We continue to count down the Top 100 Books for Faith Driven Entrepreneurs with…

The Speed of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything

by Stephen M.R. Covey

Stephen M. R. Covey, widely known as one of the world’s leading authorities on trust, asserts that it is “the most overlooked, misunderstood, underutilized asset to enable performance. Its impact, for good or bad, is dramatic and pervasive. It’s something you can’t escape.” Thankfully, it’s is also the thing that can dramatically improve your personal and professional success.

Why trust? The simple, often overlooked fact is this: work gets done with and through people. The Speed of Trust offers an unprecedented and eminently practical look at exactly how trust functions in every transaction and every relationship—from the most personal to the broadest, most indirect interaction. It specifically demonstrates how to establish trust intentionally so that you and your organization can forego the time-killing, bureaucratic check-and-balance processes that is so often deployed in lieu of actual trust.

This 2018 updated edition includes an insightful afterword by the author which explores ten key reasons why trust is more relevant now than ever before—including how trust is the new currency of our world today.

Click on the book cover to check out the Reviews and Purchase at Amazon

— by Mike Sharrow

A major decision for anyone reading this blog site is whether you will truly be a “faith-driven” (as in the very engine, operating system, fuel, source) or a “faith-inspired” entrepreneur.  The market is awash of moral, virtuous entrepreneurs who throw a periodic hat tip to Jesus (#blessed) and even seek to draw upon Biblical principles to enhance their ventures.  That is what Paul told his apprentice, Timothy, is like “having the form of godliness, but none of the power.” How we relate to God and how we then operate from an identity defined by the Gospel radically alters how we lead.  It’s not a simple decision point, either; it’s a daily “working out your salvation with fear and trembling” battle!  I like how Skye Jethani addresses the predicament in this helpful micro-teaching on the way we relate to or “WITH” God. 

In 2009 my wife and I flew to Seattle, rented a car and began an epic road trip down the famous Highway 101 (or the Pacific Coast Highway, “PCH”) all the way to San Diego with no reservations, beyond a return flight booked in San Diego.  This was a rejuvenation trip so we made the rule “no talking about work!”  It was awesome.  I’d do it again in a heartbeat!  

 About 24 hours before this escape was coming to an end I was driving along the coast while my wife caught a short nap.  The end was nearing so my mind was wandering to the stress of “re-entry.”  I had been resisting the constant vibration of my Blackberry (it was 2009) so I KNEW the hundreds of emails boiling over for a response were ravenously looming over my head. I began to think about the meetings, the situations on hold, the people drama I needed to address, and everything “back home.”  I thought about issues at my church, with some friends, a bunch of challenges in my city, a non-profit project in crisis and, and, and…it was like the weight of the world began to crush me into the bucket seat of that rental car.  I felt like Atlas, but without the body, and it was too heavy.  

 We came around a corner and there it was: Pfeiffer Falls.  I had no idea what it was, but in the middle of the Big Sur area of Southern California was one of those vistas that just takes your breath away.  For a moment it arrested my attention from agonizing self-pity to awe and worship.  “Wow, God!  Well done – that’s incredible!”  Redwood trees, a sandy beach, an elegant waterfall onto the beach with rocky arches and waves crashing in and a sunset forming.  It was sensory overload – too much wonder to even digest.  I had to pull over and just stare at it.  

Then God spoke to my soul.  “Mike, do you see that?  I made that. Even better – that scene is a distant ripple of the world I created eons ago with mere words, unleashing untold thousands of natural ‘wonders’ across the cosmos!  And, you know what, Mike?  You weren’t there. Yeah, you didn’t help me build it. In fact, I don’t recall ever asking you to be my consultant or special agent.  You seem to be acting as though I redeemed you to go save the world for Me. That’s My job and I’m perfectly able to complete the good work I began…with or without you. I’ve not asked you to save the city, rescue my church, heal people, solve the predicaments of the world or have all of the answers.  Those are jobs YOU are assigning yourself. I have redeemed you to be My son. To be WITH Me. To listen and be totally satisfied with Me. That’s your job. Can you get back to that?”

With each truth bomb it was like God took cinderblocks out of my backpack and blew oxygen on my soul.  I was resuscitated from asphyxiating on the weight of the world that was not intended to be mine.  Freedom!  

My wife and I had a canvas print made of that scene we keep above our dining room table to remind me of that moment.  

But I’m a slow learner.  Sometimes I need to repeat a lesson!

In September I hurt my back.  A torn disc, some herniated and bulging discs all proved quite effective at hijacking my life with a ton of pain. It was royally inconvenient!  No quick fix, just a lot of rehab, exercise, and patience.  I was frustrated. It was a busy season with a significant leadership incline ahead and I had “no time for this!”   

