Your Team Isn’t Lazy… They’re Just Unclear | Ep 34

If you want to eliminate confusion on your team, and develop a high-performing staff culture that drives real church growth, learn more about the Ready Set Grow Mastermind: https://www.readysetgrowchurch.com/mastermind

Most pastors don’t struggle with lazy staff. They struggle with unclear expectations.

And when “winning” isn’t clearly defined, your team will define it for themselves. That’s when frustration starts to build… You feel like the bad guy. They feel like they’re doing fine. And culture slowly drifts in the wrong direction.

This episode breaks down the real issue behind staff behavior—and why clarity, not control, is the solution.

In this episode:

• Why unclear expectations create frustration and confusion
• The difference between managing time vs. managing outcomes
• How to clearly define “winning” in every role
• The 3-6-5 framework for performance and behavior
• How culture is actually formed (not by what you say)

If your team feels inconsistent, unclear, or hard to lead… this will help you reset the standard.

Transcript

The Question That Sparked This Conversation

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Hey my friends, welcome to the ReadySet Grow Podcast. I am Mark Brewer, your host, and I got my friends, Scott Wilson and Hunter Wilson. Hey, we recently had a question come in from one of the pastors that we were working with. I'm just going to read it here. How often do you allow staff to utilize on-the-clock time for activities like golf? And then he had a little bit more information, but he really finished it up with this. I really feel that I would rather him go and take some time to grow spiritually, personally, and as a leader than probably be out playing golf. What do you do about that?

SPEAKER_02 0:46

Wait, let me just make sure I'm understanding. So it's saying, like, okay, nine to five office hours and he may be leaving early to go play golf or something. Is that what the question is?

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Yeah. And then we actually hit it on our uh coaching call that we do with all of our clients every single week on Tuesdays. And we had another guy goes, That same thing happened to me. Like that's happening right now. Can y'all talk about this? But mine's not golf, it's a guy playing pickleball. It's a pickleball. And so it's just a thing. I mean, like, and and what I put together here is basically our teaching. So if you're listening on this, you can uh I'm gonna be drawing a little bit, but we'll do our best to explain it. But if you want to watch this episode, you can watch

Why This Isn’t Really About Golf

SPEAKER_00 1:23

it on our YouTube as well. But you know, what I was talking to him about this pastor, he was saying, All right, first of all, I'm a little frustrated. I'm a little frustrated. He said, uh, he's leaving one to two times a week. I feel like it's not really justified, right? And then he said, I feel like he'd rather golf than grow. And that's a little frustrating. Like, why can't he use that time instead of being like, oh, I'm done. I'm just gonna go have fun. Why isn't he not just like reinvesting into himself and growing and getting better? Like, that's what I would do.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

Well, and I think as as lead pastors and executive leaders, we're all wondering that about the people that we're we're pouring our lives into. Hey, why and how are you growing? And instead of just messing around, utilizing this nine to five times.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

And what what's tricky about this, I think, is um, especially for this pastor, and I felt like it was very common with the pastors when we were talking about this on our coaching call, was they start to spiral in their own heads because

The Frustration Pastors Quietly Carry

SPEAKER_00 2:22

it's not just so clear. It's like they start to turn inward. And they were saying things like, I feel like a bad guy, like I'm the bad guy for being frustrated about golf. Like I want people to have a life, I want people to have fun, I don't want to micromanage, but also I don't feel like I can let this go.

SPEAKER_01 2:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:39

Right. He also said, I'm not sure if this is a him problem or a me problem. Yeah. And it's like, dude, where do I stand on this?

SPEAKER_01 2:47

Well, those were big things. And also part of the premise was that he was going out and taking other people with him to do this activity. And so does that fold into, hey, we want our staff team to be building relationships with other people. So there is that dynamic.

SPEAKER_02 3:03

Is he strategically taking people out that are like volunteers or key leaders, or is he just trying to find some people so he can get out of the office? I mean, so it can be different on that.

SPEAKER_00 3:13

So I I this is good. Okay, so there's something that's happening here, and we understand

The Gap Between Expectations and Reality

SPEAKER_00 3:18

that there is frustration. There's a gap in understanding of like, okay, I was expecting this, but the reality is down here, and that gap in between, I'm a little bit frustrated. Yeah. So the next thing is I think you got to clarify the desire. Like, what do you want to have happen? Because then we can reverse engineer that, right? So the desire is I want a staff who are self-motivated to grow, not just self-motivated to have fun. I want a staff that's not only getting their stuff done, but once they get their stuff done, they're thinking about making things better, not just being like, I checked the boxes, now I'm gonna jet out. Yeah, you know, that's really good. And inside of this, what I was talking to him about is this really isn't a golf conversation.

