How to Keep Your Ward Looking Forward, Not Backward | An Interview with Mark Johnson

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Mark Johnson grew up in South Florida, studied aerospace engineering, and attended the Naval Academy. He served in the first Gulf War and then attended Harvard Business School, where he studied with Clayton Christensen. Together they started a strategy and innovation consulting firm, Innosight, and Clayton was instrumental in Mark’s conversion. Mark is married to journalist and author Jane Clayson Johnson, a former guest on the podcast. He is the author of several books, including Lead from the Future: How to Turn Visionary Thinking Into Breakthrough Growth.

Highlights

6:00 Starting Innosight with Clayton Christensen 6:50 Mark’s conversion experience 10:30 Experience dating Jane Clayson 14:30 About Innosight 16:10 Innovation in church leadership: Defining the areas where innovation is applicable 20:20 Start with the individual: What need are they trying to fulfill? What are their barriers and how can they be overcome? 23:00 Meeting the individual where they are, seeking first to understand and having empathy 25:30 Ladder up: Where are the opportunities for me to feel included and help others? 27:00 An outside-in approach: Approach outside the Church offerings first and find out what the individual needs in their life 30:00 Younger generations have many questions and we need to offer a safe space for those questions 32:00 Dealing with constraints: don’t innovate for innovation’s sake, and recognize what is not open to innovation 35:45 Strategy with vision

Start with offering hope and purpose, and a vision of where the organization is going—the destination
Strategy is about how to get there

39:50 The tyranny of the urgent vs. planning for the future: carve out time regularly for considering the future 43:35 The vision may be the same for different communities, but the strategy will change depending on the variety of situations 45:45 Recognize that the future is not as unpredictable or daunting as we might think 47:25 There is no certainty about the future, but you can get clarity about how things can unfold 49:30 Looking forward in the midst of so much disruption: create a vision for your people to offer hope and create a path 53:10 Being a leader gives perspective beyond present difficulties