Transcript: How to Cultivate Collaboration and Goal Alignment in Rescue Missions // Ryan Duerk, Miracle Hill Ministries

Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast

“How to Cultivate Collaboration and Goal Alignment in Rescue Missions“

April 15, 2024

Ryan Duerk

Intro: When you're leading an organization with diverse programs and multiple locations, how do you foster excellent teamwork and cross-team collaboration? How do you keep your staff focused on common goals? Well, today on the Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast, we'll look at how to develop exceptional teamwork and goal alignment across diverse programs and locations. Listen in for practical steps that you can implement in your own leadership situation.

Welcome: Welcome to the Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast, your home for open, honest, and insightful conversations to help develop your leadership, your team, and build a flourishing workplace culture.

Al Lopus: Hello, I'm Al Lopus, the co-founder of the Best Christian Workplaces and author of the Road to Flourishing: Eight Keys to Boost Employee Engagement and Well-Being, which was a finalist in the Christian Book Awards. And I'm passionate about helping Christian leaders like you create engaged, flourishing workplaces.

Well, today I’m delighted to welcome Ryan Duerk to the podcast. Ryan’s the president and CEO of Miracle Hill Ministries, which is South Carolina's largest and most comprehensive provider of homeless services.

Throughout our conversation, you'll hear Ryan talk about his own path to the CEO role, having board policies on measuring and maintaining healthy cultures, to provide tips for healthy communication, ways to help a diverse team keep aligned, and keys to renewing your staff spiritually, and the importance of a top leader’s continuing growth.

I hope you'll love this interview with Ryan Duerk. But before we dive in, this episode is brought to you by the Best Christian Workplaces’ Employee Engagement Survey. You can sign up today to deliver the health of your organization's culture. Now is a wonderful time to listen to your employees with our easy-to-administer online Engagement Survey by going to workplaces.org. Start now so that you can develop meaningful results before summer. Being a certified best Christian workplace improves your ability to get more done, attract more talented employees, and keep them longer.

So, hello to our new listeners, and thanks for joining us as we honor your investment of time to creating valuable episodes like this.

But let me tell you a little bit more about my guest, Ryan Duerk. Ryan’s been with Miracle Hill Ministries since 2008. Before becoming the CEO in January 2020, he served in progressively more responsible roles in operations, counseling, and programs. He has a degree in psychology and an MBA, and he's a board-certified biblical counselor. Miracle Hill Ministries operates four rescue missions, two addiction recovery programs, a foster home community, and foster-care program, transitional houses, food ministry, eight thrift stores, and an auto-sales operation. Miracle Hill Ministries exist to serve people experiencing homelessness. They address physical, emotional, and spiritual needs, and they share the good news of Jesus with people as they move toward independence, stability, and healthy relationships.

So, now here's my conversation with Ryan Duerk.

Ryan, it's great to have you on the podcast, and I'm looking forward to our conversation today.

Ryan Duerk: Excited to be here, Al. Thanks for having me.

Al: Well, Ryan, I love the name of your organization, Miracle Hill, because you're truly seeing miracles when someone's life is transformed by Jesus and by the comprehensive care provided by you and your team. So let's start off with a story of one of those miracles. Can you share with us at least one person whose life has been transformed through the work of Miracle Hill?

Ryan: Sure. I mean, the list is endless. I don't work a day in my life. I could go on and on, but I'll go with the low-hanging fruit.

So, I walked in the front doors of Miracle Hill in 2003 broke, busted, and disgusted, addicted, didn't know the Lord, and met Jesus in a rescue-mission chapel. And in 2008, I kind of heeded a call to ministry and started working for Miracle Hill. And then four and a half years ago, for some reason, they hired me as the CEO. So, my life was changed by the services and faithful service of hundreds of staff members at Miracle Hill.

Al: Wow. Yeah. Well, that's a great start. You certainly appreciate the impact of the ministry. Wow. Thanks for sharing that. Well, it's great to hear about the impact of that ministry on at least one life, your life, and how it's been multiplied across now many other people.

So, you were at Miracle Hill for 12 years as an employee, as I recall, before you became the CEO. So I'd like to learn a little bit about your leadership development and what the path was that you were on in that process to become the CEO. And where did you choose to make changes and do things differently along the way?

