707: Andy Stanley & Sam Kaufman - Problems to Solve, Tensions to Manage, The 3 Questions Behind Every Great Decision, and The 7 Essentials of Enduring Leadership (What Great Leaders Do)

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The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk 57 min 1 speaker 8 chapters transcribed 1 hour ago

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How did Andy Stanley’s childhood mentor shape his view of leadership?

Ryan Hawk 0:00

You should join a group where your desired behavior is the normal behavior. That's what James Clear said to me a few years ago at our Learning Leader Growth Summit. Our Learning Leader Growth Summit is the three-day leadership retreat we have for members of our Learning Leader Circle. And applications are now open to be part of our next learning leader. Learning leader circle. If you want to be surrounded by a group of eights and nines and tens who are striving to be better. This group might be for you. If you want to be surrounded by a group of get after it doers, people who are achieving big things, making a positive dent in the world, then the Learning Leader Circle might be for you. If that's you, go to Learning Leader Circle dot com to apply.

Ryan Hawk 0:54

That's Learning Leaderscircle.com. Welcome to the Learning Leader Show, presented by Insight Global. I am your host, Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Go to LearningLeader.com for show notes of this and all podcast episodes. Go to LearningLeader.com. Now, on to tonight's featured leader, the great Andy Stanley is the founder of North Point Ministries, which he launched in a Atlanta in 1995 and has grown into eight churches across Metro Atlanta and a global network of more than 225 churches serving over 200,000 people a week. He's the author of more than 20 books. His latest is called What Great Leaders Do: Seven Essentials for Enduring Impact. And I had a special guest host, my friend.

What is the difference between a problem to solve and a tension to manage?

Ryan Hawk 1:49

Sam Kaufman, Chief Revenue Officer at Insight Global, joined me on this one because Sam lives in Atlanta and has benefited from seeing Andy's work in person at his church over the years. During our conversation, we discussed the one question John Maxwell asked over lunch that determined how big Andy built this next church. Then the difference between a problem you solve and a tension you manage and how that one distinction spread through all of Insight Global after Sam heard Andy teach it and then he went to work to implement it. Next, leading through uncertainty, what Andy did when COVID forced him to rebuild the entire business model in real time, and why clarity and not certainty is what people actually need from a leader.

Ryan Hawk 2:43

Ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy our conversation with Andy Stanley. I loved reading about Mother Mary and actually the story of the power of a leader believing in somebody else. Yeah. Cause now you're in the position to believe in somebody, but she's one of the first that believed in you when you were kind of a punk. Can you tell this story of Mother Mary?

Andy Stanley 3:07

Yeah. So Louis Giglio and I grew up together in my dad's church, and we were kind of the troublemakers in our little youth group. One morning after we had disrupted everything, everybody had left and she brought us back in and she sat us down. I still remember the room and she said, Andy, you and Louie are leaders and you need to lead. These kids will do what you you know. She went on and on about our influence. I mean, I think I was in the eighth or ninth grade, just remembering the season. And I remember thinking, Well, then I I don't want to be a leader. If a leader means you have to behave and do what the adults say, but I still remember that conversation. I mean, I nobody ever associated leader with me for many, many, many years after that.

Andy Stanley 3:52

But she saw something in us. And of course Louie has done extraordinary things in the world as a leader. And I've had the opportunity to do extraordinary things. And she's a hundred and one, she's about to turn a hundred and one. So when on her hundredth birthday, we went Louie and I went over there and had our picture made with her and posted about her and She saw what we did not see. And I mean, for years after that, she gave us opportunity after opportunity that we did not deserve, that we did not handle well, and she just never gave up. And Mary never had children of her own. And to this day, she calls us her sons.

How did Insight Global apply the problems‑vs‑tensions framework?

Andy Stanley 4:28

So talk about Vision Cast, you know, and to your point, Ryan, because Because of that, when I see people who I think have that kind of potential or a leadership gear, maybe we'll talk about that.

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Chapters

8 chapters

1 How did Andy Stanley’s childhood mentor shape his view of leadership? 0:00–1:49 2 What is the difference between a problem to solve and a tension to manage? 1:49–4:28 3 How did Insight Global apply the problems‑vs‑tensions framework? 4:28–7:22 4 Why is clarity more important than certainty in times of uncertainty? 7:22–10:06 5 What are Andy’s three questions for every major decision? 10:06–12:50 6 How did the “next leader” question help Andy make tough personnel choices? 12:50–15:52 7 What parenting principles did Andy develop from his eulogy exercise? 15:52–19:05 8 What is the “champagne question” and why does it matter to Andy? 19:05–56:58

Speakers

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Ryan Hawk 10 min

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Apple Podcasts 1 Spotify 1 AI 1 COVID 1 Atlanta 2 Andrew 1 Kobe Bryant 1 James Clear 1 John Maxwell 1 Jim Collins 1 Roswell 1 Stephen Covey 1

