EntreLeadership - #371: Staying Unified As You Grow with Steve Atkinson

Episode Date: April 20, 2020

With 1.8 million subscribers and over 100 million views since its inception, BibleProject—one of the most popular Bible-based channels on YouTube—has experienced meteoric growth since its launch less than six years ago. And that hasn’t been by accident. Tune in as Executive Director Steve Atkinson shares how the nonprofit animation studio stays laser-focused on its singular mission and why showing your team you care pays limitless returns.   entreleadership.com/podcast BibleProject website BibleProject videos on YouTube BibleProject podcast StratOp The Bible App - YouVersion Mentioned BibleProject videos: Heaven and Earth The Tree of Life Series The Wisdom Series Proverbs Ecclesiastes Job BibleProject Coffee Table Book Review this episode for a chance to win a BibleProject coffee table book EntreLeadership's Business Health Assessment   Want expert help with your business question? Call 844-944-1070 and leave a message or send an email to [e-mail]. You could be featured on a future podcast episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A dream without a plan is just a wish. We know this to be true because there's so many leaders and businesses out there that are deeply invested in their mission, but they're failing to produce actual results. And at the same time, there are leaders in organizations that obsess over the plan and the results, but end up losing sight of the mission that makes it all worth it. It's so sad that very few teams actually strike the sweet spot of being simultaneously mission-centered, while, while also being results driven. From the Ramsey Network, this is the Entree Leadership podcast where we help business leaders grow themselves, their teams, and their profits.

I'm your host, Alex Judd, and today we get to learn from the leader of a nonprofit that has struck that exact sweet spot. Steve Atkinson is the executive director of the Portland-based animation studio called The Bible Project. He's responsible for leading a team of 40 and has a track record of getting some really serious results. Their YouTube channel has over 1.8 million subscribers, and their videos have totaled over 100 million views in more than 200 countries.

But the superpower of this team is that all of those subscribers, those downloads, views, and results, they're all in pursuit of a much grander mission. The Bible Project's mission is to help people experience the Bible as a unified story that leads to Jesus. And why is that the mission, Steve? Well, I think a number of us, namely our two founders, well, one of our founders, I should say, grew up in a family of faith, follower of Jesus. Yet when he looked at the Bible, he said oftentimes when he tried to read it, he would leave more confused than when he started and have more questions. So we felt like he probably wasn't alone that many of us that grew up at the church wrestled with the same thing. John, one of the founders of the Bible project, had an explainer agency, and he has a God-given talent of taking complex things and making them understandable. And that was the approach we took with the Bible.

And John, and then Tim Mackey, our other founder, Tim's the subject matter expert, PhD theologian and biblical studies. And they combined and started the Bible project. And based on kind of what we've seen over the last few years, they want to be able to. weren't the only ones. That's right. I was about to say I've been there and done that. Honestly, I was watching some of y'all's videos. Number one, so incredibly well done. The videos, the podcast, the books, everything. The quality is just absolutely remarkable. But they make things, they take the complex and make it so clear and so simple. I'd like to know, Steve, why are you personally passionate about the work y'all do at the Bible Project? In 2013, a year before the Bible Project

officially started, John showed me the first 90 seconds of the first video he was working on. And I saw that, and I thought, wow, I mean, it was unbelievable. I hadn't seen anything like it. And I said, John, I'm with you. What do you need? What's your plan? And he said, well, I would like to make these for every book of the Bible, put them on the internet, and give them away for free. And at the time, I was on the staff of an organization called Generous Giving. So his bent towards giving these all away. rang true to me. And I thought, absolutely, I'm in. And I said, well, but we're going to need some capital. What's going to drive the economic engine? And he said, well, I think if I make really good content that people will want to support it and want us to make more. And he was explaining to me how crowdfunding works. And I looked at him. And while I was wanting to encourage him, I thought on the inside, he has no idea how the world works. This would never possibly work. And we're going to have to raise some money. And John has educated me on the whole idea of crowdfunding. And it's really no different than so many business principles. When you make something and you create value,

people jump in and want to be a part of that. And there's something of value is created and people exchange other things of value for more of that. So what did it take for you to get convinced and then to ultimately become a part of the team, Steve? Well, to follow up on that conversation, I said, John, okay, so if this crowdfunding thing is going to work, you're going to need something to prime the pump. You're going to need some videos out there to attract attention to get the flywheel going. And he said, I think if we have five videos, that that will be enough to get things started. I talked to some friends, some folks threw in resources to make it possible to get those five videos made. And I told them, you're going to get five videos.

I don't believe this idea of this starting a flywheel. will, but it's a hope. And so shortly after that, when the five videos went up, the crowd started to respond. People were saying we want more of this. And so actually, the old website had a old school thermometer on it and said, hey, here's about what it takes to create one of these videos. And John was still running his business and agency. Tim, the other co-founder, he was pastor at a church. And they both thought this would be a side hustle. They never thought that they were in. starting a company. They were starting this Bible project and thought that there would be a beginning and an end and they would continue to do their other things. And as this started to grow and

the demand continued to increase is where I looked at this and thought, okay, we love the idea of it being a project and we don't know when this is going to end. It's different than when you say, have an idea and you envision a company and the thing living forever. Yeah. We want to be faithful to what we believe God has called us to do and to be faithful to make the videos and in the podcast and the other elements of it and to answer these questions. And so once the fly, we'll start going, my progression with the Bible project, big fan ambassador early on. John asked me to be on the board for a couple of years, chaired the board, and then September, fall of 18, he asked if I would consider we were in discussions.

