Harmonizing Voices: The Symphony of Collaborative Leadership and the Joy of Chocolate-Dipped Camaraderie

Ever wondered how a group of diverse minds can forge an outcome greater than the sum of its parts? Dr. Dean Posey and I, Tim Lansford, reveal the intricate dance of collaboration that elevates leadership to new heights. From the construction sites to the halls of faith, our personal tales and historical vignettes showcase the synergy of combined human effort. We're not just talking about mere cooperation; we're celebrating the transformative impact of a shared vision and the remarkable things that happen when everyone chips in with their unique perspectives and skills.

Join the conversation as we unwrap the essence of collaborative leadership, with a focus on how trust and empowerment play pivotal roles. Imagine a church staff meeting sparked by a simple whiteboard, ideas flowing and responsibilities assigned, all entrenched in mutual respect and accountability. Our anecdotes and tried-and-tested strategies provide a blueprint for leaders eager to enhance their team's dynamic, driving home the power of reflection on both outcomes and the journey itself. It's about building trust brick by brick and reaping the rewards of a chorus of empowered voices.

But it's not all work and no play; Dr. Posey and I also take a detour into the realms of family fun and chocolate delights, because life's simple pleasures can teach us a thing or two about leadership as well. Whether you're a seasoned leader or aspiring to be one, this episode is a treasure trove of insights wrapped up with a good dose of humor and an invitation to savor both the sweetness of success and life's chocolatey treats. So, ready to amplify your leadership through the magic of collaboration? Tune in and join our vibrant discussion.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:07

Welcome. Oh huh, now yeah, uh-huh, yeah, Come on, come on. Welcome to another edition of the Biblical Leadership Show.

Speaker 2: 0:33

Hey Tim, how you doing, Wonderful how are you doing?

Speaker 1: 0:37

I'm doing fantastic. Well, we got some full bellies. We decided to go eat before we started this thing, so hopefully we won't take a nap or anything, cs the time or something over here, hey, thank you for joining. My name is Tim Lansford. With me is Dr Dean Posey. We're glad to be with you, talk a little bit about the Biblical, talk a little bit about the leadership, and throw in an occasional dad joke or something Of course, and these might be lame today. I know.

Speaker 2: 1:04

I just want to warn the audience for now.

Speaker 1: 1:07

Yeah, we were looking at some of them before. We're like, oh, what'd you pick, what'd you get?

Speaker 2: 1:12

Oh, there's some groaners. There can be some groaners. I'm just going to warn there could be some potential groaners.

Speaker 1: 1:17

Potential groaners. They might all be potential groaners to you, but they're even more potential groaners today.

Speaker 2: 1:23

If we think they're groaners, then they could be real groaners. We're big dad joke fans.

Speaker 1: 1:30

Word of the day today Collaboration, collaboration. Well, let's do a collaboration on this podcast and talk about collaboration. That sounds fantastic to me. So what's collaboration to you? What do you think?

Speaker 2: 1:44

I think it's working together. It could be with two people or a group of people to produce or create something that hasn't been created before, so it could be working for shared vision. A project you know you're a home builder. Yes.

Speaker 1: 2:01

You've been for decades. Yes.

Speaker 2: 2:04

And that's an example of collaboration with all your subs.

Speaker 1: 2:07

Yeah, I got a collaboration right now because we started a new job and we're working on the foundation. But foundation doesn't mean the concrete people are coming in. That means the tree grubbers to the dirt work people, to the truck drivers dropping off loads of dirt to us, to the plumbers, the electrician have to run the pipes to the foundation. We have a lot of touches that have to hit that little process of just getting ready to put a foundation in.

Speaker 2: 2:40

But I would say and I don't have a whole lot of experience I did work for a sheetrock crew and an electrician when I was in high school, but they all have to follow the same architectural plans.

Speaker 1: 2:50

I know I should have had you in here when I was doing the run the location. You should have had me hanging sheetrock in the new office.

