The Bald Goat

Yesterday we were faced with some tough decisions at God’s Care. A major miscommunication had taken place between us and one of our clients and it was about to cost us big time. The details are not necessary to understand that, in the end, this had the potential to cost us $1000 or more. This is not $1000 of profit. This was over $1000 that we had spent on plants for her landscaping. And it really all came down to the fact that we had given a bid for “apples” and she had approved “oranges”. We were talking about two different things when thinking we were talking about the same thing.

So we were faced with a choice.

Do we stand our ground and insist on payment for the work we had done, pulling up plants and potentially losing a commercial maintenance contract in the process?

Do we take a huge hit and lose lots of money?

There may be minor variations within these two options, but this was the basic scenario. Brian and I talked for quite a while about the situation trying to understand how the communication could have gone so terribly wrong. How are we supposed to handle this situation?

Our ultimate decision was guided by some values we have established at God’s Care.

1. We value the relationships we have with our customers more than we value their money.
2. We value openness and honesty in all our relationships.

If we are going to live up to these values we are going to have to accept the fact that we could end up on the losing end of this deal. As we serviced our accounts that afternoon we prayed. We asked God to guide us in how to proceed.

And then our client returned our phone call.

We were open and honest with what had happened and she in turn was open and honest with us. We explained to her our situation and hoped she would be understanding, but before we ever presented any of this persuasive information we made sure she understood how much we valued her. 

This was not done to persuade her.

This was not done to play to her sensibilities.

This was done to let her know that we would sacrifice over $1000 rather than harm a relationship with her.

We all have values that guide the decisions we make every single day, but we don’t often take the time to write these values down. We fail to solidify them and we therefore fail to live by them. The outcome of this situation was good. We both gave a little bit to make this situation work out, but it might not have worked out this way. And although it would have been hard, it would have been better than sacrificing our values.

I would love it if you would share some of your values in the comment section below.

Lord, let us be people of integrity who live by a set of values that can only come from you. Give us the strength and wisdom to actually live by these values.