Welcome to our develop.me webinar called why development matters. I'm here with Jerry Hurley and Terri Taylor, the special guests of today. Thank you guys for joining us. Thanks for having us. We're about to dive into the topic of why development matters. Again, if you're just joining us, be sure jump on our chat, submit any questions that you have. We have a team there capturing those questions and towards the end of this, we're going to jump into a live Q and A that I'm really excited about. Some of you guys have already submitted questions. Jerry Hurley is on our directional leadership team and part of the organization for many years. Yeah, about 18 years. About 18 years. The church is only 20 years old. He just serves, it's just a lot of stuff. I don't know that I can even categorize it anymore. Terri Taylor, she gives complete oversight to all things human resources related, central group leader of HR, and again, means so many things we don't have time to dive in today but we are going to dive into is the topic of why development matters. Jerry, Terri, I'm going to turn it over to you. If you don't mind, I'm going to hold on to this microphone so if any thoughts or I might jump in there. I really encourage you to do that because you may be thinking and something may pop your mind a question or clarification or just an idea particularly as development relates to develop.me and somewhere Terri has got a lot of things to share about that. The more this is a conversation I think we'll actually be better served for the people that are watching. Awesome, thank you for being here today and thanks for joining us. We're excited to share a little bit with you and we're looking forward to it. We're just going to dive right in. You were talking about why development matters. I was just running through that concept in my head and it's... Just think about the opportunity that lies ahead of each one of us no matter where we are. If we're going to look at this coming year, like we started the year it's early really. Every one of us envisions a future that's bigger than our present. Every one of us is going to say, "Okay I want to reach more people, I want to have a bigger impact, I want do more" in whatever context that we're going to do more, whatever that means. For us it's we want to impact more lives in the name of Christ. If all of us have this vision of something bigger, then it just stands to reason that development has to be part of that equation or we're never going to achieve bigger and better things. Anyway, so why development matters? It's critical to the vision that God has put inside I believe each and every one of us. We're going to talk about today is we're going to talk a lot about why development matters and we're going tie it specifically to the tool develop.me because they just, they work so well Why Development Matters. Page 2 of 24
together and it will be really difficult. You're going to have some tools if you're going to build a true development culture. You're going to have some tools that are going to support that and the develop.me is a great tool to help make that a reality in whatever organization, wherever you're at. Whatever culture you have you can make it fit that culture and really that's one of the reasons that we built the tool the way that we did. Whenever I think about development so many people as a team member I have things I want to accomplish and as a team leader I have things that I want to help my team accomplish. Without resources like develop.me or understanding what we're wanting to accomplish, we're kind of left to figure it out on our own. I think the great thing about having a system like develop.me is to help give something tangible and some structure around how do I get from here to there. I really think, well just to bring clarity to you. If you're joining us and maybe you don't know what develop.me is, it's a free tool built for churches and ministry organizations to... It's a tool to house the development culture. We don't feel like the tool develop.me is going to be development for your culture, but our goal and our hope is that it's the tool that houses what a development culture would look like inside of your organizations. It's a free tool. If you want more information just develop.me is the website and you go check it out after the webinar. I think there's an important distinction when we talk about development. We say, "Okay how do we do, how do we achieve it?" There's a distinction that needs to be made between a development program and a development culture. I can't tell you how many times I'll go and I'll hear, I'll go to different conferences or particularly outside the church world and you'll hear a great organization, a great company and they'll get up and they'll talk about their leadership track or they'll talk about, man this is our high potential track and this is our. I just sit there next say, so we've got 10% of our high potential people and they're in this track and I sit and listen to the talk great stuff. What I find myself thinking about is what about the other 90%? All right? Leadership program is great but a leadership culture is just so much better because the return on investment is significantly higher. The way I would compare the 2 is trying to build a development program which you could use develop.me as a part of that but [inaudible 00:04:42]. It's like I'm working an hourly job, it's hard labor, at the end of the day I only get paid for the work I put in that day. The way I look at a billion development culture is yes you put in a lot of hard work and time but over the course of time it's like investing in something that has a return on investment that I don't even have to do any more. It's the investment building on the investment. I can be focused on different things and the culture is actually creating positive momentum without me having to do the hard work every single day. I'll roll in to that. It's just an important thing. What we're going to focus on today when we talk about development and why Why Development Matters. Page 3 of 24
