Chapter 10
What For-Profit Companies
Should Seek to Do
in Serving Godly Purposes
And everyone who has left houses
or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or
lands,
for My name’s sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal
life.
But many who are first will be last, and the last first.
— Matthew 19:29-30 (NKJV)
The leaders of for-profit companies usually assume that
their organizations’ purposes are solely to increase earnings, cash flow, and
the value of the owners’ holdings. Most business schools teach these purposes
to be paramount as do many free-enterprise advocates. Without spelling out all
of the reasons for these purposes being helpful, let me note that a key underlying
assumption is that seeking more private gain will provide the most public
benefits. Otherwise, resources might be wasted in providing what few, other
than the leaders in the for-profit organization, really want or need.
While there’s a lot of wisdom in
such purposes and the related assumption, serving Godly purposes adds a number
of valuable performance dimensions that many for-profit companies neither
consider nor attempt to accomplish. Ironically, accomplishing more in these
Godly performance dimensions will also vastly increase private gain.
In this chapter, I briefly
explain the performance dimensions of accomplishing Godly purposes in
for-profit companies and the practical reasons why these dimensions are
important. Those who are interested in this subject should also read Chapters
10 and 11 of Adventures of an Optimist where
I discuss many of these performance dimensions for greatly accelerating Godly
improvements. If you would like a more general discussion of these performance
dimensions, read the blueprint for More Dimensions of Complementary Benefit
Breakthroughs located in Appendix B of Help
Wanted.
For-profit companies can be
valuable contributors to establishing and improving 2,000 percent nations
through providing more of the physical resources and support that make it
possible for individuals, families, and communities to more often live as God
intended while serving Him. In making these contributions, for-profit companies
have the potential to help improve health and to deliver physical resources
needed to serve God more fruitfully in quantities that will astound all those
who examine what these companies learn to accomplish, further testifying to the
greatness of His plans for improving our lives.
To simplify the explanations and
understanding of what needs to be done by for-profit companies, I have grouped
the performance dimensions of their Godly activities into the following topics:
• Accomplish exponentially more
of what is done today with no added resources.
• Exponentially increase stakeholder
benefits in ways that strengthen stakeholders’ abilities and encouragement to
cooperate with the company.
• Assist competitors in copying
the company’s activities to help increase the firm’s innovations by at least
twenty times.
• Profitably solve large social
problems to generate at least twenty times more value in social benefits
compared to the company’s increased earnings.
• Enable large numbers of
underemployed people to become highly productive (such as by improving
entrepreneurial capabilities to full effectiveness among those who are
partially prepared to succeed).
• Streamline the organization’s
use of the 2,000 percent solution process to speed up by at least twenty times
the rate and frequency of creating Godly breakthroughs.
By separating these purposes into different topics, I don’t
mean to suggest that for-profit companies should pick and choose among these
performance dimensions. Each dimension is an essential part of serving God’s
will and contributes to exponential increases in the Godly value of all the
other improvements. For most organizations, attempting to accomplish all the
performance dimensions at first will be too difficult a task. For that reason,
I have arranged these topics to reflect the ideal sequence for working on them.
As each performance dimension is accomplished, a for-profit company should then
begin seeking to achieve more on the next dimension. Let’s begin with
accomplishing exponentially more of what is done today with existing resources.
Accomplish Exponentially More of
What Is Done Today
with No Added Resources
In those days, the multitude being very
great and having nothing to eat,
Jesus called His disciples to Him and said to
them,
“I have compassion on the multitude,
because they have now continued with Me
three days and have nothing to eat.
And if I send them away hungry to their
own houses, they will faint on the way;
for some of them have come from afar.”
Then His disciples answered Him,
“How can one satisfy these people with
bread here in the wilderness?”
He asked them, “How many loaves do you
have?”
And they said, “Seven.”
So He commanded the multitude to sit
down on the ground.
And He took the seven loaves and gave
thanks, broke them and gave them
to His disciples to set before them; and they set
them before the
multitude.
They also had a few small fish; and
having blessed them,
He said to set them also before them.
So they ate and were filled,
and they took up seven large baskets of
leftover fragments.
— Mark 8:1-8 (NKJV)
As Mark 8:1-8 demonstrates, Jesus could accomplish a great
deal very quickly with few material resources. Notice that even the leftover
food was retained and measured, and its volume greatly exceeded the initial
amount of bread and fish provided to Jesus. Now, that’s a wonderful example of
being a careful steward of resources!
