Pastor, This Will Destroy Your Team | Ep 25

Teams rarely fall apart because of one big moment. 
More often, it starts with small conversations happening in the wrong places, frustrations shared with the wrong people, and trust slowly beginning to erode beneath the surface.
Most leaders don’t notice it at first. But over time it creates tension, division, and confusion across the team.

The issue? Gossip.

In this episode, Mark, Hunter, and Scott respond to a question from a pastor navigating tension on their team and unpack how leaders should address situations where conversations, half-truths, or frustrations start spreading in unhealthy ways. They walk through how to confront it directly, how to protect the culture of a team, and why what you tolerate will always shape the health of your church.

If you want to build a stronger staff culture, protect unity as your church grows, and lead a team that can scale in health, this conversation will help you deal with one of the most destructive forces any team can face.

In this conversation:
- Why gossip quietly destroys teams
- The leadership standard that protects unity
- How to confront gossip directly and clearly
- What to do when “venting” becomes division
- Why culture is shaped by what leaders tolerate

Healthy churches don’t ignore relational tension — they deal with it.

Timestamps
00:00 Why gossip is so dangerous for church teams
01:02 The question: how do you handle a staff member who gossips?
02:07 How gossip creates division and dysfunction
03:58 The leadership standard: zero tolerance for gossip
04:19 A framework for truth and hard conversations
08:06 Why most leaders avoid the last 10% of the conversation
09:30 Stop addressing gossip broadly — talk to the right person
12:10 What to do when gossip actually happens
18:29 How teams shut gossip down quickly
25:21 When gossip becomes a dismissal issue

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_03 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. Hello, friends, and welcome to the Breaking 1000 Podcast. I'm Mark Brewer and I am your host today. I've got my friend Hunter Wilson, my other friend, Scott Wilson. And uh we just want to say we're so excited about what God's been doing through this podcast. We're getting a lot of great feedback. So if you have not subscribed, uh do that and uh hit like and feel free to share with your friends. You know, at the end of each podcast, we uh just say, hey, if you've got something that you'd like to tee up, we'd love to hit it if possible. And so one of the questions that came in recently, I just I think it's better if I just read it. Yeah, yeah. How do I handle a staff member who keeps getting caught up in gossip and sharing half-truths? Uh they've only been in ministry for four years. I've talked to them multiple times, but nothing seems to be getting through. They don't understand what information shouldn't be or should be shared that they have. So yeah, uh that's a big that's a big one. Gossip. Yeah. Where do we start?

SPEAKER_00 1:37

What do you think, Dad? Well, I think the starting point is where I started the very first sta uh board meeting I had, staff meeting I had uh with with our team when I became pastor. Let me tell you, I I pastored, I took a church that was over 80 years old. My dad was a pastor before. We had struggled during that time with people uh gossiping, with people coming out of board meetings or staff meetings saying, Listen, I know we're doing this, but I didn't vote for that, or I wouldn't vote for that, you know, stuff like this. And it just brought division and there was silos and there was division all the way through the and hey, listen, let me tell you something. Who wants to be a part of a church that has gossip going all over the place? New people come in, they go, like, what the what is this? This is a dysfunctional family, weird, you know. And so you've got to deal with it directly as what it is sin. It is not a tolerated culture to have. We do not tolerate gossip. It is unbiblical, it is divisive, it is destructive. But you know why there's gossip many times? Number one, there's gossip because it's been allowed to be part of what happens. It is a natural flesh tendency that if I'm frustrated, I'm gonna talk to somebody I think could uh give me a feeling of I think so too. You're looking for some confirmation bias a lot of times in that. Secondly, it's also a deal, which I think can happen and many times in churches, is I feel like things need to be different than what it is, but I don't have an invitation to talk about it.

