Leadership

4 Ways to Get Great Feedback from your Team

Not just from your customers (or in the church’s case, your congregation) but also from the teams you work with on a weekly basis. Our ministry teams are a wealth of information, even more than you probably think. They can help you be more creative, reach more people and even fix problems within your ministry.

Learning to take and act on feedback will help you build stronger teams and reduce burnout.

As leaders in the church, our goal should not only be to reach out to the community but also to shepard and help our current team members grow closer to Christ.

Getting a handle on how your team views and reacts to each part of your ministry is invaluable.

Today we are going to look at four of the best ways you can gather insights from your ministry teams:

1. Use Social Media.

Twitter has recently opened a new feature called Group Direct Messaging. Now you can start a private group message with up to 20 people and your team members don’t all need to follow one another in order to chat. Pretty cool right? Using private twitter chats is a super fast way to communicate and get feedback from your team. I recommend opening the message up right after your team is done serving.

Invite people to get on twitter and participate while the service or event is fresh in their minds. This sort of real time feedback can help take your ministry to the next level. Most social networks now have some kind of direct messaging system. If you already have a Facebook group page for your volunteers and team members, getting feedback on social media is pretty simple. Encourage your team to use social as a quick and easy way to communicate wins, ideas and even problems.

2. Ditch the Suggestion Box.

There are many who believe people will be more honest and transparent if they can give anonymous feedback without fear. That is true, but I would argue the way to do that is not by having an anonymous suggestion box. As a leader, it is your job to develop the culture.

If you put in the work to develop a culture of honesty and open communication, your teams will feel comfortable approaching you with both positive and negative feedback. Suggestion boxes simply mask the problem. They allow people to vent without ever coming up with solutions. If you want great feedback AND better results you will ditch that anonymous suggestion box and work to develop a culture of openness.

3. Ask Better Questions.

Simply asking better questions will always get you better more specific answers. The biggest key to getting great feedback from your team is to take the time to develop the right questions to ask. Instead of asking open ended questions to your team like “Hey, how did it go today, ” try asking more targeted questions like these :

– If you had the power, what is the one thing you would change about today’s Worship Service?
– What do you enjoy the least about your job (i.e.. playing guitar, running lights, creating stage backgrounds)
– What can I do to make you enjoying volunteering in this ministry more?

Asking these types of questions will not only help you get the honest feedback you’re looking for, but it will also help your teams feel like you really care about them as people and not just robots who push buttons and play music.

4. Close the Loop.

Feedback is not a one time thing. Getting great and valuable feedback from your teams should be an ongoing process. The only way you can make that happen is to follow up. All of the previous ideas we have discussed are useless if you don’t have an effective way to close the loop.

Make sure you take the time to to explain to team members who bring feedback why you did or didn’t act on what they said. In order to get great feedback from your team on a regular basis you must show them that what they say matters. That doesn’t mean you implement every idea they give you. It simple means you let them know you value what they’ve suggested.

Getting great feedback will play a vital role in the health of your ministry team. Without it, you will become an isolated leader, who seems detached and unwilling to listen. Hopefully you can take a few of these suggestions and begin to increase your ministry’s effectiveness.

JOSH BLANKENSHIP
Creative Pastor / Blogger / Host of The Creative Church Show Podcast
Kansas City, MO
joshblankenship.me