7 Vital Signs and 5 Critical Signs of Health

Great insight for business and nonprofit leaders. If you’ll measure 7 business vital signs and these 5 critical signs of health, you’ll know your “You are Here” on the map and “Here’s Where We’ll Be.”

Business leaders can extrapolate from his nonprofit examples to for-profit business.

Transcript

00:08
hello my name is Bob Beale and for the
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last 35 years I’ve spent consulting with
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larger fast growing churches nonprofit
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organizations and for-profit
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corporations helping the presidents or
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senior executives or senior pastors turn
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their dreams into reality an often that
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requires tools that are transferable and
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scalable meaning this tool will work
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with the president of a nation as a work
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of the largest corporation in the nation
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their work with a large church a small
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church and it will help you personally
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in your personal life as well what I’m
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about to explain to you is called seven
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vital signs and five standards you
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should have it in your notebook and in
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the book case that I just showed you
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that is on the back of that with the 25
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tab dividers and the eight categories of
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developing as a leader you remember I
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said as a leader there are four areas
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you need to keep developing in anything
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you can find on focusing your life
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quickly anything on asking for cutting
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questions anything on balancing
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competing priorities communicating with
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confidence those are areas you need to
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keep developing in as a leader for
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organizational development planning your
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organization’s future ending with
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planning tools building a championship
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team team building generating consistent
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income fundraising etc and then managing
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resources wisely this particular tool
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comes under managing resources wisely
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it’s number of 25 and the tab by the the
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seven vital signs and five critical
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standards by the way the Leadership
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Academy is not in the bookstore but is
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available on our website just Bob Viacom
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two corporations of sells $4,000 for
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nonprofits like most of you are its 209
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like 70% off okay let’s get into it
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seven vital signs and five critical
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standards a part of what you want to see
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is that the premise underlying the seven
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vital signs and five critical standards
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is health what you’re really asking
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yourself with this tool is is my
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organization healthy or sick is it
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really healthy or sick and just like you
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have vital signs in your your physical
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checkup each year this is the way to
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check up is your organization healthy
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and most organizations a second value of
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it is that frankly most organizations
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have no realistic way of projecting how
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their growth pattern will be in the
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future if you ask them where you’re
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going to be in five years it’s like when
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I don’t know we’re gonna be in ten years
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well I really don’t have a clue this
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tool will help Fred help you in defining
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some of that let me show you how and by
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the way this is the tool that your board
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will absolutely love that donors
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absolutely love that staff loves
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prospects love future staff members love
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everybody loves it when you get it done
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it’s a great tool your vital signs are
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seven vital signs or the answer to the
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question what are the seven areas of
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your organization the you hope go up and
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up and up year after year after year
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that would be like income gross income
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number of conversions it could be a
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number of Bibles we’ve distributed or a
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number of students we’ve graduated or
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whatever it is that it depending on
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your organization if you could only
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watch the growth of seven things seven
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dimensions in your entire organization
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what would it be and what you do is
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chart the last three years actually you
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say in that area let’s say Church is
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planted let’s say churches planted how
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many churches has our denomination
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planted in the last three years and what
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has been the growth pattern and you say
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we’ve grown average of seven percent a
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year for the last three years then I say
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this is not an accountant’s view of
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projecting the future
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it isn’t like how many napkins over
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users how many you know how much for wax
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we’ll use it’s not a detailed projection
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the future it’s a conceptualist view of
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the future not an accountant’s for you
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and so what you do is you say if we grew
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no more than we have in the last three
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years stay the same growth rate where it
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would be in ten years and a part-time
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accountant can do all of this in one
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afternoon it doesn’t take forever it
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doesn’t take a lot of money but what you
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do is you say if we grow at 7% a year
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for the next ten years
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where will we be and you can put it to
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the exact number it’s just a projection
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but it’s an exact number we will have
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planted three hundred and eighty three
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churches if we grow no faster than we
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are right now you say well Bob we can’t
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sustain that rate of growth
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well what if we grow up 5% where will we
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be what would be right there you say
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yeah but we got great plans what if we
