The Congregational Consulting Group, organized in 2014 by former consultants of the Alban Institute, is a network of independent consultants. We publish PERSPECTIVES for Congregational Leaders—thoughts on topics of interest to leaders of congregations and other purpose-driven organizations. — Dan Hotchkiss, editor
Transforming the culture of a toxic team is hard work, and it begins with looking at the team’s behavioral norms.
As an advocate for using teams to carry out the work of a congregation and for eliminating as many committees as possible, I often get phone calls like this: “John, we read your book and decided to move from a committee-driven to a team-driven organization. But it hasn’t gone smoothly!” If I or other advocates of teams created the impression that moving to teams is an easy transition, I apologize. The change to teams is not easy, but it’s necessary.
Many congregations think the answer to their problems is a superstar—a charismatic senior pastor, a superb musician, or a Pied Piper youth director. Research on teams reveals a deep flaw in such thinking, and congregational leaders are well advised to pay attention to the data.
One good way to make things happen is to organize a team. At their best, teams benefit from members’ varied strengths and reach results no one imagined in advance. But what makes a team effective? A lot has been written about teams—by John Wimberly and George Cladis among others—and I don’t mean to replace or duplicate their work. Instead I want to share a simplified approach to that has been useful to me in building teams, and to my coaching and consulting clients. You may find it useful, too!
Building on my last post on teams, I want to talk a bit about the size of teams. As I researched my upcoming book on teams, I was surprised at the unanimity of opinion on this topic. Five to seven members is what research reveals to be the most effective number of people on a team.
Fair or unfair, the younger generations have negative assumptions about the way committees function. Teams, however, are something they understand and embrace. Most Millennials and Gen-Xers have been involved in team sports from an early age. Many workplaces today are organized into teams. The high-tech industry, for example, has made billions of dollars using creative, self-managing teams. So when asked to serve on a team in a congregation, younger people understand what they are agreeing to do. A committee feels a bit foreign to them.