Preparing Your Team for God’s Business Growth Plan
Updated: May 5, 2021
I don’t have a great reputation for finding and keeping a great team. Since 2005, I’ve had dozens of people come in and out of Creative Complex.
I used to think it was my lack of leadership skills. I would beat myself up for not having the right process or product. I wasn’t a Donald Trump, I didn’t bully my people.
In hindsight, I just don’t think the vision or goals were strong enough to create the glue that keeps teams together and propels them into said goals.
But in the middle of 2015, I began refining my USP (unique selling proposition), I put God as my CEO, and I earnestly sought out His purpose for my life and my business. I received confirmation over and over that the new “why” for my business was a strong one, and not just from clients. My team was also beginning to see and understand the bigger calling our business served, and they were seeing the clients needed to prove it.
When my team latched on, I knew it was time to kick the business into overdrive and implement a business growth plan.
Some of us have been burnt in the past by bad experiences with hiring and firing. We’re scared to repeat the same cycle we’ve been through in the past, scared to let people down, let them go again.
Or we had a team and we grew a company, but couldn’t sustain the growth and things have plateaued and you’re trying to figure out how to take things to that explosive growth level.
Maybe we have a team now, and we know the vision, and it’s time to let them know.
But how do we know it’s really time?
The answer: Communication from God.
This is where Joshua finds himself before crossing the River Jordan.
In a number of ways, the preparation for invasion and the conflict that lays before Joshua and the people parallels what an entrepreneur will go through as he or she gears up to enter into their promised business success.
What Godpreneurs need to see and understand is the significance that this preparation proceeds out of God’s communication.
First, God speaks and commissions Joshua (1:1-5) and then calls him to be strong and courageous (1:6-9).
In view of this word from God, Joshua speaks to the people and gives them instructions for preparing to cross the Jordan in three days (1:10-15).
10 Then Joshua commanded the officers of the people, saying, 11 “Pass through the midst of the camp and command the people, saying, ‘Prepare provisions for yourselves, for within three days you are to cross this Jordan, to go in to possess the land which the LORD your God is giving you, to possess it."
In my previous blog, we see what it takes to prepare to conquer. This forms the backdrop, the motivation, and inspiration for Joshua motivating his people. Here the keynote is Joshua’s immediate and obedient response regardless of the obstacles that lay before them. There is in this section a note of urgency, certainty, expectancy, and faith in Joshua’s commands to the people. As God had commanded the new leader was taking charge and following the Lord’s orders with confidence.
This is followed by the response of the people which, of course, had its source in the Word of God (1:16-18).
16-18 "They answered Joshua: “Everything you commanded us, we’ll do. Wherever you send us, we’ll go. We obeyed Moses to the letter; we’ll also obey you—we just pray that God, your God, will be with you as he was with Moses. Anyone who questions what you say and refuses to obey whatever you command him will be put to death. Strength! Courage!”
So, you’ve honored God’s word. Now God is honoring your business and moving your team to respond. You’re encouraged by your people when they respond to the calling as well.
Imagine what happens if we DON’T honor God’s word. Then everyone on the team misses out on their calling. It’s sad, but this happens in many businesses.
This is why I’m passionate about entrepreneurs finding and living out their calling from God….because so many other lives depend on that one entrepreneur.
But this isn’t us. We’re Godpreneurs. As we move forward with God’s growth plan for our business, both you and your team must continue to trust the Lord, examine your service to your clients, and look to God to move your company into obedience rather than resort to some form of manipulation or coercion.
There is a need for us to be disciplined. This isn’t easy. It requires real commitment and must always be done with a view to the calling God has over you.