Speaker 2: 2:55

I could have messed up some sheetrock for you. It's been a few years since I've done that, but I always enjoyed it. You know making a mess, but they all have to follow. You know collaboration. One of the key things for success in that is they all have to have a common vision. Everybody's got to buy into the vision, and so if your subs don't buy into the architectural drawings, you know which have to be done before anyone's got to lay out the vision for what the customer or what the end goal, what the outcome objective is. Before anybody starts, someone has to define that. Now, sometimes that definition comes by working collaboratively to figure out what is our. Here's the situation. You know the problem. We've got to solve this. Let's figure out how to do that and let's work on it together to figure out the vision, and then we work on it together to figure out the solution.

Speaker 1: 3:52

Yeah, problem solving and a collaboration is probably one of my biggest things. You can sit down and you can go through everything and if you everybody has a piece of the puzzle and if you do brainstorming and that's going to allow you to get to the problem solving a lot faster. We're going to have different views. You know. We all come from different backgrounds. We all look something. You know. The way you problem solve, the way I problem solve, compared to if we had another person in here that grew up in the streets, that lived out of his car, couldn't eat, but every third day it's going to problem solve a little bit different than you know. Everybody in this room you know and that's what you look at is what do you bring to the table? We all bring diverse backgrounds, we all bring experiences and if you can put that all together, that's going to allow you to move forward and be able to accomplish great things.

Speaker 2: 4:43

Exactly right, but you also need to know the strengths and weaknesses of the team. I'll just throw out an example. This was several years ago. We were working on building a building at the church and there was probably about 10 or 12 of us that were working with architect to just fine tune the things and to come up with a budget and those kind of things, and this one particular man who owned his own business.

Speaker 2: 5:12

We were all going one direction and this guy was really silent. He was a pretty much silent guy, strong, you know Christian very silent type, but knew what he was doing. And he finally spoke up and he said you know, I disagree with every single one of you about this. I think we don't need to do that. I think that'd be a mistake. I think we need to go this way. Well, that allowed us to stop and process his comment and it came out that he was right. And so when we collaborate, we need to be sure that everybody has a voice at the table, because the person who is more vocal might dominate the conversation and really have it his or her way. The person who's quiet and that quiet strength thinker might really have a great solution. But if we don't allow that person to enter into the conversation, then we might be missing out on some really positive things for the group.

Speaker 1: 6:10

I had to smile over in Chuckle because recently my father passed right and one of the things that came out is digging through, looking through things, they found my report cards from kindergarten. Wow, and yeah, I know I was like wow for one. We had report cards and there was three things that came out of those report cards. It was one year in kindergarten One of them. The first one was Tim needs to learn to keep his hands himself.

Speaker 2: 6:38

And I was like what does that mean, right? I?

Speaker 1: 6:41

want to call the teacher and figure out what that's at. The second one was Tim needs to let other students, other kids, answer the question.

Speaker 2: 6:52

And I'm like wow, I started that one really young.

Speaker 1: 6:56

And the third one on one of the report cards that says too much to write. Just need a parent teacher conference. What, what is this about? Wow, so it did start early didn't it? Oh my gosh, it must have started way early. So we were rolling. My sister was sending me this stuff and I'm like wow, I don't even know what to say about that. You know, I want to know more.

Speaker 2: 7:19

Yeah, what stimulated that I?

Speaker 1: 7:22

wonder. So as soon as you said that, I was like oh yeah, I'll let the other person talk right Now. One of the things that we need to discuss here is in collaboration, and I think it's very strong is you need a strong leader when you have a large group. I mean, if you've ever been in there and you put 20 people in a room to try to come up with one decision, it's a long road right.

Speaker 1: 7:46

It's a long road because we all have different experiences, we all different values, different things that we talk about. So you need that strong leader. You need that person that's going to step up and say, all right, this one, this one and this one is the best, and let's go through these and start moving down this direction.

