Is Your Head In The Clouds?

Application of Ideas

Writing a blog can be a dangerous undertaking! No, there have not been any threats on my life or people coming after me because of something I have said. The danger is not actually a physical one, but a spiritual one. Instead of finding myself in peril, the problem is one of theory versus application.

Two Words That Will Change The Trajectory Of Your Life!

Application of Learning

I should have your attention based on the title of this post. For some of you, my claim is not believable, and so you are reading just out of curiosity. Others of you are willing to consider the fact that two simple words can make a huge difference in your life. You are reading with genuine interest, but likely with some hesitation until you see how I plan to back up my claim.

Godly Counsel In Applying Scripture

godly counsel

I am an idea thief. I am very good at taking someone else’s bright idea and applying it to my own business, my parenting practices, or even my hobbies. There are many ways I do this, but one of the main ways is simply finding those who are successful and mimicking their practices. Obtaining godly counsel from others who have proven track records is a skill that all leaders need to learn.

How To Read And Apply Scripture

We all know we need to read and seek to apply Scripture in our lives. This is no revelation. The problem is that sometimes we really don’t know HOW to do this, right? Sometimes, we read a passage and cannot understand what exactly it should be saying to us. While it sounds simple, sometimes it is not.

apply Scripture

My Effort To Apply Scripture

For today, I want to try something different from my norm. I am taking a short passage (Psalm 119:73-80) and I am attempting to put it into my own words. I have tried to imagine how each verse should apply to my life in particular and then worded it as a prayer back to God.

Keep in mind, this is clearly not Scripture itself. I am not attempting to rewrite it, only to apply Scripture to my life in my words and according to my understanding. These verses may say something else to you. The Holy Spirit is not limited in how He can speak to us!

Take a look at the following verses and see if they resonate with you. Each verse is listed in italics and then my words follow. I would love to hear your thoughts in the comment area at the end of the post.

Verse 73 – Your hands made me and formed me; give me understanding so that I can learn your commands.

    Father, Your hands made every part of me and formed each of my strengths, weaknesses, talents, gifts, and desires into the man that I am. There is nothing about me that You cannot use to impact others. I don’t just want to know Your commands or even to be familiar with them, but to fully understand them. Please give me this understanding so I can apply them in every role I play, in every part of my life.

Verse 74 – May those who fear You rejoice when they see me for I have put my hope in your word.

    I pray that all those who fear You and know You in a real way would be glad to see me and do business with me because they see You in our business. This is not for the sake of the business itself, but for the relationships between us and so that both of us are impacted in a way that draws us closer to You.

Verse 75 – I know, Lord, that your judgments are just and that you have afflicted me fairly.

    Lord, Your rules and judgments are perfect and true, even when they do not make it easy for me. I realize You have a much bigger perspective than I do and therefore I will not always understand Your ways. At least I know they are perfect as You are and that your application of them in my life is fair. I thank You for Your promises here.

Verse 76 – Let your steadfast love comfort me according to your promise to your servant.

    Father, I know my choice to be in business means I will face challenges and struggles on a regular basis. As a result, there will be times of loneliness and frustration. I accept that. I ask that You comfort me during these times with Your endless love. You have already promised this in Your word – I just claim it now!

Verse 77 – Let thy tender mercies come unto me, that I may live, for thy law is my delight.

    In addition to the times of frustration, there will also be times when I personally fall short of Your expectations and guidelines for my life. Though I do not intend to do so because I love Your laws, I know that I am flesh and will disappoint You. I pray now that Your mercy will come to me in those times. I pray not only that You will show me mercy, but that I will recognize it. I also pray I will show that same mercy to others.

Verse 78 – May the arrogant be put to shame for wronging me without cause; but I will meditate on your precepts.

    Often because of the business I am in, there are those who disparage me with lies. Though they do not know the truth, they arrogantly assume they do and speak as such. I pray that at some point You will shame them for these lies. To make sure I avoid this same behavior myself, I will continue to meditate on Your word. Help me with this!

Verse 79 – Let those who fear You, those who know Your decrees, turn to me.

    Lord, I interact with many people on a daily basis. While I know I am to be an ambassador to those who do not know You, I pray that you will surround me with others who do know You. I need the companionship, mentoring, and accountability from those who have walked with You and know You and Your ways.

Verse 80 – May my heart be blameless in your statutes, that I may not be put to shame.

    Father, I read Your word regularly and try my best to follow what it tells me. However, you know I am sinful and tend to wander from Your path. Please strengthen my faith to stick to Your path and give me a clean heart so that I am not ashamed of my behavior, thoughts, and deeds. I want to reflect You to those around me.

What does it look like when you apply Scripture to your life?

