Dr. Larry: You know having a chapel and having a weekly devotion, all of that is maybe pretty typical for ministry. I don't think that shocks anybody. But I think the, I guess, secret sauce so to speak, is when we talk to one another in the small group.
Narrator: This is the Called To Flourish Podcast, where leaders and cultures grow.
Robert: Welcome to the Called to Flourish Podcast where we help leaders and cultures grow. Today, we have a very special guest with us, Dr, Larry Taylor. Welcome to the Podcast, Dr. Larry.
Dr. Larry: Thank you. Honored to be a part of it.
Robert: Amen. We're honored to have you back on the podcast. So, to introduce him a little bit more, Dr. Larry is the President and CEO of the Associations of Christian Schools International (ACSI), bringing 30 plus years of Educational Leadership Experience. ACSI serves thousands of Christian schools across many, many, many countries, over 100 countries. They provide accreditation, teacher certification, professional development, incredible services helping the education K through 12 sectors. Dr. Larry is also 20 years Head of School at Prestonwood Christian Academy, which had 2,000 plus students, four campuses, and also 12 years with the First Academy in Orlando. Did I get that right, Larry?
Dr. Larry: Yes, yeah, that's good. Thank you.
Robert: Larry's also the author of The Running With Horses: A Parenting Guide For Raising Children To Be Servant Leaders For Christ. So, we're very excited to have Larry and chat more with him on some exciting survey results and things that we were noticing with ACSI’s journey on their road to flourishing, as we call it. And so, there's been a major cultural shift on this long journey.
ACSI has been partnering with BCW since 2008. So, many, many, many years. And they've been committed to annual surveys as of recent years. ACSI has really skyrocketed to flourishing levels. So, on a five-point scale, we consider flourishing a 4.25 and higher. They rank in the top quartile of seven of eight key drivers. So really like phenomenal, stellar, top tier survey results.
So, I wanted to talk about that with you a little bit Larry, and learn and glean some of the things that you guys have done and that you've seen that have really worked, to see these incredible, transformational results. And focusing first on trust, this trust transformation that's happened. Can you tell us a little bit about that? How you have seen that? Because your scores indicate, from the beginning of your surveying, that the scores have jumped from a 53% of employees who experience and say that there's trust between teams and leaders, has jumped to 94% in your most recent survey. So, tell us what has happened here?
Dr. Larry: First of all, thank you for having me on the podcast, and thank you for what you guys do to help us and thousands of other organizations measure flourishing and measure areas that are just so important. I'm grateful for you guys helping us. I think everyone would agree that trust is the bedrock. It's the foundation. It means everything to, I think, an organization. Individually trusting one another, but just organizationally trusting one another.
I think the focus overall has been on us trying to be very transparent in everything we do, beginning with our executive team, our senior staff, our leadership team. Our hope has been, and the scores are indicating that our hope is really becoming a reality, because we're being transparent in our conversations, we're being transparent in how we deal with one another, I think that has generated a culture of trust. Integrity, I don’t think there is any organization that is perfect. We certainly are not at all perfect. But I think our transparency and our commitment to integrity in our practices and in our protocol. I mean, for example, every Monday, we have an all-staff chapel. I think that even through the all-staff chapel, it’s more than just a devotion. We break up into small groups. We have staff all over the world and we break up into small groups.
I think that has met more to our staff. We really trust each other to break up in a small group, to have a prayer request, and then to communicate those prayer requests to our entire staff. I think it's just built a culture of trust and it’s just been a blessing. I think just a byproduct of us being very open. I mean, for example, we are very open about how we're doing as an organization financially. I know that might sound kind of odd to say it that way, but everything is on the table. Everything's on the table. And so whether it's a Monday all-staff chapel breaking up into small groups and doing prayer requests, to communicating annually, and then quarterly how we're doing financially. Finances can be a touchy subject, but I think that's just one example. There's many other examples. One example of where we want our employees. We want the servant leaders, those that were in the trenches together, there is nothing off limits. We want them to know that. We can talk about anything and everything. I think that trust is ignited in so many different ways.
