Hey everyone, welcome to the Vander Bloom and Leadership Podcast, where we help you build, run, and keep great teams. Thanks for being here. Let's dive in.
SPEAKER_02William, most churches in America today are under 200, probably averaging around 100 people. And yet, so many pastors feel like they're failing when they're actually just normal. Why is that? Yeah, I don't want to talk about that today.
SPEAKER_03That's great. I'm gonna go ahead and I'll close the laptop, I'll close the laptop. I'm gonna interrupt you. Uh yeah, go ahead. Close the laptop. That's actually part of the talk. Because here's the thing. I got interrupted this week. I thought I was giving one talk and got asked to give another, and it's because of a pretty pressing thing that's out there. I'm like, what's going on? So I'm going to talk to uh the executive pastors of some of the larger churches in the country this week. And they get together every year and ask me to come in, and usually it's QA or whatever. And uh the guy running it said, William, I got to call an audible. I'm like, okay. And he's an exec pastor, so he hates audibles. Oh no. You know, he wants a script, you want him to follow the So what's up? And he said, Well, I I sent out a survey at the beginning of getting all our people together, and it was just three questions. And it's like, what's going well? You know, what can we pray for? What's keeping you up at night? Yeah. Right. I've spent the last two weeks so worried about everybody's dietary restrictions and what the meals are that I forgot to go back and read the. And I went back and read, and this was not an anonymous survey. This was filling your name and where you serve. And over half the responses were about trouble they're having with staff. Conflict? All the things. And there are there these are people that have been at their job for a long time. And they're like, it feels harder than it ever has. Is there any way you could just drop what you're doing and spend the day talking us through like why is it different? And the first thing I said to him was, listen, I can tell him this, and I can tell him with data behind it, you're not crazy if you're having a hard time right now. You're just not crazy. The trick is to figure out, you know, why is this happening and what should I adjust and what shouldn't I? And that's your thing. So we'll come back to what the and and I think I don't know if you use the word small, but I saw in the notes you sent me, we were gonna talk with the small church. Let me just before we go there, don't you dare use the word small when you're talking about 100 people getting together. That's normal. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. The big people are not normal. 109 is normal. Let's talk about what the normal church in the U.S. is keeping them up at night, but let's do that later. Okay. Right now, I want to talk about if you're feeling like you've got a hard time working with people, and if you're in a normal-sized church, it might be key volunteers and not staff. So really important mind shift to think like treat your best volunteers just like you would staff. Yes. Interview them, like that. And then you've got a team, and you can, but you're if you're working with people right now, you're probably having problems.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I had a mentor that said to me, you know, William, life would be a lot easier if there were no people involved. Like Wow. Okay. I don't know how great this team is. There are. Well, actually, the first thought I thought was like, you sound really boring. Oh, people are fascinating. I love people. And you know, I yeah, they are. Anyway, it's it Pete, when I first became a senior pastor, I was 27 years old. And I met with one of our business leaders in the church and said, Teach me what you know, what what have you learned? And he said, I'll tell you this. You will never be able to overestimate how much time and energy managing people is going to require. Wow. And I'll never forget that. And he was right, and he's more right now than he's ever been. There are a few reasons. Can we walk through a few of them? Yes. Okay, one of them is we're in a weird pendulum swing in the labor market. Oh my gosh, someone just hung up to go watch paint dry. Who wants to hear about labor statistics, right? But this is actually important. If you understand where you are in history, then you've got a better sense of what's coming next. That's great. Right. The only way to know the future is to study the past. Yep. And we for for the history of all economies, but think about the U.S., there's a pendulum swing that happens and it's on a cycle. And the pendulum swing answers this question: who's in charge, the employer or the employee? Yep. So, you know, during the gold rush, the employer was in charge. He had more jobs than he knew what to do with. He could offer everybody was looking for work back then. It wasn't hard to hire just come one, come all. Yes. And there were no employee rights. Yep. Okay. Industrial Revolution, same thing. Well, guess when unions came along. After that, hey, we got to have some representation. So instead of the employer being in charge, it the pendulum swung to the employees are in charge. And you're going to have strikes, you're going to have pickets, you're going to have a different thing. And then