What it Takes to Be Successful at SpringHill
Every organization and team “culture” is different. The culture is the organization’s unique personality, its set of unwritten (and often unspoken) rules and expectations about how work gets done, and how people should treat and how relate to one another. And obviously, for a person to be successful within a specific organization, requires a unique set of personal qualities and competencies that fit that culture.So because there’s no one right formula of personal qualities and competencies that work in every organization, with the help from an organizational psychologist, we’ve identified those qualities and competencies necessary for a person to be successful, over the long run, at SpringHill. The process we used included gathering feedback from a large number of our staff about the qualities they see in successful SpringHill staff. And to this feedback we added the best that leadership research says on the subject.
When we finished we ended up with 13 different, clearly defined “Leadership Competencies” that members of our team need to possess if they’re going to have a long-term impact within SpringHill. These 13 competencies have become the core to all of our “people” processes such as hiring and selection, performance management and appraisals, training and development, and finally succession planning.
Below are these 13 SpringHill “leadership competencies” divided into four categories:
Mastery of Self
Life/Work balance Personal Learning
Decision Making God Immersed
Mastery of Relationships
Community Focus Compassion and Sensitivity
Spiritual Leadership Customer Focus
Mastery of Performance
Leading People Resourcefulness
Professional Will Continuous Improvement
Mastery of Vision
Culture Bearer
Over the next couple of weeks I’ll share with you more details of each of the competencies and their importance within the SpringHill culture.
This is part 1 of 14 in a series of posts about what it takes to be successful at SpringHill.
Gaining “Buy In”
It’s the start of the football season and if you follow it you’ve heard ongoing discussions about coaches beginning their first season with a new team. It seems that one of the most significant indicators of a new coach’s success is the “buy in” the players have in the new coach’s system.It’s the same with every organization that wants to fulfill its mission, to be effective or just plain wants to win, leaders must move their team from a posture of compliance to one of commitment. Great teams need people willing to sacrifice and passionately pursue its plans, priorities and direction.
The question is – how does a leader gain “buy in” and have committed staff, not just compliant staff? The answer’s too long for one short blog post but here are a few essentials that I’ve discovered over the years.
First, you need people who want to be committed to something bigger than themselves. People who just want a job will never move to “buy in” but will always just go through the motions to keep their job.
Second, when you have these kinds of people on your team you need to treat them as thoughtful, committed adults, as partners in your organization’s work. People willing to commit to something bigger than themselves expect nothing less.
Finally, your organization needs to be about something worthy of a person’s commitment and passion. Its mission, values, vision and its impact in the world needs to be great enough for employees, investors and other constituents to be willing to sacrifice to see the organization succeed.
So you see buy in isn’t just about great coaches, it is about the right players and effective leadership, all working together for a cause the entire team believes in.
C.S. Lewis on Reading Old Books
C.S. Lewis got it right in his assessment of benefits and the necessity of reading old books. Now I just need to do a better job of following his advice.
“There is a strange idea abroad that in every subject the ancient books should be read only by the professionals, and that the amateur should be content himself with the modern books….This mistaken preference for the modern books and this shyness of the old ones is nowhere more rampant than in theology….Now this seems to me to be topsy-turvy. Naturally, since I myself am a writer, I do not wish the ordinary reader to read no modern books. But if he must read only the new or only the old, I would advise him to read the old….it is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between. If that is too much for you, you should at least read on old one to every three new ones….We all…need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books….We may be sure that the characteristic blindness of the twentieth century…lies where we have never suspected it….None of us can fully escape this blindness….The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books.”
Quoted by John Piper in God’s Passion for His Glory, from C.S. Lewis’ “On Reading of Old Books” in God in the Dock
Where Center Stage isn’t Central
As I’ve traveled around the SpringHill world this summer one of the things I’ve seen at every one of our locations is the high number of staff who are incredibly talented on stage. Whether it’s speaking, acting, singing, or performing musical instruments every one of our 14 summer camp teams have people who are funny, compelling and clear when they step on stage.
Now the ironic part of having this wealth of talented people doing great work is the fact that what happens on stage isn’t central to our programming, not by a long – shot. It’s the small group and the intimate communities we work so hard to create that is the center of the SpringHill Experience. In contrast the stage, and the talent that uses it, ultimately exists only for the purpose of setting up, reinforcing and making the small group and its leader successful.
