Talking Professionalism with David Hatmaker

[00:00:06] This is the Tech Arts Podcast, where we talk about tech, leadership, and all things that concern church audio, video, and lighting. Welcome to the Tech Arts Podcast and the Earthworks Audio Studios. My name is DL. So glad to have you joining us today. Coming up on the Tech Arts Podcast is a discussion with Dave Hatmaker on professionalism.

[00:00:28] Dave has worked with Vice President Dan Quayle, Neil Armstrong, Bob Iger, Gloria Estefan, Shakira, Martina McBride, New Kids on the Block, and many other artists. He has also worked for Walt Disney and is a former member of the Yamaha Global Research and Development Team. We talk about what it means to serve, what's the difference between a manager and a leader, why professionalism is important,

[00:00:50] and we chat about compromise and how learning this is very important to having a great service or show. It's a very interesting interview and you don't want to miss it. Our main sponsor is Digital Great Commission Ministries. Whether you need help building a team, finding the right gear, or just better understanding the church tech world, DGCM is here for you.

[00:01:15] Because they are a 501c3 donor-sponsored organization, they come to your church for free and do an assessment of your tech, visitor engagement, and online streaming. Plus, we give away free gear. Be sure to go to audiovideolighting.com and register your email today. This will sign you up for all of the free giveaways and give you first access to everything we offer for free.

[00:01:42] If you want free resources, training, or consulting, contact Digital Great Commission Ministries today by going to audiovideolighting.com. That's audiovideolighting.com. Today's guest is a 30-plus year professional audio vet with a diverse background in live sound mixing, product development, sound design, and industry education.

[00:02:11] He has worked with the likes of Vice President Dan Quill, Neil Armstrong, Bob Iger, Gloria Estefan, Shakira, Martina McBride, New Kids on the Block, and many other artists. Wow. But hey, that's not all. He was a seasoned sound designer for Walt Disney, a former member of Yamaha's global research and development team, we got some questions for that one, as well as a featured panelist at AES and NAM.

[00:02:40] Please welcome to the Tech Arts Podcast, Dave Hatmaker. Hey, Dave. Wow. Thanks, David, for that really, really awesome lead-in. Wow. Man, your bio is exhausting in a good way, though. So many cool jobs and so little time, right? You're only, what, 35 years old? Right. Yep. Just turned 40. That's right. That's right. But give us, you know, I kind of, I flew through that pretty quick. New Kids on the Block stumble.

[00:03:09] I stumbled on New Kids on the Block a little bit. I can't believe you worked with New Kids on the Block, man. I remember listening to them like over and over. Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah. Front of House engineer or were you a part of, okay, Front of House? Did you go on their tour? No. They came into Disneyland. Oh, cool. Yeah. My, I started a small sound company with my brother and we did regional stuff around Southern California.

[00:03:35] And I went to school to be a drummer, which I shout out to my parents that got me through that. I have a Bachelor of Arts in Percussion Performance. How are you going to make a living at that, right? But out of school, I started into theme parks and I went to Knott's Berry Farm for a bit, which is a theme park out here. I got my first kind of corporate church gig at Crystal Cathedral out here. And then while I was at Crystal Cathedral, I'd heard some people talking about that Disneyland was hiring technicians.

[00:04:03] Well, I was already an audio guy and I went there, had a brief interview. I knew two or three of the people that were on the panel that were doing the hiring. And I got hired and bam, I was off to the races with these crazy headline talent things and how Disney did entertainment. And so we used to say, we got acts going up and we got acts going down.

[00:04:28] So we caught like new kids on the block just as they were, they had maybe two or three hits, but the contract had been done like eight months before that. So away they come and we get their writer and we do eight nights of new kids on the block and then they hit, you know, platinum. Yeah, man. That sounds like a lot of fun being able to sit behind the console for those guys. All right. So that was a few years ago. What console did you mix on for new kids on the block?

[00:04:56] I used a PM 3000. Analog baby. Yeah. It had just changed out of, it was, there was a time where there was a PM 2000 and there was an M 30 208 or there was an M class. We didn't have a PM 2000 there. We had an M and it went to PM 3000 when I took over that venue. So part of your background there was working for Yamaha.

