RX 24 - Communicating Change - Bringing Clarity and Consistency During Staff Transitions and other Hard News - Leah Norton

Transcribed Content

We have communicating change, bringing clarity and consistency during staff transitions and other hard news. So please join me in welcoming to the stage Leah Norton. Well, good afternoon. Hope you did have a great lunch and that you're having a great day here at Rock. It's my privilege to be with you today. I am Leah Norton, I'm managing partner at Fishhook. We're a communications and marketing team focused on serving and supporting churches and ministries. And most of our team, here's several of them. We are based out of Indianapolis with a few others on staff located in other states. But everything that I'll be sharing today, that is part of what we come alongside churches to do, to look strategically at how a church is communicating. And then, we work alongside them to help think about how to communicate during challenging times, times when they have significant news, changes, or transitions to communicate. Now we do some other things too. Branding work, we have an amazing design team, we build church websites, work with digital strategy and support. We do a whole variety of those things for churches, but today, I will be pulling from our experience and our examples around communicating with change. Alright. Why is this topic so important? I mean, I will share with you that this topic means a lot to me. It really matters as we come alongside our churches. We care so much, and our churches face hard, significant times of sharing. And we know it's significant because we live in chaotic times. If you think about, the world that we live in, there's so much going on within our organizations and then around our organizations. And we know that people are, more skeptical than ever. They have a lot of questions. They often have a lot of opinions or perspectives. And it's up to us to come alongside and really care for them, even disciple them in these times of change, and to navigate with them. And so, this is an important topic that we're gonna dive into. I want to stress too that with our churches, our leaders, and as we come alongside our leaders, we have important missions for our church to steward, and we want to keep momentum going. We want to continue helping people grow in their walk with the Lord and to move forward. And so in the midst of significant seasons where we have changed to communicate, it's so important to do it with intention and with care. So I want you to think about what what situation you might be facing. Where is your church today? What what change are you maybe in the midst of, or what is on the horizon? I'd love for you to just think about that for a moment, maybe even make a little note to yourself, because I want you to have that in mind as we talk today. And, if when we do questions and answers later, or I'm happy to talk, after the session or the rest of the conference because this is a really significant topic. It can be It can be difficult, it can be challenging, and we want to come alongside to support you well, and hopefully to go back home with, some new strategies, some new concepts, some inspiration or some encouragement, to continue moving forward. So be thinking about what change you are facing. This is just a quick data point that I wanted to bring to you. This is from Unstuck Group just a little bit earlier this year. And if you look at these two data points, you can see that change is all kinds of change is happening for our churches, but specifically relating to staffing issues. This first line here is saying that one in four around 25%, one in four of our churches are actively planning for a pastoral succession. And if you notice, this is churches of all sizes. The second point here is that around half or more have been in the midst of a staff restructuring in the last two years. And so what that tells us is that that's a lot of change in an organization, people coming, people going, people maybe moving around different roles and responsibilities, and there's a lot that needs to be communicated about why that's happening and then what that change means for people and how we can move forward together. So again, be thinking about what your church is facing because I want want you to have that in mind as we talk through these strategies and these tactics today. Alright. So where do you start? I mentioned earlier that this is the work we come alongside our churches to do. This is work that we care so much about. A couple of members of our team are here and we've been praying for this session today that something that we would be sharing would encourage you today, would support you and help you again go home with some inspiration and some encouragement. Even as I'm talking, I'm thinking about that and praying for each of you here today. Okay, so where do you start? I wanna I wanna give you some practical tips for even now, what you could be doing even in the coming days to start to think about how you're communicating and working, collaborating with your leaders to face the change that might be happening now or that you anticipate. And so let's you know what? I'm going backtrack for just a minute. This slide just points out the great need and opportunity. I do want to highlight this. I was jumping ahead of myself. The great need and opportunity here is for communication that will build trust, cast vision, and will grow and engage with your congregation. And you know what? It's even more than the congregation. It's all audiences. It's communication that will build trust, cast vision, and engage with every member of your team. Your leaders, your leadership team, your board, your staff, key leaders, key volunteers, the full congregation, people online, people in partnership with your church, and the community. It's truly thinking through how can we build trust, how can we do all of these things with every single group. And that really does need to be a thoughtful process. And if you're the communications leader at your church, this is the hat you wear, and you can bring that to your leaders and really be the champion of they have so much on their hearts, your senior leaders have so much on their hearts, and they're processing so much when change and