Employing the whole person 

How the vineyard owner and David were ahead of their time in looking beyond the work done

  
In Matthew’s story about the vineyard owner (Matthew 20:1-16), Jesus starts his account with the words “The kingdom is like a landowner who …”  We might, therefore, expect this parable about an employer to offer something to add to our composite picture of Kingdom Business.
 
The opening scene is of the daily recruitment of seasonal workers: some are hired at the start of the day and others at various stages later on. We might speculate that the strong looking, most able bodied and pushy might have been favoured by the selection process. There may have been a reason why some weren’t chosen, perhaps their appearance, ethnicity or some apparent disability.

To everyone’s surprise, at the end of the day the workers were all paid a full day’s wage, regardless of how many hours they had worked. This was not the outcome that would be expected when unsentimental business logic is applied.
 
There is a story from one of the most ambiguous periods in David’s life. On the run from Saul, he leads a double life among the Philistines and is nearly drawn into battle with the Israelites in consequence. A short, but devastating, episode from this time is related in 1 Samuel 30 (you may have to read either side to get the context), where David and his men come home to discover the town has been sacked by marauding Amalekites and everyone has been carried off. David seeks God’s guidance, pursues the raiders and recovers all they lost, together with large quantities of plunder.
 
However, a third of his guerrillas were too exhausted to join in the victory, and the word among the rest is that their families and possessions should be returned to them, but they should not share in the plunder because they didn’t help to win it. David overturns this conventional wisdom with an edict that everyone should share what God has given into their hands.
 
There are many ways to explore these two stories. On the face of it they are about remuneration. We might see them as suggesting a socialist approach to payment for work (recognising that a day’s food for a family cost a day’s wage and every family needs food). Alternatively, it might suggest that management has the right to be as generous as it likes.
 
Another lens through which to see these stories is that they are the application of upside-down Kingdom wisdom (the picture of Kingdom we get from the Sermon on the Mount in which the normal way of doing things is turned on its head). We talk about a nose for business, gut feel, know-how, about being savvy. Our business logic is about survival and self-interest. It is wisdom in our own strength born out of worldly experience.

Instead of all this, Jesus tells us to turn the other cheek, love your enemy, be more generous than you think you can afford and not to worry. Both these stories may owe more to kingdom wisdom than to business best-practice. 
 
Another perspective is that these two moments of business decision are examples of playing the “long game”. These decisions were not short-term populist actions but were motivated by a heart to create sustainable long-term employment. Measures of business success often inhibit actions designed to yield long term benefits.
 
A modern day parallel of the decision faced by both David and the vineyard owner is an HR practice unkindly known as ‘rank and yank’, made famous in the 1980s by Jack Welch, CEO of General Electric. It is a process that ranks employees against each other, with the highest performers at the top and the lowest performers at the bottom.

The company then fires the 10 per cent of employees who fall to the bottom. Employee appraisal when done properly and objectively is a benefit to both the individual and the employer. What makes ranking different is the narrowness and remoteness of the criteria used and the harshness of the outcome.
 
Adam, a consultancy partner, was asked to rank his staff according to their chargeable utilisation in the previous three months. With 100 people in the team, the bottom ten would be thus vulnerable to losing their jobs. Amongst those on the bottom rungs was Bob who had expert skills in a niche area that simply hadn’t been at the forefront of client activity in the previous period.   

Adam chose not to implement the ranking, retaining Bob and some others.  

Just like David and the vineyard owner this was a decision to employ the whole person not just pay for work done. As it happened soon afterwards, a client came looking for the expertise for which Bob was known and a significant new stream of work opened up.  
 
The downside to employee ranking is a demoralised workforce and a system of ‘me’ instead of ‘we’. It also assumes an employee’s underperformance is their own fault. The system of ranking employees against each other is falling out of favour with 21st century companies and has generally become synonymous with poor management practice. David and the vineyard owner were clearly well ahead of their times. 
 
In this blog series we have seen that the parables and the behaviour of Bible characters are sprinkled with many subversive surprises. In the next and final blog in this series we will examine how the twin journeys of counter-cultural Kingdom wisdom and business excellence can co-exist.
 
In our forthcoming book, How to Merge Kingdom and Business - The Most Excellent Way, we explore robust ways to connect our ethical beliefs with our behaviour in the workplace and begin to suggest practical tools for business leaders who aspire to see their businesses as platforms for advancing the Kingdom.



Image | Ioana Cristiana | Unsplash

This blog is part of a series that links Bible characters with people in parables to see if their stories fill in a picture of what a ‘Kingdom Business’ might look like. The series is looking for fresh insights for business leaders who want to see Kingdom outcomes as well as sustainable business success.

Details of all five blogs are below.
 

• What might a Kingdom business look like? - business at the heart of mission through the example of Lydia (publishes 29 January)
• God’s project manager - Nehemiah who prayed and planned ahead - and is an example of what godly project management could look like (publishes 31 January)
• A business empire that loses its way - Solomon’s narrative goes to the heart of a vital tension in Kingdom business, which is how we balance economic outcomes with evangelistic progress (publishes 2 February)
• Employing the whole person - How the vineyard owner and David were ahead of their time in looking beyond the work done (publishes 5 February)
• What might a Kingdom business look like? A discussion - The final part of the series offers two ways to reflect on Lydia, Nehemiah, Solomon and David as exemplars in business (publishes 7 February)

Phil Hanson is an engineer by profession. For the latter part of a 30 year career in IBM, he was Lead Principal for IBM’s Manufacturing Industry Consulting Practice. Since IBM, he has been Principal Industrial Fellow at the Institute for Manufacturing at Cambridge University and a Special Advisor to UNIDO for supply chain projects in Africa. He is ordained in the Church of England.

Terry Young is a missionary kid who read science and engineering. After a PhD in lasers, he worked in R&D before becoming a professor, when he taught project management, information systems and e-business, while leading research in healthcare. He set up Datchet Consulting to have fun with both faith and work and worshipped at Baptist churches in Slough for 19 years before moving to the New Forest.

Terry and Phil's new book How to Merge Kingdom and Business -The Most Excellent Way has just been published by Grove Books

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