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grow 10% I say well if you grow 10%
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you’ll be right here and somewhere in
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that pattern right there is probably
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where you’ll end up
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in ten years by all means of logic and
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what boards do not like what your board
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does not like is when you come in and
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say things are fantastic we think we’re
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gonna have a thousand churches in two
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years we’re growing so fast if we think
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there’ll be 10,000 churches in twenty
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years it’s like all that and they say
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well what makes you think that I still I
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just thinks I feel inspired by it you
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know it’s like boards aren’t that way
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and when you show them if we very
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quietly if we do know more than we have
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been doing for the last three years
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here’s the number of churches we were
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planted in ten years then you ask him
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when do we need to add staff well we
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think we can have a hundred churches per
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staff member well when we need to add a
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staff member well when we get to the 200
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Church level we need to add another
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staff member well when is that well 200
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churches if we grow 10% is here we go 7%
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is here and if we got 5% is here you say
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well we need to start training that
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person a year before we put them on the
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field all right when do we need to start
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training that person well in May of that
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year right there that’s the year we need
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to start training the new person because
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it will take a year to train them and to
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get them in position by that time to
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service those churches
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that’s the month we need to start having
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recruited in the start training in that
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pretty it it really is I mean the words
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pretty but I really like just looking at
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it and when you can identify the seven
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areas you want to see number of
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disciples training number of students
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graduated number of dollars raised
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number of something and you can have
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seven of those that are custom-designed
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for your organization and you put them
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on one piece of paper and show it to a
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board
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look at our future if you can show it to
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a new staff person coming
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look at where we’re going here we want
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you to be a part of it I mean that gets
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exciting you don’t have to you know jump
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up and down you just show them what’s
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there and they jump up and down this is
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making sense to you are you jumping up
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and down yet
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yeah all right all right we got one
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person I can’t really set the scene he’s
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sort of jumping up and down okay
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but this makes sense so far this is
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quantity there’s its number of dollars
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etc but it isn’t quality I saw this
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concept four years or so before I could
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actually tell it to anyone because I
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knew there were some things you don’t
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want to go up and up and up but I
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couldn’t figure out what they were and
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that’s the five critical standards
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because there are certain things that
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you do not want to go up and up and up
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let’s say for example it’s as we plant
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more churches we do not want our
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overhead to go up and up in other words
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we will have let’s say for example our
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fixed expense meaning our salaries our
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office rent our fixed expenses what we
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have to pay were there anyone we plan
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any churches or not let’s say that’s 85%
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like in America most churches when I
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asked them what are your fixed expenses
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at the church they say eighty five
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percent that’s it’s like I can say them
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I say your fixed expense or 85 percent I
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say let’s see last year is 83 I mean
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it’s always about 83 percent 85 percent
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so you say we want our fixed expense to
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be no more than 85 percent let’s say
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your board establishes that as a
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standard then you can say 90 to 80 is
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green five percent over that one way or
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the other is yellow
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and beyond that is red higher than that
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or lower than that is red then each year
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you simply put five dots on a chart you
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put a dot here and it’s it’s green next
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year you put it here it’s still green
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next year you put it here it’s still
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green then you pop up under the yellow
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then you get it back down into the green
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and you go another green and then you
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pop clear up here you see what that says
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for the board it says very quickly if
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all seven are your areas are going up
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most of your areas are in the green but
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you’ve got one area that’s popped way up
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into the red you see how quickly a board
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can see how health is yeah it’s
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basically how they’ve got one problem
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here now let me shock you with something
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boards don’t care if it’s in the red or
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not what they do care is rather you know
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it’s in the red or not and what you’re
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going to do about it
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but if they catch you in it they won’t
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trust you if they say by the way how is
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that well it’s not coming so well how
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far are you be nice well word you know
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it’s gone up to about one hundred and
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eighty percent of our of our budget well
