The Hard Conversation Every Pastor Avoids | Ep 23

Most pastors can sense when a staff situation isn’t working.
But many wait too long to address it—hoping things will improve, avoiding the tension, or struggling to find the right words.

When underperformance lingers, it doesn’t just affect one person. It impacts alignment, trust, culture, and the church’s ability to keep growing. In this episode of the Breaking 1000 Podcast, Mark Brewer, Scott Wilson, and Hunter Wilson unpack a practical framework for having hard staff conversations with both clarity and care.

This isn’t about being harsh.
It’s about leading your team well so your church can continue growing and fulfilling the mission God has given it.

In this conversation:
- The real reason pastors tolerate underperformance
- The 6-step framework for performance improvement conversations
- Why clarity is one of the most loving things a leader can give
- How to balance Paul-level accountability with Barnabas-level care

Strong leadership isn’t easy—but healthy churches require it.

Timestamps
00:40 Why pastors avoid performance conversations
02:54 “Kingdom nepotism” and why this gets so messy
05:50 The 6 C framework for performance improvement
08:45 Confession: “I may have missed it”
11:09 Clarification: get back on the same page
14:27 Conversation: how are you seeing this?
18:56 Confirmation: agree on the plan
24:35 Calendar check: tighten accountability
30:34 The Close: put it in writing
37:17 Why strong leadership protects team culture

If you have a question or topic you’d like us to tee up on a future episode, email us at hey@readysetgrowchurch.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hey Pastor, if you're facing growth challenges right now, you're trying to figure out how to scale, how to align your staff, and really how to get after the work that God's called you to do in that community, we would love to come alongside you. And I want you to know we just opened up a brand new mastermind specifically for churches under 500. And if that's interesting to you, go to ready setgrow.church to find out more information and see if this is a fit for your journey right now. Hey my friends, welcome to the Breaking 1000 Podcast. I am your host, Mark Brewer. I've got Scott Wilson and Hunter Wilson here. And hey, if you haven't already, make sure you subscribe to this, hit like, and share with your friends. We're getting a lot of great feedback on what God is speaking in and through us in this podcast. One of the things that we've recognized, especially recently in coaching some of these great leaders, it is difficult to know how to have a performance improvement plan conversation. 100%. And we've got a lot of pastors that have allowed things to be tolerated going on and on and on, and they're just trying to figure out what's the perfect way to land this plane with uh helping someone improve their performance on our team.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

You know, I don't I don't know if this is like just church world or if this is like more universal. I think we just have a lot more experience studying churches, but I have seen so much more as like I'd rather shuffle them around than have this kind of keep trying to do lateral moves. Hey, maybe this isn't the position. Let's shuffle you over here. It's like, oh, that didn't work too. Let's move you over here. It's like, oh, that didn't work too. We can't fire them. Uh what else can they do?

SPEAKER_01 1:50

Like I think it's more in the church world than it is in the corporate world because in the corporate world it's more like, hey, it ain't working, you're done. It's more cut and dry. It's not as relational most of the time, unless you're in a mom and pop situation or something. You're so removed many times in corporate that it's just that's not a person, that's a job. Well, and sometimes it I not sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 2:12

But in the mom and pop, it's more relational many times too. It's always kingdom nepotism. So not biological nepotism, but we are in a kingdom family together. And it is difficult. I've never even heard of that. That's do that. Keep going. That's amazing. Well, I mean, it's just it's the reality that it's difficult when you are in a family to be able to separate. We have an organization and we have a team that has to produce certain results here and not enmest that with we also are in a kingdom family, and it's difficult to do that. And I think that's why these things go on and on and on a lot of times.

SPEAKER_01 2:48

I think that's that is probably one of the most powerful things I've heard in a long time. I am amazing at this. Nepotism, that they're my brother in the Lord, they're my sister in the Lord. I can't, right? Yes.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

I mean, think about it. But it the nepotism isn't that you've brought them onto the team, even if it is a biological situation, because that happens a lot in the church. Yeah, absolutely. It's not that you brought them on the team because of who they are, it's that you've kept them on the team with underperformance at play.

SPEAKER_01 3:14

The first conversation I had as a young man, 17 years old, coming on staff with my dad, because our youth pastor was like kid, hey, I'll pay you$100 a week if you'll uh kind of hold this together. And I know y'all are going to like, well, that's not even real. Okay, but he made it real because he brought me in. He said, Son, let me tell you, I am hiring you. I am opening the door for you. But as you walk in and everyone gets to know you, if you're not carrying the load, they can ask you to walk out. You know, they can and he said, basically, I believe you have a calling on your life. I believe you can do what we're asking you to do. But if it doesn't work, understand I have to let you go, or my integrity's on the line and my credibility. He understood the separation. And he made it, he made it real for me.