In the same way, for-profit
companies should be diligent in providing more with the resources of time,
money, assets, and effort that God has given them, making good use of even any
scraps that remain. To do so, four complementary performance enhancements are
required:
• Increase sales of their
offerings by at least twenty times while requiring no more resources.
• Reduce per-unit costs of
supplying, producing, delivering, purchasing, and using offerings for all
stakeholders by at least 96 percent.
• Shrink per-unit asset use (net
investments) for all stakeholders by at least 96 percent.
• Lower the cost of capital (the
cost of acquiring and keeping all the money used to operate) for all
stakeholders by at least 96 percent.
Increasing the sales of a for-profit company’s offerings by at least
twenty times while using no additional resources of time, money, assets, and
effort is just one way of serving many more people while also providing
more offerings to those who already use them. This performance dimension may
also be accomplished by providing the same volume of offerings with one
twenty-first or less of the current level of time, money, assets, and effort …
or any combination of more offerings being provided and using fewer resources
that increases by at least twenty times the combined productivity of all
resources used to provide the offerings.
To improve health and increase
the physical resources that God intends for those who live in a 2,000 percent
nation, for-profit companies will need to become more fruitful in producing
their current products and services. That’s because many people will otherwise
lack some of what God wants them to have. Some of such increased physical
fruitfulness may also contribute indirectly to enhancing spiritual, moral, and
emotional fruitfulness. Only God knows how it will happen, but He is faithful in
leading us to do what will release the results He wants. Certainly, the
provision of food described in Mark 8:1-8 is such an example of expanding
fruitfulness in many ways, as people were fed both physically with food and
spiritually through observing a miracle that demonstrated the authority of
Jesus’ teachings.
It’s not enough just to become
more productive by using the same or fewer resources to make many more existing
offerings available. The out-of-pocket
costs of these offerings must also become quite small for all stakeholders in
supplying, producing, providing, purchasing, and using the offerings. Otherwise,
those who produce the offerings won’t be able to afford to provide more, and
many of those who need the offerings will not be able to purchase and to use
them. At a minimum, accomplishing this performance dimension of a for-profit
company’s Godly potential for fruitfulness greatly enhances the availability
and affordability of offerings needed for supporting health and for providing
necessary physical resources.
The fruitfulness dimension of reducing the assets required for
supplying, producing, providing, and using offerings is necessary for all
stakeholders to benefit from the enhanced availability of the offerings. If
asset needs aren’t reduced, then many of the potential Godly benefits will be
lost. For instance, reducing the cost of fuel for a vehicle by 96 percent won’t
help someone who cannot afford to acquire, to lease, or to rent any vehicle!
Even with such vast increases in fruitfulness for making offerings
available, creating and using some offerings will require more financial
resources than some stakeholders have, and these stakeholders will first need
to build their savings or to borrow money. In most parts of the world,
purchasing housing demonstrates the importance of this performance dimension.
If the necessary funds can be saved much more rapidly or acquired at a tiny
fraction of today’s costs, then any items that require large financial
resources can be acquired much sooner, providing many other benefits. As an
example of serving multiple dimensions of potential benefits, Habitat for
Humanity projects have shown that simultaneously improving all the housing in a neighborhood where poor people live helps
upgrade the spiritual and moral development of all neighborhood families, while improving only one home in a
neighborhood has a much smaller effect on just the one family that gains
spiritual and moral benefits as a result.
Combining these four performance
dimensions is important to focusing for-profit companies on becoming as
fruitful as God intends for them to be. After succeeding, the ultimate increase
in providing offerings for a nation’s people can be as breathtaking as when
Jesus took just seven loaves and a few fish and multiplied them to feed
thousands of hungry listeners. When God is given credit by companies for their
remarkable fruitfulness in providing these benefits, He will be glorified to
all who are touched by this great increase.
