“For we speak as messengers who have been approved by God to be entrusted with the Good News. Our purpose is to please God, not people.”

A work imperative, whether spoken or not, is to please others. Others can be the Board, the CEO, customers, partners, our boss, our bosses boss, our peers, our subordinates, or our community, etc. The organization, known as a company is also in the business of pleasing customers and shareholders. Long ago, when I worked at Frito-Lay, Inc. we talked of not only pleasing but also delighting our consumers. It certainly makes sense that this is what companies have to do and it therefore would flow through the organization that pleasing others is an imperative. This is all good, as long as we know who it is that we are to please and then we ensure that we have balanced that pleasing with all of the other pleasing that must go on. For example, someone whose sole focus is on pleasing their boss and ignoring all others will end up with nicknames from their peers and won’t be considered a good team player. Conversely, one who chooses to just please his/her team and ignores what the boss, or the larger organization cares about, will also run aground when it comes to garnering the support of the larger company initiatives. So, this pleasing thing is a delicate game to play and must be managed intently. The best employees are those who find the balance and realize that pleasing is situational and a skill to be learned, practiced and perfected.

For those of us who know that our larger purpose is to please and bring glory to God in our work, the idea of who are we pleasing comes easier in some ways. True pleasing is an inside out activity and attitude. What I mean is that if we are most concerned, first with the pleasing of God, and we live and work to that principle first, then what will come from us should be a spirit of pleasing others, and doing so in a way that is evident and correct. When we get mixed up is when we forget that pleasing God comes first and that is to be the true overriding objective. If we start with pleasing others first then we will likely get mixed up in some way and priorities will falter and we may even find that while we think we are doing well, what we are really doing is pleasing only ourselves. Today, think about who you are pleasing? Where have you been putting your precious time and energy and to what purpose? If you find yourself starting with pleasing yourself or others first, then it is time to reshuffle the priorities and get back to pleasing first God and the rest to follow.

Reference: 1 Thessalonians 2:4 (New Living Testament)