Editor’s note: Business Reform Magazine provides real biblical answers for real business problems. To visit us, click here.
To read the first part of this article, click here.
As we saw in part one of this short set of thoughts last week, results-driven motivations may well help us “succeed” in business but fail in other critical areas. We saw that every strength is a potential area of great weakness, and that the reality of a “hierarchy of values” shows us that what is valuable motivation or conduct in one scenario may be a disaster in another. We also saw that in the area of relationships, being “results-driven” is often catastrophic.
For those of us who are highly results-driven, which, by the way, is the vast majority of people who make things happen in the business world and read website material like this, the essence of the question is this: Do we know when to shift gears and get off “results” to other values equally important in other areas? Jesus, for example, made the critical observation, “What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul.?” Indeed.
What does it matter to get to “great results” but miss life in the process of getting there? This question, though often asked, is much more critical to us than we may truly see. Is the goal of life “results,” or is it being truly alive equally in the journey as in the arrival? We all know the right answer, but in the speed of the moment and in the demand of results, especially in tougher economic times like these, we all get easily lost.
The real issue is how do we stay in balance throughout the journey? Great results, without an equally great journey never satisfy those who have achieved them because “satisfaction” is a muscle only developed in cultivating “the moment” as we go. While Mick Jagger sings, “I can’t get no satisfaction,” millions of results-driven people are saying “amen” quietly on the inside, while “succeeding” on the outside.
So what is the answer? Value the process, value the results. Cultivate caring; extend grace; call people up after we have called ourselves up first; see that results wear many faces.
Visit Dennis Peacocke at www.gostrategic.org.