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Recorded20 Sep 2026

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Show notes

The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk www.LearningLeader.com New Book: The Price of Becoming www.LearningLeader.com/Becoming This is brought to you by Insight Global. If you need to hire one person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through Talent or Technical Services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world has the hustle and grit to deliver. My guests: Andy Stanley is the founder of North Point Ministries, which he started in Atlanta in 1995 and has grown into 8 churches across metro Atlanta and a network of more than 225 churches globally, serving over 200,000 people weekly. He's the author of more than 20 books, including Next Generation Leader, Visioneering, and Deep & Wide. His newest is What Great Leaders Do: 7 Essentials for Enduring Impact. He and his wife Sandra have three grown children and live in Atlanta. Sam Kaufman is the Chief Revenue Officer of Insight Global, a $5.3B talent, technical, and AI services firm. He started as an entry-level recruiter in 2004 and rose through the ranks to lead the company's core sales divisions. He's played a central role in Insight Global's transformation into a global talent and technical services organization, helping the company double in size over the past five years, and in 2026, he was named to Staffing Industry Analysts' Staffing 100 North America list, recognizing the most influential leaders in staffing. He has a degree in electrical engineering from Bucknell. Key Learnings Somebody saw it in him before he saw it in himself. Andy and Louie Giglio were the troublemakers in his dad's youth group. One morning after they'd disrupted everything, Mother Mary sat them down and told them they were leaders and needed to lead. Andy's reaction at the time: then I don't want to be a leader. She should have kicked them out, but she didn't. She kept giving them chances they didn't deserve and didn't handle well. She's about to turn 101 years old. She never had children of her own and to this day she calls them her sons. Now Andy does it for others. When he sees someone with a leadership gear, he tries to speak life into it and fan the flame, because that's what was done for him. Leadership is the most wonderful, dangerous gift. Every great thing that's happened in the world had a leader behind it. So did every terrible thing. People followed both for the same reason: the leader brought clarity to a dilemma, made a promise, and people leaned in. Andy thinks leaders are born, not made. His evidence: he's never met a leader who accomplished anything extraordinary who said they weren't a leader, then read two books or went to a conference and became one. Anyone can get better. "But you can make him a better singer and still never hand him a microphone." Problems to solve vs tensions to manage. Work-life balance is a tension. You don't solve it, you manage it. Every industry and every company has its own. "When you solve a tension, you create a problem." You can spot tension by the calendar. If it keeps reappearing on the agenda and somebody keeps saying didn't we just talk about this, you've been trying to solve something that was never a problem. Naming it changes the conversation. Once a team agrees they're looking at a tension, nobody is right and nobody is wrong, and people stop treating each other like enemies. Andy's team asks the question out loud once a month. Sam heard Andy teach this on a podcast and it moved through Insight Global in a week. He listened on the drive in, recognized the pattern live in his CEO's Thursday meeting, and shared it with 40 leaders in the room. It reached a 40,000 person company within days. Sam's read on why: they'd been having the same conversation for years and had never had the language for it. Nobody can promise certainty. You can give clarity. The only way to promise certainty is to know the future in detail. And the greater the uncertainty, the more the need for clarity is heightened. If there were no uncertainty, nobody would need a leader. When COVID made his entire model illegal, Andy redeployed. Rather than doing a half-baked version of the old thing, he pulled everyone together and told them they were hitting pause, building a new plan, and staying busy doing something different. Giving people something to do feels like clarity. You know what to do, you know when you've done it, and the organization keeps moving. Andy pairs it with Jim Collins on navigating fog: put one foot in front of the other and feel your way along. Action absorbs anxiety. Ryan's phrase, and Andy's addition: even when it isn't progress, it usually leads to progress, because there's motion and momentum. Think like a broadcast studio, not a live one. When they knew nobody would be in the room, they didn't film the old service. They rebuilt the auditorium into a television studio and talked to the camera. Sam, watching from home, still can't remember whether he was there in person. They kept the habits. Andy's view is that hitting pause and waiting to reopen the old way would have been an enormous miss. Sam says Insight Global never went back to how they were before and has grown for seven years since. "How long do you plan to stay?" Andy had lunch with John Maxwell carrying demographic research, expecting to be interrogated about how big to build. Andy said he thought this was his life's work. Maxwell said then build it as big as you possibly can. They built 2,700 seats in the middle of nowhere. Three years later they built another one behind it that seated 2,000. That's what intuition looks like. Maxwell knew the answer without knowing how he knew it. Andy would never have connected his own tenure to the size of the building. Andy's three questions for any big decision: What's considered impossible in our industry, but if it could be done would fundamentally change it? From Joel Barker's Future Edge. The point isn't that you'll answer it. It's that if you don't know the question, you won't recognize the paradigm shift when somebody else answers it. What would the next