Teams that Thrive and not just Survive
A Cutting Edge Interview:
People, tasks, conflict: An interview with corporate teams consultant Grace McLaren
One of the most challenging aspects to planting a church is doing it with a team of people. Nothing is more exhilarating. Nothing is more filled with pain and frustration.
Most leaders underestimate the effort it takes to cultivate a team of people that really works, says Grace McLaren, president of Working Together, a corporate training firm near Baltimore, MD, focused on developing high-performance teams in the high-tech sector. She frequently consults for non-profits and churches, as well. Grace's particular expertise lies in helping people understand their fits and
I recently spent an afternoon with Grace, talking about teams and the inevitable conflict which comes along the way. Her familiarity with both theory and practice - and with the realities of new church start-ups - gives her an insight into cultivating teams that work.
Jeff Bailey, Editor
Talk about the phases every task typically goes through
Extensive research suggests that there are, essentially, eight stages to the completion of any task.
- Advisor (INFP, ESFP)
- Innovator (ENFP, INTP)
- Promoter (ENFJ, ENTP
- Developer (ENTJ, ESTP)
- Organizer (ESTJ, INTJ)
- Producer (ESFJ, ISTJ
- Inspector (ISFP, ISTP)
- Maintainer (INFJ, ISFP)
(Unfamiliar with the Meyers-Briggs Personality inventory? Take the Keirsey test (an adaptation of the Meyers Briggs) on-line. It will take you about 10 minutes. Also, a standard, helpful resource is the book Please Understand Me, which includes in-depth explanations of the various personality types.)
The first phase, Advising, is essentially market research. When you start a project, the right place to begin is with gathering information. If you are a new church and need a place to meet, there are certain people who are phenomenally good at gathering data. They love researching it, on the internet or via city hall. When they bring the information to the table, it's typically organized in a way that's very helpful to the team.
The advising function is typically INFP or ESFP. Both are Perceivers, who are great at asking questions and generating options. That is what they do in the research phase - think of options, then walk down the street and think of yet another person to talk to. They are very patient with the research process.
Then they come to the meeting, put the information on the table, and say, "OK, here's the deal. First, there's a place downtown that could sublet 5,000 square feet at this price. Second, there's a new computer business up the road that things they have a second floor available. Third, there's a school around the corner."
For a church plant, this is the person to do your demographic studies. If you don't have this person on your team, you tend to race through this first stage or make decisions without doing your homework. Church planters often fail at this one.
What if this stage isn't done well? Do you end up having to go back and re-do it?
Well, you pay for what you don't know. You might end up renting a school and then a year later find out that they had plans to add another grade and were going to need the space and you didn't think to ask. Or there could have been a great deal that would have saved you $10,000 that you never found out about. So, any time you want to start something new - whether this is a church plant or a new initiative in an established church - send your advisers out. These folks tend to be Feelers who will be very patient, very sensitive and thoughtful in the way they ask questions. they can get really good information for you.
Stage two is the Innovating stage. Once the information is on the table the Innovator types go crazy with it. They say, "OK, so there's this computer business up the road that isn't going to use their second floor for two years - what if we can rent the space and ask if they would be willing to make a donation of some of their computers so we could run an after-school program for kids in the neighborhood. They could get credit for that, some free publicity,, and we could partner with the/1" The Innovators will come up with all kinds of options - but because of the advisors, it will be with good data.
Note: it's important for the people who excel in the later, more detailed stages of the task to simply be quiet during the innovating phase. By nature they are going to want to start inspecting the idea for all the things that won't work - but it's not time for that!
What Myeres-Briggs profiles go with the Innovators?
INTP (the Bill Gates of the world, and all the absent minded professors!) and ENFP.
Now you might be thinking, "I thought I was creative and innovator, but I'm an INTJ, not an INTP. What does that mean? Does it mean that I can't innovate?" To that I would say, "No, no. You can innovate very easily, but in order for you to innovate you are going to have to take that INTJ and suspend the "J" - suspend making a decision or judgment - and put on your "P" hat and tell yourself, "For just a couple of minutes I am going to just play with the options." If you do that. If you make a conscious choice to not move to "closure" right away and just play, lots of innovation can happen.
