Catholic Herald

Greed tempts us. We all want more.

The nuance of greed can be difficult to discern as we try to separate legitimate need from excessive want. I am grateful for Catholic social teaching which offers a three-part plan for navigating around greed and away from its ugly, debilitating consequences.

Simplified application of the following concepts provides meaningful workplace counsel.
No. 1 – Personalism is a philosophy that affirms the purpose of business – people.

Business is not about money, it is about people. Business should not be about transactions, but about customers. And customers are dignified images of God, not merely consumers, which expresses a degrading, minimalist view of the human person.

In the business world, decisions frequently are based on data or statistics. But never forget the people behind those statistics. It is so easy to think in terms of financial goals for the next quarter, but rather than thinking in terms of dollars think in terms of the people who will be impacted when your company accomplishes its goals. Remember that behind every account number is a real person, with real hopes, aspirations and struggles.

What would it do for your job if you made it a goal to get to know even one new customer every week?

No. 2 – Subsidiarity is the idea that decisions should be made as close to the situation as possible. This means that if a customer has a problem, it can be solved by the employee closest to that customer. So if my child doesn’t like the toy provided with his Happy Meal, that means the counter help is empowered to substitute a toy from last week’s promotion without having to check with a supervisor.

In business, drives toward efficiency tend to centralize decision-making, usually far away from where customers and front-line employees meet. When decisions are made at the regional office in Chicago or the national office in New York, that leave those of us out in rural Wisconsin feeling pretty helpless. When we respect the notion of subsidiarity, we inevitably end up respecting the concept of personalism. Localized decision-making empowers front-line employees, while dignifying customers.

No. 3 – Solidarity is the idea that we are all in this together. It can be tempting to believe that I don’t need to worry about those around me. We might think that we only need to worry about our own success. But the fact is, your actions affect everyone, especially those closest to you. We need to consider how our actions will affect others, and be particularly cautious if we suspect our actions might impede others.

In a merit-based culture, not everyone is going to enjoy the same commercial rewards for their work. But the concept of solidarity encourages us to think about the impact of our work on others. For example, sale of a harmful product may provide short-term reward for the seller but eventually could hurt an entire community. The global recession resulted in part from the sale of temporarily lucrative but ultimately unsuitable mortgages. The fly-by-night mortgage brokers thought they were enriching themselves but ultimately ended up sinking everyone.

As you contemplate how to apply these concepts to your own work situation, remember to start with prayer. With respect to resisting temptation toward greed, prayers of gratitude are particularly useful. I know when I take time to think about what I have as a result of God’s generosity, I begin to feel a little silly asking for too much more. When we focus on what we have, we focus less on what we don’t have.

Greed is a powerful force but it is not as strong as God’s grace. Focus on the people in your business, empower localized decision-making, and remember that we are all in this together.

Your boss is going through personnel records at his desk when hunger pangs hit and he leaves for a few minutes to get a donut.

You happen to be walking by and see an open folder labeled “salaries.” You suspect what’s laying on top of that stack of papers – a list of everyone in the department and how much money they make. Dilemma: Do you look?

When we think about living our faith in the workplace, we can be guided by our Church’s respect for human dignity. Am I respecting my colleagues if I sneak a peak at something that should be confidential between them and their manager? Of course not, and that’s why you shouldn’t look at that list of salaries.

Nonetheless, curiosity is powerful and I bet almost everyone in that situation would look. It’s too bad because the information assuredly will produce unhappiness, except perhaps for the highest-paid person on the list. I have met very few people who feel they are being paid all they are worth, and the notion you are being under-paid is typically accentuated by any reminder that others make more than you do.

A list of salaries provides hopelessly insufficient information for making meaningful judgments. Salary is only one component of a compensation package. A salary list will not tell you who is getting less time off than you are, what kind of scheduling limitations others may have, or anything about anyone else’s health insurance and retirement benefits. Apples-to-apples comparisons based on a salary list alone are impossible.

