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- [00:00]
Rich Birch
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- [01:04]
Unseminary Podcast Host
demo today welcome to the Unseminary Podcast, the place where church leaders get practical insights, tips and strategies for ministry growth. Today, you're stepping into something bigger than just a conversation. This podcast is part of a bold mission to help 100 churches grow by 1,000 people. Whether you're dreaming of increasing your impact in your community, empowering your team or or reaching more people with the message of Jesus, you're in the right place. We're here to bring you the stuff you wish they taught in seminary, ideas and tools you can put into action this week to see transformation in your ministry. Let's dive in.
- [01:45]
Rich Birch
Hey friends, welcome to the Unseminary Podcast. So glad that you are tuned into today's episode. Man, we've got something super helpful for us. It's one of these areas that many of us spend lots of time doing, but we maybe haven't taken a step back and think thought about what do we do in coaching relationships? We all are involved in coaching staff and people on our teams and today we want to help you with some practical steps to make that even better. Excited to have Hal Mayer with us. He's a coach and consultant for both businesses and business leaders and pastors who want to grow but don't want to burn out. He's authored a few books including Smart Ask, the Coaching Playbook and excited to have Hal on the episode today. Welcome. So glad you're here.
- [02:28]
Hal Mayer
It's good to be here, Rich. I've been a fan on the sidelines for years and unseminary was so good because I did the seminary thing and I Did all the stuff. And you're right. There's so many things we didn't talk about there that you help us prepare for. So thank you for what you're doing.
- [02:43]
Rich Birch
Oh, that's super exciting. That's kind of you to say. But I'm really looking forward to today's conversation. It's been a while coming and so excited. We bumped into each other at the Exponential conferences to Exponential. I was like, we got to get you on. So excited that you're here today. Well, why don't we kind of start. Give us kind of the Hal background. Tell us for folks that don't know. You know, you give us the kind of the 92nd this is who Hal is conversation.
- [03:07]
Hal Mayer
Yeah, I, goodness, was born up north, came to Faith in Georgia in high school. We moved down there, played basketball in college, then coached for about five years. Married Sandy, moved off to seminary, finished that up. And I've been in Florida since 84, serving in churches from the size of 200 to 12,000. So all over the yard. And also do some business coaching in the middle of that.
- [03:34]
Rich Birch
Yeah, it's so good. Yeah. And I'm. I really. That's really what I want to tap in today. You spend your days coaching both pastors and business leaders. Like we talked about that when. When someone first sits down with you. I want to kind of use the fact that you have a lot of these conversations today to help our listeners kind of taking advantage of you when someone first sits down with you. What's like a common ver version of stuck that you hear, whether it's a pastor or maybe a business leader? Like, do you hear common themes with folks?
- [04:01]
Hal Mayer
Yeah. You know, probably the most common thing I hear is our team stuck, our team stagnant. And I'll say, what do you mean by that? And they'll often say something that relates to this of I have to come up with all the ideas. It seems like I'm the only one pushing the team to get going. I'm the only one with the ideas. They just seem often lazy or they're not doing it. What do I do to engage them?
- [04:26]
Rich Birch
Right. Love that. Well, man, I wish I hadn't thought that. I haven't thought that as a leader over the years. So then take us the next step from there. What as you're kind of coaching someone, I'm assuming as a leader, you know, I. Or one of my convictions is our teams are a byproduct of our leadership and we're leading in a way that's leading them to act that way. So what leads our people to be like that?
- [04:51]
Hal Mayer
Yeah, I think it's the leader. And that's the fun thing to do. I, as a parent, I loved watching my kids do something that was dumb, but they repeated it and it's because it was rewarded. So I watch team members disengage because they come up with an idea and it gets shot down, or they ask everybody in the room the idea, and it's only the leader's idea they go with. And when that happens, they, they kind of go, well, I guess we're just here to hear his ideas. And they start pulling back and not engaging and just being compliant.
- [05:25]
Rich Birch
Interesting. Years ago we had a coach in who said, who said to us, this is when I was on the senior leadership team of a fairly large church, fast growing. We were like four or five thousand people at the time. And he spent a bunch of time with our, you know, with our team with us. And he looked at us and he said, listen, you guys answer way too many questions. You need to be asking more questions than answering questions. And that was a pivotal, changing moment for me as a leader. I was like, oh my word, that is so true. Talk us through that dynamic of asking the right questions versus always being the answer man or the answer person.
