Leadership Experience
Uniquely Applicable Experience in Establishing and Leading Large Business
In 2000, I was hired to start a new business with a concept of employing family caregivers to continue to care for their loved ones, simply with the addition of training and supervision. Within the first year, we grew to employ over 100 caregivers and serve more than that many clients. Seven years later, I oversaw nearly 1200 employees serving 700 clients, and a budget of $17 million, and we had 7 offices across 3 states. Initially, I worked in every facet of business operations, from management to payroll, human resources to accounting, marketing to software development - which gave me exposure to all areas of running an organization. Over time, I learned the important roles of hiring, training and developing, holding accountable, and when necessary, terminating the employment of many employees. Options Home Care continues to be a successful business, 8 years after I stepped away from my role as Director of Operations in 2007 to begin seminary.
Everything about this experience is relevant to leadership at Foothills:
Leadership and Strategic Planning: After I left my position as Director of Operations to start seminary in 2007, I was asked to stay on with Options and its parent organization in a more part time/consulting role. Due to my success in leadership and organizational development, they created a position for me as a leadership coach and strategic planning consultant for the 8 executives leading the 3 businesses owned by the same individuals who owned Options. I met weekly with these executives individually around leadership and management, and quarterly with the team to develop their mission, vision and strategic plan.
In 2000, I was hired to start a new business with a concept of employing family caregivers to continue to care for their loved ones, simply with the addition of training and supervision. Within the first year, we grew to employ over 100 caregivers and serve more than that many clients. Seven years later, I oversaw nearly 1200 employees serving 700 clients, and a budget of $17 million, and we had 7 offices across 3 states. Initially, I worked in every facet of business operations, from management to payroll, human resources to accounting, marketing to software development - which gave me exposure to all areas of running an organization. Over time, I learned the important roles of hiring, training and developing, holding accountable, and when necessary, terminating the employment of many employees. Options Home Care continues to be a successful business, 8 years after I stepped away from my role as Director of Operations in 2007 to begin seminary.
Everything about this experience is relevant to leadership at Foothills:
- I have experienced first-hand the growth of an institution from very small to very large - and so I am very familiar with the developmental stages and systems-building required to make this change, as well as the emotional processes associated with growth and change.
- Not only have I experienced it, but I have been the senior leader throughout this change. While I'd like to say I handled everything perfectly in that leadership role - that just wasn't the case. Which meant, the learning was rich, and intense. I learned how important pacing is, how "working harder" isn't always the right solution to overcoming challenges, and how important employee's attitudes are in the development of a team. I learned to let go of things that didn't really matter, and I learned that great ideas require relationships at their core - building trust and buy-in and a sense of humor! Some of these lessons and my desire to have better tools to address them were a big part of what sent me to seminary.
- As the senior leader in a large organization, I learned to be ok with the fact that some people were not going to like me, or agree with me, and that I had to put my trust in the bigger vision we were working towards. I also learned how lonely this kind of leadership can be - and how critical peer friendships are to sustainability. This learning is what drove me in seminary to developing a strong cadre of colleagues who I turn to regularly for support and fun.
- Our entire model at Options was based in economies of scale delivered through multiple locations. Little did I know how relevant that would become in my future life where congregations are looking to the ideas of multi-site as a way of leveraging economies of scale in service of a greater mission.
- At Options, I learned quickly about financial management - terms like GAP or P-and-Ls or accruals meant nothing to me before I started there - I had two degrees in theatre! But through my experience over those years, I learned what these terms meant, and how to use them as critical tools to achieve our big vision. I learned to love budgeting, forecasting and data analysis - because I saw how being smart on all of these allowed us to do more good for more people. I cannot imagine how my peers in larger congregations manage to navigate the financial pieces of their jobs without this kind of experience. We aren't given this kind of training in seminary. I had no idea at the time, but this experience was preparing me so well for large church senior leadership.
- Just as importantly, I learned about interviewing and hiring new employees, and I have experienced many, many times the flow of adding someone new - the ways it is initially more work, the initial assessment phase, the tension of adapting to a new person's ideas vs. simply asking them to adapt to the existing system, and then in the best cases, the relief that comes as they begin to integrate.