[00:05:25] Tell us a little bit about that and, and, and that experience. Cause I know a lot of great consoles came from your mind with some of your product development and things of that nature. Kind of tell our audience a little bit about that experience. Yeah. They, um, through the Disney stuff and through some being in close geographic area, just a point of park to Anaheim is, is maybe 10 miles away. Um, I got to know all the people at Yamaha and they'd come over and we'd have lunch or

[00:05:53] whatever and, and they'd see that we, you know, had PM 3000s and 3500s and 4Ks and DM 2000s and a couple of, um, odd things. Um, we were just getting ready to open up a show. It was called Hunchback and it was, um, the director wanted theater in the round and theater around you. So as a crazy designer, I was already thinking of how, how would we do that?

[00:06:18] And one afternoon, um, I got to go up to a point apart cause they had called and said, Hey, we got something that you could look at. And it was an O2R. And on the O2R there was some, you could change some routing to a SIMPT number and you could change some, it had dynamic automation. And I went, can I buy that today? Hey, I'll buy two. Cause I was thinking this will already do what I want it to do.

[00:06:45] And, uh, they go, no, it can't be, it can't be ready yet. Um, so they pushed us off, pushed us off, pushed us off, but they did get it in time. And, um, for that show, I did have the first two O2Rs and that began my kind of, um, synergy with Yamaha of how, how I would ask for a particular feature or they would enable it in firmware or whatever.

[00:07:10] And that went through, um, bits of console development and funny on that show of Hunchback, we had the first 16 U-class UHF Sure units that was being alpha and beta tested there on the, on that show. And we had the first 20 Crest CKS amplifiers at the time. So Hunchback was a proving ground for many people.

[00:07:40] A lot of firsts. It was like, give me all the first pieces of gear. You know, what's cool though is all of them were really, really good pieces of gear though. The O2R, uh, I used it in several theater applications, um, back in the day. Right. Um, and, uh, I don't know if anybody knows what back in the day means. Right. But that means a long time ago. And, uh, the O2R was just amazing how you could lock it to time code and do all like, I would use it to do surround effects and things of that nature. Right.

[00:08:09] We had two, um, Fostex, uh, ADAP machines and one of them had a stripe of SMPTE on it. And the whole show ran, we still mixed all the microphones, but the, uh, the, the track part of the show was, was fully automated and it, you know, hit some magazine articles. And, um, those things actually kind of helped, um, actually push a trajectory of Broadway in a couple of ways. So that started your relationship with Yamaha.

[00:08:37] Did they hire you from Disney? The company was going to, um, build a second theme park in, um, in the Anaheim resort property there for Disneyland. And it was going to be called California Adventure. And in that, um, the leg that does the, um, they build theme parks, WDI, Walt Disney Imagineering. They wanted to put a dark theater in there and it would have been the first dark theater in the whole company.

[00:09:04] So, um, a 2000 seat downright legit theatrical theater. Um, they'd put, um, some programming restrictions on it that they were going to be wanting to at least have two shows mounted to, uh, like Broadway theatrical size shows. They wanted to be able to do cinema in there. And they also wanted to be able to do like awards presentations and then internal events.

[00:09:28] So I had a, I had a, um, vast array of things that I needed the, the, the actual theater to be able to accomplish. And it wasn't quite able to be done with the parts that were available then. So there would have been, uh, maybe, uh, Soundcraft had a Broadway console. I think that was a digital console and there were some homebrew other people that had a digital console.

[00:09:55] Well, Buena park Yamaha guys caught wind of that. And they said, there's something that you really want to see. And so, again, I, I got to see, uh, the PM1D and I said, can I buy them today? No, you can't buy them today. So anyway, we were, uh, they made a deal with us and the, actually the Walt Disney company where that would be an alpha beta test site before we opened, because we, we had such

[00:10:20] a long, um, lead time for it to actually be built before it would have, um, guests in there. So the public would be in there. So it was a great place. We could close the doors. And we actually had some writing on a couple of the walls, the stealth lives here, you know? So we had, we had the first PM1D in there and we were sending them notes almost daily on, um, Oh, we found this, whatever, maybe that's a bug or maybe that's a feature. We don't know how to do that, whatever.

