Nonprofit Resources
Margin for Mission Podcast S1:E7 – Ministry by Design: Unlocking Your Team’s Genius and Personality – Transcript
Ken Tan:
Welcome to Margin for Mission: The CRI CapinCrouse Podcast, where two friends, Ken and Chris, bring you real talk about creating space for what matters most. Because when your organization has financial and operational margin, you can focus on your mission with confidence.
Chris Purnell:
We’re professionals who’ve spent years helping churches, higher education institutions, and other mission-focused nonprofit organizations manage their accounting, tax, compliance, and other challenges. We understand the complexities you face, and we’re here to make it simpler.
Ken Tan:
In each episode, we’ll dive into practical insights on leadership, operations, and the everyday challenges of running a nonprofit without the jargon.
Chris Purnell:
And we’ll talk about life too, family, faith, quite a bit of football, and finding balance in a world that rarely slows down.
Ken Tan:
So whether you’re managing budgets, leading teams, or just trying to keep your mission moving forward, you’re in the right place.
Chris Purnell:
This is Margin for Mission. Let’s get started.
Ken Tan:
Well, welcome back to another wonderful episode of Margin for Mission. I’m so excited to have our guest speaker here, Kelsey Helmick, join us too as well. Chris, always a pleasure to see you and your wonderful array of books behind the scenes. As you can tell-
Chris Purnell:
And-
Ken Tan:
Oh, go ahead.
Chris Purnell:
I was just going to say, and same to you, Ken. Great to see the lovely blinds behind you.
Ken Tan:
Exactly, right? Isn’t it one of those things that, for me, especially I see it, everyone is like, “Wow, I love the same setup of an office just in a different place-”
Chris Purnell:
Yeah.
Ken Tan:
… and go figure, right? I’m actually in another place again. And so Kelsey, so one of our traditions here now is, as you can tell, I am the Where’s Waldo of the firm. Thankfully, it’s just been a fun thing that I do get to go visit both clients and also speak at conferences. I’m here for a conference this time. That’s why, as you can tell, I’m dressed up to pretend like I actually know something, which I don’t, but it is still fun once in a while to dress up like this. But I do want to at least see if I can do a little bit of trivia on this city, because I don’t think it has been on ours yet. So hopefully you’re ready, Kelsey and Chris, and I’ll get started with a couple facts.
Chris Purnell:
I’m as ready as I’m going to be. I feel like I’m not doing great at these challenges. I just get so nervous because I don’t know where you are. But Kelsey, since you’re the honored guest, I will give you the first guess once Ken has given us his factoids.
Kelsey Helmick:
Okay. Because you already said it’s not somewhere you’ve been before, so it must not be Houston.
Ken Tan:
That’s right. It’s not Houston.
Kelsey Helmick:
A second home?
Ken Tan:
It is my second home right now. So let me share a couple of facts. All right? Are you all ready?
Chris Purnell:
Ready.
Ken Tan:
It is actually the largest landlocked city in the United States. Another fact here is the airport, which actually has two, the one that’s most well-known has a larger area than all of the island of Manhattan, New York. It also, and I’m prefacing this, I don’t drink this, but it is also the birthplace of the frozen margarita machine. It also is where the birthplace of 7-Eleven was. So 7-Eleven, I believe, is the one that helped found that and a part of that invented… That’s where it came from. It is also home to the largest state fair in the United States, right? Everything is bigger in this place, so I’m just going to add in there. And then if I need to add one more thing here for you all, I think I’m going to add that it used to be the place of America’s football team. Right? I’ll just pause at that. I’m sure we just lost another group of listeners, and Chris is shaking his head. He knows what I’m talking about.
Chris Purnell:
Yeah. I think I do.
Ken Tan:
So I’ll pause at that, Kelsey.
Kelsey Helmick:
Well, now, I feel like I’m going to get it wrong.
Ken Tan:
Kelsey is like, “The Carolina Panthers are America’s football team.” I said-
Kelsey Helmick:
Yeah.
Chris Purnell:
Plus, everyone knows this. Yeah, the Carolina Panthers.
Kelsey Helmick:
No. North Carolina need more professional sporting teams that… Although we do have the Hurricanes, which is the only one I care about.
Chris Purnell:
Yeah? Yeah.
Kelsey Helmick:
I’m thinking Dallas. I don’t know.
Ken Tan:
You’re correct. It is Dallas. So I’m actually here for a church conference. I always enjoyed coming to Dallas here. I actually have some family here too as well, so I get to see them every time I’m here. But everything’s pretty fun here in Texas. It’s always one of those things where I think a lot of what happens… There’s a lot of great ministries here too as well, and so Dallas ends up being hub, even in a lot of faith-based areas too. So it’s one of those things where I’ll probably end up being in this same location in the future, but for now, it’s been nice that each of my episodes ,I’ve actually been in another place, so.
Anyways. So just talking through what our episode is. I want to preface as well with a little bit of a story, right? As you can tell, our biggest focus on this episode is talking about God’s design in terms of what he had created for personalities and some of our strengths. And I even like thinking of it from a practical perspective. And this is the only part where I talk a little bit about family, but it’s so amazing how you start thinking about how God has created people that even for ourselves, like myself and my wife, we have very outgoing personalities and all like that. But then, also, what ends up happening is your kids have different personalities too. Right? And I think about it.
Our oldest is very much a rule follower right now. He wants to be the leader. He wants to set the standard. Whether his brothers want to follow him or not is a different story, but that’s what he’s wanting to do. He wants to go by the rules as much as possible. Very determined as well. Our second oldest is a bit more of the adventurer. He loves to climb up things. There are times he actually… One of the folks at church bet that he couldn’t climb up this school pole that our church is located at, and he climbed it up twice, so he won $10 to do that.
Our third is a bit of the mischief-maker. He’s the one that loves to go with the flow, but at the same time, likes to cause a little mischief, because with his smile, he gets away with it. And then our last one, our youngest definitely lives by the term “TODDLER,” which our family created an acronym, which is Tornado of Doom Destroying Literally Everything Reachable, and that fits my youngest to the tee.
And it’s one of those things you start thinking about just personalities, how interesting it is that they all come from my wife and I, but at the same time, they have their own uniquenesses. And I think that even expands beyond that to everyone here. We’ve all been created with different personalities, different things like that, and I’m so glad that I don’t know it. I won’t say… I think, Chris, you know it all too, but it’s so nice that we have a guest speaker with Kelsey here who does this day in and day out. And so, Kelsey, we’d love to hear a little about your background, your story, and then, of course, just dive right into some of these things that we’d love to talk about today.
Kelsey Helmick:
Yeah. Like you, I’m also very interested by how people in the same family living in the same household can grow up and have… or not even grow up completely, but your kids are still quite young, and they’ve already developed these unique personalities. My brother and I are completely opposite to the point where I’m the oldest sister. So, obviously, I know what we need to do in every situation.
Chris Purnell:
That’s right.