it swung back toward the middle. So it's always swung. I don't know that it swings as wildly as it has in a while. But but it always swings. Right now, we're in a swing that I think started with the pandemic. The employee is in charge. Yes. They were in the at the beginning of it, and it's by sheer numbers. It's it's just the vast majority of the workforce right now is younger people. Boomers are getting older and retiring and dying every day. You know, the the Gen Z is going to outnumber millennial pretty soon in the workplace. Millennials number one. So you you've just got a whole lot of employees that have come onto the scene recently. Yep. And uh they don't quite know what they're doing. But in the, you know, at the beginning it was, I want to work wherever I want to work. Yep. So I'll just move. We had the great resignation. Now people are realizing it's actually harder to switch jobs than I thought. So they're staying and not moving, and it's making it harder to hire than ever because the employees are in a place where they can say, Well, if I'm gonna come, I'm gonna want this. I'm gonna need this much money, I'm gonna need this, this, this, and this. That requires a ton of discernment on your part. Yeah. Because is it right for them to ask for all those things? Probably not. The pendulum's probably overswung a little bit, but it is what happens. And it's the reality. That's right. So so I say this all the time, more and more and more. I think the job, whether you're an executive pastor or senior pastor, if you're leading a church staff or key volunteers, your job, number one job, is to be able to tell what's permanent and what's passing. Now, let me just unpack that for a minute. Okay. So we're gonna move from employment statistics to the book of Leviticus. Even more thrilling. I mean, like Wow, can't wait. This is a page turner. So in the book of Leviticus, it's all the instructions for the priests. Yeah. Really interesting, actually. The first nine chapters are the different sacrifices you're supposed to give. If you give this sacrifice, if this happens, and then the priest does this with this sacrifice, and this and this sacrifice. And then we wrap all that up. We're kind of done with that at the and then we get to chapter 10. And after we're done talking about what sacrifices are there, then you get to what are the other duties of the priests. Well, we live in a sa uh in a time period of time where the sacrifice has been made. Yes. It's done. Yep. Right? That's the old gospel song I heard when I was driving my car listening to FM radio years ago. Put it on the master's card, charge it to Calvary. I mean, like it's that that's done. So what's left, what's left for the priest too? Yeah. Very first job duty of the priest in Leviticus after sacrifices. You, I think it's Leviticus 10, 10, and this is William's paraphrase. You, Jared, as a priest, your job is to tell the difference between the sacred and the profane, between the eternal and the temporal, between what's really a real thing and what's just a passing thing. Yeah. Now, why are we talking about this? When you, head of church staff, are interviewing someone, let's just call it Jared's age, okay? Um, it is on you to figure out is he just caught up in what he doesn't even know he's caught up in this pendulum swing. He's a good dude, he's gonna work hard, or is he demanding and a victim? You're gonna have to ask those questions. And no AI tool will tell you no personality tests, no nothing. But but the pendulum has swung. Yes. And you're dealing with a lot of people that are in their first career job, and they don't even know how foreign they sound to ears your age. It's all normal. It's all normal. And we're in an age, like I'm not the grumpy old crusty man, like I'm a Gen X, right? And you're like, oh, he's that old. But you know, just this morning we were reading, uh Adrian and I do the one-year Bible, and then we talk about it in the mornings. And uh we were reading today, and she has cancer, but she's like, don't ask me about it. I'll tell you if it's bad. Otherwise, I'm doing good. Like, there's no point in dwelling on the bad. Yeah. And I we're reading the Bible in chronological order. So we're in the middle of David's Psalms right now and first Samuel. And I said, What'd you think of the Bible reading today? And it was all psalms from David. She said, It has a bunch of griping and moaning from a young David. Like, wow. Okay, people chasing him, he's being a shit. Yeah, yeah. So our generation doesn't see the whole um like we're not gonna hold space for you right now. Like it's just foreign. And if you're a leader, it's on you to figure out what they're coming from is a worldview that I don't have. What of this can I learn is really who Jared is? And what if it is just he doesn't even know he's living in the time he's living? Because there's a pendulum that swings. It will swing back where the employer is more in charge. Yep. And that'll be a different set of leadership challenges. But if you're having trouble with staff, you know, a big part of it is trying to ask yourself this. They grew up in a different generation. What of what you're seeing in them is permanent that you want to like call out and cultivate? And what of it is uh no, they're just a needy brat and they feel entitled and I don't need it. You've got to run those tests. Yep.
