Business for the Glory of God

Two wise advisors recommended this week that I remove a small section from the business plan for my new business.  Here it is:

Business Philosophy:  We want to do good in the world.  On a technical level, we hope to improve individual experiences and the environment in which they live, work and play.  On a personal level, we want to build lasting relationships with customers, suppliers, employees and stakeholders and play a meaningful role in their lives as they help us address significant global problems.

I agreed, not because we will change anything we will do, but because of the old addage from writing "Show.  Don't tell."  Also, "Actions speak louder than words."  So, I took it out of the written business plan, but it remains central to the business plan. I'm a firm believer that we can use business to do good.  I also believe in a God who will reward us for doing good, and so doing well is a natural consequence of doing good. 

I recently read a book that articulated much of this belief wonderfully, "Business for the Glory of God: The Bible's Teaching on the Moral Goodness of Business."  In it, Wayne Grudem, a professor at the Phoenix Seminary, explains why things such as ownership, employment, profit, money, competition, borrowing and lending are all morally good, though they can also be temptations to sin. He does a terrific job in a little 83 page book that can be read in one sitting.

Here's the Cliff's Notes:

Basic Premise:  Most facets of business are morally good, but can be perverted to evil. Examples are in each chapter.

Ownership:  "I believe the reason God gave the command, "You shall not steal," is that ownership of possessions is a fundamental way that we imitate God's sovereignty over the universe by our exercising "sovereignty" over a tiny portion of the universe, the things we own."  We become stewards of our possessions, and can use them for good, to care and love for others, for our own enjoyment and the enjoyment of others; we can give them away, we can save them for another time when they may be needed more.  All of this is fundamentally good.  Of course, possessions can also make us prideful, covetous, and greedy, and these are necessarily bad.

Productivity:  Producing goods and services is fundamentally good, a way to care for and serve others who willingly purchase those goods and services, giving them things they cannot make for themselves, at least not as efficiently, and doing things for them better and more efficiently than they would do themselves.  Work in itself is fundamentally good in that it benefits others and so is a way for us to express our love for them.  However, it can be a temptation if we focus on the material things themselves, or allow the money we receive in return for work to become our dominant purpose.

Employment:  Hiring people or being employed is fundamentally good, allowing them to contribute to others. As employers, we give our employees an opportunity for a greater contribution, and also provide for their families and their future, and hopefully also give them the means to be generous to others.  Of course, employment can also lead to greed, to jealousy and covetousness, and to conflict, none of which glorify God.

Commercial Transactions:  Buying and selling are fundamentally good--we are exchanging something we need less for something we need more.  Voluntary commercial transactions benefit both parties.  We must practice honesty, fairness, and faithfulness to our committments.  If we don't we are giving in to the temptation to sin.  Also, globally, a network of business transactions has a stabilizing effect on society, because we are reliant on each other and there is a mutual cost for conflict that interrupts the flow of transactions. 

Profit:  Earning a profit is fundamentally good, and concrete evidence that we are creating value and providing it to others--that what we are doing is worth more to them than it is to us and because of that they will willingly pay more than it cost us to produce. Also, profit forces efficiency, which means that those who create the most benefit the most efficiently will thrive, while those who are less efficient will have to find another way to serve. However, someone with a monopoly who takes advantage of others, depleting their wealth and forcing inefficiencies elsewhere in the system, or who lie or cheat to obtain a profit--these are sinful and not to God's glory. 

Money:  Money is fundamentally good, allowing us to exchange our goods and services for unlike goods and services, with people who have something we need but who don't necessarily need what we can provide.  It also allows us to save the value we create, and to give it generously to people who don't need what we deliver.  Of course, the root of all evil is the love of money, and we cannot serve two masters, so we must take care to make sure that money is our servant and not we its servant.

Inequality of Possessions:  Just as in heaven there will be inequality of stewardship (Luke 19), so too here on earth.  Many people are not able to bear under the temptations and responsibilities that come with stewarding large amount of resources, and they will be happier and enjoy a better life in heaven with less of a resource burden here on earth.  Others can bear this responsibility, and we should be grateful that they do.  People with larger stewardship can be more generous and give a larger share of their possessions to the poor  (think John Rockefeller financing polio vaccines in the South).  However, we can come to rely on our riches, to become greedy, the let the love of money force us to compromise our integrity and our other values. These do not glorify God.

