These are difficult economic times for many. But if so-inclined, even the best-of-times can cause worry.
A few years ago my principal business enterprise was dealing with several past-due receivables equal to roughly twenty-percent of annual revenue. Many receivables exceeded over 120 days past due. The coincidence of several clients being delinquent at the same time was difficult.
For a number of reasons there was substantial confidence that payment would eventually be made in full. Our bankers were understanding and helpful. Now, years later, I can tell you all the payments were received. But, at the time, it was easy to worry.
Jesus teaches, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they. And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit to his span of life? ...your heavenly Father knows you need (all these things). But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well.” (Matthew 6: 25-33)
Our business intelligence system predicted the late payments about 30 to 60 days in advance. Vigilance is helpful. Our regular lines-of-credit and reserves were sufficient to fully cover about 90 days of late payments. Preparation is prudent. We reduced expenses and our Controller and client relationship managers were proactive in facilitating payment. Action is appropriate. We kept our subcontractors informed of how cash-flow might impact payments to them. Concern for others is just. We reviewed how we had contributed to the problem. Self-critique will help avoid repeating the problem.
Anxiety seems unavoidable, but it doesn’t contribute anything helpful and actually distracts from more truly productive work.
Simultaneous with the receivables problem I was shepherding the biggest new business contract this particular firm had seen. I was also engaged in cultivating another very promising new business prospect that seemed to be a few weeks from a major commitment.
Instead of worrying, Jesus says I should seek first the fundamental nature of God and how that nature is expressed in society. I should be giving priority to what is real and sustainable. I should not waste my time and disperse my energy in being anxious over what I cannot control.
Moreover Jesus teaches that if I will focus on the fundamental realities of righteousness and justice, what I truly need will also be provided.
Jesus is saying – as Michael Porter teaches and Peter Drucker advises and dozens of other strategists counsel – that investing in what you perceive will advance your long-term competitive advantage is always the best guarantee, where there are no guarantees. Be ready to adjust to meaningful feedback, be vigilant, be prepared, take action, but don’t worry.
The past due payments will not always be received. The new business will not always be closed. Tough times will come. But an active investment in a long-term, sustainable, and differentiated strategy is the best means to provide the foundation necessary to pull the enterprise through the tough times.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Sustainability
In most of the work-related parables of Jesus there is a focus on long-term and sustainable returns. In the Sermon on the Mount he is even more explicit:
Don’t acquire possessions here on earth, where moth or insect eats away and where robbers break in and steal. Instead gather your nest egg in heaven, where neither moth nor insect eats away and where no robbers break in or steal. As you know, what you treasure is your hearts true measure.
The most common interpretation of this teaching has been to disdain hoarding or preoccupation with material security. There is a kind of wealth that can be stolen and another kind of wealth that cannot be stolen. Jesus is clearly encouraging attention to a form of wealth that cannot be lost.
The afterlife was not a major concern of Jewish faith. In striking contrast with their Egyptian and many Mesopotamian neighbors the Jewish faith of the period was very much of this world. The most common word in the Hebrew Scriptures for the abode of God is the same word (shamayim) that is used for the physical universe. The sense that God is somehow above and outside the physical universe is a fairly recent concept, and would have been quite difficult to grasp for those listening to Jesus.
When we read the quote from Matthew many moderns will also – usually without knowing it – hear it under the influence of Plato and Descartes. These harmonies would not have been there for those listening to Jesus. They would have heard a much more direct melody.
If Jesus was making the same point with modern listeners he might say something such as:
Don’t invest in short-term and speculative propositions. Instead focus on long-term and sustainable returns. And if this is the key to financial success, the same values are even more important in the rest of your life. Give priority to your long-term relationships with one another and with God. In all things give priority to what is real and lasting. As you know, what you treasure is your hearts true measure.
For most of the last twenty years, my professional life has involved the Internet and related technologies as a key differentiator. As a result, during the dot.com boom of the 1990s I was involved in several investment opportunities. In one case I joined some other experienced men to launch a start-up that went after venture capital support. We were experienced enough and our concept was sufficiently promising that we almost always received a serious hearing for an investment. But at some point the VCs always pushed for something that my co-founders and I found unrealistic and unsustainable. All of our business experience told us we were being asked to paint ourselves into an unattractive corner.