SPEAKER_02And needy brats, I think, have existed regardless of the time of when. As far as like there were needy brats in your generation and earlier generations and more recent, but it's still like you said, they're good needy brats.
SPEAKER_03That's right. Abraham was a good needy brat. That's right. When you did God's gonna destroy Sodom, and he said, Well, what if there are you know this many righteous people? And he and then talked God down to one. Yeah. Like he was a needy brat. That's okay. But like all I'm saying is if you're having trouble with staff right now, you're not crazy. Yeah. We're living in a very weird situation. It's probably it it was gonna happen anyway, and got accelerated by the pandemic. But the employees are in charge right now, and it's your job to be able to see through what's real and what's not, what's permanent and what's temporary, what's sacred, what's profane about that individual. The other thing you need to realize is you're dealing with a generation that is immature. Now everybody just tuned out. The goal is we're gonna drive it down to just 300 listeners and then we're gonna go take on back. No. Oh, it no, I don't mean that as criticism. I mean it as uh not a criticism of the people that are your age, a criticism of us as parents. You guys were the guinea pigs for holding a little phone and having the whole world at your fingertips and us being really happy that you were quiet while we were out to dinner. Yep. I mean, we really screwed that up, I think. I think history is gonna judge my generation as parents way more than anything about whether you feel entitled or because it was it was like, you know, um I saw a picture some time back, we're talking about how we're treating AI right now, reminds me of the old school lunchroom, and it was the 50s. And the kids are coming through the cafeteria line and they've got all their food, and the last stop on the cafeteria line, they give you two cigarettes at school. And I think we've done that. And so what we have done, not you guys, is create a generation that doesn't know how to have a conversation, they don't know email etiquette, they really don't know what to do if you call them on the phone. Like they really just some basic professional skills have disappeared, not because they're dumb, but because we taught them to use their phone for everything. That's on me. That's not on them. So if you're you know Gen Z and you hung up a minute ago, tune back in. You I'm on your team. I'm criticizing us for the way we raised you and realize, you know, you've got to see through, okay, what's permanent, what's not. Jared's great. I'm gonna have to teach him a few things. It's gonna take now. Here's your next hurdle. It's going to take more time than it used to. Explain why. To train people. Because you literally have to tell them you need to be at work when the policy manual says you need to be at work. Like that's a real thing. Yeah. Have you been to an airport lately? I I was there this morning. Looks like everyone's going to a pajama convention. It's very true. Like it's a thing. Oh, I love wearing my pajamas on the plane. Are you freaking kidding me? You're representing yourself and whoever it is you're working for when you're out. There's so many basic life skills, basic career skills. Now, the flip side of this, if you're younger and you're listening, it is really not hard to get ahead. Look people in the eye, answer the phone, hustle a little bit, study the old people, see what they like, just try and speak their language a little. You will rise above the crowd. I've never seen a group more ill-prepared to enter the workforce than the people that I parented. Wow. And, you know, I read a pretty broad study uh from one of these nerdy HR groups last week that said 60% of all managers at Fortune 500 companies are saying that their recent college hires are not gonna work out. Like, just not gonna work out. Like, I don't have time to tell them that they they really like you can't not eat and then leave an hour early because that's your lunch hour. Like that that's not a thing. Like we're paying you to be here. Yeah. Basic skills. It's going to take longer. Okay. Now, the good news is if you handle it patiently and gently, say, what do you understand? What's new to you? Because uh our generation really messed up when we gave you those phones. So, like, what makes sense, what doesn't? You're gonna become inquisitive. You're gonna be the you know, the best way to be trying have people interested in you is for you to be interested in them. Yes, just ask them to talk about their favorite