day 1410: Of Course I snapped At You! What Were You Thinking ???

While on a pilgrimage walk on the Camino de Santiago (St. James Way) in Spain, I asked some of the most committed and courageous faith-driven business leaders I know to guest contribute to Purposed worKING.  Enjoy! - Rusty


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“We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and who are over you in the Lord and who admonish you, and to show esteem them with special love on account of their work. Be at peace among yourselves.”  

“It is good sense to be slow to anger, and an honor to overlook an offense.”

Holy moley! How can the people we work with make so many mistakes?  I mean, don’t they think before they act?  Am I supposed to just smile and say, “It’s okay, no worries”?

The answer is kind of, “Yes”. Of course, at work (and in broader life) we are expected to provide criticism – constructive criticism. But occasionally I fail at this. I get frustrated and can “snap” at people on my team. Fortunately, sometimes they tell me that what I did didn’t feel good. Although it confronts me with a mistake that I have clearly made (and I don’t like making mistakes). It is a gift because it gives me the opportunity to “recover”. It gives me a chance to give them back respect, to make a sincere apology, and hopefully to increase my awareness of my weaknesses so that I can improve. There are so many lessons and opportunities in these type situations.

First and foremost is that God wants us to love each other. Sometimes it’s hard to love people (some harder than others!). These are great opportunities at work and home to live our love.

Second, it is so important for us to be examples of Jesus love, patience and goodness. Every test like this that God gives us is an opportunity to emulate Jesus. People notice and are influenced.  Finally people deserve the “best” from me. When I fail to be patient, kind or respectful, they are not getting the best of me that they deserve.

Reference: 1 Thessalonians 5:12-13 (New American Bible)  and Proverbs 19:11 (New American Bible)

Tom Koch

day 1144: Priority Shifts

"Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus."

Sometimes it is better to face it than to deny it; work can become all-consuming. It happens to the best of us. We have priorities and we reset our priorities over and over. God first, family second, work third. And then what happens is that someone who cares for us either gently (or angrily) points out that "we've done it again" and our priorities have turned back into, work first...work second...and work third. I've had it happen to me so many times in my career that I can't count the conversations and the looks in the mirror. I also see it happening around me all the time. Right now I have a very good friend who is all-consumed with work. He loves the job and company so he is happy and his wife and kids are happy that he is happy, but everyone knows that this period of never letting the Blackberry out of his hand or not having anything to talk about other than work, just can't go on forever. But, yet it goes on and on and before long years have passed. Why is it that we let our work take over our lives? The same work that we can't wait to retire from or get a vacation away from, we allow to creep in and infest every waking moment and thought? It's almost self-punishment, but I would venture to say that nearly all of us have had this happen to us, more than once. Last year a young man, who is wise beyond his age, asked me what to do to keep from having work take over his life. My advice was that because work is always additive (more to do, more to take on, etc.) that thinking that one can subtract work and fill the glass with something else will never succeed. Instead, other things need to be poured into the life glass that are important enough to displace work. Like the glass that is already full, drop some pebbles in to get rid of some of the water.

As believers we have the great additive to displace our obsession with work. Our minds that are full and flowing with thoughts about our jobs need to be freed by adding in other thoughts. God calls this prayer. Read along in 1 Thessalonians: "Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus." Note, "never stop praying". If you suffer from the all-consuming obsession of work and you find yourself caught in the priority spiral of work first and all other second, then begin to replace the obsessive thoughts with prayer and watch what happens. Start today with the top of your prayer list being a request to God to have His thoughts and His words replace the thoughts of work and then say that prayer over and over throughout the day. God wants us all-consumed with Him first and from there He will take good care over of us and over our work. There is no better time that today to let God be the one who rearranges our priorities.

Reference: 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 (New Living Translation)

day 1140: Staff Meetings

"Never stop praying."