Culture Is Set by What You Allow

SPEAKER_00 3:59

This is about staff culture. This is about staff culture. Staff culture is set by what you allow, not just what you say. Right. Basically, uh, and dad, you can talk about this, is everybody's watching what's happening here and they're getting a pulse check of like, is this okay or not? Do you want to say anything on that?

SPEAKER_02 4:19

Well, I think that's totally true. I mean, culture is set by what you allow. And so if this is going on and it's not clear, but I I think the key here though, like the thing I'm still we need to walk through here is that I think if you're not clear about what you're wanting, then is this really a rebellious, lazy attitude, or is it

The Real Issue: Lack of Clarity

SPEAKER_02 4:39

just not clear what is going on? Because, like, is this guy going and playing golf at three with people, but then that night he's working when the kids go to bed from nine to twelve? I mean, what we don't have clarity here. Yeah. So I and if he hasn't made it clear, the first thing you gotta do as a pastor is look at yourself and say, Have I made it clear what I want?

SPEAKER_00 4:57

Well, even in that, is what what's happening right here, and what I told him is right now you've been allowing but not addressing. Exactly. You've been allowing for this, but not addressing this, and that gap is gonna create resentment or entitlement either in you or in him, right? So if that guy, let's just say it's a person, we didn't even clarify this. Is it like a youth person, right? And it's like, okay, he can go play golf or she can go play golf because that night they're working at night when other people are going home, right? But are you clarifying that to everybody else that this is an exception to the rule? People are watching and and they're trying to figure out what's the new new normal.

SPEAKER_02 5:36

Can I say something on that right there? Please. Is that I think what's key here is that you're addressing individually, not handling an individual issue corporately. Yeah. So if you're gonna go, man, I really first. So now you're gonna get up in front of uh and all staff and go, hey, listen, I don't want anyone leaving, everyone works from blah, blah, blah. Well, first of all, I don't think we live in a we should not have a kingdom mindset that is quote unquote fair. In other words, you don't treat everyone equally because not everyone's job is the same, and not everyone's season of life is the same, and not every set assignment is the same. This is the same with Jesus. People could have been like, why is James and John and Peter get to keep going with him? I mean, we're disciples too, you know, and then other people like, why do they get to be with him all the time? We don't know. Yeah, there were levels of what people were allowed to do and not allowed to do, invited to it, not. So I think it's an individual addressing first, and then there needs to be a corporate understanding of things as well.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

Yeah, and uh honestly, what you're looking at here is you need to address what is the operating culture here. How do we operate as a team? What do we allow? What does it feel like to work here, and how do we function around here? And that's what you're needing to define because if you don't define it, people's actions are defining it for you. And so inside of this, this is the frameworks that we use inside of our middle method system to be able to help him to bring clarity. These are the frameworks, the mental models that we use to help him.

SPEAKER_02 7:08

You know what, Hunter? Just in saying that when this was going on, we did this in the coaching call. One of the pastors talked to me afterwards privately and said, I don't even know why we talked about that whole thing. I already have the solution. I said, What was that? He said, Everyone works nine to five. You don't get out of this office. If you're not in your office, I mean we but if you let one person do something, the whole thing will go. So there it that is a solution. It may not be the solution.

Define What Winning Actually Looks Like

SPEAKER_02 7:36

And so I want to make that clear. I mean, you can do it, however, and it's a culture that you're talking about here, a setting of understanding.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

Yeah. So inside of this, I think the first thing that you need to address here, and I'll zoom in right here, is what does winning look like in your role? Nice. Here's what here's why I think this is so important is because when I was talking to him and I was a little bit doing some like information gathering, because I wanted to understand the full context before he prescribed a solution. Is most likely you are not going to be frustrated, and this conversation is not coming up about the guy playing golf if he's killing it in this role. Right.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

So that if the outcomes were there, we likely wouldn't be having this conversation. But the problem is that maybe the outcomes are not hitting full green. And so now this is feeding this.

