The purpose of teamwork is synergy. Synergy is the state in which the output is greater than the sum of the inputs. One plus one equals three, four, even five! Let me explain... In the 1885 world series of mule team competition, held in Chicago, the winning team pulled 9,000 pounds, the second place team a little less. Someone suggested that they see what the two teams could do together. The result was 30,000 pounds, much more than the sum of their separate loads. Or take geese for … [Read more...]
Dealing With Underperformance
If you have a low performing staff member (or volunteer) on your team, you basically have three options: 1. Train them. You may have failed to properly equip them to do their job well and if that's the case you need to take a time out and spend some time training them properly and thoroughly. 2. Transfer them. Jim Collins in his book Good to Great points out the importance of both having the right people on the bus (a metaphor for your team) and having each person in the right seat on the … [Read more...]
How to be a Great Worker and Get Promoted
Want to be a great worker and get promoted? Here's what the Bible has to say: 1. Do an excellent job 1 Samuel 18:5, "Whatever Saul asked David to do, David did it successfully..." 2. Complete the assignment before the deadline 1 Samuel 18:24, "...all I [Saul] want for the bride price is one hundred Philistine foreskins..." 1 Samuel 18:26, "...before the time limit expired, he [David] and his men went out and killed two hundred Philistines and presented all their foreskins to the … [Read more...]
Hire a Great Track Record
You want to hire people who have proven themselves: Proven their value Proven their faithfulness Proven their trustworthiness If they don't have a great track record, don't hire them because the best indicator of future performance is past performance. When looking to hire someone (or promote someone you've already hired) you want to evaluate past performance. If they haven't been a good volunteer, paying them won't turn them into a good employee. If they haven't been faithful with … [Read more...]
Productivity Squared
In Dale Dauten's The Gifted Boss I'm learning about a concept he calls "productivity squared." The basic idea of this concept is that you really want to make sure you hire someone you don't have to manage too much so that productivity can be doubled. Here are the repercussions of hiring someone you have to spend a lot of time managing: Pastor works 10 hours a day and naturally wants to get some help. So he convinces his boss to let him hire an assistant. Now the pastor is a manager, and with … [Read more...]
How to Know You Made a Good Hire
In Dale Dauten's book The Gifted Boss he helps an employer know when he/she has hired the right person. You've hired the right person when you're crazy about them. You've hired the right person if you lie awake at night thanking God that they work for you. You've hired the right person when you lie there worrying that they might leave to work for someone else. You've hired the right person when you spend time thinking of how you can make them happier. This resonated with me because … [Read more...]
Hire Special Talent
Great sports teams search the world for special talent. Rarely, does special talent come as the result of a 'walk on.' One way to hire is to post a job and interview candidates. This is akin to trying to find special talent in the crowd of 'walk ons.' Another approach is to search the world for special talent. People with special talent are almost never unemployed looking for a job. They are almost always already working somewhere, being quite successful at whatever it is they do. This is the … [Read more...]
One Approach to End of Year Bonuses
If you decide to give out end of year bonuses to your staff, here are several things you'll have to decide: What kind of bonus will it be? Is it simply a Christmas bonus? Or is it an end-of-year performance based bonus? The Christmas bonus is given simply because it's Christmas and you want to be generous. The performance based bonus is determined by...you guessed it...how well that staff member did their job that year. I don't think one is necessarily better than the other. But you have to … [Read more...]
How to Determine Compensation (Subjectively)
If you have staff (or plan to have staff one day) one of the many things you must decide is what you will pay them. There are both objective and subjective factors that will go into determining this. In my previous post (click here to read) I covered the objective factors I use to help me determine salary ranges for my staff. In this post I will cover some of the subjective factors that help me determine where exactly my staff will land within their salary range. The subjective factors … [Read more...]
How to Determine Compensation (Objectively)
If you have staff (or plan to have staff one day) one of the many things you must decide is what you will pay them. There are both objective and subjective factors that will go into determining this. In this post I'll talk about the objective factors. A resource I've found super helpful in determining salary ranges is Richard Hammar's Compensation Handbook for Church Staff. The book evaluates a variety of factors such as: Position (i.e. executive pastor, worship pastor, associate pastor, … [Read more...]