{"id":1083,"date":"2021-10-08T08:52:43","date_gmt":"2021-10-08T12:52:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=1083"},"modified":"2021-10-08T08:52:43","modified_gmt":"2021-10-08T12:52:43","slug":"work-that-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2021\/10\/08\/work-that-matters\/","title":{"rendered":"Work That Matters"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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It\u2019s hard to overstate the sorry condition of Continental Airlines in the early 1990s.

The company had twice faced bankruptcy.  A third financial disaster was looming.  Employee morale was abysmal.

The airline ranked last in every measurable performance category.  Its stock had sunk to $2 a share.

Continental\u2019s advertising slogans during the previous two decades reflected marketing desperation:  The Only Airline Worth Flying; If You Can\u2019t Fly Continental, Try to Have a Good Trip Anyways; Up Where You Belong; <\/em>and We Really Move Our Tail for You.  <\/em>Continental\u2019s female flight attendants threatened to strike because of that last one.

In 1994 Continental turned to Gordon Bethune, a former Boeing executive.

Bethune was hired, quite simply, to save the company from its inevitable extinction.

His first task was to motivate his employees to transform day-to-day performance.  Continental\u2019s rate of on-time arrivals was the worst in the country.  Bethune\u2019s accountants estimated that late arrivals were subtracting $5 million from the bottom line every month.

Bethune launched an initiative to convince Continental\u2019s 40,000 associates that they were the real key to the company\u2019s success.

He declared that every employee \u2013 every pilot, every baggage handler, every gate clerk, and every mechanic \u2013 would receive a bonus of $65 every month that Continental finished among the top five airlines nationally in on-time arrivals.  Since everyone was empowered to help meet this goal, everyone would share equally in the reward.

It was an expensive promise.  A single month\u2019s success would cost $2.5 million in employee bonuses.  But Bethune figured the company would still come out ahead each month by the same amount.

So what happened? 

Three months into the program, Continental wasn\u2019t just in the top five.  It finished first <\/em>in on-time arrivals.  What the same employees had been incapable of doing for years on end, they now could do perfectly well. 

After a while Bethune raised the stakes.  The company would need to finish in the top three in the country to earn the bonus, while a first-place finish would net $100 instead of $65.  The associates routinely met that goal.

Ultimately Continental won more J.D. Power and Associates awards for Customer Satisfaction that any other airline in the world.  Its stock rose to $50 a share.  Fortune<\/em> named Continental one of the 100 Best Companies to Work for in America for six consecutive years.  In 2004 it was named the #1 Most Admired Global Airline, an honor that it received the next four years as well. 

Bethune entitled his memoir on his 11 years at Continental From Worst to First.  <\/em>When asked how he had come to understand people so well he joked, \u201cI used to be one.\u201d

It\u2019s not as if he came to work carrying a briefcase full of secret insights.  Bethune simply acted on what all of us already know: 

People want to be respected. 
They want their voices to be heard. 
They want their work to matter, no matter what job they do.
When those conditions are met, the possibilities for achievement soar.

What\u2019s the Bible\u2019s case for human motivation?  Work of all kinds \u2013 whether with our minds or our hands, on a computer keyboard or an artist\u2019s palette, in a kitchen or on a factory floor \u2013 reveals our dignity as human beings.  Work showcases the image of God the Creator that will always be essential to our identity.

During the thousand-year stretch of European history known as the Middle Ages, from about 500 to 1500 A.D., theologians lost their way concerning the goodness of \u201cordinary work.\u201d  The church endorsed an artificial Dignity Gap between the few who were ordained to the priesthood \u2013 it was assumed their work actually counted<\/em> when it came to God \u2013 and everybody else. 

One of the rallying cries of the Protestant Reformation was the \u201cpriesthood of all believers.\u201d  One didn\u2019t have to hold church office to mediate God\u2019s grace and God\u2019s gifts to others.  That idea spawned a crucial corollary:  Everybody\u2019s work matters<\/em>. 

Martin Luther famously said, \u201cA dairymaid can milk cows to the glory of God.\u201d

As the New Testament reminds us, \u201cAnd whatever you do<\/em> [emphasis added], whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him\u201d (Colossians 3:17). 

Perhaps you awoke today to the demoralizing feeling that there\u2019s nothing on your To Do List that can possibly move the needle for God\u2019s kingdom.  But every task, however mundane, makes a difference in the kingdom of a God who honors work. 

You probably won\u2019t get $65 for doing your best.

But you\u2019ll be rewarded with the assurance that you just did something that matters. 
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It\u2019s hard to overstate the sorry condition of Continental Airlines in the early 1990s. The company had twice faced bankruptcy.  A third financial disaster was looming.  Employee morale was abysmal. The airline ranked last in every measurable performance category.  Its stock had sunk to $2 a share. Continental\u2019s advertising slogans during the previous two decades reflected marketing desperation:  The Only Airline… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1084,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[343,49],"class_list":["post-1083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-image-of-god","tag-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1083"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1083\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1085,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1083\/revisions\/1085"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}