Accelerating the Dynamic Church : Process

Change or Die?

jhook — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 16:35:00 GMT

We have seen over and over that the biggest hurdle to embracing the real value of better information systems in churches is change management, or should I say the lack thereof? Amongst us church management software vendors, it is even a point of occasional conversation at industry conferences. “If only churches would learn better how to change.” Improvements require change! It is said that one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.

I titled this blog entry Change or Die? But adopting new systems and processes in churches is not really a physical life or death situation, is it? So why change? There is not even a profit motive involved to motivate change. What’s the urgency? Why the importance? A better question might be, “If we know we need to change, can we?”

In a recent book called Change or Die, the author, Alan Deutschman, points out that research shows even when change is a life or death matter, change only occurs about 10% of the time! So that is the human state, for every 10 times we need to change, we only accomplish it 1 time! How do we know this? What do we base this on?

In Mr. Deutschman’s book, he refers to the following statistics: about 600,000 individuals have heart bypass surgery every year in the United States, and 1.3 million heart patients have angioplasties – costing our society billions of dollars. These procedures temporarily relieve chest pains, but around half of the time, the bypass grafts clog up in a few years; the angioplasties, in a few months. Why? According to Dr. Edward Miller, the dean of the medical school and CEO of the hospital at John Hopkins University, “If you look at people after coronary-artery bypass grafting two years later, 90% of them have not changed their lifestyles.” So even in a life or death matter, people refuse to do the work to change.

The church is an institution that asks people to change their lifestyles as well. Not for physical reasons, but for spiritual, emotional and relational reasons. We know this can be hard to accomplish, yet all things are possible through Christ. But, as an industry, I am not sure we understand change well enough to do so because we in fact have difficulty changing ourselves.

Dynamic churches take change seriously. They understand that it will not happen by itself. They understand that it takes leadership, planning and continuous improvements. They know that momentum can be sustained by creating a sense of urgency, by focusing on short-term wins and then communicating and celebrating the positive effects of change. They also know that there are bumps along the way that must be managed through instead of allowing the small setbacks to bog down the ultimate goal. Effective change requires everyone looking forward, focusing on the future, and not allowing people to relish the past and desire to, as one of our customer puts it, “go back to Egypt to make bricks.” Remember, that’s what some of the Israelites wanted to do once they were out in the wilderness heading to the Promise Land. For some of them, the change was simply too hard!

Change management cannot be delegated like some administrative process! To make ministry work, the leadership and ministers must provide firm direction to the staff, not delegate it to their administrative assistants like many other things they tend to do.

Change or Die? Progress or Die? Perhaps it is our flesh and sinful nature that avoids change. But if we don’t learn to change, if we do not learn to embrace better ways of caring for and growing people, the church will become irrelevant and perhaps even die itself. Even more critical, people will die – spiritually.

Grace to you,

jhook

What stops a church from fully Experiencing Fellowship One?

jhook — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 15:29:00 GMT

As I write this blog entry for our new community site, I contemplated the above question: What stops a church from fully experiencing Fellowship One? There are many different answers for the various customer situations ranging from 1) lack of leadership to drive change, 2) staff turnover, 3) lack of infrastructure for proper Internet access, etc.

Is it ever Fellowship One? Sure, when what a church wants to accomplish is not supported by the product, but situations like that should be determined during the sales cycle, not during implementation; or worse, after six months of trying to use the system. We try our best to help a church discern whether our product is a fit for what they are trying to accomplish because our desired end-result is not a paying customer; but, instead a delighted, “reference-able” customer that pays. Profit is not the goal of our business; it is the result of providing value to the customer.

Back to the question at hand - I believe the most common issue among churches having problems fully experiencing Fellowship One is the change management around processes required to implement the level of change required to implement a true ministry tool rather than a “back-office” system. In other words, business process management.

Recently we hosted Tim Vineyard, Lifeway’s CIO (www.lifeway.com), and some of his key staff members here in our offices to update each other on the progress within our respective organizations. I have met with Tim a couple of times over the course of our business life now and have always been impressed with him personally and professionally. I say this as a big compliment – Tim is a southern gentleman in all ways. He is articulate, engaging and personable.

One of the things that Tim and I agree on is that many churches simply use their church management system as an electronic Rolodex, primarily used for name and address look-up, labels, giving statements, etc. - the simple stuff. This requires very little process or process management. Let’s face it, access to a Rolodex is primarily ad hoc.

We agreed that one thing missing in churches is well-defined business processes. What we have found lacking in churches that attempt to implement change (and implementing Fellowship One, if done right, requires change) is well-thought out, well-documented process diagrams defining who does what resulting in what metrics to measure. Once these metrics can be measured, they can be “baselined” and then tracked to determine whether programs and ministries are being successful. Are people being reached, touched and impacted based on the resources expended?

