Welcome back to the Christianity and Business Podcast, an initiative of the RTW Dunham College of Business at Houston Baptist University. I'm your host, Darren Shear, and this is the show that helps Christian business leaders integrate biblical values into business. On this episode, we're joined by Al Aresman. Al is the executive in residence at the Seattle Pacific University School of Business, Government, and Economics, and the past director for the Center for Integrity and Business at Seattle Pacific University. He teaches business ethics and business and technology subjects at SPU and also edits Ethics Magazine. And probably his most illustrious credential here is he's on the review board for the Christian the Center for Christianity and Businesses, Christian Business Review here at Houston Baptist University. Want to make sure we mention that. In uh April 2001, he completed a 32-year career at the Boeing Company, where for the last 10 years he was director of RD for computing and mathematics. So it's it's always uh good that we have somebody that is uh an expert on the faith to work movement, who actually has a background in the marketplace as Al does. He has a PhD in applied mathematics from Iowa State University, been on numerous boards for startups, uh, and and he has a passion, as I said, for issues related to faith and work and serves on the Board of Advisors for the Theology of Work Project and Kairos, uh Christians and Business organization in the Seattle area. And he's been married to Nancy for 48 years. 57. 50 57. Whoa, we got a wow, my goodness. Time flies. Yeah. Uh and they have four children. And and and by the way, you know, I for a lot of interviews I've done, I have left out the um some of the bits about family just to kind of get the the bio in and kind of get faster into the actual meat of the interview. But you know, something that has uh really been impressed on my heart is that the the marriage commitment as a as a reflection of the person is such a a critical factor in in my mind and in terms of just um how I look up to somebody, you know, and and just seeing the the longevity of this of this marriage, you know, I'm I'm really making a point that if if I know how long somebody's been married, I'm gonna I'm gonna say that, you know, because you know, every every year counts. I just heard uh a business owner say that uh, you know, his two his two primary jobs are uh his his business and staying married. And so, you know, because it really certainly does take work. And he's he's got nine grandchildren, and he's the author of the new book, which is really going to be the the focus of this interview, is called The Service Master Story. And I I first heard him telling me about this a couple of years ago when we when we first met. So looking forward to hearing uh some of the outcomes of this research. So Al, thanks for joining us.
SPEAKER_01Happy to be here. Thank you, Darren.
SPEAKER_03What inspired you to dive deep into the Service Master Story? And just give our folks uh uh for those who might not be familiar with Service Master, particularly those uh you know around the world listening, um give us a sense of the magnitude of this company.
SPEAKER_01Uh I'll give you a snapshot of that in 2001, then I'll tell you the before and after story. 2001, they were about a $6 billion company, publicly traded, 40 different countries. They were in the services business, which meant that they uh did janitorial services, cleaning services, pest control, all sorts of things that most people consider manual labor.
SPEAKER_03Yes. And and so so now it's it's a it's a Fortune 1000 company, 13,000 employees. Uh and and so what inspired you to dive deep into this uh into this story?
SPEAKER_01The fourth CEO of Service Master in their history is a man named Bill Pollard. And uh I had read his books. He's written three. I had interviewed him for my ethics magazine. I'd gotten to know him in a project. And one day, about three years ago, he called me and he said, There needs to be a book on Service Master, and you need to write it. And I said, Well, I'm not sure that I'm qualified to write it. I'm not sure I have time. But I told him he stole real estate in my brain because he really intrigued me with what happened in this wonderful faith and work story. Um, but you know, one of the agreements I had to make with him was, you can't pay me because it's got to be something that is uh independent and I need to have final editorial control. And he agreed to that and he opened up his network, and I started looking. And the more I dug, the more I found. And this could have gone on forever. And I I really love the story, it's very complex, uh, but it's a beautiful story of faith and work.
SPEAKER_03And he had already written his own book on Service Master, right? The soul of the firm. So, what was it that he was wanting uh a more uh objective look at the company?
