My 18 year old son Nate is serving as an intern this Summer for Michael Bayne our family minister working primarily with middle and high school students. Recently he took it upon himself and made this video announcement to send to the students. It reminds me that the methods of communicating with our people are changing every day. Are you staying current? Does your church use Facebook, Twitter, text messaging and video messaging to stay current?
This can be a controversial principle, because it appears at first glance that an organization is strategizing to leave a group of people out of the equation, but really this strategy helps the entire organization be more successful, eventually improving things for everyone involved in the organization, even those in the last 20%. This principle assumes that in any organization:
Yesterday I posted about the need for a church to plan for the future. You can read that post HERE. In that post I shared three questions our staff worked through at our last extended staff retreat at Grace Community Church. This post has results.
If we aren’t careful, church becomes a Sunday-to-Sunday routine process and we look up someday from the weekly grind and realize we never reached our potential. For most churches, when one Sunday is over they are planning for the next Sunday. The church addresses the ministry needs of the week, but little time is spent planning for the months and years to come for the church. The monotony of a repeating schedule can often replace long-term planning.
Strengths Finder 2.0 has proven already to be a great tool for my leadership. We are going to use this instrument with our staff in the coming months. I have been using Myers-Briggs Type Instrument for years and still plan to, but this is now another tool I plan to use to help build a healthy team.
I believe in being friends with the people with whom I work. I consider the people on our staff to be friends. I hope we never hire anyone I could not also claim as a friend. Part of building a healthy team environment is getting to know team members and building close relationships…friends. That is the disclaimer statement, because this post is not about working with friends. Actually this post is the opposite. This post is a warning against working with friends; especially close friends. Well maybe not a warning, but definitely a caution.
Just an average guy with a dream…
(Of course, he followed his dream and is no longer average.)
This morning, thanks to my Google Reader, I landed on an editorial story by Ed Wallace of Business Week Online. You can read the story HERE. Ed writes from an insider’s perspective about the reasons for the fall of General Motors. His insight is of a company who faced problems of arrogance and indifference, failing to meet the changing needs of its consumers. He saw a company that allowed the quality of their product to suffer while refusing to listen to concerns of insiders who were suggesting improvements.
In my pursuit for consistent improvement in my own life I am opening myself up to new approach. I will attempt to ask more questions to keep people accountable. I will visit people’s offices more frequently. I will eat more lunches with my staff. I will do a better job of tracking individual progress. It is not a matter of trust but a matter of recognizing the responsibility that I have been given and the individuality of the people I lead.
One of the most damaging expressions in a team environment is the phrase “that’s not my job†or “that’s not my area of responsibilityâ€. Thankfully I have never heard that said at Grace Community Church. Sadly it is far too common in organizations that claim to be a team environment. I talk with people on staffs frequently who feel they are on an island by themselves within the organization and no one ever helps them think through a problem, recruit volunteers for their area, or lend a hand during crunch times.
