Why Are We So Bad at Taking Negative Feedback? and More with Ryan Ermeling | Hot Topic Friday

Ever wondered why negative feedback can be the ultimate game-changer for leaders? Join us as we sit down with Ryan Ermeling, leader of Parent Pulse and the Chair of the Board of Regents at Concordia University, Irvine. Ryan unveils the surprising benefits of actively seeking out and embracing negative feedback to foster growth and self-improvement. Listen to personal anecdotes that show how cultivating a culture of open feedback can transform leadership effectiveness and build stronger, more self-aware leaders.

We then shift gears to tackle the expanding role of pastors, who now find themselves navigating responsibilities beyond the pulpit. From financial oversight to team development, pastors today need a blend of spiritual and business acumen. Ryan shares practical advice on leveraging lay leaders and engaging with business professionals to form advisory boards that can elevate pastoral leadership. Discover how pastors can benefit from tapping into expertise in finance and risk management to effectively manage growing congregations.

Finally, we dive into the art of building effective nonprofit boards, drawing on the rich experiences of Concordia. Ryan explains the elements that make a board successful, emphasizing the need for diverse skill sets and a deep passion for the organization's mission. Learn about the critical relationship between the board chair and the CEO, and how their partnership can drive an organization forward. With stories from Christ Greenfield and CUI, this episode provides valuable insights into the dynamics necessary for a fruitful board-pastor collaboration.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:08

This is.

Speaker 2: 0:09

Lead Time. Welcome to Lead Time a hot topic Friday today with my good longtime friend partner in the gospel here at Christ Screenfield, ryan Ermling. Ryan leads a ministry called Parent Pulse. He also is on the Board of Regents. He's the chair of the Board of Regents at Concordia University, irvine. Shout out to Michael Thomas, recent guest on Lead Time as well. So this is going to be a lot of fun today, ryan. How are you doing man? I'm good. Thanks for having me, tim. Yeah, so let's dig in Three questions, 10 minutes each. Start the clock now, adam. All right, people and organizations generally do not like negative feedback, even if that feedback is constructive, and it's amazing how individuals were prone towards self-sabotage. We prefer short-term pleasure in exchange for long-term pain. It's a part of our sin nature to be. So what words of wisdom do you have for helping us strengthen our feedback muscles, ryan?

Speaker 3: 1:10

Yeah Well, I mean, first off, I think it's just human nature. We love to hear the positive, we love to hear that confirming bias, feedback, right, that tells us, hey, you're doing the right thing, you're, you know all of your decisions, everything you do is perfect, and so that's just human nature. So, uh, you know, I've done some research over the years, um, informal research on on this topic. But there's a lot to be said for negative feedback firing up the amygdala. You know, that part of our brain that signals fight or flight, and so I think negative feedback can really send a flurry of those types of messages to our brain. And I think it's like anything, tim, you know, behind me I've got a tonal workout system and a treadmill, and if I just look at those and don't do anything right, I might want to get more in shape and more fit, but that's not going to happen unless I use it. And so I think that's an interesting thing about feedback. You don't necessarily think about feedback as something you need to practice on, but you do right, and so the question becomes if that's an area that you and I guess let's take a step back. I think first you need to fundamentally acknowledge and agree that you want to be better at feedback, which I would hope everyone in a leadership role wants to be better at accepting and monitoring feedback but then you have to practice it.

Speaker 3: 2:32

So how do you practice it? You have to actively seek it out. You have to ask people. You have to be willing to tell you it's not just hey, my door's open anytime. People generally don't jump into your door just to voluntarily share feedback, and if they do, those are maybe the squeaky wheels and the people that you know. You know what you're going to hear. So you need to find other ways to actively embrace and welcome that feedback. And and uh, you know I know you've done that in the past too where you'll you'll say, hey, tell me how this is going, tell me what your thoughts are on this. You know I'm all ears. So you need to have those conversations with people you know and people you don't know as well, and just start to develop that culture of saying I want your feedback, please give it to me, I'm open to it.