SPEAKER_02 4:01

So I think in the performance improvement plan, we've talked about there's there's six steps that we would we would want to jump in.

SPEAKER_00 4:08

And and I I love, I think you're so good at uh at leading these conversations. So I kind of want to tee you up with each of the six C's that we walk people through to have this conversation. And what's crazy and awesome about this framework is people can like simulate the experience right away after hearing these C's. And I think it's really cool. I think before we do that, I just want to say one more thing is what I've seen to be a pattern is there's two polar opposites on the pendulum swing. Is some people uh want to avoid conflict at all costs and avoid the conversation. That's where that shuffle happens. The opposite is we have no tolerance for this. I'm gonna go in and I'm gonna wing it, and it becomes very subjective and it becomes very uh, I don't know, motivational of like, hey, you better change or else and not really providing a plan like you're doing. I think what we wanted to do is provide a balance in the middle of how do you have a grace-filled conversation with excellence required? And I think that's what this framework does so well. So this is our six C framework. The first C is confession. So we're gonna start with confession, which seems like what do you mean start with confession?

SPEAKER_02 5:22

Yeah, because who starts these kind of performance uh improvement plans with, hey, I need to confess.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

Hey, let me start with something I might have messed up.

SPEAKER_02 5:30

So can you talk us about that? Yeah, I think there's two keys on it. First of all, I always want to assume that the reason we're at this place is I missed something. It's not always true. And in fact, oftentimes I I have a hard time finding something that could be true connected to that. But if I can assume that, then I enter that conversation with a little bit different step, uh, uh stance. The other thing in confession is is really internal for me. I want to have confessed, I am here to help this person grow. And if something is amiss and they are not being able to execute in this role, I am leading them. I have stewardship in their life, and I want to help them get to the right place and I want to serve them.

SPEAKER_00 6:13

Let me let me facilitate something real quick because I'm gonna tee you up, Kurt, what I think you're about to say. First of all, we're needing to walk into a room, let's paint the picture. We're needing to walk into a room and we need to talk to this staff member and saying, we need you to improve. Now, this could be down the road of like we're painting a fork in the road of basically saying, like, hey, this is a grow or you gotta go thing, or it might be the first time of like, hey, we're always kind of like the one-minute manager type thing of like, let me tell you what you're doing good. Let me tell you where you need to improve. That could work too. But I think we need to go down the route of this grow or go change.

SPEAKER_02 6:48

I think so too, because if you can get skilled at that, that hey, we've come to an in-past and this is no longer working, and we've got to make changes not in six months, not in 12 months, but this needs to happen in this cycle.

SPEAKER_00 7:00

You can downscale the intensity if you're not on that grow or go with the same framework. Exactly. Uh but what we do is we already have baked into the calendar with a framework that we work with our clients where every cool down, which is we have three-month cycles and a one-month cooldown. So three times a year at least, yeah, we are walking into a one-on-one evaluation. Most organizations throw this into the end of the year when Christmas is coming and we're, you know, and really all you remember is like the last 30 days. 100%. It's a recency bias of like, I think you're doing good based off of what I can remember, and what I can remember is the last couple of weeks. Right.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

But in the way we're doing it is we've set it up where in the next three months, this is what we're agreeing to that you're gonna do. And then after three months, we sit down and say, did we do it?

SPEAKER_00 7:47

Yeah. So in the we're painting the picture is we are walking into the room to your evaluation that happens on the fourth month every time, right? And so we're saying, Hey, so glad you're here for the performance review today. Let me start by saying, uh I might have missed it. Because Well, that's a leadership move. Right.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

Let me tell you why we do it. It's a lead. Is that okay if I say that or you want to say it's a good one?

