Passion, Joy & Excellence in the Workplace

Today I'm talking about passion, joy, and excellence in the workplace. I've already shared before about how ministry leaders need to have a passion for their mission, but that's true of their staff as well. Because passionate people find great joy working in their areas of passion, and they are highly motivated to achieve excellence. So here are some tips for helping you to find and have passionate people. First, it all starts with the hiring process, with the selection criteria. You should be looking for people who are already passionate about your mission. Some jobs that may not be quite as important, but for many of the jobs in your ministry, it's very important that they are already committed to your mission. And so what you want to do is to match their passions and dreams with the jobs that you have available. Second, you can personalize the roles. No job description is cast in stone. Tasks and responsibilities can always be shifted from one person to another. And as we learn more and more about individuals and their preferences and what really excites them, we can shift tasks and responsibilities from one person to another. I just absolutely love it when I hear a staff member telling someone else, and I overhear it, and they talk about how much they love their job. That just thrills my heart as a leader. Third, you can motivate them to sustain their passion by talking the mission up. Give them the big picture of how your mission is supporting the church's mission, is supporting God's mission. You can talk about the impact, of course, that you have, but also get into specialized topics related to your mission and give them a deeper knowledge. Passionate people will love that. And of course, you can share stories of success and accomplishment, whether it's mission accomplishment, organizational accomplishment, group accomplishment, or individual accomplishment. You can celebrate to foster joy as well. This could be formal celebrations. It could be informal, just walking down the hallway and giving a high five to somebody. It could be a dinner that you have to celebrate something. But celebrate as much as you can. And then train to cultivate excellence. Know your staff and their abilities and their potential and cultivate them just like a beautiful garden. I'm standing here in Oxford Botanical Gardens, an incredibly gorgeous garden. And in gardens like this, the flowers and all the other fauna and whatnot, they're placed so as to really show off the individual flower. And that's what you want to do with your people as well. Place them where they can prosper, where they can be shown off at their best. Also, you want to fertilize their careers. Not spreading manure over them, of course, but by giving them lots of training and development and helping them to become all that God wants them to be. You know, it's important as you think of your staff that you assume that the Holy Spirit is at work in them just as he is in you. And to cooperate with the giftings and experience that God has given to each employee. So try these tips out and I pray that you will have great passion, joy and excellence in your workplace. God bless.