Are you suffering from death by meetings? Meetings can be soul-crushing or life-changing. Have you stopped to think about how to make yours truly effective so we can be using our resources effectively for the gospel?
What We Discuss
Scott Sanders and Derek Hanna talk about:
- Simple tools for making sure meetings work
- The importance of drama in meetings
- The importance of meaning and context in meetings
- Why you need to identify different types of meetings
- Which meetings need more discipline?
- Which meetings are more important?
- Which meetings do you need to be in (and not be in)?
Time Stamps
0:00 – The Most Formative Meeting
2:55 – The Impact of Gender on the Church
5:49 – The Two problems We Have in Meetings
8:46 – Importance of Purpose
10:01 – Five Types of Meetings
12:42 – What Are Team Meetings For?
16:54 – When to Review
20:32 – Navigating the Changing Rhythms of Meetings
Tool Box
Death by Meeting by Patrick M. Lencioni
Getting Your Meeting Rhythms Down | Ep 15
Refresh Your Staff Meetings (Part 1) | Ep 166
Refresh Your Staff Meetings (Part 2) | Ep 167
Credits
This episode was brought to you by the Reach Australia Leadership Development Program
The One Thing is brought to you by Reach Australia
To pray for Reach Australia, join our WhatsApp Group
For ideas or questions please email [email protected]
To support the Reach Australia Online Library head here.
Transcript
The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service.
0:09
G’day, I’m Derek Hanna.
I’m Scott Sanders. Welcome to The One Thing, a podcast designed to give you one solid practical tip for gospel centred ministry every week. The One things brought to you by Reach Australia. Our vision now hoping our prayer is to see thousands of healthy evangelistic multiplying churches across Australia.
0:26
Now, Scott, ask me I I wanna ask you what is if you were to think through your time, what is the is there a meeting in mind?Seems like a strange question.What’s a is there a meeting that pops mind that has been most formative for you?Do you think that is the meeting which changed the direction of things, changed my mind or talk to me well?
0:46
I’m not really a Hallmark guy, you know, So there’s like there’s kind of a Hallmark, Hallmark card kind of guy where I look like going, you know, it was all sort of soft, soft light and you know.Yeah, no flashback.Yeah, no Tingy, tingy sort of screens, but I guess there’s been a couple of meetings and moments, you know, in the history of the network over the last sort of 15 years.
1:08
Yeah, probably probably 1212 months in at our first after our first refresh.I can remember sitting down with Mikey, Andrew and Al that, that was kind of a, a real formative one where I think I, I just heard them kind of share their vision and their heart for church planters, church planting couples and church planting across Australia.
1:28
I think for me, that’s been a, a really significant one.I, I can think of a meeting, what like it wasn’t really a meeting.It was a meeting in the context of scheduled at a, at a leadership development programme where we’re just talking about the vision of reach.But then what came after that were a whole bunch of different groups breaking up.
1:47
You had Anglicans and Baptists and Presbyterians all kind of going, OK, what, what might this look like now for US in our context, you know, and it was again at the leadership development programme in the evening, we just have kind of fireside chats.So they’re meetings, you know, there’s structure, they have an agenda.
2:02
We’ve got a purpose in them.Yep.But the fruit of what came out of that was just this, this kind of, you know, different groups getting together and, and thinking.Yeah, no, the one.Oh, and one more.Oh, you’re another one.That’s one.One more because now, yeah, we, you got me thinking.
2:19
I’m not a Hallmark guy, but you got me thinking it was sitting down with it was at a a Vision 100 conference again in my first year with David Jones, Welsh preacher David Jones in the kids room on these little Kitty chairs.
2:35
Again, hearing him talk about his heart for Australia reaching the loss and us just praying together.And that was again another shaping mate where I kind of, I got to see, you know, see his heart.And it, it was a meeting, you know, we, we, we said we need to catch up.Pulled ourselves out of out of what was going on and had a meeting about.
