GLS 2019: Session 3 – Danielle Strickland

Change is happening faster and faster. How can we be leaders of influence who don’t just survive change?

Amplify – Rwanda with leaders – decreased domestic violence by 60% in one year. My life was like a tree. I had to confront the fruit of my tree. I had to quit discarding that fruit. I picked the part of my life that was bitter. My family was bitter. My family was stone cold. He traced that fruit to the behavior (like a branch). Every time I raised my voice, yelled, hit my wife, I raised tension. He was traced to the trunk (the values). Transformational change requires you to dig below the surface to the root system, the deeply rooted belief within yourself. Dad told him when he was about to get married that he had to make his wife and kids fear him. Once we changed his deep belief, his values changed (respect to relationship), his actions changed (instead of orders, he asked questions; he started expressing his emotions), his family life was transformed.

Could it be that simple? My life is a tree? Really.

Man had a stress-related symptoms. He got a larger dosage of meds. He needed transformational change.

Societies are suffering from excessive violence, conversations about laws, instead of digging into the deeply held beliefs system.

We need to find the right changes if the change we’re after is transformational change.

The longest reigning empire was Ethiopia. The last emperor of Ethiopia reign ended in 1974.

Transformational Change: Change the right things.

Transition bridge. Stage 1: settled.  Stage 2: unsettled. Stage 3:  Chaos. Equal parts scary and exciting. Stage 4: Unsettled. Stage 5: New normal.

Every transition I’ve been through feels like this. It’s not enough to know what to change, you have to embrace the process to change it.

For most of my life, I’ve been fighting human trafficking.

Talked to owner of a brothel. When she was 11, she decided her dad had abused her for the last time. She turned her first trick that night. She asked where I was when she was 11.

Disruption is not a threat; it’s an invitation.

Friend found 70% of victims in domestic trafficking came from foster care.

When you see a leader leave what is familiar, you come close to them. You grab them by the elbows and say, “I’ve got you friend.”

Together we navigated to a new agency, Brave. We figured out that since they were in the system, we could target them. Girls are not the problem; they are the solution.

This process of change is in every transformational idea.

Acts 10 – Peter doesn’t know how to take his change to the whole world. Peter is praying, has a vision of animals he cannot eat. “No, Lord!” Verse 10 “confused and disturbed, Peter wondered what this could possibly mean.” There is no changing the future without disturbing the present.  With God’s help, Peter leaves behind the normal and goes to meet Cornelius, a new friend. Just another beggar trying to find bread. God shows up in Cornelius life in such a way that it is evident that God is acting.  “Oh, I see now. God shows no partiality.” A new normal is born.

Transformational change requires us to embrace the change. One encounter can change everything if you change the right thing.