That such accomplishments should
occur is much easier said than done. For instance, while many know that Jesus
was able to multiply loaves and fishes to feed multitudes, I don’t know of
anyone else who has ever miraculously done so. Lest you feel lost in knowing
what to do next in accomplishing these performance improvements through natural
means while drawing on supernatural guidance, let me direct you to some books produced
by the 400 Year Project that address how for-profit companies can increase
their productivity in these dimensions by at least twenty times, especially in
expanding sales and markets, reducing costs, and eliminating assets: The 2,000 Percent Solution, The 2,000 Percent Solution Workbook, The Ultimate Competitive Advantage, The 2,000 Percent Squared Solution, and Business Basics. The Billionaire
Entrepreneurs’ Master Mind has also done extensive work on how to reduce the
cost of capital, and lessons based on that work for how to do so are available
for purchase. Contact me at askdonmitchell@yahoo.com with any questions you
have.
Let’s look next at exponentially
increasing stakeholder benefits in ways that strengthen stakeholders’ abilities
and encouragement to cooperate with the company.
Exponentially Increase Stakeholder Benefits
in Ways That Strengthen Stakeholders’ Abilities
and Encouragement to Cooperate with the Company
So all the men of Israel were gathered against the
city,
united together as one man.
— Judges 20:11 (NKJV)
It’s one thing to lower the cost of supplying, producing,
providing, acquiring, and using an offering for everyone from suppliers to
customers and end users, but it’s quite another thing to also make the same
offering twenty times more beneficial to all those who supply, produce, make
available, purchase, and use the same offering. The combined effect of the cost
reductions and benefit increases is to make an offering at least 400 times more
beneficial to all stakeholders.
Most for-profit companies limit
themselves to considering just a few ways of improving offerings that will lead
to somewhat more of them being purchased while also increasing near-term
profits, the stream of cash generated, and the value of owners’ stakes in the
firm. That perspective is quite inadequate for increasing stakeholder benefits
to their fullest potential for serving God in the ways He wants and for
becoming a more profitable company.
One reason such opportunities are
missed is due to leaders failing to consider how helpful it is to have more of
God’s support for their activities as well as for all stakeholders to feel much
more encouraged to cooperate with the company. The added effectiveness that
flows from the support of both sources is more than enough to multiply benefits
by exponential amounts and also to expand by a similar degree profits and other
traditional measures of business performance.
The Bible often advocates unity,
pointing out that division leads to disaster. Yet many believers blithely
assume that they should separate their business decisions from seeking God’s
support and that of the stakeholders who so importantly contribute to their
company’s performance. Consider as an example how many organizations have
prospered while they were thought by stakeholders to be serving Godly purposes
… and how quickly the same firms collapsed when it became apparent that selfish
interests of a few were, in fact, trampling on God’s and everyone else’s
interests.
Keeping the importance of unity
in mind, let’s look at how to make such benefit breakthroughs. For the right
changes, first be sure to consider all stakeholders and to look for much larger
benefit gains than for-profit companies typically do. While such a search may
seem overwhelmingly difficult at first, experience shows that achieving that
kind of a result may not, in fact, be especially challenging for those who
persevere while engaging in the appropriate steps.
Here’s an example: Think about
educating people in how to gain more benefits from an offering. While most
people don’t even read the directions for using a newly purchased offering,
providing major benefits from learning more about an offering’s use can be
enough incentive to gain almost anyone’s attention. For instance, a van purchase
might come with a book that describes how to start high-income, part-time
businesses that require such a vehicle along with membership in a Web portal
that provides leads for meeting those who wish to purchase such services.
Employees of for-profit companies might be provided with classes for how to
establish profitable companies to supply their current employers. Suppliers
could be presented with research about how making more beneficial components or
providing more helpful services could lead them to open major new markets and
to enjoy increased profits.
Here’s another useful
perspective: Beyond educating people about using an offering, look at how
valuable benefits could be greatly multiplied by improving the offering. The
development of the iPod (Apple’s portable music player) and the iTunes store
(Apple’s Web site for low-cost music downloads) demonstrates this concept. When
Apple was developing the iPod, the company also looked into how to reduce the
cost of acquiring music and making the process of doing so easier, faster, and
with better sound quality. By combining superior hardware and software with a
new way of compensating music producers, the potential for enjoying mobile
listening soared to previously unanticipated levels while greatly reducing user
costs (by making single songs inexpensively available and slashing the time
need to download and to find music on the player).
