Great Business Emulates a Good God

GREAT BUSINESS EMULATES A GOOD GOD

By Michael Surowiec, Ph.D

Discover the Ways Successful, For-Profit Organizations Emulate the Triune God

Great Business Emulates a Good God

By Michael Surowiec, Ph.D

Copyright 2013 Michael Surowiec

Smashwords Edition

EPUB ISBN: 9781301307999

All Rights Reserved. This eBook is licensed for your personal use. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. It remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied or distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy. Thank you for your support.

All Scriptural references, unless otherwise noted, are taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE ®, Copyright © 1960,1962,1963,1968,1971,1972,1973,1975,1977,1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

PRAISES FROM THE MARKETPLACE

ABBREVIATIONS

ABSTRACT

THE TRIUNE GOD AND BUSINESS

Introduction

Key Question

Scope of the Study

The Goal

Important Concepts

Overview

Presumptions

THE TRIUNE GOD'S IMAGE IN THE MARKET PLACE

Introduction

The Triune God

Triune God's Attributes

The Triune Project: A Brief Overview

Today's Church in the Marketplace

God's Relational Leadership Approach

Spiritual Formation in the Marketplace

The Standard of Excellence

CHRISTIAN-FOCUSED BUSINESS ORGANIZATIONS

Case Study: HOBBY LOBBY

Case Study: CHICK FIL-A

FAITH-FRIENDLY BUSINESS ORGANIZATIONS

Case Study: TYSON FOODS, INC

Case Study: FORD MOTOR COMPANY

FAITH-NEUTRAL BUSINESS ORGANIZATIONS

Case Study: GOOGLE, INC

Case Study: WALT DISNEY COMPANY

THE WAYS COMPANIES EMULATE THE TRIUNE GOD FELLOWSHIP

Theoretical Premises

Attributes of the Triune God Found Within the Business Context

Comparison of Cultural Values

Customer Orientation

Employee Orientation

Performance & Accountability Orientation

Innovation & Change Orientation

Company Process Orientation

Summary

FAITHFULNESS AND EXCELLENCE

Capsule Review

Predominant Characteristics

Conclusion

APPENDIX A

Cultural Matrix Case Study Summary

APPENDIX B

Predominant Values Summary

APPENDIX C

The Triune God Project - A Biblical Review

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ENDNOTES

PRAISES FROM THE MARKETPLACE

After only 11 pages, I'm hooked.  As a fellow business person and business owner, I recognized the challenges of running a business with Christian values in a secular world.  Acting, speaking and serving others like Jesus is not natural, as we are inherently sinful creatures.  Books like these are needed to help us stay focused on the job at hand…sharing the gospel with everyone we meet and interact with. We don't need to be on staff at a church to be a pastor, we can do it right from our offices on Main Street.

Steve J. Martin, CEO

SQR Wealth Management

"Michael Surowiec’s Great Business Emulates a Good God is an interesting and welcome addition to the emerging literature focused on the integration of faith and economics. It is an exploratory piece that encourages the reader to not only see God at work in the best practices of the marketplace but to look deeper at the inherent goodness of commerce and into the Bible to know and emulate the Triune God, as we are called to do, for His glory."

David B. Doty, Author of

Eden’s Bridge: The Marketplace in Creation and Mission

Michael has captured the essential connection between excellence in business practice which reflects and honors the highest standards of the Creator of the universe

Greg Barnes, President

Halftime Talent Solutions

ABBREVIATIONS

CFA Chic Fil-A

CO Closing Observation

CS Case Study

FMC Ford Motor Company

G Google, Inc.

GW God's Word Translation

HL Hobby Lobby

KJV21 21st Century King James Version

LGBT Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgender

MSSG The Message Translation

NASB New American Standard Bible

NIV New International Version

NKJV New King James Version

TF Tyson Foods

TGF Triune God Fellowship

WDC The Walt Disney Company

ABSTRACT

GREAT BUSINESS EMULATES A GOOD GOD

This study investigates the way companies emulate the Triune God in the marketplace. The research conducts a case study of six profitable companies: Hobby Lobby, Chic-Fil-A, Tyson Foods, Ford Motor Company, Google, and The Walt Disney Company. Each company culture is than categorized as either Christian-focused, faith-friendly or faith-neutral and compares the findings with the attributes of the Triune God. Each case study focuses on the individual company's cultural core values, beliefs, and norms and demonstrates their compatibility with the Triune God's economic and ontological attributes in relationship with humanity.

The study then identifies the two most prominent cultural values found in all six companies that emulate the Triune God. The study likewise looks at the Triune God as the apex of human measurement, mankind's redemptive adoption within God's plan, and defines salvation as the restoration of all creation to God's original intent. Finally, we demonstrate the ways successful companies emulate the Triune God's attributes within the organization and relationship in the marketplace.

