If you're in leadership and you believe you have a long-term goal and plan, don't miss today's Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman. That's what I'm encouraging is to separate ourselves from this iron grip on long-range planning and really look for God's opportunities in our lives, which are going to be so much better than what we come up with.
Welcome to Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" . Today, get ready to forget everything you've been taught about working your plan as a leader. Our guest says the best leadership looks for unexpected opportunities. Our featured resource is the book Opportunity Leadership, Stop Planning and Start Getting Results.
You'll find it at the website, fivelovelanguages.com. And Gary, as I've seen you in action for the last few decades or so, it seems to me you're the kind of person who has a plan. You have goals in mind for your life, for your ministry, speaking and other things, but you are willing to be flexible and change course if you need to do that. Am I getting that right about you?
Well, I would say that's true, Chris. You know, I've always had ideas of what might be coming down the road here, but I've also found this. My plans are often thwarted by God, you know, and so he turns me to the right or the left, and I've been flexible.
That's a good word. I've been flexible to move in those directions because, look, what do we want as Christians? We want what God wants to do with our lives, you know, and that's always been my perspective. So I haven't gotten hung up on, you know, not reaching my plans that were floating in my mind, but rather really trusting God to guide me in what I'm doing. I think that's what Dr. Parrott is going to be talking about here today because in my own life, too, I've seen this.
I've got so many great plans that I missed opportunities that I was looking at the schematic over here rather than looking up at what is God doing. And so let's find out more about his thesis. Dr. Roger Parrott is president of Belhaven University in Jackson, Mississippi. He was recognized as one of the 10 most visionary education leaders of 2021 by Education magazine.
Under his leadership, Belhaven was named one of America's best colleges to work for by the Chronicle of Higher Education. His previous book was The Long View, Lasting Strategies for Rising Leaders. But if you go to FiveLoveLanguages.com right now, you'll see our featured resource, Opportunity Leadership.
Stop planning and start getting results. Find out more at FiveLoveLanguages.com. Well, Dr. Parrott, welcome to Building Relationships. Well, what a treat to be with you and thank you for the honor of joining you today. Well, we're certainly glad you're here. Why don't you tell us a little about your background and how you became president of Belhaven there in Mississippi? Well, I didn't plan it, that's for sure. You know, I grew up in the home of a college president and it was probably the last thing I wanted to do because I'd seen it from the inside.
But God has a way of getting us where he needs us. And so it did come about that I was elected into presidency way too young when I was 34. And so I've been in it for 33 years altogether and do love it every day. There's no better job in the world. But my grandfather was a college president as well. And my grandfather always says best job in the world as long as you pay the bills.
But I do love it. You know, I get to work with energetic, idealistic young people. I get to work with expert faculty.
You kind of get to run your own city as a campus and I own my own football team. So it doesn't get any better than that. All right. Well, we've all heard the saying, and I'm quoting here, those who fail to plan, plan to fail. But you're suggesting that that's really not true and we need to give up planning. That's a pretty radical recommendation.
Yeah, it is. And it's radical because long range planning doesn't work. That's the bottom result of it.
We're all addicted to it, but it really doesn't work. And kind of the softball example, that's COVID. Nobody had COVID in their plan. But we've all adjusted and we've all made transitions from it. And those who have embraced – COVID's had horrible things, of course.
But those who have embraced the new limitations or opportunities of COVID have done very well. And those who still are trying to force their plan to work are suffering during this time organizationally. But, you know, it's not just that.
I mean, I have talked to dozens and dozens and dozens of leaders about what are the most significant things that happened in your life, your ministry, your leadership. And they all are nearly all in common that the best things were not planned. They were opportunities that came along. Yes, they had a direction. Yes, they had a momentum.
They had their mission clear. But it was really an opportunity they didn't expect that was the shifting moment for their work. And so that's what I'm encouraging is to separate ourselves from this iron grip on long-range planning and really look for God's opportunities in our lives, which are going to be so much better than what we can come up with. Well, I've certainly found that true in my life.
Right, Chris? That's what I was saying earlier. The significant things were things that I had not planned at all. So give us a working definition of the book title here, Opportunity Leadership. Well, I think it's important to understand what I mean by planning, and that's the difference between destination planning and operational planning. So I know on my campus we're going to teach English and we're going to run a soccer team and we're going to feed students and we're going to have chapel.
