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Chris Patton

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2 Simple Ideas For Employee Recognition

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Recently, I included the following brief message in our monthly employee newsletter. Read the message and then I want to explain how this fits into employee engagement through employee recognition.

employee recognition

From Our Newsletter

    The following is an excerpt from Seth Godin’s blog:

    No organization cares about you. Organizations aren’t capable of this. Your bank, certainly, doesn’t care. Neither does your HMO or even your car dealer. It’s amazing to me that people are surprised to discover this fact.

    What are your thoughts at this point? Do you agree with what he says? Aren’t we part of a dealership “family” that cares about each other and our customers?

    The truth is we are not!

    The truth is (and Seth goes on to say this later in the blog) that only people care. Organizations, companies, and teams are incapable of caring, but the people that make up these groups are the ones that care.

    Here is the difference…if you think and act like the groups are capable of caring, then you are actually attempting to relieve yourself of the responsibility for caring. If everyone else does the same thing, then no one cares.

    If, on the other hand, every individual in the organization takes personal responsibility for caring, then it ends up looking like the entire organization cares.

    It is in this kind of organization that we all prefer to work. It is this kind of organization that draws customers. It is this kind of organization of which we can be proud.

    What about you? Do you care?

Encourage Thinking Outside of Job

This message is one of many that I send in an effort to get our employees thinking outside of just doing their job and going home everyday. I want them seeing the world around them and getting involved…engaged.

Mission and Vision

Our company’s mission is to honor God by impacting the lives of our employees, customers, and community. Our vision statement is “Moving people.” This plays on the transportation theme in our business, but carries a deeper meaning as well.

As people movers, we want to take other employees, customers, as we as those in the community, and “move” them from their current position or circumstances to a better one – whatever that looks like.

Employee Recognition

I also want them to feel like they are a part of something bigger than themselves. Not only does this reduce the likelihood that they will leave to go to work somewhere else, but it also gives them fulfillment that we all so desperately need. A good way to do this is with employee recognition.

In addition to consistent communication through the employee newsletter and other methods, we created a couple of awards to reinforce this idea.

RPM Award

The first is called an RPM (Recognizing People Movers) award. This award recognizes anyone that has shown care for someone else by doing their job exceptionally well and going the extra mile. They are nominated by the other employees. We typically give out four to six of these awards in an average month. All of the award winners each month are put into a random drawing. We give the winner of the drawing a gift card for $100.

One example of a winner of an RPM award was a salesperson that responded quickly to a crisis with a customer. Something went wrong with a scheduled after-hours delivery of a new vehicle to the customer’s home and it did not happen. The problem was that the customer was an elderly lady that had to drive herself to the doctor the next morning. That new car was her only way to get there.

With little time to respond, this salesperson piled her family into the car and delivered the new car to the customer herself. This delivery was over two hours away and happened at 10pm…on her day off!

Lightning Strike

The second award is called a Lightning Strike. This award goes to someone that has shown extraordinary care for someone else. They have done this outside of the normal course of the job…often not even related to their job or our company at all. Each winner of this award gets a $100 gift card.

A notable Lightning Strike winner was a young member of our detail department. My brother received a call from a well-to-do older lady from his church. She asked about this employee by name. She wanted to know if he indeed worked for us. Sensing trouble, my brother answered that he did and then waited for the complaint.

Instead of complaining, she explained that she had been at McDonald’s earlier that morning, had placed her order, and went to pay. That was when she realized she had forgotten her wallet. As she stood there wondering what she was going to do, this employee stepped up and told her he would pay for her breakfast.

The kicker is that this position is an entry level position that is responsible for washing cars and therefore does not earn much money. Also, when the older lady asked the McDonald’s cashier if she knew our employee, she said she did not, but she did know that he had done that same thing on multiple occasions before!

On Track

These two forms of recognition are not all we do, but they do play a role in helping us to get our employees engaged in our mission and vision. As long as I keep hearing stories like these, I will feel we are on track!

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Are You Willing To Ask For This Employee Feedback?

