Recruit, Inspire & Retain

Character — Do Your Staff Have It?

See how many you can pick out in this story from the Houston Chronicle:
"Itzhak Perlman, the violinist, came on stage to give a concert at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City. If you have ever been to a Perlman concert, you know that getting on stage is no small achievement for him. He was stricken with polio as a child, and so he has braces on both legs and walks with the aid of two crutches. To see him walk across the stage one step at a time, painfully and slowly, is an unforgettable sight. He walks painfully, yet majestically, until he reaches his chair. Then he sits down, slowly, puts his crutches on the floor, undoes the clasps on his legs, tucks one foot back and extends the other foot forward. Then he bends down and picks up the violin, puts it under his chin, nods to the conductor and proceeds to play.

By now, the audience is used to this ritual. They sit quietly while he makes his way across the stage to his chair. They remain reverently silent while he undoes the clasps on his legs. They wait until he is ready to play. But this time, something went wrong. Just as he finished the first few bars, one of the strings on his violin broke. You could hear it snap -it went off like gunfire across the room. There was no mistaking what that sound meant. There was no mistaking what he had to do. People who were there that night thought to themselves: "We figured that he would have to get up, put on the clasps again, pick up the crutches and limp his way off stage - to either find another violin or else find another string for this one."

But he didn't. Instead, he waited a moment, closed his eyes and then signaled the conductor to begin again. The orchestra began, and he played from where he had left off. And he played with such passion and such power and such purity as they had never heard before. Of course, anyone knows that it is impossible to play a symphonic work with just three strings. I know that, and you know that, but that night Itzhak Perlman refused to know that. You could see him modulating, changing, recomposing the piece in his head. At one point, it sounded like he was de-tuning the strings to get new sounds from them that they had never made before.

When he finished, there was an awesome silence in the room. And then people rose and cheered. There was an extraordinary outburst of applause from every corner of the auditorium. We were all on our feet, screaming and cheering, doing everything we could to show how much we appreciated what he had done. He smiled, wiped the sweat from this brow, raised his bow to quiet us, and then he said, not boastfully, but in a quiet, pensive, reverent tone, "You know, sometimes it is the artist's task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left."

What a powerful line that is. It has stayed in my mind ever since I heard it. And who knows? Perhaps that is the [way] of life - not just for artists but for all of us. It is a reminder that often our self-limiting beliefs and assumptions prevent us from making music with our gifts, talents, abilities, passions, and experiences – and using these requires all 6 areas of character. – Jack Riemer, Houston Chronicle

"Training is important for staff and for those served. Unfortunately, we as leaders are often convinced that our staff simply "know what to do." The fact is that we are wrong! Many of our staff are crying out for help. Some of those we serve are crying out too as they receive less than our best service and support.

Here is part of the Envoy story. Hopefully it will encourage you, challenge you and raise the standard for all of us as we serve our various ministry groups.

The issue of training, or perhaps the lack of it, was brought to Envoy’s attention in two ways, both by our staff. First, we had more turnover than we thought healthy. Getting new staff up to speed was often a six month or more process. This was an expensive process and we were heartbroken when someone left. We knew that another 6 month investment lay ahead of us. Time consuming, somewhat frustrating, and certainly a drain on ministry resources was the reality.

We were thinking of hiring a consultant to help us evaluate the situation when we became aware of the internal survey available through the Best Christian Workplaces program. For a nominal cost our staff would be surveyed, their privacy assured and the feedback would be crisp and clear. We signed up and made it available to our staff to complete. Our staff was willing to provide insightful feedback because the process was Internet efficient and totally confidential. Then we received the written and oral feedback.

One important feedback component was their frustration with their lack of knowledge, lack of understanding, about how they fit into the work of the total ministry. We also learned that they thought the jobs too difficult to perform well with the training they received. They too thought the learning curve too steep and the process too long. They commented, ‘We want to do a great job, but need more help to do it.’ Another commented, ‘Please help us to be more productive sooner.’ We did not expect either response but it rang true right away.

One of the outputs of this survey process is to be part of the database to select the top Christian Workplaces in the country. Needless to say, with the issues raised, we were not listed among those top workplaces. I was concerned and our Executive Director, Bethany Palmer was upset. One of Bethany's great assets is that when faced with a challenge, she is not happy until the issue is addressed, a plan of action identified, and the solution implemented. She made these results her management issue and determined to take whatever action required, even if massive, to solve it.