[00:10:50] And they would, they would come almost every day and grab our, our analog notebook and take that back and, uh, and, and refine it as it went. So when it, when that console launched, it was really good, really stable, really great, sounded great, looked great. Um, and from then they would go back to Japan every so often and they would need, they would, they would say that they needed an R and D guy.

[00:11:17] And it took about a year, 16 months that they were coming to me going, we really need an R and D guy. It should be you anyway. So they, they had hunted me away from, uh, Disneyland and I left Disneyland and went right there the first week. I had five days of meetings and then was on a plane to Japan doing R and D for the next gen project. It was pretty great. You just set a console that I have fond memories of, and that's the PM1D.

[00:11:45] Now, obviously the tech arts podcast is sponsored by Digico. They make a great console. It's my favorite console out there. The 338 and some of the consoles that they have are just blowing me away right now. But back, you know, late nineties, early two thousands, when the PM1D came on the scene, that was my console. That's what I mixed on. Uh, I, you know, was coming from the analog world and was kind of a little nervous about

[00:12:11] the whole digital console thing, but I got on the PM1D. I was fast. I was quick on it, which was, you know, my concern, uh, the recall, it never crashed on me. It was the most stable console I had worked. I would say even when console digital console started coming out, I would say Yamaha PM1D was the most stable console. Exactly. So I got to ask you, I got to ask you a question since you went over to Yamaha.

[00:12:38] Why did they let the PM1D die? So I'm going to put my, my Yamaha hat on corporately. And, uh, they, I don't, I don't know that, that it still follows the same, um, corporate rules today, but at the time they would support a prod project or a, or a particular product for X amount of years. Right. And they would be, you'd be able to get a screw or a fader or a knob or a whatever, um,

[00:13:08] throughout its product end of product life. And they would, they would support anybody on whatever that was a Clavinova or a piano or a, uh, whatever Yamaha part that was. And so the PM1D got to the point where they couldn't get some two or three XYZ parts. So they said, well, we have this many, we anticipate there's this many, we have to stop it on this day.

[00:13:36] And they drew a line in the sand and that's what it was. So it was a, it was, they, they couldn't support it on their end for any time after this. Cause we were saying at the time, shoot, just change the pan to an encoder. You know, it was a lot of real estate to just have a pan knob at the time. Right. So just change that to an encoder and change the screen to a touchscreen and continue on. Well, that didn't, that didn't fly. So.

[00:14:05] Well, was there ever a PM2D? Like, were they ever looking at launching a different version of the PM1D or was it just, Hey, we want to go the small console format. And cause those consoles were awesome. The smaller consoles that came out were pretty amazing. Uh, and I know Yamaha probably made a ton of money off of those. Uh, but did they ever think PM2D? Like, I don't even think it's a secret now, but I was, I was brought on to do that next gen console. Right.

[00:14:33] So they had, um, I inherited, so PM1D, I had a, as a third party kind of a evaluator, I had a lot to do. Well, I had input to do with, um, PM5D M7. And I knew that LS9 was coming. And so I inherited LS9. So I helped LS9 along with their version too.

[00:15:00] Um, but I really didn't have development of that because what I was brought on for, and then just slightly after me was Chris Taylor out of Nashville. Um, there was five of us that were building the next gen after PM1D. So you could call it a PM2 or, you know, you could call it a PM next or whatever. Um, PM1D version two, whatever. Right. That console made it very far.

[00:15:28] I'll be careful in corporately of what I can say, but let's say it made it really, really far until they, it came to the point where it couldn't be released for some bunch of XYZ reasons. So quickly we scrambled, we went to Japan. We had five days on our own where R and D went into a small, um, place.

[00:15:57] And we worked Friday, Saturday, Sunday for like 10 hour days in a, in a room with a absolute whiteboard. And we had a digital camera. And over that weekend, we kind of came up for the whole product line and support and, and at least a GUI and a specification list of CL slash then QL. And then, so all the parts, all the thinking and mindset that tried to go into this next PM

[00:16:26] got focused into CL QL. Makes sense, man. Right. Let me, let me change the subject on you a little bit. Kind of staying on consoles here, but as someone who's worked for Yamaha, Disney, mega churches, uh, you know, all consoles on the table, what's your favorite console to work with? Right now it's the, it's the PM five. The PM five. I really like the three screens. I really like that.

