Transformational Teams - Lesson 2

Hi and welcome back, this is session two of Transformational Teams. And now we're going to begin to get into the meat of the process now that we've reviewed the behaviors and mindsets because we're going to use them to illustrate how you as a team member can bring your value to the surface and make it count for the team's success. So let's look at the importance of something that will have a radical impact on your team and that is the mission, vision, and values of your team.

Now I'm not talking about the mission, vision, and values of your ministry or your organization. I'm talking about your individual team because as you can see from the graphic that we have in front of you, there's a nested value in each team within an organization because every organization has multiple teams but they also have multiple workers that have unique roles within those teams. You see the important thing is that each of us carries value into that team function and each of us plays an integral role in the success of the team which plays an integral role in the success of our department or the organization as a whole.

So when we look at these little Russian dolls that fit right inside of each other, I want us to think about your role, your team's role, and how those roles fit into the organization itself. So let's build some context because I want to take you through an exercise that you may say, what does this really have to do with where we're trying to go as individuals? But what I want you to understand is that if you don't have the context of what we're trying to accomplish in this particular exercise, you may never get the feeling or the engagement that's necessary to play the role that God has gifted you to play. So with this context, I want you to see that your personal mission, vision, and values are critical to the teams which are critical to the organization.

So let's focus on the who, the what, and the why of mission, vision, and values because they provide the foundation for everyone within the team and the organization. They set the expectations for the team and the organization. And in doing so, what it does is it facilitates the cooperation we have both individually with our team members, with our department that we find ourselves in, and with the organization as a whole.

And without that coordination, cooperation, we cannot function well together. So I'm bringing this down to a very simplistic point because you bring value to this. And if you don't see your value and the role that you play in the team's mission, then you may never speak up when you have information that the team needs and the organization can actually apply to make itself better.

So let's think about this. What is a team's mission? A team's mission is actually what you do. But it comes from and is defined by the consumer's perspective.

Now you say, wait a minute, I'm in ministry, we don't have consumers. Yes, you do. You have consumers for other staff members, other team members, the organization, and the people that sit in the seats.

of your ministry. These are all consumers. They are taking in what God has given you and it's your responsibility to give it to them in a way that they can grasp it, understand it, and actually apply it.

So when we talk about a consumer's perspective, people come to church to consume spiritual principles. People come to a ministry to consume perspectives that will help them better understand how to minister to people and how to expand God's kingdom. That's what we're there for.

So here's what we can pull this apart and think about. First of all, your mission and your team's mission makes the organization better. Organizations stand out from other organizations or parachurch ministries.

It also provides a key for defining the success that you're trying to accomplish through your ministry. Are you reaching the people you need to reach and are you giving them information that brings value to the organization and the people that are actually sitting there? But the mission is not something that's long-term because God's really cool about something. When we get inside a box, He likes to shake the box up and throw us out of the box and move us on.

So missions really are for maybe one to three years. They're not long-term aspects because the mission tells us what we're doing right now. Now let me give you an example.

Biblical training started out focusing purely on theological issues. But what we have discovered at Biblical training is the fact that there's more than just doctrine that people need to understand. They need to understand how to work together, how to make the church staff as a whole work together as a well-oiled machine.

And you need the application aspects to put your Christianity into action. So at BT, what we're trying to do is give you the full picture of what it's like to function in a well-functioning Christian community. I hope that makes sense.

So let's think about your mission and the team's mission. First of all, what do we do? This should be a very concise statement of the strategy that you've developed, again, from the consumer's perspective. It helps us identify, shall we say, that winning idea that we have that makes us stand out and it's the reason for our customers to come to us and not go to other people purveying perhaps something that's not truly biblical.

Next, we want to identify how we're actually going to measure this success. Are we reaching people? Are we doing the things that are necessary to walk them down that spiritual path so that they leave better than they were? Kind of like the disciples spending time with Jesus. They were better because of the time that they spent with him.

Because we have winning ideas that are going to bring people to the Lord. We have winning ideas that it's going to help deepen our spirituality because that's what sanctification is about. We become more and more set apart for the kingdom so that we can minister to a much wider variety of people.

Next, we want to refine these words so that they are very precise in the way that we communicate so that people don't have to say, I don't understand what you do. Because there are many websites, there are many people that will tell you what they do, but you can actually walk away and not have a clue. And unfortunately, I've been the recipient of that myself so I understand the importance of it.

