Establishing Expectations to Build Trust in Teams
Planning Center is complete, and everyone has accepted their invitation. The stage layout is updated, the lines are patched, and everything has been line-checked. The lyrics and sermon notes are in ProPresenter, and everything is spelled correctly. This is going to be a good day…
It is six a.m. Call time. The alarm went off at the correct time, and your favorite black shirt was ready. There was no traffic on the way here, so you’ve got an extra ten minutes. Where’s the coffee…
Whoa, what a morning! Today was a utopia. Everything turned on, and all the cues were on point. Why can’t every week be like this one?
So many Sundays, we are in the weeds, and things feel like they are coming together only through grace and the Holy Spirit. You did nothing different this week than you usually do. Did you get lucky? Could there be a way to make this morning the new normal and not the exception?
The expectation of excellence is at the heart of my emotions about this morning. Sometimes, the expectations are met, and sometimes, we fall short. Why can't the team get it right?
Does your team even know what the expectation is? If they knew the expectation of excellence, would they be able to achieve that expectation more consistently? Let’s take a moment to discuss three ways to define and inspect the expectations that consistently promote excellent production value.
First, the expectation must be defined. As a team leader, your team depends on you to set the expectations. For your team, what is the definition of excellence? To know this, the team leader must understand where the expectation originates. Sometimes, the expectations are laid out by senior leadership or the Pastor. Still, in many situations, the expectations of senior leadership are not as high as the expectations technical leaders place on themselves. Without the definition of expectation, the team you lead will never know if they have hit the mark, and you will have little ability to communicate to them when they have exceeded or not met expectations.
Expectations differ from team to team, church to church, or event to event. A leader from another team may have expectations of the production team that are either verbally expressed or inherently projected onto the production team. Sometimes, they are not able to articulate the expectations. You may even hear more of the vision than you expected. That is where you, as the Technical Leader, need to begin to develop the execution of your craft for the vision. How will your team operate to achieve this vision? Be careful not to build an expectation too large that outweighs the vision. Establishing the expectations from all invested leaders assures that the team is speaking in the same terms and is focused on the same goals. Once this is established, detailed communication, both during celebration and correction, can take place.
Second, the result must be inspected through the lens of the expectation. A saying rings true here: “What gets measured is what gets done.” Now that the team knows what is expected of excellence, it is time to measure its effectiveness in carrying out the vision and expectations. But what does excellence mean, and how is that manifested in the performance of the team members? As with any vision, a point of reference must establish the expectation. The team needs to be shown what excellence looks like. Training and reviews are a great way to explain to a team what the expectation looks like and how that differs from the pursuit of subjective perfection.
Third, the expectations that were met must be reinforced, and the unmet expectations must be addressed. Volunteer leadership can be delicate to navigate and motivate. Volunteers like to get the “W” as much as you do as a leader. Volunteers do not mind being held to an expectation when that expectation is known, the win is celebrated, and accountability is present across the team. Teams support each other and celebrate the victories of other teams as well. Building a culture where teams are not isolated and compared allows them to celebrate others. Teams will also share the burden of others, empathize with hardship, and jump in to help another team when the vision and goal are the same.
That is what teams do.
Kevin Poole | @kevinrpoole
