CCC Staff: Have You Taken the Shaping Our Future Survey? Why or Why Not?

B – I know the intent and heart of this survey so I don’t have a problem with it. I was slow to do it at first because I don’t think we have a great track record organizationally in really listening to a diversity of voices as it pertains to what is really going on and then actually following up and keeping the right issues on the table instead of just moving on to the next big thing.

Since you’re going after honest thoughts on this, I’ll go on record though thinking that after filling out the survey, I would have rather saved my time and not filled it out at all because I think it will lead to skewed input. The language re: leadership is vague and I think it’s impossible to give honest input pertaining to your ministry because it’s unclear what levels of leadership you’re actually giving feedback to. It’s not clear enough to lead to helpful measurements in my mind. But I do appreciate them giving a shot to hear from staff as a whole.

I took the survey about a week ago. I appreciated that it was not excruciatingly long. I felt that it did a good job of focusing on a few themes like leadership development & mission/vision.

I agree with Brian V’s comment that it gets clunky when the questions refer to being in sync with your “leadership” but you may have several different options for who you are referring to. Maybe there could be a few sub-question’s where the same exact question is answered in regards to your team leader, regional leaders, & even as high as senior leadership.

I have enjoyed reading a few of the posts & comments on the Shaping our Future website. I admire leaders who take the time & risk to post their own answers on there. I bet one way you would get even greater than 70% participation on a survey like this is to have key ministry leaders take the survey first & then tell everyone else that after they have taken the survey, they will have the opportunity to view the answers that their leader gave. I know it takes away the anonymity for the leader, but I think the benefits of openness within teams & organizations would far outweigh the chance for a VP to contribute anonymously.

Another idea to reach 70% would be for the highest level of leadership to take the survey & then send a note or twitter DM to their direct reports saying “Just took the survey & hope you do too. I’ll be in touch to hear your initial thoughts on the survey & how your team is interacting with it.” If this was happening there would be no need for multiple emails from Steve or Andrea, & there may be even less need for surveys like this in general.

i like that last twitter idea a lot ross. from a mobilization standpoint that would be great to make it easy and to put it right in front of people.

i wish we were that immediate. truth is, the entire global leadership did take it the week of June 7-11. it’s an interesting idea to see what the leadership said as opposed to everyone else. we will be able to see that with the final results.

I did the survey a few days ago. I did in part because I remember some conversations with national leaders last summer where they kept reminding us how available they want to be. They said to write emails, contact them on facebook, etc., and they’ve actually responded when I, and others, have done that. If they are that accessible, I figured they really do want to know the thoughts of the staff.
I do agree with some of the thoughts already posted though, wondering how they will really be able to get information that changes anything out of it. In many cases, as an MTL, I was answering about myself, and about my direct leaders in the same question, without any real way to distinguish. Also, there were SO MANY categories listed to choose from in the follow-up comments that it seemed a little too vague. It seems that a survey that is laser-focused on one topic would be much more effective in producing tangible results.

This was awesome! I was able to take it in my mother tongue : French!

B – twitter still has a selective reach for an in-house survey like this. There’s more on facebook, but not everyone is linked up with one another. It can help, but not sure if we’re there yet to where a survey like this go a little bit viral in a way to reach even more than half of staff in an organic and motivating way.

I think there’s medium things that can help, but ultimately I think the distance factor you mentioned is pretty key. It’s hard to feel like it really will have any impact on you since you don’t know who put the survey out really or what they will do with it. And after a bunch of surveys over the years in which there was no follow up communication or connections made after the fact to help you see that your input is being used to influence the future I don’t feel like it’s an exercise in “Shaping Together.” It’s felt like more an exercise in providing information that others “might” use to shape the future. That’s not as motivating.

For me that was complicated by the fact that after taking it I don’t believe that there can be much meaningful interpretation to a lot of the questions because of ambiguity, confusion, and open-endedness. I know there will be a big data base of write in thoughts and feedback from the end questions where you can offer thoughts and input. That could have a lot of value, but I think it would be tough to sift through all that and come up with meaningful next steps. I don’t think it’s impossible – just pretty tough.

