Welcome back to the Christianity and Business Podcast, an initiative of the R.E.W. Dunham College of Business at Houston Baptist 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 my friend Preston Poor. Preston has more than two decades of upper-level management experience, including his director of franchise leadership at the Coca-Cola Company. His corporate work has been recognized through many awards, such as the Dale Carnegie Sales Talk Champion Award, the Hershey's Hershey Company's President's Cup, a coveted national sales award that Preston won twice, and the Coca-Cola Company's Woodruff Cup, a global top performance award. And he's the author of 21 Days to Sound Decision Making and his latest book, Discipled Leader. And he's the host of the new Discipled Leader podcast, which he co-hosts with his two adult kids, Caroline and Benton. Preston, welcome to the show. Thanks, Darren. Great to be here. So we're going to talk about the intersection between personal discipleship and corporate leadership. What happened when you started losing your focus on God in the workplace?
SPEAKER_02That was uh, gosh, it was a tough time, really, for me. Uh, I always thought, Darren, that if I could perform and do so well uh and be recognized for that, that I'd get promoted. And I forgot about people. I forgot about uh the fact that it's not only what you do at work, it's how you do it and how you show up, how you treat people. And uh I lost my way uh in all that. Um I think strife in the workplace, uh, I think about uh uh rumors, water cooler talk, uh, ambition, some of those negative things. And I I'd never I never really had a role model that helped me connect Monday to Sunday and Sunday to Monday. It's that secular, secular, uh secular, uh, sacred conversation that we have a lot of times about work and church and stuff like that. And I'll quite frank with you, I had wonderful role models um in the church. Uh, but that making that translation at work, I really didn't have anybody that I really looked up to that could model the Christian faith in the workplace and what that looked like. So um, with that, I I own all of that. That wasn't anybody's fault, but uh some of the things that I've gone through really were really the school of hard knocks. Uh it was the way I treated people, uh, it was the way if either I was a manager at the time and not necessarily a leader or maybe a bad leader at the time, uh, or an individual contributor, uh, and the way I was a uh a teammate to others. I just wasn't that great, to be quite frank with you. I always did good work, uh always recognized for excellent work, but always the question was do we want Preston on our team or not? And uh that you know, that can kind of be a little frustrating at times. And I think God got me to a point where he just broke me uh and and put me in circumstances, and all I could do was turn to him. And I'm like, Lord, I don't get this. What's what's going on? And uh during that breaking period uh is when he started to intervene and put people in my life that helped me start to uh grow and see how I can not only build up my faith and then integrate it in the workplace and then actually go make a difference in the workplace. So uh that's kind of what happened. Uh it was a negative and tough experience, but that school of hard knocks actually resulted in a lot of the stories that are in the book Disciple Leader that I wrote, because it's kind of a memoir, if you will, is my transition moving from um a uh rough, tough individual in the workplace, uh not as maybe uh uh empathetic as I could have been, to somebody that actually truly became empathetic and led well. And I I that's really about what the book's all about.
SPEAKER_01And one of those stories that you share right off the bat, and I think it was probably one of those trigger moments where you realize uh something's gotta change is when you had two employees quit. And and and why did they quit? And how did you respond to that? Gosh.