- [06:05]
Hal Mayer
We usually get promoted because we did the job well or we have the answers. If we continue in that framework, one day we will run out of the answers. But let's say we're in that framework. I'm not developing anybody if it's only my ideas we're using, and if we're only using my ideas, they've got ideas, but they're dying. So I encourage and push guys to do is exactly what you said, ask questions. I mean, questions are a couple things. One will tell me what they understand. Do they really understand the problem? I say, tell me what's going on. Okay, what, what do you see here? And all that. It tells me, do they understand the problem? And I might have to probe some more, but I want them solving things that I find out about later. And to do that, I've got to lead different. For me, we are a fast growing church in South Florida and I was the answer man. And what I realized was I'm working harder and harder and I'm not developing people. So I started stepping back and then learning this principle and started asking questions, looking for their engagement. Here's what I found. When they had the answer or they got to do what they wanted to do, their engagement went way up. So for me, not only did it go up, they began to develop. And I've had somebody say, well, I don't have time to develop people. He said, in fact, if I develop them, they'll just leave me. I say, yeah, you know what's worse? Worse is if you don't develop them, they stay.
- [07:29]
Rich Birch
Right, right, Exactly.
- [07:31]
Hal Mayer
So I found this to be a tool for development, asking questions.
- [07:36]
Rich Birch
Okay, that's cool. Talk to me more about engagement. What would be some telltale signs for you of, like, someone who's really engaged, fully engaged, versus, you know, when your team isn't as engaged? Because maybe we have a hard time even discerning what that looks like.
- [07:50]
Hal Mayer
Yeah. I mean, if they're slow walking the solve that we came up with, if there's no passion around it, if there's no energy going in it, and I find myself even answering the same question over and over, I'm realizing more and more I don't have engagement. I've got compliance. And I really want them engaged and dialing in to what we're doing. And to get that, I'm gonna have to get them on the same page.
- [08:20]
Rich Birch
Well, and then obviously, questions are at a core of this and a part of what I love about your resource, the Smart Ask, which is smart ask is this. It's, you know, it's simple but powerful. So why don't you kind of talk us through the Smart ask framework. What's kind of the basic arc that you try to walk someone through?
- [08:39]
Hal Mayer
Very good.
- [08:40]
Rich Birch
Coach us through that, Talk us through what that looks like.
- [08:42]
Hal Mayer
I start very broad and I'll say, and by the way, I take notes. But at the end, I give them the notes and I explain that in a minute. So I'll ask permission, can I take some notes? And they'll say, sure. And I said, I'm going to give them to you. But first question is, is what are the issues you're facing right now? And let them just elevate them out. Let them say everything they want to say, every problem they've got. And then I'd say, looking at these problems, what's one goal that we could have for our time today? Now, what that does is it focuses it on a goal and what they're going to do, not on me. It can't be. How could you find me 10 more leaders? That's not something we can do in that meeting. So I want to go from them something they can do when they leave the meeting. And so they say, you know what? I. I want to face this Volunteer engagement. In fact, I use the illustration from the book about a preschool lady who said, I need 30 more volunteers to serve in preschool. And I said, well, I can't get that for you now. So her goal was come up with an idea that I could engage 30 more people. And then I'd go with this. Okay, if you could do anything, what would you try and call it? The first she says, anything? Yeah, she said, I pay him $1,000 a piece. I said, and I just write it down to go ahead and get that out and get them moving on to the next thing. And they run through things and I listen, I've got to be careful not to go, oh, that's a really good one, but let them talk about it. And as they get through, if I've got something, the end, I mean, as they're going, I'll go, anything else you could try? Anything else you could try? And you feel like you're asking that too much, but what you're doing is just unpacking all of it. If I've got an idea, I can add that in, but I don't give any passion to it because I don't want to control it. Then I'll say, now look at these. Which one of these ideas would you like to explore further? And they'll look. And this lady said, I want to explore the one about a lemonade stand in the lobby, which I thought was a dumb idea. I didn't tell her that, but I thought so then I said, okay, what potential roadblocks? Well, I've got to talk to leadership. Okay, what else? And they talk about that and any detours. Well, if this happens, we're walking through solving the problem before it approaches, right? And the last thing I said, okay, if you're going to do this, what will it look like? And we list out six or eight things and I say, okay, let me know how it goes. And I hand her the paper in this case. I said, hey, listen, let me know on Instagram how it went. So the next week she picked up 40 new workers. And this was a very large church. She picked up 40 workers with this idea, but because it was hers. And to me, it was crazy, it worked. So the, the framework is you're starting broad and you're narrowing down, and I'm actually getting a set of to do's and objectives. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Then I hand them that. They've got their plan, all they got to do is execute it, and they developed it. When I'm asking them questions, the Advantages of that too. Yeah, If I use that enough with them, there's going to be a time when they come to me and say and want to talk to me and I'm not available. They'll say, well he was going to do is ask questions and they start going through the questions and they start self coaching is what they do. And that's the end game. That's what I want. And by the way, when I use questions with people, I explain to them what I just did so they can then take it and use it somewhere else.