about the Bible project what I was doing, and he asked if I would consider being the executive director. So I stepped off the board and moved into the role as the executive director. So it had gone from in 14, maybe one employee, actually maybe a contractor. And we have just slowly grown over the years to where we now 37 employees. And John is amazingly creative. I think he's an unconscious competent because he built a great company. An unconscious competent. That's a great line. Well, I stole it from somebody because I know a good line when I steal it. But it's, I think what John built a great company, but he said, hey, what I love to do is the creative stuff. And if you go back, John, the company that John helped found before the Bible project was a company called the Piffio, where they made Explanter videos and they were on the cutting edge of that. And John was making videos for Microsoft and Cisco and Facebook.

book and Google and he just wanted to make him about something that he cared about. Well, and I think that highlights the fact, too, that he clearly is someone that has the self-awareness necessary to know his strengths, but also knows the limitations of his strengths. And so he's keeping himself in that sweet spot by bringing you on board as that executive director role. Explain to us a little bit about your role and your core responsibilities within this team and this growing venture. But when I say John's an unconscious competent, he said, you know, I don't want to run this business, but he did a great job of setting up this business. So we have 37, actually now 39 employees.

We describe ourselves as a nonprofit animation studio, and that's really what we are. We have animators and illustrators. We have people that make content, and we have people that share content. And that's really kind of how we look at our business. It's the making and sharing of this content. And then we have the folks that are also part of the team that care for our patrons. We're a nonprofit, but we refuse to call them donors because I despise the word donor. I feel like the word donor, it sounds like it's a one-way relationship.

I automatically think of organ donors, and in that situation, one person wins and the other doesn't. But what we call them are patrons, because all through the human history, patrons are the ones that have supported the arts. and every great gospel movement has a patron behind it. And so we have thousands and thousands of patrons that make this work possible. And so we have a team of people that care for those patrons. And so my role really is to serve that team. We have folks that we have directors and we have managers over the 38 people that are in the Bible project. And my role is to really make it possible.

for them to do their job, to remove obstacles, things that get in the way. As an executive director of a nonprofit, clearly development or advancement is a big part of my responsibility, but when you're in a crowdfunded model, that looks different than a traditional nonprofit. And so my job is caring for John and Tim, the two founders of the organization, giving leadership to the executive team, senior leadership team, doing development work. But at the end of the day, it's about servant leadership and it's about caring for the 38 people that work for us. That's powerful.

So that's the core responsibility. It's serving that team and making sure that they are given the opportunity and the environment to do the things that they are there to do, to do the work. So what does the day-to-day activities of Steve Atkinson look like? Well, meeting with the senior leadership team. we all, we're in a pod together. It's a very open office. So I don't have a separate office because I love being in the middle of it. It's taken me a little while to get used to this because I'm from a generation that likes to talk on the telephone. And I work with people that are two or three generations younger than I am, clearly the oldest person in the office.

But for me, it's that idea that you're constantly in walking around, making sure that everybody, they're staying focused on the mission. They clearly understand what it is that they are responsible for and that they have the tools to accomplish that mission. And so for me, it starts with our senior leadership team to make sure check in. How's everyone doing? I have one-on-one meetings regularly with folks in the office. And then it's checking in. I mean, John and Tim, the two founders are in the office every day and it's touching base with them.

And then it's kind of looking over the numbers, making sure we have great analytics. The thing that is amazing about being a digital agency is there's no end to what you can look at in terms of numbers and know where you are and understand where you are. And then for me, I think I look at helping with a team that's focused on strategic relationships as they look at and how can we broaden the number of folks that are viewing our content. we accomplish our mission when people see our videos and listen to our podcast because again our mission is to help people experience the Bible as a unified story that leads to Jesus and we have a couple of main products that accomplish that. I think it's so interesting in hearing you talk about this because I think oftentimes I've observed that there is this spectrum in the marketplace and certainly I think this applies to the nonprofit world as well and maybe sometimes this may be

an overgeneralization, but sometimes it feels like on one end of the spectrum, you've got a lot of times it's for-profit companies that can be so focused on the results and the metrics and the key performance indicators that they lose sight of an overall driving purpose or mission, not all the time, but sometimes. And then on the other end of this spectrum, you've got, and this can sometimes be the nonprofit space, if we're not careful, people that are just so driven by a vision and by a mission and they're excited about this dream that they have to make a difference in the world. And in getting caught up in that, they lose sight or don't pay as much attention to the metrics, the results, the KPIs. But in my study of the Bible project and everything y'all are doing,

it seems as though you have found this sweet spot where you have clearly not lost sight of your long-term vision, mission, purpose, and dream. And at the same time, that absolutely speaks. speaks into the actions that the team members are doing every day. So can you speak to how you keep the relationship between those two things, vibrant, within your team and within your office? Oh, yeah. As a passion of mine, they're probably sick of hearing it here at the Bible Project, but we do not refer to ourselves as a nonprofit.

We refer to ourselves as a nonprofit business. Because the difference between a nonprofit business and a for-profit business is the for-profit pays tax, I don't. Non-profit is a tax status. It's not a business strategy. And so, and I think there's something about the fact that a number of the senior leader folks of the Bible project all have had marketplace experience and understand that, have marketplace experience and have worked in both the for-profit and the nonprofit side. Actually, I worked for some for-profits that actually should have been nonprofits or were by default. But I think the important thing, constantly reminding the team is that all is ministry. For profit doesn't mean it's not ministry and nonprofit doesn't mean

it is. It's all ministry. And so if it's all ministry, what are we focused on? It's our mission. How are we going to accomplish that? The metrics have to play a part of that for us to deliver value to our patrons and to all of society. We've got to run like a business. And that isn't in opposition to our mission, we'll be able to help achieve our mission and accomplish our mission by being great stewards of the resources and looking and making sure we're getting a great return on our investment and how much of every dollar is being spent to make and share a video and we don't want any of those ratios to get out of whack. And so I look at this every day like a business and that's a positive thing for me. That's right. I love that. Non-profit is a

tax status. I think lots of people are kind of envying your ability to not pay taxes and still do the work like a business right now, Steve. But the thing that's interesting is as things grow, the difference is where we're measuring success in a different way. Obviously, there's times where the for-profit side you can achieve financial reward. I just have the pleasure of working with a group of people who get excited about rewards beyond just financial rewards. And so when we see just today our Spanish YouTube channel grew to 300,000 subscribers, those are things that we celebrate and get excited about. Yeah, no kidding.

