[00:00:00] I know I'm sure some of those things come to mind for you, and I'm sure for our listeners, you're maybe even thinking of a person right now that you're like, you know what, I've noticed it's not this thing, it's bothering me or this breakdown has happened, I need to address it. I just encourage you, push past that fear of confrontation or fear or that people-pleasing part of us as pastors and have a healthy fear of not having that conversation. Welcome to episode 455, Okay, I'll Admit It.
[00:00:29] In an effort to avoid conflict and keep the peace, I'll avoid hard conversations with volunteer or paid staff. And instead of holding them accountable, I'll just hope it gets better. The problem is that it rarely does. And when I do address it, it's going to be much harder later. Today we talk about the joy and fear of accountable conversations. That's today on The Reclaimed Leader. Welcome to The Reclaimed Leader Podcast. I'm Jason Tucker. And I'm Jesse Skiffington.
[00:00:57] We're two pastors in the trenches who are passionate about church health for greater gospel impact. We share the ups and downs of ministry, strategies that work for us. And some that didn't. Best practices and practical tools for church leadership. The goal? To help all of our churches flourish. Let's get started. Hey everyone, welcome back to The Reclaimed Leader Podcast. Jesse, it's so good when we
[00:01:23] get to actually do an episode again together. You know, just flying slow last week, I'm like, man, this is really, this is really a drag. And it's funny, the whole rhythm's off. So you start recording and I had to start and stop a couple of times. Yeah, I did too when I did mine. I was like, that's not how Jason says that. That's not even close. So anyway, see, we're better together. The end of our, each episode, we say that it really is true. Without you, I'm incomplete, Jason. Yeah, there it is. You complete me. Yeah. Well, I was, you know.
[00:01:52] Yeah. Okay. Maybe not. Yeah. 90s reference. I like it. Yeah. Anyway, we are, we're glad to give some fresh episode today. And Jesse really is hitting on a really important topic that has to do with anybody. It has to do with staff, volunteer or paid. That's right. And, you know, Jesse, I just wish people would just do their jobs. And I'm just kidding. And not in my church. Of course, everybody does their job. That's right. That's right.
[00:02:19] Anybody listening from my church. But you know what I mean? It's like, I think one of the difficult things about pastoring that you're sort of not, I don't know, I wasn't prepared for it, is how do you navigate helping other people to get the best out of people? It's a, you know, management stuff, which we've bemoaned before. And I was, I was actually at
[00:02:47] coffee with a friend and she just happened to be coming back onto session, which is our elder board for the non Presbyterians. But we were having coffee and I said something, I'm like, yeah, you know, I am a terrible manager. And she amened it because she used to be on staff. She's like, yeah, yeah. She didn't even, she didn't even soft pedal it a little bit. I hope she misunderstood what I was saying, but.
[00:03:13] That's tough, Jason. In fact, I wanted to have a conversation with you today. Accountable conversations are hard because it's not why it, listen, part of discipleship and helping people grow in Christ is, is pointing out, you know, areas for improvement or helping people with self-awareness. And so kind of, hopefully there's some practice that we have our attention to hard conversations, but when it comes to like volunteers and our staff,
[00:03:41] when things don't go the way they should, or maybe we think we've agreed to something that's going to happen and then it doesn't happen or it doesn't happen the way that we thought it should. How do we have those conversations? And it is so hard. And it's something that I think we have to come back to gain, regain the skillset again and again, because it's some people really natural and might be too good at it, right? They love the, you know, conflict, confrontation. And it's like they're wiring and they should go be a, I don't know,
[00:04:11] an executive somewhere and make that stuff happen. But for pastors, that's like our heart is for people. And so then it's really hard when we get into it. And, and I'll, I'll kind of throw this in there. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. You know, I'd be interested to hear your answer to this, but for me, it's not even just about being a leader. It's, I was wired as a young person,
[00:04:37] as a child to always want peace over everything else. Peace doesn't mean it's settled. Peace just means lack of open conflict. And if I could just avoid that at all costs, what I find myself doing, is not addressing the things that need to get addressed and they end up getting 10 times worse. That's right. Because I've not addressed them. So over the years it's been, okay, wait a minute. I know how this
[00:05:04] goes. So the pain of saying something is, is less than the pain of letting it linger, but it doesn't mean it's not always a challenge. Yeah. And you're in, you know, I think a lot of times we settle for a false peace in the moment instead of a true peace in the end on the far side of these kinds of things. And so we're going to talk about it today and how do we do it and, and, and some of that kind of stuff. But you and I both had good examples of this in our ministry. And then other times where