transition, sometimes even really hard news happens, you can come to the table and really be a champion for these things with them. So how do you do that? How do you build that relationship with your senior leaders so that you guys can you're ready to collaborate with them and offer great support in seasons of change? So it starts with you and your leaders, and this is where we come in with our churches and we do this. I do this in meetings, conversations, emails, texts all the time when we're working with a senior pastor, an executive pastor, board members. So here's where we go, and I'm gonna get really practical here for just a couple minutes, to build the relationship with your leaders. And literally, these are things you can be doing this week through an email message, a text message, when you get back. This can be a more casual conversation over coffee. And definitely, as you meet with your senior leaders, ask them really intentional questions because you want to lay the groundwork for a growing relationship with them. So and again, this is what we do when we come in to work with our senior leaders at our churches. We ask, how are you? How can I pray with you? What is on the horizon for our church? And how can I come alongside to support and collaborate with you whatever we are facing? And so again, really intentional questions because you know how for leaders, oftentimes they're just always giving. Who is pausing to give them space, safe space and margin to ask them, How are you? How can I pray with you? What is on the horizon? And how can I support you moving forward? Then we want to be really proactive with the planning, and we're going to talk about this more in just a minute. But I want to make the point here that when they tell you what is on the horizon or what they're nervous about and you're praying together, don't just hear that and walk away. When they tell you that hard things are coming up, come back to them with maybe more questions, more research, but come back to them with, at the very least, a framework of I hear what's on the horizon, this is going to be a challenging season, These are hard things or significant things to communicate. Let's work together, to be as proactive as we can. And then finally, and we do this, we ask for their trust and their openness. Sometimes you are they are sharing really sensitive things, we ask them to trust us with that, and we vow to them that we will be so careful with that sensitive information. We will We will keep it confidential. Sometimes we even sign a confidentiality agreement depending on how sensitive the topic is. And so ask for that trust and openness and do whatever you can so that they will share openly because that will so impact where you head with them to prepare for and communicate challenging news. Alright. Next, I want to talk through understanding the importance of communication, and this is for for you with your leadership team. Here is a really important question to ask. And ideally, this gets asked before you're in the midst of hard change, a season of needing to communicate significant news to the congregation and to the community. So you're going to ask, what is our overall goal with any and all communication efforts? And then you're going to work together to agree to some things, and again, ideally, it's ahead of time, and there's great agreement and unity. And I want to give you a sample of the kind of goal and again, this is overall, this kind of like just sets the heart and the intention and the direction. It's not as specific or as measurable as some other goal setting that we'll do in just a minute, but this does just again get you on the same page about where you're headed. And so a great overall goal and the kind of thing that we work with our churches on on a regular basis is to have every audience internal, external, online to communicate with them in an intentional, sensitive, and clear manner. Our prayer is that these efforts will be caring and will help our audiences navigate this season to have the understanding they need to feel connected, engaged, and hopeful moving forward. This is a pretty big deal if you can get your leadership team and the people that need to support where you're headed in a season of change if you can get everyone to say, Yes, we are on board with this because this communication is about caring and being in relationship with our people, helping them navigate this difficult season and to move through it and be together on the other side, hopefully closer to Christ. It's a discipleship opportunity and closer to one another. Alright. In that same spirit, then you're you're kind of you have this direction of this overall goal. Then this is a really important part around developing guiding values that will really drive where you go with the overall spirit of how you're working together and then your key messaging. And this usually, I mean this can be more generic if you're not facing significant change. Maybe there's some guiding values that you want to put together around your communication efforts. But especially if you're moving into a season of significant change, you have hard things to communicate, outlining guiding values that you can agree to and really embrace with your leadership team is really important. And so this is where I want to move into kind of a case study. I mean we work with our churches to talk through all kinds of seasons of change. Sometimes it's about moving away from their denomination or sometimes there are hard staffing changes. There are seasons where ministries or partnerships are growing, and that can be something that needs to be communicated. Other times, there are seasons where a ministry or a campus or a service or a group is actually shutting down. And those are things that we need to navigate and communicate through. So whatever you are facing, setting up these guiding values is really important. And the case study that I'm bringing to you today is, as we work with churches often, and I'm thinking of a couple as I bring this to you today, that are their senior pastor is transitioning away after many years of incredible growth and ministry. And one specific example that I'm thinking of, he is moving into a season of retirement or doing some other things, but it's after many, many years