After educating people and
improving the offering, identify valuable benefits people want that aren’t yet
available and find ways to provide these benefits. As an example, consider
Apple’s approach to interoperability of its electronic devices. People often
use the same electronic material on many different devices, from desktop
computers, to laptop computers, to notebook computers, to portable recording
devices, to mobile telephones. Long before electronic interoperability was so
important, Apple designed its iMacs (desktop computers), MacBooks (laptop
computers), iPods, iPhones, iPads (tablet computers), and iTunes store to provide
easy ways for an individual to access the same software and audio and video
recordings on any of Apple’s devices. As a result, more could be accomplished
by users, and the costs of acquiring such material were reduced by eliminating
the need for multiple copies.
In many cases, a for-profit
company will initially lack the knowledge to be able to identify and to create
so many valuable improvements. A wise company will seek world-class partners
and suppliers whose complementary skills make it much easier to conceptualize
and to provide benefit breakthroughs. In addition, public contests conducted
over the Internet can attract talented people and outstanding solutions, as
Goldcorp demonstrated in finding better ways to prospect for gold (See The Ultimate Competitive Advantage for
more information.) and as Procter & Gamble has shown in accelerating its
profitable new product developments.
I further recommend that
for-profit companies look into ways that new classes of benefits can be
developed that such organizations usually overlook. For instance, if users are
struggling with moral and spiritual issues while employing an offering (for
example, a potentially addictive, but legal, product such as a prescription
painkiller), the offering provider could also offer assistance in strengthening
and encouraging those who would like to improve their moral and spiritual
fruitfulness. Here’s a simple example. A help page on an Internet site might
also include information for those with desires to improve morally and spiritually,
potentially including Bible verses, testimonies, and best practices from those
who have made excellent moral and spiritual progress while using the offering.
Let’s now shift our attention to
assisting competitors in copying the company’s activities and offerings to help
increase a firm’s innovativeness by at least twenty times.
Assist Competitors in Copying the Company’s
Activities
to Help Increase the Firm’s Innovations
by at Least Twenty Times
And there, in the presence of the
children of Israel,
he wrote on the stones a copy of the law
of Moses,
which he had written.
— Joshua 8:32 (NKJV)
Copying has a justifiably bad reputation in some circles. If
you are discovered to have copied another student’s paper in school, you will
receive a failing grade and may incur punishment. If you copy and publish what
someone else wrote without giving the author appropriate credit, you might even
be sued. Take a competitor’s patent-protected offering and copy it, and your
competitor will probably use legal action to try to stop you from making your
offering available. All of these examples have in common the idea of
encouraging individuals and organizations to do their own work and to be
respectful of what others have done so that the credit and profits due to the
innovators will not be diluted.
As Joshua 8:32 indicates,
sometimes copying can be quite a good thing, such as when we copy Scripture to
remind us of what God wants us to do. When accurately done, that copying is
clearly preferable to people making up their own spiritual doctrines, based on
nothing more than their own personal preferences. Similarly, there are other
occasions when protecting originality doesn’t serve God’s purposes.
In business, fully protected
originality can have two negative social consequences:
1. A superior solution from an
innovative for-profit company without competition will generate large increases
in sales, profits, cash flow, and capital cost reductions. Most such
organizations will choose to take it easy, rather than pressing forward to make
even more substantial and valuable improvements. As a consequence, innovation
may actually be reduced within what have been the most innovative
organizations.
2. If competitors may not copy
and the provider of a superior solution isn’t aggressive in making its
offerings more available by expanding capacity and reducing costs and prices,
most people in the world may never benefit from the innovation.
These limitations on the usefulness of originality are
defended by some in noting that innovators need large financial rewards to
enable them to take the risks inherent in developing much better solutions and
that most such restrictions on copying are limited in time by the duration of
patent or copyright protection. At some point, all innovation that’s either
patented or copyrighted will, of course, be available for unlimited copying by
anyone.
God doesn’t look at innovation
that way. After all, He provides the resources and inspiration that lead to
such “originality.” When we seek to accomplish His purposes, He doesn’t hold
back His power, knowledge, and presence from helping us. After we have been
helped by Him in such unlimited ways, why should we hold back access to His
children for what He has provided? It’s a lot like being forgiven by God of our
sins in gaining Salvation, but then not forgiving those who wrong us. Jesus
told parables disapproving of such behavior.
In addition, research has shown
that most innovative activities are primarily conducted by people for the joy
of doing them, rather than with an eye on obtaining financial gain. When
monetary incentives are offered to encourage creativity in making most kinds of
profitable breakthroughs, the result is usually to reduce the rate of and
productivity of innovation.