If we work, we've all attended a Staff Meeting.  Now, I don't want to take away from those Managers who spend a great amount of time and energy to prepare and ready for this meeting so that the participants walk away from the time thinking that this was most well-spent time of the week and with high anticipation for the next one.  Now, that said, I'd make a prediction here (and feel free to push back on me) that the number of staff meetings that we attend that we think are the best of hour of the week, are a very small number and percentage.  I know Managers (and I hesitate to call them Leaders because of this) who only have staff meetings because someone else tells them that they need to do so. The hour they spend with their staff are not terribly productive and little or no thought has gone into the time.  Thus, the output is not nothing exciting.  What if every staff meeting in the company was not only productive, but spirited, exciting and the most anticipated hour of the week?  What a company that would be and a what a competitive advantage that company would have over others!

When we come to our daily prayer time with Jesus, do we come prepared or do we treat it more like a staff meeting? Do we just go through the motions or do we drop to our knees in anticipation of what the outcome will be?  Do we come prepared to converse and ask of Jesus the prayers that only He can answer? Are we bringing to Him those things in our life that we are willing to turn over to Him to resolve?  We are taught to be in continuous prayer and we can do so with our Lord.  He doesn't desire us to be rote with Him! Let's consider today our prayer time, not like a staff meeting, but 1:1 time with the Almighty, our eternal CEO/Chairman and let's be sure that we are making the most of every second!

Reference: 1 Thessalonians 5:17 (New Living Translation)

day 774: Do The Right Thing - Part 6: Appearances

"But test everything that is said. Hold on to what is good. Stay away from every kind of evil."

Our companies have to be very cognizant and aware of appearances. While we think we understand what others might be thinking about us, we mat not truly because we don't either entirely know or have not controlled the message well enough. Companies hire public relations people and firms for just this reason. We have to be careful about how our companies are associated with someone else, with political groups, lobbyists, vendors, etc. In the start-up world there is this shift of the company that takes place right before the company is to go public. The shift happens at the senior management level and with the Board. Sometimes these new people are great for the company and their ability to manage in a public environment. Other times it is just about appearances to create confidence with the public shareholders. Appearances do matter and we have to cognizant and aware of what those appearances are.

Each and every day in our jobs we also have to manage our appearances. The decisions we make can also have a huge impact on others and what they think of us, our reputations and the example we are trying to live into. As we make these decisions and think about what the right thing to do is we can pull those decisions through the filter of what type of appearances will this create. This is especially important in that we must ensure that there would not be any appearance of us doing the wrong thing. Even what is in the news today about decisions people made years ago about who to tell, what to tell, and when to tell, has come back to haunt and brought down careers. We can question judgment but we also are affected by the appearance of the wrong doings that have now become irreparable reputation killers. The decisions we make today are unlikely this big, but even still, that decision on how to respond or how to act create appearances about how others think of us and for that we must be careful.

Reference: 1 Thessalonians 5:21-22 (New Living Testament)

day 649: Who Really Matters

"...Our purpose is to please God, not people."

Question: How much time will you spend today trying to please your boss? Have a number of minutes or hours in mind? Now, take that number and multiply it by five and that gives you the amount of time you will spend this week. Now, take that number and multiply it by the number of weeks of the year that you work (52 minus vacation weeks) and there you have it for the year. One hour a day and you could be looking at 1200 hours or more of just pleasing your boss. That works out to be three weeks or more a year doing nothing but pleasing and making one person happy. Now, add on the co-worker who demands to be pleased, and the subordinate who needs the extra time and attention to be pleased. Okay, add on the external vendor or the hard to please customer, etc. You get the picture, work is a lot about pleasing others, but the question is not about the pleasing but about understanding who really matters. If we find ourselves having to please everyone, the math tells us that we will never get anything done and our work will turn into being only about running around pleasing others. What we have to do to be effective in our work is to be able to ascertain the difference between those that really matter and the people who really don't. Not that we shouldn't be sensitive to others' needs, but we have to know the difference and focus on what really matters if we are not to get all of our time eaten up and thus become ineffective.

