Issue No. 53 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting is about measurements and metrics and how churches reach out to their “customers.” This week’s book has this note: “It is not according to the taste of the angler, but according to the taste of the fish that one baits the hook.” And this reminder from last week—I’d like to know what you think about these eNewsletters. If you have time, click here and give me feedback in this Three-Minute Survey. I’m listening.
Bill Hoyt quotes the cynic who said, “Churches are very willing to change. They will make any change necessary to keep things the same!” Hoyt muses that churches are reluctant to measure effectiveness because the cold hard facts might require them to change.
This week’s short and succinct book packs a punch. There’s nothing like it on the market and while it focuses on the local church, the application to your parachurch ministry or business is easily transferable. Click here to order Effectiveness by the Numbers: Counting What Counts in the Church, by William R. Hoyt.
Hoyt, the president of NexStep Coaching and Consulting, urges your church to fulfill its kingdom mission by counting. Count conversions and the cost of conversions each year. “The rule of thumb I hold up to churches I coach is a minimum threshold of one conversion per ten worship attendees.”
The book describes how to count attendance breadth and depth, visitor retention, market share (Saddleback Church’s market share is just 4.2 percent in its neighborhood), ministry involvement, community deployment, small groups, the development of leaders, stewardship and tithing, and much more. Bottom line: are you measuring your church’s biblical mandate of making disciples? “Your mission is what you measure,” says Thomas G. Bandy in the foreword.
A “Metrics Manual” appendix lists instructions for using the Excel™ worksheets contained in the CD-ROM included with the book. Hoyt’s humor and easy-to-read style keeps the measurements discussion simplified and the importance of metrics magnified. When an author uses an illustration from The Blues Brothers movie, you know it’s a fun book.
Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
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1.What do we measure, religiously, in our organization?
2. Are we “counting what counts” to measure effectiveness—or just counting?
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Insights from the Management Buckets Workshop Experience
How do you create a culture with both paid staff and unpaid staff (volunteers) that are measurement zealots? You hire them!
In your next interview, ask the job applicant what her top three goals were for the last 12 months—and her success at achieving them. If she is results-savvy, you’ll have her up and running in half the time it normally takes to bring a new person up-to-speed. If you hire a person who is inexperienced in goal-setting and measurements, you will need to invest dozens of hours to bring that person into your results-oriented corporate culture.
Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
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1. What are your top three goals for this year—and who is measuring your performance?
2. Are you measuring the right things to produce kingdom results—and adjusting your priorities to focus on your top goals?
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If a one or two-day offsite retreat would help you focus your team on The Results Bucket and 2008 standards of performance for each team member, I can help you. Email me at John@JohnPearsonAssociates.com.
The Results Bucket is just one of 20 buckets we’ll dip into at the next two-day Management Buckets Workshop Experience, Oct. 31 and Nov. 1, 2007, in Orange County, Calif. Plus, there are two Nonprofit Board Governance Workshops planned this fall: Sept. 20 (Chicago area, co-sponsored by Awana) and Nov. 2 (Orange County, Calif.). Registration forms are posted at www.JohnPearsonAssociates.com.
Download the Management Buckets brochure
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