2:52
OK Tasmania and, and thinking about recruiting church plans.Yeah.For gender purposes then yeah, I think, think one that springs to mind for me was a few years into working for, you know, push you.You and I had been chatting and we’ve been chatting to other people about whether whether we could do more for the gospel, not just you and I, but whether it was a network we could do more to reach Australian for the gospel if we’ve begun to partner with other people who we know knew were working in similar spaces.
3:17
And so, but the meeting for me that was really formal news was, was up on the Central Coast when we gathered all these different partners together in a particular place.And I, I remember distinctly the night and then, yeah, the night that we had a meeting where I think I thought, I thought before that this is not really going to happen.
3:34
But in that meeting I thought, Oh no, I think this might happen actually.And so that was.Always the optimist.Yeah.This won’t happen.It might.I mean, it might happen.I do not really.I’ll just head you out.Yeah.So I, I think that that was a really powerful meeting coming together of people for that really, I think changed the course of a whole.
3:53
Number but the but the reality is like there’s heaps of like there’s heaps of meetings that we do that aren’t those amazing moments, but they’re really important like.It’s just absolutely, which is what we’re talking about today.It’s like eating.At some level you’ve got to do it, but you’re not going to remember every single one of them.
4:08
But there has to be purpose behind it.So you have Press Play today and another episode of The One Thing, Death by Meetings.Today’s podcast is brought to you by the Reach Australia Leadership Development Programme.Running over two years, the Leadership Development Programme helps ministry leaders develop personally and professionally.
4:26
It includes intensives, cohorts, coaching and consults.If you are interested in the leadership development programme, even if it’s early days for you, get in touch, head to the Reach Australia website and look under Healthy Churches.And now back to the podcast.I came up with that term.
4:44
That’s my term.No, it’s not.I’m pretty sure it is.Patrick Lenciani, No.OK, all right.It’s Lenciani anyway, but we’re going to talk about that because one of the things that we want to push into is, is meetings are often an inconvenience for people that are paying for people.And I, I know when I look at my calendar sometimes and I see a day full of meetings, there is a sense of dread sometimes.
5:02
But I’ve just come off the back of today of a 5 hour meeting with my plant team and that has been energised.You loved it.I do love.It I love them, there’s chicken grey off diet.Chicken.Excellent.It was great.Point slides it was.Excellent.So I want to interrogate.Not every meeting is gonna be like that, but I want to interrogate.
5:20
Do we understand?How is it we we make meetings matter in this?So talk to us a little, first of all about how you like, You organise a lot of meetings, you chair a lot of meetings, you sit in a lot of meetings.How do you think about meetings?Well, I Len Shani in his book death by Meetings just has, I think 2 two things to say so you can read, you can read the narrative in the drama and and and understand it.
5:45
You just go straight to the back of the book and it’ll give you the, the kernels and the, and the key truths.But the, the two problems we have in meetings are one, they, they lack drama.So there’s no tension, there’s no conflict.There’s no kind of why, why are we here?You know, so, so what’s the purpose of the meeting and, and, and helping clarify that what’s the conflict or the tension that we’re trying to resolve that that gives people energy and excitement about coming to it.
6:08
And the second is what’s the is, is a lack of contextual structure, which really means what you know, what type of meeting this and he has a number of different types of meetings.So actually understanding the contextual structure for the meeting can then shape the agenda and shape what you’re hoping and seeking to achieve and get out of the meeting.
6:26
So I think I think Lynch book is really helpful in just doing those two things.And then there’s a, there’s just a bunch of stuff that help make meetings work, like having a clear agenda, making sure got the right people in the room and, and people keeping people accountable with action points.
6:42
So those kind of two, those 3, two to three things there are just, they’re kind of good meeting hygiene pieces.The 1st 2 are really, I think, some really key principles for making your meetings work.Let’s just talk about drama for a second because I suspect that most meetings, the word drama and meetings don’t really go together.