SPEAKER_00 8:11

That's what I think that's what you're about to say is you always start with confession for the first time and the second time is different. Is that what you're about to say? Yes. Go ahead. I think it's a leadership move.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

I don't I always, as a leader, take responsibility for the people on our teams in this way. If you're not functioning in the way to the level of excellence or where I need you to perform, the first thing I say is, have I made clear what the expectation is? Are they meeting it? I mean, not meeting it because I haven't made it clear and they think they're doing it. So first thing I want to do is go, hey, let's have a I'm not sure. I may have missed this. I may, I may not have been clear about what the expectation here is, what we need to be. I thought it was, but maybe I'm not. So I'm gonna take it right now. Okay, I'm going to make this crystal. Yeah. Okay. I'm gonna, I am going to make this so clear, and I even want you to say back to me, we'll put it in writing. I want to make that. Now, if the next time that happens, you're not starting with that. I'm not starting with that. You don't have to I'm confessing. Yep. Uh, hey, I'm confessing right now that I have been clear. So, so in in this, and you're not hitting it.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

So the first step of confession is a great way to in my understanding of what you're so good at is you're disarming. You're not trying to be self-deprecating. That's right. You're not trying to say, I'm the old guy, I suck. No, I'm stupid. And it's not I might have missed it.

SPEAKER_02 9:34

It's not fake. It's it is real in the first conversation. The second conversation confession is really more for me before I enter the room. God, I am confessing to you that you have given me stewardship over this person, and they seem to not be in the right role at the right time, in the right place. And I need your help to be able to help them figure out where we need to go from here.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

The whole reason why I do that is because I'm trying to instead of have a confrontation, I'm trying to have a clarification. Because I want to make sure maybe I missed this, maybe I didn't say this, maybe we weren't clear. And so I'm gonna take that up front and then I'm gonna make it crystal clear. Yeah, which is where let's go. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:15

So step one of confession is I may have missed it. So that's what I would write down. Confession, colon, I may have missed it. And I love how you're doing it is we're not double-clicking as much on that and adding bullet points of why I might have missed it. It's like literally five seconds. Hey, so glad you're here for the performance review. Uh, first off, I just wanted to say I wanted to have a clarifying conversation today. Uh, I think I might have missed it here. And and then we're going into the extra.

SPEAKER_01 10:42

Yeah, and I say here's how I would say it. Watch, this is very clear on this. Let me just start off by saying we're not hitting expectation. You're it's not where what we're gonna talk today is about we I need you to step into another level, but I want to start off by saying I may have missed it on being clear. Yeah, great. Basically, I'm saying we're not where we need to be, but I'm gonna take that. I'm gonna I'm gonna say up front, maybe I missed it and I want to make sure.

SPEAKER_00 11:10

Okay, so number one, confession. I may have missed it. Number two, clarification, which is let's get on the same page. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 11:19

So uh, and then often at that point, yeah, I'm saying, hey, the reason why we are here right now is because we're not actually on the same page. And so I want to clarify again. And there's usually two ways this has happened. Either I've been very clear and they've not understood it and and they think they're hitting all greens, or uh we've been clear and they recognize they're not hitting all greens. Both of us are in agreement on that. Let me say something here.

SPEAKER_00 11:47

I I I'm gonna keep harping on this because I think it's so important. We have this built into the calendar already before underperformance is happening. Yeah. Okay. What freaks people out is uh, hey, can you set up a meeting with Mark and call it evaluation? Uh it's like, what? But it's not part of the regular schedule. But it's not part of the regular schedule. You're gonna freak out.

SPEAKER_02 12:10

You didn't even have to call it evaluation. If if you set up a meeting with me and it wasn't on a regular schedule, I'm the first thing in my mind is oh good, oh dang. Oh dang, what's going on?

SPEAKER_00 12:20

Here's another thing. And that's for the people that deal with it right away. That's the pendulum swing of like, let's just schedule a meeting. I need to talk to them right now. The other side, and dad, we have talked to people, uh, even clients that have let this linger for years of saying they're gonna figure it out. And it just lingers.

SPEAKER_02 12:39

Time doesn't fix anything, only intentional, designed action will fix these things.

SPEAKER_00 12:44

Okay, so that pre-conversation of number one confession hey, I might have missed it. Uh, I wasn't clear. Let's get clear. That's step number two.

SPEAKER_02 12:53

Clarification again, it's it's a reminder, it's a coming back to previously and in our last cooldown, you and I agreed upon these things.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

And this is huge too, because what you're doing is I don't know if you're doing it on purpose, but it looked like you were pointing to something. I believe inside of this, if you are doing a verbal agreement of what clarity is, it does not count. It has to be written down on paper. Three, six, five. Yeah, we have an episode about this on three six five where we talk about how we have a job description that can fit on an index card, but it's super powerful and it can adjust every cycle if we need to make adjustments. There's three goals, five responsible or six responsibilities, and five uh team values.

SPEAKER_02 13:41

Very clear. And so again, doing these on the regular helps it to continue to be a clarification meeting instead of a we got to compete.