When our management team would reject these preconditions our request for funding would also be rejected. After several such mutual rejections, I began to feel especially old and out-of-touch. As billions of dollars flowed through the dot.com sector it became increasingly clear that I was ill-suited to the “new economy.” But I also recognized that I could not agree to the preconditions and be myself. Well before the dot.com bubble burst, I had stopped actively seeking the VC funding. In many ways it felt like a profound failure, an opportunity to which I was unable to adapt.
About nine months after I gave up, the bubble burst big-time. On several occasions since then the unsuccessful management team has given thanks for our unsuccess.
It is much more satisfying to build a business – no matter how modest – that is well-suited to your true self, than to undertake something badly matched and then spend months or years reducing staff, explaining missed targets, dealing with legal challenges, and trying to convert an unsustainable business model into something else.
I treasure the creative process, which means I treasure my co-creators: colleagues and clients (I should include competitors, but that would be a lie, I am not that spiritually mature; respect is as far as I can go). I want to make money. I need to make money. “Give us this day our daily bread,” is a very meaningful element of the Lords Prayer. But money is not treasure, it is a pale reflection of the treasure.
Many of the teachings of Jesus are far beyond my current faith and strength. But it is clear that money – whether it is a crisp cashiers check with many zeros or a moth eaten dollar bill – is just a tool. It has no meaning in itself. Value is produced through sustained engagement in creative problem-solving and sustained engagement in meaningful relationships.
Righteousness, justice, and peace create the kind of long-term value that is truly sustainable.
The image above is Death and the Miser by Hieronymous Bosch (1494 or later)
Don’t acquire possessions here on earth, where moth or insect eats away and where robbers break in and steal. Instead gather your nest egg in heaven, where neither moth nor insect eats away and where no robbers break in or steal. As you know, what you treasure is your hearts true measure.
The most common interpretation of this teaching has been to disdain hoarding or preoccupation with material security. There is a kind of wealth that can be stolen and another kind of wealth that cannot be stolen. Jesus is clearly encouraging attention to a form of wealth that cannot be lost.
He says this kind of wealth is kept in heaven. How heaven is understood in the twenty-first century is quite unlike how it would have been understood in the first century.
The afterlife was not a major concern of Jewish faith. In striking contrast with their Egyptian and many Mesopotamian neighbors the Jewish faith of the period was very much of this world. The most common word in the Hebrew Scriptures for the abode of God is the same word (shamayim) that is used for the physical universe. The sense that God is somehow above and outside the physical universe is a fairly recent concept, and would have been quite difficult to grasp for those listening to Jesus.When we read the quote from Matthew many moderns will also – usually without knowing it – hear it under the influence of Plato and Descartes. These harmonies would not have been there for those listening to Jesus. They would have heard a much more direct melody.
If Jesus was making the same point with modern listeners he might say something such as:
Don’t invest in short-term and speculative propositions. Instead focus on long-term and sustainable returns. And if this is the key to financial success, the same values are even more important in the rest of your life. Give priority to your long-term relationships with one another and with God. In all things give priority to what is real and lasting. As you know, what you treasure is your hearts true measure.
For most of the last twenty years, my professional life has involved the Internet and related technologies as a key differentiator. As a result, during the dot.com boom of the 1990s I was involved in several investment opportunities. In one case I joined some other experienced men to launch a start-up that went after venture capital support. We were experienced enough and our concept was sufficiently promising that we almost always received a serious hearing for an investment. But at some point the VCs always pushed for something that my co-founders and I found unrealistic and unsustainable. All of our business experience told us we were being asked to paint ourselves into an unattractive corner.
When our management team would reject these preconditions our request for funding would also be rejected. After several such mutual rejections, I began to feel especially old and out-of-touch. As billions of dollars flowed through the dot.com sector it became increasingly clear that I was ill-suited to the “new economy.” But I also recognized that I could not agree to the preconditions and be myself. Well before the dot.com bubble burst, I had stopped actively seeking the VC funding. In many ways it felt like a profound failure, an opportunity to which I was unable to adapt.
About nine months after I gave up, the bubble burst big-time. On several occasions since then the unsuccessful management team has given thanks for our unsuccess.
It is much more satisfying to build a business – no matter how modest – that is well-suited to your true self, than to undertake something badly matched and then spend months or years reducing staff, explaining missed targets, dealing with legal challenges, and trying to convert an unsustainable business model into something else.
