Jordan Ames (00:02.574)
Do you ever feel like your vision, maybe an idea you have, a direction you want to take your team, or maybe just a method on how you wanna address something is not fully welcomed, maybe even completely rejected by your team?
Jordan Ames (00:41.26)
In this episode I'm going to give you insight on what to do in those situations when you may feel rejected, when you may feel that your team really just isn't embracing what you thought is a good thing.
Jordan Ames (01:12.492)
In these situations, a natural response may be that we go and we isolate ourselves. We even grumble to ourselves. We allow our our inner self to speak to us and consume us and cause us to even think negatively about our team or about those that we're wanting to influence.
Jordan Ames (01:41.164)
Another response could be that we just stubbornly reject the criticism that we're receiving. It may be constructive criticism, but we're so stubborn about our idea or our vision that we brought to the team that we just don't even hear what our team is the feedback our team has given us.
Jordan Ames (02:08.62)
And if it's a situation where we have the authority to force our way on our team, maybe that's what we decide to do. And that could cause even further problems.
Jordan Ames (02:36.332)
If you have been in leadership for any amount of time, you've probably been in a situation where your team didn't buy into everything that you wanted to do or every good idea you had. And that's okay. That's honestly a good thing. You don't want to be surrounded by a bunch of yes men or yes women, we call them. People who just go along with what you're saying because
You're saying it and you're in charge and you're the boss. That doesn't promote a healthy work environment for anybody.
Jordan Ames (03:37.666)
But in those times when we do feel like our team is rejecting what we presented, rejecting our idea.
That can cause us to feel rejected. Maybe we even wanna defend ourselves. We're just so focused on pushing that agenda, pushing that thing, that we feel like we have to put up a defense.
Jordan Ames (04:09.87)
So these are common situations that when you're in leadership, you will face. At some point, you're going to be in a position where you don't have the full buy-in of your team. Or at least you don't have the full buy-in of the specific people in your team that are going to drive that vision or that idea, that direction that you're presenting.
I've recently been working with a church to help them cast vision and start working through a strategy for the overall collective church to start moving, to align their different ministry efforts and their resources. And a little over a month ago, we were having a a session and we finished the session with a vision to see 500.
baptisms over the course of the next five years. Now not everybody was really bought into that vision. And we didn't we didn't slap the table on that vision, so to speak. However, it was something that we thought, okay, if we're trying to measure kingdom impact, maybe this is one way we can measure it. And that was that was something I was presenting is that hey
Maybe we can measure it with number of baptisms. That doesn't mean we're failing if we don't reach that, but maybe that's just a way we can measure it. And we came with the number 500.
Well, through some follow-on discussions, that wasn't a a direction, a vision that the leadership of the church wanted to move forward with. They wanted to flush it out some more. They wanted to look at some different angles on how we can truly measure kingdom impact. Of course, the focus is to focus on the kingdom impact and not only.
Jordan Ames (06:16.216)
the specific local institution of this church.
So I could have I could have just been disgruntled about the idea that they weren't going with what I put forward, or I could have really tried to understand where they were coming from.
And I think that we all see different angles and different perspectives. It's not that people just don't want for your idea to win or people just don't want to follow you. It's not it's often not that. I think most teams, most organizations want to truly work well together and they're not so concerned of whose idea.
You know, get selected or or whose vision is the one we're going forward with. It's it's the leader's responsibility to cast the vision. It's the leader's responsibility to decide on a direction. But it doesn't always have to come from them. It doesn't have to be what they thought of.
In most cases, it's going to be flushed out through some just some time with the minds coming together. But in those situations when the team is not buying into whatever it is you brought forward, we need to really consider our approach.
Jordan Ames (08:00.824)
I want to reference a passage out of Luke 9 to kind of set up this lesson of considering our approach.
Jordan Ames (08:14.542)
I'm going to read Luke 9, 1 to 6. When Jesus had called the twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. He told them, Take nothing for the journey, no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra tunic. Whatever house you enter, stay there until you leave that town. If people do not welcome you,
Shake the dust off your feet when you leave their town as a testimony against them. So they set out and went from village to village, preaching the gospel and healing people everywhere.
Jordan Ames (09:12.974)
So that passage is very straightforward. It presents Jesus giving the disciples the authority to cast out demons, heal the sick, to preach the gospel. So they're doing the good work of advancing the kingdom. And Jesus says, if the place you are going rejects you, don't like, don't worry about it. Just move on to the next place. Go to where they accept you.
And add value to those people.
