GEO Principle Blog

'Be happy with your wages'.... Hmmmm

Nothing like a list of salaries to get most people all riled up. The business section of the newspaper often will run a list of salaries of the top CEOs, or the sports section will run a list of the highest-paid athletes. The newspapers love this stuff because 1) the information is easy to obtain, and 2) this kind of information always gets people talking.

We get upset because it violates our sense of justice. It is very hard to believe that anyone's work is worth more than, say, $5 million per year. On the other hand, predictable market forces generally produce better results than politicized crony capitalism. So while I may grumble as much as the next guy when I hear about some entertainer making millions of dollars for a few weeks' work, I prefer it to the alternative, which would be government mandates on compensation.

Perhaps much more important to the average working guy is not what the big shots make, but what the other average working guys make. While I believe it is important to have a general idea about overall compensation trends, it's not always good to have too much specific information. I write about that topic in my Jan. 21 post over at the Superior Catholic Herald. It is up to the manager or the boss to maintain a just compensation system for the entire staff. The boss's example will go a long way toward assuring the employees that such a system is in place. It's when employees begin to doubt the boss's ability to maintain a just compensation system that people begin to wonder too much about what everyone else is making. This is a huge distraction in any workplace.

John the Baptists tells us to "be happy with your wages" (Luke 3:14). He is telling us this for our own good. Although it is a simple directive, he makes a point of articulating this message because it is something we have to work at. Our human nature is to be unhappy with our wages. It takes a certain level of intellectual ascent -- no matter what your pay -- to be content on the job. It is a lot easier to find that contentment if God is part of your work. Always remember that God provides. That doesn't alleviate you from the responsibility of working, but it takes some of the pressure off in terms of seeking ever-higher wages.

Happiness is nice, but seek joy

Apparently, only 45 percent of people in the workforce are happy with their job. The Associated Press provides the details of a recent survey that turned up that result. It is unfortunate that more people are not happy at work. Maybe this explains the surly service that I so often get at retail stores and fast food places.

Gretchen Rubin studies happiness and runs something called The Happiness Project. Her material is worth reading. Here is a recent Wall Street Journal piece about her, and here is something Slate magazine ran.

We all want to be happy; our founding fathers even declared the pursuit of happiness to be as important as life and liberty. But I want to suggest that we can do better. There is something better than happiness to be found in life and on the job -- joy.

Happiness is an emotional state of being that comes and goes. Everyone's life includes a few unhappy moments -- a friend or relative gets sick or dies, a disaster strikes, serious problems come up -- you name it, these kinds of things occur in everyone's life at one point or another.

Joy, on the other hand, is more constant than happiness. Joy is not an emotion, it is a state of being that comes from having a relationship with Christ. Joy is meaningful even when things around you are sad. I have known many people who have suffered through illness or tragedy, yet remained joyful through it all. That doesn't mean they were inappropriately giddy, but it means they were able to maintain hope when others thought things were hopeless.

The Bible calls joy a "fruit of the Spirit" (Galatians 5:22). Whether you are at home or at work, look for joy, and when you find it, share it with others. If you do, I am willing to bet there would be more happiness all around for everyone.

Want to help out the rookie in the company? Do what Barnabas did.

One of the readings at church this past weekend included the story from Acts of the Apostles (Acts 9:26-30) where Paul wants to talk to the disciples after his dramatic conversion experience. The disciples were understandably weary, recalling Paul's zeal against them earlier. One of the disciples, Barnabas, knew Paul and understood that his conversion was for real. He understood that they no longer needed to fear Paul, but could actually learn from him. So, Barnabas talks to he fellow disciples about Paul. He introduces Paul around to the different disciples and gives him a vote of confidence. This goes a long way with the other disciples and they come to accept him as a true disciple of Christ.

I like this story because it provides a useful example of how we might help others, especially people who might be new to our company or industry. If you know someone who is largely unknown to the larger group, take the time to introduce the new personaround to the established members of the group. Network on his or her behalf. If you know someone's work to be excellent, tell others about it so they can eventually benefit from that work themselves. Barnabas is good at networking and he used his skill to help out a colleague.

