Barnabas File

Every week, we find ourselves in some type of gathering with others.     Sometimes it is a group meeting where we are discussing topics of both collective and individual concern.     Often it is team of people working together to further the tasks of a church, organization, or service group.     How can you, as an individual, positively impact the effectiveness of the conversation in either setting?    Adam Grant is a professor in organizational psychology at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.  He has shared these insights about group leadership.   The true leader in a group is rarely the person who talks the most.  It’s usually the person who listens best.  Listening is more than hearing what’s said.  It’s noticing and surfacing what isn’t said.  Inviting dissenting views and amplifying quiet voices are acts of leadership.  As I reviewed these observations, I realized that one d...

Let me warn you upfront:     this is a complex, multilayered volume written by an author with both an engineering (Ph.D.) and public policy background as well as practical experience in the gaming industry (Roblox).     Keith Lucas invites us into a deep dive to creating, leading,     developing, and sustaining teams that are both innovative and entrepreneurial.    He believes that “high-performing teams create engines of innovation in the behaviors they cultivate and the people they hire, develop, and retain.”   There are two major themes in the book:  developing teams that practice aligned autonomy and developing “mission athletes” in those teams.  Although the ground covered in the first area is very familiar territory, Lucas gives it a fresh spin.  He knows the accepted literature in the field but is not limited by it.  The section on developing team members acknowledges the reality that not everyo...

In these challenging times for the church, a staff leader must step up and recognize the importance of investing in their staff team.  This is something that we did not learn in seminary but can learn.  Dean Phillips, who has served with the  U.S. Air Force and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, has written a helpful article on developing high performance teams.  There are insights here for working with a church staff team. CREATE A SHARED SENSE OF PURPOSE Although identifying a sense of purpose to achieve a common goal is important for high-performing teams, a critical step is providing clarity and context around each team member’s role. Everyone brings something unique to the team, but how does that skill base contribute to the overall mission of the church?   We can no longer work in silos in our roles as church staff leaders. Not only must we share our gifts to enrich each other’s work, we can dig deeper and discover ways that we can f...

Through the work of Daniel Goleman, most of us have been exposed to the concept of personal emotional intelligence (EQ) and its components—self-awareness, self-management, other awareness, and relationship management.  Understanding our own EQ contributes to our mental health, resiliency, and allows us to relate to others effectively.   The authors of Team Emotional Intelligence 2.0 have applied this approach to teams with the goal of developing high-performing teams.  They identify the four skill sets involved as emotional awareness, emotional management, internal relationships and external relationships.     Under each set, they offer strategies to enhance the awareness, health, and effectiveness of a team and give concrete examples of successful application as well as planning ideas.  The approach is very practical.  The primary concern is that the leader or group facilitator not become overwhelmed but focus on a few key st...

You would think by now that we would have learned to play well together, but until we do, there will be place for books like the latest from Patrick Lencioni.   The Ideal Team Player follows Lencioni’s usual approach.   He tells a fable or story about the principles he wants to present and then provides additional information and applications of the model. This time he tells the story of Jeff Shanley who suddenly finds himself at the head of a large construction company founded by his uncle.  As he solidifies the leadership team already in place, attempts to deal with troublesome employees, and add new team members, he and his team learn what (according to Lencioni) makes the ideal team player. In his classic book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team , Patrick Lencioni laid out an approach for tackling the group behaviors that destroy teamwork. Here he turns his focus to the individual, revealing the three indispensable virtues of an ideal team p...

A couple of years ago, I resigned from a committee in our church.   I was chair and had served on the committee in the past.   My resignation was prompted by my lack of passion for the work the committee was assigned and a feeling that the committee had outlived its usefulness.   I was both surprised and appreciative when a member of the committee on committees called and asked me the reason for my resignation and any comments she might share with her committee.   I explained my reasons and she expressed her thanks for my candor.   Of course, the committee still exists and I was simply replaced. The point of my sharing this incident is that it illustrates how difficult it is to kill a committee even when it has outlived (in my humble opinion) its usefulness.   In an effort to share leadership, Baptist churches in the 20 th century learned how to do committees well.   Most committees had specific responsibilities and helped to involve larger...

Since we were children, we have been part of groups on many occasions.  Many have been informal—gathering with friends for meals or recreation, for example—while others have been more structured—classes, work groups, etc.   We have all been part of groups, but how many us of have been part of a team?  How can we tell the difference?  Groups are made up of individuals.  Although they may be working on a common task, they still tend to think of themselves as individuals.  Each person brings his or her gifts and skills to the enterprise, but each person is careful in how these are shared, providing only what is absolutely necessary to “do their part.”  One reason is that rewards in a group are usually given to certain individuals—the designated leader or the high performers.  Interpersonal relationships are guarded and cautious. A team on the other hand not only has a common purpose, but the persons involved often have a role in shapi...

“Sully” Sullenberger was the pilot who successfully landed US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River in 2009 without the loss of a single life.   He was recently asked this question by Fast Company magazine: “How do you deal with uncertainty?”   You can listen to or  read his full response , but I thought that his observations apply to those of us who lead the church, especially through uncertain times.   He talks about “a firm foundation” based on several principles. First, “we had already built a team . . . in which we had already established well-defined roles and responsibilities.”  The idea of “team” and “well-defined roles” is not a paradox; they go together.  Each team member has something to contribute and is very aware of what that contribution is.  This is something that air crew members knew before the plane headed for the Hudson River.  They did not wait to find their roles until the plane started going down!  Church leaders...