LESSON 4: The Lessons

Learning through the wisdom and mistakes of others during the third phase of the business cycle.

• Know When You’re “Big Enough” An often-overlooked fact is that the huge Fortune 500 companies employ only 15 percent of America’s workforce. The lions that really have the roar are the accumulated small businesses, which employ 85 percent of the workforce that determines the true strength of this nation. Substance, not numbers, is our goal.

Do Everything AUTL

Welcome to Lesson Four. In this phase of the business cycle, things have calmed down a bit. In fact, things may be too calm. They may be downright boring. It seems that the thrill of soaring with your newfound call and vision in The Launch and the nerve-wracking pitfalls of The Lurch have evened out, and each day is pretty predictable, if not monotonous. But this is the time for valuable daily lessons, where many battles are won in little ways. By sweating the “small stuff,” you learn to win big over time.

The first lesson to be learned in this stage is to rivet your intentions. Remember: The marks of a spiritreneur are doing what you love to do for a living and honoring God in your work. This quieter period in the work cycle gives you a chance to take inventory of your motivations and the quality of what you are indeed doing.

Pursuing Excellence

AUTL stands for As Unto The Lord. One of the surest signs of spirituality in business is excellence. So in The Lessons phase, you have the opportunity to ask yourself, “How am I pursuing excellence in _____”

• Customer service
• Financial responsibility
• Product quality
• Personnel development
• Timeliness and responsiveness
• Community involvement

At this point in your quest for spiritreneurship, you have the time to reflect not just on what you are doing, but how you are doing it. Are you truly doing what you love to do? Are you making the best use of your highest gift? Are you fairly priced for yourself and for the marketplace? Are you honoring God in all that you do? For the true spiritreneur, this seemingly dull time can be turned into a powerful period of evaluation that takes your business to new heights, depths, and breadths of service and soul satisfaction.

• Choosing People Well Martha S. Wilkinson, executive vice-president of Nordstrom department stores, is adamant about screening people carefully during the hiring process. She says, “People who don’t want to sell will never make it in our system. If you don’t understand how important the relationship with the customer is, you just won’t do well here.”

Spend Time in Egypt

In the Lessons phase, you have the opportunity to learn the value of perseverance — just plugging away as Moses did, wandering through the desert. Your surroundings may not be optimal, some of your co-workers may be endured more than enjoyed, and little annoying problems come up time and again. But for any enterprise to grow and be transformed into the true essence of what it is to become, the little tutorials are important to heed.

What Can You Learn in Egypt?

During your metaphorical imprisonment, you can learn to study your problems, to keep them in perspective, and to ultimately make them work for you. You learn to keep your balance when a problem tries to drag you into the river. You learn to drag the problem onto the shore for your use. This is something that can only be done when you have the time and space to be responsive instead of reactive.

You can learn to enjoy the fact that true creation thrives in chaos, not conformity. Organisms are subject to changes in form and direction. Only in the confinement of this part of The Lessons can you appreciate this and give you and God the freedom to shape your business so it can achieve the maximum combination of making the best use of your highest gifts and bringing the most honor to God. In Egypt, you learn that to grow strong and solid, you and your business need to stay intentionally available to God.

In the seeming captivity of Egypt, you also learn to choose your friends carefully. In other words, you learn with whom you should associate your business and reputation. This lesson may need to be learned over and over, as some employees work out and some embarrass you. Some investors are worthy of your courting and some will just give your organization a bad name. Ultimately, you learn that you do not have the luxury of blaming others or complaining about associates. You make your relationship assessments and choices.

• Invest Wisely The Lessons phase is a tremendous time to ask yourself how you are going to invest your thoughts that lead to emotions. The following is a list of highly destructive attitudes or emotional states that can be remembered by the acronym PLEASCoG: Pride, Lust, Envy, Anger, Slothfulness, Covetousness, and Greed. For excellent scriptural and contemporary examples of how these attitudes affect your business, please refer to pages 160 through 163 in Jesus, Inc.

Finish What You Start

A business that will stand the test of time, and survive the monotony of The Lessons, is a business that is disciplined and accountable.