[00:05:29] people are like, man, you did not do that very well. Right. Well, fair enough. So, you know, these are important things though. And I think more than anything, when we are able to have these kinds of conversations consistently, in addition to catching people succeeding and doing the right things, it builds trust in us as pastors and leaders. People go, I trust Jesse to notice when
[00:05:55] I'm doing well and to bring it up when he sees something that's not going well. And I think for leadership, this is kind of hold back just a little bit. It's, it's not so much, do we trust our people? Hopefully we can, and hopefully they're awesome. And most of our volunteers and staff are, but is it, can they trust us? Are we trustworthy with the role we've been given? And I think that's where I look myself in the mirror and go, am I being trustworthy by having honest conversations with
[00:06:24] my team when they're needed? Or do I let them boil to the point where then I get so frustrated, I end up hitting people with a sledgehammer. So, so this is about dealing with things early, often, and having the conversations we need to have. And so one resource I would mention, and we talked about this, I think probably years ago too, that's something I've come back to over the years, is a book called Fierce Conversations by Susan Scott. I think she has a book called Fierce
[00:06:52] Leadership, and they're not Christian books. They're, they're about how to have conversations that matter and move the needle for people and things and organizations, but really good tips in there. And I just wanted to read something that she writes kind of in an introduction as she's explaining where the book's going to go. But she talks about when you're having an honest conversation with someone or what she calls a fierce conversation with somebody, she says, be prepared to be here
[00:07:18] and nowhere else. Like get ready for that, be ready for that conversation. And don't just, you know, fly by the seat of her pants. And, and also don't just talk about fluff and ignore the things that need to be addressed until it becomes so big that it feels impossible. So I'm going to read this quote from her and there's so much good stuff in there. I almost like wrote the whole chapter out. And I'm like, I can't read a whole chapter of her book. So I'm just going to pull this one
[00:07:43] little section out. Maybe it's a little teaser to go take a deeper look, but she says this about conversations. She says, our work, our relationships, and our lives succeed or fail one conversation at a time. While no single conversation is guaranteed to transform a company, a relationship, a life, any single conversation can speak and listen as if this is the most important conversation you will
[00:08:08] ever have with this person. It could be participate as if it matters because it does. Anyway, so it's a little, just a little wind in ourselves to get into these conversations. So how do we address breakdowns, Jason? And what do we mean by breakdowns? I think this is kind of our working terminology here at Marine Views. Maybe you guys have kind of different way of talking about it. But a breakdown
[00:08:32] is when maybe we've agreed to something or it's, you know, there's a task or a responsibility on somebody's job description, or there's an expectation of a certain kind of behavior around our values that isn't followed through on. And we notice it, right? And we're like, hey, something's not going right here. Or, you know, there's been a breakdown of some kind. And that's when we kind of need to go,
[00:08:57] how do we address that thing? And so I have two examples I want to share. And the first example is a not so good one. This is where I, this is the fear part of accountable conversations. And you notice in the title here, the joy and in parentheses and fear of accountable, accountable conversations, probably for most of us, we should probably flip those if we're really honest, right? I want to talk about why there is actual joy in accountable conversations when they go well. But we have a
[00:09:25] lot of fear. And early on as a leader, a lot of times that fear got the better of me when we needed to have a conversation. And I know, probably the same is true for you, Jason. It's just like, I don't want to deal with it. I want that artificial harmony or peace. And so I'm just not going to address the thing. And I think that also comes from this story that's written in our minds about who we are and who we want to be for people, but also this fear that it's not going to
[00:09:54] go well. It's not going to be received well. We start to anticipate this really strong response or reaction, or we're worried about damage to the relationship or something. So it's like the fear starts to build up. Now, you're a master at this stuff, Jason. So I'm sure no anxiety has ever crept into your head or your heart when you need to have an honest conversation. But sometimes you just go, you kind of psych yourself out to the point because you're afraid of what's going to happen.
