Welcome back to the Christianity and Business Podcast, an initiative of the RCW Dunham College of Business at Houston Christian University. I'm your host, Darren Shear, and this is the show that helps Christian business leaders to integrate biblical values into business. On this episode, we're joined by Jonathan Nolan. Jonathan is a redemptive business consultant who is passionate about recovering the dignity and mission of vocation. He's a career missions leader who's worked in 60 countries. If only you could all see this amazing knife collection that he's got on this wall from all the knives that he's collected on his missionary journeys around the world. And he's the host of the Metron Manager Podcast and author of Managing Your Metron, a practical theology of work, mission, and meaning. Jonathan, welcome to the Christianity and Business Podcast.
SPEAKER_00That's great to be here, Darren. Thanks for having me on.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, by the way, we've got some one-minute video shorts that we're taking from these podcast episodes we're doing. And uh, and you'll see Jonathan's here. If it's not up when you're listening to this, it will be up very shortly. But you will be able to see the knives on his wall when you go and look at that, look at that video. So, Jonathan, when did you first realize God wanted to be involved in your work in business? You've been a missions uh on the mission field, and uh a lot of missionaries that I know of that I know, uh, you know, they're great kingdom people. They're, you know, doing the work of Christ uh around the world and a cross-cultural setting, but you know, don't often recognize that God wants us to um actually be in engaged in the marketplace, that it's not just about uh getting people to pray a prayer of salvation, but it is um the the work of business that that has a role in our redemptive work in the world. So when did you first realize God wanted to be involved in your work and business?
SPEAKER_00Uh that's a really good question. And interestingly enough, when I started out in my mission career, I was pretty young. Uh, had a uh a childhood growing up on the mission field at an early call to mission work. I kept at that all through high school, but and continued after that full time. But one of the things I learned early on was that uh you had to make money. And so, especially in the organization I worked with where you had to pay to work, you didn't get paid to work, you had to come up with a lot of money. And so you were constantly looking for uh side hustles essentially to keep your mission call going. Or, you know, people would raise support and things, but when you're younger, that's pretty tough to do. I mean, I started out on $70 a month in support for my first year, and so that was pretty poor. So, what I was doing was working multiple jobs. I was working restaurants at night and then working with the ministry during the day. Then I was, you know, I had stuff going all the time. I was working on cars over here, I was, you know, side jobbing with construction companies, you name it, to pay the bills. But I did a lot of work in the restaurant world. And ever since I was young, my first job in the restaurant world was I was 14 years old when I got back to the US from growing up overseas on the mission field. It's probably the second night I'm back in the United States, hadn't really uh experienced the country at all before that. I was a foreigner in my own country. And my folks were really poor when we got back. And they literally drove me up to a ski resort near where we lived in Montana and said, okay, if you want to have any school clothes for three days from now, you better go get a job. And they just told me, pick a restaurant, go get a job. So I just walked into one and signed up, started working that night. They were like, hey, can you work right now? And that was like, welcome to the restaurant world, you know. And I uh I'd always had uh entrepreneurial wiring, so to speak, and I'd had multiple businesses that I'd started as a kid. I mean, I was very industrious, very wired entrepreneurially, self-starter, but I jumped into working in restaurants and I started to really see uh how even at that age, I recognized there was a real difference in the impact and that I had in these communities when I worked to the glory of God, not for the favor of man. And I just understood that intuitively, probably from my folks. But that was quite a journey to all the way through, I would say, end of high school, in the last main restaurant I was working at before I uh went more career full-time with my agency. Uh, I had the it was probably the last night I worked there, actually. Uh, the entire restaurant staff cornered me after we closed at about one in the morning. And I I didn't, I'd never told any of these people I was a Christian, nothing. I've been working there a year and a half or two. It's a steakhouse. And I just wouldn't go along with all their crazy stuff, right? They had it was probably the most corrupt work environment I'd ever been in. I mean, they're the managers are dealing drugs, people are, I mean, it was just stealing product, everybody's selling stuff. And I just wouldn't go along with it, but I wouldn't really say anything. I was just doing my job, working really hard. And last night I was there, whole staff confronts me. And I thought they were literally gonna jump me. I was like, what did I do here? And uh what they what they were upset about, so they picked a spokesman to challenge me. And he just said, they were like, Now, we need to hear you cuss one time. And that was their opening confrontational comment. And it just totally caught me off guard. I was like, What do you mean? You haven't heard? I probably have, but uh, they were like, You're making this feel terrible. What is the deal? And they just started like unloading on me about like guilt and stuff, and I'd never even told them I was a Christian that night. We went, I just started preaching under the leading of the Holy Spirit because they're like, tell us why you don't do these things. I started doing that by one or two in the morning, like four of them had come to the Lord. And I mean, some were backslidden Christians. I mean, we went hours in this closed restaurant and it was this transformative moment. And I it never left me. I was never the same after that when I left. I just was impacted by how uh one quiet Christian in the workplace can change the entire atmosphere and the course of people's lives. So that was kind of the experiences I lived in. It really set things in place. And then as I grew and worked in my mission career, I continue to be uh pretty much wired for work all the way through that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Wow, that's incredible. I mean, had had you seen that kind of audacity modeled for you uh from your parents, like, you know, to be in a setting like that, I mean, that's there was no pulpit. There was no, you know, people didn't know that that's what they were there for. Um, I mean, where did that that inspirate? I mean, obviously the Holy Spirit, but had you seen, had you been discipled in that way?