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While focused on the issue of Employee Engagement, I ran across some very appropriate advice on the topic from Andy Stanley, Founder and Senior Pastor of North Point Ministries in Alpharetta, GA. In one of his podcasts on leadership, Stanley shared the way his organization values employee feedback. The difference in Stanley’s case is that he targets new hires for their unique perspective.

employee feedback

Automatic Systems

Stanley emphasized that the larger the organization is, the greater the need to build in automatic systems to help the leader stay connected to every employee. Since there is no realistic way for him to get around to every employee on a regular basis for feedback, he has put systems in place that assist him in maintaining high employee engagement in his organization.

Step Four: New Hire Feedback Process

The overall goal of this step is to get new hire employee feedback on the organization while they still have fresh eyes and can clearly see issues others may overlook.

New Hire Employee Feedback Process

One of the systems that Stanley has put in place is the three-month and one-year organization evaluation email to new hires. After three months on the job, and again at their one-year anniversary, every new hire gets an email from Stanley’s office. This email goes out automatically and does not require Stanley to initiate it.

This email gives the employee the opportunity to evaluate the North Point Ministry organization. It is not an employee review and is completely unrelated to the employee’s performance. Instead, it asks the employee to rate the organization and whether it meets, exceeds, or falls short of their expectations.

Every new employee is told about this email during orientation when they first start their job. They are told that they are in a unique position as they have fresh eyes for the organization. They will see things and experience frustrations that more tenured employees no longer see.

Fresh Eyes

I can certainly identify with this point. I have been in our organization for almost 20 years now. Quite simply, I miss a lot because it is too familiar to me. A new hire does not have that handicap. They are able to see things for what they are. They are more likely to be able to point out misaligned processes or unnecessary frustrations that others have simply accepted as the norm.

As new employees at North Point Ministries, they are told that the leadership wants to create an organization that is great for them to work in. If there are processes or policies that make their jobs unnecessarily difficult or keep them from enjoying their job, then the leadership wants to know about it. Only then can the necessary changes be made.

Evaluation Email Questions

Here are some of the key questions in the evaluation emails:

    1. Do you see anything we are doing that is off-mission or off-purpose?

    2. Do you see anything that frustrates you?

    3. Do you have a best friend at work?

    4. Do you have all the tools you need to do your job?

    5. Are you doing what we hired you to do?

These actual email templates are available for free download on my Resources page.

Immediate Implementation

I like this idea so much, I am going to implement it in our organization as quickly as I can. Of course, just like the focus groups, if I get the employee feedback and do not act on it then I am wasting my time and the employee’s time. I am also destroying my credibility with them. I am determined not to let this happen!

While the results from implementing this process may not be immediate, I can truly see how it will bear fruit in the future. I am excited to see it work!

What do you think about this process?

Does your organization get similar employee feedback?

If not, when do you start?

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Should You Use Employee Surveys?

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I have been focused on Employee Engagement recently. I have done a lot of research on the subject and I am finding some really good ideas. I fully expect to see some significant improvement in this area in our organization over the next several months. The problem is that I like to measure progress when I am investing this much time, energy, and resources into anything. How exactly am I supposed to measure Employee Engagement? I think one answer lies in employee surveys.

employee surveys

Employee Engagement Series

This is the fourth post in a series I am doing on Employee Engagement. In the first two posts, I described my plan for this series and I told you how I set the stage for my action plan with my employees. In my last post, I laid out my plans for hosting employee focus groups. In this post, I am going to tell you about the next step in my action plan for Employee Engagement – employee surveys.

Step Three: Employee Surveys

The overall goal of this step is to get employee feedback on a wide variety of workplace issues. The results should provide actionable information for improvement.

Jim Reese on Employee Surveys

During a conversation I had recently with Jim Reese, CEO of Atlanta Mission, he brought up the topic of employee surveys. I am familiar with typical employee surveys as one of our franchise manufacturers requires them once a year. However, Reese referred to employee surveys that were focused on employee engagement. This approach is different than I have seen.