Robert: Yeah. I’m hearing so much in what you are describing, especially going to the idea of the chapel. So, you guys hold a chapel every week?
Dr. Larry: Yeah. Every Monday.
Robert: Yes, every Monday. And then you break into small groups as higher staff, which it sounds like you're opening up with prayer requests, a little insight what's going on in my personal life. Kind of some spiritual bonding, some relational bonding. Because it takes trust for a leader to share some things that are going on. It’s take humility and that exudes trust. “Oh, this person is trusting me with, hey, would you pray into this in my life.” Wow. I can imagine that's been powerful, spiritual, and relational trust building.
Dr. Larry: I think so. You know, having a chapel and having a weekly devotion, all of that is pretty typical for ministry. I don’t think that shocks anybody.
I guess, the secret sauce, so to speak, is when we talk to one another in those small groups.
Robert: Yes, yes.
Dr. Larry: I think that's when relationships are formed. We mix up the groups two times a year. So, in my small group, I’m with them for a half year. And then I have an entire new group. Over two or three years, everyone is getting to know each other. I think that’s just cultivates a real positive spirit and personal and then, of course, that trust. It’s like a spark. It gets everything going.
Robert: That is very fascinating to me. So, in your small groups, you're commingling leaders in like the executive leadership team, with other tiered leaders, managers, and even individual contributors. The executive leaders have their breakout. You are mixing it all together and really developing kind of a family, spiritual, almost like a small group church environment.
Dr. Larry: Exactly. In fact, it reminds me of a small group at church. And the fact that we do it weekly, and that we do it for six straight months, you really get to know each other. As you would expect, the better we get to know each other, the more open we are. The more open we are, you are starting to share things that are deep in the family, way beyond prayer requests about work or ACSI. We are really getting to know and pray. Then the next week, we are checking up on each other. “How’s your son doing? How’s your husband doing? How’s your wife doing?” So, that’s really been a blessing. Very, very much so.
Robert: I love hearing that. And I've never heard that before, the small group breakout environment. It sounds like transformational results that you are crediting to that process. Yeah, I mean, trust is built on relationship building, transparency, communication, and all of that is found in that. Very fascinating.
And you also mentioned just transparency in general, here's what's going on financially, here's what's going on with decisions we're making, and those kinds of things. Another clear contributor to this skyrocketing of trust scores in the organization. Well, thank you for sharing that. I think that will be very helpful to people if you are watching this and you’re in a ministry to consider doing that. Consider taking that and doing those breakouts. If you are not doing the chapel or having at least a check in with prayer. At BCW on the leadership team and other teams as well, we connect. We open up, what's going on, any prayer requests, and doing that is a big trust builder. And the small groups, I really like that . So, thank you for sharing that. I could see how that's creating amazing results for you guys.
Another thing that was highlighted in your most recent scores was retention. It's like a retention revolution has happened at ACSI, which is imperative for Kingdom work. You need good people in the right places, in the right seats, life-giving work, but also sticking with you and building that kind of long term work together. You have seen an increase from 59% to 87% over the years, of your many years surveying of staff agreeing that they would remain at ACSI, even if offered more pay somewhere else, right? That's kind of how the question and how that measurement happens. It is very incredible, top echelon percentage there. What can you share about that? Is that tied back to trust? Are there some other elements that you see contributed to those rates rising upward?
Dr. Larry: Well, I do think a lot of it is attributed to the trust. And I wish I could say that we doubled everyone's compensation. We do feel that we are competitive in the area of compensation and benefits. But I think the retention, I think way beyond pay, I think that when people are rallying around a common cause, a transcendent purpose, and there's regular visitation to that transcendent purpose, being involved in something that's bigger than ourselves, bigger than any one person in the organization. That is extremely important. We really we work hard at reminding ourselves why we exist. It’s so easy to get caught up in whatever assignment. We are a large organization and we have many parts that are moving. I think it’s so easy to get caught up in those parts, especially the part that you know I might be a part of and you may be a part of, we try to take a step back on a regular basis and just remind each other about our purpose.