Ryan: Yeah. So back in 2015, our long-standing CEO, Reid Lehman, retired, and they brought in a gentleman to replace him as CEO. And that gentleman only lasted about 18 months before he was back out the door. And there's a whole lot of things that I can point to that kind of caused that very short-term replacement. But if I had to summarize it, I would summarize it with the idea of a culture not really being valued and pushed throughout the ministry. When the board approached me about putting my name in the hat, so to speak, for this position, frankly, I told them to take a hike. Like, I didn't want anything to do with it. I’d seen it eat up the man before me. And then our long-standing CEO, who came back in an interim capacity, it had eaten him up too.

But I listened to what the Lord was asking me to do. I moved into the role, and I knew, most importantly, that I needed to value the rich history and culture of the organization. So right out the gate, kind of my position was, don't fiddle with anything, right? Like, value the culture, value the history, keep my ear to the ground, and pray hard and try to figure out what the Lord was pulling us toward for our next season in the, at the time, 84-year history of Miracle Hill.

The one thing that I was kind of compelled with as a preexisting staff member, we had grown tremendously over about 30 years. And as is kind of typical for rescue-mission organizations, we were doing that on a shoestring budget with as little staff as possible. And so I knew that one of the things that the Lord was impressing upon me was to go deeper, care for the shepherd so they could care for the sheep, improve salaries, really strengthen the base that we already had. So that was our kind of focus and kind of continues to be our focus.

Al: Wow. Well, that's a great story, Ryan. Yeah.

So, your previous CEO, after Reid, who had been there a long time, lasted 18 months and didn't value the culture. And that didn't work out so well for him, it sounds like. So let's continue on. Miracle Hill has certainly focused on culture. And I know for many years you've engaged in the Employee Engagement Survey with Best Christian Workplaces. In fact, I love this, and I've worked with Reid a number of times working with rescue-mission boards. He talked about the board policy that your organization has, that you must assess employee engagement through a survey on a regular basis. So, how has this board policy served Miracle Hill and kept you attuned to employee engagement over the years?

Ryan: So, it's interesting, Al. The last time that we, prior to this year, the last time we had reached flourishing with BCW, was in 2015. It was right before this challenging transition. And, you know, it took us nine years to get back to that level of health, which we don't take for granted by any stretch of the imagination. We had done the Employee Engagement Survey all those years, but I do not believe that it was adopted as a board policy till after this failed transition.

So today we do have a board policy, and it states that I’m responsible for maintaining the Employee Engagement Survey. I am responsible for maintaining “best Christian workplace” status. And if any flourishing category drops by a specific percentile in any given year, I'm responsible for reporting that to the board. So it’s not just about taking the Survey, but taking it seriously and responding to what you learn through that Survey.

Al: Would you say, Ryan, that came about as a result of the previous CEO's lack of focus on culture?

Ryan: Yeah. I think that after that failed transition, we really focused in on culture. Words have meaning. And so we had a well-developed mission, vision, and values, but we had not necessarily defined our values. And you really could trace back some of the issues to being a disagreement on what a word meant. So we defined those values. We defined culture specifically so that it was easy to see if we were on target or off target. And then we put in the policy about the Employee Engagement Survey, to make sure that we're hearing from the staff to prevent anything like that ever happening again, or to the best of our ability.

Al: And for our listeners, let me just encourage you to have a board policy where it comes to encourage your successor to have and continue with Employee Engagement Surveys so you can actually measure to make sure that the values, the culture continues from one transition to another. Yeah. And I know, Ryan, you'd agree with that.

So, Miracle Hill displays great teamwork. That's another thing that we've measured in the Survey. You've got great teamwork within your teams and between teams. And many leaders struggle in this area of teamwork. So tell us a little bit about how you keep communication and collaboration flowing within and between teams. Are there some daily, weekly, monthly, even annual rhythms for your organization, says, “Let's stay on track when it comes to teamwork”? What are some of those practices?

Ryan: Sure. And Al, it's worthy to note, you know, my first year as CEO was 2020, where we had a worldwide pandemic, followed by racial upheaval throughout the nation. It was a crazy year, and we tanked on healthy communication on our Best Christian Workplace Survey. And I would have said anecdotally that we communicated more in 2020 than ever before. But it's not just about communicating; it's about communicating from a quality standpoint and living what you are communicating.