[00:10:22] Yeah. I mean, I'm really good at running a bunch of imaginary plays in my head and coming up with the worst outcome every time. It's sort of like if my brain were a supercomputer that was trying to calculate whether or not it was going to be a good outcome, my brain, it only sees the bad outcome. Yeah. We go to worst case scenario thinking kind of like, it's kind of part of our fight or flight response. I'm sure some psychologist would know more about that stuff than us, but we kind of go
[00:10:51] to worst case scenario thinking sometimes. And I think sometimes we also kind of begin to assume the worst about somebody's response or reaction or we kind of go into that territory. And so what that does, at least to me sometimes, is causes me to not want to even have that conversation at all. And so then I let it go. And that's what happened in this one particular situation. And this is going to, I'm going to change it a little bit because it was about a previous staff member. So I just want
[00:11:19] to be careful with that. But so one of the things that I expect from my team is that when we're in a staff meeting, we're present, we're engaging, right? And so this person had their laptop open for a number of staff meetings in a row, just kind of typing away and working on stuff during our meeting, not engaging, not participating a whole lot. And I probably should have just said something the very first time. I mean, this is a small thing in the grand scheme of things. And I could
[00:11:46] have just said, hey, you know, after the meeting, pull them aside, say, hey, notice you had your laptop open. Really, it's important that we're all engaged and present in our meeting. And so, you know, tell me what happened, what were you working on? And in the future, if you could just engage with the rest of us, that would be great. But I didn't because I felt that hesitation or I was worried about the reaction, right? And so I let it go. And then I let it go another week and another week and another week. And then what began to happen in my heart, right? I started, I was angry. I was
[00:12:15] resentful. I was having imaginary conversations in my head with this person. And I just got to say, Jason, if you get to the point of having an imaginary conversation in your head with somebody, addressing the breakdown or having that honest conversation, it's past due, right? So that's just a little kind of warning flag in our own heads. But finally, you know, after a while, it got to a point where it was boiling over for me. I mean, we're talking about someone's laptop being
[00:12:43] open in a staff meeting and being unwilling to address it, right? It started as this small thing that would have been easy to correct, but it became this big thing. And what happens there, I think sometimes when we have a breakdown that doesn't go addressed, we begin to write a story in our head about that person. We start to assume intentions and motivations. And what did Bill Palmer called it?
[00:13:06] He calls it a fundamental attribution error. We assign or we believe that there's bad intentions or that there's something wrong with that person. And you start to write that story in your head. And that's the story you start to believe about them. Now, have you ever kind of written a story in your head about someone and you're like, oh man, that's not a good experience. Yeah. Yeah. And we are writing stories all the time about people, but you know, how are we,
[00:13:34] what story are we writing and are there assumptions that are in there? And so that are maybe not true. Are we starting with a negative assumption that assumes the worst about that person or it's a personality flaw or character flaw. And you start to write that story in your head and it causes resentment. You start to notice the relationship growing apart. You're frustrated. The tone in your voice changes towards that person. I noticed all of those things happen to me in this
[00:14:00] situation. Well, and also, and I'll throw out there that it may also be the sort of thing where you know that there is a decision that has to be made. Yeah. And you would still make the same decision twice, but maybe you would rethink how you handled that with that person along the way. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. Like, did I fumble that along the way? True. I would have made the same decision. You know, let's say you're letting somebody go. Yeah. Make that decision again. But how
[00:14:27] did that get handled? Was that a total shock to them? Yeah. Because you never talked about it. You know, it's like, um, I just saw, uh, this was just on somewhere. I saw this. It might've been on Instagram, but it was, um, it was, uh, the Rams. Who's the head coach of the Rams? Yeah. McVay. He was talking about when they let Jared Goff go, they traded for, um, Stafford. Yeah. Stafford.
