PODCAST | Finding The Right Place

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Christa Neidig:
Welcome to the Vanderbloemen Leadership Podcast, I'm your host, Christa Neidig, Manager of Marketing and Business Development here at Vanderbloemen. In today's podcast, our COO, Jennifer Paulson sits down with Brett Connolly, our director of executive recruit. They discuss the importance of finding the right place to work. Brett shares tangible tips on how to make sure that you are in the right place for the season that the Lord has placed you in. We hope you enjoy the conversation.

Jennifer Paulson:
All right. Hi everyone, it's Jennifer here and Brett spray along with me and we have the privilege of talking to you today about finding the right place. So Brett, what does finding the right place just in general mean to you?

Brett Connolly:
Well, for me, I think there's a couple of things. There's obviously the personal one with your career and things like that, but there's also the calling piece that I think is really important, because sometimes we can get ahead of where the Lord is leading us and sometimes I feel like we can get a little behind from where the Lord is leading us, and William was talking about when our group all came together, we had consultants fly in from out of state and he was talking about the lamp before our feet, and so kind of like the step that we're required to take and I think finding the right place, that's a huge element, so like I said, it was the personal piece, but also I think the calling, those have to align.

Jennifer Paulson:
I think that makes a ton of sense, Brett. I think it does

Brett Connolly:
Whether that's with schools, whether that's with non-profits, especially with church, all three of those components, those things have to be aligned or we're kind of amidst.

Jennifer Paulson:
So we're a search firm and we help candidates find the right place, but both you and I have actually interesting stories about how God put us in the right place. So you were telling me a little bit about your experience deciding what you wanted to be, you've now recently gotten a promotion at Vanderbloemen, congratulations, by the way.

Brett Connolly:
Thank you.

Jennifer Paulson:
You're just about to start in your career as an executive search consultant.

Brett Connolly:
That's right.

Jennifer Paulson:
And that's something you wanted for a long time, but that's not where you started.

Brett Connolly:
That's right.

Jennifer Paulson:
So can you talk a little bit about where you started and how you discern God's calling for your life?

Brett Connolly:
Yeah, so it's pretty funny because one of the typical questions that gets asked is, "what is your plan? Your five year plan, what is your 10 year plan?" And I've been in recruitment for three and a half years now, and that's kind of a typical question, but personally, I don't love that question, because I really think there's a place of, "well, that might be my plan, but is that God's plan?" And so that sounds like a very church answer, but that's always been something that I've believed in, and even when I was in student ministry, I tried to instill in the students is just trying to be faithful with what the Lord was leading us to do and being called to do, and so when I started off in college, I wanted to work for the Astros or the Rockets and sports marketing or media or something like that.

Jennifer Paulson:
You would've been great at that [inaudible 00:03:06].

Brett Connolly:
That's something I really thought, I was like, "Man, the stars are aligning, this is great", and then I got involved with the para ministry and the para church ministry, and then the Lord really started doing a tug on my heart, and I actually was living in the Houston area, that night I googled Texas Christian schools and the Lord led me to Dallas Baptist University and I surrendered to ministry, and for about seven years in the Houston area, I was doing children's ministry, recreation ministry, sports ministry at fairly large churches, and then all of a sudden the Lord started doing another tug at my heart, this was about four years ago at this point, and I went to my wife and we started having conversations because we love student ministry, I still love student ministry, I've done speaking engagements and stuff and really enjoyed still interacting with...
Now my students are getting married and graduating from college and stuff, so that's really cool to see. It was like the Lord started doing a tug on my heart and I actually went to vanderbloemen.com to look and see were there other student ministry opportunities? Were there, I don't know, associate ministry opportunities? But nothing was stirring my soul and or stirring Mackey's soul, and we came together and we saw a recruiting opportunity at Vanderbloemen.
If I would've said, "this is my five year plan", I would never be here, but we prayed about it and the Lord opened up that opportunity and I dusted off my resume, this was the one place I applied and I went on vanderbloemen.com, and they had the recruiter role and they had the consulting role.

Jennifer Paulson:
And you were more passionate about consulting at that point.

