Video Transcript: "Competition"

What is the biblical standard for how we ought to be thinking about competition  in the business world? What does the Bible say about competition? Another way of asking that question is, is competition and business? Christ, like I think this  quote by GK Chesterton really sums up the way that we ought to think about  competing per se in the business world. The true soldier fights not because he  hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him. So it's  not about again, going back to that humanistic approach to the business world.  It's not about taking from somebody else's chip stack. You know, as Albert Carr  in his article on is business bluffing. Ethical business is not, from a biblical  standpoint, is not about it's not like a poker game where you're just there's a  zero sum game where you're trying to take from everybody else's chip stack so  you can win. It's about loving what you're defending. It's about loving who you're  providing for. Again, going back to that kingly aspect of our royal priesthood, it's  about being able to provide jobs for people. This is about being able to provide  for our employees. It's about having a place where we can come, where we can  represent Jesus, as priests, as as representatives of God. It's not about trying to take from other people. It's not about trying to drive the competitors in the  ground, like some of the language that we've heard from some of the most well  respected CEOs over the last several decades, that that would just have us  believe that it's all about just, you know, grinding your competitors into the  ground Last Man Standing, really a Darwinian approach to to business and and  just sort of survival of the fittest, dog eat dog, which, by the way, when's last time you saw a dog eat a dog, it just doesn't, doesn't happen. It's not the way we  were. We were made. We were made to serve people. We were made to love  people and, I'll remind you that discipleship is the goal. So the idea that I'm just  going to compete with, you know, the other companies in my industry, is very  short sighted. It's very small thinking, because we're not just called to compete,  we're called to set the standard for our industry, and so implied in being a  standard setter and an industry leader is that you are leading, that you are out in front, not in a way that you're just sort of lording it over or trying To take away  from the other companies, because you realize that there's plenty to go around,  and that if you're in such a crowded industry, I mean, hey, you know, definitely  give it. Give it all you've got. But sometimes when you're, I mean, when you're  innovating, you're really in a league of your own, because nobody and then  when the ME TOO players come in there and they try to duplicate what you're  doing, you know, their R and D programs are rip off and duplicate, then, you  know, you just continue to do that restorative innovation. And you always end up leading your industry, you always end up in a league of your own. You know, I  noticed this with Chick fil A. For those of you who aren't familiar with Chick fil A,  maybe you live in other parts of the world. Chick fil A is one of the most  incredible Fast Food Drive Thru restaurants my family. I love taking my family  there and and they're just known for their incredible service. Every time you say 

thank you for your food or thank you for, you know, a favor that they've done for  you. You know they give you your drink or they give you a condiment or  whatever it is, and you say, Thank you, what do they say? If you've been to a  Chick fil A, you know exactly what they say every time they're trained to say, My  pleasure, it's my pleasure, not no problem. You know you're not that much of an  inconvenience. No, they say it's my pleasure to serve you, because it's so  ingrained in their competition. But I mean among their innovations, and you just  don't see this in fast food restaurants, where you can order on an on a mobile  app and your foods ready for you by the time you get there that they in the drive  through. You know you're used to having to just wait there and wait your turn to  get up to the intercom and. And you never actually talk to see a human being  until you get to the actual drive thru window. But pretty much every Chick fil A  I've been to for at least the past probably two years, the I've been met by a  human being in the while I was in the line that came up to me, they had a card  swiper on their hip, and they were just able to take my car, take my order right  there while I was in the drive through. I mean, they've had to start building extra  canopies out in the drive through to take care of their workers so that they don't  get, you know, too much sun to get too hot or too cold or rained on whatever out there. But it's just one of the many innovations that they I mean, one of the most  amazing innovations that I think is just so taken for granted in the fast food  industry is that they have kind workers. They're at least trained to be kind, even  if they're not kind people, you wouldn't know it, but they're trained that whenever they're going to interact with a customer, that that customer actually feels like  they're appreciated, that the Chick fil A worker actually wants them to be there.  Unlike a lot of other fast food and restaurants that I've been to, probably you've  been to, where the person just it's obvious whether they're having a bad day,  you know, they're just having a rough time at home, whatever it is, but they bring all that to work with them, and it shows, and a lot of it is just a lack of a lack of  training and a culture that just doesn't really value making customers feel  appreciated and feel valued and feel like they're not an inconvenience, or feel  like there's that somehow they're there for the employee versus the employee  being there to serve the customer. And so Chick fil A is just one of those shining  examples of of a company that is setting the standard, and at the same time,  they're just blowing out the competition. And by the way, they're only open six  days a week, they're closed on Sundays, because that's been one of the values  of the company's founder since the beginning, was that they would allow their  employees to be off on Sunday so that they could be with their family. And so  competition isn't just about blowing out, you know, it's not just it's not just about  blowing out your your other people in your industry. It's about setting the  standard for the companies in your industry. Real entrepreneurs are driven by  love, not anger and and so this is this is the difference in coming into business  with that disruptive approach, that humanistic worldview, where I'm just going to 

try to take from other people, I'm going to try to just drive the competition into the ground, drive them out of business, but that we're driven by love and truly driven by a desire to set the standard. And so that's one of the reasons why, in my  particular business, I don't talk about my competitors. I don't I don't talk about, I  certainly don't mention them by name. I mean, well, I'll certainly talk about some  of the problems in our industry. I'm not going to drive out any individual, any  individual players in in our industry, even though I know who they are, but  because I love them, and I love the leaders of those companies. And I really  want, I don't want to add in any way to the the stigma against our industry and  from the authors that have been taken advantage of and have had to pay just  extraordinary, I mean, really, extortionary amounts of money in order to get their  book into print, I think is just, it's just unethical, but, but I try to love on my  industry. I try to love the other companies. And because I'm not driven by anger,  I'm truly driven by love in our in our business, and I think that's the way that  we're all called to operate the compete, because the competition are not the  other players in your industry. The competition are the problems of the world.  And this brings us back to those examples of restorative innovation that I shared in the previous video, because we're not called to be disruptive innovators.  We're called to be restorative innovators, providing remedies for human  illnesses or illiteracy. Perhaps maybe your calling for your business is to fill gaps in customer service or to help save. The precious time that people are wasting in their daily lives. Maybe your calling for your organization is to restore human  dignity where it seems to have been degraded. Maybe it's promoting the  opportunity to experience greater happiness and fulfillment in life. And there are  so many ways to be restorative innovators, because we're not just called to  compete or just drive our the other competitors in our industry out of out of  business. We are called to set the standard. The standard is Jesus, though it's  the ways of God, and you can't go wrong in holding those up, because truly,  that's what discipleship is about, is setting the standard see in the next video