SPEAKER_00You know, uh, it's a good question because some in some ways it was just environmental. I didn't grow up in the Bible belt, so to speak. I didn't grow up in cultural Christianity. When I was doing all this kind of work, I was actually living in Oregon, uh, in a very hostile culture to Christianity, even at that time. The workplace was the general culture was quite hostile to Christianity and very confrontational. And you had to be able to stand your ground just socially. Like you had to know how to just be like the Bible says, be prepared with an answer in you know, in season and out of season, uh, because you were going to get confronted. And I mean, it was it was a crazy environment that we dealt with like satanic stuff just on the streets. I mean, I'd work in this surf shop and I'd have uh people come in and just totally overcome with evil, just confront me. I'd never even told them I was a Christian, and they would just go after me uh about faith and mocking and all this stuff. My coworkers couldn't believe it. And I'd just sit there and talk with them until, you know, they either calmed down or left or talked about God, you know. And so you're you kind of got conditioned by this uh agitated atmosphere in in a place like Oregon where it's not calm and peaceful, like where I live right now in Northwest Arkansas. And so I was more used to that kind of an aggressive spiritual environment and um learned how to navigate that. And that actually served me quite well going into a lot of tough places around the world.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And so you just decided you were gonna live counter-culturally. Like there was no, it wasn't like there were people around you that were that had the same zeal for the Lord that you had to be so audacious that you're gonna preach to all of these lost coworkers that I'm sure were quite a bit older than you. You know, that was my experience working in the restaurant, which, you know, I think about just how different it is for so many of us growing up uh nowadays, where it's not like in the the Hebrew culture where you go to work in your father's shop, your father's gonna disciple you um and teach you a trade, and you're gonna learn how to honor the Lord with that trade. You know, now it's go get a job. And typically that's in a restaurant, as it was for you and I. And you're around a lot of people that just are, I mean, just frankly, godless and and being all of the I mean, the the opposite kind of the opposite of discipleship, and yet you just decided you were gonna be like a like a Daniel in that environment.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's really true. And you know what? I at the time I had no intention, obviously, of like ever even having a voice to share with these folks, but I just my my aim all the time in my work was to do things as unto the Lord, not unto men, and do it, do my work the way I would do it before the throne of God. That was just always my paradigm. So one of the things I got in trouble with the most at that restaurant uh that stood out was I did my job too well. And so my manager would constantly come and talk to me and be like, Man, you got to dial it back. They're like, we can, they're like, you can't work like this or maintain this standard because if you ever leave, we can never maintain this. Like, this is, you know, we can never come to this level, and you're making us look bad then. And so I mean, there was, but it was like basic things, like I would just do the job right, like move equipment at night that moved needed moved and clean up under it, where the previous six years nobody'd move the equipment because it was just inconvenient. And so I'm like, well, it's just the job. I'm just doing it right, doing it well, doing it thoroughly, nothing fancy, not trying to prove anything here. I'm just actually doing the job. And that was a threat to my managers because they're like, hey, we just this isn't just our culture, we just don't do it right. You know, like why would we do that if we can get away with stuff? And so I would constantly get in trouble for doing things well, doing things right. And again, that's kind of the Daniel model, is Daniel, I don't think, set out to preach, but he set out to be excellent at what he was doing and to have a seat at the table, so to speak, through how he demonstrated the kingdom of God in him. And uh, and that got him invited to the table. That gained him influence. So I began to see that influence came through serving, for one thing, through uh doing things as unto the Lord, and it to the point where a few years later I was still working side jobs with restaurants and uh I was waiting tables and stuff. And when I'd moved to Colorado to continue doing uh uh ministry, like mission stuff and things. And my manager he had kept me for a long time at a busboy position in this restaurant. So it's nothing glorious. I'm like working the busboy thing, but I'm rocking it, right? Everybody loves it. I start training. And I kept asking him, why don't you move me up? And he's like, we just he's like, we wouldn't survive without you in this position. You'd be, you know, too busy if you escalate. But then what it really turned out to be is he liked me not being too busy