Sometimes, it’s hard to endure the frustations of a broken or defective system when your aware of what might be done to fix it. Nothing is probably as mind-numbingly rage inducing as having your hands tied when you know how to fix what’s going wrong.
Patience.
“Planting a church in a church” is a game of patience. No matter what you do, it’s going to take time. Nothing is more destructive—not even leaving the system broken and defective—as moving too quickly, tearing out the old before the new is ready.
That’s what happened with Ron Johnson and JC Penney. Johnson had a system that would work—it worked for Apple. He saw the problem—Penney’s brand was weak and oft-mocked. He was the man to fix the problem…
But he wasn’t patient. He made deep cuts and tough decisions, killing the old JCP before fully creating the new JCP. Rather than making a gradual shift from one to the other, building the new then killing the old, he tried to do it all at once.
And lost.
This isn’t a criticism of him. We’ve all done it. Patience, self-control, wisdom—we all ignore our better judgement and rush in recklessly when we should enter cautiously. It’s a common strategy with a terrible success rate.
Do you want to successfully transform your church from the inside out? Plant a new one inside the old one…slowly.
Be patient.
[Via Cult of Mac]
