Pastor, This Is Why Your Team's Productivity Has Stalled | Ep 44

If you want help building systems that bring your team real clarity — not just more activity — learn more about our Ready Set Grow Mastermind here: https://www.readysetgrowchurch.com/mastermind

Your team is putting in the hours. Meetings are happening. Task lists are full. And yet growth still feels stuck.

That's not an activity problem. It's a productivity problem — and it traces back to clarity, not effort.

Most pastors respond to stalled growth by adding more activity: tighter meetings, stricter hours, another app to track who's doing what. But if your team is already working hard, more activity just burns them out without moving you any closer to where you're trying to go.

This conversation breaks down the Horizons of Focus — a six-level framework for finding exactly where clarity is breaking down between your church's purpose and what's on your team's to-do list today.

In this episode:

• Why "activity problems" are rare and "productivity problems" are common
• The six levels of clarity, from your church's purpose down to today's next task
• How a "double in three" vision forces real paradigm shifts instead of incremental ones
• The difference between an area of responsibility and a project
• How to find the exact level where you — or your team — are stuck
• Why alignment, not more meetings, is what creates real momentum

A leader's first job isn't to create more activity — it's to bring clarity.

Timestamps:
00:00 – Why "working hard" isn't the same as winning 
02:51 – Activity problem vs. productivity problem 
05:01 – The six altitude levels of clarity 
06:27 – Level 5: Purpose — your organization's why 
09:01 – Level 4: Vision — what winning looks like long term 
09:49 – Why "double in three" beats slow, steady growth 
12:42 – Level 2: Areas — the roles you're responsible for 
14:58 – Level 1: Projects and tasks — the next right action 
16:33 – Working the elevator back up when you're stuck 
20:21 – Stop blaming your team for a clarity problem

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hey friends, before we jump into today's episode, if you've been listening to the podcast for a while and has been helping you, I'd love for you to take your next step with us. The Ready Set Grow Mastermind is where we go beyond conversations and actually help you put these principles into practice. So every week, think about it. You're going to join pastors from around the world for live coaching, practical tools, and proven systems where you can put this into practice right away. So whether you're trying to break a growth barrier, you're trying to build a stronger team, or create systems that are going to help your church thrive, this mastermind is going to give you the coaching and support to make it happen. And here's one of my favorite parts every pastor who joins the mastermind is actually helping another church that otherwise couldn't afford the coaching. So when you invest in your church, you're also investing in another pastor and another church. So if you're ready to take the next step, go to ready setgrowchurch.com and you can learn more. And let's jump into today's episode. Hey, my friends, welcome to the Ready Set Grow Podcast. I'm Mark Brewer, your host, and I've got my friends Scout Wilson and Hunter Wilson with us. By the way, if this has been a benefit to you, then we'd love for you to subscribe, like, and definitely share with your friends. So we're talking today about how to focus and really the concept of horizons of focus. Why don't you jump in on that?

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Yeah, it's a great concept. Uh, I'll tell you a little micro story about why this tool keeps coming up so often. It's actually a tool that originated from David Allen, the guy that created uh getting things done. And he talked about that when you're trying to find clarity, that there's different levels of clarity, kind of like finding altitude levels of the higher up you go, the more clear you get at a bigger picture. Does that make sense? So the it's like I can see my house from here when you're in an airplane. It's a different level of macro perspective than when you're maybe at like the top of a staircase or on the second floor.

SPEAKER_02 1:56

So even around the house uh illustration, if I'm in the plane, I can see my house and all the things around me. I have a different vantage. But if I'm down on the sidewalk in front of my house, I'm seeing a level of detail, but there's just stuff I can't see around it.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

So when you're trying to find clarity benefits on both. Yeah, there's different levels of clarity at different levels of perspectives. But here's why this tool keeps coming up so often. I I find a lot of pastors that we meet with, especially in a one-on-one basis, where they're coming to me and they're like, Man, I need your help because I I'm trying to figure out a way to improve the the speed and the pacing and the I just feel like we're not getting to where we need to go as fast as I thought we would.

SPEAKER_02 2:35

And they don't have the right information to even be able to know what to do next, how to take the next step or how to lead their team. And it sometimes uh I I'm noticing in this, sometimes they have the wrong information or they have the wrong perspective or making assumptions because things aren't clear. So you're clarifying focus here for them.