Speaker 2: 3:19

It takes practice. Yeah, for you you could call them kind of confid. Hopefully you know, wherever you are in leadership, you've got that team, people who are on the same level as you, they know you as an individual, they love you as an individual, they have your back receiving feedback from them. How is that different from then people you don't know? And I think that's the heart of kind of what Parent Pulse kind of does. So talk about how much weight I guess that's the way how much weight we give toward kind of the trusted confidants, over and against, you know, the masses.

Speaker 3: 4:09

Yeah, I mean you're talking almost about two separate types of feedback, right. There's more corporate feedback, which is the people we serve, the community we're in. What are we hearing about the organization, about the leadership of it, how can we make this organization better? But then there's a feedback that maybe is more personal and directed to you as a leader. Right, and that's where you need those confidants that you can have honest conversations with. So, two different types of feedback, right. How do we, how do we create a tool? How do we generate something that can, in our case, we work with with Christian schools? How can we? We help those leaders collect feedback in a more consistent, helpful way and be prepared to deal with that. But that's a different, that's a different nuance than, to your point, having a close group of people that you can really come alongside you and have some of those honest conversations with.

Speaker 2: 5:08

So when we're looking at a larger organization, we're getting kind of corporate feedback. We're looking for themes, right, yep, we're looking for themes. And then when I'm talking to a confidant, I'm looking for character gaps, like, hey, how did I come across when I communicated this collectively? How was my tone Just generally, how was it received? And I have those people like I'll just give real-time feedback Because I'm learning to know myself. Self-awareness is very, very important and when I'm overly anxious or overly confident, one of those two extremes right, it's the pullback tendency or the push forward tendency. Because of my personality, this isn't going to surprise people I have a tendency to talk too fast, too loud and I almost come across like I'm angry, right. So a good litmus test is like talk to the five-year-old. How are they perceiving me?

Speaker 2: 6:15

Pastor just yells all the time you know, and mom and dad has to say, well, no, he's just very excited about things. I had a pastor confidant say hey, and he came to a service where it was a really, really large room it was confirmation actually there was probably 600 people in the room and there was like a low hum of conversation. That kind of subconsciously ticked me off Right and so I I came across like way too intense and I even watched it and I was like, oh yeah, so I'm working that feedback for me in terms of public communication, when you have that, acknowledge it and pull, pull back. That's some feedback I've received. But like if that, if that came from the masses per se, well, we haven't received that feedback from the masses in a lot of our. We haven't received that feedback from the masses in a lot of our net promoter score survey and stuff. But like there could be a trend and I have a brother that's helping me, helping me stop that trend just more self-awareness. Anything more to add there?

Speaker 3: 7:18

Well, I like how you know. To me it's like anything. You can equip yourself with tools to get better. I loved your analogy or maybe not analogy, but just a story there, where maybe it's that five-year-old you have where you can talk and test your tone and say, hey, how does this sound to you? They're going to give you real-time feedback. As funny as it sounds, that's a tool you can use.

Speaker 3: 7:41

One of the tools that we provide is almost a recipe to help equip people to maybe deal with harsh feedback, right? If you already have kind of proactively in your tool belt, a way to respond to something harsh, it can help you be more open to receiving that right. You're not going to have this fight or flight syndrome potentially. So we have a 3E recipe, right? We say, when you get that harsh feedback, empathize, then explore or explain and I'll break that down quickly. And then the last one is engage, right? So what do we mean by that? Right? Somebody? And this is meant more for corporate, but it could be used in one-on-one, confidant type relationships as well but, but when you empathize, it's all about saying, hey, I can understand why you'd feel that or say that. It doesn't mean you have to agree, right, empathy does not necessarily have to mean agreement, but you're just saying, hey, I from your seat I can understand that, right, I can see why you'd say that or think that, but then you move in. So then that's a great way to disarm, too, right?