Reese told me how he made it one of his first initiatives to survey his employees and volunteers at Atlanta Mission shortly after he arrived on the job. It was his desire to assess the current culture of the organization, find the problem areas that needed to be addressed first, and to establish a baseline for measurement of future progress.

Once his employees were surveyed for the first time, Reese determined what had to be done and which problem areas were most critical. He told us how the results from this first survey allowed him to prioritize his plans. He acted quickly on the major issues and saw clear improvement.

He emphasized that we should act quickly, but not to expect overnight success in all areas. He saw some immediate successes, but he also said he is still working to improve some of the issues revealed on that first survey. It is several years later and Atlanta Mission is still using this employee survey process.

Goals For Employee Surveys

Taking Reese’s goals, and adding one of my own to fit my own plans, I came up with the following goals for this step:

  • Assess the current culture of the organization
  • Find the problem areas that needed to be addressed first
  • Establish a baseline for measurement of future progress
  • Validate feedback gathered during focus groups

Experts with Employee Surveys

Reese put me in touch with another gentleman named Al Lopus. He is CEO of an organization called Best Christian Workplaces Institute (BCWI) which conducts the surveys for Atlanta Mission. When I talked to Lopus, I found that he had decades of experience in creating employee surveys and he seemed to know exactly what I was looking for. I realized I was hearing about the answer to my measurement problem.

Unlike most employee surveys I have seen, the BCWI survey is created with the Christian organization in mind. There is even flexibility to custom-tailor their survey to your specific organization. This is especially helpful since I do not feel our company fits the normal mold in our industry!

There are plenty of options out there for executing employee surveys. You can find turn-key programs and do-it-yourself products, as well as anything in between. I will be using the BCWI product and I will let you know how it goes.

Have you ever done employee surveys in your organization?

What were your successes? What pitfalls did you experience?

Do you see a value in this step of the process?

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8 Steps to Great Employee Focus Groups

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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?

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Setting The Stage For Employee Engagement

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As I said in my last post, I have been running across a lot of material on employee engagement lately. The best definition I can find for employment engagement is this:

An “engaged employee” is one who is fully involved in, and enthusiastic about their work, and thus will act in a way that furthers their organization’s interests (Wikipedia)

The more I have seen on this topic, the more I have realized how much our organization needs to improve. That means there are likely others of you thinking the same thing.

employee engagement

Must Start At The Top

Obviously, that improvement has to start at the top if it is going to be successful. This is not because I am the best person for the project, but because if my support is not behind it, then it will not last.

Follow Along With My Action Plan

As a result of this realization, 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.

Rather than waiting until I go through the whole process before I report to you, I am instead going to tell you about my action plan ahead of time. This way, you can hear about the progress as it happens.

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 One: Setting the Stage

In this step, the goal is to educate the employees about the need for good, honest communication between them and the ownership of the company. Without this preparation, any efforts to improve the workplace will most likely be misdirected and ineffective.

Setting the Stage

This past Friday, I went ahead and took the first step in my plan. In this step, I set the stage for the upcoming focus I will be putting on employee engagement in our organization. As I normally do every month, I went to each of our eleven departments over the course of a couple of days to give a devotional.

Simple Story For Illustration

I started with a simple story about a church that wanted to help a missionary in India. After, collecting hundreds of bedsheets, the church congregation spent hours and hours tearing the bedsheets into thin strips to be used as bandages. They then shipped the bandages to the missionary to give out.

When the missionary in India presented the bandages to his people in India, one of the ladies held up a strip and exclaimed, “If we sow these strips together, we can have some really nice bedsheets!”

Inviting Participation

I asked the group, “Who was at fault?” Without hesitation, everyone agreed the pastor should have asked for specific needs rather than assuming a need for bandages.

We talked about when we make an effort to help others, we cannot just assume we know what they need. We must ask them what they need. We also have to make it easy (and safe) for them to tell us.

Adding A Twist

Next, I added one fact to the story that I had intentionally left out the first time I told it. I went on to tell them that the church pastor had in fact asked the missionary how his church could specifically help his people in India. Instead of offering suggestions, the missionary simply told the pastor that anything he and his church decided to give would be fine with those in India. He said he was just thankful for the help.