SPEAKER_02Um, yeah, I so I can remember both of them. I can remember hiring one of them. They were a new associate, and one of the individuals, I had gotten promoted, and uh, then I hired somebody that was in a different location where I was. And so I was having to manage up and manage around me in the new circumstance, but then also go down and try and manage and develop a new associate. And I hired somebody I thought that had the talent, skills, and abilities to do it. I got all kinds of pressure from people that were around the new associate saying they weren't cut or the individual wasn't cutting it. Um, and so I did everything I could to help that associate, but I think I talked down to that individual during that time frame. I wasn't respectful, I wasn't empathetic. Uh, I was kind of like, do it the way I did it, and you'll be successful type thing. The other associate was uh a longtime employee that uh I had uh uh uh I guess adopted as a teammate of mine when uh a promotion happened. And I continued to push that individual because I heard that individual's performance wasn't good either. And so with both of those, I really didn't know how to handle that as a leader. Never really had anybody say, hey, press, here's how you can walk through this. And also I never really engaged others. I thought I had it all in my head about, you know, I know what to do. I'm gonna go show them how to do it, and then they will go make it happen. It's gonna be up to them whether they succeed or not. And um, I learned very quickly uh that I approached it wrong. I remember both of them quitting on me. I remember uh one of them uh called and said, Hey, last day, and we were all a little bit shocked on it, but my boss actually drove down to the other location to meet with the individual and got that individual side of the story and came back and talked to me about it. And there's two sides to every story and everything, right? Uh, and then the other individual I'll never forget, uh, and I think this is I'm pretty sure I wrote, I know I wrote this in the book because there's a whole section on how I went through executive coaching to make a transformation around this and the help that that coach gave me. But that other individual, we got on the phone and uh we were about to do an annual review, and uh it just annual review circumstances, and I was waiting for my boss to come into the room, and I'm sitting there uh uh on the phone with the individual. And as I get started, the individual says, Hey, no need to go through all this. Preston, you're a jerk. I'm quitting today. Wow. Right? So those two two circumstances. My manager at the time looked at me and said, uh, Preston, you do a great job. Everybody recognizes you do great work, but in order for you to continue to advance in your career or even outside of this career, you got to learn how to deal with people. What you're doing is not working right now. And that was a breaking point for me, Darren, quite honest with you. It was a tough, tough circumstance, but I think that's really where I started leaning in and saying, okay, God, I gave myself to him. I said, I'm broken. Uh, I have this bent toward leadership. Obviously, I don't know what I'm doing. If you'll show me and put people in my life about what to do and how to do that, engage in your word and pray and uh live out my faith in the workplace and make make a difference, show me how to do that. And uh he did. Uh and that that uh that started that whole process really started in my heart, probably back in 2004 and 2005 when the the the breaking started happening.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, well, it's a a liberating thing to be able to talk about those those scenarios on the other side of it in a way that you can you can find redemption through it so that you can be better and help others be better. Because I think probably many of us leaders, myself included, have been accused of being condescending to people. I mean, when you're your kind of the nature of your job is to point people in the direction they should go when probably many of them already have a sense of, well, I think I should be doing it this way um or or going this direction. There's there's a lot of room to to kind of be accused of being condescending. Um, and and maybe we could camp out on this for a little bit because I'm sure some of our listeners are probably feeling the same thing. And although they, you know, maybe wouldn't hopefully have the humility to say, well, there's probably some truth in that. Like, yeah, I've got to tell people, you know, some things that they need to be doing, but how how can personal discipleship help us to um not be condescending?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So thank you for the question. I I think the first thing I'd point out to you, Darren, is for the individual, you have to be self-aware and you have to develop some sense of empathy. Uh, I have I've taken the empathy test scores and I I score pretty low. So it's something I have to develop, but it's really about how do you listen to folks? Uh, how do you care about them? How do you build trust with that individual? And I didn't have any of those things with those associates and many, many around me is from a teammate perspective. Um, but I found over time that if I can become empathetic, and you know, empathy and listening really comes from love, right? And that's how if your motive is if you're loving other people and you want the very best for them, you want to help them develop, help them succeed, give them the tools that they need to do well in their role and help them, you know, get promoted, have uh have families, buy houses, succeed, do all that great stuff that they can do and progress in their career. That's a much better position to be in with people than it's about me. And I'm gonna work through you to get where I want to go, versus working with you for us to accomplish some great things in the organization. Um, and so it really was just a mindset shift. And so when you're condescending to somebody, it's a pride thing. You're talking down to somebody.
SPEAKER_01I had somebody tell me uh a leader that sound what does it sound like when you're condescending? Just so we're all on the same page here.
