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Act: Achieve your purpose.
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Lessons in Mission The Sequel
Bob Ryan, About Purpose, Inc. ©2002
Two months ago, I shared with you the lessons I had learned from watching my wife and a fellow missionary prepare for a trip to Tanzania. I saw in their journey the steps for the successful launch of a new business venture:
- being enflamed by our mission
- due diligence and learning from the experts
- meticulous preparation and attention to quality, and finally,
- implementation with an unwavering expectation that our goals will be accomplished.
Well, the trip is over. The weary, but elated travelers are back. The mission was successful. And it is clear that they have established an ongoing, long-term relationship in the African “market.” Linda and Becky are still performing the all-important step of evaluation. Watching them, I have once again picked up some lessons that I believe all of us can use in our business. Bear with me as I share them with you.
Their trip took them to hospitals, churches, villages and “the bush.” Everywhere they went they saw people in need of healing from AIDS, cholera, yellow fever, blindness, deafness, and handicaps of all kinds. They saw people possessed by evil spirits, exhibiting some of the very effects we see in the movies here in the States.
And they saw healing. As they taught and preached, people learned and prayed. And people were healed. Some immediately. Some in short spans of time. Some over longer periods. But the evidence was overwhelming.
In debriefing this venture, we talked about how these outcomes are so plentiful in Third World countries like Tanzania and other places in which we have seen the same effects. Yet, we see so little of it here in The United States. Why?
In countries with prosperous economies, we have vast resources at our beck and call. In the area of health, we experience a symptom and can easily and readily reach for an inexpensive, over-the-counter solution for immediate relief. If the symptom persists, we have 24-hour access to clinics, doctors, pharmacists, urgent care centers, etc. With ecological problems, or socio-economic issues, we apply a quick fix with dollars, manpower or technology. Recent scandals in the business news should certainly convince us that there, too, we settle for short-term comforts over long-term, systemic solutions In poor, underdeveloped countries, there are often no resources. Rarely is there a doctor or any medicine. There is no money to apply to socio-economic problems. There is very little technology to relieve the effects of climate and ecology. Tragic as the circumstances in those countries are, I believe they force people to look deeper, to search for healing rather than band-aids, to treat the cause rather than the effects.
In these observations are two important lessons for entrepreneurs.
Lesson 1: Learn to live with the pain for a while. Don’t be so quick to cover the symptoms, but rather, encourage a thorough look at the negative effects you are experiencing. This will force you to focus on the longer-term solutions rather than the short-term fixes.
The people of Tanzania who experienced healing from disease and handicaps had no medical care to relieve their suffering. They were therefore open to a deeper, more permanent change in their spiritual and mental outlook. Whether you believe the resulting healing came from God or not is irrelevant to our discussion. The fact is that they found health, rather than temporary relief from symptoms.
A popular pain reliever advertises, “With just two of these, I can work all day long.” The picture shows some store owner shifting heavy boxes around the storeroom. My mind hears this: “With just two of these I can continue to subject my body to abuse for which it is ill prepared and from which it is likely to suffer life-long, negative consequences.” It would clearly be better for the store owner to embark on a long-term program of fitness and strength training to avoid damaging weak back muscles.
Too many business owners abuse lines of credit to avoid facing the reality that they are undercapitalized, overstaffed, or dealing with poor quality in products or services. Too many managers cut training or supplies to make their budgets balance in the short-term, not realizing they are seriously affecting the capability of their staff to deal with the longer-term problems facing the department.
Lesson 2: Always look first at the highest level of intervention. This will force you to focus on the cause rather than the effect.
Always examine the system for a flaw. Look at your own management techniques for a hint as to why things are the way they are. I know this is contrary to common practice, but you get paid the big bucks to take responsibility, not to point fingers.
Again, the pastors and churches in Tanzania have no illusions that the AIDS epidemic is simply a failure to use proper precautions during sex. Rather, the cause is perhaps a wholesale breakdown in moral responsibility and respectful behavior toward self and others.
I recently responded to an RFP from a firm that wanted a team builder to come in and “fix” the problems they are experiencing between two teams that are supposed to be cooperating, but are instead, competing. While I would love to take their money, I had to write back pointing out that team building would not solve the problem. They needed to look at the system that created the competition. It is likely that there is a problem in their incentive systems, their communications and their decision making protocols. In other words, management probably owns a great deal of the responsibility for the warring teams.
Summary: We have tremendous advantages in this country. Compared to most Third World countries, we have resources beyond measure. However, let us not be lulled into using those resources to mask our problems and duck our responsibilities to do the right things, to make the tough calls. While the people Linda and Becky met in Tanzania may be poor beyond our understanding, they are, after all is said and done, succeeding in conquering diseases that we still don’t understand.
It will take a lot more than one healing ministry to wipe out AIDS in Africa, but all of us here can make an immediate difference in the long-term health and viability of our companies by applying the lessons learned from this short mission trip.