So we plan all those things very, very carefully. But we don't plan our destinations. So, you know, news outlet may say to me, well, what do you see as bell haven in 10 years from now? And my transparent answer is I don't know.
I really don't know. But what I do know is the best plans we could come up with around conference tables drawn out on white boards are pale in comparison to the plan that God has for us. And so we let go of planning nearly 20 years ago now and have just watched a remarkable pattern. But, you know, the book does give a more formal definition of what I have defined as opportunity leadership. But it's really it's a waiting in anticipation.
It's not pressing it. It's waiting in anticipation for opportunities that come that mesh so seamlessly with our mission and our gifting and our capacity that we just know that's what God's trying to do. And then really be sensitive to the wind of God and where God's taking us so we can respond when those opportunities come quickly and effectively and with a lot of energy.
And most of us are so stuck in our trying to execute our planning. We don't have any energy left for God's opportunities. Does this concept work in any leadership setting or is it primarily a ministry in a framework? Well, I think it works for any Christian because I think it really is it's theologically grounded. It is based in our theology of our total and complete trust in God.
And, you know, it really comes down to that kind of core and lilies of the field. You know, Isaiah 55, my thoughts are not your thoughts. My ways are not your ways. 1 Corinthians 2, you know, no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind is conceived.
But God's prepared for those who love Him. So for any Christian, I think this really works. The book's designed obviously for more ministry settings, church settings, leadership settings. But I think it does go across the spectrum.
And whether or not it works in a different setting, I don't know. One of the early readers of my book who gave a wonderful endorsement was the former president of Krispy Kreme who turned that company around. And he said this was a guidebook for what he really did in the company. So, you know, I think that leaders across the board, no planning doesn't work. But again, they're so expected to do it that they can't let go.
And the book is really a call to courage. Let go of what you know is not working and let's do something different. Really let God work in our lives. Where did this concept come from in your own life?
I think it was experience. It was just one thing after another that kind of showed me that we were going through a lot, putting a lot of energy into planning, a lot of effort into planning. It never was coming through in the ways we anticipated it. Because in planning, we all project these idealistic kind of growth patterns and everything looks perfect on the charts.
Life doesn't work that way. Whether it's a ministry or a family or a person, they're ups and downs. And when you let go of that and you find the opportunities, that's when we start to get the joy in what God was calling us to do. Rather than it being a grind. And so I think it was a process and it was a lot of practical things.
Kind of one small thing on top of another, on top of another. And pretty soon we realized we don't need planning. We can do this a different way.
And then it was a matter of trying to get the culture to change and to accept that. And it has been the single most important decision I've ever made in 33 years as a college president. This is Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman. Our guest is Dr. Roger Parrott. Our featured resource is his book Opportunity Leadership. Stop planning and start getting results.
You can find out more at our website, 5lovelanguages.com. Dr. Parrott, you said something just before the break that really intrigues me. And you said that as you let go of this planning model, what happened was rather than the grind of every day, you started to feel joy come back into what you were doing. And I think everybody who's listening right now has experienced that in some way. That there is this, you get your nose to the grindstone, you get your nose to the plan. This is what we're going to do and this is how we're going to do it.
And it just feels like a grind rather than a joyful working together. Talk more about that. Well, it really is a dramatic transformation. The model that I use and I read about in the book and also if you come to my campus and you ask anybody about powerboats and sailboats, that's how they would explain this difference. And the model we use is that we want to be a sailboat that's prepared to catch the wind of God and go where God's wind takes us. Rather than a powerboat that goes where we think God wants us to go and ignores the wind. And you know, there's beautiful things about a sailboat. It looks relaxing, it looks inviting, people are enamored by sailboats. But a big powerboat comes through and kind of chops up the water and makes a lot of noise and kind of grinds its way through.
It's a totally different way to travel, a completely different way to travel. And so that's what we have found is the release of a sailboat that we're not trying to ignore the wind and press through. We're trying to be sensitive to that wind of God. And if God's wind changes, that's great. And if God's wind stops, that's okay. We're going to sit and wait and we're not going to get all bungled up because things aren't moving. Let's just wait.
