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May 5, 2016

The “Miracle” of Recruiting a High-Level Team

By Daniel Im

Every month, Plus Members get video enhanced training from Ministry Grid on topics like leadership, ministry systems, residencies, multiplication, church planting, and multisite. This month, William Vanderbloemen, Founder and CEO of the Vanderbloemen Search Group, discusses ways churches can recruit a high-level team.

*Plus Members can watch this Video Training by logging in and clicking here. 

The “Miracle” of Recruiting a High-Level Team 

One of my favorite sports movies of all time is Miracle. Miracle captures the story of the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team that beat the Soviet Union, the reigning gold medal team, and went on to defeat Finland to win the gold. The movie not only tugs at my heartstrings as I watch the U.S. celebrate their David-over-Goliath victory, but it tugs at my heartstrings as a leader as I watch the defining victory of a team who came together and beat all the odds. It’s in that moment that I find myself motivated and energized to work towards helping create such a team. (Now don’t get me wrong, I said I liked the movie, not the U.S. hockey team. Go Canada Go!)

The kind of team depicted in Miracle was a high-level, high-performing team. A high-level team is like a freight train—when it gets going, it’s tough to stop. In a recent Ministry Grid training video, William Vanderbloemen, Founder and CEO of Vanderbloemen Search Group, addresses how churches can go about creating a high-level team.

To create a high-level team, you need to start at the right place.

If you remember the movie Miracle, the Olympic committee started the player selection process—although Herb Brooks, the coach of the 1980 U.S. Olympic team, had a good idea of who he wanted—by inviting all the top college players from around the country to the Olympic tryouts. At that point, pros didn’t play in the Olympics, only amateurs. Thus, college hockey programs were the pipeline for the Olympic team.

Pipelines are the birthplace of high-level teams. According to William, pipelines work to develop the character, competencies, and even team chemistry for leaders. If a church chooses to fill a leadership position by going outside their church, they will want to make sure that the potential leader has met the character qualifications, leadership competencies, and team chemistry that will enhance a high-level team. A leader can have both the character and competencies to lead, but if people don’t like being around them, the team won’t function at a high-level. Therefore, it’s important to make sure the pipelines you create or use help measure a person’s character, competencies, and chemistry.

To read the final point of recruiting a high-level team, click here for the full video and post.

This video is part of Plus Membership, so to get full access to it, and much more, I encourage you to become a Plus Member. Click here to see all the benefits of becoming a Plus Member.

Tweetables from the Video:

• Pipelines are the birthplace of high-level teams.
• Pipelines work to develop the character, competencies, and even team chemistry for leaders. @wvanderbloemen
• Even churches need to fire fast and hire slow. @wvanderbloemen
• Sometimes the most gracious thing to do for a staff member, the leadership team, and the overall church, is cut a staff member loose.
• Pruning low-performing or mediocre staff may be painful, but it’s fruitful.
• Normally bad hires happen in haste. @wvanderbloemen
• Faced with an urgency to find a leader to oversee ministry, churches tend to lack prudency & find a person to fill a position.