[00:14:52] And he said he had such a great relationship, uh, with golf. And he said, he doesn't regret the move. It was the right move. He said, he regrets the way he handled it. Right. That he totally fumbled that he didn't sit him down. He didn't do all the things that he wished somebody would do to him. And isn't that the thing? Yeah. Yeah. Cause it's all about really, but that was an, that was very poignant. And I thought very vulnerable of him to share that because I, I've felt that feeling before. I'm like, Hey, we would have made that decision, but man,
[00:15:21] did I really fumble this relationally? All right. I didn't. Yeah. I didn't help it be the redeeming thing. It was supposed to be. Yeah. And I think you, you said something there that's important. What would you want someone to do for you? Yeah. If, if the roles were reversed and I would want somebody to say, Hey, Jesse, turn, just close your laptop during our staff meetings for the devotions and stuff. Like, it's not a hard thing. And, and yet that fear, even, I mean, this is a
[00:15:46] crazy one, right? An irrational fear about confrontation and what might happen kind of led me to this place where now it's boiling over. I have this negative story written in my head about that person. And when I finally addressed the issue, I made it about them and their personality and their character rather than about the thing. And this is crazy. It was like, so maybe we're our personalities just
[00:16:10] don't mesh and maybe this isn't a good fit. And it was like that it was really a blindsiding for this person because it hadn't been truly addressed the way that it could have or should have earlier on. And there was a lot more to the story and I kind of changed some of the circumstances a little bit, but it was a smallish thing that became a really big thing because it went unaddressed. And in the end, what ended up happening is we had, we ended up having to let that person go because our relationship
[00:16:37] became so bumpy and they weren't feeling good about their role here. We'd kind of lost trust in the relationship and it kind of fell apart and it was like, you know what? We need to go in different directions. And there were a lot of hard feelings around that. And, and just like, it wasn't, I didn't handle it the way that I could have had. And had I gotten to it sooner, maybe a different outcome could have resulted. Right. So I think that's the fear part that, uh, that gets in the
[00:17:03] way sometimes is we're afraid of those conversations. But I think in some ways, maybe what I'm saying here is that we should be more afraid of not having those conversations. So the fear of accountable conversations should be in their absence, not in their presence. Right. I should be afraid not to address things with people because if I don't, it's going to lead to these outcomes where we write a story that can't be unwritten. And now something maybe that didn't need to happen or the Sean McVay
[00:17:30] example is a good one where we kind of have some regrets about how it all went. Maybe the outcomes would have been the same or the decision would have been the same in the end, but they're a relational part of that could have been preserved or, or, you know, left open for some redemption later on. And, um, that's not what happened in that case. So I know, I'm sure some of those things come to mind for you. And, uh, I'm sure for our listeners, you're maybe even thinking of a person right now that you're like, you know what I've noticed it's not this thing and it's bothering me or this
[00:17:59] breakdown has happened. I need to address it. I just encourage you push past that fear of confrontation or fear or that people pleasing part of us as pastors and have a healthy fear of not having that conversation. Like, and I think that's maybe the first piece. And then I want to also share a positive story and then we'll look at five kind of points. We'll just drill down for a second. And then I think we'll probably come back next week and explore some of that more. Um, but there's another
[00:18:26] version of this after I've kind of learned my lessons and figured out some of these things where there was a lot of joy in an accountable conversation and honest conversation on the far side of it. I was, it still wasn't an exciting thing for me to get to go and do, but it led to some really good outcomes. And there's a couple of things I noticed reflecting back that helped me in that. Uh, first was I, I noticed and I addressed the breakdown early. Didn't avoid it. Like in that first one, we kind of ignore it and hope it goes away and gets
[00:18:55] better on its own. Um, I also assumed good intentions. Like I didn't assume the worst about them. I assumed that, that it probably something had happened and they might need support or help. Um, I, I was more curious than, uh, angry or frustrated or judgmental about what had happened. And, uh, I think that approach of just kind of being like, like help me understand versus
[00:19:21] kind of letting it build up and boil over, or even coming in and saying, you're doing it wrong, fix it or else. Like, so it was coming from a place of, of more openness, assuming good intentions, being curious about what's happening and, uh, addressing it early on. So here's the example. Um, we had some staff changes, uh, here and we brought somebody in to help run our guest services, you know, hospitality and welcome and, uh, organize all of our greeters and ushers and coffee.
[00:19:49] And, uh, I noticed that, and that was the agreement. So you're in charge of that, go make it happen. And after a little while, I noticed that there were started to be some gaps. Nobody's at the back door. Nobody's walking the parking lot during the service for kind of security. And, uh, and there was some bumps in our coffee, which if you start to mess with coffee in the North, especially, yeah, there's a lot of problems with that, right? Like we got to make, but I noticed it. And instead of just going, well, I'm sure it'll get better on its own.