SPEAKER_03 3:06

Or I don't have a skill set to do that either. I mean, it's it's both and on that a lot of times.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

I'm thinking that if I tell a staff member, if you have a question, if you have a problem, if you have a concern, if you're frustrated, tell me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:24

Tell me or tell your direct report, whoever that's somebody that can actually help you do something about it and be on the journey with you to solve.

SPEAKER_02 3:33

Yeah, I love this line. I'm gonna butcher it. So I don't quote me exactly, but Peter Drucker has this great line where he says there's only three things that happen naturally in an organization chaos, confusion, and underperformance. Everything else requires leadership. I love it. And and it's something along those lines. Yeah, but basically what it is is especially with older churches, is you in you have to fight for clarity and you have to fight for health. It's gonna drift into unhealth if you're not intentional. And so one of the first things that you're doing is setting a a rule, a standard of this is not tolerable.

SPEAKER_00 4:08

We called it honesty policy. Yeah, so I literally took hours to try to bring it into a concise way to communicate it, and I put it in writing and I shared it with everyone. It's I think this is a biblical standard. Do you? I could you could go look at the scripture, but I think most people say gossip, not good, not okay, bad. Yeah. Okay. And so uh I did it this way. The honesty policy went, I will speak the truth in love to the last 10%, to the right person at the right time in the right way. We have zero tolerance on gossip. That was it. Yeah. Okay. In writing, and I would say, let's break it down. We speak the truth. Now that means even things that are hard to say, things that maybe we don't agree on, things that, but but when we're saying truth, is we're also seeking for truth. So what is truth? God, his word, what he says. That's right. Okay. And so I'm not talking about just my opinion versus your opinion.

SPEAKER_03 5:11

The current culture has this idea of my truth. I need to speak my truth. Well, no, but that's what we're talking about here. We're talking about what is God's truth, what is ultimate uh truth here.

SPEAKER_00 5:21

Yeah, so we're as we're praying and saying we need to make a decision, and the pastor is saying, We've prayed, we've done this, this is what we're gonna do. You may not like it, so it isn't like you're coming in and saying, I need to share my truth. Well, you can. That's perspective. But that's perspective. That's that's how you feel about it. That's how you you've got to then go die to your not truth, to your flesh. You have to die to I don't want it this way. I don't like that they're cutting my budget. I don't like that uh we're having to change service times or add another service, whatever it is. But that's where I say, not my will, your will, and I come into alignment to what you're saying and doing.

SPEAKER_03 5:57

Okay, you can start with speak the truth.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

Speak the truth in love. That's our motivation. The whole reason why I'm saying this is hey, I love you. I care about you, I love, I love uh you enough to tell you the truth, not to go talk to everybody else. I'm gonna tell you, and I'm gonna do it with the motivation of I'm coming to say I have a concern. I'm coming to say I think I heard you say this, but that bothers me. And or can I just could we talk about it?

SPEAKER_03 6:23

I've often found that a lot of pastors um have and leaders, just people in general, have a hard time. They know they need to have a truth conversation with someone, but they have a hard time doing it because they don't want to hurt people's feelings and stuff. But I always think about it if I'm having a difficult time having this truth conversation with someone, it is because I have a lack in the level of my love. And the reason I think that is what conversation is off limits for Jesus to have with me? There is no conversation. Why? Because of the level of his love. And if I'm having difficulty laning something, I always want to get back in the prayer closet and go, God, help me to love this person the way you love them so that I can begin to speak truthfully to them.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

