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The Group Chat Is Not a Staff Meeting · The Healthy Church Staff Podcast

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: You made a staffing decision at 9 47 last night, and half the team found out from a screenshot.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: You called it a quick question, but it wasn't.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: The kids director wasn't even in the thread.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then Sunday morning when you get to church, people walked in with different versions of the same call, the same text.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: And you think you're being responsive, you think you're communicating really well, but your team thinks the org chart is just whoever is still awake.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: If this sounds familiar and there's confusion, you're in the right place.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to talk about it here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: My name's Todd Rhodes, one of the co-founders over at chemistry staffing.com.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: This is not an episode about putting your phone in a drawer.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: This is an episode about using group uh group text as a form of management.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I get it.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: You said it after the kids were in bed.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, quick question.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: You throw something out to a group text of people on your staff.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the deal: nobody votes in a thread, nobody records a decision in a thread.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: People just react.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: That first thumbs up.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of times, and you've been on group text, you know this.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: The first thumbs up becomes the consensus.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: And the last person who sees it in the morning is already left behind.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: You didn't hold the meeting.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: You held a poll of whoever still had their ringer on at 10 o'clock at night.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then the screenshot does what you should have done in a room.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Half the team didn't even get the screenshot until way later.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Someone maybe wasn't even in the chat, or so someone who was sent a picture, some kind of wonders what in the world's going on.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's how your worship pastor found out about the c the that the call time had moved.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's how your kids director found out that the intern is now helping with weekends.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Not from you, but from a crop of a blue bubble.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: And you added the people who were in the conversation, but the conversation was just a text.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: The org chart became almost a participant list.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: If the way a person learns the decision is a screenshot, let me be frank.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: You did not communicate, you leaked.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: So here's the part that you keep defending.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: You think you're being responsible, you tell yourself that staff can reach you, you answer at night so they don't have to wait until Tuesday.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's the story you tell in your head.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's the story you like.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: The story that your staff leads, though, probably.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: The story that they're living is probably different.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: The administrator's putting their child down, the associate is trying not to look at the phone during the dinner that they're having with their family.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: And last week's quick question became the plan.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Responsive is not the same as always on, and available is not the same as deciding.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: You are using speed as a substitute for a room.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I know many of you that listen to this podcast, and I know your heart, you're not trying to run the church from your pocket.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: You think that late text is care.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: You think answering fast is how you protect people from walking into Sunday unprepared, and that's decent.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's also how a thread becomes the real staff meeting and Tuesday becomes theater.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Kindness at 9 47 at night is still a decision that nobody can find in the morning.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: It gets lost.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Sunday does not care that the call happened in a chat.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: The volunteer heard a different version from the person who was in the thread.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: The kid's director walks in and finds out the room change from a parent.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: You spend the opening of the morning doing damage control that you could have done in an email or a meeting.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: The fallout is not really the text.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: The fallout is the people who were not in it, who were standing in the lobby pretending that they knew everything.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Your team did not fail Sunday, your channel of communication failed the team.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: So, name where decisions actually live.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: A group text is for things like the building is locked, or there's ice on the lot.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's not for who reports.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's not for moving a person or cutting a roll or hey, I'm just thinking out loud here until thinking becomes policy.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: If it changes somebody's week, it does not belong in a chat bubble.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: It belongs in a meeting or an email that they can search later.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Tell them where real decisions live and then put the next one right there where you're telling them, hey, this is where it lives.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: If you cannot point to the place is a thread and they already know it.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the bottom line for today.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: I hope this is making sense to you today.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: Here's bottom line.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: A group text is not a staff meeting.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: A group text is not a staff meeting.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: If half the ste half of your team found out from a screenshot you didn't communicate, you used chat as the org chart.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: So this week I want you to do something maybe a little bit uncomfortable, maybe a little bit different.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Pick one decision that's sitting in a text thread right now.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: One that belongs in either a meeting or an email, but definitely not a chat, and move it.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Tell the team out loud where real decisions live around here.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Not we're trying to be better about texts.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Tell them the actual place this week.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: I know it maybe you're thinking, Todd, you're just being a little bit nitpicky.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: But I also know that you're trying to be reachable, not chaotic, and that's why you're listening.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I hope this one kind of, for some of you, maybe hits home a little bit.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: Group texting is usually not helpful.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: One-on-one texting, absolutely.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: But group texting, particularly when there's some kind of a decision that you're trying to communicate, that's better left for either an email or even better, a meeting.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: If this helped, share it with a leader whose staff meeting is still happening at 9.47 p.m.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll see you here next time.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, before you leave, though, I'd love to have you head over to churchstaffassessment.com.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: Take the free Church Staff Health Assessment.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: We do every year.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: This is the fourth year we've done it.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Church Staff Health Assessment, absolutely free.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: And your 10 minutes of giving us your answers will help not only yourself think through some things, but also help church staff all across the country when we create our big report in January of 2027, right after the new year.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: All right, that's it for today.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: You can always reach out to me podcast at chemistry staffing.com.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll see you here on the Healthy Church that podcast.