Brett Connolly:
And I was really intrigued about the consulting because I love working with churches, I love that client interaction, and there's ups and downs with anything, just like in ministry, and I really view what we do at Vanderbloemen as ministry, and then I looked at the requirements and then I looked at the team page who were consultants and I was like, "I don't have the experience."
So I came to the realization that, that probably wasn't the path for me yet. And so I applied for the recruiting role and like I said, Lord opened that door, I became a recruiter and talking about finding the right place, man, just a perfect season in our life, and I had the opportunity pretty quickly to step into a senior recruiting role and then became the manager of the recruiting team and then the director of the recruiting team, and I just think that's God at work, I think that's also an alignment of passions and giftings, if you want to call it that, but it's just like the Lord really worked through that, and I think if I would've just said, "Ooh, I want that consulting role", I would've been told, "no", in about three days and I don't know if I would be here.

Jennifer Paulson:
Well, I think part of your success and your story is the patient's factor of it. So you were patient, you felt pulled to the consulting, but you also realized, you were self-aware enough to realize maybe that's not what God has for you right now, maybe that's a down the road thing. So you put yourself in a position to get all of that undergirding that you would need to eventually be successful in the consulting role, and you didn't just twiddle your thumbs in the recruiting role, you enjoyed and took advantage of that opportunity to grow your skill set.

Brett Connolly:
Yeah, it's been great.

Jennifer Paulson:
Yeah.

Brett Connolly:
And I think it's really prepped me well into this new season and we were having a off channel conversation of prepping for this, and it's like, in the world of recruitment or consulting, we have to say no way more than we say yes, but I think those no's are important so that you as a candidate can find your yes, because nothing worse than going through a process, making it to the end and you're looking at each other and going, "oh, this wasn't the right fit."

Jennifer Paulson:
Well, I think if you had applied for the consulting position, like you said, you may not have ever come to work for Vanderbloemen in another capacity.

Brett Connolly:
Yeah.

Jennifer Paulson:
I just think that was a very mature decision, and you were trusting the Lord's step that he would get you to eventually where you wanted to be. It's something that I think is really important, God puts passions in us, God puts a calling in us, and then it's up to God to get us there, so we just have to be obedient, and it's the taking baby steps, "well, is this door open?" Brett was saying a lot of times at Vanderbilt we have to close the door and say no, but that's just steering people into the direction that God actually has for them, and I don't remember where I've heard it, but if you're going to knock down a door, that's not leaving room for God to work, if you trust God, God's going to open the right door for you.

Brett Connolly:
And scripture talks about how it's important for us to keep searching and asking and knocking, and scripture also says, I planted Apollo's water, but it's God who gave the growth. So I think if we're just faithful to plant and water, God's going to open up the right opportunity, but we can't be stagnant, we should be continuing to grow, and one of the things you're always saying as COO is, you're like, "it's important to have the right people on the right seat of the bus", and I think in ministry you can almost, like actors, they kind of get typecasts into roles.

Jennifer Paulson:
Yep.

Brett Connolly:
You can have sometimes these individuals where it's like, "Oh, I'm just the student person" or, "I'm just the children's person", and I think a lot of times we'll come across candidates who maybe they feel like they're on the right bus, but they're in the wrong seat, or maybe they've been on that bus for a long time and they feel like they need to go to a different bus, but I think the Holy Spirit is such a key component, we have to be rooted in our walk so that we can hear that direction, and so I think that's just a huge piece because if it becomes an us thing, it's really easy for us to just look for the next green pasture.

Jennifer Paulson:
Right.

Brett Connolly:
And as a recruiter, I see that unfortunately a lot on resumes where it's short stop after short stop, after short stop, and then it becomes a victim's mentality of, "oh, they did this or they did this, or they did this", and it's always looking for the next thing, and sometimes we are imperfect people and all churches are imperfect, but I think we can be a part of the solution as well, and I just think that's a huge component of what we're doing, we have to be rooted and know where we stand with the Lord and have that peace, because ultimately, I don't think I would've applied to Vanderbloemen years ago if I didn't have a peace about applying.
And I think there's a huge difference between... And we were discussing this a couple weeks ago, I think there's a huge difference between running from something and running to something, and as a recruiter or as a consultant, you're really trying to get a feel for how passionate are you about this particular role or when I ask, "what is it about this position that intrigues you?" Are you just saying all the bad things about your current position? That's a pretty telling sign of...