[00:16:50] I can bank in, I can, I can, uh, link banks together so I can get 24 things to, to kind of cycle through. So with 24 handles, I can, I can still do a fair amount of great mixing. And then I've got 12 DCAs. That's, that's how I set it up. And so I'm looking at some different data on all three screens and on the right screen, I'm looking at kind of my output, my secret sauce output.

[00:17:18] Comps that kind of flavor. And then over here, I'm being able to dive in and I can look at two things at the same time. I can see my lead singer and I can see my guitar or, you know, whatever, whatever it takes. But, um, it's, it's easy for me to get around on it and mix a hundred channels is not a problem. It just is actually pretty easy. You go, Oh, that's just four layers deep and whatever.

[00:17:48] And I can get, I can get there two ways. Uh, it's, it's not, not even like a kind of a, even a challenge anymore. That's cool. So the Yamaha PM five, that's your favorite, huh? Yes. I, I helped with a lot of the GUI development and where the buttons went and we did, you know, Ray studies and angle studies. And so, yeah, I guess when, when, when your fingerprints are on it, you know, that's the one that you kind of go to. Yeah. When the reason you know it so well is because you built it, right?

[00:18:18] You, you physically like, ah, this is where I want to put everything. And then they made the console for you. And it's a giant team of humans. It's not me. It's not me. It's a giant team of humans. But when you've seen it for five or six years and you say, oh, can that move just right there? You know? So it wasn't just you, Dave, you weren't, you didn't build it from scratch and like build all the diodes and all the circuit boards. It's just a sea of humans working on things. Yeah, it is. That's a fact.

[00:18:45] Well, uh, you know, the reason why we're having you on Dave is we wanted to talk about the subject of professionalism. I know we kind of got into the console thing, which is, is fun to talk about and history there. But, you know, I think this is missing kind of in today's marketplace. Professionalism, how to handle yourself professionally, what on time means. No, it doesn't mean you show up on time. It means you show up early. So let me hit you with this first question about professionalism.

[00:19:14] Why is it even important? And, and I'll, let me, let me add to that. Sure. The reason why I'm asking that question is I, I run into a lot of, you know, I'll call them kids, but in their twenties and thirties. And they're just doing a lot of things that when I was in the industry and mixing and gigging every week, I mean, I would have gotten fired for doing some of those things. If I didn't show up early to a gig, if I showed up late, I didn't have the gig anymore.

[00:19:42] And, and it doesn't seem to be a concern for this generation. And I think it should be. So that's why I'm, that's kind of why what's behind that question. Why is professionalism important? I think it's, it's one of the things right now that can set you apart. If you behave professionally and you show up at the show ready, you have your tools, whatever those are, you have your headphones or, you know, if you're a carpenter, you have your

[00:20:10] small bit of hand tools or whatever it is. If you're a lighting guy, you show up and you have your plot. You already show up ready to do the task. And I think, I think it doesn't start the moment that you start on the clock. And that's a sad thing to say, but I know if I get a call to go mix a XYZ band, I'm going

[00:20:38] to go on Spotify and I'm going to find out, hopefully I know who XYZ band is, but I'm going to try to make in my head XYZ band. Well, let's use new kids on the block. Cause that's an older band that at the time is you went and you got the CD and you listen to them and you go, Oh, I know that that's on the radio. And you try to make it sound like that because in my, in my brain, if we were to make everything sound the way I would think it would sound, it'd sound like Toto meets Steely Dan. Right?

[00:21:07] So that's, that's where I live in. That's, that's perfection to me. But if it's a, if it's a grunge band, I'm certainly not going to, let's say over gate, or if it's a jazz band, I'm not going to gate at all. So you're already thinking of what does the band sound like before you even arrive. And then it's when you get on site, do you know the tools? Do you know, Oh, it's a Digico console.

[00:21:34] And I better know it's an SD nine, or I know this around, or it's a, it's a Yamaha and it's a CL three, not a CL five. Oh, I should know what that is. Or it's a QL, or it's a, it's an S six, or you should, you should have all those things already planned out in your head so that when you arrive, you're ready.

[00:21:58] I think, I think a lot of kind of new engineers, let's say they're, they're, they're coming from church. Well, they've had, they've had the same setup all the time and they kind of come in and they, well, I know this setup, but that's a whole different everything than when you're stuck in a hotel ballroom and no one knows the PA and you're expected to know the PA, right?

