Episode 16 - Keeping a Christ Centered Attitude While Growing a Business

In this episode, Henry, Rusty, and William tackle questions from our valued listeners. 

Marty asks, "how do we keep a Christ-centered attitude while growing a business?"  For Henry, It’s about identity. It’s almost impossible when the goal is solely financial success.  We should seek God first. If there’s frustration at work, it’s an opportunity to pray to God.  Rusty brings a tactical point of view, and recommends starting the day prepared.  Spending time with God is top priority.  We should boot up with God first in order to avoid crashes, or at least minimize them.  William reminds us that we can’t forget our first vocation; we are beloved children of God.  

Our friend, Mike, asks "As a founder, how do i shift work responsibilities over to new employees as I get overwhelmed and simply can't do it all anymore?"  For Rusty, it goes back to trust.  His litmus test for delegating work is to 1) assess if he himself is good at it; 2) is it routine? and 3)  does he like to do it?  If so, he will typically delegate those tasks to empower his teammates even though it seems counterintuitive.  This allows for employees to grow in his/her capacity which is of paramount importance if you want a long-term employee.

Adam, asked "how do we make remote team-members feel engaged and offer them a meaningful culture?"  Rusty admits that this is one of the hardest questions. In many ways, culture creates itself.  Rusty recalls that at Electronic Arts they had employees all around the world.  Rusty sat with the CEO and proposed that they create a one page roadmap for team members to provide a clear picture of the company’s values.  This way everyone could align with the most important goals of the company - Rusty is happy to share his framework with anyone.

Rick asks "how do we offer to pray for someone at the workplace?  What about corporate prayer?"  Recalling his own experience, Henry offered that at Bandwidth he would conduct a corporate prayer at picnics and dedicate them to families.  In the first 8 years, when an employee was in a crisis Henry would offer to pray for him but he slowly realized that a Corporate Chaplain was a better approach.

Henry also shared a story involving an American Express executive.  She was in the legal department.   She got permission from higher ups to do a corporate prayer.  Eventually, she had 150 people in the lunch room meeting to pray.  The AE executives came back and asked her if she and her group would serve as a focus group to see how the Christian community would respond to certain products and services.  What an incredible witness within a larger organization. 

Rusty mentioned that he thought it would be an incredible testimony to have a corporate prayer, so we wrote ONE!!! See our blog to check it out.

Finally, in responding to Jeffrey’s question on seeking out a Christian business networking group, Henry and William shared about the “Inklings,” a group of Christian entrepreneurs here in Northern California who would gather together to encourage each other in a positive way.