A friend called me to check in.  I shared what was going on, the diagnosis and prognosis.  He then asked “So, what do you think God may want to teach you through this?”  Flabbergasted, I responded “It’s a physiological injury, pretty simple. I’m sure something about being patient and waiting, but right now it’s just pain and process.”  He replied, “Yes, that makes sense.  But you’ve also been pushing pretty hard and tackling a lot lately…perhaps there’s more to learn from this.  I have found that if your back hurts from the load you’re carrying, then you’ve probably been carrying it wrong.”  It was NOT what I wanted to hear!  In fact, I found it annoying.

Fast forward 2 months.  I’m on a business trip in a series of big meetings. I was pushing through a 15 hour Tuesday that had a lot of good in it but then ended with a series of tough meetings…people issues, conflict, drama.  It was zapping my batteries.  I walked out of a meeting at 10pm only to find a couple in tears asking for prayer and I found myself with an empty cup.  They shared their burdens.  We prayed.  God worked through my lack and actually brought Scripture to mind and ministered to them through me to my own surprise.  They walked away encouraged.  I walked away…drained, exhausted, crushed.  Again. Somehow, it was as though the issues of the day had all accumulated into a crushing weight upon ME.  Even the burdens of that couple felt like they transferred to me.  They walked away free, I walked away heavy.  

I found myself restless.  I couldn’t just go relax in my hotel room.  I was agitated.  I ended up walking laps around this hotel in Dallas at 11:30pm.  I began to talk to God…out loud.  I even began to raise my voice at Him!  It crescendoed when, describing all that was weighing me down I shouted “I can’t do this! It’s too heavy and I don’t think I can carry all of this, Father!”  I sensed a small prompt-like voice, “Say it again.”  So, I shouted it even louder with tears now streaming down my face.  I completely spooked a poor security guard who was walking around the corner at this point!  “Nah, officer, I’m fine, just go about your business.  I’m just talking with God right now and don’t need your help.”  

I cried “uncle!” and God met me there.  I needed to.  It was real stuff but I was carrying it, and it was wrecking me.  I’m not a special agent on assignment from God to do stuff for God out of my strength. I’m invited to an adventure of business WITH God and that is entirely different.  Same problems, same reality…different source and experience.  The next morning I woke early for my quiet time and my reading plan “just happened” to include Psalm 116.  I’m pretty sure David wrote that for me after the last 48 hours!  

To be a faith-driven entrepreneur is a wild adventure for sure.  The question is…do you approach it with bravado of “saving the world” FOR God, or on assignment with Him?  God is already sovereign over everything, so there is no liquidity event He’s waiting on or darling enterprise venture He’s anxiously hoping for; particularly, if it comes at the cost of our soul.  A friend of mine, Mindy Caliguire, used to say “I want to get the jet fuel drinkers and candle lighters to come together and understand a high performance leadership journey that is simultaneously dependent, healthy and alive.  Leadership does demand sacrifices, but Jesus never asked His disciples to sacrifice their own soul for the cause.”  

Jesus responded to people commenting on how preposterous His teachings were by acknowledging that “with man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”  Sometimes saying “I can’t” is a powerful move.  The sooner you get there the better! 

Article originally hosted and shared with permission by The Christian Economic Forum, a global network of leaders who join together to collaborate and introduce strategic ideas for the spread of God’s economic principles and the goodness of Jesus Christ. This article was from a collection of White Papers compiled for attendees of the CEF’s 2018 Global Event.

— by Dr. Emmanuel V. Dalavai

ABSTRACT

Entrepreneurial intentions and their motivation(s) are essential to understand better how Christians operationalize business formations. In this paper, I will review the relevant theoretical backgrounds in support of an intentions-based model to explain entrepreneurship behavior. I will also examine the influence of the theory of emotional intelligence in shaping an entrepreneur’s attitudes, behaviors, motivation, and the eventual decision of launching a business. I suggest that entrepreneurial emotional intelligence (EQ) positively influences entrepreneurial intentions. A key component of EQ is motivation, and this proposal focuses on why the motivation for Christian entrepreneurs should be predicated on an others-centered approach.