I asked, “Now, who is at fault?” Of course they all agreed that the missionary was now the one at fault. We discussed how it was unfair for the missionary to give so little information about the specific needs of his people when asked. We all agreed that if he had simply asked for bedsheets, he would have saved a lot of time and frustration on both sides.

Parallels to Employee Engagement

From there, I went on to draw the parallels to our organization. I explained that I would be coming around to their departments over the next several weeks to solicit some feedback from them on improving their workplace environment.

I explained how critical it will be for them to give me straight and honest feedback. I pointed back to the wasted time spent tearing and then sowing the bedsheets. If they were truly interested in an improved workplace, then it would be essential that they give thoughtful suggestions and ideas. I emphasized how their willingness to participate would determine the success of our efforts.

In my next post, I will outline my plan for the face-to-face meetings throughout the organization. Stay tuned!

Have you seen the benefits of employee engagement?

What have you done to improve it?

What more could you do?

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How To Create Employee Engagement

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I have heard it said that the opposite of love is not hate, but apathy. I would tend to agree with this statement. Jesus even said He would rather us be hot or cold, rather than lukewarm. If that is the case, I think there is similar application to the workplace regarding employee engagement.

employee engagement

Employee Engagement vs. Apathy

An “engaged employee” is one who is fully involved in, and enthusiastic about their work, and thus will act in a way that furthers their organization’s interests (Wikipedia). An extremely negative, disengaged employee likely will not make it very long in their job, but an apathetic employee usually stays around longer and therefore is a drag on productivity, morale, and profitability. As a result, apathetic (disengaged) employees serve to more severely reduce the impact we strive for as a Christian business.

How Do You Get Them Engaged?

If we can all agree that the best employee is an engaged employee, then the next logical step is to figure out how to get all of them engaged. If we could solve the puzzle of employee engagement, then I think we could go far in creating exponential growth in our impact on eternity.

Recent Influences

Recently, this topic has been in the front of my mind for several reasons. I have had several different sources influence me toward a focus on employee engagement. First, as I mentioned in my latest series, I had a great conversation with Jim Reese, CEO of Atlanta Mission. In addition to the advice I shared in that series of posts, Mr. Reese also brought up employee engagement as a critical component of success.

Next, I read a recent post by Michael Hyatt in which he talked about changing organizational culture. Through a series of comments on that post, I learned a couple of tips about achieving employee engagement that I will share with you.

After that, I was listening to an older podcast by Andy Stanley on the way to the airport last week. In this podcast, Andy talked about how his church maintains such an engaged staff. I will share some of his methods as well.

My Focus On Employee Engagement

As a result of all of these inputs, it is obvious to me that I need to be concentrating on employee engagement in our organization, right? So this is what I am going to do. I am NOT going to wait to post about all of this until I have implemented all of these tips and methods, measured the results, and declared victory.

My Plan

Instead, I am going to give it all to you up front over the next several posts. I am also going to start implementing these ideas in our business, keeping you aware of the progress as I go. These progress reports will include the successes and failures, the pretty and the ugly! I will do my best to relay information to you that I believe will best help you do it better than we do.

Then, after all of it is implemented, I will also give you regular status reports as to the measured progress in our actual employee engagement scores going forward. I am not yet sure what this will look like, but we will find out together!

How engaged do you think your employees are right now?

What do you do to keep them engaged?

What opportunities do you have to improve?

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Celebrating This Blog’s Six Months Anniversary!

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six months

Six Months Anniversary

Incredibly (to me!), it has now been a full six months since I started this blog. A lot has happened in the past six months. I am really excited about all I have learned and the people I have met. If you had described all of it to me last fall, I would have called you crazy!

I have to be honest. When I set out to do this blog, I was not sure how many people would actually read it or get anything out of it. I certainly did not expect to get much exposure outside of my immediate circle of influence.