[00:22:24] So the professionalism goes quite deep and wide at the same time. If you're brought in as, as an A2, I hope and expect you to know whatever RF units are on the gig that you know how to program them. You know, whatever you're brought in for, you should be able to know what it is. A lighting guy, is it on a grand MA? I expect you to know that your way around on a grand MA or you're a, you're a different

[00:22:54] lighting console person. Well, did you take the gig? Cause you knew that console, right? So I think that the professionalism starts way before you show up at the show or at the gig, whatever that is, is you've got to know what, what do you expect and what do they expect? And I, I don't think that's a, I don't think that's a now generational thing. I think that's everybody that I've probably ever worked for.

[00:23:21] There's 10 or 15, 20, 25 guys and, and girls that are, that are, they've got it. Got it. And then there's kind of the rest and I don't know how to move the rest up. Right. You know what I hear you saying is professionalism is not necessarily knowing the gear. Professionalism is attitude and engagement. What I hear you saying is if you come to the gig, if you come to the church service and

[00:23:49] you engage with what you're supposed to do, you have a good attitude. Yeah. Of course you need to know how the gear works and be able to mix and some of those things as well. But the word professionalism, I think is much more than that. I think it's knowing that you're not there for yourself. You're there to serve the company or to serve the church and what their goals are and what their missions are.

[00:24:16] You're not there to mix front of house for what you think new kids on the block should sound like you're there to mix it for what they think it should sound like, because they're the client. Do you agree with that? Is it attitude? Is it engagement? Is that professionalism? I think so. And I think there's a lot of dynamics that go with that. And I think, let me give you an example.

[00:24:41] I get called, maybe I've done them five or six times, whatever, over a couple of years. But there's a band that I work with, it's called Voices of Rock Radio. And they insert three or five kind of headliners into a band. And it's basically kind of a band that's made up of former guys from Kansas and former guys from Journey. And they do this, it's a kind of an entrepreneur thing where they go out and they help fundraise

[00:25:09] for Heart Association or a Bible company. Anyway, they go into very nice ballrooms, but a very short window of opportunity of time for them to be the rock band. So maybe I'll come in at noon. The band will arrive at three. They do a sound check from four to five. And then it's a black tie event, right? So I've got two hours to add my professionalism to this. So me and the production manager and the monitor guy, we're all talking.

[00:25:39] We all know what has to happen. And yet when I get into the ballroom, I'm not actually at that moment thinking, carry on my wayward son. But I am at the same time, right? And I know that at that point, at noon o'clock, there's florists in the room and there's art department in the room. And maybe the CEO is in the room. And all these people that don't do entertainment all year, they're doing, they're a heart surgeon just yesterday.

[00:26:09] And today they're helping. They're helping as a person that's going to be a fundraiser, whatever. So they don't know. So I've changed my philosophy over time of like, used to be, I'd come in and I was the front of house guy with the band and it's going to be me and we're going to do this and whatever. And now I don't, I bring an iPod with smooth jazz. And I listened to that. And I'm in my head thinking what won't work. Right? So nobody, everybody's still carry on their business.

[00:26:39] They're not hearing pink noise. They're not hearing a wild snare drum cracking or bass drum or whatever. It's smooth jazz and they're good. And in the meantime, I'm thinking, well, I think that's 200 Hertz. So I go back to the console and I do my tuning by kind of by ear. And one time in that, there'll be a track that I play that I get it up to 105 or so, but I get there over time. And then when I'm done, the PA will do it. Great. And then I'm out.

[00:27:07] I'll then check the subwoofers. I'll make sure that those are in alignment so that when the band starts at three, if I get eight bars, 16 bars, or I hear the singers sing, we're good. And I've had, I've had production companies that have said, we have to go to lunch at four. You're going to get the PA from four till 410. And then we have to turn the PA off. Well, that's the soundcheck time.

[00:28:03] That's the way it is. Hopefully they remember carry on my wayward son, but hopefully they never remember Dave because I'm just out of the way. Yeah. You're there. You're there to serve, but you know, it kind of brings me to another thing. And it's interesting what you just described when you talked about people that, you know, this is what they normally do. They're normally in the medical professional profession. Here they are coming in, having to serve. That's similar to a church, right?