7:02
I understand what he’s trying to do there.He’s trying to say there’s got to be some.There’s really, I think what he’s trying to do is say there has to be a purpose for having it and people get frustrated.Me.It’s because there is no purpose.But what?What does that mean to have purpose?
7:17
Like how much drama can there be in every single meeting?Like that’s exhausting, surely isn’t it?Yeah.Well, I think it’s exhausting for some people.So again, I think recognising that there’ll be different personalities in the room who will, who will find, you know, tension and conflict hard.And so in some senses, a good, good meeting agenda will prepare people for that.
7:36
And they might, they might find the meeting hard for different reasons, as in, you know, I need time to kind of pull together my information so that I can actually, you know, be able to engage as opposed to the person who likes to extrovert their thinking.And they don’t need time.They just need to blow it out.And you need to pay attention to both people, the sort of sensor and the and the intuitive person.
7:57
They can both make, you know, not paying attention to them can both make meetings really unhelpful, I think for everyone.We actually don’t get the best out of people.But drama in a one to one meeting.So if we catch up one to one just to check in each week, what’s what does he mean by drama in that meeting?
8:17
Well, I, I think he means you need to, you need to create something that’s going to actually, you know, move, move the meeting along.So, so even just in a simple one, one to one.Well, let’s check in.You know what we were working on last week.How are you going with that?
8:33
You know, there there’s a drama.Tell me where you’re up to in this project.That’s, that is, that is, that is, that is, that is really important and, and what’s going on?So, so give me the, how’s it going with the staff team?How’s it, How did the plant meeting go?You know, did it, he did it, hit your goals.So.So it’s it’s purpose there, isn’t it?
8:48
So the drama is saying there has to be some purpose, which sometimes means going going to mean leaning into conflict.It’s going to mean holding accountable.They can’t be just a meeting for a meeting sake.There has to be something that moves along.Yeah.And and a key thing he talks about is actually mining for conflict.
9:04
So, so it is if you’re, if you’re, you know, leading the meeting, it’s actually, it’s actually looking for that and going, OK, you know, Pete said something different to you, Derek there.Can we can we talk about that?What I think I’m hearing Pete say is this, I think I’m hearing you say that, you know, or Hey, guys, these are both great ideas.
9:23
We can’t do both.OK?How are we going to assess which one we actually go with?Or if if we didn’t have unlimited resources, because they’re both great ideas.Let’s go for it.Let’s do both.Which one are we going to choose?You know, so it it’s it’s it’s listening for it and, and and creating it if it, if it’s not there.
9:40
And So what you’ve described though is a type of meeting within there as well.And so that meeting that you’ve just described in some ways is a, a meeting where there’s a brainstorming component to it.So you’re having people share, but not every meeting is going to be like that either because some the weekly meetings that you might have with them would be slightly different.
9:59
You’ve just tried before a check in, kind of.Meeting, well, this is I think where you know, the second principle of having a contextual structure is really important.So he talks about 5, five types of meeting, the one on one, the team meeting, the strategic meeting, the review meeting and then the annual conference.
10:20
Now, my sense is most churches have probably one of those meetings only regularly.And I think all five are really important to have in your meeting rhythms, as we call it, You know, So this is often something we sit down with someone, say, talk about your meeting rhythms.
10:38
But I think most people would just have that weekly staff meeting and that’s the only meeting that they have.Yeah.OK.So the list is run quickly through each of them.I think most people will understand not that they do it.And I think this is a real downfall because I think the others are built on this one on one, but the one on one which weekly or fortnightly, it’s a check in.
10:59
It’s just say how you doing, if they’re married, how you marriage doing, how’s your family doing, ministry, health, leadership.But it is just to check in on their work and how they’re doing.It’s a moment of connection and hugely important.Yeah.And I, and I think the difficulty, so I think the difficulty for, for a pastor with a paid staff member and even with a, with a volunteer is that you, you are your, you are pastoring someone.
11:23
So you are their pastor, but you’re also supervising them in the sense of supervising, you know, their work and getting and getting things done as well.And so, so it’s a careful, it’s a careful dance and, and you might structure it so that, hey, we’re just going to have a pastoral conversation.I’m just going to catch up with you.