because he would ask me to help him indirectly with hiring. He was like, he's like, I he's like, everybody I hire is a bad hire. He's like, anybody you recommend are awesome. So he's like, I'll just, I just need you. He would grab me, I'd be just doing something. He'd grab me, walk me outside the restaurant where he's doing an interview. And from like 15 yards away, he's like, okay, just eyeball that guy and tell me if I should hire hire him or not. And I'm like, I don't know anything about it. He's like, just give me your first impression. But what he was recognizing was the wisdom of God in me, the discernment that I had through my relationship with God, where I could hear God on things like this operationally. I would know, okay, this is a good person to hire. And he would just go with my recommendation. And it was like, you know, five for five every time. Like he was like, so it became stuff like that where I had this outsized influence in a restaurant with the senior manager as a bus boy, uh, because of my my relationship with God. Yeah. And that that kind of operating in your space uh for me became the benchmark. Like, can I operate in any space with that kind of connection with God and add value at that level to where people invite you to the table? And that's how you get influence.
SPEAKER_01But that wasn't your first public experience, right? I mean, you had been with your parents on the mission field up until that point, right? I mean, for all your all your life, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So I mean, it wasn't like you were the typical kid that, you know, grows up in suburbia, you know, public schools, just your um your peers are I mean, you're sort of the average of your peers. You had a very different upbringing, which which probably contributed to your that, as I said, that audacity that you had to just live on mission and live counter-culturally uh culturally. Am I right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, to a degree, but I think a lot of it came through my parents being almost too busy to be heavily involved in my life a lot when they were on when we were on the mission field. I was quite an autonomous child. That was a lot of it was like sink or swim on your own. You know, my dad didn't have a lot of time to work with me on things, and I tried to work with him on what he was doing. In what country again? Uh in Belize, essentially. Okay. Yeah. And I so I learned to be pretty independent and autonomous, but in that equation, doing it in a way where I when I'd become a Christian when I was 13, to where I was actually really uh authentically converted and right and got right with God and really began to hear and operate uh with with the Lord uh in a real real life, kind of living with him. And I actually had to depend on him a lot because there wasn't a lot of other support or resources around. So I just learned to be very dependent on daily living with God, dependency on God, hearing God, and thinking through a very much a spiritual or supernatural grid system that to me was just normal. So I would always keep an eye on things spiritually, so to speak, like the Bible talks about with your spiritual eyesight and things. And that proved to be probably the biggest spiritual soft skill that helped me navigate all these rough environments.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And so you I mean, did you have the sense that it wasn't like for a kid in suburbia public schools? Now you're in a youth program and they say, We're gonna go on a mission trip. And then you come back, you know, you're super charged up for Christ and you're ready to take on the world. And then like as typically goes, you know, the the the kid just sort of drifts and blends back into their their surroundings. Um, but I mean, did you have this sense that you were on mission as a as a kid?
SPEAKER_00I mean, I'm sure you parents probably gave you more responsibility than the typical kid or yeah, I did really lean into a a mission, personal mission call, call to mission at a young age. And that was pretty important because it gave me some focus and purpose beyond the day-to-day things you needed to do. I just had uh more of an eternal mindset all the time. So, and I began to really enjoy actually, it was like the daily challenge to see what God wanted to do through me in with these really weird friends and relationships and schools. So for me, it became like the fun part of the day to be like, hey, I've got this opportunity to sit with a bunch of uh neo-Nazi punks downtown in Salem, Oregon tonight because of where we're gonna be at and this concert or whatever. I wonder what kind of conversation is gonna come up. And so rather than like avoiding these weird environments, I would just look for the hand of God and then be like, who am I gonna get to talk to tonight? What am I gonna get to do? I mean, you never know what you know. God has a little bit of salt and light to work with here and he wants to put it in some pretty dark places. And so I just kind of let him do that, just position me in these things and then not back away from difficult environments. But look forward to just seeing God work through me in ways that were out of my own strength, like that I didn't feel qualified for.