[00:20:16] I, I addressed it early. I just had an honest, honest conversation. I was like, Hey, you know, I know we agreed that you're going to take over scheduling and making sure that all the spots are covered for our, our, our Sunday morning environments and, and, and greeters ushers, that kind of stuff. And I noticed that there, there's some gaps, some spots missing. And I just was wondering, you know, what's, what's happened? What's, what's going on with that? And just kind
[00:20:41] of put it that way. And it was actually, I could see the person I was talking to, it was a sense of relief to be having this conversation because they had noticed, they knew that they weren't getting the job done and they were getting a little bit concerned about it themselves. And so by addressing it, I think it actually, uh, had the, the opposite effect of letting it stew and boil to the point where I just kind of hit them with a sledgehammer. It went from being, uh, uh, me getting
[00:21:08] frustrated and writing a negative story about them into a problem that we got to solve together. Is that see the difference there? It went from like, Hey, I noticed, and I wonder, and what happened? Because we talked about, you know, you doing this and I noticed it's not happening. So tell me about it and how can we fix it? You know, what do we need to do and how can I help? You know, that kind of thing. So we were able to kind of talk through and it turns out that it was just a
[00:21:33] really basic lack of training on Planning Center. They just didn't really understand how to schedule the volunteers and send out the reminder emails. I mean, this is like not a huge thing, but if you're new to planning center and if the first time you go to planning center, you're like, I, I don't, what is this? Like it's a lot, right? Yeah. So then it was like, Oh, it's just a skill gap. It's a training gap. Actually, that's more on me than on you. And so let's, let's get you trained
[00:22:02] up and we'll show you how it works and let's get this thing moving back in the right direction. That's a way better conversation than the earlier one, which in some respects was a much smaller issue. I mean, greeting and coffee and all that is the stakes are so much higher than an open laptop at a staff meeting. Right. And, and yet I didn't let it stew. I didn't, I didn't ignore it and hope it
[00:22:27] fakes it on its own. I addressed it early. I assumed good intentions and I was curious about it and said, how do we solve it together? So what ended up happening out of that is of course we got this person trained. It went a lot better. There were still breakdowns that happened from time to time, but we had an open conversation now going about it. And it actually, my, my side of the story is it deepened our trust and, and even it helped solidify our relationship because it was like,
[00:22:55] we can tell the truth to each other about what's going on. And you notice the difference of how I'm ending this part of the conversation than the earlier one. I, I still think about that, that relationship with joy. I go, it, it was a hard conversation. I don't like confrontation, but it had this outcome that actually not only helped us accomplish our mission and purpose, but it deepened the trust in our relationship. And, and so there's a sort of a sense of, I'm so glad that I did.
[00:23:22] And I didn't make that same mistake of just ignoring it and hoping it goes away. Cause I was afraid to, to do that part of my job. So fear and joy. I think there is joy when we overcome our initial fear and actually have accountable conversations. And I think we should have a healthy fear of not having accountable conversations because where they can go. So, um, any thoughts before we kind of dive into it? Yeah. I mean, not really other than, you know, amen. And for me, it's again, it's,
[00:23:51] I always, I literally always have to remind myself, I really don't want to have this conversation. It's going to be painful. And there are still times where I avoid these conversations. So I'm not, I'm not going to act like I have it all. Yeah, for sure. All right. All the time. But, um, but when I do it right, I remind myself, yes, this is going to hurt, but I promise you it's going to hurt so much more the longer I wait. That's right. Yeah. It's just going to be such a thing. I mean, there's somebody I can think about right now who I have needed to have a conversation with.
