The Development Diamond: A Staff Development Strategy
Before every commercial airplane takes off a flight attendant reviews various safety reminders. One of those is how to use the oxygen masks should the cabin depressurize. Passengers are reminded to always put their own masks on first before attempting to help others. The rationale is obvious, if you don’t first ensure your own safety you won’t be able to ensure the safety of others.
The same rationale is true in church staff development. Our primary calling is to “equip the saints,” but how can we effectively do so if we don’t first equip and develop ourselves?
In the article Performance Management or Performance Development, we examined the need for church leaders to move to a supervisory approach that focuses more on staff development than staff management. Today we look at the Development Diamond, a four-fold approach to a comprehensive staff development strategy: Spiritual Development, Ministry Development, Organizational Leadership and Management Development, and Personal Development.
The Staff Development Diamond
A polished diamond is highly valued as a precious stone. Our church staffs are precious stones that require polishing to achieve their highest potential value. Prioritizing staff development is the surest approach for helping your staff to shine.
When drawn as a rhombus, the diamond has four points. A comprehensive approach to staff development includes four approaches fused together.
- Spiritual Development: Growing in loving relationship and union with God and others. Developmental examples include:
- Training in spiritual disciplines, practices and habits
- A Spiritual Health Assessment
- A Rule of Life Plan
- Spiritual Retreats
- Ministry Development: Growing in the knowledge and skills that enhance one’s ability to maximize his or her calling and ministry effectiveness. Developmental examples include:
- Ministry bench marking through church site visits
- Mentoring
- Consultants
- Conferences, workshops, seminars, webinars
- Organizational Leadership and Management Development: Growing in the ability to define and cast vision, create strategy, develop processes and systems, recruit and train, lead people, manage change, etc. Developmental examples include:
- Coaching
- Church Leadership and Management Training
- Books, websites, periodicals
- Degree Programs
- Personal Development: Understanding, growing, and maximizing one’s God-given talents and gifts to maximize one’s potential as a person, friend, co-worker, and family member. Developmental examples include:
- Spiritual Gifts Inventories
- Time Management Training
- Personality and Strengths Assessments
- Personhood Awareness Training
The Pay Off
When Southwest Airlines shifted their measure of success from happy customers to happy employees, everything changed. When asked what was behind their success, Southwest Airlines CEO, Gary Kelly, said, “Easy: Our People.” A culture where they put the needs and development of their employees first is what led to their success.
The same thing will happen in your church when you make the shift to prioritizing the development of your staff using the Development Diamond.
Posted on May 29, 2018
