{"id":299,"date":"2014-10-14T01:00:43","date_gmt":"2014-10-14T05:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/?p=299"},"modified":"2026-04-01T16:21:42","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T16:21:42","slug":"titles-and-timelines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/2014\/10\/14\/titles-and-timelines\/","title":{"rendered":"Titles and Timelines"},"content":{"rendered":"

Never give a title without a timeline.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

I once met with a guy and asked him to be our band leader for six months. I told him that after six months I would need him to recommend someone else to lead the band for the next<\/em> six months. He did a great job in many ways but didn’t have the people skills needed to continue in the role. So after\u00a0six months I thanked him for his service, gave him a gift card to a restaurant and asked him to recommend someone else to lead. He recommended someone that I also had been thinking about asking.<\/p>\n

So I met with the guy\u00a0he recommended and asked him<\/em> to be our band leader for six months. I told him that after six months I would need him to recommend someone else to lead the band for the next<\/em> six months. He too did a great job in many ways, but wasn’t as committed as I needed him to be to continue leading our team. So after six months I thanked him for his service, gave him a gift card to a restaurant and then asked him to recommend someone else to lead for the next six months.<\/p>\n

This process continued until I finally found the right person to lead our team. When this person’s<\/em> six month commitment ended I simply asked him to serve again and again until his volunteer role became a paid position.<\/p>\n

But never give a title without a timeline or you’ll find yourself firing a volunteer, which never<\/em> ends well.<\/strong> With the first two people I mentioned, I didn’t fire them, I simply let their timeline expire<\/em>. Since they weren’t fired, they happily continued to serve on the team, even though they weren’t the band leader anymore. No awkward and uncomfortable conversations, no one getting upset or disgruntled and no one leaving the church – this is what happens when, along with the title, you give a timeline.<\/p>\n

So one\u00a0more time…NEVER, NEVER, NEVER give a title without a timeline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Never give a title without a timeline.\u00a0 I once met with a guy and asked him to be our band leader for six months. I told him that after six months I would need him to recommend someone else to lead the band for the next six months. He did a great job in many […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-299","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-volunteers","7":"entry"},"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Mike","author_link":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/author\/mike\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1175,"href":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299\/revisions\/1175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/withskillfulhands.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}