Trust and Teams

My leadership team (preschool director, treasurer, office manager, buildings and grounds, children's minister, and I) and I are reading  Trust and Teams by Jane Fryar (a quick read, very concise and packs a punch!).  

As a part of drilling home chapter one, I came up with this exercise that bonded us tighter as a team:

1. Does ___(fill in team member name)____ have:

-my best interests at heart?

no way! 0 - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 yuppers! 100%

-my church's best interest at heart?

no way! 0 - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 yuppers! 100%

After each team member filled this out for each person on the the team, the next question was asked:

2. What is (1) action/behavior that ____(fill in team member name)_____ might be able to do to build your trust in them?

Each team member shared their perspective on what the other person might be able to do to build trust with them.  As the team member spoke, the other person couldn't react or say anything in defense, right or wrong.  This was an opportunity to hear each other give constructive criticism and be able to hear and feel how fellow team members view each other.

So what did my team members say that I could do to build their trust in me?  Read on...

> "continue to help me (team-member) prepare presentations so I (team-member) look good when making them"

> "continue to care, listen and allow me to make mistakes"

> "communicate more clearly the picture of where we're going: share your vision and plans (I feel like we're on a boat adrift in the sea)"

> "let me know what your schedule looks like so I can 'cover' for you"

2009 GOALS: What Am I Going to STOP Doing

Goals are great.  I make lots of them.  But what often happens is that I make a huge list of goals only to find that by mid-year, there's no possible way I can achieve them because I lack 

TIME (clock capacity) or 

PASSION (emotional capacity) or 

RESOURCES (people, talent, $$$ capacity)

I love the Subway commercials where buttons are popping off people and pants are spliting.  It illustrates that our bodies only hold a certain capacity of food.  When we stretch that capacity, we become unhealthy.

It's like my life is a plate of 1/2 dessert and 1/2 pasta.  I know I need to eat more veggies (aka my 2009 goals) but there's no room on my plate.  So, I'll just plop the veggies on top and try to eat the whole plate.  Unfortunately, one of two things happen:

1) Something unintentionally falls off the plate: when I pile things on my plate, something inevitably falls off.  It would be better to strategically figure out how something is going to fall off rather than to "just let it slide".  If I'm strategic and intentional, I can be in control of achieving my goals.

2) I try to do it all only to realize I'm giving myself an ulcer.  I need to stop listening to the lie that says "I can do it all" because I can't possibly do it all.

Whether it's setting goals as a team or setting your own personal goals, we need to make a list of what we are NOT going to do.

Here's mine:

1. I'm not going to check my email and google reader 3x per day.  Usually, I jump online first thing in the morning, during lunch and before I go home.  This is a time killer.  I'm going to set aside 1 hour per day to check emails, google reader and reply to emails.

2. I'm not going to be on the phone all day.  I will set aside a part of my day to make, receive and return phone calls.

3. I'm not going to take my member's ideas and run with them.  Recently, a couple of church members had the idea of doing a progressive dinner.  Great idea!  But guess who took the idea, ran with it and implemented the whole thing: you guessed it!  The idiot whose blog you're reading.  I take peoples' ideas because I worry that it won't accomplish the vision of our church.  So I vow to listen to someone's ideas and coach them on how to best implement it so that it will accomplish the vision of our church.

4. I'm not going to read books.  Ok, well you know me too well.  I'm always reading at least 4 books at one time.  But I also have this goal to read the whole Bible this year.  So, I'm going to read less of my other books and read more of the Bible.  It'll disappoint Amazon.com but I think it'll be worth it.

5. I'm not going to do ministry by myself.  I am going to delegate and empower more peole this year so they are more of a part of ministry.  

What's your 2009 STOP doing list?

GHAG

It's a new year and I've thought through my "Ginormous Hairy Audacious Goals" for 2009 (borrowed and adapted from Jim Collin's phrase "Big Hairy Audacious Goals").

Some things you'll notice:

*  I gotta set goals: The old saying is true: "If you aim at nothing, you'll hit it every time."  I don't know if I'm an effective leader if I don't know where I'm headed.

* I set way too many goals: I'd rather have too many goals than to have only 3, achieve them and be bored the rest of the year.  Lots of goals always gives me something to shoot for. 

* Goals always meet reality: When I set goals, it also means that I have to give up something.  I have limited time, and my life is full of tasks and things to do.  When I set up new goals, I also need to give up doing something in order to make room emotionally, spiritually and logistically in order to to accomplish them.  You'll see that list next week.

Here are mine for 2009 (hey, that rhymes!)

-baptize 15 people

-launch 6 new small groups

-mentor each small group leader by meeting with them one-on-one at least once this year

-lead our church in a community-wide "serve Columbia" campaign

-use videos during worship services

-project all of our worship services

-new church website

-podcast sermons

-develop sermon groups where people help me write and be creative about sermon topics

-develop questions based on the sermon for people to take home with them and talk about during the week

-invite my church to literally "open up their Bibles" during every message

-connect with parents at our preschool/childcare ministry by opening the front door 2x a month

-bring 8 new members to church

-develop a venue for our Junior and Senior High Youth to connect once a month using a youth-led band

-read the Bible from timelines all the way through to the maps

Performance Reviews

I used a very helpful tool that I picked up from the Catalyst conference and read about in the book Growing an Engaged Church by Albert Winseman.

When I reviewed my leadership team, I asked them to respond to these 12 questions to get at core leadership issues for 2009:

1. I know what's expected of me.

2. My spiritual needs are met.

3. I regularly have the opportunity to do what I do best.

4. In the last month, I have received recognition or praise.

5. The leaders in the congregation seem to care about me as a person.

6. There is someone in my congregation who encourages my spiritual development.

7. My opinions seem to count.

8. The mission/vision of my church makes me feel important.

9. The other members of my team are committed to spiritual growth.

10. I have a best friend at church.

11. In the last 6 months, someone has talked to me about the progress of my spiritual growth.

12. I have opportunities to learn and grow.

This produced very fruitful conversation and gave me the insights I needed to help move my team forward.  The areas that are lacking for us are: having a best friend at church and someone checking in on spiritual growth.  This means that I need to be more intentional about developing relationships among our team and in a broad way, helping our church develop relationships with other people.

If you lead a team of people, I hope that these questions might help you.  Of course, you can adjust these to fit any context besides the church-world.

Great Systems connected with Visual Thinking = Effective Worship (aka. sanity)

It's been a year since we started a contemporary service.  Some of the benefits we've experienced:

1) New Faces: this service has attracted some of our innactive members of the church as well as lots of guests from the community.  This was the main reason we started this service and it is growing!

2) A Growing Band: we continue to add new musicians.  As a result, we are experiencing some growing pains because not everyone can play every week.  We're shifting to a team-model where we mix up vocals and musicians and have different people play.

There are lots of pieces and parts to the service and there are some people on our team that would like to play different instruments.  I've made a card for each musician and vocalist and drew the instrument they would like to play (there's one guy who can play guitar, bass and drums so I rotate him through the instruments each week).

To help organize all this, I created a cork board (pictured above):

From top-down:

White = Date and Theme of the Sunday worship

Pink = musician/vocalist that is on for that Sunday

Blue = elements of the worship (readings, confession, forgiveness, etc.)

Bright green = songs

So far, the system is working great and I can instantly see what songs we're doing and who is on for each Sunday.  This also helps me be intentional about creating smooth transitions.

Whatever project you face, hopefully this helps you to literally 'see' the pieces and parts.  It doesn't have to be fancy: a corkboard and some colored index cards will do the trick!