SPEAKER_01Or well, he had uh written his book about his experiences there. He started in '83 and was there till 2001. The company started in 1929, and so I dug deep into the history of the company going back to the founder Marion Wade, and actually took it up till uh the present time in 2020. So it's a much bigger look where what he did was really incredible, but it's a part of a much bigger story.
SPEAKER_03And under Bill's leadership, would you say that Service Master was what some might consider a Christian company?
SPEAKER_01Well, he would say that it was not a Christian company because he said you have to be careful in using Christian as an adjective. But it was certainly guided by Christian principles. And the first five leaders from 1929 through 2001 were committed to Christ and to what it meant to be a business leader in a Christian setting. So that carried with it all sorts of incredible practices that they put in place. But at the same time, they were very careful in saying our hiring is open to anyone. No one will be hired because they are a Christian, no one will not be hired because they're not a Christian. And so they had a set of guidelines that they followed. But uh no, I wouldn't say in deference to Bill that it was a Christian company, but I recognize that for most people in their language, they would say this certainly had a strong Christian influence.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I mean, it's like the the churches that we go to on Sunday mornings, not everybody walking into the building is uh Christian, but you know, hopefully we would say this is a this is a Christian church that I attend, you know, referring to that legal entity. Sure. But so if they were to be accused of being a Christian company, what would be some of the hallmarks that someone might uh might base that on?
SPEAKER_01So from the very beginning, Marion Wade, the founder, um, in 1944, he had an accident that almost blinded him. And he said it was an experience like the Damascus Road, where he suddenly realized that he had been a Christian uh on Sunday. He had been running his business with ethical principles. But he said, What would it look like to make a company that is wholly committed to serving God? So he had a uh a phrase that he used to serve God in the marketplace. And that was the start back in 1944. But as they grew, they more deeply embedded what they were trying to do, and each person that lead that led the company added to that. So by 1973, they had four objectives which they held to for all of the rest of the time until the mid-2000s. It was to honor God and all we do is first. And as a publicly traded company, they had a lot of fun talking about what that meant. Number two was to help people develop. They were committed to the development of the ordinary worker. Number three was to pursue excellence, and number four was to grow profitably. And anyone who's in business knows that there's tension between these. And I love what Ken Hansen, the second CEO, used to say. He said, when you hold two things in tension, you better hold on tight, and it will drive the creativity. He said, think of it like an exercise band. You stretch it out and it's tense. If you let go of one or the other, it will hit you in the face. You need to use this to drive creativity, and every decision they made, they ran through this sieve. Now, uh, let me add one other thing to honor God and all we do. How do you explain that to people who don't honor God? So they said it actually meant three things. It meant we have the highest level of integrity, which means we can't rationalize our way out of something. It meant that every person is an image bearer of God, has value and dignity and worthy of respect. And all work is good work. And so as a result, whether you're a janitor or a pest control person, you are in fact doing good work, and this work can be done to the glory of God.
SPEAKER_03And is uh are these uh principles and values the the company still holds to, or have they kind of gone the way of so many others?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, sadly, uh in the early 2000s, uh a new leader came in from the outside. The fifth CEO, Carlos Cantu, had uh gotten cancer. He ultimately had to step away. Bill stepped back in for a very short interim period, and the board decided to go outside to bring in someone, to bring in some new ideas and so forth. It's a six billion dollar company, so it's not an ordinary position to bring someone into. The person had less of a commitment to these things. In fact, he told one of the Wall Street analysts early on, you know, it's really all about profit. And what happened then is they started selling off some pieces of the company. So if you go to their website today, they will have a statement that says, in the spirit of our founder, Marion Wade, we are committed to these things. No mention of to honor God and all we do, and no mention of the worker and enabling and empowering the worker. And these were the key to why the company did well. So between 2001 and today, they've now they've had seven CEOs. They had five from 1929 to 2001. And just last week it came out, they said, we're not sure why all these brands are together. Maybe we need to spin off some more of the pieces of the company. And I said, you know, if you would look at your history, the brands are together for a very good reason. Workers at this level uh most people treat as um low-cost labor, when they are honored and respected, they can really get behind the work. They can make a career out of this. And they would look for service companies to acquire during Bill's period of time and bring in so that these workers themselves would also have this opportunity. None of that happened before, and uh none of that has