- I also learned the critical lesson of the difference between being someone's friend and cheerleader, and being their supervisor and leader. I learned to effectively deliver performance appraisals, and to work with employees on professional development plans. I also have had to let employees go when they weren't a good fit. It is never easy, and yet I also know how much an ill-fitting employee impacts the overall team, often far beyond their tenure in the organization. Turnover is hard, but sticking with an employee who isn't aligned with the mission or able to do the job is far worse in the long run.
- In some ways, my work at Options seems like a non sequitur from my previous experience in the theatre. However, my theatre training oriented me towards the necessary agility and creativity, and as well as the collaboration skills and the practice of trusting the group to create something better than any one person could've predicted. These tools were critical in my capacity to imagine and then create an organization from the ground up - especially given that I knew literally nothing about home care or business before I began! In both the theatre and in creating Options, there was a deep entrepreneurial spirit required - a willingness to try things out and see what happened, to let go when things aren't working, and a capacity to imagine a world that doesn't yet exist, and then to pull together a team that creates that world from scratch.
Leadership and Strategic Planning: After I left my position as Director of Operations to start seminary in 2007, I was asked to stay on with Options and its parent organization in a more part time/consulting role. Due to my success in leadership and organizational development, they created a position for me as a leadership coach and strategic planning consultant for the 8 executives leading the 3 businesses owned by the same individuals who owned Options. I met weekly with these executives individually around leadership and management, and quarterly with the team to develop their mission, vision and strategic plan.
- To prepare for this work, I attended a 3 day coaching training focused on 360 evaluations through the Center for Creative Leadership. Then, I took 12 senior leaders through a 360 evaluation process, helping them to analyze and respond to the data we collected. Together we developed professional development plans, as well as strengthened their ongoing feedback loop so that they could stay in touch with how their development efforts were being experienced on the job.
- I also became trained in the facilitation and use of Myers-Briggs as a tool for self-awareness, development and team development. Like any of these sorts of tools, Myers Briggs was a great way to help people understand natural differences an to experience these things as a strength on a team rather than a point of conflict.
- Using books like Good to Great, What Got You Here Won't Get You There and The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, as well as Simon Sinek's ideas about Starting with Why, I gained critical experience in helping leaders clarify their reasons why they exist, and develop a plan for how to have the kind of impact they want to have. Together we established a new mission statement, a vision, a list of core values, and a 5 year strategic plan to achieve the vision they had set.
- Quarterly day-long meetings with these eight executives - vice presidents, CFOs and COOs - strengthened my confidence and experience in facilitating and leading other leaders through a process of growth and change.
Denominational and Community Leadership: Over the past 8 years, I have developed a strong relationship with many other Unitarian Universalist colleagues and I have gained important experience in leadership within our denomination. I have served on our Unitarian Universalist Minister's Association (UUMA) Chapter Executive Team since 2011, and have regularly led or helped to organize our clergy retreats and programming since then. I also help to lead and plan local cross-congregational gatherings, and am deeply invested in relationships with my clergy colleagues and our potential for lateral relationships across our sites of ministry. When I was in Denver, I was actively involved in the work for marriage equality, and I was a founding part of the interfaith clergy immigration network for the Front Range. More recently, I served on the Alumni Board of my seminary where we developed new strategies for alumni engagement, financial giving, and continuing education.
- My relationships with a large number of UU colleagues across the country, particularly here in the west, ensures that I have been exposed to a variety of ways of being a Unitarian Universalist minister, and that I have a depth of resources available when I am considering an issue in congregational life.
- My commitment to our Living Tradition and the Unitarian Universalist ministry is important for Foothills as it has been relatively isolated from the rest of the UUA over the past 2 decades. My orientation to relationship both within our geographical area as well as across our whole movement can help Foothills understand and claim its place as a leader and resource for Unitarian Universalism far beyond our single congregation as exemplified in our new partnership with Greeley.
- My experience in community leadership orients me towards partnership within our Northern Colorado community. I hope in the coming years to establish a strong relationship and leadership role with the interfaith community and those organizations who share our values, including continuing to build on our role in the Interfaith Council and Faith Family Hospitality, our relationship with La Familia / the Family Center, Together Colorado and the Geller Center on the CSU campus. I hope to meet more regularly with my colleagues at Plymouth UCC, as well as those at Har Shalom, and to keep asking how our congregations can work together for a greater impact in Fort Collins. I am also excited to see what will come of our new and quickly growing relationship with Homeless Gear, as well as our budding relationship with the Abyssinian Church.