Ken Tan:
That’s right.
Kelsey Helmick:
But one thing I can guarantee is that if I tell my brother, “I think you should do this,” he’s going to do the opposite of that just because I said, “I think this is what we need to do.” So I guess you could say I started becoming interested in different personalities when I was younger, growing up with my brother, and realizing how different we were, how different my parents were from each other, but yet they have this united front in parenting. I grew up… My dad has worked for Samaritan’s Purse since almost the beginning for 45 years.
Ken Tan:
Wonderful.
Kelsey Helmick:
So I grew up with that ministry and seeing it be very, very small and then grow to very, very large. I worked there for a while too after college. My dad and my brother still worked there and just seeing the different roles that my dad had in the ministry and all of the people that he interacted with and the things that he thrived in, the things that he didn’t necessarily thrive in.
He likes to be with a lot of people, so putting him in charge of the mail room was not necessarily the best spot for him to be in. So I got to see how he shifted around to various responsibilities within that ministry, and it’s not common even now that people will stay somewhere for their entire career. He’s been there for 45 years, but he still-
Ken Tan:
That’s amazing.
Kelsey Helmick:
… has found a way to grow and make the job fit his personality as he gets older too, and then also build a department around the work that they do and what he has learned throughout the years.
So, growing up there, I knew that I wanted to work with nonprofit organizations after college. I went to Liberty University. The classes that I loved the most in my business management degree were the organizational behavior classes. There were two of them that we had to take, and the class seemed like it took five minutes. It was like… blew by. I loved every minute of it. I understood it.
I had an argument with one of my professors about whether leaders are made or born, and that was the first time that I ever thought about that concept and, “Oh, it’s not just black and white, everything is what the textbook says, but you can actually have discussions based on the things that you’re reading and adapt the way that you think about things.” So then, I finished college, worked at Samaritan’s Purse. I was in the President’s Office at Samaritan’s Purse, just a staff assistant. I was like, “I got the jobs that nobody else wanted to do.” They were like, “Oh, but Kelsey is here.”
Ken Tan:
Kelsey is amazing. Don’t listen to anything she says. She is a big deal.
Chris Purnell:
That’s right. [inaudible 00:10:15]. Yeah.
Kelsey Helmick:
Enough.
Ken Tan:
Sorry, Kelsey.
Kelsey Helmick:
I was the smallest deal in a department that had connections to all the other departments. But I felt like being in that spot, I was able to see all of the different departments and how they worked together, and the opportunities for growth in strengthening communications.
There were a lot of people that I worked with or I knew about who entered the ministry to work in one specific role, and then they realized, “Oh, but I want to get some training to move into a different role.” And not that it was discouraged, but it was just like, “We have enough going on. We don’t need to worry about trying to train you to get to the point where you can then shift over to another role.” And that bugged me because I felt like people… It opened up the opportunity for people to get burned out in their current role if they were not given the opportunity to flex into a different spot where they might be a better fit or where they could flex a bit more.
So then, for my husband’s job, we moved, and I started working at another nonprofit organization where I saw the same thing. And then I got so motivated to maybe make a difference or learn more about organizational behavior, this idea of getting the person-job fit together and the person-organization fit together. You don’t just have to have one or the other, you can have both. So I went back to school, and I got my master’s in applied psychology, which was half organizational behavior and half consumer behavior, which is the marketing side that I did my undergrad in.
Doing the organizational behavior work and all of the research, and getting the training was really eye-opening for me. And as a part of that, I had to write a thesis and do an internship at the same time. And I was talking to a college roommate of mine, and I was like, “I don’t know where I’m going to find an organization that will take me on to do an internship and make my internship be my thesis project,” because I have to do them at the same time with two kids in preschool at home during the summer.
So I was talking to my roommate who had worked at CapinCrouse, and she said, “I think they’re trying to start a consulting department. Why don’t you reach out to Stan?” So I did, and that’s how I landed here. Stan Reiff, who’s the leader of the Consulting Division at CapinCrouse accepted me for this internship and thesis project.
And I actually got to reach out to clients of CapinCrouse and find out my project was on intrinsic motivations and how people that are working for nonprofits are primarily motivated by intrinsic… the person organization fit. They are passionate about the mission of the organization. So they work in whatever role is available at the time with… going back to the Samaritan’s Purse days of, “I want to be here, but I also want to have fulfillment in my work. So what does that look like?”
Chris Purnell:
Right.
Kelsey Helmick:
So that was my project. And then I’ve been here for six and a half years. I do a lot of compensation studies, but I also recognize that the compensation piece trickles down into the culture piece. “We’re paying you this much for this job.” “Okay. Well, what does that mean to the person who’s getting the compensation?” “We value you at this level.” “And is that the extent of the conversation that you have with them, or is the organization pouring into them in other ways as well?”
One of the ways that I see us, the organizations that I work with pouring into their staff is by asking them, “How are things going? We recognize you as a person, we understand the things that you’re bringing to the table, and we want to hear how your experience is going.” So that’s how I’m brought to this table today is talk a little bit more about that.
Chris Purnell:
Man, man, that’s a really rich origin story, and there’s just a lot there. I’m thinking that over the course of however much time we have in this podcast, that we’ll be unpacking some of those things. I’m curious though if we can go back to Kelsey way back in undergrad who’s asking that question of, “Are leaders born or made?” And were you on team made, or were you on team born, or were you on team like, “I think it’s some kind of weird mixture of the two?” Because I think that gets us into discussing intrinsic traits as we talk about different methodologies and theories behind workplace psychology and that kind of stuff. So what team were you on, and how did your thinking change?
Kelsey Helmick:
I was on team born.
Chris Purnell:
Ah.
Kelsey Helmick:
I was a very shy kid. I did not like talking. I still don’t like talking. After this podcast, I’m going to be tapped out on the number of words I have for the day, but I were very shy, and I was convinced that I’m just going to be a behind-the-scenes person. And that’s where I want to be and that’s where I like to be anyway, so it’s fine, but I never, until that moment, had considered, “Oh, well, leadership can be developed.” In my mind, it was always like, “Leadership development is for people who were born leaders, and nobody else really needs to think about it or worry about it.”
Chris Purnell:
That’s right. That’s right. Well, and I honestly was on team born as well for a long time, because I too, little Chris way back in the day, super shy, super retiring, didn’t want to make a fuss, didn’t want the spotlight, the heat on him. And as time has gone on, I’ve begun to realize, “Wait. Leaders can show up in different ways,” and studying the theory, the history, reading biographies, and realizing leaders can be introverted or extroverted.
Generally speaking, you got a lot more extroverts that are leaders than introverts, but that’s more of a cultural thing, I think, in the West than it is necessarily something intrinsic to leadership. And then realizing that even beyond that introverted/extroverted dichotomy, there’s all kinds of other things. They can be strong tacticians or they can be big picture thinkers. They can be people that are uber competent in some small abstruse area or they can be a generalist. It just really depends. Leadership shows up in all kinds of different ways. It’s just a matter of, can you cultivate the leadership that’s there into something that’s going to be able to serve others? So that’s cool.