Holy cow. Congratulations for that. I read earlier today that y'all are, I think, broadcasting in over 21 different languages. That's just remarkable. The work y'all are doing is really, really. I believe it's transformative. I believe it's remarkable. I believe it's unique as well.

I'd like to know, so you are so crystal clear on that mission of helping people experience the Bible as a unified story that articulates what Jesus Christ did here on Earth. How do you go from that mission and start to make that into tangible actions that people can latch on to? Because I think Dave always teaches us you can start with a dream, but you can't just stay with a dream. So how do you go from that dream level and that mission level and bring that into the day to day? It is a fairly, I think it's fairly simple for us because we have 150 videos in our library. One of the things we knew we wanted to complete was a overview for every book of the Bible. And so it's pretty simple to look at, okay, hey, here's who we are, here's what we do, what is the rhythm that we want to do this. We have a season where we're producing videos from September.

through June, not unlike think about a season for a television show and we release a video about every three weeks. So you have scripts that need to be written, then needs to go through design, storyboarding, and at any one time might have five different videos in production. And so we have a list of videos we're going to release that year. We have the teams that are working on those. We then, once the videos released, you have the team that is sharing this across all the social media platforms. You have the team that's localizing it. We don't call them translations. We call them localization for the 23 different languages that are current land of production or libraries that are already completed. And then you have the folks that are kind of the operation sides that are

carrying on all of their processes, whether it's bookkeeping or office administration. And it's all in this cadence to move from where we start in September to complete that season in June. And all for this mission. I feel like if you asked anyone in our organization, what is the mission? It's to help people experience the Bible as a unified story that leads to Jesus. And whether it's a video or a podcast or a printed material, we have a few quarterly productions we put out. Everything is focusing on that towards that goal. And people see what's expected of them and they have the tools to get that done and to achieve our goal.

So you're saying if I walked into the office today and talk to any other, of your team members and ask them what is the mission of the Bible project, they would be able to give me that statement right off the bat? I'd be surprised if they couldn't. It would be at least a very close representation. Yeah, yeah, but they clearly know the mission. So can you speak to the value of the fact that everyone not only has a clear understanding of the mission, but it's consistent? Because what we see a lot of times is we'll walk into organizations and people have a general idea, but they're all using different words and different language to describe it?

Yeah, I think it's people on the team get it, especially like the animators and illustrators. We have 14 people that are on that team that take the scripts that Tim and John make and give them life that you see when you watch one of our videos. And I believe they all understand that part of the mission. We have submissions or sub-values within organizations. So if you went to our audience engagement team, and I said, hey, what's your guy's mission? They would probably go directly to theirs, which is caring for patrons, which means this is a group of people that you love. I don't like using words like donor retention because who wants to be retained?

If I want to go, I want to go. But I want to be a part of a relationship where I can't imagine leaving this group. And that's why we want to care and love for our patrons. One, because we believe that you're supposed to care for everything you've been going. given and they give to us and we want to care for them. And so, but if I said, okay, well, why do we care for patrons? I believe they would then ramp up and say, because we want everyone to experience the Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus. That's pretty powerful. And I think it's amazing to see how y'all have, I mean, I know it's work. You have done the work to connect that mission to

everyone's individual role and the people on the team know that. What does goal setting look like in the organization with regards to the metrics you are watching and viewership and how the organization is growing and moving forward with regard to the results that matter to you. Back in 2015, we went through a process called the Stratop. Tom Patterson developed this. Patterson was a contemporary of Drucker. A consultant by the name of Doug Slabaw came and led our group through this process, and it was powerful.

I felt like we had a lot of ideas in our heads and things that we wanted to do and accomplish. What this strat-up did was allow us to focus and really became our North Star. It's a two-and-a-half-day process. They walked through. We ended up with like 26 flip charts. But any of those exercises are only as good as your willingness to engage with it on a regular basis. And so we, I was on the board at that time, but the leadership team embraced this. And it became a tool that we used.

We then would meet every six months and refresh it so that it was active. has, you know, everything, risk pyramid and a five-year vision on where you want to be in five years, and then what are we going to need to do this year to accomplish it? It's like, what do they say? People tend to underestimate what they can accomplish in five years and overestimate what they can accomplish in a year. And so how do we look and say, okay, what's realistic? What are we going to do? And how do we create the win teams to accomplish that? And it's having the discipline to sit down and go through that process. So that rhythm of doing a stratop, then the refresh every six months has been so valuable

for us as an organization. Another discipline that we have that is integral to this goal setting, and it came out of the stratup as this fountain of youth exercise. When you work with a lot of creatives, there's no end of good ideas. And when you're a guy that looks at the numbers all the time, it's easy to say, it's not a great idea, put that away. And you don't want to stifle that creativity. So the idea is if you have a great idea and something you want to do, write it down on a list.

