CEP SEASON TWO EP: 22 - WITH GUEST MARK KRESGE

Sep 29

By Dave Mckeown and Nathan Benger

The Church Explained podcast is a conversation to help grow your leadership, develop your team and build your church. Your hosts will be Dave Mckeown and Nathan Benger. We talk about all things leadership with key team players from IKON Church and other guests during each show.

Welcome to Season 2 Episode: 22 of the Church Explained Podcast with guest Mark Kresge

A Short bio

Mark and Natalie Kresge lead from a passion for seeing the local church empowered to advance the kingdom of God. As founders of the Collaborative Project, Mark & Natalie advance the Kingdom of God by serving the local church through making disciples, developing leaders, and equipping families to be healthy.

They have been married for 11 years and have a 4-year-old son, Jude. They reside in Sacramento, CA and have a love for movies, competition, and sushi.

In part one of our conversation, we explore with Mark some practical steps leaders should consider when hiring and developing staff/team members. He also shares some ideas on how to have courageous conversations when things are not going as planned.

SHOW NOTES

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FULL TRANSCRIPT

David Mckeown 0:00

Hey welcome to the church explained podcast a conversation to grow your leadership and build your Church today we've got an amazing guest the whole way from the years today we've got Mark Chris gay with his

David Mckeown 0:20

and that we've we've set up near Well, haven't we because he just called the second set. So thank you more for His Highness state union. Kresge Mark was easy, but kreski was the bit we were challenged. So my name is de. And this is my host.

Mark Kresge 0:35

Yeah, my name is Nathan. And yeah, so great to have mark with us. Let me just share a little bit about Mark Mark and Natalie Kresge. We're going to keep saying it because we get it right now. lead, lead from a passion see the local Church empowered to advance the Kingdom of God. And as founders of the collaborative project, Mark and Natalie advanced the kingdom of God by serving the local Church through making disciples developing leaders and equipping families to be healthy. They have been married 11 years have a four year old son called Jude. And what a great name. My youngest son is called Jude. So what a great and they are they reside in Sacramento, and have a love for movies, competition, and sushi. So Mark, it's great to have you with us.

Mark Kresge 1:24

It's an honour to be with you all. Thank you so much.

David Mckeown 1:27

Hey, yeah, thanks for being with us. Mark, we want to find out a little bit more about you. Of course, we've got the short bio there. But come on, tell us if you can, and for our listeners a little bit of bide your, your sort of route in the ministry, your story, your background, maybe stuff about your family. And and of course, we always love to ask again. What do you do for fun? Because sometimes leadership podcast can be a little bit serious. We'd like them packed and put a little bit of fun in there as well.

Mark Kresge 1:54

Oh, absolutely. Well, yeah, well, let me just say, Dave, Nate, I love I love the ministry. I love the local Church. It is a passion and a call. And, you know, it's once upon a time I never thought I would work in the Church for the Church, and have a passion for the Church. But in 2008, I really, you know, surrendered my life to Christ and started that journey of just being a disciple. And that started with with a Bible college, you know, I had given my life to Jesus and was living a pretty, pretty rough lifestyle before coming to Christ. And so needed some major discipleship, which I guess don't we all don't so point and but really enjoyed just a two year journey. In some in a theology school. It's actually where I met my wife, who's from Houston, Texas. And, you know, Texans are very proud of their state. And, and so we we had an amazing journey, even just in that process, and that same Church that I was a part of, in their Bible college, they brought me on staff, right as I graduated, and I started serving young adult ministry really am one of my first roles, I definitely thought they didn't know what they were doing by giving me opportunities that they were giving me. But my first role was to plant Young Adult Ministries in other churches and to collaborate with other churches and serve the local Church by bringing resources and training leaders and being able to do that. And so I really got a deep dive into some ministry world pretty quickly, but fell in love with it immediately. And so I became a young adult Pastor for several years after that, and and then in the context of our ministry and organisation it was Victory Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, served in ministry there multiple capacities as you do in Church world. Was this the campus pastors, campus Pastor multiple times, planted campuses, our Bible college, really was responsible for a lot of turnaround leadership, in our in our organisation as we went through transitions of senior lead, which was a great opportunity to just help align things for the future. So helped in that process. I started last seven years as the assistant Pastor of that Church, where I helped a lot of the executive needs and and helping in the ministry, across the board. But again, just love it love building local Church, love launching what God does through them. So that's been the journey up to this point. We just transitioned from that ministry, which we we love are still our best friends. And we launched the collaborative project. And we'll talk a little bit more about that. But what we do for fun, I would say is add anything competition, so I try to keep it healthy. But it could be anything from football, to basketball to board games, to rock, paper, scissors, I mean, whatever it is, we love competition. And I try to be a good sport about it. Whenever I do. I'd say that and then a movie probably movies, entertainment, you know, we love just a good movie. And my wife and I and so I'd say entertainment is another. I'm a movie guy, the movie guy. So Oh, Before,

David Mckeown 5:01

we may pick that up a little bit later on the podcast. And now, let's dig a little bit. The real serious question. Are you a sore loser?