So we need to find ways that we can express our ideas that measures the desired result that we're actually moving after. So I want you to take just a few minutes now and write one, but no more than two sentences that actually defines what your ministry does over the one to three year period. No more than 15 words.

Make it an elevator speech if you'd like to call it that. But what is the concept and bringing all of the information together that help better understand what you're trying to accomplish? After you complete that, I encourage you to do something. Sit down as a group with your team.

Bring the team together. Take these individual sentences that each one of you have contributed and put them up either in a PowerPoint or on a whiteboard. List them.

If there's five, six, or ten, just list them on the board. Then what you do is you say, okay, study these. Identify these.

Which one is the most concise and best represents what we do? And then vote on one. After you've had the opportunity to vote on which sentence or two, short two sentences provides the best understanding of what you actually do and will be doing for the next one to three years, then if there are excellent aspects in some of these other mission statements, integrate them and bring that statement to where it's concise and it really does tell exactly what you're doing in the next one to three years. Now you have a mission statement that the group can actually agree on and put into effect.

After you've done that, it's ready for your website. But you're not done yet. Let's move on to the vision because the vision tells us who we are as an organization.

It helps us embrace the future and makes a difference in the lives of its customers and employees. Why customers and employees? Because your employees will be the biggest and best salespeople for your organization. If there is internal strife, there's not engagement.

If there's not engagement, there's going to be passive aggressive behavior within the organization. And there's going to be a reason for people not to like the organization. And what happens? We know from statistics that when a person leaves a company, they tell a minimum of nine people about that negative experience.

When you're talking about the ministry of Jesus Christ, that's not good. The challenge is that people that work within an organization that are engaged and that are in a position of developing the vision for the organization have the ability to bring forth the joy, the love, the understanding that is typical of an engaged employee. So we want to embrace the future because we want to make a difference in the lives of not just the people that are our consumers, but the people that work within the organization.

So how are we going to do that? The vision actually defines what an organization wants to achieve over time. It's not where you are right now. It's what you're evolving into and what is the ultimate purpose for your organization.

At Biblical Training, we want to communicate to the rest of the world the principles that will have an impact on other people's lives and radically change them for the cause of Jesus Christ and do it in a way that anyone can have access to it. You see, Christ made it very plain that there's no difference. And we know that multiple times in the Scriptures we see that God is not a respecter of persons.

This is not a message for the elite or specific groups of people. This is a message for every single person that walks the face of the earth. So over time, we want this message that we believe is biblically accurate to penetrate the lives of as many people as possible.

So what we do is we think about where we want to be in the next 10 years or even longer. And in that process, we're able to formulate a process that will give us a track to walk down, executing on our mission, but building a process for the future that will take us to the next level because there's seasons in an organization's life the same way there's seasons in people's lives. And God will bring about changes to stretch us and take us to the next level and reach people we've never reached before.

You see, a vision is kind of like looking up in the sky and seeing a north star. It gives us direction. It gives us focus.

And it helps us better understand where we're going and why we're getting there with the people and with the programs that we have. Why are we here? That's the vision. It defines our desired future state.

It provides a mental picture of what your organization, your ministry, or your church wants to achieve over time. It's the inspiration that we have for the next 5, 10, or more years. It helps us understand how we are going to contribute to accomplishing long-term goals.

It even helps us answer this question. What impact do we want to have within this organization? So make sure that the words convey a larger sense of both team and organizational purpose so that you as an individual, each team member, see themselves as relevant to the organization, to espouse the things that are critical to get your team through this particular project and the organization toward their ultimate objective. When you write out your vision statement, write it succinctly, but use inspiration.

Use emotion to express how that vision makes it easy for your team members and your employees to repeat at any given time. Now, I want you to take a minute or two. You can stop the video if you need, but I want each of you to write a sentence that encompasses the vision that you see for the future of your ministry, church, or organization.

And as you do that, we're going to go through the exact same process we did last time. We're going to take these statements. We're going to put them into a PowerPoint or up on a whiteboard.

And as a group, we're going to look at it, and we're going to choose that best statement, and then we're going to take the pieces from the other statement that brings deeper, more emotional responses and provide that guidance that we need for the team and ultimately for the organization. And by doing that, we can then bring it down to that concise 12 to 15-word statement that really communicates what's in our hearts and where we want to go. Now that you've done that, let's move on to the final stage of this process.