happened since. And what happened, what that means is that it's really another company that does services today, and it's not it, uh that piece is lost. That was a painful part of the story to write, actually. And I did a lot of research to try and figure out what had happened during that period and how they had kind of drifted away. And um, it was hard. Uh, but then one day, uh, and I have to tell you this ending, one day I found uh an ending to the book. I found people all over the United States, and in fact in China and Saudi, Saudi Arabia, who had been trained at Service Master as leaders and are now running other businesses that carry on the principles to honor God and all we do, to help people develop, to pursue excellence, and to grow profitably. And these are thriving in other places. So the net of the story is the Service Master vision lives on, if not at Service Master in other places.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I mean, that that's the power of a of a company culture to disciple its people, right? You know, as much as much as we look to pastors and the places we attend on Sunday morning to disciple us and disciple the the Christians in our area. I mean, it's really the businesses where the the opportunity is is much, much greater because of just the sheer amount of time and immersion into a culture that that people experience. And then this is the the case in point here, the way that these uh these other leaders have now gone on uh to to to continue on the uh that culture. I mean, they they that's now that's part of that's part of who they are.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you know, and one of the keys to this is that every one of the leaders, from Marian Wade to Ken Hansen to Ken Wessner to Bill Pollard to Carlos Kentu, they saw their job uh in a large part as a teacher, as a pastor, as a developer of people. And when you make that level of commitment, I love what James uh Heskett, the professor from Harvard, said. He said, you know, they have given a large-scale experiment that proves that servant leadership works. And it worked as long as they paid attention to leading as a servant. But when it became about the leader, as it does so often, everything changes. And uh so it's it's a marvelous picture in this way of looking at what happens when one variable changes, going from where they were to what they have become.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Wow. Well, this is uh certainly uh a cautionary tale in a lot of ways. Um, I would love for you to share some applications, some practical applications, uh, both for early stage companies and kind of uh later stage, mid-later stage companies. Let's start with uh maybe that that startup founder that's that's listening. Uh what would what can somebody learn from this story that they can apply?
SPEAKER_01So, one of the almost humorous things I found in doing this research is that Marion Wade, who is the founder who ran the company from 29 till 19 uh uh 57, he wasn't much of a businessman. But he had a deep passion and commitment for people and for ethics and for doing things in the right way. And I think that foundation of ethics was so crucial to what the company became that I don't think you could have started as a strong business and then tried to bring ethics back in. And so I would argue that one of the things this uh suggests to a um to any startup uh person is that knowing how you're gonna do business, knowing that you want to do business rightly, knowing as Marion Wade did, that I want to do business to the glory of God that will live on beyond me. So it takes you away from short-term solutions, it takes you away from it's all about me, and becomes all about the development of others. So I would say that's one of the very early principles. Uh, one other one, uh, they had a practice of saying uh since we believe that all work is dignified, we need as leaders to experience the work of our people. So every leader had to take uh time doing the work of the laborers. And when they did that, they first of all experienced how hard it was so they could be a good leader. But they secondly experienced the uh invisibility of the average service worker, the idea that you almost disappear into the furniture because you're just a service worker. That gave them an empathy and a way of leading that truly understood the life of a service person. And, you know, Jesus came into our world to live among us, as John one says. And I think of it in much that same way that there's an incarnational activity going on here that says, no, I'm not this great leader. I care about everyone in this company and want to know them. So those are a couple of examples.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah, just really getting to know your people and and considering the relationship, not just the transaction and what people can do for you, you know, especially as uh with the with a small company, it it just gets so focused on just trying to make payroll, just trying to get enough productivity, kind of kind of squeeze people, uh, and and and you just are so busy all the time that sometimes it's easy to to not really consider the the human beings that are working with you and to consider what are their uh what are their their deeply felt needs in their in their lives and their families.