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A VP Earns His MBA and Some Revelations

Updated: 13 hours ago

We're pleased to have Al Perreca as this week's contributing author. Al is an executive in the floor covering industry and just finished his MBA. He also holds a Master of Divinity degree. Melding his experience and education, he seeks to consider questions of what it means to be human in the workplace and how our decisions can impact our local communities as well as the broader society and capitalism as a whole.


This spring, there were a couple of items that I completed. First, I finished my MBA and second, I read through A Burning in My Bones, the biography by Winn Collier of the well-known pastor, professor, and author Eugene Peterson.

The usual work that was done to finish my MBA capstone project stands in juxtaposition to Peterson’s biography. The MBA work consisted of analyzing both external and internal forces that businesses face on a regular basis. There is a lot of talk of strategies, financial statements, and competitive advantages among other things.


Image Credit of Eugene Peterson: artisticdailyprayers.org


While some pastors use these MBA strategies to pastor their church (i.e., the paradigm of “run my church like a business”), Peterson fought this for the entirety of his career, choosing instead to use a contemplative approach, giving as much time to parishioners as needed, and having patience with people as they went through their struggles, big and small.


Going through these two tasks simultaneously had me flipping the paradigm and thinking whether a business can be run in a contemplative manner and still be successful. Likely, this is more difficult for a large business, but in these cases maybe it is better to think about a contemplative department or team. That said, what does it mean for a business to be contemplative?


There are several ways to answer this question, and I have a few thoughts to get us started. First, we should probably define contemplative. A sturdy understanding is “to be deeply thoughtful, reflective, and introspective–someone who often turns inward to think about life, meaning, experiences, or ideas with care and depth.”


To be contemplative is often characterized by taking time to reflect before acting or speaking, spending time in quiet observation, and pondering life’s deeper questions (certainly, we could spend many pages considering the historical notion of contemplative thought in the history of the Christian church and other religions; but for our purposes, this definition and examples will suffice). This definition is geared specifically towards individuals, but I think we can apply it to our businesses in several ways.


The first question we should ask is where can grace and beauty be found within our business. I am sure many will scoff at that question, thinking there is little grace and certainly no beauty in their place of work.



For most of my professional career, I have worked in the construction industry, with the last 15 years specifically in floor covering installation. Floors are typically not glamorous; there are some exceptions to this, often in high-end settings, but most of the work that we do is in the homes of middle-class families all over the country. If you stay long enough in any profession, you can eventually become apathetic to the work you are doing. I think this is true even in professions that deal with the most urgent needs.


Recently, for example, I had some minor surgery (as opposed to my double lung transplant of last year!), which was delayed for ten hours. When I mentioned to the surgeon prior to the surgery that it’s been a long day for him, he just shrugged it off and called it another day at the office. Thankfully the surgery went well. To be clear, he is a good surgeon, but it helps illustrate that any occupation, given enough time, can become mundane. If someone who is dealing with life and death can view his job as just another day, we, in less urgent industries, can fall into the same trap.


I certainly have when it comes to installing floors. The thing that always snaps me out of that apathy is hearing the stories of our customers. We install floor coverings in about 230 houses every workday, allowing us to grow apathetic quickly; but for our customers this may be a once-in-a-decade experience. Many of these houses are just regular people looking for a refresh, but there are others who are having new floors installed for more profound reasons.


Maybe they have an aging parent moving in, and they need floors that can handle a walker or a wheelchair; or their spouse has been diagnosed with ALS, so they need more durable floors for all the equipment involved. On the more positive side, we may be installing in a room that a couple is turning into a nursery for their first child after going through years of infertility and disappointment.



There is both grace and beauty in these stories, as we have the privilege of helping these individuals and families take the next step in their lives. For us to be a contemplative business, we must consider the stories of these people we are serving and even for those who are just refreshing their home, there is grace in that–a new start for them in this one small area of their life. From the first contact with that customer, we should keep in mind that there is some story behind why they are having new floors installed (or whatever needs you are fulfilling at your organization). Regardless of the business or department, we can find grace and beauty in even the most mundane, like installing a new floor.


The second part of being a contemplative business is that we should invite people to lunches, not put them in a room to take personality tests. This part is geared more towards our employees, vendors, and anyone else affiliated with our organizations. While personality tests and assessments of a similar nature may have their place (as you can tell, I struggle with their value), there is nothing that can do more than spending time with people.


We are often rushed to get to the next task and may never know that a close colleague just lost a sibling or that another colleague is pregnant after years of infertility. Some may find this a bit too personal for a work setting, but if you’ve been part of an organization for some time, as I have as a VP, you probably know that the events of our personal lives will eventually spill out into the workplace. Assuming the associate is willing, it’s good to know what is going on in their lives before something comes out in the middle of a meeting. A contemplative business takes the time and effort to hear and know the stories of its people.


Third, we should ask ourselves when we should sit silent. After Eugene Peterson’s three-decade career as a pastor, he went on to teach at the collegiate level. Collier, his biographer, heard stories from students about how Peterson would often be silent for 30 seconds or even a minute multiple times during his lectures, letting the material be absorbed by the students.

We might scoff at this practice for our business, but far too often, we rush into decisions, thinking that it is better to make the quick decision and try something as opposed to waiting. Speed is what we reward in our culture, so that ends up being our default method for most of our day. People are often uncomfortable with waiting in silence, but sometimes that is what is needed. Maybe it is just a few minutes or possibly 24 hours (or more) when we delay the decision and think through what may be best, either on our own or with our teams.


Very few decisions that we make in our business are decisions that must be made at that moment (there are of course exceptions to this rule when decisions must be made immediately but they are exactly that – exceptions). This also applies to individuals in our organizations. Sometimes people just want someone with whom to talk, and it’s likely that the best we can do in these situations is sit silent and listen; listen, knowing that you have the privilege of being invited into this person’s story, whether it is ordinary or life changing.



  • These three revelations may sound a bit abstract, so below are some examples of tangible practices that we can put into place that support a contemplative business. There are certainly more ways than these, but they are at least a starting point.

  • Implement a living wage.

  • Provide 100% health coverage for employees.

  • Provide a gracious amount of time for maternity and paternity leave (two weeks is not enough).

  • Provide adoption and foster care assistance.

  • Set weekly meetings with the individuals on your team and make sure they understand that the meeting is time for them to share–whether it be work or personal.

  • Make safety a priority, ensuring the employees understand we are doing these things because we want them to go home to their families every evening.

  • If an employee needs help, get them that help–whether it be training in their job or a program for an addiction.


To be clear, between my long business experience and new MBA, I do understand that businesses must still complete the necessary tasks of analysis, strategy, financials, etc., but a contemplative business does not stop there.


A contemplative business understands that the business can ultimately be a means of grace, maybe even a relief, to the people it encounters. A contemplative business knows its people and understands their needs, doing its best to meet those needs, even if it may seem mundane in the moment. The business, its community, and even capitalism as a whole will be better off if we can take the time to implement some contemplative practices in our businesses.


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"This book merits close, sustained attention as a compelling move beyond both careless thinking and easy ideology."—Walter Brueggemann, Columbia Theological Seminary


"Better Capitalism is a sincere search for a better world."—Cato Institute

 


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