SPEAKER_00 8:23

If this guy was the Michael Jordan of Youth Pastors, just let Michael Jordan do what Michael Jordan's gonna do. If he's creating the results and he's not damaging other people, right? Most likely, I was saying, let me guess what's happening. It this person, like red, yellow, or green, red's not doing good, green is doing amazing. He has to be doing like a yellow or a red, right? And he goes, Yeah, he's actually like mid right now. That's what he said. Mid. Yeah. And I was like, okay, cool. Yeah. So what's frustrating to you is you have seven ideas of what he could be doing with his time, but he's thinking he's doing a green, he's doing great. So he might as well, like, I got my stuff done, so I'm gonna go play golf, right? There's an expectation reality gap here, and we have to clarify that. So one of the frameworks that we teach a lot is our 365 framework, which is our uh job description that can fit

The 3-6-5 Framework Explained

SPEAKER_00 9:14

on an index card. So the job description that can fit on an index card that we talk about every 90 days is what are my three goals, my six responsibilities, and the five team values that we use to operate. So inside of this, what does winning look like in your role? I think what you're really zooming in on here are the three goals and the six responsibilities. Because basically, you want to make sure that as an uh individual, that when you are creating the three goals of what are the projects that I need to be working on, and what are the areas of responsibility, which are the standards that I need to maintain, are operating at a green. I'm completing the projects and I'm maintaining the standards of the areas. That is the performance side of the job description. All performance is broken down by behavior and activities, basically the what I do and how I behave, right? So the beh the action side of this of the project and the areas, we want to make sure that winning is very clear to you and to them. Most likely what's happening, Pastor, is what I was talking to them, is you have a job description that is too high of a level of generalization and it's not clear to you. It's too squishy, and it's too subjective, and it's too high level to know if they're doing a red, yellow, or green. It's just broad, yeah, too. It's a two umbrella. Like one of my areas of responsibility that never goes away, that has a standard to be maintained, is oversee volunteers. It's like, I think I'm doing great. It's like, you think you're doing great? That's not great. So it's like it's too high level.

SPEAKER_01 10:52

There's not enough specificity around activity, it needs to take place, and that's where the 365 comes in and fixes that because it takes a very general, broad stroke of a job description and says, No, what will I be responsible for and what goals will I hit in this cycle?

SPEAKER_00 11:08

Yeah, and I think what is really important if we wanted to make it even more specific, is what does winning look like in your role? And I'll even add in this season. Yeah. Right. That's the thing is the job description needs to be have specificity around the season that we're in right now. That could be winter, spring, summer, fall. That could also be in this season of 2026 in our church right now. Here's what's important. We're in a volunteer initiative right now.

SPEAKER_01 11:37

We're in a building campaign. We're in a building campaign. We have an initiative, we're starting a new series.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

In this season, what does winning look like in your role?

SPEAKER_01 11:43

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 11:43

Okay. So that's first. As I was like, first, you need to get on the same page of is what's written down on his 365, is that too broad? Is there specificity there to where he knows you're not trying to overload him with the three and the six, where he's like, I'm gonna make this work so heavy, you're gonna feel trapped in your job. Here's how I I describe it the three and the six should basically hit if they did these three goals in the next 90 days, and if they maintain these standards, I'd do like a backflip. I'd be so happy. Uh, and they think they can do it, and we think that

Why Behavior Matters as Much as Performance

SPEAKER_00 12:18

it's a growth goal. You know what I'm saying? That that's the area you want to be in. The second thing is, remember, he said, I feel like he'd rather golf than grow. This is where the five comes in on the 365. It's a five values. So the five values is really hitting on the behavior of the team. And behavior is not like be nice, uh, it's not platitudes as much as it is these are the characteristics. If we're gonna pursue our goals annually this year as a church, and we've never done that before, these are the characteristics of the people on the team that we have to do. I kind of think of it as like uh the captain on a pirate ship is like, these are what we're gonna have to pursue. Like people on this ship, we're gonna have to do these things if we're gonna pursue this goal and conquer this territory that we've never conquered before. So we're all gonna grow. You get it? Like how you're the one that looked you created this. Hey uh producers, can we cut that from the clip, please? Are you kidding me though? This is the best part. We just lost 14 subscribers over here. Okay. So the next thing the next thing here is uh I would hit on the five staff values of five team values here. That is basically, hey, around here, we uh dedicate time to learn. So, you know, what you could do, Pastor, is you could say, like, hey, learning around here and reading and learning from people that are experts, that's not a waste of time, that's a shortcut. Nice. And you make that a reality of like, hey, if you see somebody learning in their role, they're reading, they're watching something, they're investing in a course or whatever it is, uh, a lot of people that are in the program are like if you're learning from the RSG library of uh resources, that's a shortcut.

