Positioning People Well

Yo, hey, what's up? This is Tim Pratt Jr. and I wanna talk to you a little bit about the title, Positioning People Well. Now listen, if you're a leader or a leader of leaders, this is gonna be something that you truly wanna plug into. And so just to kinda give you some context of where this came from, last year I took a course on basically how to become a great boss. And I know you might not like that term today. You know, a lot of people try to stay away from it. They wanna use the term leader. But there was some very helpful stuff in it with this matrix on how to basically define and align people. And so one thing that has served me well, before we get into this content, that I think we really, really need to understand as leaders— whether you're leading a ministry or you're in the marketplace or leading your family— you lead people, you manage processes and systems. People are not process, systems, or resources. So you lead people, you inspire people, and you manage processes. Because sometimes we get tripped up in our leadership where we think we're managing people.. And people are people, so you have to inspire them, you have to coach them, you have to lead them well. So that's where this title came from. How do you lead people well? Well, one of the first things you have to understand as a leader is that you have to define and align. When people come into your ministry, when people apply for your business or whatever that may be, you are responsible as a leader to define and align people accordingly to what they are capable of doing. So that being said, let's, let's jump into it. So I'm going to ask you if you don't— if you're driving, don't worry about it. But if you do, take out a piece of paper, get in your phone. You need to write these things down because you're going to get tripped up. So I want to talk to you about like 4 different quadrants that you can look at to help you define and align people. So the first one is right person, right seat. Right person, right seat. The second one is right person, wrong seat. The third one is wrong person, right seat. And then the last one is wrong person, wrong seat. So you're probably saying, okay, I know what a person is. Of course, surely, you know, you're looking for a competent person that's able to carry out whatever you need to do. But what is a seat? What do we really mean by that? Well, as a leader, you're responsible for defining that seat. You are. Like, that's— you know what that seat needs in order to help you in your leadership. If you're a manager, if you're a middle manager, You are responsible saying, I need this 3 to 5 things from this seat. You haven't even thought about the appropriate person yet. You're just saying, I want these. So say, because you're a pastor and you need an executive pastor, well, some of the things that you would need from that person is operational reporting. Can they do operations? Can they, uh, control— and I'm not control, but can they lead and give you report on many different various ministries? Can they coach people? Can they teach in the church? That's what you do to find that seat. If you have a finance leader, are they competent? Do they understand money? But do they also understand the biblical principles of sowing? You're defining that seat, what you need. So in that, what that person— what you're looking for is, do they get it? Do they want it? Do they want to do it? Because you can get something and understand something cognitively, but you might not have the motivation to want to do it. And then, do they have the capacity, the capacity to carry this out? And I'm not talking about necessarily a mental capacity, but do they have the capacity in their life to serve well? So that being said, let's jump into it. Right person, right seat. What does this look like? This is the sweet spot, and we're going to come right out the gate with this. This is where every leader desires to be. They want the right person, a person that's fully competent they have the capacity, and they have a strong desire to do it. Quick example. My wife and I, we coach our kids. We push them. We try to get the best out of them in basketball. One is playing 7th grade basketball. One is in the 4th grade. Early on, we knew that they really like the game of basketball. They would want us to come out and play. They want a 2v1, 2v2, all this type of stuff for fun. But they only played when we went out there with them. So what am I saying? You don't want that as a leader. You don't want someone leading well simply when you're always with them. You want them to be able to go out and take initiative on their own. And that moves your heart as a leader to pour more time into this person. So what am I saying? Our kids had an ability that they truly liked the sport. They were competent of the sport, but they had to show us that they truly wanted to do it. And they clearly had the capacity because what else? If they don't pay bills, they don't work. They go to church, go to school, and play. So they clearly had the capacity for it. So now that they have moved into this situation where they are going out and practicing more, they're showing us that, hey, we are competent of it and we really want to be great at it and we have the capacity for it. So now they have become the right person. But this is the thing, it would do a disservice when our boys are more like guards and then we basically make them play a center spot, a big man spot. We wouldn't align them properly, so they would be the right person in the wrong seat. So that's why we want to be very intentional as a leader to make sure we