The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
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The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
The Real Cost of Putting the Wrong Person in the Right Role
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What's worse than a bad hire, a convincing one. They crushed the interview. They checked every box, they had the title, they had the connections, they had the experience. But three months in your team's on edge, trust is slipping and you're wondering what in the world did we miss? Today on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast, we're going to talk about the real cost, putting the wrong person in the right role and how to stop it before it happens again.
Speaker 1:Stick around, hi there, my name is Todd Rhodes and I am one of the co-founders over at chemistrystaffingcom and you're listening to the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. All right, let's talk about what I call the resume mirage. Impressive doesn't always mean a line. Okay, we've all seen them. The resume on paper. Man, it screams superstar, maybe big name churches, maybe some bold responsibilities.
Speaker 1:But here's the truth. Great resumes don't reveal how somebody handles tension, how they give feedback or how they show up when nobody's watching. You can only tell so much on paper. And another interesting truth is and you know this, but it's hard when you're hiring and you see this stellar piece of paper in front of you Ministry isn't just about past roles, it's about present culture and just because they led at a megachurch or someplace that you know, or because they came as a recommendation from a friend, doesn't mean that they're going to thrive in your specific church. So you have to ask yourself are we hiring a portfolio or are we hiring a person? Are we choosing credentials or are we choosing chemistry?
Speaker 1:Culture fit is not just a buzzword, it's a lifeline. A DNA mismatch is ministry cancer. A lot of times it can be slow growing, but it's deadly. Other times it metastasizes quickly. Right, but DNA mismatch is a ministry cancer. They might believe the same theology, but do they live out the same values? And here's the truth. I want you to hear me on this. We work with churches and staff members every day and I can tell you this with certainty One wrong staff member can shift your entire team's tone. Are they passive-aggressive in meetings? Do they avoid conflict? Is their leadership style kind of command and control? Why yours and the rest of your team is more collaborative and coaching?
Speaker 1:Culture isn't built in the big decisions. It's forged every day. You know this. It's forged every day, in everyday interactions, and one person out of sync, just one person, can undo years of culture building. In months.
Speaker 1:One bad hire can throw a torch on years of great hires and a lot of times this is the fallout that nobody really sees coming, at least at first. Bad hires don't just hurt the organizational chart, they wound people as well. Now you may not feel it right away, but over time here's what happens when you have a bad hire or a person on your team that doesn't fit your culture, other people on your team, other normally high performers, are going to start to disengage. Staff can start walking on eggshells, team meetings start to feel fake, vision kind of loses traction and, the worst part, across the organization you start to lose trust, not just in the hire but in the leadership who made the hire, and you start to lose trust slowly in each other. And let me tell you, trust once it's cracked it's expensive to rebuild and sometimes that trust can never really fully return. Thanks, todd, this is really encouraging. How do I hire for DNA, not just doctrine and duties? You have to remember the right role plus the wrong person is going to equal chaos. All right, the right person plus the right culture is going to equal momentum. So here's what you need to do before you say yes and we tell this to our churches all the time Once we take them a candidate and they start their own interview process and the discernment as to whether this is going to be a great staff member and whether this candidate brings the chemistry and the culture fit that they need.
Speaker 1:Here's what we tell them that they need to do before they say yes Get some real cultural references, not just the ones that they give you. Talk with them. You're going to spend a lot of time. At least you should be spending at least a couple of visits before you make that hire in most circumstances, To get to know them and to also talk about the people that they know and the people that you can talk to that can kind of speak to how they speak culturally. Okay, ask some behavior-based questions in your interviews. Things like tell me at a time that you had to confront a teammate, okay. So those kind of things. Every culture in every church is different. But if you need some help coming up with some culture-wise conversations or questions, I can totally help you do that. But every culture is different but you need to ask some culture related questions, not just theology, not just skills and abilities questions, but really put some emphasis into tell us how you feel about how you do this and how you relate with people and how you're going to be able to live in this town and those kinds of things. Those culture-related and fit questions are really important. Use some team-based interviews to watch how they interact across roles. You want to have them interact with your staff and with people in your congregation as much as possible before you make the hire. And this last one's really important Don't ignore red flags in discernment.
Speaker 1:If something feels off, it's a legitimate reason to at least push pause, and we've had churches come back to us and say, todd, we really like this person. We don't know what it is, though, but something just feels off, and that's a red flag in discernment, and sometimes you just need to. You at least need to pause. Sometimes you need to walk away when something just feels off. You like the person you think they'd probably be. Walk away. When something just feels off, you like the person. You think they'd probably be great, but something just doesn't in your spirit. There's a check that says this isn't right, but you got to trust your team. If your staff has hesitations, listen, because they'll be the ones working with this person daily, all right, so here's the bottom line Next time someone seems like the right person, the right hire, just hit pause. You don't have to hit pause forever, but pause, okay. Look past the resume. Stop being enamored with the paper and ask the deeper questions. Trust your gut and protect your team culture at all costs. You will call me and thank me and say that you were glad that you did that.
Speaker 1:If there's any way that I can help you in your church with kind of this culture assessment of candidates, this is something that we do with every search that we do with every candidate in every church that we do, we have a cultural assessment that we do. We call it church culture and DNA. We want to make sure that any candidate that we do we have a cultural assessment that we do. We call it church culture and DNA. We want to make sure that any candidate that we send to any church is going to be a good fit culturally. But that's just one piece. They also have to be I'm not discounting theology. There has to be a theology fit. There has to be the culture fit. There has to be a personality fit with them and your team and there has to be. They have to be able to do the. They have to have the skills and ability they need to be able to do the job description. So a lot of different things.
Speaker 1:Hiring for churches is tough. There are so many things that can go wrong and I'm here to help you. Chemistry staffing is here to help you, and if there's any way that I can help your church either hiring or maybe firing or just becoming a healthier church staff I would love to have a conversation with you. You can reach out to me anytime. Podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. All right, I hope this has been helpful for you today. The cost of a bad hire is incredible and you really need to make sure that culture fit. Is there Better to take your time in hiring beforehand than to hire quickly and discover six months, nine months, 18 months in? Oh, my goodness, we made a huge mistake here. I hope that's been helpful to you today. Join me again right here tomorrow on the Healthy Church Step Podcast. We you have a great week.