Competition:  Competition is fundamentally good, allowing us to assign jobs to those who will perform them best.  (Think:  would it glorify God to have someone who got D's in math designing airplanes?)  It also allows us as consumers to assign profit to those companies who deliver the most value to us.  As individuals it helps us to find a place in society where we can contribute the most.  (I imagine John Grisham was a moderately successful lawyer, but after the success of "The Firm," contributed to the enjoyment of many millions of people and changed his profession.)  However, competition can be perverted for evil and people can cheat, lie and slander others in an effort to get ahead.

Borrowing and Lending:  Borrowing and lending multiply the usefulness of the resources of society, but must be done with propriety and generosity, and everything that is owed must be paid when it is owed.  (A debt is not owed--the payments are owed and must be paid when promised.  Similarly, there is no need to pay our taxes five years in advance, though they will be owed.)  So money, or a book or my car may be used by another when I do not need them, and returned to be used later by me, sometimes with a fee or interest. 

Effect on World Poverty:  All of this will have the effect of forcing efficiency and allowing the equitable distribution of wealth, and so reduce poverty across the globe.

Personal note:  When I finished the book the first time, I smiled and thought to myself, "Now he gets it.  Why would anyone start or get into a business other than to effect all of this good in the world--create wealth, give people contexts within which to thrive, generate transactions that are more valuable to each party, provide for others families, give greater stewardship opportunities to those who can handle them--what other reasons are there?  I also was struck with what a terrific task it is to do well, and how many, many pitfalls there are along the way, and also how our society pulls us like gravity into those pitfalls. 

So, yes, I've removed it from the written business plan, but it is central and core to the business.

Black Market Entrepreneurship

NCSSM
It's difficult to explain, but the North Carolina School of Science and Math changed me.  Yes, I learned some physics and chemistry and even history and economics while I was there.  Yes, I made good friends, who remain some of my best friends today.  Yes, I had fun and grew up a little bit, though some debate the last point. But none of that is what I mean.

The best explanation  may be that it raised the bar.  I've joked that, if there is a ladder leaning against a wall on the NCSSM campus, then the students know who can climb the ladder the fastest, the best, with one hand, using liquid nitrogen and while holding his breath.  We knew who the best programmers were, the best bridge players, the best mathematicians, the best writers, the best athletes, and yes even the best dancers and kissers.  The atmosphere when you take 400 (now 650) intensely competitive, intensely smart, intensely adolescent students, and put them on one campus at one time is, well, intense.  And that might win this year's NCSSM award for the Understatement of the Year.  If it doesn't win--well, let's just say the NCSSM students will know where it placed.

It has continued after I left.  My best friends are my NCSSM friends and, in a friendly, extremely supportive way, we have continued to be aware of the success of our classmates, and we desperately want to fit in with this elite group.  (The amazing thing is that fitting in is automatic.  There is no hurdle to overcome other than the shared experience.)

My First (Entrepreneurial) Experience
My first experience in entrepreneurship came at NCSSM.  One of my best friends and I had figured out how to get 16 oz glass bottles of Coke (for him) and Pepsi (for me) to the exact temperature in our dormatory refrigerators such that, when you popped the top, the soda froze into a perfect icee.  (We all know that the pressure-volume freezing curve for water is inverted, right?  Ice floats.)  Well, after a hot couple hours of frisbee football, good ole' Wyche dorm could empty two dorm fridges in a few attoseconds (that's a joke--water takes longer than that to freeze) and leave my bank account empty.  Not to mention the long walk down Broad Street with two broomsticks laden with 128 16 oz bottles of Pepsi and Coke, carried like a stretcher between two poor and tired high school students.  You do the math--it was HEAVY!