Progress needs a champion and change requires one. Bethany proceeded to actively interview and invest significant sit-time with a number of staff as they performed their jobs. As one staff position was not filled, she adopted a hands-on -- her hands-on -- approach to determining what was needed for that position, what training did exist, and most importantly what training did not. I believe her exact quote was, ‘Bruce, I'm totally shocked and blown away.’ The tools to train were sparse, the information anecdotal, it was also general and not specific. As a matter of fact, it sometimes conflicted with other activities in the ministry. We had carefully compartmentalized our ministry positions. Bethany learned that while a compartmentalized approach is an efficient one, it is seriously flawed if each department is not really clear about how it impacts the work flow of other departments. Further, if each person does not truly understand both the Big Ministry Picture as well as the key details of their own position, frustration is the only reasonable result. With a clear picture in front of her, now the issue was ‘what to do’?

The practical reality of having to train a new staff person for that vacant position provided the impetus to find the solution. Bethany started by making a complete and detailed list of what the position required. This then became the outline of what the new person was going to need to know in order to ‘learn’ the new job.

She was amazed at the complexity, and kept sending me copies of an ever expanding list of topics. I think my comment was, ‘when does the list stop?’ I remember the day she called and said she thought she knew the answer to how many topics to include, it was 72. ‘Seventy two!,’ I remember exclaiming. ‘How are you going to train on all of these?’ Her answer was, ‘I'm not sure, it seems like a lot, but that is what’s needed, just for this one position.’ I certainly was sure I was not excited about the potential impact of those last five words, ‘Just for this one position.’

She called again a few days later with the next insight. ‘I think we can use PowerPoint with voice over to present the training material. One PowerPoint presentation for each of the subjects they need to learn.

I asked, ‘How will we know they have really learned the material?’ She replied, ‘A quiz after each presentation will make sure the learning is taking place, and a discussion after each broad area will allow feedback for both of us. Maybe we will need an application section as part of the training too.’

Without stretching the story out too long, Bethany literally dove into the project. She learned everything there was to know about the position. This hands-on approach allowed her to understand where the position activities can be streamlined and made more efficient. Also, she discovered where there was position overlap

Further insights came as she moved from one department and position to another. She learned that many of the issues were the same and the solutions were too. Along the way she also identified the Building Block approach. The Building Block approach of moving from the Global - 30,000 foot view - to the Large Area - 10,000 foot view, to the Departmental and then to the Job Specific - 10,000 feet was a key insight. It solved the problem of each department understanding the Big Picture as well as the role of departments as they interface with each other. This solution required Total Ministry training for all. Then the 20,000 foot view for all in each division. When completed there are over 900 training modules covering our total ministry. Fortunately no one person, other than Bethany, had to connect with all of them. But it was clearly important for each current staff member to connect with all that relate to them, from the Global to the Specific.

To accomplish this ministry wide transformation, we then undertook a ministry wide program of having each staff member learn with approximately 4 modules per week and answer a brief quiz about each of them. This took about 22 weeks to fully implement. It goes with saying that this was a major ministry-wide commitment!

At that, Bethany personally reviewed each quiz and commented where appropriate. This was a further commitment to completing the task and implementing the solution. A champion crosses the finish line. It was only by insisting that each person participate that we had any chance of seriously impacting our culture. Bethany asked me for my full support of this effort, and she gladly got it.

We now have almost 900 ministry training PowerPoint presentations with voice over. I'd like to say she is done, but there are about 60 more to do. Will the project ever be over? Not likely. There are always new subjects and new understanding of old subjects. However, I believe we can now ‘declare victory’.

Does a positive and happy staff, reduced turnover, increased efficiency, better client or participant service and decreased costs sound like a good enough result? Let me tell you how the story plays out:

Happy Staff: Walking around our offices today is a sheer joy. An ‘excited, ministry engaged, and hard-working staff’ are the observations offered by others who come to see how we implement our ministry systems. As a leader, ministry is now more fun and seems to reflect the ‘heart of God’ in all that we do. Those signs of frustration are mostly gone. Too short a day seems to be the cause of any that are left, or when the server goes down, or the contact software we use needs to be reconfigured. A recent visitor asked, ‘How do you develop a staff with such positive attitudes?’ My answer is, ‘God created them and we support and train them!’

