What Are Our Mutual Expectations?
Have you ever done the exercise where you, the pastor, have members of the governing board write down what they expect you to do and indicate roughly how many hours a week (or month) they expect you to spend on that activity. For example, a person might put "Sermon preparation - 10 hrs/wk., pastoral calling - 5 hours/week, etc. Give people about 5 minutes to do this and then compile the results. Almost always the expectations are all over the map and total well over 100 hours a week. And the members of the board laugh.
Then get serious. Ask them to identify their top four priorities - those things they really want you to emphasize in the coming year. A technique I like is to put the top 10-15 responsibilities on separate sheets of paper and then ask people to write their name on four of these sheets. You can prepare a number of typical expectations in advance (e.g. sermon and worship preparation and leadership, conflict resolution, evangelism) and add additional ones that emerge.
Then have a conversation about what they see. If the church has done a recent mission/vision study, reflect on how what they indicated correlates with the priorities identified in the mission/vision process.
In a terrific book on communication, Made to Stick - Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, Chip Heath and Dan Heath stress the importance of keeping communication simple. They quote Colonel Tom Kolditz, head of the behavioral sciences division at West Point. "No plan survives contact with the enemy." While it's essential to plan, anticipating what might happen and how to implement the plan, the key is in being clear about your intent. "At the tactical level, for colonels and captains, it is...concrete: "My intent is to have Third Battalion on Hill 4305, to have the hill cleared of the enemy, with only ineffective remnants remaining, so we can protect the flank of Third Brigade as they pass through the lines." They call this "Commander's Intent." (pp. 25-26)
The key goal for pastor and leaders is to clarify the top priorities for you as pastor. You can't do everything well. Discuss what emphasizing these top 4-6 things might mean for what you will and won't do.
What will achieving these top priorities look like? For example, they might say that the most important thing is for you to talk with lots of people and that by the end of your first year, you will have had conversations with 75% of the active members. Or perhaps you're moving into your 6th year in a church and together you've decided that you must get a strong small group program going. Then the priority might be that you research into what makes church small group programs really work well and that within four months you have recommendations for an approach to developing a small group ministry.
Request that they pass a motion naming these priorities and that the appropriate lay leader communicate these priorities to the congregation through varied media (e.g. newsletter, email, oral announcement).
Depending on the trust level in the congregation, it might be wise to have some town meetings to discuss them and invite members to suggest priorities that have been missed. Be alert to those who especially resonate with particular emphases. Perhaps they could help lead the effort.
Ask the Personnel Committee to adapt its appraisal instrument to reflect these priorities.
By having mutually arrived at priorities, the Board can guard your blind side. Should members complain that you aren't focusing on something near and dear to them, then you or a Board member can simply point out that this wasn't one of the top priorities.
Obviously this doesn't mean that you simply ignore something quite important, e.g. preaching good sermons, but if you're already preaching good sermons and the Board and you have decided that pastoral care for the elderly or getting out in the community and meeting neighbors are more important, then you maintain quality in your sermons but give special attention to the priorities.
If there is an area in which you really need to grow, you might use Marshall Goldsmith's Feed-foward process. I wrote about it in my January 2010 newsletter. Here's the url for that newsletter:
http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs032/1102564328120/archive/1102934200919.html
If you'd like some coaching to help you develop a process to set clearer priorities with your Board and congregation, please send me an email or give me a call.I'd love to talk with you. Call or email me. We can set up a demonstration coaching session.
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Here's to healthy churches - with healthy leaders! |