Speaker 3: 8:41

If somebody is hot and heavy with this feedback, you immediately disarm them, but then you move into the conversation about exploring or explaining. So maybe this feedback is something you legitimately hadn't thought about in a deep way, and so now you have a chance through this conversation to say talk to me more about this, let's dive into this. I really am curious Sometimes that feedback is going to be about something, though, that you might not necessarily. You know you're not going to change this, this is how it is, and so this gives you a chance now to gently and that's a key word, to gently explain where you're coming from and why things are the way they are, through this conversation. So how do you follow up on that? How do you use this opportunity now to even build a deeper understanding of where they're coming from and have conversation in the future around this or other issues? So that formula, if you're armed with that, going into feedback, even if it's negative feedback. It just helps you be more open to that.

Speaker 2: 9:39

When I think we're so prone as humans if there's anything wrong I'm wrong, right, rather like it's an identity hit. You're like if someone comes up to me because my job is communication, communicating the gospel leadership team, all that kind of stuff like those can be deep wounds and so I constantly have to be reminded your identity isn't Jesus, you are not your role, you are not what you do. You're wrapped up in the one who's done it all for you and he smiles over you, he delights in you. Inside every human being, inside even the CEO, president of whatever is a five-year-old boy who needs to be encouraged and cared for and loved, right, and I have that. I have that in me. Every leader does, and I think it's just wisdom to recognize how deeply we can be wounded if people come and give us something, especially in our wheelhouse, something we have made into our identity.

Speaker 2: 10:37

Another way to I love your three E's empathize, explore, explain, slash, explain and engage. Another way is to look at its problem, and anytime I look at a problem, it's way more complex. This is why I talk systems all the time. It's way more complex than just me. There's things that have happened to me outside forces, things that are going on in my team. As human beings bump up against one another, care for one another, problems are going to happen. So it's problem, it's interpretation of the problem, and hopefully you do that not just in your own head, but in a number of different heads. Hey, help me with this. And then it's action. So problem interpretation, action. That's another way to frame up your empathize, explore and engage.

Speaker 2: 11:15

Or I could put it this way confession, confession. Yeah, I see something that's going on around me. Hey, will you forgive me? I didn't see that Absolution. Hopefully we say yeah, yeah, I see that you're forgiven If we're followers of Jesus in the name of the Father, son and Holy Spirit. It's gone, it's gone. And then let's move forward. Holy Spirit, give me the right next steps for transformation, for change to take place in my life. So I have more of the character, the humility of Christ than I do, that old, sinful, broken, broken self.

Speaker 2: 11:46

Such a good conversation. We hit just a little bit over 10 minutes there on that one. That was super fun. All right, let's get into the LCMS. The LCMS is generally not known to be an innovative entrepreneurial entity. I think we were at times, but in this chaotic day and age in which we live, I don't see as much innovation and entrepreneurialism as I would like to see. Agree or disagree and then to follow up on that. How could we grow our ability to raise up more entrepreneurs for the church and world from within our current congregation? So let's talk about innovation and the LCMS.

Speaker 3: 12:24

Yeah, no, I think I fundamentally agree. I mean, there are certainly times in the past where our church has been innovative and I can't I just heard this, maybe it was on listening to lead time, I don't remember where I heard this but the, the, our church body, really investing, for instance, in in the world war two or shortly after that in radio Right, and using that, that mechanism that means to, to really get the word out through the through uh Lutheran hour and and through uh through. You know, at that point that was considered an innovative way. Right, that was a, a medium that allowed them to think how do we get the, get our message out? I don't know that and I don't want to throw our church body under the bus entirely, but I don't know. There's necessarily a culture of innovation there. Um, I I'd love to see it start at our church body and sprinkle through our churches. Um, maybe one of the and I've talked about this in the past too One of my concerns is, uh, you know, I don't know that our current training models for church leaders necessarily deploy some great business and entrepreneurial principles in that process.

Speaker 3: 13:33

So we're getting, maybe in some cases, pastors that are turning into CEOs overnight and haven't been instructed and trained up in areas outside of teaching, counseling, preaching, in areas outside of teaching, counseling, preaching, and so they're stuck wondering how do we start to create some innovation in our churches. So it's a training issue, I think, to some degrees. I also think there are pastors, maybe in some cases that hold too tightly to their ministry. One of the things I love about our church at Christ Greenfield, um is, is the way we we deploy ministry to the lay leaders, right, um, I things like five. I love what Bill Woolsey does with five too. I know we partner with them trying to find a ways to lift up your lay leaders and say, hey, we're going to empower you. If you've got an idea, let's run with it, right no-transcript.