Better Service: Our staff has better answers to more questions than ever before. They have a new confidence that they can quickly find out the answer if they do not know it. Whether it is the CMO (Christian Ministry Organization) department dealing with the hundreds of Christian Ministry Organizations we serve or the CMP (Christian Ministry Professional or Participant) department dealing with the thousands of Christian Ministry Participants, they all have a great sense of Total Ministry. In addition, they have an understanding of all the departments who serve a similar part of the marketplace, the different functions within their department, or their specific job.

Reduced Turnover: Now when someone does leave our ministry, it is for positive reasons in their life, rather than frustration with their job. They evidence being truly sorry to leave, and we are hearing the language of longer term commitments by those who are with us.

Increased Efficiency: In one department we had a 20% solution rate. It is now closer to 80% and it is heading toward the 90%, our goal. In another, we had resistance to 25 calls a week completed, and now are handling 35 with greater ease than 20 before.

Decreased Cost: Under our old model, loosely defined, it would take a good 6 months to get someone up to speed. At least what we thought was ‘up to speed’. Now we see new staff performing effectively, certainly with some more to learn from practical experience, at the 2 month mark.

We know that the definition of ministry is ‘changed lives’. Our external goal is to change people’s vision of personal stewardship and provide the practical tools to do it. We did not realize that there was an additional group of people whose lives needed changing too, those of our staff. We now realize in a new way, that the role of our ministry is to encourage staff and provide the tools allowing them to impact others.

Our training, using current and easy to use technology and a passion for ‘changing lives’ has played itself out in so many positive ways in our ministry. Hopefully, our story will encourage you in your leadership position at your ministry.

I almost forgot to mention: As a result of the latest internal audit using the Best Christian Workplaces, we were selected as one of top 40 Christian places to work in the country. An amazing turnaround, thanks to Bethany and our staff, and to God be the Glory, great things He has done!"

Keeping Tech Workers Motivated Keeps Them

Tech staff need to be included in decisions that affect their jobs
"Businesses experience knowledge inversion—people who work on technology know more about it than their managers do," Glen notes, "so excluding people from decisions is insulting and distracting."

Tech staff need consistency
Of course, this is Management 101: It's always a bad idea to send changing or mixed messages. But technology workers are particularly bothered by any kind of inconsistency, because they spend their time interacting with computers, which, by definition, should behave logically and predictably. An unexpected or varying response indicates that something is wrong—and must be fixed. "Tech staff are problem-solvers by nature," Glen says. "Present them with inconsistency, and you become a problem that needs to be solved. Essentially, you're a bug."

Tech staff need autonomy
"Tech staff find being managed too closely appalling, for two reasons," Glen explains. "First, it indicates distrust of their professionalism and skills, both of which they take great pride in. Second, because of the nature of technical work, frequent monitoring can be counterproductive. Research shows that, depending on the work, it can take anywhere from 30 minutes to3 hours to get back on track after an interruption."

Tech staff need to be better businesspeople
This may be the most difficult principle, because it is the only one tech staff themselves are likely to resist. But it's essential, both for their careers and for the health of the organization.

"Certain aspects of technology are dissimilar to other types of jobs, but I'm not a big believer that IT can continue to treat itself as completely different," says Diane Morello, vice president and research director at Gartner. "We need to get to the point where IT is so integrated in the business that it doesn't hold itself out as separate."

"Some people believe that 15 or 20 years from now, IT and business will be indistinguishable in some areas," she says. In today's typical IT organization, she notes, perhaps 20% of employees are highly knowledgeable about business. She believes that this number needs to grow to 40 or 50% in the next 10 years.

Business executives need to gain an understanding of, and interest in, technology
One of the greatest demotivators for tech staff, Glen notes, is when they perceive an organizational lack of interest in the work they do. "If you tell me that the project I'm working on is important but it takes me 6 months to get an appointment with the executive overseeing its use, that sends a very bad message," Glen says.

Tech staff need to know the greater meaning of their work
Sometimes engineers get so engrossed in the facts of what they're doing that they lose sight of the larger context, Glen says. It's important to help them gain more of an overall view. This can help them make wiser decisions on the ground (for instance, whether adding a new feature is worth a delay in delivering a project). And it can give them a real morale boost.