Paul tells us in 1 Thessalonians who really matters first and who we are really here to please and then let the rest follow. It is hard to not want to be one who pleases others but we need to recognize that by pleasing God first we will end up being the person that we are supposed to be and from there we will be holistically pleasing. If we are walking in the shadow of Jesus and we follow closely then we become the person that God wants us to be and at that point it is impossible to not be pleasing to the others who who we share our earthly time. All day long we work hard at pleasing others, when what God wants us to do is to work harder at pleasing Him first and then letting Him take care of the rest. He wants us to be great at how we work with and treat others so He will ensure that we succeed in how we interact with others and how they perceive us, if we keep our focus on Him as Who really deserves to be pleased.

Reference: 1 Thessalonians 2:4 (New Living Testament)

day 354: Shift Work

Early on in my career I worked in a manufacturing plant that had three shifts that were filled and assigned by seniority first and preference second. When the two were combined, first shift (day) was first choice and then 3rd shift (graveyard) was the next most chosen. I was always fascinated by this as I found overnight the hardest shift to adapt to (I did it on the radio for 4 months). What I learned is that some people are just built for overnight work and sleep during the day. There is a rhythm to the night and a quietness of the world that some people take to more than others. But, these are a rare and small number. The night and darkness for many people is a time of uncertainty and many times fear. Once during a realignment of the plant, a woman was bumped to third shift for a short period. She was nearly hysterical that she would have to be out of her house in the middle of the night. I really felt for her as it was obvious that her fear was real for her and it was not going to be overcome. We could only help her in that the time period was going to be short. Light and dark and night and day are all metaphors that we read throughout the Bible and light symbolizes good and God. Dark and night is bad. 1 Thessalonians 5:5: says; "For you are all children of the light and of the day; we don’t belong to darkness and night.". It may be that even though you work first or a day shift, you feel like you are caught in the dark of a third shift. What God wants to do in our lives is to allow us to work and walk in the light of His day, each and every day regardless of the physical light or dark that we would work or live in. He doesn't want us to ever feel like we are stuck in the dark or stuck in the metaphoric night. There is one way to always be in the light of the day and that is to walk towards Him. With God there is no seniority and he does not place preferences on people. God opens Himself up to all of us and only asks that we walk towards His light and then take Him with us, in our hearts, wherever we go. What God wants is us to have Him with us on all three shifts!

Reference: 1 Thessalonians 5:5 (New Living Testament)

day 250: Quality Control

Whatever business you are in, at some point there is a discussion about quality. This can be quality of the product or quality of the delivery of service. Quality is for many companies the number one priority. Ford Motor Company's advertising campaign in the late 1980's and early 1990's was built around the theme of quality with; "Quality is Job One!". We expect quality from products that we buy. We expect quality of service when we engage with a company for services rendered. When we receive quality workmanship or service we equate that to the price paid and if the quality is greater than the price then we feel like we have received a value. But when quality suffers everything suffers. That is why many a CEO and senior management team will go to any extreme to improve quality and ensure that it is one area that they can rest upon firmly. It is very interesting how the consultants who work in the quality area discuss the issue. As they dissect the problem many times what they find is that it is not a major breakdown in process, commitment, or orientation, but rather somewhere in the manufacturing process or in the service delivery standards there is a minor infraction that pollutes the entire process and renders it impossible to have perfection. Many hours and many consulting dollars are spent annually in the search for the tiniest of issues to be identified and rectified. Our lives are much the same. Especially at work. It's a small proportion of the population that have huge gaping holes in their character or their personality. But there are many, myself included, who have many small areas in our lives that need to be changed, improved, or removed in order to be the type of person we want to be. These small infractions and imperfections can be the ones that ruin the whole batch of our being. Our job, as believers, is like the quality control inspectors, to continuously be identifying areas for improvement and then change the standard operating procedures to ensure that these areas are mitigated. This is what God asks us to do in 1 Thessalonians 4:7; "God has called us to live holy lives, not impure lives." God calls us to inspect for the imperfections and then do whatever we have to do to remove those impurities. Today as you think about how you work and live, are there impurities in your life that you just keep bringing to work every day? Is it a choice of language that you use at work, is it how you treat others around you, is it the feelings that you have towards others or your attitude in general that is getting in the way of your personal quality improvement? Is there one thing you could begin changing today that when you did your own quality of person assessment, you would say needs to change? Today would be the day to make that change. Like the garment tags we get with new clothing, what better piece of paper to have in our pocket today than, "This child of God was inspected and approved by the Holy Spirit" That is true quality control.