So, we began charging 50 cents each, and our friends gladly paid it, because the 12 oz cans that didn't freeze were 55 cents from the vending machine. We did it on the honor system, put up a sign and left our dorm rooms unlocked.  It became quite a business, and kept me in pizzas and money for the movies and the arcade.  Trey and I sometimes had to make the trip up Broad twice a week, so we got a bit buff, as well.  Not only that, but our dorm mates loved us because we were improving their lives--self freezing Pepsis after a hot wrestling workout rather than barely tepid cans with 4 oz less that cost a nickel more.

Then the hammer hit.

I think we called him Bloodsucker.  His name may have been Youngblood.  He had some important position at the School, like Chancelor, or President, or maybe Dictator.  (In hindsight, I'm sure he was good and cared for us and was just doing his job--but that's not how we saw it at the time.)

Let's just say that after many very serious conversations in which it was explained that the School had exclusive contracts with vending companies and as students, we were forbidden to have jobs, and couldn't let our enterprises get in the way of our schoolwork...after many of these conversations it was determined that I could stay at NCSSM, but only if I promised never to sell another Pepsi. 

And that is how my self-freezing 16 oz Pepsi business hit the black market.  Picture people coming to my dorm room after curfew, locking the door, and then leaving with a Pepsi wrapped in a bundle of gym clothes.  No really, it's true!

I now serve on the NCSSM Foundation Board.  While on the Board, I've learned that alumni of the School are about 50% as likely as a normal NC high school graduate to start their own business.  This, while some very successful companies have been formed around the grey matter of NCSSM alumni (Red Had, WebTV, Motricity), and a bunch that are still maturing (including one I founded which, while small, has won a few world championships including Formula 1 and Olympic hockey--see http://www.innegrity.com/).

So, how to solve this very important problem?  Dunno.  But in a couple weeks, we'll be launching a contest which, if we are lucky, will help us find a good, scrappy young entrepreneur at the School, and I and a few other alumni will help build a company around him or her.  And then we'll hold another contest, and another, and another.  And we'll all know who won, if a company was formed, and how well they've done, and we'll all support them, love them for what they are doing and be very proud to be included in the same group of folks.

The Highway

Twice in my life I have had dreams that were so powerful, so intense that when I awoke, I was certain that the dream had come from God.  The first was in college, and involved a message about my own selfishness.  It stands with me today.

The second was several months ago.

Alex and I were on a dark highway overpass, after a rainstorm.  You have to understand--it began in the middle--in medias res.  Cars were barreling down at us--well, at her.  She was stumbling around right in the middle of the road, as if she couldn't see at all, calling for me, calling "Daddy," in a pleading, almost desperate voice.  I could see her as she was narrowly missed by one car, then knocked to the ground, crying, by another. But I couldn't reach out to her, I couldn't touch her, couldn't rescue her.  It continued with cars coming left and right, and the whole time she was calling my name, crying and screaming for my help, my protection.

All this time, there was a sidewalk to her left, one she could step on and be safe.  Then a car came straight for her.  I stepped out and waved both arms, and swirved it to the side.  It missed.  Then another, and another.  I waved one, had to push another, and at one point stepped right in front of a speeding bus and put both hands on it and flexed every muscle from my fingertips to my heels as I forcably stopped it just before it hit her.  The bus pulled to the side. 

All this time she is crying for me, taking bumps and being knocked down.  At one point she got onto the sidewalk and was able to rest and it was peaceful and she was safe, but then she tried to go somewhere--why not stay in the safe place?--and stepped back into the highway.

Awaking from that dream I was perhaps the saddest I had ever been.  Never in the course of human history has a man loved his daughter like I love Alex, and seeing her hurt, lost and scared was the most aweful torture possible for me.

I was visiting a customer that day, and also a potential funding source for the company.  As I got dressed and read my Bible, I kept coming back to the dream.  What did it mean?  Was Alex in some danger?  What could I do to protect her from that, to keep her from experiencing that fear, that horror?

Since then, every time she tells me she is scared, I come back to that night and I am immediately her protector.  I will cover her with whatever I can, even my own body, to rescue her from that fear, or any fear.

The meeting with my customer went well.  The General Manager was surprised to see me-he was expecting Loren, and we quickly established a relationship and a trust that goes on, despite our having spent only a few minutes together. 

While I was talking with him, and after, I kept wondering--what was God telling me?  Why did He send me the dream?