Kelsey Helmick:
Mm-hmm.
Ken Tan:
And just to add to this piece as well, I guess I was… As you were asking that question, I was almost like, “Yes.” I’m just team yes because either one seems to be the case, but this is where part of it is… And as life progresses, at least this is how I’ve seen it now, is even the approach changes too as well. I think we’ve all talked about it as like when we were younger.
Myself, I was actually a pretty quiet kid when I was younger. And then suddenly, over time as I developed, whether it’s probably my environment of friends who are a lot more outgoing, I became more outgoing and got a little more comfortable with that, but I was still scared about speaking in front of people. And then suddenly, there was some type of catalyst over time as I got older that then I started feeling a little more comfortable.
And then it just started progressing in that point that I think for many of us, we have that opportunity or that potential to be in that leadership position. It’s just trying to make sure we identify those times that we could potentially develop into that in the future.
And I think this is where… Even thinking about some of the tools that have been out there, I think it’s great that ministry leaders would be able to utilize something like this. And I think that’s why some of our ministries have been asking about using these types of tools, because they know that there’s something out there about… there are different personalities.
We always talk about the concept of God’s design when it comes to being a diverse level of personalities and characteristics, but then even spiritual gifts. I think we all grew up with the term “spiritual gifts.” “What’s your spiritual gifts?” And a lot of people end up easily defaulting you just based on what they see initially.
And I’m about to make an admission here too. As you know, one of the things that we had done when we were new members and all that when we came back to our church in Atlanta after moving from Texas was I think people initially thought that because we had four kids, that by default, one of my spiritual gifts was to be in that child care taking/teaching piece. And ultimately, over time, I just admitted, “Hey, y’all. Let me just confess. I may have kids, but spiritual gifts of taking care of kids is a different story.” I’m happy to keep helping, but after time it’s just like, “Oh, we thought just because of that.”
We don’t want to make those assumptions anymore. We want to make sure we find the right spots too. And I think that’s why for leaders, it’s so important that they have to get in tune with not just their staff, but even volunteers that I think it’s helpful for them just to have some type of self-evaluation of how they think are their strengths, potential weaknesses, and areas for improvement too as well.
Chris Purnell:
Well, and to that end, Ken, realizing that not only is there going to be a diversity of needs… Let’s just take a church example. A diversity of needs. We got to plug people in certain spots. So, yeah, we’re going to put Ken in the children’s ministry for the time being, but there’s also going to be a diversity of different ways that you show up. Right? So you can have two people that are both doing kids’ ministry, but doing it in really different ways.
Ken Tan:
Oh, yeah.
Chris Purnell:
Contrary to your example, maybe they’re both loving it because they just love kids, but one’s more focused on, I don’t know, the fun, “Let’s build some relationality here.” And then the other one is more focused on grounding them and the Word. Not that it can’t be fun. That could be deeply fun, but they just have different emphases, you know?
Ken Tan:
Sure. I’m laughing because I remember when I’m first time walking into the two to three-year-olds, you can tell they all looked, and they’re like… They could smell fear because I was like, “I don’t know what I’m about to get into.” But again, that’s where part of it is-
Chris Purnell:
[inaudible 00:20:23].
Ken Tan:
Exactly. It’s great to get a temperature of where your teams are from their strengths and all, and I think this is why we will be talking about these two tools. And Kelsey, I’d love for you to share a bit about these, of some of the things that have been working well not just for our team, but even interacting with a lot of our ministries that have been going through these assessments, seeing how they’ve been able to identify the strengths of their staff, even more so how they’re actually leveraging that to help create a healthy environment because, Kelsey, you talked about how Stan is a practice there. He’s my practice leader too as well, and we had them on the episode to talk about culture.
I think even these personality assessments, they do impact culture too, so they’re all integrated together, and that’s why we wanted to have you on this podcast too. But tell us a bit about the first one, Kelsey, about DISC profiles. I would love to hear more about that too and get your thoughts on that as well.
Kelsey Helmick:
Yeah. The DISC is really interesting. It focuses on your communication style, how you communicate and how you like to be communicated with. And I find that when I’m walking through this with teams, it’s eye-opening for people to see, “Oh, this is why that person does… I feel like we’re not on the same page, because I come in, and I want to talk about my weekend for a few minutes, and I want to find out about their weekend before we actually get to the meat of what the meeting is supposed to be about. And I feel like the other person just gets so frustrated and doesn’t really want to tell me anything personally. So, I don’t know, maybe they don’t like me.”
But it’s really just different communication styles where some people that are in the D of the DISC, the dominance and the influence, those people tend to want to get more straight to the point of, “Here’s the point of the meeting. You had an agenda ahead of time. I don’t know why you have-”
Ken Tan:
You have 15 minutes, and that’s all you get.
Kelsey Helmick:
… “fluffy language where we’re talking about what we did this weekend.” That’s all well and good, but that’s not why we’re here. And so if you’re not the type, if you’re a C or an S type person who doesn’t like that straight to the point, you might be like, “They must really not like working with me because they don’t care at all how my weekend was or what the kids are up to.”
So that’s one of the main takeaways that I see when I’m doing the facilitation calls with clients. So I send out the links to the survey, I get the results of the survey, I compile them all and cluster people together who are similar styles, and then I’ll do a call with the whole team where I walk through a presentation of, “Here are the four different styles in the DISC, and here’s where all of the people on your team fall.” And then I try to pause.
People sometimes don’t like to interject their thoughts in that moment, but sometimes they do, and they’re like, “Oh, this explains why our weekly standup meeting feels so tense, because half the people there just want to get to the point and half the people there want to get to know each other a little bit better first.” And so it’s like, “We’re not on the same page at all in terms of how we like to communicate.”
And I found that going through this assessment and getting a better understanding of how everyone else on the team likes to communicate is really helpful in getting everyone on the same page and recognizing you might have to step out of your comfort zone for two minutes to ask them how their weekend was before you get to the point in order to build that rapport.
Chris Purnell:
So, Kelsey, for the benefit of our viewers/listeners who may or may not be familiar with the DISC, would you mind giving us a 15 to 20-second snapshot of each of the letters in the DISC because that may be helpful for those who aren’t unfamiliar?
Kelsey Helmick:
Sure. So the D style is dominance, and the idea… The D style. Here are just some high points. Driven, direct, decisive, strong-willed. Those people, the question-
Chris Purnell:
Jerks.
Kelsey Helmick:
… that they’re asking is, “What’s the point of playing if winning isn’t the goal?”
Ken Tan:
Sounds like my oldest. Keep going.
Kelsey Helmick:
I don’t know anybody like that. The I style is charming, collaborative, energizing, trusting. The main question or the quote for the I style is, “Whoever is happy will make others happy too.”