My Purpose

From the beginning, here was my purpose:

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    I have started a new blog called Christian Faith At Work. I am writing it to business owners and leaders who are trying to figure out how to integrate their Christian faith into their businesses.
    By including the resources I have accumulated over the past eight years of learning to use my business as a vehicle for ministry, as well as real-life examples from my experiences, I will teach the readers how to run their business from an eternal perspective.
    They will not only learn from the resources I have gathered, but they can also interact with someone who is actually doing it, learning from my mistakes and victories.

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I knew this purpose resonated with me, but I did not really believe it would do so with others. However, as you will see in the stats below, I was wrong! I want you to know how much I appreciate all of the encouragement and feedback you have given me over the months. I have truly enjoyed the time and would not trade it for anything. I look forward to the coming months (and hopefully, years!).

Statistics

Below, I have listed some of the incredible statistics that have accumulated during the six months since I started at the end of August 2011.

six months

When I consider some of the popular blogs that I read myself, I know these stats are not that impressive. However, I am still proud of what God has done here in such a short period of time. If anyone reading this right now is considering doing something similar, I want to encourage you to start! If I can get here, so can you!

Top Posts

Below, I have listed the ten most popular posts from the past six months.

1. Why I decided to walk away from the family business…

2. Pursue The Gifts You Have, Not The One’s You Want

3. Reason 2 (of 5) to Run Your Business According To Your Christian Faith

4. 10 Warning signs you are NOT a good leader – part 1

5. Taking Action – Owners Manuals For Life!

6. Why Acknowledge Christ In Christmas?

7. Reconcile And Forgive Immediately!

8. “Go Make Yourself Useful!”

9. How To Create A Life Plan Document

10. Do You Have A Strategic Plan…For Ministry?

Once again, I want to thank all of you that read this blog. I am enjoying it and I hope you are getting something out of it, too!

Do you have a favorite post listed above (or even one that is not)?

What about your own blog…what was your top post?

If you are thinking of starting something similar, what is holding you back?

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Warning: You Have An Enemy!

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enemyDo you ever feel like there is a conspiracy against you? Do you get the idea that someone is out to get you? Well, if you are a Christian business owner or leader out to impact others for eternity, then you are correct. You have an enemy that hates you. He has a target on you, your business, and your family.

Jim Reese – CEO, Atlanta Mission

This is the fifth post in a series of five that describes the advice my brother and I received from business and ministry leader, Jim Reese. Mr. Reese has 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.

Reese’s Advice

Below, is the fifth 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.

[box][typography font=”Cardo” size=”18″ size_format=”px”]Recommendation #5:[/typography]

    [typography font=”Cardo” size=”24″ size_format=”px”]Know that the enemy will attack you.[/typography]

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Talk of the Enemy

While some people cringe when you mention the enemy in this context, I am one who takes the Bible to be the truth – whether I can see it or not. The Bible talks about the enemy in a number of places. Here are a few…

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy;…” John 10:10

“For our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world powers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavens.” Ephesians 6:12

“Be serious! Be alert! Your adversary the Devil is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for anyone he can devour.” 1 Peter 5:8

Do you take this Scripture seriously?

If you were warned that there was a stalker scheming to do life-threatening harm to your son or daughter, would you act? Would you move to protect them? Or would you just blow it off and assume things will work out?

See, as Mr. Reese mentioned, the enemy will not just come directly after you. He will come after your family. He will come against your employees. He will come against any weak spot you have.

Recognizing Existence of the Enemy

The point of recognizing the existence of the enemy, as well as his intent in destroying you, is to help you in three ways.

    1. When you know you are going to come under attack, you will prepare. You will not be surprised by it. Though you certainly cannot completely avoid being attacked, the damage is less destructive when you expect it and are ready for it (1 Peter 5:8).
    2. You can take action and equip yourself and your family. You can put on the full armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-17). You can equip your family, educating them about the potential dangers in the process.
    3. You can pray. You pray for protection. You can ask others to do the same on your behalf. (Ephesians 6:18)

Invading The Territory Of The Enemy

You may be thinking I am crazy. That is fine. However, if you get serious about using your business for ministry, then you will be going straight into territory that the enemy considers to be his own. You will likely be impacting people and groups that local churches have not seen in years, if ever. This is great work for the kingdom, but do not kid yourself into believing it is without resistance or consequence. The enemy will hate you for it.

