Think about it, when the economy (i.e., GDP) is off a couple of percentage points from prior year, or unemployment is near 10%, we’re quick to bemoan the terrible business environment. Yet, the fact is that 90+% of folks still have their jobs and spending is 98% of prior year levels overall. It’s clear, in spite of the bankruptcies, foreclosures, inventory adjustments, and reduced big-ticket purchases that many businesses are operating fairly normally. In fact, some niches are booming, and the necessary belt-tightening in many other sectors is fairly modest. Because we become complacent in good times, preferring to let things run comfortably on autopilot, the hands-on leadership required during recessionary times seems like a painful intrusion on our otherwise routine lives. In fact, we know from Scripture that such trials, discipline, and pruning is often used by the Lord to build perseverance, character, and hope, while drawing us closer to God to produce a harvest of righteousness (e.g., Jn 15:1-4, Ro 5:3-5, He 12:11). Think of the travails of Abraham, Job, Joseph, Daniel, and David… and how the Lord blessed and used them due to their faithful perseverance and obedience. Consider the powerful resulting testimonies that honor God and still inspire us today. We have that same opportunity, as these timeless principles are still in operation today in the arena of business. The problem, to paraphrase commentator George Will, is that we’re great creatures of habit, doing the same things over and over, while only occasionally interrupted by an original thought.

First, let’s stop to remind ourselves of a few provocative facts:

• What got you here won’t get you there. Things change, even when we resist, causing a compelling need for us to adjust our offerings, methods, and staff core competencies if we’re to continue to provide a compelling customer value proposition. Necessity is often the mother of invention!

• For the thinking business leader, there are no commodities! It’s easy, especially in a recession to think that lower prices are all that matter and our company’s offerings are indistinguishable from our competitors. Focusing solely on competitors brings sameness, bloody price wars, and a loss of focus on what it takes to thrill customers with truly differentiated goods and services. For example, some might view copper as a commodity, but think about the differing ways it might be used (e.g., Siemens power plants, Carrier air conditioners, U.S. Mint pennies, Ford auto radiators, etc.)… all leading to differentiated selling, packaging and logistical support.

• Now is a great time for fresh thinking and perseverance in relooking at how to best serve customer needs! 50+% of companies on the 2009 Fortune 500 list were launched during a recession or bear market. The prize for companies who do what it takes to survive major economic dips — keeping a highly motivated staff nucleus in place and remaining a visible presence — is being first in line to address expanding customer demand with a sharpened offering when the rebound happens.

• The fundamentals of successful business – identifying customer needs and filling them well – haven’t changed. For those who are feeling beaten down, tired and ‘last generation,’ take note that the age group with the highest rate of entrepreneurial activity over the past decade are 55-64 year-olds! Those who ‘get it’ and regularly engage customers regarding their needs and hopes in any technical or supply niche will routinely uncover breakthrough business ideas!

We must shake ourselves out of our self-justifying tendencies, seeing things through the fixed prism that we’re most comfortable with, if we’re to move ahead and not choke off the good forward-looking ideas of our customers and staff. We so easily become trapped by our own past successes, methods, reputation, and words. Consider stopping, today, to deeply reconsider some of the unquestioned ‘givens’ in your business. Deeply engage your staff, as well as thoughtful and aggressive customers in the process. Take in raw, objective, third-party input along the way as grist for the discussion.

It’s obvious that businesses must continually adapt and reinvent various aspects of themselves (e.g., methods, processes, product lines, key staff, bundling of goods and services to address target customer needs) in order to stay relevant and healthy in a changing marketplace. So what’s changed in your target markets?

■ Relational joy with the Lord and others

■ investing in the health of our mind, body and soul

■ Intentionally developing our organization and market presence

■ Time for deep reflection and creative thought

  Indeed, if we travel through life with very little ‘margin,’ we’ll soon be overloaded with the many small, reactionary crises that naturally sprout from such habits.