Hey Brian,

Great post! I didnt know 1/3 of staff have filled out the survey. I will confess I havent filled it out, mostly because I’ve been on staff at Santa Monica summer project and have absolutely no time:)

But to be honest there is a big part of me that this survey will only add thousands of more opinions that will be different on where the organization needs to come. I just really dont think any changes will ever be made from it, or at least the right ones. I’m wondering if the survey would be more effective if it was just MTL’s or if the National Team only selected certain people that have shown they have some real incite into Campus Crusade. I think the majority of staff cannot CONNECT THE DOTS for whats wrong and where we need to come, only because they havent been exposed blogs or formats which bring up CCC issues regularly. I might feel better that change would happen if the National Team leaders traveled around the US to meet and discuss issues with different campus’s, which is a long shot of course. Overseas staff I think are experiencing Crusade way differently then stateside staff, im just not sure if this survey is asking the right questions. thats my 2 cents:)

Hey Brian, thanks for sharing your thoughts here…

First, I want to say that I appreciate the Executive Team for their desire to know what’s going on, and the efforts they’re putting in. Not forgetting the efforts in getting the survey designed. Those are really work reflecting the sincere hearts that started it all.

I echo some of the thoughts already shared here. I’m wondering if this would become another information gathering academic exercise which would make some people feel great but bring no real difference at the end of the day. I’m also wondering if the survey will get us good information at all.

The survey is really about gauging perceptions, and perceptions about reality; not reality itself (sure, it’s not easy to gauge reality to begin with). While I do not think that most staff are clueless about what’s going on, I do think that many staff tend to have an unrealistically positive perception of the ministry (but, I may be proven wrong by the survey results). And one reason that many staff tend to have a positive perception is because those who have contrary opinion may not stay around for long.

I’m sure the survey will not be the only way that the Executive Team is gathering information (and I hope I’m right). So the question is, how else are they gathering information? (Let’s just say that I can site some examples of leaders gathering information from inappropriate sources during the past four to five years)

At the end of the day, the key to success (besides the work of of the Holy Spirit) is in the execution. And I’d really like to know what’s going to happen at the execution phase; not the 30,000 ft grand scheme generic vague plan, but specific down-to-earth ground-level plans.

I did the survey in June, and I’m really looking forward to see how things unfold.

it was really good to for the survey for cccstaff it was adventure for all.really happy to met on face book to our international staff it was helpful all so that we can encourage it.thank for your sharing.

“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” ~ Albert Einstein

I feel a growing sense of total disorientation by Crusaders when it comes to reaching the changing American culture.

What if Crusade Leadership took the time to look OUTSIDE of Crusade for perspective on Crusade?

The problem with Crusade is that it tends to be all about Crusade, by Crusade, for Crusade, with information from Crusaders. (Insert some line about about our “distinctives” in order to justify this behavior.) Yet, the Israelites had distinctives too.

So, if we want to Re-Think Crusade, we should probably survey two kinds of people: 1) the people who have LEFT Crusade over the last five years and ask them WHY and what they are doing now that they are not involved in Crusade. 2) Missional leaders from other organizations.

It might be painful to hear all that information, but it’s real.

good thoughts. Sounds like a yearning for something better? something different?

an interesting phenom is that YWAM has grown 40% during the same period where we have been stagnant globally. so what are they doing?

I like the idea about those who have left. Thanks.

I took the survey the first day it came out….but I’m kind of a nerd. I should get a scholarship to CSU or something for that.

First of all I love that our Executive team is doing there best to learn and get input. I have to admit that I did take it with some skepticism. I wonder if it makes any difference or if I’m just adding to the noise. I can’t imagine trying to sift through all the responses and make sense of it in a way that’s helpful….phew, makes me tired just thinking about it.

I also wonder if the loudest voices (but not necessarily the most helpful) will get the most response from national. It so hard to hear from a 20K person organization because the contexts of ministry are limitless. A one size fits all survey is going to be tough.

