August 8, 2024 • 37 mins
With 39 years of ministry and church leadership, Tim Stevens joins us to uncover the secrets behind thriving church teams and seamless leadership transitions. Plus, get a sneak peek into the upcoming Modern Church Leader Conference and the dynamic leadership strategies that can transform your church's culture.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
uh, hey guys, welcome to another episode of modern
church leader.
I'm here with tim stevens today.
Tim, how's it going, man?
It's going great lookingforward to this conversation all
the way, all the way fromchicago.
I like your background too, bythe way.
Is that like on the wall, or isthat?
Speaker 1 (00:21):
it is not a digital background, it's an actual wall
print thing.
Try trifecta artwork of somekind, that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Um.
Well, man, uh, it's fun gettingto know you.
You've uh been around.
You worked in churches for anumber of years.
Uh, you worked in churchstaffing.
Now you're off doing kind ofyour own thing, that you've
started over the last couple ofyears doing consulting for
churches.
So I love maybe you can justgive us your story.
How did you get into church,working for church and kind of
(00:52):
all the way fast forward totoday?
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Yeah, I was actually reflecting on this recently
because this past two weeks agoI was passing my 39th year in
ministry, or ministry adjacent.
So I spent the first nine yearsworking in a nonprofit
organization and thisorganization focused on revival
and renewal in the church and sowe traveled around in teams
(01:17):
across the country and wouldspend one, two, three weeks in a
church pouring into them.
And then I did that for nineyears, met my wife there,
started having babies, decidedtraveling around the country
wasn't a good idea that season.
So we settled in, startedattending this church plant.
It had just started in a movietheater in northern Indiana.
(01:40):
We were living in southwestMichigan, so this is about 20
minutes from us.
It's called Granger CommunityChurch and we just found it
refreshing.
It was at that time you knowthis was like in 92, 93, it was
a church, you know, reachingunchurched and we'd never heard
of that before.
So it was refreshing, a newconcept, and we just fell in
love with the vision and theyinvited me to join the team.
(02:03):
I think I was the fifth staffperson.
We had about 200 people comingand stayed there for 20 years,
spent the next 20 years of mylife, of our lives, pouring into
that place Was the executivepastor there.
Church grew to about 6,000 inweekly attendance.
It was crazy.
It's one of those seasonsyou've probably in that where
(02:24):
you like every day you wake upand you realize we have like
we've never been here before,none of us know what we're doing
.
We just got to figure it out100, yes, yes, yeah.
So that was a fantastic season.
And, um, and towards the end ofthat 20 years, I met a guy
named william vanderbloomen who,long story short, ended up
asking me to come to move toHouston from northern Indiana.
(02:48):
So big, big move, big culturalmove, climate move, all kinds of
things and moved there in 2014to be the vice president of
consulting at Vanderbloomen.
Love the time there.
I was there for six years, gotto pour into churches, work with
a ton of churches on transition, staffing, transitions, a lot
of succession planning, as wellas leading the team of
(03:10):
consultants that are there, whoare many are still very close
friends.
And then during that season, Iwas working with a church called
Willow Creek, which I bet a lotof your listeners have heard of
, and they'd gone through ahorrible leadership scandal.
They invited us in to help themwith their senior pastor search
(03:31):
.
Also, long story short, over aperiod of about nine months, my
heart just really became knitwith them and their elders.
And after they chose their nextsenior pastor, he called me and
said hey, would you come be theexecutive pastor and let's turn
this around together?
And, man, that was a decision Imade in about eight days, in
(03:53):
the midst of a COVID shutdown.
This was April 2020.
So we did all of our interviewsand Zoom, dating over digital
airwaves.
But it was the right decision,went up there One of the hardest
things I've ever done to justwalk into a staff that's just
(04:13):
broken and hurting and a churchthat's just been through the
ringer.
And I told Dave when I joinedthe team.
I said I don't see myselfretiring from here.
I really want to help rebuildand get this thing thriving
again, but ultimately I want togo back into church consulting
because I love pouring myselfinto the Big C Church, right,
(04:35):
and so I did that for four yearsand then last summer I walked
away.
We could talk all day aboutjust cool stories of what God's
doing at Willow Creek.
Right now it's still my homechurch.
It's still where I attend, butstepped off the team there about
a year ago and now working withchurches, again full-time.
Leading Smart is the name ofthe company.
Did that as a side hustle forabout 20 years and then just
(04:58):
went full-time a year ago.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Tell us, give us the Leading Smart pitch.
The leading smart pitch Likehow do you help churches?
What's the primary focus?
Speaker 1 (05:09):
I'm working primarily with senior pastors and
leadership teams, senior teamsat churches, on a few different
things, but a lot of it comesdown to, like, the health of the
team.
I've got a strong passion andbelief that the health of the
organization and the efficacyimpact of the church is directly
(05:29):
connected to how healthy thatleadership team is.
So really focus on that and tryto bring health to that team
you know health so that they'reable to have great, great
conversations.
They have trust with each other, they can challenge each other,
they can really wrestle um, uhideas to the ground, they commit
(05:50):
to their decisions, um, andthey actually see results.
So that's a big focus.
I do a lot of work with churcheson succession.
Um, a lot of these are eitherfounding pastors or longtime
pastors who are like I think I'm, you know, I think I'm at the
end of the line here over thenext two, three, four or five
years, and then I just jump inand work with them over time to
(06:11):
help them not just put togethera plan but actually work the
plan.
And then we're doing a lot ofwork with churches on staff
culture as well and helpingbuild healthy culture.
Not, I think it starts at theleadership team, but all the way
through the organization, whichwas a core piece of what of the
work I did when I was at Willow.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Yeah, that's cool man , you, you, you do not look that
old, so you must've started.
You know this whole journey youjust described when you were
like 10 or 12 years old.
I was eight actually that'spretty cool.
Well, I mean, I love the ideaof like creating healthy teams
(06:51):
and kind of what you're doing,like how do you come in?
Like you know, do churchesusually call you up and they're
like, hey, I got issues, comehelp us, or is it a different
version of that?
You know how does it all start,and then I'd love to we can
kind of go from there on, likehow you help assess teams and
(07:13):
all that.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
It's one of two things usually.
Sometimes it's a specific helpus with a specific thing.
So it's, you know, help us withsuccession.
Working with a church right now, that's just helping us, you
know, similar to Willow, maybenot as headline worthy, but
going through some prettysignificant transition with
leadership and crisis in theirchurch.
(07:36):
And so coming in and justhelping them, you know, work
through that, make a decision.
That's one way.
The other way that I'm findingmore common is in two different
churches, both of them prettylarge.
They both have staffs thatexceed 200 or 300.
The lead pastor, the seniorpastor, is saying I need someone
to come alongside me and justhelp me think, and so I'll come
(07:59):
in two or three days a month andjust spend time with him, with
their leadership team, justhelping them solve whatever the
problems are in front of them atthat particular season.
So it could be structure, itcould be right seat, right bus.
One of the churches just saidhey, one of our campuses is
experiencing some turmoil.
We'd love you to just come inand spend a few days with the
(08:20):
team at that campus and just seeif you can help unpack it,
unravel it for us so we can helpthem get to a place of health
again.
So, that's um, that's probablyyou know.
More than 50% of my work isworking in those kinds of
situations where it's not somuch fix a problem but like come
help find solutions for thechallenges over a long period of
time.
Right.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
All right, um, yeah, that's that's fascinating.
So they, I mean do All right.
Yeah, that's that's fascinating.
So they, I mean do you find inthat, like, everything's
different, or is there like,even though there's various
issues, your way of kind ofcoming in and helping?
You have like a like a playbookthat helps to uncover things,
get to the bottom of stuff andthen start putting solutions in
(09:00):
place?
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Yeah, I mean, I'm a I'm a Patrick Lencioni junkie,
so, uh, all of his books are myplaybook.
Um, to be honest to you know,share industry secret here, but,
uh, but, and he comes from aplace, uh, same place.
Uh, sure, I learned it from him, uh, that the health starts at
the top and it starts with thatleadership team.
So that's my bias when I comein and like we're trying to
(09:23):
solve problems.
A lot of it's just discoveryinitially and just figuring out
what's going on.