I treasure the creative process, which means I treasure my co-creators: colleagues and clients (I should include competitors, but that would be a lie, I am not that spiritually mature; respect is as far as I can go). I want to make money. I need to make money. “Give us this day our daily bread,” is a very meaningful element of the Lords Prayer. But money is not treasure, it is a pale reflection of the treasure.
Many of the teachings of Jesus are far beyond my current faith and strength. But it is clear that money – whether it is a crisp cashiers check with many zeros or a moth eaten dollar bill – is just a tool. It has no meaning in itself. Value is produced through sustained engagement in creative problem-solving and sustained engagement in meaningful relationships.
Righteousness, justice, and peace create the kind of long-term value that is truly sustainable.
The image above is Death and the Miser by Hieronymous Bosch (1494 or later)
Friday, January 22, 2010
Love
A lawyer once asked Jesus, “Teacher, which is the great commandment of the law?” (Matthew 22:36) To which Jesus replied, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.”
What is this love to which Jesus directs us? His is a concept of love that precedes St. Paul’s interpretation of sacrificial love exemplified in the crucifixion. This is a Jewish concept of love not yet fused with Platonic mysticism by St. Augustine. The life of love taught by Jesus was not burdened with medieval chivalry, or Victorian romanticism, or post-Freudian doubt. Yet it is also a love that goes far beyond simple obedience to narrowly defined legalism.
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” You shall understand your neighbor to be as real as yourself. You shall not reduce your neighbor to something less than an individual with a full claim to righteousness. You shall be in relationship with your neighbor. You shall empathize with your neighbor. You shall avoid categorizing your neighbor into convenient and illusory stereotypes and caricatures. You shall seek the tsedaq of your neighbor as assiduously as your own.
Love is primarily a sense of shared identity and ongoing relationship. Whether we are psychologically healthy or not – whether we like ourselves or not – we are engaged in our self-identity. Jesus tells us we should engage our neighbors as fully as we engage ourselves.
He goes even further. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus teaches, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
When I meet with senior colleagues our informal conversations usually revolve around those individuals and organizations perceived as threatening. It is an interesting contrast with the official agenda that is almost always focused on purposes, objectives, and more positive opportunities. Over coffee, at dinner, between planes, there is an ongoing effort to make sense of those who threaten us.
Overtime as we learn more and more about those who threaten us a narrative begins to emerge. We know about their early origins, typical behavior, apparent goals, weaknesses, and strengths. Individually or institutionally these “enemies” become very real to us. The more we know, usually the more we respect the enemy. In some cases as we come to better understand the other, we learn they are not as threatening as it seemed. In a few cases, we have been able to transform an enemy into a partner.
I have not encouraged my senior colleagues to love our enemies. But I have certainly talked about “getting inside their head" and "understanding their motivations.” I have always mistrusted a threat analysis that seems to disrespect the origin or capabilities of the threat. I have always felt most capable defending myself or my organization when I most empathized with the nature of the threat. I have been least able to manage risk when I did not understand how the threat – an individual or organization – understood itself.
A case can even be made that very seldom is your toughest competitor actually your enemy.
Emerging industries have the highest concentration of potential competitors. But at this stage the firms are engaged in a shared process of creating a market. More is often better, and the failure of a firm in an emerging market is more often self-inflicted than the result of direct competition.
In mature industries competition for market-share can become intense, but even here it is the give-and-take between tough competitors that spurs innovation in pricing and differentiation which generates value. Mature markets also generate buy-outs, mergers, and alliances, through which increased value is generated for the entire industry. These are often the exit strategies-of-choice for many entrepreneurs who are effective in an emerging industry, but less so in a mature industry.
It is primarily in a declining industry that a competitor may directly threaten the simple demise of a firm, and this usually reflects a failure on the part of the weaker firm to find or keep its tsedaq that creates differentiated value.
Business is mostly about being creative. Being part of a challenging community of other creators is helpful to each firm and the industry. Respecting and fully engaging your competitor is not inconsistent with pursuing your own business objectives.
In business we too often use analogies from war and sports where one wins and the other loses. The world of business is much more involved with creating new opportunities, new products, new relationships, and new value. Loving and creating are complementary.
What is this love to which Jesus directs us? His is a concept of love that precedes St. Paul’s interpretation of sacrificial love exemplified in the crucifixion. This is a Jewish concept of love not yet fused with Platonic mysticism by St. Augustine. The life of love taught by Jesus was not burdened with medieval chivalry, or Victorian romanticism, or post-Freudian doubt. Yet it is also a love that goes far beyond simple obedience to narrowly defined legalism.