SPEAKER_01But then you started working with businesses and as a redemptive business consultant. What's one of the business practices that helps you and the organizations you serve reflect the character and the ways of God?
SPEAKER_00Well, I actually created an entire program called the Ways of Work. And this uh it's an e-course-based program that's built on the core concepts in my book, Managing Your Medtron. But I really began to recognize there was uh specific areas of weakness or lack of equipping that limited the potential of Christian professionals or Christian redemptive-minded companies uh or enterprises. It limited their ability to be effective or even operationalize these things they felt from God for them in their workplace and their workspace. And one of the one of the big challenges um that I've come across is that there's really not on an institutional or normalized level, training or equipping within the traditional church world to help people succeed in the marketplace and to actually uh it for the award, the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry, that often is uh applied from scripture as equipping the saints for the work of the ministry within the four walls of the church, not actually out into the marketplace. And that began to for me be a big compelling uh vision was to address that. And so I created this program called The Ways of Work, which teaches people to do things God's way in God's universe in the workplace and effectively function the way that um says here in uh Luke 19, 12, that's become a core thing for me, is uh viewing teaching people to view vocation as occupation. And that scripture says he said therefore a certain in Luke 19, 12, says he said therefore, he sorry, let me start over here. He said therefore a certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and to return. And he called his ten servants, delivered to them 10 pounds or minas, and said unto them, occupy till I come, or occupy till I return. So helping Christians understand their vocation as the responsibility of occupying their delegated space of responsibility from God, or metron, as the apostle Paul says, as being the primary objective of their vocation, whether it's work you're paid to do or work you just do because it's part of life, like raising your kids or things like that. Your vocational calling needs to be viewed through this lens of occupation. How are you going to occupy that till the Lord returns? So, to do that, I created a whole equipping program for companies, individuals called the Ways of Work. And it's really looking at taking God's ways and it and applying that from the biblical perspective into building redemptive corporate culture and equipping people to manage redemptive corporate culture. And that has been really unique and well received by Christian professionals, especially those that have a heart for this. Like a lot of people will tell you, uh, go be redemptive or go do something missional or in your work, you know, or you know, work your faith into your into your activities at work or things like this. People will be told that, but never taught how to do that. And so that's been my heart. It's like, actually, how do you do this? So I get in the trenches with companies in their unique context, their unique matrix, and help them up reform their company to be redemptive and actually in ways that are structural, accountable, and measurable in what they're doing and build holistic companies and enterprises. So that's actually what I I've thrived on the most the last few years.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So what's an example of one of those business practices or habits that helps these companies reflect the character and ways of God?
SPEAKER_00Well, a big one is uh adapting a or adopting a values-driven framework. So where your company is actually a values-driven model where it's driven by values operationally and in reality, not just as placards on the wall, but everything's driven by values and not by personalities. And so helping companies make room for the values of God to be institutionalized in how they define their companies and how they drive their companies and how they just operate day to day versus the characteristics or whims of a couple of personalities that dominate a company or something like this. And it really introduces uh organizational health in a strong sense and in. It creates if if done right, creates um, I call it redemptive margin. It creates margin within the company through fixing a lot of problems where they actually have the bandwidth to consider other redemptive opportunities and callings from God on their company versus just struggling with a dysfunctional business model. And so that's been my real heart. That's one thing is fixing and developing companies to be values driven. Another strong example would be building the right kind of redemptive market or redemptive cultures for companies. And the the fundamental one being obviously servanthood and servant leadership and looking at that as fundamental, but then dealing with things like how do you manage um relationship, particularly communication within a culture? And so I have specific equipping modules to make this idea of redemptive entrepreneurship, redemptive business, redemptive living actually possible in the real world. And that gets very tactical and practical and uh has actually worked really well for some companies.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well what's the story of a time when you saw God's hand at work in in one of these businesses, maybe through something that they took and applied through this program?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, one of the companies I'm working with uh recently is it's technically a nonprofit, but uh it's a revenue-driven nonprofit that's fantastically successful financially. And they're in they're in um women's uh high-end women's thrift. And uh they they do uh incredible work through generating a lot of money and funding a lot of women's ministries through that. But they're basically a highly driven uh redemptive business. And they uh have been working with me for the last year or so. We've been collaborating to rebuild the corporate culture, among other things, with the company. And there's of late, the CEO told me she said that they pretty much attribute uh an incredible, they have like a very high profit margin uh year over year. And they attributed the majority of that success to the work we did overhauling the corporate culture and eliminating turnover within the company and creating a redemptive, holistic workplace experience that's not driving out talent, but it's attracting talent that's outsized that they can't afford. They get talent they can't afford. And that's part of the thing. If you do it right, you'll you'll get people you can't afford to pay. And so we're seeing this play out in real time over year over year, a tremendous uh business uh in effectiveness outcome, but also a workplace experience that's become uh went from very difficult, borderline toxic to the place where everybody wants to work. And that's that's one of the great stories of this last year.