One of our new goals within our Services group is to document a set of “best practices” business processes to augment the implementation of Fellowship One. By providing swim lane diagrams showing inputs, process flows, outputs, participants, inspection points, etc., church management and staffs can have a visual view of what forms are required, what metrics should be measured, what reports are run when, etc. For the Dynamic Church, hopefully, these process diagrams will function as living documents that are modified as business processes change to incorporate new goals and operations of the church, and to educate new staff members so that the entire church staff can get on the same page when it comes to measuring metrics that reflect the mission and vision of the church.

Grace to you,

Jhook

Solution Selling includes educating the church on Best Practices

Jeff Hook — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 18:43:00 GMT

Last night I received a call from the field from one of our Delivery Managers. For Fellowship Technologies, a Delivery Manager is a consultant who works with a church partner (customer) to assist them with their implementation of Fellowship One. The purpose of the call was that the Delivery Manager wanted me to know that the church partner could not say enough about how much they learned about church management from our sales consultant during the sales cycle.

BTW, we now have 12 different editions, all the same software, but twelve different ways to license Fellowship One because not all churches want to use it the same way – but I will save that post for another day. The point of this post is how much the partner learned during the sales cycle.

To me, this was very rewarding. Why? Because it says that we are being successful when it comes to our mission of not just selling church software but also helping churches understand what good church management is and, in the end, improving churches’ ability to help people! When people talk about the business of the church too often they talk about the “back office” aspects of the church.

However, the real “business” of the church is people; from helping deal with their “heart” conditions to their “life” conditions. Church management software needs to be ministry-focused software, not administrative-focused software. Sometimes we run into a church that has documented all of these features that they want their software to have but these features are all about how to make the software perform better to their “work habits” around reading email, keeping their calendar, or even turning on the HVAC 2 hours before the service time. Now all of these might be well and good, but I truly think they miss the point.

Our sales consultants try to convey the need for the software to focus on the needs of the people attending the church – that is where the real value is. In his book, “How to Increase Giving in Your Church,” George Barna says that people who share an ownership or personal connection to a church tend to give more. In other words, the more connected a person is, spiritually and emotionally, the more generous the giving. The more generous the giving, the more resources the church has for quality services and reaching more people. So if this is true, shouldn’t church management software help track how connected a person is and help then encourage additional connection?

If all church management software is just alike (like some of our competitors want you to think), why aren’t our competitors selling the same way? Instead they sell on “features and functions.” I can say this because I have seen their sales demos. It is not about features and functions; it is about how you use those features and functions. It is about processes and the impact of those processes – both on the church congregation and church staff.

Grace to you,

Jhook

Queuing Theory at Check-in

Jeff Hook — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 16:48:00 GMT

After recently watching several churches modify their process for children’s check-in to accommodate our check-in module, it occurred to me how much “queuing theory” comes into play. How a church establishes its check-in queue can make all the difference whether a family believes they are waiting a long time or not.

Consider this: if the queue is spread out across multiple check-in stations, when a family comes up to check-in, 1) the person has some ownership in the line they have chosen (think WalMart – side note: why do I always chose the slow moving line?); and, 2) if there are 5 check-in stations, with 10 families at the same time, the family perception is that the line is 2 deep; 15 families create lines 3 deep.

Conversely, if there is a single queue that is feed to multiple stations, 1) the person has no ownership in the line chosen, it’s the luck of the position; and 2) with 10 families, one family feels like they are in a line 5 deep; 15 families means someone is 10 back and perceives a very long line.

Using this approach, there is also the “wait” in queue time that comes from seeing that a spot is open at one of the check-in stations and the delay to fill that open spot.

If your church’s check-in lines seem too long, there are several things you can do: 1) consider adding more check-in stations, 2) speed up the overall process, or 3) increase the amount of time before check-in is available.

Or maybe it’s just a queuing issue? Look at how people are fed into the check-in stations. Consider how the “wait time” between check-ins be reduced or eliminated?

Grace to you,

jhook

Is your church management system optional? (Part 2)

Jeff Hook — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 16:43:00 GMT

A fundamental building block that will allow a church to better care for its people is better quality information. However, if the church’s ministries are allowed to NOT use the church management system and its underlying database of people, they will end up keeping valuable information somewhere else. That central database is then a subset of the information about the congregation. If a pastor cannot look at a family’s or individual’s records to see what their current indicative information is, how involved they are, what small groups they are in, who their kids are, etc., etc. – then they have an incomplete picture of who they are attempting to help. That kind of data problem becomes a “congregation service” problem similar to a “customer service” problem that any organization that deals with the public might have when the information they have is incomplete.

True, I was simply pointing out the problem, but churches cannot fix problems they are unaware of or do not have an appreciation for. Too often churches “play” at church instead of “work” at church. When people “play” they are doing something for recreation, for enjoyment and leisure purposes. When people work, there is a sense of accountability, people measure performance and work towards improving the metrics. Now I am not saying that ALL churches are like that, but too many are. If churches refuse to measure themselves and their performance, they will not know whether or not they are improving.