[00:24:20] And now it's at a point where I know it's going to be a massive issue. And it's going to be hard. And, and we're going to still, we're going to continue to make these mistakes. I mean, it's just part of leadership is coming back to the fundamentals again and again. And then, you know, the reason I'm sharing this is I'm like, I was reminded of my need to do this and just recently. And I'm like, man, I've kind of, I haven't taken my eye off the ball, but as leaders, it's, we have so many things on our plates all the time that this, this part that's
[00:24:50] emotionally kind of full and intense can be something that we kind of leave to the side because it just, it's another thing that we have to put our heart into and we're not sure how they're going to respond. Right. The emotional energy that we think it's going to take as well. So I need to get this person and I need to schedule it and do it. So Jesse, what's your calendar like next week? That's right. Yeah. Let's have an honest conversation. Yeah. We've been meaning to have it out right here on air. Right. No, well, let's go. These five things. Let's, let's look at them.
[00:25:19] And the first thing I think, and this is before the five is just kind of, if before you have that conversation, just do a quick check in with yourself. Who am I coming into this meeting? What's the story that I've already written that I need to be kind of maybe unright or just be aware of at least? And, uh, do what do I understand about the facts and how do I feel about this person? Kind of just getting emotionally and spiritually prepared ahead of time instead of just winging it. You know what I
[00:25:47] mean? Yeah. It's, it's just a different kind of deal. So first you kind of take stock yourself and, and all of that. But, um, the very first step is just to declare and identify the breakdown. It's like, you just got to say, Hey, this is going to be a little bit of an honest conversation. And I hope that's okay. I know we trust each other enough to tell the truth and just to be honest with each other. And I noticed that, uh, we had a few, uh, greeters missing on Sunday from
[00:26:13] the back door and that the coffee has been a little bit, uh, out of sorts the last couple of weeks. And so I just wanted to talk to you about that. Uh, you know, I noticed this happening and it just kind of makes me wonder what happened. So you first, you declare and identify the breakdown. And in some ways that example is really easy, right? Because it's something very clear that needs to happen. Um, but if it's, it's, if it's like a culture issue or a, you're, you're kind of, uh, someone is, uh, not living up to the values of your organization, right? They're writing in all
[00:26:43] capital letters in an email, you know, or, and a bolding and highlighting stuff and like, okay, that's, that's not quite our culture. And Hey, listen, I noticed that your email, the tone of your emails, at least it feels to me, it's kind of coming across pretty strong. And I noticed that. And I was just curious, like, how do you read those emails? You know, it's like, so you kind of identify and declare the breakdown and you get the topic for conversation onto the table and you want to do that right out of the gate. Right. So then everybody knows what we're talking here to talk about.
[00:27:13] We're not being around the bush. We're not asking, you know, a 10 minute conversation about how your week went Jason and, oh, that's cute. And, oh, you got, uh, no, no. Do what'd you see the Mariners game last night? No, let's just get right to it. You know, I noticed, and, and I wanted to talk about this. Uh, do you, I know, man, I'm such a beat around the busher with stuff. I am. Um, again, when I do this well though, it is when I'm like, Hey, thanks so much for coming
[00:27:40] in. I just want to get right to it. Yeah. Here's a, and then I try to end with, uh, Yeah. Then you, you do the rebuilding of the relationship. Sometimes we call it repair work, right? If we need to, it's just, it's just reminding them. I care about you as a person. You're more important to me than the thing, but I also need to address this. Yeah. Let's just get right to it. I think that's a great phrase to get into it. And sometimes if it's a hard conversation, it's, Hey, this is going to be kind of a hard conversation, but I care about you enough to be
[00:28:08] honest and let's just talk about it and whatever. So declare an ID to break down and then, uh, listen, that's step two. What happened? Tell me, tell me, how do you see it? What happened? And just, you might learn all kinds of things that you didn't have any clue about. Yeah. You know, so you say, listen, what you mean is put aside your prejudgment of the entire
[00:28:34] situation and actually be willing to be wrong. Yes. And this is where assuming good intentions is so important. Assume the best, assume the best. And I don't know that someone out there is probably like, assume, you know, when we assume, well, listen, if you assume the worst, that's worse. So assume the best, assume good intentions and then be, be open to be some, you know, if, if you have to go down the road that, Hey, it wasn't good intentions and there's something bad here. Well,
[00:29:02] that's a whole nother issue. So assume that they were trying to do the right thing or had good intentions and something happened. Right. Yeah. So that's where being, you know, just help me understand. And I think that's a good phrase. I noticed, you know, I want to get right to it. I noticed that we haven't had greeters and coffee has been kind of not great the last few weeks. So help me understand what's going on. I just kind of want to hear your perspective. I've noticed you've totally fumbled your responsibility. Yes. Uh, yes, that's right. Yeah. But then assume good
[00:29:31] intentions. I know you to be the kind of person that really is committed to following through and doing a, you know, doing the things that you are supposed to be doing. So help me understand. And that's where we can just listen to their version. We can ask good questions, lots of open ended what questions and stuff like that, and try not to be judgmental. And then as we're hearing that, as we're listening, I think this is where we get to be curious and do what Bill Palmer would call investigating. And investigating doesn't mean like you're getting out your, you're, you know,
[00:30:00] magnifying glass and like trying to catch them or something like that. It's not a detective thing, but it's a little bit of a curiosity thing. Like where, what's the kind of the source of this breakdown? Is it a one-time thing that just, they had a bad day or they forgot and it happened and we can correct that and move in a better direction. It's just kind of a one-off and this is totally out of character for them, but you still needed to address it because the stakes are high. So is it a one-time thing? Or maybe you look at it and you go, man, this might be a system thing.