SPEAKER_01What's a very specific, measurable thing that was changed uh in that organization that generated those results?
SPEAKER_00One very tactical, practical concept that I introduce through the training is within corporate culture, it's really a psychology term, but I've adapted it through a Christian or redemptive lens of unconditional positive regard. So I train on this concept of UPR, unconditional positive regard, and tie it to how we how we extend grace within an organization and within relationships at every level, with the idea being that you're extending grace and you're treating people with honor and dignity and respect, not so much in a means of tolerating things that are wrong, but in a way of maintaining relational access to help fix things to be right. And UPR is in unconditional positive regards a great, you know, counseling practice that people use. But I've adapted it into a business framework to teach companies how to operate on UPR. And that this company I'm working with that I mentioned, they've said that one practice alone has been a game changer in how they unho they view each other through an honoring a lens of honor and of dignity unconditionally. And then they have been able to manage a grace-filled environment to be transformational and not just permitting things to happen that shouldn't within the company. So when we talk about having a growth-oriented company and a growth-oriented workplace experience, this is one of the practices I help them put in place so that they actually can grow people and grow the workplace experience. So we get very tactical, practical, but doing it through a redemptive lens of and honoring culture within a company, handling people the way God would handle them, whether they deserve it or not, and actually following through on developing and training people. So that one alone has been a game changer.
SPEAKER_01So what would that UPR look like in practice in a real world scenario?
SPEAKER_00Um yeah, and we we often talk about just day-to-day, these things happen with the company. But for instance, somebody, uh uh, say even a senior leader shows up late or missing an action for a senior role that day in the company, and the people who it's affecting who are trying to hold the thing together at a store location or something, immediately apply the lens of unconditional positive regard and they they don't jump to conclusions. They immediately, their mindset is grace-filled, positive. We also teach on positive intent as positive that part of that. But uh, they immediately jump to uh not negative likelihoods, but positive and redemptive likelihoods and rationales and believing the highest and best until proven otherwise. And so that lends itself to rather than a hostile confrontation, when the person does show up, it ends up being in a grace-filled, redemptive encounter where the person who's obviously erred or in the wrong somehow or something's happened, when they show up, they know they're not going to get a broadside and blown out of the water for whatever happened before they can even talk about it. They can anticipate a grace-filled response. And so what it does is it lower, it creates psychological safety in the workplace and lowers the anxiety level dramatically so that when something, you know, something does happen, people aren't waiting to pick me off the minute I get there because of this thing and how it affected them. I know we have a grace-defined relationship and we hold each other in high regard. Not that I'm not going to be accountable or held to account for something, but my lived experience in this moment is going to be life-giving. It's going to be elevating, and it's going to be defined by grace, not by anger. And the amount of psychological safety and workplace experience that has matured, matured through this has just transformed the culture. And people, I see them practice it all the time in the daily. Something happens, they get a call, they're like, you know what? UPR. They just say we say UPR. And it's just the grid they throw up right away. And what it's done is preserve relationship and nobody wants to quit. Nobody feels everybody wants to come to work. And that's the goal. Because if you can, if you can, in a business sense, eliminate turnover, you start making money. And that's one of the big outcomes of even a basic training like that. But it aligns directly with the biblical understanding of culture of honor within a workplace, but validate it in a world system sense. So we just work on these kinds of internal reforms, among other things, but we get real practical.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, it's a great example of how disciples are made in the workplace because you can come and listen to a lot of sermons, uh, you can watch a lot of Christian content on YouTube and podcasts and so on. But there nothing comes close to really getting it ingrained in a person's lifestyle, uh, what the character of God looks like, than what they see in the workplace. And so something like that, I mean, the pastor could teach, uh, could preach a sermon on UPR um and give some great scriptures for it. Um, you know, for example, love always trusts. First Corinthians 13, 7, love always trusts. So if I love somebody, I mean, there's got to be a some measure of trust, um, or as you say, um unconditional positive regard, um is is the way I think about it. And and they're not just that's not just affecting the culture of that organization. That will then shift the way they relate to their spouse, the way they relate to their kids, the way they relate to um people in their in their community, that you know, maybe my neighbor isn't deliberately trying to upset me with what they're doing, you know, you know, with the music up or whatever it is, but just giving people the benefit of the doubt. Um, and it's much easier said than done. Uh and and but without a culture to to be immersed where everybody says, yes, this is what we value, this is what we want, I mean, we really don't stand a chance at really making this a part of our own conduct and our own worldview, don't wouldn't you say?