Because we've talked about what we do. We've talked about where we want to go. But what are we going to bring to the table that's going to help us get there? And whether you believe it or not, this can be the most important thing because it tells us the character of the individuals, the character of the team, and helps develop the character of the organization.

So what do you enjoy about what you do? What is the greatest interest or principles that you bring to the table? These are the values, the priorities that we have as individuals, as team members, and as an organization that are going to help us fulfill that vision on a daily basis as we carry out the mission. So let's think about this. First, what are the ideals that you don't want to change over time? This is foundational, and let me tell you why.

As your organization grows and develops, something's going to happen. You're going to bring new people into the organization. And as you bring those new people into the organization, they're going to bring their own paradigm of thought into the organization.

Now, one of two things is going to happen. Either they're going to espouse the values that you have, or they're going to try to interject the values that they have. And the more independently minded that they are, the harder they're going to push their agenda.

So if you don't establish the values right now that you want that are consistent for the future, your organization is going to change, the vision is going to evolve, and the mission is not going to be what you started out and focused with. So it's critical that we put these values down right now, and they become part of the onboarding process. They become part of the recruiting process.

They become part of everything that we teach within the organization. And all of the programs and processes that we do are focused on fulfilling the values that we reflect as an organization. Secondly, how are you going to carry out the mission and your motivation with these values? Your value may be, okay, I want to do something quality.

Well, quality is an overused word. What is the word that really tells us about how you want to carry out your mission? Maybe it's the passion for Christ. Maybe it is the desire to see souls saved.

Maybe it is a way for us to deepen and develop our relationship with Jesus Christ. Focus on how we are going to carry out that mission with a deep-seated motivation that will not change over time. Then it must be ingrained and repeated over and over and over again, because if it's not repeated, it will be forgotten, I can assure you.

Thirdly, it needs to be something that you live and breathe in everything that we do. Many of you have heard, shall we say, this famous YouTube personality, Jordan Peterson. He brought about a point that when someone asked me, do I believe in Jesus Christ, his answer is, you have to understand what you're really asking me.

If I say I believe something, that means I live it, I'm committed to it, and that the patterns of my life are built around those beliefs. What you live and believe as a team member, within a department, within a ministry, is so critical because if you don't live and breathe those beliefs, are you really a follower of the mission, vision, and values of your organization? And if you're not, maybe it's not the right place for you to be. And you know, sometimes that's hard to say.

But the reality is, is that if you don't live and believe and breathe the values of the organization, maybe you're lying to yourself. And if you're lying to yourself, are you lying to other people too? And there's no room for that, obviously, in a ministry. So when we think about a team's values, the statements should contain the core ideology of an organization that those deeply held values that don't change over time.

They answer the question, how do we carry out our mission? What motivates us to do the things we do? And it includes how we live and breathe the work that we do. Now, here's your task in this particular point in this session. First of all, I want each of you to write down five words that reflect what you believe should be unchangeable about your organization.

What are those core values? What is it that describes the experience in the climate of your ministry that could bring about the positive change that you believe needs to happen and is the ultimate objective of your ministry? After you have written those five things down, I want you to get together again, plug them into a PowerPoint or on a whiteboard. And now you're going to have a whiteboard, instead of filled up with sentences, filled up with words. And as you do that, I want you to note how many times each word is used in that process and put a little parentheses behind that word so that you can see it's been repeated two, four, five, six, ten times.

And then you now are beginning to funnel the agreement of multiple team members into a process to where, yes, this is what we want to do. This is who we want to become. And this is who we want the rest of the world to see us as representatives of Christ Jesus.

If a word is missing, you need to all agree on it. So take the time to do that. Then, as you bring those together, put the mission, the vision, and the values up on the board.

Take a moment. I want each person to read through the mission and values, mission and vision of 12 to 15 words and consolidate those vision words until you have the five best ones. And then, as a group, either agree or disagree that this is what we do.

This is where we're going. And these are the values that we espouse that are going to fulfill the mission and the ultimate vision of your team and of the organization. When there is clarity, we don't have to persuade other people, as we've discussed in other sessions.

Clarity trumps persuasion. When we move as a team in the same direction, we become just like those that were gathered in the upper room. We are a unity of heart, of mind, and purpose.

Then the Holy Spirit can come upon us as a team, direct our focus, and bring about the same kind of results of bringing people to Jesus that after Pentecost occurred.