Employers establish a culture within their company and one of the key factors in determining the nature of that culture is the degree of transparency in compensation. Some organizations have a high degree of transparency. Pay scales are published; figuring years of service, it is pretty easy to determine what everyone is making. But at other companies, it is not so easy to estimate pay. The culture is one of confidentiality. Highly specialized jobs may require compensation arrangements strangely impacted by an unpredictable set of market conditions.

As an employee, if you believe your company would benefit from a greater level compensation transparency, then you should talk that over with your boss. Be ready to explain what benefits you believe would come from different compensation policies. And if you are a manager, be more careful with sensitive data than the fellow who left that salary list on his desk. Respect your employees by meeting their expectations for confidentiality.

But even if you work in a company where personnel matters are kept private, that doesn’t mean you should be ignorant of standard pay practices for people with jobs similar to yours. The internet has made it incredibly easy to obtain salary information about job categories, even figuring in geographic factors.

In addition to broad market trends, consider your compensation in the context of your specific company. The economic performance of your division or company cannot be ignored, regardless of broader market trends. When managers and employees research this kind of information together, surprises can be avoided, which generally makes for a more productive and happier work environment.

Recall the story in Luke where people are asking John the Baptist questions about how they should live (Luke 3:14). At one point, he tells a group of soldiers “…be happy with your wages.” John isn’t telling people to accept whatever wage they are offered, but I think he is encouraging them to focus on more important things. As Christians, we believe that God provides, no matter what our wage is. God’s generosity should not be a source of jealousy for us.

If you happen upon private information about colleagues, put it out of your head as soon as possible by focusing on the person, not on the dollars.

With decorations going up before Halloween and holiday music starting on the radio before Thanksgiving, it is easy to believe our culture commercializes Christmas, but I think one can make a strong case that Christmas Christianizes the culture. In fact, the story of the Nativity offers a lot of encouragement to ordinary folks trying to live their faith on the job.

The exchange of cards and gifts at this time of year provides an opportunity to thank others, and to connect with colleagues and customers on a more personal level than typical professional contact during the rest of the year. The extent to which you will be able to share your faith will be determined by the strength of the relationships you have with those around you; Christmas offers a magnificent opportunity to strengthen those relationships.

The prospect of sharing our faith at work can be intimidating, however, even if our professional relationships are strong. It is much easier to keep our faith hidden at work, confining it to Sunday and home life. We might even rationalize that the office is not a suitable place for God – it is too secular, too competitive or too ordinary. We can learn from Joseph and Mary.

There was nothing special about that stable in Bethlehem before Joseph and Mary arrived with Jesus. It was a very ordinary place. The animals there and the people who frequented the stable were not looking for God; nor were they particularly prepared to welcome him. In other words, the stable was like most American workplaces.

Joseph and Mary brought Jesus to the stable and the site was transformed forever. That is what happens in any place where we bring Jesus. Joseph and Mary sought no attention for themselves; they were humble and unobtrusive, yet the whole world noticed. When we bring God to our place of work, we don’t have to make a big deal about it. We don’t have to look for attention. Those whose hearts are open will find God through you, just as the shepherds found Jesus through Joseph and Mary.

For many of us, Christmas also signals the end of the calendar year, a natural time to assess the past year and look forward. People often set career goals for the coming year. The goal-setting process starts with an honest assessment of the current situation so if you are planning ahead, you might start by asking yourself, “What kind of work situation do I have?”

Most people work in legitimate and honorable businesses, but if you find yourself wondering whether you can strengthen your relationship with God in your current job, then perhaps you need to consider a job or career change. Again, we can take a lesson from Joseph. When Joseph sensed the environment was too hostile, he hustled Mary, Jesus and himself out of there, leaving in the middle of the night for Egypt. Herod, with his edict to kill all the baby boys, threatened the first family and Joseph took the threat seriously. If your relationship with Christ is threatened by those who control your workplace, then you need to take action.