Consider, by contrast, that
anyone who is first to market with a major innovation will also continue to
benefit as a result of this accomplishments with customers and other
stakeholders for many years to come. Consequently, the “no copy” period isn’t
necessary to earning an attractive financial return for many kinds of
innovative offerings and improvements.
Ultimately, God wants us to
realize that, much like the personal trials that He sends to help increase our
faith and to make us more fruitful for Him, having competitors who can be
relied on to quickly copy and to begin offering our innovations is a great
encouragement for innovators to make still larger, more frequent, and more
substantial improvements.
Naturally, a for-profit company
can choose to gain legal protection for its innovations and then permit
competitors to copy based on its own terms and timing for licenses. Done
properly, such controlled permission to copy can accelerate market growth and
increase profitability for innovators while making industry offerings available
to many more people at lower costs … and with the addition of desirable
improvements.
Innovative for-profit companies
that open the doors to permitting copying should organize their development
efforts to make more frequent and substantial innovations. Such an organization
will be highly attractive to talented people who want to participate in as much
innovation as possible, helping to increase a company’s innovative capacity. A
company that becomes successful enough in this regard can, at some point,
consider not seeking any legal protection for its innovations, relying,
instead, on its innovative nimbleness and legitimate concern about being
overtaken by copiers.
Let’s now consider profitably
solving large social problems to generate at least twenty times more value in
social benefits compared to the company’s increased earnings.
Profitably Solve Large Social Problems
to Generate at Least Twenty Times
More Value in Social Benefits
Compared to the Company’s Increased Earnings
Blessed be the Lord,
Who daily loads
us with
benefits,
The God of our salvation!
— Psalm 68:19 (NKJV)
Many people disagree with a for-profit company seeking to
solve any social problems, seeing this activity as being outside of what
companies can succeed in accomplishing. While that argument often has great
validity for many for-profit companies, it’s less valid for an organization
that has already succeeded in so many dimensions of exponentially expanding
Godly fruitfulness with His assistance.
Of course, no for-profit
organization should seek to solve any large social problems for which it lacks
relevant skills, knowledge, or expertise. Care should be taken to engage just
in solving large social problems that an organization should have the ability
to accomplish with the resources it has and can reasonably expect to obtain.
Here’s an example of what I mean
about how for-profit companies might solve large social problems: Gold mining
often involves using arsenic in desert locales for separating gold from the
ore, potentially diverting a lot of scarce groundwater for the purpose and
possibly leading to dangerous groundwater contamination. While a gold mining
company might not have the expertise to find less dangerous and more effective
substitutes for the arsenic extraction process, such a mining firm would
certainly know a lot about the types of ore from which it needs to extract
gold. By working with a knowledgeable organization about how to safely and
inexpensively separate different types of materials from one another, improved
methods could eventually be developed. Such a search might also involve online
competitions to gain valuable solutions from experts outside the industry who
have related technical knowledge and sincere interests in making the
improvement. Since gold-mining companies already use such contests to find more
gold, they should be in a good position to conduct online contests to reduce or
to replace arsenic with methods that present less risk of harm. If the improved
process causes less human and environmental damage, it will probably be less
expensive … thus adding to the profit to be gained from solving this
significant problem.
Many large social problems are
just like that: The costs of the problem are enormous. Anyone who can find a
better alternative can earn profits from the better way, as well as potentially
seeing its own operations become larger and more profitable.
One of my favorite examples of
this observation involves a large Japanese company that I won’t name. For
decades, this organization manufactured a product that required disposing of
over 90 percent of its ingredients as waste. Over time, a student of mine
changed the company’s perspective so that this waste was seen, instead, as an
ingredient to be turned into quite different products. When the firm succeeded
with upgrading its waste into “products,” its sales and profits grew.
Having done well with one sort of
waste, the same organization began looking for other for-profit companies that were
producing more waste than products. The student’s organization then developed
custom solutions for reducing others’ waste and reusing whatever could not be
eliminated by converting it into some higher-value form. The organization
quickly expanded its expertise to be able to work in this way for a large
number of industries that were quite different from its parent company’s main
activities.
Notice how expertise in one
industry can quickly lead to becoming expert in developing relevant innovations
in other industries. That’s just one of the many valuable benefits of creating
superior processes for innovation, something that few organizations do now.