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. You know, they had a a strong sense of uh training as well. In fact, they developed a process. The third person, Ken Westner, actually uh formalized this a bit, but he said, when you're gonna train someone, you need to teach them how to do it, you need to let them watch you as you do it and experience it with you. You need to let them do it and you watch them and give them some critique, and then you need to have them train others. And the parallel between Jesus teaching his disciples, allowing them to participate with him in feeding 5,000, then sending them out two by two and evaluating what they did, and then in Acts to turn this over to them and say, okay, I want you to go out now and do this. Uh, it's a beautiful picture. So it was surprising to me how many ways they took their understanding of scripture and embedded this in the way that they did their work.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Wow. You know, Al, I've I've heard it said from well-meaning people in this uh uh faith and work movement that when a company has these spiritual objectives and they're gonna put uh God's name on things, that they that they actually uh underperform. Uh what have you what have you in terms of the bottom line? And and that was referring specifically to this idea of business's mission and going into uh you know other parts of the world with um with business as a means of evangelism and and and so on, um, that that those spiritual objectives, if you're trying to make disciples and evangelize, then your your bottom line is is going to suffer. What have you what have you found? How has Service Master performed since basically kind of uh kicking God to the curb?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So I will give you a quote from a secular writer who observed Service Master. And when uh the shift from the evangelical focus of the leaders changed, he said, maybe this is really good because they'll now turn to Six Sigma instead of praying about something. Well, unfortunately, he didn't understand what they had done because Marian Wade was an inventor. They did some amazing things, and they uh so they didn't just pray about them. But in the foreword to his book, after he had finished, Writing, he said, I have observed, however, that since the evangelical focus left, that they have had more lawsuits against them and their financial performance has declined.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_01He just made that comment, a throwaway in the foreword. And as I read that, I said, I think uh what Service Master understood is that it isn't just about being nice. This is running a business. You see, if you think of business as a platform for something else, you're not really running a business, you're doing something else. And they really ran a business. So I think, in fact, one person told me that when he was interviewed, one of the first questions he was asked was, How would you fire someone? And he said, I thought you were this nice company that never fired anyone. He said, Look, we run a business. How we do anything must be done to the glory of God, but God cares about the results of what we are doing. In fact, in fact, they set this objective in front of their people. So a janitor in a hospital would be brought together by the janitors would be brought together by the doctors and nurses to explain you're not just cleaning the floor, you're helping the patient get well. Here's the connection between what you are doing and what the hospital is doing. And it gave people a sense of purpose and meaning that was much bigger than a task or a paycheck. And as a result, they were really serious about their business.
SPEAKER_03I love that. You know, thinking about the title of Bill Pollard's book, The Soul of the Firm, it it might seem to some listening that, well, you know, here's a company that kind of lost their soul. Uh, but but as you said, that uh those that worked in the company of management and so forth, uh, or the franchisees, they then took that that experience and what the Lord did in their lives as a result of working in this culture. And now they're they're reproducing. So it's it's not even necessarily about a company just having to live on forever. Like, you know, think about like Chick-fil-A, you know, maybe Chick-fil-A won't last forever. Um, as much as we would like companies to be built to last and and and uh good to great and and all of that. I mean, nothing nothing here on earth is going to last forever, but but making disciples, that's really the the mission, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and if I could say, uh, you know, we talked about the tension between the objectives. I think a Christian business owner should have tension between. Yes, I want to share who I am before Christ, but I also want to do work to the glory of God because God has called me to do that. So in Colossians 3, it says, whatever you do, work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord and not for men. It's the Lord Christ you're serving. And so this idea that we have a trade-off between sharing our faith and doing good work, uh, that's a false trade-off. We hold these intention. Yeah. Uh so anyway, I if I were to talk to a Christian entrepreneur or Christian business person, I would want to make sure that they understood their business matters.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And I mean, it discipleship really is about setting the standard. So, you know, the in some sense there's the tension, but really they're, I see them as one and the same. It's as we're uh God is working through us according to his good pleasure, you know, like the Bible talks about his power working mightily within us, our accounting practices are gonna be on point. Our marketing, our human resources, all of these things, and and and that's what leads people to the Lord. Is and then eventually they, you know, they will ask for a reason for the hope that's that's within us. But it's that that culture that that that happens and that it's formed through this kind of uh um this kind of focus on the Lord and making him central to the business that changes people's lives, right?
