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On this episode of The Lead On Podcast, Jeff Iorg, president of the SBC Executive Committee, discusses the pivotal role followers play in accomplishing major organizational change, completing his three-part series drawn from the story of Joshua. Dr. Iorg highlights practical ways leaders can support followers through clear communication, adequate resources, and meaningful recognition, emphasizing that true success in ministry transitions requires valuing and empowering those who carry out the vision.
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Ready to hone your leadership skills and unlock your full potential? Tune in to the Lead On Podcast, where Jeff Iorg dives deep into Biblical leadership.
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From effective communication and team building to strategic decision-making and fostering innovation, each episode is packed with valuable lessons and inspiring stories to empower you on your leadership journey.
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Welcome to the Lead On Podcast. This is Jeff Iorg, the president of the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, continuing our conversation about practical issues related to ministry leadership. Today's podcast is actually the third of this three part mini series that I'm doing on leading major change. As I mentioned in the earlier podcast, my book leading major change when I'm asked to teach on it, usually they want me to focus on some aspects of the first part of the book, meaning, focusing on the model for when your church organization is ready to go through major change and then the difference between change and transition and how to manage that in the lives of people. I'm delighted to do those teachings and that's no problem.
Jeff Iorg:But the second half of the book is, one I don't often get to speak about. And it's a part of the book that was built around the story of Joshua and the conquest of Jericho and the principles that come out of that of leading a major endeavor like he did in those days. Now, these three podcasts really form kind of a Trinitarian view of the people who are involved in a major change. I started out by saying that God directs major change. And then last week, leaders initiate major change.
Jeff Iorg:But now that third part of this Trinitarian viewpoint, today's podcast is that major change is accomplished by followers. So think of it. God directs, leaders initiate, followers accomplish. That's what I'm hoping to communicate in these three podcasts and particularly on this third one today. Now in the story in Joshua chapter six, we see him giving the directions to the followers.
Jeff Iorg:They're to march around the city with all the men of war, circling the city one time. Do this for six days, Joshua said. Have seven priests carry seven ram's horns, trumpets, in front of the ark. But on the seventh day, march around the city seven times while the priests blow the trumpets. When there is a prolonged blast of the horn and you hear its sound, have all the people give a mighty shout.
Jeff Iorg:Then the city wall will collapse and the people will advance, each man straight ahead. Well, those are some unusual instructions. And over the years, leaders have asked followers to do many unusual things. Maybe not quite as unusual as Joshua in Joshua chapter six, but nevertheless, some unusual things. And including, in my experience, asking people to relocate churches, to reformat conventions, to change seminary identities and locations.
Jeff Iorg:These are the kinds of major changes that I've asked people to make over the years. And frankly, in making those requests, I've recognized that my leadership was important as I was the initiator in this formula that I'm describing today. But I've I've learned over the years that followers are perhaps the most essential people for accomplishing major change. You know, good leaders galvanize their followers into a cohesive force. They resource and support them for the challenges that they are committed to overcome, and they celebrate with him when God uses them to make major change successfully.
Jeff Iorg:Remember this though, followers are not just the means to accomplish a leader's ends. They are not resources to be used or commodities to be consumed for a leader's personal enrichment or professional success. Followers are partners who depend on their leaders, of course, but fully engage to fulfill what they believe is God's purpose for them and their leaders. Listen, followers in Christian ministries particularly are not commodities to expend. They're fellow believers.
Jeff Iorg:And God has provided them to us as leaders as a sacred trust to fulfill his purposes. Now one of the important parts of, learning to lead major change and focusing on your followers is to think of the change that you're proposing from their perspective. Sadly, many leaders are out of touch with how their followers experience change. You become so engrossed in the leadership challenges and the change possibilities that you lose perspective on the impact those decisions have on others. You can become so excited about the positive aspects of the change that you're proposing that you fail to understand how the change will be perceived by your followers and what it will cost them to fulfill the mandated change.
Jeff Iorg:So it's important for you to lead from your followers' perspective and as best you can, try to see the situation through their eyes. You know, most followers' first response to a proposed change is considering how it will impact them personally, you know, their family or or or their ministry involvement. I know that when we were moving the seminary and we were in the very confidential phase of the planning of all of it, we were having a significant discussion among the executive team about how people were going to respond to this announcement about the seminary's relocation. And there were different speculations about what would be people's concerns, but one vice president was just sitting there quietly, not saying anything. And after the conversation died down a bit, he said, when you make this announcement, people aren't going to be thinking of any of these things.