- [11:57]
Rich Birch
Yeah, that's cool. I'd love to start right back at the beginning. I love this idea of really starting at a wide open. Hey, what challenges are you facing today? I think too often if we're, I'm thinking in kind of the one on one situation. Maybe I'm an executive pastor at a church of 1500 but one of my people comes to me and I go to that conversation and I've got five things I want to talk to them about. But I love, you know, starting with what challenges are you facing? What happens if we skip that with people? If we, if we don't start there? I'm sure we get, you know, we end up in all kinds of bad places. Talk us through why you encourage people to start with that question, especially early
- [12:36]
Hal Mayer
on when you're coaching folks because as they go later they'll kind of work through that. No, that's the framework I'm going to work with and they'll come up with their biggest issue. But the reason I do that, I want to show this value to everything they're facing and I want them to elevate it, not me, tell them what they're doing so they become more self aware. Now if they don't list one of the things I see as an issue, I may say, and what about this? Is this an issue for you? Oh yeah, that too. I just don't want to put a lot of passion on it because then they'll do what I want and I want them to do something they're passionate about because the framework just means I'm going to get more from it.
- [13:14]
Rich Birch
Yeah, that's cool. That's a key lesson I think particularly for first time managers or people who haven't managed a lot of people before. We don't realize the weight of our voice. Right. If we even by saying like oh yeah you're right, that's a good idea, then all of a sudden they're running with that idea just because you indicated that's an interesting thing. That's interesting. Now one of the, I mean, you kind of pulled it apart, but I would love to double click on it. There's. To me, as I go through your framework, I can imagine that, hey, what if you could try anything? Is a, is a pivotal moment, is kind of a turning point, is an important question. Why is that so important? Maybe give us another example. I love the idea when you talk through with the lemonade stand, but talk us through why that's so important and what does that unlock as we're interacting with our teams and people.
- [14:01]
Hal Mayer
That's a great question. Because what will happen there is if we don't ask that question. That's what if you could try anything. They may be in the back of their mind have something. They go, I can't try that. So they keep trying to think somewhere else. Just get it out on paper. It's like when I feel stressed or something, I just list everything down I'm dealing with and then I can focus on one thing, but I allow them to get it all out at that point of trying this and trying that. And usually what'll happen is they'll come up with six or seven ideas. And I say, and what else? A lot. And it seems like I'm saying a lot, but is when they're in the zone, they're answering, well, I could try this. Well, I could try that. I could try this. And then I find which one they have the most energy around because that's one they want to do.
- [14:47]
Rich Birch
Yeah. And obviously you would you observe that, that energy and you're like, hey, it seems like this one. Tell me more about that.
- [14:54]
Hal Mayer
I don't do that.
- [14:55]
Rich Birch
Okay, okay, talk to me about that.
- [14:57]
Hal Mayer
I say, okay, which one of these seven things would you like to try?
- [15:02]
Rich Birch
Okay.
- [15:02]
Hal Mayer
So you identify it. Then I say, okay, tell me more about that. What would that look? Why do you want to try? And then we dive into that.