And I think when you have us write this out, and I'm gonna keep breaking it down, rewrite it out and we talk about it, and then when we all sign it, then there's also it's easier to say, I'm loving you in this conversation, and you say, Yes, you are loving me, and I'm loving you back in this conversation because we've agreed on my motivation is I'm for the Lord, and I'm for you, and I'm for this church. And so I'm doing this because of that, and so I'm inviting you to have the conversation. There's some people who we can say, I love you, yeah, I love you, but don't talk to me about anything that's gonna make me frustrated. You know, like there's a feeling like this. I love you, but I don't want I want you to stay at a distance. When we break that down, at least in writing and saying, I am choosing that, then there it's easier to do or it gives access. Okay. So I'm gonna speak the truth in love. That's my motivation, not to be mean, not to cut people down, not to hit people or attack, but in love to the last 10%. That's the hard part to say. I I I'm saying, like even the pastor who's writing this, if you've talked to them a lot and it didn't change, are you going to the last 10% to say, hey, you cannot say blah blah blah. When you say blah, blah, blah to these people, that's divisive, it's gossip, and it will not be tolerated.

SPEAKER_02 8:29

I think what happens a lot is the soft play is you make it part of your opening icebreaker devotional thing for a staff meeting instead of having a one-on-one conversation.

SPEAKER_03 8:39

Oh, so you're shotgun approaching, hoping that somehow they're gonna get it.

SPEAKER_02 8:43

Just so you guys know, we gotta get better at like not telling things or we're we're not gonna do gossip around here, guys.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

And you might be looking at that person a little bit, but or or even not even soft play, but like I've had some experiences with pastors who went hard play. Let me tell you something. What we're not gonna do around here. We're not gonna gossip. Every anybody in this table, if you gossip, I'm coming down like this, and then have to be in the room going, I am not gossiping. Yeah, what are you talking about? I've done that where I've been in the room and that happened. I went up to the pastor after that I worked for, which was my dad, and I said, What was that? Yeah, are you talking to me? I'm not talking about you, son. I said, Then why didn't you spend 15 minutes telling us all and we all feel like we did something wrong when it's that person? Go talk to that person. 100%. And so I think that's a big point. Good job. I like that. Uh speak the truth in love to the last 10%, to the right person at the right time or the right way. Matthew 18, 50 says, Don't go tell a whole bunch of people, go to that person. If you win them over, you got it. Okay. So the whole point is to the right person in the right time. That means don't go talking to me about your problem you got right before I'm about to preach or right before I'm about to go into a meeting. Schedule something with me or talk to me at the right time and do it in the right way. Make it meaningful enough that it has its own spot and it's at a pass by. Yeah. And do it in the attitude of love that you're coming and doing the right way. The zero tolerance on gossip is this. If we sign this document and I'm telling you in meetings, I'm not just saying schedule it. In meetings, how many times have you seen me? Hundreds, thousands of times. However many times we've had a lot of.

SPEAKER_03 10:23

Hundreds and thousands. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:26

Hey, is there honesty policy time? Anything we need to talk about? Anything we need to talk about. And we did it individually all the time. Over and over. We do this because I want to clean up anything that's there and has to have clarity. And I'll look at the staff and the board and everybody involved over and over. And I'll say, now listen, remember, if we have this honesty policy and I'm telling you you, I'm inviting you to talk to me about anything you have a concern about, question on, frustration on, then you have no business saying it to anyone else.

SPEAKER_02 10:53

And that's not doing the same thing of a one-to-many doing like, hey, I'm really talking to one person. A lot of times, if you're setting a new precedence or it's a new type of meeting with new players in the room or something, you have to set the standard because people aren't used to this. Right. So inside of this, you're you're really setting the culture piece of like, hey guys, we haven't really played together as a team before inside of this. Y'all are new board members, we're a new team, blah, blah, blah. So let me tell you how we like to function around here.

SPEAKER_03 11:22

Okay, so we have this leader who's has this situation. What are the specific next steps? You've outlined the honesty policy. What are they going to do?