of being the leader, the senior leader of a large thriving church. And so this is a significant season for their congregation. And so these are guiding values that we have worked on with their leadership team, and we keep coming back to these again and again throughout this season. So for them, as their senior pastor is transitioning, they are focused on, in all of their key messaging and their planning, gratitude and celebration for that longtime leader, humble and calm confidence. They are coming back to the congregation on a regular basis saying things like, this is a very intentional prayerful search process as we move forward. And humbly and calmly and prayerfully, we are navigating this season. They've made a commitment that their communication will be purposeful and transparent, and they have goals around how often and how they will come back to the congregation and other audiences with good, open communication, as open as they can be. And then in all things, as a leadership team, they want to be unified, they want to be going into their communication very unified, on the same page, and they're committed to their congregation and their community having unity throughout this season. Alright. So let's go into a detailed communication strategy, and I'm gonna move through this pretty quickly. If there are more detailed questions, I would be happy to talk through this at any time. Alright. Here are five key elements of a communication strategy when you are facing change. And as I've said, every situation, every church, it's gonna look a little bit different, but coming into it and identifying that context, those overall goals is really important. And again, whatever you're facing, that'll obviously impact what you do here. But I talked earlier about that overall goal around your communications and then those guiding values. In this area, you can start to then move into some goals that are very specific to your situation and making those very measurable and tangible. For the sake of time, we'll move forward, but if there's anything that we want to come back to about any of this, we surely can. The next part is around audiences. And I'll tell you that when we work with a church, we put together a pretty extensive audience list. It's so easy to just think about like, oh, the congregation, or oh, the community in general. But I would encourage you that your list, when you go to think about communicating change, I would get as specific as you can because it'll really impact the tactics and the different phases that we're going to talk about in just a minute. And when we talk about that this communication is about being really caring and that you're going to want to disciple and help people navigate in a sensitive way this season, if you can be more specific about your audiences, you can really come back to them with very specific, caring, intentional communication because you've identified certain very specific groups with certain needs and concerns. Alright, the phases of communication. Every situation is going to look a little bit different, but there are various milestones or steps along the way and you want to call those out and plan for those very intentionally. So with the case study that I've been talking about, the senior pastor transition, there are four phases that we typically, every situation's a little bit different, but that we typically lean into. And so there is an early on planning phase and that is typically very private. That is board members and executive leader teams hopefully with you as the communications leader and maybe a couple of other consultants depending on what the process is. They're involved in that very private planning phase. The next phase is going public with initial announcement and kicking off the search process. That's a whole specific phase that needs some very intentional communication. Then there's a time of continuing to update about the search process, but when you are bringing a candidate to the congregation and depending on what that looks like, you know, there's visits and there's voting and there's confirmation, and so that's a whole phase. And then there's a baton passing phase. Maybe that includes the pastors working together in an overlap time or really helping that new leader, saying, thanking and celebrating the former leader and then bringing in that new leader and rallying around them. But those are four very distinct phases, and you want to plan for each one of them. You also, with the phases of communication, want to stay pretty nimble and flexible. And you're leaning into your phases and the plan that you've developed, but then sometimes there are questions, concerns, a pivot that needs to be made, and you have to stay flexible and be willing to shift into a phase or add a new phase, and that's where that relationship and collaboration with your senior leaders is so important. Alright. Guiding values, I talked about that earlier and I showed you the four from our case study. I'm gonna show you in just a minute a couple how the guiding values match up with the key messaging. So I'm gonna get to that in just a moment. The last item here is your implementation roles. And this is where in your plan, you want to have spelled out all of the support that is needed when you're communicating change. And you want to be thinking about who is overlooking the whole communication strategy with you and what is that approval process for what will be done and said when. So that's again, who is providing leadership for this overall process with communications? You want to look at who your spokespeople are and what are their needs and their availability and training for them and support for them. You want to think about who is implementing all of this work. I mean typically, there's a lot of communication happening with a lot of audiences and through a lot of tools. And so who is the support team that's rallying around that? And then I would say another key, part with the implementation is who is fielding inquiries, phone calls, questions, emails, communication online. And so scoping all of that out, making assignments, who's taking media calls if that's needed, who is supporting the congregation as they reach out, who is watching things online, etcetera. Okay, I want to come back to the guiding