God's wind will eventually blow. I had a group of leaders in a number of years ago, international leaders who were intrigued with this concept we were doing. And we were at the end of the three day session. One of them from South America, in one of those quiet moments you have at the end of a long discussion. He said something that really caught my attention. He finally said, kind of to himself, kind of to the room, kind of to me, not to anybody in particular. He said, you know, you really expect God to bring you opportunities, don't you? And I think that was a turning point for me. That when we realize, yes, we expect God to bring opportunities. And if God doesn't bring opportunities, that doesn't mean God's not speaking.
It's just not the right time. And so we're going to wait in that. And in that there's a tremendous freedom.
Yeah, I can see that. Again, just review for us, what's the downside of this long range planning that you just push yourself every day to accomplish? Yeah, that's such a good question because it's not just that this is a new way, but we're giving up an old way that really is harmful. And long range planning where you're trying to predict destinations and then you're working hard to get to those, you miss all the opportunities. It keeps us from just a number of things. First of all, we only aim for targets we know we're going to hit. You know, a leader would be crazy to stand up and aim for a target that was beyond impossible. But that's what we do. So we lower our targets so that we know that we'll hit them.
Yeah, they're stretch, but we know we could do it. It homogenizes our strengths. You know, one of the great things about Belhaven University is we are the leading Christian college in the arts. In fact, we're one of only 36 schools in America accredited in all nationally credit all for the arts, music, theater, visual art and dance. So we have this huge dance program. But if we had done that through planning and we had to bring up every program in the same way that we invested in the arts, we never could have grown this stellar arts program. So homogenizes strengths.
I think it focuses on deficiencies. When you sit down on a whiteboard to make a plan, what do you do? You write down the stuff you don't have. How about we celebrate the stuff we do have? God's given great opportunities.
Let's rejoice in those. And sure, there are always things that can improve. But I think a planning process really zeroes in on what we don't have rather than thanking God for what we do have.
And then I just think it's a lot of empty productivity. You have meeting after meeting after meeting and all these dialogues and discussions and nothing comes out of it. The plan gets done, everybody says, well, that was a great meeting. Wow, this is a great plan. But what happens after that?
You very rarely see results. And I always tease college presidents that you can appoint your blue ribbon committee for planning and spend 18 months. But I can tell you your five outcomes right now before you ever have the first meeting. I know what they're going to be. They're not hard to predict. And every ministry, every church, every even family can tend to predict those things if you just go in a traditional format.
But if you trust God and really open up and let go of that, imagine all the time that's available for a lot of other great stuff. Yeah. Is it the planning that's the problem or is it the rigid adherence to the plan?
I think it's a little of both. I think that I think that planning does set unrealistic expectations. You know, when you set out a plan, everything looks perfect. The future looks like an even growth curve and it looks simple to do. And no, it just doesn't work out that way.
I build a lot of buildings on the campus and I never do architectural renderings because no building can look as perfect as an architect can draw. And so it sets unrealistic expectations. You know, it delays decisions because we say, well, we're in the planning process, so we can't decide that. So things get pushed off. I think it limits the dialogue.
It doesn't increase the dialogue because a planning group is working on that. And so we get so caught up in being attached to that. And once we put out the plan, we won't let anything else come into our framework because we committed to the plan. And at the beginning, as good Christians, of course, we prayed for that plan and then we prayed God for blessed at the end. And, you know, and then we spend the rest of the time after the plans out showing excuses for why it didn't come out the way we drew it out perfectly on the whiteboard. So it's just not a healthy way for an organization or a family or anybody to live.
Yeah. So why do you think leaders and organizations stay so committed to this planning model even when they realize what you're saying is true? It's ineffective. Well, I think it's two things. I think one is expectations. Boards especially expect the plan. They come out of a corporate environment, many of them. And so they expect the leaders of ministries to have a plan and look like it does in the corporate world. And it doesn't work all that much more effectively in the corporate world, although their timeframes are probably shorter because they work on quarterly reports and annual reports instead of 10-year visions like ministries tend to do. And donors expect that, I want to see your plan, that kind of thing.
