Latest / The Healthy Church Staff Podcast / Your Open Door Is Not a 1:1. Stop Treating it Like One.

Transcript

Your Open Door Is Not a 1:1. Stop Treating it Like One. · The Healthy Church Staff Podcast

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: They asked for 20 minutes of your time.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Three weeks ago and you said, what's your My Door's always open?
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Grab me.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Just grab me.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: My door's open.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: So they hovered on Tuesday, but you were uncalled.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: They tried again on Thursday, but you were already walking to a meeting.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then on Friday, you passed them in the hallway and said, How are you?
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: And they said, Fine.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: And we kept walking.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: Everything's fine.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: You offered some coaching here and there, but they still don't have that meeting that they've been looking for.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: The meeting that they've requested, the meeting that they asked for weeks ago.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to talk about that today here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for joining me.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: My name's Todd Rhodes, one of the co-founders over at Chemistrystaffing.com.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: An open door policy is a courtesy and it sounds really great.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's a one-on-one meeting.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: But an open door policy is not the same as putting a meeting on your calendar.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: You say it in the interview.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: My door is always open.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: You say it in the staff meeting.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: My door is always open.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: And really, you do mean it.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: But you also never put them on the calendar.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: So the kids director waits for a gap in your schedule, walking by your office for that open door policy, and you're always busy, and that meeting never happens.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: The worship pastor gets the hallway.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, how you doing?
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: The office manager saves the real thing for a day when you're already late and you don't have they do not need permission to knock.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: They need a time that you won't steal away from them.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: And when you walk by and call that a check-in, that's not really an open door policy.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: The how are you conversation in the hallway?
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: That's not development.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: If you pass them by the copier and you ask how they are, and they said fine, you said good.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's not a one-on-one.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: That is weather talk.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: A one-on-one, here's my rule of thought.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: A one-on-one meeting has a start time and it has an end time.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: Okay?
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: A one-on-one meeting has a question that they cannot answer while holding uh a stack of bulletins or walking down the hallway.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: They're going to talk about, hey, this is how I'm doing.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: This is a problem I have.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: This is what's stuck.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, where do you need me?
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: You can't ask those kind of things in a hallway or in an open doorway.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: A doorway, somebody pops their head in your with your open door policy.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's kind of a pop-in, right?
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's hey, how you doing?
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: I got a quick question for you.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's not a one-on-one.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: They cannot answer those kind of questions that they have when they want to meet with you.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: You can't answer that in a hallway.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: The hallway actually sometimes we use that to make ourselves feel good, that everybody's good, everybody's okay, and to protect our time from those one-on-one meetings.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: Now, don't let me don't catch me wrong here, okay?
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying that you didn't want to be approachable or that you don't want to be approachable.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: And you are approachable, just not in a deep kind of way.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: You're not hiding, it's not like you don't come into the office, it's not like your doors always close, it's not you're not happy when they pop their head in and say hi or you see them in the hallway.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: You're not trying to be the boss behind the closed door and the closed gate.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: But those open office hours or the open door policy, it felt kind.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: It almost even felt pastoral.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's okay.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: But it's also how you keep coaching off the calendar and still tell yourself that you're developing people.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's a mind game that a lot of pastors play.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: That, hey, with my open door policy, that means I'm just doing a good job at coaching and mentoring people.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: Approachable is not the same as available.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: Let me repeat that.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: Approachable is not the same as available.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: Available is a time with their name on it.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: A one-on-one, as I said, has a start time and an end time.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: Now you can still keep the door open, okay?
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: Still keep the door open.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: You cannot keep using that as the whole plan though.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: If people on your team have a hard time scheduling with you, that's a problem.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: A hallway meeting, a hallway, yes, it's not a meeting.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: The person who never grabs you is not fine.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: They learned that the door is open, but that your clock and your calendar are not open.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: The open door is doing a job.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's just not doing what you think it does.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: It protects you from putting their name on a calendar on Tuesday at two o'clock.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: It puts the work back on them.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: They have to catch you.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: You have they have to read your face.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I've dealt with this at times at the some of the churches that I worked at.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: Is that you don't get a one-on-one.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: You have to you walk past the office door waiting to see when you can when's a good time, reading the face, seeing if it's a good time, and you always feel like you're interrupting.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: Always feel like you're interrupting.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: So you're putting the work back on the staff member.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: They have to catch you, they have to read your face, they have to decide if this is the is this a good window, is this a good moment?
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: And if they guess wrong, like I said, you just feel like you're interrupting.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: And if they wait, they feel neglected.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: And either way, you stay in control of the clock, which that's kind to you, but it's really hard on them.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: The staffer, the person on your staff who needs one-on-one time the most will almost never just grab you.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: They'll keep saying everything's fine in the hallway.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: So put them on the calendar this week with a start time and an end time.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: This week, maybe pick one person.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: One person, not anybody who needs it, a name, right?
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: Put 30 minutes on the calendar.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: 30 minutes.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: Give it a start time, give it an end time, protect that time the way you protect the elders' meeting.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: Okay?
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: No, real quick while you stand.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: Sit down, ask the question that they cannot answer in the doorway.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: Then stop talking long enough to hear it.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: Listen to their questions, and they will listen to your answers as well.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: If you will not calendar it, you already named the plan, and they will keep hovering, you will keep walking by, you will both call it an open door, and nothing ever gets done.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: Here's your bottom line for today An open door is not a one-on-one.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: If their name is not on the calendar, you are not coaching them.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: You're saying, hi, how's your day?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's nice we're having weather.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: I know that it sounds like I'm asking you to add another thing to your calendar this week.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: A calendar that's probably already full.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: I am asking you to stop calling hallway the hallway meeting, a coaching plan, or a discipleship plan, or a mentoring plan.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to have a one-on-one with one person.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: One person on your team, maybe that's been asking for it, and you've just been doing the flyby.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's your Zion it for today.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: Love to hear from you.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: Reach out to me, podcast at chemistry staffing.com.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: If you have any questions, I'd love to hear from you.