I don't know a few months ago, someone on our staff shared something with me that really blessed me. And it was this, that every time this particular staff person, every time they pray for ACSI, they have tried, in a kind of a personal discipline way, they've tried to put a picture of a child in their mind as they're praying, or even maybe at our all-staff chapel, that picture of a child. Because at the end of the day, our purpose is to reach children and to reach the parents of those children and the teachers who teach those children for the glory of Jesus Christ. And I really think that retention has a lot do with those pictures of those children in our mind. That person who shared that, I shared that with our entire staff with that staff person’s permission.
There is a lot of different ministries, and I've been a part of several different ministries that I've been guilty of, of kind of going through seasons where, you know, where I'm not focused on the call. I might be focused on the job, but I think retention has a lot-- I think retention is absolutely improved or increased when on a regular basis you can rally around your transcendent purpose or your transcendent cause. Now, there's a bunch of other reasons why we should rally around transcendent purpose. But that's one of them. And the longer that people are, you know, whether it's five years, 10 years, you know, 30 years, the longer people are part of a ministry, for all the right reasons, the fulfillment of mission, the fulfillment and realization of really encouraging one another to remain committed to the vision and the mission and the purpose of an organization is improved the longer people are at the organization or at the ministry.
So, having that faithful presence within ACSI, regardless of the department, having people there that have served for multiple, multiple years, it just does something to the culture of an organization. So, we're highly committed to retention.
Robert: Couple things in there that really stood out and so profound. One is this idea of putting the mission and vision in front of the people, time and time again. And we hear that, we hear that. We know that to be true. But the idea behind that is, no matter what role you have in an organization, whether you're an individual contributor, you're on this team or that team, executive level, or whatever it might be, when you understand how your daily contributions tie into this, you called it a transcendent mission and vision. That's where it gets really exciting. And so a reminder of that is huge for leaders. Keep putting your mission and vision back in front of you and your people. That is why we are there. Especially in Kingdom work that you guys are doing.
But what I also liked is that very practical tool, and you mentioned putting the image of the child. That might look like something different for every organization. Obviously it does, whether it’s that person who got saved, baptized, and is being discipled now at church, or that student who's being raised and educated in a Christian environment, like the work you do, or whether it's us at BCW envisioning an organization increasing in their health and engagement. And all of a sudden, boom, we're seeing these incredible Kingdom results. But I love that practical example of what visual, more than just talking about it. What visualization practices can you do or can you teach? Just put that child’s face in front of you or in your mind. Get a picture. Hang it on the wall or whatever it might be. I really like that. I like that practical approach. It sounds like that was a meaningful exercise for you guys.
Dr. Larry: I like to think of an organization, even when I was at a school, I thought of it the same way of like Nehemiah. When Nehemiah was rebuilding the wall. You know, everyone celebrates, and rightly so, everyone celebrates the 52-day miracle. And it was a miracle. But I think what really is spectacular, is that when Nehemiah was finished building the wall, the wall looked uniform. It was well done. I mean, and the spectacular thing about that is Nehemiah had different people around this humongous wall, different people had a section of the wall. So yes, 52-day miracle, but the fact that it was orderly, and the wall looked uniform. And the reason I emphasize that is everybody in an organization, everybody, it doesn't matter what their title is, everybody has been assigned a specific area of the wall. And what they do matters, and what they do is important. And if they don't do that, then there's an area of the wall that might not look orderly.
Anyway, I just think it's important to continually emphasize that everybody's assignment, God has called every single person to an area of the ACSI wall. It is very important. Or else God would not have called them to that area of the wall. And everyone is needed. Every part of it is important.
Robert: Yes, it's back to Paul's analogy of the Body of Christ, every joint has a part. One part can't say I'm more important than the other part. And you know, and that's the goal. This mission, this vision is so impactful. I could not even imagine leaving this work for something less fulfilling because I know it matters and it is making a difference. So, really good.