have right person— the right person in the right seat. So with our boys, do all of that stuff that we just talked about, and then we go out and train them how to be guards, either play the 1, 2, and maybe sometimes 3 spot. So this is the sweet spot in our leadership. We want to truly make sure we have the competent person and that they are basically in a seat that's challenging them, but at the same time that's helping them lead well and carry out what they have— what God has placed in them. Second one, right person, wrong seat. Now I'm gonna be straight up with you and just give you a true, real, transparent example. Um, I'm a senior agile delivery manager, so basically in so many words, I facilitate and coach software development teams. In a nutshell. Software development team, that's where I spend most of my time facilitating meetings, facilitating workshops, and just coaching people into excellence. I'm also an associate pastor, but I serve a ministry that's an hour and a half away. And on top of that, I actually have a father-in-law that's a pastor that has a ministry an hour and a half away. So although I might be the wrong— the right person I might not be sitting in the right seat. So I— in other words, I could be in the wrong seat because I'm competent and I want to do it, but do I have the capacity to do it? That's what I'm saying. So you have to basically like really look into a leader and say, okay, wow, this person is really great to this ministry and I don't want to lose them, but I might have to redefine that seat. I might have to redefine what this commitment look like. Does commitment look like coming to the local church every Sunday and all the teaching functions, or can this person have the ability to do it online? So sometimes you, as you, as a leader, you might say, I have to redefine and, you know, realign the seat in order to get this person up to right person, right seat. But in other words is that, yes, this is a great person, you still don't want to lose that person, but you want to position them well as a leader to get them up to their sweet spot. Now, as we move on along, these last two are a little bit more challenging. Because you're now dealing with the wrong person, right seat. So you might say, well, what does that mean? I have them in the right seat, how can they be the wrong person? Because they're still competent, they still want to do it, and they have the capacity to do it. But are they aligned with the morals of like your teaching? Are they aligned with the values that you have? Or if you're a minister, are they truly carrying out and living a life like Jesus and Christ-like? Because in other words, what this is, it's nothing worse than having someone that you feel like is very productive but they're destroying the ministry God placed you over. They're destroying the business that you're trying to build. They're destroying the team that you are literally trying to win championships with. Because see, that person, if they are killing people, literally, like, not, not, well, not literally, but figure they are killing people in order to basically be productive and get results for you, that is the wrong person in the right seat. Wrong person, wrong seat. Many people say, well, it's better to have someone in position and not have anyone. But I beg to differ, because this is— a lot of times we get tripped up in ministry with this one because we feel like anybody can be reached, and that's true. But sometimes we have to make that decision as a leader to say, okay, the wrong person, meaning that they don't have the capacity, they don't want to, and they're not competent of it. Then on top of that, they can't even get you the results that you want. This is something that you want to eliminate quickly, because if you allow this person to navigate through the company, you just put— or ministry— you just allow your right person, right seat, and sometimes right person, wrong seat, to pull that weight even more. And a lot of times you're going to push that, those people off because you're not positioning people well. So what am I saying? All in all, nothing is black and white. This is a gray area, and this comes from basically being intentional with your leadership, very intentional with it. You have to coach people, you have to have the conversations, you have to basically lean in and make sure that you really understand the people that you're leading. Everybody's different, and that gray area sometimes is just because it's a wrong person, right seat. You can sometimes develop that person if they are showing a want to, if they are teachable, if you, if you are seeing the results in them getting better in what they do. So it's not just, oh wow, this is the wrong person, let me do away with them. No, put them on a developmental track, but check in. I see so many people, they coach people throughout 2, 3 years, especially in ministry. Now I would say the business world kind of gets it because we do quarterly reviews and things like that, yearly reviews and annual reviews. It's not in the ministry. It's like, well, I've been counseling them, I've been developing them, but can you show me concrete evidence and put this in front of this person and say, listen, we have been talking for 6 months and you're still not leading in the way that I've asked you and have challenged you to lead. Well then, now when you can look at that concrete data, you can say, man, first, instead of coming down so hard on that person, you have to start with yourself as a leader. And say, oh wow, maybe I didn't position them well. And this is what this matrix will help you to do.