Video Transcript: More Things to Know About Change

Welcome back, just want to set the stage for what we're doing today. You'll notice the title of  this session is more things to know about change. Last time, we began to talk about that, that last element of the leadership process that prayer and planning on making things real as far  as getting the vision to become reality that preferred future to become reality. Last time I  introduced John Kotter's, eight steps to change which have been tested over and over an  organization's and these are things that are necessary steps that are necessary in order for  change to work. Oftentimes, change happens, and things go right back to what they were  back in the first church I served, you know, we went through a period of change, and, and  after I left, things went right back, and it was like, No, we talked about that rubber band of  going back the church had a history of growth, and then decline, growth and decline, growth  and decline. And it's because they never really changed It would change on the surface. But it didn't get to that last one of anchoring the new approach in the culture. So today, we're going to look at generating short term wins, and then consolidating gains and producing more  changes and anchoring the new approach in the culture so that it becomes the culture,  generating short term wins. Change happens when you can demonstrate that the changes  that are happening with a goal out there and moving us toward the goal are good. This is  working. Now, what is the short term when you can look at it in a variety ways. Dave Ramsey  is a Christian kind of financial consultant guru. He has written books, he's got a radio  program, he appears on television, he does specials all over. And he's got a system that he  works, the system begins with baby steps, like establishing an emergency fund, you set aside  money for emergencies that can come up. And then step two is getting out of debt. And it's  interesting how he describes how you get out of debt. And his suggestion is you end up with  no debt, except maybe the long term debt on a house or something like that. So how do you  do that? Well, surprisingly, he didn't say, Okay, look at your biggest debt, you know, look at  your student loan debt or something like that. He didn't say that. What he says is, you get the easiest ones. First, you pick the easiest debt to pay off, it might be this particular credit card,  you're going to work over this next month to pay that off, he said, and people find they can do it. Sometimes they have to take a second part time job to do it. But they pay it pay that off.  And he said, then they look the next easiest one, what's the next easiest debt to pay off. And  it may be a debt to a friend who lent them money at some point, you pay it off you work at it,  you pay it off, you describe different work on maybe a second job, maybe something else, you sell something but you pay off that second debt, but you start with the easiest ones first. And  the reason for that is that that creates momentum, it creates momentum toward more  change. We're down there, the old church, Old First Church, I have a friend in town, who was a pastor of another denomination my own, but we came the same week. And so we got to know each other, we ran into each other and began to explore things. And so we've had connection  for the past 11 and a half years. He's doing a new program now which I'm jumping on board a bit. That's called Pastor Partners, where the idea is to take a retired pastor with some skills  and experience and partner them with over a short period of time, partner them with a pastor in a solo church. Now he did this. This was the brainchild of a businessman in his church  because our Old First Church was stuck. They've made a lot of change in 11 years, and the  church had a history of destroying its pastors, some of them even becoming mentally ill and  in institutions. And so there was a lot of work that was needed to set the basis for change. But my friend hung in there and did it. But now they kind of reached a plateau and a more change was just not happening. People had gotten complacent again. And so what's going to break  that what's going to make that unstuck and so the idea of bringing somebody in who's got  experience and just being an impetus for more change was the brainchild. And so a retired  pastor who was known by this businessman, came in, they made a six month contract and  this is what you're going to do part of it was starting a new program that the pastor had  wanted to see implemented for a long time, a part of it was training and retraining and  redeploying and getting the evangelism committee that's what they had. going again,  because it kind of sunk into nothingness. A part of it was preaching once in a while, etc, etc.  So that first six months, there were some changes that happened. There was a new program  that was started. My pastor friend had a dream always of kind of being the marriage center.  And so they devised this program, where they would invite couples in the community who 