[00:28:28] Similar to volunteering at a church and, you know, during the week, you know, you're a car mechanic or, you know, you work in a various, you know, full-time role and then you come into church. You're operating a camera, you know? That's right. You got to be a tech person. Right. And we talk about serve a lot. You need to serve. You need to, you know, be a part of the organization. It's not about you. It's about the organization. But then that brings me to the balance question.

[00:28:56] You know, say you work full-time for a church or you gig full-time and, you know, you hear us saying serve. No, it's not about you. It's about the organization. But that could get out of whack. That could get out of balance to where, you know, you're spending too much time on the professional side of things working and ignoring your family and things of that nature.

[00:29:23] So how have you over the years balanced that? How have you over the years balanced work and family? Right. And a lot of this, what we do and, you know, making new products or building a new show or going out on tour with a band or whatever, all that's really fun. It is. It's pretty exciting. And you get to go to a crazy city and your Instagram gets to show you and you're awesome.

[00:29:53] I kind of hit an epiphany early on and it was at Disneyland is my wife and I had our first boy and, um, it hit me that I'm not just working anymore for me. I'm working for three. I'm working for myself, my wife and my son. Wow. Wow. And so why am I working so hard at the day thing? And then I never get to see him. Right.

[00:30:23] So that's a, that was a, that was an epiphany that hit me really, really hard. So I then go, if I, if I go to work some other place like Yamaha, I'm going to really try to hold that 40 hour line. And I did, uh, I think I did a pretty good job of it. And they were, they had a lot of good latitude that I could make my own travel schedule when I could be wherever in the world. And it was pretty much just make the meeting.

[00:30:52] So they would give you a latitude of, you could kind of go the day before if you wanted and not do the, the jet lag thing, or you could go burn the oil and take the train and whatever it is, you make the eight o'clock meeting. Okay. That's fair. And then when the meeting was done, you could either stick around the hotel and you go the next day, or you could punch out right then. Um, I, I really tried and you could ask both of my kids that, and my younger son was just

[00:31:20] in town the other day and he was saying, you know, I really appreciated that you, you know, made my concerts all the time. Yeah. Cause they only get one of those, right? They only get that X amount of concerts or that X amount of science projects or whatever your kids are into soccer game or whatever. They only get that in that one little bit of time. And I felt like I wanted to be there. I just didn't want to watch the video or I didn't want to watch the, the, the YouTube of that or whatever. I wanted to be there for it.

[00:31:48] And I remember running through a couple of airports, trying to make the connector, knowing that I would make it so that I could be at the jazz concert, you know? So, and I, I think, I think I hit them all. And I might've missed one in both Matthew's time of when he was doing theater and Ryan was, when he was doing jazz is I, I think, I think I hit, I want to say maybe I missed one or two, but I think I hit them all. So that was my professionalism.

[00:32:18] I will give you all the professionalism. I will make the reports. I will do whatever I can do. I will make those meetings. And then when the meeting is done, I'm going to go, I'm going to go home to my family. Yeah. I think there's seasons in life and I don't think either one of us will sit here and say, Hey, there's, you're never going to work more than 40 hours. I mean, there's going to be a season where you've got to really punch it and push it. And you're going to be doing the 60 or 70 hours.

[00:32:44] But what I hear you saying, which is really cool is there's, there's just so many hours in a week. And when you have a family, uh, even if you don't have a family and you're single, there are important people in your life, uh, that number one, in order to stay sane, you need to stay engaged with them. Uh, and number two, life happens one time. And especially when you have kids, um, those kids are never going to remember what you did at work. Right. They're going to remember.

[00:33:14] I mean, maybe if you're the president of the United States or something, maybe that's a little different, but generally they're never going to remember what you did at work. They're going to remember that you showed up for that event that was important to them when they were a kid. And they remember repetition too. So this was, this was super important to me when I had my son. And that is my, my dad loved me to death.

[00:33:40] I know he did, but I, I never remembered him saying, I love you. Now I sat down and had a conversation with him about this and he reminded me of certain times and I was like, oh man, I did, I just didn't remember that. But repetition is a big deal. You know, being at not just one soccer game, but right. As many as you possibly can, kids will remember that. And I think that's a really cool thing that you, um, did there when you went to work for

[00:34:07] Yamaha and at Disney to say, Hey, we're going to try to protect the after 40 piece, which belongs to my family. It doesn't necessarily belong to the company. And I think that's a great way of looking at your work life balance is saying, what is priority here? You know, obviously works important, but if it's number one on the list, I think you may have a problem. Work is there to help facilitate your family life, right? Yeah.

