HTMF – Stage 1 – Hubris Born of Success

Don't become lazy in your success. In order to stay on top, you need to continually going hard and thinking of new ways to do your hedgehog better. When you are at your height, coasting will only bring you down.

Do not abandon your primary flywheel in the search of a new flywheel. "Exit definitively or renew obsessively, but do not ever neglect a primary flywheel."

He mentioned a concept from his book Built to Last: Try a lot of Stuff and Keep What Works! I like that!

You must reinvent yourself within your hedgehog. If Beethoven had just kept playing his Third Symphony, we would not have the masterful Ninth Symphony. This strikes a chord for me with C4C in that we need to stay close to our hedgehog, but think of new ways to "sell" our hedgehog.

Great Quote: "When institutions fail to distinguish between current practices and the enduring principles of their success, and mistakenly fossilize around their practices, they've set themselves up for decline."

Why was CCC successful in the first place? Not the specific practices and strategies that worked in the past, but the fundamental reasons for success?

At the end of each chapter, there is a list of "Markers" for each stage of the decline. If you find your company with some of these attributes, it is not a good thing!

Success Entitlement, Arrogance -- Do I see C4C as being entitled to success? I think I sort of do, as long as we are faithful to God's purpose and direction for us. Is that a proper perspective? If I am missing something, what is it?

Neglect of primary Flywheel – I would put Evangelism and Spiritual Multiplication as our primary flywheels. I think there is a strong movement within C4C to remain true to these.

"What" replaces "Why" – Do we know why our good things are good? Or do we just do them because they have been good. If we understand why something is good, we will know when to change the what.

Decline in Learning Orientation – Are C4C leaders continually trying to learn, or do we rest on our ministry knowledge laurels? I can't answer this fully but my impression of our leaders is that they are constantly trying to learn new things.

Discounting the Role of Luck: Is C4C where it is today because we are great? OR have we been lucky? A third thought for a Christian Ministry is are we good because God has blessed us, or because we are good? Or has God given us a strong vision, and we have responded faithfully. I hope it is the latter. But we need to move forward knowing that if we abandon God's enabling for human wisdom, we will be in trouble.