Mark Kresge 5:12

You know, I'm gonna be honest with you. There are moments where I have to ask the Holy Spirit to help me.

David Mckeown 5:17

Yeah.

Mark Kresge 5:19

You can sense it. Yes. You just heard that. And I just like I said, I just got off of a youth camp helping, you know, these teenagers learn how to lose well, how to win well, and I feel like I passed the test this last weekend. But it was, it was a good test.

Mark Kresge 5:35

What you're in good company, may you're in good company, because I'm a sore loser as well. I don't let my eight year old when at the moment.

Mark Kresge 5:42

Yeah, yeah. I can appreciate that.

David Mckeown 5:47

Fatherhood day, the story of fatherhood. It's so good to have you with us. And we want to do a little bit of a deep dive today around staffing and development and team and get their heads around those sort of ideas. Because I know obviously, in your roles, Mike, you've helped develop teams, you've looked from weather structures, or the health of the team. And I thought it'd just be good for us just to get a few questions around that this afternoon. And just explore that together, because I think it really does help our listeners and, and people who are watching in as well today, so maybe they can kick that off with our first few questions on that. on that. Yeah, we're gonna go?

Mark Kresge 6:26

Yeah, I mean, the first question is, which is quite a good one is hardly How do you pick the right staff member? Like, what are you looking for Mark in a staff member?

Mark Kresge 6:40

Yeah, that's a great question, isn't it? Right? I think my personal, just beliefs is, you know, belief is that people are the key to progress. And so if you're going to, if you're going to have, you know, a great organisation, a great Church, I mean, you've got to have great people, right? You've got to learn how to pick the right people, you know, great ideas, revolutionary ideas, vision, culture systems, they all come from one place people, right. So if we don't know how to pick the right people, I don't think we're going to be able to accomplish the things that are in our heart. And so it is a deep passion for me is to is to is to find and to develop the right people. So So I would say, you know, for me, the best way, I would say I start by saying, you know, if I'm going to pick the right person, what I need to know what I really need in a position. And that might sound very simple. But before I start just trying to choose someone or replace someone, I'm going to take a moment just to zoom out and say, Man, is this a is this an opportunity for me in this department to maybe evaluate how this team operates? It's not always a one for one replacement. It's not always so I'm going to really do a deep dive into what I'm really looking for, just to start, I'd say it's probably the one of the number one I try to, to promote from within the organisation as much as possible. You know, there's people who already know the culture, they already know, the DNA of the organisation, the vision of where we're going, hopefully, at least if we've done our job, and I also think it's a great boost of morale for someone to feel promoted within a within an organisation. I never interview alone. And so I always want perspective of other maybe other leaders, somebody else at the table with me, just for, for some perspective in that process. So those are just a few like personal, just beliefs and just process for me as I'm starting. But once I get through there, you know, I'm looking through just like your traditional number one, are they a physician fit? So as I maybe I find a candidate or potential job incumbent, I'm looking at them and said, Okay, do you have the wiring? Do you have the skill set, you know, just kind of the ABCs, right, we want to start there. You know, we're not just trying to get a warm body in a position to make something move forward, because we never want to rush the process. And so I'm willing to wait to find the right person. So we put our feelers out there, we move through relationship, but I'm looking at do you have the skill set? Do you have? You know, do you have the reputation? I'm looking at a few of those, are you a fit for the job? And I think that's where most people land. That's what most people work through. But I think that I take it a little bit further and say, Are you a position fit? But then also, are you a organisational fit, because some people are a great fit in a particular position, but might not fit within the organisation at large. And I had to learn that the hard way, there were moments where I hired on people, and they could do the job so well, whether it be pushing papers or being with people leaving something or you know, maybe in the accountant world, and we would they would do a great job in that position, but they didn't fit the organisational culture. And so that sometimes was a little bit so as I walked through an interview process, I'm looking for both Do you have the skill set, but then also do you fit our culture? You know, so for me, we would always look like in the Church world I was always looking for four things I was looking at, are you spiritual? Right? Are you relational? Are you professional? Are you adaptable? And those were just the four cultural values within for hiring that I felt if we, if we have someone who fits these four things, they typically make it the long run in our organisation. And so that's typically how I look is, are they? Are they a job fit? Are they organisational fit? And if I can, if I can move through that interview process and and then I always just trust my instinct, because there's some people who will, they'll pass the test in so many different ways. But then my in my knower, you know, there's times I don't know if you've ever been there. It's like, you look so great. On paper, you've answered everything correctly, but for some reason, I just cannot get a yes. And I would just advise trust your instinct. So that's typically how i That's my process and usually trying to find somebody. Right?

