“The man answered, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.’ And, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

There are five types of adopters to new ideas, programs, processes or technology.  We’ve looked at Innovators, Fast Followers, Pragmatists and Conservatives. Today, we will explore our final stage of adoption, the Cynics.

Every company has their collection of cynics.  It’s not whether they are there, it’s how many and whether or not they have a voice that can be heard.  I was in a meeting last week where the President of the company described their executive team as the juror box filled with 12 Angry Men.  In the play and the movie the jurors spend their time and energy trying to persuade the one out-layer.  And so do many of us as we work hard to get the one person, many time the cynic, to get one board.  The energy expended can be enormous and wouldn’t we rather spend that energy on the positive and uplifting?

Jesus left us with the two commandments and to love our neighbor as ourselves one cannot be a cynic.  Cynics are not persuasive.  Cynics leave others not feeling good about themselves.  Cynics can drag down large groups. So, what are we after here?  We can’t reflect the love of Jesus if we are known to be a cynic. So, when the time comes today to be on board or to be the cynic, let’s not be the latter.

Reference: Luke 10:27 (New Living Translation)