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and that's actually why I really want to start with companies talking about being values driven. Because if you don't have the values in place that authorize this kind of corporate culture, uh, you struggle to put on a layer or a veneer on top of something that isn't healthy. And so if you're gonna have a healthy corporate culture that's redemptive and it's accomplishing, I call it multiple bottom lines in a redemptive framework, uh, and seeing proof positive on those, uh, you have to have values in place that make room for that and that you align with and that govern the atmosphere of the organization, the culture of the organization, kind of set it all up. They they're like the pillars underneath everything else you want to see. So if you're not a values-driven organization or you don't take your values very seriously, uh, it is very squishy and very hard to build on that. And so getting the foundations right and the framework right is the real work kind of of due diligence you have to do to build these things. And I enjoy that the most. I get in the in the very background with these companies and start from scratch to say, how are we gonna build this framework, what I call the Metron framework based on my training? How are we gonna build that with the Metron framework, build this structure so that it can hold this redemptive culture in uh healthy hands and can actually steward this and steward the people that God's called with you? And then how can you turn them into uh people that actually occupy that space redemptively until the Lord returns that actually hold the ground of the kingdom, according to Luke 11? So that's my hope in the work is to build companies that think that way. Then it's not that they're running Christian programs or that they're doing Bible studies or they're preaching or anything. They don't have to be doing any of that, but they're handling the people and the processes, the practices, and the world around them in the way that God would, in everything they set their hand to do. And then when you demonstrate the kingdom in that way, there's no laws against that. And that's a lot of the challenge we face right now, is in the real world world culture of employment, uh starting businesses, hiring, all these things. There's so many rules, so many risks, so many legal issues that people Christians shut down a lot of times because they feel like, oh, I can't talk about things, I can't, da-da-da-da-da. And it's because a lot of what they're thinking is I have to use words to accomplish anything. So my tagline has become how do you advance the kingdom of God among the people, places, and spaces that God's given you when you can't use words? And that was my learning experience in Asia because you couldn't use words, it's not legal. So that's an extreme example. But then you get working in a corporate office uh here in the US, you might have some similar restrictions. So, how do you demonstrate the kingdom of God effectively to where you don't necessarily need words? Yes. And that's that's part of the art of the moment wherein culturally is how do we pivot and our thinking towards not an open Christian society, but towards towards more of a closed society. But we operate just like Daniel, where we cultivate influence and we tap into the wisdom of God, and we're in a relationship with God as such that it doesn't matter what the laws and the rules and the context is, you still get invited to the table to have influence and a voice on behalf of the kingdom. And that really works.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And like Paul said, imitate me as I imitate Christ. And and this is how disciples are made, isn't just by consuming Christian content and listening to um evangelists preach the you know, the Romans Road and hearing great sermons, but it's it's seeing somebody, and particularly a group of somebody through a culture that is centered on the character in the ways of God. That's how disciples are made. And because every culture is discipling people one way or another, it just so happens that a lot of cultures are discipling people to do the exact opposite of the UPR that you talked about. Yeah, you know, they're discipling people to do the um the the very conditional um negative regard, you know, where it's I'm gonna, I'm you you are guilty until proven innocent. And and that's that's the opposite of kingdom culture, where God is he's anticipating our next success, not our next failure. And it's just so hard to break out of that mindset, myself um very much included, um, with with just not not expecting that somebody has um, you know, like I almost got ran off the road the other day, and I was like, I was judging this guy so hard. And he was towing a boat, and um I was like, this guy was just like, you know, trying to, he was deliberately trying to kill me specifically. And uh and it was like midday, and I get home, my wife's like, well, he was probably drunk because he was towing a boat in the middle of the day. He probably just came off the water, and I was like, Yep, that's probably not that