Jeff Iorg:They're gonna be thinking of only one question. The question is, do I have a job? Well, man, that was a sobering moment because we realized that that he was right, that our employees were not going to be asking speculative questions about the mission or the future or the finances of the seminary. They were just to be asking a simple question, do I have a job? Now that's not subspiritual and it doesn't mean they're less committed.
Jeff Iorg:It's just that our first thoughts are generally of ourselves and how things impact us. Now remember, your first thoughts are not your last thoughts and your first decisions are not your final decisions. And once followers have the opportunity to consider their response in light of the commitments that that they've made to the organization's mission and to God's mission, their ultimate response will usually reflect those commitments, not those first, what I would call knee jerk reactions or responses that they may have made. So when you place yourself in the role of a follower, it causes you to gauge their response and to help remember how followers are being impacted and how they may respond. And it helps you then to shape your message and to shape your ministry to them as you help them to process through the change at hand.
Jeff Iorg:Now, during major change, followers crave certain things. In other words, they want these things very badly. Now what are those things? Well, let me give you three, and in the context of each one of these, maybe flesh them out just a bit. What followers really need during change.
Jeff Iorg:When you look at it from their perspective, what they're asking for, what they need in order to process through what you're asking them to do. Number one, they need clear consistent communication. Change produces uncertainty. And the first way that this anxiety can be countered is by providing clear, consistent communication. And frankly, many leaders underestimate the effort required to communicate accurately in a timely and helpful way the information that's needed to their followers.
Jeff Iorg:Good leaders, in the context of leading major change, plan their communication about a proposed change as thoroughly as they have strategized the change itself. For example, when we planned the announcement about moving to seminary a few those years ago, we spent significant time laying out our communication plan. We've created a a master script, if you will, from which we would draw all of our printed materials and video materials. This master script laid out, in a two or three page document what we were doing and why. And then we excerpted out of that various kinds of communication that we could repeat over and over again over the first few weeks of the process.
Jeff Iorg:Now this was so vital because it gave us a common language, common terminology, and a common set of information that we were all drawing from so that we weren't making things up as we went along or providing mixed messages or misinformation. Now this can be done lots of different ways. I'm not suggesting, heck, this can only be done one way. Depending on the organization, depending on the size of the church or the ministry, depending on the kind of change you're proposing and the length of time that it's gonna take to implement it, all those things impact the kind of communication that you have. What I am advocating is that you be very intentional about developing a communication strategy.
Jeff Iorg:So for example, as I told you, we created this master script. And then from that script, we were able to draw out various components of it or sections of it to put into various kinds of communication that we were sending out. That meant that all of our communication had a commonality about it. Same theme, same ideas, even in some cases, same verbiage or same wording. Now, not only did we spend time putting out information, we also arranged for discussion groups so that people could talk about the information, ask questions, handle hot button issues, deal with concerns, or address issues that we had inadvertently neglected in the communication piece that we pieces that we were distributing.
Jeff Iorg:That means that for employees, for example, the seminary, we divided people into groups by the sections in which they worked and let them have ongoing dialogue with their vice presidents and others who normally gave them the supervision that they needed. You can do this in different ways in church context or ministry context, but what you're basically doing is creating a way for people to talk back. Communication is not just a one way street, you giving out information. It is from time to time having dialogue about that information and being able to get more specifically to the answering of the questions that need to be raised. Now not only do we have this in kind of intentional communication strategy upfront, but we continued that communication strategy over a period of time.
Jeff Iorg:Because the relocation was going to take about three years total, we knew that we needed to maintain consistency of communication throughout that time. So, for the first about eighteen months or so that we were involved in the process, we sent out a monthly newsletter. And then when we got closer to the actual relocation itself, we switched that over to a weekly newsletter so that we were sending out for about eighteen months, a once a month newsletter. And then for the last six months or so, a once a week newsletter saying, this is what's happening. This is what's next.
Jeff Iorg:These are the answers to the questions that are coming up most frequently. These are things that are being done right now. Here are some deadlines you don't wanna forget, that kind of thing. And so the communication plan was carried out over a prolonged period of time to get that work done. Now, that's what it looked like in an organization.
Jeff Iorg:I would also say that we did one more thing in that, and this was related to the pastoral care aspects of providing support for people through transition. And that is I also wrote for about half the time that we were moving this the seminary, a weekly devotional that we sent out to all employees. And it was a short one page email that just helped them to understand a scripture, an insight, and a prayer about the work we were doing together. When I first started doing this, I I very significantly underestimated how profound it would be. And I was surprised at the responses I got from people and how people saved those devotionals and even compiled them and kept them as a memento of the relocation itself.