11:39
And again, the emotionally intelligent person might pick that up from, you know, just a whole bunch of things going on or just questions that they’re asking, or you might have the more formal, we’re going to check in and we’re going to talk about, talk about your work.Now, I know some pastors who, who can do that in, you know, the hour or the hour and a half.Others who, who in the context of a month would have a time where they set aside to say, OK, we’re just going to have, you know, the pastoral chat who, you know, kind of don’t want things to go over.
12:04
But the reality of the thing in church, in church life and in pastoral life, that pastoring of someone is really important when if you’re in a secular context, I I’m just gonna check in and make sure how how’s work going?Good day.You’re getting it done.Excellent.Yeah, absolutely.And I’m only concerned about your health in in the sense that you’re getting your work.
12:21
Done.Yeah.And 111 guy, mutual friend of ours, he had a very helpful tip a while ago, this one to one and the pastoral separation he takes, he does do them dozen separate locations.So when he’s having a pastoral conversation, he takes the person out to a coffee shop and so they know in that setting, just asking how you’re going in the work environment, asking how it works.
12:40
Not as if you can’t mix, but there’s just attainable.Anyway, talked about team meetings, that’s the second one, weekly, fortnightly.What are they for?So I think they can do a number of things.I think they can do that relational aspects.So again, I think I know a number of times who would would have the first part doing, you know, doing lunch and and Bible time together.
12:57
So I think as again, as a singular, that’s a real opportunity for you to share yourself and, and share yourself with, with everyone in the team, rather than just, you know, have particular relationships with people and where you’re sharing stuff.So review, you’d review the previous week, you’d review the upcoming week.
13:13
You’re mainly looking at kind of tactical stuff.What are the obstacles?What are the issues?Let’s just get everyone on the same page.You’re not you’re not tackling big things.So as soon as you get a big thing, you say, OK, pause.Derek, that’s a great let’s can you go away, write a paper on that.Let’s come back and let’s tackle that.You know, that big, big issue now Lancioni and this would say you don’t send the agenda until you get there.
13:35
Like I think what he is saying is there is like a draught agenda and in we have lunch together.We read the Bible together.We review last week, review this week.I I think what he would say is that’s the kind of scant structure that you’ve got.Yeah.And then it’s starting me say, OK, guys, what do we actually need to talk about?
13:53
What are we going to add to it?So you’re adding it on the day, But a key part is actually parking the big strategic issues because again, for the person in the room who needs more time to think about it, that’s going to be a really unhelpful thing.For the person who’s intuitive, they actually haven’t thought about and they probably need to go and think about it as well.
14:10
And so you say you need to give that structure and give that time which which pushes into our next meeting.Yeah, absolutely.Which can I say at this point, all of these, all these required discipline because your personality type will lead you one way or another in this.So I, I will just follow the new shiny thing in a meeting.
14:27
If there’s an interesting topic, I’ll follow that down the rabbit hole.But actually the the result of that is it hijacks all the other things we need to do to keep things moving along and actually doesn’t deal with the problem I want to deal with either.It doesn’t.So it doesn’t do what this next meeting does, a strategic.One, yeah, but but just pushing into that so, so that bit of self awareness from you, Derek is really important.
14:45
So I imagine today in today’s plant meeting that you had that you did have an agenda, you had times around it.Now did you go off track?Did it?Did it actually?Did you actually hit?Hit all the things.Oh, I went off track.No, but we actually, we were pretty good.We were pretty good even though we were not track.
15:03
Mate we just need to do podcasts and have our one on ones in podcasts.That’s great, yes.But but it’s hard, yeah.That that is, it is hard.And and so again, knowing that, so who on your team can help you, help you with that?Yeah, yeah, yeah.But actually or realising it is hard.