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I don’t 80% let’s call a special board
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meeting and they never trust you’d say a
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micromanager forever but if you tell
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them look we’ve got a situation here
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because of our down economy that our
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fixed expense our income has gone down
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so our our fixed expense or underwater
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right now so we’re going to have to do
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this and this and here are the three
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things we’re going to do to fix that
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they’ll say oh that makes sense so these
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are up everything isn’t in green but
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this here’s what you’re going to do to
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fix it good what else you got
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but if you don’t have that kind of
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proactive information for your board
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they’ll try to micromanage you all day
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long and what they’ll do is try to get
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into your financials and you know spend
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four hours just on how many gallons of
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four wax did you use you know kind of
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thing and you don’t want that you want
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them to get the big picture and in five
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minutes I’ve had boards take five
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minutes
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look at these go up those are in the
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green what else you got yeah you know
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what else you want to talk about I mean
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it’s like duh it’s going right where we
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hoped it would
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it’s right on track it’s in the green
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all the big big boulders are are good
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it’s a help it’s a healthy report now
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what how do you need our help you’re
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managing the well you’re leaving it well
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how do you need our help at this point
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five minutes but if you don’t have
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something like this often they get into
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great detail and this is your quality
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are your and by the way your standards
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are typically a percentage or a ratio
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there’s you want to you want to look at
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what percentages do we want to manage in
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it for example what percentage of the
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churches this year have failed and we
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want no more than 2% of our churches
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every year to fail or 5% or something
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like that there’s what’s the percentage
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of failure rates what’s the percentage
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of turnover of our church planning
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pastors what’s the percentage of income
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going into expenses you know that kind
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of thing or whatever the percentage is
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that you’re looking at for your ministry
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that’s what’s the standards so that that
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you may have you may go from from 15
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churches to a thousand churches but the
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percentage of pastor dropout doesn’t get
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out of hand
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it’s we’ve got a quality program for
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pastor or recruitment orientation
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training support that’s that’s good even
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though our our size is growing our
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quality remains that makes sense now
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down at the bottom your vital signs this
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gives you a big picture on your
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organization very quickly it’s like the
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50,000 foot results story anywhere you
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remember the statement nothing motivates
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like results here are the seven results
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you should be seeing in your
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organization it communicates it to the
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board so and so the board you is the
16:31
president or senior executive are on the
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same page as to what’s important it
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communicates to the staff what is
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important what are the big picture items
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and here’s it here’s an interesting
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principle what you measure gets done if
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you know the board is going to be
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watching these seven things you tend to
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keep track of more than if we had 70
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things you thought the board might be
16:59
interested in a picture’s worth a
17:02
thousand words
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a graphic is worth a thousand numbers
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now let me stop here to say that isn’t
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always true
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but I found most people are visually
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oriented as they see a picture they know
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what it means they it there if it’s
17:20
going up like it’s supposed to they
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think that’s good we’re right on track I
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don’t have to see a lot of numbers
17:25
behind that occasionally you say yeah
17:29
those are pretty pictures what are the
17:30
numbers give me give me your financials
17:32
give me give me the detailed numbers but
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most people when they see the graphics
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and they say one graphic is worth ten
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thousand numbers to me a fog cutter your
17:46
boards clear your staff is clear the
17:48
executive team is clear your donors are
17:50
clear the prospects are clear nothing
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motivates like results when you go to
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ask
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big money you go to ask for a hundred
17:57
thousand euros of a large donor they say
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well what have you actually done already
18:01
you say well let us look at the last
18:05
three years and let us show you where we
18:07
see going and why we need a building or
18:11
why we need to add the staff person at
18:13
this place well when you go and say we
18:17
need a new staff person and we need to
18:19
bring them on right here and you can
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show them that three or four years in
18:24
advance or you can show them right here
18:26
right about here we need a hundred
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thousand euros to bring this person off
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and get the more in and get them housed
18:32
etc or whatever the amount is I think
18:35
these people really know what they’re
18:37
doing and again if we do know better
18:42
than we have it’s not hype boards and
18:45
donors love it does that make sense to
18:49
you that you can project the team’s
18:52
ten-year future avoiding dangerous
18:54
trends and blind spots now one thing is
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if you’ve got six things going up and
19:01
one thing headed south you can get six
19:06
things going this way and you’ve got one
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of the church that’s going this way what
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does it tell you quickly so it can tell
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you whether you’re healthy or sick but
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again it puts you in the position of
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alerting the board I’m aware of it
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here’s what we’re going to do about

The following blog post 7 Vital Signs and 5 Critical Signs of Health was first seen on: www.moonandowl.com