SPEAKER_00 13:49

And inside of this, what you're pointing to is like, I might have missed it. I probably didn't make this uh clear. Let's get it on the same page because this is what I thought we agreed upon. And I'm pointing to the document that we both have of what my expectations are. Yeah, super powerful.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

You know where that confession comes in too on that is that when people are starting to do a 365, even if it's written down, they have not writ written them in a way that is objective, clear goals. It's more of we're gonna get better at this. And so now it's their subjective opinion. They got better, or my subjective opinion of what I was thinking better was.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

Yeah, so like especially in the goal area, because it's like uh maybe one of my responsibilities is the volunteers for youth. But my goal is improve volunteer engagement. It's like that doesn't mean anything.

SPEAKER_01 14:37

So my confession is I don't think I made this clear enough here with a goal of I want at least 15 new volunteers who are da-da-da-da-da, whatever it is.

SPEAKER_00 14:47

Yep. Super good. Okay, next step. Number three is conversation, which is the tagline is how are you seeing this? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:55

The reason why I like adding this step in is because I want to hear back from them. Uh, not do you understand? That's too easy to say yes or no to, and they're almost always gonna say, yes, I understand now. Yeah. I want to hear back from them, what are they seeing or what are they sensing this is?

SPEAKER_00 15:14

So instead of saying, hey, I might have missed it, let me point back to this. You understand? And it's like, it's again, it's like, I might have missed it. Let's go back to the document that we have shared upon of our shared understanding of what good sounds like. And now we're saying, how are you seeing this? Because a lot of times what it gets into is like, you're not doing good in this. It's like, well, I think I am. This is what green means to me in this. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:41

So you're cut, you're allowing for some feedback here. Here's here's what I would say. Dude, if it starts droning on, I mean, if it's more than like one or two minutes and it just starts going, well, the reason is brrrrrrrr, I I okay, hey, you know what? We actually don't have to go into all those details. This is just reminding me that we are at an impasse. And so I want to move to the next step, which is a confirmation of what we're gonna agree upon and writing now.

SPEAKER_01 16:06

Can I say something here? Okay, because even on that one, here's here's what I'm listening for. When somebody's giving me the conversation, and if they start, like you said, droning on and on about this, what they're then I'll go, okay. Pause for just a second. What I'm hearing you say is you can't do it. For whatever reason, I'm not saying that what I'm hearing for you is these are the reasons that you can't do it. So I think we need to talk about that because if you can't do this job, we may need to make a talk about hey, I don't want you to be frustrated and I don't want to be frustrated. So let's get it. So what you're doing is instead of excuse, excuse, excuse, what you're telling me is you can't. Yeah. Or excuse, excuse, excuse. Okay, what I'm hearing from you is you don't want to do this. Yeah, well get you get how big of a deal that is. Somehow it's only property. In other words, it it's going down uh on it, and now I'm clarifying as a mirror back to them. You're letting me know right now you either don't want to or you can't. Yeah. So let's talk about that.

SPEAKER_00 17:06

You get it? Yeah, inside of this too, is you don't want to get into a subjective battle of what green means because ultimately you're the boss. So what your opinion is matters the most. So it's like I so we do red, yellow, or green. So for the three goals, red, yellow, or green. For the six responsibilities, red, yellow, green. Red is bad, green is good. It's like, how do you think you're doing in this? I'm doing a green. It's interesting. I think you're doing a red. And it's like, well, to me, it's I'm a green because of this. It's like, yeah, but to me, this is like you don't want to get into that kind of battle. It is, I want to see why you think this is going well. Yeah. And I want to clarify what my expectations are so that you have the same barometer of what green means to me, which is the next step of confirmation. So confession, I may have missed it. Clarification, number two, is let's get it on the same page. Number three is a conversation because I want to see what's going on in your head. I don't want you to just agree and then we're getting off. I want to make sure that we're thinking in alignment here, right? So let's have a conversation about this, not a debate. It is conversation, it's not a debate. Like that, yep. Right? Number four is confirmation. Let's confirm on the plan. So I love what you say here too, is there's three different ways that we've uh that you've probably done all three. Um, depending on the situation, there's three types of ways to make a plan. Number one is you come with a pre-made plan and you're saying, here's the leader of the meeting.

SPEAKER_02 18:38

So I'm coming in to meet with this person.

SPEAKER_00 18:40

I'm giving them a performance and I've got in my pocket plan that I want expectations. I didn't make it clear. Let me make a crystal. This is what you're gonna do. And if this doesn't go down the route, then we're gonna have a different conversation after that, right? Number two is let's create the plan together in the meeting. Hey, what do you think we should do here? And I'm gonna tell you what I think, and we're gonna co-create it together. That can be powerful because they are bought into I I didn't get reprimanded and handed a plan. They are co-creating it with it for more buy-in. Yep. And then the third option is I want you to leave this meeting today and write up a plan of what you think you can do, and then I will approve it inside of this.