Speaker 2: 14:34

Hmm, yeah, I would. I would love to see leaders like you and those that have like our churchmen and there are many, many of them in our church. Many of them are on boards that you like, you're on, you know, um, but pastors coming up to them and saying, hey, I never really learned to look at a P&L spreadsheet. I have no idea what that even means. Could you give me a crash course and could we preempt that? I know vicarage varies so much because of the context and the vicar kind of pastor relationship is so, so crucial. I pray if you're a pastor that has vicars, you're making that invitation to get them connected to the business leaders in your congregation, because we have so much to learn Just in terms of team management. How do I structure this thing? If it grows, praise, be to God, I pray. Our churches start to grow, but once it starts to grow, like the way I lead, a congregation of 50 to 150 is way different than a congregation of four to 500 or, you know, four to 5,000, for goodness sake, like I need. I need people in my world are going to help me understand the principles of scale and team development. We've had to, totally as the Lord is. There's been different seasons at Christ Greenfield. I could list four different iterations of kind of our management structure. Right, and that's constant analysis. What got us here is not going to take us there, and so that requires.

Speaker 2: 16:19

I just met and looked at our new org chart. We're're like for some of our culture guide that we're producing right now for our staff. We've got a number of new staff, new teachers, coming in. How does this place actually work? Well, let's take a look at that once again. Make sure we're communicating clearly who goes to who for what, right? So all that to say, they're there there. I don't know that we've been trained as pastors and this is just speaking for Tim. I don't know that we've been trained as pastors. A mechanism and I'd love to get your feedback on this a mechanism of feedback with I bet there may be elders, but I don't know what questions. I guess this is maybe a good place. What questions should a pastor ask as he starts to engage a business leader? Ryan, your top of mind thoughts.

Speaker 3: 17:02

So here's one thought right, I mean many, many churches and LCMS have boards of elders, right, and these are generally people that come along and walk alongside the pastor in a spiritual, more on the spiritual side right Member care and helping with issues of the church side.

Speaker 3: 17:22

Right, member care and helping with issues of the church. It'd be neat if every pastor also had a board of business advisors. Right, you can almost create a recipe for this. Find one person who's in some type of financial management or investment or banking. Find one person who owns a business. Find an attorney right, and you have a group where you're coming, you're meeting with them once a month or whatever, and you're having them fill in your gaps. Right, you're having them help you think about areas of the church from more of a business perspective, lending their expertise, helping train you up in those gaps that you have. So almost having your own separate advisory board consisting of these different areas that are going to help you become a better leader in some of those areas I think I don't. Maybe some pastors have that more informally but actually putting some structure around that and creating a regular rhythm to that and identifying the types of people you want in that I think could, could really be beneficial, I agree.

Speaker 2: 18:16

What if you get that group together? Let's hypothesize this out a bit. I count you as like you're on my team, formal and informal. We got a prayer team meeting later today. That group is a part of my kind of outsider advisor group and I've got a couple different pockets. But if you're engaging with a pastor, give them a couple, three questions as you start to engage that team. Say he's pastoring a church about 150 people in worship and he knows the three or four as he engages with them for the first time. How does he set up that relationship and what?

Speaker 3: 18:49

questions does he ask? Yeah, Depending on the person's expertise, I guess I would factor into it too. But I would start by saying if you're me right, let's talk finances. If you're me right From a, let's talk finances. If you're me from a financial perspective, what? What should I be looking at? What should I be thinking about besides just counting the giving and looking at our basic expenses, right? What are some other things that I should be thinking about financially here? Right, Thinking about, you know, if we've got an attorney, risk management is such a big thing, right? Hey, where where are the gaps here? Right? What should I be thinking about that? I'm not in terms of exposure for our organization, right. So I think a lot of it has to do with the people you have on that. But that's the question is, if you were me, what should I be thinking about? X, right, yeah, and trying to bring their expertise into play in those areas, and trying to bring their expertise into play in those areas.