SPEAKER_02Uh yeah, so well, what does it sound like? Uh, you know what? When something goes wrong uh or something's not done the way that you think it should go, you speak to somebody in tone, or the words that you use, or it's the the visual, the body language that you use towards somebody, you know, that's the old uh visual, verbal, and vocal, right? About how we communicate. And you can communicate micro inequities and condensation uh or being condescending to anybody through those three ways. And if you are in and in any way in those three areas, acting towards somebody without dignity and respect, uh, and that you're higher than they are, uh, in your comments, in your emails, in your telephone conversations, in your Zoom call, um, those things can come across as condescending. I think a lot of it too, Darren, is talking. When I say condescending, I'm talking about talking down to somebody. And I find as leaders that when you're asking, you know, you I think you mentioned something about direction and things like that. Yeah, you can direct people, but I prefer a Socratic approach. I prefer coaching, I prefer asking questions now where I told people what to do before. Now I start to ask them questions. Uh, I listen to their perspective. And I think those things are all uh more helpful. So you're encouraging others and lifting them up versus being condescending. Does that does that kind of help a little bit on that?
SPEAKER_01That's really good. And one of the things that you teach in the book is, and I'm trying to remember the exact quote, I should have written it down. But something along the lines of you it's not enough to change what you do, you have to change who you are. Um, and and and so what is how can personal discipleship help us to just treat people uh the way they need to be treated? I mean, because this is not second nature for you know for pretty much all of us with the that's in nature that we deal with. And then we have scriptures that say consider others more important than yourself. Like, how do you do that as the leader?
SPEAKER_02Well, let me let me take you back for a second. Since we're talking in business language, uh, there's a few statistics I'd throw at you. Uh, number one, Barna came out and said a few years ago, and this just shocked me, it might shock you as well, but they, and if you're familiar with Barna is, they're a Christian research group, right? Uh, they said that 80% of Christians, once they made a decision for faith, have not been discipled. They don't know how to read the Bible, they don't know to pray, uh, they don't know the importance of fellowship with other believers, like being in a small group or being in church or being involved, and they don't know how to witness or share their faith. So 80%. It's an absolutely amazing statistic to me. And then Barn also did another study called Christians at Work, and they talked about, they did a study of 1,500 people and asked people uh that had some level of uh belief in their life and they've committed their lives to the Lord where they were on the spectrum from actually uh uh integrating their uh faith into the workplace, whether they just kind of know a little bit about it but haven't seen it, haven't haven't had it modeled, or they're compartmentalizers. They, again, that's that Sunday, Monday, the secular spiritual piece on that. 70% of Christians that have some level of belief do not integrate their faith into the workplace. So you've got this, not many have been discipled, and then you've got those that are or say their believers aren't impacting the workplace at all. And so uh the other interesting thing I throw at you, and there's two other statistics actually, actually, because I'm trying to solve a problem through the book. We invest 90,000 hours of our life at work. That's where we get to know ourselves in a lot of different ways. We interact with people and we actually have a chance to work out, uh, live out our faith in the workplace. So 90,000 hours. So you couple the 80% that haven't been discipled, 70% that don't uh live out their faith in the workplace. You got 90,000 hours of your life at work. And the last thing I'll tell you is this is that most people don't know, but John, the studies I've read and through the John Maxwell team is that we all have, even the even the most introverted person will influence up to 10,000 people in their lifetime. Now you can influence somebody positively or negatively, right? So I take all those facts and say this. How does your faith play into the workplace? And how does personal discipleship play in that? Well, if you become a closer uh follower in an intimate fellowship with our Lord Jesus Christ, he will work in you and through you. So it's the being part first, being a follower of Christ. And as he changes you, he'll work in you and through you, then integrating that faith in the workplace. And so your Sunday and Monday are the exact same. You live actually your sacred life every day that you're at work. Doesn't matter whether you're at home, at church, or at work, you're the same person. And that's what we're trying to do and point out here is uh there's a lot of things out there, Darren, that are focused on work, uh faith in the workplace. I think the differentiation, since I'm a marketing guy, the differentiation here is that the disciple leader really leans in on application. And what it does is says, okay, if you if you're a disciple, here's the action and here's the way a disciple looks. And then when you pull the needle through, here's how that looks in the workplace. And that's what we try to model for the folks.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So let's take it back to this issue of conduct being condescending as sort of uh uh a way to put this into practice. Um, what is what does that look like? How does the becoming, as you say in the in the um in your podcast, about being in the book, about being a disciple and not just a decider, what does that look like in terms of how we treat people from a Christ-like perspective?
