Conservative Book Talk

(disclaimer of relation: I was so encouraged by the message of this book, as described on their website, that I volunteered to run the Do Hard Things Portland conference tour. And, their father, Gregg Harris, is the founder of the group of churches that I and my family are members of).

This book is the print version of a vision that has been in place for many years in the Harris household. When Alex and Brett were 16, their father sat them down with a heaping stack of non-fiction books and told them to start reading. Most teenagers might see that as a summer of drudgery, but these twins took the book list as an opportunity to learn more about the world in which they (as the future generation) would live. Learning about all the issues in the world today (poverty, economics of scale, pollution, adult-essence, monetary systems, political processes), they began to wonder how other people in their generation (my generation) could cope with it all if we continued to do the stereotypical teenage thing; sleep in and ignore the world issues in favor of celebrity gossip. Then they started a little blog called “the rebelution”, combining the terms rebellion and revolution to get a new meaning; “rebelling against rebellion”. Then it became a website with 5,000 hits a day, then a movement that spawned conferences in multiple countries, then a modesty survey that crashed their internet server with 500,000 views in the first two hours, and now a book.

DO: The teen years are not a vacation from responsibility, but rather, a training ground for future leaders. For centuries, there was no middle ground between “child” and “adult”; once you started looking like an adult, you were expected to act like one. We need to act like the adults we want to become, because, newsflash fellow young adults: we’re adults. And if we want things to be different from the present we must make changes in the present. Young, yes: need to work on competence, yes; freed from responsibility because of the aforesaid, no. “To make changes in your life requires you to make changes in your life.”—Alex Harris.

HARD: Hard doesn’t mean “hard for other people” (i.e., unless you are recovering from alcoholism, staying sober isn’t an achievement. It’s a good thing, but not your hard thing), or “stupid” (jumping off a cliff) . Don’t, however, think that just because its hard (keeping your room clean every night) or big (starting a business) or both (fighting modern slavery) that you can’t. At the same time, there is a place for small hard things (like keeping your room clean, which is hard because you have to keep doing it every day for the rest of your life) and unseen hard things (not harboring anger, or giving in to lust). If God is calling you to do something, whatever it is, pray and do it.

THINGS: They give lots of examples about teenagers (throughout history and today) who used their teen years to the max and reaped the benefit. And of “typical teens” who need to be renewed in their vision for their own lives. What I loved about all the examples was how simple the concepts were, and yet, I could see a piece of myself in each teen they profiled (and they are all real people). Some were cause for rejoicing, others, for disappointment. But each chapter helped me get closer to finding my “hard thing” that God would have me do with my life.

Overall, this was a very easy read that has challenged my thinking on many levels. I honestly didn’t think this book applied to me when I picked it up. I’m a good young adult (not a teen), who is trying to be more Christ-like (not there yet, but trying), living in a Christian environment… so how does “Do Hard Things” apply to me? The answer lies in the question, “what is hard for you?” There will ALWAYS be something that God wants me to do that is hard. “If you always do what you’ve always done you will always get what you’ve always got.” – Brett Harris. God wants the best for us, which will always involve change in my life.

Tags: Alex Harris, Brett Harris, Current Events, Do Hard Things, Non-Fiction, Personal Development, Sincerelyornot

I read this book and enjoyed it immensely. I appreciated the in depth look into the culture that has made Starbucks unique.

Michelli attempts to communicate the necessity and method of creating an experience for consumers by examining the methods used to create the Starbucks experience. Michelli uses Starbucks as a positive example of what a business can do if they put forth a consistent effort at creating a customer experience. He divides the book into chapters based upon the five guiding principles of Starbucks.

In this work, Michelli argues that every business must encourage employees to own the business. Like a runner with ankle weights during a marathon, so is a business that does not encourage its employees to own the business. Companies have been slowly trending from an authoritarian structure to an approach that respects employees and encourages improvement. Currently Starbucks leads in this change and has demonstrated that this shift will improve a company financially as well as socially. (Another company with an even more aggressive employee focused approach is Panda Express.)

Further a company must recognize that everything is important. One cannot let little things go because each piece builds the complete picture. In isolation, the problem might appear too small to bother with, but each minutia works together to complete a whole picture. Every jigsaw puzzle has many pieces that appear too small to matter much, but without those pieces the puzzle will never display the complete picture to the viewer. Satisfaction will be lessened exponentially with each piece missing or marred in the picture.

Michelli notes that people enjoy receiving a pleasant surprise. Starbucks has attempted to codify this into the lifestyle of their employees. Whenever possible a Starbucks partners take opportunities to improve the life of the customers through simple surprises. These could be simply remembering names and favorite drink orders. This small effort showing that the customer matters delights and unfortunately surprises most people. Forgetting to surprise a customer could easily result in boredom. Boredom dulls the edge of the experience. Boredom defocuses the image in like manner that fog fuzzes the windshield on a cold morning. That lack of focus and clarity confuses the customer’s perception of the company.

