Page 43 - The Bible On Leadership

30 THE BIBLE ON LEADERSHIP

For Daniel’s modern counterpart, listen to CEO Ralph Larsen of
Johnson & Johnson, talking similarly about his company’s core values:
‘‘The core values embodied in our credo might be a competitive advan-
tage, but that is not why we have them. We have them because they
define for us what we stand for, and we would hold them even if they
became a competitive disadvantage for us in certain situations.’’
Being a Jew and believing in one God rather than a collection of
idols was not a particular competitive advantage for Daniel in idola-
trous, corrupt Babylon. But his purpose was unwavering, and it carried
him even when it did not seem to have a likely short-term payoff.
Several thousand years later, Daniel’s ‘‘organization’’ is still thriving.
Can anyone today find an airline route (or even a bus route) to a king-
dom called ‘‘Babylon’’? Johnson & Johnson, which has sustained sub-
stantial short-term losses through its devotion to its ‘‘credo,’’ has also
outlasted and out-profited many of its competitors.

MODERN LEADERS,TIMELESS PURPOSE

Fortunately, many modern companies have purposes that sustain them,
perhaps not as strongly as Daniel’s purpose, but with more staying
power than Nebuchednezzar’s. These purposes often go far beyond the
mere provision of a product or service. Herman Miller’s former chair-
man, Max De Pree wrote, ‘‘My goal is that when people look at us . . .
not as a corporation but as a group of people working intimately within
a covenantal relationship, they’ll say, ‘These folks are a gift to the
spirit.’ ’’ His successor, J. Kermit Campbell, adds that the company’s
true mission is not to create products but to ‘‘liberate the human
spirit.’’ 4
Supercomputer company Cray Research’s CEO, John Rollwagen,
likens working at Cray to being on ‘‘a mission for God.’’ The compari-
son is apt when you consider the goals of many of the company’s activi-
ties: to help cure AIDS, to patch up the hole in the ozone layer, to
simulate car crashes without actually crashing cars, saving thousands of