subject themselves. It's everyone's favorite. Yeah, and and they'll start to see you as someone. Oh, I can lean into them. Because the, you know, not only are they lacking basic employment skills, I would say there's a basic lack in life skill. Yeah. And they're dying for someone to not in a heavy-handed way, but be this sort of Obi-Wan Kenobi or Yoda or whatever. Here's how you do this. Here's how you do this. It's it so it two books that I would suggest people read. If you're having a hard time with staff, particularly younger staff right now, you need to read generations. A lot of it you will already know, but there's some really helpful things in there. And then secondly, the anxious generation. Maybe one of the most important books I've read in the last five years. Um it the it explains what has happened to the human brain as a result of 2008 social media starting, I think 2010's when the front-facing camera started. Like there are just so many things that have changed in the thinking. Rapidly. And it's created a very anxious generation. They're afraid to make a phone call. They're afraid to go out with somebody, they're afraid of some basic things. And uh I think if you take time to read those two things, generations and the anxious generation, again, no residuals, uh, it will help you quite a bit in understanding how to cultivate that person once you realize, yes, I need to cultivate them.
SPEAKER_02That's great. Let me ask you this, because you're talking and I've changed the direction of this conversation to um staff conflicts. And I think one something that um you mentioned earlier of how the process of volunteers and paid staff, and really this relates to both of them, but I I want to know, do you handle it differently? And um really the best method of doing so, but the inspection side of things of when you've entrusted something to someone and someone who has this task making sure that they're actually getting it done. But sometimes too, I think of the person who really doesn't like to have the um Uber controlling, like wants to feel like they're almost their own boss. How do you deal with that? Maybe that personality, which I'm sure are exist in a lot of these churches and and businesses that people are dealing with. How do you let that personality have its freedom, but also inspecting that they're still getting the job done? And even too, like on the other side of like someone like of just all inspection, I guess, of the that side of the leadership and trustman.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So the next point is if you have a really great younger person, they're probably going to ask you to can I ask you a question, and they're gonna ask you 17 questions.
SPEAKER_01Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Yeah, that was a long-winded. It sounded like Chat GPT right there. It's going on and on and on. Here's the question, William. How do you make sure someone's actually getting their stuff done?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah. And it's different. It is. It's different than it used to be. And I would say to the normal church out there that's working with volunteers, or to the massive church that only hires from within, you have the same challenge. Explain that. Well, when you hire from within, you hire somebody you know, they know us, they get the family, they get the when you hire a volunteer, you hire somebody you know, they get the family, they get the what happens when you fire them? You've created enormous disequilibrium. Yeah. So to me, you know, if you're gonna hire from within, you need to say the same thing that you would say to a volunteer when you're hiring them and say, look, here's the thing. If this doesn't go well, we need to be able to say that quicker rather than later because it's just gonna cause damage. So I'm actually gonna be a little more blunt with you than I would if you were paid staff. Or I'm gonna be a little more blunt with you than if you were somebody we were hiring from the outside. Because I don't want to mess up the church house over an employment issue. So I I think you you just have to keep even shorter accounts than uh you would with someone who's not a volunteer or not from within. And that's how a lot of people try and solve their their friction. Well, we we brought in an outsider and they just didn't fit. So we'll just so I think a lot of people run into that, but you've got to be more careful when you're hiring somebody from within than than than less, because if it goes badly, you've now disrupted the chemistry of the whole house. That's great.
