The Best Example of a Christian Employer # 2
Saturday, April 3rd, 2010
- He was transparent before them
Jesus was transparent because he had nothing to hide. The bible tells us that he was without sin. He had no secret agendas; he didn’t lie to anyone (though clearly, his parables confused many!), nor did he try to defend himself or blame anyone else. From the moment his ministry began – effectively after his baptism in the Jordan, his mission statement was simple and clear:
"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." (Matt. 28: 19-20)
Everything he did, and everything he said up to point, lined up with this final statement in Matthew’s gospel.
The Christian employer needs to be similarly transparent with his employees. Regardless of what you may think, your employees watch you to see whether your walk matches your talk. Saying one thing and doing another is not going to engender trust. Be consistent in terms of what you are trying to achieve, and even if you mess up along the way, your staff will know it was just a slip. Your true character is permanently on show.
If your business is struggling, walking around trying to act like nothing is wrong simply won’t cut it. They know what’s going on, and it’s better to be up front and honest than try to pull the wool over their eyes. The truth will out eventually anyway. Some of your staff may cut and run (even Peter deserted Jesus when the going got rough!), but you’ll be surprised how loyal most of them can be – especially when they know you’re being transparent with them.
Conversely, if your business is doing well, don’t try to downplay its performance in the hope that you can get away with keeping the benefits to yourself. Remember, you only got where you are, because they were there with you along the way!
While I realise that some businesses products and services are highly sensitive to competition; and while not all employees are totally honest and loyal enough to keep things to themselves, I don’t believe there’s anything to be gained by trying to hide financial information from them. It will do two things – it will tell them you don’t trust them, and it will make them suspicious of you. And – as is usual in cases like this, this could only stimulate them to find out exactly what is that you’re so secretive about anyway. Create a set of rules, and it’s human nature to want to break them!
I made a decision when I started up my business, that all our financial transactions (with the exception of employees’ personal remuneration details) are available to all my employees, at any time. There are no passwords hiding ‘sensitive’ information from them.
They also know how much my personal income is. Frankly, I find it quite liberating not having to worry about who might know what, and when they will use it against me! There’s an old saying: “what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive,” and this is very true.
More importantly, I believe that if I’m transparent my employees will tend to be the same.
- He believed in them.
Laurie Beth Jones says this: “Jesus had to believe in his staff or he would never have slept nights. Their backgrounds were not glorious, and they did not grasp what he was saying most of the time. They were constantly arguing over who would get to sit where in the kingdom, and they dozed off and forgot him when he needed them the most. Yet these were the people he chose to work with, and he visualized the best in each of them, even when there was evidence to the contrary…People tend to rise to the occasion when they have someone who truly believes in them. Perhaps we just need someone to show us who we really are inside.”
Peter was really flaky at first – given to fits of temper and impulsiveness. Matthew was a tax collector – a job that even today is frowned upon – and these guys were known (in those days) to be real sharks. Enough has been said about Judas, the ultimate betrayer, and if that wasn’t enough, he was also a petty thief, pilfering from their money bag whenever he got the chance. Jesus had made him the treasurer, of all things – and I’m sure he knew what he was doing. Talk about believing in your people!
It is easy in this day and age to become a cynic about ethics and good, old-fashioned honesty and integrity. It’s easy to say it no longer exists. And just as easy to go out and design systems of control that not only micro-manages everything everyone does, all the time, but even manages the managers! Now, I’m not suggesting that you effectively give every employee your pin number to the bank account, but I am suggesting you start giving them a chance.
At the same time, we are all human (without the discernment Jesus no doubt had), and there is great value in preventing temptation. History proves that even the most noble, honourable men and women have given in to temptation from time to time. A good practical example of this is the system I employ in my own business.
The first thing is to give your employees decision-making rights. This means that they are given the right to make certain decisions for the business, within certain limitations, and without deferring to me about them. However, along with decision-making rights goes accountability. I therefore expect them to make certain decisions for the business without permission from me, but I will hold them to those decisions. This means they cannot be frivolous about them – they need to think them through carefully, because there are consequences to all our decisions. I have found that this encourages initiative and innovation, not to mention loyalty. But more importantly, it tells them that I believe in them.
The second thing to do is set up your systems of control so that there are clearly defined boundaries within which those decision-making rights can be exercised. When doing this, make sure that there are no grey areas, or areas of overlapping responsibility. The person who is responsible for my business’ accounting does not have the right to make payments from the bank account. Conversely, the payments drawn from the bank account are accounted for by the bookkeeper. This is good internal control, and removes temptation at the same time.
So, having said that one needs to take sensible precautions, – it is mainly in the area of finance. Money, it has been found, tests the ultimate issues of the human heart!
Believing in your employees, however, is much more than just about money.
It’s about believing that they can actually do the job you’ve entrusted them with. Sometimes we employ people, with certain qualifications, and then still hover over them to make sure the job’s done properly. Jesus’ gave his disciples a commission to go out into the world and make disciples of all nations. He told them:
"And as you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ "Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. Freely you received, freely give. (Matt 10:7 – 8)
Along with a few other instructions! There was no more detail than this. Jesus knew what this was going to entail – that the simple commission would multiply through hundreds of thousands of others over thousands of years and that it would affect the whole world. A massive task with massive responsibility! In this day and age, we would have gathered a team around us of scientists, economists, strategists, accountants, lawyers, teachers and MBA’s – and whole squad of marketers and advertising consultants. He didn’t. He entrusted this commission to a few simple fishermen. He believed in them. And they knew it! And look what happened!
