This summer I went and saw the midnight showing of Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes. Why?Because it seemed like the right thing to do. And I’m a little bit of a nerd. And I’ve decided to embrace that.
The great thing about the movie though was that I was able to take away two leadership principles. The first on being: Don’t oppress new things just because they’re new.
I think that the intelligent monkeys would argue that the reason they revolted was because they were being treated…like animals. Especially Caesar, who was discovering that he was becoming so much more. The scene where this is most evident is when Caesar is breaking out, and Draco Malfoy (Or…the actor who plays him who also plays a character in this movie…) is shocking him, he grabs his hand and yells “NO!”. The look on his face when he realizes that he can talk communicates to the viewer that he is only just realizing the extent of his development.
The monkeys were treated merely as animals because that’s all they’d ever been known to be. Animals whose functions were limited. No one (besides James Franco) had ever considered that there could be more to them. Their newness was oppressed simply because it was new.
As a leader, you can’t afford to look down on and squash new things simply because they are new for 2 main reasons:
1) Your organization will never move forward. When you keep doing all the things you’ve always done because you’ve always done them, you won’t reach new people. When you’re not reaching new people, the original people will eventually die off (sometimes for real…sometimes metaphorically). If you’re not allowing new ideas to be a part of your DNA, the old ideas will just get older and older and be less and less effective.
2) Your organization will rebel. The people whose ideas are being thrown aside, and those who support them, will decide they don’t like what going on and will do one of two things. They will decide try and take over from the inside, or they’ll leave and start something of their own.
Recently my roommate started a prayer group for some of our friends on Facebook. It was great, we began sharing prayer requests, and praises to answered prayers. Then, someone had the idea for us to meet in person as a group for prayer, and to add others from our college ministry in the FB group and invite them to join us as well. We’ve met twice now, and we can all see what it’s doing in our lives. It would be incredibly easy for me to be down on the idea, or jealous because it wasn’t mine, but instead I’ve made the choice to love what we’re doing, and give the credit for the idea where it’s due and sing its praises.
As leaders, we can’t afford to oppress new things just because they’re new. We have an obligation to hear new ideas and evaluate them individually, and as a team and decide what is best for the organization.
Have you recently said no to a new idea simply because it was new?
Grace & Peace,
Stippick