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” You shall understand your neighbor to be as real as yourself. You shall not reduce your neighbor to something less than an individual with a full claim to righteousness. You shall be in relationship with your neighbor. You shall empathize with your neighbor. You shall avoid categorizing your neighbor into convenient and illusory stereotypes and caricatures. You shall seek the tsedaq of your neighbor as assiduously as your own.
Love is primarily a sense of shared identity and ongoing relationship. Whether we are psychologically healthy or not – whether we like ourselves or not – we are engaged in our self-identity. Jesus tells us we should engage our neighbors as fully as we engage ourselves.
He goes even further. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus teaches, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
When I meet with senior colleagues our informal conversations usually revolve around those individuals and organizations perceived as threatening. It is an interesting contrast with the official agenda that is almost always focused on purposes, objectives, and more positive opportunities. Over coffee, at dinner, between planes, there is an ongoing effort to make sense of those who threaten us.
Overtime as we learn more and more about those who threaten us a narrative begins to emerge. We know about their early origins, typical behavior, apparent goals, weaknesses, and strengths. Individually or institutionally these “enemies” become very real to us. The more we know, usually the more we respect the enemy. In some cases as we come to better understand the other, we learn they are not as threatening as it seemed. In a few cases, we have been able to transform an enemy into a partner.
I have not encouraged my senior colleagues to love our enemies. But I have certainly talked about “getting inside their head" and "understanding their motivations.” I have always mistrusted a threat analysis that seems to disrespect the origin or capabilities of the threat. I have always felt most capable defending myself or my organization when I most empathized with the nature of the threat. I have been least able to manage risk when I did not understand how the threat – an individual or organization – understood itself.
A case can even be made that very seldom is your toughest competitor actually your enemy.
Emerging industries have the highest concentration of potential competitors. But at this stage the firms are engaged in a shared process of creating a market. More is often better, and the failure of a firm in an emerging market is more often self-inflicted than the result of direct competition.
In mature industries competition for market-share can become intense, but even here it is the give-and-take between tough competitors that spurs innovation in pricing and differentiation which generates value. Mature markets also generate buy-outs, mergers, and alliances, through which increased value is generated for the entire industry. These are often the exit strategies-of-choice for many entrepreneurs who are effective in an emerging industry, but less so in a mature industry.
It is primarily in a declining industry that a competitor may directly threaten the simple demise of a firm, and this usually reflects a failure on the part of the weaker firm to find or keep its tsedaq that creates differentiated value.
Business is mostly about being creative. Being part of a challenging community of other creators is helpful to each firm and the industry. Respecting and fully engaging your competitor is not inconsistent with pursuing your own business objectives.
In business we too often use analogies from war and sports where one wins and the other loses. The world of business is much more involved with creating new opportunities, new products, new relationships, and new value. Loving and creating are complementary.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Revenge
You will be attacked. From both inside your organization and outside the arrows will fly. It will hurt. You will probably be afraid. The fear will reflect a realistic possibility of failure.
How should you respond? Jesus taught, “But I say to you, do not resist one who is evil. But if any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.”
Business is primarily a creative endeavor. You create products. You create relationships. You create value. Revenge replaces a positive focus on creativity with a negative focus on destruction.
Even the less emotionally-charged concept of retaliation should be approached with care and considerable restraint. Michael Porter, a strategist with Harvard Business School, writes:
Every firm is vulnerable to attack by competitors. Attacks come from two types of competitors – new entrants to the industry and established competitors seeking to reposition themselves… A well implemented offensive strategy constitutes the single best defense against an attack by a challenger. A firm that continuously invests to gain competitive advantage by improving its relative cost position and differentiation will be difficult to challenge successfully. (Competitive Advantage, page 482)
According to Porter there are only two kinds of offensive strategy: Cost and differentiation. There are important similarities in how to approach a differentiation strategy and how to engage in a persistent search for tsedaq. Here is how Porter describes a positive strategy of differentiation:
A firm differentiates itself from its competitors if it can be unique in something that is valuable to buyers. Differentiation is one of the two types of competitive advantage a firm may possess. The extent to which competitors in an industry can differentiate themselves from each other is also an important element of industry structure. Despite the importance of differentiation, its sources are often not well understood. Firms view the potential sources of differentiation too narrowly. They see differentiation in terms of physical product or marketing practices, rather than potentially arising anywhere in the value chain. Firms are also often different but not differentiated, because they pursue forms of uniqueness that buyers do not value. (Competitive Advantage, page 119)
The true self is not a superficial quality; it is an aspect of personality that has deep and abiding value. The true self has meaning in community. Tsedaq depends on Mishpat. When an authentic, meaningful, and sustainable differentiation is achieved the community of both customers and competitors can benefit, even as the firm establishes a clear competitive advantage.