[00:30:30] This is kind of like a system level issue. And I think there's some lack of clarity around what was expected or what the agreement was or how we do things. And so maybe it's that, maybe the system itself, you know, is, is broken and we need to revisit how we've recruited and trained and schedule our volunteers. And maybe there's been a breakdown somewhere in that area that we can address. And then a third one might be what you might call, they just have a skill gap or they can't
[00:31:00] do it. And that was the case with this particular person. There was some training that we had missed. Our team was very used to receiving a Planning Center reminders, you know, 48 hours in advance of their volunteers time. And you're like, you know, you signed up for first and third Sundays, just be there. Like, like, come on, but that's the habit, right? And you get the reminder. And if I don't get the reminder, I forget that I'm doing it or whatever. So our people were used to that,
[00:31:26] but this staff member didn't, hadn't learned how to do that and how to schedule people and whatever. And so maybe it's the breakdown is around a skill issue or a training issue, or just could be a capacity issue. It's not the right role because they don't have the skill set for it or something, but maybe, maybe it's a can't because they haven't been trained or they just need better tools or whatever. So it could be a one-time thing. If that's the case, great. It could be a system issue.
[00:31:53] And we're going to need to kind of get in there and work on that. Or it could be a can't issue. I'm missing some skills or training. The last one, and I think next week we'll dive into all these a little more deeply, is that I won't issue. The breakdown happened because I don't want to. And I skipped to that in the first example. I just assumed that they didn't want to be an active, engaged participant in our staff meetings. And so I just, I skipped to the, oh, well, but they hadn't
[00:32:22] expressed that. I'd never had that conversation. Right. But sometimes it's a want to thing. And if that's the case, then the conversation goes something like it, you know, this is what the job is. And if you're not willing to do those things, then you're, you don't want to have the job. In other words, you kind of let them fire themselves. And we'll talk a little more about that next time and how that conversation goes. But if it's a, if it's a will issue, that's kind of a whole nother
[00:32:49] ball of wax. And that's a different kind of breakdown. So you investigate what kind of breakdown is this? Is it a one-time thing, system thing, a skill thing? And, and if it is, we can begin to address those and prevent feature breakdowns and we'll go from there. And then, so first, declare an ID the breakdown. Second, listen, what happened? How do you understand what happened? Third, be curious, investigate and try to understand what kind of breakdown it is. And then once you kind of
[00:33:15] identified the kind of breakdown it is, you kind of brainstorm together, you work to solve the problem together. How are we going to prevent future breakdowns? How are we going to prevent this from happening again? And then you recommit to the agreement. So as we're leaving this conversation, I still, I feel so good. I feel like we've landed on a really great solution. You're going to get some training and planning center, and we're going to make sure that all of our greeters and stations and coffee is on point and that's going to go well. So thank you. This is really great. I'm glad
[00:33:44] we got to work through this together. Something like that. Right. And then the last thing is, after you have that conversation and you talk for five more minutes about, you know, the weather and whatever else, later you come back and you catch them succeeding at the thing that you had that conversation. Yeah, this is so important. And so, you know, I was able to come back a couple of weeks later and say, hey, I noticed, this is so cool. I noticed every greeting spot was taken. It sounds like the coffee thing's going
[00:34:13] well. And I just wanted to say, I noticed, and I'm grateful. Thank you for taking the steps to like, figure that out because it matters so much for us. And so I noticed and it matters and thank you. Instead of just saying, hey, good job. It's getting specific. Kind of, you know, I talked about that in my solo episode when I was talking to myself. But I noticed and it matters and thank you. And so we catch them succeeding. It reinforces that we're still paying attention and we're going to notice if there's more breakdowns, but we're also going to notice
