I regularly get the privilege of welcoming new employees into our company. As part of our orientation and new hire training process, I go over our company history (three generations!) along with a deep dive of our company’s mission, vision, and core values statements.
I do not have secret knowledge of your business so I cannot tell you all of the reasons your customers might be going elsewhere. What I can tell you is one reason I have found to be true in our family business that may also be true for yours. This is the critical truth: Good is not good enough.
While many people we meet might have a general understanding of the Christian faith and a familiarity with business, few fully understand what it means when we combine the two. In fact, there are many myths that rise out of this lack of understanding what we mean by Christian business.
In my last post, we looked at two of the five most common myths about Christian business. We discussed how a Christian business owner should not hire just anyone that applies for the job(s) they are offering. We also talked about the fact that we will simply have to say “No” to some requests.
Today, I want to look at the final three myths and how we should dispel them. If you have any input on these or other myths you have encountered, I would love to hear from you in the comment section at the bottom!
To some, this may sound crazy, but I have actually had it said directly to me more than once. I guess people believe that since Christians are supposed to turn the other cheek and forgive 70 X 7 times, they should never fire anyone. Unfortunately, this is poor logic.
Folks, employees are not always going to do what they are supposed to do. Sometimes they will make a poor decision and steal or cheat the business for various reasons. Sometimes they will make too many mistakes because they are preoccupied or not taking their job seriously.
Other times their behavior is due to poor fit for the job (bad hire) or lack of training. Regardless of the reasons, there comes a time when their continued employment is bad for them or the company or both. Therefore their employment needs to end. This is a must if your business is going to remain healthy, providing opportunities for those that do fit.
I think the fact that people associate Christians with giving to charity, they leap to the idea that Christian businesses can and should do the same…with everything! Now before you laugh, this is no joke! I have had people tell me that I am responsible to give them (fill in the blank) because we are a Christian business.
If pressed, they may not think we should do it for everyone, but they clearly believe it should be true for them. As business owners, we know this is crazy, but we still struggle with our pricing, margins, and good will decisions. Sometimes we buy into this myth without realizing it.
The bottom line is that we have to make a healthy profit if we want to continue to be in business. We cannot “give away” our products and services as a habit. Sure, we can (and should) designate a portion of our proceeds to help out those in need around us. However, this charity should not work its way into our everyday transactions. We cannot afford it!
I am not sure if this is more prevalent among people outside the business or inside it. Too many Christian business owners have allowed themselves to think they should not have to work as hard or drive for excellence because they are doing their work for God. Hopefully, this sounds backwards to you, but many actually think this way!
Folks, we are to work harder and drive for greater excellence for the very reason that we answer to the Lord as the true owner of our business. We should never become complacent, thinking He will understand or that He should just be glad we are doing all of this for Him. That is very dangerous thinking!
We owe Him our everything! We are commanded to love Him with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. We cannot do this and be complacent at the same time. These two ideas are polar opposites!
Hopefully, you recognize these 5 ideas as myths and have not fallen victim to this kind of thinking. However, if you struggle with any of them, I encourage you to seek God in prayer about them. I think you will come to realize the truth and see them for the myths they are!
Have you struggled with any of these myths?
What other myths have you encountered?
How do you combat these myths?
Have you ever dealt with an organization that clearly performed at a low quality level? If you are like me, it is really frustrating. What is worse is when they profess to be a Christian organization, using their “cause” as an excuse for less than excellent work. Why is it that Christians so often think they should be given a pass when it comes to excellence?
This is the fourth post in a series of five that describes the advice my brother and I received from business and ministry leader, Jim Reese. Mr. Reese seen incredible success in the business world over a stellar career with executive positions in companies such as Randstad N.A., Frito-Lay, and HoneyBaked Ham, but he has also significantly impacted people for eternity through his work with Atlanta Mission. He has taken his exceptional business skills and is applying them in Christian ministry.
Below, is the fourth of five main points I gained from our conversation. This advice is directed at anyone trying to buck the norms of this world and integrate their faith into their work. If you are trying to run your business from an eternal perspective, then you need to heed this advice.
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If there was one of the five main points Mr. Reese made with extra emphasis, it was this one. We spent at least twice the time on excellence as we did on the other topics.
Obviously excellence is an extremely wide topic. For the purpose of this post, here is our definition of excellence.
Excellent organizations achieve and sustain superior levels of performance that meet or exceed the expectations of all their stakeholders.
So many Christian ministries and organizations today think they get a free pass in regards to excellence because they are doing God’s work. They think people will (or at least should) accept less than excellence when they know the cause is right. While it is truly sad, many people have come to expect this from Christian organizations.
Folks, this is simply ridiculous thinking! If anything, work done for God should be held to a higher standard, not a lower one. If we are following Scripture and working as unto the Lord (Colossians 3:23-24), then we should act like it! We are serving the King of the Universe! He would not accept less than excellence from Cain (Genesis 4:3-7) or from the Israelites (Malachi 1:6-13), why should He accept it from us?
This attitude of excellence should be central to everything we do. It should drive every aspect of our lives and our businesses. There should be nothing in our lives that we accept as less than excellent.
This is not to say that we can achieve perfection, but we should always maintain a culture of improvement. This culture will cause us to always be working on any weaknesses so that they do not remain that way.
If we are to be Greatest Commandments and Great Commission companies, then we must earn the right to influence others. We earn this right by doing business with excellence. Anything less will risk pushing people away from the Gospel.
Do you consider your company as one of excellence?
Do you recognize the importance of excellence?
What do you need to change right now?