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Archives For March 2012

The Promise and Pitfalls of Structure

March 31, 2012 — 2 Comments

For many managers, a well-designed organizational structure is the elusive silver bullet: hard to find, but once you do, sufficient to solve all your communication, authority, and decision-making problems.

Now, I wouldn’t go quite so far. Finding a perfect structure will never happen, and even if you could find one, you can’t completely structure communication, authority, and responsibility.  But, a well-designed organizational structure can at least help provide a model for how authority and responsibility somewhat flow through an organization, create interaction norms and channels of communication, and not only describe patterns of interaction, but also create future modes of interaction.

In my experience working with organizations over the years and in learning from the literature on organizational design, I’ve found that the best organizational structures, among other things:

  1. Provide clarity in the organization for who is responsible for what;
  2. Delineate clear lines regarding supervision and developmental responsibilities for staff;
  3. Promote a healthy, but not domineering, sense of control, coordination, and efficiency:
  4. Encourage collaboration within working units and across the entire organization;
  5. Steward and develop organizational knowledge;
  6. Enhance performance of individuals and collectives (think work groups and teams)
  7. Provide paths for high-level performers and natural leaders to emerge and develop as leaders; and
  8. Are sustainable and expandable to meet future needs without needing to make massive adjustments with each new initiative (although some tweaking is constantly necessary).

Reflection Moment:

If folks in your organization (including you) are confused and/or displeased with how communication flows, people interact, decisions are made, and/or who’s responsible for what, I encourage you to evaluate your organizational structure.  Perhaps you might measure your structure’s effectiveness based on the list I provided above.  

Then, as you think about revamping and redesigning, set some goals for what you want your organizational structure to accomplish, such as the ones I’ve listed above.  As you design, you can measure whatever you come up with against those criteria. 

There are no easy answers or silver bullet approaches to organizational design. You can’t simply copy another organization’s design.  You have to do what works for you. But by intentionally thinking through what you want to accomplish and then structuring to meet those goals, you just might be able to make your organization work just a little bit better!

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In Collaborative Leadership, Organizational Design , , ,
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How To Identify Great (Team) Leaders

March 24, 2012 — 5 Comments

Recently a pastor responsible for discipleship and small groups asked me to offer some insight regarding assessing and identifying people for leadership roles in his church.  I thought this topic would be relevant to many, if not all, of you, so I’ll share with you what I told him.

First, I should lay my cards on the table.  Too often, we make too big a deal about leadership in the church.  We’ve swallowed hook, line, and sinker John Maxwell’s quip that “everything rises and falls on leadership,” defining “leadership” as influence enacted by those people appointed or designated as “leaders.” But, anyone can lead, whether they are designated a “leader” or not. 

If you are looking for people to designate as “leaders,” I urge you to look for those people who:

  1. possess character worthy of being emulated, and
  2. who are positively influencing others in your church.  

In other words, look for people who are already leading by example.

Several years ago, I led a staff responsible for hiring a large cadre of university student leaders.  Of course, we’d get many students attracted to the status and prestige of the position, the free room and board as compensation, and the extra access to certain university staff and faculty.  So many of the applicants, however, never had served on campus previously.  I implored my staff to not even consider them, stating, in essence: “If they really had the heart to lead and influence, they would have already been doing so”.  The same goes in the church – people clamor for positions of “leadership” for the status and prestige, and the benefits that come along with it, most notably access to pastors and other leaders.  We must be careful, though, and that’s why we want to look for people who already lead by example.

If that’s too vague, here’s a list of the qualities I look for (based on an extensive literature on team leadership) and some suggestions for how you might assess these qualities.

1.  Character – Frankly, leaders in the church (or at least most of them) should possess the character that would qualify for eldership, as described in I Timothy 3 and Titus 1.*  They should be, among other qualifications:

  • Above reproach and respectable
  • Temperate, sober, patient, self-controlled, gentle, and prudent
  • Able to teach and refute false teaching (knowing the Word)
  • Not violent, pugnacious, contentious, or quickly angered
  • Of good reputation with outsiders
  • Just, fair, holy, and devout
  • Spiritually mature (in other words)

To assess character, you might call or send a questionnaire to 3-4 people who know your prospective leader well, asking about character, strengths, and weaknesses.

2.  Essential skills for the task(s) at hand – Of course, you need people who can do what you need them to do.  Think about the experience and ability needed among all the members of a team, and how multiple team members can bring those different skills to the task.   To assess broad skill-sets and strengths, I recommend the Clifton Strengthsfinder in addition to a solid Spiritual Gifts Inventory.

3.  Desire to Contribute – The best predictor of a person’s desire to contribute in the future is his/her past contributions. Thus, this quality is easy to assess: How is this person currently contributing?  Has s/he shown interest in leading, shepherding, and caring for others, even without a formal “leadership” position?