SPEAKER_00 11:30

The reason why I'm doing that is because you have to lay a foundational principle to change culture. Because if this person's continue to do that, that means it's still a cultural thing. Probably. That they're not, it's probably a cultural. Oh, it's not. They're not playing within the culture. Okay. But but uh a lot of times you've got to set the stage, the foundation of the principle across the board. And by the way, I didn't just start it that way. We did it every year. How many times have you signed up to honesty policy? How many times? We do it over and over. Because I've signed them in a lot of rooms. Every room that I've ever been in, we signed up. We're re-upping. That's right. We're re-upping. I am committing again, no gossip. I am committing again to speak the truth in love. That's for us too. I sign them every time. I'm committing it to you too. I'm not going to go gossiping. But you can set the foundation. So we're setting it up. Somebody gossips. Somebody says something half truth. Somebody says something that's out of turn that we feel. So then we call them in and say, okay, listen, I need to have honesty policy with you. I may have heard this wrong. Somebody may have said it wrong. So I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt. You signed honesty policy that we didn't have no gossip. We're not going to do this. Here's what was told to me that was said. Did you say this? Did this happen? So I'm not coming and saying you can't do this. I'm saying explain what happened or something.

SPEAKER_02 12:48

What if it's like that's somebody like I'm super close to? Like they we just vent to each other. Like I'm just venting.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

Yeah, and I'm saying venting is another word for gossip. Can't you say that? If it's to the right, if it's to the wrong person who's not involved. Venting, if you need to vent, there's a counselor you can go see. I guess you could talk to your spouse about what it is. But remember, venting is about your perspective. It can only be that you're continuing to say how you see it instead of coming to a person that's involved in it and asking, could we clarify?

SPEAKER_03 13:25

I love what the Tom used to say. If you talk about people to God, you grow to love them. If you talk about people to people, you grow to hate them. And that's the thing. Yeah, the Tom's your dad. Uh that was that was meaningful for me because yeah, there may be some humans that you need to vent to. Uh, but I would also uh recommend that you got to get in the prayer closet and go, God, here's the situation and this is what I think I heard or what I'm feeling to see what God wants to do.

SPEAKER_02 13:54

But I've I've seen y'all have to deal with this multiple, multiple times. How do you handle it with this person's going home and venting again to their spouse, but the spouse is the gossip? Yeah, that happens all the time.

SPEAKER_00 14:06

It's on you. It's on you. If your spouse cannot handle the information, that's a big one. Then you can't share it with them in that way because it's on you. Okay. So you are one flesh, the Bible says you are one. And so I don't have a problem with you going home and saying, I'm frustrated with this. To say this is what they did, you just always need to preface it. And I know if we don't get mature, then we're not able to say, hey, this is my perspective. Even if I talk to Jenny, I have to say, hey, this is how I feel like it went. I'm gonna need to talk to them tomorrow. Can you be praying with me on it? It's not, I get to free-flow, dump, and do toxic stuff in my marriage. Why would you do that to your kids?

SPEAKER_02 14:53

Tell them about your marriage? Tell them about with you and mom when y'all are first married, and she would talk to her mom.

SPEAKER_00 14:59

Yeah, well, what would happen is when we first got married, Jenny and I may have an argument, okay? We would have a disagreement, whatever, and she would be frustrated, and it just so happened, maybe mom called, her mom called, and she goes, Hey, how are you doing? I'm fine. Yeah, well, what's wrong? I Scott and I just had a fr frustrating argument. What happened? And then she would say it, and it would be like, I can't believe he did that. You know, like mom would be like, Oh, God, that's so frustrating. And then I would mom would be, as a mom, you're defending, you're defending your daughter. And it's also the only, yeah, she wasn't there in the argument. She doesn't know both sides, all that. So then an hour later, Jenny and I are cool and we talk about it and go, hey, she'll go, hey, I do realize now I was part of that. And I'll go, yeah, me too. Sorry. Kiss and make up, we're hugging. And then we go to dinner with them, and I can tell mom's mad at me. You know, she never did the reconciliation. She never called. And doesn't that happen all the time? All the time. Anybody, anybody who's listening to this right now, and you're going, Well, I'm just talking, dah, dah, dah, dah, whatever. Just realize. Every time you're talking, you're planting seeds. And if you're planting seeds that are negative, they're seeds of discord. Let me tell you what you can't get back seeds. You throw out seeds no matter what.