Speaker 2: 8:01

Exactly right, and so let me. I shared this before we started, but let me just share it now. Years ago, I was a coach for some elementary school kids in a program called Odyssey of the Mind, and it was a. It's a basically a problem creative, problem solving program that works at all levels of education, and I'll just give you one example of what we did one year. I did a coach for several years in this. It was a lot of fun.

Speaker 2: 8:30

I worked with like third, fourth, fifth, sixth graders, and the problem was this you had to take a certain amount of balsa wood, and I can't remember how many grams, but you could only use a certain number of grams of balsa wood. You had to build a structure that held on the inside of it, not on the right on the outside, but on the inside at ping pong ball. And so you'd build a structure, and then the goal at this competition was you had to put weight. So there was a two pound weight, a five pound weight, 10 pound weight and the, and the challenge was to put as much weight on this balsa wood structure before it collapsed. And then, when it collapsed, the ping pong ball had to shoot out of this structure without getting crushed. That was one of the challenges. So I didn't I did not set that goal. That was a goal set by the competition.

Speaker 2: 9:27

My job was to manage and have the kids work collaboratively to to figure out, okay, how are we going to build this structure.

Speaker 2: 9:36

And we went through I mean, this was an entire school year project and we went through several options of of design and and building and crushing and trying it again and trying again. And I think that collaboration is a process. It's not like an event is. It depends on the, the, the vision size and the effects of the vision, the outcome objectives. You know you might have a standup meeting in the hallway and decide where to go to lunch Okay Well, okay, well. That's one thing. But if you're deciding on a new product for your business or a new home or a relocation for your church or your business, you're going to have new offices, then that might take a little bit longer and you're going to need input from a lot of people and it takes a good leader to be able to share the vision but not try to be in control of the outcome and allow the team to have some input to work together for that common goal.

Speaker 1: 10:35

Yes, yes, yes. So let me ask you a couple of questions. Sure, so how are? How has collaboration tie into some of these biblical things that?

Speaker 2: 10:47

a lot of our people are wondering.

Speaker 1: 10:51

So give me an idea of some good stories, or some good references, maybe, that you have in your head.

Speaker 2: 10:56

Well, there are several. Then if you, if you look like, if you look at that word as a filter and you read the Bible from one end to the other, you will see a lot of examples of that, and the first one I would just point out would be Moses being called by God to lead the people out of Egypt. And his brother and him, Aaron, worked together to talk to the, to the elders of the Jewish people in Egypt. When they let him out then evident Moses knew he wasn't not going to be able to go into the promised land, so his like second in command Joshua, he was training him and they worked together to to finally get the people to the place where they were going to come across the promised land. But before that all happened, there were so many people that that Moses could not handle all the issues that came up, and so there were there's a portion in the Bible in the book of Exodus 17, where Moses is encouraged by his father-in-law to get other men that were appointed, 70 people that would deal with the smaller issues. If there was a big issue it would come to Moses, but the smaller issues would be handled by these 70 other people and they had to work together for the community of the Jewish people coming out of Egypt to be a community, to develop into a community. So that would be one of them. The next one I would think that would be significant would be Nehemiah. The city of Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC and and the and the city stayed in ruins for a long time. Nehemiah comes along the scene, he goes back to Jerusalem, sees that the walls are still torn down and he rallies the people to to work on the wall that was in front of their home. So not one person did the entire wall around Jerusalem. There was a worked by dozens and hundreds of people to to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. So that would be an incredible example of that Early church.

Speaker 2: 13:15

One of the biggest issues of the early church was how does someone become a Christian? Do they need to become a Jew first and then become a Christian? And so we read in the book of Acts, chapter 15, about the first Jerusalem council, and they dealt with that issue. There's a fascinating story about how they had to deal with that issue and they said no, you know. The result was no, you don't have to do that. There's a certain things that we ask you to follow as far as eating meat with idols and sexual immorality and those kind of things. But you don't have to follow the laws of Moses, you don't have to become Jew in order, you don't have to be circumcised in order to become a Christian, and that was a huge decision. But it it took that those early church leaders to work together to solve that issue and it affects the rest of Christian history.

