Bill Hybels: “I Love Drawing Buckets”

In addition to saying, “I love buckets” — Bill Hybels had some other good stuff to say in the opening session at the Global Leadership Summit…

• We all do our best work when we are stretching ourselves slightly beyond what feels appropriate.
• Every leader is responsible to replenish their own “bucket.”
• Under-challenged people will leave your organization.
• It is a good practice to “rate” your direct reports, in order, based on who you would let go first if you suddenly lost 50% of your income. This is excruciatingly difficult.
• If an employee has a bad attitude, we move in immediately to have a conversation. They have no more than 30 days to shape up, or they are out.
• The most difficult termination conversations are with those who are good performers, have a decent attitude, but don’t have the talent to grow with the organization.
• If you don’t address the challenging people in your organization–you will begin to lose your best people.
• Every thing has a season. Nothing “rocks” forever. It takes an intentional effort to look problems straight in the eye, arrest tired ideas, and get them on an accelerating trajectory again.
• When I say “In closing…”, it means absolutely nothing.
• It is our job as leaders to create environments for creative solutions to emerge.
• It’s our decision to make our next five years to be our best five years.