Q&A: How Do You Change Your Team’s Culture Without Losing People?

Alex Enfiedjian 00:00 Hello friends, I just wanted to give you a little bonus episode this month, you’re probably already aware, but we’re right in the middle of our first ever worship leader mentorship. And this has been such a joy, such a blessing of getting to spend time with 16 worship leaders from all over the world. They’re phenomenal people doing an incredible job in their churches. And they just wanted to continue to press into their own growth and development. And it’s been such a joy getting to know them and spend time with them and encourage them. And one of the cool things about the mentorship is that not just am I teaching them, but we’re stopping in the middle of those lessons each Monday night. And we’re spending time dialoguing and discussing and giving space for them to ask questions and receive encouragement and answers. And so I thought I would share some of those questions and answers with you guys, just so that you’re encouraged. And this one comes from one of the students, Austin croninger, who’s serving at the well church in Missouri, and is doing a fantastic job. And Austin’s question comes from our vision, values and culture evening when we were focusing on those topics, and he wants to know, how do you help your team transition to new values without losing people along the way? And so we’ll get right into that answer right now. But if you’re interested in being part of the next mentorship, it’s going to be February 2021, we’ll be doing another batch of students. So if you want to be a part of the next batch, I would encourage you to put your name in the hat right now you can apply it worship ministry training, comm slash mentor, worship ministry training, comm slash mentor. Alright, let’s get into Austin’s question about values. So let’s say you, you flesh all this out with your values and like the vision and you’re ready to start taking it to members of your team. So they know like, when you do that, like, do you show them this and say, this is something you can agree to? If not like, is this? Like, are you on board or not? You’ve given them the opportunity that back out if they’re not, since the vision may be different than it was when it started? You know? Yeah, I think there are many exit points for people, right. And so like, if you cast a clear, compelling, exciting vision, and you do it with passion, and you’re like, this is my vision, but you’re like, Guys, let’s go take on the world for Jesus. And it’s biblical, most people are going to be invigorated and excited about that. I doubt if I read that to almost anybody, maybe like, I have a major problem with that, you know, I doubt like anybody would would say that, right? But what happens is, if you’re going to change the culture, which we’re going to talk about, like in the next section, through creating new values, and a new and new, like, agreed upon behaviors and identities, then what you need to do is you need to be patient with people, but you need to consistently communicate the vision values. Now, when you communicate, which we’re going to talk about these values over and over. People either get it or they don’t. And then eventually, it’s been repeated so many times, and it’s so clear that you have to start saying, hey, like, you know, you’re part of this team. Do you agree with these values? Yes, I do. Okay, well, like can I? Are you open to some input right now? Most people will say, Yeah, sure. Go ahead. You say, I noticed, like, you’re not spending any time like preparing your parts for the songs like, remember when we when I first shared this vision, and you said you were excited about it like that you want it to be committed, like being part of the team as a means being committed to the team and means spending time practicing, like, do you think you could work on that for the next few weeks for your schedule? Oh, yeah, sure, no problem. And then if they fail at that, then you’re like, Hey, we talked last week, like I noticed, again, like, I hate Did you hate those conversations, I hate those conversations. We all hate those conversations. But you’ll never get the team you want without having confrontation. But it’s not really competition. It’s just reminding people what they agreed to. And eventually, people will either be so sick of you hounding on them that they’ll leave, or you’ll have to be like, hey, like, this just isn’t working. So I always say, you get this vision values, you create this train, you say, here’s where we’re going, everybody get on the train, they all get on the back of the train. And you go choo, choo, choo, choo, choo. And the people who don’t want to keep up with you, they just fall off the back of the train. And the rest of them go where you want to go. And then you just keep repeating those values. And onboarding, which we’re going to talk about next week is like, the main time when you’re onboarding a new volunteer is the main time to form them into the team member you want them to be because they’re a blank slate, they’re fresh. So if you can fill up your team with brand new volunteers, and onboard them, and like squeeze them into the mold that you want them to become, they pretty soon your team will be full of people who have the qualities that you’re looking for, and then the old culture will be outweighed by the new culture and they’ll just be like, maybe this isn’t for me anymore. To answer your question. Yes. And thank you. Alright, well,

Alex Enfiedjian 04:50 hopefully that was helpful and encouraging to you. And again, if you’re interested in being part of the next mentorship, it’s going to be February 2021. You can go ahead and apply today at worship ministry training. dot com slash mentor be one of the first to apply worship ministry training comm slash mentor. Alright, I’ll see you guys on the first of the month for another helpful episode. God bless you