- [15:10]
Rich Birch
Okay. One of the things that this strikes me and this when I read again, friends, you should pick up a copy of this book. And there's a playbook as well I want to talk about. But I think this could be a huge gift for just this week. Two days ago I was talking to somebody who they asked me, they said, hey, what should I be doing in my one on ones? I've got these staff, what should I be doing with them? And I thought of this framework. So I think the part of what I love that you're driving towards is, is buy in at least my, my, my impression as an outsider looking in is that this would really increase the buy in of my staff. Talk me through, you know, the connection there between buy in and moving the organization forward and that sort of thing. What, how does that help us think through those issues?
- [15:54]
Hal Mayer
I'm going to bring up the equation I use in the book, the buying equation or the engagement question, whatever that is. I was a math teacher in a former life, so pbi possible value of an idea times bi. The buy in equals the roi. Now let's say, you know, we're, we've got, you're my boss and I'm doing student ministry and you have an idea because you did student ministry and all that. Your idea, out of 1 in 10, it's going to at least be a 9. I mean, you're, you're rich, Birch. I mean, you have all the answers. Now, me doing it, I don't get any input on it. So I will comply. I will do it. But my buy in is probably going to be about a three. I'll do what you ask, but there's not going to be a passion with it. So three times your nine idea is a 27. However, let's say I come up with an idea and it's not going to be as good as yours. In fact, It's a only 2/3 as good as yours. It's a 6. But what's my buy in going to be? If it's my idea higher, that's a 60. So there's a 60 ROI to my buy in because of my buy in as opposed to a 27. Now you had the better idea. But buy in is what gets it done. We've seen that over and over again. When people are bought in on something, David, it's often they'll make a bad idea work. We've seen that. So for me, that's what I want. Full engagement. And when they know that they get to do their ideas, people are much more engaged then they're running around doing mine.
- [17:23]
Rich Birch
Yeah, that's so true. As a coach, somebody who obviously I coach people full time now and that is, you've, you've named something there that I think is critically important and that oftentimes, like, I can't coach people who don't want to be coached.
- [17:38]
Hal Mayer
Right.
- [17:38]
Rich Birch
Like if they're not bought in, if they don't think this will help. And you know, I've said in other contexts, I've been like, man, the leaders who, who apply the frameworks we're talking about are seeing great results. And those that are Applying the major majority of them are seeing, but a lot of it is just their own buy in on these issues, right? How there might be a leader that's listening in today that's like, okay, this all sounds good, but like, what if my people just have bad ideas? Like, and if, if it's going to push us in the wrong direction, like, it's one thing to be like, tell me seven ideas. All seven of those are crappy and they're gonna, we're gonna end up somewhere where I don't want us to end up as it. How do I steer somebody back towards better direction?
- [18:16]
Hal Mayer
One of these, before I give people full leash or full run on something is I want to check out their readiness for it. For example, if I want to do brain surgery, I may be excited, I may have done AI search on it and Claude said, do it this way and all that, but I'm not ready for that. It wouldn't take but a second to find that out. I found that out in high school. I went. So I worked at a gas station where they actually worked on cars too. And I saw a guy fixing valves. So I went home and took my 1960s Comet and tighten the valves down and end up having to get a valve job. I was excited, I was passionate, but I wasn't ready. So if you don't have people who are ready, you cannot hand it off to them. They must be developed some. They've got to have some experience. To hire somebody in fresh who's never done it before and start leading with questions is like leading me with questions and how to operate. I wouldn't have a clue or I'd be most excited about cutting nose. However, questions also help draw focus. And sometimes the reason they don't have ideas, we haven't focused them. I learned this with a physical metaphor. Somebody told me it would work. My son, pretty good basketball player. I had him out in the driveway. I said, son, see how many shots you can make out of 10. And so what that basically did was put a little pressure on, right? And he's a good. So he shot four out of 10 from the three point line. I said, okay, let's forget about how many you're. How many you're making and just shoot and answer my questions. I said, okay, what do you notice? All right, what do you notice about the ball? What do you notice about the. He hit 10 in a row. And what I discovered was, you know, you have college athletes who will shoot 7 out of 10 in a game, but in practice hit 20 in a row, it's the fog of war or whatever. And so with employees, sometimes we haven't asked enough questions to get through that. However, we could also have some people who aren't ready to lead. It's not fair to expect them to come up with good ideas. They haven't done anything. So both edges on that and at the end of the day, all of the employees I have are my fault. And if I haven't developed them, that's on me. Right? Right.
