As a young man, I faced a career decision that set the path for the rest of my life. I found myself in a place where I had three choices for employment: After a few years as a teacher, I could return to education. Or I could enter into the world of non-profit work, or I could step into the business world and take a position as a professional salesperson.
At the time I was mostly interested in the details: Income, workload and benefits. It never occurred to me that I was making a decision that would have life-long consequences on my character and my development as a human being.
I chose the sales position. Prodded, I believe, by divine intervention.
At this point in my career, with the benefit of retrospective clarity, I believe that decision to choose a career in business had a great deal to do with the kind of person I became, the character that I would eventually develop, and the destiny I would embrace. I am not unique in that. There is something about the pressures and dynamics of the world of business that shapes the character of everyone who makes a living from it.
Let me explain. In business, we must produce. We must learn what is expected of us and discipline ourselves to behave in ways that meet those expectations. If we don’t have the necessary skills, we need to acquire them. If we don’t have the right attitudes, we need to change them. If we don’t have the right work ethic, we need to modify that. We must be productive, or we won’t last long.
Granted, there may be pockets in the folds of larger businesses where a person or group can get by under the radar screen, contributing little to the corporate purpose and dragging down the company’s profit and purpose. But these are the exceptions and typically temporary. Sooner or later the demand to produce catches up with even the most invisible.
This pressure to produce is what sets business off from any other career choice. While I acknowledge that there are mature, fully developed people in every profession, the need to produce in business is far more acute and sets it off from the other choices.
The pressures that business places on the people within it to become more, to reach their potential while contributing to the greater good, may be part of the reason why the Apostle Paul, writing in the book of 2 Thessalonians said this: “if anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat, either. ”
It is not just a matter of ‘going to work’, it is a matter of putting ourselves into a position that pressures us to produce positive character traits that mark our development as a human being. If we are going to be successful in the business world, we must become more than we are now. The demand to be productive means that we must become better than we were before. The demands of business are not going to leave us alone to play video games all day or wallow in the social media swamp.
Business demands that we follow an authority’s directions. It is unfortunate if we never acquired that discipline as a child. We will need to add it to our character if we are going to work. Lines of authority are necessary for order in a society, whether it is a family, a country or a business. Business demands that we understand and follow those who are in authority over us.
Business requires us to create self-discipline. We may want to sleep in every day, but – surprise – we won’t have a job if we don’t get up on time. We may want to take a 90-minute lunch and have a beer over it. We won’t last long with that habit.
In addition to creating an environment that produces a positive character, business demands that we learn to get along with our fellow man. We work with other people; either colleagues, customers or vendors, and we need to be able to create relationships, understand people, communicate with them and at times influence them. These are highly developed character traits that will serve us well way beyond our on-the-job applications.
Much has been written about the impact of the pandemic-induced isolation on the relationship- building skills of not only young employees, but also school children. The year without the typical business-related interaction injured the relationship building skills of an entire generation.
In the world of business, we learn that there are all kinds of people in this world, with an unlimited number of backstories, values, aspirations and idiosyncrasies, and we need to adjust to them. This is a good thing to learn, valuable not only for the individual but for the glue that holds families and societies together. Perhaps a few years in the work force will transform the snowflakes who demand ‘safe spaces’ in college.
Business promotes rational thinking. In a society in which it seems that most opinions and positions are derived at by mimicking the vocal crowd — to actually have a well-thought out, defendable position seems like an exception. All around us we see that many people merely mimic what those in his/her tribe proclaim without stopping to think about it. That may feel good in our personal lives, but emotional, non-thinking behavior won’t get us far in the business world. We’ll need to make decisions. Those decisions have consequences for us and those around us and are always better made when some critical thinking is applied.
The world of business is unique in that it promotes the growth and development of a person’s character far more than the other options. In a culture that has shattered into a thousand disparate pieces, where it is difficult to find anything to bring us together, business just may be the epoxy that develops our character and holds us together.
I am part of an effort to award a grant every year to a Christian college student studying to be a professional salesperson. In accessing a candidate’s application, I always look for experience in the business world. Even a year or so of part-time work will instill many of the character traits a young person needs to live a fulfilled and successful life.
That is probably part of the reason that work is such an integral aspect of the human condition. In the earliest moments of creation, when God formed Adam and placed him in the Garden of Eden, he gave him a job, “To work it and take care of it.” Genesis 3: 15
That was a lifetime of work – dictated by an all-wise heavenly being for the benefit of his creation.
That has not changed.
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