values and the key messaging because this obviously is a huge part of connecting what you've committed to living out through the guiding values and the key messaging. So sticking with our case study of the senior pastor transition, I told you that this church is all about the gratitude for their current senior pastor and for all that God has done through his ministry. They want to celebrate him well, but then they're also going to look forward to the future for what is ahead. And so an ongoing key message to live out this guiding value is we are full of gratitude in this season of transition. Next, next guiding value, we want to have a humble and calm confidence. And so, and there are, for the sake of time today and these slides, I'm not bringing you all of the verbiage but this is some summary. Again and again, through this process, the key messaging to the congregation and all of their audiences is that this is an intentional, prayerful, comprehensive process. We are doing our best, we are being diligent, and so you can basically, you can trust us in that and pray with us for that. The next guiding value was about purposeful and transparent communication. This church is committed to on a regular basis, giving as open message, as open updates as they possibly can and with great purpose. And so they are saying again and again, we are trusting each other, we are bringing you important updates, we are connected to one another, and full of faith for the future. And finally, this is around the guiding value of unity. They are on a regular basis coming back to their audiences and saying, thank you for your support and prayers. We feel them, we know they are here, and we are moving forward in this time. And so they are rallying around these things. Now when there are hard questions or when there is pushback, they are in a caring way handling that, meeting with people, praying with people, but always coming back in a unified way to these guiding values and this key messaging. Okay. Tactical implementation. As you can imagine, when you think about in our case study, the four different phases, there are all kinds of details that kind of fall under each of those phases. But I want to give you some key concepts to have in mind when you're thinking about what you're facing and developing your framework and your plan. So here are some important concepts. You want to be looking at communication tactics for each audience in every phase. If you saw some of the plans that we put together, I mean they are significant, they are detailed. It is a full group effort to communicate about these significant topics in an intentional and really healthy and constructive way. And so when you are facing significant news, hard news, there is some really significant planning that needs to happen. Someone earlier today was asking me about my topic and they said, you know, so basically are you saying you don't want to be willy nilly about communication in important seasons of our church? And it's like, no, this is definitely not. You don't want to be willy nilly. This is not something you're putting together fifteen minutes before it's communicated or fifteen minutes before church service is happening, as much as possible, you want to be as proactive as possible. Now in time, there are some times in a crisis situation where you are putting things together very, very quickly in a few minutes, but hopefully you have some of this framework already built and you can lean into that then when something very suddenly comes up that needs very timely response and communication. So you want to be thinking about each audience in every phase. And then this second point here is that you want to consider what will be done in person, online, or digitally, and in print. And I would just say in seasons where you are communicating significant news, I see again and again that you want a blend of all of these things. You're going to communicate some things in services, in person, or you're going to communicate some things in meetings, in a board meeting, in a staff meeting, maybe in a specially called church meeting. Maybe you do some things in small group settings. But to care for people well, especially when hard news is involved, I have seen again and again that some things done in person really goes a long way to help people feel cared for and to navigate hard news. In addition, there are so many things we want to put out online and digitally to make sure people are having a heads up as much as possible and that your key messaging is getting out to folks to help them navigate well and to know where they can go for additional information. That's a huge piece and we'll touch on that a little bit more in just a moment. And then some print pieces, some signage, I mean depending on what you're facing, some things related to just some pieces that people can have, updates, things they can pray over or take home can be really important as well. So just conceptually, these are some key things to think about with the tactics. Alright. I'm going to hit a few things in the remaining few minutes that we have together and then we'll open it up for questions and answers. I wanted to say in the midst of seasons of change, you want to be thinking about and brainstorming as early as possible what are the questions people are going to have. You know, in your key messaging, you're gonna address the main points of whatever your news is, and you're gonna work on crafting that key messaging with great intention. But then you know people, we are people, there are always a lot of questions and things coming from all different angles and perspectives. And so we work again and again with our church leaders to anticipate as many questions as we possibly can from all the different angles. And we'll if there's time, if it's appropriate, we'll run it by a couple of people to get their input, to say what are we not thinking of, what blind spots do we have, help us be ready, to make this communication. Let me tell you what else this does. When you anticipate all of the questions and you have content to answer all of those questions, we will work with our churches to put that on a webpage or some other, maybe it's an email, whatever is needed in the situation, that becomes a handle for your leaders, your