15:20
I need to get better at being disciplined.And, and I think there are people on my team who are very good at helping me be more organised and deliberate in that.But I think I have realised at the end of the day, I have to get better at this.Yeah, like I want to lean on other people’s skills, but I have to get better.
15:36
And if I’m leading something, if if I throw all this stuff out the window, it it’s not just impactful for the work, it’s impact for the people.It doesn’t help other people come along with us as we’re doing it.So, you know, talk about the strategic.So strategic is, is, is monthly.
15:52
It’s, it’s a longer meeting, two to four hours.This is where you actually discuss, analyse, review, brainstorm.You pick a number of critical issues.You give yourself time to actually think and wrestle with them.And it’s often why the team meeting goes off track.Now it’s really important to actually prepare and do research, give people things that they can actually respond to and think about.
16:14
And, and this is where you can, I think, engage in good conflict.So you are trying to, you know, bring 2 opposing views and let’s, let’s discuss them.Let’s, let’s talk about the resource constraints.Let’s talk about what we want to, we want to do.But the important one, this one is having the time.So this is where you need sort of two to four hours.
16:31
Yep.And so you’re setting those meetings up as well for the things you’ve just said there to say.We’re coming to this, everything’s on the table and they’re strategic ones.We’re not having a go at each other, but we’re going to have robust conversation, which is why Lindsay only leads into conflict.We have to be able to have these moments because we want to own the outcome together at the end and have the best outcome for the ministries and churches we’re leading.
16:54
OK, the next one review.Quarterly, yeah.Well, I, I wanted to wait the, the last two, the review and the conference, the, the quarterly and the annual together because I think they’re part of your yearly, yearly cycle.So the quarterly, the quarterly is really built off the annual.The annual’s where you actually get together for a number of days with the whole team and you revisit your strategic plan and you, you set your 12 month goals.
17:16
That’s it’s an it’s an opportunity to do the big sort of SWOT analysis of the bigger review, pull out the plan from the last last 12 months, assess how it’s gone.If you’re on a if you’ve got a church point leadership team with lay leaders or you’ve got a staff team with, you know, both, both area like area or people with areas of responsibility.
17:35
You’re giving them opportunity to report back on how a congregation going is going or report back on how an outcome area in church life is going so that you can assess it and play it, pull it, pull it apart, but also think into the next 12 months.Now I say I speak about the annual first because because then your quarterly meetings over the next 12 months are going to be reviewing that.
17:57
Again, looking back, looking forward and as you move towards your next annual that that previous meeting is really is really looking back over the whole 12 months and saying, OK, where do we want to be in the next 12 months.Now I think a lot of people go are hearing OK, they’re just two big photos.
18:13
Those need lots of preparing and you’re preparing for them in your weekly, you know, one on ones or fortnightly one on ones with your leader.You’re preparing them in your monthly with your strategic issues because because over time you’re kind of building up those things, but you’re also preparing preparing for it by having a clear agenda.
18:30
So I think your annual could be two to three days and often off site and away from your location.The quarterly can be, you know, a day on site, but again, off site’s useful as well.What do you, what you’re wanting to do is just again, have an opportunity for, for better to give a quick report, you know, one page report on how things are going, assess, you know, assess and look at things.
18:50
Again, this might be a time where you bring up, you know, maybe a big significant change that’s happened in, in the ministry instruction and that gives you time to allow to, to do it.I, I, I think the, one of the helpful things I find about having quarterlies is that for those people who don’t look back and celebrate, there’s, there’s an opportunity to actually force you to look back and celebrate and assess and analyse.
19:12
So, so actually having it as a, as a rhythm in there really forces you, I think to, you know, to do that.Now this one though, is the, the quarterly is more focused on work, less on social.The annual, you know, should have, I think a significant amount of social, you know, investing in the team piece as well.
19:33
Yeah, it’s good it’s it’s worth saying here we it it might be easy to hear what we’re saying and be thinking big church lots of staff members, but actually the rhythm for this equally applied to a one person church where everyone else is you.