So yes, I think that the kind of 50,000-foot view is to develop and maintain a regular, healthy communication culture or rhythm to the organization. And there's a lot of things that we’ve kind of instituted over the past few years to kind of maintain that. Certainly, we have a staff newsletter, which is common to everybody. We've also started something we call Monday Morning Worship, where we go out during the week, we film a time of worship and devotion and updates throughout the ministry, and then we broadcast that throughout the ministry every Monday morning for the staff to be connected, even though they're disconnected physically and be connected in worship, to kind of start our week off on the right page.

We certainly have a ministry intranet, which is kind of a communication platform. We have a huge reliance on Teams so that we're not just communicating by emails, but actually seeing people face to face. And we worked hard to create kind of bottom-up collaboration. Specifically, this came from BCW, and we have a kind of bottom-up committee that focuses on BCW, focuses on hearing what the people want to be communicated about, and how they want to be communicated to.

For instance, our thrift stores we created this, but put a lot of time and effort into a ministry intranet, and most of our thrift-store employees, they're just not tech savvy, right? Like, we put a lot of time and effort into it; they're not going to read anything that we put on there. So you got to know who you're communicating to and how they want to be communicated with.

Al: Yeah. Well, those are great ways, as you say. And it sounds like 2020 was a real cauldron for you to jump into your role. And all of a sudden, you're faced with a pandemic and, you know, all the other issues that were going on. But congratulations for getting through that. And then as you said, things tanked. Communication tanked that year. But you've now clearly built a great rhythm. I love it. Newletters, Monday Morning Worship, intranet, Teams.

Give us a sense of the scope of Miracle Hills Ministries.

Ryan: Sure. So Miracle Hill is the largest provider of services to people experiencing homelessness in the upstate of South Carolina. We operate four emergency shelters across multiple counties, two addiction-recovery programs, 18 transitional houses. We operate the state’s largest foster-care program other than the state itself. And so we're spread thin, right? We're all across multiple counties, which means communication has got to be highlighted more. Otherwise, you silo off the ministry.

Al: That's difficult with those many locations just to keep everybody going in the same direction.

Well, let's talk a little bit about goal alignment, considering the diversity and the way you're dispersed across the state. So you've got four rescue missions, a food ministry, thrift stores, addiction recovery, as you've mentioned. So I'm sure some of our listeners who also lead complex organizations want to learn some practical steps for keeping goal alignment, everybody moving in the same direction. So how do you and your leadership team keep this goal alignment across the various programs, the various locations that you've got across the state? I know that you find ways and things that are breaking down at times. So what are the signals that you're watching just to make sure that people are going in the same direction?

Ryan: Yeah. So it comes back to this overarching idea of a well-defined mission, vision, values, and culture. Miracle Hills is well defined. We start kind of hammering that idea as soon as someone gets hired. So we have a three-day new-employee orientation, which certainly goes over some of the nuts and bolts of being an employee. But the whole first day is centered on this idea of mission, vision, values, culture. Who we are matters. And then, we are constantly reiterating who we are throughout someone's time with employment with us.

We kind of stole this from, there's, like, this Ritz Carlton standard. I'm sure you're familiar with this, Al, where the Ritz Carlton has just a little pamphlet that every employee has that has their values listed on it, and they're focusing on one of those values each and every week. We try to emulate that and do the same thing so that we are focusing on who we are first and then from the mission standpoint where we're going. So we communicate our strategy well. We make sure that the staff are aware. Matter of fact, you can see it over my left shoulder, probably, right from where you're looking. That orange, blue, green, and yellow. That's our ministry-wide strategic plan, which all the staff have access to so they can see where we're going. And it's kind of like training on, like the U.S. Treasury does for counterfeit bills. Like, they train by training on the real thing, not on the fake, right? So the more that we talk mission, vision, values, and culture, the more easy it is to see when things get out of alignment.

Al: I trust you’re enjoying our podcast today. We’ll be right back after an important word for leaders.

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Al: Welcome back to my conversation with Ryan Duerk.

A three-day employee orientation as the start. And, again, it's more than just filling out forms and benefit forms particularly. It's really focusing on who you are and where you're going. And then, yeah, as you pointed out, you even have visual reminders kind of that people can see. Well.

So again, when we look at the results of your Employee Engagement Survey, your top-10 scores are well balanced across our eight FLOURISH drivers. We focus on eight FLOURISH drivers that are research based, and seven of those are represented in your top-10 scores. This breadth of strength can provide resilience in a workplace health. You've got trust in leaders. You reflect Christ as an organization. You have good teamwork. Your employees feel equipped in their jobs, and other key strengths. And those just don't happen by accident. So what are some of the specific actions that our listeners can begin to put in place to achieve such strong results? How do you and your leaders and managers use the results of the Survey to identify and actually inform changes and improvements?

