GEO Principle Blog

There is dignity in sincere customer communication

A few days after I had my oil changed at one of those quick lube places, I got a call from the company. A woman on the line said she wanted to know about my experience. Did I have time to answer a few questions? "Sure," I said.

"Were you greeted promptly?"

"Did the attendant clearly explain your options?"

"Was the waiting area clean?"

These were the kinds of questions she asked, and she offered me options such as "agree," "somewhat agree," and "disagree" that I could use as responses.

When she asked how I would describe my overall experience, I explained that everything went great, but that when I arrived I pulled into one of the available work bays, only to be instructed to back out and pull into a different one. I said I didn't mind but I thought it strange that they wanted to service my vehicle from work bay No. 1 after I already had pulled into work bay No. 2, and there were no other customers in the shop at the time.

When I paused, she asked me, "would you describe your experience as excellent, good, average, or unsatisfactory?"

Her question made it clear she wasn't listening to me. She took no interest in my story, as trivial -- admittedly -- as it was. Clearly, she was reading from a script and was not going to deviate from it. I gave her an answer from the options she offered and the survey ended.

When our conversation started, I was impressed that the oil-change company was interested in customer service. I thought it was interested in me. But by the end of the call, I felt as if it wasn't really interested in what I had to say, only in demonstrating that it surveys customers after their visit. Instead of feeling like a valued customer, I ended up feeling used.

One of the best ways to summarize what it means to bring God to work is that it means respecting the dignity of those around you. That means when you talk to customers, you need to be willing to really listen to what they have to say. If you have limited them to a few potential responses, you are not engaging in a dialog that respects the full capability of the customer. It's dehumanizing, albeit on a small scale, but it still feels bad. Initially, I thought the woman posing the survey questions was interested in me, but I learned that she was really only interested in the survey.

To be clear, surveys are useful tools. But the best ones allow for respondent answers outside the preset options. If you are going to take the time to actually contact someone, why not let them express themselves in thier own terms? Respect people for what they have to say, not what you want them to say.

Respecting others -- customers and/or colleagues -- is a big deal. Make every effort to respect them. That's how you love them. If your job involves interacting with customers, work to make that interaction experience as sincere as possible. If your job is to manage, train or otherwise direct employees who interact with customers, empower them to conduct humanizing experiences. Don't handcuff them with scripts or procedures that set the customer up for indignity.

Christian outlook at work is about glorifying God

Reflecting the state of the economy, particularly in the real estate sector, more than 100 banks have failed so far this year. Two that were closed on Oct. 23 particularly caught my attention: Riverview Community Bank in Otsego, Minn., and Bank of Elmwood in Racine, Wis.

Riverview made quite a name for itself as a Christian bank. This story in the New York Times magazine explains that people at the bank would pray with customers. They considered their work to be a ministry. Sometimes they would call Riverview a church instead of a bank. They were very overt about their work being a means of glorifying God.

Bank of Elmwood was not an overt Christian bank like Riverview, but owner Jess Levin clearly considered his work to be a calling, not just a job. I have had occasion to visit with Levin over the years and he is clearly devoted to his community and his customers. His bank served customers that other banks didn't want. He always seemed more interested in helping people than in making money. This story gives you a pretty good idea of how Levin worked.

The failure of these two banks makes it clear that a devotion to higher ideals is no guarantee of success. Sometimes people think that if they dedicate their work to God, He will prevent them from failing. But companies devoted to God are equally subject to the basic rules of running a business. No business can ignore best practices. Revenues have to exceed expenses, receivables need to be collected on time, expenses have to be controlled, managers have to make prudent decisions. These fundamentals apply to all companies, whether their owners operate in the name of God or not.

Dedicating your work to God is first and foremost a way to glorify God with your life; it is not a strategy for business success.

Living your faith at work is really about restructuring your life

Every now and then when you go to church, you are likely to get a sermon on the importance of praying every day or of making regular donations to charity. Those are good things to do all by themselves, but what those sermons are really urging you to do is to get your life in sufficient order that you can pray daily, or so that you can make regular donations to charity.

In order to pray every day, you have to plan for it. You have to establish a time, and then make sure you are ready every day at that time. That may mean getting to bed at a reasonable time the night before, or it may mean saying "no" to opportunities for recreation or other forms of fun. In order to make regular donations to charity, a person has to budget. A person has to carefully consider his earnings against his expenses in order to be able to set aside some for recurring donations. So while there is benefit to praying and giving, the greater benefit may be the lifestyle and habits they force you to adopt.

It is the same thing when this blog urges you to "bring your faith to work." Of course there are benefits to bringing your faith to work, but the real benefit may be the adjustments you have to make to your life that will make it easier to bring your faith to work. In order to really succeed at bringing your faith to work, you have to think ahead, seriously consider the challenges and opportunities you face at work, and plan for making the most of those challenges and opportunities.