leader do? From Andy Grove at Intel, who asked Gordon Moore what a new team would do if the board threw them out. Moore answered instantly. Grove said then why don't we walk out the door, come back in, and do it ourselves. What would a great leader do? Not what's expected, not the industry standard. What would a selfless, others-first, high-integrity, world-class leader do here? The second question is terrifying because it produces instant clarity. Andy says it's how he's made the hardest personnel decisions of 31 years. You love the person and they can't keep up, and the next leader would have no emotional attachment and would see immediately what needs to happen. The best leadership decision Andy ever made was going home at 4:00. He'd resigned from his dad's church with two kids in diapers, a pregnant wife, and no insurance. Then he started the church and worked constantly. He asked Sandra what she needed and didn't want her to hold back. She said be home between 4:00 and 4:30, because by then her energy with the kids was gone. So he became the first one to leave the office. When people asked to meet after work, he said before work instead, and ate two breakfasts. He ran that routine for about ten years. "I'm gonna cheat work. I'm not gonna cheat home." The deadline made him better at his job. If you have an hour to do something it takes an hour, and if you have two it takes two. Walking out the door at a fixed time made him dramatically more efficient, and everything still got done. We're supposed to be examples of the rule, not exceptions to it. Andy encouraged his staff to make the same call, and it set the organization's standard from day one. "It's not a sacrifice, it's an investment." What he tells his kids now they're grown with their own families.. Sow and reap, and you only get one shot at it. Parent towards the relationship, not towards compliance. Andy and Sandra had two rules: honor your mother, and don't tell a lie. You can dishonor me, but not her. Lying breaks relationships, and they wanted their relationships intact. Discipline toward reconciliation instead of restriction. When his middle son Garrett was disrespectful to Sandra, Andy made Garrett call his mother, ask her on a date, take her to dinner, and pay for it. By the end of the dinner it was resolved. Don't sweat the small stuff. Andy and Sandra were foster parents for ten years. Their biological kids came over one day and watched a five-year-old foster daughter roller skate across the hardwood floors, and pointed out they'd never even been allowed to run in the house. Andy's regret is that he wasn't that way when his own kids were young. Do the eulogy exercise. From Stephen Covey. Write what you'd want people to say about you at your funeral. Andy spent several mornings on it in his early 30s. Covey's line at the end: you have just discovered your personal definition of success. He reduced it to seven words, and he won't tell anyone what they are. He used to share them until he noticed people writing them down. His view: those are his, and you have to go get your own. The exercise changed what failure means. Once Andy defined success as those values, stepping outside them wasn't just messing up. It was failing, by his own definition. Don't let your identity shift from what you value most to what you're known for. Andy is grateful for the influence, but he didn't want to become the pastor of, or the author of. He says it's especially easy for men to center on what they're known for out in the world rather than who they are at home. "I only have one unique role. That's father to my children." Sandra could get another husband. There will be another pastor and other authors. Nobody else can be the father to his children. "Your ego is not your friend." Jeff Foxworthy's answer when Andy asked what one piece of advice he'd give Andy's son Andrew, a stand-up comedian, so that at 68 he'd end up where Foxworthy is instead of where many people in show business end up. "The people I work with the most would quit before they followed me into something stupid." They'd be on his doorstep if he started doing something dumb, and Sandra wouldn't even have to call them. Foxworthy fired his manager and hired his best friend from fifth grade. Same reason. That friend knew him as a middle schooler, so he's not Jeff Foxworthy the world-famous comedian. He's Jeff the goofball. Andy's champagne moment: celebrating a year after he's gone. Not just that there's a successor, but that the global network of churches is thriving without his direct involvement. That, to him, is professional success. And the second half: that his kids want to be with him and with each other when they no longer have to be. That was the goal of their parenting from the start. You sow and sow and then find out whether you get to reap it. Reflection Questions What's on your agenda every month that you keep trying to solve? Is it actually a problem, or a tension you need to manage? Run your biggest current decision through all three questions. What's considered impossible in your industry? What would the next leader in your seat do? What would a great leader do? Who has permission to show up at your door and ask who you think you are? If you can't name them, that's the first thing to fix. More Learning #687: Jim Collins - What to Make of a Life#361: John Maxwell - The Essential Changes Every Leader Must Embrace#358: Stephen Covey - The One Thing That Changes Everything (Trust) Podcast Chapters 00:00 Apply for the Learning Leader Circle 01:16 Meet Andy Stanley 02:50 Mother Mary Saw It First 05:25 The Most Wonderful, Dangerous Gift 07:08 Are Leaders Born or Made? 08:37 Problems to Solve, Tensions to Manage 11:44 When You Can't Offer Certainty, Offer Clarity 15:43 The Messy Middle 20:42 Lunch With John Maxwell 24:16 The Three Questions 28:54 What Would a Great Leader Do? 30:01 AI and the Tornado of Transformation 31:20 Putting Your Values on the Wall 32:11 "I'm Gonna Cheat Work. I'm Not Gonna Cheat Home." 36:55 Parenting Toward the Relationship 41:02 The Eulogy Exercise 45:35 Your Ego Is Not Your Friend 51:58 The Champagne Question 55:07 EOPC

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