Resistance can squelch or inhibit growth, yet it could spark improvements, innovation and growth. The choice belongs to the company. A company that fails to listen and act upon criticism will find their customers distancing themselves and moving onward. A company cannot market effectively if they do not know what the customer thinks and desires. This is cheap marketing research.

Finally companies make an impact on the environment around them. A company could focus on profits alone (for the benefit of the executives), or a company could focus on developing their employees and the environment around them.

One glaring fault leapt from the pages of this book, namely that Michelli present Starbucks as the perfect organization without faults. On the last two pages, he acknowledges their faults, but throughout the book he never addresses how Starbucks learned from failures. There is never an explanation of how Starbucks developed its ideals nor what the inevitable the missteps cost them nor how they recovered. A positive image is good, but if it does not reveals some flaws (humanness), it has limited usefulness

Further, Michelli fails to address how to map a fast food industry with low cost of goods (coffee is relatively inexpensive) to other industries. Most companies cannot afford to give away replacements for broken items (i.e. spilled drinks). While Starbucks intelligently chose to make free replacement drinks a standard practice, how does that translate to companies that do not have a low cost product?

What are your opinion of Starbucks? The other day, I stopped in for a simple coffee. They told me that they were just making a fresh pot and that if I would be willing to wait, they would give me a free cup just for waiting. This is consistent with Michelli’s view of the company and demonstrates their ideals. Unfortunately, Michelli never suggests how a company without a low cost high margin product can do the same.

Tags: Business, Coffee, Joseph Michelli, Matt Gardenghi, review, Self-Improvement, Starbucks, The Starbucks Experience

Having discussed the need to read the Bible, period, lets move on to some ways this book has influenced our society in America. Part of what many people decry as “Westernization” is really the outward signs of a Biblical society. The influence of a book is often considered a sign of its inherent value, and most classics claim their status under said auspices. So, a brief overview…

* The “American way”, is based on a Biblical worldview that includes the Ten Commandments, at least in the most fundamental of senses. Cannibalism, acceptable on most Pacific islands, is wrong. Killing one’s wife (legal in Saudi Arabia) is wrong. Stealing (the way of life for the millions of Chinese who produce most of the world’s pirated goods) is wrong. Even the right to private property is implied in the forbidding of covetousness (one’s neighbor’s donkey being included in the list).
* Our holidays are based on Christian precepts and events. If not directly from the Bible, they all trace back to someone or something that is Biblically based (some more obscured than others). Valentines Day, for instance, is in honor of a Christian pastor, Valentine, of Rome. The emperor Claudius had ordered a moratorium on marriages in hopes of bulking up his army; Valentine continued to marry couples and went to jail (and later beheaded). For protecting the sacredness of the marriage union as something God designed (and, through Paul’s letters, commands lustful men to do!), Valentine was later deemed a Saint, and his day still celebrates love and marriage.
* The concept of consumer rights has its roots in the Bible. The Old Testament exposits severe penalties on builders whose work did not stand up; replacing the house, payment of money, even the death penalty…all invoked depending on the circumstance and level of shoddy workmanship.
* Most culture wars are over social norms that originate in the Bible. Interestingly, the party fighting the war is usually in the minority. To take a very small example, pornography; its illegal, and the few people fight for its legalization. But who decided that viewing images which cause lust is wrong? Pornography was illegal long before the internet made it so easy to access, or before we had studies showing how influential it is in starting a criminal career. God, who can see into men’s minds and hearts, obviously knew what He was talking about when lust was called out as wrong in the Bible. Actually, if anyone knows of a culture war that ISN’T related to the Bible, I’d like to hear about it.
* The present election process is, in a way, related to the question of the Bible’s influence in society. Is it normal to elect someone who believes in the Bible (along with a good 40% of the electorate)? Obama and Clinton both claim to be church-going Christians; on the Republican side, Huckabee was a Baptist preacher. Just an interesting thought as you watch the parties this year; we’ve never had a president who didn’t at least claim to be a follower of the Bible and its teachings.

America isn’t a Christian nation, but our most basic social structures were founded on Biblical principles and precepts (not, as is popularly taught in universities today, Grecian ideals), and understanding the Bible is crucial to understanding the culture of our world today. On the front of social influence, the Bible outpaces all other classics. There are many more points on the cultural influence of the Bible than listed in this review, so if I missed anyone’s favorite example, please bring it up in the commentary section (lets see how many we can come up with).

Tags: Holy Bible, Sincerelyornot