive. p. 37
- What does leadership look like in a day when the moorings of society have become disconnected from the anchors of faith? What is leadership in a world where the task isn’t so much to re-mind as to encounter and engage, to proclaim and demonstrate a completely different world that is available and yet beyond awareness of or even interest to so many? p. 38
- Transformational leadership lies at the overlapping intersection of three leadership components: technical competence, relational congruence, and adaptive capacity. p. 43
- Relational congruence is a leader’s ability to be the same person in every setting, every relationship, every task. p. 44
- Clarify and cling to our core convictions and let go of everything else that keeps us from being effective in the mission God has give us. p. 46
- Technical competence: contextual skills, organizational value, consistent delivery, developed through assessment p. 52
- Competence gives us the credibility needed to learn from our mistakes. p. 60
- “It is possible to prepare for the future without knowing what it will be. The primary way to prepare for the unknown is to attend to the quality of our relationships, to how well we know and trust one another.” Margaret Wheatley, “When Change is Out of Control” p. 61
- In an address to a Duke Divinity School Convocation, Ronald Heifetz said, “Adaptive processes don’t require leadership with answers. It requires leadership that create structures that hold people together through very conflictive, passionate, and sometimes awful process of addressing questions for which there aren’t easy answers.” p. 65
- In uncharted territory, trust is as essential as the air we breathe. If trust is lost, the journey is over. p. 65
- Relational congruence: integrity, maturity, emotional health, spirituality, revealing in authenticity p. 67
- “The mission first; the men always.”-former Army Ranger and West Point Graduate p. 68
- The most critical attribute a congregation must have to thrive in uncharted territory is a healthy organizational culture. p. 73
- Culture, as Andy Crouch describes it, is “what we make of the world”. It is the combination of “the language we live in, the artifacts that we make us of, the rituals we engage in, our approach to ethics, the institutions we are a part of and the narratives we inhabit [that] have the power to shape our lives profoundly.” p. 73
- “Today’s problems are from yesterday’s solutions.” p. 75
- A healthy culture is aligned, cohesive, and clear. A healthy culture is one where there is “minimal politics and confusion, high degrees of morale and productivity, and very low turnover among good employees.” p. 77
- Three critical elements in the leader’s own functioning for contributing to a healthy organizational culture: clarity, embodiment, and love. p. 78
- “Do nothing from selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.” (Philippians 2:1-4) p. 78
- “People typically do not look to written codes for clues about how to behave; they look to others.” David Burkus, business ethicist p. 79
- We protect what we cherish. Love drives us to hold on to what is dear and cling to what gives us meaning and life. p. 81
- When leaders are perceived as technically competent, they gain credibility in the eyes of their followers. When they are perceived as relationally congruent, trust is established. When credibility and trust are mobilized to create a healthy organizational culture, then we are ready to embrace the thrilling and daunting tasks of entering uncharted territory. We are a corps that is ready to become the Corps of Discovery by learning together and developing adaptive capacity. p. 83
- “Those who follow Jesus embody fluidity, adaptation, and collaboration. It’s what we call the third-culture way. Adaptable to changing circumstances. To challenging cultures. To complex crises and problems. If there’s one quality that matters most to the fate of the church in the twenty-first century, it’s adaptability.” Dave Gibbons, The Monkey and the Fish p. 87
- Making hard decisions in the face of competing values is what every explorer confronts when they go off the map and into uncharted territory. p. 89
- Adaptive capacity: see systemic issues, calmly confront the unknown, lead a learning process, expressed in asking questions. p. 90
- When we get to moments of deep disorientation, we often try to reorient around old ways of doing things. We go back to what we know how to do. We keep canoeing even though there is no river. At least part of the reason we do this is because we resolutely hope that the future will be like the past and that we already have the expertise needed for what is in front of us. And facing the “geography of reality” and the inner uncertainty that arises within us is extremely difficult. p. 92
- Questions when facing the unknown:
- Why do we exist as a congregation, institution, or organization?
- What would be lost in our community, or in our field or in our world if we ceased to be?
- What purposes and principles must we protect as central to our identity?
- What are we willing to let go of so the mission will continue? p. 95
- At the heart of adaptive leadership for the church is this conviction: The church is the body of Christ. It is a living organism, a vibrant system. And just like human bodies, human organizations thrive when they are cooperating with the wisdom of God for how that system is designed, how it grows and how it adapts to changing external environments. p. 100
- Most of us trying to bring change in a post-Christendom world are attempting to use the lessons we learned in one situation that are keeping us from adapting to a new spiritual terrain. But perhaps a humble stance of curiosity, awareness and attention, as well as a healthy skepticism at our own success, may indeed be the first lessons we need to learn, especially when our egos are on the line. p. 109
- Leadership in the past meant coming up with solutions. Today it is learning how to ask new questions that we have been too scared, too busy, or too proud to ask. p. 113
- Questions for people who hadn’t attended worship for a long time:
- When were you most excited or felt the sense of deepest connection to our church? What was happening during that time in your life and in the life of our church?
- What has changed in your life or in the church since then that may have affected your sense of connection or excitement about our church?
- What is one wish/hope/dream you have for the future of our church? p. 114
- “Leadership is disappointing your own people at a rate they can absorb.” Ronald Heifitz and Marty Linksy, Leadership on the Line p. 123
- “Mature leadership begins with the leader’s capacity to take responsibility for his own emotional being and destiny.” -Edwin Friedman, A Failure of Nerve p. 123
- Leadership, as I have defined it, is energizing a community of people toward their own transformation in order to accomplish a shared mission in the face of a changing world. p. 124
- In a healthy Christian ministry, the mission wins every argument. p. 125
- Start with conviction, stay calm, stay connected, and stay the course. p. 128
- Allies: within the organization, see your goals, have other (even competing) loyalties, give you perspective, can build alliances, and not friends
- Confidants: usually outside of organization, see your heart, loyal only to you, give you encouragement, can build you up, and not partners. p. 161
- To be a centered leader who stays on mission and endures through the challenges of leadership requires a rhythm of both attending to and fasting from technologically connected relationships. p. 185
- “The future is already here, it’s just on the margins.” David Gibbons p. 189
- “Leadership begins in listening. ” – Scott Cormode, Leadership professor p. 196
- “To effectively carry Jesus’ gospel to various places around the globe today–more important, to be Jesus’ gospel–listening is required. We need to be sensitive and lead with an eager learner’s resolve.” Dave Gibbons, p. 196
- “We shall not cease from exploration, And the end of all our exploring, Will be to arrive where we started, And know the place for the first time.” T.S. Eliot, “Little Gidding” p. 204
- “Wanderer, there is no road, the road is made by walking.” Antonio Machado, “Campos De Castilla” p. 204
- Exploration teaches us to see the familiar through a new frame. Exploration brings differentiation. Exploration requires us to become expert experimenters. Exploration demands our best selves. p. 206
- I encourage leaders to escape the expert expectation by becoming an expert experimenter, an expert question asker instead of answer giver. p. 213
- Leaders thrust off the map in a rapidly changing world must trust that God is taking us into uncharted territory to extend the healing, justice and loving rule of God to all the world, and at the same time to transform us. The great discovery in following Christ into his mission is that we find ourselves being continually formed to be like Jesus. By doing the work of the kingdom, we become like the King. p. 217
- God is taking us into uncharted territory to transform us. p. 217