INTRODUCTION

Business strategist, Peter Drucker, often remarked that plans are only good intentions unless they immediately are transformed into hard work. Starting a business or introducing a value proposition is indeed hard work. Intentions comprise a person’s motivation to make an effort to act upon a conscious plan or decision (Conner & Armitage, 1998), and constitute a predictor of planned behavior, especially when said behavior is aberrant or unobservable (Krueger, Reilly & Carsrud, 2000). Because intentions could signal key actions, it is important to examine precursors to these intentions when exploring fundamental behaviors of Christian entrepreneurs. Behavioral intentions stemming from attitudes, for instance, become the immediate antecedents of behavior (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975). For the Christian, according to Philippians 2:3-4, the motivation should be the following: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others” (NIV). The focus of the believer’s actions should not be selfish gain, but the gain of others, i.e. others-centered entrepreneurship.

In a similar manner, entrepreneurial intentions are important because they could tell us whether an entrepreneur will start a business (Bird, 1988). New businesses germinate over time, and involve a considerable amount of planning and effort. Christian entrepreneurship—starting a business with biblical values in mind—could provide a methodology from which other believers can learn to invest in the lives of global citizens. Therefore, entrepreneurial intentions represent a key ingredient in determining the outcome of starting a (faith-based) business and implementing it (Bird, 1988; Bae, Qian, Miao, & Fie, 2014).

Because the academic community is still investigating the elements that shape entrepreneurial behavior, it is important to examine the entrepreneurial intentions of Christian businesspeople. What factors influence a Christ-follower to start a business, and to what meaningful good? In addition, what role do non-cognitive skills play in how Christian entrepreneurs make decisions? One of the non-cognitive skills receiving more attention in contemporary literature is EQ (Harms & Credé, 2010; Quang, Khuong & Le, 2015). EQ represents one instrument in the entrepreneur’s toolkit. Being aware of one’s own emotions, as well as the emotions of others, particularly in early business venture settings when fund acquisition is at play, could spell entrepreneurial success or failure (Ucbasaran, Shepherd, Lockett & Lyon, 2013). What motivates a Christian is critical in shaping the end result of said motivation. In Goleman’s (1995, 2011) original model of emotional intelligence, motivation plays a key role in realizing positive outcomes. Therefore, the research question that this study explores is as follows: “What is the relationship between a Christian Entrepreneur’s EQ and his/her Entrepreneurial Intentions?”

Entrepreneurial Orientation – EO is important, as it has gained much notoriety in the entrepreneurship literature over the last several decades (Slevin & Terjesen, 2011). EO can be defined as “the entrepreneurial strategy-making processes that key decision makers use to enact their firms’ organizational purpose, sustain its vision, and create competitive advantage(s)” (Rauch et al., 2009: 763). The same construct of EO can be used to determine the formative actions of Christian entrepreneurs. These dimensions consist of risk taking, innovativeness, pro-activeness, autonomy, and competitive aggressiveness (Rauch et al., 2009).

DISCUSSION

I am motivated to further explore Christian entrepreneurial intentions because of the importance to the global community of believers. One could argue that the early Christian movement, propagated by the disciples and Paul, for instance, was the result of entrepreneurial behaviors such as risk-taking and proactivity. Peter, Paul, John, and others seemed to possess a high degree of individual entrepreneurial orientation as they sought to spread the gospel message of their Teacher. Their intent to disseminate the message of hope was an others-centered initiative, and in applying principles of servant leadership, the result they envisioned was the building of community or “koinonia,” so that those being served also grow and flourish (Greenleaf 1970, 1977). Furthermore, even in today’s highly digital age, although the message of hope has not changed, the means to transmit the message of hope should change by incorporating more elements of design thinking (e.g., innovation and creativity).

There is merit to having a better understanding of the factors that influence attitudes towards social entrepreneurship (SE). SE refers to “the rapidly growing number of organizations that have created models for efficiently catering to basic human needs that existing markets and institutions have failed to satisfy” (Seelos & Mair, 2005). Future research should involve the integration of entrepreneurial intentions and how they shape social enterprise organizations (SEOs) to influence and achieve social goals (Seelos, Mair, Battilana & Dacin, 2011), and how practitioner-scholars can blend the principles of “caritas” (or caring) and problem-solving to effectuate meaningful change within the communities we serve.

Selected References

T. J. Bae, S. Qian, C. Miao, & J.O. Fiet, “The relationship between entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial intentions: A meta‐analytic review.” (2014) Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 38(2): 217-254.

B. Bird, “Implementing entrepreneurial ideas: The case for intentions.” (1988) Academy of Management Review, 13: 442–454.

M. Conner & C. Armitage, “Extending the theory of planned behaviour: A review and avenues for further research.” (1998) Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 28(15): 1429-64.

M. Fishbein & I. Ajzen, Belief, attitude, intention, and behavior: An introduction to theory and research. (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1975).