But the good news is that most workplaces are perfectly suitable to host God – certainly as good as that stable. A search for meaningful work can tempt a person to change jobs, but integrating faith and work is not so much about finding meaningful work as it is about making our work meaningful. Joseph and Mary didn’t look for a meaningful place to welcome the Savior of the World. Jesus made that stable in Bethlehem a meaningful place after Mary and Joseph brought him there. He will do the same for your workplace if you bring him there, too.

As many Americans will sit down to a Thanksgiving Day meal soon, the Lord’s Prayer gives us a framework for considering the importance of gratitude. I find one line to be particularly meaningful to those of us in the work world.

When we ask God to “give us this day our daily bread,” we acknowledge God as provider. Acknowledgement is the first step toward gratitude. Before any of us is likely to thank someone in gratitude, we have to acknowledge that he or she is giving us something.

Given how hard most of us work, it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that we provide for ourselves, entirely on our own. But in fact God provides and all we have comes from Him. God lets us participate in the process of providing, typically through work, but we would have no work at all if it weren’t for the generosity of God.

Notice that the prayer has us thanking God for our “daily” bread. In business, we tend to think in terms much longer than a single day. In the corporate world, people often focus on the next quarter’s results. Most businesses form strategic plans that consider the coming year or two. I know engineers who work on projects that are years in the making. And many people focus on retirement, which may be a decade or more away. But Jesus doesn’t ask us to think so far ahead. He asks us to focus on today – not because the future is unimportant, but because the present is so important.

Bread might seem like a small thing, particularly compared to the things we typically dream of, like a new car, new home or exotic travel. But, of course, bread in an essential thing; those big things are not. Reading Matthew 6 where Jesus gives us this prayer, I get the sense He is urging us to look at the little things. He wants us to appreciate all of His creation, not just the big, exciting things. And since our lives are filled with little things, He is really inviting us to find joy in our everyday lives. Joy should not be limited to a few spectacular moments in a lifetime.

Gratitude is not something that comes naturally to many of us. Like any virtue, gratitude is something we need to cultivate. This is something we can do with prayer, not only at Thanksgiving time, but every day. When we pray with gratitude first thing in the morning, we set the tone for the entire day. There is peace that comes with knowing God loves us so much that He gives us so much – everything we need, including His only son.

Gratitude is about focusing on what we have; it is the best defense against materialism, which typically results from focusing too much on what we want. Excessive focus on wants can leave us blind to our blessings. We all know people who live very comfortably yet spend most of their time complaining about what they don’t have. These are unhappy people. Gratitude offers a path to a much happier life.

At Thanksgiving time, we focus on what we have, while remembering those who have less than we do. No matter what our situation, we can think about how fortunate we are. We take time to consider the things we may overlook the rest of the year, starting with our own family members, home, health, intellect, friends, work and our daily bread.

October is when I clean out my garage; making sure before the snow flies that there is space for the car. One year, as I moved the bicycles and picked up the garden tools, I figured out the purpose of work.

John was six at the time and I asked him to help me. I started to pick up the sports equipment strewn about, while John swept the floor. Within 10 minutes, however, he had stopped and sat himself down on a chair in the driveway. He started talking to me. It took me two hours to finish the job, with John talking most of the time.

That evening at dinner, Susan asked what we did earlier in the day. John eagerly told his mom, “I cleaned the garage!”

I corroborated his story, although we both knew who did most of the work. I didn’t ask John to help me clean the garage because I needed his help, but because I want to develop our relationship. I was grateful for a chore that gave me an opportunity to spend a couple hours with my son.

Thinking about this experience helped me to see the purpose of work: it is to develop a relationship with God. This was a huge insight for me. The business literature would call it a “paradigm shift.” I used to think that work was solely about making money. Now I see that money is only part of it.

Consider that God wants us to work. Even before the fall there was work to do in the Garden of Eden. And think about that story in Matthew (25:14-30) where the master gives talents to the three servants. The servants who go into the marketplace are the ones rewarded. Consider also that God provides. Think about that story where Jesus feeds thousands of people with five loaves of bread and two fish. It’s the only miracle (other than the resurrection) appearing in all four gospels.