But I think the other issue beyond expectations is for a lot of leaders, they assume that's their only visible way to lead. So either I raise money or I do planning. But if I take out planning, how do I lead?
What do I do? What do you fill that in with? And that's really what the book's focused on is how, as leaders, do we develop a different set of characteristics? I've got six characteristics that leaders need to develop to be opportunity leaders and then put that into the organization with six traits that opportunity leadership organizations tend to have. So that's kind of what we're trying to do is find a different way to lead, something that fills that space, and what you find is you can fill it with so much more effectiveness than simply grinding away a planning process. Was there an event that flipped the switch for you to think about giving up planning? Well, you know, when I came to Bell, even 26 years ago, I put in place the regular planning that every college does, and that's what leaders are supposed to do. So we went through about a year and a half long process of planning. We had the documents and the committees and the whole thing, and you always put a blue ribbon on it.
I'm not sure what that means, but we always call it Blue Ribbon Committee. And so we came out with this document with all these plans, where we're going to go, and one of the things I kind of wanted to do was to start football someday. But I didn't want to scare everybody, so I kind of worked it into the document like four or five layers down.
And so it didn't create a lot of disturbance, and it really wasn't in the plan. And I was at my second commencement and walked into the lobby and walked into a football coach that I had hired at my previous school. And I said, what in the world are you doing here? And he said, the school where you were after you left, they fired me, and I moved back to Mississippi, and I'm looking for a coaching job. And just like that, I said, you want to start a football team? And the plan went out the window. The coach was standing there in front of me, and off we ran to start a football team.
And so that was kind of the moment where, yeah, it broke through into a pretty public arena of you can't start football and be quiet about it. That's for sure. Well, you know, that's a good illustration, I think, of this whole concept that you're trying to share that it's okay to have plans, you know, but God's timing may be very different from ours, and God's plans may be very different from ours.
Absolutely. And it's not that we don't have plans. We have plans, but they're more dreams, they're more mission, they're more calling.
I'm interested in the calling. I mean, Gary, you had a tremendous vision for "The 5 Love Languages" , but never expected, I'm sure, for it to go to the level that it has. I mean, who would have ever thought that it would have this worldwide huge impact that it had when you first wrote it?
Now, maybe you did, but if you did, I'm going to be surprised, because I don't think you did. I think only God could make that happen. You can't draw that out. You know, Dr. Barrett, people have asked me, how do I explain, you know, the sale of that book, 20 million copies they tell me now around the world, and published in over 50 languages around the world.
And I typically say, the short answer is God, and the long answer is God. Exactly, exactly. You know, I knew that concept would work, because I had discovered it in my counseling, and I had used it in my counseling for at least five years, but I had no idea, no, that that would happen. In fact, neither did the publisher. I remember Greg Thornton said to me, he'd read the manuscript, and he said, I thought to myself, does the publisher sell six or eight thousand copies?
He said, yeah. So Moody Publishers didn't have the dream either, didn't see what God was doing either. But we've all just kind of been following God's plan step by step, but as it's revealed, so.
Well, that brings up a good point, Gary, and Dr. Barrett, I want you to address this. There are things that succeed in the culture, in the Christian world, whatever, and people will use that then as the template. For example, if my book title has the number five in it, it's going to be a success.
Or if I do the same kind of social media or the website that FiveLoveLanguages.com is, then I'll be a success. And so the goal in all of that is how do I replicate this thing that God did, and you can't replicate that. So we're almost stunting ourselves creatively by trying to copy something else. Talk about that.
Well, we really are, and I think our whole culture does that. You see a hit movie come out, and then you get a whole bunch of movies like that. A great book comes out, people try to write books like that. You know, that doesn't work very well. There are moments for significant things to happen, and God puts moments for significant things in all of our lives. Now, all of us won't have the kind of broad reach that Gary's had.
That's not going to happen. But for each of us, God designed us for a purpose and a reason. And if we'll take those opportunities and make them ours, not try to make them somebody else's. I tell my students all the time, don't lead somebody else's life, lead your life. And follow your pattern of what God's put into your heart and spirit.
And when we do that, it's just amazing the joy we get from it. The goal is not to try to emulate what somebody else did. The goal is to let God work in our lives for the best that He put inside of us.