SPEAKER_02 19:21

Yeah, and I have a preferred model. I mean, for me, and again, we all have different leadership styles and how we've got to get after this great commission work. But yeah, my preferred model is typically gonna be number three. I want you to go first and do all the heavy lifting and figure out to the best of your ability what the plan needs to be. And then send that to me, and then we'll have another conversation. It might be two or three. Again, it it depends on how much time you have. If I've got two or three days that like nothing's gonna broke blow up on the planet if I give them three days for us to navigate through this, then I want them to go first. Yeah. Because it continues to expose where they're thinking and where my thinking is, so that I can shore that up in discipleship.

SPEAKER_00 20:04

It aligns with your heart of everything to you. It's like we we say all the time is like multiplying yourself and discipleship is not another thing you need to do. It's a new way of thinking about everything that you do, right? That's it. This is your heart so much that even the way that you gravitate towards that is this evaluation process is not me saying, do what I say or else. It is a leadership development tool in and of itself. Yeah. Is I want to give you another shot. Can you explain? Do you understand? And if you're missing it, let's meet up again because I want to teach you how to think.

SPEAKER_02 20:40

Because we decide to want them to be in the right role in the right season, you know, the right team. And even if they leave, I would still want to help them learn how to develop these skills together. And they're better because they were the kingdom's better because if they get this, you know.

SPEAKER_00 20:55

Were you gonna say something on that?

SPEAKER_02 20:57

I had a thought. I think by the way, I do want to say this. We're sitting here, you and I have been working together for 35 years, and almost any of the frameworks that I use, I'm using and have now articulated because of our relationship and how intuitively, or you got it in the Holy Ghost prayer closet, we did these things, and now in this backside of our ministry life, I'm being able to articulate those so that we can duplicate those in other people.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

So I had a thought that I've never had before, and so I'm laughing because I'm going, I'm gonna say this like how we're flowing. Well, I'm nervous. Watch this. So some people may be here, like you said on the pendulum, and they're either a Paul or they're a Barnabas. Remember John Mark? They had uh a guy here who needed to make some adjustment. Yeah, he abandoned them on a journey they were on, missionary journey. Okay, so we got Paul's view and Barnabas' view that actually split up their ministry because Paul says, John Mark isn't helping me on this assignment, he abandoned us, he isn't up for this. Task. And so he can't go with this. Barnabas says, wait a minute. I'm more uh focused on John Mark than I am about the missionary journey. I'm gonna stick with John Mark to help him grow. And it happens so much that he had growth that uh Paul later on in ministry says, Send John Mark to me. He's such a help to me. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 22:23

So the son of encouragement, Barnabas is able to move into that realm.

SPEAKER_01 22:27

So which one do you want to be as a lead pastor? Well, I want to go in the biblical phrase that always went Paul and Barnabas. Paul and Barnabas. Not Paul or Barnabas, Paul and Barnabas. We see that phrase over and over. And so I think we've got to have two hats. On one hat, I'm going, like, look, if you're going to go on the journey of what God's called us to do in this ministry, I need to know you are going to be able to perform at this level to do that. Otherwise, we need to keep going on the journey and we need to help you find another place where you can grow. We need to help you find that, Barnaby. Okay. But on the other side, I'll go, now let's not just talk about the church and where we need to go in this position. Can I talk to you about you? How can I help you grow? Yeah. So you've always done that really. Not and barnaby. Not either or.

SPEAKER_02 23:15

And so I think for pastors right now, we're about to head to the next step. I think for pastors right now, they need to recognize get in the Holy Ghost Prayer Closet and go, God, we're at a situation. We're at, we're at a place in the road. Which are you asking me to be in this moment for this particular endeavor? And I think you've done a great job at that over the years. That's why everybody loves you and wants to be around you. And uh you know, we're still not. I'd say I'd say everybody except like three. There's three that I can think of. Don't love you. But it's good. You didn't do enough Barnabas on that one. All right.

SPEAKER_01 23:52

No, I think there's some people, no matter how much you do Barnabas, it's not gonna matter. It's not gonna matter because they've determined you've rejected them or whatever, even if you're not rejecting them, you're just saying there's a different place.