Consider the structural changes you might make in your life to make it easier for you to live your faith at work:

First, when looking for work, you might look for a job with a company that offers a working environment consistent with your faith and values. For example, a Christian who wants to work in retail might choose a company that does not rely on overly sexualized advertising to sell its products.

Second, no matter where you work, you might think really hard about how to serve your colleagues and customers. Loving others means serving them. Take time to think about what that might mean in your situation. How do you do your own job well while helping those around you?

And third, develop your faith enough so that you can talk about it comfortably with others, even those who believe differently than you do, or perhaps don't believe at all. Knowing your faith at that level requires a lot of work -- study, prayer and contemplation.

Bringing your faith to work is really more of a lifestyle than it is a singular activity. It involves carefully considering each step on your career path, coming up with great ways to serve those around you, and developing your faith life at home.  

Look for God when times are good if you want to see Him more clearly when times are bad

Earlier this week in my state, there was a hearing at the Capitol featuring several bankers. They told their stories. I want to share a little bit of it here because I think it provides fodder for thought about where God might be in our lives. Consider these two situations:

 

The owner of a bar and restaurant wanted to expand his business in 2005. The town had a major employer –- a company that employed 1,200 people who worked all three shifts. At the end of each shift, many of those employees would stop into the bar/restaurant; business was good. It seemed like a good time to expand. Based on 2005 cash flow and modest growth projections, the owner obtained a loan from a local bank to construct a new building.

 

The banker explained that since then, the major employer has reduced employment to 200 people. No one stops into the restaurant after their shift anymore. The owner’s cash flow is no longer sufficient to cover the loan payments on the new building. Needless to say, he is behind on the loan.

 

In a second example, the banker introduced us to a husband, who worked at the major employer, and a wife, who ran a daycare center in their home. The housing market was strong in 2005 when they decided to move into a bigger home. The bank qualified them for a loan based on his income and her daycare revenue. Today, the banker explained, the husband is without a job and uncertain about when or if he will be called back to work. The wife’s daycare business is off substantially because many of the children she used to care for had parents at the major employer. Many of them have been laid off, too, so they no longer have need for daycare services. The couple can no longer afford to make mortgage payments.

 

A lot of people are suffering in these examples: 1,000 people who were laid off; a restaurant owner who wanted to expand, a couple that wanted a nicer home, and a banker who made loans that went bad. Nobody wins in these situations. Yet, during this recession, these kinds of scenarios are playing out all across the country.

 

God is in Every Occupation; where was God when the restaurant owner decided to expand? Where was God when all those people got laid off from the major employer? Where was God when the couple decided to buy the bigger house? And where was God when the banker made these loans? It is very difficult to answer these questions for someone else, but I think if we find ourselves in a difficult situation we need to answer the question for ourselves. The answer might not be obvious, but there is an answer. God is always there; but He is not always easy to see. The better we know Him, the easier He will be to see. Sometimes, we begin to look for God only after things in our life have fallen apart. God's place in our life can usually be seen more clearly if we also look when things are going well.

 

The economy is very difficult to predict. Times change. There will be good time and bad times. We will do a lot better if we focus on what is constant rather than on what changes.

Ground travel can be opportunity for contemplation

I have written before about the importance of taking time for leisure. One of the great blessings of the Sabbath is that it forces a person to take a day's break at least once a week. It is so easy to allow your work schedule to completely consume all your time. Productivity is good, so it can be tempting to schedule every waking moment for some form of productive activity. However, without a certain amount of time for leisure, productivity eventually falls. Nobody can work all the time, nor should anyone attempt to.

One of the reasons leisure is so important is because it provides time for contemplation. It is usually during periods of relaxation that we find our minds free to consider bigger picture concerns. We can't think about things in context when we are constantly bogged down with deadlines, appointments and obligations. Most important actions start with thought. So if you are going to do anything meaningful in your life, on the job or at home, you need time to think about it first.

I have a strategy for making sure that I take time for contemplation. Every now and then, I will drive instead of fly to a meeting. Last week, I had a meeting in Chicago. That's 400 miles from Minneapolis, where I live. Typically, I'd fly. Fares are relatively low and it only takes about an hour to make the trip, perhaps two and a half hours, if you figure in the airport time getting through security and waiting at the gate. But that kind of travel is pretty intense. It is not leisurely. I don't get any time to let my mind wonder when I fly and plan my meeting schedule accordingly.

