Important Things We Learned about Nurturing and Evaluating Staff during the Interim Time – Transcript
Jim Latimer
Welcome to Coaching for Interims. We are about empowerment for interim ministry, best practices and quick help – wisdom from the field. This is our collaborative Wisdom from the Field project featuring short interviews with transitional interim ministers and others with practical help and wisdom to offer those engaged in transitional ministry. Thank you for tuning into this episode of wisdom from the field.
Jim Latimer
Today we have with us not one but two wise and skilled ministers. Reverend Peter Ilgenfritz is a transitional interim minister while Reverend Todd Weir is a settled minister. And Todd is serving as settled minister at the church where Peter served as the interim for two years immediately prior to Todd. Todd now has been at this congregation for about 18 months. And the reason I wanted to have this three-way conversation – to have Todd and Peters speak to each other – is because we all know the value of feedback, right? I mean, there’s feedback that you get in the moment, and that’s helpful. But there’s also feedback that really can’t happen until some time passes, the further-down-the-road type of feedback. And this type of feedback is really hard for interims to get because we interims do our work, and then we leave. We leave the congregation. That’s our job. Rarely do interims get detailed thoughtful feedback about how things turned out after we have left, you know, the fruit of our labors or the rest of the story, if you will. Such as, what does the settled minister most appreciate about the work that we did? Or, what are some things the settled minister would have liked the interim to have attended to that for some reason were not attended to? Or, what about things the interims did that the settled minister really appreciates, but didn’t realize that the interim did it, and perhaps really sweated over it? There are things that the interim may want to say to the settled minister, and vice versa, but they’ve never had the chance – until now.
Jim Latimer
And so, now in this next episode, here, Todd and Peter, thank you again for joining us in this conversation. The theme of this episode, episode number three is, What have we learned about nurturing and evaluating staff members during the interim time? And Peter, if you could start this, that’d be great.
Peter Ilgenfritz
I’d say just to begin with that the piece about empowering and equipping staff and supporting staff has always been at a center of my approach to interim ministry, along with empowering lay leadership, because those two need to go hand in hand and strengthening both parts of the governance structure and leadership of the church. So, boy, what an incredible gift to come into Boothbay Harbor and have five incredibly gifted staff members to work with as colleagues. And we all met an immediate challenge. Within five weeks of my starting the pandemic came to midcoast Maine, and everybody’s job descriptions, responsibilities, became more than tweaked. They radically changed and opened up! There were lots of discoveries about people’s new gifts that they had, that those were brought forth, whole new job descriptions to meet needs, like with our AV tech at the church. And so just an incredibly dynamic time.
Peter Ilgenfritz
What was also apparent in this time is something that was an old story that was in the way of the staff’s being empowered – knowing their roles, responsibilities connected to the larger church – was that there hadn’t been an evaluation process in years. And so, gifted with an empowering a Personnel Committee, and particularly bringing in the leadership of a highly skilled and thoughtful former personnel director, we designed – I with the Personnel Committee, and particularly with John on the Committee – a whole evaluation process, presented it, met with the staff, individually talked with them about it, what the purpose of this was. And that was to really get up to date with everything from job descriptions, providing evaluation. And clarifying – asking them what was in the way of their thriving and being able to live into the fullness of their roles. And that process was an incredibly important one.
Jim Latimer
Gathering the staff together and one-on-one, or collectively, What’s getting in the way of your thriving in your role? Wow. What a powerful question and way to lead.
Peter Ilgenfritz
And I think one of the places that did get revealed in this is that all of the leadership responsibility dynamics are also changing during this time and how people carry out those responsibilities. And so, it did get revealed that one member of the staff was really empowered and living much more fully into the hopes of that role, gifts that were coming forth, that was a real challenge for another staff member to be in that new dynamic.
Peter Ilgenfritz
So again, I just can’t emphasize enough being in partnership – not doing this alone and giving this work back to the Personnel Committee, and particularly with my working with one of those members on these issues. So, we could really get in the weeds of all this and have the conversations, and then bring feedback to the Personnel Committee.
Jim Latimer
Yes. So, two things there. The first thing I heard you say was that there was no staff evaluation, no formal evaluation process in place, and you insisted that, No, we need to have something. It may not be perfect, but we’ve got to have something. And you involved the lay leaders in creating that. So, that then empowers them.
Peter Ilgenfritz
It empowers them in creating that. A couple of people from the Personnel Committee sat in with me, and we lead together all of the staff evaluation processes – including the evaluations, meetings with the staff, since as the interim, I was going to be gone. And who then in that system was going to know in a much more intimate level what the issues are as a whole about personnel, and specifically, would help with the role, the church’s role, with each of those individual staff. And that felt so important to do. And again, we were really gifted by some great leadership on the Personnel Committee to help shape that and do that.
Jim Latimer
So, Todd, from your point of view, what are you hearing here?
Todd Weir
It’s so critical. I think in the interim period it is quite common that churches do not have evaluation processes. And I’ve walked into that situation more than once, where those kinds of things just weren’t established. It didn’t happen. And long-term staff were just kind of rolled over, and we’re all friends. Especially, you know, smaller towns where those staff are often members. And a couple of our staff are members of the church here. And so, it’s tricky to walk into that. And in some ways, it doesn’t matter what the process is for evaluation, it just needs to happen. Because then staff expect it: Oh, okay, we’ve had one of these before. You know, I have just a different process than what was in place. So, I didn’t follow the same thing. But it was super helpful to have it. And the fact that those are written evaluations are also helpful.