 This modern sickness has become a ‘badge of courage’ for many! Proud of our ability to ‘keep all the plates spinning’ in such a breathless lifestyle, we often live like hamsters on a wheel! Many actually strive to live this way. Today’s mythical ‘super woman’ is one example of such thinking. You know the celebrated image: topflight executive, spouse, gourmet homemaker, and soccer mom, and church/community volunteer. While a few among us may be so supremely organized as to be able to pull-off such an expansive multi-tasking assignment, most either ‘crash and burn’ or severely neglect vital priorities in order to pursue such an idealized existence.

 Instead, we need a godly perspective on our priorities during this short life in the flesh if we’re to restore the balance needed to regain our emotional, spiritual, physical, financial, and time reserves in an ever-quickening digital age.  Our families, businesses, testimony, and eternal legacy depend on it!

  “Lord, teach me so to conceive time as an unrepeatable gift that I might live my life serenely with Your values in mind so that my life is lived to the full.”

What are some specific attributes of God’s character and ways?

How do we model them in the process of living out our roles?

Obviously, demonstrating the highest and purest standards for justice, ethics, honesty and integrity are a good starting point. These basic building blocks represent ‘101 level’ Christianity and are not even viewed as uniquely Christian qualities. We model God’s character and ways by:

• showing our respect for Him and His all-important place in our lives as we relate with others. After all, being who He is, He is worthy of being first in our lives in a manner which is tangibly modeled. One way we might do this is…

• being open with others concerning the time we spend with God and His Word. The people we touch through business share our own children’s perspective in understanding that importance is spelled t-i-m-e. The time we spend with someone or something speaks volumes to others about what we truly value. An important example of modeling what we value by how we prioritize our precious time relates to the time we spend with God in His Word. Our attitude toward Scripture’s importance and authority in our lives should model that of Christ. As we relate to the unique group of people our business attracts we naturally communicate the value of God’s Word to them.

• our marriage relationship and our attitude toward marriage in general. Many of the policies that we adopt can either support and enhance, or damage or destroy, the health of our team’s marriages. The way we pursue our own marriage and what we say about it are the most powerful influences we can have.

• our parenting and the priority we give to being a godly parent. The children of the world are perishing for lack of godly parenting. Youth crime and violence, rampant across our nation and globe, are the result of ungodly parenting and the rejection of God and His ways. Our level of commitment to our family and to parenting our children tells others a lot about our belief in God and His ways.

• our attitudes towards money and the pleasure of this world. Ouch! For those with some means, this can be a tough path to choose. As Christians – especially Christian leaders – we should have an entirely different set of values than the world does. If our behavior demonstrates a high priority on acquiring the ‘things’ that the world loves and seeks, something is radically wrong!

God has called us to a challenging and demanding role. It is costly and can seem very painful. It reflects a spiritual paradox: the easier it becomes to obtain worldly pleasures the harder it is to deny them to ourselves. To deny the flesh is never easy. It always hurts. But leadership in God’s Kingdom is a sacred trust. In this sense, nothing that we do or say is unimportant. To the degree that our lives and actions demonstrate our trust in God, and express His values and character, we succeed. To the extent that we express those of the world we fail to have a positive impact. The ultimate judgment of our work doesn’t happen here. This judgment doesn’t accept, nor will it ignore, our adopting worldly standards of hedonistic materialism. It will happen after our race is over and will be done solely according to eternal standards. Our effective use of the ability we’ve been given to influence others will be judged in terms that have nothing to do with worldly value. This is the stricter judgment spoken of in James 3. This is the higher standard we are called to reflect as we shine our light to a hurting world. This is, ultimately, our leadership responsibility.

Leaders lead, and leadership by example is the best technique as proven for thousands of years. No great leader has ever been a disciple of “Do as I say, not as I do.” Over and over again in the study of leadership, it comes out. The greatest leaders are those having volunteer followers. Inspiration through example moves people to follow more effectively and for longer duration than anything else.