Another thing that was highlighted here in a shift in strategy for you guys, correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you increased the amount of executives who are involved in our debrief process. So, for those of you who've never gone through a debrief process with BCW, we have a consultant assigned to our ministry partners, and there's a debrief that happens where that consultant meets with usually a small executive team going over the results of the survey, talking about strategies, recommendations, and insights. But you expanded that group of people to somewhere around 15 executives who are part of that debrief meeting. Is that correct?
Dr. Larry: Yeah, yeah. I mean, we have a pretty typical organization, you know, executive staff, senior staff, leadership team, and so on. But I think what was meaningful, and even getting back to your earlier comment or attention to retention, in light of expanding this senior staff. Anybody that covers a lot of territory within the ACSI organization, we wanted, we wanted to pull them in, and we wanted the debrief of the Best Christian Workplace Survey, we wanted to drill down with as many people as possible. Now, certainly everybody in the organization went through a level of debrief. But you know, we wanted the expert consultant of the Best Christian Workplace, we wanted that expert to communicate and explain all the different charts and graphs. If not, a survey, and sadly I have been guilty of this too, sometimes we give surveys and we don’t invest adequate time on the post survey debrief. I mean, to the point where we're doing Q and A with the high-level consultant that you guys provided. It was a phenomenal exercise to expand beyond our executive team. We expanded it so that they could do Q and A. It communicated that we are not fearful of what is being surveyed. We're not fearful to talk about things. Positive things are easy to talk about, but even some of the constructive feedback that was highlighted in the survey, I think our team really appreciated being a part of the debrief, being encouraged to ask questions. And I think that even builds the trust, which is, you know, what we talked about earlier.
You know, surveys can really be positive, but they can also stink. I mean, especially, you know, as the leader of ACSI, I could get very defensive. And I've been guilty of that, “Wait a minute, they don't know what they're talking about,” or whatever. But I'm telling you, it was such a blessing to huddle this survey and not just the instrument. Even the open-ended comments on the survey, it was such a blessing to have our team being a part of this. I think they felt like they were and I’m glad they felt this way because it was part of our goal, felt like they are a major part of the culture of our organization, so much so that we turn them loose with our consultant from the Best Christian Workplace survey. I mean, it was really a great experience.
Now, obviously, I'm happy and I'm pleased with the results. But even along the pilgrimage, the journey, we've been doing this for several years now, and you know it wasn't always high marks. The information wasn't always pleasing to my ear and to my heart. Even during those times, I think it meant so much to our staff to be a part of their investment of time and the hours that they are investing into ACSI, just to be a part of the feedback of what that really means was another element of the Best Christian Workplace Survey. It was more than just information. I mean, they were part of building the heartbeat of ACSI, and to have a trusted, reliable, valid instrument even meant more than I would have ever predicted.
Robert: Wow. Well, it's no wonder your trust scores are so high. You talked initially about trust and transparency, and you know, those kinds of things, and what you just described is the demonstration of that which is only going to improve communication. It's inspirational leadership, it's trust, it's vulnerability, it's transparency, all of that wrapped up in that one exercise of tying more people into this debrief. Being very transparent, you know, with the good and the bad and the ugly and all of that with the survey. Thankfully, your scores are very good in the top echelon. That's always going to build trust.
The worst thing you can do as an organization is say, “We trust you. We want your feedback, and when the results come in, we don't communicate anything. We don't do anything. And we don't share anything with you.” That’s of course going to erode trust and weaken the score. You’ve seen that. Has it brought also with more executives in that initial process in the debrief? It sounds like even more with Q and A’s and things like that. Is it just kind of distribute a sense of ownership for the culture more broadly?
Dr. Larry: Yeah, I think so. Because the way we communicated the results, the way we cascaded the results, was following the initial debrief. We wanted our entire staff to be a part of the debrief. So, we actually spent one entire meeting where the leader of every department actually went through the same exercise with their department, their team, that we did at the senior level.