Jennifer Paulson:
Are you just trying to escape this?

Brett Connolly:
Are you escaping? Because ministry doesn't wait for anybody. Most churches aren't looking for a tornado of change, but they're usually wanting a soft breeze of change, they want them to learn the culture, they want them to learn, "Hey, these are kind of the sacred cows, these are the things that we have going on really well", but eventually they turn to you and say, "All right, now cast vision", and so if you're running from something, it's really hard for you to gear up in that season, and what happens, short stop after short stop, after short stop.

Jennifer Paulson:
That's really wise, Brett, I think that's a lot of good... I was telling Brett earlier that he's got nuggets of gold here on this topic. I wanted to talk a little bit about from the perspective of the manager or the senior pastor or human resources. So when I started at Vanderbloemen, it was in January and now we're here in the middle of October.
It's taken about 10 months to make sure the right people are on the bus and the wrong people are off the bus and the right people are on the bus in the right seats. So from a manager's perspective or from a leader's perspective, it's also your responsibility to help your team find the right place. Brett was talking earlier about cast vision, you can cast vision and you can figure out people's strengths. I think it's important to talk to each of your employees frequently, have one-on-ones, figure out what God is doing in their life and what their passions are, because then you can say, "Okay, this is the puzzle of Vanderbloemen, we need a piece that fits kind of like this, who in the company has a history and a passion and a calling that could potentially fit into this type of role?" So yes, as a candidate or as an employee, you need to find the right place, but it's also incumbent upon leaders and managers in the church to be that shepherd to people.

Brett Connolly:
And I think especially in Western Christianity, we really value vision casting and the big personality, the teacher, preacher, but you're talking about that shepherd piece.

Jennifer Paulson:
Yes.

Brett Connolly:
I think one on ones are huge because, one, that alleviates usually being blindsided, because you're able to have those conversations.

Jennifer Paulson:
There's been dialogue going.

Brett Connolly:
Because nothing hurts more than just a quick exit, I think, especially in the church world, that means either there's volunteers that have to pick up the slack usually, or if it's a smaller ministry, that pastor has to spin another plate and eventually they're spinning plates on their toes and that can lead to burnout, and so I think being connected within the community is huge too, and it kind of goes back to me with those one-on-ones.

Jennifer Paulson:
Yeah

Brett Connolly:
I think that shepherding element, it's so easy to go, "Well, I need to spend more time prepping for my sermon", I think it's so easy to go, "Well, I need to focus on these great leaders, usually a squeaky wheel gets the oil", but I think the one-on-ones, the meeting with your leadership team, and I don't think one-on-ones have to be the same structure every time, I think as leaders we're called to have higher eq to gauge the room and figure out, how can I meet this person where they're at? Because sometimes I have one on ones and we're just talking about search, because that's what we need to do, that's the stressor. Other times a one-on-ones like, "Okay, tell me how are you doing?" And maybe that's the first 20 minutes and we talk about search for the last 10, or maybe we schedule another meeting to talk about our searches.

Jennifer Paulson:
Yes.

Brett Connolly:
But I think it's important as a leader to meet whoever's on your team where they're at, because that allows them to know they're heard, it stings when you don't feel like you're heard. Everyone's voice matters and they need to be heard, and that one on one space is where it's at. I don't think as leaders we can check off, "Well, we did a staff meeting", a staff meeting is vital and important for some things, but you can't do everything, just like in the church world you can't say, "Well, I put it in the bulletin", well, you got to put it on Facebook and on Instagram and on Snapchat and on the website and BeReal and all of the things.

Jennifer Paulson:
Yes.

Brett Connolly:
You have to blast it out on everything or you miss somebody and they go, "Well, I didn't see it."