that in any way excuses uh what he did, but like it wasn't necessary for me to just jump to the conclusion that he just had it had it out for me specifically, you know what I mean? And it's just a totally different worldview, yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00And if we can one of the things I've been finding really helpful with companies is help them understand the importance of depersonalizing uh the accountability and workplace structure so that it's not personality versus personality or person against person, this kind of model, which is very much a world system, this uh uh contentious type of arrangements that get institutionalized, but really looking at um like, yeah, deep the biggest way to depersonalize it is to institute a values-driven operation, because then the values are everything that matters and are everything's measured against that, everything's held accountable against that. Uh, people are hired and fired by those things. Progress is measured by that, every system goes through that grid. And it just is such a big relief for the leaders who don't have to be the good guy or the bad guy, and also for the people in every other level of the company that are working in there, because they know, you know what, I'm not afraid of my leader having a bad mood or a bad day and firing me one day. Like that's just not how we operate. And they they have this buffer of I call it the rule of law for your company, where you're protected by on both sides by the values. And if there's a challenge or something happens, or you're told to do something and you do it in compliance with the values, and you did it uh the way it should be done according to the culture, and it doesn't work, then it's a discussion about the culture and the values, not about you as being a failure. And so it gives people a lot of air cover to operate with security in the workplace, with knowing, hey, I did this the right way according to how we view it and the culture and the values. And then if a manager is upset with that, then they're upset with their system and their application of those values, not the person necessarily. And so it gives some buffer in there and creates a lot more organizational health. And honestly, these days, if you're trying to hire Gen Zers, that's the big deal. Like you, a couple of big things I've been researching and training to with these companies, especially in retail that are trying to hire young employees, is workplace experience is everything. They will like statistically, the latest stuff I saw was like on average, Gen Zers will take a 30 to 40% pay cut if they can work in a developmental organization that helps them develop and become more than they are, like gives them a good workplace experience, an authentic growth-oriented workplace. So if you can't provide the money, like how are you going to hire outsized talent? Well, you do it by offering culture that attracts outsized talent. And I've seen that start to play out in these companies as well. And so when you're working with Gen Zers, trying to hire them, workplace experience is everything, growth-oriented is everything, and organizational, like a healthy workplace experience. Even if it feels some kind of squishy sometimes, providing this environment of psychological safety will help you attract to retain and cultivate these employees and grow them into the capacity and the potential they have. Yeah. And so you got to have that mindset. We're dealing right now with a lot of incoming employees who are just damaged goods because of COVID. Most of them have never hard, a lot of them didn't even hardly finish college. They were like locked in a room all during college, lost their social skills, never had a proper work experience. They're coming out into the workplace. They don't even know how to talk to people. They have just not had the opportunity. It's not been part of the social norms. So when you're hiring these people, you're just doing it with the reality of, hey, I'm gonna have to uh enhance my experience here. If I'm gonna keep good employees and develop them, you got to go into it with a developmental mindset. And if you can cultivate that, you'll get some great employees, some great loyalty and uh people that actually want to show up to work, don't have to show up, but want to show up.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes, what a concept. Uh Jonathan, uh, where do you want people to go to connect with you and hear more from you?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'd love to talk to anybody who's interested in this. Uh obviously recommend my book, Managing Your Metron, is out there. But if you go to metronager.com, uh, you'll find ample ways to connect with me. You'll see the different programs. Check out the Ways of Work program and the Amplifier program. You'll, I think you'll find them intriguing. Uh, if you want to email me, just email me at metronconnect at gmail.com. Awesome.
SPEAKER_01Jonathan, thank you for spending time with us today and helping us grow. We're all better for it.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, my pleasure.
SPEAKER_01We hope you've enjoyed this episode. And if so, we would greatly appreciate it if you'd leave us a quick rating and review for the Christianity and Business Podcast on iTunes. You can get more information about HCU's Center for Christianity and Business and sign up to receive free access to all issues of the Christian Business Review Journal by visiting our website at Christianityandbusiness.com. Thanks for listening and remember to keep integrating biblical values into your business.