It takes me seven and a half hours to drive to Chicago. The route on the Interstate is very simple. I can drive, pay attention to the road, and still have a clear enough mind to think a bit. In the fall, I even get the bonus of beautiful landscape filled with changing color. It might sound silly to devote 15 hours to round-trip travel to Chicago -- something that should only take five hours -- but that gives me 10 hours for contemplation. That's ten hours to think -- out loud, if I choose. That is time for me to think about where I am in my life, the condition of my relationship with God, my family, and my work. Ideas and revelations emerge that otherwise would most likely have remained buried had I flown into O'Hare.

If you find yourself rushing to meetings in other cities, ask yourself whether you really need to rush. Consider alternatives, if you can. There are benefits to driving or taking a train.  

9/11 changed the workplace forever

A week has passed since the eighth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, giving us time for the meaning of the tribunes and commemorations to sink in. It was a horrible day that Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001, when the airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and in Pennsylvania, killing more than 3,000 people. You probably remember where you were when it happened.

I remember some of the conversations that took place in the office during the immediate months after the attacks. There was a real sense of empathy for the people in the World Trade Center. These were just regular workers, like people in the labor force all over the country. These were moms and dads, single people and older people, who came to work on time, like any other day. They were doing their jobs, and then -- bam -- it was all over. The planes hit and that was it. Especially for those people in the tower struck by that first airplane, there was no warning. There was no opportunity to set your things in order, to say goodbye to loved ones, nor to prepare in any way.

Sudden death for so many people in an office setting got people thinking about big picture concepts in the context of the office. In my own office, many questions came up -- how could God allow this to happen? Is there an afterlife? What is the meaning of life if it can be taken away so suddenly? Was 9/11 some kind of punishment? These are great and important questions for anyone to ask themselves and to ask trusted friends, whether those people are family members or colleagues in the office.

Post 9/11 America is different from pre-9/11 America in a lot of ways. One small way that it is different is that I think we are now freer to talk about life's big questions in the office. This historic attack shows how vulnerable we are and how precious life is -- and this was shown in the context of the workplace, the office, not on the typical desert or jungle battlefield. I don't think you ever have to wonder whether it is okay to bring up a question about God in the break room at work. People are now more aware that life-altering events happen at any time. This opens the door to talk about the meaning of those events at almost any time.

It takes lots of faith to succeed in work world

I have been told that I am trying to force a square peg into a round hole. In other words, others have told me that you can't force faith into the work world. The thinking is that faith and work are really two entirely separate things and that it is unrealistic to talk about the two as if they can be integrated, or as if they go together.

But I maintain that faith and work go together, naturally and beautifully. They are not from two different worlds, but I am convinced they both come from God and they should both point us back to God; ideally, they will do that together.

Consider all the faith it takes to make it in the commercial world. You study for years in school, devoting a lot of money and time to learning, all because you have faith that the market will value your acquired knowledge and reward it with work in the form of a good-paying job. There is no guarantee that a college grad will get a job; those college students are acting on faith -- even more so today as they rack up thousands of dollars in debt to do so.

The entrepreneur really acts on faith. An entrepreneur looks around and tries to figure out what society will value more than the money it has. When an entrepreneur thinks he has figured out an answer, he invests his own time and money into creating that new product or service. Then, he offers it to the world, on the faith that the world will respond. The entrepreneur does not know to what extent the public will respond, but he has faith that it will be sufficient to make his effort worthwhile.

My point is, those who succeed in business have to have faith. You have to have faith in your own ability to deliver, and you have to have faith in others to value what you have to offer, whether that be in the form of a company that hires you or in the form of the public that decides to pay for your work.

The first step to believing in God is to believe in something outside of yourself. Believing in God means believing that the world is about more than just you; it means seeing yourself accurately in the world and understanding, at least somewhat, what your role is in the world. In order to succeed in the job market, to succeed in the business world or to succeed as an entrepreneur, you need to understand others and you need to believe in others, plus you need to know yourself well enough to identify your role in the world. This understanding puts a person well on their way toward establishing a relationship with God.

LaserMonks integrate commerce and faith

LaserMonks.com is an interesting example of a group of people who have integrated their faith into the commercial world. The web site is an electronic store for toner products. Revenue is substantial ($4.5 million in 2007); net income is used to fund a monastery and the Cistercian brothers who run it, in addition to supporting other charities.

The business started in 2002 when the six brothers living at Our Lady of Spring Bank Abbey in Sparta, Wis., were looking for a way to fund the maintenance of their monestery. They live by the Rule of Saint Benedict, which requires self-sufficiency. They stumbled onto the toner cartridge business, found suppliers, set up the web site and marketed their products. The business took off. Today, the site is promoting cartridges that use eco-friendly soy toner. In addition, the business has added coffee and gifts. Read all the details in this 2008 article.

