Business Tips from a Christian Worldview

The Responsibility of Management

Gerald R. Chester, Ph.D.

Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. (Psalm 127:1 ESV)

Recently a company invited me to facilitate a planning session. My custom is to read James 4:13–17, which explains that the purpose of planning is to discern God’s will:

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”—yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

After I read the passage, I looked up at the management team (approximately twelve men and women all of whom professed to be Christians). They had listened politely as I read but said nothing after I finished. So, I waited patiently for them to respond. Finally, one of the ladies expressed that the team appreciated the Scripture reading, but they were all there that day to just “figure out how to make a bunch of money.”

Sadly, this is the attitude of most organizational leaders and managers, even those who are professing Christians. The pedestrian assumption is that the goal of strategic planning is to learn how to make a bunch of money.

James 4:13–17, however, is unequivocal. Planning is not about maximizing profit; it is a process—a spiritual process—of discerning God’s will. This means that profit is a secondary consideration; it is simply a by-product of alignment with God. It is not the main objective.

The management team’s view of developing a strategy to maximize profit is not unusual. Rather, it is the common mindset of most management teams. Even among those managers who profess to be Christians there is little understanding of the importance of building organizations aligned with the will and ways of God. As the psalmist stated so eloquently in the opening text, to seek to build anything independent of God is vanity.

The responsibility of management teams is singular. They must seek to align themselves and their organizations with what God wants to do in and through them as they serve others. This must be the seminal objective of strategic planning.

Here is your business tip. Wise organizational leaders and managers understand that organizations exist to serve God’s purpose. Hence, when conducting strategic planning, they recognize the importance of prayerfully seeking the will and ways of God to discover the strategic plan that God has called them to execute. This is the only plan that will be divinely blessed and enjoy God’s favor, which will enable them to serve their customers by providing excellent value. This is building God’s way, that is, building what God is building—aligning with God’s purpose.