For-profit companies can also
avoid the risk of making expensive mistakes by keeping their innovative
activities on limited budgets until the solutions prove themselves. Partnering
with outstanding organizations can greatly increase the likelihood of success.
The example described in Chapter 9 of Groupe Danone’s venture with the Grameen
Bank to create a lower-cost, nutritious yogurt snack for youngsters shows how a
great deal of innovation to solve social problems can be accomplished with a
relatively small investment of time, money, and effort by a for-profit company.
Some will argue that such
improvements need to be conducted by the government so that all interests are
fairly considered. If you look closely, you’ll notice that most government
programs to solve social problems are actually conducted by for-profit
companies under contracts to government entities. I think this point about the
value of government leadership should be, instead, redirected to address the
extent and degree to which regulation and supervision are required to avoid
harm in finding and implementing improved solutions. If a for-profit company’s
leaders are operating under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, it’s hard for me
to understand what further improvements government supervision or regulation
can bring. As some painful experiences have shown, it’s fairly easy for elected
governments to become subservient to for-profit companies that are merely
seeking to feather their nests at public expense and to gain advantages from
being filled with large campaign contributors. Whatever route you follow for
solving large social problems, be careful to focus on social benefits rather
than on some selfish interest.
Let’s look next at enabling large
numbers of underemployed people to become highly productive.
Enable Large Numbers of Underemployed People
to Become Highly Productive
May the LORD make His people a hundred
times more than they are.
— 1 Chronicles 21:3 (NKJV)
Let me explain what I mean by “underemployed” people.
Clearly, this description applies to those who lack any paying work, are
capable of doing work, and would like to work. In addition, underemployed
people include those who have stopped looking for work because they have
searched in vain for so long. These latter individuals are often excluded from
“official” unemployment statistics. Further, there are people who would like to
work more hours a week than they do now, but cannot find additional work. I
consider these people to be underemployed as well.
You probably expected me to
mention all those individuals. Did you also expect me to mention those who are
working at jobs that don’t fully utilize what they could do? I well remember
stories of Ph.D. graduates driving taxi cabs during the difficult economic
times near the end of the Vietnam War. Immigrants often initially lack the
language skills to do the kind of work they performed well in their native
lands. As a result, some may find themselves peeling potatoes because they
can’t afford to pay for classes to gain the necessary language skills and
licensing required to resume their previous occupations. In the United States,
recent college graduates are often underemployed in such ways due to limited
numbers of entry-level jobs in their educational fields at the time of this
writing.
Let me also mention as
underemployed those whose fundamental skills could be quickly upgraded to make
them much more fruitful for the Lord. Research my students have conducted into
enabling greater entrepreneurial success in Africa
clearly shows that spending a few hundred dollars and a few dozen hours of
study can turn a marginally successful sole proprietor into the profitable head
of a much larger organization that trains and employs several people. As a
result, not only do entrepreneurs become more highly productive, but so do
those the more productive entrepreneurs hire and train.
For-profit companies can best
accomplish such results by designing new business models that enable
underemployed people to have successful small businesses and jobs. Seeking to
accomplish such a result was part of the purpose for the Groupe Danone venture
with the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh:
to create work for dairy farmers, yogurt production workers, and women who sell
and distribute the yogurt on a part-time basis. If this business model were to
be expanded in all places where more nutritious snacks are needed for
low-income youngsters, the eventual employment could be counted in the
millions. Most of these people are now either unemployed or greatly
underemployed.
While many companies generously
donate funds to their own foundations for community groups that serve such
purposes, applying their innovative talents would often accomplish a lot more
in less time and at a much lower cost. I invite for-profit company leaders to
pray about this subject to determine what the right balance is between donating
money and investing innovative efforts to help underemployed people.
By enhancing someone’s employment
potential into becoming productive in personally satisfying ways, it’s likely
that the person’s family will provide for members of the next generation so
they will receive the education and direction to engage in the right
opportunities to more completely fulfill their potentials as well.
While I know of no research on
this point, I also wonder if small enterprises that have been established as
part of deliberate efforts to reduce underemployment may not also become engaged
in providing or upgrading missing skills of their employees. If an innovative
for-profit company provides a model for or becomes a template for doing so, I
assume that many of those who are helped by that company would feel encouraged
to apply such successful models and templates for reducing underemployment
through their own efforts.
