A new employee joined our church staff this summer as Family Ministry Coordinator, succeeding one who retired after ten good years as Children’s Minister.
A planning group re-imagined the half-time position to encompass broader responsibilities. We were fortunate to interview several excellent applicants and were delighted when our top candidate accepted our invitation. The transition was positive in every way: the very model of how a baton can be handed over.
Now comes the responsibility of integrating the new staff member into the life of the church and doing everything I can to help her both fulfill our hopes for the new position and enjoy a meaningful professional experience.
Experience in several multi-staff local church and academic administration settings prompts me to reflect on what it’s going to take for this work relationship to flourish.
When I was the young pastor of a mid-sized church we hired an earnest Christian student from the local college to work with youth. My overwhelming feeling when she was on board was relief. Great! This is now a job I don’t have to do myself! We had few in-depth sessions to discuss her work, much less to plan or evaluate. I would ask from time to time how it was going and I attended a meeting once to affirm her. But my approach to this effort at staff development could be summed up in a single word: Abdicate.
A better approach would have been genuinely to delegate. I learned slowly that this means more than just handing jobs off. Delegate does not mean abdicate, but builds strong lines of shared responsibility with clear expectations, reporting, accountability, teamwork in planning and evaluation, and the all-important “feedback loop.” How to carry this out in the week-to-week work of church, seminary, social agency, or other workplace is another matter. Management and supervisory styles will vary. But some common themes apply to any effective approach to staff development. At the risk of seeming corny, the ones on my list all start with the letter “C.”
Collaborate. Working together in a collegial manner, without confusing the organizational structure or compromising the supervisory relationship, is the best way to get to know one another, build trust, and learn to appreciate the strengths of the new person. While staff transitions always involve loss and adaptation, new team members bring fresh perspectives and possibilities to the whole system. A collaborative approach brings this out most quickly and maximizes the contribution to the organization.
Communicate. Spending time face to face may appear too obvious to mention, but it is a requirement that’s easy to neglect as we move on to new priorities. Communication is not the mere passing along of information that the new person needs to do the job. It entails give and take in an unhurried setting. How does the new person feel about things now that he or she has begun work? What are the questions that have not been answered -- or even thought of -- yet? Clarification, repetition, and constant reinforcement are essential.
Corroborate. Corroboration means following the new member’s effective growth in the position through broader evidence of productive integration within the whole organization. Members of a ministry team, or the staff of any organization, are all part of a social system. The work of each individual has an impact on every other member in one way or another. Supervisory relationships, therefore, are not one-way or even one-on-one. They are multivalent and must be understood within the context of the whole staff and the whole organization.
Celebrate. Finally, successful staff development calls for the ability to share healthy laughter. Work relationships strengthened by collaboration, communication, and corroboration can be appropriately celebrated during staff meetings and other times. Honoring accomplishments, celebrating completion of projects, recognizing personal milestones, validating the team member’s worth, and sharing joys and concerns in a fellowship of trust help strengthen individuals in their work and the staff as a whole.
I’m hopeful that, with this particular new team member, I (and we) can do it right.
Charles Hambrick-Stowe is pastor of the First Congregational Church, Ridgefield, Conn. He was formerly an academic dean at Northern Seminary in Lombard, Illinois.