Laurie Beth Jones' 'Jesus, CEO': Book Review

Jesus, CEO
by Laurie Beth Jones
(Hyperion)

Other Reviews:

James Dobson's War on America,
by Gil Alexander-Moegerle

Stealing Jesus: How Fundamentalism
Betrays Christianity
by Bruce Bawer

Ron Hogan interviews:
Chris Bull and John Gallagher
authors of

Jesus, CEO, by Laurie Beth Jones
Reviewed by Ron Hogan

From a marketing standpoint, the business advice book is comparable to the film industry. If you can put a "star's" name on the project, fantastic. People who make a point of studying corporate America are familiar with CEOs like Andy Grove or analysts like Peter Drucker, trusting them to be on target. If you don't have a star to sell, the next best thing is a killer concept, whether it's an easy-to-remember number (only 7 effective habits to learn!) or an instantly graspable metaphor. A few years ago, one of the more successful metaphors was a dumbed down variation on Macchiavellian themes: Attila the Hun as effective corporate warrior, possessor of 'leadership secrets.' It was a perfect fit for a corporate culture driven by ruthless greed where executives viewed business as a vast battleground on which financial empires establish themselves by crushing the competition and dominating the market.

Not everybody, however, was convinced. "In my opinion," wrote one business development consultant in 1995, "[Attila] was not a success but a giant failure. He sowed the wind and reaped the whirlwind, being stabbed in the back by his newly 'taken' bride," and without his tyrannical grip on the reins of power, the Alexandrian empire was unable to sustain itself for very long. The author was Laurie Beth Jones, and she had a different idea about what makes for effective leadership. The man she chose to present as a business leader's role model was Jesus, CEO (Hyperion, 1995).

Jones broke the Gospel stories down into bite-size chunks and shuffled them around, each piece illustrating a separate leadership principle. Some of her points were fairly general ("He Believed in Himself," "He Was Bold"), but at other times Jones proved that she could repackage Jesus in explicitly corporate terms ("He Took the Long View," "He Called the Question," "He Changed the Unit of Measurement"). In 1995, people weren't yet speaking glibly of the need to think "outside the box," but Jones was already positioning Jesus as somebody who "broke ranks" and "came from left field."

I don't want to imply any negative judgment by saying Jones 'repackaged' Jesus' message. She hasn't, in my opinion, distorted it; she's simply put it in a new box. A box that also holds up fairly well when compared to other schools of business thought that rely on more traditional credentials. When Jones writes about Jesus and the apostles as an example of a team working together under the guidance of a man with a visionary plan, clearly defined goals, and the wisdom to train the next generation of leadership, the principles could just as easily be coming from management consultancy insiders like Warren Bennis or Noel Tichy. The only difference is the presence of Jesus at the heart of the text.

And although I don't believe that Jones would necessarily describe herself as antiecclesiastical, her extrapolation of Jesus' message is, at least on the surface, unconcerned with organized religion. In a recent interview, she went so far as to say, "Jesus did not come to set up a new religion, but to teach us about the individual connections we each have with God." In her books, Jesus' lessons are illuminated by Jones' personal experiences; variations on "I met somebody..." or "I was talking to somebody..." abound. It might be overstating the case to call it "Christ without Christianity," but the emphasis is definitely away from obeying the strictures of judgmental religious leaders and towards an understanding of how Jesus' teachings can apply to our lives moment by moment.

One of the themes in Jesus, CEO that had the most impact with readers was that of the grounded vision, the determined self-definition. As she puts it, "His 'I Am' statements are what he became." In leadership seminars, she soon found that her audiences wanted to be able to find their mission and define it. Thus, in 1996, came The Path. Declaring that "a corporation's mission statement is the single most important tool it has," she put together a series of exercises that allowed readers to identify the core values of their company and what they really wanted to accomplish. The mission statement was then boiled down into a single statement with simple clarity. Jones' mission, for example, is "to recognize, promote and inspire divine connection."

In doing so, she has moved beyond the confines of the office. In her most recent book, Jesus In Blue Jeans (Hyperion, 1997), Jones invites readers to ask themselves, "Who do I want to be in my everyday life?" If companies can have mission statements, so can individuals -- and this is, in fact, an integrative concept which allows us to break down the arbitrary distinction between what you do for work and how we live our lives. Working from the four basic principles of Poise, Passion, Perspective, and Power, Jones again presents snippets of Jesus' wisdom in the form of emulable qualities, shifting effortlessly between the simpleness of "he had eyes to see" or "he trusted his instincts" and contemporary buzzwords like "he did a pattern interrupt" or "he had saturation knowledge."

Again, Jones does not promote the doctrines of any particular faith. Her Jesus doesn't act as the Messiah, but as a guy who did the right thing and inspired others to do the same, a great teacher who can help people to make more authentic contact with each other on a one-to-one level. While envisioning Jesus, one of the great antiauthoritarian rabblerousers of history, as a corporate boss was somewhat problematic, seeing him as a good man with a powerful message is perfectly reasonable. Even those who don't believe that he was the Son of God have no problem accepting that Jesus had a solid argument in favor of reevaluating the way we live our lives. Jones' three books represent her take on the core of that argument. In the course of three years, she's moved from presenting a kinder, gentler alternative to all-or-nothing business practices to developing a broader motivational philosophy that has already moved her out of the business books section onto self-help and inspirational shelves. And although many books in that market are drenched in namby-pamby New Age versions of "angels" and "spirits," her vision of Jesus remains rooted in ordinary experiences shared with other people.

Ironically, perhaps, Laurie Beth Jones has become something of a commodity through these books and her workshops and seminars. And although it would be fashionably cynical of me to dismiss her because of that, doing so overlooks the fact that there's nothing inherently wrong about it. Whether one deals in products or ideas, commodification is the way that you bring what you have to offer into the marketplace. What really matters is quality -- and Jones' ideas measure up favorably against any other self-help or business author I've read, frankly performing better than most. Maybe that's because her source material is some of the best around.

- Ron Hogan
of Beatrice
grifter@primenet.com