Todd Weir
Right after I came in, the head of Personnel, his wife had a very serious surgery that didn’t go well. She ended up on a ventilator for months. And this key layperson in Personnel was driving to Portland an hour each way for the next few months and I couldn’t lean on that person at all. And there was a very tricky rivalry on the staff to navigate. And so, having a written evaluation that showed how this was addressed, provided helpful clarity. To me, the particular process isn’t as important as saying, What’s expected? What are the expectations? What are we hoping to have happen here? Where is this person feeling tension? What do they need? I love how Peter talks about what’s in the way of thriving.
Todd Weir
Having that spelled out so well was really good. Because you come into a situation new, you don’t know all the background and each staff person is kind of lobbying you, right? Oh, we’ve got a new person, let’s, start this whole battle all over again and see if we can get the new pastor on our side! And to be able to say, Hey, I was looking at your evaluation, and this looks like it must have been a tough thing that you’ve been trying to work on. How is it going? My understanding from reading the evaluation is that this is what was supposed to happen. Is that still your understanding? So, just like when you do your algebra problems, and the teacher would say, Show your work, right? Show your work, what you’ve done with the staff, so that there’s a paper trail to be able to pick up on, especially if you know that there are things that just aren’t resolved.
Jim Latimer
I love that, Show your work! All of us in school have had that, especially in math. If you don’t show your work, you know…but if you do show your work and still get the wrong answer, you’ll get almost all the points! But that takes extra time to write it out. And to get it written in a way that’s fair and all. But without that, then the settled pastor, when they come in, you don’t really know what to expect. It’s back to, He Said, She Said. You don’t have anything to go from. You don’t have a place to start the conversation, no objective piece that we can start with.
Peter Ilgenfritz
That’s really helpful to hear that Todd. And, you know, it’s those pieces of next steps of sitting down and writing that up, putting that in the file, you know, having that. And, it’s sometimes realizing that no one may ever look at it again. And then there’s occasions where, as you mentioned, that’s really helpful. And I really liked what you said, in terms of the frame for holding this. It wasn’t about a technical fix, like, here’s the evaluation form we’re going to use, and we love this. Because that wasn’t ever what we had. We had, Well, we’re doing this. We’re asking these questions. We’re doing this this time. But it was to make a culture shift, I think, with the Personnel Committee to say, Oh, this is an expectation that we have of ourselves, that our staff need to have regular annual reviews and a chance to have a conversation about what’s working and what’s in the way.
Todd Weir
And you know, the follow up was that this situation did indeed blow up and one of the people left. And because it was handled in sort of a step by step fashion, the person that left is still a member of the church. And that’s the real tricky piece of this, right? It sends a ripple through the whole church if a staff person leaves, and they leave the church as a member. And their spouse leaves to, and their spouse was maybe the best bass or whatever, you know.
Jim Latimer
The choir – we need everybody can get!
Todd Weir
Right. Exactly. So, the fact that that person could separate from the job, but not the church, I think, was a real testimony to the process, and to really be able to let it go. But I guess what I’d say is, I can imagine being an interim, you want to leave a clean slate. You’d love to just like solve all the cultural problems, solve all the staffing problems, and leave the new person with this great setup. And first of all, you can’t. And it’s okay. If anything, the fact is that we did resolve this personnel challenge. I mean, everybody that was involved in the church knew that this was a problem. And the fact that it got resolved sort of on my watch was actually really good for me. And it’s okay to leave some things out there for the new pastor to wrestle with. I’d say the important thing is just don’t step over anything. Make sure it gets talked about out. Document it. Pass it on. And then it’ll get worked out or it won’t.
Peter Ilgenfritz
That’s right. And I think that was a key part of that letting go. From my part, as Todd said, yeah, it’d be wonderful for your ego to say, Oh, my gosh, look, I solved everything! Everything’s fine. And you’re not walking into any problems! Which would be a delusion. But, it was again, so good to talk this through with the church leaders, and saying, What’s ours? Here are the things that are being revealed. What’s ours to move on, make decisions about? And in any case, what does that do to Todd? How does that help or hinder his ministry?
Peter Ilgenfritz
And in this case, it was the gift of being able to talk to Todd before he started. And after he’d been called by the church to say, Hey, well, these are some realities were leaving you. And this is where they are. And that just fills me with such joy to know how that transition happened for that staff person. Because, Oh, my gosh, they found their way to a new story and into life! And again, in that case, it was balancing. It was both being very clear about expectations and naming those. And, key pastoral conversations, and deep care for this person. And in this particular way and form it wasn’t working. And to leave that in the trust of God, and Todd (!) it would be worked out, or not.
Jim Latimer
Yes. As interim ministers, it’s not our congregation, and certainly not our congregation to fix. And we can’t fix everything anyway. But to love them and do the best we can not to step over important things. Which means we got to be as aware as possible of what these things are, and then deal with them. So that’s really sweet. Is there anything else that we have? This feels like we are coming to completion here.
Todd Weir
The last little thing I’d say, I think that these evaluations are also good for the congregation, not just the staff. And it’s back to how a key role of the interim is helping the congregation come to terms with who they are, how they function. And it’s an important time to say, Hey, is this staff, is it working? Is this what we want?
Peter Ilgenfritz
So much of this work – just to echo that – is about clarity – about making things clear. If you make things clear, and then they can go forward in whatever 1000 different forms. But just working to make things clear, and removing barriers, getting things out of the way. So that there can be thriving in life that again, could take 1000 different forms about that.
Jim Latimer
Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for helping us learn more about nurturing and evaluating staff members during the interim time – how it can go, how it went in your specific case or your congregation. Good. This is really rich. Peter and Todd, thank you so much for your time and your wisdom. Onward!
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