Ken Tan:
Sounds like my second oldest. Keep going.
Kelsey Helmick:
The S-
Chris Purnell:
You’ll find others.
Ken Tan:
I know, I know. That’s why we only have four because DISC only had four. If it was DISCS with an S, we’re going to have five, right?
Chris Purnell:
Right. Five. Yeah.
Ken Tan:
Sorry, Kelsey.
Kelsey Helmick:
The S style for steadiness is calm, patient, predictable, deliberate, and their quote is, “The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.” So that can be a little bit more bigger thinking, bigger picture.
Chris Purnell:
Sage.
Ken Tan:
Yeah.
Kelsey Helmick:
The C style for conscientious is cautious, systematic, private, and objective, and their quote is, “It takes less time to do a thing right than to explain why you did it wrong.” And I laugh because I feel like everyone on Ken and my team… Not everyone, but almost everyone is a C including myself, and we all struggle with delegation and training other people how to do tasks. It’s just faster for me to do it myself.
Chris Purnell:
That’s right. That’s right.
Kelsey Helmick:
And I feel that way with my kids too. Do I want to teach you to fish, or do I want to just fish and you can stand there and watch me cook it?
Ken Tan:
And I think that’s natural for a lot of accountants or those in that type of background to be Cs and Ss. Of course, I don’t know if you remember this, but a number of years ago, when we used to have our annual firm leadership with the partners, we had to take this DISC assessment.
Chris Purnell:
We did.
Ken Tan:
And we didn’t know what everyone got for results yet, but in essence, the leader was putting us in different quadrants of the room. Right? And so she put the Ds on one side, the Is and the other, the Ss, and then the Cs, and she let it just sit there for 5, 10 minutes, and she was essentially saying, “Okay. So we’re going to talk about this. Have you noticed anything about this?”
And we were all just looking at each other, and she’s like, “Well, you notice the Ds, they’re over there looking at their watches because they want to get things going. They’re like, ‘Come on, come on. Let’s go. You got 5, 10 minutes.'” That’s why I was joking about that “you got 15 minutes” thing.
The Is will not stop talking because that’s their whole personality. You and I are Is in this case. The Ss are sitting there listening, waiting for everything to continue when it’s time. They’re very patient, and the Cs are working. They’re actually on the computer. They were typing away and doing that. And that was where you just started saying, “Ha, that actually does make sense.” Especially when you start thinking about how even a lot of the Is, such as Chris and I, we’re the ones that are going out to conferences, we’re there shaking hands, we’re talking to folks, we’re making the… potentially. A lot of us are in that business development side while other folks really work on other areas on the engagement piece. Right?
But that’s where you find that nice balance of… For myself, I love interacting with people. I can run a mean audit. I was a recovering auditor myself, but it does not spark joy for me. But I do love that we have folks at the firm that find joy in that piece, and we find that way of leveraging those types of strengths too, even with looking at something like the DISC profile. So I don’t know if you remember that, Chris, but that’s why I was remembering about that piece too.
Chris Purnell:
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, if everyone were an I, then it’d be tough for the work to get done. Spoiler.
Ken Tan:
Get anything done. That’s why they send us out every time now, Chris.
Chris Purnell:
But, dude, it’d be fun for a while, wouldn’t it?
Ken Tan:
It would. It would.
Chris Purnell:
But it’s interesting, right? Because that reminds me of, literally, the Apostle Paul when he’s talking about the body of Christ in First Corinthians, and he says, “If everyone were an eye or if everyone were a hand,” et cetera. And it’s like, “No, we need each other and to the extent that we can have an appreciation, understanding for the way that someone else shows up in a workplace environment versus the way that I’m showing up in a workplace environment.”
It seems like that’s going to be really key. And Kelsey, back to you and what you were saying about running through this with the teams that you work with and how they begin to understand, “Oh, so this is part of the reason why there might be some conflictual things that happen during our standup meetings, or regular weekly meetings, or whatever.”
Can you walk us through how they go from, “Okay. I noticed the conflict. I now understand more about my boss, or my subordinates, or myself,” and then the concrete changes that happen as a result of that? It sounds like you were cluing in on communication. But if you want to expand upon that, but also talk about other things, that’d be great.
Kelsey Helmick:
I think it comes down to consistency, so can’t just take my one hour presentation where I walk through all of this and be like, “Okay. Everything is solved. I understand everything perfectly.” It doesn’t mean anything until you have that first conversation, or conflict, or… not disagreement necessarily, but just being on different pages, and you remember, “Oh, yeah. You’re a type D, and I’m a type C, and we’re going to talk Talk about this differently or we have different expectations.”
So one of the roles of the leader who’s been involved in this process, who likely is the one who asked us to come in and facilitate these assessments is they have to become a subject matter expert to a certain extent so that they’re the one that are… “Okay. You guys are having this issue. Remember what we talked about with the DISC assessment and the differences in the ways that you two like to communicate or approach work?” So, at that point, I pass off the mantle to the leader who brought us in, and they need to consistently bring it in.
One of the things that we talk about a lot with these assessments is now you all have this common language or a common understanding of a thing. On our consulting team, they’re my guinea pigs, so I make them do all the assessments, and I use them as my beta testers. But we also do a lot of… We read books together that might or might not be related to communication or work style, but we’re all reading the books together. One of the ones that is Stan’s favorite, and he might’ve even brought it up on the episode, was Know What You’re For by Jeff Henderson.
Chris Purnell:
Mm-hmm. He did. Yes, he did. Yeah.
Ken Tan:
He did.
Kelsey Helmick:
See? I know.
Ken Tan:
He’s consistent though, Kelsey, you got to admit.
Kelsey Helmick:
Yeah.
Chris Purnell:
He is.
Kelsey Helmick:
Oh, yeah.
Chris Purnell:
He is.
Kelsey Helmick:
But because we’ve all read that book, there are times when we’re having discussions or we’re going through something with a client, and we go back to, “Oh, well, remember this idea from the For book or this idea from The Ideal Team Player, or The Six Types of Working Genius book, or whatever book that we’ve all read together?” We now have this shared understanding, and I find that that is what’s really going to make the difference in the long-term.
It’s not me doing an assessment this one time, and you listening to a one-hour session about it, and maybe or maybe not engaging with it. But it’s the having it at the forefront, not… yeah, at the forefront of your mind as you’re going through your work from then on and having it to refer back to and that shared knowledge that you can have with the other people you’re working with as well.
Ken Tan:
I’m going to ask you a question on this piece too as well when it comes to the DISC profiles, and it might just be a nice, soft, underhanded type of toss of a baseball for you. But when it comes to a DISC profile, because, of course, you start seeing a lot of us end up having some particular category. To an extent, I’m an I with D tendencies, and some other folks may have some secondary traits as well. When it comes to this, over time, is it possible for people to switch where they’re at on the DISC profile?