develop matters, we're going to talk about development culture because I think it's hard to separate those things. When you talk about the attributes or the components or ingredients of building a development culture I think it really gives us insight into, okay then what does development look like. If I can understand the one I'll understand how one applies organizationally and one applies to me personally and they work hand in hand. The first thing I would just say is develop.me is designed to be a foundational piece of the process. There's 3 different ingredients that I think are really critical to building a development culture. The first thing is you have to measure results. The second thing is you have to value awareness and the third thing is you have to be able to invite feedback. We'll talk about each one of those in some more detail. What we talked about is because that's our approach to development and we specifically built develop.me to reinforce each one of those key ingredients in a really powerful and meaningful way. Anyway so, that's a start. Terry, any additional thoughts? Now I think it's... Any time I talk to other churches or HR leaders especially HR leaders who are familiar with performance management and what that looks like in any organization. It is a lot like what Jerry was talking about that program. It is a to do to check off, it's steps that you take and like any organization, it should be a lot more than that. At Life Church we've really, really strive to embrace it and with develop.me it has changed and supported the culture that we have but it has changed the language, it's changed the energy around performance management instead of it being a task that team leaders had to check off, man I've got to write my performance reviews. The thought was I just need to get this done, it turned into more intentionality, more depth behind that process. It's just, it's exciting as you move forward. As a team leader inside of an organization where there is a development culture, it's not just an annual review that we walk through and those are 3 weeks or a month of development. This is an ongoing conversation that's throughout the year but then, we take a moment throughout the year to say, "Okay, now let's walk through the review looking back, so then we can start looking forward and set goals to where we're going leading to." That's one thing I think is key to me. I do think that's an important thing because this can't be a once in a year kind of mindset at all. Development isn't a once a year, it's an every day occurrence. I read a lot on performance evaluations and you read and somebody say, "Oh the performance evaluation is dead, we need a new way to do it." "The one time a year conversation doesn't work." I completely agree that the one time a year conversation doesn't work, but it doesn't mean that the tool isn't a great tool. It's just how as a leader am I going to utilize the tool to make it a 365 day a year expression rather than a one time a year. I can take anything and if I only use it one I don't care. Take my toothbrush. If I only use my toothbrush one day a year, that's nasty. You think about development much you do. You use it every day. Every day you get in and you do the stuff and that's, so that's development. I don't know Why Development Matters. Page 4 of 24
where that came from. I'm sorry. We do appreciate it that you brush your teeth. No, I'm a weekly, no I'm just kidding. The first thing, let's just talk about measuring results. We have a saying that we use around here a lot. It says where performance is measured performance improves. That's just really interesting. There's nothing about that concept but when you think about why that's so important and there's something I believe inherently human to want to improve, to compete. You look across culture, you look across time, there has always been a desire for us to strive for, to competing. A measure without a measure there's no litmus test. The only reason of the 4 minute mile was something that was exciting was because somebody was timing. If I was just running and nobody was timing, just think of how un-fulfilling it would be for me to do my best and have no way to measure, have no way to understand if I actually did my best or not. I think everyone wants know am I doing a good job? May be it's not out of a spirit of competition to beat someone but am I succeeding, am I doing what I was hired to do, am I getting an A or am I in a B or am I a C? Yeah, what success look like. Yeah, what does success look like. It doesn't have to be any negative thing associated with it and so it's just always interesting to me that churches can be reluctant to measure. I completely understand that there's no way and trust me we've tried to figure out how can we measure the work of the Holy Spirit in somebody's life. You cannot measure that. That doesn't mean that there aren't a lot of things that we can measure. I think the unfortunate side effect often times is we use the mindset of not bringing measurement in to a spiritual environment. The end result of that is we can almost spiritualize mediocrity. We can almost spiritualize status quo, we can almost spiritualize doing the same thing. I just don't think that that's what... The last time, I think God wants us to reach the, just have the maximum impact. I believe that's true. I just dance to reason then that measurement, appropriate measurement should be brought into any environment whether it's spiritual or not. That's just really an important thing. If you look at organizationally what is, how would I, how do we approach measurement organizationally. You can do things like shared goals. There are many of our teams that have goals that are shared across different teams because we have this, we all succeed together and we all fail together mentality. That can be powerful particularly when you're talking about a culture of development that we would have some shared goals that we're working on. You've got things just consistent measurement of performance to goals and accountability. Those are all things that you should do. Why Development Matters. Page 5 of 24