- [20:17]
Rich Birch
Yeah, that's good. Talk to me about. So I feel like there are, there's leaders on our teams or there's people that are listening in today that think they've got buy in, but they really actually don't. They think their teams are really with them, but they don't.
- [20:33]
Unseminary Podcast Host
How.
- [20:33]
Rich Birch
What advice could you give us to try to spot the difference around buy in that's not actually there? Like I keep kind of bumping into this wall. How can, how can we spot that?
- [20:45]
Hal Mayer
You know, I look for people who are solving problems, solving them and telling me about it later. They come to me with every problem because that means I'm still solving. Buying has to do with the passion and the ability to finish something. It doesn't mean you're working till 9 o' clock every night, but it does mean you manage to get the ball across the line. So when I watch a lack of energy around an idea or somebody slow walking it, or maybe somebody asking questions that really aren't that are just curmudgeon questions, they're asking questions just to find every hole that's wrong. I mean everything that you can find. Well, suppose that doesn't work. Suppose that's not buy in. Because for me, I. My challenge is always don't tell me what won't work or tell me what's not working. Get, give me an idea what we might try. At least then we're thinking in solutions and not just problems.
- [21:37]
Rich Birch
That's good. That's really good. So a big part of scaling any organization, a growing church, a growing business, is delegation, is leaders figuring out how to give away things they're doing. I've said this in so many contexts. You know, roll this clock forward. The majority of what you're doing, we need to figure out how to give to someone else, how to empower a volunteer or another staff member to pick that up. How does asking better questions change the way we hand off responsibility to other people? How could, how does it help in that transaction?
- [22:08]
Hal Mayer
You know, I'm a big fan of Ken Blanchard and the book Situational Leadership. And I used to train that with a corporation. And one of the things I watch is people like to start people and like to delegate. But when they leave off the coaching in between, it's not delegation, it's abdication, and people fail, I go, what's wrong? They said they understood. Well, you stay engaged. You, you, I mean, you give them a task, you stay engaged, you're asking questions. Soon you're no longer asking questions to, to help them figure out what to do. You're just asking questions to draw focus, and then you know you're ready, you can hand it off to them. But you're right, if we're not finding a way to delegate. But delegation is not the first step, nor the second. It's more like the fourth, right? You watch me. We do it together. I want you, you're doing it however you want to call that. But it takes more engagement. People say, well, I don't have time for that. Well, here's the deal. You can pay me now, you're paying me later, but you're going to pay me. If you're not developing people, you're going to run into a system where you've got a bunch of people who don't know how to think and do. And that's on you.
- [23:13]
Rich Birch
True. Yeah, that's so true. And if we don't start that process, hey, you watch me. We do together. And if we don't start that process today, we'll never get there. And so it takes time, but, but we've got to, you know, that's, that's what it. We just constantly have to repeat that over and over and over in our areas. I love that. So let's talk more specifically about the books, specifically. So it's smart. Ask questions that lead, that lead your team to win. Where can we pick up copies of this if people are looking? Cause I think this is not a huge book. It's, you know, if you're watching on video, it's just a little thin one, but it's got, it's one of these ones. It's a quick read. You could literally give it to a team member and say, hey, let's read through this. And then we're going to talk about it next week. I'd love to get your thoughts on it, but talk to us kind of. Why did you put this together in a book form?
- [24:00]
Hal Mayer
Well, I was training it, and people kept asking me questions, and the only reason I write books is to stop answering all the questions I get asked Right. Is to put it out there. I mean Seth Godin's idea, the long tail. Right. I want it to last. And when I put a book out there. So Smart Ask is on Amazon, but it was created for the purpose to, to help people after I've used it in coaching to be able to take it then and train their teams because it dives in also to the why it works and such as that. But you're right, intentionally a short book because I like short books. And there you go.
- [24:35]
Rich Birch
Well, and we all, you know, I can say this as an author that we're tempted when we write to be like, well, I'm just gonna stuff a bunch of other stuff in there. But this is, it's to the point, it's, it's focused. It's a great training material I think like you say for, you know, for our entire team. But then you also put together a playbook. Talk us through how this is different than, than this, the standard book.