Kelsey Helmick:
Yes, it can definitely shift. I wouldn’t say you would go from one side to the complete other side, but you can definitely go… If you’re in the D, you can go to the I or you can go to the C a little bit because-
Ken Tan:
That’s a relief. That means I’ll never be an auditor again. I’m just kidding. I’m kidding right here.
Kelsey Helmick:
This is a little bit of the “leaders are made, not born” conversation too. It’s not just you were born a DISC style D. When you were three years old, you were already a D, and you’re going to be a D for the rest of your life. That’s not how that works because it also is a bit of the nurture, and the nature and nurture, I guess, of it is what roles have you been in, who else has been around you, and that will influence your style and your preferences in working and communication in general.
Chris Purnell:
Yeah. So I remember one time when I was a nonprofit leader way back in the day, and we all did the DISC, our leadership team did, and we realized a couple of things. Number one, there was no one who was really a D on the team. I was an I with I tendencies. It was just I, I, I all the time, which was appropriate for my role as the executive director. It was a lot of time with the board, and funders, and donors, and that kind of stuff.
And then we had an S and a C, and then I think maybe another C in the mix. And it was interesting, because on our best days, I was trying to learn how to communicate effectively with, for instance, a C and realizing, “Okay. I need to have a few more details whenever I’m talking to a C regarding what the project is, that kind of stuff.” Whereas if I’m talking to another I, it’s like, “Hey, man, let’s just hang out. We’ll figure it out. We’ll get it together. Stuff will happen.” And there’s a wish and a dream.
And then on the darkest days, we would pigeonhole each other, and we would do it in good fun. We’d be like, “Oh, that’s such an S thing to say,” or what would happen often with me is like, “Dude, you’re not really going to do anything because you’re just such an I,” and my heart hurt. My heart hurt, Kelsey. And so I’m wondering, for you, what are some of the, for lack of better term, dark sides that will sometimes pop up in utilizing, yes, DISC, but maybe other personality profiles or some objections that people bring to the table whenever you’re coming in to do these sorts of personality assessments?
Kelsey Helmick:
Mm-hmm. I think you used the word “pigeonhole,” and I would say that. Saying that you are… like, “This is your identity. You are this, and only this,” or, “You are these three assessment results and only that, and you can’t ever do anything outside of those tendencies of those assessments,” I would say that… Because we all recognize how much we change over the course of years, so we need to give others the grace and the space to also change and recognize that they can shift as well. So I would say associating with someone’s type DISC style or Working Genius, et cetera, or their Myers-Briggs with them as a person is not ideal.
Ken Tan:
Sure. And I’m guessing what you’re saying is it’s not always set in stone, but there’s always the consideration that we have to be flexible. And that’s where even part of it is from a church perspective, knowing that over time, things can change, and we’re not just going to say, “Because, Ken, you’re an I, you’re always going to be that way.” I feel like to an extent, I am, but that’s where part of it is saying that there’s no guarantee that’s going to be the case.
I am curious, Kelsey, on this other thought, coming from a ministry perspective, because you start thinking about the body of Christ, we all have different strengths as well. If I think of it from a church perspective, and if you were to put different positions on a DISC profile, I’m not saying everyone is going to be in this position, but some prevalences of what you see are this case, where would you say many of the, let’s say, the senior pastors versus the executive pastor versus a student pastor versus folks that are in the support staff, where do you think… Because I know we know that from the accounting side. A lot of us are Ss and Cs, but we still need some Ds and Is as well. Where would you say some of those different categories fall from just overall trends that you’ve seen as well for those particular positions?
Kelsey Helmick:
Mm-hmm. So there’s a level of the D, the dominance and the influence. I would say a blend of those two are the ones that tend to be more of the pastors, the senior pastors, the executive pastor. When you get to youth pastor, all the youth pastors-
Ken Tan:
Is all over.
Kelsey Helmick:
… I’ve ever encountered have been very silly, and I would say they still fall in the I, but they’re… My son plays hockey, and there’s a thing about how hockey goalies are just crazy. They have their own personalities completely separate from the craziness of being a hockey player. It’s like you’ll find them just two hours before the game sitting in the corner talking to themself. I think of that with youth pastors, and actually, the church where we attend, the youth pastor is a hockey goalie, so maybe that’s why.
Chris Purnell:
Oh, that’s funny.
Ken Tan:
Yeah. I would say that the youth pastor are always the creatives, because there are times like, “Okay. So why are we buying 40 tubs of Cool Lip and 10 bottles of mustard again?” “Oh, because we have something going on tonight. I can’t wait to have the parents come home with their kids and they have to go to laundry with all the stuff they’re going to have them going through.”
Kelsey Helmick:
Yeah. And then with support staff, I see this at churches, at CapinCrouse, at schools that I’ve done this with, the support staff are generally the Ss and Cs, mostly the Cs, actually, and they’re… I see a correlation between that breakdown that I just gave and the Working Genius assessment segments of each of those people as well. So, yeah, that’s interesting.
Ken Tan:
That’s in line what I was thinking too, and that’s where…. just hearing it from you because you do interact with a lot of different ministries, is the fact that we see at least common themes, but it doesn’t always mean that that’s going to be the case. Right? There might be a chance to an extent that a pastor for a smaller church may have a mix of those different personalities because they have to wear different hats.
Not every church has an executive pastor or a student pastor, and so they have to be flexible. They have to adapt. And I think that’s one of the things that if I ever think about this DISC profile is it has helped me not just figure out where people are potentially land, but it helps me then essentially adjust how I’m going to approach my conversation with them. Especially for Is, I’m probably going to spend an extra 10 to 15 minutes asking them how things are, their weekends because they’re probably going to spend 14 minutes sharing about that out of the 15 minutes.
And then Ss and Cs, they may just want to talk a little bit, but then they want to listen and then let you lead a bit more on the conversations. While the Ds just want to go straight to it of saying, “Hey, we have 15 minutes. Here’s what we got going on. I’ll catch up with you tomorrow.” And that’s where I think part of it is just being reminded that this is just meant to be a way to get that temperature read, not saying that this is all set in stone. Think the same way too, Chris?
Chris Purnell:
Yeah, I think so. I think so. It’s interesting, right? Because when I was trained on DISC, the way that I was trained was you need to learn the tells of these different personality types, because my first encounter was at a fundraising training that I was doing and they were saying like, “Here’s how you communicate with a funder who’s potentially a D. Here’s how you communicate with someone who’s potentially an I, et cetera.”
So it was very others-focused, not really focused on how you experience the world, but really trying to figure out how to communicate with those of different personality types, which I think is super helpful. You don’t want to become reductionistic and say, “Hey, if you see a dude looking at his watch, that’s an automatic D move.” It’s like, “Well, I mean, maybe, but maybe something is going on, he’s running late to a meeting, or… Who knows?”
