Issue No. 559 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting asks if you’re up-to-date on effective leadership models and innovative partnership strategies? Here are two books: a classic on partnerships, and new research on global leadership—more provisions for your lifelong-learning journey. And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies), click here for over 550 book reviews, and click here for my Pails in Comparison Blog review of Turnaround Time: Uniting an Airline and Its Employees in the Friendly Skies.
Are you up-to-date on global leadership models and innovative partnership strategies? Here are two books: a new one (just 102 pages) and a classic (352 pages).
2 Books: Global Partnerships and Global Leadership
Gut Check! If The Starfish and the Spider was the last book you read on movements, partnerships, and global leadership—the book that everyone was talking about 17 years ago—then it’s probably time to unplug and download some new models and frameworks. This issue features two books: 1) new research from Joe Handley on global leadership and movements, and 2) a related book and tribute to a friend, Phill Butler (1936-2023), and his go-to handbook on building partnerships.
As a reminder, The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations spotlighted numerous organizations—not top-down hierarchies (spiders), but starfish enterprises (like AA, Wikipedia, the Quakers, and the Apache) that rely on “the power of peer relationships.” Read my very short review here. But this issue reminds you to stay current—there’s much more today than just those fish and insects!
The best leaders today are lifelong-learning leaders—always looking around the corner and testing both old and new models lest their leadership skills becomes rusty, archaic, and grossly irrelevant. (Watch out for those flavor-of-the-month Tweeters, gurus, and podcasters. “Lead like this!” “No, lead like this!” “No…just stop leading and listen…to me!”)
PHILL BUTLER (1936-2023). I was reflecting on all of this when I received the sad news that Phill Butler passed away on April 2, 2023, at age 86. Read his family’s tribute here and click here for information about the online celebration of life service, Saturday, May 13, 2023.
His bio includes this: “Phill was a pioneer in the mission partnering movement and a visionary ministry entrepreneur who launched and led three world-changing ministries over the course of 50 years—InterCristo, InterDev, and VisionSynergy.”
I had the privilege of serving on the InterDev board for a few years—and I still remember the stunning impromptu mentoring lessons Phill shared in board meetings, often in response to a board member’s probing question. In one meeting, I said to Phill, a consummate lifelong learner: “That five-minute tutorial on global culture was stunning! How many times have you presented those insights?” Phill’s response: “That’s the first time. I just responded to that insightful question.” Our board’s response: speechless!
BOOK #1: WELL CONNECTED
The InterDev board kept reminding/inspiring (pestering!) Phill to write a book. Gratefully, much of his wisdom on partnerships was captured in his 2006 book, Well Connected: Releasing Power, Restoring Hope through Kingdom Partnerships.
Bob Buford (1939-2018) called Well Connected a must-read. Phill’s book has been published in 11 languages and it remains the go-to “handbook” for facilitating collaborative work among ministries and mission organizations worldwide.
“Expect Problems With Partnerships” was the title of my review of Well Connected (read the review here). While many of us claimed to be savvy about building partnerships, Butler’s book quickly dispelled that myth. If you read the book, be prepared to assess your current partnerships against Phill’s truth-telling principles on what constitutes a true partnership. Charles Handy once said that “the world may admire truth-tellers, but few will want to employ them.” (Did I mention gut check?)
You may want to begin by reading the summary (Chapter 1) and then delegating your reading to a team member who will review the book at a future staff meeting. Notes:
• The appendix is worth the price of the book, especially the five-page “Partnership/Network Diagnostic/Evaluation Tool” for your current presumed partnerships.
• Or…you can rate yourself with 10 questions: “Are We Good Partnership Material?” If you score 60 or less (100 is possible), Butler suggests you host a leadership meeting to look at your scores and discuss improvement options.
• Or…check out “15 Critical Principles” of partnerships, including: 2) Lasting partnerships need a committed facilitator. 4) Effective partnerships have limited, achievable objectives in the beginning. 5) Effective partnerships start by identifying key felt needs among the people being served. 8) Effective partnerships are even more challenging to maintain than to start. 15) Effective partnerships expect problems and pro-actively deal with them.