In this phase, it can be tempting to cast about for something new and exciting, just to spice things up a bit. You can find yourself trying to strike deals that really aren’t in your company’s best interest. You can unwittingly lead people to believe you are more interested in partnering with them than you really are. You may have a tendency to over promise and under deliver. This is a time for intentionally saying what you mean and meaning what you say.

Discipline also shows up in how we treat people. In this phase, we begin to understand that everything and everyone is related. All our dealings with others must reflect dignity and respect.

Baby Porcupines

This desert time also gives you the opportunity to become disciplined in sweating the “small stuff,” or what I think of as baby porcupines. Those tiny babies can be so adorable and seem so innocent. But they grow up to be big porcupines with quills that are painful, can cause infection, and may even cause starvation in their animal victims.

The baby porcupines of a spiritreneur’s business can be sloppy documents, catty or gossipy conversation, unchecked orders, or a little white lie. You can probably already call to mind an example when a small problem you left unattended turned into a big one.

In summary, The Lessons is a time of discipline and perspective. Three examples from the life of Jesus bring these points home. Jesus used a case of the fool who began building a house but couldn’t complete the work as the picture of finishing what you start. As Jesus was disciplined in his relationships, He knew the value of each person and created being and cared for the connection each has to the other. And Jesus paid attention to the littlest details as he noticed flowers, birds, and children, and pointed out the larger lessons inherent in little things.

• Essence of The Lessons God told the Israelites that they would not conquer the Promised Land all at once, lest it prove too much for them. And so you move forward slowly, learning as you go. You sit around the campfire and lean forward to hear the elders — knowing there are still dangers ahead mixed with the promises.

Keep Your Maps Current

It’s easy and tempting in more mundane times to slip into lethargy. Things are good enough, you suppose, that you don’t really need to keep up with industry standards, or even God’s standards.

But after the flurry of The Launch and the terror of The Lurch, The Lessons give you a remarkable opportunity to pay renewed attention to your industry. What are the needs? What are your resources? Who would be best served by your product? Other questions to consider regard your policies, your delivery methods, and your personnel retention. As you do your work As Unto the Lord, paying attention to the lessons you are learning and the discipline involved, you will find new ways to update your “maps” all the time.

By consistently offering your plans, thoughts, and meetings to God, you can be assured that you are staying current.

The following two areas bear particular attention when updating your maps:

• Your Methods of Accountability and MeasurementAs a spiritreneur, you have the option and responsibility to consistently challenge standard business measurement systems. A CEO of a faith-based hospital keeps her leadership team balanced by requiring attendance at a meeting centered around the hospital’s spiritual mission every time they attend a budget meeting. She says, ” I don’t want money to be our only standard of measurement.” When measuring your business by the bottom line, don’t forget to measure your impact on the community, the environment, and your employees.
  
• Your “Herds”God has always had a lot to say about good shepherds and bad shepherds. The Lord spoke strong words in scripture against shepherds who fattened themselves and cared nothing for their herds. As a spiritreneur, your herds involve your mailing list, your family members, your patients, and your employees. It’s more important that we know the condition of our herd, not just the count.

Moving Forward

In this lesson, you learned about making the most of your time in Egypt. This business phase, while superficially dull or annoying, is actually a time rich with opportunities and moments to gauge your progress, learn from interacting and observing others, assess how you are doing at what you are doing, and put your roots deeper into the rich soil of God’s vision for your business. Even though it may seem like you are in captivity, you may want to kiss the nose of the Sphinx on the way out of Egypt, for you will have learned some quietly dynamic mindsets, techniques, and tools to use as you progress into the next phase.

Lesson Five will focus on the stage in the business cycle known as The Love. This is a time when you feel you are really hitting your stride. You see yourself, your constituents, and your enterprise being changed through the power of being aligned with God. I look forward to sharing more with you in this lesson. Until then, I encourage you to exchange ideas with me and with others on the Message Board. Your insights and questions are important to us all we grow in wisdom together.

Assignment: Making the Most of Your Time in Egypt

Read Section Three of Jesus, Inc. As you read, give particular thought to the following questions:

1. Why could the AUTL principle transform business as we know it? How could it transform yours?
2. What formation might be taking place as a result of your spending time in Egypt?
3. What do you need to finish that you have started?
4. How current are your business maps?