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They Heard It From the Stage (Oops... You Forgot to Tell Them) · The Healthy Church Staff Podcast

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine you're a children's director.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like people don't imagine, but a bunch of people are actually a children's director.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: But imagine you're a children's school.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Sitting in Sunday service when the pastor makes an announcement.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: Think of something like this.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: The pastor says, starting next month, we're adding a Wednesday night program for families.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Our children's team is gonna do an incredible job of this.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: People applaud, a few people turn around and smile at you, and you smile back.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: But this is the first you've ever heard about it.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we're talking about today here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Announcements, when you're on staff that you hear from the pulpit or the stage or from someone else other than the lead pastor, you're totally taken off guard.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: In this situation, it's the first time you've ever heard about this new Wednesday program.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: And you're sitting there, everybody's looking at you, thinking, This is really exciting stuff.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: And you're like, I've never heard of this before.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: You're already thinking about volunteers and curriculum and budget.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's where your mind goes.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: You're the children's director, right?
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: You're thinking about the Wednesday evenings your family thought that you'd be home.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: And now people, because it's been announced, people assume you have a plan.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: And there's an uncomfortable place to put someone that that's a really uncomfortable place, Pastor, to put someone that depends on you and is looking, has volunteers depending on them.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: So today, I want to talk about a simple leadership habit.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: All right, this might not sound like rocket science or as I like to call it rocket surgery.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: It might not sound like rocket surgery, but here it is.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Before you announce a change that affects somebody's responsibility, talk to that person.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: I know, talk, don't waste my time.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds so obvious, yet I want to tell you, it's surprisingly easy to skip when you're really excited about an idea.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I know many pastors, many leaders, many visionaries get so excited that they actually forget about the communication step and making sure that everybody's in on the decision and that they're all on the same team and on board with that decision.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe your leadership team has spent several weeks discussing a new service.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: And you've, in your own head, you've worked through the reasons, you've considered the options, and you've reached a decision.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: And and you've been living with this for several weeks.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: And by Sunday, you're ready to celebrate.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: But your campus pastor hasn't been a part of those conversations, and neither has the worship pastor who needs to recruit in another team, or the children's director who needs to find 12 more volunteers to staff a whole other service.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: You've had weeks and you've been processing this decision for weeks.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: The board's approved it even, right?
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: They get about eight seconds, though, your staff does before somebody asks them how it's gonna work.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that gap really matters.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: And you say, Todd, I would never do that.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: I would say, ask your staff if you would ever do that, because I know I've been on teams, staff teams, where this has happened to me.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: And what I find out is the lead pastor just he's found a little bit surprised that not everybody knew.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's like nobody knew.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Some people didn't know because they weren't brought in on the plan.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: And that is not great for staff morale.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: So the gap really does matter, and it helps explain why an announcement you considered exciting might land very differently with your staff.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: There are two really important conversations that need to happen.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: The first conversation is about the decision itself.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: Whenever possible, involve the people responsible, not just for making the decision, involve the people responsible for carrying out that decision, carrying out that change while you're still considering, even at be considering it, even before the decision has been made final.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, they may know something that you don't know.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Your children's director may support a Wednesday program and also know that several key volunteers are already stretched really thin.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Your campus pastor may say, Yeah, man, we need another service, but there's some scheduling problems that I know I'm going to come up, and you just haven't even, because of your role, you haven't even considered those.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: Their questions can make the decision better.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, involvement doesn't mean that every staff member gets a veto.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what I'm saying here at all.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes leadership has to make a difficult call, and sometimes your difficult calls, even with communication, are gonna tick some people off.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes confident the confidential information limits even who can participate.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: But even when somebody can't help make the decision, they still need a direct conversation before they're expected to explain it publicly.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the first conversation.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: The first conversation, okay?
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Let's move on to the second conversation that I think you need to have, right?
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: The second conversation is merely this.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: What does this decision mean for you?
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what we here's what's changing, here's why, here's what we've decided, and here's what we still need to figure out.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what you need to communicate to your staff.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: Give them room to respond.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: And they might ask something like, uh, why should I stop doing?
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: What should I stop doing to make time for this?
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Or who's responsible for recruiting the volunteers?
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Or when my team asks why we're changing direction, what can I tell them?
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now, all those questions are really reasonable questions from somebody trying to do their job really well.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: So don't take them as a tax, don't take them as they're not on board with the decision or they're not on board with the direction.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes those are reasonable questions from somebody who just wants to do a really good job.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: And if their response is a little quieter than you expected, give them a little bit of room.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: They may need, you've got some processors, you've got some people that are like, nope, let's do it.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: You've got other people that need a little bit of time to process, and they may need a little bit of time to understand something that you've been milling around for weeks, right?
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: A quick heads up in the hallway 30 seconds before the service will not accomplish that.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, you may think, hey, I've got that off my plate, I'm good.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: But from the staff member's perspective, that's not enough lead time, and it's not enough detail.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: The conversation needs enough time for the person to understand the change and enough detail for the person to understand the change and prepare for what comes next.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because when staff members are surprised publicly, the difficulty doesn't end with the announcement.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: After the service of volunteer walks up and says, So how's this gonna work?
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: And your staff has to explain a decision that they barely understand or acknowledge that nobody even told them, hey, this is news to me.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Either way, you've made it harder, not easier, for them to lead, and you've taken some of the shine off of that vision.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: You may not have intended that.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: You may have simply assumed somebody else has filled them in.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: But you can't assume.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: If that's happened, you need to own it directly.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: I should have talked to you.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: I should have talked to you before I announced that.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: I put you in a really difficult position, and I'm really sorry.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: Let's start over, let's work through what we need to know.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then change the process for the next time.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: Don't make that mistake again.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Here's a practical place to start this week.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: Look through Sunday's announcements.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: If you've got announcements of Sunday, it and ask whose responsibilities are affected by each of these.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Usually they're not.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: But if they are, that's when you need to do the check.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then check whether those people understand what's changing.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Have they had a chance to ask questions?
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Do they know what they're expected to communicate?
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: And if they don't, have that conversation.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: If necessary, bump the announcement back a week.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's there's 52 Sundays this year.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: Last time I counted, I think 52.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: So just bump it back a week and make sure that everybody is clear and everybody is okay with what's going to be said.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: And make this a part of your normal planning process so it doesn't depend on somebody remembering at the last minute.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: Your staff wants to help the church move forward.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: So give them the information and the preparation that they need to do that well.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: And before you tell the whole room on a Sunday what your team is going to do, make sure you've talked it through with your team.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to help you in any way that I can, whether it's a staffing issue, maybe you've got somebody that you need to let off of your team, maybe it's a compensation study or something, just a real dilemma that you just need somebody to talk to.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to have a conversation with you.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: See if there's any way that I can help you or anybody on our team here at Chemistry Staffing can help you.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: We're for you and we want you to succeed.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: And this leading staff stuff is tough.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's tough stuff at times.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: So if there's any way, and being on staff is tough at times.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: If there's any way we can help you, reach out to me.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Podcast at chemistry staffing.com.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: All right, that's it for today.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: We'll be right back here tomorrow.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: Hope you'll join me here on the Health Insurance staff.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Have a great day.