Lecture

John: Hi, I’m John Trent.

Rodney: And I’m Rodney Cox.

John: Now we’re going to take just a little bit of time to talk to you about how we’re not only different by design but how we’ll be able to take those differences and turn them into cooperation.

Rodney: You know, when we talk about different by design, it’s important for you to understand that God gives us a picture in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 about how differences are designed to complete us, not to frustrate us. The second thing that we’ll be talking about is turning conflict into cooperation, John.

John: Yeah, and you know for so many teams that’s going to be the huge thing.

Rodney: It is. You know conflict is inevitable. You cannot escape it in every relationship we’re journey- ing through life with. We’ll talk about how you problem solve together. How you deal with information together. How you manage change together, and how you face that four-letter word risk together. And it’s how we deal with each other in those four areas that will take our team from one level to the next.

John: Now that’s a lot of information in a short period of time, so let’s jump right in there to look at how we’re different by design. Now for Rodney and I, we crisscrossed the country talking to teams and families, military teams, business teams, ministries, and the bottom line is we base all of our material off the passage in 1 Corinthians chapter 12.

Rodney: Absolutely. In 1 Corinthians chapter 12, it gives us a little picture about what the body of Christ looks like. Well, John and I feel like this gives us a picture of what it might look like to have a fully functioning team. The body is a unit in verse 12. Though it is made up of many parts and though all its parts are many, they form one body.

John: Now, Rodney, let me jump in there, because you know the funny part is for a lot of teams that we work with they’re not many parts. I mean what we do is we’re the boss. We hire people that are just like us, and all of a sudden we have a whole team of people just like us.

Rodney: Absolutely.

John: That’s like having a body with just one part.

Rodney: Right, and it’s only when all of the parts come together and depend on each other, become interdependent, that they can become one. Which leads us to our first principle we would like to share with you today: A fully functioning team depends on interdependence to become one.

John: Now the second set of verses and the second principle we’d like to share with you is in 1 Cor- inthians 12:14-16, and it says this: Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, “Well, I’m not a hand, therefore, I’m not a part of the body,” just because it says this, is this for any reason less a part of the body? Or if the ear should say, “Well, I’m not an eye, so I don’t belong to the body,” well, just because it says this, is it any less a part of the body? And, Rodney, here’s kind of the principle—I think there are so many times when we sit down with a team, and we see one person sit- ting there with unique God-given strengths, but they’re looking across the table and they’re thinking: “Man, if I had that strength, then that would really be good. Theirs is a lot better than mine.” But that’s not true, is it?

Rodney: No, and I think it’s interesting that Paul would write to us here and to tell us that the foot would think it would need to become the hand in order to belong. I think that’s interesting, John, and just as John has already said, we see teams across the country and individuals journey after things that God didn’t give them to become, something God did not create them to be. That leads us to the second principle we’d like to share with you: You do not need to become something different to become all God created you to be. You are “fearfully and wonderfully made.”

John: Yeah, and sorry for jumping in, but the bottom line is: How freeing is that?

Rodney: It is.

John: I mean, for a lot of people we’re thinking I’ve got to be that foot or I’ve got to be that hand, and that’s not us. We get to be who we are to lead from our strengths.

Rodney: You know, John, there’s a lot of leadership material written out there today and, not to slam leadership material, it’s great material but a lot of that leadership material, John, says if you want to lead, you need to lead like me. Well, what happens . . .

John: What if I’m not like you?

Rodney: Absolutely. And we see so many leaders out there discouraged today because they’re trying to become something God didn’t create them to be. You know, the third thing that we’d like to share with you out of 1 Corinthians chapter 12 is found in verse 17, and it says: “If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?”You know, John, there’s great value in our differences.

John: Well, you know to illustrate that, Rodney, we did an assignment last night. We were both sup- posed to go home before the video shoot and use our artistic talents to come up with a picture of a fully functioning complete human body, right? Well, here was mine. It took me all night, okay, and then there’s . . . yours. Now there’s a little bit of difference.

Rodney: There is.

John: Right, but there’s some things that are similar too, right?

Rodney: And if you take a look at the differences, you know, what we tend to do is focus on those dif- ferences instead of the similarities.

John: Yeah, like mine—I forgot the fingers.

Rodney: Right, but the key is that the pieces weren’t randomly placed on that piece of paper. They had a semblance of order. The hands were where they belong. The arms are where they belong. The feet were where they belonged. God has put those individual members in a certain place in order for the body to function.

John: Well, and you know you alluded to that fourth point, Rodney, and that is in 1 Corinthians chap- ter 18. It says that God has arranged the parts of the body, every one of them just as he wanted them to be.

Rodney: Not like I wanted them to be.