I also expect that such practices
might rapidly spread from one nation to neighboring nations. Under such
circumstances, it would be easier for interested people to visit and to learn
about successful innovations for reducing underemployment. In addition, a
reasonably nearby success will also encourage more people to believe it’s
possible to succeed. Further, if the copying organization runs into trouble, it
can more easily seek help from the innovator. The 400 Year Project intends to
have regional coordinators in place providing information and support to the
leaders of several nations seeking to establish and to increase 2,000 percent
nations, adding another strong resource for aiding such improvements.
Finally, then, let’s discuss
streamlining the organization’s use of the 2,000 percent solution process to
speed up by at least twenty times the rate and frequency of creating Godly
breakthroughs.
Streamline the Organization’s Use of
the 2,000 Percent Solution Process
to Speed Up by at Least Twenty Times
the Rate and Frequency of Creating Godly
Breakthroughs
Now David was sitting between the two
gates.
And the watchman went up to the roof
over the gate, to the wall,
lifted his eyes and looked, and there
was a man, running alone.
Then the watchman cried out and told the
king.
And the king said, “If he is alone, there is news in his
mouth.”
And he came rapidly and drew near.
Then the watchman saw another man running,
and the watchman called to the
gatekeeper and said,
“There is another man, running
alone!”
And the king said, “He also brings news.”
— 2 Samuel 18:24-26 (NKJV)
Accelerating the rate of making Godly breakthroughs is a
subject that I have often addressed in preceding 400 Year Project books. I’ll
assume you’ve read about that point elsewhere (or soon will) and just provide
here an overview of those recommendations.
As the example of two messengers
approaching King David shows, one way to accelerate making breakthroughs is to
have more than one group of people working on the same breakthrough. While this
approach may seem like a waste of effort, realize that the payoff from making
such a breakthrough is enormous compared to the costs. If the potential rewards
and importance of the breakthrough are great enough, an organization can easily
afford to have even more than two groups working independently of one another
to achieve it.
In addition, my research has
shown that there need be no delay between finishing one breakthrough and
starting to work on a second breakthrough for the same activity. Students have
been able to produce the second breakthrough right after finishing the first
one, with no more time, money, and effort than in accomplishing the first one.
It’s as though their minds were opened to previously unseen possibilities by
being able to start from the vantage point of having seen the first solution.
This is a particularly important point because many people fail to ever seek a
second breakthrough in the same activity.
Next, an organization can simply
increase the number of different breakthroughs that it is working on at the
same time. Many organizations work on only one. I see no reason why most
sizeable organizations could not be engaged in developing ten or more
breakthroughs at once. Most small organizations could probably work on at least
two at a time.
After that, consider that one of
the biggest challenges in making breakthroughs for most organizations is
identifying the future best practice. This research is time consuming because
the answer is usually found outside of an organization’s own industry.
Consequently, quite good research is required to identify the greatest
accomplishments in comparable circumstances. Because of this challenge, I
recommend that organizations wanting to accelerate making breakthroughs either
engage professionals to help them with this work or specialize an internal
group to develop and to track a large number of future best practices that
might be relevant to the breakthroughs that an organization wishes to make.
Finally, create a formal training
program for those who will work on making breakthroughs. Take those in training
through the solutions that their own organization has already created and ask
them seek to locate another breakthrough in the same kind of performance for
that area. For the training, an organization can rely on certified tutors in
making breakthroughs or create an in-house capability through engaging in a
train-the-trainer program. In either case, there’s tremendous potential in
having more people understand and have experience in making breakthroughs.
Building on this last point, in
some limited experiments it has worked well to have teams of up to sixteen
people work on making a given breakthrough. If many of the people on a team
have much different knowledge, experiences, and perspectives, such teams can be
expected to be unusually productive as long as communications are focused on
the stage of activity the process requires.
As you can see from looking at
all these wonderful opportunities, Godly breakthroughs should abound from
for-profit companies. While I didn’t mention applying any of these perspectives
to other types of organizations, in many cases such perspectives may lead to
reaching full fruitfulness.
In Chapter 11, we turn our
attention to what activities independent professionals who work with
organizations should make their top priority.
Copyright
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Scripture
quotations marked (NKJV)
are taken
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© 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.
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