So just being able to say, “Yes, it’s a helpful tool. Don’t overly simplify, don’t make it reductionistic, but use it for what it is,” which is a helpful way to communicate with other people of differing personality styles. That’s where I’ve seen the most payoff for me, being able to realize, “Okay. If I’m talking with a person that I know was a D…” So this is where I see the most payoff in my own experience. Like, my boss at CapinCrouse, I know he’s a D. So if I’m coming in, I’m coming in ready. I’ll ask a question, because we’re humans, and we care about each other, and we’re Christians, right? But he’s really going to want to jump in and jump in full throttle, which I just need to roll with that.
And then if I’m talking to someone else who’s not a hardcore D, but maybe is an S or a C, then that’s going to change the way I communicate with them. So I’ve seen that really be helpful when we’ve both taken the same assessment. Kelsey, to your point, we have a shared lexicon, we have a shared experience now, and so we’re pulling from the same hymn book.
Ken Tan:
Chris, I’m laughing because I know your leader too as well, and it’s funny because when we went through the DISC profile, he was like, “Ken, I’m going to do so much better.” So my next meeting with him, he goes, “Hey, Ken. How’s your family?” And after I acted, he goes, “Okay. Let’s get to it.” “You’re doing great. You’re doing great. You’re one step at a time. That’s perfect there.”
Chris Purnell:
That’s right, man. That’s right. Let me say this too. I know that this person that we’re all talking about, he cares deeply about me and my family, and he cares deeply about the families of those who are on his team, but it’s just going to show up a little bit differently. It’s going to show up in a D way, which is endlessly fascinating that that care is there, but the care is going to present itself in a different fashion based upon personality type.
Ken Tan:
Absolutely. Well, Kelsey, I know we have one other tool that we’ve seen a lot of ministries using as well, and I want to make sure we have some time for that. And we’d love to hear more about this other one called the Working Genius. So share a little bit about that too, if you can, Kelsey.
Kelsey Helmick:
Sure. I love the Working Genius, and I talk about it all the time. I got introduced to the Working Genius through just reading some of Patrick Lencioni’s other books. I read The Five Dysfunctions of a Team and then The Ideal Team Player. And at some point, I must have gotten on an email list because when he came out with The Six Types of Working Genius, I became aware of it. I bought the book. I read the book very quickly. I took the Working Genius assessment, and immediately, I was like, “This is amazing.” I made my husband take it. I made my brother take it, had all these people take it, and then I had… I think Stan became aware of it around the same time, so he and I both came to each other, and we’re like, “We need to do this Working Genius.” So we made the consulting team do it.
I went through the facilitation, the certification training, so I learned a whole lot more about it and became even more obsessed with it at that point. And now, we offer it to our clients, and I’ve found that it really, really helps in the moment, that same… It’s in the same presentation with the DISC assessment when I talk through, “Here are the different… the six phases of the Working Genius, and here’s where everyone in your team lines up.” And then I also get feedback on this one from clients who are like, “That helped our weekly meeting. It helped our email communications, et cetera.”
So I won’t go through all of the technicalities of the Working Genius, but the idea is that there are six different phases to every project or problem. And if you think about it as being in an airplane, so when you’re at cruising altitude of 30,000 feet, you’re in the wonder zone. So wonder is like those big questions of, “What is the problem we’re trying to solve?” I’ll leave the wonder questions to people who like to be in the wonder realm. I do not, so I try to get out of there as quickly as possible.
Then, you get a little bit closer to the ground, and you have invention. And that’s where you brainstorm all the potential solutions to this problem or ways you can approach this project regardless of personnel, or time, or budget or any… It’s just like throw everything out there that could possibly work.
And then you get a little closer to the ground, and you have discernment. “What’s actually feasible in this situation? We don’t have $5 million. We don’t have a team of 40 people. What can we actually do?” And then you have galvanizing, which is looking at the… “We know what we’re going to do. We have a timeframe. Who’s going to do what?” The parsing out of all the different responsibilities and getting people excited about their part.
And then you have the enablement, and enablement is the… I think of it as the project manager. So everyone knows what they’re supposed to be doing by what time. So I’m the enablement, and I’m going to check in with Ken and say, “How is it going on getting that presentation ready by next Thursday? Do you need any help?” “Oh, so and so is on vacation. Let me see what I can do to get you that other document you need.”
And then the landing the plane is the tenacity of just completing the work, getting it done across the finish line no matter what has to be done. A few late nights or pulling in extra personnel, I’m going to get this project done.
And the idea is that there are six of these things. So everyone has two of these that are their areas of genius. Those are the things that bring you joy and fulfillment. You can do those things all day long and not get burnt out doing those two things.
Everyone has two of these that are their areas of competency. They do bring you some joy and fulfillment, but you also can get burnt out if you have to do them too long or too often. And then two, everyone has two areas of frustration, which they would rather not dwell in. I already said one of mine is wonder. I’ll leave that to the professionals. I don’t like to think about the big questions of life, and I have an eight-year-old who asks me very theological questions and love it. I have to take a deep breath, and she needs me in this moment. I have to come through with an answer.
Ken Tan:
Why, Kelsey? Why?
Kelsey Helmick:
Please don’t ask me-
Ken Tan:
Always the why.
Kelsey Helmick:
Yeah. So that’s the whole idea, and with having two areas of genius, thinking through, “Okay. Here are the two areas that I really like to work in. Let me think about the areas of genius, and frustration, and competency of the other people that I work with. Where are the gaps? Where are the crossovers? Who on my team has similar geniuses, and competencies, and frustrations as me? Oh, that makes sense, because when we’re in this meeting, we’re always on the same page. Who is the opposite of me?” People like Ken come to mind for me. Not that we’re on different pages, but that I stop talking because I have nothing else to say on a topic, and then Ken is like, “Oh, well, that’s where I pick up.”
Ken Tan:
Yep.
Kelsey Helmick:
That’s how those work together.
Ken Tan:
And I can just say here being the guinea pig here, Chris, because I know you haven’t done the Working Genius yet.
Chris Purnell:
Yeah.
Ken Tan:
I’ll share a little bit my Working Geniuses as well. So the two areas for strength for me are discernment and galvanizing, which I realized after I did this, this makes sense. From the discernment part, we talk about, “Okay. There are some ideas we have here. Does it make sense for us when it comes to… Could we serve this to a particular client, or could this actually be risky for us?” That’s where the discernment piece is.
The galvanizing piece, I enjoy. It’s like you rally the troops like, “Hey, we got this. We’re going to get this done. We’re going to do this.” Right? But then, that’s where it also switches is… That goes into my frustration is tenacity. I don’t like finishing it, so I’m like, “All right. We’re going to get this done. We’re going to get this done.” And then like a Labrador, I immediately switched to the next thing like, “Oh, we got another project coming in. All right. We got another opportunity.”
And that’s where part of it is like you start thinking about even just the strengths here. We had some great folks, I’m going to say out loud here, like Dana, and Kevin, and Rachel, where I’m so glad they’re patient with me because I’ll bring in a new engagement that may be something that they’re excited about, and they will get it to the finish line. Right? They have the tenacity. Even Kelsey has tenacity as well as one of her geniuses, and she likes to bring it to the finish line.