Jordan Ames (09:48.056)
So I want to look at a lesson from this passage just from a different angle and just think of some hypotheticals. Okay. So what if the disciples' actions appeared like they were out to serve themselves? So what if they went on to a town and their approach just seemed very selfish? They were looking to get something out of being there, and it wasn't.
solely to advance the kingdom to preach the gospel and and heal the sick and cast out demons.
Jordan Ames (10:32.8)
In disobedience to Jesus' Jesus' words in verse three, or excuse me, verse four, whatever house you enter, stay there until you leave that town. In disobedience to that, what if they showed up at a house, but then as they met people, they wanted to stay somewhere else because it was a nicer place? What if they just sought better lodging to be more comfortable in their environment?
What if they tried to receive pay for what they're doing? Jesus told them in verse 3 to take nothing for the journey, no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra turnip. He's pretty much telling them, when you go and you serve in such a way I'm telling you to serve, people will take care of you. Especially when they see that you're not doing it for yourself, but you're doing it for them.
Jordan Ames (11:53.102)
So the main lesson of this passage is when we are taking the gospel to other places, we are sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with people. When it's rejected, Jesus is saying, look, don't be discouraged. Just shake the dust off your feet and move on. Go to the next place and add value to them. However, for the context of this episode, we want to talk about, we're not talking about.
When we're sharing the gospel message message, we're just talking about when we're sharing a message in the context of leadership. So in the sphere of influence that we have, maybe in the specific team that we lead. And so if it's not the gospel message, we shouldn't just approach it by, you know what? If you don't, if you're not agreeing with this, if you're rejecting this, I'm just going to move on. That's not a good approach. And certainly.
Jesus teaches many times throughout the scriptures how we can respond to opposition. This isn't one of those times, but I think this passage can allow us to just play the what-if game. Like, what if the disciples, they're not perfect. What if they went and they didn't do a good job of serving the communities they were in?
Is it right for them to just
Look at the the community as a problem and shake the dust off their feet and move on? Or should they maybe first look at themselves? Consider the person in the mirror. And that's what I want you to really take from today's episode: is whenever we're faced with these situations, and our idea, our message, what we presented is not welcomed.
Jordan Ames (13:54.35)
It's not embraced, maybe it's just flat out rejected. That the first person for us to consider looking at is ourselves. Like look in the mirror and and and consider how you could have approached the situation differently.
Jordan Ames (14:39.736)
So, following a situation where you were rejected by the team or where people just did not embrace what you were bringing, I want to propose some questions that you can ask yourself, that you can kind of go over to review that situation. So, first, how was my approach in tone and other nonverbal communication? Nonverbal communication takes up
I've heard it said before it takes up almost 93% of all communication, or seven percent are words. I think it's like thirty eight percent are tone of voice, and then fifty-five percent is body language. So if that's if that's true, then really what is our nonverbal approach?
What was our tone like whenever we were presenting the vision, the idea?
Jordan Ames (15:53.614)
And then we also want to ask yourself, did I speak clearly? How did you present that idea? I mean, maybe the the team left and were confused. Maybe that's why they didn't buy into it, because they really don't know what you just shared with them. For some of you, you may be always someone who speaks clearly. I know for myself, I've struggled with really conveying a clear message.
Something that I've I've worked on, I've recognized over the years. But it's it's truly a question that we need to ask ourselves. Did I speak clearly? Was the message received as in the way I intended it to be received?
Jordan Ames (16:43.768)
Does it align with my organization, my team's mission, vision and values, or long term vision? Does it align with that? Does it align with the mission and the and the core values we have?
That's why those those statements, those values, that's why they exist. So they can guide our direction. It can guide our actions. So if you're bringing something forward and it doesn't align with those, well, then it's a good thing that your team is not embracing it. They shouldn't embrace it.
Does it fit the strengths of your team? John Maxwell, in one of his lessons in his book, Leadership Gold, it's called, don't send your ducks to Eagle School. They don't expect people in your organization or in your team to do something that they don't have strengths in. So is what you're presenting to them something that is not part of their DNA? It's not part of where they're where they're strong at.
Jordan Ames (17:53.474)
Did you first get buy in from the most influential person on your team or one of the most influential persons on your team?
That's another another lesson from John Maxwell's book, Leadership Gold. He says to have the meeting before the meeting. And he learned this long time ago in the 70s, one of his first ministry jobs, where he walked in and a gentleman pulled him aside and said, Hey, if you're going to have great ideas, if you're going to want to move the church in this direction or that direction.
There's this specific guy. He was the chairperson of the board. He was a layleader, certainly someone that's been at the church for many, many years. He said, You're going to want to build a good relationship with him. You're going to want to run things by him before you just show up and say, Hey, this is what we're doing. This is what I think's best. Because the previous guy did not do that and ended up leaving the church because of a poor relationship with this.