But I'm looking to see, like,how healthy you know the right
people on that leadership team,is it formed right?
Making sure it's not an echochamber, you know, sometimes you
come in and it's especiallychurch has been around for a
while.
It's, you know, the same fourguys that have been doing it
(09:46):
forever.
So trying to, you know if it'spossible, trying to bring in
some younger voices, somediversity of thought onto the
team and then kind of build somepractices, some disciplines
into that group so that they canbegin to operate.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
And what that does is it just brings.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
You know, usually you find in the organization, lower
in the organization than theleadership team, you find people
that are confused, you knowthey feel like there's lack of
communication, they don't knowhow to make decisions around
here, they don't know who to gofor what, and if you can clarify
it at the top, it just brings awhole lot of security and
stability through theorganization.
People that are like I don'tcare if I'm in the room or not,
(10:28):
I just want to know are wemaking the right decisions?
Do we have the right peoplemaking those decisions?
And so that's kind of the way Itackle it.
So, yeah, I would say, startingat the top, I'm probably not
going to I don't have any ofthese right now.
At the top, I'm probably notgoing to um, I don't have any of
these right now, and I probablywould not say yes, um, to an
organization that's trying tofix big problems and they're not
(10:51):
including the most seniorleaders in those conversations.
Right, that would be thattotally makes sense.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Uh, wouldn't be very transformational for that
organization.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
So I really want to work with an organization that
has, uh, that.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Tim, you still there.
Yeah, we glitched out, didn'twe?
We glitched, but we're back, sothat's good.
Lucky it wasn't a full-onmeltdown, but no, where it kind
of cut out was like, you knowthe team at the top, like if
they're not involved in thething, then it doesn't make
sense for you to even engage.
They're the decision makers,they're the leaders, they're the
people everyone's looking to,so that they're the leaders,
(11:35):
they're the people everyone'slooking to, so that, I mean, 100
makes sense.
Um, how do you like, whetheryou're talking about culture or
the health of the leadershipteam, how do you come in and
assess that?
What do you look for?
Or or even maybe, after you'vedone work and you're like okay,
now this team is healthy, likewhat does a healthy team look
like?
Speaker 1 (11:53):
yeah, I mean a healthy team, I think has, uh,
has built a huge amount of trust.
Um, and that sounds like easyand it sounds like, oh, of
course they need to trust eachother.
But, uh, trust so that and youknow what you know they have
trust when they can actuallyhave, um, hold each other
accountable, you know, can lookat you and say you let the team
(12:15):
down.
Like you said, you're going tohave that done by this week.
You know, now we all have towait Cause I mean, it's like
those kinds of conversationswhere it's like I'm not coming
at you, but like we're all inthis together.
So we have huge trust andthere's, you know, things that
you can do if the trust islacking, to build trust.
If the trust is lacking to buildtrust, sometimes it's, you know
(12:36):
, you have someone who'suntrustworthy in the room or you
have someone who is insecure,and so it just kind of changes
dynamics.
You have to have healthy peoplein the room you got to build
the trust.
Another symptom would be thehealthy conflict that we can
actually wrestle solutions tothe ground.
The problem with a lot oforganizations is like you get in
(12:57):
a meeting.
It's like didn't we talk aboutthis already.
I thought we already decidedthis.
And it's because people don'tcommit to the decision.
So people nod their head in theroom, especially if the room's
too large, if there's too manypeople in the room.
People nod their head in assentbut they didn't buy in because
they didn't take the time toactually wrestle it to the
ground.
But they didn't buy in becausethey didn't take the time to
actually wrestle it to theground.
(13:17):
They don't own that decisionand so it's probably not going
to work or not going to happenor not going to get implemented.
And the people that noddedtheir head but don't agree,
they're hoping it doesn't comeback up again because they don't
have any plan to commit to it.
But if you've got trust, andthen you have healthy conflict
and then you actually commit toyour decisions and a lot of that
(13:38):
comes to systems of just makingsure you know what you actually
talked about and what decisionswere made.
So, having you know, I'll workwith teams to not only have a
good agenda but to have goodnote-taking and to have good
questions that you put at theend of the meeting.
Um, just to recap, okay, whatdid we decide today?
You know who's going to do what.
I went, who's carrying what outof here?
Um and then uh, appropriateaccountability and a lot of
times that initially before youkind of have the trust of the
(14:01):
team that's going to typicallycomes from the top.
It's working best when it'scoming from around the room,
when we're keeping each otheraccountable for the things that
we committed to, decisions thatwe made Right.
And then the results.
And then a healthy team istracking the right things to see
if they're accomplishing thethings that they're after.
In the church there's certainthings, whether it's baptisms or
(14:25):
whether it's group involvementor whether it's volunteer
involvement or whether it'sgiving.
There's things you're trackingto let you know if the decisions
you're making are actuallyhaving an effect.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
so that would be, that's how I would look at kind
of that trust at that leadershiplevel, right, right how do
people uh, develop that you know, like, like some trust I guess
you get, because maybe you werelike the church you joined when
there were 200 people, smallteam, the three, four, five
(14:56):
people that were there before.
You were probably there fromthe beginning.
Yeah, we started it together.
So there's this kind of levelof trust and level of
accountability, level of buy-in,level of excitement, all the
things that are like therebecause you started the thing
Like you're, you know you, like,own it, it's yours.
Well then you start hiringpeople there because you started
the thing like you're, you knowyou, you like own it, it's
yours.
Well then you start hiringpeople.
Maybe sometimes those hires arein the early days.
(15:19):
They're like friends, peopleyou already know, people you
have some of that connectivitywith.
But at a certain stage youstart hiring people, uh, that
are like not in that circle,like they're like new people.
Maybe you don't know, uh, maybesomebody else on the team
doesn't know.
Either they're like third ringor not.
You went through a full-on,regular interview process to
hire somebody you know.
So how do you build, you know,when you get to a certain size,
(15:42):
like really build that trustwith, like the new folks or yeah
, what, what?
Any tips or insights or thingsyou've seen work well in that
situation?
Speaker 1 (15:53):
yeah, I mean I went through that at granger where
you, you know, when I got therethere was five of us and church
was pretty small, and so whenyou're starting something, or
you know, or you're very small,you know all that stuff's caught
, you know, it's just, it's inthe air you breathe, it's in the
hallways.
It's like everyone kind ofsigned on for those same exact
values.
Everyone trusts each other.
The bigger you get, it has tobe taught and systemized, it has
(16:19):
to work itself into the DNA andthat doesn't happen without a
lot of intentionality.
So some of that's codifying it.
It's like codifying not just asan organization gets bigger.
When you're small, you don'thave an employee handbook and
then it's like, oh wait, someonedid something stupid.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
We better write a rule down.
I've lived those days, Iliterally know exactly what
that's like.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
And then when I got to Willow they were 43 years old
.
They had a large handbookbecause they had a lot of things
.
I'm for minimizing as much aspossible.
Some things that you codifyaren't just the rules, but the
values of the behaviors, um, thethings that that matter for how
we're going to treat each other, how we're going to behave, and
what, what, what matters mostto us, um, and then figuring out
(17:07):
how do we systemize those.
Um, so, uh, an example at uhwill in fact, I'll grab my
stress cube with our values onit but we had five different
values, or staff values, and wewent through this process
because we were at a brokenplace.
(17:28):
We had a lot of new peoplecoming on.
We had people been there over40 years on staff.
Wow, we had people you knowdozens have been there over 40
years on staff.
Wow, we'd have people you know,dozens have been there over 30
years on staff, and then we had,you know, by time, uh, within
probably a year after I'd beenthere, we probably had uh 50 to
100 people that were brand new,like I was.
And so, you know, and we'remerging all these cultures old
willow culture, new willowculture, all these places that
(17:50):
we came from and so we just kindof said, you know, who are we
going to be?
This is like this is the newchurch, in essence, and uh, and
we need to figure out who we'regoing to be.
So what their process of ofjust um, assessing what are what
is true about us, yeah, andthen, um, you know, deciding
together who do we want to be?
(18:10):
And so we pulled together Ithink it was 14 or 15 people
from across willow, a diversegroup from different locations
and different um diversity,different tenure, uh, men and
women, old and young, and uh,and pick those people based on
like these people actuallyembody a culture of who we think
we want to be, and then, like,got them together and then let's
(18:33):
say, let's dream about this,you know.