David Mckeown 10:55

Yeah, I like that. And there's some something in that really about trusting your instinct, I think when you say that, because you can sit with a person and as you say, and everything takes, but somehow inside, there's something that just doesn't quite fit, gentlemen. And it takes a little bit of courage doesn't we'll say it yeah, maybe you're just not the right person for this space? Actually, that's, that's okay to do that. So let's think of this idea. Because you've mentioned there are those qualities you're looking for? As you're picking team members, or you're hiring staff? That's a they're in position. Now, what are you doing? Or what's your experience to how you're developing those people? Because it's not just about the skill. But it's more than that, isn't it?

Mark Kresge 11:40

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I think that developing people, that's probably one of the highest callings of a leader, you know, that as we pull the right people into the team, that we also want to take responsibility. For those who are entrusted to us. We want to care for those first Peter five says, As an elder in the Church, right, that we should, that we should serve those who are entrusted to us. And so I take that pretty seriously. And, you know, two ways that I would say is, as we want to, we want to equip people through training, and through development. And so I think, I think with that is how do I, personally, I think how can I equip people, not just professionally, but also personally, right. Because your personal life is directly connected to your professional life, there's, there's no separating it, your home life will impact your public life. And so, so I look at that when I'm, I spent a lot of time with my, with my teams. To me, it's a really important thing, just to be accessible at some level, at least my direct reports, and to be able to spend time with them, clarify expectations, communicate, be consistent with them, ask questions, check ins. So I'm just I'm making myself available and building a level of rapport and relationship credibility with them. And so I start there with that I'm looking at Hey, how can I help develop you relationally with conflict resolution, perhaps in your marriage, give you some tools? Is it financial classes is a college courses that you feel like you've just wanted to take on a masterclass perhaps, where I can just help develop you some way personally, that will, that will then impact you professionally. So I'm looking at training opportunities consistently. So beyond that, you know, again, we'll pull in resourcing also professional training as much as we can, whether it's a seminar or a conference that we will hold ourselves, we will send them to that's, that's in the line item of the budget is we want to make sure that we're continually training, but not just blanket training, either, is I want to know the needs of the people that are on my team. I don't want to just send them to any seminar, I want to know what is the state of the person that I've brought into this team? And what did they specifically need, I feel responsible to know that and then to, to assist in that way. So I want to equip them in the training piece. And again, a lot of that is also going to come just through proximity, being with me as a leader. I want them to, I want them to catch it. And I want them to know it through that proximity. And, you know, I just that's life on life discipleship, and to a degree. And so I'd say that's one of the main ways but then also, I would say is empowerment is a huge way to develop people, is I want to empower people with opportunities. And I love there's a quote that I've, I don't know who to give credit to. But to to really quotes that I love as is trained people so well that they can go wherever they want, but treat them so well, that they never want to leave you. Right. And I think that if you can do that, well, people will will stay the long run because they feel developed and they feel cared for. And they're also then going to in turn, really produce something special. When it comes to empowering people. I've heard a quote that that trust is given mistrust is earned. And I think many times we usually flip it around is like I would trust you and delegate some authority and not just responsibility to you when you really prove yourself. And of course we have to have wisdom right We'd have to know, okay, they they can hold their weight year there's, we want to be wise and steward well, but I think for me it's delegating authority, which is decision making power and not just responsibility, which is someone who carries out my decisions. And I think that helps develop leadership, I think that helps develop a sense of ownership in your team. And so, so that's a real passion for me developing people in that way. Yeah.

Mark Kresge 15:26

No, that's great. I wonder if just ask a, maybe a question off the back of that. So in terms of developing your team, you mentioned at the start the whole, you know, like questions, you're asking people questions, how they go in those kinds of things, all of that. And then you mentioned the word proximity, that life on life discipleship, I wonder, practically, like, what does that look like? So, you know, does that look like I have a set like this? Is the time I'm setting meetings with these people? Or is it organic in the sense of, we're just doing life, we're around each other's houses. And those conversations happen. I wonder if you could just dive into that a little bit more?