Speaker 2: 20:16

The reason I laugh, because when you brought up the lawyer, this is because I'm in such a people you know, word, work, job. I'm like Ryan, what do I need a lawyer for? And then you talk risk. I'm like, oh yeah, that's why we have Kristen Hajduk and others who are around.

Speaker 3: 20:36

It didn't even hit top of mind for me, you know. But that gets back to the heart of, I think, maybe one of the issues Pastors need to think and you do a great job, tim, so I'm not giving you a hard time but pastors need to think more like I'm running a business in some cases and very much churches are at risk, right? I mean, we see stuff all the time. So you need to think through that lens, right? What are the financial implications? What are the legal implications? Right? Where's the risk? What you know? Where? Where should I? You know, having having somebody that's a strategic thinker, and if you were me, how would you think about the next five years? Right, what are the? What are the priorities and how should I start to line up those priorities? So, just tapping into those people, have expertise and asking them to put themselves in your head and your chair, and how would they respond? You don't necessarily have to do exactly what they would do, but getting that different lens, a different perspective, can be really eye-opening.

Speaker 2: 21:27

So when we shout out to Paul Zills, when we went down the policy governance route, it exposed so many of our gaps and it's been a four-year journey of coming into board meetings saying thank you, sir May, I have another Feeling like a failure, because there's always more, there's always another level, there's always a church that's like, oh, I wish I had thought about that or whatever, and so so how does the brain get trained? Again, this kind of goes back to feedback to say, oh, this is awesome, rather than going to shame, like, oh, I suck, I can't believe we didn't figure this out. Why didn't you fear shame and blame, you know? Or passing the buck. It's just like oh, if you remain curious, I'm going to say innocent, you know, curious, innocent and then adventurous, like, game on, like. That is a posture of the leader who recognizes this is an infinite game Simon Sinek's book, infinite Game. The goal is not to win. Compare myself to other people. There's worthy rivals who are all around. The goal is not to win. Compare myself to other people. There's worthy rivals who are all around. My goal is simply to stay in the game, and I think this is to kind of land this plane.

Speaker 2: 22:43

I think one of the biggest fallacies is that, by protecting myself, this is what keeps me safe. No, no, no, no. This could be the very thing that kills your ministry, that kills your heart, right, that damages your soul, your openness to the awe and wonder and venture of following Jesus into uncharted territory, which is leading in the post-Christian day and age in which we live right now. Like I want to maintain that heart. I never want to forget what it's like not to know. I never want to forget what it's like not to know, because that is the prideful path which leads us away from Jesus, away from, I would say, even, the wisdom of the Holy Spirit. Walking through the Proverbs right now. Right, it's amazing how often Solomon says the wicked man chooses pride, the wise man chooses humility.

Speaker 2: 23:41

Connected to all different sorts of advisors, that is the theme that comes up. So you better have that advisory team we talked about. I pray for more innovation, entrepreneurialism within the LCMS in general, and I love that we just went to the local church, because that's where it all happens. So, last topic, ryan, this is a flying by. Let's talk about the best practices for relationship between board chairs and pastor, organizational heads and CEOs. We're in, like I just said policy governance here. Thank you for being a part of kind of bringing that to Christ Greenfield and how, if someone's exploring, like man I would not want to be on a board. Talk about your board experience first. I think maybe that'd be helpful. Give some context to your role at CUI. And how do we keep the board experience invigorating, challenging and connected to specifically the president, ceo, pastor in that board relationship?

Speaker 3: 24:36

Yeah, yeah, listen, it starts for nonprofits anyway. It starts with passion. You've got to have a passion for the organization you want to serve onordia. I've had daughters go there. I met my wife there. I love the mission there, right. So it is such a joy legitimately a joy to serve on that board. So I think that that has to be there, right, you have to have that passion. But I think, yeah, it's, it's.

