Where Does Jesus Show?

Posted by Randy Harrod on Oct 16th, 2009 | no comments home title

C12’s tagline is “Building GREAT Businesses for a GREATER Purpose.” Imagine being a ‘fly on the wall’ and somehow being able to quietly observe your company as an employee, customer, supplier, or competitor would. What would you observe on a regular basis that would lead you to think that your company belonged to Christ and was being led by a believing manager or steward? What would you see that would be different from any other secular or non-Christ-interested business?

Getting Specific
Anytime someone comes into contact with any aspect of our business, however remote, and has an opportunity to form an impression… this is a ‘moment of truth’ where we have an opportunity to express who we are and what we stand for. This exposure may be as brief as someone driving past our facility, seeing our signage, or hearing our radio ad. It could be as intimate as working alongside us on a difficult project or in developing a challenging new product offering. Let’s explore the possibilities a bit further, considering four different stakeholder communities.

Can our customers see Jesus in our: sales people, marketing literature, invoicing, credit and collections, customer service, advertising, product delivery, and after-sale service?

Can our suppliers see Him in our: negotiating and vendor selection process, payables practices, project team relationships, on-going trustworthiness as an operating partner, attitudes toward them, and how we value their time and resources?

Can our employees see Jesus in our: selection and training, performance evaluations, company policies, approach toward discipline and rewards, encouragement of desired practices, commitment to win/win team relationships, and the people and behaviors we praise?

Do our competitors and other business people get a clue that there’s something very different about us and our company as we compete with them, refer business to them, participate in trade associations and civic organizations with them, and see us serving our community? Do they find it tough to recruit folks away from us?

All of these things, you see, serve to create and constitute our corporate culture. This workplace culture comes out of our deepest and most fervently-held purpose and paradigm. We can say what we want, but what we do discloses the truth of our hearts. As we’re fond of saying in C12, “Priorities are what we do… everything else is just talk!”