With this chairperson, this layleader.
Jordan Ames (19:12.568)
Another question to ask is how will it serve the team? How will the idea, what you're presenting, how will that serve the team?
Jordan Ames (19:29.132)
Maybe you don't see it from your perspective, but maybe your team thinks what you're presenting serves you more than it does the team.
Jordan Ames (19:40.482)
And if they see it this way, chances are they're going to reject it.
Jordan Ames (19:47.342)
And then have you thought of the greater impact in the bigger picture of what you're presenting? Have you thought of the second, third, and even the sixth order of effects? If you and your team move forward with what you're presenting, have you thought of how it's going to positively, negatively, what risk you're taking? Have you thought of how it's going to fit in, the impact it's going to have?
In the bigger picture.
Jordan Ames (20:53.518)
When we don't take our time to consider our approach and ask ourselves some of these questions, we can very easily slip into those natural responses I shared at the beginning of isolating ourselves, grumbling internally about our team, which is does not help anybody, stubbornly just not accepting the criticism, or using our authority and just saying, Hey, we're doing this anyways.
All those are not good solutions to a problem of the teams not buying into your vision.
Jordan Ames (22:04.878)
So when you feel really confident about the the vision you're bringing forward, the idea you have, and your team seems to reject it, consider even seeking feedback from them.
Like value their input so much that you truly want to hear it. Okay, drop the the guard to be stubborn down and seek their feedback.
Jordan Ames (22:36.738)
To generate that feedback, ask specific questions. Not questions that will cause answers that make you feel good about your idea, but questions that will draw thinking and conversation to refine your idea.
Or at least really help you communicate it better. All right. When we ask better questions, we're going to get better answers.
Jordan Ames (23:17.026)
And don't be satisfied with answers to your questions that lack substance. Now, there may be some people in the group, some some team members that just want to move on, that just don't want to be inconvenienced by what you're putting forward, but really have no real good explanation to why they're not buying into your vision. Don't be satisfied with an answer that isn't helping refine it, that isn't helping.
Flesh it out, make it better.
Encourage your team to critically think through asking them good questions and demanding really waiting on good answers in return that are going to help out the whole team and help out the understanding.
Jordan Ames (24:35.084)
And ensure you are analyzing the environment. I think this is a a step that teams don't do enough of. It's kind of painstaking. It's the
Jordan Ames (25:02.606)
It's kind of painstaking, but it's necessary for understanding the bigger picture.
Jordan Ames (25:19.032)
Do we understand our team environment? Do do we understand how the different people behave and communicate on our team? Do we understand our operating environment and all the different factors that go into influencing it, shaping it, and how it might affect our team's efforts?
See, understanding the environment requires us to analyze it. And understanding it is very crucial before making any sort of plan.
Jordan Ames (25:54.488)
So maybe
Jordan Ames (25:59.66)
Your vision, the idea you're bringing forward, maybe it doesn't seem that good. Maybe it's not welcome. Maybe it's rejected because it doesn't factor in the bigger picture.
Maybe it doesn't factor in the bigger picture because no one has taken the time to analyze the environment.
Jordan Ames (27:04.27)
If you recently experienced a situation where people on your team or in your organization did not immediately welcome the idea you put forward, maybe they flat out rejected it. Just pause, take some time to consider your approach. Consider some of the questions that put forward in this episode.
Jordan Ames (27:35.67)
If you are preparing to present something to your team, well, take the time to flush it out some. Take the time to think of it in the bigger picture. Think of the second, third, and even sixth order of effects. Even take the time to meet with the most influential person on your team. Run it by them. See what their input is, their feedback.
Jordan Ames (28:22.474)
As you go, I want to leave you with a seven-day vision casting prayer journal I recently developed. I developed this as a way for us to urgently seek God for a vision. Maybe that needs to be a vision for your organization. Maybe it's just a vision for your personal life. But it's a seven day journal with scriptures.
With reflection questions and space to write and think. And I encourage you to even seek out close friends or even close family that will agree to praying for you, that God will show you the vision He has for you during those seven days. So share with people what you're looking to get out of it, that you're looking to seek God.
for that next vision in your life. Maybe it's a strategic vision for how you're taking your business. But I encourage you to invite people to pray for you.
Jordan Ames (29:49.292)
I think the journal will add a lot of great value to you as you seek that vision and encourage you to spend specific time with him and put you in a place where you can listen and reflect on hearing from God.
Jordan Ames (30:14.978)
Thanks for listening. We'll see you on the next episode.