And then the leadership team gathers every three months. And we go through a fountain of youth exercise where we look at it. And we say, is the opportunity high, low? Where's the risk? Is it high? Is it low? What will this help? Will this help us accomplish our mission?

And we decide if we're going to pivot, go a new direction, look at a new product. But we have an exercise so that ideas don't just come in through the cat door where you kind of wonder, why are we doing this? How did this get here? You just have the discipline to look at opportunities through that lens to say, does this fit with our mission? Is it consistent with where we want to go? Is it going to help us get there faster? And a friend said to me over and over again, it's better, faster, cheaper. And you don't have to pick one of those three. As business owners, we're constantly thinking, how can we do this better? How can we do this cheaper, less expensive? and how can we do it faster?

And it's like there's great times that the Fountain of Youth exercise might come through, an idea might come through the Fountain of Youth exercise and it moves up and becomes an initiative or something we're going to work on. Every one of our managers meets with their direct reports. They have goals for the year. We often tie our goals to the values of the organization.

We look at that. We think, too, we don't want every goal to be just singularly focused on your role. in the organization, but we look at our values of creativity, real, thoughtful, collaborative, and generous. We encourage people to think of some goals that they have personally outside of their role at the Bible Project because we know not everybody's going to work for us for their entire life.

And if they're not leaving having worked for us as better people, then we're missing something. And so when we look at our goals and our values, they all kind of, they come together and we're as a leadership team constantly refreshing what that looks like. There's a lot in there that I want to hit on because I think you just dropped a lot of gold. But I want to go back to that strad up because it sounds like that was a pretty pivotal moment for the organization and for the board and for the leadership team. Is that fair to say? Yeah, it was. I mean, I think we oftentimes go back and say, remember that time in 15 where we got together and we were able to put all of us down.

And then it becomes a framework on how. you think, you're talking about things like who's your customer. And focusing on that and you're going through the risk pyramid is such an important thing to understand. And then deciding what's important now, what are you going to focus on? Those kind of exercises. Was that at that time the most strategic and focused and discipline that team had gotten about the future of the business or the future of the nonprofit. Oh yeah, absolutely. Okay. What was the greatest lesson that you took from that two-day stradop that you still focus on or have retained today, Steve? I think just the significance of the process, the leadership team pulling away for two and a half days and working through and having some

some hard discussions. And then as a group reaching consensus and fighting for that together so that it's not like if you have disagreement. We do not want to be an organization that tolerates the, hey, we're going to agree to disagree on this one. It's like, no, we're going to disagree and then we're going to commit. And so what does it look like to do that? So when we do our refresh this coming June, or July, I think it is, we'll be away for two and a half days and go through the entire stratop, the 26-page document, and scrub it and look at it and make sure is this still what we're about.

We have 20-25 vision in there in terms of the number of views we want to have on all of our different platforms, the number of languages that we want to have. And we will look at that and say, is this still where we want to go? What we believe that we're being called to do. And then are we doing things today to get us there? Just off the top of your head, is there any way you could share any of those viewership goals or some of those specific metrics about where you want to be in 2025? I wish I could remember all of those up the top of my head. I know this one that we had as a five-year goal when we were together in 2015 for total YouTube views. Our five-year goal we hit in two and a half years.

And so the growth has just been hockey stick kind of growth. But we're looking at, and I think we're on track to do, the one that jumps out, the 2025 goal would be to have 5,000 videos localized into the top 50 languages in the world, which covers about 80% of the people on the planet. have a Bible project video they could see. And it threw a valuable significant. I can't, I can't overstate how valuable this relationship is with the folks at you version, the Bible app. If you know the Bible app, 400 million downloads, it's probably on your phone. Oh, it absolutely is. Yeah. And Craig Rochelle has been on this podcast before, and I know the Bible app. And so has Bobby Gruenwald, who created a Bible app. So yeah, they've been on this as well. So they have our videos on there.

There's a little explore navigate button up in the top left-hand side. And if you're in the book of Amos and you hit that little explore button, one of our videos pops up. And their ethos is to give everything away, same as ours. And they take us with them everywhere they go. So when we get it localized into French, they take it with, and it's there and their translation. And so we're so grateful for those guys, and we celebrate that. So hopefully, I think actually I would believe ahead of schedule will have 5,000 localized videos. That's just remarkable.

Man, I'm blown away by the level of intentionality around the metrics that you're following. And one of the things that we coach business leaders on all the time here at Entree leadership, and it's a practice that we follow is that Jim Collins BHag term, right, big, hairy, audacious goal. And he talks all the time about you have to have a three to five year goal that is 50 to 70% achievable. And it sounds like that's what y'all have done. I would assume that because you have those clear metrics that really answer the question, this is where we are going and this is what winning looks like. I would imagine what that gives your team as focus. Is that an accurate assessment?

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. And I think it's so interesting when you work with a bunch of creatives and artists. I walk through that part of the studio. Every day I do a lap through there. But I'm not somebody that can draw. I let those people do that. I focus over with the audience engagement people that we have all the data and we can look and see

we're getting a 440,000 average daily views and I ask those questions often. So that means our videos are being viewed 440,000 times. And what's interesting is we count a view is when somebody views it. But oftentimes when a pastor shows it at his church, that would count as one view. But there might be 500, 1,500, 2,000 people in the audience. And so that when I say 440,000 average daily views, that's just a click on YouTube or on a new version. And what's beautiful about a digital business is you can look and measure those numbers.

And so we look at everything. We look at how long people stay on videos and all of that stuff. Just to say there is this burning passion. We accomplish our mission when eyeballs or ears come in contact with our content. So we look at our download numbers, our 1.25 million downloads a month on our podcast. And that's an hour-long podcast. It blows me away that people will hang in there for an hour and listen to a couple of guys talk about the Bible.