SPEAKER_02 16:12

It then becomes a confirmation bias that they're now looking for. They did it again. They did it again.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

Yes, but watch this. Even if I later realize I was wrong, if I'm gossiping, if I'm sowing seeds of discord, and then I realize, oh man, I now see that was really on me. I can't go pick up all the seeds.

SPEAKER_03 16:35

You don't even know where the seeds have landed because it's like thawing to the wind. They're everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 16:39

This is why Matthew 18, 15 says, don't do that. Because you can get it right. And if if if you're doing so seeds, if you're gossiping, guess what you're doing? You're becoming a divisive person. And the scripture says, mark the divisive person among you. Yeah. And I I know right now somebody's got, oh my God, you're gonna mark me. You're gonna know what it is, is saying, talk to the divisive person. If they continue to sow seeds of discord, you have to remove them from leadership.

SPEAKER_03 17:09

Because they can't handle it. Because they can't handle the big information. That's that's where a lot of times I see it's you get paid the big bucks because you can handle that level of information. You can actually carry that and still and and and not get tainted. You can actually carry that and still love God's kingdom, love his people, and help people more.

SPEAKER_00 17:29

Watch this. Do you know what maturity is when it comes to this thing? It has to do with I can handle, I the like, let's say y'all are in an argument and y'all are both my friends or whatever, and you're in a deal. Well, now y'all are both looking at me like I gotta take sides whose side I'm gonna take. I'm gonna say, no, no, no, you guys work that out because listen, I can love him and I can love you. That's right, and I can have both perspectives of love and care for you and not take sides on. There's a maturity on that. But what happens in staff is many times people are going like, hey, I need you to begin against them, and so now we're gonna team. You can't do it. You've got to say, go get it right. And here's what I would say. On the honesty policy, I would teach the staff and the board to say this. If that person gossips to you, you need to say, hey, you need to go talk to Pastor or you need to go talk to Hunter. I know they would I wouldn't they would know I know they would want to hear that. So when are you gonna talk to them? Well, I mean, I don't know if I'm gonna Okay, here's the deal. I'm gonna go tell them you need to talk to them. This is how you shut it down. You don't just have honesty policy that says we're not gonna tolerate gossip. Everybody's having an honesty policy that says, if I hear gossip, I'm telling them they need to go talk to them. And if they don't go talk to them, I'm gonna go help them to understand they need to help the connection.

SPEAKER_02 18:40

45 minute meetings with you turned into a five-minute meeting when they would be like, Hey, thanks for having our one-on-one and setting up this call. You need to go talk to Steven. Yeah. Because Steven's doing this thing, and you'd be like, Wow, when are you gonna go talk to Steven about that? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:54

Yeah, I'd always pitch it back to them and say something like, Hey, uh because I would give them a chance most of the time, hey, why don't I give you 24 hours and then can you let me know that you and Steven have talked, or y'all set up the meeting? And then if I didn't hear back in 24 hours, then I'm saying, Hey, uh Stephen, did did Bob uh set up a meeting with you yet? So then because I want to get the ball rolling.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

Correct. Then what will happen is that person may go, well, they're not gonna listen to me. Okay, well then bring Stephen in and we'll I'll listen to you guys together. That's Matthew 18, 15. Go to them first. If they listen and you get it together, you have won your brother up. If not, call in someone who can mediate. Yep. Someone who can help. If that doesn't work, then you go to arbitration. It's literally what it's saying. Call in the elders and they'll make a decision on it. Mediation is you and who'd you say the word, Steven? Steven. You and uh Hunter and Steven, y'all talk. Oh, they didn't listen. Okay, bring it in, we'll mediate. If that didn't work, okay, then we're gonna make a decision on it. You're wrong, you're wrong. Here's how we're gonna get it right, or you're wrong, you're right, you're you're gonna deal with it, you know whatever it is, it's arbitrary, they're gonna make a decision. If they don't listen to that, then you treat them as a tax collector or sinner, which doesn't mean you hate them. How did Jesus function on that? Well, if they're not gonna listen to you on the correction, you may not be able to be in leadership, but I still love you. And I still care about you.

