“On the Wall” vs. “In the Walk”
Like a lot of churches, we have our fair share of statements that end up on the wall. Whether it’s our church-wide values, our ministry plumb lines, our staff values, or even the “north star” statements of our central Guest Services and Events Team, there’s no shortage of wall art that reminds us of the big ideas of our ministries.
But what happens when what is On the Wall doesn’t translate to what is In our Walk? In other words, how do we correct actual behavior when it doesn’t compare to aspirational statements?
To keep this out of the range of the theoretical, let me give a concrete example that we’ll use to walk through a solution. I’ll pick one of our plumb lines from our Guest Services Team: Everything speaks.
“Everything speaks” is mounted on the wall in Volunteer Headquarters at our permanent campuses. It’s on pop-up signage at most of our mobile campuses. It’s introduced to our new volunteers in onboarding training, repeated to our seasoned volunteers in emails and huddles, and referenced on a regular basis every chance we get.
So what happens when a volunteer knows that everything speaks, but they don’t live like everything speaks? I think there are four steps to a solution:
1. Talk about it broadly and frequently.
We can never assume that because we said it once that anyone will remember it forever. We can never shut up about the things that matter. I said above that our plumb lines are “repeated and referenced” every chance we get, but are they really? We can’t expect people to know things we have forgotten to talk about.
2. Apply conceptual ideas to concrete situations.
How does everything speaks apply to an empty toilet paper roll? How about to the absence of a skeleton crew? What happens when everything speaks encounters the negative speech of a volunteer or staff member?
From time to time in your volunteer huddles or your weekly communication, take a value / plumb line / part of your mission statement, and map it onto a common problem. Help people take theory and make it practice.
3. Use the statement as your corrective standard.
Let’s say that a volunteer has royally torched the idea that everything speaks. They ignored the trash on the sidewalk. They focused on an old friend rather than a new one. They overdid it on being too friendly to a guest.
Embrace the awkward conversation. Don’t put off a teachable moment. With much grace and humility, pull them to the side and give them a quick coaching tip on how their personal action and the team’s stated values didn’t match up. Be a coach rather than a critic, and pull the best out of them.
4. Point to the bright spots.
I borrow this from Chip and Dan Heath’s magnificent book Switch, where they develop the idea that we should focus on what is already working and celebrate the people who are already getting it. Rather than whacking ’em with a stick, we should be leading ’em with a carrot. Somebody somewhere said that we replicate what we celebrate, and that’s never more true than when we’re trying to get something off the wall and in our walk.
photo credit