But God's doing some amazing stuff because it is. It's one of those things you look at and you think, you go and you do your best. You leave it all out on the field. But at the end of the day, there's a part where there's some mystery and wonder to this because I can't explain why at a Portland, Oregon, a nonprofit animation studio is putting stuff out on the Bible and people are following it.

Dave always tells us that accent. work like it depends on you, pray like it depends on God. And man, it sounds like that's absolutely the method that y'all are following there and the principle that you are operating by, which is, it's inspiring. Another thing that you spoke about earlier with regard to the team is that it is a team that is made up of a lot of very creative people and some of them are truly artists. And at the same time, you've been brought in for the deliberate purpose of bringing operations. and systems and processes to this fast-growing organization, how do you make sure that in the process of introducing system and discipline into this team, you don't stifle the creative energy that got it to where it is?

I understand my lane in what it is I'm supposed to do. And I also, I think John Collins, who was the creative side, Tim's the the theologian, John's the creative, had the agency. In fact, we just had lunch before this, before you. You and I are talking and absolutely lean on John for that. I know it's his core competency and what he does. But what I also do is very intentional about engaging with the staff. When I said I go into the artist studio and do a lap every day, I'm not kidding.

I literally do that. I want them to know that I'm there and that I care about what they do and I communicate to them. I'll go to the artists will get together once a month. I go to those meetings. I want those people to know that I love them and I care for them and that they're the heart and soul of what we do, and then intentionally ask them. I've started a rhythm of taking one of them out to lunch a month

or having lunch with one of them, just to get to know them. We're completely different. And I said to one of our animators last month, I said, oh, I said, you're so creative. I am not creative like you are. And she said, stop it. You don't draw, but you're very creative.

And it's been fun to just engage it. So I think it's engaging with them relationally. And then it's hanging out with our director of operations and our finance director and the leader of the audience engagement team and our web tech guy. And that's where we can come together and focus on more of those disciplines that are easier for me than it is necessarily leading the team. But it's making sure and letting the creatives know you're going to work on the numbers and you want them to be freed up to do it because creatives can't be creative when they're anxious. So it's really our job is to take care of business and let them do their thing. And that ties back exactly to what you said your core responsibility was. You said you were going to create the environment in which the people you employ can do what they are there to do.

And that's what you're doing. I love that. Okay. So in such a creative-oriented organization, there is a high degree of freedom and a high degree of artistic expression. and at the same time, by watching one of y'all's videos, it is very clear that y'all have a very specific way of doing things, a very specific standard, and a very specific level of quality that you are always looking for.

So how do you allow for that creative expression while simultaneously enforcing those high standards and making sure that the people on the team know there is a certain way that we do things here? The beauty of that from the creative side, is of the 14 people that are animators, illustrators, there's been absolutely zero turnover, period. And I think that is really our art director has been with us since the very beginning, I think, was the first actual employee of the Bible project. I am astounded by what you are saying right now. That team has existed for how long?

Well, our first video came out in 14. And so some of them there were contractors. They haven't all been employees. But that group of people has stayed intact. And it's unheard of, but I think it speaks to what the organization that John built, when I say he was an unconscious competent, he would often say, well, I'm not a businessman. It's like, John, you are, you are a businessman. And you've built in a great organization. I think they work together, such a team. If you look at our read scripture series, which are the book overviews, it's like if you look at the back book of Matthew, there was one artist that did about 80% of those, and then two or three other artists that did the balance of them. But if you looked at them, you would assume the same person, did it. And they all work together so well as a team, they begin to copy each other where Everett will do 80% of them, but he really follows Mack's style. So when Mac does a couple of them, it looks like Everett's done them. And they all work together so well, and they're such a team.

And I was mentored in business by a guy who really told me that our job as business owners or business executives is to love your employees. And so when you care for people and love them, I feel like they fall in line and they focus and they do those things that you're talking about. Like, how do you institute those disciplines? Well, they're a team that's worked together since 2014. And they're not looking to get away. And too, it's a little different in that community. It's more typical for artists, designers to be contractors. And I think we really wanted them to be once, you know, at the right time, we wanted them to be employees so that they could come in and we could care for them. You could have things like benefits, which isn't always the case.

That's right. And I've read through y'all's benefits on your career page and what y'all provide your team members with and certainly their families with is remarkable. It is almost, like you said, unheard of to find any team of people that has zero turnover over the course of six years in any industry or line of work. but to have a team of creative individuals who are constantly having new ideas and constantly pursuing new things and always thinking about the next opportunity and to have those people so unified around a mission that they're working together. That is pretty remarkable. Is there anything else that you think has created the environment where people are so drawn to stay that they can't even think about leaving? Well, and I want to be clear, we've had a, you know, in the other part of the organization and the operations, side. We've had a couple of people transition out, but I'm talking about that animation studio, those 14 that have stayed. But overall, the numbers are still remarkably low. And I think,

again, it's the culture of the organization, and we focus on that. We have a little group of people that get together on a regular basis to talk about our culture. And there's things I think that we do to intentionally let our team know that we care about them. We do lunches together every Monday, where we have a local restaurant cater lunch and we bring it in and we share a meal together on what is maybe not some people's favorite day of the week. And so to start every Monday off eating lunch together is a great thing. We do what we call family dinner nights the last Thursday of every month where we serve dinner to everybody and you can bring your spouse and your family, your kids in.

And it really is. Last time there was probably 80 or 90 people in our space. and it's trying to incorporate. We'll show the last couple of Thursdays we've shown the videos that we've released since the families were all there last. And we try and create this environment. I wrestle with that idea of where people will say, oh, we're just a giant family here.