For me, I guess it means that I could probably start on a project, finish halfway, and then just get set to another one. And that’s where it’s so great we have different folks in this thing, because, again, if we were all discernments and galvanizing, we’d be all excited cheering each other on, but we wouldn’t get anything done. Right? And if we’re always just doing wonder, we wouldn’t really have anything going on because we were just thinking about, “Oh, what if we do this? What if we do this?” Right?
And for me, actually, the wonder is not a strength of mine. It’s actually a frustration. People get surprised about that, but it’s because for me, I’m enjoying other things too of, “Hey, other folks have better ideas. They have more creativity.” Right, Chris? Accountants, we get creative, we go to jail.
Chris Purnell:
That’s right.
Ken Tan:
That is why it is not on our… any in our radar for that. And so you start thinking through these things. For me, when it comes to invention and enablement, those are the competencies where I could get into that piece of thinking about, “Okay. What can we do from a little more detail of some initial ideas that were shared?” But if I had to really sit into the whole brainstorming of all these new ideas, it’d be tough for me. It actually would be an area I would feel very uncomfortable.
I could probably, over time, get used to it. But if I were to say, “Hey, I’d rather talk through ideas that have been shared and see if it makes sense of a good idea or not,” I’d rather be there as opposed to something else. So, Chris, do you have any thoughts about some of what you might be in that case then based on what Kelsey has shared?
Chris Purnell:
Yeah, yeah. Well, so big questions. For me, the bigger the question, the more awesome the time, so maybe that’s the theologian/philosopher in me. Who knows? But yeah, the idea of wonder, I find that the way I show up in meetings a lot of times is I’m like, “Hey, let’s take a step back,” which is probably the most annoying thing that a person can say in a meeting when things are rolling. But I find that I’m the “let’s take a step back” guy, or, “Let’s think big picture,” or, “What even is work anyway?”
Ken Tan:
“Why is work?” Yeah. I’m sorry.
Chris Purnell:
“Where is work? What is work?” Yeah. “What even does it mean to be human?” Those kinds of questions, right? I really enjoy exploring those. And just a little side note, I married a woman. We’ve been married for 20 years, going on 21, coming up in May. She does not like those questions. She’s very much in that galvanizing, tenacity space, which is why we work so well together, but it does lead to some friction sometimes because I’m like, “Well, let’s just wonder a little bit longer. Let’s just take it in.”
So I feel like wonder is probably a pretty safe bet. But then, after that, I’m not entirely sure. But one of the questions that I have for you, Kelsey, as a person who’s very new to this space and just getting introduced to the six types and that sort of thing, do you see any trends? Like, if someone has what Ken talked about, that his areas of genius are discernment and galvanizing, are you going to see traditionally that there’s, “Okay. Well, they’re probably not going to like X, Y, and Z,” or is it all over the map? Are there any trends, or is it like, “Well, it depends?”
Kelsey Helmick:
The trend that comes to mind is similar to the trend that came to mind with the DISC, is that pretty much everyone on our consulting team of accountants have tenacity in their area of genius.
Chris Purnell:
Interesting.
Kelsey Helmick:
So not wanting to dwell too much at the beginning of the process. Even the first half of the process, a lot of people are either enablement and tenacity or discernment and tenacity. That’s what mine is, discernment and tenacity. And I came up with a motto for myself, which is “Let me figure out what I need to do, and then just let me do it.” I like to work independently, and so even with someone like Ken who has discernment in a genius, when you have two people who have discernment in their geniuses, doesn’t mean that those two people are coming to the same conclusion. So Ken and I might look at a brainstormed list of the potential solutions to this problem or how we could approach this project and have two different ways of looking at it. And then it’s just, “Who’s the most stubborn about it at this point?” or in Ken’s case, “Who has the capital P, partner behind his name?”
Chris Purnell:
That’s fair. That’s fair. Let’s get the genius down.
Kelsey Helmick:
So my husband also has discernment in his areas of genius, his art, invention, and discernment. And so there’s actually a name for that in the Working Genius lexicon is the ID Loop. And so that means that he brainstorms all the potential solutions, and then without leaving his brain, he comes up with what we should do in this situation. So he’ll come to me, and he’ll say, “Here’s the problem. Here’s how we’re going to fix it.” And I’m like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. I want to be a part of determining how we’re going to fix it.”
Chris Purnell:
Yep.
Kelsey Helmick:
So that’s another trend, is just because you have the same genius doesn’t mean you’re always going to be on the same page, but it does mean that you’re going to recognize that that person also is bringing something to the table and maybe we do need to sit in this space a little bit longer before we just move on and galvanize.
Chris Purnell:
Yeah.
Ken Tan:
I’m looking at the list right now, Chris, for the entire consulting team. I’m like, “Oh, wow, I am very much the only one tenacity as a frustration.” There’s some that has it as like it’s close second to last. But for me, it definitely does play a bigger role because that’s where part of it is I love how we do this makeup of folks that do love falling through the engagement piece of getting the project done, seeing the clients serve well. It gives me the ability to sleep well at night that I can continue to go out there, see opportunities for our group to bring in some additional projects.
Chris Purnell:
Sure.
Ken Tan:
And it all works out well because I know they’re going to be taken care of. And that’s the personality side of looking at that too. And I think about that too from a church perspective of saying, “You want to have the right folks there. You want to have the right folks being hired.” And so, Kelsey, I’m going to ask you two questions, and the first one is going to be loaded. The second one goes into then the next steps.
But just like how we asked about the DISC profile to see what are some of the prevalent types, not saying that every single person in this case, but what are some of the recurring themes of the Working Geniuses that you see for those same particular roles, like a senior pastor, an executive pastor, a student pastor, and then office folks?
And then the second one is, how could a church potentially utilize this tool when it comes to assessing a candidate? Because, of course, our church, we have a number of open spots because some of our great leaders got given opportunities elsewhere, and so now we have to figure out what could be the right fit for this. How can I think about this Working Genius, not saying I have to rely on the recurring themes that we’ve seen, but then use it for us to figure out what could be the right dynamic for our needs? So what are your thoughts?
Kelsey Helmick:
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Similarly to the DISC, I would say that a senior pastor who’s the one casting the vision and even when it comes down to planning out the sermon series for the year, that is a certain level of wonder and invention, and then you’re getting into discernment.
I would say the higher level pastors would dwell more in that higher level wonder, invention, discernment realm. And then the support staff and executive past- Even executive pastor would probably be more like in the middle, the discernment, enablement piece. And then the support staff would be heavier on the tenacity side.
I definitely would say in succession planning or trying to recruit for various positions in a church or ministry, it is helpful to know the Working Genius types and the DISC types of the people that are currently on the team. Not that you would or could, because this is not legal advice. You cannot legally say, “We can’t hire you because you’re not a Working Genius wonder.”