SPEAKER_00 24:03

It's what they can receive. All right, number one is confession. I may have missed it. Number two is clarification. Let's get on the same page. Number three is conversation, which is how are you seeing this? Okay. Number four is confirmation. Let's make a plan. Yeah. So after I see how you're seeing it, it's like that makes sense of why you're emphasizing that so much. Yeah. Let's get on the same page of what excellence looks like. Let's make a plan. And it could be one of those three ways. I'm going to make a plan for you, let's create a plan together, or I want you to make a plan and send it back to me. Number five is the calendar check-in, which is basically we are not, we are going to tighten up the parameters. So we might have been bowling with no bumpers. Now we're going to add bumpers to make sure that we don't get off again. And we might tighten the bumpers depending on the severity of the uh But we need to reprove.

SPEAKER_02 24:52

We need to understand we're not just going to put this plan on a piece of paper and go, hey, God bless you, peace out, uh, see you in three months. Exactly. We're not at that place right now. And so then what we have to do is we have to set up uh a calendared set of check-ins, how you're gonna report by writing, how we're gonna intersect face to face. And I think a lot of that uh that depends on uh the person who's leading the conversation. We've talked about this. I'm a little bit more like if I don't have information, then then I'm like, hey, we agreed upon something. No news is good news. Yeah, no news is good news. You guys are more, dude, no news is like horrible. This thing's going down the drain. They've forgotten. Yeah. So what we want to do is we want to have a specific set of calendared check-ins, even before the performance review at the end, that help us keep this thing moving. And so it also has to depend on the person. You know, what's their peel-off rate? Like how long can they go? Can they go a day without you know peeling off and and losing ground? Yeah. Uh I like our weekly three, daily three, really, to kind of lead this. Yeah, go ahead, explain it. Well, weekly three, daily three is just hey, out of all the things you could do this week, what are the top three things you need to do in order to move this forward? And especially around a performance improvement plan. And then every day, there are three things, three things I need to focus on to move those top three forward.

SPEAKER_00 26:16

So that might be, like you said earlier. I might not have been clear. Instead of improved volunteerism engagement, I want 15, blah, blah, blah. So maybe your weekly three is I'm gonna reach out to five people that are volunteer candidates and take them to lunch. It's like, that's great.

SPEAKER_01 26:33

So that's not just them putting their three uh for the week and three for the day. It's their giving it to me as their director of post. I'm seeing it every day and every week. Yeah because then I'm going like, dude, I I don't see you focusing in on what we're talking about here. Those don't have anything to do with it. And I can stop by the office and say, hey, talk to me about this.

SPEAKER_00 26:54

The weekly three and daily three are showing you what you think is a priority for your time. And I want to make sure that if I've clarified what I want your 90-day priorities to be, are you chipping away at that every week and every day? Yep. Because if I can see that your public so we do our weekly three and daily three in a public setting. So everybody can see everybody's, even you. Like it doesn't matter, lead pastors doing it, executive pastor is doing it, everybody's doing it. Everybody can see what everybody's thinks is a priority for their role. And I don't always read everybody's, but I always read the people that report to me.

SPEAKER_01 27:32

And and what's key is that we're not just saying what they are. It's at the end of the day, I they're saying, did they do it?

SPEAKER_00 27:39

Yeah. So it's not necessarily saying I'm only gonna do three things today. It's saying out of the maybe ten things I do today, these three are moving me towards my long-term event.

SPEAKER_02 27:49

And I'm closing each day by reporting on those and providing information so that again, I as the leader am not having to chase down stuff. I always want them to self-report, which is the highest level of accountability.

SPEAKER_01 28:05

No. It's I will complete stage one of this today. Yes or no? I will write this paper today. I will do whatever.

SPEAKER_00 28:13

Did I or did I not send five text messages and say, Hey man, I'd love to get lunch together.

SPEAKER_02 28:18

That's deep diving a little bit on this, but I will say that for most leaders, you have to do this. You actually have to do this. Go for it.

SPEAKER_01 28:26

You're you're this isn't just about me micromanaging. This is about giving them a chance to actually win. If if I'm going like, no, dude, you're not on. Well, I thought I wasn't. These three have nothing to do with what we're talking about. Yeah. Okay, a week goes by. Hey, better or not better. And so it's not leaving it to three months from now, and we're all they're crossing the finger, did I do enough? It's crystal clear every day.