In other words, at SpringHill, if Jesus is King, then the small, intimate community is queen, the counselor is the knighted ambassador serving both, and the stage talent becomes the trusted advisors to the ambassadors – our counselors.It can be deceptive if someone observes our programming in action and sees only the great stage productions, without seeing where the powerful ministry really happens – in the small community. Yet the truth is the small communities we’re able to form in a SpringHill Experience couldn’t happen as they do without the aid of the talented people who stand up on stage and do what they do so well. It’s when these talented people share their gift from stage knowing all along when center stage isn’t central their work becomes its most powerful and effective, opening the door for life-transformation.
Being Wrong about Better Planning
I’ve always believed better planning would eliminate the last-minute scramble to accomplish work before a deadline. Over the past few years this is the theory we at SpringHill have believed to be true, especially in preparing for summer camp. We’ve believed if we planned well we’d coast smoothly into summer instead of scrambling and working nonstop in the weeks before camp.
Well, I’m now admitting my theory is wrong. Based on watching our team over the last few years continue to improve its planning for summer camp, I now realize I’ve misunderstood the true benefits of good planning. For one thing coasting into summer camp hasn’t happened; instead our better planning has created more capacity to do more things, and to do them with higher quality.
This, as I now think about it, makes total sense. It’s because our culture has never been a “coasting” culture. Instead it’s always been a “what more can we do to create better life-transforming experiences?” culture.
Our long history of using every last-minute of every last day before the start of summer camp to do as many of these things as possible to exceed our campers’ and parents’ expectations hasn’t changed. But now, with better planning, we just do more of these things and do them better.
So how do I feel about my theory being wrong? Well I have to admit, apart from continuing to improve our pacing before summer; I rather think increasing our capacity to do more things better is the right outcome for good planning.
Being SpringHill Pioneers
The Pioneering Chicago Team of Laura, Zach, Sara and Chelsey Pioneers combine the best qualities of explorers and leaders. Like explorers, they blaze new trails and go to places others have never gone before. But what makes them leaders, and different from explorers, is that they also open up the world so others can follow in their footsteps. Pioneer’s not only do what seems impossible but, by doing so, they make it possible, and even desirable, for others to do so as well.
I know this to be true about pioneers because I just spent two days with a team of them this week.
You see, under the leadership of Day Camp Director Sara Van Winkle, we’re having our first summer of SpringHill Experiences in Chicago. And it’s a full summer. We’re expecting to serve around a 1000 kids at 9 different locations.
And this past week Todd Leinberger and I spent two days with Sara and her team where we watched them effectively work with our local church partner, The Orchard in Arlington Heights, to provide a SpringHill Experience to nearly 170 kids.
It was a blast to witness a church, parents, and kids experiencing SpringHill for the first time. Camp has been so good that parents have already asked about other weeks this summer and registering for camp next year, while the staff at The Orchard has already expressed their desire to double or triple the number of kids attending next year.
So as good pioneers, Sara and her team have opened up a new trail where, as a result, we expect to have a second SpringHill Day Camp team allying with local churches and parents to assure, next summer, even more children in Chicago can hear, see, and experience Jesus Christ in a life – transforming way.
Getting to “Running Smoothly”
Legend has it that the late, great coach of the Green Bay Packers, Vince Lombardi, was nearly useless during games, at least from the player’s perspective. If this was actually true then the question is how can one of the greatest football coaches of all time, the man for whom the Super Bowl trophy’s named after, be of no use during the most important events in a team’s season – the football games?
The answer to that question also answers the question why the SpringHill summer camp teams have been able to describe the first two weeks of camp as “being remarkably smooth”. As I promised in my last post, below are the steps we expended an enormous amount of energy on to assure “running smoothly” this summer became a reality.
Warning – there’s no magic formula here, just common sense stuff written about and practiced by effective organizations, including the Green Bay Packers of the 1960’s, since the beginning of time:
First, we find the right people. At SpringHill we define the “right people” as being “mission driven and mission effective”. “Mission driven” describes people who committed to our mission, align with our values and fit our culture. “Mission effective” people have the skills, abilities and experiences to advance our mission (not just believe in it) and achieve our goals.
Second, we take these “right people” and make sure they clearly understand their jobs in terms of roles, responsibilities and outcomes.
Third, we train and equip “the right people” mentally, physically and spiritually so they will achieve their job outcomes and help SpringHill fulfill its mission.
Finally, we coach, communicate, encourage, inspire, and provide positive accolades and helpful critique about how the “right people” are doing on the job and how SpringHill’s doing overall.
When we take these four steps the odds are very good that, like this summer, camp will “run remarkably smoothly”.