With such a well implemented offensive strategy and its resulting competitive advantage, retaliation is seldom required and anything close to revenge would be a waste of energy.
In most cases, an attack should simply encourage continued persistence in execution of your current strategy. Turn the other cheek and keep going.
How should you respond? Jesus taught, “But I say to you, do not resist one who is evil. But if any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.”
Business is primarily a creative endeavor. You create products. You create relationships. You create value. Revenge replaces a positive focus on creativity with a negative focus on destruction.
Even the less emotionally-charged concept of retaliation should be approached with care and considerable restraint. Michael Porter, a strategist with Harvard Business School, writes:
Every firm is vulnerable to attack by competitors. Attacks come from two types of competitors – new entrants to the industry and established competitors seeking to reposition themselves… A well implemented offensive strategy constitutes the single best defense against an attack by a challenger. A firm that continuously invests to gain competitive advantage by improving its relative cost position and differentiation will be difficult to challenge successfully. (Competitive Advantage, page 482)
According to Porter there are only two kinds of offensive strategy: Cost and differentiation. There are important similarities in how to approach a differentiation strategy and how to engage in a persistent search for tsedaq. Here is how Porter describes a positive strategy of differentiation:
A firm differentiates itself from its competitors if it can be unique in something that is valuable to buyers. Differentiation is one of the two types of competitive advantage a firm may possess. The extent to which competitors in an industry can differentiate themselves from each other is also an important element of industry structure. Despite the importance of differentiation, its sources are often not well understood. Firms view the potential sources of differentiation too narrowly. They see differentiation in terms of physical product or marketing practices, rather than potentially arising anywhere in the value chain. Firms are also often different but not differentiated, because they pursue forms of uniqueness that buyers do not value. (Competitive Advantage, page 119)
The true self is not a superficial quality; it is an aspect of personality that has deep and abiding value. The true self has meaning in community. Tsedaq depends on Mishpat. When an authentic, meaningful, and sustainable differentiation is achieved the community of both customers and competitors can benefit, even as the firm establishes a clear competitive advantage.
With such a well implemented offensive strategy and its resulting competitive advantage, retaliation is seldom required and anything close to revenge would be a waste of energy.
In most cases, an attack should simply encourage continued persistence in execution of your current strategy. Turn the other cheek and keep going.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Anger
Strategic insight is fundamental to crafting a sustained competitive advantage. The implementation of strategy requires several operational abilities – and avoidance of the most common operational errors.
In Matthew the Sermon on the Mount’s eight beatitudes are followed by twenty-three instructions on how to fulfill the law of God or how to operationalize the strategic insights. The first relates to the place of anger.
There is a tendency for many business leaders – men in particular – to use anger as a management tool. Many feel that anger is a form of honesty. It would seem that, if we are seeking to express our true self, anger would have a place in the mix.
Not according to Jesus. In Matthew 5 we read, “But I say to you that every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment: whoever insults his brother shall be liable to the council, and whoever says, “You fool!” shall be liable to the hell of fire.”
Anger of the type described by Jesus is dismissive of others and only possible when there is an absence of empathy. This kind of anger – especially in a leader – becomes an obstacle to the ability of many others and the organization to find their true selves. The anger – and others avoidance of anger – impedes the search for both righteousness and justice.
We Can Disappear You by Leon Golub (2001)
Anger that is dismissive of others is almost always an expression of an underlying lack of self-confidence. It is an expression of fear. It is a counter-attack on what the angry person perceives is a threat to his or her sense-of-self. This is evidence that the angry person is clinging to a very fragile self, something quite unlike the tsedaq of Isaiah and Jesus.
In my career I have had only one boss who was inclined toward anger. It was always the result of him being embarrassed or feeling on the edge of losing control. If he did not like the feedback he was receiving – at least from subordinates – he would reject the feedback in an assault of red-faced, profanity-laced rage. He did, however, avoid anger with clients and most superiors.
This did not engender respect. It did encourage caution and avoidance in providing feedback, which tended to place him in even more embarrassing situations with clients and superiors.