To order this book from Amazon, click on the title for Well Connected: Releasing Power, Restoring Hope Through Kingdom Partnerships, by Phill Butler.
BOOK #2: POLYCENTRIC MISSION LEADERSHIP
Thank God for thinkers and writers like Joe Handley! The creative leader of A3 (formerly Asian Access), tackled a complex—but fascinating—topic for his Ph.D. dissertation. He explored “…a new theoretical approach to leadership that I call Polycentric Leadership.”
His definition: “Polycentric Leadership is collaborative, communal leadership empowering multiple centers of influence, and a diverse array of leaders to meet today's challenges.”
He describes six leadership traits in his model:
• Charismatic
• Collaborative
• Communal
• Relational
• Entrepreneurial
• Diverse
If you’re a student of leadership and a lifelong learner, you’ll find Handley’s leadership model instructive and fascinating. Chapter 4, “A Model of Polycentric Leadership” notes concrete examples of organizations, including the Wycliffe Global Alliance (100 organizations!), and J.R. Woodward’s “Missional Church Model.” In that model, Handley describes “…how the equipping team leads like geese in flight, who share the leadership load and take turns based on their giftings.”
Hmmm. How about adding “Lead Goose” to your business card? 
Yes, this short book (102 pages, plus the robust bibliography) reads like a Ph.D. dissertation because…well…it is a dissertation. But it’s a worthy addition to your lifelong-learning library. (Or at least, as Steve Leveen recommends, add it to your Library of Candidates.)
Three Quick-Reading Options:
1) Visit the robust website, “Polycentric Leadership,” for articles, definitions, and more.
2) Read the short article in Outcomes magazine, “Polycentric Leadership: A Leadership Model for a Polarized World.”
3) Read the chapter summaries (and the page 52 chart) in Polycentric Mission Leadership: Toward A New Theoretical Model for Global Leadership, by Joseph W. Handley, Jr.
You’ll note that I paired Handley’s book with Phill Butler’s book (above). Handley references Butler’s wisdom 21 times with a few pokes-in-the-ribs on collaboration. Butler: “Everybody talks about collaboration, but nobody does it. It’s an idealized and realized value—there’s a huge difference.” Butler recommended the Harvard Business Review article, “Who Should Be Your Chief Collaboration Officer?” (That would also look good on a business card—if you actually did the work.)
My favorite chapter, “Interviews Within the Lausanne Movement,” was based on interviews with 33 leaders from across the world—both inside and outside the movement. Jason (our son) and I were privileged to have roles at the 1989 gathering in Manila, Lausanne II: International Congress on World Evangelization. Now, almost 35 years later, it was fascinating to read about the internal conflicts, funding challenges, and leadership views (top-down or collaborative?). Maybe…"they’ll know we are Christians"... by our leadership model?
Handley doesn’t hold back—and his book also includes critiques of his Polycentric Leadership model. (Who does that?) Looking back at both my CEO years and my consulting years—leading and attending numerous seminars and keynote sessions with gifted global participants—I can vouch for the challenges of collaborating with a diversity of leaders. (Lausanne II hosted 4,300 leaders from 173 countries, including the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe!) I’ve made my fair share of cultural and leadership mistakes in Taiwan, Turkey, Thailand, Hong Kong, Austria and South Africa—to name just a few.
I confess in my Mistakes book chapter, “Traveling Without Preparing” (Mistake #11), that I should have been a more diligent student of global culture. Most books I read too late. (See also the six books in Part 13 of Mastering 100 Must-Read Books.) I was privileged to serve an alphabet of global organizations (WEA, EEA, ICETE, CCI, EMQ, WCA, and more), but if Phill Butler and Joe Handley had written their books earlier—that would have been helpful!
