Abounding In Business
The Lordship of Christ unfetters our work as we own, grow, and manage our business
for the abundance of production, people and profit.
Abundance Worldview
How the Lordship of Christ
unfetters our productive work
Liberating Business by Submitting To Christ
There are business owners who do confess Christ as Lord over their business. But most identify economic ownership and business management as morally neutral. Many Christians fetter their business – and the profit they make – to a different, unrelated end, seeking a way to morally justify their participation in for-profit endeavors – funding missionary work or social welfare programs, for example.
They claim that this is a demonstration of how to be a Christian in business. But in effect, their approach proclaims that business, enterprise, and profit are outside of Christ’s domain, and must be manipulated in order to subject them under his domain. They must be “Christianized.”
But, that’s false. Delivering value to a customer in exchange for pay – owning and operating a business – is morally good, not neutral. The end of Christian enterprise is the end of all enterprise: to deliver value to a customer in a profitable way. Period. Stop. Because Jesus is Sovereign over business, we don’t need to manipulate it towards an irrelevant end. We don’t need to justify our intentions in business with a different virtuous pursuit. Christ is already Lord over your business. You don’t need to try to make him be. You just need to acknowledge it. And then get to work.
By submitting to Christ, we liberate business to accomplish what it’s supposed to: delivering value to a customer in a profitable way.
Leadership Development
How to lead people
in the context of business
Rousing Employees by Raising Their Vision
If there’s anything in abundance, it’s leadership literature. However, much of it is misguided.
Whether due to fear, guilt, or naivety, business leaders have been beaten into the subservient role of “Servant Leader.” They have been told that the purpose of their work is their employee’s happiness. Business leadership has been hijacked by the tyranny of our emotional-forward culture, and transformed into the work of a therapist. It is said that empathy is the ultimate trait that business leaders must possess.
This approach to leadership is not only wrong, but hinders the objective of what a business is for, and hurts the employees. The leader’s primary objective is not employee-satisfaction. The primary objective is customer-satisfaction. The purpose of the business – and in effect, the business leader – is not to serve the employee. It’s to serve the customer.
And it’s that purpose for which the business leader is to lead his team. He invites people to follow him as he seeks to profitably provide value to his customers. Inviting people into their own introspective narcissism is a small and sad end. Inviting people to live and work for the good of something outside of themselves – something much bigger than themselves – is what the leader is to do. Coincidentally, it is in customer-satisfaction where true employee-satisfaction is found. The business leader is to rally others in the context of delivering value to customers.
Business Management
How to manage the
business for profit
Driving Results by Managing With Competence
“Character matters” has become the sort of overused adage that is neither considered nor applied. Yes, character does matter. So much so that it’s measured not with intentions, but with results. And when considering results, what matters is competence.
If character matters, so does competence. Competence means we know how to do the job well. A business leader is to be skilled, and excel in the work of Business Management. This work requires a broad range of expertise. Strategy, Sales, Operations, Administration, and Finance are all critical functions of every business. The sort of results that a business manager must deliver requires competence in structuring and managing each of these functions.
A multitude of demands requires multi-faceted expertise. A business manager must see through the fog, choose his priorities, and move the ball downfield towards success. Depending on the company size, some of the work could be done personally. But sooner or later, a business owner must excel at structuring and managing the 5 functions of business.
Understanding the essence of the business equips the manager to know what to focus on and how the work is to be done. Seeking to deliver results to the customer leads to managing each department towards excellence. The work is not to be internally focused. Excellence in each function is evaluated at how well it’s performing at delivering value to the customer.
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