Morning Briefings

Years later, he would say that when he decided to become a professional baseball player, it was the only time he’d done something just for the money, and that he’d never do something just for the money again. He would never let the market dictate the direction of his life. The funny thing about that, now he was running a poor major league baseball team, was that his job was almost entirely about the money; where to find it, how to spend it, whom to spend it on.

– Michael Lewis on Billy Beane
Moneyball

He [John the Baptist] was preparing for accepting that even he, with Jerusalem at this feet, was dispensable. Handing over a job is not dying. It is the start of a new phase of living.

– Sacred Space

Christ learned about his mission while he was cutting wood and making chairs, beds and cabinets. He came as a carpenter to show us that–no matter what we do–everything can lead us to the experience of God’s love.

– Paulo Coelho
By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

Coffee retail giant Starbucks Corp has said it will reduce its workforce by 1,000 employees and has restructured its executive leadership team.

– The Economic Times

Remember Pamela? She began anew in the field of photography by providing her services here at In the Company of Prayer. Her journey has since led her to work with others. Please join us in congratulating Pamela on her continued growth.

– In the Company of Prayer

Maintaining a sense of urgency throughout a company is one of the most difficult challenges in business.

– Yvon Chouinard
Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman

Keeping Faith, Ochoa Takes Magical Tour: ‘The best part about working for Lorena [top ranked female golfer in the world] is not the money, the memories, winning the amazing events,’ caddie Dave Brooker said. ‘It’s that being around her makes me want to be a better person.’

– Karen Crouse
NewYorkTimes.com

There is no guarantee that God will make wealthy those who obey Him in their business endeavors. What God does guarantee is an eternal profit with all temporal needs met.

– William D. Lawrence
Beyond the Bottom Line

Vacation for Your Health, And Your Job Productivity: Your continued health and productivity may depend upon getting away from work periodically, and employers grappling with rapidly rising health-care costs are starting to embrace the idea as well.

– Kristen Gerencher
The Wall Street Journal, May 27, 2008

Grads Work on Basics in Tough Job Market: This year’s graduates face an even tougher job market. Many big firms made their hires when the job market was better back in the fall, leaving slimmer pickings for students graduating into a weaker economy.

– Erin White
The Wall Street Journal, May 27, 2008

If you’re waiting to have a good idea before you have any ideas, you won’t have many ideas.

– David Allen
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

If everything is important, then nothing is. No one understands the power of this saying more than a person who leads an organization. Every organization provides its leaders with more distractions and concerns than one person can handle.

– Patrick Lencioni
The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive

Parting Shot: What I Learned from Writing 1,008 Columns. That brings me to an issue I probably should have addressed in my inaugural column: What is the reason for all this saving and investing?

– Jonathan Clements writes in his final column after a 26-year career
The Wall Street Journal

In addition to ignoring the issues faced by businesspeople, seminaries offer little analysis of or appreciation for the moral roots of modern corporations, the concept of business as a calling, or multiple tasks that business performs for society and the common good.

– David W. Miller
God at Work: The History and Promise of the Faith at Work Movement

There’s global competition, technology changes, more regulations than ever before. It’s just complicated. Things are harder today.

– Patrick Lencioni
The Five Temptations of a CEO

Some Companies Rethink The Telecommuting Trend: A few big promoters of home-based and mobile-office work arrangements, including AT&T, Intel and Hewlett-Packard, have called some home-based workers back to the office, causing some to quit.

– Sue Shellenbarger, The Wall Street Journal, February 28, 2008

Poll Question: Is Prayer a Regular Part of Your Life As an Entrepreneur? 82.91 percent answered yes in the 2007 survey.

–
Startup Nation

For better or worse, it’s highly likely that many of the events and ideas about your life haven’t worked out exactly according to plan.

– Tony Dungy
Quiet Strength Men’s Study Bible

McDonald’s Takes on A Weakened Starbucks: Food Giant to Install Specialty Coffee Bars, Sees $1 Billion in Business. Starting this year, the company’s nearly 14,000 U.S. locations will install coffee bars with ‘baristas’ serving cappuccinos, lattes, mochas, and the Frappe, similar to Starbuck’s ice-blended Frappuccino.

– Janet Adamy, The Wall Street Journal, January 7, 2008

Housing Construction Hits 16-Year Low: The overall construction decline left home building 24.2 percent below the level of activity a year ago.

– Martin Crutsinger, AP Economics Writer

There are useful and necessary things to be done that are best done by old people, partly because old people have greater perspective of experience, but mostly because the things that need to be done do not fit into a career, or they are too risky for young or mid-career people.

– from
Reflections on Leadership: How Robert K. Greenleaf’s Theory of Servant-Leadership Influenced Today’s Top Management Thinkers

The business world is often taken to be the place above all others where humility is seen as a liability rather than an asset. Yet the research by [Good to Great author] Collins and his team shows that this is not the case. They show that humility is a necessary quality in a CEO for a business to excel.

– Abbot Christopher Jamison
Finding Sanctuary: Monastic Steps for Everyday Life

Stress for Survivors: As layoffs hit an array of industries, workers who don’t lose jobs are asked to do more.

– Syndicated writer Margarita Bauza, October 29, 2007

Success–which I define as doing reasonably well at your chosen career–has huge demands on those who attain it, particularly in our hyper-competitive culture where conditions can change virtually overnight. The combination of marriage, family and career can be consuming. By the time most of us approach our fourth decade, anything that promises relief gets our attention.

– Bob Buford
Stuck in Halftime

So many people tell you to ‘follow your dreams’–from commencement speakers to executive coaches–that it is easy to get the impression you aren’t. But there is scant evidence that people aren’t doing pretty much what they want. According to a Gallup Poll, 90% of Americans are at least somewhat satisfied with their jobs and 75% say they’re satisfied with their pay. Two-thirds would take the same job again ‘without hesitation.’

– Jared Sandberg
The Wall Street Journal, October 16, 2007

On a particularly difficult day a nurse prayed: ‘O God, where are you? Why don’t you send help?’ ‘I did,’ God replied, ‘I sent you. And as long as it takes, I will be with you whenever and wherever you honor human life.’

– Fr. James Krings
Living Faith

If you work things right, by the time you are sixty you will be in the middle of a Second Half career, looking for yet another opportunity to serve God and your fellowman.

– Bob Buford
Stuck in Halftime