Ken Tan:
“You don’t have tenacity. Goodbye.” Yeah. Yeah, I get it.
Kelsey Helmick:
But you can say you can recognize how the person you’re looking at would fit in with the team and what they’re bringing to the table in a positive direction rather than in the negative direction of like, “Oh, well, you have tenacity in your frustration, so you clearly don’t even like working at all.” That’s not how it works. It’s just they like to dwell in a different area of the process or the Working Genius types.
Ken Tan:
Sure. And I think if you consider that too, do you think this also impacts… if you start thinking about… if you put people in the wrong positions, that you may have initially thought they were in a good spot? It’s not saying they’ll get frustrated, but over time, you might see potential burnout. You might just see them saying, “Hey, this is not bringing the same level of joy that I’ve had.” I know it’s still a job, it’s work, but then the output of what comes through could be easily impacted as well. That’s one of the things I think about from this piece too.
Kelsey Helmick:
Yeah. I worked with a school where I did this, the Working Genius, the DISC, and I have what I call a team dynamics and work environment questionnaire. And as a part of that, it came to light that one of the people who was working in accounts receivable, she was really the one that was having to call families when they were falling behind on tuition payments.
She did not want to be in that role, but her communication style was not one where she felt like she could speak up and say, “I do not get any joy and fulfillment out of coming to work every day and having to call people and tell them that they’re late on their tuition payment, but I love accounting, and I love the school, and I want to be here.”
And so there was another person who was behind the scenes who wanted to talk to more people whether it was hard conversations or easy conversations, and they ended up switching roles from the AR to the AP, and they both became a lot more satisfied in their work. And so I would say these tools are a way to bring those things to light and potentially align better between the person and the job fit.
Chris Purnell:
That’s really encouraging. I mean, it shows that there was probably a strong element of health in that organization’s culture where people could make those kinds of moves and that sort of thing, and where it would be seen as even possible to do that. But at the same time, giving them these tools to be able to have a shared language to be able to say, “Hey, this is not my area of greatest joy. In fact, it’s an area of great frustration for me, which is going to lead ultimately to burnout, loss of employees, and degradation of culture, and that kind of stuff.”
But I’m curious, do you find that organizations are pretty willing to have that conversation if there’s an employee who’s like, “Hey, I’m not really in the right spot currently,” or is it more… Does it just depend on what the nature of the position and that stuff?
Kelsey Helmick:
Yeah. My hope is that the organizations would be willing to have those conversations and take steps that… logical steps. We’re not going to just create a brand new job for you that has no job description just so that you can feel like you belong here. But I do feel like having these conversations and having these tools opens up that line of communication. And in the discovery process, when we’re talking with the leader about the work that we can do, we give this disclaimer, “Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to.”
Chris Purnell:
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Kelsey Helmick:
“Don’t give people hope that things can change if you’re not going to change them.” So that’s more of a conversation between the consultant and the leader of the organization. And then the change management piece comes in of we try to provide the leader with talking points and what they need to set the stage for what comes after this. But then, it’s up to them, and hopefully, they complete the circle and leave it open for people to have that 360 feedback loop.
Chris Purnell:
That’s a really great reminder that leaders should not write checks that their actions can’t cash at some point in the future. If you’re going to put these tools out there and say, “Hey, we’re all jumping in. We want to be more understanding of each other. We want to see how the team works together,” and all those sorts of wonderful, wonderful sentiments. If you’re not able to then actually feed on that, then that’s probably worse than not doing it at all.
Ken Tan:
Well, as we land the plane too, Kelsey, I know we want to be cognizant of your time too. It’s been super helpful to hear this too. I guess when you start thinking about next steps, if a ministry that’s listening on here wants to consider using these tools and all, what do you think is a good first step for them to consider when it comes to implementing a DISC or a Working Genius for their staff?
Kelsey Helmick:
Do you want me to give the selfish answer or the more general answer?
Ken Tan:
Whichever [inaudible 01:03:23] you.
Kelsey Helmick:
I would love to talk to you.
Chris Purnell:
Reach out to Kelsey. Yeah.
Ken Tan:
That’s right. Right.
Kelsey Helmick:
I can facilitate the DISC and the Working Genius. I’ve done StrengthsFinder. I’m very familiar with the Myers-Briggs, although no one has asked me to do that in this capacity. But I also have, as I mentioned, that team dynamics and work environment questionnaire. And I’ve found that pairing the assessments with the more qualitative and quantitative feedback pieces of the team dynamics and work environment questionnaires really gives a good picture to the leadership, and it gives a snapshot of where the team is to the team itself.
A lot of times, it brings a lot of self-awareness, but also, it brings team awareness of, “I understand myself better now, and that person also understands themself better now. And so we can communicate better because we’ve employed the use of these tools.” You also can pursue the tools on your own, but I like talking about these things.
Ken Tan:
Okay. I just think lastly, that when team members understand themselves and each other, they serve more joyfully, and then the ministry also thrives as a result too.
Chris Purnell:
Amen. Amen.
Ken Tan:
Well, Kelsey, it was a pleasure to have you on our podcast. We’re super excited about even potentially some other ones as well where I’m happy to be the guinea pig again. So, as you start getting some more other tools, we’d love to share it with other churches and ministries also too. So appreciate you being on this podcast with us.
Kelsey Helmick:
Thanks for having me.
Chris Purnell:
Absolutely. Thanks, Kelsey.
Kelsey Helmick:
Thanks.
Ken Tan:
This is not a CPA firm. Assurance, attest, and audit services provided by CapinCrouse, LLC. Carr, Riggs & Ingram and CRI are the brand names under which Carr, Rigs & Ingram, LLC, CRI Advisors LLC, and CapinCrouse, LLC, and CRI CapinCrouse Advisors, LLC provide professional services. CRI CPA, CapinCrouse CPA, CRI Advisors, CapinCrouse Advisors, Carr, Rigs & Ingram Capital, LLC, and their respective subsidiaries operate as an alternative practice structure in accordance with the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct and applicable law, regulations, and professional standards.
CRI CPA and CapinCrouse CPA are licensed independent certified public accounting firms that separately provide attest services as well as additional ancillary services to their clients. CRI CPA and CapinCrouse CPA are independently owned CPA firms that provide attestation services separate from one another. CRI Advisors and CapinCrouse Advisors provide tax and business consulting services to its clients. CRI Advisors and its subsidiaries, including CapinCrouse Advisors, are not licensed CPA firms and will not provide any attest services.
The entities falling under the Carr, Riggs & Ingram or CRI brand are independently owned and are not responsible or liable for the services and/or products provided or engaged to be provided by any other entity under the Carr, Riggs & Ingram or CRI brand. Our use of the terms “CRI,” “we,” “our,” “us,” and terms of similar import denote the alternative practice structure conducted by CRI CPA, CapinCrouse CPA, CapinCrouse Advisors, and CRI Advisors as appropriate.