The LaserMonks, as I like to call them, set an important example. They demonstrate that business and faith-filled living can go together. Successful business does not have to be separate from religion. The GEO Principle would say they both have the same goal -- developing a relationship with God -- so it should not be surprising to find examples of commerce and faith completely and successfully integrated.

The LaserMonks also offer a very important model for non-profit organizations. Many non-profit organizations rely completely on donations for funding. It is perfectly appropriate for charities to ask for donations, and donors should feel good about supporting charity. However, where possible and practical, it is good for benevolent causes to figure out funding that is not dependent upon donations. This frees members of the donor pool to concentrate entirely on charities that can only be funded with donations.

Non-profit organizations that have the means to maintain revenue-generating enterprises should seriously explore this avenue, and pursue it if it makes sense for them. The LaserMonks did, and it is making a big difference. The Monks say is only costs around $200,000 per year to run the monestery, which gives them the privilege of donating more than $4 million per year to other charities. 

The benefits of smoking and drinking

David Zach, the Milwaukee-based futurist I wrote about last week, concluded the presentation he delivered to 200 business people with a few suggestions about how to get more out of life. His top to suggestions: start smoking and start drinking!

He was kidding, of course, and his suggestions drew a big laugh from the crowd, but these two tips were not without their point.

Smokers, he said, take breaks, and that's a good thing. Too many people work all day without ever taking a break. In fact, some people even boast about never taking a break, but the fact is, we all need to take breaks. Even if only for two or three minutes, a break refreshes, it gives you a chance to stretch, it rests your eyes. If you go outside, the fresh air surely will do you good.

Furthermore, Zach noted that people who smoke bond with other people with whom they would otherwise never mingle. In the break room or outside the back entry to the office building, you may  find the CEO or other high-level manager chatting with an entry-level employee as they both smoke a cigaret. 

With respect to drinking, he encouraged it in the context of a mid-day meal. He said people should go out to lunch more often. "The average American spends less than 15 minutes having lunch, and people usually eat lunch alone at their desk," Zach said. Most people spend far more time with their computer at work than they do with another person, Zach observed.

The point is, make time to visit with other people. Don't discount the pleasure of a good meal. Take time to enjoy the beautiful things in life, including good food and conversation. Furthermore, make an effort to enjoy these things in the company of others. "Go out for lunch," Zach encouraged. "When you break bread, you break barriers."

A look at one firm's approach to sabbatical

If you've read The GEO Principle, you know that I am an advocate of sabbaticals. We get lots of instruction from scripture about pacing ourselves in our work. God worked six days and then took a day off, not because He needed to, but because He wanted to give us an example. This is why we traditionally avoid work on Sundays. Moses declared a "Sabbath year" every seven years, when farmers would let their land go fallow in order for it to rejuvenate. On a larger scale, the Israelites acknowledged a Jubilee year every 50 years, when debts were to be forgiven, slaves freed and some work suspended. The Sabbath year and Jubilee year are the inspiration behind the sabbatical concept where one might take extended time off once or twice in a working career.

Most people reject the notion of taking a sabbatical because, unless they are a tenured college professor, they think it is impossible. Most people can't imagine how they could leave the work world for any meaningful length of time. Furthermore, they are unsure about what they would do, even if they could get the time off.

It helps if you work for a company that encourages its employees to take a sabbatical. One such company is Eide Bailly. The accounting and consulting firm has offices in several states, including Minnesota and both Dakotas. The publishing company I run has worked with Eide Bailly for a long time, but it was only recently that I learned of its innovative sabbatical program.

Eide Bailly requires partners in the firm to take a sabbatical every five years. The company gives them six weeks paid time off, and they further encourage employees to match that time with two weeks of vacation so they get an eight-week sabbatical. I was talking to a friend at the firm who explained to me that the requirement accomplishes several goals.

First, it helps the employee keep the right perspective about their work. During the sabbatical, the employee's email is disconnected and all the employee's clients are routed to someone else in the company. This helps the person taking the sabbatical realize that the company can operate without them. This is a harsh message for some folks, but no one should assume that everything will come to a halt if they're not around. 

Second, it helps the firm figure out how to service its clients when the main contact for those clients is away. This is simply good management. All companies should have contingency plans about how clients are served when primary contacts are unavailable. The sabbaticals force Eide Bailly to follow through on this planning.  

Third, the sabbaticals help the employee to prepare for retirement. Accounting can be a consuming profession, leaving little time to develop hobbies or other interests. A sabbatical forces an employee to develop other interests which may become very important in retirement years. How sad it is when someone retires and they don't know what to do.

And fourth, the sabbatical makes the employee a better employee. With rejuvenation and a little time to think about other things, employees inevitably return to the company with new energy that typically translates into better client service.