SPEAKER_02Well, it's it's uh it yeah, I I think it goes back the your if your motive, Darren, is love toward other people. And if you go back to, I think it's uh uh First Corinthians, right, eight, and it talks about love. It's the it's the passage, uh, it's the passage that's typically read at a wedding ceremony, but you never hear again. But if our our listeners will go back and read that love passage, you will understand what love does and human human interaction with other people. And um, there's just a shift in mindset and change and how you grow and how you see people and view people. I love one thing that John Maxwell always says. He says, When I see other people, I see the potential in them. I see a tin on their forehead. He literally just says that it's really how you view people and how you see people. And are you an associate that's trying to climb the ladder and get promoted for the things that you can achieve? Or are you trying to help other people achieve what they want to? I found that if I can help other people grow and achieve what they want to, uh, it helps me in the end. And so this kind of reverse logic, isn't it? Uh, I always tell people too that, and this is something I learned from James Dobson a long, long time ago, uh, because he he tells a story. I don't know if you've heard this, Darren, but he tells a story about how he went back to his high school and used to be a tennis champion, or it's a college or tennis uh high school, I can't remember. But he went back and all of his old trophies he actually saw in the trash can. And uh he he always makes the point, I've heard him say this, that people won't remember what you accomplished necessarily, but they will remember how you made them feel.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And so think about that. Um, when I pass away someday, uh, nobody's gonna remember that Preston wrote a book. Uh, nobody's gonna remember that I did, I got awards working at work or I did these different things. But it's the people around me that are gonna remember how I treated them or an associate that I had at work, uh, because I'm I'm I'm getting close to retirement, to be quite frank with you, uh, in this current career before I move into another chapter. But my hope is the people that I've been around will remember how I made them feel and how I helped make the workplace a better place. Not necessarily what, you know, we we gained availability on a certain product or knocked a home run on this or whatever. They're not going to look back on those things, but they'll say, hey, hopefully that Preston Poor made a difference and he helped me uh in a certain way.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that is so good. So, Preston, what actions do you want people to take as a result of listening to this interview?
SPEAKER_02I want here when you take those statistics that I just gave you, and I'm going to talk about two of them. The 80% of those who don't or have not been discipled, and what I mean by that is if you have given your life to Christ at some point and you are quote unquote a decider, I would encourage you to become a disciple. And what do I mean by that? It's somebody that intimately knows and follows Jesus and his ways and that the Lord works in and through. Um, I'd invite you to do that because if you do that, then the Lord will work with you and through you to impact your workplace. So the whole premise of this book, Darren, it actually started as just a discipleship book, but we pulled it through to the workplace and wanted to show people what excellent leadership looked like. And so I'd love for the listeners to go and invest time in being discipled, saying, Hey, am I one of those 80%? How can I grow in in my relationship with the Lord? And I know then that I've got a place that I can potentially look and disciple leader for examples about how to be a better leader in the workplace and how to grow Christ-like character, influence others, and change the environment that they're in.
SPEAKER_01Excellent. And Prestonpoor.com is the website, uh, P-R-E-S-T-O-N-P-O-O-R-E.com. Um, what do you want to say about the book and the podcast?
SPEAKER_02What the you know what, Darren? I don't know if I I tell most people there's a few things I want to share with you on this. Do you know what happened on July 20th, 1969? Do you know what happened?