weren't part of the church, to be married in Old First Church. And the idea was, they would  offer them premarital counseling for free by a qualified counselor, they would offer them the  church facility at no cost, if they would be married there, they could use the gym for the  gym/social hall for a reception afterwards. And that would be at a very reduced rate. And So  lo and behold, you know they the retired pastor coming in, the Pastor Partner comes in, and  he's got the energy and the time that the pastor doesn't. And so he begins working on this.  And they got four couples enrolled in a very short time, all who are going to get married in the next year. And surprisingly, or maybe not. So surprisingly, three out of the four are attending  First Church. And none of them had attended church before. But they came in contact with  Christians through this process. They had Jesus Christ presented to them, and they began  attending. And so that's us. That's a short term when right you say, Wow, this is fantastic  things went so well, the first six months, they signed up for another six months of this Pastor  Partner process. And again, there were short term wins. Old First Church has been dying for  decades. And all of a sudden, they have this uptick. 10 people in new members class. And so  they talk about that. And they said, wow y'all look at it, they're friends of people here there's  been this invitation process. And so let's celebrate that they celebrated short term wins, and  now they're looking at more change. Instead of the Pastor Partner model, they're looking at  hiring somebody full time, to be that kind of assistance, that to be that impetus for change.  So short term wins are very important to moving toward the vision, to getting permission for  change, and more change. So what is a short term win? Well, there are three characteristics.  First of all, a short term win is visible, people can see it for themselves. In Old First Church,  they say wow, look at all the visitors here. I don't know. So and so people have been around  and knew everybody all of a sudden don't know everybody. And it's that sense of wow, you  know, some of this stuff is working, it's visible, people can see it for themselves. If it's a  money issue, that's been the crisis and there has been change toward that to say, Oh, look at  the offerings are up, or, wow, look at what we've been able to do if it's a facility issue, which  are easy to do, because they're very visible you can say look at that, that, that improvement  to the facility is happening, those rooms are being reconstructed, the painting is doing well  there. It's a visible short term, win that can be celebrated. And it's unambiguous, it's  obviously a win. It's not something you can create or manufacture or try to pretend. And  thirdly, it's got to be clearly related to the change effort. In other words, it's got to be  something clearly related to the vision and the goals that you have set, you find those things,  and you're going to find that there becomes a momentum toward more change, which indeed, is what happens, it puts pressure on to fulfill the vision. Because now as a leader, and your  guiding coalition can say, wow we got we're moving toward it, and we find out we can do it,  let's go. Now, one word of warning, this needs a good combination of management and  leadership. Now, many of us who are spiritually gifted in leadership do not have the gift of  administration or management. That's true for me. And so I think that you know, once the  idea has been bought that we're on the road, but to manage and short term wins to identify  them to celebrate them, take somebody who's aware of details, and is planning those details  and watching those details. And in Kotter's books, you can read about the balance that there's got to be between leadership and management. But let me just say to you now that if you're  going to have short term wins, and you're going to have them celebrated appropriately, and  you're going to have attention drawn to them appropriately, and the people who are doing  those short term wins are resourced appropriately. You're going to need managers around you if you are somebody who's gifted in leadership. So word to the wise. So we've looked at  establishing a sense of urgency creating a guiding coalition developing a vision and strategy,  communicating the change vision empowering for broad based action and generating short  term wins. Step number seven is consolidating gains and producing more change. A word  here this is a quote from Kotter "resistance is always waiting to re assert itself." And I've used  that example of a rubber band, if you keep pushing it apart, eventually one or two things are  going to happen, one of the pressure pushing it out, begins to relieve, it's going to snap back  into its old position. That's what will happen with resistance. Now what you hope will happen  is the other thing that can happen is if you do this and that you keep it there long enough and with enough pressure, that the rubberband begins to change, and it loses some of its 

elasticity. And so it stays there. That's the idea here is you consolidate gains, so that things  have changed, things have changed, and people now begin to realize that oh hey, the world is not falling down, hey, how about that we can change and it's not so incredibly terrible. So you begin to consolidate the change. Now a few words that you need to know here. And that is  about systems theory. It's a complex theory, very simple, in one sense, but complex in  another in that. The idea is that everything's a system. So your church or your organization is  a system and a closed system. And within that system, there are all these relationships  between people. And there's, you know, communication issues, that if you get a group of 40  people together, the issue is between them, everybody communicating with everybody else,  the lines cross like crazy. In fact, I put in my search engine, show me an image or a diagram of systems theory. And here's one of them, I came up with, you know, you look at it and say,  What in the world is going on in there, you got all these subsystems relating to each other  unit department functions, you've got a subsystem running this way, you've got the  subsystem running that way. And they're relating to each other information has to be passed  from one organization part of the organization to another, to another to another, in order to  have output toward the goal of the