Encouragement
The team needs motivation and encouragement to push forward, maintain focus and achieve key objectives. Prime opportunities to do this are team meetings, with both planned celebration moments and spontaneous “Celebrate the Win” conversations with the team. Spread the joy with positive words about both churchwide and ministry-specific accomplishments. Another idea is using your ministry scoreboard to highlight wins that impact key goals and objectives.
“Celebrate the Win” on Big Ideas Blog
Development
Team leadership development is another way to build a culture of best practices and continuing improvement. Allocate time for team development either within the existing staff meeting structure or as a standalone event. Utilize existing leadership, evangelism or other studies, or schedule a review of an impactful book. Over a recent 2-month period, our team recently worked through the book, The Great Dechurching.
Communication
Internal communication among staff is vital for vision alignment and team morale.
Lax communication is routinely cited as a major problem area for big companies and organizations. When leaders get this piece right, the effect on team culture is huge:
Leaders who effectively manage the flow of information within their company tend to share a certain outlook—and a certain set of practices. They adopt communication methods that enable them to get closer to employees. They put in place communication systems that promote dialogue, as opposed to monologue. They engage employees by allowing them to become active participants in the communication process. They rigorously pursue an agenda that aligns their communication efforts with organizational strategy.
Find ways to put a premium on ensuring that people on your team talk with each other, and not just to each other. That translates to an open team culture that values direct conversation over formal org chart relationships. Team members should feel implicit permission to have the hallway conversations and informal give and take that makes everyone better.
Give and Take by Adam Grant
One strategy for team connection and communication is a simple mobile app. Easily developed with no-code app builders like Jotform, mobile sites can serve as information hubs for a wide range of team resources.
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Team communication solutions might include:
“The Silent Killer of Big Companies ” by Boris Groysberg and Michael Slind, Harvard Business Review (October 25, 2012), https://hbr.org/2012/10/the-silent-killer-of-big-companies.
Guiding Principles
Every team needs core principles to govern team interactions and facilitate collaborative ministry. Consider creating a set of team values or guiding principles. Display those values in the places you meet and use team development time to unpack important concepts.
“How to Establish and Reinforce Your Church Staff Core Values” by Vanderbloeman (Free Guide)
Assessment
Culture Assessment Tool – Use Vanderbloemen’s Culture Assessment to answer the question: How healthy is your team? Recognize that building a great team means keeping employees engaged and satisfied. The culture assessment tool is a comprehensive and anonymous staff engagement study that measures your team’s health across nine key cultural indicators:
Your team will share detailed insights about their experiences, offering you a true reflection of your team’s culture. Purchase the culture assessment for $500 or opt for the assessment with a one-hour zoom call report review for $1,000. The final report yields:
We provide open access tools to help ministry teams lead, grow and serve.
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Loop In Summary
Loop In Summary