Have you done it like this before?

What methods would you recommend to apply Scripture to your life?

8 Steps to Great Employee Focus Groups

Are your employees fully engaged? Are you interested in getting to the point where you can answer “Yes!” to that question without hesitating? If so, you need to follow along with me in this series on employee engagement. Today, we will look at steps to hosting great employee focus groups.

employee focus groups

Employee Engagement

As I said in my last couple of posts, I have seen a lot of material on employee engagement lately. The more I have seen on this topic, the more I have realized how much our organization needs to improve. I assume many of you have the same needs.

I have taken the various sources of the material I have seen or heard and I have condensed into a fairly simple action plan that I am going to follow over the next several months. I am going to explain my action plan in this series and then I am going to implement it, keeping you informed of my progress as I go.

You will hear about the wins and losses, the good, the bad, and the ugly! Hopefully, this process will help you implement similar employee engagement efforts in your own business.

Step Two: Employee Focus Groups

The goal of this step is to sit face-to-face with every employee and get their honest feedback on how you might work to improve the workplace. Make sure to consider all of the factors described below in making this step successful.

Great Material

The ideas for this step came from a conversation with Michael Hyatt and several other commenters on his blog. You can read the two posts (and the comments on each) Here and Here.

Keep in mind, as I described earlier, I have not yet executed the following steps in my employee engagement plan. I am telling you about them before I implement them, but they have been used successfully by others I trust and respect. I will follow up with the results in a future post.

Hosting Employee Focus Groups

Here are the eight steps:

1. Make the setting an informal one. Make sure you have food and hold the gathering in a comfortable environment. If possible, meet somewhere other than where other meetings take place. If that is not possible, find other ways to soften the environment.

2. Make the employees feel safe. Managers should not be present. Depending on your structure, you may want to add a meeting or two of only managers. Regardless, the employees in each meeting need to feel safe, free from repercussions from their comments. They need to know they will not be shot for telling the truth.

3. Keep it simple. Don’t go in with pages of questions! Michael Hyatt recommended using the four questions below.

  • What does your ideal Saturday (day off) look like?
  • What do you like about our company that you hope never changes?
  • Where could we improve?
  • If you were the CEO for a day, what is one of the first things you would change?

4. Take notes. Everyone knows you cannot possibly remember all of their suggestions. Take pen and paper and show them you are sincere about getting every last suggestion or idea down on paper. Ask clarifying questions as you do so.

5. Review your notes with them. At the end of the meeting, hit the highlights of what you have written down. Show them that you have truly been listening. Make sure you correctly interpreted their comments. Add any necessary clarifications at this time.

6. Quickly implement as many ideas as you can. There is nothing you can say that will prove your sincerity better than implementing ideas you were given in this meeting. Show them that you are genuinely interested in their needs and you will earn their hearts!

7. Communicate the implemented ideas across the company. Even if you don’t implement something from everyone, when someone in another department hears about something you implemented from another department, they will still feel like they were heard.

8. Make this an ongoing process, not a one-time thing! Everyone needs to know this is not just a one-time idea you had. They need to know this is part of how you do business from now on. Don’t allow these meetings to get stale over time. Freshen them up by mixing up how you execute it each time, but just make sure you continue to get in front of them and listen!

Have you had any experience with employee focus groups?

Do you see how this process could help with employee engagement in your company?

What are you going to do next?

Reason #5 (of 5) for Running Your Business According to Your Christian Faith

This is the final post in a series of five posts on why we should run our businesses according to our Christian faith.  Like the others, this reason comes straight from the Bible.

King Solomon was an amazing man for many reasons.  He was able to achieve incredible wealth and success.  He built houses, vineyards, gardens, and parks.  He surpassed all who had come before him. From the outside, it looked like he had it all!  What did he have to say about it?

When I considered all that I had accomplished and what I had labored to achieve, I found everything to be futile and a pursuit of the wind.
Ecclesiastes 2:11

Does this sound like someone who “had it all” like Solomon?  What do you think were his reasons for feeling this way?  Fortunately, he gives us more information a couple of verses later.

I hated all my work at which I labored under the sun because I must leave it to the man who comes after me. And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will take over all my work that I labored at skillfully under the sun. This too is futile.
Ecclesiastes 2:18-19

The Problem

Solomon realized that his work would not last beyond this life.  As soon as he was gone, someone else would get it and do whatever they wanted with it.  He saw extreme emptiness in his work after he had accomplished it.

I think a key thought to consider here is that these thoughts of Solomon’s came later in his life, AFTER he had accomplished so much.  You see, while the accomplishing is getting done, the emptiness is hidden.  Everything looks so important and so urgent that we most often fail to see that it is, in fact, futile.