As I drove from the customer to the funding source, in the middle of a sunny Phoenix highway, it hit me.  The dream wasn't about me and Alex--that was just to help me understand.  In the dream, the person who Alex represented was me, and I was seeing her from the vantage point of Jesus--protecting me, loving me, saving me from my own blind choice not to step up on the sidewalk, from my own need to live a dangerous, sinful life in a dangerous, sinful world.  Protecting me even to the point of endangering his own body.  I couldn't see the dangers, but He could.  I could call out to Him, but in His answers, all he could do was protect me, sacrifice Himself to keep me safe--He couldn't physically reach me.

Realizing this as I drove down a ten lane highway looking for my exit, I broke down crying, huge shoulder sobs wracking my body as I pulled into the Arizona State University Research Park.  I was early, and it subsided quickly.  I cleaned myself up and had a great meeting. 

For the unbelievers out there--I've been under some stress, and it is very true that never in the course of human history has a man loved his daughter like I love Alex.  So maybe it was just a dream.  I don't remember what I had for dinner--maybe that, coupled with the stress of travel and sleeping in a strange bed gave me a really powerful dream and I reacted to it emotionally.  Maybe that's all it was.

For those of you who know better...well, we know better, don't we?

In either case, the effect is real, and it is the same.  If Alex says she is scared, I wrap her up and hold her and first help her with her fear, even if she is as wrong as wrong can be.  I can't leave her on the highway, and, different from the dream, I can reach out to her, comfort her and love her with real skin-on-skin contact.  She'll grow out of this and while I don't like seeing her scared, I do treasure playing this role in her life.

There is another effect, and it is just as real.  I am pushing, driving with my big thigh muscles, to get on that sidewalk, to eliminate sin in my life.  I can't fight the evil in this world, and I have to trust in the invisible Jesus to stop that bus and keep it from crushing me.  But I can fight sin in my life.  It is clear to me now that the sidewalk is the place without sin, without deceit, without malice or envy or hatred or jealosy; it is the place where love reigns.  I don't control those emotions in others.  I can't keep others from hating, from feeling jealosy, from lying, from hurting each other.  But I can fight them down in myself, and so I am, every day, every minute, except when I forget or fail or get lost or confused and try to do something that isn't quite right, and step back down into the highway.

The High Road

A week or two ago, I had an important presentation for a group of people, and when the meeting started, there were frowny faces all around the room.  Some were even dramatic, like, "Look at my face!  I wish I could tell you why I'm making this face at you!"  The tenor of the room never got above a low G.

Forgive, please, the absense of details here... Suffice it to say that someone interfered with that meeting before it started, causing a lot of frowny faces and an unsuccessful outcome.

When I run into situations like this, I feel as if I have been mule-kicked off the high road and am drawn to fight back, get revenge, maybe even plant a bruise or two on this other person's lanky frame.  I know when I feel like this that it's wrong.  "Vengeance is mine," and "turn the other cheek," and all that.  It is still a tough climb, with the most meager of toe- and finger-holds, to claw back to where I focus on creating value and showing love for others...

I do wonder sometimes the motivation of these purely negative acts.  There is no good that can come of it, nothing created, made, improved, nobody loved or nourished...  Why throw those hand grenades?

It may be that the way I do my job, declaring publicly that the most important things that the company does are to love our constituents and to create and deliver value--I'm afraid this has the effect of polarizing people, making them either extremely loyal or extremely ticked-off. 

The ones who are ticked off would prefer I made decisions based on personal financial, gain, rather than letting personal and financial gain be the natural consequence of creating value and showing love and respect for others.

The ones who are loyal are so much so that I am humbled and grateful beyond imagination.

I have two stories, and then I'll close.  The first goes back to when we had a law suit with an ex-employer.  Early on, I told an old friend from high school about it, and then declared, "They think they're going to get me to roll over and quit!"

"Have they met you?" she asked.  Her answer said it all.  I saught a win-win, but finding none, stood by the company's principles. We didn't quit and now the fiber is already in a position to save lives.