And so we came up with fivevalues, um, so, like, one of
them is believe the best.
Trust is our default, because,because of the uh problems we've
gone through as an organization.
Uh, we got to a place where wewere believing the worst about
everyone, because leaders hadlet us down, our friends had let
us down, a lot of hurt and sowe had to, like, aspirationally,
(18:56):
say we want one of our valuesto be believe the best.
Trust is our, is our default.
Another one was is embrace,challenge, grid is our style.
So there's five of them.
But what we did is then we justlike, took those values and
like and then how do we get theminto the air that we breathe
and the water that we drink?
And so that you do that throughsystems.
So systems would be about everyfourth staff meeting which we
(19:23):
do once a week, so about once amonth.
We're going to take 15 or 20minutes and we're going to focus
on one of these five values instaff meeting.
What that looked like is usuallyjust tap someone on the
shoulder among hundreds of staffthat other people say, man,
that person lives out that value, and so we'd say, hey, would
you get up and talk about thisvalue, because people think you
live it up.
We would have an every otherweek staff newsletter.
(19:46):
So we'd have someone just pickup their iPhone and record a
video and talk into it aboutwhat that value means to them.
Video and talking to it aboutwhat that value means to them.
We have an onboarding processwhere we would teach these
values when someone's cominginto the organization and then
put them in a group for thefirst year.
This was getting going just asI was leaving.
(20:07):
Put them in a group for a wholeyear where they're actually
able to learn and grapple withthose values throughout that
first year.
Performance reviews you know,basing those on your values.
Raises bonuses, basing those onhow people live out your values
.
Exit interviews you know,having them give a reflection on
(20:28):
the organization through thelens of those values.
So lots of different ways.
So the goal is it and it takesprobably two or three years of a
church being really intentional, a staff being really
intentional, before it's like,okay, this is actually, this is.
This has a life of its ownright.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
It's actually, you know, from the ground up, not
just from the top down yeah,you're like this is who we
wanted to be and we maybe wewere some of those things or we
were all of them in some way,but like four years later,
you're like no, this is who weare, like we are doing things,
this is what you know goes onaround here.
Yeah, especially in anorganization that size, like
that sounds like you know it's abig ship.
Uh, creating change takes a lotof time and intentionality,
(21:09):
absolutely.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
And I think I'm working with an organization or
church right now in Canada thathas about 15 staff and I think
it doesn't matter the size ofthe staff.
The codify that, write some ofthat down and make sure that it
just continues for futuregenerations of team there.
Right, right.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
What about on the flip side?
How would a senior leader spotpoor culture or an unhealthy
like leadership team dynamic?
What are some of the signs thatsomeone would start to see so
they can kind of catch themearly?
Speaker 1 (22:00):
I'm a big believer in surveys and there's a bunch of
good culture surveys out there.
I really don't think it matters.
I mean, there are some bad onestoo, but I don't think it
matters so much which one youuse.
I think it's like good, use thesame one, like once a year or
something, okay that's a greatway.
It's not it's not the only way,but that's a great way to kind
(22:20):
of just, you know, take thetemperature of the culture in
and you know if you use the theright tool in an anonymous way
where people feel like theycouldn't, yes and so, uh, I mean
a couple couple that I likeVanderbilt, has one called the
Culture Tool which I was able tohelp put together when I was
working there.
There's an expensive one, but agood one is the Gallup Q12
(22:43):
survey that we used at Willow acouple times.
If anyone uses leader software,they have a tool built into the
software.
That's a fantastic uh uh,develop leadership development
software.
They have uh, uh built in there, um, taking a pulse on the
culture.
It's actually every month, sosomething like that, some kind
(23:05):
of a assessment tool, is a goodthing to have.
Um, and then I think you knowinformation flows downhill.
So, and then I thinkinformation flows downhill, so
leaders are usually the last tohear.
I remember when I was leading atGranger, the children's pastor
reported up to me and she had 13on her staff.
(23:25):
Most of them were part-time.
I think she maybe had two orthree full-time and the rest
were like 10 hours a week, kindof thing.
But, um, and she was, she ledup well.
So we come into one-on-ones,man, I thought everything was
fantastic.
And then I start hearing thingsand I'm like what's going on?
And I asked her about it andshe's like everything's great.
And then I hear, you know, fromsideways it's like man, you got
(23:46):
to figure that out Something'sgoing on over there and I I mean
, she'd been with us at thatpoint, maybe eight or nine years
and um, but some toxicity wasstarting to bubble up there and
I wasn't seeing it Cause I don't, I don't go to her meetings, I
don't, you know, I'm not in allthose classrooms, so I wasn't
seeing it and I wasn't hearingit.
And I think people generally,most people, are going to like
(24:07):
they don't want to complain,they don't want to look like
they're going around their bossto tell on their boss, you know
so.
But ultimately the thing justkind of exploded and she quit
and then we had to deal withthis and once she left and I
started getting engaged, it'slike, oh, my word, the toxicity
(24:30):
that it was.
Actually she was not onlyletting happen, but initiating
in some ways.
And so that's when and that wasboy, probably 15, maybe 20
years ago.
Um, that's since then.
It's like trying to figure out,like, how do I, how do I listen
to the people that are below theperson who's below the person
who's below me?
Um, and doing that in a fewdifferent ways.
So I'll give you some examples.
(24:50):
Um, that we did at Willow Oneis we do these surveys once a
year surveys and then I wouldrotate around and maybe one of
the other executive pastorsrotate around to every different
group, and there was, I think,the last time we did.
There's maybe 26 differentteams of five to 15 people and
we would rotate around to eachof those teams and just say, hey
(25:13):
, you took the survey.
That's great.
Here's some things we want toask you about.
This came out from your team.
Tell us more about that.
We really want to hear, wereally want to get this right,
(25:34):
to get them to the next time.
The second, third, fourth timeto like be super open was we
just went to the whole staffafter that cycle and just said,
hey, here's what we heard,here's where we're missed as
leaders of the church, here'swhere we're missing it and we
get you know, we're missing ithere, here and here, and here's
exactly what we're going to doto address this, because you're,
you're right, you know we suckat communication.
I think was one of them.
Uh, we haven't been very.
Um, uh, there was once one, oneof the surveys.
(25:58):
It was like it feels like, youknow, the leaders are kind of in
an ivory tower and there's therest of staff, so it's like we
got to break down those walls.
Here's the three or four thingswe're gonna do.
So like actually circling backso they feel like, oh man, they
heard right and they're doingsomething about it.
Um, then they're going to beopen to talk the next time and
you're going to be able to hearmore of that as a leader.
(26:21):
You just have to want to hearit.
I've worked for people whodon't want to hear it.
I'm in the number two chair andthe person in the number one
chair is like you can take asurvey if you want.
I do not want to see theresults.
I mean, you can only go so farwhen you're dealing with that.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, the surveys we do, um, it's called
like have you ever heard of npslike net promoter score?
Yeah, it's like.
It's definitely a thing in thesoftware world.
I'm not sure if it applies inother industries, but, um,
there's also a thing callede-nps, so it's like employee nps
.
Yeah, we do that.
(26:59):
Uh, I think we do it twice ayear and, uh, we, we started
that a couple years ago and Itotally like understand what
you're saying because we starteddoing it and the feedback you
get from that survey.
It's anonymous and then webucket things kind of like
themes, so I put the bookstogether based on it and, uh,
(27:20):
it's been really good and butyou need somebody who, uh, is
like very passionate about thatkind of work and good at doing
it on the team.
You know what I'm saying because, yeah, I wouldn't naturally do
that right as a leader.
That's not my.
I want to hear from people, butI'm not necessarily going to be
like, oh, let me go do thissurvey thing and then bring it
all together, but having aperson who's passionate about it
(27:43):
and runs it well has beenawesome.
It's been super valuable forthe whole organization and then
they help do what you'redescribing, where you got those
themes and you're like, okay, inthe next all hands, we do our
all hands, quarterly, the wholecompany.
