Business

The “C” Word

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Julie was a store manager of Furniture Fiesta. Four years ago, Digi-World picked up the small chain in an expansion move, hoping to expand into the office furniture market space. But a bad economy exposed Furniture Fiesta as a ball and chain on Digi-World’s overall business. Nine months ago, Julie got the word: Furniture Fiesta would soon join the likes of Circuit City and Steve & Barry’s.

After putting in a dozen years, Julie knew she needed to move fast to save her career. She polished the résumé and checked out a list of Furniture Fiesta competitors that were still standing. That’s when Glenn called.

Glenn was a Digi-World regional manager. Desperate to keep knowledgeable staff, Glenn pitched Julie a hard-to-refuse offer: Stay on, see the store liquidation through to the end, and take home a $30,000 bonus. She bit and signed the contract.

And now, after putting in her nine months, months when she could have been pounding the pavement before the economy tanked even further, Glenn had the nerve to tell her the bonus deal was off. Not only that, but Digi-World’s flotilla of legal sharks had found a way to negate her contract.

So Julie went outside for a smoke and gave serious contemplation to taking her lighter to something. Anything. Actually, Glenn, would be a start. She’d have good reason, right?

So much for commitment.

Which is why I look at this AIG fiasco with a different eye. The people receiving these much-maligned bonuses weren’t getting optional performance bonuses, but binding retention bonuses, like Julie, for staying on to close down unprofitable portions of the company. I give you my word...They deserved the money because they made career sacrifices for it and had a legal right to it, no matter how much they make. If there’s a problem, then fix it, but shafting the people who did the work?

So much for commitment.

Folks, that could be you and me being stiffed out of our money for agreed-upon work.

It bothers me that people roll so easily on promises, vows, and commitments. We all know about the divorce rate, but it extends out into so many areas, even to the constant turnaround in the rosters of pro sports teams. Everything is transitory, to the point that saying “I give you my word” carries about as much worth as a five-ticket toy at Chuck E. Cheese.

We in the Church can do a great deal of good by being the counterexample. But it’s going to cost us something. We won’t be seen as “team players” by the rest of the world if we always honor commitments, especially when the higher-ups want to just call the whole thing off, no harm, no foul.

In truth, it’s never no foul, is it? Someone’s always getting stiffed when commitment goes wanting.

Better it be us Christians, that we might spare someone else the pain. After all, we have the perfect example of commitment, don’t we?

On Pondering…

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I had planned last night to write the second part of my look at how the Church can return to being attractive, a trait that the early Church had in spades. {See part 1 of “The Rules of Attraction (Spiritual Edition).”} What stopped me was a very simple truth that seems lacking in today’s society: I needed to think a bit more about what I wanted to say before I said it.

I have some good ideas for the post’s second part, but they are not as developed as I would like. Plus, I think the topic of winsome attractiveness of the Church is an important one that has only been addressed on a surface level (think “seeker sensitivity” here).

And that’s an issue in itself. The very act of pondering something, anything is passé. Life is Twittered and blogged so that every act is right there in your face within seconds. “Ponder? Who has time to think?”

I want time to think. I believe thinking matters. Rushing headlong into anything and everything seems to be the American condition circa 2009, and it’s largely responsible for the mess we’re in. Let me think about that...“Just Do It” makes a fine mantra for the slothful, for that indolent fellow who can’t seem to rouse himself from sleep, but it’s a lousy way to approach the most important issues of life. “Just Do It” simply can’t abide “Let me think about that….”

The American car manufacturers put on their sad sack faces, hands out to Washington. Decades of “just get us through this quarter” contrasts with the Japanese model of the 50-year plan. Detroit stopped thinking—didn’t have time for it. The Japanese, however, saw that NOT thinking would be the end of their success before it even started. Better for them to consider how to be the best and continue that thinking through subsequent refinements over decades than to always be reacting, tossed around by the whims of the market, with no foundation. As a result, in time, the Japanese successfully cleaned Detroit’s automotive clock.

During a job interview years ago, a hiring manager scolded me when he asked a thoughtful question and I responded with “Let me think about that for a moment.” His instant reply: “Hmph. We don’t have the luxury of time here. This job requires fast answers. You obviously aren’t the right kind of person.” (Seriously. I waited for him to append “…for us” onto the end of his final sentence, but he never did.)

That company is out of business. Fast answers obviously didn’t equate to good, thoughtful ones.