The most common Hebrew word for anger used in the Book of Isaiah also means a contortion of the face. In anger even the appearance of the self is lost.
Anger is a symptom. The underlying cause is the uncertainty, fear, and sorrow of not being your true self. It is impossible for such a person to be an effective strategist. In the long-term such a person is destructive to both self and community.
Even the self-righteous have a firmer grasp of reality than the person of anger. The self-righteous have, at least, embraced their tsedaq. The angry person has no clear angle on reality; neither tsedaq nor mishpat is available to him.
Fear, surprise, frustration, and embarrassment are all signals of incoming feedback. These emotional responses are alarms that can be very helpful to focus on what is happening and what it means. But to then respond in anger is to obscure or potentially reject the feedback, which is a rejection of reality.
Following his injunction against anger Jesus says, “So if you are bringing your gift to the altar and remember there that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar. First go away and make up with your brother; then come back and offer your gift.”
For Jesus the altar represents the fundamental reality of our relationship with God. He is warning us that we must put away anger before we can fully engage reality.
In Matthew the Sermon on the Mount’s eight beatitudes are followed by twenty-three instructions on how to fulfill the law of God or how to operationalize the strategic insights. The first relates to the place of anger.
There is a tendency for many business leaders – men in particular – to use anger as a management tool. Many feel that anger is a form of honesty. It would seem that, if we are seeking to express our true self, anger would have a place in the mix.
Not according to Jesus. In Matthew 5 we read, “But I say to you that every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment: whoever insults his brother shall be liable to the council, and whoever says, “You fool!” shall be liable to the hell of fire.”
Anger of the type described by Jesus is dismissive of others and only possible when there is an absence of empathy. This kind of anger – especially in a leader – becomes an obstacle to the ability of many others and the organization to find their true selves. The anger – and others avoidance of anger – impedes the search for both righteousness and justice.
We Can Disappear You by Leon Golub (2001)
Anger that is dismissive of others is almost always an expression of an underlying lack of self-confidence. It is an expression of fear. It is a counter-attack on what the angry person perceives is a threat to his or her sense-of-self. This is evidence that the angry person is clinging to a very fragile self, something quite unlike the tsedaq of Isaiah and Jesus.
In my career I have had only one boss who was inclined toward anger. It was always the result of him being embarrassed or feeling on the edge of losing control. If he did not like the feedback he was receiving – at least from subordinates – he would reject the feedback in an assault of red-faced, profanity-laced rage. He did, however, avoid anger with clients and most superiors.
This did not engender respect. It did encourage caution and avoidance in providing feedback, which tended to place him in even more embarrassing situations with clients and superiors.
The most common Hebrew word for anger used in the Book of Isaiah also means a contortion of the face. In anger even the appearance of the self is lost.
Anger is a symptom. The underlying cause is the uncertainty, fear, and sorrow of not being your true self. It is impossible for such a person to be an effective strategist. In the long-term such a person is destructive to both self and community.
Even the self-righteous have a firmer grasp of reality than the person of anger. The self-righteous have, at least, embraced their tsedaq. The angry person has no clear angle on reality; neither tsedaq nor mishpat is available to him.
Fear, surprise, frustration, and embarrassment are all signals of incoming feedback. These emotional responses are alarms that can be very helpful to focus on what is happening and what it means. But to then respond in anger is to obscure or potentially reject the feedback, which is a rejection of reality.
Following his injunction against anger Jesus says, “So if you are bringing your gift to the altar and remember there that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar. First go away and make up with your brother; then come back and offer your gift.”
For Jesus the altar represents the fundamental reality of our relationship with God. He is warning us that we must put away anger before we can fully engage reality.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Persecuted
The Greek for persecuted is διώκω or dioko, which means to be pursued, to seek after eagerly, and to seek out to punish. Many of the related Hebrew words have the same mixed implication.
The eighth strategic insight from Jesus is: Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness; or congratulations to those who are aggressively pursued for being their true self.
The competitive advantage created by consistent application of the strategic insights of Jesus will attract attention. The best in the industry will want to work at such a firm. Alliances with other companies will be offered. Customers will challenge the organization’s commitments with high demand. Competitors will actively seek to undercut you. You will be pursued.
The most common religious meaning of dioko is to be unjustly and cruelly pursued. This is certainly the focus of this teaching from the Sermon on the Mount. In a business context, however, the other meanings are realistic – and welcome – outcomes. Being pursued by customers and investors is the sort of outcome a sustained competitive advantage should produce.
