Make a Difference, Don't Simply Make a Living

I had the honor on August 8th to deliver the keynote address at the Gardner-Webb University MBA Graduation Ceremony. The following is the challenge that I gave the graduates:

I am honored to have the opportunity to speak with you on this very special occasion, your graduation from Gardner-Webb University’s Graduate School of Business. This is a wonderful accomplishment and I would like to congratulate each of you and also commend you for all of the effort that it took to achieve this prestigious degree. It was only ten short years ago that I completed my MBA and the excitement that I felt then is still very fresh in my mind.

While this might represent the end of your academic journey, it is still early in your professional journey and your Gardner-Webb MBA is certainly an important stepping stone. The question is what will you do with it? As future leaders of our global economy, will you take the practical training that you have received here at GWU and make a difference or simply make a living?

I have to share a little secret with you…I am a big fan of Gardner-Webb University. Our family was first introduced to this fine institution when my daughter Cassidy decided to attend GWU for her undergraduate studies back in the fall of 2008. She is now starting her junior year. So while I haven’t technically attended Gardner-Webb as a student, I have been able to view the university through the eyes of a student. I have had the opportunity to listen to Dr. Bonner speak on multiple occasions about his vision for combining Academic Excellence along with a strong Christian Heritage. Your University mission statement puts it this way:

“…By embracing faith and intellectual freedom, balancing conviction with compassion, and inspiring a love of learning, service, and leadership, Gardner-Webb prepares its graduates to make significant contributions for God and humanity in an ever-changing global community.”

What a joy it must have been for you to study the latest business concepts from a faculty and with fellow students who acknowledge God as Creator & Sustainer of life and Jesus Christ as Savior. Within the confines of this campus and its satellite locations, the Christian faith was always seamlessly integrated into your course work. You have had the unique benefit of expanding your mind intellectually within the context of a Christian eternal perspective. This is an unbeatable combination!

But, tomorrow morning when the alarm clock rings and you step out into the business world…will you make a difference or simply make a living? I would like to propose to you that a well trained business leader with a strong Christian foundation is like the fictional character Superman. All of you are now well equipped to climb tall buildings with a single bound and stand toe to toe with the greedy bad guys in the marketplace. And believe me there are many of those! Unfortunately many Christian business men and women wake up on Monday morning and choose to be Clark Kent. You remember Clark Kent don’t you? He was the bumbling, stumbling undercover Superman, going through his work week in disguise in order to hide who he really was. He chose to keep his power a secret from those that he worked with at the newspaper. When we head off to work on Monday morning with a different perspective than our eternal perspective, we are more pitiful than Clark Kent ever was. As Christian business leaders, of course, we have access to a power much greater than the fictional Superman. So why do so many Christians in the business community wake up on Monday morning and put on their Clark Kent disguise, hiding who they really are and what they truly believe?

You do not have to compromise your Christian values in order to be successful in the business world. I think John Maxwell said it best in his book Life @ Work, Marketplace Success for People of Faith:
“God wants you to learn to come to work wearing the shoes of your faith as well as the best business suit you have. They match. They were made to go together. You need them both on, all the time, to be all that God intended you to be.”

There are certainly numerous Biblical examples of people that embraced their faith at work despite potentially life threatening consequences. During my quiet time this week I was reading in the book of Daniel. Daniel was one of the young Israelites that were selected to compete for the opportunity to serve Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon. In Daniel 1:4 we’re told that all the young men that were selected to compete were “without physical defect, handsome, showing aptitude for every kind of learning, well informed, quick to understand and qualified to serve in the King’s palace”. All job candidates were well qualified and I am sure there was tremendous pressure to conform in order to get the job. Daniel didn’t conform. Instead he refused to defile himself with the royal food that they were commanded to eat. On a diet of vegetables and water, Daniel outperformed them all and entered the King’s service. God later blessed Daniel for his faith by giving him the interpretation of the King’s dream which led to Daniel, an Israelite, being appointed leader over all of Babylon.

There are also many examples today of companies that integrate a strong Christian foundation into a successful business plan and as a result are winning in the marketplace. The success of the Chick-Fil-A business under the leadership of its founder Truett Cathy is well publicized. Chick-Fil-A is one of the most successful restaurant chains ever with over 1500 locations, $3.2 billion in revenue and 42 straight years of positive sales growth. The Christian foundation of this company permeates all aspects of its business. In a very competitive industry, they have achieved all of this marketplace success while holding true to their Christian beliefs. Chick-Fil-A locations are closed on Sundays. Corporately they have made the decision to forgo ½ of potential weekend sales because it is more valuable to them to allow their employees to worship Jesus Christ on Sunday. If their leaders were only looking at this decision from a secular perspective, they might be tempted to change the policy to take advantage of the upside revenue potential. However, it is more important to them to positively impact the generation of young people that they employee. In this way, business leaders at Chick-Fil-A are making a difference, not simply making a living.