John: Well, just exactly, and here’s the thing. I was a Greek major at Dallas Seminary because I got some bad advice and frankly stood in the wrong line. I didn’t know the New Testament. I didn’t know the New Testament meant Greek. But I ended up as a Greek major, and one of the things that you do is you do word studies; and the word placed here, or arranged, is really interesting because it’s literally a jeweler’s term. It’s used of a stone being set in a setting. So now think about that. It’s not just by accident that God has placed us in the team or the family or around the people it says he has placed us, with specific- ity, right where he wants us to be. So once we understand that, now we can say, “Well, man, no wonder God placed me here,” and, “How can I better understand who are those that I’m working with?”

Rodney: So you mean that God placed those differences next to us not to frustrate us, right, but to actually complete us.

John: And to protect us. Think about that. I mean my wife and I are so different that one of the only things we had in common was we were both married on the same day. And I’m right-handed, and she’s left-handed. I’m a night person; she’s a morning person. She wants the toilet paper to go off the top of the roll. I just want it there, you know. But I am so thankful that God placed me with somebody different than me, okay, because all of a sudden now we’re like a complete body.

Rodney: Absolutely. You know Elizabeth and I are like night and day as well. Isn’t is interesting that God would place such differences together in our relationships once again to complete us, not to frus- trate us, which is the fourth key principle we’d like to share with you today out of 1 Corinthians chapter 12: Differences are designed to complete you, not to frustrate you. You know the big picture here is that what you do with differences every day is going to unite you or divide you. We want to see indi- viduals respecting and valuing differences at a level that they’ve never understood before. That’s the “Leading From Your Strengths” process and the journey that John and I are taking you on here today.

John: So now that’s a fast-forward version, but think about that: A fully functioning team depends on interdependence, on becoming one. Not just a bunch of lone eagles, okay, but how do we work together?

Rodney: And the second key is that you don’t need to become something different to become all God created you to be.

John: Yeah, how freeing is that? We also talked about the fact that there’s just great value in differ- ences. We bring more because we are different.

Rodney: Absolutely. And the fourth one is: Differences are designed to complete you, not to frustrate you. These are four key important truths that you must take and carry into your leadership bag in order to lead from your strengths and empower others to lead from their strengths.

John: Well, now with that, that’s what we teach as kind of the biblical basis. Why are we around people that are so different, you know, than us, and how can we make it work? But what we’re going to look at now just real quickly is four predictable areas of conflict that happen in every team, because when you set different people next to each other, I mean conflict is inevitable, right?

Rodney: Right, and how can we take those predictable areas of conflict and turn them into great cooperation, which will be the next session that we’re talking about. Seeing how you respond to prob- lems and challenges when they come up is key. There’s some of us God has wired to say let’s solve it now. We’re more aggressive. And he’s wired other people to say let’s size it up. They’re more passive in nature.

John: Well, take those two people and put them in the same team and a predictable area of conflict, or put them in the same family and, boy, we need . . . and we’ll go a little bit more into that in the next session as well.

Rodney: Right.

John: Here’s the second one: not only do we need to understand as a team and as a family how we deal with problems but, Rodney, we also need to understand that we are different in how we process information. I mean there are some of us that think everything is optimistic. Hey, this is going to work. This is going to be great. It’s got to be true.

Rodney: It must be true.

John: It’s got to be true. Why read the prospectus? But then there are other people that want to vali- date, and they want to read the details and know who else believes in this and who else has used this. Now take two different people that process information differently, and you know what, if you don’t learn how to get on the same page, it can cause predictable conflict.

Rodney: Well, you know in those differences just to think about God placing them strategically to complete us, not to frustrate us, is so valuable and so incredible.

John: It is. That will be awesome to share.

Rodney: You know the third area of conflict that’s predictable is how you deal with change and pace. How fast do you want things to happen, and how do you like the changing things around us? There are some of us that God has wired to say let’s stick to the plan, we like it predictable. While God has wired others of us to say let’s try something new, we want a more dynamic environment. Once again we need those people on our team that are more dynamic, and we need people on our team that are very predictable and steady.

John: Well and again, you know, think about if that’s all you have on the team is just one side of that ledger. You’ve got people that are really safe, you know, but they can’t, you know, deal with change when it’s needed. But if you change everything, not realizing the impact, that’s huge. And here’s the last one: how do you view rules and risk? Now think about that. You know God has placed us—most of us—in a situation where we’re going to be perhaps a risk taker. We’re the kind of people that are, I mean, we’re ready to jump in there and “boom” let’s jump off the cliff because there’s got to be water down there somewhere, you know. But there’s other people that are much more cautious, and they want to know, well, wait a minute, you know, how high is the cliff, how deep is the water down there?

Rodney: Right, is there water down there?

John: Is there water? And we’re trying to get at these four predictable areas of conflict that every team, every family faces. If you can actually begin to value those differences—realize that God placed you there for a reason—now you’ve got the motivation to actually build a great team instead of just experiencing frustration.

Rodney: Right, so those four predictable areas of conflict are: how you problem solve together, how you process information together, how you manage change together, and how you face risk together. Once again, what you decide to do with differences will divide you or unite you. John and I look forward to you joining us in the next session where we’ll turn conflict into great cooperation.