Refine: Leading Through People

Introduction

My name is David Ashworth and I am the Discipleship Pastor here at the Experience. Before that, I was a programmer in I.T. for 20 years. I spent 8 1/2 of those years as an I.T. Manager working for an international ministry. As a manager, over an 8 1/2 year period, we lost only three people, one because of personal issues, one moved and one retired.

Everyone else stayed over that time period and our team in the ministry became the one that people wanted to work in. I remember when my boss interviewed someone wanting to transfer from another position in the organization to our team as an assistant, the young lady made the comment during the interview, “The only team I want to transfer to is the I.T. Department, otherwise, I’d rather stay the receptionist.”

That conversation blew my mind because people outside of our department noticed our team, and we started to see why. The new CEO decided that our organization was going to be part of the “Best Christian Workplaces” effort to raise morale in our organization. So the entire organization took the test. The lowest setting was here… and as an organization, we were here. So it was easy to see why our team was standing out.

And honestly, I won’t sit here and tell you that our team was great because of me. It was because of my boss, who himself had become a father figure to me. I managed the software side and we had a hardware manager and a projects manager. So in this, I wanted to understand how he did what he did. How did he help us become a good team?

*To have a great team, it takes a group of people willing to be a team, but that will never happen until a leader fosters an environment of teamwork.

You will see the absence of this in organizations easily because there will be silos between departments and people when the environment is unhealthy. Some level of the organization is not working well as a team.

My boss served his boss, his fellow directors and he served his team. To do all three effectively, there had to be balance. He could easily put one over the other, but he did not. He kept a balance between the three.

*A great team begins with a leader who maintains the balance between people and mission.

My boss knew the balance of getting the job done and bringing the people along with him to do it. At the team level, He knew everything about us personally and was flexible with our personal needs, but he didn’t compromise the mission or his peers to do so.

When this becomes imbalanced at the team level, it becomes obvious:

1. *When a team is too people focused, people will love the job they work at, but it will show in the work they avoid. Deadlines are missed (or avoided) and the job is considered easy before it is considered to have purpose. People try to look busy rather than be busy. People have no real reason to stay, but they do because it’s easy and it pays, but they eventually look for another job with more purpose.

2. *When a team is too mission focused, the normal operation of a team is often overwhelmed, under-appreciated or considered, there is high turnover, deadlines are missed (because of volume), lack of training is always an issue because of the turnovers, profits and corporation goals are more important than people, higher people in the organization compete for position and lower people feel hopeless and former employees describe your workplace as a “meat market” or “slave labor”.

If you look back at the teams you have been a part of, I bet you can remember some of these attributes in bad environments.

Here’s the thing, good teams don’t just happen in multimillion dollar ministries. They happen in churches, in department stores and even in retail… fast food...

I worked in Donelson for awhile and there was an Arby’s there (yes, I like fine dining), but there were two managers there every weekday at lunch and since I went there on a regular basis, it was a lot of the same people.

I loved going in there and noticed that while everyone was busy, they were happy. It may not be the job they ended up with, but every time I went in there, service was incredibly quick. The two ladies managing the team were out front. They were an example to the others, they celebrated wins and it was good for a season.

But, I found out that they had better jobs lined up for them. That store had done so well that they were moved up. And to be honest, the managers that came behind them did not do as well. Service went down.

*What you build up in little jobs will be utilized in bigger opportunities.

The teams they built, built them. I don’t care how good you are as an individual at your job, most jobs need people to grow. Pastors alone may effectively disciple up to 200 people, but after that, they need help to grow.

A manager needs a team, most businesses need people. If you own your own business, you will peak at the limitations of your own time and abilities unless you invest in people.

Some wait to understand managing teams until they have a need for one, but those people usually make the worst team leaders.

You can be great at what you do, but it doesn’t make you a great leader of people. If you are good at what you do, there will be a place where you peak and you will either dilute yourself and be bad overall or you will have a team. For most people...

*If you are successful in your field, you will eventually create the need for a team in what you do.

So what does it take to have and keep a great team? I’m going to give you a few things to look for if you are a leader and a few things to look for in being part of a great team. Some of this is what I’ve studied and others are what I learned as a leader.

*Team Attributes

Every team has a unique dynamic and each person contributes to that dynamic, but in this there are attributes that have to be present and managed for a team to be effective and thriving.

I want to take a few minutes and go over a few dynamics and you will find yourself good at some of these and not as good at others.

*People on a team will demonstrate

Passion

Capability

Communication

Endurance

Trust

Passion: The desire and commitment you have to your role and to your team.

The presence of both role AND team is important because just being popular isn’t enough and merely doing your job while not caring about others ends up being selfish.

Healthy passion in a team is a balance of both role and people. It’s also both desire and commitment.

