Why Won’t My Team Commit

Over the past few weeks, we have been looking at how to create healthy teams that can help your church thrive. First, we saw that healthy teams are built on the foundation of trust. Then, we saw that trust makes it possible to engage in honest, healthy conflict.

• That leads naturally to the next characteristic of a healthy team, commitment. In The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni explains that teams often struggle to commit when people have not been able to express their concerns honestly. They may nod along in the meeting, but afterward they second-guess the decision, quietly resist it, or reopen the same conversation again and again.

Healthy teams are committed teams. They seek wisdom together. They listen carefully. They disagree honestly. They make the clearest decision they can. And then they move forward together.

• Here are six ways to build that kind of commitment on your team.

six ways to build commitment on your team

1. make sure every voice is heard

• Commitment does not require everyone to get their way, but it does require people to know their perspective was genuinely heard and considered.
• Team members need the freedom to raise concerns while the decision is still being made. Once those concerns have been heard, it becomes much easier to support the direction the team ultimately chooses.

2. pursue unity without demanding unanimity

• Romans 14 describes believers who genuinely disagree about important matters, yet Paul still calls them to live together in peace. A healthy team does not have to agree on everything.
• Sometimes I may believe my idea is better and still wholeheartedly support the direction the team chose. Why? Because the goal is not for my idea to win. The goal is to faithfully execute the mission God has given us. Healthy team members own decisions so fully that they do not say, “they decided,” but “we decided,” when sharing the news.

3. decide without waiting for certainty

• Churches today face many difficult decisions, and sometimes there simply is no obviously correct answer. We seek wisdom. We pray for discernment. We gather the information we need. But eventually we have to accept that we cannot know everything.
• Great leaders do not wait on absolute certainty before acting faithfully. We can say, “Based on what we know, we believe this is the wisest course. We may discover that we are wrong, but we are going to move forward and trust God with what we cannot know.”

4. do not let wisdom become an excuse for delay

• Ecclesiastes 11:4 says, “Whoever watches the wind will not plant; whoever looks at the clouds will not reap.” There is wisdom in gathering information, asking questions, seeking counsel, and planning carefully. But there comes a point when more discussion is no longer producing more wisdom.
• We can easily tell ourselves we need one more report, one more conversation, one more survey, or one more month. Meanwhile, opportunities pass and the same issue keeps returning to the agenda. Healthy teams learn to recognize when they have enough information to commit to a responsible decision.

5. turn decisions into a clear action

• Paul asks in 1 Corinthians 14:8, “If the trumpet does not sound a clear call, who will get ready for battle?” Making a decision is not enough. In order to gain commitment, it has to be communicated clearly.
• At the end of an important discussion, everyone should be able to answer some basic questions: What did we decide? Who is responsible? What happens next? When will it happen? What are we communicating to everyone else? Clarity is a gift to your team because it turns decisions into actions.

6. leave room to change course

• Even after doing everything above, sometimes we still get it wrong. A healthy team holds its decisions with humility and is flexible enough to change course. We can say, “Based on everything we knew, this seemed like the wisest direction. Now we know more, so we are updating the plan.”
• Knowing that we can change direction later can help team members commit to difficult decisions as they are being made.

A healthy Christian team does not need complete consensus or perfect certainty before it acts. It just needs people humble enough to listen, courageous enough to decide, and committed enough to move forward together.

• How committed is your team to the decisions that are being made? Which of the elements discussed in this article could help your team most? What is one step you can take this week to help in this area?