The individual expression of that is, okay what's my individual response to that, what am I looking at individually that's going to fit into the context of what we're trying to do organization because both of those 2 realities are real. Just getting back to a little bit of how develop.me fits into this, is that we are very intentional to be able to have a robusty ability to have organizational goals whether it's at the organization or the team or our sub-team level, you can have all that, but then I think it's really, really important for the individual to be able to assess their own sense of what's my response or what am I trying to work on? There's a lot of room in there for an individual expression of what are my personal goals. I think both of those 2 things are really important and having buying to, "Okay, what does development look like?" It can't just be, how's your organization going to develop. It's going to be what is my part of that bigger picture. Yeah, and actually in the tool there's actually I think 4 levels of goals you can have, organizational goals, campus goals and ministry setting team goals and then individual goals. Yeah, and that language that common language I talked about, it is all around goals. People get excited about sharing, "Hey, here's the things I'm thinking about this next year and how it ties into what my team is wanting to accomplish or what my campus is wanting to accomplish or the organization." Really, it's exciting. What I love too is walking through a review process that it's the once a year closing, if you will a year behind you. Whatever your calendar year looks like for your organization. You leverage the opportunities as we look back, let the beginning be the groundwork for the future of what we are. Yes we're looking back not just the last month, the last year, but let that be the be the foundation for how we're going to grow the goals that we're going to set and walk in to the new calendar year. Again, I don't want to spend an over amount of time talking about develop.me but it is important that one of the things as we developed that tool is that we wanted to make sure there was continuity from 1 year to the next because that's also a challenge because sometimes I can be overly focused on what's happening here and I don't take the learnings into the next year and so this to built automatically have continuity year over year over year which again is part of this building this wellspring of development thought and activity. Now, on measurement and on goals, I would say that the organizationally don't underestimate how much time and energy you're going to have to spend or we're going to have to spend helping people create great goals because that's a skill set that some people have and some people don't. We've had to spend a fair amount of time again helping people understand and construct what are meaningful goals, how can you help make a goal that is manageable, how can you have a goal that's not so administratively cumbersome to track, how do you focus on the right kind of things. Here's the thing about measuring and goals is, is what that does is that directs energy. What you have to make sure is that the goal is appropriately placed Why Development Matters. Page 6 of 24
because you're going to direct all kinds of energy to that and if you're off, then you're directing energy into the wrong place. That can be important. I've heard the term S bags and it's a phrase it's stretching but achievable. It's stretching, it's growing them but it's not a goal that's so far out there that it's not even potentially achievable. I think that's where we allow Holy Spirit movement of, knowing okay, I don't think I could do that today but in this next calendar year, okay what's can I grow in me to be able to achieve that, stretching but achievable. I do know that you guys have done some work even crafting or what looks like to craft good goals and I know we have some of those resources and kind of documentation if you will available and we'll be sure to follow up with everyone that's here. We'll follow up with some of those links to that. It's hard work to go through those things but what happens over the course of time, our team is much better. When we go back and look at the goals that our team put together 3 or 4 years ago and we go look and we compare that to what they're thinking about now, a lot of movement, broad movement just thinking about things differently, thinking about things more strategically, thinking about the bigger picture and they're part of the bigger picture. I'm just saying there's a lot of hard work involved but over the course of time you will see a dividend, you will see improvement in that. If it becomes part of your culture then it will replicate itself. I think too a lot of times we deal with the questions about how do I do just that? How do I train my people to make that shift and put the right goals in. It isn't a, you know here's a formula and you deliver it once and it changes everybody's approach to goal setting. It is just continual conversation, some of those in groups, some of them one on one, having the right conversation, maximizing opportunities to just educate and train formally and informally. Then like you said over time, you see a shift. We were using develop.me for probably 2 years before we really started to see a big shift and it's just been a continual change ever since. It's not overnight. What I love too is that the tool and our culture it's not just like numerical measurable goals. They're called value goals inside the tools that are really, they're subjective and that's where that one on one conversation. It would be hard too as a leader to say, "Let's set a goal in January and then December we look at it." We've never talked, never had those conversations. Let me tell you how you're doing on your excellence or integrity. It's going to require interaction and conversation, so there's a variety of types of goals that we've got and you don't want to spend too much more time there. Actually it's important because what a couple of things about the measurement and then we're going to move on to the next thing is that without measurement, meaningful feedback could be very difficult. Without some measure, meaningful feedback could be very difficult and that's really part of what we're going to talk about too. Then the other thing relative to what you just talked about is, not everything that matters can be measured and that everything that is measured can Why Development Matters. Page 7 of 24