Speaker 3: 25:16

You know, we often think about when, when we're looking for new board members, interviewing them, learning about them, right, part of it is you need to let them know, hey, we want you and you got to sell the organization a little bit and say here's where you can come alongside and help us and here's what we see in you, right, and it's starting to build a little bit of that two-way rapport and helping them understand that you've got legitimate skills and talents and ideas and thoughts that we want to hear. So whenever I'm talking to prospective board members for Concordia, for instance, I don't view it as a one-way interview. Certainly, we want to learn about that individual, but I want to make sure they realize what we're looking for and how we view the people on our board and how they contribute, so they realize that this is really a valuable way to serve. So I think that's huge is having a two-way conversation.

Speaker 2: 26:09

For sure. There's a bit of a sales component there as you're recruiting them. Talk about the various roles on any healthy board in your experience, because you need folks that come from a variety of different perspectives. What's the like paint the best? If you could have the best board, what would those skill sets look like? People with what skill sets?

Speaker 3: 26:33

Well, so we talked about this advisory team for pastors, right? I mean, you almost look at your board the same way, right, as we're feeling I'll go back to the Concordia example but we've got a couple of open spots right now, and so the first thing we do is look at our current composition, right, where do we not have skills right now that we need them? Second is, what are we dealing with or facing right now as an organization? Right, so it has to be contextual, right? What are some things coming up that we know we're going to need some more help with? Right now, we have one attorney on our board. She turns out in a year, so we're actively seeking somebody that can backfill that spot and give us some legal counsel advice. Maybe both of them will be attorneys, for that matter, right, but looking at that piece, you always want to have some people with financial background and can think through that, some entrepreneurs, some people that can really understand execution Even though in a board setting you're not necessarily the one executing, you're thinking more of a governance level To have that understanding of execution, to be able to think through that as you're working through some of those issues, can be super critical, again, in a nonprofit, especially a Christian nonprofit, having people, some people in church work, right, having you know, we have district presidents, we have pastors, we have teachers on the board of Concordia and the perspectives they bring right.

Speaker 3: 27:57

So this perfect mesh and blend of people in the church work field, people from business and law and other backgrounds, and bringing those skill sets together, the conversations become really, really rich and deep from that perspective. So I think it is very much contextual, but you just want to have good balance and make sure you're filling in those spots where you're going to have challenges in those spots where you're going to have challenges.

Speaker 2: 28:24

Another handle I would use is maybe the six types of working genius, because I think you need those respective roles. But you're also going to need people that are high level thinkers, like the visionary types, the wonder, innovation people. I think they're great on a board, to be sure, because they're probably going to empathize closely with the CEO CEO, because hopefully he has some of those kind of visionary characteristics or the senior pastor. And then you need because there's a lot of detail work, you need a lot of people that are super, super, not in the weeds per se in terms of micromanaging the CEO or the pastor or anything like that, but the devil is in the details a lot of times as it relates to board and policy and kind of taking note of the finances, et cetera. So it's on the spectrum of tenacious all the way up to wonder in the six types of working genius. I think that makes a really really well-balanced board. Anything to add to that.

Speaker 3: 29:19

Well, I think you're right. I mean the word you used, the word balance. I use the word balance as well. I think that's the key right. You want to be careful to not have too much of anyone personality type, skill set, any of that right. The more diverse viewpoints and approaches you can bring to the board, I think the better it is. Yeah, and it's been you asked about the board chair. I think the better it is.

Speaker 2: 29:44

Yeah, and, and it's been you asked me about the board chair relationship with the CEO. Yeah, I'd love to hear about that.

Speaker 3: 29:47

Yeah, that's been really fun for you know, you and I had that, that relationship years ago too. I have that now with with president Thomas, who you said was on your, your podcast recently. I haven't seen that one yet but I'll have to watch that. It's that. That's been a really fun relationship and it takes a little bit of time to learn how to how to manage that best, and it's also dependent on the, on the personalities.

Speaker 3: 30:10

What I've found really is in and Michael even said this to me last week he's like some of the things I bring to you I can't talk to anybody else about, right. So you you almost in some cases wear the hat of advisor and you're just listening and trying to not necessarily consult but just echo what you're hearing, help that person to think about things in a different way, potentially. But it's a safe spot. You want to create that safe spot. Ultimately, you're still leading a group that holds that person accountable, so you're ultimately, on behalf of the board, that person's boss, right.