But it's like we're gonna kindof read out what we heard and
what the common themes were andthen try to tie different things
(28:04):
we do throughout the year tolike, oh, we're responding this,
it was this thing from thefeedback, it's why we did x?
Um, you know, you try tocommunicate it.
Yeah, you know, I don't know ifwe're good at it yet, but it's
why, we
Speaker 1 (28:13):
did x um, you know you try to communicate it.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Yeah, you know, I don't know if we're good at it
yet, but it's definitely been auseful tool to try to help.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
You know yep, that intel and then take action on it
I I do think you need likeevery organization needs someone
who wakes up every day thinkingabout the health of the team
and the culture and it doesn'thave to be their only job, and
most, most organizations is notgoing be.
It's like you can't pay someonejust to do that, but it should
be a piece of their job becauseit takes tenacity to do the
(28:40):
surveys, to actually follow up.
It takes someone Becausechurches are busy and there's a
plan in the next week and a lotof times senior pastors it's not
the first thing on their mind,so they're going to continue to
kind of move on to what's nextbut someone who has that gift of
tenacity that can really makesure we're actually going to do
something about this.
One of the things that whenthey said we suck at
(29:04):
communication, they were right.
So it's like, okay, how do wefix that?
So we dug in a little bit toexactly you know where is the
communication lacking.
So one of it was that kind oflike distance between the
leadership team and, uh, thestaff.
So we just started every, Ithink once a month.
We started doing just open q a,bring your own lunch and ask
(29:26):
anything you want and theleadership team will be there
and ask anything you want.
And the first few times we hadto kind of like, uh, have a
couple of plants to ask somereally awkward questions, cause
we wanted them to get used tothe fact that it's okay.
So, like it's okay to ask what?
But seriously, ask whatever youwant.
We're not going to let you knowif you say why'd so-and-so get
(29:48):
fired.
We may not be able to tell youan HR thing yeah, of course, but
we'll answer everything we can.
Another thing was you knowthey're like these leadership
team meetings happen.
We just never know what'sdecided.
The information is not gettingcascaded very well.
So we started having someonesit in with us and just take
(30:10):
high-level notes and wepublished those for the whole
organization at the end of thatday and just said this is what
the leadership team these arethe topics they talked about in
any major decisions that youcouldn't put every single thing
in there, but you could put 90%of what we talked about in there
.
Yeah, yeah, there's big help.
Big help, for the people feltlike, okay, you're being more
transparent.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
So did you bring someone into the meeting that
was already?
Was it somebody on theleadership team, like hey,
you're responsible for, like,note-taking and organizing
whatever.
Or did you bring in, like youknow, an executive assistant or
somebody like that?
That was like you're in thesemeetings now because I need you
to just be our documenter ofyeah that was it.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
It was an executive assistant who we just had super
trust in her confidentiality andum.
She was a steel trap and, justyou know, was really super
helpful for us yeah, that's agreat idea.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
I love that.
Um, man, before you said that Iwas thinking about something
and it like just slipped my mind, uh, but happens to me all the
time yeah, you said another coolthing and I was like, oh,
that's a great idea.
I'm gonna start like, I'm gonnaLike, um, have someone come in
and kind of uh, was it the Q?
Speaker 1 (31:18):
and a, the Q and a or the, having someone wake up
every day thinking about the Qand a did you guys do?
Speaker 2 (31:26):
was that like a quarterly session where you
would do the open Q and a?
It was a monthly?
Oh, you did it every month.
And was it a portion of themeeting where you're like, okay,
20 minutes of the meeting is?
Speaker 1 (31:38):
open Q&A.
No, it was a standalone meeting.
It was a lunchtime, it wasbring your own lunch, totally
optional.
So at the time we were probablyhaving like 60 to 70 people out
of maybe 250 that would show upfor that and so, and we would
also take notes on that andpublish those notes for people
(32:00):
that wanted to be there andcouldn't.
But sometimes we would havelike, the first 10 minutes would
be some kind of information.
So we might say, hey, first 10minutes we're going to give you
an overview of next year'sbudget that we just landed Right
.
Or the first 10 minutes we'regoing to talk, you know,
difficult situation happening atsuch and such campus or
(32:22):
whatever.
But then it's open Q&A aboutanything you want to ask about.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Right, right, yeah, and I love those ideas and I
could keep going all day long.
Why don't you tell us a littlebit about Leading Smart and like
how folks you know?
You kind of gave us theoverview, but now that you're in
it, you've been kind of doingit full time for a year how do
people find out about you guysand kind of engage with you on
(32:48):
various leadership and teamtopics?
Speaker 1 (32:51):
Yeah, so pretty easy.
So leadingsmartcom you can gothere.
There's a button probably onjust about every page that says
let's talk, and if they clickthat they can get 15 or 20
minutes on my calendar and wecan talk and see if our team
could be a fit for them and kindof tool through the website to
see kind of the different thingsthat we're involved in.
(33:11):
I write an article just aboutevery Tuesday and put it out in
a newsletter so they can sign upfor that if they're interested
in that.
It's not a sales piece, it'sjust a thought leadership piece.
Yeah, Um, so yeah, I'd love to.
You know if someone'sinterested in the conversation.
Um, love to have thatconversation.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Do you do most of your work in person or do you
also do things kind of virtuallyin today's age?
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Yeah, it's a little bit.
It's a bit of both, but I'vegot like right now I've got six
(33:58):
churches that I'm with everymonth or every other site, or
maybe a day and a half, just toreally get to know that person
and their team and kind of gettheir context, and then it'll be
virtual monthly calls afterthat.
So a little bit of both, yeah,very cool.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Um, last thing I know you're coming to speak at the
modern church leader conference.
Uh, any any teaser on what youplan on talking about?
Speaker 1 (34:21):
Yeah.
So I'm going to dive into thisculture stuff and it's going to
be about a third kind of tellingthe story.
I'm going to just tell thestory of Willow Creek and kind
of what we walked in there onthe staff level, yeah, and then
kind of real tangible what wedid to actually turn things
(34:42):
around there and I say webecause it wasn't me, it was a
team that pulled together to dothat and then we'll have open
Q&A around it just to make sureit's really applicable for
people and their organizationsand their teams and I would say,
for folks coming.
Don't think it's like oh, thatdoesn't apply to me, because I
don't lead a church with 300staff.
Like, if you lead like an ITteam and you have, you know,
(35:06):
three volunteers on your staff,on your team, it still applies.
It's like culture matters, nomatter what size the team is and
whether people are paid orunpaid.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Yeah, yeah, I love that.
What's the biggest takeawayaround culture that you could
have someone remember, right, ifthey watch the podcast or come
to your session like somethingthat everybody can just like
take away and go like okay, I'mgoing to stick with this one.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
I would say culture is never static.
It doesn't stay the same.
It's either getting better orit's getting worse, and if
you're not intentional it'sabsolutely getting worse.
The only way to keep it gettingbetter is to be super
intentional about it, yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
I love that being intentional about culture is
also like super squishy, right.
So I love how you've given somepractical examples and things
that kind of help people grab onto it.
So, man, I appreciate the time.
Like I said, I could keep going, but uh, want to be respectful.
Thanks for jumping on the showtoday.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
Absolutely Looking forward to being there in
October.
The dates again are 16th.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
October, middle of October, I don't have a memory.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
I got to go to the website but that's a great venue
where you're you're holding it.
I was just there a couple weeksago.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
Um, it's a super great venue, so I'm excited to
be there it's a cool spot, easyto get in and out of um, we have
lots of customers and there'sobviously lots of churches all
around there.
So, uh, we're excited.
It's our first big event.
So we've done lots of regionalthings and little things and all
that.
But this year we were like,well, last year when we decided
we were like let's try to put ona bigger event and see if we
(36:44):
can, um, get some great speakerslike yourself and bring
together a community of churchesthat, uh, either use Tidely
products or don't, but kind ofbring that community together Um
, just cause we, you know, weserve almost 40,000 churches
around the world.
So if we can get a bunch ofusers together to fellowship and
also get some great content andlearn some other things too,
(37:05):
it'd be be a phenomenal show.
So we're doing our best.
We'll see how it goes.
Yep, that's awesome, lookingforward to it.
Oh, good times.
Tim, thanks for coming on theshow.
Guys, thanks for listening intoday.