SPEAKER_02 20:13

So inside of this, if you haven't set up the culture piece of an honesty policy, I would probably do it after this initial conversation. So you can't go into this and be like, hey, you know how we function around here, honesty policy, because you haven't set up that culture piece yet. So uh we just did an episode on having a performance improvement plan that gives a framework of the six C's of how to have this conversation of this is no longer tolerated, and let's get clear on what it is to have an expectation of zero tolerance gossip. After that gets settled, you should probably set up the honesty policy as a culture piece.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

If you it is Yeah, you may need to say, hey, look, if it isn't a cultural piece, I wouldn't hesitate. You could do it coincide in the sense of this. I'm gonna have a conversation with you and say, by the way, I'm gonna make this clear because this isn't just about you, it's for all of us. So in our next staff meeting, I am gonna have a discussion on what I'm talking to you about right now. I won't bring you into it. Great. I'm gonna bring it in as how we function because I think this is very important culturally for us. But I am telling you, I need to know right now that when I bring that, you're gonna be able to sign it. Okay, like this. You get it? Okay. Now, let's say that I I called, so if this happened, Pastor, whoever you wrote this uh gentleman, Pastor, this is what you do. Call the person in, have the conversation with them, whether it is you already have the honest policy, or if you don't, you just talk that. And then you look at them and say, Listen, is there anything you need to talk to me about besides this? Clear it out. Let's clear it out. What if there's anything you're frustrated about, anything you got a question about, anything, tell me talk to me. Now that what happens though is sometimes people go like, okay, I'm gonna let you have it. Okay, let me have it in love to the last 10%, please. That doesn't mean because you don't like something, now it's a legal. Pastor, I've got to change everything to come into agreement with you. It is that you've been able to share your concerns, your fear, and now I've been able to share back with you where we're at, where I'm at on that. If I need to confess or I need to say, hey man, I did do that wrong and get it right. Get it right. Do it. Handle it between. Yes. Let's get it out. If, but I'm telling you, no play, no, no play, zero tolerance on gossip. That is that is teaming up with the enemy, that's sin, and it's destructive.

SPEAKER_02 22:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:29

This is constructive. We can do something here on this. Because here's the thing I say on the honesty polish all the time. This is my biblical, every single time we do it, I'll go, hey, now listen, Jesus said he's going to build his church, and the gaze of hell will not prevail against it. We will be a prevailing church because we're in alignment with him. So as long as we keep things clean here, that I'm doing everything he wants us to do, you're doing everything. We're all Ephesians 4 unity. He's the head. We're one body united together with him. If as long as we do that, and as long as we keep things, Matthew 18, 15 here, where we're clean here in relationship, no gossip, no division, we're unstoppable. Our job isn't to make the win. He makes the win. He's the one who causes us to prevail. Our job is to stay in unity with clean hearts with him and unity and clean hearts with each other. That's why this is so important. Because the enemy cannot defeat us head on. He only can defeat us if he gets us divided. That's why this is so important. You're important to me. The Lord's church is important to me, and us be in alignment with him. If it happens again, it's a problem. Yeah. Are we clear? Yes. Okay. It happens again. They come in and you have one of two options. HR is sitting here no matter what.

SPEAKER_03 23:53

So you're saying, and if it's a smaller organization that doesn't have an HR director, you wouldn't want to have one of the elders. We've often done that on the case.

SPEAKER_00 24:00

First of all, the first conversation I had on that, if it's a female, I have somebody else in here anyway.