matters. Say that one more time and it's good. Not everything that can be measured matters and not everything that matters can be measured. That's a fair important thing. We have to have goals that have definite measured numeric values associated with them, but then we also have to recognize that there's a whole lot of growth and development that happens that at the end of the day it's a subjective determination of how did I do? Things like communication things like, and those things are going to associate more with our values which we're going to talk about here in just a minute. Anyway, that's an important thing. Then the first thing is to measure results, the second thing is that you have to value awareness. All about development is about how aware am I and where I'm going. We would say this, awareness is the first step to all growth and development. No matter what, no matter how, where you're going to grow and how you develop, the first step to that is becoming aware of one of 2 things, either you become aware of the gap that exists between where I'm at today and what I know, how I need to move to accomplish. Again, what I think would be bigger, better, more impactful things. That's part of it. The other side of awareness that I don't know that we've focused on enough is recognizing what tools, what gifts, what skills do I have that I can leverage to actually achieve those things. Generally we're focused on the deficit side because that's more obvious to us sometimes. In fact I would say most of the time research would show that people don't have that great a sense about what they're really good at and often times there's just a little bit off and so sometimes it's helpful when you get some feedback and awareness. Whether it's spiritual awareness, whether it's professional, whether it's personal, whatever it is, that first step to movement is going to come from awareness. There's lots of ways probably to get that kind of feedback. I don't know if we have enough time to dive in all today but we've talked a lot about the one on one conversations or whatever that may be, that's a key way. I know we've talked about different review types, 360 review where you're painting in everyone in your circle of awareness. There's lots of different ways to gather that feedback but you have to value the awareness first. Absolutely. Then you have to become aware and so let's talk about the organization. One of the first things you have to do is you just have to spend the time to recognize a clear set of values that describe and help you understand. Whether it's operational values, that should be core values or behavioral values, some people would say permission-to-play values. Both of those 2 things are important. Operational values, what you have to understand is, they would be like who are we, why are we and what do I do? Who are we, why are we an what do we do? Why Development Matters. Page 8 of 24
I can remember in the history of Life Church us spending a lot of time defining who we were, what we were about, what we were great at, what we knew we weren't going to be good at and just be okay with that. Those things are really important. These operational values should express who you are, why you are and what you do. Then you've got behavioral values that should express how you do it. One is that it's all about why and then on the behavioral values it's how do we go about doing that, how do we treat each other, how do we treat our guests, how do we treat the groups that we're trying to reach, how do we? That all becomes the set of behavioral values and both of those 2 things should be clear and compelling and should be... And knowing to the organization. And know, absolutely. If you want to know how what we're doing, it's not whether I know them or not, it's whether... I just need a leadership not a decision maker. Absolutely. How well those things work together. Again that's one of those things that there's 2 components to the develop.me tool is one is all about this measurable result, the other one is all about these values. What I would just encourage any of you to do is to really, what, where do I want people spending energy? What's really important to us? What are those things that are reinforcing the amazing things in our culture that we want to replicate, that we want people to focus energy on. It could be collaboration, it could be communication, it could be excellence, it could be drive, it could be any number of different things. Unique to your organization. It should be unique to your organization. It really use this tool, really should have every organization's fingerprints all over and it should look, it should be just like a fingerprint, everyone is different within that. That's just an important. Again, they should be clear and compelling. Those value goals I think you talked about, it's consistent. It's not something even that you think of year to year. I've been working on the same value goals for 10 years as every year and I'm just continuing to grow and grow and grow and you never really, I don't think you achieve because we always can get better and better. Those are the ones I think that really make an impact culturally on your organization is when you can get alignment with those behavioral values. Then it's not just leadership like you said it's not leadership that's just telling you, it's peers, it's the culture reinforces the culture and the behaviors. I agree. You've never arrived. I do think though year to year I mean just having done develop.me reviews it's that, man this year I put a lot of energy into whatever that was. Then the next year I could put the same energy in it but maybe not hit the mark as much because of the expectation on me that passes. I do think it's ever Why Development Matters. Page 9 of 24