Speaker 2: 14:06

And so some of our decisions we might not think are that important, but they do affect potentially our business for the next year or five years. They affect our employees or you know those kind of things. So just because it might not seem like a big decision, the effects of that are huge. And then one last one I'll throw out would be we read in the in the book of Matthew, chapter 28, when Jesus commissions the, his disciples, to go and preach, you know, the gospel, and go and baptize around the world, teaching what he has taught them. And so you know he's charging them to work together to spread the gospel throughout the world. So those are just a few examples. There's lots of examples about working collaborative, you know, in the scripture, but those are just a few of the ones that come to my mind.

Speaker 1: 14:56

Yeah, one of the things I can tie in the corporate leadership side is is this sort of comes to mind is that is when, when we write a mission statement, when we write a vision statement for a company, that's sort of like the goal we're putting it up. You know, and and in the instances some of the stories you quoted they had a goal and then they start delegating out to different people to share that goal. But you have to have that vision up there and then, with collaboration, everybody does their strengths, their weaknesses and well, their strengths, really not really their weaknesses but they're all working towards that goal through where they might be. So, from the corporate leader standpoint, to have that clear, achievable goal put up on your website, put up on your walls. You know, and I've mentioned it many times in our podcast before that I go in a lot of my training programs and I ask them one of the first questions is do you know your mission statement?

Speaker 1: 15:52

And literally probably 10% of the people of all my seminars I've ever gave knew their mission statement. Just, most people don't know their mission statement, they don't know your vision statement, they don't know the values of the company. We talked about values last week a lot and those core values and somehow, if you're going to be a collaborative leader and you're going to be the person putting in this house, you need to put the thing where they can throw the dart at the top. And everybody worked towards making that happen and you've seen it over time, from biblical all the way to corporate. There's certain steps that you have to do.

Speaker 2: 16:32

Yeah, exactly, and so one of the big values of that you know those people working together as a team. You've got to trust you first of all. You have to acknowledge your strengths and your weaknesses, but you also have to trust the other people on the team and trust their, their strengths and and then trust you know their opinions and their thoughts and their processes. And it would be very normal when I was pastoring for us, when we had a meeting to discuss certain things and you know, over the years we discussed a lot I would use we had this massive whiteboard and it was a joke with the staff. Anytime, you know, we had staff meeting and it was my turn to speak, which I was always last I'd get up on the whiteboard and get a marker and start writing and ask for input and those kind of things, and and so. But one of the things is I wanted to solicit responses from the staff and and and. Just, you know we're talking about whether, you know, with Easter service coming up or we having a special thing for the community or whatever.

Speaker 2: 17:41

Let's think this through together how are we going to have the best thing this year? Whatever that thing was could be a mission project, it could be a sporting event, it could be a special concert, it could be what? How can we work together to make this thing the best it could be? And and so not only did we have that, but out of that we have to come up with a timeline and responsibilities, and and what is? What are those things that are built in? If you can work collaboratively, okay, the end up to come objective in six months from now is to do this. Well, in five months. We need to have this done. In four months, we need to have this done in two months and two weeks, we need to have this done. And then we would get back together and say, okay, let's check in, how's everybody doing? And if someone was sick, who is going to fill in the roles? There's got to be a high level of trust with your team If that's going to happen.

Speaker 1: 18:36

And one of the things about trust that that people don't understand. If you have that trust, people are going to share their ideas, they're going to be open. You know, if you don't have that trust, it's going to be really hard to be a truly collaborative put it in a truly collaborative environment, because people won't share, they're not, they're going to hold back, they're they're going to wait for somebody else to say something and then they're going to jump on the bandwagon and agree with that. I think trust is very important in that respect and that trust I mean. I think those are hand in hand. What needs to be happening there? And I will say, just to interrupt our show see my giant whiteboard over there in the corner. I've got, I got that right here. It's going to go right up on our wall right here in front of our podcast.