Give the show a like, give it acomment.
We're always reading all thoseand we will see you next week on
another episode of ModernChurch Leader.
Bye-bye.
uh, hey guys, welcome to another episode of modern
church leader.
I'm here with tim stevens today.
Tim, how's it going, man?
It's going great lookingforward to this conversation all
the way, all the way fromchicago.
I like your background too, bythe way.
Is that like on the wall, or isthat?
Speaker 1 (00:21):
it is not a digital background, it's an actual wall
print thing.
Try trifecta artwork of somekind, that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Um.
Well, man, uh, it's fun gettingto know you.
You've uh been around.
You worked in churches for anumber of years.
Uh, you worked in churchstaffing.
Now you're off doing kind ofyour own thing, that you've
started over the last couple ofyears doing consulting for
churches.
So I love maybe you can justgive us your story.
How did you get into church,working for church and kind of
(00:52):
all the way fast forward totoday?
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Yeah, I was actually reflecting on this recently
because this past two weeks agoI was passing my 39th year in
ministry, or ministry adjacent.
So I spent the first nine yearsworking in a nonprofit
organization and thisorganization focused on revival
and renewal in the church and sowe traveled around in teams
(01:17):
across the country and wouldspend one, two, three weeks in a
church pouring into them.
And then I did that for nineyears, met my wife there,
started having babies, decidedtraveling around the country
wasn't a good idea that season.
So we settled in, startedattending this church plant.
It had just started in a movietheater in northern Indiana.
(01:40):
We were living in southwestMichigan, so this is about 20
minutes from us.
It's called Granger CommunityChurch and we just found it
refreshing.
It was at that time you knowthis was like in 92, 93, it was
a church, you know, reachingunchurched and we'd never heard
of that before.
So it was refreshing, a newconcept, and we just fell in
love with the vision and theyinvited me to join the team.
(02:03):
I think I was the fifth staffperson.
We had about 200 people comingand stayed there for 20 years,
spent the next 20 years of mylife, of our lives, pouring into
that place Was the executivepastor there.
Church grew to about 6,000 inweekly attendance.
It was crazy.
It's one of those seasonsyou've probably in that where
(02:24):
you like every day you wake upand you realize we have like
we've never been here before,none of us know what we're doing
.
We just got to figure it out100, yes, yes, yeah.
So that was a fantastic season.
And, um, and towards the end ofthat 20 years, I met a guy
named william vanderbloomen who,long story short, ended up
asking me to come to move toHouston from northern Indiana.
(02:48):
So big, big move, big culturalmove, climate move, all kinds of
things and moved there in 2014to be the vice president of
consulting at Vanderbloomen.
Love the time there.
I was there for six years, gotto pour into churches, work with
a ton of churches on transition, staffing, transitions, a lot
of succession planning, as wellas leading the team of
(03:10):
consultants that are there, whoare many are still very close
friends.
And then during that season, Iwas working with a church called
Willow Creek, which I bet a lotof your listeners have heard of
, and they'd gone through ahorrible leadership scandal.
They invited us in to help themwith their senior pastor search
(03:31):
.
Also, long story short, over aperiod of about nine months, my
heart just really became knitwith them and their elders.
And after they chose their nextsenior pastor, he called me and
said hey, would you come be theexecutive pastor and let's turn
this around together?
And, man, that was a decision Imade in about eight days, in
(03:53):
the midst of a COVID shutdown.
This was April 2020.
So we did all of our interviewsand Zoom, dating over digital
airwaves.
But it was the right decision,went up there One of the hardest
things I've ever done to justwalk into a staff that's just
(04:13):
broken and hurting and a churchthat's just been through the
ringer.
And I told Dave when I joinedthe team.
I said I don't see myselfretiring from here.
I really want to help rebuildand get this thing thriving
again, but ultimately I want togo back into church consulting
because I love pouring myselfinto the Big C Church, right,
(04:35):
and so I did that for four yearsand then last summer I walked
away.
We could talk all day aboutjust cool stories of what God's
doing at Willow Creek.
Right now it's still my homechurch.
It's still where I attend, butstepped off the team there about
a year ago and now working withchurches, again full-time.
Leading Smart is the name ofthe company.
Did that as a side hustle forabout 20 years and then just
(04:58):
went full-time a year ago.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Tell us, give us the Leading Smart pitch.
The leading smart pitch Likehow do you help churches?
What's the primary focus?
Speaker 1 (05:09):
I'm working primarily with senior pastors and
leadership teams, senior teamsat churches, on a few different
things, but a lot of it comesdown to, like, the health of the
team.
I've got a strong passion andbelief that the health of the
organization and the efficacyimpact of the church is directly
(05:29):
connected to how healthy thatleadership team is.
So really focus on that and tryto bring health to that team
you know health so that they'reable to have great, great
conversations.
They have trust with each other, they can challenge each other,
they can really wrestle um, uhideas to the ground, they commit
(05:50):
to their decisions, um, andthey actually see results.
So that's a big focus.
I do a lot of work with churcheson succession.
Um, a lot of these are eitherfounding pastors or longtime
pastors who are like I think I'm, you know, I think I'm at the
end of the line here over thenext two, three, four or five
years, and then I just jump inand work with them over time to
(06:11):
help them not just put togethera plan but actually work the
plan.
And then we're doing a lot ofwork with churches on staff
culture as well and helpingbuild healthy culture.
Not, I think it starts at theleadership team, but all the way
through the organization, whichwas a core piece of what of the
work I did when I was at Willow.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Yeah, that's cool man , you, you, you do not look that
old, so you must've started.
You know this whole journey youjust described when you were
like 10 or 12 years old.
I was eight actually that'spretty cool.
Well, I mean, I love the ideaof like creating healthy teams
(06:51):
and kind of what you're doing,like how do you come in?
Like you know, do churchesusually call you up and they're
like, hey, I got issues, comehelp us, or is it a different
version of that?
You know how does it all start,and then I'd love to we can
kind of go from there on, likehow you help assess teams and
(07:13):
all that.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
It's one of two things usually.
Sometimes it's a specific helpus with a specific thing.
So it's, you know, help us withsuccession.
Working with a church right now, that's just helping us, you
know, similar to Willow, maybenot as headline worthy, but
going through some prettysignificant transition with
leadership and crisis in theirchurch.
(07:36):
And so coming in and justhelping them, you know, work
through that, make a decision.
That's one way.
The other way that I'm findingmore common is in two different
churches, both of them prettylarge.
They both have staffs thatexceed 200 or 300.
The lead pastor, the seniorpastor, is saying I need someone
to come alongside me and justhelp me think, and so I'll come
(07:59):
in two or three days a month andjust spend time with him, with
their leadership team, justhelping them solve whatever the
problems are in front of them atthat particular season.
So it could be structure, itcould be right seat, right bus.
One of the churches just saidhey, one of our campuses is
experiencing some turmoil.
We'd love you to just come inand spend a few days with the
(08:20):
team at that campus and just seeif you can help unpack it,
unravel it for us so we can helpthem get to a place of health
again.
So, that's um, that's probablyyou know.
More than 50% of my work isworking in those kinds of
situations where it's not somuch fix a problem but like come
help find solutions for thechallenges over a long period of
time.
Right.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
All right, um, yeah, that's that's fascinating.
So they, I mean do All right.
Yeah, that's that's fascinating.
So they, I mean do you find inthat, like, everything's
different, or is there like,even though there's various
issues, your way of kind ofcoming in and helping?
You have like a like a playbookthat helps to uncover things,
get to the bottom of stuff andthen start putting solutions in
(09:00):
place?
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Yeah, I mean, I'm a I'm a Patrick Lencioni junkie,
so, uh, all of his books are myplaybook.
Um, to be honest to you know,share industry secret here, but,
uh, but, and he comes from aplace, uh, same place.
Uh, sure, I learned it from him, uh, that the health starts at
the top and it starts with thatleadership team.
So that's my bias when I comein and like we're trying to
(09:23):
solve problems.
A lot of it's just discoveryinitially and just figuring out
what's going on.
But I'm looking to see, like,how healthy you know the right
people on that leadership team,is it formed right?
Making sure it's not an echochamber, you know, sometimes you
come in and it's especiallychurch has been around for a
while.