But on the way to such success – and coincident with a sustained competitive advantage – are periods when the enterprise, and especially its leaders, feel like the bulls-eye of a thousand arrows. The martyrdom of St. Sebastian – one of the premier warrior saints – comes to mind.
The arrows fly in from three directions: the skeptical, the fearful, and the betrayed. Like St. Sebastian you should survive the skeptics and the afraid, but watch out for the betrayed… their arrows are deadly.
Consistent application of the strategic insights of Jesus is so unusual that many customers, partners, and employees will initially respond with skepticism. Short-term and narrowly self-interested behavior is now so common that a different approach will create suspicion. It will take time and experience for them to view your strategy as authentic: as an expression of your organization’s true self.
As the market begins to accept your strategic differentiation you will feel the arrows of fearful competitors. They are unlikely to understand the source of your competitive advantage, but they will feel its impact. They will respond with various probes and attacks. The effectiveness of your tactical response is critical and entirely dependent on your specific context, but from a strategic perspective the competition’s action is a back-handed compliment to the effectiveness of your emerging competitive advantage. This is not the time to shift strategies.
Once the benefits of this sustained competitive advantage begin to emerge, competitors no longer present your biggest potential threat; rather you are potentially your own worst enemy.
Consistent application of these strategic insights results in a relationship of trust. Because employees trust their organization, they identify with it more fully, and cooperate with it more enthusiastically. Investors, partners, and customers – especially if they were skeptical at first – will make your success part of their own definition of success. The trusted brand is a rare but powerful phenomenon of business.
But within this relationship of trust any misstep – any behavior inconsistent with your authentic self and the fundamental needs of the community – will be swiftly punished. A momentary weakness or an unintentional mistake will be troublesome, but can be overcome. An intentional betrayal – real or perceived – is death.
Earn the community’s trust and then betray it and you will experience the full nightmare of persecution.
(This completes the eight requirements for strategic insight. Next we will consider eight operational challenges.)
The eighth strategic insight from Jesus is: Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness; or congratulations to those who are aggressively pursued for being their true self.
The competitive advantage created by consistent application of the strategic insights of Jesus will attract attention. The best in the industry will want to work at such a firm. Alliances with other companies will be offered. Customers will challenge the organization’s commitments with high demand. Competitors will actively seek to undercut you. You will be pursued.
The most common religious meaning of dioko is to be unjustly and cruelly pursued. This is certainly the focus of this teaching from the Sermon on the Mount. In a business context, however, the other meanings are realistic – and welcome – outcomes. Being pursued by customers and investors is the sort of outcome a sustained competitive advantage should produce.
But on the way to such success – and coincident with a sustained competitive advantage – are periods when the enterprise, and especially its leaders, feel like the bulls-eye of a thousand arrows. The martyrdom of St. Sebastian – one of the premier warrior saints – comes to mind.
The arrows fly in from three directions: the skeptical, the fearful, and the betrayed. Like St. Sebastian you should survive the skeptics and the afraid, but watch out for the betrayed… their arrows are deadly.
Consistent application of the strategic insights of Jesus is so unusual that many customers, partners, and employees will initially respond with skepticism. Short-term and narrowly self-interested behavior is now so common that a different approach will create suspicion. It will take time and experience for them to view your strategy as authentic: as an expression of your organization’s true self.
As the market begins to accept your strategic differentiation you will feel the arrows of fearful competitors. They are unlikely to understand the source of your competitive advantage, but they will feel its impact. They will respond with various probes and attacks. The effectiveness of your tactical response is critical and entirely dependent on your specific context, but from a strategic perspective the competition’s action is a back-handed compliment to the effectiveness of your emerging competitive advantage. This is not the time to shift strategies.
Once the benefits of this sustained competitive advantage begin to emerge, competitors no longer present your biggest potential threat; rather you are potentially your own worst enemy.
Consistent application of these strategic insights results in a relationship of trust. Because employees trust their organization, they identify with it more fully, and cooperate with it more enthusiastically. Investors, partners, and customers – especially if they were skeptical at first – will make your success part of their own definition of success. The trusted brand is a rare but powerful phenomenon of business.
But within this relationship of trust any misstep – any behavior inconsistent with your authentic self and the fundamental needs of the community – will be swiftly punished. A momentary weakness or an unintentional mistake will be troublesome, but can be overcome. An intentional betrayal – real or perceived – is death.