I have not used the term that you're using, opportunities as opposed to planning. But looking back on my life, which I wrote my memoirs that came out back in April. That's the principle that was there throughout my whole life. I'm just sitting here listening and applying this and looking back at my own life.
That's the case. The significant things in my life did not happen by my planning them. They happened as I just took the next step with what I felt God leading me to do. That is so, so right on target, Gary, and really affirming to hear because I think it is for all of us. But most leaders won't admit it the way that you are. So thank you for sharing that.
I showed an early copy of the book to one leader and they said, finally, I've got the words for what I've been trying to do. And because it is opportunities when we look at our lives. That's what's driven all of us. And that's how God operates. And that's the joy of really trusting Him. You know, we all say we want to trust God, but we don't act like it.
We need to really trust Him for our future and let Him take it where He wants to take it. Thanks for joining us today for Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of The New York Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" . Our guest is Dr. Roger Parrott, author of Opportunity Leadership, Stop Planning and Start Getting Results. You can find out more at fivelovelanguages.com.
That's fivelovelanguages.com. Dr. Parrott, as a CEO and president of a college, it may be easy for you to envision a future without a plan. But didn't giving up this concept and turning more to opportunities, didn't that scare your board and those who work with you? Yeah, that scared me too.
You know, and it was interesting because the more I would talk about it and the more I would begin to project this to the board and to the campus, I would get people to pull me aside and they'd say, boy, that's really great. We're going to trust God. We're going to go where God tells us to go.
We're going to lean on Him. We're not going to make a plan. And then they'd say, but really, what's the plan? What's the plan B? And, you know, part of this is there is no plan B.
This is it. And if you do it and there's a plan B, you haven't really given up planning. So, you know, it really is different. And what I had to do is show my board that it worked. And over time, again, we had small successes.
We had opportunities that came along that gave them benchmarks to see that it worked. And I remember one meeting. It was really fun. We were about 10, 12 years into this. And I passed out a sheet to my board and I said, five year plan on the top of it. Well, of course, they knew we didn't do planning, so they were kind of looking at it funny.
And I said, and I started to go through it. Number one is we're going to increase the enrollment 43%. Number two, we're going to raise $21 million, which for us is a lot of money. Number three, we're going to build $32 million worth of buildings, which is just gigantic. Number four, we're going to have seven new undergraduate majors.
Number five, we're going to have eight graduate new majors. And the ones who'd been on the board a long time after we got to about the third, they figure out what I was doing. And the others were horrified that we were laying out this kind of a huge plan.
And they realized that wasn't the plan for the future. That's what we had done the previous five years. And when we got done, I said to the board, you know, if I had brought you this plan five years ago, two things would have happened. One is we would have cut it back by about two thirds what these goals are to know what we could hit.
And secondly, you would have thought I was crazy and started to look for a new president. But instead, we trusted God's opportunities and look what happened. And, you know, so I think I think we can show the communities that we influence that it can work. But yeah, it takes time. It's not done overnight. And I write a lot in the book about that process because a leader can't just declare this and take off. It doesn't work that way. Yeah, right.
Yeah. Well, now, as a college president, I'm thinking out loud here now. What if a teacher came to you, one of your professors came to you and said, I don't have a lesson plan for the year. I'm just going to look for opportunities.
Oh, man. How would you respond to that? I'd say great. Fabulous.
Now, here's the difference. If you're to teach English, you still got to teach English. So plan that because, you know, God's given that to you. What the opportunities you don't know are the impact you're going to have in those students lives who come up with this problem or that problem or some families hurting in your class or those opportunities. If you're sensitive to those opportunities, great things are going to happen. But you plan what you know you have to do, which is to teach English, but you don't plan what those opportunities are.
So I'm not going to try and force students into some kind of contrived relationship where they're whatever. I'm going to wait for those moments to come and God will bring them to me. And I tell my faculty and staff, God will bring you opportunities every single day if you look for them. And they will.
And it's kind of fun when it happens because it happens over and over and over again. Would this be a way of saying that wherever you are in life, whatever you're in, be all there, give yourself to that. If it's teaching English or whatever, give yourself to that. But keep open to the opportunities that God is going to bring your way wherever you are. Just utilize. Absolutely. That's kind of the framework. And expect opportunities. That's part of it. We're surprised when God gives us an opportunity.