SPEAKER_01 2:53

I think so. And in one of the first things that I'm trying to poke at is what's the real problem here? Because I kind of find a fork in the road when that happens. One is I'm trying to discover is this an activity problem or is this a productivity problem? So activity problem is kind of like you're dealing with uh some tortoises, right? Like we're not moving fast because everyone's lazy and they're moving so slow. Okay, that that's that's a problem. Yeah. Um, I haven't found that to be a big problem with the churches that we're working with. It's more of the other problem that usually was where the path goes down. It's a productivity problem where, dude, our team is moving fast. Our team is working hard, our team is staying here late, our team is working on their laptop. I don't know what they're doing, but they're working hard. And what happens is you have activity that is disconnected from the higher levels of clarity to where I'm working hard, but maybe not on the right things, or I'm working my butt off, but it's not connecting to our higher level aspirations. So we're staying busy, but we're not moving closer to our final destinations. We're not really beginning with the end in mind than reverse engineering from there. Does that make sense? Yeah. So if we're going down the activity problem of the slow tortoises, right? That's where you get a lot of people who make that initial gut reaction of, dude, I gotta fix this and I'm gonna step up and I'm gonna be the leader. You know how I'm gonna do that? We're gonna have more meetings. So we're gonna get more active. We're gonna get more active. I'm gonna have tighter meetings, we're gonna get a new app because I want to see what everybody's working on.

SPEAKER_02 4:27

We're gonna clock in at 8 15. I'm gonna punch punch in. Yes, nobody punches out till five.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

And stop doing these hour and a half lunches. We're doing a 30-minute lunch and we're gonna do another check-in every single week.

SPEAKER_02 4:39

So you're dialing in on the busyness again because that's the way that you're thinking we're gonna fix the problem.

SPEAKER_01 4:45

Yeah, and I just don't think that's the right solution because you probably have a lot of fast-moving team members that are just going to have to work harder and harder on things that don't matter. Yeah, because if you're not really connecting it to the higher level, you're just forcing them to sprint harder, which is gonna lead to burnout and be like, dude, I can't keep this pace. Sure. So maybe there's an alternate route. And I think this is where the horizons of focus comes in. So the horizons of focus, the way that I like to think about it is there's really six different altitude levels that uh David Allen teaches. And I like to think of it as kind of like there's the ground floor, and then there is the fifth floor all the way up here of like an elevator. So we're building, we're in like a skyscraper, and there is uh a level of clarity that we need to find at each level.

SPEAKER_02 5:29

So what we're about to go through is providing clarity so that you know one, what the actual problem is, and then two, what the actual next step needs to be to get after the problem.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

And I would say you need to have clarity at every level. And that's what David Allen would teach as well. And maybe when I'm going through this, you could think to yourself, am I clear? And is my team clear? Maybe you could even think about it as like a red, yellow, or green, right? Red is I'm not clear, or we we're stuck at this level. Green is everybody's clear. Everybody, if I went to like blind poll every single person on your team, they could tell you exactly what this is.

SPEAKER_02 6:07

Which is what everybody wants. I mean, as pastors, we we want everybody to be totally clear, but we often find that they're not. The problem is we don't have a mechanism and we don't have a system to help them get clear and stay clear. And so what we're about to walk through is a system that could be used to help get your team clear and stay clear all the time.

SPEAKER_01 6:27

Okay. So if you're drawing this or taking notes, let's start at the fifth level. So it's the highest level, and then we're gonna go five, four, three, two, one, and then the ground floor lobby. Okay. Okay. So there's really six levels, but you get what I mean. All right, so the top floor is purpose. Purpose is talking about your calling as an organization, your why. And I love how like Simon Sinek even teaches like you have to start with why. Why does this all matter in the first place? Why has God called us to start this church? Why uh are we doing what we do? Why do we do what we do inside of our community? What kind of difference are we making? Does that make sense? So you gotta have a reason behind the activity. Why is everything that we're doing around here, staying busy 40 hours a week, what does it all like come back to? How can we anchor ourselves to the purpose? Right. That's the highest floor.

