Every Tuesday @ 7:30am I have a Leadership Team meeting with around 8-10 church staff members/crucial volunteers. This meeting is supremely important to me. It’s a time when all of us can come together and focus on the important issues going on in the church and challenge ourselves to be organized and working on the same page as a team. We play a lot of roles with this meeting, but one of the biggest roles it plays for me is a huge challenge to my personal growth as a leader, and my personal growth as a man.
This morning’s meeting was especially helpful to me as we took our team through an exercise where we agreed to write down one positive thing (something that we love), and one negative thing (something we’d like to see them working on) about each member of our team. We decided to do this as we have identified some of the areas we have some dysfunction going on within our group. After writing these for each person, we shared them with everyone.
It. Was. Phenomenal.
Being able to speak those things out to people in a constructive way was difficult, but necessary. On the opposite end, it was so helpful to hear the things that I bring to the team and the areas of improvement. Some of them were obvious and some of them caught us completely off guard.
Personally, it was confirmed that I:
* Take on too much
* Don’t know how to say no as well as I thought I did
* Don’t delegate enough
* Hold back on speaking my mind in certain situations
* Don’t trust myself fully enough, when I should
And lots of good things about myself.
How helpful this was! Things that I knew deep down, but came to a head as multiple people spoke them to me…face to face. Think of what this could do at your work! Imagine what this could do in your family!
Try it!
The truth spoken in love is always a good thing.
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My mom always use to say. “It’s not what you say but how you say it. Say things in love and you can’t go wrong.”
Man, I loved that women. (more than my luggage)
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We do this at my job – it’s called a performance review, and it’s not nearly as helpful as it was initially intended. It’s anonymous, and everyone uses it as a vehicle to tear the other person down and hold back bonuses.
At home, though, my husband and I put it into practice. Not as frequently as we should, but it helps a lot like what you experienced with your group.
Good post.
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NaysWay, often, these types of exercises can go terribly wrong when they are coupled/associated with performance reviews. The reason it worked well in the context Ryan shared is that it was done in an effort to better the team by encouraging each individual to be vulnerable with each other. It had nothing to do with reviewing performance or salaries or bonuses or ranking or titles. The net result can good for the team and for the individual…but, it must be done with respect in order for it to work!
Ryan, you ROCK, man!
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The key is having trust among those with whom you interact. This will not work if there is a lack of trust. On the other hand, I’ve seen it work tremendously well in other situations.
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We did that at work once and I almost died from the panic attack I had for the week in between the assignment and the results.
There were roughtly ten of us at that meeting and it was the first time I considering not doing something and getting an “F”.
I was SHOCKED to see so many people tell me that they couldn’t think of anything I could improve on
The two bad things were:
1. That I don’t ask for help.
2. That I rely too much on technology.
Both of which I could totally deal with
~K
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Someone I used to work with called something like this a $#i! sandwich. You’d say one thing that the person did well or you liked about them (piece of bread), then one thing they didn’t do well or you didn’t like about them (the $#i!), and then another thing you liked about them or that they were good at (the other piece of bread.)
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all ears?
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Interesting concept.
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I’m so provoked and convicted by seeing your team doing this! So much garbage and sinning against one another can be avoided if we just openly engage in our brothers and sisters about areas of sin and encouraging one another in areas where we see God’s grace on full display in our lives. It just humbles us and protects us from self-righteousness by giving us the perspective that those around us are in the same situation as we ourselves are… dead in our sin apart from Christ. Thanks for the helpful word! Hebrews 10 and Romans 3 come to mind.
Kate – $#it sandwich is actually a reference to the movie Spinal Tap. It was a two-word review a critic gave to Spinal Tap’s album Shark Sandwich. Hilarious!
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R…you are doing such a good job, just wished I lived closer to your church..you make my day with your wit, wisdom and laughter…keep doing what you are doing and don’t ever change…..
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Love these posts. I passed your site along to a friend, who is the worship leader in his church– I know he likes your site. Keep it up!
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Excellent post. As with Naysway, when I was working, this type of review was implemented, with anonymous dagger throwing results. It’s nice to see though this implemented as it should be, all in love.
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Great Idea…
Anyone would LOVE to hear all the stuff you are doing well !!!
But I know that SOMEHOW… when it got to the part about telling you what you DON”T do well…
I might suddenly have an important situation to attend to…
Hmm
Willingness to receive constructive criticism my not be my forte
; )
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ryman… you know how much I love you… so will you accept the constructive criticism that you might want to use spell check before you post your musings? “i before e except after c”.
Greg and I pray for you faithful and true VWS servant leaders every Tuesday… you guys are such a blessing to us! Thank you for your obedience, your example, your vulnerability (I hope that’s spelled correctly!), your gifts.
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This was a great post. Sometimes it is so hard to hear criticism, but it inspires growth! One of the biggest issues I am dealing with in my life is the gossip around me. I think so much backbiting would be avoided if people learned to openly speak their minds in situations as they occur in love.
Thanks for the insight.
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I have done this in my place of work (when I used to work) it was a bit painfull for me.
Would love to do this at home. Not sure at this point with my children if I can say anything right though no matter how I say it. Boy almost 17, girl 15, boy 7.
Anyhelp with how to talk to teens bring it on:)
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Hi Ryan! I’m a former random visitor who is now (finally!) revealing herself, haha Just wanted to say that I absolutely love your photography, very inspiring! If I can afford to get my hands on a good camera I definitely aspire to get to your level! Thanks for sharing your life, hope you can find time to cruise on over to my (newborn) place on the web.
God Bless
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This is the worst thing for me. I tend to dive deep inside myself and hide during reveals like this. I wish truly that I could take it in without feeling like someone is putting me down.
Something to work on I guess.
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This is a great idea! Our church staff just went thru something similar, only we focused on the positive aspects of each other. In my (18 yrs working in a church) experience, pastors/church leaders don’t know how to deal well with “criticism”, constructive or otherwise. They just don’t teach that kind of thing in seminary or bible college. I’m definitely taking this idea back to our staff, as I think it would be a *very* helpful learning tool for us all.
Love your blog, praying for your ministry!
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Several years ago the woman’s group at church did something different. Each person had a 8×10 card with their name on it and we put them all on a table. Then we went around and wrote something on each person’s card. To this day I cherish the things that people wrote about me.
I would like to try the one with the faults! It would be good to see myself through someone else’s eyes.
http://walkaschildren.blogspot.com/
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This would have been an interesting project before the downsizing. But it’s true that some type of program to promote teamwork is always needed within the workplace and I think it’s the main reason this company hasn’t suceeded as planned.
Didn’t realize it but my kid keeps his parents pretty grounded. Out of the mouth of babes and kids, too bad we have to grow up.
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It’s a challenge. I can see the benefit. But ooooh so very scarey for one such as I who does not like (wait, I HATE) confrontation. Maybe we should try it.
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