organization, not as complex, but very simple. In some  respects, marriage counselors will talk about the fact that marriage, a family is a system that  begins when people get married, so you got a husband, and you got a wife. And it's pretty  simple system, then because the communication patterns are easy. They, they go from  husband to wife, from wife to husband. And sometimes you know, in times of conflict, which  we'll talk about, and they go around from the wife back to wife. But now you add a child to it,  and you've got a whole nother set of communications that are needed around that. And then  you add two children, three. And the system just begins to become incredibly complex, even  within a family. Now, when I was studying this, I was in a class last year in which they were  teaching about systems theory. And the leader had us get into a large group, there are about  40 of us. So it's a wide open room. And she just gave us an instruction. She said, you know,  what, you've got to identify to other people, you don't need to tell them who they are, you  don't need to know have anybody else know who they are. But we're gonna start moving  around in a moment. And I want you to remain equidistance from those two people. So I'm  moving here. And, you know, I'm looking at these two people, and I'm trying to stay  equidistance from them. And there are other people who are trying to remain equidistance  from that one, or that one. And there are some that are, you know, I'm in their group, and  they're trying to remain equidistance from me. And then she says, Alright, just start moving  around. So you start taking some random steps, and the whole system begins to adjust,  because there are these random steps that are taking, and they said, Okay, now stop. And  now she said, I want to make it a little more complex to make it like a system of a church said, I'm going to enter in as the leader, as the transitional pastor, let's say that I am. So she enters the system, and the direction is maintain equidistance from me, and the two others now. And  so once again, we began moving, and there's this complex set of movements that go on,  that's a system, if you've got a church or organization, over 10 people it's a complex system  can be because you've got all these inter relations that are going on, and some aren't aware  of the others and some aren't aware of those and, and there's communication that is given to  some it's not given to others. It's a complex system. But the good news is, the system can be  changed. Years ago, I thought I was going to go into marriage counseling one of those times  early in ministry where I thought I was gonna leave, because I was burned out. And I went and explored counseling. So I took some classes, read a lot of books in counseling, and I was doing more of that in my church than probably I should have. And that's a philosophical decision on  my part. But one of the things I learned is that one person can change the system. Because  you know if the wife comes in, which is the normal thing, complaining about her husband  complaining about the marriage and the quality of marriage and the impact in the family. A  counselor can say to her, you know, if you change if you change the way You relate to him,  and you change the way you relate to your children, it's going to change the system,  sometimes very positively very quickly. And so the wife comes in and, and identifies ways that she usually responds to her husband's egging on or nagging or whatever. And now we're  going to find a new way of responding to that, and what happens to the system, then what 

happens to what the children see how they, you can change the system. It starts with, you've  got some changes happening, and people say, Ah, this is working. So you consolidate your  gains, you spend the time celebrating the fact that you've reached a new plateau or new  moment where you're going to launch towards further change. We had one of these just last  year before I retired, and we had finally paid off all the debt on the building. We had a debt  from a three year debt from an expansion project that we did. And we've managed to pay it  off in three years. And so we had time in the worship services where we celebrated that we  didn't have a mortgage to burn, we never had a mortgage, but we had loans from a local  bank. And so we took their letter, when which they identified the fact that we were now debt  free, and we burned it in the worship service. And we said, look, you know, what? The  changes we projected as far as children's ministry are working. Look at all that's been  happening, because we, we revamped the youth ministry area, and we built this children's  ministry area, look at what's happening in the adult ministry now that we have these rooms  where we didn't have adult ministry before we were simply consolidating our gains, and  looking toward the future. So what do you do when you're doing that? Well, you introduce  more change. That's how you consolidate games and produce more, you then say, You know  what, here's the next one. You hire or engage new people. Now, what's going to happen is in  your organization, as you've gone through some change is that new people will have joined,  and they don't know all of the history. And interestingly, they tend to be the people who  volunteer more quickly than the longer term members. So you hire them, you recruit them as  volunteers, you get them engaged. It was kind of a shocking thing. When we were moving, we were going through a relocation when I was in California, and the youth pastor said, Just think, you know, we move into this big, beautiful new building, says the people that are coming from now on, aren't even going to know the history, they aren't going to know what it's like to be in that