- [24:56]
Hal Mayer
Well, my daughter in law, Chrissy, Chrissy Mayer, married to my son, she's a pastor over to church in Tampa, Grace Family Church. And she said why don't you create a handbook for it? And you know what? I said, why don't you do that? That sounds like a great idea. Once you create the framework and I get it published on. So she did the work and we got together and we put it there. And the reason for it is you can take your coaching conversation has all the questions in it. It's got lines, you can write answers and it gives you a chance to keep up. And I would probably take a picture and send the person the answers they gave to the questions or whatever like that. It just helps you stay on track. So you've got all the questions right there.
- [25:42]
Rich Birch
And yeah, talk us through the handing off of the notes back to someone. I think that's a great move. Talk us through why that's important. Why is that such a critical piece of the puzzle?
- [25:52]
Hal Mayer
People are so used to us building files on them. You're going to put that in my file or show that I didn't know what to do. And so I asked for permission on the front end to take notes. Now if I'm the boss, I'll do take notes if I want to, but I won't and I won't if they say no though. So I'm really giving it to them. And I tell them I'm going to give you these at the end because I don't want them taking notes. I want them talking. I want Their full engagement with me. And you can't get that while they're writing. So I said, you just pay attention to me, I'll take the notes and I'll give you them at the end. Then you hand them at the end they've got their execution plan. So my meeting with them, usually it's a 30 minute meeting and we land with an execution plan that gets handed to them and they go back and do the work. So it pulls them into full engagement. They're not getting distracted by trying to write down everything or slow played that way. I'm taking notes again, putting value to them when they're the hero. Right. And I'm the guide. What I'm doing is setting them up and when you take notes on somebody, that means something to them. So. Right, that's right.
- [26:59]
Rich Birch
Yeah, that's cool. Now what about. So one of the tensions I have found in my one on ones is I want to make sure that I'm doing all the other stuff. Caring for them, you know, releasing, you know, I guess finding barriers that, that I can pull apart for them and say like, hey, here's some stuff. Yeah, I'm going to take some to do. And I've said to my team in the past, hey, I'm, I'm hoping that you don't walk away from this with a bunch of to dos. That's not the goal of today. I want to help you and I know you got a lot going on. I don't want to just dump on you today. And so how do you avoid that in this framework that we don't end up with? Okay. Every time they meet with Hal, now I've just ended up with a plan that I just, gosh, I just gave myself more work to do. How do you, how do you understand that tension?
- [27:45]
Hal Mayer
Yeah, I don't do this every meeting with them.
- [27:47]
Rich Birch
Okay.
- [27:48]
Hal Mayer
The meetings on their term and I, you know, I'll check in. How you doing? One of the things I, I really want to pay attention to is the emotional soul health of the individual.
- [27:58]
Rich Birch
Yeah.
- [27:58]
Hal Mayer
Because we've got people facing burnout today. So I'll ask them, you know, tell me, on a scale 1 to 10, what do you, what are you feeling? You feel like you want a one being. I want to go home and go to bed at 10 being. Let's charge hell with water pistols. All right. That gives me a framework. The number doesn't really matter. I just compare it each time to see if they're tanker. The second thing I'll ask for is give Me a win in your private life, in your home, give me a win in your ministry side because I want to get them on the positive run and then I'll say anything you need from me. And this may be a 15 minute meeting, but what it is is I'm checking in on them. If I have something I need them to do, sure I can tell them, but I'm checking in on them and that gives them value. Right?
- [28:45]
Rich Birch
Yeah, that's good. Yeah, that's really good. That's good. I love, there's friends as you're listening in, you can tell Hal's done this a few times and so you know, it's been such a great conversation for you. So if I'm a church leader listening in today and I feel like, man, I'm doing way too much telling and not enough asking, where would I, and maybe even my team has told me this, where do I start? How do I start to shift that dynamic with my people? Because you kind of set this up at the beginning of like the teams that are passively disengaged, they're just waiting for, for you to give the list of okay, go do these 12 things and then come back. How do I shift that dynamic? Where do I start? If I, if my analysis is I think that I've actually done that to my team, where would we start if
- [29:34]
Hal Mayer
I'm convinced of that, I start at this place and I've done this before. Guys, you know what? I've been running our meetings and coming up with the answers and that's not fair. So what I want to do is pull back more and get your engagement. So I'm going to be asking questions, I need your engagement in this meeting and your ideas coming. And in fact if you see me over talking, catch me one on one afterwards and give me some feedback because I'm open up the feedback loop them, right? But I would do some self disclosure and just own it because here's what I do know. If you don't own it, they won't recognize the difference later. For example, if I tell somebody, you know what, I'm going to work on asking more questions six months later, why you're asking more questions. If I don't tell them, they'll never act, they'll never notice. Sometimes you have to highlight it, hey, I'm going to stop being the guy trying to be the smartest man in the room and I'm going to do this. People get vulnerability from a leader is a great thing, right? And own your stuff. But come up with some resources to help them. So you're asking more questions.