Jeff Iorg:So communication. Your followers crave consistent, clear communication And that means you have to have a communication plan to support the major change initiative. And it may not have to take three years, but whatever time it's going to take from the time that it's announced until the time that it's implemented, there has to be consistent communication going out through all that time to help people stay on track and on pace. Now I'm often asked, well, how much communication or how often? And there's no fixed answer to that, but there is a principle to keep in mind.
Jeff Iorg:The principle is this, when deciding how much information to share, remember, the greater the investment you expect from your followers, the more information you need to share with them. The greater the investment you expect, the more information you need to share. So for example, in a church context, a casual attender may only need to hear a public announcement, maybe watch a short video on your website or read about the change in the newsletter or something like that. But other people will want much more information. The followers that you're counting on to pay for the project, the staff at Make It Work, or otherwise carry out the day to day implementation of a major change, these people need to be more fully informed.
Jeff Iorg:So that means not only initial communication strategies, but continuing communication strategies like I've described before on this podcast. So the first thing that your followers crave is clear consistent communication. The second thing is they crave resources to accomplish the change. And there are really three of these. They they want they need time, they need tracks, and they need tools.
Jeff Iorg:They need time, tracks, and tools. Now when I say that your followers need time, what I mean is that they need time to effectively implement the change and to do it well. Leaders are usually impatient people. I know I am. You probably are.
Jeff Iorg:We want things done yesterday. But followers can't do things that quickly, if you're in a volunteer setting where you're dealing in a church when everyone's a volunteer. So it's important to lay out a realistic time frame of how long something's going to take and help people to understand that you're gonna move along at a steady pace and a pace that everyone can accommodate. Now developing an adequate timeline for implementing major change is important for several reasons. First, it relieves undue pressure to get the job done quickly.
Jeff Iorg:Second, it it assures followers that their needs are being considered as part of the implementation. Third, an adequate timeline creates a sense of pace rather than panic about the change. Fourth, a good timetable recognizes the natural energy swoon associated with any major project. In other words, when you first start out something, everyone's excited and there's this huge surge of energy and then it swoons after that and slows into a steadier pace. And a good timeline from the beginning recognizes that's going to happen.
Jeff Iorg:And then finally, a good timetable recognizes life happens. Life happens while implementing change, and followers will need time to absorb those challenges and manage them. So for example, when you're going through a major change in an organization, whether it's a church or ministry organization, you have to recognize that the people who are implementing it, your followers, they're going to have many things still going on in their lives. They don't just get to hit the pause button while they devote their entire attention to your organization or ministry. No.
Jeff Iorg:Children and grandchildren will continue to be born. Family members are gonna continue to pass away. Major illnesses continue to strike. Children still get sick. Spouses still lose jobs and on and on and on.
Jeff Iorg:And all these things happen to our followers and some of them even happen to other leaders. And while these life events are happening, they take our time and our money to manage and they take from us energy that we could be devoting to fulfilling the major change. That's why a good timeline is important because it helps people understand that you're allowing the right amount of time to get the project done. A second thing in this category is tracks. What I mean by that is a reasonable path is laid out for completing the task at hand.
Jeff Iorg:When you lay out a major change, you have to say, and this is the path we're going on or the track we're going on in order to fulfill it. You know, in the in the eighteen hundreds in The United States, the railroad industry changed American history. It united the nation by connecting the coast, streamlining commerce, enhancing communication, and opening new opportunities. The rail industry changed the world. But the most important people in the rail industry weren't the celebrated tycoons who made it possible through their investment strategies and business acumen, no.
Jeff Iorg:The most important people in the railroad industry may have been the people laying the tracks. You know, a train is a massive machine with one major constraint. It can only go where a track makes progress possible. Think about it. No matter how powerful the engine, unlimited the fuel source or skilled the operators, no matter how any of that comes together, a train can only travel on the track that has been laid.
Jeff Iorg:That's why leaders have to do more than cash vision or talk passionately about change. They must lay the track, meaning they put out a path that people can follow to actually implement the change. Here's some suggestions about how to do this. First, leaders lay out workable steps to make measured progress. Major change doesn't happen overnight.
