Imagine going to the doctor because you know something is not quite right, but before any tests are performed or before any careful evaluation is made, you’re sent home with a stack of prescriptions.
Or, worse yet, imagine being told that there is absolutely nothing wrong with you, so you should just move on and forget about the symptoms you’re experiencing.
The scent wafts past your nose, and you recognize it instantly. A hamburger—juicy, slightly greasy, and smothered in cheese, onions, ketchup, and mustard. Your mouth starts to water, a reaction that happens without prompting. There are certain things in life, like our favorite foods, that we crave just because they look, taste, smell, or feel good. Other things we long for because without them, our lives are little more than lackluster.
I remember it as though it were yesterday. I was just a few months into my first job and was trying really hard to prove myself. I finalized an advertising project for one of our new products and gave the publication the “green light” to print our two-page ad.
Vision and mission statements guide most organizations and businesses. Very few, however, are backed with a set of operating guidelines that clearly spell out how they are to be lived in day-to-day activities.
Lack of these operating guidelines may be the reason why many businesses and organizations are stuck, despite having grand and compelling statements of vision and mission.
Southwest Airlines is a prime example of an organization that has profited from a set of very simple, very concrete and very consistent operating principles.
In the workplace, with its deadlines and unexpected turns of events, employees under pressure are at greater risk of making mistakes. These mistakes may stem from lack of experience or poor judgment.
Should you fire employees who make mistakes or forgive them? Jesus provided the ultimate example of forgiveness on the cross when He prayed on behalf of his killers, “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they do” (Luke 23:34 NKJV). This prayer was answered later when thousands of people in Jerusalem were saved on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:41).
