Managing Up: Doing It God's Way

Chapter 5 - Whatsoever You Do, Do it as Unto The Lord!

"So if you’re serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ – that’s where the action is. See things from his perspective." (Colossians 3:1, 2 The Message) The Amplified version says to “set your minds and keep them set on what is above (the higher things), not on the things that are on the earth.” I’ve stated earlier that as you allow yourself to be led by the Holy Spirit you give Him permission to teach you, lead you, and guide you. As the process takes place, your thinking changes; you begin to think differently. This new way of thinking causes you to approach your job differently.

As I looked up the words “set” and “affection” in the Greek, they mean the same thing: to interest oneself, and be of the same understanding. In order to interest oneself, you have to engage yourself so that changes will take place. Those changes won’t come unless you become interested in changing your thoughts as to how you perform your job. In other words, as you “set” yourself, you have the same understanding, same sentiment; follow the same thought, as your boss. You interest yourself or engage yourself. You elevate yourself by your attitude and the way you carry yourself. Your approach to your job is completely different because you are not going through the motions, pushing paper for eight (8) hours a day. You are intentional in every task that you work on. Everything you do is on purpose. You have a reason and an end in mind; you see the purpose and end result in everything you accomplish. You have elevated your thinking, mentality, attitude, and mindset, from a worker bee - just do what I have to because I have to - to one of wanting to do my best at all times - "I am here for a reason, and what I do is making an impact towards fulfilling the vision of this organization.” You work with purpose and on purpose. When your thought processes become changed to this level, your entire demeanor changes. The way you carry yourself and interact with others, changes. Your conversation changes, your responses and actions change.

As I think about this, I can remember when I first started working as an Executive Assistant and one of the first things I set out to do was learn how my boss did his job. I wanted to know how he thought, the process he used to reach his decisions for approval, how he managed his departments, everything I could know in order to assist him fully and help him maximize his potential. When I learned what he looked for before approving items, I spoke with his managers and asked them to include certain items when presenting budgets and/or memos for approval. This minimized the time it took to approve the requests because any potential questions were answered before they were asked. He had the information he needed at the onset instead of making a phone call or sending the request back because of insufficient information.