SPEAKER_03 24:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:05

I'm not having a conversation with a female on staff. I don't care who it is without my executive, without another person that's sitting here, whether it's in, and you say, Well, I don't have any of that stuff. Then a board member, okay? And we're having that conversation. If it happens again, it comes in and I'll say, Hey, talk to me about what happened. I always start with giving them a benefit of doubt that I heard this wrong. Yeah. Hey, I again, such a good possible. We've had that. I I I I am hearing this, or I got reported this. It's so hard for me to believe that this happened because we're so clear. We're so clear.

SPEAKER_02 24:40

But did this happen? Which goes back to our first see of confession of like just talk to me.

SPEAKER_00 24:46

Yep, talk to me. Tell me what's going on. Talk to me. Maybe I'm not saying it or understanding. Do you understand this isn't what you yes, I did. I did. I said it. You don't understand, but I said, no, what I understand is if you did do this, that is gossip. That is you're speaking negatively about leadership and speaking words that uh sowing seeds of uh of division and discord. So we can't do that. This is gonna go in your file. So you have one or two things you can do. We're gonna release you because we've already talked about this, and this is a this is a releaseable fence. You first of all you gotta know an honesty policy. You're saying, hey, this is zero tolerance, which means we're not gonna it's not gonna be tolerated. Yeah. You have to not tolerate zero tolerance, no tolerance. You know, we don't tolerate it. So it's either this could be a dismissal or or it could be like, hey, this is a this is going to go in your file, uh, and uh we're on a probation, which basically means we're gonna function in a way that you understand now if there is another time of you speaking divisive ways, we will release you. Our board members here, our HR person's here, it's going in the file. You need to know is this clear? Do you understand why? Talk to me. Tell me, tell me why we're this is such a big deal. Let them speak because the enemy wants to destroy, because blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. If they just say, I don't think it's a big deal, I think you're making it a bigger deal than it is. Okay. That thank you for saying that because that's helping, that's revealing, it's helping me to understand we're not on the same page here of how important this is. Yeah. And then that's where you might say, if you don't agree, then you you need to step down. I mean, you have to, you have to deal with this. I'll tell you, the moment you deal with someone that gossip is a is a severance issue level issue, that means you have now established culture that is for real.

SPEAKER_03 27:01

By the way, the culture will get in alignment very quickly. You walk up this ever happening.

SPEAKER_00 27:07

We don't, we don't, we don't, but you let it happen. Yeah, you your your your culture is not established. You know what culture is established by? By what we tolerate. Culture is set by what we tolerate, not by what we say. If you tolerate it, then you're saying this is the ideal, yeah, but it's still okay.

SPEAKER_03 27:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:28

So that's what that's how I would have to do.

SPEAKER_03 27:31

Okay, so uh closing thoughts on this and moving this forward.

SPEAKER_02 27:36

Yeah, I I would just want to rewind a little bit of what you were saying of like, all right, this is your chance. You can tell me anything inside of this. I've seen you do this a hundred times and leading this. I would say 99% of the time people say I'm good when you do it, and then you ask again if you can see it on their face.

SPEAKER_00 27:57

Over and over.

SPEAKER_02 27:58

I think it's the second time. If you are sensing like, no, I know there's something in there, I would ask it again.

