“The Humble will see their God at work and be glad. Let all who seek God’s help be encouraged.”

I didn’t pay much attention to J.C. Penney before they hired Ron Johnson away from Apple and started one of the great experiments in retail history.  Ron, along with Steve Jobs, had built what no one else imagined with their retail empire of Apple and they had done so by breaking all of the rules of retail and thinking something totally different.  And, they succeeded wildly.  The Board of J.C. Penney wanted some of that magic for their brand so they hired Ron and off he went.  But, there was a difference.  The culture of Penney’s was not Apple.  Ron had to not only sell a business plan to his Board and consumers, he had to win over the staff of J.C. Penney all the way down to the store level.  Case studies will be written at Harvard and Stanford about this one and what went wrong.  Did the Board not have enough courage and patience to see the experiment through?  Did Ron have it wrong and what worked at Apple would never work at a clothing retailer? Or was it that that the DNA of Penney’s that dates back to the founder, as a man of humility was so strong that any leader without that same value would fail with the rank and file?  We may never know the whole story, but let’s never count out humility, or lack thereof, as a driver of success and failure. With wholesale change, there has to be both those who lead from the front and those who lead from the back.

If we want to be different and have our faith shine brightly in the workplace, then just just don an outfit of humility and wear it to work for a week and watch what happens.  Humility is the simplest of characteristics to embrace and embody, and yet one of the hardest for most who are successful and striving to achieve.  Let’s be careful to not get too full of ourselves as pride is just as obvious, if not more so, than humility.

Reference: Psalm 69:32 (New Living Translation)