So, you can imagine, you know, 15 or 20 of our leaders being debriefed and having Q and A with the results. We then cascaded that throughout the entire organization. And then, another area, and again I'm not trying to be a judge here because I’ve been guilty of us this, not doing anything with the results. So, we not only communicated the results and talked about them, we actually formed teams that, I think we call them the organizational improvement, quality control parameters. So, we took the information, we took the comments, and then we formed a task force around some of the areas, all the areas that we scored lower than we wanted too, and we asked our employees to sign up for any taskforce that they wanted to be a part of. And even before we let them sign up for a taskforce, we appointed. We probably had, I don’t know, 10 or 15 different groups within the organization, all of it connected back to the survey. That group, their assignment was to read the data, talk about it, if they needed more information, to go back to the organization, ask more questions, and then their assignment was to come back with a suggested plan for improvement. And not only did our organization get better because of that, I think, once again, it communicated that we're not just doing a survey to do a survey. We really want the environment, the culture of ACSI, we want it to be for the glory of Jesus Christ. We wanted everything about our organization to be about advancing Jesus. As if Jesus was sitting in our department or a committee, or a taskforce, we felt like it was honoring to the Lord to ask questions, communicate the answers, and then surround those answers with employees who care about the organization. And so for the next 12 months, we are going to be implementing some of the suggestions and recommendations that came out of the survey.
Robert: Wow, I think that's the most transparent, committed, detailed strategic approach that I've heard on how to respond to an employee engagement survey and go beyond just debrief to involving everyone and actually taking action. That’s what it is all about. Actionable results. Behind the data are real people, and as a culture that has real implications to Kingdom impact. And so, to take it as seriously as you do, and ACSI does is extremely inspiring. I want you to know. I think what you just said, if you are watching and listening, I hope that you can take this example and apply it. It’s going to look different for everybody with what we need to do and work on but that level of transparency in terms of disseminating and cascading communication and getting people involved and how we going to improve. And it doesn't matter how strong your scores are, you know, there's always room to improve. And you never want to take your foot off the gas when it comes to a Christ honoring culture.
Dr. Larry: That’s right.
Robert: I can't think of a better place for us to wrap up our conversation than taking action. So, if you don't mind, Larry, I'd love to do a quick little rapid-fire questions to get to know you a little better. These are just kind of fun, all right? So, because you're an expert, formidable expert in education, I'm so curious, rapid-fire question, do you have a favorite children's book or author?
Dr. Larry: I have several. Probably the one that comes to mind, at the top of the list is CS Lewis’ The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. At the top of my list.
Robert: There you go, you can’t go wrong with that. Okay, another one. We have two more of these questions. If you could add one class to every school curriculum, what would it be?
Dr. Larry: I think it would be, probably a deep dive on Western Civilization. Western Civ and the Judeo-Christian thread that permeates that curriculum.
Robert: I love that. I love that answer. Final one, what's one habit or routine that helps you start your day with purpose?
Dr. Larry: Well, there's a few, but probably the one that I value the most is a self-discipline prayer routine. In over a five-to-seven-day period, I begin repeating it. It’s not revolutionary. The frequency of that routine is praying that I wouldn’t miss God ordained intersections. For that day, God wants me to intersect with either a person, or a program, or an event, and I don't want to miss God in the small intersections and connections that he wants me to experience that day.
Robert: Amen, beautiful. Thank you so much, Dr. Larry. Thank you for your time and insights and wisdom. And congratulations on your incredible engagement scores and the work you guys are doing. We are deeply grateful for your partnership with us and that your Kingdom work that you're doing to impact thousands of schools, I would assume, hundreds of thousands of students and exciting work. So, we're just honored to have you back on the program. And thank you very much for your time.
And for those of you tune in for our next episode, we've got more incredible guests coming. If this meant something to you, please share it. Share this episode out with a colleague, a friend, anybody you think would benefit from the wisdom that Dr. Larry shared with us today.
So, God bless you, and we'll see you next time on the Called to Flourish Podcast.
Dr. Larry: Thank you. God bless you.