The next story has to do with my employment agreement, which has a clause in it that essentially declares that, as long as the job of CEO of Innegrity is a crummy, high stress, low reward job--it is mine.  Once it gets to be a high paid, high profile look-at-our-success-and-how-great-we're-doing job, then my board is free to fire me and put someone else in.

I know my gifts, and I was not put here for the easy job--that one I'll hand over.  I was put here to lead during these crazy chaotic early days when all others would quit, blame it on some external factor, and move on.  My chief value is my vision and my stubborn adherance to it--every other skill can be hired. 

In the church world, we call this the spiritual gift of faith.  It is the ability to stay the course no matter how strong the gale blows in another direction.  It is David, having been hunted for months, still declaring his loyalty.  He cut the corner of Saul's robe of when he could have killed him.  Wouldn't he have been justified in exacting a little revenge--maybe just a flesh wound?  This gift comes with the unfortunate circumstance that it will be tested, or, well, "used" I guess is a better word.  "Used" to get someone or something past that gale.  Even if some tend to blame me for the gale rather than giving credit for the progress made against it.

What is Right

One of our employees asked me, “Is this a personal blog, or a corporate blog?” They went on to say, “If it’s corporate, then it must represent each and every one of us.”

This stumped me for a bit.

Our little company is blessed with a lot of different perspectives, which we try to take advantage of when solving problems, understanding customers, building relationships, etc. In that sense, there is no way I can represent each and every one of them—so of course, the blog is personal. I am the only author, though anyone is welcome to comment. As such, I’ll say things that some employees, some owners, some customers, some others would disagree with. I welcome the disagreement because talking things through is how we find the truth, and what is right is much more important than who is right.

That is the crux of the matter: the what—the stuff, the things, the details—are much more important than who gets credit or who authored the what. Let's work together to find the right thing to do and not worry about the scorecards. 

Here’s an outline of a conversation I had with a customer. He was hesitating to introduce an Innegra product to an old friend who builds boats. “But Doug is going to get all the credit and John won’t know it was me who made it happen.  I’ll be stuck where I am while Doug gets the raise.” (I’ve changed the names.)

I know this person and his heart well, so I responded, “Let’s just pretend for a minute that John doesn’t hold sway over all the rewards. What if you introduce this product to your friend and they put it in their boats and somewhere down the road a little girl is riding one of those boats and it gets in an accident and doesn’t sink, and she lives instead of dying, and goes on to give birth to someone who invents a way to grow corn in the desert that saves all of Africa from starvation a half century from now? John wouldn’t know and wouldn’t give you a raise, but maybe there is someone out there who does know and that’s why we’re having this conversation. The rewards may come a lot later, or may never come, but shouldn't you do the right thing anyway?"

I always get mad when someone tells me, “It’s not what you know that’s important, it’s who you know.” Not that there isn’t truth to this, but the depth is missing. One could mistake this to mean that it’s okay to do the wrong thing if it gets you in with the right people. In this case it could be interpreted to impress John rather than make the boat safe regardless of who gets credit.

Or it could lead someone to believe that the number and relationships and societal standing of the people matter, rather than the strength of the relationships and mutual respect and loyalty that are shared. Relationships are very important, but I tend to think of them in a how-can-I-help-or-be-of-value-to-this-person kind of way, regardless of their status, rather than a I-wonder-if-I-can-work-this-in-my-favor-later kind of way, which is sometimes how that original statement is used

I also find that doing the right thing consistently (and I fail sometimes) has a way of bringing about some pretty wonderful relationships, some of which would fall into others “important to know” category, and some of which would not.

With all of that in mind, this blog can only be personal and I take sole responsibility for what's in here.

83% Full

My pastor recently talked about divorce statistics:  40% of first marriages fail, 60% of second marriages, and 70% of third marriages, averaging the 50% statistic that we all hear.  He went on to say how this does not differ from Christian to non-Christian, churched to non-churched.  All well and he made a good show of it, but...

What he failed to say was that 83% of the people who get married do find a marriage that sticks until "death do us part." 

(Math alert:  Those who never find a happy marriage among their first three spouses are 0.4 * 0.6 * 0.7 = 0.168, or 17%.  The rest, 83%, have at least one marriage that "succeeds.")