SPEAKER_01 14:04

Let me let me clarify this. What you're saying is in that nine to five, forty, fifty hours a week, there could be the perspective that two to three, four hours of that week could be invested in you growing yourself. You don't have to grow outside. Yes, you could actually grow inside the work.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

That's the work window connect is you can grow inside the work window because it's like people have the separation of work and life. That's a that's an unlock for a lot of leaders to be able to do that. Well, think about it.

SPEAKER_02 14:36

If I'm as a pastor and I don't have that in there, like say 10%, four hours a week, I want you learning, and the and even perhaps if it was me, I would want to set kind of these are the things I'm wanting you to learn. Like, hey, this we're gonna we're gonna work on this. Here are the things in the RSG library. I want y'all to walk uh watch and we're gonna discuss. If you don't have that in there and you walk by somebody's office and they're just watching a video taking notes, you're gonna go like, they got time for that? Yeah, what are you going to go to work?

Stop Rewarding “Looking Busy”

SPEAKER_02 15:07

Do that on your own time. Yeah, if you don't make that clear, you can be frustrated.

SPEAKER_00 15:11

And and here's where I think the ultimate thing, okay. So if you really want to get deep down, and this would be a whole podcast episode, I would go recommend that you read the book uh Slow Productivity by Cal Newport because he's basically talking about there is this belief, and he calls it pseudo-productivity, that he thinks the more that people look busy, the more productive that they're being. And it's actually a false reality. That if you think, okay, the best way to get the maximum output from people is they need to be tied to their desk, mitigate the amount of water cooler talk, just lock in and sit there, and that's the most how I can get out of them. But people aren't robots. And and you have to make sure that we are really optimizing for outcomes. We're not maximizing for looking bitty, busy. It's it's the pseudo-productivity pack here.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

So you yeah, you just laying it a philosophy, so eventually we're gonna get to this idea.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

Yeah, so yeah, that's the uh slow productivity I would read that. But basically, what I think you need to be optimizing for is like the whole thing of like, wait, they have time to be reading and blah, blah, blah. Okay. I think you need to stop trying to get people to be looking busy by checking boxes because you don't really even know what they're doing on their computer, right? What you really need to be optimizing for is are we or are we not uh getting the outcomes done that we want to see happen in this cycle. So we've

Managing Outcomes vs Managing Time

SPEAKER_00 16:38

clarified that with the 365.

SPEAKER_01 16:40

These are the outcomes, or these are the activities that we think are going to get us to the outcomes. That's what we're going to be evaluating now.

SPEAKER_00 16:46

And now you need to basically once you have clarified these are the three goals, these are the areas I want you to uphold, and these are the behavioral traits that are necessary for us to accomplish the vision. Now you need to decide what kind of culture are we when it comes to managing your time? Are we a nine to five clock in culture or are we a manage your own time culture? I like to kind of think about it is are we a type of culture that is gonna do the punch card? That is basically saying, I'm measuring the time you spend at your desk, or am I more measuring the scoreboard of the

9-to-5 Culture vs Outcome-Based Culture

SPEAKER_00 17:19

outcomes that I want to see happen? There are great organizations that play on either side. Exactly. I'm not saying one's right over the other. We probably have more of a preference to where um to optimize to what you and I would want to have happen. And I would rather work at a coffee shop that has natural light and I'm sitting by a window, and that like helps me. So I don't want to be hypocritical and I don't follow the rule that I set for other people.

SPEAKER_01 17:47

Which is super, super important. You know, one of the things growing up under your dad's ministry, your dad was way more of a nine to five. I remember even writing. You come in, you write in when you got there. If you go to lunch, you write in, you log out, you write back in. That was very different than the culture that we begin to play under because both of us operated differently than a nine to five. We were way more outcome. Yep. And there's there seems to be maybe even a hybrid that it doesn't always have to be binary. Are you nine to five or are you outcomes? There's a hybrid that we even use.

