From Good to Great Youth Ministry Part 4

In this 7 part series we are breaking down Jim Collins’ book Good to Great and how it can apply to Youth Ministry. Jim Collins wrote this book by compiling a team of researchers to examine many different companies. Over the span of months and years the researchers compiled data that put some companies in a “good” category and some companies in a “great”. After comparing the “good” with the “great” the team came up with several factors of what makes a great company great.

Summary:
The fourth factor we come upon in “Good to Great” is the “Hedgehog Concept”, how it got it’s name is a Greek parable, in the book Jim Collins uses Isaiah Berlin’s essay to make his point and you’ll need to read the book to get the full story, but here is the jist of it.
When a predator (i.e. fox) attacks an animal like a hedgehog, it will do everything it takes to take it’s prey by surprise. It’ll hide, jumpback and forth, move fast but when the hedgehog senses danger it knows what it has to do, and it doesn’t matter what type of predator or what type of attack takes place, the hedgehog crawls up into a ball and lets it’s sphere of sharp spikes protect it.

Berlin extrapolated from this little parable to dived people into two basic groups: foxes and hedgehogs. Foxes pursue many ends at the same time and see the world in all its complexity. They are “scattered or diffused, moving on many levels,” says Berlin, never inntegrating their thinking into one overall concept or unifying vision. Hedgehogs, on the other hand simplify a complex world into a single organizing idea, a basic principle or concept that unifies and guides everything. It doesn’t matter how complex the world, a hedgehog reduces all challenges and dilemmas to simple – indeed almost simplistic – hedgehog ideas. For a hedgehog, anything that does not somehow relate to the hedgehog idea holds no relevance.

This relates to many companies in the way that sometimes they will try everything under the sun to be successful. New gadgets, gimics and strategies to win over the consumer; however, Collins found that the companies that stuck to one unifying, simple principle were the companies that did the best. The reason for this is it didn’t matter what happened around them, they stuck to their mission, to their “Hedgehog Concept.” So how do you get a Hedgehog Concept?

1. You need to understand what you can be best at (and, equally improtant what you cannot be the best in the world at.)
– This can be difficult because what we are currently doing might not be what we are the best at. To get the answer to this question you need to examine what it is your company can do better than any other.

2. You need to determine what drives your economic engine.
– What is your single denominator – profit per x – that has the greates impact on your economics. In the social sector its cash flow per x.

3. Lastly what are you deeply passionate about.
– This is something to be specific about. What activities ignite your passion. The idea here is not to stimulate passion but to discover what makes you passionate.

As soon as you start focusing on these three steps you will get closer and closer to your “Hedgehog Concept”. Jim Collins warns that this isn’t something you can come up with over night, in fact some of the “great” companies took years, but in the end they found their focus.

How this Translates:
Like in business it can be very difficult for us to find our “Hedgehog Concept” in ministry. It’s taken our ministry, our church a few years and we are almost there. When you focus on the three steps that Jim Collins supplies you start to figure out what it is God is calling your specific ministry to do. Now Jim wrote this for the business world so the three steps might be hard to translate below is how they can translate into church ministry.

1. What can your ministry be the best at?
And don’t say bring people to Christ…because that’s what we should be doing, but what can you be the best at? Bringing people to Christ is too broad. An example would be…Our ministry is the best at creating easy and accessible programs that allow teenagers of the Internet world go deeper in their faith.

2. What is the common denominator?
This was difficult at first to understand because church’s are more non profits so what’s our common denominator? As a staff at our church we came up with the term Timonium Tim. Timonium is the town we live in and Tim is your stereotypical Timonium resident. In order for our church to continue growing, in order to continue our overall mission of bringing people to Christ we need to keep on brining in Timonium Tim to our building. It’s the Tim’s that drive our church.

3. What are you most passionate about?
Again bringing people to Christ is too broad. What is it that you enjoy the most about bringing people to Christ, what moments, what events, what tasks are the questions you should be asking yourself.

Again, this is something that takes time. Most of you probably have an idea if you have worked on a mission statement, vision casting, etc. But as time goes on and you start doing the right things, you will see things begin to click. And it’s okay to take guesses, because you may feel pulled one way but then discover something new. As a reflection ask yourself the three questions from above. What are you the best at doing, who is your common denominator and what are you most passionate about?