Propulsion into the Future
With the rollout of our new vision, and with SpringHill staff and board being the people they are, I’m expecting over the next year a lot of new ideas for programs and ministries we could embark on. Thus our challenge will be in screening and prioritizing these ideas, with the goal of only doing what will propel us towards fulfilling our vision and BHAGG.
So as I’ve thought about this opportunity it’s become apparent that there will three groups of ideas we’ll be evaluating.
Humility Ideas:
Humility ideas are all the possibilities that result from seeing a need or an opportunity in the world and wanting to do something about it. Most will be great ideas, ideas that can and should become reality. But they won’t align with our mission, vision, core values and philosophy of ministry, thus we shouldn’t do them. They’re humility ideas, because it’ll require us to remember – we can’t do all things and be all things to all people.
One off Ideas:
These are ideas that do align with who we are and direction we’re going but do not propel us forward or give energy to our envision future. Though they may align, they don’t integrate well with SpringHill and the direction it’s going, thus they provide little momentum forward, and so, as a result, they will be lower priority ideas.
Propelling Ideas:
Propelling ideas will be our top priority. These are ideas that are both aligned and have the potential to propel us forward in fulfilling our future goals. These ideas will give energy to SpringHill because they’ll integrate with other initiatives, with our ministry allies, with our staff, and with our supporters.
So over this next year we’ll need wisdom and humility as we work to take on only what will lead SpringHill be all that God’s called it to be, and to do only what God’s called it to do.
Creative Solutions and Heroic Actions
The Heros – Teri, Joe, Dan, Rose, Dwayne, Chuck, Eric and Josh (missing – Ryan, Allison, Casto, Matt, Jarred, and Jake) What do you do when you’re training 100’s of summer staff and, at the same time, hosting multiple retreat groups, all of which require a lot of meeting space, and you happen to be a camp for kids and not a conference center?
You get creative, and a little sweaty, and sore, and you convert your game room into a meeting room that accommodates over 200 people. And by convert I mean moving pool and ping ball tables, booth seating, chairs, and tables out of the game room and into other locations, and move in and set into place staging, AV equipment, and appropriate meeting room seating.
The game room before the conversion. Photo by Rose Peever 
The game room after the conversion. And that’s exactly what our Michigan overnight camp team did last week. Why? Because we consider it a privilege to ally with other ministries by providing them an outstanding retreat experiences, so we’ll do whatever we can to accommodate their needs, even if it means thinking and do things we’ve never thought of, or tried before.
As someone once said “necessity is the mother of all inventions”, and it’s when you’re committed to serving others, including fulfilling your commitments to them, that opportunity often becomes necessity. So, for our team, it was out both necessity and their desire to create outstanding experiences for our guests, which led to their novel solution, and more importantly their willingness to see that solution become a reality.
So you see, such things as problem solving tools and innovation processes are not enough. Real creativity and problem solving begins and ends with willing hearts and open minds, followed by a commitment to action, even at a personal cost. And how do I know this is true? Because of what our Michigan Site and Retreats team did last week to assure our guests had an outstanding SpringHill Experience.
Paying Attention to the Details
Keith Rudge and Neil Hubers One of the things I love about our Indiana camp Site Team is their incredible attention to detail. Keith Rudge our Site Director, his right hand man Neil Hubers and their team of staff and volunteers make attention to the details a significant goal in all their work. As campers, parents and guests visit our Indiana camp they experience this attention to detail in such things as the care of the grounds, the freshly stained decks and walk ways, and the well thought out safety and security procedures.
Attention to details is important part of the SpringHill Experience because our goal is always to be professional. This means we plan, we implement, we measure and we evaluate every experience as to whether we exceeded people’s expectations. And one of the best ways to exceed expectations is in the attention to the details, because people notice the details. And it’s in the details that people judge the thoughtfulness and quality of our work.
And the amazing reality about attention to detail is this – it doesn’t cost the organization any more to pay to attention to them. Because paying attention to the details is more about habits than money, more a commitment than a skill, more a practice than theory. All of which means there’s no excuse for neglecting the details.
This value of exceeding expectations by paying attention to the details goes back to the earliest days of SpringHill when Enoch Olson, our Founding Director, made sure every detail was just right before guests arrived at camp, including such things as having every sidewalk swept perfectly clean.
But the most important reason paying attention to the details is so critical in our work is because we know that if we can demonstrate to parents our trustworthiness in the details, then they’ll trust us with the most important things – caring for their children.