Key words: Triune God, Trinity, adoption, restoration of creation, economic Trinity, Jesus, Christ, Holy Spirit, Bible, life in Christ, business, organizational model, Christian-focused, faith-friendly, faith-neutral, culture, values, Hobby Lobby, Chic Fil-A, Tyson Foods, Ford Motor Company, Google, The Walt Disney Company, faithfulness, excellence, common good, great business, business and faith, mission of business, culture, leadership, God and business, good God, spiritual formation, Christ follower, disciple

CHAPTER ONE

THE TRIUNE GOD AND BUSINESS

The entire world is full of service to God, not only in the churches but also the home, the kitchen, the cellar, the workshop and the field of the townsfolk and farmers.¹

Business is ministry, the work of God in the world.²

Introduction

Jack died in his mid-forties from cancer.³ Tragically, his daughter had died two years previously from the same disease. Jack was a partner of a very successful business; a leader in his church circle; a husband and father of two girls and a boy. His death was shocking to most people who knew him as an iron-clad, no-nonsense business executive who practiced his faith in the public arena. However, after his death both the good and the bad came to light. Although Jack was a successful businessman with all the dressings of a holistic lifestyle, his faith didn’t match his works. From the outside, he looked like a Christian with zeal for the Kingdom of God. He attended Christian business workshops with others who were impressed by his wisdom. He took pertinent notes from these meetings, organized them in easy to find files, and reviewed them whenever he had the time. Yet his employees and close associates saw a different side of Jack: one that the world would be shocked to discover.

From the outside looking in, Jack seemed the ideal Christian businessman. However, to his employees, he was a micro-manager whose temper blatantly got out of hand. He manipulated his associates through fear and intimidation. He deliberately embarrassed people among their peers to show how much better of a person he was to them. While his outer demeanor often attracted people, his negative and berating actions chased them away.

Christians struggle with the paradox of living in this world without partaking of its values.⁴ Typically, one slowly relearns what s/he might have correctly learned earlier in life if someone had given them the time and a better role model to follow. Jack struggled to live his faith within the business context. Other believers have also looked for Kingdom answers while working and living faithfully in the business arena.

The reason to mention Jack's story is because there are others like him who want to live their Christian life in the business marketplace, but haven’t properly learned how. Perhaps the only role model they have had were the ungodly bosses they didn’t even care for, but were the only examples they could recall on how to get the job done. Or maybe, their worldview just didn't totally align with the complete gospel message. Other business leaders like Jack have asked questions that are common among many believers within the marketplace today. Questions like:

What does business have to do with salvation, Kingdom of God, and the new creation?

What is the vision of the marketplace within Kingdom Realty?

Or, is the workplace exempt from Christ’s Lordship?

Does Christianity’s influence in the economic world only pertain to ethics or is there more?

A 2011 survey, conducted by Baylor University, reveals that approximately twenty-five percent of the American workforces believe their work is a mission from God.⁵ While thirty-six percent pursue excellence in their workplace due to their faith-precepts, less than twenty percent believe their congregation encourages them to start a business for profit. Overall, the survey reveals the majority of today’s workforce does not view God's involvement with their everyday work life. At the same time, those who risk the most financially, the entrepreneurs, realize that starting a business is not easy and will seek as much help as they can including spiritual strength. The same survey also discovered that almost one-third of entrepreneurs invest time in prayer for help to make it through the daily challenges business presents.⁶

Business leaders often find it difficult to approach their church pastor with corporate and economic issues.⁷ David Miller’s research found that most pastors view the role of business as a means of financing church ministries and have very little experience with business as a vehicle to redeem the marketplace. While most ministers readily provide mentorship for family, personal finance, or social aspects of life, they tend to view the business workplaces more as a necessary evil. This viewpoint is also reflected in the Baylor survey that discovered less than twenty percent of congregations speak positively about business profits.⁸ So if a person truly seeks to live a non-segmented business and personal life of faith, where would one find the best mentor to teach them the process if not in the church? Further, if one could select just one mentor to follow, to learn from, and to converse with each day, who would s/he be? This study will make a case that the best business role model to follow in the marketplace today is the Triune God. Not a figment of one’s imagination or a hero molded through media, but a personal, living God as exemplified through the pages of the Bible and creation.

In a graduate business class almost twenty years ago, this author was challenged when a professor acknowledged that the theories learned in his fifteen week leadership course did not really work in a sustainable fashion within the workplace.⁹ This research is the acceptance of that challenge and the accumulation of real world knowledge and experience to discover what really works in the marketplace.

As a Christ-follower and believer who has grown in faith and relationships through practical ministry both at home and in the workplace, this author has experienced long term successes as well as short-term failures in exercising Judeo-Christian principles through daily living. As one matures in the faith, one also learns to better follow the lead of the Spirit and to discern the impact love and truth have in the workplace. By combining a formal education with personal marketplace experience, this presentation is the culmination of over thirty years in the business world.

In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis wrote The whole dance, or drama, or pattern of this three-Personal life is to be played out in each of us…each one of us has got to enter that pattern, take his place in that dance.¹⁰ In the last ten-to-twenty years, the doctrine of this three-Personal life of the Triune God has made a strong reappearance within the Christian educational media. Such books as, The Deep Things of God, and, The God Who Is Triune, have again emphasized the importance of knowing who God is and His influence in the world.¹¹ In addition, the fictional book, The Shack, aided our understanding of the Trinity in a down-to-earth portrayal of the Triune God.¹² In the same vein, this study will likewise add fuel to the movement of restoring the Triune God Fellowship as the leadership model for the marketplace in both the transfer of economic goods and the standard for human behavior.

Key Question

The key question that this study aims to answer is: What ways do successful, for-profit organizations emulate the Triune God Fellowship (TGF) in the marketplace today?

The research study will examine this question to demonstrate that many of the best business practices today are built around the familial relationship and divine character of the Triune God. The Triune God - Father, Son, and Spirit - in fellowship with humanity, 1) models the ideal culture, organizational structure, and premier values of a successful, enduring business enterprise; 2) exemplifies the best business model in leadership for sustainable long term business success; and 3) develops mature believers through the daily