But if God provides, why does he invite us to work? For a long time, I couldn’t see much more reason to work than compensation. Then I spent that afternoon working with my son in the garage. Now I get it.

God asks us to work for the same reason I asked John to help me —  to develop a relationship. God doesn’t need help from us to provide sufficiently, just like I didn’t need John’s help to clean the garage. But God asks for our help so we can get to know him better, just like I asked John to help me so we could get to know each other better. If you have ever worked hard on a project with colleagues at the office, you know how working together can build bonds between people. That same kind of bond can grow between you and God.

And just as John could truthfully answer that he cleaned the garage, we can claim to provide for ourselves with our work. As a child, John could get away with ignoring the help he got; as adults, we would be silly to ignore God’s hand in our work.

Working for the sake of a relationship is more satisfying than working solely for compensation.

Doubt me? Think of a cobbler, for example. He may make great shoes, but when the love of his life asks for a pair of shoes for her birthday, don’t you think he will work extra hard making that particular pair? Of course he will. He will work harder because of the relationship. And he will be happy about it! We can experience something similar when we work for the sake our relationship with God.

Contact Tom Bengtson through his web site, www.GEOprinciple.com, where he writes about living your faith in the workplace.

The story of the man who asks his two sons to help him in the vineyard is well known (Matthew 21:28-31). The first son says he will help but ultimately decides against it; the other son says he won’t help but changes his mind and reports for work. The obvious business application of this story says something about the importance of doing what you say you are going to do. If you make a promise, keep it.

People who have trouble aligning their actions with their words don’t typically set out to deceive. My experience is that people tend to tell their boss and colleagues what they want to hear. Nobody likes to bear bad news; few folks like confrontation. Midwesterners have a reputation for being “nice.” So we smile and nod when asked, but when it comes time to deliver, we may take off in the other direction.

Living your faith at work requires, at a minimum, honesty. God gave us a commandment against lying. In the book of James, we get the instruction: “Let your ‘yes’ mean ‘yes’ and your ‘no’ mean ‘no’” (5:12).

Authors James Gilmore and B. Joseph Pine make a compelling case for the need to align actions with words in their best-seller “Authenticity: What consumers really want.” Much of the top business literature articulates the commercial value of characteristics that many of us would call Christian. Jim Collins in “Good to Great” writes about the value of humility. Stephen M.R. Covey in “The Speed of Trust” writes about the value of trust. And most recently, Gilmore and Pine write about the benefits of rendering authenticity.

In a world where everything has been commoditized, it should come as no surprise that people are looking for things that are unique. Sadly, “authentic” is unique. There are too many avatars, too many ghostwriters, too many lip-synching singers, and too many doctored photos for people to be certain about what’s real anymore. Consumers suspect everything is fake and they yearn for something undeniably real.

I am convinced people seek authenticity to affirm their own humanity. People are tired of having their dignity debased with phony promises and copycat goods. People want authentic products delivered by sincere and genuine professionals. A company that delivers like this tells its customers they are worthy of being treated like human beings — recognizable by name, not just account number.

Gilmore and Pine write about authenticity on an organizational level, but ultimately it is people who deliver the experiences and products that customers will judge to be authentic or fake. Before anyone can deliver authenticity, they first have to know who they are. As an organization, be sure to take time to identify your strengths; make plans for delivering an experience that leverages those strengths. Be what you are and don’t try to be what you’re not.

On an individual level, deepening your faith is the most important way any of us can learn more about ourselves. As images of God, we learn about ourselves when we learn about God. With developed self-knowledge, you can assess whether your intentions match those of your employer; if so, you are positioned to deliver an authentic experience to customers. If not, some kind of adjustment needs to be made. Face the conflict directly; don’t avoid it like the agreeable son who failed to show up for work in that parable from Matthew’s Gospel. Say what you mean, present yourself honestly to others, and deliver the authenticity the market craves.

Contact Tom Bengtson through his website, www.GEOprinciple.com, where he writes about living the faith at work.