Staff meetings. You may not conduct them every week, but when you do lead meetings, do it wisely.
For us, they typically happen weekly, although we adjust it to fit the current reality. We may not have a staff gathering if a few staff people are on vacation (for example). If we cannot fulfill our reasons for having them, then we don’t have them. This means that every meeting has a purpose and should fulfill at least one of the three key elements to help us (and you) move your ministry or organization forward.
Some (maybe most?) leaders conduct staff meetings because they think they should have staff meetings, and don’t really know what they are supposed to be doing, other than touching base. Many people report they are a waste of time and energy. On occasions when I am invited to a staff meeting and see several staff with laptop screens facing forward…and later see their screens viewing Corvettes or sending emails, it’s obvious that their expectations for this meeting in their organization is very low.
The staff meetings I lead have three elements. Three purposes. Three principles that undergird our gatherings: information, formation & transformation. One staff meeting might be heavier in one area than the others, but…over time…we balance all three.
Element #1: Information.
This is what usually comes to mind when people think about a staff meeting. We peruse our numbers from the previous week. These include the “how many” of everything we do: Pregnancy Resource Center, Community Kitchen, Vision Clinic, Dental Clinic, Food Pantry, Tutoring, Volunteer Hours, In-Kind Donations, Work Days, Block Parties, attendances, finances and in-kind donations.
We also count “Engagements”. An “engagement” is a spiritual engagement. Each time a staff person or volunteer “shared the gospel, prayed with a community member or invited them to Stowe Church individually” is an engagement. Other things, though important, don’t count as an engagement. These would be: passing out Bibles, speaking/sharing Christ with a large group or striking up a friendly conversation.
Element #2: Formation
The formation of our staff as a team does a couple things:
a. It builds trust.
The higher the trust level among your staff, the easier problems are shared and solved. One way to get a bead on the trust level in your organization is, “How long does it take for bad news to get to me?” If trust is low, negative and painful information is usually avoided or hidden. When trust is high, bad stuff gets shared (and resolved) quickly. We also have fun. Even when the jokes are corny (almost every time), we enjoy being with each other. Laughter is one of the key signposts of a high-functioning team.
Here is a really quick and accurate assessment of the trust level among your staff:
Ask them: On a scale of 1 to 10, each of you write down the number that best describes the trust level of our staff. Ten (10) is a very high trust level and one (1) is a very low trust level. After everyone has written a number, you know what the trust level is. What is it? The trust level is whatever the lowest number is. It’s not an average. It’s not skewed. That low number is not a guess or an estimate, it is the current level of trust of those who wrote the numbers…as a group.
b. It accelerates productivity.
The reason we are employed is to accomplish the purpose and objectives of the organization we serve. Even if we get along well and other people like us, that still does not justify why we are getting a paycheck. If we are not moving the needle, we need to start moving the needle (or find a different needle). One of the two key reasons we focus on formation as a team is to increase our results. High-productivity teams are high-output teams. The stronger our relationships, the stronger the motivations to do great work. We encourage and challenge each other to higher levels of functioning. Peer pressure can be a positive, encouraging motivation. It helps us realize if I am not doing my job well, it negatively affects these people on my team.
One way we track our overall productivity is to include our key metric on each agenda. (It is item #2 each time). If you combine everything we do, it all adds up to life change. So, one constant item on our agendas is: Stories of Life Change.
Stowe Mission’s purpose is: “Giving gospel hope and restoration to people facing hardships, in multiple satellites and locations.” This means people’s lives should be changing, markedly better, on a regular basis. It’s an item on the agenda every time because it is important all the time. As we share these transformations, the mentioning reinforces the centrality of our purpose. It’s a cause to celebrate and show gratitude to God for what He is doing. If there is a meeting (and there have been a few) where none of us has a story of life change, it communicates to all of us that we need to make some adjustments so we can hit the mark we are here to fulfill.
Element #3: Transformation.
As a Christian organization, the spiritual transformation of each of us individually to be more like Christ is key to everything we do. If we are not growing, we cannot lead others to grow. Leadership is not reaching a certain level of understanding or proficiency. Leadership is ever-growing, ever-becoming better. And, our personal development in becoming more Christlike is not solitary. But, it is central. There are tasks to perform, conversations to have, people to serve, volunteers to recruit and money to raise. But, if we are not being transformed into the image of Christ, we are failing ourselves and our organization. We pray every time, sharing requests personal and organizational. Sometimes we delve into concepts, share scripture or communicate personal challenges. Always we desire to be more like the One we serve.
Lead staff meetings, but they should serve your purpose as an organization. Each meeting should move you forward. If you have meetings that don’t move the needle, you are modeling ineffectiveness and wasting time. If you, as the leader, are wasting time, you are communicating to those who follow that leading means wasting time.
No bueno.
Our staff has changed and grown a lot. It wasn’t that long ago we didn’t have staff meetings because there were only a couple of us. This past week, there were ten at our weekly get-together (with one person out of town for a family funeral). We added three interns this summer, then just on-boarded a new director. Each time we add someone, we reset the trust level. If we are focusing on these three principles: information, formation and transformation; it makes it much easier to adjust and increase our output. For us, our output means seeing more people’s lives changing…and more deeply…including our own.
What have you found effective in staff meetings?
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