And I don't necessarily love that analogy because you can't let go from a family. But I love the idea of a team because there's times where the needs of a team change. And that's where you might need to make a change within the organization. So we do everything we can to love our team and care for them. And as a businessman, I would look at things like Monday lunches and you could say, okay, well, how do you justify spending that money or the Thursday, you know, the last Thursday dinner? How do you justify spending that money?

And all I have to do is just look at the turnover rate. Turnover is so expensive. And if you can get the right people on your team and care for them and love them. And I can't expect our team to love our patrons if they're not experiencing the love from us. And so I believe that that's what keeps the team there. And just maybe the most important thing is that idea of clearly understanding what's expected of them and making sure they have the tools to accomplish that.

Because that leads to a high level of job satisfaction. And then all these other things are just like, ah. And in fact, one person said it, well, you know, you're spoiling me. I don't know if I could ever go work anywhere else because I haven't been cared for like this. That's a high compliment. receive from a team member. You establish that you are very intentional about clarifying expectations for a role. What format does that take place in? Is it a job description? Is it a KRA? Or what format

does that look like for your organization? Again, because we have this schedule, we're going to release videos. People know, you know, if we're going to release it two weeks from Tuesday, that didn't move it. And we announced it. It's on social media. And so we have these hard targets they have to do. And that schedule really drives everything. We have a huge board that has all of the things that we're doing on a big whiteboard. It's two or three panels wide. And it has every project we're working on. And they call it the scrum board.

So you look at that and you know this is when this is going live. And if my fingerprints are on this one, I need to make sure that I have my stuff done in order to deliver on this. And so it's really timelines make great hammers. Because you know that they're just right there and what's coming. And so it's not, hey, we'll get around to doing that when we get around to doing it. We've got a video that's being released. And so there's a clear expectation on what your job is. If you're the social media person, you've got to be communicating to the audience that a video is coming out in two days.

And you can't miss that by two days where you mess up the whole thing. So we're putting on a show and everybody has a part. Related to that at the beginning of our conversation, you highlighted the fact that one-on-one meetings, are part of your schedule and it sounds like part of the organization. How does that work? Are people meeting with the leader that they directly report to or how is that structured and what is the frequency of one-on-one communication? I would say at the director and manager level, those are happening on a weekly basis for the most part. We have a senior leadership meeting where I'm meeting with the head of operations and the chief financial officer. Those happen where I'm with them.

But I still every other week meet with my guys individually, and that's more about their agenda. Hey, is there anything going on? Is there anything I can help you with? Anything you're wrestling with? As an organization, just to have encouraged that the report gets the opportunity to set the agenda for a one-on-one so that they can clearly articulate what's going on. Teams meet weekly talking about what needs to be done and needs to be accomplished. And so fairly open communication throughout the organization and kind of an easy flow. The one-on-one culture, most of my time in the marketplace was years ago, wasn't part of the culture then.

So it's a new phenomena for me. But I appreciate it. And I really appreciate the idea of being able to sit down, had one this morning with an individual from 11 to 1130. And she said, what did you want to talk about? And I said, how can I serve you? And it was kind of that head tilter for her. And she said, is this how this works? And I said, absolutely.

What is it that's getting in your way from accomplishing the task before you? And she's intimately involved with the patron care and just wanted her to know that that's what I really see my job is blocking and tackling. I think a lot of business owners could listen to, number one, the way your office is laid out. You said it's a very open office space. and then listen to the fact that you have team meetings, and then listen to the fact that you have these lunches, and then listen to the fact that you have these team dinners and the family gets invited,

and they just think like, okay, you need one-on-one meetings on top of all that? Aren't you all talking enough already? So can you describe the unique value that you have seen come out of one-on-one conversations? Because we follow the exact same rhythm here. We do one-on-one meetings every single week here, but I'd love to hear from your perspective,

what is the unique value that you can only get from a one-on-one conversation with your team? Well, I think, you know, the opportunity to drill down and see. There's that, there's kind of the work side of things where, hey, how's everything going? Anything you need to know. I tend to just keep little notes where I'm going to sit down with Alex and Alex. Hey, there was a couple things that came to mind. But I want to hear first, before I talk about these, what's going on in your role,

then talk about the other work stuff. But we don't live life in compartments. We're whole people. So I think you also are opening the door to say, hey, how is it? everything else going. So if I can get a little context, if maybe you haven't been on top of your game, but I find out that there's something going on at home or your parents are ill or whatever it is, I think the beauty of a one-on-one that you're not going to get oftentimes is that time alone where you're sitting quietly listening and you get some context into what's going on in

somebody's life beyond just their specific role. And I think that's invaluable because we're a whole people. We're not compartments. It's not just my relationship with you for the eight hours you're here it's about so much more than that so I don't think I don't pry but I want to give the opportunity for that kind of space to see what's going on also to hear about what they're dreaming about a lot of times if you have some folks that are just starting out and to ask them what's your dream job because no one they probably don't want to just be answering the phone the rest of their life in fact I often will say that to the TSA screener when I go by because I just want to acknowledge

that I know he doesn't probably love his job. And it's like, hey, if you weren't doing this, what would you like to do? And they look at me and they kind of smile oftentimes because it's like, wow, somebody's asking me a question. But I don't know anybody grows up and wants to ask people for their license five hundred times a day. And so I think it's the value of what you get out of a one-on-one is that opportunity for somebody to share with you. Not only what's going on at work, but if there's something outside to share about. I talked to a business owner just the other day that had started initiating one-on-ones in his organization. And the question that he asked was, he said, I've started doing them.