 D. Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ (New York, NY: Bantam Books, 1995).

D. Goleman, Leadership: The power of emotional intelligence (selected writings) (Northampton, MA: More Than Sound, LLC, 2011).

R. K. Greenleaf, The servant as leader. (Indianapolis, IN: The Robert K. Greenleaf Center, 1970).

R.K. Greenleaf, Servant leadership: A journey into the nature of legitimate power and greatness. (New York, NY: Paulist Press, 1977).

P. D. Harms & M. Credé, “Emotional intelligence and transformational and transactional leadership: A meta-analysis.” (2010) Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 17(1): 5-17. 

N.F. Krueger, Jr., M.D. Reilly, & A.L. Carsrud, “Competing models of entrepreneurial intentions.” (2000) Journal of Business Venturing, 15: 411-432.

H.N. Quang, M.N. Khuong, & N.H. Le, “The effects of leaders’ emotional intelligence on employee engagement in Vietnamese Construction Companies–A case of Hoa Binh Corporation.” (2015) Journal of Economics, Business and Management, 3(8): 746-752.

A. Rauch, J. Wiklund, G.T. Lumpkin, & M. Frese, “Entrepreneurial orientation and business performance: An assessment of past research and suggestions for the future.” (2009) Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 33(3): 761-787.

C. Seelos, & J. Mair, “Social entrepreneurship: Creating new business models to serve the poor.” (2005) Business Horizons, 48(3): 241-246.

C. Seelos, J. Mair, J. Battilana, & M. Tina Dacin, “The embeddedness of social entrepreneurship: Understanding variation across local communities.” (2011) Communities and Organizations, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 333-363.

D.P. Slevin & S.A. Terjesen, “Entrepreneurial orientation: Reviewing three papers and implications for further theoretical and methodological development.” (2011) Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 35(5): 973-987.

D. Ucbasaran, D.A. Shepherd, A. Lockett, & S.J. Lyon, “Life after business failure the process and consequences of business failure for entrepreneurs.” (2013) Journal of Management, 39(1): 163-202.

——

[Special thanks to Margarida CSilva on Unsplash for the cover photo]

The Work as Worship Event coming to Your Church

We’re fans of the team at RightNow Media. If you’re not familiar with them, they’re like the Netflix of Video Studies for Churches, Schools and Businesses. 

We love the way that they are leveraging the unique skills God’s given them to capture stories on video and enjoy sharing many of them with you on the blog site. We especially appreciate the way they’ve made a point to equip business leaders through the RightNow Media @ Work version of their site. One of the things they started a few years ago is a one day event called the Work as Worship Retreat. Rather than taking your people somewhere else to experience the event, they’ve made it easy to bring the event to your Church. And if your church is one of the 20,000 churches using RightNow Media, its free for your Church to host. 

While its too late to host this year’s event you can still find a place near you to check it out. This year’s lineup include Pastor and Best-selling Author Francis Chan, New York Times Best-selling Author Jon Acuff, Steve Green the President of Hobby Lobby and many others, including the debut of some exclusive RightNow Media Original Video Stories. Be sure to check it out at www.workasworshipretreat.org

We hear from our hosts this week as they share some of the things God has them thinking about via their personal time with the Lord. Rusty draws parallels to Paul’s trials, specifically found in Acts 27 to the life of an entrepreneur while William shares on how reading the account of Jesus’ baptism by John actually reveals more deeply the importance of having your identity rooted in a relationship with the Father to empower and enlighten your mission. Henry’s been sharing a bit about his sojourn in the Old Testament but is more focused on the Israelite wilderness journey and the strength of Joshua to stay true to his God and his mission.

Walking with God in your entrepreneurial journey makes it necessary to meet Him regularly through the study of His Word for direction, strength, creativity and solutions to all each day has to throw at us. Share with us what the Father is teaching you about your entrepreneurial journey these days in the comment section below.

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We hear from our hosts this week as they share some of the things God has them thinking about via their personal time with the Lord. Rusty draws parallels to Paul’s trials, specifically found in Acts 27 to the life of an entrepreneur while William shares on how reading the account of Jesus’ baptism by John actually reveals more deeply the importance of having your identity rooted in a relationship with the Father to empower and enlighten your mission. Henry’s been sharing a bit about his sojourn in the Old Testament but is more focused on the Israelite wilderness journey and the strength of Joshua to stay true to his God and his mission.

Walking with God in your entrepreneurial journey makes it necessary to meet Him regularly through the study of His Word for direction, strength, creativity and solutions to all each day has to throw at us. Share with us what the Father is teaching you about your entrepreneurial journey these days in the comment section below.