Church Staff Review Tips From LifeChurch.tv

We received great feedback on our post 3 Reasons You Should Consider Peer Reviews. Several of you reached out to us looking for an example of a church who has a successful review process. We reached out to our friend Jerry Hurley, the Team Development Leader at LifeChurch.tv. Jerry and Lanita from the LifeChurch.tv Directional Leadership Team gave us some insight on their 360 review process.

LifeChurch.tv uses a scale of 1 to 5 and asks questions which fall within 9 competencies:

Rating scale:
1.     Never/Rarely
2.     Occasionally
3.     Sometimes
4.     Often
5.     Always/Almost Always
·       Do Not Know/Not Applicable

Competencies:
1.     Mission Focus
2.     Team Development
3.     Interpersonal Relationships
4.     Trustworthiness
5.     Drive for Results
6.     Collaboration and Team Work
7.     Team Leadership
8.     Communication Skills
9.     Personal Development

Each competency has a group of questions that relate to the specific competency.  The report produced from the questions is comprehensive, showing results of each item used to assess the competency.  The results also help to identify a team member’s highest and lowest strengths so they might focus on specific development tools to improve their church leadership skills.

4 – 9 questions are grouped within each competency.  For example:

Mission Focus
Understands team culture
Exercises fiscal responsibility and manages budgets appropriately

Team Development
Understands strengths and weaknesses of his/her direct reports
Insures direct reports follow through with development goals

The competencies and questions are the same for all leaders in all areas of ministry.

LifeChurch.tv first developed their survey from SurveyMonkey.com, but there are several other websites that have 360 surveys that are helpful as you look at developing your own. 

Here are some that LifeChurch.tv has evaluated:
1.     Complete a “Quick 360” which will let you see what information is available and what the results look like.
2.     You can register for a trial membership of Survey Analytics to look at their products for 360’s which include a sliding scale rating
3.     Qualtrics is another website that offers several versions of the sliding scale question type

If you contact #2 and #3, they will arrange a time with you to walk through a demonstration of their 360 platforms.

A change that LifeChurch.tv is hoping to make in 2012-13 is adding another “relationship” called “stakeholder.”  This will incorporate dotted line leaders or other relationships not directly related to boss, direct report, or peers.

Stay tuned for more insights from LifeChurch.tv's leadership and church staff development tips!

Which questions have you found helpful to ask in your staff reviews?