And he said, I can see the value in it for sure. But he said, there's some reserved individuals on my team that I want to make sure they feel safe and they feel open. And they know that they can talk about the context of what's going on at home. Everything you're talking about, Steve. The question he asked was, what are some ways that I can make sure they really feel safe? and that reserved individual starts to actually open up in these conversations and starts to come bringing stuff to the conversation so that I can better serve them. For me, the first thing that came to mind is just time.

It's trust. I will open up with people I trust. And I often like to mix it up where I'll say, hey, we're close in downtown Portland. I'll say, hey, let's go for a walk. Let's go grab a cup of coffee. And there's something too about when you're sitting across, I mean, we've got a great space, but there's something about if I'm sitting across the table from you or sitting on the other side of a desk, that that can feel intimidating. But if you're going for a walk and you're standing side by side and just opening up and asking those questions where somebody isn't going to give you a yes or no answer and where they are the genius of the answer, like they're the expert. So when you ask somebody, hey, when you're not thinking about working, you're just daydreaming, what do you daydream about?

You're the expert to that question. And I just want to get to know you is what I'm interested in. And sometimes, I mean, I just think it takes time, but it's not always about getting the answer as much as it is asking the question or creating the environment for that. Because when you ask me a question about myself, I know you care. That's right. Okay. well, then I'm in a transition to asking you a couple questions about yourself, Steve. What is your favorite part of what you currently get to do with the Bible project? As I mentioned earlier, I was on the

staff with generous giving for about five years and still very passionate about the biblical message of generosity and sharing that and love that organization. But when John and I started talking about this, I thought, I'm entering what some would say is the fourth quarter of my vocational career. My wife doesn't like when I say that, but it's true. And I think, I'm a lot of it. And I think, think there's two paths people can take there's one is when you reach that beginning of the fourth quarters you can set your glide path and say okay where when am i going to bring this thing in for a landing and what is that going to look like and i didn't i wasn't feeling called to do that and i felt like what i wanted to do in my life vocationally was pulled back on the yoke and and just point it straight

up and and and when this thing runs out of gas hit the ejector and in parachute down to earth i didn't want to bring it in for a safe landing. And so when John was talking, I thought, you know what, this is it. The Bible project for me, from the moment I saw the first 90 seconds of that first video, I thought this thing is a game changer. Because the way Tim and John worked together, they're opening up the scripture to a way where I grew up going to church every day. And I watched some of these videos, and I scratched my head, and I think, I had no idea that that's what Matthew was saying when he wrote this book and I feel like it is drawing me closer to Jesus. So the thing I love most is I do believe all work is honorable, but I believe this side of heaven, there's very few of us to get the

opportunity to see the impact of the work that they're involved in. So if you're selling big pens at the drugstore and you're working hard, there's honor in that work. But I don't know that you ever get to see how impactful that is to the world, this side of heaven, because I trust there's impact. But I feel like every single day I get to see the steady stream of email and from people saying, thank you for what you're doing. This has made such a difference in my life. So I don't know how many people get the pleasure of working on something that's changing them while it's changing so many people in the world. And it's not lost on me. Every day I get up and I start each day writing the things that I'm grateful for. I've been doing it since the middle of October

because I just felt convicted that I wasn't articulating how grateful I am. Started this in every day on that list as I'm thanking God for the Bible project and the opportunity to be here. Because who gets to do this? I mean, this is an amazing thing. And we have, as an indication that we have 14,000 monthly reoccurring patrons. That's an amazing number to me. And there isn't anybody that supports the Bible project that hasn't watched the video. there's nobody just randomly sending us a check people don't send checks anymore but there's we've got this

amazing feedback loop of people that are being impacted by this work yeah and that to me is what oh that's the most satisfying thing uh to be able to just do my small part in a thing that is impacting so many people if you could recommend one of the bible project videos that the people listening in this podcast watch which one would you say That is a tough question. You know, I would say there's, it's a very interesting style. It's kind of more of a back of the napkin doodle. But the heaven and earth video, I think, is absolutely one of my favorite because it just helps put the whole story into context about the union of heaven and earth.

And when I say back of it, you're going to look at it and think, why is this guy talking about art so much? Because it's not a super artistic style. but if you want artistic style, you can look at our most recent video called Tree of Life. But if you look at heaven and earth, that is a great video. Any of those theme videos, frankly, I think are just amazing. Oh, my word. Yeah, we'll put the link to everything we've mentioned in the show notes as well. Right before I got on with you, I was watching the Wisdom Series 2,

and it goes through Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job. Steve, I was blown away by the fact that the most viewed video on your channel is the Book of Job. I was floored by that. And I think that there's a lot that we can learn about human nature by watching that. But I would recommend to everyone that's listening to this podcast, go watch that wisdom series. We'll put the link to that in the show notes as well. Yeah, that's good. That's good.

I jokingly say that I think it, because Google will serve up stuff to people. Google and YouTube recommend our videos to people. And I was convinced when Job started getting the numbers that they didn't understand the difference between Job and Job. And people were looking for a job. and they were serving them up the Job video. But it's, I mean, it is the most watched. But that is a beautiful, that is, I'm glad you mentioned that. Because I think that Ecclesiastes, too, is some great art with the smoke and the, you know.

Oh, my word. And Job has 4.8 million views and it is a story of suffering and trust and faith. I just, oh. And I love that you brought up that topic of the feedback loop because I felt like it would be fitting as I was looking through some of your videos. and scrolling through the comments, I felt like the most fitting way to really give people the context of what y'all do and the impact that it's making would be to read some of these. And this truly did not take much time to find these comments. This is how prevalent they are.

