Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 18:29 — 25.4MB) | Embed

If you are not willing to blow up the status quo in your organization, someone else will. A great illustration of this fact would be Walt Disney. He was the first to create animated cartoons with synchronized music and sound. He sold and borrowed on everything to create his Just Cause – allowing people to step out of the work world and step into the world of creativity. Disney created theme parks that showed yesterday and tomorrow. In the words of Buzz Lightyear – To infinity and Beyond!

So what exactly is Existential Flexibility? It is the capacity to initiate extreme disruption to a business model or strategic course in order to more effectively advance our Just Cause (Go back and review Episode #259 for the discussion on Just Cause). The finite-minded player resists change and new ideas while the infinite-minded played revels in them. Key distinction.

This FLEX can be very disruptive to the current way of doing business. Yet, if you do not FLEX and blow up your own enterprise, someone else will. Wouldn’t be awesome to have a conversation with George Eastman founder of Eastman Kodak. The digital world completely engulfed Eastman Kodak. Their Just Cause perished due to a lack of change. Sadly they owned many of the digital technology patients and made millions from their sale. Yet on January 19, 2012 the New York Times summed up Kodak’s demise with these words; “Eastman Kodak, the 131 year-old film pioneer that has been struggling for years to adapt to an increasingly digital world, filed for bankruptcy protection early on Thursday.”

While this FLEX can be disruptive and unnerving at times, Keep in mind that your JUST CAUSE is the northstar to guide your forward motion. It is at this point that I have questioned and studied extensively the questions of, How would the non-profit Faith Community act differently if they truly lived out the infinite-minded idea? What decisions would we make that are different than how we presently are making. Better yet what is the JUST CAUSE for the faith community or any other non-profit?

Consider that non-profit growth today is coming from a brand new arena. Churches and organizations that are on the verge of extinction are handing over the assets to another non-profit that is flourishing. The goal is to keep a faith initiative alive in that neighborhood without placing the assets on the auction block.

My question is what happened to the JUST CAUSE? Without it what is the guiding northstar? This should cause all of us in the non-profit world to ask questions about the current health and trends of our operations. Are we truly operating within an infinite-minded perspective with goals beyond our life-time. Perhaps the finite-minded focus can subtly creep into our operations. Are we in competition with other non-profits? Are we attempting to be declared the winner in the non-profit arena?

It is interesting that Kodak faced the disruptive nature of the digital technology they created! Their own creation became their down-fall.

LINKS

Shepherds Advantage Leadership Podcast is now on iTunes – SUBSCRIBE

Shepherds Advantage Leadership Podcast is now on Stitcher – SUBSCRIBE

FREE GIFT – “Servant Leadership Questions” – Click on the icon at the bottom of the page

Executive Coaching Service– Private message me for details on this customizable service

Birkman Assessment

Game Theory Resource Books

Game Theory for Business by  Paul Papayoanou 

Finite and Infinite Games by James Carse

The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek

List of Games in Game Theory – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_in_game_theory

Q&A – Contact me at ShepherdsAdvantage@gmail.com

Music: “Gratitude Mood” by David Arivett. You can learn more about his music by clicking on his name. THANKS DAVID!