Applying Management Principles When Leading Your Church Team – Part 2

3. The Fingertip Principle – I used to be in a retail industry and I call this the Fingertip principle. We know straightaway the difference between a good manager and a lousy one is if they know their figures at their fingertips. At the end of the day, if you ask them, how was the sales today? If they can rattle their different sales figures, they are on the ball. If they don’t know how many is sold and go “Erm”… Then you know they are not on the ball. To be a good manager, you need to know exactly your figures no matter what area you are in charge of. Be it cash flow, weekly attendance, number of visitors to your site, number of books or goods sold, number of customers who purchased in the last month etc. Know them on your fingertips. I’ve personally known of companies which close down because their finance head do not know their cash flow figures or their sales team don’t know sales figures at their fingertips. Not knowing your figures creates complacency. Every role needs to know their figures at their fingertips. This actually creates a culture of readiness, alertness and it’s a proactive way of ensuring the ball is not dropped.

4. The Pin-Drop Principle – Every organization is made up of people. What we get out of that is people issues that you have to face as a leader. There were many times when we used to ask managers about a disgruntled or discouraged staff, customer complains, etc that is within their responsibility. A great cop out by a lazy or totally oblivious manager is “I didn’t hear about it/ I don’t know about it” They think ignorance is bliss and use ignorance to avoid responsibility! This is the part where I know it’s coming. My boss will tell him/ her straight with “passion”: “Next time, even if a pin drops, I want to hear it, and want you to hear and know it.” As a leader, you need to know what is going on around you in  your team. If you have no clue, it indicates that more effort is needed to personally roll up your sleeves and get involved in your team immediately! Even if it’s as soft as a pin-drop sound, you need to know the state of your team.

Prov 27:23 “Be diligent to know the state of your flocks and attend to your herds”

Combining the Fingertip (Figures) and Pin-Drop (People) Principles done right, you will see a mark difference in your team leadership!