SPEAKER_00 7:17

If you don't have the why, you don't have a focus. If you don't have the why, you don't have the power and the energy inside of you of man, what I'm doing all this stuff, but what's the purpose of the thing?

SPEAKER_02 7:26

Because the why is often connected to an emotion. So the why is what am I feeling? What am I sensing that uh I've got a fix in the world or accomplish in the world, that if I don't do this, it's not gonna get done and lots of bad things are gonna happen.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

And what I find in churches is that their why is too um overarching, which could be anybody's why. Like it it is something that is so overgeneralized that loses its meaning.

SPEAKER_02 7:54

We're gonna save the world. I mean, that's pretty broad, but a lot of times it's so general like that, it's hard to go. What are we going to specifically do about that?

SPEAKER_01 8:04

It is we're gonna make the world a better place. But how so? Yeah. How so? And what difference does our church make, especially when we're thinking about Jerusalem, Judea, and then the ends of the earth, right? So how how can we go into like what is our local church making a difference in our local community first? And then from the overflow of that, we're gonna go into the broader regions. Cool. All right. So I think purpose, you gotta be clear on that. If I were to ask you, is could they give could people on your team give me more than just what your purpose statement is that you say that's like your catchphrase and actually explain why we do what we do? The next up, and I think level four and level three are pretty uh closely connected here. Level four is the vision, which is what does winning look like long term? And then level three is goals, which is what does winning look like in the short term?

SPEAKER_02 8:56

Okay, so when you're saying long term, you're saying three to five years, one year. What do you think? What are we typically looking at though?

SPEAKER_01 9:03

What we like to do as an organization when I'm teaching this, and everybody can have their uh different levels and and this different range on what long term might mean for you. Yeah, and the tool would pretty much allow for it. What I would like to do is I like to teach our churches that it's a a double in three mindset. So we're in the next three years, we want to uh pursue double impact in what we're pursuing.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

Which means double perhaps attendance or salvations or baptisms or giving, people serving, double the people in groups.

SPEAKER_01 9:33

Yeah. There's a whole like lesson on this that we could do. On uh there's a great book by Benjamin Hardy that is talking about 10x is easier than 2x, and why the imagination stretching and the paradigm shifting and the things that you have to break and then rebuild. Why pursuing something like a double impact or a 10x type moment? What we found is double, especially in churches, uh, it is something that is the equivalent of the 10x. Is like it it is big enough to do the paradigm shift uh in an organization.

SPEAKER_02 10:07

You're gonna do the same, you're gonna do the same basic amount of work to try to get to double as you are to do something very small and incremental. Yeah, it's gonna cost you the same amount of work.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

I think one of the biggest limiting factors for churches and pastors is we only know what we know. We only uh have seen processes and how things function. And so uh, like me with my dad, or you know, who was my pastor or other pastors, and so what happens is if you've only seen a one-story house, then all you know is about putting more rooms on a one-story. You don't even have an understanding, it could go two-story until you see a two-story, and then when you see a two-story, you go, Wait a minute. I didn't know you could do that. I didn't know you could do that. And then I didn't know you could have a three, you know, like this. So what happens here is when we have what would it take for us to double in the next three years, then it makes you think differently. Yeah. Like we can't do it the same way here. Uh yeah. There's a lot of things. So we have to have a new wineskinner, we have to have a new system, a new process of functioning.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

There's two constraints that are happening. One is in that sentence of double and three. Number one is double. So that's the level of what it's going to be in the afterwards. And then also it's the timeline. So two constraints. We need to go from where we're at to double, and we need to constrain it to where we get there in three years. Because if you say we need a double in the next 10 years, it it loosens the tension. Yes, right? So it's double and three. So that's the tension that we're working with that is forcing us to always think about scalability uh inside of our systems.

SPEAKER_00 11:43

Which then helps you to understand what goals do I need to have along the way. That's where it goes. That's what we got to do in three years. Yep. What do we need to do this year? And what do we need to do the next three months?

