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She Has Every Password, But She's Not Answering Her Texts · The Healthy Church Staff Podcast

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's Sunday morning, and as it sometimes happens, it usually happens on Sunday morning.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Something goes wrong, things start to pop the rails, both livestream laptops won't unlock.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: The planning tab was working working perfectly, but now you can't get it to open.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: The resource room code died sometime last month.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: The one person who knows all of it texted in this morning and is sick.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason she is so good is because she's so good with tech.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: And you've turned tech over to her for the last three years, but you never asked her to write any of it down or document any of it, and now she's not here.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: And guess what?
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: People are frantic because they can't get a hold of her because she's sick, and they can't get into any of the programs because they're pass they don't know their passwords.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: If this sounds familiar, don't get too upset because this happens at a lot of churches.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: And today we're not going to talk about hiring an IT director or anything.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is really this episode today on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast is about passwords, and uh the problem that you have in a lot of churches is that one person knows a password.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's in their head, it's not written down, and nobody else knows the password.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we're going to talk about today here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: She has every single freaking login.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm using that language, pardon my French there, but it about makes you want to swear, right?
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: When you're locked out of something and you don't know how to get in, and you realize that one person in the whole church has the password.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Not only does she have this password, she has the login and the password for everything for Planning Center, she has the login information for the Facebook page, she has the door codes, the giving kiosk, the streaming laptop, the Wi-Fi that actually works.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: She has the password, the administrative password for that.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: She might be the kids director, she might be the office manager or the part-time communications person.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: You didn't hire her for all of this.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: You handed her the next login because she answered the last one.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: And now she's the building's memory.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: And the problem is she's not written any of it down.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Everything is in her head.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: And she's probably just one fever away from a really silent Sunday where you can't access a lot of things that you think that you should be able to access.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now you see, Todd, this really isn't a problem.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: This is a problem.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: This is a problem.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: I I know when I've left positions, and I know when other people have left positions, they're getting calls.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: I had just had a call with somebody last week that said that they left their church about two months ago and I asked them if they had heard anything from the church, and they said, We heard something last week.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: They needed a password for a laptop and wanted me to give them my personal password because they couldn't get in with the church account.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: I told them nothing.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: But two months and they're still calling this person asking for a password because nobody wrote it down.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's not on that person, it's on the church and its policies, right?
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Used to be that you just thought, hey, we've got a couple pieces of technology, it's not a big deal.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: She's so good with tech, we don't really need to have a list, we don't really need to have a backup, she's always going to be here.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: But it over time you don't realize how much that person is holding and how much actually that person was probably holding in her head.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: And when she takes a Tuesday off, three people text her anyway.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: When she's on vacation, you still call her and you tell yourself, hey, she doesn't mind.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: She minds.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: She minds.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: She just cannot say it without sounding unhelpful.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: The same trait that you praise her for is actually the trap that you built for her.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it's pretty easy to know why this happened.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: You weren't hiding the keys, you were keeping the service up, someone had to reset the router, somebody had to know the code, and she said, sure, I can do that.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: I have enough tech experience.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's a decent enough thing.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's also how a church ends up with one person holding the whole building in their head.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Helpful is not a system.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: Helpful is a person that you will someday lose, and then you'll find out how much you miss her and how much was in her head and how much was never written down.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: You can still love her, but you can't keep using this current setup as a plan.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: And one bad Sunday is gonna expose this plan.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: One bad Tuesday, one bad vacation when she's on a ship and doesn't answer your text because she's not getting text on the ship, is gonna put everything on hold until she gets back.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh a password in one brain is not stewardship, okay?
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it's uh a bet against the fact she's never gonna get the flu, she's never gonna go on vacation.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: So, what do you do?
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't seem like it's that difficult, right?
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: But it's something that you don't it's out of mind until it actually rears its ungle ahead.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: So here's what I think you should do today.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: If you've ever had a situation where you've been locked out of something, whether it's a building or a computer or a program or anything, if you've ever been locked out of something and you know that one person has all of this, you need to ask yourself, right now, okay, after this podcast, where do those logins live?
