If you believe that something will really help you improve your life, your work, your community then do you have the faith to invest?
Just believing something is not enough. You can believe that hard work is important all that you want to, but if you never put in the hard work then you are never going to see progress.
Yesterday, I talked to my leadership team about this concept of servant leadership. Companies like Southwest Airlines, Starbucks, Marriott, and Nordstrom all follow this model. You can tell, can’t you? There is something completely different about them. Your experience as a customer of a Marriott is a lot different then your experience as a Hilton loyalist. Flying Southwest is definitely different then flying Delta. People are intensely loyal to Starbucks and I know with absolute certainty that when I walk into a Nordstroms, I will have a personal shopper friend following me around begging to help. The key differentiator in all these companies is the people. The people make the difference and this passion for servant leadership has definitely produced a culture that strives to encourage people to make their own decisions, take pride in their workplace and to treat their clients like royalty.
So if my team decided to try to implement a servant leadership paradigm, the question is 1. Do we believe that it will have a significant impact on the organization? 2. If we believe, then what faith will we exercise?
By faith I mean, are we willing to invest the time into learning, attempting, discussing, and defending a servant leadership culture? By faith I mean, are will willing to spend the money on programs, training and other requirements to make this possible? Are we willing to put aside some other “good” ideas in lieu of the new ones required to implement this new paradigm? It is an interesting question. You get results for which you put your faith into by making investments of time and resources.
I use this example to illustrate a point. In our personal lives, what do we believe will improve ourselves? What things could you be doing do you believe will have the greatest impact on you? What is the single most important thing that would produce the greatest improvement? I bet you do not have to take a lot of time thinking about this. You probably already know.
If you do, then ask yourself, do I really believe it? Do I really believe that this one thing will improve me significantly? If you do believe, now ask the question – then what am I going to invest to prove this faith? Faith is a verb. It is an action word. Faith requires you to invest time and resources. Only after the exercise of faith, will you see any results. Belief and Belief alone will do nothing for you. It is dormant. It is like a seed. It required water, rain, sunshine, plowing the earth, fertilizer, pest control, and a lot of pulling of noxious weeds. If you want that ONE seed to grow, you need to EXERCISE faith.
So are you willing to invest the time, energy, resources into your belief in this one thing that will improve your life? That is the ultimate question. That is what separates us from success and failure. Take it from an expert in creating ideas with no execution – you can spin out as many ideas as you want to – but if you do not invest in the idea then you will not get results.
Another example, today I am spending a lot of money in training for my team. Being a college professor for most my life, I firmly believe that training improves people, improves organizations. I believe that, but have I exercised any faith in that concept? Not really. Where have I made a serious investment in time and resources for training? When have I taken any formal training myself? I do, but only haphazardly and only occasionally. Not exactly a commitment of faith. So I am putting forth some faith in training, committing some resources – we will see,
However, what happens if the training is not that good, and it does not accomplish what I want right away? What then!? Well, that is where faith really comes in. Your investment is not a one and done thing. Your investment is continuous, iterative, constant. Failure causes you to exert more faith not less. That is when the real test of belief kicks in. Do you have the faith to persist even in the face of failure?
Guy Reams (570)