SPEAKER_02 28:51

Every week. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:52

And so inside of this, what we do is the calendar check-in is basically how are we going to keep this plan in front of us? Okay. So what I would do, still have your one-on-one with them that you do. Most people have one-on-ones with their director ports every week. I would just add this weekly three, daily three portion of a review of their weekly three, daily three that should take three minutes. That's it. So add it as a heading that is a recurring event, and just say, let's look at your weekly three and daily three from last week. Okay. How come I didn't see anything about reaching out to volunteer it uh about the 15? Like, where was that? Like you might have worked on it, but you didn't put it in your daily three, weekly three. Why is that? It's like, oh, I didn't. Well, I was like surrounded. It's like, okay, let's tighten this up because I want to make sure that I am seeing this as a this is the number one thing. This is what we talked about last week. We I thought we made this really clear. I want to see this in your weekly three, daily three. It doesn't mean it's gonna take all of your day, but it is gonna be the biggest uh part of your top three.

SPEAKER_02 29:53

All right, where do we go from here?

SPEAKER_00 29:54

Last one is the close. The close is uh the plan in your own words. So what you're really saying here is I want you to do a write-up, which could be, you know, an email that basically says, I want you to tell me what we talked about.

SPEAKER_02 30:09

And I definitely want it to be an email because I want it to be time stamped and I want it to be digitally, digitally documented. So all I'm asking in that moment is, hey, I want you to take 24 hours because I want this to allow uh some time to allow this to soak in. Yep. And then 24 hours from now, I'd like to get an email from you. And all I want is in your own words, what do you think we're agreeing upon here? Yep. And then, you know, I've I've had a couple situations where they sent it to me, and I'm like, that is not what we talked about. We talk about any of that stuff. And so I'm I may have to provide. We've talked about that, but you're you did not get what I'm saying. Yeah, you're not getting it. So you have a few words that are connected. So once I once I'm I'm good on what they uh close with, that feedback, then now we've got a plan. And then we just go execute it. All right, let me do it.

SPEAKER_01 31:00

I don't know that we were clear on this, but I want to make sure. When you're doing the close, you say, I want to give you 24 hours to think through what we're saying. I want you to recap everything we said. So I want the 365 on there, but I also want you to say, This is what green looks like. I want you to explain back everything I've said is what it has to, what we need to hit, what it didn't hit this last time, all this. I want you to explain all of it to me, how you're what you're thinking on it, and do that by tomorrow at 5 o'clock. If it comes in before five, say, hey, thank you so much for this, man. I appreciate you hitting this. It shows that you really care about it and do it. Let me read this, I'll get back to you tomorrow. Okay. If it doesn't, if it's at 5 30, I am now saying, I'd like to meet with you in the morning. I don't think I'm not I'm not confessing now. I am now conf I'm telling you this is a problem. You are not a level of understanding of clarity on this, that you would send this in at 5 30 or you didn't even hit it. You you're not taking serious what I'm saying. You get it? Now my tone's changed.

SPEAKER_02 32:11

We're step we're stepping into an action plan now that you've already you've already started out badly. So this actually can't happen.

SPEAKER_01 32:18

This is a problem. You're not taking this seriously.

SPEAKER_00 32:21

I and inside of this too, where would you say that the spouse fits into this? Well, because that that adds a whole other component to this.

SPEAKER_01 32:28

There's also one thing I don't think we've hit on this that I want to make clear. We give a gauge of red, yellow, green. If you have a what are we calling this, an improvement, what performance, a performance plan, which means they did not perform. Okay, then that means don't give them a green. I'm making this clear for everybody because you can't have it where you had this, and you say, okay, we're good, green, but we need to do better. No, there ain't no green. It's a yellow or a red. If you're saying if this doesn't change, you're not gonna be here anymore. That's a red. They get a red. People get reds.

SPEAKER_00 33:10

Give the red. We had a we had a client ask yesterday, do you put them on a performance improvement plan after they get a red for the first time, or do you let it go two cycles of red? It's the first time.

SPEAKER_01 33:22

It's the first time. Red doesn't mean you're gone. Red means stop the way you're doing this and start going a different direction because you get two reds, that red saying this doesn't work. Yeah. I mean, we're that's a good thing. Second red is a confirmation. Yeah. I that means I've gone every day, weekly three, daily three, met you, and you still didn't. This is telling me this job doesn't fit for you.

SPEAKER_02 33:46

Well, two cycles of red is is eight months. Yeah, that'd be eight months. I think what we're saying here is is is or tying this up. If a person uh is now this this job may not be here if we go another cycle like this, then that is typically a time when we would want uh to make sure that the spouse is informed so that it doesn't happen like we've had happen before, where someone is removed and then the spouse going, man, I don't know anything about this. What are you talking about because they were not communicating?