temporary facility, they aren't going to know what it's like to be in the old building,  they're only going to know the new and that that reality, they haven't they don't even know  the changes that have happened to get where we are. But they're more ready to go for more  change. So hire and engage new people, and oops, sorry, I did a spellcheck there people, and  then marginalize the critics. Stop giving them a voice. Don't let them you know, monopolize  situations have, if you do congregational meetings or group meetings, and you know, some of them are going to speak up, make sure that you've got some of your guiding coalition ready  to respond. You know, don't let them control the narrative. So, consolidating gains, Step eight, is anchoring the new approach in the culture. Now to do that requires time. But people began  to talk about the way we do things here differently as you anchored something in the culture,  and it requires a lot of talk time, a lot of repeating the message, and it's going to involve  turnover. You know, I said that in our worship history, that one of the things we did in our  church every week was read the 10 commandments. But when we stopped doing that, you  would think that for some people, it was such a radical change. We were throwing not just the baby out with the bathwater. But we were, we were stomping on the baby, once he got out. It  was that kind of powerful change for people. And so we had some people leave. Interestingly,  not one of them went to a church where they read the 10 commandments every week, but  they were so incensed that we were doing that in our change that they felt they had to leave  there's going to evolve turnover. Some people will not buy into the new change, and they will, they'll leave, they'll leave, which may be preferable for them to becoming entrenched critics.  But you just got to be aware of that you you can't take everybody along. And then you've got  to start making decisions about succession. When I came to California, I partner with a guy  when I came there, I was surprised that he was really on his way out. I had looked at this  partnership I was going to be the partner is old enough to be my father, but somebody was  skilled in evangelism. I thought, I'm going to work with this guy, and together we're going to  build this church, and then I found that He's entertaining calls to other churches. And I was  astounded at that. And so one time I confronted him with that and said, Wait, what I hear  you're talking with such and such church about becoming their pastor? What's this about?  And, and what he shared was, he said, you know, we searched for you says, because we've  undergone a lot of change. And the concern was that my successor here would be somebody  who would be from the old guard, or guided, chosen for by people from the old guard, and 

those changes would be abandoned. So we looked for somebody who was as he put it further  out in left field, and I am, so that we could encourage the ongoing changes necessary to  reach our vision. That's how I got to California. And so when you're anchoring the new  approach, in the culture, it means you're looking long term, how do we keep this going for a  long time. So that's Kotter's, eight steps. And I just want to encourage you in them. And then  there's one more final word about change. Now, there's another book that I could tell you to  read. And it's an excellent book. It's called Switch, it's written by two business consultants,  again, Dan and Chip Heath. But they gave a picture, as I read that book that is stuck with me  about change. And that is they pictured life as or an organization as a man riding an elephant. They said, Now, that's an elephant's a powerful creature, but the man can make that elephant go certain directions for a period of time. And he said, Now let the man represent the logical  or rational approaches toward toward life, and let the elephant represent the feelings. He  said, the rational part of the people you deal with in your organization can force the elephant  to go certain directions for a period of time. You can make a rational argument, why you  should do some things. Why is changing, the church is dying. We've got statistics that prove  it, we've got this ministry that we we see can make a difference. And we want to adopt it and  make it part of our own church. They'll rationally agree with you. But eventually, their feelings will win out. And so as you start thinking about changes in your organization, you've got to as  I put down the bottom there, aim for people's feelings. You talk about what this means for the  kids, you tell stories of people who are impacted, because there has been change. You talk  talk about the people who've come to faith. You know, we regularly had testimony, testimony  time in my previous church, just because we wanted people to say, You know what, our  changes of worship that was hard, was painful. But look, we've got this influx of new people  who find us relevant, and not only find us relevant, they're meeting Jesus Christ as a result.  We've got people who are out there serving because they've been challenged to serve as a  fulfillment of our vision to become a church for the community. And they're doing it let's tell  you this, let's tell you the story about that. Because stories, hit emotions, and you're aiming  for people's emotions you want people to buy in, because they see it's making a difference in  people's lives. It's not just a rational explanation of why something has to be changed. So  next time, we're going to continue to talk about Kotter's thing only in the sense of a book that  he wrote later, that gave an allegory of all this and how it works within an organization and  how it likely can work in your organization. So we'll see you next time.