[00:34:37] And can I also add to that in that, um, so we're talking about the uses of texts and the doers and, and that, but if I could, if there's anybody that's going to listen to this or watch this, that might be a potential next gen HR person or a church that has a board or whatever. I would love to tell those that are upper above me that like, don't expect more than 40 hours, right?

[00:35:04] Maybe, maybe shoot your week to be 36 and you leave at 44, you know, but you shouldn't be scheduling to 50. That's another human. You need, you need, you need a better management of how you are managing. Um, I, I don't think that any company should have an expectation that you're going to go to work for 80 hours a week.

[00:35:30] I, I, I would love to push that on a, somebody above me to go. That's your professionalism. That seems kind of lazy and disingenuous actually. I mean, those are maybe harsh words, but, um, you know, you be better at your management part. Don't expect that in your, in your employees, especially your hourly employees. Um, I don't, I don't know that I ever liked anybody taking advantage of staff people either,

[00:35:57] but, um, but your, your hourly employees, uh, that should be right at 40. You should manage better. What I like to do when I go in and consult with a church is I like to say, Hey, how many of your employees are salaried? And what's interesting is at a lot of churches that we'll go talk to, they'll say all of them are salaried. And I said that that's impossible, right? Not all of them can be salaried. And even if legally you could do that, um, there's a reason for overtime.

[00:36:27] And what I tell people is set up a system that pushes your people to manage their time better. If you have an employee that's consistently doing 10 hours of overtime, the system is going to naturally say, we need another employee. So if you're a church and you have somebody who's salaried and they're just burning out, it may be because you're not seeing how many hours they're actually working.

[00:36:54] And so one of the tools that I like to tell churches to do is if you have salaried staff, have them pretend they're hourly for a month and clock in and out and show you exactly what they're doing. Right. And then when they're saying, Hey, I'm burnt out and they show you this list, you can see, I guarantee you, you'll look at the list and you'll say, wait, you spent 10 hours on this? That, why are you spending 10 hours on this? Well, I have to because of the edits and things of that nature.

[00:37:22] Maybe you need a second staff member to help offset those things, or maybe you need to take some things out of their schedule. But have those salaried team members or contract team members is another trap that churches fall into. They're like, Hey, we'll pay you $400 to do this specific job for the week. And it ends up being 25 specific jobs for $400. Well, but if you get a list from the person who's doing that contract work or the person

[00:37:50] who's salaried and they show you what all they're doing, you can make some decisions on that that'll help prevent them from being burnt out. And then if you can organize your system so that it helps, you know, kind of rub and push against somebody working a lot of hours, like an hourly employee who's clocking into overtime, overtime naturally pushes the organization to eliminate it by hiring, you know, more people,

[00:38:14] bringing in more volunteers, set your system up that way so that you can lead from a place of helping your team not burn out. Which brings me to my next question. There's a difference between a manager and a leader. In your mind, Dave, what's that difference? I think a manager. That's a great question. And Dave has an answer that will change how you lead.

[00:38:41] But we'll have to wait for part two of this episode to see what he has to say about that. Speaking of part two, we have a special segment from B&H talking about a new tool they have launched for churches. If you want to be a better tech director or just have the latest insights on gear, then you don't want to miss this podcast. Well, that wraps things up for today's episode. I can't wait to talk to you on the next Tech Arts Podcast. Until then, I'm David Leuchner signing off by wishing you a great day and praying God blesses every moment of your week.

[00:39:10] See you soon. You have been listening to the Tech Arts Podcast, presented by Digital Great Commission Ministries. DGCM is a 501c3 nonprofit that was started to help churches with all things technical. Whether you need help building a team, finding the right gear, or just a better understanding of the church tech world, DGCM is here for you. Find out more about our free on-site visits, reports, and consulting by going to audiovideolighting.com.

[00:39:39] Digital Great Commission Ministries will help you run your church service like a pro. Find out more at audiovideolighting.com.