Jennifer Paulson:
Well, and I think tangentially related to this is, Vanderbloemen is really good at being proactive, I think some churches struggle with being reactive. So the things Brett's talking about here, if your church is trying to pick up the pieces afterward, it's going to be less successful than being proactive ahead of time. So these one-on-ones, these conversations, really knowing your team and really knowing the direction that your church is headed is going to allow you to plan for the future and to prepare for things that could potentially go wrong, so you see five, not necessarily five years, but a year, six months, five years down the road, and then that helps you figure out what the right place is for the people on your team or figure out the holes that you're going to need to start looking for the right people to fill in those holes.

Brett Connolly:
Because it all goes back to finding the right place.

Jennifer Paulson:
It does.

Brett Connolly:
And leadership at the top has to be strong, and in ministry, I really think you're either heading into a storm, you're in the middle of a storm, you're heading out of a storm, and so you got to be geared up, you got to be rooted in who you are in the Lord, and you have to be able to look to your left and your right and say, "This is who I'm going into battle with."

Christa Neidig:
When your team isn't whole, it disrupts your mission. We have staffed over 2,500 missions of faith. Build your best team through our customized executive search, go to vanderbloemen.com/get-started, to talk with our team today.

Jennifer Paulson:
You just keep inspiring me.

Brett Connolly:
I don't know about that.

Jennifer Paulson:
So something else I wanted to talk about is something that I say frequently, which is, "life is lived forward, but understood backward." So I'm in my mid forties, doesn't specifically matter the actual age, but I'm in my mid forties and I went through quite a long period where I wasn't sure what God was calling me to do. Interestingly, when I was really young, this is eight or nine years old, I started my own little baby company and it wasn't anything really that great, but I felt God saying, "I want you to be in business and I want you to be in international business and I want you to do something with the church in business", and I had no idea what that was. So I kind of wandered around for a while trying to figure out what that was, and now it's just interesting because I do feel like I'm in my right place right now.
I started at Vanderbloemen, like I said, in January, and I was trying to decide in December, what should I do next? And what I felt was something that serves the church, something in business, the same thing that I felt 30 some years ago, and I literally typed in Christian consulting, I had never heard of Vanderbloemen before, which everyone on the podcast is going to be surprised about, but Christian consulting, Vanderbloemen came up and a vice president of strategy position came up, and so that's just a matter of... Now looking backward, everything lined up to get me prepared for this position, and if you're not obedient along the way, you might miss hearing what the Lord has for you, but every step along the way, you're gaining the skills you're going to need to be where God wants you to be eventually, and whatever I'm doing right now, same thing, I'm gaining the skill set here that's going to be propelling me to the next thing that God has for me.

Brett Connolly:
Totally.

Jennifer Paulson:
It's about being obedient and trusting.

Brett Connolly:
Absolutely. I had several internships at churches in college and there were a few internships where I was like, "Man, I really learned what I would like to do", and then I had a couple of internships where I was like, "I learned what I wouldn't like to do or how I wouldn't like to lead or how I wouldn't like to interact with my volunteers", but I think both were helpful and important and vital in many ways for the success of my ministry.
And kind of a peak behind the curtain of Vanderbloemen a little bit as we're talking about finding the right place, we do a lot of background work or working with the churches. I was out this weekend in the Pacific Northwest and I was at a church all day on Sunday and then a lot of Monday, and we were meeting with the staff members, we were meeting with the elders of the church, we were meeting with the committee, we went to both services, we went to the campuses, but I think all of those things are important because ultimately we're not just copy and pasting search, we are trying to figure out, what makes your church unique? What makes your school unique? What makes...

Jennifer Paulson:
You say DNA a lot.

Brett Connolly:
Yeah, that DNA, I want to get a finger on the pulse of that church because if I don't have that, I'm going to be very lost when I'm assessing candidates, and so I want to be able to confidently say yes or no based on all the criteria that I know, because I did my work and we prayerfully went through those meetings and we're prayerfully staying in contact with them through the process, but our no is not an indictment on the candidate, it is our in depth knowledge and work with the client that we know this is what they're looking for, but also this is what they need in this season, because we want to know what works for that search at that time, because maybe what they needed pre-covid looked drastically different, but maybe they need a different type of leader. And so that's what we're trying to tap into as we're assessing candidates.
And so I think it's important for candidates to hear as they're looking for their right place, their right next step, is that, a no from us isn't a no from us, we're trying to look through the lens of what the church has requested or the client has requested from us, and our no is to help them find their next yes, because if we went months and months and months through this process and put them before the client, but we know that they're not a fit, that's actually a disservice to the candidate just as much as it is the client and maybe them going through that trail and getting their hopes up and maybe you start looking at housing, you start looking at school districts and all those things, all that to be like, "Oh, well I could have told you that months ago", and so no's can sting, but no's helps you find your next yes, and I think that's the huge piece that I want to communicate on this.