To answer your last question, culture change is a tricky situation because I am unaware of the dynamics of your current culture. I cannot help you get somewhere if I do not know where you are coming from. Also, frankly, some cultures are worth the effort to change and some may not be. In general, cultural change requires leadership. Some churches may not be able to institute this kind of change without a “burning platform” crisis.

The Harvard Management Communication Letter says if you don't have a burning platform to push people away from the past then you need a compelling vision of the "The Promised Land" that is strong enough to draw people to it. In identifying the burning platform, do not overstate the extent of the crisis, it warns, or you will destroy credibility. And involve everyone in the solution or they will go in all directions.

On a tactical level, begin a project to identify all of the current data sources in place that the ministries rely on – every database, spreadsheet, 3x5 cards, etc. By documenting these, a church can have an appreciation for the inconsistencies of the data – how out of date some is, how many duplicates there are, and a better picture of the total number of ‘silo’ data stores.

Once there is an appreciation of the level of the problem, look at the congregation service issues that arise from the disparate databases. Ask yourself how much “customer service” can improve if all ministries are singing from the same hymnal; I mean working off the same information. If everyone is responsible for the quality of the data, although it creates work, the data quality will improve. Caring about people is also caring about the information that is a reflection of those people. Hope this helps!

Grace to you,

Passive or Active Assimilation – What does your church practice?

Jeff Hook — Sat, 15 Apr 2006 16:41:00 GMT

I was visiting with a customer recently and we were talking about their church’s philosophy on getting people involved in the church. During the conversation it became clear to both of us that, although their church offered many opportunities to get involved, there was not a real push from church leadership to encourage any involvement. In other words, it was a “field of dreams” approach to assimilation – offer it and they will participate. The real “Dr. Phil” question is, “How’s that working for you?” Or more appropriate. “How’s that working for them – people who are new to the church?”

One of the differences about churches that I have noticed is their approach to assimilation; some view it as an active process and others view it passively. In older established churches, the assumption is that the congregation is made up of established Christians who are well equipped to decide how much or how quickly they should move towards being FTDC (Full Time Disciples of Christ). Newer, more outreach focused churches – those focused on seekers and the unchurched – take a more proactive role in assimilation. These churches encourage more involvement on a certain timeframe assuming that the person may not understand the expectations laid out in Scripture. Christianity is meant to be an active way of life through serving and giving.

According to a study by George Barna documented in his book How to Increase Giving in Your Church, a benefit of increased involvement in church activities from Bible studies to small groups to volunteering is an increase in giving. People fund ministries they believe in. If this is true, perhaps to improve the financial resources available to a ministry, churches that approach assimilation passively should rethink their approach to be more active.

Have a great Easter!

Grace to you as you go out to be active Christians,

jhook

A Whole New Way . . . Don’t Automate, Obliterate

Jeff Hook — Sun, 12 Feb 2006 17:18:00 GMT

In the early 1990’s, Dr. Michael Hammer touched off an entire wave of reengineering work with his July 1990 Harvard Business Review article titled: Reengineering Work: Don’t Automate, Obliterate. There were many, many consulting practices in the private and public sectors built on the concepts Dr. Hammer wrote about. However, as I get further and further into the church market, I am beginning to think that the reengineering wave that hit the commercial industry passed over the churches.

Too often, as we learn more about a church during a systems implementation and we ask why a church staff person does a particular process, the response is, “because we have always done it that way.” Or, when we ask why a church wants to create a new process, the logic is simply, “that’s the way I think it should be done” without looking at the implications to the congregation or volunteer that may be affected most. Hammer’s contention is that we should eliminate unnecessary processes or steps if what they accomplish is redundant, burdensome or immaterial.

I believe that a common example is (I am stepping out on a limb here not to offend, but to prompt discussion) when a children’s pastor believes an automated check-out process is required for the Children’s service on Sunday. I always like to ask, “Do you ever have children left over after the service?” And “If you do, will ‘automated check out’ eliminate those children left behind?” ;-) Or “Is it important to know exactly when a child checked out?” And if so, “What will be done with that information?” Other questions might be, “Do the parents think it is essential to have ‘the system’ check out the kids?” or "Is the time stamp valuable?”.

What must be taken into account is the time (inconvenience to parents – stewardship of time) and equipment (costs - stewardship of money) required to efficiently and effectively provide an automated ‘check-out’ process for children. For a church with multiple services, is the equipment for check-in and check-out the same? Are the parents checking in for the next service colliding with the parents checking out from the previous service because they are trying to use the same kiosks? Are we contributing to the chaos of the situation? For what purpose?

Checking out children for a “play school”, where the billing of time is important, is a must. Checking out volunteers so that the actual time contributed as service can also be helpful, if that is reported and is part of the “thank you” for tracking volunteers. So do not mistake my comments to think that all automated check out is unnecessary. Sometimes, it can be useful, but each situation must be examined for its own merit.

The overall point is to examine your processes. Take a whole new look at the “whys” and “hows” something is done and try to eliminate all that is unnecessary. What is left should definitely be automated, but first ask what value the deliverable really provides.

Grace to you as you obliterate,

jhook

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