changing and you've never really have arrived because if you've you are Jesus and we know that none of us are that. That's exactly right, so anyway. I would say to you that again these values have to be clear. When we talk about teams, when we talk about what makes a team great, what makes a team perform well? It isn't just a collection of talent. That's a... You have to have talent but that's a piece of it. If you don't have a clear set of behaviors and norms of behaviors was what I would say is what the research says, then without that it's very difficult to get all those people moving in the same direction and so a common purpose, common language, common values, common enemy. Those are all things that unite and then how do we behave towards each other. I was just looking, there's a question that came in just around this, Don, he asked about team and work goals. From an organization standpoint, where do those organizational goals come from? Like, how are they determined and then from a team level how does a team leader allow it to interpret that if into their own way for their own team goals? That's good. That is a good part. On the organizational goal, the one thing I would say, there are a couple of different things is 1, they should be very few, I think they should be very few organizational goals. Where everyone is part of them. Where everyone is part of them and they should be very pen-point lazered on exactly where you want this energy focused because when you set an organizational goal and you say, everybody, all 565 of us, that's something that we're all going for. You better be on point or you're going to have a whole lot of time energy spent on a tangent and you can't have 10 of them because then again you're a flood, you're not a river. You're just fusing all of this energy and so you need to be fewer is better, then to be laser focused on where do I want this energy to go. Then, they don't have to be the same year in and year out because it could be that, man I really want to focus energy in this spot. Now, if you don't have some level of continuity, then you're probably as if you never have one that's the same, then I would probably say that you may be guilty of just kind of the latest greatest dam. Do you have an example of one that we focused on and it shifted all staff members towards? Sure. There's just 2. For us attendance is one of those things. The reason that we chose attendance is because I can't measure the spiritual growth of an individual, I can't measure them, all right, but what I can measure through attendance is are we, is what we're doing compelling and connecting with people where they are to the degree that they're going to vote with their presence. Why Development Matters. Page 10 of 24
Yeah, vote with the presence, good. There's a lot of things I can do on Sunday morning or Saturday night or whenever it is. If I have chosen to be there, that means that I'm giving some value from it, so that's why I'm there. That's why we chose, it's a relatively simple thing to me, but there's a lot of things we have to do well for that to work out. That's one of them. The other thing that we've chosen is something that we call a gap and it's a just the difference between giving and expenses. The reason that we chose that is because it has some tension associated with it, in that one hand, the bottom line is how much margin do we have to minister, but there's 2 components it. One is expense control, but the other is how do I grow it. If I was just focused on expenses then all my inputs would be focused on bringing down expense but that may not be effective. It might be efficient but it may not be the most effective. We try to have some goals with some tension at it. Those 2 goals, literally every person in the organization have those. You can work in finance, you could be on a facilities team, you can be in church to church, you can be wherever and you may say, "Well, how does somebody in finance impact attendance?" That's a great question to figure out. How can you do it? You certainly don't want to hurt him, you certainly don't want to come across with some rules or someone like that that might distract people. Does that make sense? That makes sense, yeah total sense. Those are a couple of examples for us. That's good, thank you. I think it's clear now. The other thing too when it talks about awareness. Again, there's these 2 components to it. Awareness isn't about self-esteem, awareness is about truly understanding what are the amazing things that God put in me and what are the things that God has not put in me. All of us have areas that... There are things I am never going to be good at. I believe the part of the awareness equation is me understanding what those things are because here's something that I firmly believe is, I can't fully appreciate the gifts that God has given somebody else unless I recognize what's left out of me. Until I come to him, and that till I quit trying to become everything to everybody and I recognize the limitations that I have. It's only then that I can fully appreciate the people around me and that really do make up the entire Body of Christ. That's just an important thing. It's about connecting too the work that God has for us. It makes you aware of one, your need for God daily. Absolutely. Why Development Matters. Page 11 of 24
Then 2, the team that he's put around you, team leaders, team members, people below you. Then the last thing that we'll talk about, well this is just to invite feedback. I think it's, again it's virtually impossible for us to have meaningful measurement and grow in awareness without feedback. Simple feedback tools that we use every day, speedometer in a car. I found I have a speedometer in my car. How am I going to know if I'm safe, am I going to know if I'm, how is it going to take me to get somewhere. A mirror, something as simple as a mirror is just a great feedback tool. We don't need to be afraid of feedback. Let's just look at an example. The only thing, I wake up in the morning and it's not a pretty sight typically but that's all right. I wake up in the morning, right? You look good today. I'm walking to the mirror and I will stand and look in the mirror. The only thing that changed when I looked in the mirror is I became aware of what anybody else could have seen in there. The unfortunate part of being me is when I woke up. You see what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah. The thing about feedback is the only thing that changes is our awareness. Everybody else saw what was already there but we didn't. Feedback is truly a gift. Now, it can be unnerving, it can be unsettling. Sometimes you look in the mirror and say, "Oh my God." That's it, something's got to change. At the end of the day it is, that's just a fundamental truth. Feedback truly is a gift and we should do everything that we can to invite feedback. The truth of the matter is that most people, even people that we trust, even people that trust us, even people that love us personally, it's a very difficult sometimes for you to offer feedback. It's that, I mean, right? Yeah. Yeah. Even Mike he know it. Hey you got a bug hanging out under your nose or the pants aren't zipped and we just look at things like that. I always appreciate the people that say, "Hey you know", so anyway. They take that awkward step. Why Development Matters. Page 12 of 24
