Author explains using Jesus’ principles for management

For better work performance and job satisfaction, try utilizing spiritual principles such as the ones Jesus employed to manage His “staff,” contends Laurie Beth Jones, best-selling author of “Jesus, CEO.”
   
Through her book “The Path: Creating Your Mission for Work and Life,” Jones also encourages individuals to take a page from the business world by creating personal mission statements to guide them onto a path leading to personal and spiritual fulfillment.
   
Jones, who founded and ran her own successful ad agency for 15 years, recognized the need for visionary leadership while dealing with her own six employees. She started asking the question: How did Jesus, in a mere three years, turn the disciples into “lean, clean marketing machines” ready to live and die for Him? The leadership principles that emerged from her analysis of how Jesus dealt with the diverse, unorganized group that made up His disciples forms the basis of “Jesus, CEO.”
   
Jones soon realized she wanted to motivate and encourage others to embrace those principles. The vision for “Jesus, CEO” also came through Scripture. In John 21 Jesus instructed His disciples, who had spent the entire night fishing without a single catch, to throw their net on the right side of the boat. That move resulted in a haul so big they couldn’t bring it in.
   
At the same time, Jones was studying leadership books. When she came across titles such as “Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun” she realized we live in a culture or climate so eager to understand leadership that it would try to tug insight from even the most dubious characters. Why not introduce them to Jesus instead?
   
“What I have consciously endeavored to do is cast Jesus in a new light,” said Jones, who reminds us that “God is not a subset of business. Business is a subset of God. It’s possible to be spiritual and financially successful.”
   
The success of “Jesus, CEO” took Jones down a new path. She advocates not only businesses but also individuals creating personal mission statements, something she did when she was forming her own ad agency. She realized that the ad agency failed to fulfill a stated mission of “divine excellence,” but the book did. Wanting to motivate and encourage these principles, she undertook the difficult task of dismantling the agency so that she could live out her personal mission to “recognize, promote and inspire the divine connection in myself and others.”
   
Likewise, those who embark on the path Jones advocates have found their own life-changing course. “I get blamed for many things,” quipped Jones, “job changes, relationship shifts.”
   
Yet one of the premises she pushes is that some people may already be living out their mission statement without even recognizing that they are “standing on holy ground.”
   
Jones’ eight books, including “Jesus, CEO,” “The Path,” “Jesus in Blue Jeans,” “Jesus, Inc.” and “Teach Your Team to Fish,” have spent more than 13 months on the Business Week Best Seller List and have been translated into 12 foreign languages with worldwide sales of  1 million copies.
   
“I do virtually no marketing,” said Jones, who now spends her time as a consultant. Her Jesus CEO Leadership Institute is working on a hundred-year plan, and more than 1,000 people in 10 countries have been trained in “The Path.” Jones is currently at work on a secular version of “The Path” for use with at-risk youth.
   
As deeply as she believes in the principles espoused in “Jesus, CEO,” Jones admitted to some surprise, and pleasure, over her own successes. “It just opened up a whole new world for me. It’s joyous to know that somehow I made a contribution through my gifts.”
   
Her clients inspire her, according to Jones, who sees herself as a “field plower” and “seed planter” by taking the principles of Jesus into the business world. Her books and seminars are attended by a cross-section of Christians and non-Christians. Yet the principles, because they are Jesus’ have power even among unbelievers, according to Jones, who notes that Jesus said, “When I am lifted up I will draw all men to me” (John 12:32).
   
She related her experience with the company who bought the rights to “Jesus, CEO” to carry it into China. The owner was Buddhist but curious about Jesus. Jones, who admitted that an evangelist probably would have tried to convert her to Christianity on the spot, told her instead, “You’re on your path. You’ll find your way.” Three years later the Buddhist became a Christian.
   
Although Jones avoids denominationalism, she doesn’t shy away from discussing her faith journey. “I was really blessed in being raised in a Christian home,” Jones said. She also credits her grandparents’ influence, noting that “it wasn’t a huge leap for me” to embrace the teachings of Jesus. “The leap was I could take this faith and make it work beyond the church walls.”
   
Church, however, remains an important part of her life. “There is nothing like a community of believers” and the stimulation of people who are thinking about and training to be more like Christ. “There comes a time when it’s not about strategies. It’s about saying thank you, thank you, thank you.”