19:49
You might even be bi vocational, but but you’re just thinking through how do I deliberately connect with the leaders in my church in order to check in with them love them well and continue to to serve the church by moving forward the things that we’ve.Agreed.So, so for a smaller church, what it looks like with your, your team quarterly is it’ll be an evening, you know, 7 till 9:30 where we, you know, where you’re checking in and, and your annual away might be a Friday night, you know, Friday night dinner at someone’s place.
20:15
Or you actually might choose to go to a beach house or, you know, a holiday house somewhere and you just do the Friday, Saturday.Or again, if that, if you’re unable to do that because of circumstances, just putting aside a whole Saturday, but but make it different from that, you know that quarterly, Yeah.
20:32
Last question and then I’ll ask you the one thing.I’ll make an observation.You tell me how it’s how it’s played out and reach Australia.And I think within churches that are growing in dynamics and size, one of the challenges in space is the rhythms of your meetings changes with your teams changing themself where they’re growing or changing people and different people need different things as well.
20:53
And that’s really complicated because you think you’ve got a damn part, then some things change.You got to do it again.Any wisdom on on how you navigate that over time with the interchanging environment?Yeah, I, I don’t, I don’t think I’ve done this.I don’t think I’ve done this well.So yeah, I think, I think.
21:13
It’s well, what you want.As in, yeah, I think, I think it’s, I think it’s hard.I’m particularly navigating.Well, the thing, the thing that I’ve found hard is, is, is releasing myself from meeting.So, you know, like I’ve, yeah, I, I did interrupt mainly to get chicken today from your plant meeting, but it’s hard not to be in that meeting.
21:32
And like I’ve got I’ve got I had an agenda for you to like I had, I got two or three things which I’ll probably talk about on the train, you know, the train home tonight with you.But I.Didn’t know we’re catching the train home.Keep the one on one go, but but you know, like because I saw that plant meeting in the calendar.
21:49
I’m like, there’s a few things that I would I want to, you know, put on the agenda and and rise, but I’ve got to go.No, no, you’re, you’re heading the plant team.You’ve got it.You’ve you’ve worked it out.And and in my head, I need to be having those conversations with you and your one on one and say, hey, here’s what here’s what I’m thinking about.Yeah, I would say in that I think like you’ve got self deprecating there.
22:07
It’s it’s been a complex environment and churches that are changing are complex to adjust well.And the reality is you’re going to do it poorly before you do it well in those stages.So you’ve just got to live with that and keep working at it, which I think is what we’ve done.We’ve tried to continue to work out how we get the rhythms right in that.I think the other thing I realised when you, when you popped your head and stolen at chicken today, it was actually before that when you came in, then you had to step out to me.
22:30
And your last comment was I’d much prefer to be in this meeting as well, that it is lonely.It can become lonely because you lose teams as you.That’s right.And so you’re not in that plant team anymore.It’s where you used to be in the plant team meeting all the time.And you’re probably not in the, the grow team meeting when they have that either.
22:48
No, you get to meet with other people, but there’s a, there’s a loss in that, as is any leadership pipeline.One of the losses is when you’ve got meetings you really love, the impact of growth is you will probably lose that meeting at some point then that’s a great process.But anyway, what’s your what’s your one thing?
23:04
Death by meetings?Pay attention to the two key principles.Meetings need to have drama and they need to have a context.Excellent.Well, that’s the One Thing today.There’s a few things in the toolbox which you can see.There’s a link to Death by Meeting.It is written by Patrick Lencioni.
23:19
I didn’t come up with that, but there’s a number of One Thing episodes, Podcast 15 on the One Thing.Boy, that’s early.I yeah, giant here then, so you can look at that.With some high voices there too, from the kids who are doing that podcast back.Yeah, that’s right.
23:37
Let’s refresh your staff meetings and refresh your Staff meetings Part 2.You can see the links there.If you’ve got a topic you’d like us to cover, email resources of reach australia.com dot AU.I’m Derek Hannah.I’m Scott Sanders.Chat soon.