Furthermore, Barnabas was probably a pretty good evangelist in his own right, but it turns out his most important job in history was to help make the way for perhaps the greatest evangelist ever. Barnabas probably understood Paul's potential; he knew Paul would probably go on to much greater success than Barnabas ever had himself, yet he still helped Paul. He didn't allow his ego or pride or jealousy to hold him back. He showed Paul around, got him the "in" he needed to get started, and let Paul go from there. This is a good model for us at work. When someone new joins the company, we can show them around, help them get started, give them every advantage we can to help them succeed, and then let them do the rest.

Be satisfied with your wages

I want to conclude my look at Matthew by considering a statement we find in Luke (3:14): “Be satisfied with your wages.”

Jesus is talking specifically to soldiers but His counsel is useful for anyone drawing a wage. Do you think Jesus is saying this because He wants to put soldiers, or employees, in a vulnerable position? Absolutely not! He makes this statement just after warning the soldiers against practicing extortion, so no employer can use Jesus’ statement here as an excuse to pay poor wages; that’s a form of extortion and Jesus warns against that, practically in the same breath.

It is human nature to feel as if you are being short-changed. In Matthew 20:1-15, the people who work all day for a full day’s wage feel as if they are being cheated when those who work fewer hours receive the same pay. Most of us identify with the laborers who show up at the beginning of the day; but in fact, we are much more like the laborers who show up near the end of the day. If the gates of heaven are open to us, then surely we are the lucky ones who are getting a reward far greater than anything we deserve.

No matter the wage, most people will say they are under-compensated. Even the person who just got a raise is likely to be thinking about the next raise. In the commercial arena, however, it is better to focus on the work rather than the compensation. Find work that you love and become an expert at it. Do the work because it needs to be done and because you are good at it. In a free market economy, there is typically ample compensation for people who respond to need with quality.

We can more easily avoid dwelling on our own compensation if we truly accept that it is God who provides. If we understand that the purpose of work is to grow closer to God more than it is to provide for ourselves, then we can actually find satisfaction in our wages.

Respect the authority of your boss

Some roles, by their nature, give people authority over other people. Professors, for example, have teaching authority over their students. When I was young, I had a place as a student and that place was not in front of the classroom. My teacher also had a place, and it was not among us students. I understood these roles although, immature as I was, I didn’t necessarily like them and I rebelled.

While I grew out of my school-age insolence, I didn’t necessarily grow out of my pride, and so early in my career I resisted the authority of my bosses. I thought I was smarter than all of them, even though I had no experience and knew next to nothing. What a mistake! With maturity, I got over that and came to respect my employers.

Rebellion is common among youth so young people rarely gain very important positions in the world of commerce. Even as companies are generally flattening or reducing management layers, hierarchal structure remains important and we need to respect it. Someone has to be the boss.

As an entry-level employee or the person with the least seniority, it can be difficult to muster the respect due your manager. It is human nature to begrudge your boss; many people believe their bosses are marginally competent, or worse. Researchers at Florida State University surveyed more than seven hundred people in business: thirty-nine percent of them said their boss doesn’t keep promises; twenty-four percent said the boss invades their privacy and twenty-three percent said their bosses blame others to cover up their own mistakes. Conclusion: there are a lot of bad bosses out there! Nonetheless, you need to respect yours. If you find it impossible to respect your boss, a job change might be in order.

Think of Mathew 23:2-3 where Jesus instructs His apostles to do what the scribes and Pharisees say because of the authoritative position they hold, but not to act according to their example. The scribes and Pharisees were like bad bosses. Jesus didn’t tell His apostles to ignore them. He asked them to honor the authority due them given their role. But He also did not ignore the fact that these scribes and Pharisees were foolhardy and that’s why He warned people against imitating them. If your boss asks you to do something legitimate, you need to do it. But if he is a fool, you don’t need to act like one yourself.