Mark Kresge 16:04

Oh, Nate, that's a great question. For me, the process has been a standing meeting with each of the people I directly oversee every week. And so we are going to have time in our schedule every week to just sit together. Even if we have nothing on the agenda, we're going to sit down and it might just be having conversation, again, building just relationship with that person. And there are other times where it's coming in, and we're having some really courageous, difficult conversations around performance are around, you know, vision. And, and so for me, it's a standing meeting, typically, just with my personality, I ended up you know, I'm a relational person. I'm a relational leader, just by nature. And so it typically ends up becoming life on life at some level, where our families know one another, you know, we connect and, and so I start with and practically speaking, it's it's a standing meeting every week with someone. And that is a priority for me. It's an appointment that I do my best never to break. So that's

David Mckeown 17:06

great. That's a great answer, though. And, of course, that's a good sort of protocol that people can put in their own dairy as well. They can say, Yeah, we're going to do that. Because I know people get busy life gets busy. And sometimes people think, well, we'll just miss that. And there's something about as you say, having a regular meeting week on week on an eve you just sitting down and chilling, that makes a big difference as well. I was thinking of that phrase that you use that quote, it's a good quarter one, I mean, you have to there, but the second one around how you treat people treat them as if they don't want to go? Or so they don't go I like that. So just just thinking of that a little bit. Because that speaks to me around creating ownership within the team and within the individual. How do you do that? How do you create that sense of ownership? Not just at the task, but actually to the organisation as well?

Mark Kresge 18:00

Oh, yeah, a great question. I, you know, well, I wonder ship to me, it's a cultural value, you know, culture, you know, answers the question, how will we behave? Who are we going to be as a group of people, and so ownership to me is one of those is one of those things. So, for me, I've always personally, the the Four Laws of culture building, for me have always been communication, demonstration, toleration and celebration. So let me explain I think for me, so ownership is number one is I want to communicate, what is ownership really mean in this context? Right, as a leader here as a, as a part of this team? What does it really mean to be an owner because you can ask that you could probably ask three different leaders what ownership is, and they're gonna give you a slightly different answer. So for me ownership, the way I describe it to our team is ownership is caring about the outcome as much as the owner does. I mean, at the end of the day, I want you to care about this organisation, like you own it, like the buck stops with you at the end of the day. And, you know, I normally use an illustration with our team, when I describe this, they say, you know, we use a babysitter at times when my wife and I go on a date night. And I said, there's two types of babysitters that we've experienced in our life. There's the babysitter that when we leave, and they show up, and they're there to watch our four year old and you know, they get there and they don't really pay much attention to my son and there might be on the phone scrolling through social media, while he's like playing a game in the corner. You know, we come home and the mess that they've made together is not cleaned up. You know, they say hey, just can you pay me my money and I'm gonna be out right? There's that kind of babysitter right? But we've also experienced this other type of babysitter that sometimes feels like a unicorn really difficult to find. But when you when you when you find them, you know it right, you show up and man, they get there and they're intentional. They're engaged with my son, the man they're loving on them, reading them a bedtime story, praying with them at night, they clean up the house that they've made the mess for maybe even do a little extra work and they come home and then we get there. They say hey, thank you so much for allowing me just a privilege to just watch your son tonight like this is a true story. And I said, you know, to our teams, I say which one of you? I said, which one do you think was the baby was the better babysitter? You know, everyone's like number two? And I said, Do you want to know why? Ownership, I said, at the end of the day, they cared about the outcome, as much as I did as a parent, they cared about how my son went to bed or how he felt engaged with. And I said, So number one, I want to communicate this cultural value. This is, this is a clear, just explanation of who we're going to be and how we're going to do things. But the number two, I can communicate all day long. But if I don't demonstrate it, there's no moral authority, there is no, you know, I become basically the weakest link in that process. And, you know, we all know this as leaders, and as parents, you know, that people will do what you do more than what you say. And so for me, as a, as a leader, I myself have to be a person of ownership. And if you know, and in my experience is I wasn't the senior lead of an organisation, I was an assistant Pastor and associate. So I had to show what does ownership look like? You know, I ran a Bible college for several years, and I had to show them I'm, as dedicated to the outcome of this Bible college, just like I owned it, even though I don't. And that again, that demonstration, that example begins to bleed into a real culture of ownership. The lob, number three of toleration is I can't tolerate when people don't do it, I have to set expectations, I need to do it myself. But I do need to address with courageous conversations, when people are unwilling to have an ownership mentality and care about the outcome as much as the owner. So again, those courageous conversations are difficult for a lot of leaders, my nature is not very conflict oriented naturally. So I've had to grow and true and choose this is to sit down with people and say, Hey, I've realised there's a real lack of excellence, here, I've realised that when you show up, you're not giving your best, you're not showing up and taking responsibility, you know, for this area. And so I'm gonna give you the opportunity to change that, you know, to change that behaviour, to take ownership, or just by nature, you're choosing yourself to, to have yourself leave from this team. So toleration is a big piece of it. And then lastly, is celebration, probably every leader knows this is that you just need to publicly celebrate those that you see taking ownership on your team. And that's probably one of my favourite parts to call somebody up in front of everybody else, and just publicly celebrate, man, have you seen the end give specific examples on how they took ownership and how they, you know, did the things that we're asking them to do. And again, whenever you celebrate gets repeated, and you begin to see now there's a culture of something, this is a natural way of doing it. And and so that's one of the ways that I like to build an ownership mentality within an organisation or a department.