SPEAKER_02 11:52

Okay, so we've got purpose, we've got vision, we've got goals. So purpose is up here, visions is the next layer. Then goals.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

Then we've got goals. So vision is what's winning look like long term. So that's the double in three. Then goals is short-term goals. What I like to teach is yes, you need to probably have annual goals. Like what would winning look like this year? But I also like to have goals as uh what are the things that we're pursuing for this upcoming cycle. So a cycle for us is a three-month uh stint, it's a 90-day window. So if that's what we're moving towards in a double in three, and this is what we're pursuing and talked about on Vision Sunday of what we're gonna be doing this year, okay. Well, what's the most important work that we need to get after in the next 90 days? If we were to say, like, dude, we crushed it that last 90 days, what are the things that we would have accomplished? Does that make sense? Yep. Okay, so we got purpose, the why, vision, winning long term, goals, winning short term, and then areas. Areas are different from project, areas of management, areas of responsibility. So these are the roles that you play, the hats that you wear inside of your role. Yeah. And these are the hats that you wear, the responsibilities that you own, like kind of like job responsibilities.

SPEAKER_02 13:08

It's time bound. It's not a start and a finish. This is not time bound. This is just something.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

So we're talking about if I'm a youth pastor, an area would be my Wednesday night service.

SPEAKER_01 13:19

Or it's things that happen on a regular basis that don't go away.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

Yeah, there are things I need to continue to maintain, hitting an expectation and exceeding and growing in that. So there is growth that needs to happen there, but it isn't like, okay, we don't we only have one Wednesday night ever and it's over. Yeah. It's not a project.

SPEAKER_01 13:38

So yeah, the difference between a project and the area is project is something that you can complete and you know you did a good job whether you hit the outcome of the standard that you set for that project. An area is something that doesn't go away. It's kind of like juggling, right? And you set a level of standard of excellence, and then you're saying, Am I meeting that standard that we set for this? Am I being a good youth pastor? That's an area. Did I complete youth pastor? That's more of a project. That doesn't make sense, right? So there's a standard to be maintained, and am I meeting that standard of excellence? Okay. That's an area. Here's the catch on it. This is why it's one elevator, one building. The areas have to connect to your higher level aspirations.

SPEAKER_00 14:26

So they got to connect to the goals we've set for the next three months. Yeah. So what are the most important things I need to steward?

SPEAKER_01 14:32

Yeah. Well, there's a thousand things you could be stewarding. How do I know which ones to prioritize? Well, it depends on what is the purpose, then what's the vision of what winning looks like long term. You want to set uh your areas to be in alignment with what your definition of winning looks like. I like it. It's one building, one elevator, isn't it? They have to connect after areas, there's the projects, and then after projects and the lobby is the task. Projects are basically tasks, a multi-step outcome type task. Basically, I would qualify something as a project if it takes me more than one work session to work on. Okay. Does that make sense? So if I work on it like four different times to accomplish it because it's that big, I would call that a project.

SPEAKER_02 15:17

And it's typically going to have multiple tasks.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

Yeah. So a series of tasks linked to an outcome. That's what I would call a project. And then the task is just the next thing on your checklist. This is probably the thing that you make every morning. It's kind of like the grocery list of like, once I check this off, that task is done. It's the next right action, it's the next right move. So, like all of our youth just got back from youth camp.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

And so that was a project. Yeah. Right? That had an end date youth camp. So I'm have an area as a youth pastor and all that I do, but that youth camp is big. Now, three months ago, six months ago, they had pro uh that was a project task of, well, this week we need to get the uh promo out. We need to sign up. This we need to get people signed up.

SPEAKER_01 15:59

This week we, yeah. Yeah. So here here's what's really cool about this. It's not just like, okay, you just named a bunch of things that I have to do. Maybe, but it's the different levels of clarity that if you are unclear about what winning looks like, these are the things that you need to be working through.

SPEAKER_02 16:16

Okay, take us through that specifically. So we've created this building, we have these levels in the building. Yeah. It it it is a it's a column.