Ryan: Yeah. We use a three-pronged approach that has evolved a little bit over the years. So on top of the general results, we also purchased the snapshot surveys. So not only do we get the overarching ministry, but each individual area gets results. And then we have three kind of groups that go to work. The first one is the individual facilities or thrift stores will review their results through a process that we've used some of the process that your staff has come up with, and we've evolved it for our own purposes. So they're intentionally looking at that not just once, but throughout the year. Secondly, we're looking at it as a total ministry. So the leadership is looking through those processes, looking through the results, and trying to glean whatever information we can off that. And then thirdly, we have assembled a crew that we call the BCW Committee, and it is the idea of getting people that maybe are a little bit further down line, even though I don't like that terminology, that can look at the overarching results and offer their perspective on it. Then, we communicate that well, what we're doing, every month at our department-head meetings. And that process extends now all the way until we take the next Survey. So it's not a once-and-done process; it is a constant process of people don't care what you know until they know how much you care. That's an old Zig Ziglar quote. But it’s very true. It's not just about saying, “We take a Survey;” it's about showing them that we're actually doing something about it.

Al: Yeah. So I really like this. It's not once and done. It's something that you focus on throughout the year in terms of keeping in front of your leadership, in front of your facilities and locations, in front of your employees.

Well, the people who work at Miracle Hill find enjoyment in their work. Again, we know that because they tell us through the Employee Engagement Survey. So how do you foster and keep that joy in their work? And I know they're working hard and in difficult situations. So how do you train and motivate your managers, your supervisors, to bring the mission to life with the staff, especially those entry-level, those frontline roles that are so critical in the work that you're doing?

Ryan: This is a tough one, Al. We're in a crisis-ministry world where there's a lot of heartbreak all around us. So we have, again, some specific initiatives. During our budgeting process, we set aside funding that we call staff-appreciation funds that the managers can use at their discretion throughout the year to bring encouragement. Maybe it's just a dozen of Krispy Kreme donuts or something that will let the staff know that they're valued and loved. We have a focus on spiritual renewal, which looks like two different things. Number one, we allow the staff to take a day a year just as a spiritual renewal day, like they would a vacation day. We allow the staff on-mission days. They literally can go on mission with their church. We’ll pay for them to be gone for that week so they can pursue spiritual renewal on their own time. We have a verse of the year each and every year that we focus on as a ministry that kind of flavors what we do throughout the year. I talked about the Monday Morning Worship, starting our weeks off from a position of worship. You know, bringing the mission to life is especially challenging for people who are in traditional ministry jobs, like our thrift stores, and so we have to spend extra time to help them to understand that what they’re doing is not a job, it is mission. And in thrifts’ case, remind them that people come in each day for a pair of pants, who what they really need is prayer or to hear about Jesus.

So, again, that constant reiteration, providing opportunities, and providing bandwidth for them to find renewal when needed.

Al: Yeah. Well, I love that. Yeah. So, yeah, fund staff appreciation. Again, for our listeners, I'd encourage you, put money in a budget when it comes to staff appreciation. And these days, and this has been almost a theme of mine and it's come out through the podcast this year, spiritual renewal needs to be part of a ministry plan for your employees to be strong and continue to be strong in their work. Yeah. And I love the way you're describing it, one day per year for a spiritual day. The funding, actually allowing your employees to go on mission trips with their church. And again, they find, certainly, a spiritual renewal there. And then a verse of the year, yeah. And weekly worship. So bring mission to work, particularly those that aren't on the frontline. Yeah. Great.

So, as I talk with leaders who are shepherding their flock well and leading a flourishing culture, I'm really interested in learning how they've grown through their season of leadership. We all know that we can't stop growing as leaders. If we stop growing, the organization will stop growing. So as you reflect on your past four years as CEO, even in your leadership before that, what's influenced your own growth as a leader? What are some of the catalysts that you've experienced that spur you on to growth as a leader?