Inspiring and influencing others to follow voluntarily is leadership in its purest form.
Of course, there are other forms of leadership such as totalitarian authority, positional, monarchical, or elected majority and so on, but in the operation of a highly effective and long term successful company, volunteer followers are what we need, not slaves, serfs, or robots.
Probably the antithesis of the type of leaders we are striving to illustrate would be the army which is based upon positional authoritarian leadership. There is no choice given to the followers, it’s either obey or be punished. The leaders are identified by their title and it alone qualifies them to direct, give orders and make decisions.

Jesus might be the greatest example of a true leader. He had no title or position, no real power other than truth and example. He led by example and the power of His vision.
Ghandi is another example of a basically powerless man who is acknowledged to have been a great leader who influenced by example.

In our companies, we are the leaders. We have a title which demands respect and we can utilize the army model of chain-of-command leadership and management if we choose to do so. Most companies do but most of the best companies do not.
In today’s world, and, seemingly even more so, tomorrow’s’ high performing companies use a different style. Modern leaders will be more like Jesus than Patton.
Influence will be more effective than positional power and developing the ability to be an effective influencer is key.

To close our time today, let’s hear the famous poet Edgar Guest as he says:

I’d rather see a sermon than hear one any day,
   I’d rather one should walk with me than merely show the way.
The eye’s a better pupil and more willing than the ear;
   Fine counsel is confusing, but examples always clear;
And the best of all the preachers are the men who live their creeds,
   For to see the good in action is what everybody needs.
I can soon learn how to do it if you’ll let me see it done.
   I can watch your hands in action but your tongue too fast may run.
And the lectures you deliver may be very wise and true;
    But I’d rather get my lesson by observing what you do.                              

For I may misunderstand you and the high advice you give,
   But there’s no misunderstanding how you act and how you live.

Our pricing policies influence how buyers interact with us and actually help to shape their behavior, which is why training and discipline in this area is so important. Our sales and order desk people should work to engage and understand the buyer upfront by asking a series of questions to ‘profile’ their objectives, personal perspective and readiness.  Based on their answers, we’d alter our presentation to maximize the fit of our offer.

Understanding the customer’s exact role in the buying process, along with what and why they’re buying, lets us to zero-in on their expectations. This helps us to meet or exceed these expectations, thereby justifying a healthy price for our products or services. Taking the time to initially engage and profile the customer enables us to understand how they’ll buy. Remember, they buy emotionally and justify intellectually. We must satisfy both needs so as not to derail the purchase. Customers don’t like the feeling of being sold something. They like to buy while being confirmed in the wisdom of their decision. Even when our selling offer is fairly standardized, customers want to feel that we’ve tailored something for just for them.

A customer’s experience with us generally involves three dimensions: quality (i.e., brand reputation,  features, durability, fitness for use), service (i.e., responsiveness, delivery, warranty, field support, ‘moments of truth’), and price (actually perceived value). Quality is now a prerequisite for long-term participation in most markets. Without it, you’ll be discounting prices and incurring cost premiums just to stay in relationship with skeptical customers. It’s service excellence that often separates outstanding companies from mediocre ones. Think about companies such as Disney, FedEx, Lexus, Ritz-Carlton, and American Express. They’re all ‘premium’ companies, offering a superior service experience that enables them to set the price in their field. It’s easy to match someone else’s price, but tough to match a well-run company’s service! Consider these results from a Rockefeller Corporation study on why customers defect:

• 4% die or move away
• 14% buy from a friend or a competitor
• 14% are dissatisfied with an aspect of the offering
• 68% believe you don’t care about them

Face it, if everyone were price conscious we’d all be driving Hyundais or Kias. Most people aren’t price sensitive as much as they’re value conscious. Studies show that just 15-35% of consumers consider price to be the chief factor. More than 60% don’t consider price at all and 80% remember the brand, not the price. In every product category, ‘high-involvement’ buyers outnumber ‘price-fixated’ shoppers more than two-to-one.

