The Most Annoying Person on Your Church Staff Might Be Your Best Teacher

The person on your church staff who drives you crazy might be the one you have the most to learn from. In this episode of the Church Staff Book Club, Jonathan Malm and Jason Young dig into Chapter 2 of How to Work with Complicated People by Ryan Leak, and why it's worth doing the hard work of understanding difficult coworkers instead of writing them off. Jonathan opens with a confession. When he was younger, he learned from everyone because he assumed every adult had it figured out. Now he sees dysfunction faster, dismisses people quicker, and learns less. He shares the story of a college pastor who burned him badly, and why he still carries lessons from that man today. Jason tells the story of a coworker whose voice alone made him cringe, and what he realized years later about why that person was on staff in the first place. Then there's the time Jonathan got fired because his own personality test flagged him as hard to manage. In this episode we cover: • Why we stop learning from people as we get older, and what it costs us • New research: people aren't leaving bad bosses anymore. They're leaving bad coworkers. • Why it's hard to love what you do when you struggle with who you do it with • Empathy: everyone is carrying something into the meeting you can't see • Is this person always difficult, or are they in a season? • Why people operate the way they do (and the lesson they learned that got them there) • The Bachelor lesson: the person you obsess over is the reason you get voted off • Don't answer a fool according to his folly • You can't fix them, but you can control how you show up • Leading with curiosity instead of frustration • Why almost every work problem is partly a people problem • Culture is built one interaction at a time