Okay. I’m doing my part. I took the survey. We wrote about it several times on Global Staff Women and have posted it on Facebook. I especially want to make sure staff women take it–we need to discover every means for their voices to be heard.

I did have some thoughts of, How will this info be used or helpful. But I am aware of the Shaping Our Future Team–and you would believe the best if you looked at who was on the team.

I took the survey. They had to send it to me 4 times before I actually took the time to complete it. It was interesting to evaluate what has been taking place in ministry. I just kept putting it off because I didn’t understand the value it could have. I appreciated reading people’s comments.

Good conversation already. Appreciate the comments. I took the survey already a bit reluctantly, but there were a couple of things that have been troublesome for me personally that I wanted to bring up if possible so I did it.

I did walk away wondering some of the questions already brought up, but also feeling sorry for whoever tries to make sense of the feedback – especially on the written part. They’ll be getting a lot of what I did… people venting a little on their personal annoyances so how do you put all those together into something that is cohesive? Not sure. Of course, I think my annoyances are critical to our organizational culture, but I’m sure everyone does.

The other thought I had walking away is that it’s not very satisfying giving feedback somewhere and pretty much knowing that it will be all asked for until some kind of plan is announced or moved forward. Sure would feel different if there were touchpoints along the way or even a basic summary sent out saying, “this is what we are hearing, are we on track?” That’s part of why surveys don’t have a good reputation, it’s really hard to ever feel like what you had to say makes much difference.

I agree that last question could generate a lot of different issues! because of the scope of the organization, we have partners in both survey design and analysis of data who are really good at this sort of thing. what will be interesting to me is to see if we really do know ourselves! a multinational team of leaders from 8 different countries is giving leadership to this effort. this, at least in my experience, is a new thing in and of itself. That team along with the global leadership will look at the global composite. each area or in the case of the US, country, will look at their data as well. if you were in charge of publishing the data, what would be important to you?

I appreciate the effort of asking the staff for our opinion via the survey. I feel like each person has a contribution. I have been amazed at the level of promotion that this survey is receiving. Apparently this is really important to somebody! So I took the survey with some curiosity as to what we were going to be asked.

While taking the survey I almost quit midway through. I found the questions so ambiguous to the point that my answers are meaningless. “Leadership” in our organization is vast with many levels. It is not monolithic. Our organizational chart is more of a spiderweb. In fact we are regularly told that we are all leaders, so to whom am I referring when I answer a question about leadership? I imagine that if I took the same survey again my answers could well be completely different because of what level and area of leadership I was considering.

I have continued to think about this survey wondering how these answers are going to be used. I don’t feel like my answers are at all meaningful. I fear that those looking at the results may well reach erroneous conclusions, because the questions were asked in the wrong way.

Yes, I took the survey. Thanks to the shaping our future team and whoever will be reading all the responses.

In response to Andrea’s question “if you were in charge of publishing the data, what would be important to you?”
– I value transparency, so if there is any way to see the entire set of data from the survey results while protecting respondent identities, that would be helpful. I’m interested to see the trends based on people’s particular demographics: age, country, ministry focus, etc.

Questions:
1. How will local leaders be expected to make use of the findings from the survey? How is culture change anticipated to “go local?”

2. If we are attempting to shift away from our current organizational culture to a new culture, what is the most critical element for us as staff to shift away from? I.E. What one thing in our culture is most critical to change?

3. I’m finding this conversation (this blog post and comments) more helpful than the survey itself. Yet, I’m assuming that the majority of staff reading this are Americans. How can we encourage some of our counterparts from other countries to join in here?

4. More of a comment than a question: Online surveys, whether internal or external to an organization, generally speaking, do not have greater than a 20% response rate – even if respondents are motivated by some contest, give-aways or free snow cones. So I consider the current response ratio (greater than 40%) to be phenomenal! Yet I agree with many other comments here that we may easily get lost in the noise and see little appreciable action. Re-thinking our culture should be patient and yet painful. But I’m wondering if we’ve already re-thought many powerful issues that we’ve known needed changing for quite some time and yet for whatever reason haven’t acted.