4.  Works Well With Others – People who work well with others generally:

  • Know how to solve problems;
  • Act, rather than just sit around;
  • Openly share their lives with others;
  • Accept criticism joyfully;
  • Support the efforts of others; and
  • Employ a positive, warm, and engaging personal style.

To assess these characteristics, I suggest the assessment in When Teams Work Best. You could pair this assessment with the one you send to family, friends, and colleagues to assess character (#1 above).

To sum it up: If you’re looking for good “leaders,” simply look for those who are already leading.  As Eugene Habecker wisely summarized in The Other Side of Leadership: “Scripture seems preoccupied with what leaders and followers do, as opposed to their name, rank or status.”  Look for those folks who are leading with character and involvement.

Reflection Moment:

Do you carefully assess those you place in “leadership”? If not, how might you improve your assessment practices?

What are the qualities you look for in leaders?  What did I miss?  What, perhaps, have you missed? 

Leave a comment and let’s chat!

*For a great review of the qualifications of biblical eldership, I recommend Alexander Strauch’s Biblical Eldership.

Also, check out a good list of team resources here.

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In Leadership and Ministry Teams, Small Groups , , ,
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**Church Leadership Team Assessment – Still Available for a Limited Time**

March 17, 2012 — 3 Comments

Strengthen Your Senior Leadership Team

Wave One is now closed. Approximately 150 church teams participated. If you’d like to receive information in case we launch a second wave of survey participation, please write to leadteamstudy@apu.edu.

A Research Project from

Dr. Warren Bird at the Leadership Network and Dr. Ryan T. Hartwig at Azusa Pacific University

An Invitation to Protestant Churches Worldwide

Most churches today have moved to a senior leadership team model but few know how to help their team work better, healthier, or more effectively. How do you set team goals or measure its performance? What best increases trust, tears down silos, and motivates team members to work more collaboratively? What’s the optimal size for a maximum-impact team? Why are some teams more innovative than others?

Today’s era is full of personal coaches and personal development plans. Why couldn’t similar coaching resources be applied not only to the individuals on the team, but to the team in how it functions as a group?

What You Receive

Thanks to a grant, generous funding, and special arrangements from a Harvard-based project, your church’s senior leadership team can receive a FREE, limited-time assessment that will provide you with the following three reports at NO COST:

1. Team Assessment Report. You’ll receive a report rating your team on the 3 essential and 3 enabling conditions of leadership team effectiveness, as explained in the book, Senior Leadership Teams: What It Takes to Make them Great. This assessment is based on the Team Diagnostic Survey developed by Harvard Researchers and Hay Group consultants, normally only offered to corporate senior leadership teams through a consulting arrangement with the Hay Group. Click here to see a sample report.

2. Customized Action Steps Report. Practical, actionable tips you can implement with your team right away to enhance your team’s effectiveness, based on the team assessment and comparison to other senior leadership teams at similar sized and typed churches.

3. National Profile Report. A descriptive comparison report of church leadership team membership, communication practices, and effectiveness ratings, which will allow you to compare your team to others in similar sized and typed churches.

Wave One is now closed. Approximately 150 church teams participated. If you’d like to receive information in case we launch a second wave of survey participation, please write to leadteamstudy@apu.edu.

If this sounds too good to be true, please check out our FAQs below.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

1. What will be measured on?

You’ll be assessed using the Team Diagnostic Survey, which grounds some of the best work done on Senior Leadership Teams.  To learn more about the 6 conditions against which you’ll be assessed, check out the slides from a recent presentation I gave on Senior Leadership Team Effectiveness.

2. What does participation in the study entail? What will my team need to do?

After registration, each of your senior leadership team members will receive an email with instructions. Each person will need to invest about 30-45 minutes.

After each team member has completed the assessment, you’ll receive the Team Assessment Report, and about two weeks later, you’ll receive the Customized Action Steps Report. Then after a sufficient number of churches have taken the study, you will receive the National Profile Report.

3. How can this assessment be offered totally for free?

The research team has received special arrangement from Dr. Ruth Wageman of the Hay Group and Dr. J. Richard Hackman of Harvard University to offer their proprietary team diagnostic tool to the participants of this study. This offer is for a limited time only. Act now!

4. Who is the research team?

Dr. Ryan T. Hartwig is a collaborative, practical academic who helps leaders to Think Deeply, Act Wisely, and Work Better Together. He teaches Group, Organizational, and Leadership Communication courses as Assistant Professor of Communication at Azusa Pacific University in California, researches and writes about teamwork, collaboration, and leadership in nonprofit organizations, and coaches and consults with churches and ministries regarding leadership and ministry teams, discipleship processes, organizational dynamics, and small groups.

