I’ve begun leading our ministry leads in the process of greater collaboration among ministries. As a church, we have a mission of reaching people disconnected to God and helping them grow in their relationship with him. This — by any measure — is no small task.
Ultimately, by doing more of what we do best the church will be more healthy and more lives will be impacted for good.
In scanning a few leadership blogs* tonight (I’m tired but too wound up to sleep), I came across this post called “How Managers Can Amp Up Workplace Voltage.” I’ll share part of it here:
According to Wikipedia, voltage is:
The voltage between two points is a short name for the electrical force that would drive an electric current between those points. Specifically, voltage is equal to energy per unit charge. In the case of static electric fields, the voltage between two points is equal to the change in electrical potential difference between those points.
So the voltage in your workplace could be described as the amount of energy available to move between people. Cool. I am digging this concept of energy transfer. What’s energy if it can’t travel through the work, through people, and through the organization? Like a drag racing car at the starting line, burning rubber, but not going anywhere. I’ll stop mixing metaphors, now.
What can managers do to increase both voltage and energy transfer?
- Structure workplace communication so that time is set aside to share information.
- Reinforce collaboration.
- Create interdependent tasks, projects, and measures.
- Help employees build relationships – this may not happen on its own. Structure the work so that people get to know each other.
- Provide a challenge – give people something that gives them energy.
* A great resource to find good information in one spot is Alltop. It aggregates information from blogs by topic. The above post was found at http://leadership.alltop.com. Church blogs are aggregated at http://church.alltop.com.