Steve Gandara

40 of 52 Voices October 14, 2014

The C3 Leaders devotion is a peer weekly reflection from business leaders related to their journey with Christ. Each weekly devotion will be written by a different author from among the C3 Leaders community.

As we go through this next year together, we pray that these words and reflections will encourage you in your relationship with Jesus Christ.

By Steve Gandara, Cofounder & Managing Director at Excellent Cultures

“And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own? (Matt 7:3 NLT)

As a C3 Leader, we spend a lot of time talking about culture and values. As a Business Culture & Leadership Coach for over 30 years, I also hear these words frequently as I am conversing with business leaders about their companies and the work they do.

The primary problems with discussions about business culture and values are that the words mean something different to everyone and we all think we have it figured out. Truthfully, people care less about the beautiful well written values, and more about how we live and interact with them. Often, our business and faith lives do not have much in common. We unintentionally preach one thing and live another.

Why is it so easy to do this even though none of us want to be hypocrites? When you study culture as a science, you quickly learn that it’s because our human nature default culture drive is “Self” even though Jesus taught us that it should be “Service”. My beloved wife of 42+ year’s most common correction of me is that I don’t practice what I preach at work when living at home. Man, those words sting, but they are also true. So, what do we do about it?

How about this for a solid 3-step process (for a bunch of type A process-driven business leaders):

1. Acknowledge right up front to ourselves and the folks around us that, though it be unintentional, we are in fact all hypocrites. (“Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye.” Matt 7:5 NLT)

2. Surround ourselves with people, relationships and colleagues who are brutally honest with us about our weaknesses in a constructive, non-critical way – and listen to them. (“How can you think of saying to your friend, ‘Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye?” Matt 7:4 NLT)

3. Get serious about doing what it takes to really get to know the author of those words in Matthew – person to person – instead of just quoting his words and values (“And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.” Matt 7:23 ESV)

~Steve

steveg@excellentcultures.com