SPEAKER_00 18:21

Yeah. And and for us, what we do is I would say that we're probably a mix of both. And I only want to have people be in the office if face-to-face gives us the best results for what we're trying to achieve. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 18:35

That's a good one-liner for everybody. If face-to-face gives us the best results for what

Why Their Team Batches Meetings on Mondays

SPEAKER_01 18:41

we want to achieve, then cool. That's what we need to do.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

One of the ways is that if we do it, if we're doing a growth plan and we're doing like strategic planning type stuff, definitely want to be in the same room together. Um if we are doing uh meetings that we have to do, what we do is okay, to mitigate this, instead of having meetings every single day of the week or three or four days out of the week, we batch all of our meetings on Mondays. And so it's like, hey, I need you to be in the office on Mondays.

SPEAKER_02 19:09

And then all of our coaching calls are on Tuesday, which we need to be together. Yep. And so it's both Friday for us as an organization is you can work wherever you want to.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

Think how powerful it is, though, when you batch it like that, because then you can have the mindset. So my Monday mindset is all about meetings. Yes. So I've prepared, I come in, or dude, I am bringing the guts.

SPEAKER_02 19:32

It can also be though, like when I was a lead pastor, there were some jobs I needed you in the office the whole time. So I don't know why the

Department Expectations vs Individual Expectations

SPEAKER_02 19:40

finance people would need to not hey, I gotta go meet with people. No, I need you to do, you know, like you're here nine to five, uh, the receptionists here nine to five, assistants and secretaries are here.

SPEAKER_00 19:52

You know, I I find that the breakdown, especially as you scale up in an organization, is really departmental expectations, not individual expectations. Um and that really like the youth ministry, you have you have your youth service on Wednesday nights. That's different, you know.

SPEAKER_02 20:09

Um we're at football games at night or on Friday night, or you're at basketball games and you're going to schools, you're going to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_00 20:15

And so we clarify that to the team. I think it's really departmental expectations. That's good. So what I told the pastor is like,

Where to Start as a Leader

SPEAKER_00 20:21

hey, ultimately, let's bring this all back around. This conversation is not really about golf. It's about staff culture. Right. That's what you're managing here. So where I would start, and just to wrap this up, is I would get really, really clear here on stop having these super umbrella terms in your 365. You need to clarify what are the performance expectations. That's the three and the six, the three goals, the six responsibilities, and what are the behavioral expectations of the team. Not that just you want, but are necessary to accomplish the vision of what God's called our church to be. If you're gonna be on this team, we have to make things more simple. If you're gonna be on this team, we have to make things more automated. If we're gonna be on this team, we have to be growing ourselves, not just doing what we learned 10 years ago.

SPEAKER_02 21:09

And I think on that, just to be clear, Pastor, is you can be you gotta be specific so we can be objective, not subjective on whether we hit it or not, not just in the doing, but in the behaving. Yes. Because you can go, I am growing. No, you're not c you're not growing like we need to. Right now, you're fine with where we're at, not where we're going.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

You know, there has so what does that look like on I want you to spend this much time or I want you to do that doing evaluations, you can unpack that in a performance plan, hey, into the next cycle.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

This isn't once a year. This is once every cooldown, which is every 90 days. Yes. Okay. And the last thing is I would clarify. And what I would do is if you have people that are leaving the office and there's like different expectations, and people are confused of like, how things really function around here, I would clarify either departmentally or right now, your team is small enough to where it It is a staff wide expectation. Uh, if you have a team of like less than seven, I would probably do a team-wide expectation. Is are we a punch card, clock in, clock out, nine to five culture? Totally fine. Or are we a manager own time? I just want to make sure that you're we're keeping track of the scoreboard and we're hitting

The First Question Every Frustrated Pastor Should Ask

SPEAKER_00 22:19

the outcomes that we set at the beginning of a cycle.

SPEAKER_01 22:21

Yeah, super helpful. Okay, any closing thoughts here on this idea of nine to five versus outcomes-based culture?

SPEAKER_02 22:28

Well, I think anytime you're frustrated as a pastor, you need to sit down and first evaluate have I made this clear? Have I uh why am I frustrated? Have I talked to them individually? Have I decided how to communicate to the whole? Uh, don't think of outside of you, like what are y'all doing, as much as first is have I made this clear?

SPEAKER_01 22:49

And then you can move towards super, super helpful. Thanks. So we're so glad you were here with us today. We're excited to be on this journey with you. We'd love for you to subscribe, to like, and to share this, especially with someone who may be maybe navigating through this same situation. Love it. See you next time.