I will follow this with a series of posts entitled, “Seven things staff want their SP to know.”
#1 - I Need Positive Attitudes
Two thoughts on this…
First of all…I think a person can (and should) be held accountable for their attitude. After all, Scripture tells us in Philippians 2:5 to have the attitude of Christ.
I’m not talking about people who have a bad day from time to time—we all have those! We are imperfect people who work in an imperfect world.
BUT…I am talking about the staff member that treats everyone around him or her as some sort of inferior idiot…that simply cannot be tolerated on any staff.
The second thought in this line of thinking is a pastor needs “can do” people around him…what I mean is when he is casting vision he doesn’t need people rolling their eyes and making groaning noises and trying to play “devils advocate.” (By the way—the devil doesn’t need ANY help!)
BUT…he does need honesty! Let me paint a picture of how this looks…
Ken Wilson is a guy on our staff who does an amazing job at this! He is over our production area and simply knows how to make things happen. However, he is incredibly honest and doesn’t skim over the details.
I remember once casting a huge vision of something I wanted to see happen production wise. It was a project unlike anything we had ever attempted. As I was talking in the meeting I noticed Ken writing furiously on his scratch pad.
When I had finally shut up I looked at Ken and asked, “Can we do this?”
His answer was, “Yes, we can DO anything. However, if you are serious about us pursuing what you just talked about let me share with you how much time that is going to take AND how much it is going to cost. It CAN be done…but in order for me to do it I am going to need to back off of a project or two…and we are going to need to spend more money that is in our budget!”
I LOVED THAT! His attitude was, “Yes we can…but here are the facts associated with the yes.” And he left the ball in my court.
After being confronted with the facts we modified the project a tad and were able to pull off an amazing service…all because there was a staff member with a CAN DO attitude and the COURAGE to be honest.
WOW…that was long…I’ll try to hit a couple tomorrow.