Earn the community’s trust and then betray it and you will experience the full nightmare of persecution.
(This completes the eight requirements for strategic insight. Next we will consider eight operational challenges.)
Monday, January 18, 2010
Peace Makers
To make shalom is to balance and fulfill both self and community. In a just community each person has the ability to be his or her authentic self and, in doing so, contribute creatively and positively to the lives of others.
In a community of the righteous each person will fully value and empathize with their neighbors. In the shared lives of such a community the ultimate purpose of God is discovered and lived out.
Humility allows us to learn from our experiences, listen to others, and cooperate with others. In these experiences, and especially as we listen and cooperate with others, we come to truly know others and fully identify with them. With these skills, and the resulting wisdom, we are enabled to pursue our own purposes and the purposes of the community in a complementary manner. The outcome of this way of living together is shalom.
While this may sound like religious-talk, this is also the outcome of good management. Here is how our secular Saint Peter (Drucker) describes a similar process and outcome:
The knowledge-based organization therefore requires that everyone take responsibility for that organization’s objectives, contribution, and, indeed, for its behavior as well.
This implies that all members of the organization must think through their objectives and their contributions, and then take responsibility for both. It implies there are no “subordinates”; there are only “associates.” Furthermore, in the knowledge-based organization all members have to be able to control their own work by feedback from their results to their objectives. All members must ask themselves: “What is the one major contribution to this organization and its mission which I can make at this particular time?” It requires, in other words, that all members act as responsible decision-makers. All members have to see themselves as “executives.”
Next it is the responsibility of all members to communicate their objectives, their priorities, and their intended contributions to their fellow workers – up, down, and sideways. And it is the responsibility of all members to make sure that their own objectives fit with the objectives of the entire group. (Post-Capitalist Society, page 108)
Drucker insists that this culture of responsibility is fundamental to the productivity needed for business success today and in the future. The tone is different from the Gospel of Matthew, the substance is similar.
The ultimate fulfillment of a business organization is a product of blending and balancing the needs and gifts of individuals – workers inside and customers outside – with the goals of the enterprise. When managers succeed in creating this sort of environment they deserve to be called peacemakers.
Organizations which develop these characteristics have a sustained competitive advantage compared to organizations that do not. Workers are more productive and contributing, objectives are more likely to be achieved, innovation is more common, and customers and clients are more likely to be loyal.
In a community of the righteous each person will fully value and empathize with their neighbors. In the shared lives of such a community the ultimate purpose of God is discovered and lived out.
Humility allows us to learn from our experiences, listen to others, and cooperate with others. In these experiences, and especially as we listen and cooperate with others, we come to truly know others and fully identify with them. With these skills, and the resulting wisdom, we are enabled to pursue our own purposes and the purposes of the community in a complementary manner. The outcome of this way of living together is shalom.
While this may sound like religious-talk, this is also the outcome of good management. Here is how our secular Saint Peter (Drucker) describes a similar process and outcome:
The knowledge-based organization therefore requires that everyone take responsibility for that organization’s objectives, contribution, and, indeed, for its behavior as well.
This implies that all members of the organization must think through their objectives and their contributions, and then take responsibility for both. It implies there are no “subordinates”; there are only “associates.” Furthermore, in the knowledge-based organization all members have to be able to control their own work by feedback from their results to their objectives. All members must ask themselves: “What is the one major contribution to this organization and its mission which I can make at this particular time?” It requires, in other words, that all members act as responsible decision-makers. All members have to see themselves as “executives.”
Next it is the responsibility of all members to communicate their objectives, their priorities, and their intended contributions to their fellow workers – up, down, and sideways. And it is the responsibility of all members to make sure that their own objectives fit with the objectives of the entire group. (Post-Capitalist Society, page 108)
Drucker insists that this culture of responsibility is fundamental to the productivity needed for business success today and in the future. The tone is different from the Gospel of Matthew, the substance is similar.
The ultimate fulfillment of a business organization is a product of blending and balancing the needs and gifts of individuals – workers inside and customers outside – with the goals of the enterprise. When managers succeed in creating this sort of environment they deserve to be called peacemakers.
Organizations which develop these characteristics have a sustained competitive advantage compared to organizations that do not. Workers are more productive and contributing, objectives are more likely to be achieved, innovation is more common, and customers and clients are more likely to be loyal.
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