It's, you know, the same fourguys that have been doing it
(09:46):
forever.
So trying to, you know if it'spossible, trying to bring in
some younger voices, somediversity of thought onto the
team and then kind of build somepractices, some disciplines
into that group so that they canbegin to operate.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
And what that does is it just brings.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
You know, usually you find in the organization, lower
in the organization than theleadership team, you find people
that are confused, you knowthey feel like there's lack of
communication, they don't knowhow to make decisions around
here, they don't know who to gofor what, and if you can clarify
it at the top, it just brings awhole lot of security and
stability through theorganization.
People that are like I don'tcare if I'm in the room or not,
(10:28):
I just want to know are wemaking the right decisions?
Do we have the right peoplemaking those decisions?
And so that's kind of the way Itackle it.
So, yeah, I would say, startingat the top, I'm probably not
going to I don't have any ofthese right now.
At the top, I'm probably notgoing to um, I don't have any of
these right now, and I probablywould not say yes, um, to an
organization that's trying tofix big problems and they're not
(10:51):
including the most seniorleaders in those conversations.
Right, that would be thattotally makes sense.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Uh, wouldn't be very transformational for that
organization.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
So I really want to work with an organization that
has, uh, that.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Tim, you still there.
Yeah, we glitched out, didn'twe?
We glitched, but we're back, sothat's good.
Lucky it wasn't a full-onmeltdown, but no, where it kind
of cut out was like, you knowthe team at the top, like if
they're not involved in thething, then it doesn't make
sense for you to even engage.
They're the decision makers,they're the leaders, they're the
people everyone's looking to,so that they're the leaders,
(11:35):
they're the people everyone'slooking to, so that, I mean, 100
makes sense.
Um, how do you like, whetheryou're talking about culture or
the health of the leadershipteam, how do you come in and
assess that?
What do you look for?
Or or even maybe, after you'vedone work and you're like okay,
now this team is healthy, likewhat does a healthy team look
like?
Speaker 1 (11:53):
yeah, I mean a healthy team, I think has, uh,
has built a huge amount of trust.
Um, and that sounds like easyand it sounds like, oh, of
course they need to trust eachother.
But, uh, trust so that and youknow what you know they have
trust when they can actuallyhave, um, hold each other
accountable, you know, can lookat you and say you let the team
(12:15):
down.
Like you said, you're going tohave that done by this week.
You know, now we all have towait Cause I mean, it's like
those kinds of conversationswhere it's like I'm not coming
at you, but like we're all inthis together.
So we have huge trust andthere's, you know, things that
you can do if the trust islacking, to build trust.
If the trust is lacking to buildtrust, sometimes it's, you know
(12:36):
, you have someone who'suntrustworthy in the room or you
have someone who is insecure,and so it just kind of changes
dynamics.
You have to have healthy peoplein the room you got to build
the trust.
Another symptom would be thehealthy conflict that we can
actually wrestle solutions tothe ground.
The problem with a lot oforganizations is like you get in
(12:57):
a meeting.
It's like didn't we talk aboutthis already.
I thought we already decidedthis.
And it's because people don'tcommit to the decision.
So people nod their head in theroom, especially if the room's
too large, if there's too manypeople in the room.
People nod their head in assentbut they didn't buy in because
they didn't take the time toactually wrestle it to the
ground.
But they didn't buy in becausethey didn't take the time to
actually wrestle it to theground.
(13:17):
They don't own that decisionand so it's probably not going
to work or not going to happenor not going to get implemented.
And the people that noddedtheir head but don't agree,
they're hoping it doesn't comeback up again because they don't
have any plan to commit to it.
But if you've got trust, andthen you have healthy conflict
and then you actually commit toyour decisions and a lot of that
(13:38):
comes to systems of just makingsure you know what you actually
talked about and what decisionswere made.
So, having you know, I'll workwith teams to not only have a
good agenda but to have goodnote-taking and to have good
questions that you put at theend of the meeting.
Um, just to recap, okay, whatdid we decide today?
You know who's going to do what.
I went, who's carrying what outof here?
Um and then uh, appropriateaccountability and a lot of
times that initially before youkind of have the trust of the
(14:01):
team that's going to typicallycomes from the top.
It's working best when it'scoming from around the room,
when we're keeping each otheraccountable for the things that
we committed to, decisions thatwe made Right.
And then the results.
And then a healthy team istracking the right things to see
if they're accomplishing thethings that they're after.
In the church there's certainthings, whether it's baptisms or
(14:25):
whether it's group involvementor whether it's volunteer
involvement or whether it'sgiving.
There's things you're trackingto let you know if the decisions
you're making are actuallyhaving an effect.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
so that would be, that's how I would look at kind
of that trust at that leadershiplevel, right, right how do
people uh, develop that you know, like, like some trust I guess
you get, because maybe you werelike the church you joined when
there were 200 people, smallteam, the three, four, five
(14:56):
people that were there before.
You were probably there fromthe beginning.
Yeah, we started it together.
So there's this kind of levelof trust and level of
accountability, level of buy-in,level of excitement, all the
things that are like therebecause you started the thing
Like you're, you know you, like,own it, it's yours.
Well then you start hiringpeople there because you started
the thing like you're, you knowyou, you like own it, it's
yours.
Well then you start hiringpeople.
Maybe sometimes those hires arein the early days.
(15:19):
They're like friends, peopleyou already know, people you
have some of that connectivitywith.
But at a certain stage youstart hiring people, uh, that
are like not in that circle,like they're like new people.
Maybe you don't know, uh, maybesomebody else on the team
doesn't know.
Either they're like third ringor not.
You went through a full-on,regular interview process to
hire somebody you know.
So how do you build, you know,when you get to a certain size,
(15:42):
like really build that trustwith, like the new folks or yeah
, what, what?
Any tips or insights or thingsyou've seen work well in that
situation?
Speaker 1 (15:53):
yeah, I mean I went through that at granger where
you, you know, when I got therethere was five of us and church
was pretty small, and so whenyou're starting something, or
you know, or you're very small,you know all that stuff's caught
, you know, it's just, it's inthe air you breathe, it's in the
hallways.
It's like everyone kind ofsigned on for those same exact
values.
Everyone trusts each other.
The bigger you get, it has tobe taught and systemized, it has
(16:19):
to work itself into the DNA andthat doesn't happen without a
lot of intentionality.
So some of that's codifying it.
It's like codifying not just asan organization gets bigger.
When you're small, you don'thave an employee handbook and
then it's like, oh wait, someonedid something stupid.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
We better write a rule down.
I've lived those days, Iliterally know exactly what
that's like.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
And then when I got to Willow they were 43 years old
.
They had a large handbookbecause they had a lot of things
.
I'm for minimizing as much aspossible.
Some things that you codifyaren't just the rules, but the
values of the behaviors, um, thethings that that matter for how
we're going to treat each other, how we're going to behave, and
what, what, what matters mostto us, um, and then figuring out
(17:07):
how do we systemize those.
Um, so, uh, an example at uhwill in fact, I'll grab my
stress cube with our values onit but we had five different
values, or staff values, and wewent through this process
because we were at a brokenplace.
(17:28):
We had a lot of new peoplecoming on.
We had people been there over40 years on staff.
Wow, we had people you knowdozens have been there over 40
years on staff.
Wow, we'd have people you know,dozens have been there over 30
years on staff, and then we had,you know, by time, uh, within
probably a year after I'd beenthere, we probably had uh 50 to
100 people that were brand new,like I was.
And so, you know, and we'remerging all these cultures old
willow culture, new willowculture, all these places that
(17:50):
we came from and so we just kindof said, you know, who are we
going to be?
This is like this is the newchurch, in essence, and uh, and
we need to figure out who we'regoing to be.
So what their process of ofjust um, assessing what are what
is true about us, yeah, andthen, um, you know, deciding
together who do we want to be?
(18:10):
And so we pulled together Ithink it was 14 or 15 people
from across willow, a diversegroup from different locations
and different um diversity,different tenure, uh, men and
women, old and young, and uh,and pick those people based on
like these people actuallyembody a culture of who we think
we want to be, and then, like,got them together and then let's
(18:33):
say, let's dream about this,you know.