Reference: 1 Thessalonians 4:7 (New Living Testament)

day 232: All Consuming

Sometimes it is better to face it than to deny it; work can become all-consuming. It happens to the best of us. We have priorities and we reset our priorities over and over. God first, family second, work third. And then what happens is that someone who cares for us either gently (or angrily) points out that "we've done it again" and our priorities have turned back into, work first...work second...and work third. I've had it happen to me so many times in my career that I can't count the conversations and the looks in the mirror. I also see it happening around me all the time. Right now I have a very good friend who just started a new job and he is already all-consumed with work. He loves the new job and company so he is happy and his wife and kids are happy that he is happy again, but everyone knows that this honeymoon period of never letting the Blackberry out of his hand or not having anything to talk about other than work, just can't go on for long. I'm even giving him the six-month grace period to get settled and then if things aren't different, it will be time for the "talk". Why is it that we let our work take over our lives? The same work that we can't wait to retire from or get a vacation away from, we allow to creep in and infest every waking moment and thought? It's almost self-punishment, but I would venture to say that nearly all of us have had this happen to us, more than once. Last year a young man, who is wise beyond his age, asked me what to do to keep from having work take over his life. My advice was that because work is always additive (more to do, more to take on, etc.) that thinking that one can subtract work and fill the glass with something else will never succeed. Instead, other things need to be poured into the life glass that are important enough to displace work. Like the glass that is already full, drop some pebbles in to get rid of some of the water. As believers we have the great additive to displace our obsession with work. Our minds that are full and flowing with thoughts about our jobs need to be freed by adding in other thoughts. God calls this prayer. Read along in 1 Thessalonians: "Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus." Note, "never stop praying". If you suffer from the all-consuming obsession of work and you find yourself caught in the priority spiral of work first and all other second, then begin to replace the obsessive thoughts with prayer and watch what happens. Start today with the top of your prayer list being a request to God to have His thoughts and His words replace the thoughts of work and then say that prayer over and over throughout the day. God wants us all-consumed with Him first and from there He will take good care over of us and over our work. There is no better time that today to let God be the one who rearranges our priorities.

Reference: 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 (New Living Testament)

day 179: Attitude Adjustment

If you lined up 10 people at work and asked them how many are happy to be at work, it might look like a baseball statistic. You would be pleased to get .300 and might be ecstatic to get .400. I don't know the reason why, but it seems like people lock their happiness and joy in their glove box before they go into the office. And what is even more interesting is how we each just accept that it's okay for someone to be grouchy at work. We don't stop and go out of our way to cheer someone up. Instead we see the grumpy person and we either just leave them alone or we let them drag us down with them. It doesn't have to be that way. We can be the countervailing force against grumpiness and a down-attitude. All it really takes is a commitment to bring some of our joy and happiness to work and become a positive alternative for others. When this becomes too hard to do or even remember to do, then draw on this verse; "Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus." As we work so hard to bring our purpose to work remember that always being joyful is part of God's will for each of us. Today you are going to come in contact with someone who is down on their job, down on others, or just down on life. They are letting you and others know with their words and actions that something is "just not right". While it is counter-intuitive, they are looking for someone or something to cheer them up. Your extra time, your extra words, your extra ear, your extra smile might be just the antidote to what it is that is bothering them today. Your joy can be contagious and bring an attitude adjustment to your office. And from there you may get a chance to add to the conversation the influences in your life that give you the joy that you have.

Reference: 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 (New Living Testament)