Mark Kresge 22:49

Really great. Yeah, I love that. I love that example of the babysitter. And I'm thankful we've we found a unicorn for our babysitting.

Mark Kresge 23:00

Do not let that person go.

Mark Kresge 23:03

You know, this, even this morning, even this morning, they were around at our house, and I've come back and they've done the washing up and folded clothes, it was like, wow, come on. But now what a great what what a great example. But you mentioned there around courageous conversations and the idea of conflict. And I wonder if you could touch on that whole area of, you know, maybe a staff member being in the wrong position or the wrong place, somebody underperforming, and then also whether you could touch on your journey of, you know, getting to that place of being able to, you know, do those conflict, those courageous conversations? Well, like you said, there, you know, you weren't, you know, you didn't like conflict. So how did you get there?

Mark Kresge 23:50

Great question. Yeah, you know, when somebody isn't on the team, and they're underperforming, you know, they're, you know, they're just not where we can all agree, not where they should be. My process has been, I start with me, you know, I start with me as a leader, and I say, Okay, have I led this person correctly? Have I given clear expectations, have I trained and resource and develop this person, all the things that we just discussed have I have, I really put those things into practice. Because at the end of the day, I want to take ownership and I want to be responsible. So I start with me, and I tried to evaluate some of those processes. Now, if I have done that, and if I have executed to the best of my ability, and we feel we've given all that we can give. You know, I really think a courageous conversation and this is what's helped me a lot is that a lack of courageous conversation. And avoidance of conflict is actually a disservice to the person on your team. Because at the end of the day, someone who is consistently underperforming in a department, trust me they know it. They know that they are underperforming, and no one no one enjoys a role that they are bad at. Like no one enjoys a prolonged season of doing something that they know they're under forming it, right. But most people themselves don't don't have the, you know, the the the ability or maybe sometimes the courage themselves to have that conversation. And so even though they themselves would like to transition, they themselves would like a different position, maybe they themselves would like to move from the team, it's difficult for them because change is scary, right? To have maybe a salary or to to be known, or they don't want to let other people down by making that transition. So I see it as a service to the team member to sit down with them and say, hey, you know, we've noticed some of these things, we're walking through this process. And at the end of the day, we don't want you to be in a position that you feel like you're not thriving it. So I look at maybe number one, are they are they just on the wrong seat on the bus, you know, maybe they're maybe they're supposed to be a part of the organisation, but they're sitting in the wrong seat. And so I'm, I'm going to start doing a little bit of a dive into let's talk more about your passions, that things changed or shifted, we evaluated that skill set and maybe visit fit better over here. So we don't want to just cut people loose, but we want to start with how can I serve you and start looking is there a better place in the organisation. And if there's not, that's okay. If they're called maybe to another type of profession or a different organisation. Again, maybe not, they're not a great organisational fit, but they were a great position fit. If some of those things are the reality, I see those courageous conversations have come from the perspective of Let me serve this person, because by avoiding conflict, they're going to suffer in the role. And then the organisation is going to suffer in the role, no one's going to be happy. So I've seen it that way. I think a courageous conversation and conflict actually can be very building of a relationship. It can be building for the organisation and not it can be constructive and not destructive in conflict. And so So that's been my process through there. And I think that's helped me to sit down and say, if I really love and care about this person, the way that I say I do, then I'm going to set some of those tensions and feelings aside, and I'm going to love them well in this opportunity.

Mark Kresge 27:01

Great. Awesome. Well, it's been great to have mark with us, and it's been great to have you join us on the church explained podcast. Don't forget to rate review and subscribe wherever you're consuming this content. And also don't forget to check out IKON dot Church forward slash open for loads of free resources for you and your Church and we look forward to seeing you next time on the church explained podcast. We'll see you soon.

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