Absolutely. They take that because there's risk involved. How is this person going to respond. It's just a really important thing and that really needs to be nurtured individually and organizationally for sure. I think too a lot of times leaders will assume a response to feedback. That's really they're better off just not to make any assumptions because especially in ministry, how do I you know, I don't want to give this hard feedback because am I going to discourage you spiritually or what is all of that that plays into it. It's just, it's so welcome like you said. People want to know. Really people that want to grow want to know. How do I grow? Yeah, it's good. People that want grow want to know. It's good. Yeah. Don't go into that type of feedback... It's treatable. It's treatable. Yeah, there you go. Don't go into that feedback making an assumption on how it's going to be received just really give that person the benefit of the doubt that they're mature enough, they're hungry enough to want it. I think as a team leader, it's 1, be willing to take the step and give the feedback. I think as a team especially with people, how do we invite the feedback to where it's known we are desiring feedback and maybe ranging the feedback based upon what kind of feedback it is but yeah if you've got something on your tooth hey I want to know, then making sure if my pants are unzipped please tell me. That's exactly the case. How are we just in every aspect of us inviting that feedback from not just people below, beneath, beside but every. That's 360. It does start, if I'm the leader of an organization and Craig is a great example of that for us. Craig invites feedback, he asks for it all the time, he expects it. In fact, sometimes I feel the most inadequate is when he's wanting feedback and I just don't feel like I can maybe give him and he's like, "Oh, I wish I could add value in that way." You have to be able to model it. I would say there's some key elements to that that should be present in order to nurture a culture of feedback in which is again, it's kind of a subset. Again, the develop.me tool is a feedback tool. There's the self feedback in there, self awareness is involved. There's organizational awareness so don't miss that. I'll just go through these 5 things. The first thing is a high degree of mutual trust and humility. You just have to be able. Feedback should always be given with trust and received with humility. That's just an important thing. Here's the bottom line, the bottom line is any time that Why Development Matters. Page 13 of 24
you invite this culture of feedback, you're going to miss it. We're going to get feedback that is not delivered in a way that we'd hoped it would. There's going to be communication gaps, there's going to be the right feedback at the wrong time. All of those things are going to be true and we can't because we're humans, we're never going to be immune to those things. Just have this sense of trust. Then, be quick to forgive. Be quick to ask for forgiveness and then be quick to forgive because I think if you don't, then that's going to search you for some heartache. Here's the thing, the cultural norm that I think would be imperative for a team or a family, is that the whole concept of trust should be that trust is freely given, mistrust is earned. We could talk about whether or not that makes sense or not and you may or may not agree with that, but in the context of a team and family I think if I have to wait to build trust with everybody that I interact with to get something done the opportunities will have long since passed us by by the time we've built that. If we just have the... If the Bible is true and we are to do unto others as we would have them do unto us, then I think everybody would say, "Yeah, I want to be trusted." Why can't we extend trust and then when people even violate that trust be quick to reconcile. Then again, start with a no, I'm not saying use car salesmen, I'm not saying... There's times when you should be skeptical, but in the context of team I don't think that that's going to set us up to be the best. Trust is first. Trust is first. Then you have to have a clear set of values and culture. If you don't have that clarity of values and culture, then it makes it very difficult for meaningful feedback to happen because your sense is going to be different to my sense, is going to be different than her sense and if there's not something that unifies and clarifies those things we're going to mess it. What am I giving feedback against? Like how do I know what you're asking will be held to standards. That's exactly right. We would say it's a cultural clarity or cultural haze and so that's just an important thing to distinguish and that will help build that. The other thing is just have a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset. A growth mindset is just real simple. I mean a fixed mindset would say, "You know what, we're born smart, we can't change or we're not born smart." It's just wherever your paradigm is, you know, I can't change, I'm never going to do that. Effort doesn't really help. Feedback is dangerous, stretch goals are bad and other's success is a problem. That's a fixed mindset. You don't want that. You want a growth mindset and this is a growth mindset. Born to learn, we can change, effort is central, feedback is helpful, stretch goals are good and other's success is an opportunity to learn. It's just a real quick thing, I can unpack each one of those but we don't have time. We're going to follow, we have the notes of this and we'll follow up because I know Why Development Matters. Page 14 of 24
