As we discern how to keep moving forward with *cino, Rob and I have embarked on our own informal leadership course, and as part of that, I’ve decided to start posting some interesting quotes and ideas related to leadership on the *cino site.

Leadership is a tricky thing for us, since much of the literature out there promotes a profit-driven, status quo model that feels antithetical to *cino’s jazzy, upside-down Kingdom, ridiculous joy motif.  In that spirit, here’s something that David shared as a centering reflection for our volunteer staff meeting last week:

If your meeting room, your board room, or your office (take your pick) isn’t a nursery for ideas, a rumpus room where seals frolic, forget it. Burn the table, lock the room, fire the clerks. You will rarely come up with any ideas worth entertaining. The full room with the heavy people trudging in with long faces to solve problems by beating them to death is very death itself. Serious confrontations rarely arrive at serious ends. Unless the people you meet with are fun loving kids out for a romp, tossing ideas like confetti, and letting the damn bits fall where they may, no spirit will ever rouse, no notion will ever birth, no love will be mentioned, no climax reached. You must swim at your meetings, you must jump for baskets, you must take hefty swings for great or missed drives, you must run and dive, you must fall and roll, and when the fun stops, get the hell out.

Credited to Ray Bradbury in The Leader’s Edge

Last modified: March 4, 2020