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You Left Ops Out of the Vision Meeting · The Healthy Church Staff Podcast

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: They just spent two hours on that brand new minute where you're getting ready to launch.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: The person who has to tap at it, budget it, and unlock the building, found out in the home.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: They smiled, they said it sounded great, and then they went back to their desk and started doing the math that you skipped, and maybe left out a couple a couple of let out a couple of Christian swear words.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: If this sounds familiar, we're gonna talk about that today here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: My name's Todd Rhodes, one of the co-founders over at chemistry staffing.com.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: You finished the meeting.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: You were still talking about it in the hallway, and they walked past and you said, Oh, we should tell you.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that's how they learned.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's how they learned about this new ministry initiative that they're gonna be handed to to take over the helm of.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: But they were not in the room.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: They were in the leftover conversation, the conversation that happens after the meeting ends.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: You didn't mean to hide it.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: You weren't trying to be mean about it or you're not trying to hide anything.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: You just didn't think they needed to be there just yet.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Vision first, right?
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: You're the visionary.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Operations later.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: We'll figure out how to make it happen after we we paint the vision for this.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: And that sequence feels pretty efficient to you, quite honestly.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: But for the staff member, the person that has to pull off everything that you're giving them, it feels like a closed door to them.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: And later is already too late for the calendar.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: So the calendar cannot hold this kind of a conversation.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: The new ministry needs different rooms, it needs a volunteer team that you don't have, it needs a budget line that doesn't exist, it needs a Sunday that's already filled.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: You decided the vision, but they inherited all these sticking points.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: They inherited the collision.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: And now, guess what?
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: You've moved on, you're looking at some other vision, and they're smack dab in the middle of the problem because they said the building cannot do three things at once because they asked who's paying for it.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: And the answer is I don't know.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because they asked who's unlocking the door when nobody volunteered.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: From your perspective, you're the visionary and you call that resistance.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: Why poo-poo on everything for crying out loud?
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: But from the staff's perspective, man, they're calling that Sunday.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: They're calling, how are we gonna pull this off?
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: How are we gonna do this?
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: So you need to really look.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: If you're the one that's painting the vision, if you're the one that's disseminating the plans out to the team, look at what you actually may have left out.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it's your operations people, it's the people that actually carry out the vision.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's your admin people, it's your facilities people, it's the one who knows which closet is already promised, which one is full, where you can store stuff.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's the one that knows how you're gonna pay for this, the one who knows the building cannot absorb one more launch.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: And the one who has the staff to do it.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: You treat them, it's just a follow-up email.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: This is where we're going, this is what needs to happen.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Make it happen.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: And they treat Sunday like a machine that has to actually start.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: And when it fails, you do not blame the meeting they were not in.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: You blame the person who could not make an impossible plan look really easy.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you, reality check here, that is not leadership, and that is not the way a visionary leader leads in the church.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: That is using the person who runs the building as the shock absorber for a room that they never sat in for a meeting that they were never even a part of.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Now, listen, I know you're not doing this on purpose.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: If this has happened to you in the past, and you kind of get pushback after you say, You think everything's great, we're gonna start and we're gonna go down this road, it's gonna be awesome.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then you get pushback.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: You were not trying to sideline, you were not trying to pull something over on them.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: You thought ops comes after vision.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: You thought you'd bring them in once the idea was clear so that they would not slow down all the dreaming, and that's reasonable.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's even somewhat decent, right?
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: But it's also how the person who unlocks the building becomes an afterthought.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: Vision that cannot survive the calendar or the budget or the facility or the keys is not vision.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's just that hallway briefing with a little bit of extra hype and enthusiasm.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: You will be tempted to fix this with a recap.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: You send them the notes, you invite them to weigh in after the decision, and that's all fine.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's all good.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: But that is not a seat at the table.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: That is a courtesy after the decision's been made.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: If you have stakeholders, you need to include them even in the decision, just so that they're a part of the decision.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: They do not need a summary of what you already decided.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: They need a veto on what you cannot actually or what they can actually not pull off.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: They need to say, hey, we can't do this by November 15th.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: We can maybe do it by January.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: But their vote is not to veto the idea, it's to bring a reality check to what can actually happen in what time frame that can actually happen.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: They're actually a really important part of making sure that the vision that you've painted, the plan that you've put together can actually happen.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: Rooms, budget, bodies, hours, keys.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: If those cannot hold, your vision is not late, your vision is absolutely incomplete.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: So my thought is put them in the room before you fall in love with the idea.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Just before before you make all the decisions that they have to I heard a story once of a a large church pastor that called a staff member and said, Hey, I want to throw a big party.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: This Sunday.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: I want it to be the biggest thing we've done.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: And here's why I forget why.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't think it was that Sunday, I think it was a couple weeks out, but I want this and I want that and I want this and I want that.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Make it happen.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: The staff person had never heard of this before, never knew that this was even an option, and all of a sudden their whole rule got changed to try and make this thing happen, and they had to come back and say, geez, we just can't, we can't do this.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: We can do this in two months, we can't do this in a week and a half.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: So this week, before the next vision dump, okay, not after, bring in some of those stakeholders, bring some of those operations people, that operations person, that admin, that facilities lead, whoever actually has to make this thing work, not for a report out at the end, but for a real chair.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: They get to say what you can and what you can't pull off.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: They probably, because they know everything intricately, they can tell you ways to make that vision and that idea better.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: You're still leading the vision.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's still your call.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: But you stop treating the person who runs Sunday like a detail that you can just handle later or fix with an email.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: Later is how ministries die actually right there in the hallway.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: So here's the bottom line for today.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: If the person who has to staff it, budget it, or unlock the building was not in the room, you did not finish the vision.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: You announced it prematurely.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: You announced it think of it like this.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: You announced it in the hallway.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: This week I'd love to have you do something uncomfortable.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: If you're the visionary in your church, before you dump that next vision, that's a good word for it.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: Vision dump, right?
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: Think about bringing different people into the room.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Think about bringing some of those ops people in the room, not for a report out, uh, and not necessarily even for a veto.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but they can have some strong opinions on timelines and what you can and can't do, how much things are gonna cost, if it's feasible, and what timeline it can be done.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: Do that this week.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: I know it feels like I'm suggesting steps that are gonna slow you down, and that's not the purpose.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is part of leadership, it's including people.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: And believe me, that new program is gonna go so much better when you have your team totally bought into the idea and actually feeling like they contributed to that idea, not that they're just picking up the pieces and putting something in place that they had absolutely no idea was even coming their way.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: All right, I'd love to hear from you if you have some input for me and say, Todd, you're um totally love this, or this was this was horrible.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: Rethink your life, Todd, please.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to hear from you, podcast at chemistry staffing.com.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: Before you leave or as you leave, because this recording is going to come to an end.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: I would love for you to head over to churchstaffassessment.com and uh take our uh church staff assessment 2026 version this year.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it would just help me out so much.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: And uh think of it as a podcast as free, but that's one way that you can help me out on the back end.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: So, podcast and chemistry staffing.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: If you have any questions for me or just want to reach out, I'd love to hear from you.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: And we will talk to you again soon tomorrow, right here.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: We're here every week on the Healthy Church Camp Podcast every day.