Speaker 2: 19:22

That way you can write on this before I'm going to put you a big giant whiteboard right there. It's in the corner. I haven't drilled it up on the walls.

Speaker 1: 19:30

So but that'll be up by next week.

Speaker 2: 19:32

One of the things that you can tell the value of your trust level.

Speaker 1: 19:37

Yes.

Speaker 2: 19:38

And this happens in all aspects of business, you know, and as you don't want to have a meeting after the meeting, you know you know, you know what I'm talking about.

Speaker 1: 19:49

Or a meeting, a subcommittee, right?

Speaker 2: 19:52

You don't want to have everybody go out and go. I didn't like that. I should have said you know he shouldn't have said this and what? No, it's like no. Now, trust is something that's developed over time and so. But the goal is so that anything you want to say after the meeting or in the parking lot or at the coffee machine or at lunch, you have the ability to say in the meeting. Okay, and it takes a while to develop that level of trust with your people, but it takes a good leader to allow that to happen.

Speaker 1: 20:22

Yeah, one of the things that trust in corporate and one of the biggest things that I feel trust does is when you get into. If you have the trust, then that leads into empowerment. And if you get into where you can empower your people, you trust them to make the right decision. Now, empowerment is not one of these things where I give you you go, do it, but check in with me. Empowerment, you know, is not. You know, ask me before you make a decision. Empowerment is I trust you enough for you to make a decision.

Speaker 1: 20:55

You know my phone rings while we're doing these podcasts my supervisors are calling me. I trust that they're going to make the right decision if something mandatory has to be done, because they've worked for me for years. We've went through these conversations. I told them I trust them and there's exercise I do to build that trust in them. But I mean that's part of it. And if you can have that trust that that leads into that empowerment and you know, be able to. You know they're going to be motivated, they're going to be more likely to collaborate with each other, where, if they can't get hold of me, a supervisor might call another supervisor and go hey, I just want to run this by you. I can't get hold of Tim Blah, blah, blah, blah blah. So I mean, that's what you're trying to build, that's what you want in the corporate workspace is everybody working together. We all have a shooting for this pie in this, this prize in the sky, right?

Speaker 2: 21:48

And so let's just think through the steps. You have a vision you can agree on. Okay, this is the vision, this is the outcome objective that we're trying to reach. We all understand that. That's what we're doing. So communication about that is so, so important. Coordination what's our timeline of that? Transparency who's got experience with this? What are your thoughts about it? Trust, like you said. And then it comes down to say you've been working on this thing for six months and it's comes to the day that it actually happens and it doesn't go as well, as you're thinking, whatever, that is Okay.

Speaker 2: 22:28

There's got to be a time after the event or after the process to reflect on it and say what did we do good? What are we not going to throw stones, we're not going to point fingers, but as a group we agreed to do this. What could we have done better? So there's got to be a time of reflection so that you might not do the same project again. But you're going to work together again as a team. And so how can you change, adapt, whatever it could be. It could change the way you communicate. It could mean change how frequently you meet, your method of communication. Are you going to follow up with emails after that. Are you going to have phone calls? Are you going to face-to-face meetings? Are you going to be a FaceTime meeting? How can you improve so, whenever you collaborate again, you have a better outcome?

Speaker 1: 23:17

Yeah, and I think that's what all the cultures are trying to do and it's going to increase that efficiency. It's going to increase the ability to get things done the more you collaborate and to be able to put there. I had another thought that popped out of head because my phone was ringing. I'll just go with that, but it's part of it and you need to set your company up. I was going to talk to you about NOAA. That's when we started out on NOAA. Did he collaborate with a lot of people? We talked about that in our opening series. If you listen to the first one, we did a big series on a book that Dr Dean here wrote about NOAA and ARC. Did he have a lot of collaborations, I think with his family?

