Audio Transcript

Recently, we published a video about how purpose powers business, and this is the 1st podcast in a 3 part series where we are taking 10-15 minutes to unpack that whiteboard session and go a little deeper. These podcasts are based on questions we’ve received, and each will cover one section of the Venn diagram in that video. If you haven't seen that video or need a refresher, you can find a link to the video and an article with the diagram in the show notes.

This brings us to our questions for today’s podcast.

First, how do you know what your organization's gifts are? And, second, how can you strategically deploy those gifts?

If every organization knew that, there might not be any pain in our city or the world because everyone has gifts.

I like what Bonno, from the band U2, said about gifts. He believes every person is born with gifts. Then, in a recent interview, the Edge fought him the whole time and told Bonno that wasn’t true.

Examples of Gifts

An organization’s gifts are very similar to an individual’s. It’s a strength of the organization, something they do well, and something about the team that they can use to achieve goals. We will see this about 3 times in this podcast, it’s really not a gift if we don’t use it toward something.

Some examples of strengths in an organization would be an excellent sales staff, a strong knowledge of products, good relationships with customers, good internal communications, good location, a good brand, a successful marketing strategy, a good reputation, or even the fact that you’re good at innovation.

Those are classic strengths in a SWOT that many organizations do. A SWOT assesses an organization's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Of course, strengths are used to balance or offset weaknesses, overcome threats, and take advantage or exploit opportunities. I use that in a very positive way.

So that’s what strengths are, they’re the classic answer to the question of: What do we have, and what can we put toward our goals or opportunities we weren't thinking of?

And, so in our Venn diagram what we’ve been covering is how you do that toward the needs of the world because serving the needs of the world is what the organization should be about. If the organization works well together to solve problems, they have a history of that and know how to deploy strengths.

Use Working Genius To Know Gifts

One way that we’ve helped people deploy their gifts is through the Working Genius gifts assessment. It’s an individual gifts assessment. It’s about 80% behavioral and productivity for an individual, but the very best part of the assessment is how teams put all those gifts together and balance them out.

What strengths do we have? And, what strengths do we not have? How do we utilize that to optimize our team’s performance? Answering those questions is what the Working Genius assessment is all about. The assessment has helped organizations understand each other, and put people in different seats — even if they remain in the same role — by contributing differently in meetings. This allows for the team to optimize its effectiveness.

True Gifts Serve Needs

But here’s the key to this whole thing: it’s not a gift if you don’t put it toward something. Putting gifts toward the biggest needs the organization is trying to achieve and putting them toward the mission can even modify what your mission is.

For example, let’s say you get really good at innovation, and you can solve something for your community or the world. We saw that with mission and how some companies weren’t doing their mission. Well, if I’m good at innovation, which is what Nike and Coke were claiming, then I can innovate to reduce our carbon footprint. I can innovate to do things better or differently where we are not meeting our mission.

In that way, gifts and needs define each other because it’s not a gift if we don’t use it to serve somebody. I think you can figure out how this plays out corporately, but, individually, this is where I’ve gotten the most pushback. Individually, people think, “Wait a minute, doesn’t God just want me to use my gifts and enjoy my gifts?” My reaction to that is not so much. It’s not really a gift if you’re not putting it toward the needs of somebody else.

For those of us who know and follow Jesus, our life is not our own; we’ve been bought with a price. In one of his letters to the Corinthians, Paul says, “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

One of our defining verses for The Center is, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God — this is your true and proper worship” (Romans 12:1). That’s where we get this theme of glory and joy. Deploying your gifts organizationally by deciding, discerning, and reorganizing to better deploy gifts is glorious worship. Not only does that solve the needs of our city, but it also points to the one who made us and glorifies Him.

So I would argue that they are not gifts at all unless they are used to serve others. I hope that cleans that piece up, but here’s a practical example. If you bake a bunch of cakes, but you don’t feed anyone with them, it’s not a gift. It’s not a gift of baking. If you are an athlete and you don’t help the team or entertain anyone, it’s not a gift.

Another great verse from the bible about gifts is “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.” Our gifts are given to us as grace, and we are supposed to extend that grace. So Coke can extend and innovate, we see that across the world. But so can any person or organization, when we help meet the needs of the people we serve.

The first set we think about is customers, but if we are really good at doing something for our customers, maybe we should consider doing that for our employees. Maybe you are really good at doing something for your employees, how can you do that for your community? We saw that in our case study of the mortgage company in our previous podcast on mission. Whether it’s investors or vendors, we are constantly looking for how to serve them by solving the needs of the various stakeholders we have.

Deploying and Redeploying Gifts

Just to make it practical and wrap up, I think the restaurants across the country — but especially in Memphis — did a good job during COVID. They make great food, but their indoor dining was shut down. They had to redeploy their gifts to get food out to customers. Some of them innovated their delivery methods, some of them were already good at that, but others weren’t. Some of them are conveniently located; so they redeployed all their assets to serve the needs of drive through.

Another example that kicked off during COVID and added value to the company was a local pet store called Hollywood Feed. The story is covered in more detail in Sam Coates' podcast Driven By. What happened was COVID hit and that kept seniors from being able to come to the store. You could Uber the pet supplies and treats out to them, but the key strength of the organization is how the employees of Hollywood Feed cares for their customers. That’s where all the value is translated between customers and employees. So they bought cars to get the gifts of their employees — who are well trained and love their customers — out to their customers. If it takes buying a bunch of cars to deploy those gifts, let’s do it.

Hollywood Feed did a great job doing that. That’s an example of how when circumstances change, we’re going to keep deploying our gifts toward the needs of those we serve.

I hope that helps, and I look forward to covering means in our next episode.

Resources

Working For Glory | Whiteboard Session

Business is Provision For People

Venn Diagram

SWOT Analysis: How To Do One

Working Genius Gift Assessment

Driven By Podcast: Hollywood Feed