Some of you might not be as familiar with the “home town” success story of Coca-Cola Consolidated located here in North Carolina. They are the second largest bottler in the United States with 5,200 employees, $1.4 billion in annual revenue and $38 million in net income. Their Corporate Purpose is “To honor God in all we do, to serve others, to pursue excellence & to grow profitably”. These are more than words on a sheet of paper to the Christian business leaders at Coke Consolidated. They have numerous programs to ensure that they are positively impacting the community for Christ, in addition to growing the bottom line. One such program gives employees one day off a month, with pay, to participate in charitable work in the community. In this way, the business leaders at Coca-Cola Consolidated are making a difference, not simply making a living.

I personally have over 25 years experience in the consumer products industry and I understand that it is not always easy to live out your Christian faith at work. I spent the first 16 years of my career at the $10 billion CPG giant Nabisco. I can personally relate to the story that I conveyed earlier about Daniel. Nabisco was a highly competitive “dog eat dog” work environment. There was tremendous pressure to conform to the workplace myth that the Christian life should be separated into the secular (Monday-Saturday) and the sacred (on Sunday). Thankfully, I had two great mentors, Doug Conant and Daryl Brewster, who embraced their Christian faith within the realm of the Nabisco corporate culture. They inspired me to throw away those Clark Kent glasses and embrace the world with my Eternal Perspective. By the way, both Doug and Daryl have been quite successful in corporate America as well. Doug is the President & CEO of the Campbell’s Soup Company and Daryl was President of the Nabisco Biscuit Company before being brought in to turnaround Krispy Kreme as their CEO.

During my time at Nabisco, I came to the same realization that A.W. Tozer highlights in his book The Pursuit of God when he says that:
“One of the greatest hindrances to the Christian’s internal peace is the common habit of dividing our lives into two areas – the sacred and the secular. But this state of affairs is wholly unnecessary. The sacred – secular antithesis has no foundation in the New Testament.”

According to a 2008 survey of over 50,000 American adults, 76% identified themselves as Christians. In other words, over three quarters of the adults that you come in contact with at work have the same faith in Jesus Christ as you do. When you think about it, it is pretty ridiculous that many believers will defend their favorite sports team vigorously when a co-worker says something derogatory but won’t speak openly about their Savior with others who most likely share their same beliefs. Unfortunately there are a lot of “Clark Kent Christians” out in the workforce today.

You don’t have to be a part of a large multi-billion dollar company to make a difference. I founded The Bellota Group a little over four years ago with the vision to create a successful consumer products portfolio company. Our Statement of Purpose is:

“To be a Christ-centered organization that unlocks the potential of innovative consumer product businesses for the good of its stakeholders and the glory of God.”

This Statement of Purpose and our Core Ideology is posted on our website, hung on the wall in the office lobby and a part of all presentations that we make. We try very hard to live it out. When evaluating a new acquisition or business partnership our Statement of Purpose enables us to communicate up front what we are all about at Bellota. If someone isn’t comfortable with our approach then we don’t proceed with the business relationship. The people that we come in contact with know that we are smart, tough business people and that we will always deal with them honestly and with a high degree of integrity.

At Bellota, we also pray before meetings for our business and for one another. I can confidently say that we would not have made it through this last economic recession if we had not actively sought God’s direction and wisdom for our business. In addition to the success that God has blessed us with on the business front, the eternal perspective that is incorporated into the Bellota philosophy has given me personally the opportunity to have meaningful spiritual discussions with our largest customer and, believe it or not, our corporate banker. Our goal at the Bellota Group is to make a difference and not simply make a living.

In conclusion, I would like to congratulate you again on this wonderful academic achievement. As the economy continues to recover in 2010 and beyond, your Gardner-Webb graduate degree and all of the practical concepts that you learned while you were here, have you well positioned to maximize the personal impact that you can have in the business environment. I leave you with this simple challenge; leverage the superior training that you have received at Gardner-Webb, embrace the eternal perspective of your Christian faith everyday at work and truly make a difference in this world.

Thank you very much!