{"id":46144,"date":"2015-07-07T15:53:54","date_gmt":"2015-07-07T19:53:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/?p=46144"},"modified":"2015-07-07T15:53:54","modified_gmt":"2015-07-07T19:53:54","slug":"praying-with-the-boss-at-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2015\/07\/praying-with-the-boss-at-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Praying with the boss at work"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><\/p><center>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color:#fff;display:inline-block;font-family:'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#a7a7a7;font-size:11px;width:100%;max-width:594px;\">\n<div style=\"overflow:hidden;position:relative;height:0;padding:66.666667% 0 0 0;width:100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/163600181?et=pt-GKONFS4ZPsN5g0izexg&amp;viewMoreLink=on&amp;sig=wR1RbV4et2TqTLNpNZQKc5SR0iB0Urbp7yWsxLs-Lfc=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"display:inline-block;position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin:0;\">\n<\/p><div style=\"padding:0;margin:0 0 0 10px;text-align:left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/163600181\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">View image<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">gettyimages.com<\/a><\/div>\n<p> <\/p>\n<p>An interesting spotlight on a topic rarely discussed, via the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/business-33405579\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><strong>BBC: \u00a0<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Saying prayers with colleagues would feel a bit uncomfortable, too intimate an activity in the workplace for many people.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #404040;\">Yet at Chinese real estate giant Tiantai Group, known as Tentimes Group in English, that is exactly what they do in the boardroom before making important decisions.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #404040;\">Three-quarters of the firm\u2019s eight-strong senior management team are Christians and founder and chairman Wang Ruoxiong, who himself became a Christian seven years ago, says that when the company has to make difficult decisions, it turns to the Bible for guidance.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #404040;\">In fact, he goes as far to say that it\u2019s not him but God running the firm.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #404040;\">\u201cHe controls everything. I am merely a housekeeper of Jesus, assisting him in taking care of the company,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Wang admits that Christian beliefs alone have not driven the firm\u2019s success, acknowledging that employees\u2019 technical skills such as marketing and sales capability have also played a big part.<\/p>\n<p>But he believes that following Christian values have helped to make the firm more effective.<\/p>\n<p>He says that employees feel cared for, helping them to perform better, and that treating the company\u2019s suppliers more fairly has created stronger relationships with them, for example.<\/p>\n<p>He also believes his approach is unique, which he says will help the company to survive despite increasing competition.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen the senior managers at the top are willing to use the values in their own work and life, the values are passed down. Eventually they become the shared values of the common employees of the entire company.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #404040;\">\u201cAt that time, the company becomes truly irreplaceable,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #404040;\">Nonetheless meeting a company boss who is so open about his religion at work is rare. While organisations themselves must make allowances for their staff to be able to practise their religious faith, providing prayer rooms for example, those at the top normally keep their beliefs private. Typically they\u2019re wary of being seen as promoting their own faith to those below them.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"color: #404040;\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/business-33405579\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Read more.<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #404040;\">This reminded me of one memorable Ash Wednesday when I was working at CBS. I brought in a small container of ashes to the newsroom, and sent out a mass email, alerting a couple dozen people that I would be available to give out ashes in one of the offices during the lunch hour. About a dozen people showed up\u2014including the President of CBS News.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #404040;\">\n<\/p><\/div><\/center><\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>View image | gettyimages.com An interesting spotlight on a topic rarely discussed, via the BBC: \u00a0 Saying prayers with colleagues would feel a bit uncomfortable, too intimate an activity in the workplace for many people. Yet at Chinese real estate giant Tiantai Group, known as Tentimes Group in English, that is exactly what they do [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132,"featured_media":46145,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-this-that"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Praying with the boss at work<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"View image | gettyimages.com An interesting spotlight on a topic rarely discussed, via the BBC: \u00a0 Saying prayers with colleagues would feel a bit\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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