5. Pay attention to the “shots on goal” principle.
In baseball, a .300 batting average is considered quite good. This is in part due to the fact that most advantages belong to the pitcher and it’s graded over 162 games and 600 at-bats.
In basketball, shooting 30 percent from the free-throw line is terrible. Why? Because you’re shooting with no one guarding you, standing still, from a short distance. A good free-throw shooter needs to hit at least 75 percent of their free-throws.
The percentage of “misses” one is allowed by a coach depends on the shot taken and the number of shots taken.
Here’s the point: The harsher your “accountability” processes are, the less risk your staff is likely to take.
Fewer mistakes don’t make someone a better minister. It means they make fewer mistakes—though they are likely making the key mistake of never stretching their ministry. Highly “accountable” ministry means fewer catastrophic mistakes, but it means you’ll score fewer points as well. Your most effective minister isn’t necessarily the one making the fewest mistakes. It might be the one who misses more because of the kind of shots they take and how often they shoot.
Make sure you’re clear about how many and what kind of shots you want people to take—and hold them accountable for results based on that “style of offense.”
As a rule, we at New Vintage save our highest accountability for character matters.