- [30:43]
Rich Birch
Yeah. That's good. I like that. I think that's a keen insight that. Not just like shifting the behavior, but actually pointing to it like, hey, as a person, I'm changing. And the implicit, the great kind of ninja move you're doing there is like, and therefore I need you to change because, you know, I'm changing because I don't think this is working. Implicit in that is I don't think our relationship is structured correctly and we need to figure out a different way to do that. You don't even need to necessarily say that. But flagging that, hey, I need to change my approach, I think is a really smart move, for sure. That's, you know, that's fantastic. Well, as we're coming down to land today's episode, any kind of final words around this idea of asking, leading with questions rather than being the answer person all the time?
- [31:26]
Hal Mayer
Yeah. This model doesn't mean you don't ask, offer suggestions. This model doesn't mean you couldn't collaborate to build it. It just means you can't be the person always having the answer. And it's engaging other people. And the thing you will find for me that I have found, when I truly am asking them for their ideas and we execute on their ideas, they'll come back later and say, you know, I thought that was one of those conferences you went to that said ask questions, but you actually did execute on what we talked about. Then they're more engaged because everybody wants. Has ideas and wants to be heard and wants to be a part. I think people are motivated. They're just not motivated. When we take over a meeting and run everything right, there's an intrinsic motivation. There's something they want to do. They're in ministry, not because they're just wanting to plow through. They want to see a difference or they're in the business cycle.
- [32:17]
Rich Birch
Yeah, yeah, that's very true. And I think that's a good reminder for us. I think sometimes we can get caught in the weeds of running Church World and we forget that, like, all these people have chosen to be here. They could be doing something else. And how do we bring the best out of them and how do we. You've encouraged me to thinking about long, the long term, win that, really, engagement. Even if we have to walk through a couple things that maybe are not the best because. But if I can get engagement up with my team, man, that's way better place than, like, sure, we have the. It's the, you know, it's that perfect plan that's poorly executed. We want to avoid that, you know, even an imperfect plan. But if it's got tons of engagement behind it, man, there's some gold there that we need to think clearly about. That's good. Love it. Well, I want to send people to Amazon to pick up both of these. I think it'd be great. I really do think this could be the kind of book you could build a staff training around it friends really easily. You've got 15 staff. You could buy 15 copies of this and say, hey, you're going to read this and then we're going to come to our, you know, team meeting in two months or whatever, in a month and we're going to work through how do we ask better questions in our training. That's how it sticks out to me. Anywhere else we want to send people online to connect with you or to pick up copies of the book.
- [33:31]
Hal Mayer
You can catch my website@halmayr.com they can email me at hal@halmare.com or I'm on the socials just as Halmare. My son is Halmare also, but I beat him to all of them. So I'm Hal Mayer. On Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, it's just slash Halmayer, so I win there.
- [33:52]
Rich Birch
Nice. Really appreciate you, Hal. You're a good friend of leaders and I appreciate you being on today. Thanks for being here.
- [33:57]
Hal Mayer
Oh, thanks, man. It's been an honor.
- [33:59]
Unseminary Podcast Host
Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Unseminary Podcast. If you found today's conversation helpful, I'd share it with a friend in ministry. It's a simple way to spark new ideas and grow together. Also, don't Forget to visit unseminary.com to sign up for our email list. You'll get exclusive resources and practical tools delivered straight to your inbox to help you lead your church more effectively. Most importantly, take what you learned today and put it into action this week. Ministry impact starts with small, intentional steps. See you next time.