Category: Ethics and Values

Mortgage Company Encourages Integration of Faith and Work

I have written several posts about the ability and the responsibility of entrepreneurs to integrate their values into the businesses that they build.
My daughter Maggie suggested I look at what a mortgage company out of Georgia, HomeBanc Mortgage Company, is doing to integrate their values and their faiths into their company. She heard about this business this past week while attending a large retreat for Fellowship of Christian Athletes (she plays volleyball and will be transferring to Belmont this fall). HomeBanc Mortgage sponsored the entire weekend for these students.
HomeBanc Mortgage is a company that recently went private through a leveraged buyout from its former parent company. Their vision statement, their statement of values, and their faith-based statement all set the tone for the values that shape how this company will be run and how all that work there will do their work. Their statement of ethics gives specific expectations of how management and other employees should integrate their shared values into how they do their work.
Many get nervous when we speak of integrating faith and work, and indeed some companies have become too prescriptive about what faith people should follow. While predominantly Christian, HomeBanc Mortgage takes great strides to be inclusive:
“As a faith-based company, HomeBanc Mortgage Corporation believes that associates should not have to check their spirituality at the door. We recognize that spirituality is deeply personal – we do not seek to impose any particular faith or doctrine upon any associate. We welcome people of all different beliefs into our family, treating each associate with dignity and respect. Regardless of our differences, we all share the common commitment to putting the needs of others ahead of our own. By serving others with the heart of a servant, we strive to enrich and fulfill the lives of our associates, our customers and our communities.”

Best Days

When I ask a room full of young entrepreneurs about their goals, some envision a life full of starting and growing businesses. Others tell me that they want to achieve business success early in life and then retire young. To them, entrepreneurship is simply instrumental to other plans they have for their lives.
Wilson Ng at Business-Driven Life ponders the question of early success in business and what it means for the rest of his life. He worries about peaking too early, as he is certain he would miss the excitement that entrepreneurship brings to his life.
When I was active as an entrepreneur I would often think about the next deal to chase. Like Wilson, I enjoyed the excitement of starting and growing a business, and we had many opportunities to do just that.
Then about nine years ago we sold most of our businesses. I was ready to find the next opportunity. But, my wife pulled on my sleeve and encouraged me to slow down. She suggested that I take some time to think about what I really wanted for the next phase of my life. At first it was hard for me, as I had lots of opportunities to examine and possible deals to pursue. But she is wise, and I listened to her advice. I took my time and really examined what I wanted to do next.
With time I realized that I wanted to spend more time with my family. I realized that there were other things for me to do besides another business start-up. I realized that I missed college teaching. I had never taken the time to think about all of this in the heat and excitement of building a business. But, once we sold our business I could take time to reflect and discern: and my wife made sure that I did.
Entrepreneurship is a wonderful path in life. I will always be grateful for the opportunities and challenges it offered me. But, I realized that it was not all that I was called to do in life.
When life offers you a chance to pause and reflect, take advantage of it. You may jump on to the next deal and you can do so knowing it is where you need to be. But, you may realize it is time for a new chapter.
Even though my days as an active entrepreneur are probably over, I truly believe that my best days are yet to come. Success takes many forms.

Thomas Merton on Overwork

Thomas Merton is one of my favorite writers, so when Prof. Harry Hollis passed this quote along to me I had to share it here:
There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence (and that is) activism and overwork….The rush and pressure of modern life are a form of violence.
To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence.
The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys our inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our won work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful. (Thomas Merton)

Is Bankruptcy Law Bad for Entrepreneurship?

An article at Knowledge@Emory raises an interesting possibility. They question whether the newly passed Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 may dampen our entrepreneurial economy. Why? Because so many entrepreneurs use personal credit cards and second mortgages on their homes to finance start-ups. For these entrepreneurs, easy bankruptcy provides a safety net if things don’t go right.
When I teach entrepreneurs and potential entrepreneurs I try to push them to think about start-ups in a prudent and responsible way. Success and failure will both have consequences, so they need to think things through very carefully. I am much less concerned with how many of them start-up a business as I am with how many of them still are operating their businesses three, five, even ten years from when I have them in class. Those businesses that do last over time are my measure of the success of what I do, not the volume of those who do any old start-up.
I want them a little afraid at their start-up. I want them a little nervous. I want them a little worried about what happens if they fail. Entrepreneurs who rush in blindly like marauding pirates have not learned the lessons we try to teach them in our classes.
When thinking about how easy bankruptcy has become, I recognize what a different time and place that I grew up in. When I was young bankruptcy brought a certain shame if it was self-inflicted. Certainly some folks ended up at this point through events outside of their control, and for them we all felt pity. But, if someone was reckless in jumping head first into a business deal that was full of risk with only a small chance of success, there was not pity except for his family who had to endure the consequences of his failure and the resulting bankruptcy. Some spent years slowly and quietly paying of debts from deals gone sour just so they could avoid the stigma of self-inflicted bankruptcy. They were good people who understood that they had a responsibility to fulfill. The Corporate wall of protection was rarely used as a shield from personal responsibility for a business that failed.
Now just like marriage, we encourage people to jump into business with the knowledge that there is an easy way out. We don’t get along? No problem, we can just get a quick divorce. Business doesn’t make it? No problem, bankruptcy can protect us from most of the consequences.
To me this now means that socialistic thinking has crept into two of the most important foundations of this society: marriage and private enterprise. We now can jump into a marriage or a business deal knowing that there is an easy exit, limited consequences, and a great big government with all kinds of programs and laws to protect us and make it all better.
If Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 causes folks to think twice about their business idea, that to me is a good thing. If one of their main exit strategies is a quick and easy bankruptcy, then I want them to either rethink their plan or start over. Or if they are one of my students, plan to take the class again next semester.
(Thanks to Jennie Bowman for passing this article along to me).

Fr. Sirico on Pope John Paul II

Fr. Robert Sirico of the Acton Institute offers his poignant reflection on Pope John Paul II.
“One of the marks of John Paul’s greatness was his rejection of ideological categories and limitations and his ability to hold complex thoughts together as a result. For him, there was no contradiction between celebrating the vocation of business leaders, as he does so innovatively in his 1991 encyclical Centesimus Annus, while upholding and defending the rights and dignity of simple peasants. In his view, both positions flowed, not from some poll he took, but from the intrinsic dignity and eternal destiny of the human person: a being at once unique, unrepeatable and immortal.”

Top Givers Have Entrepreneurial Roots

Slate magazine has released its list of 60 top philanthropists. And according to National Dialogue on Entrepreneurship, once again many have entrepreneurial roots.
“The 2004 list shows that most of the big givers are active or former entrepreneurs. Overall, it was a good year for philanthropy as the combined contributions of the Slate 60 reached $10.1 billion, smashing last year’s total of $5.9 billion. Bill and Melinda Gates always rank high on the list; they top this year’s Slate 60 with $3.4 billion pledged to their foundation last year.”