What I wish I knew before taking on my last 3 jobs
By John Mrazek
In his book, The First 90 Days, Michael Watkins reminds us that the President of the United States gets 100 days to prove he’s the right choice and to start off his presidency successfully. Watkins also notes that the velocity of today’s organizations has shortened those 100 days to 90 for the rest of us, and that’s not fair. Plus, we’re serving in the church — “the hope of the world,” according to Bill Hybels — and the President is only dealing with a country.
No, pressure right?
Over the last few months, I’ve been asked by some friends and ex-employees in new leadership positions about what they should focus on during their first 90 days. I didn’t want to let them down, so I reflected over my last seven years of ministry roles and consulting projects and compiled a short list of three “Don’ts” that I wish I’d known going in. Hopefully, they will be useful to you the next time you start a new leadership job.
#1: Don’t assess the staff performance before you’ve assessed the environment / culture in which they’re performing. It’s usually easier to evaluate the performance of the individuals than the environment because you can compare them against annual goals, job descriptions, or the opinions of the existing leadership. But, I’ve found that individual performance and engagement is directly influenced by the healthiness of the environment and the interpretation of how to accomplish their role within the rules or dysfunction being experienced.
I would recommend focusing your energy on thoroughly assessing the environment before making any personnel adjustments. After that, I would start the process of creating a healthy, safe and accountable environment — and then assess the staff’s performance within the new context before deciding someone is in the wrong seat on the bus or too broken to be restored.
Of course, long-term staff issues might need to be addressed before the environment can be assessed and repaired. Most of the time, everyone already knows a personnel issue exists and they’re watching to see how quickly you notice (and your willingness to make the tough call).
Go slowly and prayerfully, even though some of these situations appear to be easily remedied. The sadness that results from the troubled staff member’s departure will be charged to your account. I’ve found it best to start with the mindset that the environment is broken, not the people. Environments don’t have feelings, a mortgage or friends in the organization.
#2: Don’t suggest significant changes to the organizational DNA because you think something is broken or not how you like to run an organization. You generally haven’t earned the right to make big changes until you’ve made several deposits into everyone’s trust accounts and they know that you care about them more than your preferences or ideas.
As with the personnel issue, everyone usually knows what needs to be fixed, but they’re unable to articulate the specifics or recommend a path to resolution. That’s why they hired you.
The best course of action is to spend a generous portion of your first 90 days meeting with as many people as possible, collecting lots of thoughts and perceptions, sending out an internet survey (or three), mining the staff and elders for their opinions, and interviewing your boss until they share the last 10 percent. But, be careful: Once you ask, you have to do something with what everyone shares or lose whatever credibility the hiring process earned you. There will be time later to carefully fix tough issues and guide the culture back to health and higher levels of effectiveness — but only after you’ve made sure it’s the right thing to do. That takes time.
#3: Don’t let your marketplace experiences set the pace or priorities. If you’re a corporate refugee like me (20 years of project management and operations experience), you come from a place where you were expected to move quickly and decisively to prove your expertise. That’s also true in ministry, as long as no one is hurt and the actual changes are slowly rolled out.
Ministry is delicate, people-centered, and deathly afraid of hurting people’s feelings or appearing too “corporate.” After living through the transition from the marketplace to ministry, I’m continually amazed by the difference in the two worlds.
Whatever speed you’re moving at currently, or planning to move at, I recommend resisting your previous experience and going half that fast (or slower, if possible). You might be feeling some pressure from people around you to start making changes; I would ignore those feelings unless they come from the leadership. You’re too new to interpret a good pace for change, so let the board set your pace — not your feelings or preferences.
Every time someone winces when you announce the next change, pauses a few extra beats before agreeing to your recommendations, or wonders if we should have done this or that, you’ve gone too fast and need to slow down. I think it’s safe to say that ministry moves at least half as fast as the marketplace in most area, and even slower in areas having to do with people or money.
Make the most of your time
This might seem like a lot to take in, but be assured that 90 days will be over before you know it. I’d love to have a few of my first 90 days back so that I could do them over with what I know now.
If you’re mindful of these three don’ts during your first 90 days, I promise you’ll set a foundation that will pay dividends later as people see you as their shepherd instead of the corporate “hatchet-man” who hurt their friends and their church.
John Mrazek is a seasoned XP who consults at churches in the XP area.