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. In fact, uh Proverbs 11:1 says it really well. It says a false balance is an abomination to the Lord. So as a Christian, we know we want to do things fairly and justly. But the second half of that verse says, but a just weight is God's delight. And often we don't think about the fact that when we are doing our accounting, let's say, to the glory of God, it delights God. Yeah, we're not doing it as another reason, we're doing it to delight God.
SPEAKER_03Yes, yes. And then and then people they see that and they're like, wow, that that just seems right. That seems like the right thing to do. Uh and and then they find that there's so many different entry points to a relationship with God, and and so much of it comes from the from the business world because that's where people spend so much of their time. Um, Al, as we wrap it up, what would be uh uh maybe another lesson learned, uh, some some kind of a practical application? Uh feel free to direct this toward folks that maybe are in the midst of succession planning or however you want to tackle that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so every one of these leaders said that because this is not about me, but it's about others, I need to be thinking about succession planning all along. And the uh the accounts as you move from um uh Marion Wade to Ken Hansen to Ken Westner to Bill Pollard to Carlos Kentu, the decisions to transfer were done in a way that was honoring to the person that was ready. It wasn't that the person said, I guess I'm gonna retire. It was rather that they had been thinking about this idea of preparing someone else to step in. They also did something that I don't know if anyone else could pull off, but they decided that when a person went from CEO to chairman, that the together they would continue to work. And they called it shingles on a roof, overlapping, using the skills that they had while allowing the other person to use the skills they had. It was a collaborative succession planning that was done uh in an amazing way. And uh, the stories as they went from one to the other all the way through, beautifully um acknowledged the leadership of the person following, acknowledged the preparation to get there, acknowledging the goal to develop other people to take their place. Um, and it's a it's a really great part of the whole story.
SPEAKER_03Wow, that's powerful. And that that principle of succession planning, it really applies whether you're um kind of an entry-level employee or you're the CEO, or you know, you're uh uh how housewife, whatever uh facet of the workplace you're in. I mean, we are called to to help guide people along and help them rise up to the next level to take our place. So we don't try to make ourselves indispensable, right?
SPEAKER_01Right. I I guess I would add one other thing too. Perhaps there's a person listening who says, I wish I had a company to work for like that, or I wish I had a boss like that, and I don't. What can I learn? And I believe that every person can say, if someone's not going to help you find the purpose and meaning in your work, look for it. How does what you do affect others in the world? How do you deliver value to others? And I believe that every one of us can learn that. I believe we can treat our colleagues with a kind of dignity and respect that maybe we don't even experience ourselves. So I think that this has value to everyone, not just the business owner.
SPEAKER_03Totally agree. Al, this is uh this has been outstanding. Thank you for uh sharing this a bit about this story. People can get the full book. I know on Amazon the title is The Service Master Story. Uh, where should people go to learn more about what you're doing?
SPEAKER_01Well, I do publish a lot of uh material uh interviews that I've done. It's where I first met Bill uh on ethics, eth i X dot or G. But a lot of the biblical background that I have for this came out of studying every book of the Bible and what it has to say about our daily work. So the theology of work.org. And you'll find a commentary on every book of the Bible there. And all of that kind of informs how I think about business and how I approach this project. So uh maybe those two sources would be helpful.
SPEAKER_03Excellent. I know that's uh ethics.org, eth ix.org, and theologyofwork.org, correct?
SPEAKER_01Correct, correct.
SPEAKER_03Al, this has been wonderful. Thank you for sharing your time and uh and and thank you for just pouring your heart into this uh this research as you do every everything you do. We sure appreciate you and and what you do for the Center for Christianity and Business. I know you've been helping uh for a long time, among all the other things you're doing. We sure appreciate you.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. Nice to nice to be a part of this. Take care.
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.