For a long time, I have watched organizations build around their leaders governmental structures that hamstring their God-given abilities. Then later, the leaders are blamed for not performing well. It is crucial that we understand the three main factors great governments must consider if they are going to be successful. First, who is leading? Second, who are the people they are leading? And third, in what epoch season are they leading these people? (Biblically speaking, an epoch season is a way in which God deals with a certain people in a certain time.) Misunderstanding any of these factors will cause the formation of governmental structures that limit, resist or even derail their people’s God-given purposes.
Organizations could learn a great lesson from the contractor who built our community college in Redding, California. When Shasta College was constructed several years ago, the contractor did not install the sidewalks immediately after finishing the buildings. Instead, he planted lawns around the entire campus and took a year to observe where people wore out the grass. Then the contractor poured sidewalks in the worn sections of the lawn so that the walkways best facilitated the movement of the students and faculty to their destinations.
BUILDING SIDEWALKS
Government is like those sidewalks. Governmental structures are the sidewalks that are supposed to facilitate the gifts, passions and purposes of the God-given destinies of both the people who are leading and those being led, as well as the epoch season in which they are leading. But often, organizations construct sidewalks (government) with little or no regard for these factors. In so doing, they make it hard, if not impossible, for the people operating in these organizations to embrace their dreams and fulfill their destinies.
On the other hand, great organizations are developed when their leaders carefully analyze the three dynamics or factors I listed and then build governmental structures that best empower them. The outcome of this kind of formation is that it actually facilitates the organization’s destiny instead of constraining it.
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