SPEAKER_02When it comes to um staff conflict and just handling the dynamics of really a team, uh obviously I know you've said before that a lot of times leaders can fall into the uh you could call it a trap or just the the um of just hiring everyone who's like them because they like them. But how do you find people who compliment you um and are really great at the things that you're great at and um maybe in your strong areas can make up for some of their weak points?
SPEAKER_03Aaron Powell Yeah, well, this is one of the reasons there's big friction right now. Okay. Used to be you got hired young, you don't know a darn thing. Yeah. I'm the old guy, I know all the stuff. Hang around me and I'll give you some knowledge. And age carried experience, data, wisdom, and all this.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_03Now I hire you, you know more than I do right now. If you don't, then I've either underestimated you or you've been living under a rock. Because you ought to know way more. You're more up to speed, you're more up to date. I don't have to tell you what life at Vanderbloom is like. You've already looked at Glassdoor, you've already looked at Google, you've already looked at like Yes. So there is a disequilibrium that's happened where people are used to being able to say, well, I'm older and I've been around, so I know a thing or two. Yep. Uh pure knowledge is not something you need to try and pass on to a younger generation. And that even gets down to conflict. Let me tell you how it's done. You know, that doesn't work. Um what I think works is slower communication, realizing you've got an anxious generation. Yep. It's worse than it has been before. You're not crazy if you're having trouble right now. This is a generation that has more knowledge than any generation ever coming into the workforce and less uh uh maturation or room for maturation, because I think we stagnated it with the devices we gave you and said, be quiet while we have dinner. That's right. So I I I think that uh if you can learn to slow down a little bit and ask more questions than you give answers, it will lead to a more open conversation. You can see where the deficiencies are and what's permanent and what's not. I you know it's interesting to me, Jesus asked like 300 questions in the New Testament, written. Far more than the commandments he gave. And I think there's a word there for people who are struggling with staff right now. How let me ask you, friend, how many questions do you ask your staff that are not tell me how many we had this week? That's not a question. Like where you're asking them to think and give you their opinion. How often are you doing that during the day? My guess is you could do it more. My guess is if you're like me, I ran that audit for a while and I was pretty embarrassed because I was busy telling people what they ought to do rather than saying, I'm interested in you, I want to learn from you, and not in a sleazy used car salesman kind of way where I'm gonna listen to you for a minute and now what's it gonna take to put you in a No. No. But if you will listen and ask more questions, if you will uh realize that you have less knowledge than the new young worker that's on your staff, it will put you in a place of just asking and discerning and giving wisdom, not data. This generation doesn't need data. They need wisdom. And uh that requires asking more questions. It requires slowing down and letting 17 questions happen when you had time for one. That's right. That's right. It means constantly saying what's permanent, what's not, what's permanent, what's not, what's permanent, what's not. That's your priestly duty. But when your work, it it's gonna be harder work than it's been for a while. I think there'll be another side to it in about 10 years if we're all still here, right? I think I'm watching my younger brothers raise their kids. I'm watching my younger cousins raise their kids, and it's like there's some policing around the phones and the and that wasn't the case. So hopefully we'll return to a more sane world after you guys have had to suffer through our negligence.
SPEAKER_02That's right. Well, I mean, everything was new, and I can't help but think of the iPhone. To me, I look at AI and I'm like, well, are we gonna feel that way about you know, literacy skills of I mean, like you said, of knowing how to write an email, of having original thoughts. Yep. Um, are we gonna look back in however many years and be like, hey, I think we we're giving these kids cigarettes at the end of the lunch line. You know, that's right. Who knows? But hey, listener, thank you for jumping in with us on an impromptu, a little changeup.
SPEAKER_03It's where things are right now. It's it's a real pain pillow. You are not alone if you're having trouble with this. That's right. And we'll see you next time.
SPEAKER_00Thanks again for joining us on the Vanderblumen Leadership Podcast. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you're looking for more leadership resources, you can find us at Vanderblumen.com and on socials at Vanderblumen. We'll see you again next week where we continue discussing how to build, run, and keep great teams.