What Does It Mean to Run the 4 Minute-Mile in Small Group Land?

One of the blogs I read is Mavericks at Work.  Always a fascinating combination of ideas and very applicable to all kinds of endeavors.  In his post today, Bill Taylor wrote about that amazing moment when after all but giving up on its possibility…Roger Bannister ran a 4 minute-mile.  Taylor notes that for over 70 years there had been a conscious effort to break the 4 minute barrier.  And then one day it happened.  And when it happened it was followed almost immediately by a slew of others.

We’ve got a very similar pursuit.  For so many years there has been the recognition that life-change happens in groups…and yet, the most effective churches connected about half their adult attendees.  And then in 2002 Willow Creek announced they had more people in groups than they had at their weekend services.

The 4 minute-mile was broken.

On the heels of 40 Days of Purpose Saddleback put more people in groups than they had at their weekend service.

I loved this section of Taylor’s post today.

What goes for runners goes for leaders running organizations. Progress
in business doesn’t move in a straight line. It’s not incremental.
Whether it’s an entrepreneur, a scientist, or an athlete, someone does
something that was thought to be impossible—somebody changes the
game—and what was unreachable becomes merely a benchmark, something for
others to shoot for and surpass.

Wharton Professor Jerry Wind, writing about the four-minute mile in his book, The Power of Impossible Thinking,
offered this assessment of Bannister’s feat: “The runners of the past
had been held back by a mindset that said they could not surpass the
four-minute mile. When that limit was broken, the others saw that they
could do something they had previously thought impossible.”

Southwest has run the four-minute mile in the disastrous airline
business. Lexus has run the four-minute mile in the brutal automobile
business. What does it mean to run the four-minute mile in your
business—and how are you going to do it?

Don’t you love this line?  "When that limit (the 4 minute-mile) was broken, the others saw that they
could do something they had previously thought impossible."

Oh my…what’s your 4 minute-mile?