Ryan: I don't think the Lord created a worldwide pandemic for my benefit, but He certainly used it for my benefit. You know, at the beginning of Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Life, first four words are, “It’s not about you.” And I feel like I learned that kind of the hard way through the gauntlet of 2020, even though I've been in ministry for a really long time. I think that’s what the Lord has been doing over the past couple of years, and it actually kind of culminated last fall when I had a couple of aha moments. I think that the board pursued me to consider this position because I was really good at operations. And the aha moment last fall was, that's not my job. Like, the skills that got me where I'm at are not the skills that are going to keep me where I'm at. And I need to know what my job is or, not to hyper spiritualize it, but I need to know what God has called me to, and then live into the call that He has on my life and give other people the authority and responsibility to live into the calls that God has on their lives. And if we will all pursue that with excellence, then we'll get out of each other's lanes. And I think that truly, you know, develops bandwidth in our lives to be able to take a deep breath from time to time.

So it's funny. I feel less equipped to do my job today than I did two, three years ago, and I think it's because I understand what my job is today on a deeper level. And so I think I would summarize just by saying, we have to understand who we are, and then ask God for the grace to do whatever it is that He's called us to do, and constantly be reexamining that, especially as seasons change in your personal life and in your ministry life.

Al: Yeah. Yeah. Boy, thanks. That’s just great advice. I feel you. I feel less equipped today than I did before, because life is in transition for all of us, and we need to all be growing and be aware. And I love your point, self-knowledge, to know ourselves first, and then move to where God is teaching us is a key.

So, Ryan, we've learned so much from our conversation today. I really appreciate it. I love, first of all, where you started off. You came to Miracle Hill broke, busted, and disgusted. That describes it. And it was just great to hear your path to the CEO role and kind of the bumps that Miracle Hill had along the way, and how they have really straightened out. And then, talking about how it's important to have a board policy around employee engagement, to survey on a regular basis and to maintain certain levels of the health of your culture, and the way you can do that. And then, some of your practical advice on teamwork and advice around alignment. And then, how can you help your employees find purpose, meaning, and joy at work? Those are just great discussions, as well as your own journey and growth as a leader. I think that helps each of us understand, it's not about us, and let's keep moving forward as we grow and learn, and let others really grow and learn in their roles as well.

So, Ryan, this has just been a great conversation. How about a bottom line, one other thought that you'd like to add for our listeners?

Ryan: Sure. I will end with 1 Peter 4:10, which reads, as each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace. God doesn’t need any of us; He chooses to use us. Like, we are blessed to come alongside whatever work He has, wherever He's called us. And the good things that we have both personally and professionally, they're not ours; they’re on loan. And God calls us to steward them, which literally means to manage them well. And then, the last part of that verse talks about God's varied grace, which literally means the many different colors of grace. So summarizing that: God gives us all these amazing things not for us to have, but for us to manage on His behalf, for His purpose. Man, we need to recognize that it's not about us, that it's about Him and really being open to who He's calling us to be, where He's taking us, and then recognize the weight of stewarding on behalf of the King. What an opportunity. What a blessing.

Al: That’s great. Thanks, Ryan.

Well, thanks so much for your contributions today. And most of all, I appreciate your commitment to leading your team as they show Christ's love and transformation for people on the margins. So thanks for taking your time out today and speaking in lives of so many listeners.

Ryan: Hey, it was my pleasure, Al. Thank you, guys, for what you do at BCW. We couldn't do what we do without you.

Al: I appreciate that. God bless you.

Ryan: God bless.

Al: Well, thanks so much for listening to my conversation with Ryan Duerk. And I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

You can find ways to connect with him and links to everything we talked about in the show notes and transcript at workplaces.org/podcast.

And if you have any suggestions for me about our podcast or have any questions on flourishing workplace cultures, email me at al@workplaces.org.

And for leaders, if you want to improve your leadership, expand your organization's impact for good, and see greater faithfulness in our broader culture, help us achieve our goal to see more flourishing Christian-led workplaces. To help, please share this podcast with another leader or launch a project in your own organization to discover and improve the health of your workplace culture. So, if you're interested in learning more, go to workplaces.org and request a sample report.

Outro: The Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast is sponsored by Best Christian Workplaces. If you need support building a flourishing workplace culture, please visit workplaces.org for more information.

We'll see you again next week for more valuable content to help you develop strong leaders and build a flourishing workplace culture.

Al: And you'll be sure to want to join us next week as I talk with John Reynolds, the president of Los Angeles Pacific University, about the perseverance that he's had in building a flourishing workplace culture.