|
|
Friends and Colleagues,
In my two previous
newsletters I introduced you to Patrick Lencioni's Five Dysfunctions of a Team.
I asked you if members of your leadership team (staff and lay leaders)
trust one another and know how to fight effectively? If you and your fellow leaders have built a
deep sense of trust and know how to deal with differences, then you're ready to
move on. See the main article below.
The other article
describes a handy tool for you to assess your leaders and to clarify your approach to helping them lead.
My goal is to help
pastors be better leaders. If you find
something here that's helpful, great!
Please forward it to a friend.
(and if you do so, please do it with the forward button on this
newsletter - that helps reduce spam!).
Should you be
interested in some coaching, please get in touch. Send me an email or give me a call. I'd love to explore possibilities.
I hope you had a good summer.
Peace,
Bob
|
|
Building an Effective
Leadership Team: Steps 3 & 4 - Achieving Commitment and Mutual
Accountability
Patrick
Lencioni, in his book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team identifies five
characteristics of dysfunctional teams:
- Lack of personal
commitment
If you didn't receive the newsletters in which I dealt with the first two dysfunctions, please email me and I'll send them to you.
What's next? Lack
of personal commitment.
Ever been in a meeting where the group
seems to decide something and one or more members of the group say something like "I guess that's ok for
the church to do, but I think I'm busy that day"? Or if they don't say it with words, they do
so with their actions? I certainly
have encountered this behavior.
So how do you make sure that leaders are
committed to a common course of action?
Lencioni suggests that there are two dimensions to this: buy-in and
clarity. First, it's critical that every
member of the team has input as you discuss the issue. Make sure that people ask whatever questions
they have and express any concerns. And
be very clear about what it is that you are deciding. Who is going to do what? How will you know whether you've done
it?
I'll never forget
Charles, who chaired a committee in my first church out of seminary. At the conclusion of every meeting he would
quickly go around the table and summarize who had agreed to do what. This exercise, which took all of 2-3 minutes,
clarified ownership and commitment.
One important
distinction needs to be made at this point: commitment is not the same as consensus. Lencioni declares that "Waiting for
everyone on a team to agree intellectually on a decision is a good recipe for
mediocrity, delay, and frustration...
Commitment is about a group of intelligent, driven individuals buying in
to a decision precisely when they don't
naturally agree. In other words, it's
the ability to defy a lack of consensus." (Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team, p. 51 ). The key in getting commitment is everyone
having the chance to ask questions, express opinions, and generally believe
he/she has been heard.
Mutual Accountability
Once a team
achieves a sense of commitment to its decisions, what next? It's important that members of the team hold
each other accountable for actions.
For
example, in a church the Christian Education chairperson might say to the
Worship Chair something like: "Hey Joe, three months ago, you said that you
were going to find some ways of involving youth in worship leadership. When do you anticipate that happening? I think it's really important."
Additionally, the
pastor and other leaders will need to hold each other accountable for
behavior. I consulted with a church
where some members of the governing board attended worship infrequently, in
what was clearly passive-aggressive behavior .
When I asked the pastor about this behavior, the pastor gave me a
helpless look.
What methods have
you found that hold people responsible for subversive or other non-helpful
behavior?
? I have found that sometimes
simply describing what I see to be very helpful. "Jim, I'm puzzled. You said that you agreed with this decision
and yet I hear that you are actively speaking against it during coffee hour. What's up?
Did we not adequately consider your concerns? What do the rest of you on the Board
think?"
I encourage you to
get and read The Five Dysfunctions of a
Team and the companion workbook.
Call or email me
if you'd like me to coach you as you build up your leadership team. I'd love to work with you.
|
Assessing Competence and Commitment
The
Competence/Commitment grid is a helpful little tool to assess the abilities of
your leaders. The vertical axis measures competence, the
horizontal measures commitment. (imagine the axes below - I couldn't figure out how to show them)
High Competence
Low High Commitment Commitment
Optimally every
leader will be highly competent and highly committed! Such a leader simply needs a
cheer-leader. However, I've never served
in a church filled with such folks.
What approaches
have you used to lead those in the other quadrants? What training is helpful for the
enthusiastic new officer who doesn't know the ropes? What might motivate the tired old-timer who
knows a lot, but needs to get going? And
what about the person who is neither motivated nor competent - someone elected
perhaps because nobody else would say "yes''? How can you minimize their impact while
leading them to deeper commitment?
I have found this
tool helpful as I have assessed the leaders in a congregation. May it help you too.
|
|
Future Issues (monthly)- Getting Results - what's important
- Personnel Appraisals
|
|
I hope you have found this newsletter informative and helpful. Please subscribe to continue receiving it (or unsubscribe to stop). If you'd like to explore coaching, please email or call me.
|
Bob
Robert Harris
Harris Coaching and Consulting
|
|
|