Speaker 1: 24:05

Yeah, it's exactly right, but was there anything that would have stopped how would I put this His collaboration with other people? Was there a trust issue that was put in?

Speaker 2: 24:29

Maybe they thought he was crazy. It's not in the Bible, it's kind of implied in between the lines.

Speaker 2: 24:34

So NOAA had this vision from God to build an ARC According to scripture. It hadn't rained before it was going to rain. It was going to destroy the earth because of all the wickedness. He chose NOAA because he was righteous. He walked with God, so he was a righteous person. He took 100 years. There was this ARC. You didn't even know what that meant. There was a time when he had to work with his family to lay out the vision, to gather the materials, to build this ARC. It took 100 years to do it. Then we read that he built the ARC and then God provided all the animals. We've seen different movies about NOAA and the ARC and all that kind of stuff. The day that the rain started coming and the water just started gushing everywhere, everywhere downpouring harder than anybody could have ever imagined. I can just try to process. Okay, what were the people that were giving him a hard time? What were they thinking? Maybe we should have collaborated with him and participated with him and built in this thing, because we're not gonna make it.

Speaker 1: 25:50

Yeah, and I think back, you'd like to be a fly on the wall, aren't you To know? Who came up, who kicked dirt in his face, who said I wanna be part of this maybe.

Speaker 2: 26:05

You're crazy. Yeah, you're crazy. Why are you doing this?

Speaker 1: 26:07

I have to assume some people may be bought into it at some point, because it become a very massive structure and I would be curious. I'd wanna know more. I'd wanna ask more questions, whether I thought he was crazy or not. I'd wanna know a little bit more. I'd wanna know how and why At some point this becomes, after 100 years of seeing this one piece of wood, to becoming this very large vessel. I would wanna know more. Even me. I might be a skeptic, but at some point I'd probably wanna go over and have a chat with him. I'd wanna have him on our podcast.

Speaker 1: 26:44

Yeah, exactly right, you work on that.

Speaker 2: 26:47

But in the end we read in the scripture, the whole story in the book of Genesis Genesis six, seven and eight in part of nine that when it came down to it, the only people that were there were Noah and his wife and his sons and their wives. That was it, eight people. And so the people that might have been like, okay, he's not so crazy, they didn't join in the work, that for some reason they decided, no, he's crazy, I'm not gonna, I don't want any part of this or I don't wanna spend my time doing that. It's a waste of time. And some people think that. Some leaders think collaboration is a waste of time. Why don't I just make a decision and be autocratic and just tell people what to do? And some people run their companies that way and that's their prerogative to do that. But healthy companies, I think, get input from their people and work together so that there's more buy-in. And that's really what it's all about is how much buy-in do the people have?

Speaker 1: 27:59

Yeah, and that's what I was getting ready to say is it's not about bringing the people together, right, it's about creating that synergy that amplifies what we're trying to accomplish. Then increase that environment, that talent, that wisdom to really elevate your company to the next level. And I think that's one of the things that people get confused on and a lot of managers do manage that way. A lot of leaders, you know we'll listen to you.

Speaker 1: 28:29

I used to be involved with a corporate survey company. We'd send out the surveys and stuff, and a lot of people would send out all these surveys and they'd get all this great information that we would give them back and they wouldn't do a thing with any of it, right? Because, nah, we're not gonna do that, and that's actually a bigger demotivator than to never have done the survey. So a lot of this stuff can twist and turn on you, depending on how you wanna collaborate, how you want to position yourself as a leader, as one of the managers, whatever it might be. And I think it's so important that you look about giving the people a voice, because I think that's what people want.