So why put this into a blog about entrepreneurship?  Because that--turning a 50% failure rate into an 83% success rate, is one of the key skills of an entrepreneur.  Central to the job description is the ability to make silk purses out of sows' ears.

Here's a quick story:  In developing the fiber, I was trying to make a "high tenacity, high modulus thermoplastic olefin." That was the original business plan.  Unfortunately, it wasn't very high tenacity, wasn't very high modulus, and nobody really understood nor cared what a "thermoplastic olefin" was.

But we had a scientist working for us (another Brian unfortunately--I guess you can't make this up) who saw the fiber and said, "There's something different about this fiber."  He tested it for ballistic properties and found it worked reasonably well.  Then he put it under an electron microscope and found that he microstructure was full of millions of little crazes and holes. 

You could take that and go, "oh crap," and wonder how a fiber that is full of little micro-breaks and defects is going to have any strength. 

Instead, our group combined that with the ballistic data and what the Formula 1 race-car guys had found and saw that the fiber really had millions of little pillows inside it, which made it the lightest structural fiber in the world.  And, when we learned that those pillows were all connected, then we realized that when each one took a hit, it would blow a tiny micro-puff of air into the ones near it, and all these millions of little micro-puffs would dissipate a lot of energy, each one acting like a nano-shock-absorber.  The shock of a bullet would dissipate and on a race track, when a car is tapped by a neigboring car at 200 mph, the energy of the "tap" is absorbed so that the part remains intact, keeping the car in the race.  This feature is being taken advantage of in bullet proof vests and panels that are lighter and less expensive, in race cars that are faster and more durable, in aircraft, in surfboards that "reduce the chop of the wave," in hockey sticks that "feel more like wood."

Instead of having a fiber that is full of micro-defects and micro-voids, we have one that is the lightest fiber in the world, among the toughest, and the only advanced fiber that naturally dissipates energy through it's microstructure.

In any entrepreneurial endeavor, there are a million reasons to quit, a million ways to look at your product or your market or your team as a sow's ear, and give up.  The difference, I believe, between success and failure is being able to shoo away all those folks who are "just being realistic," or "trying to show the practical side," and somehow adjust, adapt, change, twist, or frankly just make up that those reasons aren't right, and perhaps magically turn the sow's ear into a silk purse, even if only by the sheer force of will.

Take me to your leader

Brian is a good friend and a Christian. In the last fifteen years, I have seen him struggle with portions of his Catholic upbringing and then through the help of a friend, come to know God on a more personal level.  He is a good scientist, a better businessman, and a great friend.

Despite his firm base, I had the opportunity last night to startle him.

We were talking about our businesses, using the shorthand of a two-decade friendship. I told him about our recent struggles, and how it appeared (again, for about the eleventh time) as if the little company I founded might run aground. Then a solution appeared that was clearly beyond my power. His eyes went wide as he asked "how did you do it?" expecting some story of conference-room heroics. "There is only one explanation," I answered, pausing for effect with our wives, "divine intervention."

My wife is used to this, and in our house it is no joke. We have everything bet on this little company, and founded it solely to do God''s will.  He intervenes all the time.  Daily, it seems.

Brian, on the other hand, looked at me as if I had turned green and said, "Take me to your leader."

"What other explanation could there be?" I asked. "was it done through the power of Brian?" (Thats me, Brian Morin, CEO of Innegrity LLC. Unfortunately for this story, we have the same first name.)  Ignoring his surprise, I said, "some people in our company act like it's fine to talk about God, but 'You don't run your company that way, do you?'. They get uncomfortable, because this is their MONEY they are talking about. For others, it's like eating manna every day, only having one days supply and never really knowing that it will be there tomorrow."  I stopped, his look having turned more normal, though perhaps touched with a dab of respect, and we went on to other topics. I could tell the conversation had affected him.

This is my first post, and you'll forgive the vagueries--the intent of this blog is not to give you the secrets of our company, but rather the secrets of what I call "Living With Vertigo," that is my recent six-year walk through the desert, living on manna, starting and growing Innegrity.

I asked a good friend, one who had run a large public company for two decades and served on my board for several years, "Does the drama and stress ever go away?".

"No," he said, "it just changes."