Speaker 3: 30:44

But there's such a nuanced relationship because you also want to be friend, you want to be advisor, you want to be confidant as well. So it can be a fine line. But I think if you can learn how to win when each of those hats needs to be on, that can be a really valuable relationship. Michael and I have a uh, an hour long call we just had it this morning every Thursday morning and it's just an open opportunity to walk through whatever he needs to talk through. Sometimes there's a more of an agenda, sometimes it's hey what, what's on your mind today? Those conversations are critical.

Speaker 2: 31:16

They really are. Um, having someone like the reason you're a great board chair and president and things is because you, you deeply love CUI, you deeply love Christ Greenfield, you're a pastor's son, you're a like you get the context enough. I think that's really really necessary in any kind of board chair is that there is that appropriate level of empathy. And I've gone through a few different iterations of board. Shout out to Chris Corb You're doing a great job as our board chair right now. But that relationship is really, really important. And I'll just be transparent because I've been transparent with our board.

Speaker 2: 31:59

There can be times where it's so like because we're strict policy governance, we're so like monitoring, and like it's kind of wooden. It can be kind of wooden and how does a board like intentionally I can't, I keep coming back to empathize but but sit with rejoice, with cheer on, you know, not just the senior pastor, but like the ministry at at large, a lot of times? Well, maybe this is a good kind of final, close closing question Like, how do you as a board because you have to govern by, by policy, you know, how do you maintain collectively that level of kind of cheerleader? Let's go in your board meetings Talk about how encouragement gets shared with Michael. Maybe that's a good place to end.

Speaker 3: 32:52

Yeah. So one of the things we've done I've done over the past year is really extend our executive session time. When we go, it's off the record and it's become really a nice chance for back and forth dialogue where we can hear and ask legitimate concerns, questions and have time to explore that. But then it's also started to transform and I think we've cultivated this intentionally as a board started to transform in a time where we do offer Michael our encouragement, we do talk about things that we're seeing and things we're excited about and it's really become more of a conversational session which leads to that. So I think, whether it's executive session, whether it's another part of your meeting agenda, having that opportunity where it becomes almost more conversational, you got to be careful.

Speaker 2: 33:43

You don't want to.

Speaker 3: 33:44

You know, waste too much time and obviously there's a structured agenda, but I think you need to have some of that organic conversation built in each year meeting so you can have that back and forth. Agree.

Speaker 2: 33:55

Couldn't agree more. Hey, man, this has been a lot of fun. People want to connect with you and parent pulse. How can they do so, man?

Speaker 3: 34:03

Parentpulsecom Got all of our contact information on there. So yeah, we're.

Speaker 2: 34:07

That's blowing up, dude, how many schools are you working with now?

Speaker 3: 34:11

About 130. So it's much two years ago. So it's been a very consistent, steady growth. But it's fun. I call it a business tree. It's half business, half ministry a really empowering Christian school leaders to just think about feedback in a more healthy, consistent way and it's it's fun to hear the success stories now a couple of years into how it's really impacting new schools.

Speaker 2: 34:34

Dude, so so proud of you, um, and grateful honestly that you're back here in the Valley and I get to see you more and hang out, you and your wife Lindsay she's been on before as well and you guys are just making a real, real big kingdom impact and it's an honor to call you a partner and a friend man. We got to get out and golf here soon as well. So it's a good day. Go and make it a great day. This is lead time. Sharing is caring, like subscribe, comment wherever it is you take in these conversations. Hopefully you're enjoying our Hot Topic Fridays. Some topics are a little bit hotter than others. Today was hopefully just really really instructional. Leader pastor stay innocent, stay curious, stay humble, seek advice. That's the theme today and you will stay alive and thrive by the Spirit's power, hopefully long after you're gone, and your humble ministry will have a ripple effect across generations. It's a good day. Go make it a great day. Good job, brian, thank you, thank you.

Speaker 1: 35:31

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