we're going through the content pretty quick. Then finally, the last 2 is willingness to embrace failure has to be part of our whole feedback culture. You just have to be willing to do that and it has to be built into all of the human systems that we have. Again that just ties us back to develop.me. I think those are some elements to how development happens. I do think it's important for everybody in an organization to feel the responsibility and to recognize that most growth happens in the context of people doing their job every day. It doesn't happen in the special one off things, it happens with everybody just waking up in the morning, you figure out how am I going to do better today than I did yesterday. Then there has to be a sense from me as an individual that at the end of the day while I've got a lot of people helping with my growth and development, at the end of the day how much I develop is up to me. Nothing anybody does no matter what program or call whatever you do. Unless I decide to move, unless I decide to grow and develop, nothing else really is going to change them. Those are some foundational things. That's good. Really that's all of it that I've got to talk about as far as set goals. We've got some questions? We've got some great questions, did you... Terri, any other thoughts? Great, yeah, let's dive in the questions. We've got some great question. Let's start and dive into that again, continue to post your questions because they're bringing them to me to right here. How is that, you just talk about growth. How can I continue to grow after leaving in the same church for 20 years? That's a great question. Here's the thing, I think in that case, I think the challenge is there an opportunity to grow I think there still are. I think when you've been in one place for so long, I think it's really important to change your perspective. I don't think it's opportunity for growth and development that has diminished any. It's okay. It's being in the same place for so long that your perspective isn't as broad as it may once were. What I would say to that is, is find opportunities and ways to try to look at that from a different perspective to see how, what development looks like for you 20 years in versus a year down. Well. We have a lot of people asking about, they want a culture development. They're saying what is the practical first step, maybe they're, I always take from the perspective that they're the HR leader, they're the leader of the organization. What Why Development Matters. Page 15 of 24
is that first practical real step in creating a culture development? Thoughts? I would say it's establishing those core values, behavioral values and then communicating that out and creating that common language so everyone knows who are we in the first place. If you don't have those values that everyone knows, get them to find them and then clearly communicate that down into everyone in the organization. Right. Yeah, you have to have a clear understanding of where you are and then you can articulate where you want to go. What most people do is they will still start with here's where we want to go, but they never fully take time to appreciate truly where are we and then they can build a roadmap to get to the right spot but it's good, it's all ends to... You have to, it has to come from the top in order. I mean it really does because if the leader isn't going to model that and be valued in the organization from the top down, it will never take root. These values are not just for a level of the team, if they truly are for all. That's right. Yeah. I think too looking at it being willing to be objective on where are we really because that might not be... We want to be here. We might not really be where we think we are. In crafting those values, they're not just where you're at today, they could be where you're aspiring to be. We may be not represent the real value, trust but that is going to become one of ours. Yeah. Patrick Lencioni in his book of the advantage he talks about all these values and those would be aspirational values. You want to be really careful that you at least recognize those too because core values are true to who we are and aspiration value is not that. You just have to be careful. Here's the thing, is sometimes you have to come to grip with some hard things when you say, "Okay, here's who we really are and here's what we" but that's absolutely critical and don't be afraid of it. Again, the only thing that changed is you know now know what everybody else already knew. That's just an important thing. It's a mirror thing. We've had a lot of people ask about, what does development training look like at Life Church? Obviously people been on for a long time, they know that's what is. How do you train and equip team members, team leaders to help if they've not come from a culture development to be now part of it and not to detract from it? Why Development Matters. Page 16 of 24
Well, again that clearly comes back to all those things that we've talked about here. Our process of development I talked but I'll be more, I'll articulate a little bit better is we have 4 principles that we believe our people that help people grow and develop. The first thing is that most development happens in the context while they're in the game is what we call them in the context of their role. The reason that that's important to articulate that and have people understand that, is because most people in most organizations don't give enough credit or enough weight and appreciation for the amount of development that happens day in and day out in their roles. Just doing it. Here's the thing. If I don't appreciate that or if I don't recognize, if I don't connect those dots and I want to appreciate it, I'm always going to be looking for, I want to go to this training class or I want to go do this, I want to go do that. I'm not being... You have to appreciate that both organizationally and individually and so that's why we talk about it. The other thing, the next thing is it's difficult for development to happen without trusted relationships. Which is all about what I've said, extending trust, high feedback, open Culture. It's very difficult, self-awareness is the first step, so you have to have that. Then the last thing is a person has to own their own growth and development. That's the bottom line. If I was going to get that, those are some things that are really, really important pieces. Yeah and I think, some practical things that we do is we don't, we... Every opportunity we have to speak to staff whether that's they're inside out as our employee orientation meeting to individual team meetings that happen to opportunities for the DLT to speak to the staff, various training events, there is a theme where we're talking about this to some degree. I think there's probably not one time that the staff meet that you haven't said to the staff what you just said. I think we just, we look for opportunities to always reinforce who we are and our culture. Then in terms of develop.me, we don't spend time training how to use develop.me. We spend virtually no time on how to use develop.me. What we do spend time is understanding the value of goals and what appropriate goal setting looks like and how to really get from where you are now and to where you want to be or the potential of who... How to get feedback. Yeah, how to get feedback, how to grow as a leader. We spend every opportunity just enforcing those things. I just want to connect another dot is, when we say, okay, everybody owns their Why Development Matters. Page 17 of 24