Perhaps the biggest challenge arises when the boss and employee have different ideas about how to accomplish the company’s goals. In the newspaper world, that might be like an editor assigning a sports writer to cover a high school basketball game when the sports writer thinks he should be covering a professional hockey game. Or more seriously, maybe the boss instructs the employee to build a new plant in San Francisco when the employee believes all they really need is a little office in Poughkeepsie.

Communication is important; employees who have serious reservations about their boss’s judgment should talk about those concerns directly with the boss. Ultimately, however, the decision belongs to the boss. This can be difficult for some employees but over time this is a self-correcting system. If the boss makes too many bad decisions, at some point his own boss will deal with him. Granted, this can take a long time. Sometimes it takes a merger or some other dramatic event to shake things right.

Employees, however, are in charge of their own destiny. If the opportunities that lay in front of an employee look skewed because of the incompetence or ill-personalities of the people above him, then the employee needs to change jobs. The employee typically has the advantage over the employer; an employee usually has more opportunity to change jobs than most managers have to fire someone.

Be prepared for change, it's inevitable

John the Baptist prepares the way for the Lord by urging people to repent. You can read about it in the first two verses of Matthew, Chapter 3. To repent means to change your ways. Throughout Jesus’ public ministry, He called on people to change. He called on the apostles to leave their boats; He called on the woman at the well to sin no more. He is calling all of us to leave our old ways behind.

Many times, change is forced upon us. Companies go out of business, one company buys another, people get laid off, maybe even fired. Or some new invention comes along and completely changes the business. As long as the world is full of thinking, active people, the world is going to change. Knowledge is going to grow and with that additional knowledge, people are going to figure out new ways to do things.

Think, for example, how the internet has changed things. Consider the travel agents who lost their jobs when everyone started using Orbitz and Expedia. Or think about all the people in the pressroom who were laid off when newspaper design went computerized. Or think about Americans who are losing their jobs as their work is being outsourced to India or Malaysia. Change has been taking place for centuries and it won’t stop. Think of the candle makers who lost jobs when the light bulb was invented. Or think about the blacksmith, who probably had a pretty good thing going until the automobile came along.

So don’t be surprised when change comes. There’s no point to becoming angry. Use change as an opportunity to re-evaluate your life, to think about where you are, and to consider how your work is helping you to accomplish your life’s goal. Forced job changes are difficult but no job is forever. Things change. That’s life. Change is not a foreign concept to people heeding the call to repent.

Think outside the box

“Think outside the box.”

That counsel has almost become a cliché in business circles. Sometimes we think it was Peter Drucker or Jim Collins or Tom Peters or some other management guru who came up with that phrase. But I actually think it was Jesus.

When Peter the Apostle asks Jesus if it is enough to forgive a sinner seven times (Matthew 18:21-22), he thinks he is being generous. Jesus responds with an answer that Peter, nor anyone, would have come up with – seventy times seven times! It’s a large, “outside-the-box” number. Jesus clearly is not in favor of the status quo. He is setting a new standard. Jesus was raising the bar to a level no one ever considered realistic.

We should all be as bold as Jesus. Don’t be afraid to think about typical situations in new ways. That means, don’t accept status quo as the only way to do things; look for exponentially better ways to do things. Don’t be afraid to set the bar ridiculously high. Look for answers in unconventional places. Operate with the idea that everything is on the table. Don’t get boxed into tradition and convention when it comes to addressing challenges at work. Maybe it’s not a matter of coming up with a better mousetrap but of deciding to go after a different kind of animal. Think big; be bold. Christ is our model.

Conflict resolution

Managing is easy when everything is going well; the real test of managerial skill comes when there is a problem. Matthew, in verses 15 though 17 of chapter 18, provides a sound blueprint for confronting problems caused by other individuals.

If an employee causes a problem, go to him or her quietly and try to work it out between the two of you. If that effort fails, then bring along a witness or someone else knowledgeable about the situation. With the additional person, you should be able to make a stronger case; the two of you may be able to persuade the person causing the trouble. If not, then you need to bring the matter before an organized body that can offer ethical guidance. This could be a professional association of peers. If even this step fails, then take the matter to the courts.