Jeff Iorg:It needs to happen incrementally and with steps and in ways that people feel like they're making progress even though they're a long way from the end. Second, leaders create way stations. These are stopping points to reevaluate and reassess and reboot for the next phase of ministry. And this is essential because major change is often accomplished in phases or stages and over a longer period of time, so occasions you need to stop, take an appraisal of where you are, catch your breath, if you will, and then go back to the next steps. Another reason that you need a good plan of tracks is that these tracks you lay, help people stay focused, limits freelancing from well meaning followers and keeps people narrowly focused on what you're trying to get accomplished together.
Jeff Iorg:And finally, laying good tracks means that leaders supply the materials, the money, the outside expertise, the practical tools, whatever it is that followers need to get the job done, which leads me into the second category part of this category, that's tools. Providing the right tools, meaning that you give the people the resources they need to actually get the job done. So what are the kinds of tools that followers typically need to accomplish major change in ministry organizations? First, it includes training them on the skills needed to do something new. It can mean anything from shaping job descriptions to do something new to shaping positions that are new to an organization.
Jeff Iorg:It can also mean training them to do something new in their personal lives that they've maybe never done before. Like for example, we're moving to seminary. One of the things we did was we brought in a company that specialized in home purchasing. We had all these people that were moving and many of them were living in seminary owned rental apartments and so they didn't even they didn't even have any experience with buying a house. And so we brought someone in to train them, to give them the training they needed, to give them the tools they needed to be able to buy a house when they got to Southern California.
Jeff Iorg:Now, lots of ways you can do this, but one way to do it is by providing people with experts, people who know something about what's being proposed or what's the challenges trying to be met, and you use these experts to get the job done. That's what we did again with the housing situation with moving to seminary. I called a friend who owned a mortgage company and a real estate company and I said, look, I've got a bunch of people here who want to move and buy houses and all of that, but they don't really know what they're doing. They've never done it before. And I'm wondering if you could send someone to train.
Jeff Iorg:And he said, man, I'll do it. In fact, he said, it's my gift to the seminary, I will do it. And so he sent a team. They spent three days with us and it was just like a three day seminar for everyone on home buying and navigating real estate procedures and what the roles of realtors are and just all aspects that we gave people the tools they needed to go forward. Now by using these outside experts who came in and helped us with the task.
Jeff Iorg:Another thing is giving people the materials they need to get the job done by just making sure they have in hand whatever they need to get the work actually done. So followers crave from their leaders clear, consistent communication And they crave having the right tracks or the right tools or the right time, meaning the resources needed to accomplish the change. And then finally, a third thing they crave is recognition for the sacrifices they're making for the mission. Now, this doesn't mean that you have to be extravagant nor flattering or anything like that. But listen, followers, especially if they're volunteers, they need someone to say thank you.
Jeff Iorg:They need someone to recognize their sacrifice. They need someone to say we noticed and we noticed what you did and how much it meant, and we want you to know that. So what are some ways that you can offer people's people recognition for the sacrifice they're making for the mission? Well, the first thing is very simple. It's verbal praise.
Jeff Iorg:Now this can take many forms. You can highlight successful implementation of aspects of the change. You can tell stories of individual sacrifices followers have made for the change. You can share their credit with followers by identifying specific ways they've made the change possible. You know, wise leaders report their followers' successes in public forums like board meetings and employee meetings and worship services and other public places.
Jeff Iorg:Now remember, we're not talking about flattery here. The Bible condemns that, Talking about public praise. You know, flattery focuses on personal success. Flattery focuses on the speaker, the one who's giving the compliment to gain leverage or influence or reward. But genuine praise is focused on the follower, and it motivates them to greater service and sacrifice, not just the one giving the compliment.
Jeff Iorg:You know, when we built our new church in Oregon, we had one family that made a remarkably sacrificial gift. And they told their story, and it motivated sacrifice by so many in the congregation and all of that. And it was appropriate for the pastor to offer them verbal praise, thanks if you will, to say, we appreciate what you did. We appreciate the example that it set. We appreciate the impact that it had.
Jeff Iorg:To offer that kind of verbal praise to them was helpful. Another way you can share recognition is by offering meaningful gifts. Now, we recognize that they don't have to be expensive gifts, but are often items related to the change or maybe even mementos of the change. They remind followers of their participation in the project and even give them some kind of historic record of a spiritual milestone they went through together. You know, at the groundbreaking for our church in Oregon, when we were going through this major change of moving from being portable for ten years to fill building our own facility, the church prepared these little bottles, not much bigger than a pill bottle, with a really nice label printed on the outside that said time to build, and that be that was the watchword of our campaign.
