I’ve alluded to this one already in the last post.  Performance is personal before it is organizational.  Organizations cannot achieve their full potential if their people are not free to achieve their full potential.  No number of good people can overcome poor processes continually; something eventually will break down.  If your organization bridges the gap between business and ministry by taking the steps previously outlined; and if it addresses the needs of its people through techniques such as servant leadership, and manages its processes effectively, you can expect better performance.

If you’re also reading my blog “Better Business Basics”, by now you’re wondering about several ideas; high performance organizations, kingdom building organizations, people centered organizations, servant leadership, and personal performance being just a few, and we’re just barely getting started.  I’ve already begun to demonstrate how these ideas are related, and why.

One premise is that it is possible to build better businesses through better business basics.  In baseball we would be concentrating on fielding, hitting, and running.  In organizations we need to concentrate on planning, organizing, staffing, directing and controlling.  However, drilling even deeper, we need to focus on the human connection in all business basics.  And of course the human connection is at the heart of making your business a ministry.  Working on the premise that performance is personal before it is organizational, in future posts we’ll discuss factors in human potential, barriers to achieving that potential, and what it takes to free people to achieve their highest potential.

Many business people might suggest that being a high performance organization and being a Kingdom building organization are mutually exclusive conditions.  Actually I believe they can be one and the same, because people are the common denominator, the greatest common denominator in both objectives.  Organizations just provide another environment within which people can be about the business of kingdom building.  If people are freed to achieve their highest potential, and if they discern and execute God’s plan for their lives then they are in fact about the business of building God’s Kingdom on Earth.

If that plan includes a vocation and performance consistent with the purpose and principles of the person’s chosen organization or business, then that person can be building simultaneously a high performance organization.  And God’s kingdom is all about people being affirmed, edified, and equipped to live out all of God’s commandments and commissions, in other words to be disciples, ministers and witnesses to His grace and glory throughout the earth.  In many ways being a kingdom building organization is a byproduct of being a high performance organization and vice versa.

However, I believe being a kingdom building organization should be intentional and a part of the purpose that drives the organization.  If the organization is created to be a people-centered, principle-focused, purpose-driven, servant-led, community-friendly, environmentally responsible organization then the remaining key to becoming a kingdom building organization is to live out examples of Christ’s teachings as a natural part of achieving God’s plan and purpose for the business and its people.

Here’s where the challenge begins.  An organization’s leaders must define its structure, processes, plans, foundation, purpose, principles, leadership style, community relationships, and environmental stewardship activities in a way that affirms and edifies people, and upholds Christ’s teachings.  It must then execute all of its defined activities in a way that also affirms and edifies people and upholds Christ’s teachings.  If not, you can’t have a business that reclaims people, communities, and nations for Christ.

It’s not an easy road, but God never promised it would be!

Peace my friends…