The Performance Review Revolution: When Reviews Reveal Deeper Culture Problems

In this episode of the Healthy Church Staff Podcast, host Todd Rhoades discusses the pitfalls many leaders face during performance reviews. He highlights the importance of introspection and suggests that consistent performance issues across staff may indicate systemic problems rather than individual failings. Rhoades emphasizes the necessity of clear expectations, proper training, and appropriate timelines to ensure employee success, and offers a detailed church staff performance review system to help identify and address these issues. • Performance reviews often highlight organizational, not just individual, issues. • Leaders should reflect on whether their systems provide clear expectations and support. • Consistent issues among staff may indicate systemic problems within leadership or culture. • Performance reviews should be tools for improvement, not weapons of criticism. • Rhoades offers a resource for creating a church staff performance review system.

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Transcript

The Brutal Review Wake Up

SPEAKER_00 0:08

You just finished writing your most brutal performance review ever. You actually felt pretty good when you were done because you felt like you got a lot off your chest, three pages of missed deadlines, unclear communication, goals that never got met. And while you feel good that you've got that all on paper, you're sitting there thinking, how in the world, why in the world would I hire this person? And then something weird happens. You start writing the next review for a different staff member, and it's almost identical. Same problem, same gaps, same frustrations. And then it hits you, maybe this isn't all about them. Maybe there's something I need to learn here as well. If that sounds familiar, if you feel like everybody on your staff when it comes to review time is a basket case, we're going to talk about that today here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. Hi there, my name's Todd Rhodes, one of the co-founders over chemistry staffing.com, and I'm your host right here on the podcast every weekday. Here's what most leaders miss about performance problems. If you're writing the same critique for multiple people, stop. Okay? Just stop. The problem isn't your people, it's probably your system. Bad performance reviews are often just symptoms of bad organizational health. Your staff isn't failing you, your structure is failing them. But here's where it gets really revealing. And it's what I call the drift. It's when reviews become gossip sessions. You find yourself complaining about staff performance to other staff members. Hey, can you believe that Sarah missed another deadline? I don't know what's wrong with the youth department lately. The reviews become weapons instead of tools, and you're frustrated because you keep having the same conversations. Nothing seems to ever change because you're just treating the symptoms, not the causes. Okay? Now listen, I know you care about your team. I know you want them to succeed, but caring without clarity is just controlled chaos. Caring without clarity is nothing more than controlled chaos. So let's talk about reviews that reveal truth. So before you write another review, ask this question: what am I not providing here? Maybe it's clear expectations. You're not providing clear expectations. You want to write something bad on a performance review, but you think, as you really think about it, as you're even writing it out, you're thinking, have I really given clear expectations here? Have I given proper training? Have I given a realistic timeline? Have I even given a timeline or have I just kind of left it open? Performance reviews, they should reveal as much about your leadership as it does about the person that you're reviewing. So use the review to audit your systems, not just the employee or the staff members output. Great leaders, and I know you're a great leader, they get curious about patterns instead of just critical about people. If three people are struggling with the same thing, it's probably not a people problem, it's probably a leadership or a systems problem. It can be a people problem too, but you need to be able to figure out what the patterns are if there are patterns. So, Todd, what's this even look like? What's this you it seems like you're turning everything back on me? Don't do that. I get it. I get it. Here's what this looks like, really practically, okay? When you first of all, when you see repeat issues, ask what would have been true for this person, what would have to be true for this person to succeed? And then ask yourself this. Are those things actually in place? I think this is good no matter what you're about ready to knock somebody down on in a job interview, is to ask that question, what would have to be true for this person to succeed? And then are those things actually in place? Am I giving them the support that they need? Am I giving them the resources they need? Most of the time they're not. And your view becomes a mirror, not a hammer, if you start looking at what's really going on here. You start fixing foundations instead of just pointing out the cracks. Okay? So think about your last three performance reviews. If you're seeing the same issues across multiple people, that's data that you really should be paying attention to. Your culture is speaking, you just need to make sure you're listening. The strongest churches don't just manage poor performance, they eliminate the conditions that create it. And that means you've got to see the trends and you've got to be introspective as to what role you're playing in the deficiencies that you're writing up in that job description. You gotta eliminate the conditions that create those things. So here's your bottom line for today. Performance reviews don't just reveal how staff are doing. That's how we normally think of them, and they do. That's part of their job, right? But performance reviews also reveal how you're leading. So this week, this weekend, the next few weeks, I want you to look at your last three performance conversations, formal, informal, whatever, and write down all the common themes. Are there common themes? Those themes probably aren't just staff problems, they're probably leadership and culture problems. And then just pick one pattern and ask what system do I need to build to help eliminate that issue. A lot of churches struggle with this. I know I hear from churches, I work with churches every day, and I hear a lot of times from churches, I hear on the candidate side too, about getting a bad evaluation or not having any kind of an evaluation for five years. So I know a lot of churches just need some help in this area. I've taken the time to write out a very detailed, very flexible uh church staff performance review system. It's not free, it costs a little bit because of the time that I took to put into it, but I think it could help your church. Maybe your church has a great system. You just need a little bit help of tweaking it. Maybe you don't have a system. This will help you start a system. Maybe you've got a system. And you need some checks and balances like what we talked about today to find those trends, those things that are happening there, and make sure that you're leading well before you even do that staff staff person evaluation. I think this would help. If you're interested in finding out a little bit more information on that, just reach out to me, podcast at chemistry staffing.com. All right. Your team wants to win as much as you do. They really do. And sometimes they just need better conditions to make it happen. And you can make that happen. You have that power to make that happen, but you need to be able to see those trends so that you know what to work on. All right, podcast at chemistry staffing.com. If there's any way I can help you or your church, maybe you're looking to hire a new staff member over the summer. I'd love to talk with you about that. Maybe you've got a staff member you need to transition off and you're not sure how to do it. I can unfortunately have got some experience doing that as well. So we would be happy to talk with you. Just reach out to me at podcast at chemistry staffing.com. And also check out my brand new daily email newsletter over at churchleadership radar.com. You can sign up for free there every day. I'll send you my top three things I think you should be reading as a church staff member to make you a better leader. All right, that's it for today. Hope you have a great weekend, great church services this weekend, and we'll be right back here on Monday. Let's see what we're talking about on Monday. We're gonna talk on Monday about the human touch, all next week, actually, about the human touch. So much talk going on about AI and all the things that AI can do, and you know, it's gonna take all of our jobs and all that. Next week, we're gonna talk about those things that you can do uniquely that nobody can ever take away from you, particularly in ministry. It's gonna be great. I hope you'll join me again on Monday right here on the healthy church deck. Great week.