The Solution

What if you could reverse this principle?  Consider the idea of completely turning your business over to God and allowing Him to direct how it is built.  What if you began approaching your business as a tool in God’s hand to be used to impact others (employees, customers, community) for eternity?

Forget, for a moment, trying to imagine exactly what the business would look like. Instead, imagine what your thoughts would be at the end.

The “Stats”

Rather than counting the number of business branches or locations, employees, or zero’s in your bank account balance, imagine you are able to count the number of people who chose to accept Jesus due, in part, to the influence of your business.  Imagine counting the number of children fed or clothed as a result of the efforts of your employees.  Imagine counting the number of people you influenced through the business that went on to teach others that did the same thing (and on and on…)!

Where is the futility or emptiness in this?  I cannot imagine either being present – and I cannot wait to get to this point!

What about you?  What are you building?

What will the “stats” feel like when the counting is being done?

Regardless of what you have built in the past, will you change the future?

Reason #2 (of 5) to Run Your Business According to Your Christian Faith

This is the second in a series of five posts that look at reasons to run your business according to your Christian faith.  In the last post, we looked at how the Great Commission is a great opportunity for us to make disciples through our businesses.

The Greatest Commandment(s)
Now we are going to look at what is often called the Greatest Commandment, and how it should affect the way we run our business.

When Jesus was asked which command in the law was the greatest, He responded:
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: love your neighbor as yourself.  All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands. – Matthew 22:37-40

All of Our Heart…
We are commanded to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.  The key word here is ALL.  We cannot obey this command by loving Him with most of our heart or mind.  We cannot obey by loving him on Sundays, but not on Mondays.  Nor can we be obedient by loving him at church and home, but not at work.

Read it again…do you see any way to obey this commandment other than loving Him ALL of the time, with ALL of ourselves, in ALL areas of our lives?

What About Work?
How can we do this if we are spending 30, 40, or even 50 percent of our week focused only on work? There is absolutely nothing wrong with work.  We are designed for it.

But for us to work for purposes other than acting out our love for God as commanded above – this goes against God’s word! We must find a way to live out these two commandments through our work.

Let’s look at one more verse that is closely related to the idea we are discussing.

And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. – Colossians 3:17

I submit that our work is included in “whatever you do”.  If this is true, then I only see one decision confronting each of us – Will I align my life, which includes my work, with this Scripture?  Regardless of where this path will lead, am I willing to commit to it?

Where are you in this decision process?

Have you prayed for God to guide you in this decision?

What are you hearing?

Reason #1 (of 5) to Run Your Business According to Your Christian Faith

Have you ever tried to reconcile your Christian faith with the way you run your business? Have you always been taught to keep faith and business separate? Are you trying to determine God’s purpose for your life?

If you can say yes to any of these questions, then this series is for you!

This post is the first of five posts in a series that will show you why you should run your business according to your Christian faith.

Anytime we want to determine the heart of God, the first place to start is with His Word.  If He has already said it, then we are in no position to question it.

The Great Commission
After Jesus was crucified and resurrected, He appeared to the disciples.  Just before ascending into heaven, Jesus gave them their marching orders through what is called the Great Commission below.  I believe these are our marching orders as well.

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey all I have commanded you.  And I will be with you always, even to the end of the earth. – Matthew 28:19-20

We are all, as Christians, commanded to go to the nations and make disciples.  This is not a suggestion or a request.  It is a command.  This does not mean that we are all to sell our possessions and move overseas to be missionaries.  There are plenty of opportunities to make disciples right here where we are.  We just have to look around.

Barna Research
According to a recent survey by George Barna and his research group, almost 40% of American adults are classified as “unchurched,” meaning they have not attended a conventional church more than once in the past year.  Even worse, only 15% of adults surveyed considered their faith in God as their top priority in life!  It appears the field is ripe for making disciples right where we are!

For typical business leaders, most of our time is allocated to our work.  We carve out some for family and leave a little left over for church on Sunday.  While some business leaders may buck this trend, they are in the minority.  That being the case, does it not make sense to fulfill the Great Commission exactly where we spend most of our time – in our business?

What better way for us as business leaders to reach those people (customers and employees) than through our business?  If we exercise and example our love for God through the way we run our business, maybe we can connect with them in a way (and in an environment) they have not found in a church.

Have you considered your responsibility to make disciples?

Do you see opportunity in your business to impact others in this way?

What are your obstacles to doing this?

The Journey Begins…

journey

This is the last in a series of 13 posts that describe, from the beginning, our ongoing journey to integrate our Christian faith into our family automobile business.  This series of posts lays the groundwork for the context of this blog.  This final post wraps it all up and gets it started at the same time!