First Follower: Leadership Lessons from Dancing Guy

Here are some lessons (paraphrased) from the Dancing Shirtless Guy video:

A leader needs the guts to stand alone and look ridiculous. But you must be easy to follow!

It takes guts to be a first follower! You stand out and brave ridicule, yourself. Being a first follower is an under-appreciated form of leadership. The first follower transforms a lone nut into a leader. If the leader is the flint, the first follower is the spark that makes the fire.

The 2nd follower is a turning point: it’s proof the first has done well. Now it’s not a lone nut, and it’s not two nuts. Three is a crowd and a crowd is news.

A movement must be public. Make sure outsiders see more than just the leader. Everyone needs to see the followers, because new followers emulate followers – not the leader.

When a few more join in, you’ve got momentum, which is the tipping point, and then suddenly, you’ve got a movement!

As more people jump in, it’s no longer risky. If they were on the fence before, there’s no reason not to join now. They won’t be ridiculed, they won’t stand out, and they will be part of the in-crowd, if they hurry.

Soon you’ll see the rest who prefer to be part of the crowd, because eventually they’ll feel left out for not joining.

The recap: If you are a version of the shirtless dancing guy, all alone, remember the importance of nurturing your first few followers as equals, making everything clearly about the movement, not you.

Be public. Be easy to follow! But the biggest lesson here – did you catch it?

Leadership is over-glorified.

Yes, it started with the shirtless guy, and he’ll get all the credit, but you saw what really happened:

It was the first follower that transformed a lone nut into a leader.

There is no movement without the first follower.

We’re told we all need to be leaders, but that would be really ineffective.

The best way to make a movement, if you really care, is to courageously follow and show others how to follow.

When you find a lone nut doing something great, have the guts to be the first person to stand up and join in.

It was totally one of those slow-motion moments. I gasped. I reached for it and… just missed catching it. “Noooooooooo!” went running through my mind. It bounced off a rock, and split into two pieces. The bigger section landed on another rock and began to fill with water. <*sigh*>

Worst photo of the day.

Here’s a shot taken after the damage.

The sad part is I didn’t use one single picture from that shoot. Nothing really stood out as a good shot.

I took the lens to work, let it completely dry out for a few hours, and after many attempts, I somehow managed to cram it together again. Does it work? Yes and no. Manual focus? No problem. Auto focus? It will not. It simply growls at me. So I growl back. (It’s not so tough.)

Busted 50mm lens working almost as good as new. (Now with manual focus only.)

The good news is, even though it was busted, it was repairable, as proven by this photo (taken indoors on some soft carpet).

I think about using that lens a lot more often now. And I like the fact that when I do I am forced to use the manual focus, because it’s helping me to become a better photographer.

So what’s the moral of the story? Be a little more careful when taking pictures? Okay, maybe that’s one way to look at things. But another view could be about people, and how even though we’re all busted or ‘broken’ at some point in life, there’s hope for reparation. And greater use after the fact.

Cindy, don't you open it too!

So there I was, sitting in my car in the parking lot at work, picking strawberries up off the filthy mats (it was a rough morning drive), when I noticed a canvas bag on the back seat floor. I had forgotten it was there, and even what the contents were.

The bag contained some beach stones, collected for potential Smooth Stone Awards we hand out to a number of volunteers each year. It also contained a lone plastic lunch container. The stones provided a hint as to how long the bag and its contents had been in my car (at least three months), so now the following questions remained:

1. What type of food was in that container the day I brought it to work?
2. Did I wash it out after I consumed its contents?
3. Do I really want to open it?

I knew, after sitting that long in various fluctuating temperatures, regardless of whether I washed it or not, there was a 99.9% chance the inside would reek, and therefore be unusable in the future. I knew if I opened it, something foul and nasty would come out of there. I knew better than to open it and let it out. Despite all this… I still wanted to open it.

So I did.

And I gagged.

I couldn’t get out of the car fast enough.