Speaker 2: 29:09

Yeah, and so for those of our listeners who are working churches or in nonprofits, I think this especially applies to them, because every church and every nonprofit that I know of or been associated with is always looking for volunteers. Always, and whether that's high school, you know, for honor society, or it's a scouting troop that needs their volunteer hours, or whatever it is, they're looking for volunteers and that's fantastic. The last thing you wanna have done is for someone to volunteer and you never follow up on them. You don't follow up or you don't train them to do it, or you don't allow them to be a part of the knowledge, of what, the vision, what is their part in the volunteering do with a big organization? Where do they fit in? Where is their cog in the wheel? For why is this volunteering important? And so they can work together with the other volunteers and they know why they are doing it. Not just they're just not doing a task, but they know why that task is so important.

Speaker 1: 30:15

And let's talk a little about that cause. I know we have a lot of people that are in church leadership that listen to our podcast. What are some of the things that you've come across over the years and years? I mean, would you do this like two years?

Speaker 2: 30:30

I think you know something like that yeah, two years, yeah, yeah two years times lots Times 20 something Exactly right.

Speaker 1: 30:38

So what are some of the things? What? How do we have a core group that volunteers?

Speaker 2: 30:45

in most everything.

Speaker 1: 30:47

How do we get that non-core group? Is there any ways from a church standpoint to really reach out and get into some of the other people and then get some volunteers other than the same ones that we have to volunteer every Sunday?

Speaker 2: 31:01

I think that is a great question, and every pastor and every CEO of a nonprofit asked that question how can we get more people connected to our you know, our ministry, or our vision, or in the process? And it's not just so we can get their money. Okay, it's because we have an important task to do and we need help to make this task and to affect more people. So COVID really put a damper on all of that. So I'm gonna talk a little bit prior to COVID and what I think people can do after COVID. For me, I learned a long time ago even though we kept trying to do it, we didn't do it effectively was if someone was at the pulpit on a Sunday morning and just asked for volunteers, that was probably the least effective way of doing it. One of the most effective ways of doing it is for your current volunteers to reach out to someone that they already know and invite them to join them. So, whether you are let's just say, you're working with a school and you're handing out school supplies, or you're providing shoes for the kids that don't have shoes, you know it's wintertime. What about the kids that don't have coats or hats or gloves? If you have a group of people that are committed to that vision, even if it's one or two, start out with like we'd share the vision with the whole congregation and then we'd have a table out in front out in the four year for people to sign up to talk about that. We'd encourage the people that are currently doing it to reach out to the people that they know on their street or in their Sunday school class or something, to try to recruit them to come. And it doesn't normally happen a lot. You don't normally get a lot of volunteers quickly. It's something that builds over time. So let's like okay, now we have six volunteers, maybe this next time that we do this coat distribution we want to go to 10 volunteers, and then the next year we want to do, you know, 12 or 15 volunteers. So I think you have to have a realistic goal of what is supposed to happen Now.

Speaker 2: 33:07

Sometimes we would have big events like Operation Christmas Child, where we'd collect shoe boxes for Samaritan's Purse and we'd try to get as many shoe boxes as possible from the entire church and that would be a one-time thing. So if you're doing a one-time thing like a shoe box thing or you're doing an angel tree or something like that. That's one thing. You get a lot of people involved.

Speaker 2: 33:32

But if you're trying to get a consistent volunteer that would volunteer once a month, like every first Saturday or every second Tuesday or something like that, that takes a little bit more work and it really does help if the people who are already doing it reach out and have a personal conversation with someone, because you already got someone who's vested and now you're trying to get them to share the vision with someone else, and it's a lot more effective, I found. If they do that, then I try to do it. Now I can do follow-up, I can do a follow-up and we do background checks and all those kinds of things, but it's always helpful if the people that are already in the ministry if they would reach out and try to get new people.

Speaker 1: 34:14

Yeah, and that's the easiest way for volunteers. It's the easiest way for members I know we do that in our association Just recruit one new member. You don't have to do a lot, just recruit one new member. There's gonna be after recruiting 20, 40, 50, 100 people, but just if everybody can do their job and do one new member, that's, you know. Invite one more person to church, invite one more person to listen to our podcast.