There will be days when your passion for your job is great because you enjoy what you do and the people you work with. Some days, it will take commitment. It will have nothing to do with what you feel, but it will have everything to do with your commitment.

*Work ethic is the ability to do what you need to do only because you said you would.

A bad work ethic will show in people over time because the areas they don’t like will be neglected, even though they will do well in the areas of their job that they love.

No matter how much you like your job, there will be things about it that you do not like. Some pastors like counseling more than teaching. Some ministers or volunteers like one part of their ministry or not another. A person may love one aspect of their job but hate another part of it.

A leader will learn a person’s work ethic by how they approach the things they don’t like to do.

*True passion for your work may originate in your feelings, but it is completed in your commitment.

Mature passion understands both the emotions and the work behind the position.

Sometimes, you will be passionate about your job because of what you are doing, sometimes, passion will exist because of the people you work for. Passion finds its greatest manifestation when both purpose and people exist in your calling.

*A great leader will manifest both team and purpose in a person by creating an environment worth working in.

*A great team member will only work long term in an environment where they can offer a mature passion to a team.

Capability: The natural and learned skills one possesses for a purpose.

This sounds like a no-brainer, but people violate this in so many ways.

How many of you have read resumes of people that sound amazing and when they show up for work, they have no clue how to do what they said they can do?

I remember a coworker of mine who called me one night and invited me over to dinner. He had a few questions and wanted to talk to me. He’d never invited me over to dinner before. He was a salesman and they didn’t associate with programmers much, but I agreed and came over.

He told me that he applied for a network administrator job and knew nothing about network administration, but he had a book the size of a phone book (Do people still use those?) and was reading. He had landed the job (that he knew nothing about) and had two days to learn how to be an admin.

Guess what happened? A month later, he abandoned the job, disappeared and left his employer high and dry.

*Being truthful about who we are will allow us to find a job that we can do.

Don’t fluff your resume to find a job you want but can’t do. Allow God to use you for who you really are where you are really at.

*Choosing a job you are not capable of will only hurt the organization you work for or the people you work with.

If you cannot do your job, others have to help you and the team suffers. You lose respect from others and you actually pull from a team rather than contribute to it.

I’ve seen teams compensate for poor hires and poor performance and trust suffers when this happens.

*A great leader will foster an environment of learning. When is the last time you sent someone to training, offered material to read?

Leaders, where are you leading your team in the area of capability? Your workers may be able to do their job, but can they do it better with more skills, better leadership, better team building?

*Investment in the capability of a person is an investment in the person.

*A great team member will commit to doing any job to the best of their current potential and invest in their future potential.

In a team environment, this is not just about self advancement, but also team performance. With the right perspective,

*A learning person not only grows themselves, but they grow their team.

When capability is considered highly in the organization, people are committed to growth and leaders commit to grow them.

*A team member with a team focus will not only grow in their field, but also in their organizational skills.

A team must be organized and it will take people capable of organization to mobilize and perform as a team. When a team member learns organization, they also learn how to work with a team.

Communication: The ability to communicate, coordinate and operate effectively within a team environment.

I have met incredibly talented people in my life that had no real ability to work with others. They did not communicate effectively or in an organized fashion.

They were great in their field, but we would never show them to clients and they rarely contributed anything to a team. They “did the job”, but they hurt the team potential.

*When a team member is known as a poor communicator, teams work around that person rather than with them.

It is easy to see this in organizations because people don’t want to work with that person on projects or tasks.

Sometimes, communication happens poorly in another way. Sometimes there are too many meetings and they last too long and people complain because they don’t accomplish anything or very little.

*Communication is most effective on a team when it is concise.

Many of you have seen it. A person goes to tell their boss what is happening, or they email their boss a ten page document that they never read. It’s too much information and they don’t really listen.

It’s because a boss is managing multiple projects and doesn’t need to know all the details the person knows.

*Effective communicators learn to communicate at the level of the person’s involvement, not their own involvement.

It’s easier to see in the programming world because when a programmer tells a business owner all the specifics, it’s like watching an American trying to understand dolphin…

*For the leader, it’s fostering and enforcing an environment of open communication that is concise and intentional. A standard of communication becomes a requirement for all team members. But this begins with one concept:

*The leader that fosters great communication is the one who listens.

Nothing devalues a team member more than being ignored. The leader that grows a team is a leader that knows their team. They listen, respond and take action based on team input.

*A leader who ignores communication removes the voice of their team.

Even when you are busy, you cannot be too busy to listen. You cannot be too busy to teach your team how to communicate.

*You must be willing to show the value of communication in your attention.

*For the team member, it’s learning how to communicate best with the team. It’s understanding what doesn’t work and what does. Did the message get across or was it ignored?

Communication is best when a leader creates a standard and a value for communication and the team member commits to communicate to the standard of the team.

