It is often much easier to create a positive culture than repair a negative one. However, if you’ve identified that your church culture needs some help, fixing what’s wrong is not impossible. With the adoption of a clear strategy and a few consistent behaviors, you can overhaul the outlook of your entire church staff.
1. Address the problem.
Start by acknowledging the issue. Gather your team and identify the negative environment and your plans to change it. To avoid getting off on the wrong foot, aim to set a positive vision for where you are going. This meeting is your first step toward improving your culture, so instead of verbally analyzing the source of the problem or pointing fingers, talk about the negativity as if it is an uninvited guest that you and the team will eject together.
By addressing the problem, you are setting a clear, public boundary between the old culture and the new one. And you are inviting everyone to join you in expelling the unwanted intruder of negativity.
2. Identify your champions.
Find and deputize the naturally positive people on your team. Their job is not to “fix” the culture or chastise negative individuals. You just want to release them to do what they do best—counter organizational toxins by injecting conversations and situations with optimism and cheerfulness.
Like a candle in a dark room, this strategy combats negativity by contrast. Every time the naturally hopeful people find a silver lining in a discussion or respond to gossip by finding something positive to say about an absent individual, they confront the culture in an affirming, genuine way. You can support these individuals by regularly encouraging and thanking them for how they are setting an example for your staff as a whole.
3. Find the root of the problem.
To paraphrase Leo Tolstoy, “All positive staff cultures are alike; each negative culture is unhappy in its own way.” To change an unhealthy environment, identify and come up with a time-bound, measurable, specific plan to deal with the source problem. The underlying issue in your organization could be any number of things, such as:
- Inadequate communication from leadership
- Poorly understood expectations
- Difficult or underperforming staff members
- Lack of appreciation or compensation
- Micromanagement resulting in poor morale
It will be valuable for you to request anonymous feedback from the staff at large to inform your efforts, but addressing that feedback is solely a leadership responsibility. Any attempt to publicly analyze possible sources for the culture problem will only diminish morale. So get your leadership team together and charitably discuss the root problem and how you plan to deal with it.
4. Bond as a team.
Team-building activities get a bad rap because they can often be executed poorly. When done well, however, they give staff members the opportunity to connect on a human level, and those personal connections strengthen the organization’s efficacy and productivity. As people grow more comfortable with each other, they find it easier to collaborate, brainstorm, and problem solve. So find some fun projects or experiences you can do outside of the office as a team.
As you do your bonding activities, be aware of the current social dynamics. Chances are that your team already has cliques. This means that there is already an insider/outsider dynamic which might work against the activities you have planned. Find ways to bring anyone on the periphery of the team into the center.
5. Recognize and celebrate achievements.
One common reason for a negative workplace atmosphere is because team members feel unacknowledged and unappreciated for their hard work and contributions. It is hard to convince people to invest in the culture when they feel undervalued. One solution to this problem is pretty straightforward—create a culture of thankfulness.
Find ways to celebrate team wins and individual accomplishments. It does not have to be a dramatic or expensive gesture. Often a simple public acknowledgment can make a difference. When people feel valued, they become more personally invested in the cultural climate.
Set a course and stick to it.
A negative staff culture erodes productivity and morale. It puts a drag on the ultimate mission, which is to grow the Kingdom of God. The longer a negative culture is allowed to fester, the harder it becomes to attract good workers and keep your best partners.
Performing a mid-course correction on a negative culture is not easy, but it is necessary. You cannot expect the shift to happen overnight. But if you identify a strategy and follow it consistently, change is possible. As a leader, it’s your responsibility to determine the course and steer the ship. You can do it!
Let’s journey together.
You don’t need to do ministry alone. You can find opportunities to connect, plus more content and conversations about church administration, at XP Summit: xpsummit.org.