And so we came up with fivevalues, um, so, like, one of
them is believe the best.
Trust is our default, because,because of the uh problems we've
gone through as an organization.
Uh, we got to a place where wewere believing the worst about
everyone, because leaders hadlet us down, our friends had let
us down, a lot of hurt and sowe had to, like, aspirationally,
(18:56):
say we want one of our valuesto be believe the best.
Trust is our, is our default.
Another one was is embrace,challenge, grid is our style.
So there's five of them.
But what we did is then we justlike, took those values and
like and then how do we get theminto the air that we breathe
and the water that we drink?
And so that you do that throughsystems.
So systems would be about everyfourth staff meeting which we
(19:23):
do once a week, so about once amonth.
We're going to take 15 or 20minutes and we're going to focus
on one of these five values instaff meeting.
What that looked like is usuallyjust tap someone on the
shoulder among hundreds of staffthat other people say, man,
that person lives out that value, and so we'd say, hey, would
you get up and talk about thisvalue, because people think you
live it up.
We would have an every otherweek staff newsletter.
(19:46):
So we'd have someone just pickup their iPhone and record a
video and talk into it aboutwhat that value means to them.
Video and talking to it aboutwhat that value means to them.
We have an onboarding processwhere we would teach these
values when someone's cominginto the organization and then
put them in a group for thefirst year.
This was getting going just asI was leaving.
(20:07):
Put them in a group for a wholeyear where they're actually
able to learn and grapple withthose values throughout that
first year.
Performance reviews you know,basing those on your values.
Raises bonuses, basing those onhow people live out your values
.
Exit interviews you know,having them give a reflection on
(20:28):
the organization through thelens of those values.
So lots of different ways.
So the goal is it and it takesprobably two or three years of a
church being really intentional, a staff being really
intentional, before it's like,okay, this is actually, this is.
This has a life of its ownright.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
It's actually, you know, from the ground up, not
just from the top down yeah,you're like this is who we
wanted to be and we maybe wewere some of those things or we
were all of them in some way,but like four years later,
you're like no, this is who weare, like we are doing things,
this is what you know goes onaround here.
Yeah, especially in anorganization that size, like
that sounds like you know it's abig ship.
Uh, creating change takes a lotof time and intentionality,
(21:09):
absolutely.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
And I think I'm working with an organization or
church right now in Canada thathas about 15 staff and I think
it doesn't matter the size ofthe staff.
The codify that, write some ofthat down and make sure that it
just continues for futuregenerations of team there.
Right, right.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
What about on the flip side?
How would a senior leader spotpoor culture or an unhealthy
like leadership team dynamic?
What are some of the signs thatsomeone would start to see so
they can kind of catch themearly?
Speaker 1 (22:00):
I'm a big believer in surveys and there's a bunch of
good culture surveys out there.
I really don't think it matters.
I mean, there are some bad onestoo, but I don't think it
matters so much which one youuse.
I think it's like good, use thesame one, like once a year or
something, okay that's a greatway.
It's not it's not the only way,but that's a great way to kind
(22:20):
of just, you know, take thetemperature of the culture in
and you know if you use the theright tool in an anonymous way
where people feel like theycouldn't, yes and so, uh, I mean
a couple couple that I likeVanderbilt, has one called the
Culture Tool which I was able tohelp put together when I was
working there.
There's an expensive one, but agood one is the Gallup Q12
(22:43):
survey that we used at Willow acouple times.
If anyone uses leader software,they have a tool built into the
software.
That's a fantastic uh uh,develop leadership development
software.
They have uh, uh built in there, um, taking a pulse on the
culture.
It's actually every month, sosomething like that, some kind
(23:05):
of a assessment tool, is a goodthing to have.
Um, and then I think you knowinformation flows downhill.
So, and then I thinkinformation flows downhill, so
leaders are usually the last tohear.
I remember when I was leading atGranger, the children's pastor
reported up to me and she had 13on her staff.
(23:25):
Most of them were part-time.
I think she maybe had two orthree full-time and the rest
were like 10 hours a week, kindof thing.
But, um, and she was, she ledup well.
So we come into one-on-ones,man, I thought everything was
fantastic.
And then I start hearing thingsand I'm like what's going on?
And I asked her about it andshe's like everything's great.
And then I hear, you know, fromsideways it's like man, you got
(23:46):
to figure that out Something'sgoing on over there and I I mean
, she'd been with us at thatpoint, maybe eight or nine years
and um, but some toxicity wasstarting to bubble up there and
I wasn't seeing it Cause I don't, I don't go to her meetings, I
don't, you know, I'm not in allthose classrooms, so I wasn't
seeing it and I wasn't hearingit.
And I think people generally,most people, are going to like
(24:07):
they don't want to complain,they don't want to look like
they're going around their bossto tell on their boss, you know
so.
But ultimately the thing justkind of exploded and she quit
and then we had to deal withthis and once she left and I
started getting engaged, it'slike, oh, my word, the toxicity
(24:30):
that it was.
Actually she was not onlyletting happen, but initiating
in some ways.
And so that's when and that wasboy, probably 15, maybe 20
years ago.
Um, that's since then.
It's like trying to figure out,like, how do I, how do I listen
to the people that are below theperson who's below the person
who's below me?
Um, and doing that in a fewdifferent ways.
So I'll give you some examples.
(24:50):
Um, that we did at Willow Oneis we do these surveys once a
year surveys and then I wouldrotate around and maybe one of
the other executive pastorsrotate around to every different
group, and there was, I think,the last time we did.
There's maybe 26 differentteams of five to 15 people and
we would rotate around to eachof those teams and just say, hey
(25:13):
, you took the survey.
That's great.
Here's some things we want toask you about.
This came out from your team.
Tell us more about that.
We really want to hear, wereally want to get this right,
(25:34):
to get them to the next time.
The second, third, fourth timeto like be super open was we
just went to the whole staffafter that cycle and just said,
hey, here's what we heard,here's where we're missed as
leaders of the church, here'swhere we're missing it and we
get you know, we're missing ithere, here and here, and here's
exactly what we're going to doto address this, because you're,
you're right, you know we suckat communication.
I think was one of them.
Uh, we haven't been very.
Um, uh, there was once one, oneof the surveys.
(25:58):
It was like it feels like, youknow, the leaders are kind of in
an ivory tower and there's therest of staff, so it's like we
got to break down those walls.
Here's the three or four thingswe're gonna do.
So like actually circling backso they feel like, oh man, they
heard right and they're doingsomething about it.
Um, then they're going to beopen to talk the next time and
you're going to be able to hearmore of that as a leader.
(26:21):
You just have to want to hearit.
I've worked for people whodon't want to hear it.
I'm in the number two chair andthe person in the number one
chair is like you can take asurvey if you want.
I do not want to see theresults.
I mean, you can only go so farwhen you're dealing with that.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, the surveys we do, um, it's called
like have you ever heard of npslike net promoter score?
Yeah, it's like.
It's definitely a thing in thesoftware world.
I'm not sure if it applies inother industries, but, um,
there's also a thing callede-nps, so it's like employee nps
.
Yeah, we do that.
(26:59):
Uh, I think we do it twice ayear and, uh, we, we started
that a couple years ago and Itotally like understand what
you're saying because we starteddoing it and the feedback you
get from that survey.
It's anonymous and then webucket things kind of like
themes, so I put the bookstogether based on it and, uh,
(27:20):
it's been really good and butyou need somebody who, uh, is
like very passionate about thatkind of work and good at doing
it on the team.
You know what I'm saying because, yeah, I wouldn't naturally do
that right as a leader.
That's not my.
I want to hear from people, butI'm not necessarily going to be
like, oh, let me go do thissurvey thing and then bring it
all together, but having aperson who's passionate about it
(27:43):
and runs it well has beenawesome.
It's been super valuable forthe whole organization and then
they help do what you'redescribing, where you got those
themes and you're like, okay, inthe next all hands, we do our
all hands, quarterly, the wholecompany.
But it's like we're gonna kindof read out what we heard and
what the common themes were andthen try to tie different things
(28:04):
we do throughout the year tolike, oh, we're responding this,
it was this thing from thefeedback, it's why we did x?
Um, you know, you try tocommunicate it.
