CHAPTER 2
Forming the Team
I’d rather interview fifty people and not
hire anyone than hire the wrong person.
JEFF BEZOSExtraordinary!
That’s a word one hears often when leaders and scholars are
asked to describe Billy’s bringing together his early team, then
effectively leading it and keeping it dynamic for more than half a
century. Dallas businessman Bill Mead, the first chairman of
Billy’s executive committee, said when asked how so much had
been accomplished, “He had perpetuity of his team! He knew how
to get things done.”
The odds against such perpetuity are long. Leadership litera-
ture indicates that “teams at the top” of an organization encounter
far greater challenges than those of other teams. The team lead-
ing an organization must confront failures and adapt to successes,
handle its own personnel disputes within the team, adjust strat-
egy to brutal new realities, adapt to growth, resistance, and rever-
sals—an endless list of dynamics that disrupt trust and bruise egos.
Highly effective teams are tough to form and tougher to contin-
ually lead.
How could Billy’s original team stay together as the BGEA
(Billy Graham Evangelistic Association) ministry burgeoned,
related organizations were founded, and the pace accelerated?
How did the core leadership evolve and adjust, yet in chemistry
and commitments stay the same?