Some of these videos have upwards of 14,000 comments. But Charles says that I am a young Christian and I don't really read my Bible that much because I'm really addicted to my phone, at least he's honest, and social media. but after discovering your channel, I've been motivated to pick up my Bible and actually spend time reading it. Thank you for sharing your knowledge of the Bible with the world. Someone else said, not Christian, but I saw the beautiful art, and as an animation student, I couldn't help but watch. It's a beautifully animated and voiceover video, interesting insight as well. Mark said, I'm an ex-Muslim, accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior a year ago.

This channel helped me a lot in the beginning of my journey to learn about Jesus and the Bible. I hope you translate these videos into Arabic. They will soon be useful to millions of people. Please contact me. Someone else said, you guys are the best thing that has ever happened to YouTube. And then I think this one may have been my favorite. It said, so I'm not the most religious human being in the world. I don't pray to anything and I don't attend mass.

But that made it all the more interesting to me. So far, I've really only been looking up specific stories in the Bible. But now that I'm older, I'm tempted to actually read the Bible. page by page. It's thanks to your videos that I've actually gained the motivation to do this. The beautiful animation helps too. When you hear those comments and like I said, millions of viewers, 1.8 million subscribers, over 20 different languages, when you think about the context of the impact of the work that you and your team are doing, how does that strike you, Steve? I feel blessed.

I feel, if I think about it too long, frankly, it scares me. And I don't know if I want to get out of bed at the morning because that is overwhelming when you think of all that. But I would say 90% of the time, all the time, I'm just so energized and so excited about this. And I talk with our animators and illustrators about the impact that they're having and how many people are viewing their art. And I walk through the different teams and constantly trying to remind them of the different. that they're making. And I will often say, it is a great day at the Bible project. And when you read comments like you just read, I think if you're not having a great day at the Bible project, it's your fault because we have every reason in the world to be excited about this. And that's where I,

yeah, I just get overjoyed. I was with a friend of mine who's an Apple engineer. And he said, we were having lunch down in Cupertino. And I just told him how to do that. I just told him, I just felt so fortunate like God has given me a front row seat to this amazing thing he's doing. And he said, stop saying that. He goes, because you're discounting your role. He said, God wants you there and he put you there. And I think that's what every business owner is, we just encourage them to realize that they are right there. They didn't happen into this spot, but they are there in this place and can have amazing impact in what they're doing.

And it's a reminder to this call of stewarding this place that I'm at and what God has called me to at this moment and living into that. And so I feel most blessed to be a part of this thing. And it is a good day at the Bible project. Well, Steve, I can tell you personally, but then also on behalf of our entire audience and team, we're grateful for your perspective. We're grateful for your insight. We're grateful for your leadership. and we are so beyond inspired by and grateful for the work that y'all are doing and the impact that it's making truly around the world. So thanks so much for your time.

Well, thank you. Appreciate it. It's my pleasure. There's so much that Steve and the entire team at the Bible Project do so well. There is a reason why their videos have over 100 million views. And I watched a lot of them in preparation for that conversation. And I'll tell you, my favorite is the one that they made on the book of a clemen. If you know anything about that book, it will rock your world and shake you to the core.

Honestly, regardless of what you believe, it's so powerful. And their team did such an incredible job of capturing the principles in that story in a incredibly compelling way. So we're going to put the link to that specific video in the show notes of this episode. Go check it out. Steve and his team are also incredibly generous. They gave our team a handful of the Bible Project's coffee table books. These things are really, really cool. I've got one at my house, and the book goes through the entire Bible and gives you descriptions

on the context and the background of every single book. But then there's also illustrated summaries that look a lot like what you're going to see in the Bible Project's videos. It is so cool. And so here's what we're going to do. You can click the link that's in the show notes of this episode if you want to get one of those books, but we also wanted to give one away to someone that fills a little. out the survey for this episode. So we're going to put the link to the survey for today's episode of

the podcast in the show notes. Click that, fill it out, and that feedback really helps us. Like, we really want to know, what do you think we can make better? Who do you want to hear on the podcast? What do you really value about this podcast that you want to see more of moving forward? We read that every single week, and it's really helpful. So if you put that in specifically for this episode, you're going to be entered to win the Bible Project's Coffee Tablebook. And we really really value your feedback. And also, I want to make sure that you know that one of the resources that we offer business owners is a business health assessment because we know here at Entree leadership that winning a business, it never happens on accident. It always happens when a leader

gets intentional about focusing on six key areas. And those key areas are your personal leadership, your purpose, your people, your plan, your product, and your profit. And that's why we created an assessment that will show you your strengths and weaknesses in these six areas. So if you want to take the business health assessment, text the word progress to 33444. Again, that's the word progress to 33444, and we'll send you the link to the assessment. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Entree Leadership podcast. If you did, please give us a five-star review and tell your friends to subscribe. For a chance to win the Bible Project's coffee table book, you can review this.

episode by clicking the link that's in the show notes. And be sure to follow us on social media at Entree Leadership. This episode was produced by Tim Hull and it was edited and mixed by Will Rutter. I'm Alex Judd and on behalf of the entire Entree Leadership team. Thanks for listening. We'll talk with you again very soon. If you enjoy this podcast, you should check out other great podcasts from the Ramsey Network like the Ken Coleman Show. Are you doing what you were born to do? I'm Ken Coleman, host of the Ken Coleman Show, where I give you practical advice. advice to help you discover your purpose and then map out a plan to get you there from accounting to advertising from plumbing to production you were created to fill a unique role and the world

needs what you have to offer join me on the ken coleman show wherever you listen to podcasts