No, if you expect opportunities. You know, Steve Douglas, one of my one of my dear friends who was president of Campus Crusade for so long. You know, he had all these people he would witness to. And I thought, where does he find all these people? Well, he expects to run into people every day who need to hear about the Lord.
And so he had all kinds of opportunities. If all of us will live in a state of waiting for God's opportunities, they will come. They'll come in a grocery store. They'll come anyplace. God will bring opportunities. Yeah.
You know, Dr. Parrott, recently back in July, I retired from the staff, church staff, where I have served on the same staff for 50 years. Okay. And many people said to me, what's on your bucket list now? And I said, I don't have a bucket list. If you mean, you know, I plan to do this, this, this, this and this. I said, my only desire is to finish whatever God has in his plan for me. And I've already told God that when he's through, I'm through. I don't have any plans other than what he has, you know, the doors that he opens.
So I'm identifying with what you're saying. It's not that we don't plan. I mean, the Scriptures say man makes his plans, you know, but God directs his steps. Right. And that's the difference.
That's the difference right there. We plan what we know we have, but God's going to direct steps. And in retirement, although you're not going to retire, retirement's not in the Bible, for one thing. You're just going to continue ministry in different ways. But, you know, God is going to continue to bring opportunities because you've been a person who has always been open to those opportunities.
You've responded. You've been a person of a example of humility to Christian leaders that we desperately need. And God honors that. And so the opportunities are going to continue to come. And it's going to be fun for you and for all of us to see what God does in this next phase of your life.
And I believe that, you know. I was fortunate that the pastor said, what could we do for you? I said, well, if you want to know the thing that would be most meaningful to me, let me have an office at the church and let me have my assistant to work with me. And they said, great, that's what we'll do for you. So, you know, when I'm in town, I'm in the office, you know. When I'm in town, I'm seeing people and counseling people.
And then when I'm traveling, I'm traveling. That's terrific. Wow.
I love what you two are talking about here. I have to jump in because it sounds to me like, because you're talking about leadership and the leaders that are going. I want to know what goes on then in the hearts of the people who are under those leaders. If you go to FiveLoveLanguages.com, you'll see Opportunity Leadership, Stop Planning and Start Getting Results.
It's written by our guest today, Dr. Roger Parrott. What happens to the person who is sitting around the table, who is under the leader, who is thrown planning out the window? It sounds to me, Dr. Parrott, that that person is freed up to have less constrictures on him or her and be able to plug into this wind in the sails idea that you're talking about.
Very much so. And when they really capture that, at first it's a little jarring, but when they finally capture that, they do find great freedom in it and they find they are the front lines of ministry. I'm not the front line of ministry at Belhaven University. It's the faculty, it's the coaches, it's the people in the business office, it's the maintenance workers. I always tell them when they hit their thumb with a hammer, they'll teach more in how they respond than we will in Chapel all semester because students are watching.
And when they capture that calling and what they're doing as part of the mission, not simply doing the job, that's when there's great joy. I came across campus several years ago and a couple of maintenance workers had dug a deep hole and they clearly were fixing a water break. They were down over their waist below ground, they were standing in mud and I came up to the hole and trying to be nice and I looked over and I said, guys, what are you doing down there?
And of course I knew they're fixing water line. I said, what are you doing down there? They said, we're educating students for the Lord. I said, that's it.
That's exactly it. You're calling is educating students by providing a wonderful campus, some place for them to live and work and to learn. And so, yes, I think everybody can find opportunities. And when they're freed to know that that's what we value, not simply checking the boxes on a plan, that's when God really works in their lives and gives them a joy in their work that they didn't have otherwise. Once you made this decision to move away from this being married to planning and look for opportunities, was there ever a time that you felt like maybe I've made a mistake here? Was there ever a time like that or not? Well, you know, I kind of had to find my way because there really wasn't a book. I studied to try to find somebody who'd written on this kind of a concept, and that's why I finally coined and defined opportunity leadership because nobody really written on it. So I kind of had to find my way.