SPEAKER_01 16:25

Yeah, what what's what's cool about this, Mark, is how I would say is like we worked at the top down uh what we just walked through. Let me walk it back up the elevator, right? All right, let's go. Here's what's cool about this is if you what's cool about this tool that David Allen discovered is if you start at the level that you're working on, meaning like right now I'm working on a project. Right now I'm working on a task and I'm stuck, right? You can start at the level that you're at and look up for the why, and then you can look down for the how. Let me walk you through it. So let's say uh I'm working on a task, and it's like, what task should I be working on today? Well, what projects are on your plate right now for this season? Okay, well, how do I know what projects are on my plate for this season? Well, I create projects to help me maintain the level of excellence that is required for my job responsibility. Well, how do I know what my job responsibility areas are? Well, it depends on what goals we're setting for the short-term season of this cycle. Right. Well, how do I know what to prioritize for the cycle? Well, what are you doing this year? And then what does double and three look like vision of where we're heading? Well, how are we aren't we just making this up as we go? Like, how do we know what we should do for double and three vision? Well, what has God called our church to be? That's the purpose. So if if I'm ever stuck at the level and like, why am I doing this? I look up one level.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

So this is that sounds like you know, your kids were at my house this morning and we were playing. But one of the things they can kind of get into and say, Well, but why? Yeah, but why? Well, because of this. Well, why? Yeah. Because of this. It's going up the elevator, is answering with greater and greater levels of clarity to the core why. And if you're starting at the top and you're saying, look, kids, this is the purpose.

SPEAKER_01 18:14

This is why we do what we do. But how? But how? Well, we're gonna do this, is what we're gonna look like over the next three years. Okay, so yeah. So I'm a pastor.

SPEAKER_02 18:24

I'm a pastor, I'm in my office, or I'm in the prayer closet, or I'm at my house, or I'm in the car, and I feel stuck.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:32

This is a way to unlock stuck.

SPEAKER_01 18:35

Yeah, and I I would say to that pastor, if you feel stuck at any level, good news. That's the level you should be working on. And if you can look at what tasks you're working on today and work yourself all the way up the ladder of tasks to projects, the areas, the goals, the vision, the purpose, and you're clear every level, congratulations. That's amazing. Now just make sure you're not the only one on your team that can do so. Yeah. Because what I'm finding is people don't usually have an activity problem of the slow tortoises. They have a productivity problem where they're really active at one of these levels and they're not connecting what they're doing at that level to a higher level where it's all connected.

SPEAKER_00 19:15

Yeah, as a lead pastor, one of the things that this means so much to me is there were many times I would be frustrated, like, I know there's a lot of things we need to do. I'm just not sure what we need to focus on right now. Yeah. Uh, or man, I wish those people, those different staff people wouldn't get so off on tangents. Uh, and sometimes I realize they're getting off on tangents because I haven't clarified our why. I haven't clarified what we're doing right now in the long term of the next three years. I haven't clarified what are the goals, their goals, and what they need to do. So then that means these are the projects they need to do, the task, you know, going all the way down. If if this tool is communicated to them as we do on cycles, it brings everybody in alignment. And when you put everybody pulling in the same direction, not in different different directions means there's activity. People are pulling, but there's two pulling here, two pulling here, two pulling that way. That's where there's no productivity. Yeah. But when you get them all lined up with their ropes, pull in the same direction, we start having massive momentum.

SPEAKER_01 20:22

And what I would say is a final thought here is uh I'll I'll say it in a harsh way because we're we're not really talking to an individual person. And if you're listening to this, I'm not talking to you, I'm talking to that other guy. So it's don't take any. The other guy is listening, yeah. It's the other guy. Um I would if I was a pastor listening to this and I'm talking like we're best buddies, and I I want to just shoot straight with you, you've got to stop blaming your team that they're not working hard enough. And it most likely what's happening is it's not an activity problem, it's a clarity problem that they're facing. And whose job is to bring clarity? It it's the leader's job to always bring clarity. Stop blaming your team that they're not working with clarity. It's your job to provide it.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

I'm laughing because I'm thinking you always make fun of me because I always quote Max Depree in the Art of Leadership. And it is. Yeah. Is that the number one responsibility of a leader is to define reality, is to bring clarity to the organization, to everybody on the organization, of what they should be doing right now in alignment all the way up to the why.

SPEAKER_02 21:28

Fantastic. Hey, I know that many of us are stuck at times and we feel unclear. This is a great tool to help you and your team move forward with these levels of horizon. If this has been a benefit to you, again, man, just wanted to tell you hey, like, subscribe, share with your friends, and we look forward to seeing you on the next podcast.