Just go back through the Gospels, Acts, and Paul’s letters to see if I am not telling you the truth. It is Biblical and it is a truth you need to accept.

I am not suggesting you start running around your business spraying devil repellent and screaming “We are under attack!” I am recommending you take appropriate actions through prayer and Scripture memory, to put on the full armor of God. I am advising you to be ready.

Do you know what I am talking about to be true?

What do you do to prepare for and protect against this?

If you are unsure, will you search the Scripture for yourself?

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Is Lack of Excellence Excusable In Christian Business?

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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?

excellence

Jim Reese – CEO, Atlanta Mission

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.

[box][typography font=”Cardo” size=”18″ size_format=”px”]Recommendation #4:[/typography]

    [typography font=”Cardo” size=”24″ size_format=”px”]Excellence is not optional.[/typography]

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Emphasis on Excellence

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.

Lower Expectations?

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?

Excellence Is Central

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.

Right To Influence

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?

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How To Manage The Tension Between Business and Christian Ministry

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It seems that every time I turn around I am neglecting either the business of our company or the goal of doing Christian ministry through our company. It is a difficult balance to maintain. In fact, I have often felt I was doing something wrong because I could not shake the tension between the two. I recently found out this is not true.

tension

Jim Reese – CEO, Atlanta Mission

This is the third 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.

In the first post in this series, we discussed how Mr. Reese advised us to Redefine Success if we are going to attempt to run our business as a platform for Christian ministry. In the next post, I told you that he urged us to remember that when we do ministry in the course of doing business, Results Are Not Always Immediately Evident Or Measurable.

Below, is the third 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.

[box][typography font=”Cardo” size=”18″ size_format=”px”]Recommendation #3:[/typography]

    [typography font=”Cardo” size=”24″ size_format=”px”]Recognize and manage the constant tension between business and ministry.[/typography]

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Always A Tension

Mr. Reese did not say that business and ministry do not mix. He did not say that you cannot do both at the same time. What he did say was that there will always be a tension between the two. To ignore this fact is to deceive yourself. To embrace this fact is to accept reality and work through it.

Consider Non-Profit Work

The truth is that anyone who has ever worked in ministry or in the non-profit sector has experienced this as well. Regardless of the nature of the organization, there is the need always to balance your focus between impact activities and fundraising (or profit) to pay for the activities.

On one hand, you need to be thinking about what you can do to make the programs more effective. You ask how we can serve more people and meet more needs.

On the other hand, you also need to be thinking about how to add more donors or givers and raise more money. You cannot have the impact through the activities unless there is funding to make those activities possible.

Same True For Christian Business

The same is true in a business where the goal is to be a platform for ministry. Without a healthy and growing business, there is no opportunity for ministry.

As a result, we must manage this constant tension. We cannot eliminate it and we cannot ignore it. We must simply manage it.

So the question is…How do you do it?

Well, there are several options that I will offer.

Managing The Tension

1. Get outside help rather that going it alone. For me, being a member of a C12 group provides me with a group of like-minded business owners who all need the same type of support. We offer each other accountability in this area as well as ideas on how to better manage the constant tension. You could also choose to create your own board of directors or even enlist a life coach. The key is to gain an outside perspective.

2.Develop an inner circle of leadership within your company. Having other like-minded leaders that are walking with you every day can be a great source of support and ideas. They can warn you quickly when they sense something is out of balance. They know your company best and will have the same goals.

3. Create a personal life plan with a weekly review. While this is a solo activity, it is one that has gone far in helping me stay balanced over this tension. The weekly review helps me to get a 10,000 ft. view of where I have been and where my energy has been allocated. Any imbalances are quickly evident and correctable.

Have you recognized this tension in your life or business?

How do you manage it?

What do you need to do differently?