With this in mind, for pricing to become a core competency in our business we must take specific steps with our team to understand and incorporate the ‘five Cs’ of value:

• Comprehend value to customers (i.e., understand segment-based value drivers)
• Create value for customers (i.e., create/deliver segment-based value solutions)
• Communicate the value you create (i.e., tell them upfront and reinforce it later)
• Convince target customers to pay for value (must profile/know them to do this)
• Capture value with strategic and disciplined pricing based on value, not cost

At the end of the day, what we’re selling is value. If we can’t communicate this value, our team can’t maximize it and capture it with price during each customer engagement. By ignoring what drives customer value, we give the customer the upper hand in negotiations, resulting in lower pricing and profits.

Marlon Brando’s pitiful angst in delivering the most famous line in 1954’s“best picture,” On the Waterfront, still resonates with us since it deals with a common condition: being burdened by regret for previous actions and lost opportunities. Brando’s character, Terry Malloy, was reflecting on his young life and the way he’d squandered his opportunity to have “class” and “be somebody.” An up-and-coming prizefighter from a tough neighborhood, he had settled for ‘chump change’ in throwing a fight that might have led to a title shot. This led to a series of compromises and a season of inconsolable regret in which he felt trapped, in the prime of life, by his previous mistake. The film finishes on a victorious note, in which Terry does “become somebody.” Although he didn’t become a champion fighter, he became a local hero, a leader at work, got the girl, and was mentored by a local priest. Like the thief on the cross (Luke 23:39-43), Terry’s actions proved the axiom, “It’s not how you start, but how you finish.”

Jesus’ brother, Jude, wrote to motivate Christians everywhere to action and to warn us about the eternal cost of living a nominal Christian life. Scripture tells us to cast all our cares upon Jesus, because He cares for us (1Peter 5:7). Proverbs 24:16 says, “A righteous man falls seven times and gets back up.” As God’s children who can never be snatched from His hand (John 10:28) and are entrusted with His truth that will never be broken or pass away (Matthew 24:35, John 10:35), we’ve been commissioned to contend for the faith. We can do this going forward with the unshakeable confidence that our life and work truly matter for eternity and that our past, present and future have been redeemed in Christ!

As Christ’s disciples, whatever our previous track record, we can be encouraged by two key facts.

First, we don’t do these things on our own; we have an awesome Lord who strengthens and cheers us along the way, picking us up and washing us off when we stumble.

Second, it’s never too late to be refined, seek God’s purposes, and finish strong.

Jude exhorts us to share God’s truth, reject falsehood and immoral practices, celebrate God’s goodness, live faithfully, and share Christ’s love.

Let’s begin our implementation focus by looking at the leadership practices which Reichheld’s research determined to be common among companies enjoying the greatest loyalty from customers and employees. Loyalty Rules highlights business practices that read like a C12 playbook, including the Golden Rule, pursuing excellence, simplicity, honesty, fairness, respect, personal accountability, and performance pay. These traits were distilled into six ‘loyalty principles’ to help to shape metrics, compensation systems, organizational development, strategy, and operations. As we review each element, make a mental note as to how your company fares.

Six Pillars of Loyalty

 Play to win/win: Profiting at the expense of partners is a shortcut to a ‘dead end’! Focus solely on opportunities/niches where you can become the best. Align partners around overarching objectives to upgrade the customer experience, and insist on win/win solutions. Shed distractions, sharpen plans and processes, and teach win/win behavior. Paul also taught this, saying, “Let each of you ‘look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.’” (Php 2:4).

 Be picky: Membership is a privilege! Loyalty requires making choices. Cultivate business relationships only when both sides can provide special value or you’ll soon dilute your value and be special to no one. Choose employees, customers, and suppliers carefully, through a win/win lens. Invest in their success and stick with them for the long-term… if they earn the privilege through performance. Loyalty is a two-way street!

 Keep it simple: Complexity is the enemy of speed and flexibility! Clarify the values and rules that govern all decisions. Use small teams to maximize responsiveness, flexibility and accountability. Maintain simple, stable, visual scorekeeping. Reduce overhead ‘interference’ by growing your business without growing HQ staff. Focus on continuous improvement and ‘the future.’ Remember, whatever doesn’t add customer value is waste!