And the book kind of tells that story. But yeah, I think the scary part was, or have I made a mistake, was that there's some risk because as a leader, you've got to get out front. But it's a different kind of out front. It's not a get out front. I've got the plan.
Everybody follow me. It's a get out front that I don't have all the answers. And so there's a risk in that I don't know. And sometimes we've so trained organizations and churches and others to expect the leader to know everything.
And no, I don't know. And there's a risk in improvising because when you start this path, God gives an opportunity. But the first thing you start with is not what it's going to end like.
It's going to be different. When you started Love Languages, it's changed and it's evolved and it's morphed into a lot of different outlets and things. And things change over time. And that requires a lot of transparent communication.
I talk to my faculty and staff all the time about what we're thinking about doing. Not just declaring what we're going to do, but what we're thinking about it. And then there's a risk in kind of reviving what I call reviving because every new idea, every new initiative can start out with kind of a lot of energy and a lot of excitement.
And there's a push up in the growth curve of the S curve as it goes up and then it hits a low. And that's when a leader has to step in and kind of revive the idea, rework it and sometimes say, you know, that didn't work, but this worked and we're going to do this instead. And, you know, that's hard for a lot of leaders. Christians especially, Christians are not very good at stopping things. We're really good at starting things and we say God honors it or blesses it. But because we asked God to lead us when we started something that doesn't work, we're afraid to stop it. And so instead we start something new on top of it instead of stopping the old thing. And thankfully, I've got a culture of a board and campus who've learned that, yeah, it makes sense to stop things at times. But it's a different kind of leadership and there is some risk in it.
But it's a wonderful risk because you know God's leading and directing and you just rely on Him. Thanks for joining us today for Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" . You can find simple ways to strengthen your relationships on our website, fivelovelanguages.com. Our guest today is Dr. Roger Parrott and our featured resource is his book, Opportunity Leadership. Stop planning and start getting results.
Find out more at fivelovelanguages.com. Dr. Parrott, obviously leaders are not going to stumble on this idea or they would have already stumbled on it. But how do we prepare or help prepare leaders to have this concept of looking for those opportunities? Well, I think they've just got to come to the realization that traditional long-range planning doesn't work.
And again, I differentiate between operational planning, which we do a lot of, and long-range destination planning, setting those future objectives and goals. And so when they can realize that doesn't work and then they can find a new model for leadership, again, there's great joy in leadership. But it's a different kind of leadership. It encourages, if you're going to be an opportunity leader, it encourages you to let your team be a lot more independent.
People are going to make mistakes and that's okay. Hire good people, get out of their way and let them do it. You know, I really encourage reversing the spotlight. Leaders get more than enough applause. We don't need any more.
We don't need any more spotlight on us. Turn the spotlight around, lift up the people who are around you. And then I tell leaders to be prepared for the key moments. You know, as a university president, my year is probably made or broken by 12 decisions a year. And what needs to happen is I need to be ready for those 12 decisions when they come.
And I'm not sure which ones are going to be the 12 that make the big difference. So you've got to be spiritually ready. You've got to be emotionally ready.
You've got to be rested. You have to have enough clarity of what's going on. You have to be well prepared so that you can make those decisions. And then I think you just deal with people differently when you do opportunity leadership because yes, they are going to miss it at times.
They're going to miss it badly. And in the book, I gave a great illustration. I just love the story, but in brief, it's about Ulysses Grant during the Civil War. And he was here in Holly Springs, Mississippi, of all places. And this is after he started to get some acclaim. And he, in 1862, made a terrible decision, absolutely horrible decision. It was called General Order Number 11, and he essentially said all the Jews have to get out of the Southern territory where they were fighting. And there's a lot of reason for that because of his dad and a lot of issues he had going on.
And it's a longer story than we can tell here. But Lincoln responded to that. First of all, he publicly said he was wrong, dead wrong about it. And this was in the same week that Lincoln was trying to draft the Emancipation Proclamation.
So you know where his head was in comparison to this. Like, I don't need this from a subordinate to mess up this badly. And he addressed it. He said he was wrong. He corrected Grant.
And then within the next month, he gave Grant even more responsibility. And I call it future-focused evaluation. We're evaluating people focusing on their future, not on their past. Because what we tend to do is when somebody messes up, we tend to restrict their authority. We tend to accentuate our power differentials. And then we just throw a lot of guilt on them just for fun, I guess.