Alright, suppose the Innovators come up with some idea that looks rally good. then what?
The next phase is Promoting. We have to go to that company whose space we want to use and convince the sending church that we need more resources. Certain types of people are really good promoters, and when they talk about an idea, it sounds so much more inviting and inspirit. You want to use them when trying to win support for something that might be controversial. They types for that are ENTP and ENFJ. As you can see, both are extroverted and intuitive, people who are very verbal and very big-picture. The ENTP's are very "out there," very enthusiastic; the ENFJ type would be persuading because they would be so sold on the idea that there would be a very authentic feel to what they are saying.
So now we've got everybody all excited, but we just have this little seed of an idea. We need somebody to take this little idea and put some form to it, to map it out into a mini-business plan and assess it. The Promoters generally don't want to do that, they just want to generate the idea. So now the Developer kicks in and says, "OK, that's a great idea, now let's map out the who plan of how it is going to work." These are ENTJs - good strong leaders - and ESTPs, which of all the SPs are probably the ones with the strongest leadership potential. Now they are starting to get things happening! Both are extroverts, so they are going to be verbal about it, and they are both thinkers, so at this point they don't care whether you like it or need our hand held. They aren't interested in being sensitive; they are just saying, "The job has to get done, we've researched it, people are excited, now let's do it."
What comes next?
After that is Organizing. The organizing phase takes the plan fro the Developer and divides and delegates the work among people. Organizers can be a bit on the bossy side, but at this point somebody needs to take the plan and say, "OK Tim, I need you to make this phone call, Janis you do this..." ESTJ is in this category , the premier administrative type, but also INTJ. INTJs tend to organize a project on paper - they create matrices, plans, systems. They might email everybody what has to get done, because they're introverts. Their motive, though, is to divide up the work so it gets done. At this point we are now in the phases of doing, and not just sitting around talking.
Now we arrive at the Producer's glory days. The Producers actually drove over to the empty space and measure out the room sizes. They make the phone calls, they make the deposit in the bank. They do all the central work that has to get done. Don't put your promoters here; they will be a waste! Producers are ISTJs and ESFJ. These are hard workers who get tons of stuff done, but they don't want to have to think up what had to get done. You don't want these people at brainstorming meetings - they get overwhelmed because as soon as you come up with a new idea, all that comes into heir minds are the 3,000 little things that are going to need to happen in order for it to work. Then they start feeling, "Oh no, oh no!" It panics them. Those sorts of things don't bother the Brainstormers because those little details don't even occur to them.
I suppose the Brainstormers don't do the Producers any favors by processing aloud some of their new ideas with them?
No. Especially because when you are brainstorming, you may come up with three new ideas! It doesn't occur to a Producer that you are only going to pick one of them, or maybe even none of them. All they can think, is, "What if we do all three of these ideas? Oh my! That means..." It's overwhelming. Just as it is overwhelming for these creative types in the beginning phases to listen to all the details that the Producers can think of! They get so overwhelmed that they think, "Maybe I don't want to do this anymore." So people working at different phases of the task need to let the others do their thin, and maybe not even listen.
The nice thing about this language is that it's neutral - every job is important and unique.
Right. Sometimes people will say, "I feel like I'm not being helpful here, I'm expendable." No, you're not! We just haven't gotten to your phase yet. Don't disappear! When we get to the later phases - the organizing, producing, maintaining phases - we are going to need you so much.
OK, let's say we've sublet the space from the business which is going to give us the computers, and things are starting to be put into motion. Now what?