Jennifer Paulson:
I love that. And I love that from the candidate side, what you just expressed from the church side is that Vanderbloemen is really good at getting that clarity for you. So in order to find the right place at your church, if you're on a search committee, you need to be really clear about what you're looking for, and maybe there's a lot of different opinions, maybe there's a lot of different history with the church, but something that our consultants are excellent at is really pinpointing what are the main things that you need and what's going to work in your church. If you start hiring for a position, you don't exactly know what the position's going to look like, you don't exactly know what the role is going to be, it's going to be really hard for us or for any candidate to realize if they're going to be a good fit for you.

Brett Connolly:
Right.

Jennifer Paulson:
Yeah. I think that's smart.

Brett Connolly:
No, one of the great pieces of what we do is, this isn't a side passion for us at Vanderbloemen, this isn't a hobby like a, "here's what I actually do, and then, oh yeah, I kind of do this Vanderbloemen recruiting, consulting stuff on the side", but it's like, this is what we do full time and this is our passion and this is our calling, and we're prayerfully saying we are rooted, we are passionate about what we are doing, and it aligns with where the Lord has led us to be, and we're in this season and we're going to connect with the client and we're going to connect with the candidate and we're going to see, does this work? We're essentially building a bridge on two sides of the body of water, and we're meeting in the middle and we're going, "Does this work?" And sometimes it works and sometimes we need to keep working at it.

Jennifer Paulson:
Yeah. Brett, you should have a podcast only doing analogies because that's a really good, or I don't know what the word for that is, but that's great.

Brett Connolly:
I'm just full of analogies.

Jennifer Paulson:
You're just full of it. Okay. So a couple more things I wanted to mention is, so I told you that there was a period of my life where I wasn't sure what to do, for advice to some people who are going through that place, this is some advice that I've learned, so the first thing is, do the last thing you clearly heard God tell you to do, so if God told you to go to DBU, whatever God told you to do as the last thing, keep doing that until God gives you different direction, so that's one piece of advice. Another piece of advice is to try something. So even if it's just a matter of dipping your toe into it, we have a girl here that started as an intern and just to close the loop, she actually was someone that was in your student ministry when you were a youth pastor, right?

Brett Connolly:
That's right.

Jennifer Paulson:
And she wasn't sure what she wanted to do next, so she just dipped her toe in, and then we gave her a couple different things to try and we saw what she was really successful at and what she was passionate about, and now she's in a full-time role succeeding greatly because all she had to do was dip her toe in and then we were able to help her find the right place for her. So try something, don't try nothing. And then the other point I wanted to make is that other people can't tell you what your calling is. Other people can't say, "Well, Brett, I think you'd be a great weather man, why don't you go try that?" Although you may be a great weather man, if that's not the desire that God placed in your heart, that's not going to be where you see success. So trusting your intuition, trusting what the Holy Spirit is leading you to do, and just really believing that God's going to get you to where you're supposed to be if you trust.

Brett Connolly:
That's good.

Jennifer Paulson:
That's kind of what I want to say.

Brett Connolly:
I think that's on the money.

Jennifer Paulson:
Excellent. Thank you very much for joining us today, and we hope you all will find the right place

Brett Connolly:
Bye y'all.

Christa Neidig:
Thanks for listening to the Vanderbloemen Leadership Podcast. At Vanderbloemen we help Christian organizations build their best teams through hiring, succession, compensation, and diversity consulting services. Visit our websites vanderbloemen.com to learn more and subscribe to our Vanderbloemen Leadership Podcast wherever you listen to podcast, to keep up with our newest episodes. Thanks for listening.