Endurance: The amount of effort over time a person can maintain in their work.

You will see this out of balance when people quit just because they are tired. Your work place is known as a sweat shop and the door revolves because the work is too much. People talk about being tired on a regular basis...

*When a leader ignores the endurance of a team, they send the message that they do not care about their people.

When leaders do not know the work their team does or the hours the team puts in, the team will feel devalued by their leader.

A leader must attempt to create a healthy work environment as normal operation. Seasons and projects will come that will cause a team to work hard, but those seasons are not the norm, they are the exception.

*When normal seasons of work are healthy, difficult seasons become team builders, not detractors.

When there is a normal pace to return to, a team supports each other and grows in difficult seasons but the return to normal becomes a win.

*When the normal endurance of a team is healthy, difficult seasons become opportunities to face obstacles together.

*For the leader, creating a pace that builds the endurance of the team promotes strategic thinking and a healthy environment. When busy seasons come, those seasons challenge a team to rise to the occasion instead of the threat of instability.

The leader that recognizes the amount of work a person does recognize the value of their contribution to the team.

*For the team member, recognizing your limitations, not in your capability, but in your actual ability to do something sends the right message to your team. There are things we are capable of doing, but then there are things we actually have time for. Team members have to be willing to do the most important thing on their plate first. It will mean saying ‘no’ to the wrong thing.

Trust: The ability to trust your team members both in ethics and capability.

First and foremost, the team must be able to trust the leader. The leader must be a leader worth following and that begins with trust.

*A leader that is committed to trust will create a culture of trust.

A trustworthy leader will earn trust from others and attract people who long to be in an environment where trust exists.

Any relationship whether business or personal will begin with trust and trust will have its impact.

*Trust speeds up progress, priority and minimizes steps needed to get things done.

When a client has a relationship with its vendor and the vendor has performed well and given great prices, new projects come with less questions, less paperwork and there is a higher priority between businesses with relationships built on trust.

When a leader trusts their people, they will trust things to get done with less oversight and team members get things done quicker with less needed accountability.

*When a leader creates an environment of trust, team members feel like they are valued and needed in the team.

Think of it like this, if a leader constantly has to check on a person, even if they are being efficient, what message do they send? A team member will not feel trusted and even worse, they will feel like they are not trustworthy.

*Trust will always precede good working relationships and contribute to team performance.

*For the leader: Creating an environment of trust creates an environment of performance. The benefits compound when trust is present on a team. In an environment of trust created by the leader, the team learns to trust each other. Those who violate this stand out in an environment of trust.

*For the team member: Embracing a vision of trust is important. A team member will contribute to or sabotage an environment of trust. Be willing to get the things done you say will get done when you said they will be done. Hold a value of ethics in your work and place your team above yourself.

If you live in an environment where a team puts each other first, you will give people the opportunity to do this for you as well and you will work with a team that puts you first because you are putting them first.

A time came with my boss where our team was tested. We were forced to deploy an upgrade to our membership application that a vendor built. We knew it wasn’t ready, but our CEO forced us to deploy it even though we begged him not to. Because we migrated data to the new application, we could not migrate it back...

In other words, once we pulled the trigger, we could not revert back… we were stuck. The membership app was deployed and the page load times were a minute and a half to 2 minutes per page… Imagine going to a website that took 2 minutes to load? Would you go there?

Saying that our membership was upset was an understatement. They were calling for our jobs and our heads… When it was said and done, our team met and came up with a plan to save our organization and membership. We were the object of aggression at membership meetings and the punch line to jokes, even though we had tried everything in our power to stop it.

We could have all run. We were I.T. professionals and we could have found other jobs and moved on, but everyone stayed. We didn’t do it specifically for the membership that was trying to crucify us, but this was a ministry. We stayed because of our love for God and our love for each other.

We spent months, working 12 to 14 hour days 6 or 7 days a week. It was grueling, but the team was good. We deployed the new app and the pages loaded under 8 seconds instead of 2 minutes. We had a meeting and the CEO, in front of everyone, commended our boss and hugged him.

Someone got a picture and every desktop was the “man hug” between our boss and CEO… our boss shook his head at us often. I remember leaving at 5pm for the first time in over half a year and had no clue what it meant to see sunlight walking to my car.

You see, we were a team. I left that job only because God called me here and I’ve visited my old team and my old boss and we talk about what God had done through all of us in that season. Even on staff now, our team pulls off Worship Nights that take so much out of us, but we have big wins, sacrifice, struggles and our team is a good team.

The struggle validates the strength that exists.

If you are a leader, be the leader your team needs you to be. If you are a team member, be the person the people around you need you to be and allow yourself to depend on, and walk with, a team that makes a difference.

“When you’re surrounded by people who share a passionate commitment around a common purpose, anything is possible.” – HOWARD SCHULTZ