SPEAKER_01 34:15

Is that what you're saying? Yes. But I I'm I'm backing up on even more here. You've got to score the red. They have to know red. Secondly, when this is going into honesty policy, which we've talked before about everybody on our staff has an honesty policy that we have written and signed. I will speak the truth in love to what? The last 10%. What we're talking about here is giving a red is last 10%. It's the part you don't want to do. I don't want to give it away. It's clarity. Clarity is kindness. Yes. Secondly, I'm giving the last 10% of this doesn't happen anymore. If you're on probation, if this happens in the next cycle, it won't even be three months. If we see this coming in the next three or four weeks, we're just gonna call it and say this doesn't work. The third thing is now the spouse needs to be communicated to because uh that this could be their job, and that spouse needs to participate instead of saying, why are you working all the time or why are you you know like this? They need to participate. This isn't the job for you anymore. You can't live at this speed, you can't do the whatever. They need to know. So what I would do is anytime it's at this level, is I call the spouse in and just say, Hey, let's meet. Why don't we do this right a close? But then tomorrow, when you do it, say, let me know. Uh tell my assistant when we could meet, then your spouse could come in. Because I just want them to be on the same page and be able to ask any questions. They may need to say, Hey, you're not understanding, we're not even being able to find okay. Well, then the job may not meet where you're at in life, and we need to talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 35:44

A good clue that the spouse conversation probably didn't go well if the clothes was totally off. Yeah. It's like you are not getting this.

SPEAKER_01 35:52

That's what they're going home and telling their spouse. 100%. They're going home and saying, Well, no, I I I they just said I need to kind of do some things more or whatever. 100%. And they're going, What do you mean do some more? You're always working. Right. Or whatever. That's that's where you got to get the spouse on because the whole goal for me is that if there is a time where we have to say, hey, this isn't working, let's let's do a severance, let's let's make a change here, that there isn't this, I have no idea. Yeah. Or that's unfair. The spouse says, Where did this come from?

SPEAKER_00 36:23

You know, they there needs to be clarity all along the way for them. You're you gotta include the spouse inside of this if it feels appropriate, because the person that is in the situation most likely is gonna be an unreliable narrator. Yep. Okay, how can we close this? And hide this. Well, I would say, and Dad, you're gonna give a good final close on this, but to me, this is not the removal of, oh, this makes it easy. This is a framework to help you when emotions are flooding. Does that make sense? Yeah, it's not saying, oh, I get it now. The six C's make this so much easier. This is gonna be the easiest thing. No, it's not. I've been around you, dad, doing this, and I've I don't think I've ever at this stress for you always affects your sleep. And you always come in that morning saying, I hardly slept, I didn't sleep at all. And and but and and what I love of what you probably have in your psyche of what you always tell me is not everybody loves strong leadership, but nobody likes weak leadership. And your team is watching, they know the underperformers, and no high performers want to be on the team with low performers and being like, why is Pastor not dealing with this? Right. So I think this is a strong leadership move. Sometimes it has those three people that don't like you anymore, but it for the health and the integrity of the culture and the mission that God's calling you to, I think the strong leadership move and using the C's is a way to navigate through this chaos. Yeah, closing.

SPEAKER_01 37:55

I thought the misnomer is that people say, I don't have peace about this. I just don't have peace. I mean, I just don't have peace. Man, how'd it go? I'm so upset. I don't have peace. I have never once ever had peace in the sense of felt good. Okay. I felt peace that it was the right thing. It's like the time I've talked about my first one I had to do on this, it was so bad, and it went to the second red, and I had to do it. I couldn't sleep all night. I I was down on the floor saying, God, it was almost like Gethsemane. Not my will, your will be done, because I don't want to do this. So this is gonna be painful. And then I woke up the next morning, my dad called and said, Son, how do you feel? I said, I am so confused. He said, You are not confused. I said, I feel confused. You're not confused. You know exactly what you're supposed to do. It's just your emotions are so clouding that that you feel confused. You're not confused, you're clear on what needs to happen. It's just hard. Leaders have to do the right thing, but I think it's Paul and Barnabas. I really like that. I never thought that, but I really like it. It's Paul and not Paul or. In other words, I'm gonna make the right move for what we need to do as a church, but I'm also gonna make the right move that is good for you.

SPEAKER_02 39:08

So in helping you. Yep, awesome. Hey, thank you for joining us here today. This has been this has been robust. It's been a good one. Uh, if you have a topic, something that you'd like us to tee up, just shoot us an email at hey at ready setgrow.church, and we look forward to seeing you down the road.