Reactionary thinking drives the Church in America. Sadly, that mentality has made us frivolous and irrelevant in the eyes of many Americans. We come off as just as clueless as everyone else even though we have the answers to life’s most important questions. The problem is we checked our watches and stopped thinking about those important questions. Worse, we joined the dangerous pack mentality of “just get us through this quarter” thanks, in part, to all those spurious “run your church like a business” books that cluttered the Christian bestseller lists.

I noted for years that the Church was woefully unprepared for an economic meltdown because no leaders in the Church here were pondering how to lead through tough times. I kept hoping that someone with a louder voice than mine would sound the same alarm, while providing some common sense responses. Obviously, I hoped in vain. Now we have millions pounding on our doors looking for answers and handouts and our own pantry is bare.

Why? Because we failed to take time to ponder the important questions of our times.

So there’s no followup today for Monday’s post because I want good answers to the issue. On select topics, most extroverts can cough up in an instant what passes for depth in a shallow society. I don’t want to be one of those people because I want what I say to have lasting, even eternal, value.

Introducing “Employ the Body!”

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Anyone familiar with my writings on both the business world and the necessity of Christian community knows I have some strong opinions. I’ve been writing for years that we Christians, as much as we talk about community, see our family units as little islands, that while floating in the same Christian sea as other islands, never truly touch. Couple that view with my view on business and you have today’s post, the introduction of a solution to some of that disconnectedness.

I’ve added a page to Cerulean Sanctum. You can see it up top. It’s called Employ the Body!

Employ the Body! is my attempt to help Christian freelancers (like yours truly), the self-employed, or those who own small businesses, leverage the power of the Web to help generate business. It’s also my way of increasing the Google Page Rank for those who would otherwise wind up buried in a sea of Google results should someone type in graphic designer or mechanic.

I’m offering this page as a free opportunity for you to link your business’s Web site on a blog with a large readership. No strings. No cost. No hidden gotchas. To get listed, you need to meet the following requirements:

You are a freelancer, self-employed, or the owner of a small business.

You are a born-again Christian.

You are a commenter on Cerulean Sanctum or have emailed me outside of blogging. In other words, I need to recognize your name. (The exception to the rule concerns spouses. If you are a regular commenter or emailer but your spouse isn’t, he/she still has a connection through you, so his/her business can be listed here. Spouses must also be born-again to qualify.)

Any business is welcome so long as it is legitimate. I will add additional business classifications to the page as necessary. (I do reserve the right to reject a listing that I deem inappropriate or contrary to the nature of the conversation here at Cerulean Sanctum.)

To be listed, I need your company logo (125 px in height), the name of your company, your name and title, the URL to your Web site, and, if you have one, a LinkedIn profile page link.

Those are the very simple rules.

I do have a request, though. It’s not mandatory, but it makes the whole idea work:

If you wish to be listed here, and you have a blog or Web site, I would gratefully request that you either link to the Employ the Body! page or reproduce the page on your own site in its entirety.

I say that because many small, Christian businesses can’t generate enough links to get a decent Page Rank in Google. In other words, the Internet noise drowns out a legitimate signal. That’s where the backlinking makes a big difference. With more and more people using the Web to locate companies, the difference between success and failure for a small Christian business can be a few dozen clicks. Seriously.

Employ the Body! has the opportunity to help other believers. If you’ve read this blog long enough, you know the improtance of community in tough times. If we can’t help each other, how then can we say that we are the light of the world through Christ living in us?

For those of you reading who aren’t freelancers, self-employed, or small business owners, you can still help your brothers and sisters in Christ who are by linking to the Employ the Body! page on your own blogs or by using the services of the companies listed there. (Understand, though, that I can’t vouch for the services rendered by other parties listed on that page. As with anything, wisdom is called for when dealing with any business, whether it calls itself Christian or not. In other words, your mileage may vary.)

Lastly, many people have asked how they can support me. Some have donated to Cerulean Sanctum, and that’s a huge blessing to my family. I realize, though, that not everyone has the means to do so. That’s perfectlyt understandable. You can help in another way. If you have a blog or Web site, please consider linking to the Employ the Body! page and to my freelance writing and editing business, Ethereal Pen Productions. It would mean a lot to me and to those listed on Employ the Body!

And if you ever need a writer or editor who can make documents sizzle, I’m right here.

Thanks, as always, for supporting the writing at Cerulean Sanctum. Now you have a free way to support other brothers and sisters in Christ, too.

Blessings,

Dan Edelen