SPEAKER_01Um, is that when we landed on the moon?
SPEAKER_02Oh, that's awesome. I love it. So you're one of the few people that have actually asked and that knew that. But here's the skinny on that. Um, do you know when my book launches? You probably don't know the exact date, but you know what date? It's July the 20th.
unknownNice.
SPEAKER_02And when I heard that, uh, and I heard this analogy of the first time man landed on a moon, when Kennedy and NASA and everybody put their moonshot up, what was seemed impossible became possible that day on July 20th, 1969. And I heard a still small voice in me say, Preston, I've put your book for launch on July 20th because what you thought was impossible will become very possible that day. Why do I say it was impossible? It's because I've had 30 rejections from publishers. I've been through three editors, I've had two agents, I've had all kinds of revisions on the book. It took me 10 years to write. Uh, but the length in that, it was a crock pot in terms of getting everything together versus a microwave. It didn't happen quickly. And I think what the readers are going to get out of this are some real life honest uh stories about, and I'm very vulnerable and transparent of the book about the challenges I had. And hopefully people will be able to relate relate to those, and they are pointed to our Lord Jesus Christ uh that can help them and work in them and through them. So it was a struggle to get the book written. Uh, I I am told sometimes that the the journey I was on is typical. I'm not sure. Um, I know JK Rowling, right, with uh the Harry Potter books went through a similar experience. So if the soccer leader sells maybe 1% of what she sold, we'll be in great shape.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes, amen. And um, and you also have a book, 21 Days Uh to Sound Decision Making. You want to give a little plug for that one as well?
SPEAKER_02Well, thank you. Uh, and I appreciate that. And I know hybrid uh media is a publisher for that, so thank you for that and uh working with me on that last year. You know, I I wrote it. So I said it to it took me 10 years to write Disciple Leader and get it all the way to publish uh with a traditional publisher. I wrote that book during our pandemic last year, and it took me three months to write. And so it's 21 days, and what I do in that is I unpack how to make decisions. There's a framework to how to make decisions. And where it all starts, Darren, is that I found that most people, uh, if they have a decision-making framework or know how to make decisions, they don't gain divine input first. And so as a believer, I lead people into the role of the Holy Spirit, uh, seeking God and his wisdom, his input, his discernment, what all that looks like. And then I get real practical and I walk them through a framework, and it's five steps on making decision. Number one, you have to define what your decision is going to be. Uh, number two, you brainstorm. Number three, you actually make the decision. We've got like an eight or nine step uh point on that points that you have to do to make a great decision. Then you have to act. The interesting thing is that no decision is actually made until it's converted into action. Uh, and so that's a I always use that phrase, but I think that gets people uh you can make a decision, but if you don't act on it, then nothing ever happens. And last but not least, the the last step is uh evaluate and examine. And uh I use a little play on what Plato said, actually it was Socrates, I'm sorry, he said that the uh unexamined life is not worth living. I put a spin on that and I said the unexamined decision is not worth making. And so with those five steps, the the uh define, the brainstorm, the decide, the act, and then the examine. Uh, I give a framework for believers through a devotion, if you will, uh, to take chips and chunks over those 21 days and develop their decision-making uh skill, if you will.
SPEAKER_01Excellent. Well, again, Preston Poor.com. That's poor with two O's, R-E at the end.com. Everybody go check out those books. Um, Preston, thank you for reminding us of the primacy of discipleship. I mean, that's the great commission. It's not going all the world, make a profit, or or even to build churches or do a lot of great things. It's to go make disciples. And and so thank you for your your commitment and uh and leadership in the great commission. Um, we appreciate your time and sharing your wisdom with us today. Thank you, Darren.
SPEAKER_00We hope you've enjoyed this episode. And if so, we would greatly appreciate it if you would leave us a quick rating and review for the Christianity and business podcast on iTunes. You can get more information about HBU Center for Christianity and Business at Christianityandbusiness.com. Thanks for listening, and remember to keep integrating biblical values into your business.