Striving for excellence
“Well done” are words that drive any faith-driven business leader to strive for excellence in building their business and ordering their life. Although “Well done” has a noble connotation to it, many business leaders have a difficult time describing and defining what this looks like in the life of a business that is led by a person of faith.
Recently, I was interviewed by Tom Crea, the host of the “Your Evolving Leadership Journey” radio program. We explored what it would look like to be a well-done leader. Within this conversation, leaders can get a glimpse into the ideas of steward leadership, kingdom impact, how to develop a team and how to be a more decisive leader.
Tom Crea: I am always intrigued by why authors and thought leaders write a book. In your particular case, from the description you wrote in the introduction of your book Well Doneyou talk about the influence of your father. I’d love it if you would share how your father impacted you and why you wrote this book.
Ken Gosnell: One of the early leadership stories that I talk about personally is a situation that I had with my father. I grew up in the Midwest, and my dad was a hard and diligent worker. I always saw my dad take two things to work every day. One was his hard hat and the other was his Bible. I understood the hard hat, but I also saw him take his Bible. So one day I asked him, “Dad, why do you take your Bible to work?” He said, “Well, son, I like to read it during my breaks because it helps me to be a better person.” You know that story has probably defined much of my life. I believe in those two things. I think if you narrowed my life down to two essential ingredients, it would be a hard hat that tells us the importance of work and the Bible, which tells us how to work.
Tom Crea: That is excellent. So why did you write the book, and what do you cover in your book Well Done?
Ken Gosnell: I have had a passion in my life, and almost every Christian leader that I've met has that same passion. I've wanted to define and understand success for myself. This book helps leaders define “well done” from a leadership and business perspective. What does it look like to lead a well-done company and to be a well done CEO and Christian leader? That's really what I discuss in the book as I examine what I call 12 Biblical business principles that drive leaders to well done, which will grow their company and their kingdom impact.
Tom Crea: Can you tell me how you discovered those principles?
Ken Gosnell: For almost two years, I studied the entire Bible from cover to cover. I looked at every biblical business reference in the Bible. I read and studied any Bible passage that could be referenced to business. When I looked at the Gospel accounts and specifically with Jesus, what I found was that Matthew specifically illustrated and articulated these principles with clarity. This didn’t surprise me because Matthew was a tax collector, he was a business guy. This makes sense from a business perspective that he would write with a lens of applications related to business.
Tom Crea: You talk about the second-mile mentality with a quote from Matthew 5:41, which is if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Now you said in your book that Jesus was talking to slaves. Could you explain what you mean there?
Ken Gosnell: In that statement, Jesus was specifically talking to slaves and to individuals where the Romans would come in. According to their law, they had the right to ask people to carry their backpacks and/or equipment for a mile. That was under the law at that particular time. If you didn’t do it, you would be punished like not wearing a seat belt today. And so what’s interesting about the statement that Jesus makes is the fact that he’s communicating that they're forced to go one mile. That’s a requirement. There’s nothing magical about that, right or wrong or indifferent. That’s the law of the land on that particular day. However, he’s telling the slaves to not have a slave mentality, have a servantmentality.
Jesus is communicating a secret to life—find the second step. Go a little bit further, do more than what’s anticipated or expected.
One example of the second step mentality is found in the company Amazon. Jeff Bezos is not a Christian CEO or businessman. He is a brilliant guy whom I would love to see become a Christian. He would tell you, and you can read his newsletters to his shareholders or listen to the people in his company, and they all talk about how they can do better at the delivery of items purchased on the Amazon site.
My son actually works for Amazon. And he believes in always going the second step, doing more for the customer than what’s anticipated or expected. One example of that is the Amazon delivery process. When Bezos created Amazon, it was an online bookstore, but his whole philosophy was how do we get items delivered faster, quicker and better to the customer. That passion led to Amazon Prime and even his experiments with robots and also trying to innovate with drones. Bezos wants customers to be able to order something and within an hour have it delivered to your house.
So this one biblical business principle has shaped everything that’s going on at Amazon because he wants to do more than expected. He wants to go a little bit further or, as I like to call it, take the second step.
Excerpted from podcast episode “Well Done—12 Biblical Business Principles That Leaders Can Use to Grow Their Business—Part 1”
 | Ken Gosnell is CEO and Servant Leader of CXP (CEO Experience). CXP is a premier coaching and executive roundtable business that serves Christian CEOs in Washington DC, Maryland and Florida. Ken serves leaders by helping them and their teams to have great experiences that both transform the leader and their organizations to go further faster. Learn More » |
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