Yeah, you know, I don't know ifwe're good at it yet, but it's
why, we
Speaker 1 (28:13):
did x um, you know you try to communicate it.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Yeah, you know, I don't know if we're good at it
yet, but it's definitely been auseful tool to try to help.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
You know yep, that intel and then take action on it
I I do think you need likeevery organization needs someone
who wakes up every day thinkingabout the health of the team
and the culture and it doesn'thave to be their only job, and
most, most organizations is notgoing be.
It's like you can't pay someonejust to do that, but it should
be a piece of their job becauseit takes tenacity to do the
(28:40):
surveys, to actually follow up.
It takes someone Becausechurches are busy and there's a
plan in the next week and a lotof times senior pastors it's not
the first thing on their mind,so they're going to continue to
kind of move on to what's nextbut someone who has that gift of
tenacity that can really makesure we're actually going to do
something about this.
One of the things that whenthey said we suck at
(29:04):
communication, they were right.
So it's like, okay, how do wefix that?
So we dug in a little bit toexactly you know where is the
communication lacking.
So one of it was that kind oflike distance between the
leadership team and, uh, thestaff.
So we just started every, Ithink once a month.
We started doing just open q a,bring your own lunch and ask
(29:26):
anything you want and theleadership team will be there
and ask anything you want.
And the first few times we hadto kind of like, uh, have a
couple of plants to ask somereally awkward questions, cause
we wanted them to get used tothe fact that it's okay.
So, like it's okay to ask what?
But seriously, ask whatever youwant.
We're not going to let you knowif you say why'd so-and-so get
(29:48):
fired.
We may not be able to tell youan HR thing yeah, of course, but
we'll answer everything we can.
Another thing was you knowthey're like these leadership
team meetings happen.
We just never know what'sdecided.
The information is not gettingcascaded very well.
So we started having someonesit in with us and just take
(30:10):
high-level notes and wepublished those for the whole
organization at the end of thatday and just said this is what
the leadership team these arethe topics they talked about in
any major decisions that youcouldn't put every single thing
in there, but you could put 90%of what we talked about in there
.
Yeah, yeah, there's big help.
Big help, for the people feltlike, okay, you're being more
transparent.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
So did you bring someone into the meeting that
was already?
Was it somebody on theleadership team, like hey,
you're responsible for, like,note-taking and organizing
whatever.
Or did you bring in, like youknow, an executive assistant or
somebody like that?
That was like you're in thesemeetings now because I need you
to just be our documenter ofyeah that was it.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
It was an executive assistant who we just had super
trust in her confidentiality andum.
She was a steel trap and, justyou know, was really super
helpful for us yeah, that's agreat idea.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
I love that.
Um, man, before you said that Iwas thinking about something
and it like just slipped my mind, uh, but happens to me all the
time yeah, you said another coolthing and I was like, oh,
that's a great idea.
I'm gonna start like, I'm gonnaLike, um, have someone come in
and kind of uh, was it the Q?
Speaker 1 (31:18):
and a, the Q and a or the, having someone wake up
every day thinking about the Qand a did you guys do?
Speaker 2 (31:26):
was that like a quarterly session where you
would do the open Q and a?
It was a monthly?
Oh, you did it every month.
And was it a portion of themeeting where you're like, okay,
20 minutes of the meeting is?
Speaker 1 (31:38):
open Q&A.
No, it was a standalone meeting.
It was a lunchtime, it wasbring your own lunch, totally
optional.
So at the time we were probablyhaving like 60 to 70 people out
of maybe 250 that would show upfor that and so, and we would
also take notes on that andpublish those notes for people
(32:00):
that wanted to be there andcouldn't.
But sometimes we would havelike, the first 10 minutes would
be some kind of information.
So we might say, hey, first 10minutes we're going to give you
an overview of next year'sbudget that we just landed Right
.
Or the first 10 minutes we'regoing to talk, you know,
difficult situation happening atsuch and such campus or
(32:22):
whatever.
But then it's open Q&A aboutanything you want to ask about.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Right, right, yeah, and I love those ideas and I
could keep going all day long.
Why don't you tell us a littlebit about Leading Smart and like
how folks you know?
You kind of gave us theoverview, but now that you're in
it, you've been kind of doingit full time for a year how do
people find out about you guysand kind of engage with you on
(32:48):
various leadership and teamtopics?
Speaker 1 (32:51):
Yeah, so pretty easy.
So leadingsmartcom you can gothere.
There's a button probably onjust about every page that says
let's talk, and if they clickthat they can get 15 or 20
minutes on my calendar and wecan talk and see if our team
could be a fit for them and kindof tool through the website to
see kind of the different thingsthat we're involved in.
(33:11):
I write an article just aboutevery Tuesday and put it out in
a newsletter so they can sign upfor that if they're interested
in that.
It's not a sales piece, it'sjust a thought leadership piece.
Yeah, Um, so yeah, I'd love to.
You know if someone'sinterested in the conversation.
Um, love to have thatconversation.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Do you do most of your work in person or do you
also do things kind of virtuallyin today's age?
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Yeah, it's a little bit.
It's a bit of both, but I'vegot like right now I've got six
(33:58):
churches that I'm with everymonth or every other site, or
maybe a day and a half, just toreally get to know that person
and their team and kind of gettheir context, and then it'll be
virtual monthly calls afterthat.
So a little bit of both, yeah,very cool.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Um, last thing I know you're coming to speak at the
modern church leader conference.
Uh, any any teaser on what youplan on talking about?
Speaker 1 (34:21):
Yeah.
So I'm going to dive into thisculture stuff and it's going to
be about a third kind of tellingthe story.
I'm going to just tell thestory of Willow Creek and kind
of what we walked in there onthe staff level, yeah, and then
kind of real tangible what wedid to actually turn things
(34:42):
around there and I say webecause it wasn't me, it was a
team that pulled together to dothat and then we'll have open
Q&A around it just to make sureit's really applicable for
people and their organizationsand their teams and I would say,
for folks coming.
Don't think it's like oh, thatdoesn't apply to me, because I
don't lead a church with 300staff.
Like, if you lead like an ITteam and you have, you know,
(35:06):
three volunteers on your staff,on your team, it still applies.
It's like culture matters, nomatter what size the team is and
whether people are paid orunpaid.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Yeah, yeah, I love that.
What's the biggest takeawayaround culture that you could
have someone remember, right, ifthey watch the podcast or come
to your session like somethingthat everybody can just like
take away and go like okay, I'mgoing to stick with this one.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
I would say culture is never static.
It doesn't stay the same.
It's either getting better orit's getting worse, and if
you're not intentional it'sabsolutely getting worse.
The only way to keep it gettingbetter is to be super
intentional about it, yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
I love that being intentional about culture is
also like super squishy, right.
So I love how you've given somepractical examples and things
that kind of help people grab onto it.
So, man, I appreciate the time.
Like I said, I could keep going, but uh, want to be respectful.
Thanks for jumping on the showtoday.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
Absolutely Looking forward to being there in
October.
The dates again are 16th.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
October, middle of October, I don't have a memory.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
I got to go to the website but that's a great venue
where you're you're holding it.
I was just there a couple weeksago.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
Um, it's a super great venue, so I'm excited to
be there it's a cool spot, easyto get in and out of um, we have
lots of customers and there'sobviously lots of churches all
around there.
So, uh, we're excited.
It's our first big event.
So we've done lots of regionalthings and little things and all
that.
But this year we were like,well, last year when we decided
we were like let's try to put ona bigger event and see if we
(36:44):
can, um, get some great speakerslike yourself and bring
together a community of churchesthat, uh, either use Tidely
products or don't, but kind ofbring that community together Um
, just cause we, you know, weserve almost 40,000 churches
around the world.
So if we can get a bunch ofusers together to fellowship and
also get some great content andlearn some other things too,
(37:05):
it'd be be a phenomenal show.
So we're doing our best.
We'll see how it goes.
Yep, that's awesome, lookingforward to it.
Oh, good times.
Tim, thanks for coming on theshow.
Guys, thanks for listening intoday.
Give the show a like, give it acomment.
We're always reading all thoseand we will see you next week on
another episode of ModernChurch Leader.
Bye-bye.
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