Grateful for all of you and trusting the Holy Spirit with you!

I concur – we’re an expensive ministry to be a part of. I feel it even more now that I’m serving in ethnic student ministry. Many churches don’t understand why mission opportunities with us cost as much as they do when they also interact with other agencies like YWAM and others that are so dramatically different in costs and support raising.

That’s interesting Brian. Captures the essence of what I think could be helpful. It seems to me that the change we just went through / still are going through in Campus Ministry is being done like that in some ways as some of the definitions and how parts will be implemented wound up changing from week to week for awhile. That’s a lot easier to deal with if someone says up front that we have a work in progress, here are the things we know for sure we’re going for, and how it will be implemented will be worked out as we wind up talking with & hear from all the parties who are stakeholders. I don’t remember that being said, maybe I missed it. That would have changed the dynamics considerably.

The complexity of what you’re describing Andrea is pretty overwhelming. I appreciate your team’s willingness to tackle it whether all of them have a clear picture of what they’re getting into or not.
Since I’m in the audience of those that will receive the report that’s the perspective I write from. What I would like is, of course, some of the data, but that isn’t what would be most important for me. What would be most valuable for me would be the top 5-7 take-aways that you as a team held in common. That to me would help me understand how the survey will impact your thinking as a team and how it will be lived out more than just what the empirical results are. For me, the tone of that report would be critical. If is authoritative and declarative it would communicate that my part & the interaction is done. If it’s in the form of, “here’s what we are walking away, but we want to check and see if some of those take-aways don’t seem valid to you,” that would give an opportunity for some interaction and response on some of issues that I think would be helpful for everyone to at least have access to. The fact that we’re an Int’l movement means that there are things that I don’t understand from my US perspective. The same would be true for someone in Europe. The resulting conversations if they were in a forum somehow could be helpful to enlarge everyone’s perspectives if they’re willing to engage. If fact, that would be pretty amazing if we really were able to have a worldwide conversation. We maybe could walk away with more of a worldwide viewpoint and understanding of our movement.
Just my take on this. I’m sure there are a lot of approaches that could be taken.

Tom, great thoughts!

I love the idea of continuing the conversation past the initial survey to help drill down the key take-aways. It would be amazing if our global leadership would interact in some sort of format that’s helpful beyond the initial survey. It would do wonders to creating a sense of authenticity and of them valuing broad input. But is this realistic in the size of organization we’re talking about? What are other companies doing to help this process that we could emulate?

I’m interested to see if 5-7 key points will bubble to the surface or not given the vast contexts and roles our staff are serving in.

So, what if we created software that “read” the surveys and created Tag Clouds and gave every user the ability to see the results and see what the responses are?

You could create live interaction over the data.

Basically, socialize it. Make it interesting.

It would REALLY be cool if we had a “Share the Wealth” system that worked the same way.

Thanks for the comments. would love to continue to hear more. I’m not sure any of us “knew” what we were getting into– but isn’t that the way adventure goes?

In a sense, the survey is just part of the data we are gathering. Five large countries have submitted extensive reviews of their comm, LDHR, IT, and other programs. In addition, 20 interviews of leaders around the world, at different org levels, will help round out the data.

Once we get the results back, the “drill down” and further conversation must continue. Part of our goal with the SOF site and the survey has been to generate some engagement on the issues. If we are serious about Kingdom perspective and local ownership, what does that mean to us every day? not only what must we do differently, but what must I do differently? Personally, my journey has been about faith. What does it really mean that God is with me every day, every moment? how does that change the way I think and act? When I’m doing what I’ve never done before, that He is with me is all that matters.