Today, I pray for global leaders that their leadership “goes beyond a pulpit”—echoing the aspirations of Grace Samson-Song, a Lausanne board member. I also pray for one country a day from the prayer guide, Operation World, 7th Edition (soon to be updated), and the app. (Read my review of the 2001 edition.) Or pray for the persecuted church with the GCR prayer app.
To order the paperback edition from Amazon, click on the title for Polycentric Mission Leadership: Toward A New Theoretical Model for Global Leadership, by Joseph W. Handley, Jr. (Click here for Kindle edition.) And thanks to the publisher for sending me a review copy.
YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) In Well Connected, Phill Butler wrote that effective partnerships have a “partnership champion” inside every church, ministry, or organization in the partnership. Why might that be absolutely critical? How are we doing on this principle?
2) In Polycentric Mission Leadership, Joe Handley reminds us that leading internationally is chaotic and complex—and even more challenging for “social sector” organizations, per Jim Collins (see Book #30 below). Another stunning example: the saga of Carlos Ghosn, who became the world's first person to run two companies on the Fortune Global 500 simultaneously (Nissan and Renault). How’d that work out? Read my review of Collision Course: Carlos Ghosn and the Culture Wars That Upended an Auto Empire and watch for my review of Boundless: The Rise, Fall, and Escape of Carlos Ghosn (I just read this...whew!). What leader comes to mind who emulates the six traits of Polycentric Leadership? How about 4 out of 6?
Mastering 100 Must-Read Books - Part 4: The Mount Rushmore of Leadership Legends
Book #30 of 100: Good to Great and the Social Sectors (just 35 pages!)
For your team meeting this week, inspire a team member to lead your “10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning” session by spotlighting Book #30 in Mastering 100 Must-Read Books.
Good to Great and the Social Sectors:
Why Business Thinking is Not the Answer
(A monograph to accompany Good to Great)
by Jim Collins
Books #22 through #40 spotlight 19 books I named to “The Mount Rushmore of Leadership Legends” group—featuring Patrick Lencioni, Jim Collins, Ken Blanchard, and Peter Drucker. Part 4 features five books by Collins, including the first book I reviewed in Issue No. 1 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting.
• Read my review (very short!).
• Order from Amazon: Good to Great and the Social Sectors
• Download the 100 Must-Read Books list (from John and Jason Pearson)
While Good to Great was written primarily for leaders of for-profit enterprises, this 35-page monograph is focused on nonprofits (the social sectors). The differences for the Good-to-Great Concept:
BUSINESS SECTORS: “The profit-driven economic engine makes it possible to create a sustained machine independent of any single leader or funding source.”
SOCIAL SECTORS: “Funding often favors ‘time telling’ tied to specific projects or a charismatic leader, rather than to building a sustainable organization.”
My favorite illustration: The Cleveland Orchestra which “…held itself accountable for playing the most challenging classical music with supreme artistic excellence, and doing so even better with each passing year, guided by the BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) of becoming recognized as one of the three greatest orchestras in the world.” What’s your organization’s BHAG?
What if you only had 37 days to set the course in your new role as CEO of United Airlines? Read my review of this master class in leadership and culture, Turnaround Time: Uniting an Airline and Its Employees in the Friendly Skies, by Oscar Munoz with Brian DeSplinter. And for more book reviews, visit the Pails in Comparison Blog.
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Segment Your Customers Prayerfully: The Engel Scale
In “The Customer Bucket,” we reference the market segmentation principles from “The Engel Scale,” per James Engel’s and Wilbert Norton’s book, What’s Gone Wrong With the Harvest? A Communication Strategy for the Church and World Evangelism. Read Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook and leverage the six worksheets and resources from “The Customer Bucket,” including the Engel Scale. (See also my review of Faith for Exiles.)
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PEARPOD | TELLING YOUR STORY. It seems that everyone’s an expert today on telling your story: social media influencers, podcasters, pundits, and bloggers. Who do you trust? AI? The “experts” with tried and true research? Or new, but untested strategies and tactics? We can help! Contact Jason Pearson at Pearpod (Design, Digital, Marketing, Social).
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