He earned graduate degrees in Communication (Ph.D.) from the University of Colorado at Boulder and Higher Education Administration from Purdue University (M.S.Ed.) after earning 2 Bachelor’s degrees from Colorado Christian University. His scholarship has been published in Group Facilitation: A Research and Applications Journal, and presented at the annual meetings of the National Communication Association and the Rocky Mountain Communication Association. Learn more about Dr. Hartwig.

Dr. Warren Bird is the Research Director at Leadership Network (http://www.leadnet.org), a public charity founded by Bob Buford in 1984 that helps high-influence churches connect with each other in ways that help them move from ideas to implementation to impact. He is co-author of 24 books for church leaders, several of them best sellers and award winners. He has also published over 200 magazine articles and major online reports. He served for 11 years as a lead pastor and associate pastor, and has been an adjunct professor at Alliance Theological Seminary for 17 years. He was trained at Wheaton College (B.A., M.A.), Alliance Theological Seminary (M.Div.) and Fordham University (Ph.D.). Learn more about Dr. Bird at www.leadnet.org/warrenbird.

Advisors include statistical consultants Marc Glassman (Ph.D. Columbia University), Scott Thumma (Ph.D., Emory University) and Alexandre Probst (Ph.D. Candidate, Colorado School of Mines).

5. Our church’s team certainly is not great, but we’re doing OK. Why should I invest in making my team better?

Great senior leadership teams have the potential to bolster a church’s health and growth while taking pressure off the senior pastor and spreading leadership functions among several staff members. When these teams work great, they facilitate:

  • Vision alignment
  • Quality decision-making
  • Increased innovation
  • Leadership development
  • Team members who feel involved, valued, committed, and joyful
  • Enhanced opportunity and productivity
  • Tearing down silos among ministry departments, units, and campuses
  • Personal and numerical growth

However, when they don’t, these teams often experience great frustration because decision making takes longer, unresolved conflicts degenerate into long-lasting feuds, meetings are inefficient, etc.

Have more questions? Please contact leadteamstudy@apu.edu.

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What’s a Plumb-line?

March 2, 2012 — 2 Comments

As I mentioned in my last post, last week I was privileged to present a workshop on Senior Leadership Teams and share about a forthcoming research project, which includes an opportunity to take a Senior Leadership Team Assessment, at the 2012 XPastor Seminar.

In my workshop, one thing (on a pretty big list) we talked about was the importance of possessing team norms (or plumb-lines) – shared expectations for member behavior – and then holding team members accountable to them.  Most of us are familiar with norms, and all teams and small groups possess some norms, but often, those norms are unhealthy rather than healthy, or more implicit than explicit, creating an opening for confusion and making it really difficult to hold people accountable to them. 

So, I suggested that we thoughtfully think through and determine team or small group norms and make them more explicit.  You might want to try the same thing.  Norms commonly address issues such as:

  • Values, such as respect, openness, consistency, transparency, commitment, and so on
  • Expectations for communicative responses with others
  • Communication practices in meetings (how to speak, technology use, divided attention, etc.)
  • Principles for working together

One of the weekend’s keynote speakers Jarrod Jones, Lead Pastor of Grace Community Church in Washingtonville, New York, shared several of the norms he’s tried to create for his church.  Whether or not they qualify as norms – in the sense that they are shared by the members of his organization and/or leadership team – I don’t know, but I was impressed by some of what he calls his “plumblines for ministry.”

Here are a few that hold great promise for increasing effectiveness in teams and small groups in the church, in no particular order):

  • We’re a team.  We treat, love, confront, and receive challenge from each other as such.
  • Excellence is a non-negotiable.  Pursue it.  There is no other standard.
  • Display humility, grace, and patience in response and tone when confronted and/or challenged by anyone (even if wrongfully challenged).
  • No cell phones (texting, calling, taking calls, tweeting, emailing, facebooking) during meetings.
  • Be a peacemaker but do not “avoid” conflict. (I’m not sure why avoid is in quotes).
  • Resist allowing any “elephants in the room.”  Do not sweep anything under the rug and look the other way for anyone or anything.  Courageously, and gracefully, deal with it head on.
  • Prayer is the air we breathe.  We are desperately dependent on the Holy Spirit.

Reflection Moment

So, what are your plumblines?  What are your team’s or small group’s norms?  Are they commonly understood and shared by all group members?  Are they mostly implicit or explicit?

If you don’t have m(any), give them some thought as a group.

If you have some expectations but they are not shared, engage in some crucial conversations with your team.

And if you do have some norms (or you think you do) but they are primarily implicit, put them down on paper, share them with the group, and find out if they are really shared.  Then (start) holding each other accountable to them.

And by the way, if you are involved with church administration and don’t yet know about XPastor.org, check it out.  David and his colleagues are doing great stuff!

 

In Leadership and Ministry Teams, Small Groups , ,
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