Jeff Iorg:And what and when you say the words time to build in that church, they know exactly what you mean. They mean the time that we built the campus when we saw the miracle of God accomplish to bring about this building facility that we have. Now those small bottles, they filled them up with dirt at the groundbreaking, sealed them up, and gave them out to everyone who participated that day. Several 100 people all got a little bottle of dirt with that time to build label on the front. You know I still have that.
Jeff Iorg:It's still sitting in my office. Just a little vial of dirt, time to build on the front. But every time I look at it, I'm reminded of the sacrifice I made to build a church in Oregon. And that meaningful gift of that time to build bottle of dirt is a memento that means so much to me because it reminds me of a moment when I saw God do something powerful, not only through me but with me and with my friends and fellow believers in Oregon. You know, we did some of the same things when we moved to seminary.
Jeff Iorg:We we we gave out mementos of people of things that were on the campus, and we gave some to employees and some to other people who had been a significant part of the seminary's life over the years. We also did something else that was really kind of interesting. We we created these stickers that they're not really stickers. They were more like eight and half by 11 piece of paper that we would tape up so they were stuck up on someone's door. And when we were getting ready to pack the seminary up, you you you had to earn your boom sticker, and it said, boom.
Jeff Iorg:This room is finished. And, it had a little, you know, guy kind of exploding on the thing. It was a cute little little, thing that we made up. We just printed them on a copy machine. Nothing's fancy, just a simple thing.
Jeff Iorg:Boom. This room's finished. And I said, the goal is to get a boom sticker on every room in the seminary. And then when we moved to the new campus, we had to create a different kind of a thing, so we created these stickers that we put up called ready to roll. And it said, this room is ready to roll.
Jeff Iorg:In other words, we're ready to go. We're ready to roll. We're ready to get the work done. And what made it interesting is you could only get your boom sticker at the old campus or your ready to roll sticker at the new campus from me, from the president. Now you say, really?
Jeff Iorg:I said, yeah. Because I wanted people to know that I was noticing them. I was giving them the praise they deserved for the work they were doing and I wanted them to know that that it mattered. And so you you you'd call up to the to me to my office or you'd see me and you'd say, hey, I think my room is finished. I I I I think that it's it's it's ready for the boom sticker.
Jeff Iorg:And I'd go down, we'd go in and we'd inspect it and look at the office and look in the closets and look. If it was ready to roll. I said, you got it done. And we'd close the door and we'd lock it and we'd put that sticker on the door. There was a kind of a sense of pride in that.
Jeff Iorg:And then the ready to roll, same thing. As soon as you got your office set up, fully operational, computer going, books on the on the in the shelves, all cardboard down to the recycling and your room was finished and and ready to go. You'd ask for your inspection, I'd go and look it over and say, hey, man, this looks great. You're ready to roll. And I'll tell you how meaningful this became.
Jeff Iorg:After we moved in, a couple of weeks later, one of our employees came around and he said, hey, I wonder if you'd you'd sign my ready to roll sticker. I said, sure. And I signed it for him and he said, I'm framing this and I'm hanging in my office. He said, this is one of the most significant things I've ever been a part of in my life, opening this new seminary campus. And I'm gonna remember this, that I was ready to roll and we got the work done together.
Jeff Iorg:Listen, I'm telling you, people want to be recognized not with not with ridiculously expensive things, but with vials of dirt and little silly stickers that say, God moved and I was part of it and I've got something to remember. And then finally, they want you to share the credit. You know, we recognize that our followers are the reason that major change gets accomplished. And when we share the credit in public context, in worship services, in board meetings, with a with a during a special dinner or a commemorative event or any kind of place where we're able to stand up publicly and say, we did this together. You know, as president, I got a lot of credit for moving to seminary.
Jeff Iorg:I wrote the book, I go around the country speaking in conferences and doing all of that. But at the seminary, I consistently consistently said time and time again, we did this together. It was the followers who actually got the job done. So whether it was moving a church in Missouri or moving a convention in the Northwest or planting a church in Oregon or moving a seminary in California, when I look back on it, God directed and I initiated, but it was the followers who actually got the major change done. These three people, if you will, God, leader, follower.
Jeff Iorg:These three have to come together to accomplish major change. So think about what I've said over these past three weeks of the podcast. If haven't read my book, Leading Major Change in Your Ministry, you can get one of those and find out more about this and read in more detail what I've been talking about on the podcast. Every one of you that's a leader, sometime along the way, will be called on to lead change and sometimes to lead major change. When you do that, make sure it's God directed, leader initiated, and follower accomplished.
Jeff Iorg:Keep that formula in mind as you lead on.