 Reward the right results: Worthy partners deserve worthy goals! Align performance targets so that all partners stretch, together, for worthy goals. Share the benefits while strengthening the company. Don’t confuse long-term value with short-term profits, or loyalty with tenure. Measure the right things and fix ‘misalignments.’ Reward loyalty among employees, suppliers and customers with win/win growth and development opportunities.

 Listen hard, talk straight: Long-term relationships require honest, two-way communication and learning! Loyalty is based on trust, and trust requires reliable and accurate information. Deepen working relationships using feedback tools and joint forums to drive improvement. Listen to input, prioritize issues, and act on what you hear. Shared learning and understanding yields clearer priorities, coordinated actions, and superior results. Nothing magnifies the ‘loyalty effect’ like trust rooted in an open exchange of information and ideas. Confront ‘brutal facts’ in a way that exemplifies the truth being spoken in love (e.g., regular report cards, real-time metrics)!

 Preach what you practice: Actions often speak louder than words, but together they’re unbeatable! Clarify your principles and communicate them with passion. They’re the gravitational center for organization focus and loyalty, enabling your partners to understand, buy in, and become truly loyal. Put it in writing, talk the walk, continually teach and reinforce these practices. Celebrate internal heroes, share edifying stories and illustrative case studies. Continually cast the vision of where we’re going and how we’ll get there, based on mutually earned loyalty.

As leaders prone to pride and works of righteousness, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that we’re somehow becoming more Christ-like by our own efforts. Sure, we know we’re saved by grace, but we’d like to think that our works make us more holy. In the heat of the daily battle we can forget that, apart from our identity in Christ, what we bring to the party – even on our best day – is “as filthy rags”(Isa 64:6). By leaning on our own righteousness, we damage our testimony with each offense, and push away many to whom we’re called to minister by our self-righteous behavior. In truth, our holiness depends on faithfully abiding in Jesus, which is made possible by His grace. John Piper recently said, “Grace isn’t simply leniency when we’ve sinned. Grace is the enabling gift of God not to sin. Grace is power, not just pardon.” For believers, God’s grace is active in saving us in Christ, sanctifying us in His image, and bringing us safely home!

Confident in God’s grace, we have the privilege of presenting ourselves, in gratitude, as living sacrifices and His ambassadors! When selfless works flow out of a heart that is grateful for such unmerited favor, others can often begin to see the reality of Christ’s love and gospel. With this truth in mind, let’s consider a few questions:

■Jesus told Paul that His “grace is sufficient” and His “power is made perfect in weakness.” How does this relate to us today as servant leaders and shepherds in the workplace?

■Do we behave or communicate as if “God is fortunate to have us on His team”?How can our ‘righteous’ behavior, often rooted in a misplaced sense of guilt or pride, create a stumbling block to others who truly need to hear Christ’s gospel of grace?

■Practically speaking, what does ‘humble reliance’ look like for us and how can this open the door with others to sharing the hope we have in Christ?

These tumultuous days may be the greatest season of our lives… the most fruitful that we have ever known! It will all depend on how we perceive them. It’s been said that “The circumstances of life don’t make me who I am; they reveal whose I am.” Light always shines brightest in darkness. This is our time! Brothers and sisters, we were created for this day!

Am I just ‘whistling through the graveyard’ or is this for real? Let’s talk about it.

Considering our Reality

If God has a plan for our lives – and He surely does – and if He will judge our performance versus that plan – and He surely will – then, if He is a just God, He must provide all we need to do what He asks. God is perfectly just (Dt 32:4, Dan 4:37, 1Jn 1:9)! Therefore, we’ll never lack His perfect provision to do what He asks. He is never limited by worldly measures or circumstances. Remember, He is the One who fed over three million people for forty years in the middle of a desert! He didn’t need food stamps, businesses, or anything outside of Himself to accomplish this. He is the sovereign and omnipotent Creator and Sustainer of all that exists. He is never limited from doing anything. As His children and joint heirs in Jesus, with daily access to the throne, neither are we! Our only prerequisite is that we’re to be doing what He asks or, saying it another way, walking in His will for our lives.