SPEAKER_00 28:04

Okay, let me show you, let me show you right now. So and do it, do verbal because I can't see it. Um what I will do is I'll take my fingers, like two fingers, like I'm doing, like, you know, I'd say, I got my eye on you, you know, somebody does that, and they're doing the finger. Is what I'm saying is I'll look them in the eye, say, hey, look me in the eye, each person, I'll just say, Hey, let's look at each other in the eye. Is there anything we need to talk about, good, bad, or indifferent? Anything you got? Anything you want to talk about or ask? No, I'm good. Okay. If they look at me and they say they're good and I can see it in their eye, because the eye is the window of the soul, that's what it's talking about. So when I'm doing that and they're looking at me, say, Yeah, I'm good. Okay, that feels good. If they go, Yeah, I'm good. I'm I'm good. Something like that, then I'm going, okay. That sounds like there is something. Could you do you need to talk to me right now, or is this something you want to talk about right after the meeting? Which is a lot better than saying, Are you sure? Yeah. No, I'll say, is that I'm I'm saying it sounds like there's something we need to talk about. Do you want to do that now, or are you just saying you want to talk about after the meeting? Yeah. See, what I'm doing is I'm calling it out. And they'll go, no, no, no, there really isn't anything. Okay, let's talk after the meeting. Anything right here? You get it? And I see I've seen that one a number of times. You get it? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:12

Because what I'm saying is that that what you just did is way more common than if I open this up, they're gonna explode on me.

SPEAKER_00 29:19

Well, first of all, they're going to somebody's gonna test it sometime. When I did this and introduced it, it probably went four months that everybody said, I'm good, I'm good, I'm good. And then all of a sudden somebody said I'm not good. And they said something that was pretty hurtful to my heart. And basically they I think I've said it before, but they they said, you know, hey, when the anointing's low, the volume's high when you preach, you know, like you're yelling. And so I had to to to bite my tongue a bit there and just go, like, oh gosh, that's pretty man, I that's hurtful. You know, but I had to go, okay, is there truth? I said, listen, as I think about it, there is some truth there. Let's talk about it. And so I did, and I said, I'm gonna try to do better on that. Here's the thing if you do not demonstrate what it's like to hear the truth in love and to be willing to listen to it as if I might have a blind spot, death spot, or dumb spot in that deal, then you're not modeling for them how they should be receiving truth when you give it to them. It's really good, man. So if I don't agree, like if I know flat out this is wrong, like they they're telling me something and I didn't say that. Like, hey, I hear you, blah, blah, blah. Well, for we can talk about this, but I want everybody to know right now, I I didn't say that. That isn't what happened. Well, you you did this to that person. Okay, first of all, let's talk. Let me let me share what happened with that person. Let me share. And so many times it was they didn't have the whole story. Yeah, they didn't have all the information. But those are the things that's important.

SPEAKER_02 30:47

Is that if they are saying something, it is very wise of you to stay calm.

SPEAKER_00 30:52

Stay calm and say, I'm so thankful. First of all, I always start with thank you. Thank you for trusting me. Yeah, thank you for trusting me that you would even ask me that. Yeah. And I'll say, hey, let's talk. And if they did it openly with everybody, I probably need to handle it openly because now everybody, somebody else is going. If they didn't know about it, now they want to know about it. If they don't, you know, like this, and I'll share.

SPEAKER_02 31:12

Thank you're kind because they're entering into the scary zone of the last 10%. So you're thanking them for entering into that zone. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:18

And guess what I'm doing every time I'm doing it? No matter how hard it is for me to hear it, I am sowing seeds into trust that when I talk to them, they're going to be at a place. Well, man, I did it to him and he listened. I need to listen to that. That's really good. I'm modeling because listen, when we're signing honesty policy, no gossip, what I'm doing is two things. I'm inviting you to talk to me, but I'm also asking you to invite me into talking to you.

SPEAKER_03 31:51

Permission giving and permission granting and receiving. Okay. Final thought. Deal's good. You got to deal with it. Just got to deal with it.

SPEAKER_00 32:00

Deal with it. I think no matter what, you have it doesn't happen. In the book I wrote on Steering Through Chaos, the thing I said is you got to deal with the dirt. D-I-R-T. Don't ignore relational tension.

SPEAKER_03 32:12

And with that, Bomb, we're closing today. Thank you for joining us here today on the Breaking One Thousand Podcast. If you have a topic like our friend and uh you want us to tee that up, just shoot us an email at hey H E Y at ReadySitgrow.church, and we'll see you soon.