own development and self-awareness is a first step. Most of our development tools are self-awareness based. Strengths, personality, emotions, intelligence, those sort of kind of things because we're first. Then, we don't push development. We set up, so we would say, "Hey, here's an opportunity if you would learn about this, if you're interested." We let people pull because I've the responsibility is, we're going to provide opportunity, the responsibility to be there is you. We don't say everybody's got to do this, we say here's an opportunity, who's interested. Most of the time we have to cap it off before and there's a waiting list, stuff like that. That's just an important thing of how we approach it. I'm seeing some comments from people we've talked to, Jose was a leading the church. What about people that are inside the organization that are, they maybe watching right now and they're resonating with this may be in development culture. How can they help be the change agent if you will may be to that mindset that mind ship. What can they do to their leaders or that to be a change inside their organization? Well it goes back to the whole thing about leading up. Yeah, it's good. There's... I wish that there was a, you could just give him a pill in the morning, I'll slip something in there, somewhere in there coffee in the morning and there you go. You just... Again it's just 1, I would say this 1, is first of all I think in no matter what organization you're in, you should be able to demonstrate it within your sphere of influence. If you do that well, then from a point of success it should give you some influence. In other words if you implement these things well in your team and then you can see again things go well, then people are going to be naturally curious say, "Okay, why is this one working better than this one?" That gives you the influence. Then I would pick the opportunities where I can influence the people above me. I would always seek to add value, I would always seek to bring solution not just the challenge associated with it. Hopefully this will give you some ideas on how can I articulate some of the value and benefits to this. How can we start, how can we take some first steps and be part of the solution not just highlight a problem. I'm thinking through if I was let's say in a church context, student pastor, kids pastor, you have a team perhaps maybe just key volunteers are leading. I believe you could potentially bring in this, the stuff we're talking about even using a tool like develop.me and maybe you just start that with your own team, hey maybe organizationally we don't do interviews but I want to bring this into our team or my subset of the larger team. Like you said, maybe I'm not forcing it up but, oh, man what's different about, man a student ministry is taking this turn or whatever that maybe you could bring those goals, those values into your part of a larger organization. Why Development Matters. Page 18 of 24
Yeah, absolutely. Just thought of a conversation I might have. Let's say that's me and I want to really drive some values, clear values into the group that I'm leading. One of my goal is go to my leader and say, "Hey, this is my plan, I'm going to do this, I want to really set these [inaudible 00:46:00] up." I'd like to make sure that our values and yours line up. What's really important to you? Get that conversation going. What do you... Then from that then even that's a good way to get that conversation going. That's really good. I'm looking through here, really great questions. A lot asking about goals. I'll just jump to them. How do we keep deadlines and goals do in front of you? Like how as a team, once we set those goals as an organization leadership maybe even as a team leader, how are we making sure we're keep those goals in front of us? Yeah develop.me has got opportunities for you to go in and utilize the system throughout the year through adding notes, through doing reminders and things like that but I think it really falls to the team leader to model that. If it's not important to him or her it's not going to point to the rest of the team. One thing that a lot of leaders will do here is schedule quarterly meetings or monthly meetings or whatever is makes sense for their team where they're pulling it in. They're taking time to refresh and just model kind of lead that for your team and ask how are you doing on your goals, and hey why don't you put that in develop.me or if you see an email come through, that's a kudos on a job well done. Add that to the tool. Add that to the tool. Just look for ways to engage with it and engage your team. Throw some things on the calendar out there. Use reminders in the tool, anything. As you know yourself, anything that's going to help you be more successful in there, just got to use those tools. That's all I have with every of our instructor. We're going to demonstrate how a leader re-valuate and... That's exactly right. Then with a goal will be to build a discipline of like, "Hey, leader, I want to talk about my goals, I want to bring in updates too." We're got to lead the way. That's exactly right. Too you want to have an environment where people are excited to tell what they're doing. I mean if every conversation I have is not a positive conversation. There are some times that's the reality but if it's not, then eventually someone's going to want to quit talking to me about those things, right? Tom asks a great question. How can we start the annual reviews without making it seem intimidating to staff? Tom probably, there's a team maybe he's the leader of Why Development Matters. Page 19 of 24