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: And if the answer is in her or in him or in somebody's head, you do not have a system.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: You've got a person, but you don't have a system.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: And if she left Friday, who opens Planning Center on Sunday?
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Who changes the door code after a volunteer quits?
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: And for door codes, it's even something like not even that she has the door codes, but she's the only person that knows how to change or add a door code.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's incre you're incredibly vulnerable.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Who can get into the giving software when the kiosk freezes?
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: And you don't know, or you know that it's one person and that it's not written down anywhere.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's not a tech problem.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's a leadership problem that's just got a password on it.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: The termination file is one thing.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: This is the other side of that, okay?
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: You kept every access in the person that you trust the most, but trust is not a backup.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen instances where people hold passwords in their head and something tragic happens, either personally or maybe a death.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's something that just goes awry in the church, and all of a sudden the person that you trusted with all those passwords is not a friend of you or the leadership anymore.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then you're really vulnerable because they own all of your systems.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: If they have the password and nobody else does, they own all of your systems.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: So this is really important.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: You need to make a list this week.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: Not after Thanksgiving, not after Christmas, but you today you need to make a list.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: Two people, one list this week.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: Two people, one list this week.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: Sit down with a person that has all the passwords.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Bring a pad, write down every single login that she's got in her head.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: Door codes as well.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: The laptop that only she can wake up, the name of a second person that you think would be good to have that information.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: Or if you don't want to give that information to a second person, at least have a place where this sits.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's a safe in your office, maybe it's a file in your office that has all of those vital passcodes and everything that you're gonna need.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not calling for you to put all this on a list and give it to everybody.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: Not everybody, you need to be locked down, right?
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: But you need to have a list where at least I would say at least two people, the person that has all those passcodes, and maybe it's you, maybe it's somebody else, maybe it's an elder, maybe it's somebody else on on the team, that they know where that information is in case it's ever needed.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's a locked drawer, maybe it's a password manager that the church pays for, not a sticky note in the copier room, okay?
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then tell her that she can stop being the building.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: If you present this right, this is gonna be freeing for her because she's gonna be able to take a vacation and not get phone calls.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: She's gonna be able to not worry about answering the phone when she's home with the flu or when her kids are home with the flu because people know where they can get the information to solve their problems without reaching out to her.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: If you will not make the list, you've already named the plan and she holds it.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: And you'd better hope that she never stays home or ever gets sick or ever goes on vacation.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, here's the bottom line for today.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: One staff person holding every password is not a gift.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's a single porn of failure that you keep calling helpful.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe in your church, maybe it's not one person, maybe it's a handful of people.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe everything is siloed to where the youth department has their own computer, the production department has their own production computers.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen this happen at churches before where maybe a department has a password and then the person that owned that password leaves.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody thinks about it until a month later when they get locked out of their computer and they realize that nobody knows what the production password is for your church.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: So it might not just be one person, it might be a handful of per people, it might be a person in each department, but it's really important for an operational standpoint that all of those things are written down and not in people's heads.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: So here's one thing I think you can do this week.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: Sit down with the person or a few people that have the passwords and make a list, name a backup, put it where two people, at least two people, can reach it this week.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I know it sounds like I'm asking you to take something away from the person who's been actually saving you.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: And if you approach them in kind of a way that makes them feel uncomfortable, this could backfire on you, right?
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm telling you, if you approach them in a way that says, hey, we want to make sure that you're not getting calls when you're home, we want to make sure you're not getting calls in the evening, we want to make sure you're not getting calls on vacation asking you for this password, I think they'll actually look at this as free.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to hear your comments and your thoughts and your ideas.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: You can reach me anytime, podcast at chemistry staffing.com.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: And if there's any way that I can help you and your church team, especially when it comes to hiring, firing, any kind of healthy church staff initiatives, compensation, transitional coaching, any of those kind of things, reach out to me.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to hear from you.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: Podcast at chemistry staffing.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: All right, that's it for today.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: We'll be right back here tomorrow on the healthy church staff.