staff, even key volunteers, that as people have hard questions or even as people are saying some things online, you can always point people to that webpage, that online presence, where they can get the information they need. And so that really, when you do the work to anticipate what questions people will be asking, it helps you prepare and be ready. And then oftentimes people are reassured and they're being cared for because you've anticipated what they will be asking about. Alright, there's some dos and don'ts I want to highlight very quickly. Okay. We live in a time where people so value transparency, authenticity. They want to, as much as possible, see your emotion, be part of the journey. This helps them navigate with you. And so as much as you can, you want to come alongside your leaders to ensure that every communication, whether it's in person, whether it's online, whether it's in print, that it's sharing from the heart and that it's authentic and that it's as genuine as possible. You want to lean into the planning and, again, being as proactive as you can be, and you want to lean into that established key messaging. Then you want to be patient. As a leader, and sometimes when we're in these meetings, sometimes we're planning for these big announcements depending on what it is, sometimes for weeks or months in advance. And so you as the leader, you as the communications team, you've processed a lot over the months preparing for what you're you're gonna communicate with your audiences. But you have to remember how the news first hit you when you learned of it, and that's the mindset you want to have as you go to communicate about change. You want to be patient, and you want to help your leaders be available as much as possible. Now, your leaders are busy. They They they don't have time for or the energy for all the one on ones or the hallway conversations. But what can you do to rally your staff, your leaders, and to provide outlets and support? And we could brainstorm more about that if that's something you are grappling with. But that follow-up and that ongoing support so that people know you care in the midst of the change that you're communicating and they they people want to feel seen, they want to be cared for, and they want to move through this with you. And that's that's really important. And then what else do we do? We pray for unity. Pray for unity on the front end as you're planning, that all your leaders would, and you as the communications team and whoever is involved, pray for unity on the front end so that you can move forward and take this communication external and that you would be unified in what is being shared and processed. And then as you move through it and to get to the other side, you pray for unity with your congregation. Right. A couple of quick don'ts. Don't forget God's sovereignty in the process. You know, we do what we can do and we bring our best and we work together, and we pray continually, and then we just we trust God that in the midst of significant seasons, hard change, transitions, that God's at work and His purposes always prevail. And so we lean into that. You don't have to overshare. I've talked I've mentioned a couple times we want to be open, we want to be genuine, we want to be as transparent as possible. There is also really important key messaging to lean into. And sometimes out of nervousness or, we care so much and we want to include others, it's very tempting, especially in a hallway conversation or in the parking lot or with a close friend or your small group or life group. It's so easy to overshare, and we just keep encouraging people to lean into the key messaging. There are certain details that are just it's not beneficial for the whole to know and to process, and so we don't want to overshare. Okay, last couple points. We don't want to overlook the importance of caring relationships during this time. It is so important as leaders, as the communications team that supports the leaders, we want people to know that we care and we want to walk through this. And it's very fair when there is hard news to express this is this is upsetting, this is difficult, we carry this. You know, you can hold in your hands at the same time hurt, grief, disappointment, anger, and you can also we can move through this together, get to a better place, work for understanding, work for problem solving, work for better days, and trust each other and the Lord for where he is taking us. And so to bring that and to weave that through your communication is really, really important. Finally, do you remember last night in the kickoff session, people put in that they were weary warriors. And so I think about how long that line was right here on these screens. So it makes this last point just so important that in the midst of times of change, transition, hard news, we can't neglect our personal well-being. And we want to be eager and diligent and prayerful in this work, and then we also need to set it down at times and get our rest and have some margin. And so that, you know, sometimes when you're all in in these seasons, it's like there is no time to sit down and to collect your thoughts or to get a nap or a good night's rest or whatever is helpful to you, that is where truly it's like, Lord, help help my time multiply because you and your leaders and the people that are involved in this, we have to take care of ourselves to be ready to run the marathon in these seasons. Alright, you guys, just some final key points for you. I hope this has been helpful and encouraging to you. Clear and consistent communication is vital when you're facing these significant times of change and transition. We want to follow good steps and strategies to manage the process effectively, and we want to use those guiding values, and we want to involve our congregation and our community throughout to move together so that in the end, we've built we've continued to build trust. It's not easy, but we continue to build trust, we grow together, and we continue living out our mission and connecting with the community. And so that is my encouragement for you today. And at this time, I'd be happy to take questions, and then I'll be here afterwards. If there's a specific situation that you want to talk through, happy to do that. Thank you.