[00:34:42] when it's going well and we're going to celebrate that. And so all of that builds trust. It builds a deeper sense of joy in our relationships. And that's why I think those conversations can produce joy because they move us toward the mission. They build trust in our relationships and they actually take a whole weight off of us. We don't have to stew about those things anymore. We don't have to let them build up into something that they don't need to be until we kind of work up the courage to like pull the pin on the grenade. You know, it's like you go to that extreme. So
[00:35:12] anyway, that's just a little bit of this conversation. And if we want to, and we'll talk offline, but I think it would be maybe good to explore each of those breakdowns and how to address, how do we do that for next week's episode? Yeah. And kind of look at if it's a one-time issue, how do we deal with it? And we'll kind of work through that conversation in each of those cases. And your favorite one, if it's a one-to issue and they're not willing to,
[00:35:37] how does that conversation go when we have to part ways? And that's the least fun deal. But if we do that well, it can actually, again, it can actually sometimes lead to trust in a relationship that is allowed to continue beyond the working relationship. And that's really the goal, right? We don't want to sever ties and hate each other. So anyway, so we'll get into that next time, but. I have a lot to say about that one. Yeah.
[00:36:03] Oh, so we're going to get into it, but hopefully this is encouraging for folks or good reminders. And I just come back to where we started that conversations, good conversations, what Susan calls, Scott calls fierce conversation, where we're just honest and real and talk about the thing that really needs to be talked about. It's so, so important. It can change things in a good way. And that we should have a healthy fear of not having those conversations. And we should believe
[00:36:29] and experience the joy that comes when we do. So hope this helps a little bit. I know I feel like I need to have some conversations. So anyway, if you're going to go out and have a conversation this week because you listen to this, I just pray it goes well. I pray that you can kind of get your own head and heart right into that conversation. And that the Lord will provide just the right words and it'll lead to deeper, deeper relationships and deeper trust because you're willing to address it.
[00:36:58] I think the other thing, and thank you, Jesse. I think the other thing is this is not the exciting part of leadership, but there may not be many more important parts than handling this well because it has a ripple effect on the whole organization. And, and, and I think we could get into this next week, but I think also when other people see people being held accountable,
[00:37:24] that leads to good fruit. Um, because conversely, if people see somebody's not being held accountable and not doing the job or not doing whatever, that's like a cancer throughout the whole staff or throughout the whole church. Um, why, why aren't, isn't he doing anything about it? Why aren't they, why is this person allowed to do this? I mean, this is leadership credibility in the end. Right.
[00:37:48] And, uh, you know, I think that's, that's where we go. And sometimes, and, and even now I go, man, there's so many times when I drift from these kinds of things. Part of it's because I don't do the work on the front end of really having clear agreements with people about what their role is or what the expectations are. And it's impossible to hold somebody accountable to vagueness. Right. So it, you know, it's, it's, it's all kind of connected in, but really the point in bringing
[00:38:17] this up is just to remind us that these kinds of things are actually crucial for the mission. And, and if we're not attentive to it, we can drift into a place where we don't want to be. And, um, so we're not perfect at this. None of us are, none of us got into ministry to be like, let's have accountable conversations. And if you did, I'm like, interesting. Uh, I don't know. So maybe it's a generational thing. I don't know, but, uh, I think it's a wiring thing and we have
[00:38:43] to kind of learn the skillset around that. So Jason, always good to be with you and look forward to exploring more next week. Thank you, sir. And everyone else, thank you so much for listening. Please share this with a colleague. If you find it helpful for you, reach out to us anytime, Jason or Jesse at reclaimleader.com until next time, as we always say, ministry is hard. It is so much better when we do it together. Take care.