We do have a problem though. Our culture has been so leavened by the poison of the “prosperity gospel” that we‘ve come to believe that walking in God’s will, or doing what He asks, will lead to a life absent of difficulty or challenge. It’s amazing that in all of our personal experience or knowledge, in all of history, and in all of the Biblical record, not one person has ever achieved or experienced such a life. Think about that last statement for a moment. No one, godly or ungodly, escapes the trials and cycles of life. It is a fool’s errand, created in the depths of hell, to blindly pursue an unobtainable or unsustainable, non-Biblical life! So many are discouraged and disillusioned by chasing unrealistic expectations! God never promised us such a self-imagined utopia. He simply says that He will never leave or forsake us.

The knowledge that (1) our heavenly Father is a good God who always “works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose” (Ro 8:28) and (2) there is no power on earth or in heaven that can stand against Him, is our foundation for living in and through the inevitable up and down cycles of life. Paul’s encouragement in Romans 8 actually follows a discussion of suffering! In amazing ways, suffering draws us closer to God as we learn, first-hand, that “we are more than conquerors” and that nothing in all creation can separate us from His love! Armed with this certainty, we’re able to experience joy and contentment in the midst of the chaos of life in the flesh and the rough and tumble marketplace! Nothing stays the same in our life experience. Struggle always follows triumph, and vice-versa. There’s no way to avoid the reality of our fallen world. The secret is to learn to live above it… in it, but not of it. This can happen only if we live our lives with a true eternal perspective while trusting in a good and sovereign God.

Now, think about this… God knew exactly the environment and circumstances we would face when He sent you and me to earth at this moment to be His Ambassadors! He chose us for this time! It’s no accident that you and I are where we are, doing what we do, just now. He placed us precisely here, in time and space, and planned for us to do things for Him in the midst of the circumstances we find ourselves in right now!! And we’ll always have all we need to do all He wants!

Anxiety; a state of being anxious, apprehensive, concerned, or a mental condition arising from fear or solicitude.”

   Sound familiar? Anxiety is almost an accepted norm for today’s business owner. “Anxious about what,” you ask? Nothing really. Nothing, except, people problems, money problems, marriage problems, kid problems, tax problems, profit problems, government red tape, competition, and getting old, fat, and bald. Nothing much.

  The arenas change, our lives progress, we move forward, but problems are ever with us.

  It really shouldn’t surprise us. Jesus told us that, “In this world you WILL have tribulation (another word for problems).” The truth is that there is nothing that we can do to avoid problems. They are a forever, integral part of life.

  Besides, the problems are not the problem. Our reaction to the problems are the problem. A wise man once said, “The problems of life don’t make me who I am, they reveal who I am.”

Perhaps for a Christian it would be more accurate to say, “The problems of life don’t make me who I am, they reveal WHOSE I am.”

  A scripture verse that has had special meaning to many in this particular regard is Philippians 4:6. The verse says, “Be anxious for NOTHING.”

  The verse goes on to say, “but in EVERYTHING through prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will guard your HEARTS and MINDS through Christ Jesus.”

There is a key to this truth that is often overlooked. It’s the part that says, “WITH THANKSGIVING.” We focus on the praying and supplicating and tend to forget about the thanksgiving.

  You see, anxiety and true thanksgiving cannot exist in the same place at the same time. Be honest, you who are anxious, how much time do you spend giving thanks to God for what He has already done and given you, compared to the time you spend in asking Him to deal with some problem? How much do we just take for granted?

  We can make a big start by choosing to be content. Contentment isn’t something that happens “to” us, it is a choice we make for ourselves. Paul said that he had learned to be content in riches or poverty. We can learn it too.

  Contentment and thankfulness go hand in hand because thankfulness helps us to recognize how much we have already.

 Anxiety or Contentment? What is your choice?

 “Remember, if you can’t be content with what you have, you will never be content with what you are trying to get.”