Speaker 2: 34:37

Yes, exactly right.

Speaker 1: 34:38

And they're like Dr Dean does every day. Come on tell a friend Speaking of Tell a friend.

Speaker 2: 34:43

Yeah, just tell a friend. Share the link.

Speaker 1: 34:45

So I was just curious Did you know why the two numbers decided to work together?

Speaker 2: 34:50

Oh my gosh, we're going into dad jokes. I didn't know we were transitioning.

Speaker 1: 34:53

Well, you know, I figure I'd throw it out to you.

Speaker 2: 34:55

No, no, why did the two numbers I've got the biggest smile on his face.

Speaker 1: 34:58

I was like, oh, dad joke time.

Speaker 2: 35:01

So why did the two numbers decided to work?

Speaker 1: 35:02

together. Yes, because they realized they could always count on each other.

Speaker 2: 35:05

Oh, that's it. Oh, my goodness.

Speaker 1: 35:08

I don't have a lot today, but I got a few. But you know, what do you got?

Speaker 2: 35:13

Any good ones over there to finish around this thing. I got some really good ones, but let's just go. Why don't you throw out another one?

Speaker 1: 35:20

Then I'll-. Well, you know we've said this one before. But why does Scarecow become a successful team leader? I know, you know this one?

Speaker 2: 35:29

Yes, I do, because he was a stand up in his field, Outstanding in his field, bringing in everybody together.

Speaker 1: 35:35

So I'll tell you one more. Why did the slice of bread say to the peanut butter? What did the slice of bread say to the peanut butter?

Speaker 2: 35:42

I don't know.

Speaker 1: 35:42

Let's stick together. We're better when we're in a jam.

Speaker 2: 35:45

Oh, oh, my goodness.

Speaker 1: 35:49

All right, you got any good ones to finish it out.

Speaker 2: 35:52

So my wife's birthday was about 10 days ago.

Speaker 1: 35:55

Yes.

Speaker 2: 35:56

We had a great time. A daughter flew in from DC. We had a great time. We participated in the hot chocolate run over in Dallas Fair Park. It was so cold and rainy but we had an amazing time, the three of us just walking. But you know I had so many things planned for Diana for that particular week and you know we were laughing, cutting up. And she finally said you know, you need to stop impersonating flamingos. And I said no, I'm just going to put my foot down on that.

Speaker 1: 36:31

Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2: 36:32

Oh my goodness, I don't know. I told her there's a groaner.

Speaker 1: 36:34

That was a groaner.

Speaker 2: 36:35

We said, we have some.

Speaker 1: 36:36

Actually we, you know we. We talked about last week, kevin. This week we said we're going to have some groaners too. See, I was reeling last Saturday when you were doing hot chocolate. I was just sitting there dreaming of a cheese victory. I got to bring that up again. One more week and I'll let the cheese victory go One more week.

Speaker 2: 36:53

Okay yeah, hot chocolate run was fantastic. And so it's a great thing. If you've got kids, you just want to go out and have some fun and eat a lot of chocolate. That's it. It's a great thing. So one last thing I know we normally, you know, have these podcasts come out at at.

Speaker 1: 37:09

Tuesdays.

Speaker 2: 37:10

Tuesdays. I wonder if we should let them, let them you know, put them out at Tuesday at 6 30.

Speaker 1: 37:17

6, 30. 6 30. Why 6 30?

Speaker 2: 37:19

Because definitely that's all hands down and on that it's the best time of the day All hands down, and on that one.

Speaker 1: 37:30

We're going to stop, man, we're going to stop. They're getting bad. Hey, check us out. Biblical leadership show dot com and other than that. Have a great rest of the week. Yeah, make it a great day. Make it a great day. We'll talk to you guys next week. All right, have a good one, bye.