That container reminded me of my mouth (and sometimes even my emails), and how there are times when I know I shouldn’t open it (or type it)… because something foul and nasty is just waiting to leap out and offend those around me. (Please note: I brush my teeth frequently, so I’m talking about my words, not my breath.)

James 3:7-12 says: People have tamed all kinds of animals, birds, reptiles, and sea creatures. Yet, no one can tame the tongue. It is an uncontrollable evil filled with deadly poison. With our tongues we praise our Lord and Father. Yet, with the same tongues we curse people, who were created in God’s likeness. Praise and curses come from the same mouth. My brothers and sisters, this should not happen! Do clean and polluted water flow out of the same spring?

Hopefully next time I’ll think instead of James 1:19, which says: Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue… and I’ll think of that container, and remind myself… Don’t open it!

Scott

Batman monster truck. Taken by Jot Powers, 1/2006.

A friend and I were talking about church stuff when he mentioned monster trucks.

My mind began to drift (I can’t help it; this is how my brain works), and I wondered, how engaging would a weekly monster truck event be if…

• …no one came out with a microphone to introduce the event or build up the energy level of the audience?
• …the same monster truck – and none other – was used each and every time?
• …the cars it crushed were never replaced with different un-crushed cars?
• …the same music was played for the fans, week after week?
• …the monster truck didn’t interact with any other vehicles in the entire arena?
• …the monster truck was simply pushed to the middle of the arena and never moved, because people found it too noisy?
• …at the end of the event you were told, “We hope you come back next week, ‘cause we’re gonna do it all over again!”?

If this was always the way at Monster Truck Church, how long would it take before people stopped coming – even the diehard fans?

How soon do you think it would be before the doors were shut and people moved on, to maybe… Motocross Church…?

Does this sound a little like your church?

Have it your way.

How cool would that be? A church that’s done entirely my way.

Isn’t this how most of us want things?

My parking space, my seat, my temperature, my day of the week, my hours of operation, my type of music at my volume, my light show (or lack of), my desired set design, my version of the bible, my preferred speaking pastor, my option to give, take, serve and come and go as I please.

I imagine a church where I could have everything my way would be a very small, and very empty church, because after just one week of me doing everything by myself, I’d be ready to find another church or quit going altogether.

This is what makes working for a church tricky.

You want people to want to come and get connected. You want people to want to help people take their next step toward Jesus. You just want them to want to… and to not want everything their own way. Not because you think your way is always perfect, but because you’re trying to make sure the things you do to engage people are biblically sound and help point people to Jesus, otherwise it’s all simply a matter of personal preference. And we can’t all have that at the same time.

In John 10:10, Jesus tells the people, A thief comes only to rob, kill, and destroy. I came so that everyone would have life, and have it in its fullest. Doesn’t following someone like that sound so much better than trying to have everything my way?

I think so.

The Real Thing.

Would you be curious to find out more?

Come hungry. Leave happy.

Would you want to attend a church with a guarantee like this?

Snickers really satisfies.

Would you check out a church with this motto?

Would you attend this church?

I have a love/dislike (hate’s a strong word) thing going on with Costco. They offer some unique products and services, yet they sometimes seem to have their best interests in mind, not yours, which isn’t always so appealing.

It got me thinking… if Costco was a church, would I want to attend? Consider…

• You have to pay to get in.
• Once inside, there’s usually no one available to assist you or answer any questions you may have.
• It’s not uncommon to see large lineups of people waiting to leave, and you get funneled and crammed through like cattle.
• You have to face another line up on the way out so they can inspect you to ensure you haven’t stolen anything.

In addition to that last bullet point, they used to have a sign posted informing folks the reason they stopped you and checked your items was to make sure you received everything you paid for, so I could have added they insult your intelligence by lying to you. (I think some people were insulted, hence the removal of the sign.)

On the plus side…

• The parking spaces are nice and wide (rare these days).
• It’s spacious inside – you don’t feel cramped (until you leave).
• They usually offer things you can’t find elsewhere.
• The eats are pretty good there too. (That’s just my opinion.)

Would you want to attend a church like this?