I don't know why. But it doesn't do any good. We need to be focused on how do we help that person learn from that, grow from that and go to the future.
So it's a lot of doing things very differently than we've done in the past. But again, it comes back to really finding God's purpose for each person in our ministry or organization, not just for the leader. Dr. Paradis, Christians, of course, we look to the example of Jesus. What do you see in his life that fits with what we're talking about here? Well, Jesus was completely committed to his mission. He knew why he came to earth and he knew what his responsibility was.
And that mission never waivered. But when you see him in day-to-day ministry, I'm amazed at how often in the Bible we read, he was headed someplace and something happened and he went someplace else. Or he was headed to do one thing and somebody touched him and he went someplace else. Or he was preaching to a crowd and they got too big and they got too close, so they got in a boat and went to the other side. And then they got to the other side and they fed 5,000 people. His ministry was a life of interruptions.
It wasn't a plan, we get up every day, we're going to go to this, this and this, and that's going to achieve our objective of trying to win the world. It was a life of interruptions. And I just love studying that because then I can embrace the interruptions in my life and realize those are the most important moments for ministry. Those aren't the things that get checked off the to-do list that I had when I got up this morning. But those are the things that make the difference. Those are things also that move the dial for a ministry organization. And so following that model of Jesus and relaxing in that model, it's hard for us to do as leaders.
Because we want to drive our agenda, we want to drive our checklist. If we'll let it go and we'll do interruptions like Jesus did interruptions, it's amazing what can happen. And that's where the opportunities come. You know, I've seen that so many times in my own life. And I think of pastors who may be listening or honest, they would say that's true.
That sometimes they've missed opportunities because they didn't have time to get engaged with that person that wanted to talk with them because they had their own agenda set. So this speaks deeply to leaders in any capacity. Now in the book you also talk about David. And you see this pattern of opportunity leadership in his life as well.
Explain that to us. Well, I kind of summarize opportunity leadership in the story of David and Goliath because David was an opportunity leader at that moment. And he did five things. He acted fast. I mean, he came to that moment not expecting to go to war.
He came to deliver food to his brothers, his dad sinning. But he acted fast when he was called on. He capitalized on his strengths. He knew he was good with a sling. Saul tried to put his armor on him. He knew he wasn't any good with that.
So he took that off. He capitalized on his personal strengths, not trying to emulate somebody else. He didn't expect to succeed the first time.
He took five stones. So I don't think he expected to hit him the first time. Thankfully he did. But so often in leadership, we lay out a plan.
We expect the first time to work and it usually doesn't. He was fourthly supported by others, but he really, as a leader, had to stand alone. He was the one out there with Goliath. They were all cheering for him behind him, but he was the one out there. But then fifth and most important, he knew God was on his side.
He never questioned that he would succeed. And everybody studies the story of David and Goliath and they say the moral of the story is the little guy wins. I don't think that's the purpose of the story. I think the moral of the story of David and Goliath is that Goliath never had a chance. Because God was on David's side and God is on our side.
And the Goliaths, the giants of our lives, don't have a chance when God's on our side. Absolutely. That's a good place to stop because it reminds us of the truth. Well, this has been a fascinating discussion and it's a fascinating book. And I hope that many of our listeners are going to pick up on this and read it and say, hey, how does this apply now in my life? So let me thank you for being with us today and for not only practicing this over the years, but taking time to put it in writing so that others can think about this and how it applies in their leadership roles. Thank you so much. I'm just honored to be with you today and what a treat to share with you. And thank you for all of your ministry to me and to others through the years through what you've done and written. Thank you.
What an intriguing and challenging conversation with Dr. Roger Parrott today. If you want to find out more about our featured resource, go to the website FiveLoveLanguages.com. You have the book right there, Opportunity Leadership. Stop planning and start getting results.
Just go to FiveLoveLanguages.com. And next week, if you've said enough is enough and you're ready to leave an abusive relationship, don't miss our conversation in one week. My thanks to our production team, Steve Wick and Janice Todd. Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman is a production of Moody Radio in association with Moody Publishers, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute. Thanks for listening.
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