The Open Source Church

I posted yesterday about 5 things that I thought were the key to Google’s innovative environment, and I wanted to continue that thought process today with a look at a different company.

Alaska Airlines recently opened a redesigned terminal in Seattle, their busiest hub, to the tune of a cool $28 million, a far cry from the $500 million it would have cost to build a completely new one. But in doing so they were able to cut check in time for their passengers down to 8 minutes or less. Let that sink in for a minute. When have you ever been in a busy airport and had to wait less then 8 minutes to finish check in? I have been in an empty airport and had to wait longer then that.

How did they accomplish this? Well it all starts for them with managing expectations.

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“People come to the airport expecting to stand in line. It’s an indictment of our industry.” - Ed White, Alaska Airlines VP
They did everything they could to change peoples expectations. They moved self check-in kiosks to the front of the lobby. They designed the check-in counters to maximize the agents time by ensuring they don’t have to move around to do things. They took a team to Disneyland to study how they move people so efficiently through their parks.

So how does this apply to churches? Think about your visitors, what expectations do they have before they ever set foot in your church. Are they good, bad, indifferent? Are they expecting to come in and be ignored? Are they expecting to come in and be offered cheap coffee and stale doughnuts? Or do they expect to come in and be greeted, be introduced to to people and leave feeling refreshed.

You see expectations can run both ways, some of them are going to expect less, while some are going to be expecting more. What are you doing to manage those expectations? How are you setting people up for a “wow” experience?

There is a story in the article I read about this of a woman coming into the lobby and stopping in her tracks as she looks around kinda confused. “It’s the new check-in thing,” another woman says, “Don’t worry it’s really fast.” That woman had a “wow” experience. She had an expectation and then was blown away by what she saw.

How are you going to create an environment in your church that causes visitors to walk in to your church and stop in their tracks to think, “WOW!”

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So I was reading the March issue of Fast Company Magazine and posted 5 things about Google’s Innovating environment over on my 11 Bravo Company Blog. I thought though that these would be things that would apply to a church as well. I mean as a Church we are not selling a product or trying to win market share in the normal sense, but in a way we are. Therefore I think that churches need to look at innovation in the same light that a business does. “What can we do to further our vision, without compromising our mission or message”, which is exactly what Google does. With that said here are the 5 things that I pulled from that article:

1. Release products fast- Then fine tune them to work. This
   builds a buzz and a fan base, and then keeps those people interested as
   you are continually improving the product instead of having long
   development periods.
2. Keep things simple- Travel policies(don’t overspend),
   Employee Assimilation(Just have them start doing their job), Company
   Policies(Use common sense)
3. Except for Hiring- This is the exception to keeping things
   simple, in fact it is what enables you to keep things simple. If you
   are making hiring a big process then you can be sure you are getting
   people who you can trust with simple policies and procedures.
4. When in doubt, Do something- If you have two paths and
   you’re not sure which is right, take the fastest path. Whats true in
   physics is true with product creation/Business. Once you get a car in
   motion it is easier to steer then if it just sitting in a parking lot.
5. Create Fearlessness- Google instills a sense fearlessness in
   it’s employees. They are not afraid to take on big tasks, they are not
   afraid to speak up with a crazy idea(in fact if they do it will
   probably become the next great product), they are not afraid if they
   don’t know how to do something(they figure it out), they are not afraid
   because the Google environment creates a sense of fearlessness when it
   comes to innovation. Even if they fail they aren’t going to lose their
   jobs for trying out a new product. They will probably just try to
   refine it and relaunch it.

So what can your church learn from Google?

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