The next phase is Inspecting. The Inspectors check all the details to make sure they were taken care of. For example, they ask, "Did anyone check how many electrical outlets are in that space? If we are going to be putting ten computers in there for the kids, we need to have enough outlets. If we are going to do a mailing to this whole neighborhood, did anybody run spell check on the database? Did anybody weigh that thing to be sure it's not going to take two stamps instead of one? Hey, are we going to be in there in time for Christmas? If so, we need to send out the announcements for our Christmas service now." They are thinking ahead, but on little details. Inspectors don't necessarily have to be doing anything - most often they are commenting on things that need to be done. They might say, "h-oh, we're not going to be on time with this project." They aren't doing, they are watching. The types here are ISTP, who are good problem solvers anyway, and ISFJ. Here you see your accounting people, your finance people. If you want something to count the offering on Sundays, look for an Inspector; they take the task very seriously.
How does this category differ from the previous one, the Producers?
They are very close. One thing that's helpful to remember is that everyone is really good at one thing in this model, and fairly good at two other things - so most of us can do three. Most are good at the one right before and right after their best one. Not always, but that is usually the case. So we do see people who are good at Producing often be good at Inspecting.
The last category is Maintainer. That might sound a little boring. It's also called the Upholder, the one who upholds the values of the organization. Those people, once we are in the building, care about who's going to maintain the relationship with the company whose building we're in. Who's going to stop in and say hi to those people, send them notes to tell them how much we appreciate partnering with them? In business this is Customer Service. The Maintainers care about who is going to continue to care for the people who come. This is important in a church community, as well. These guys are ISFPs and INFJs.
Then this comes full circle, because the Maintainers bring up some questions that lead to some new tasks as well, and you start the process all over.
Any project can start wit this last phase. And if any business goes through the eight phases and then stops, they will be out of business soon! Once you hit the maintaining stage, you eventually have to do some research to see what's changing in the world, and start innovating again.
Especially if you want to be the kind of church that is spinning out new missions, new initiatives in embodying the gospel.
I think that what has happened is that some of the churches in America have hit the maintenance stage and are not willing to go on to the beginning of the circle. So you have all the great innovators wandering the streets, and eventually they say, " I want to start a new church." Whether they're smart enough to build a team with some of the other types might determine their success. You can start something with innovator types, but what often happens is that as soon as they go to set something in place, they think, "Oh!" I can think of a better way to do it! Let's move to that part of the city instead of this part," etc. They keep reinventing the thing and never really finish it. They need other people to help them with that.
Now, in the middle of this chart is someone called "The Linker." What kind of role do they play?
The Linker is in the center of the whole thing. He or she is usually good at several of those other things, but their role is not to play a particular parts so much as to step back and get all these eight types of people to work together without killing each other! We have found that the people who work during the early phases of a project get along with each other really well. it is tempting, then, to pick people for the team who are similar to you, who work well in the same phases in which you work well. If you do that, the relationships will be a lot easier because you get along well - but the overall task will be much harder because you don't have enough balance on the wheel. If you are brave enough to put diversity in the team, you know that the relationships will be a little harder, but the tasks will end up being easier. In that case, however, the role of the Linker becomes even more crucial. The good news is that the skills associated with being a good Linker are ones that can be learned.
What are some characteristics of a Linker?
The number one Linker ability is being a good listener. Teams that have leaders who are not good listeners become disenfranchised. They complain, “She’s leading this team, but she never listens. She didn’t hear me when I tried to say that this wasn’t going to work…” If they feel heard, though, it goes a long way. If you want to work on one skill, this would be the first one to start with.
Good Linkers have also developed an instinct for team balance: “I need one person kind of like this and one person like that.” They also have the ability to delegate. Delegating is an art now – because people want to do work that is satisfying to them. Can you pick a job that matches who the person is? And do you have a way to follow up so you can ask them, “How’s it going? Is there anything I can do to help?” These are all good Linking skills.
How often do you find that people in churches are not well suited to the role they have been asked to play?
I was once involved in a church plant myself. In the early stages of church planting, when resources are limited and people-hours are limited, we often had to do lots of things that we were not good at. In that regard, the tasks weren’t very satisfying. But the overall mission was enticing, and the excitement and the possibilities for the future kept us going. However, as you go through development in the church, if three years later people are still doing stuff they are not good at, you start having problems.
By the time you walk into organizations that have become more established, have people migrated to the stuff they are good at?