The
Road to God
Decision
making in the marketplace
Phill
Sandahl
A web design
class I took recently analyzed people’s decision making process.
They found that people had different decision making styles.
Using the
Myers-Briggs instrument they identified 4 different decision making
styles – competitor, humanistic, methodical, and spontaneous.
Appropriate material was created in different parts of the page to
help each make a decision. My point here is not to discuss web
design, but to recognize the principle that there are different
decision-making styles which need different approaches to bring
people to a decision.
Different
people are “wired” differently.That’s the way God made us. He uses
different communication styles to draw individuals to himself.
Consider these examples:
• Ethiopian
Eunuch – While searching Isaiah he was approached by Philip who
explained, “that very passage of Scripture and told him the good
news about Jesus”
• Thomas the doubter – show me
• Andrew through family relationship – I have found the Messiah,
you must come and meet him too
• Paul the Apostle through a power encounter – Lord, what would
you have me to do?
Jim Engel a number of years ago gave us the Engel
Scale which recognized that coming to Christ, and growing in
Him, was a process and not just a single event. To this we need to
add an understanding that depending on a person’s decision-making
style the necessary steps along that path may vary. How they come to
their relationship with Christ is not as important as that they do.
Sociologists
and religious leaders over the years have studied the conversion
process and found many different ways people have come to make a
religious conversion. Often there is a combination of
messages/experiences. Among the most frequently mentioned: preaching
and persuasion, reading and study, deeds by other believers, healing
and miracles, cultural practices, visions and power encounters.
Different cultures will be more receptive to some than to others.
But God is not limited by one culture’s preference.
So what does
this have to do with tentmaking? We need to recognize that in the
marketplace we will come across people with all kinds of
decision-making styles. God wants to connect with all of them. To do
so he has a toolkit with a variety of communication methods. We need
to have our eyes open to what God is doing and not assume that our
favorite tool (method) is best for all people and situations.
The Tentmaker’s role:
• Be faithful
in your witness
• Give the Holy Spirit room to work
• Rejoice in those he brings to God
Those are my
thoughts. What are yours? I would welcome
dialog on this thought.
Write me at phill(at)globalopps.org
Creating a
Kingdom Values Based Corporate Culture:
Putting the “M” in Business as Mission
The
BP oil platform failure and subsequent leak in the Gulf of Mexico is
a major news focus these days. People are asking, “What could have
led to such a catastrophic failure?” In the days to come this will
be analyzed ad nauseam. Many factors are being discussed. One that
keeps coming up is that there was a corporate
culture of indifference.
Business gurus
are nearly unanimous. Clear core values are essential for success.
They need to be understood and internalized by everyone in the
company. They do not guarantee success, but their absence guarantees
mediocrity or failure. I want to look at
the idea of corporate culture in light of the growing interest of
Business as Mission (BAM) as a type of tentmaking work.
In Christian
circles a lot of interest has been generated about BAM and the
importance of having businesses run by Christians in order to bring
a witness to the international marketplace. It sounds great. But
what does it actually mean?
What makes
a business Christian?
Is it enough
that the business is run by a Christian?Can there be a corporate
culture based on Kingdom values? If so, what does it look like?
Should the employer use work time for “devotional meetings”.
Can he obligate employees to participate?
Maybe the path
one takes is to have a chaplain on staff and make that person
available to staff or even to customers. Does this make the company
a business as mission company.
What if the
business measures its success by looking at the “Triple Bottom Line”
taking into account more than just profit, but also social and
spiritual impact?
These
activities may be desirable, but in some ways they miss the main
point. They are not what make a company a BAM company.
Companies,
like people, have a “personality” or “style” in the way they act and
in the way they relate to their staff and constituencies. Our core
values determine how we interpret and interact with our environment.
In organizations we refer to this as its corporate culture.
Every company
has a culture, whether consciously developed or not. Sometimes the
corporate culture is given slightly different names: culture of the
organization (Eldred),
core values (Johnson),
core ideals (Collins), for
example.
Corporate
culture, like our social culture, is instilled in us by everything
around us, people and environment, and we are not always consciously
aware of it and how it influences everything we do. It shapes our
worldview and informs all of our decisions.
When the
company culture is well aligned, fewer rules are needed because the
staff is motivated internally to do the right thing. The company
values are internalized and guide all actions assisting staff in the
interpretation of the messages they receive and in determining what
the appropriate response should be.
Having a
Christian corporate culture means incorporating Kingdom values not
only into our goals, but also into the staff’s way of thinking and
operating – into the core of the company’s “being.” The values need
to be a part of who the company is and how it behaves. In other
words Kingdom values need to be part of the personality of the
company.
No one
activity makes a company a BAM company. It starts with an
understanding of the the values of the Kingdom of God and
exemplifies it in the sum of its attitudes and activities.
Essentially the company runs as one company simultaneously under the
sovereignty of the the Kingdom as God with its requirements and the
laws or legal requirements that govern its host country.
What are those
values? Ken Eldred has a useful list to prime our thinking in the
third chapter of his book, God Is at Work.
He gives 10
common features that characterize BAM companies.
1. The
presence of a Christian or Christians with a sphere of influence.
2. A product or service in harmony with God’s creational
purpose.
3. A mission or business purpose that is larger and deeper
than mere financial (though including it) so that the business
contributes in some way to the Kingdom of God.
4. The product or service is offered with such excellence
that it suggests the presence of the Kingdom and invites opportunity
to witness.
5. Customers are treated with dignity and respect and not
just as a means of profit.
6. Employees and workers are equipped to achieve greater
potential in their life and, if they are Christians, to work
wholeheartedly with faith, home and love.
7. All aspects of the business are considered to be
potentially a ministry and subject to prayer.
8. The culture (values, symbols, governing beliefs) of the
organization line up with God’s word and Kingdom purposes.
9. The business runs on grace.
10. The leaders are servants, dedicated to serve the mission
of the business, the best interest of the employees, the customers
and the shareholders because they are first of all servants of God.
(Eldred
pp.62-65)
In summary,
BAM companies seek to live by Kingdom values and consider all
aspects of the business activity itself to be missions work.
How does one
actually develop a Kingdom values based corporate culture? That is a
topic for another day. For starters check out the Eldred and Bakke
books below.
Books for
Further Reading:
God Is at Work - Ken Eldred
Joy at Work - Dennis Bakke
Great Commission Companies - Steve Rundle
and Tom Steffen
Good to Great - Jim Collins
Business as Mission - Neal Johnson
Note: Steve Rundle & Neal Johnson are
former GO board members