It’s all about getting personal and getting specific about these changes. We have to take a deep look. the survey is just a part of that process.

thanks, Dave. I appreciate the specific questions related to publishing the results. Thanks, too– it’s true that there have been lots of discussions and sometimes little fruit from them. A friend of mine has said repeatedly, “you can’t think yourself into changing; you can only behave yourself into change.” We’ve got to take action to do something differently. Pez earlier quoted Einstein about not solving problems by thinking the same way. I would propose a corollary that we won’t see culture change if we all act the same way as we always have.

Pez – I like it – especially #1. I think when I’ve looked at exit interviews and the results in recent history a lot of it doesn’t allow for honest responses. Typically most cite the reason they leave as “the Lord led” and there’s not often a lot of detail as to what factors helped facilitate “the Lord’s leading” (is it calling? is it the mpd stuff? is it organizational disillusionment?). There’s dozens of reasons why people leave and I don’t believe even more than half are because of CCC cultural issues (but it’s a big factor for many too), but we need to find more honest feedback from those that are on the way out. It’s hard to solicit input from people the farther they are away from their involvement with CCC, but hopefully we getting people to shoot straight when they are making their decisions to leave.

Great thoughts dad, that really boils it down to the heart of the process and the degree to which it is received well by the masses. History seems to have shown the more directive, bottom line approach, but I’m looking for the picture that you laid out.

I totally resonated with your comment that you’re “finding this conversation more helpful than the survey itself…” Thanks Brian for making conversations like this happen, & Andrea for being responsive in the comments. Regarding the international staff, I agree that there is so much we can learn from them. I’m going to see if any of my Australian friends have taken the survey & see if they’ll hop on the discussion here.

I agree with some earlier posts, I liked the idea of the survey, good questions were asked and heart was right. I wish they had made ‘leadership’ a little more defined. For example, was it international leadership? national? regional? Campus MTL? Or all? That and I wish they asked qualifying linked questions. For example, “Do you utilize volunteers?” If yes leads me to questions on how that is working, if no leads us questions on why or why not. Just a suggestion to give the data more meaning instead of everyone answering some possibly inapplicable questions to their experience/ministry.

But overall it was great and very pleased to take it, in addition to knowing that our leaders are continuing to strive for great leadership. Thanks.

this survey is broader than the US– it is global. so far 8100 staff have taken it!

109 have! the conversation should be good!

I’d like to hear more about that. what is frustrating or confusing about the internal language?

I’m re-reading this post and caught the point “It would be amazing if our global leadership would interact in some sort of format that’s helpful beyond the initial survey. It would do wonders to creating a sense of authenticity and of them valuing broad input.” I’m curious if you have experienced this already from other people that you follow whether blogs, tweets or FB. What would it take to create this kind of conversation?

that helps me know what you’re talking about. I can see your point. I know personally there are some changes that are easier than others. the ones that I really buy into need a much stronger and convincing rationale for me to change!

We could probably write a good article on things we learned from putting the survey together– everything from forming questions to different organizational realities like out of date email lists. The feedback on the questions related to leaders — we got that mostly from the US, so that in itself is interesting and makes sense in light of Brian’s earlier post.

Are there any other blogs you would refer me to where these types of discussions are happening?

It was bad timing for me. I was too busy on summer project!

I did not take the survey because I was serving overseas on an international summer project with little to no internet access. The timing of this survey was POOR to say the least. Why would you send out an all staff survey asking for 100% involvement when a large percentage of your staff are serving on all-encompassing summer assignments, many overseas, and most with very little to no time to give attention to tasks outside of their summer assignment responsibilities? I feel like this was a HUGE miss for our organization.

Timing was a difficult issue for us. Almost any time of year is a challenge for a global organization. It is always time for projects somewhere. Winter in the US is summer fo the southern hemisphere. We made the best decision we could in light of our organizational realities and the constraints of the organization that is helping us administer the survey. Given the fact that most previous surveys net a response rate of about 30%, we were actually pleased with the number of 8211 who participated- the % was close to 50%. Sounds like you might have liked to participate?

Just a quick update– there will be a couple emails in the next week or two with the high level findings from the survey. Be on the lookout. I’ll be interested to hear what you think.