Business Ethics and Honesty

 


This week in my Intro to Entrepreneurship class, we’ve been studying about Business Ethics. Since I attend a Christ-centered university, there is a Gospel component to my studies which dovetails nicely with “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

I really enjoyed studying a talk from Lynn G. Robbins about “Making a Living and a Life.” This was a devotional given at BYU-Idaho in 2010. He talked about motivators, primary and secondary that tell you where you’re located on an A to F scale in your business. You DON’T want to dabble in the realm of the D and F-level companies. “Filthy lucre” is a biblical name for “ill-gotten gains” or dirty money. Think Judas Iscariot and his 30 pieces of silver. The scale looks like this:

 


I realized upon studying this grid, I’ve probably up to now, never been more than a B-Level Employee. I realize as a budding entrepreneur, that God expects me to work towards becoming an A-Level business owner.

Another thing we learned this week that goes in tandem with becoming an A-Level business owner, was while reading in the book Launching Leaders, by Steven A. Hitz, there is a formula that the writer promises, if followed with exactness can lead to a successful career or business. That formula is:

1.    Get up early.

2.    Work hard.

3.    Get your education.

4.    Find your oil (which translates to find that thing you’re passionate about).

5.    Make your mark.

6.    Give back.

He details further how to make each of these steps work for us, as obviously just getting up early and staring at your navel is unlikely to produce results but getting up early and having prayer and meditation time; planning exercise; planning your day out in advance; reading good books in the early morning is a great way to get your day off to the right start. He also has studied that getting up early is a practice of virtually every successful entrepreneur or thought leader.

I’m really enjoying the personal development focus of what we’ve been learning in class thus far – it’s not what I was expecting, but I am enjoying what I’m learning about.

 


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