This model is admirable because it respects the dignity of both the individual causing the problem and the dignity of the general public. By attempting to resolve the situation privately, a boss shows respect for the individual. By reserving the courts for worst-case scenarios, the public is relieved of work and expense associated with problems that can be addressed on a more local level.

This is also an important model for dealing with delinquent customers. If someone falls behind on a payment, seek them out individually to discuss the situation. Make sure you understand their situation; give them a chance to work something out with you before initiating legal procedures. Delinquent customers should be contacted in person or by telephone before services are terminated or before any notices are filed that will permanently mar the customer’s credit record.

The art of asking a question

In verses 23 through 27 of chapter 21, Matthew gives us a story about the chief priests of the temple attempting to trap Jesus. They ask him to name the authority under which he acts. Christ responds with his own question about whether John the Baptist was of heavenly or human origin. The chief priests are unable to answer and Jesus therefore dismisses them.

The story provides a couple of lessons. First, questions should be asked sincerely. Those chief priests didn’t care what Jesus would answer; they were insincere. They did not respect him and were only trying to trap him. But Jesus ends up embarrassing them. This is often what happens when people ask questions in an attempt to trap someone. A questioner should be genuinely interested in what the respondent has to say. No one should assume they already know the answer. In an office setting, don’t solicit an answer with the intention of using it against the respondent.

Second, this story shows the importance of good preparation. Anyone who poses a question to someone important better know what they are talking about. Jesus dismissed the chief priests’ question because they obviously were not prepared to have a meaningful conversation. They couldn’t think of anything intelligent to say about the origin of John the Baptist. When you approach a colleague, a boss, a vendor or a customer, make sure you are prepared to have a meaningful conversation. Be prepared. Never pretend to know something you don’t; eventually, you’ll only embarrass yourself.

Matthew as business expert

Matthew, whose writing is presented as the first of the four Gospels, knew a lot about business. As a tax collector, he was a businessman himself. A true entrepreneur, he likely paid the Roman government a fee for the privilege of collecting taxes from those around him. The Romans gave the job to the highest bidder. The shrewdest tax collectors of the time knew who had the most money and how much they could realistically assess against them to cover their own expenses, forward revenue to the government and keep a handsome profit for themselves.

Matthew would have had a good grasp of business practices in a variety of trades. He would have come into contact with people who were successful in business and those who struggled. He would have seen up close what works in business and what doesn’t.

It should come as no surprise that Matthew’s Gospel should be filled with stories that apply to business settings. The GEO Principle finds several stories relayed by Matthew to be particularly instructive for people in the workplace, even some two thousand years after they were recorded.

The next several installments on this blog will consider stories from Matthew as they pertain to the work world. Let’s first consider Matthew 21:28-31. This is a story that describes the importance of doing what you say you are going to do.

Matthew explains that a father asks his two sons to work in the vineyard; one says he will and never goes, the other says he won’t but changes his mind and ultimately goes. The focus of the story usually is on the one who decides to go after initially saying he won’t. He is the one who does his father’s will. But think about the one who lies and doesn’t go. Jesus says prostitutes will go to heaven before this kind of person. Wow! If you say you are going to do something, you need to do it. Or, if you have no intention of doing something, don’t say you will. The meaning of words need to be respected; if you make a promise to a colleague, a boss, a vendor or a customer, keep it!

In this story, one son under-promises and over-delivers; the other son over-promises and under-delivers. The story offers a valuable business lesson. It is better to promise less and deliver more; people who consistently promise a lot and deliver little don’t hold much credibility in the work world. Nobody likes a big talker; people like big doers. Sometimes, it is better to just do something rather than to talk about it.

We don’t know whether the son who didn’t go changed his mind after giving his word or whether he never intended to go in the first place. If he changed his mind, he should have told his father. Anyone can appreciate the fact that, inevitably, things come up that sometimes prevent people from keeping their word. But nobody likes to be stood up. So if you suddenly realize you can’t live up to a promise, communicate to the affected people. Then, come up with an alternative for living up to the original commitment.