When I say faith shapes how I run companies, I think people hear something soft — that I am easier on underperformance, more forgiving of missed commitments, less willing to make hard calls.
That has not been my experience of it. If anything it has made certain decisions harder, and it has made most of them clearer.
The standard is simple and demanding
Luke 6:31 is the one I keep coming back to: do to others as you would have them do to you.
It is easy to quote and difficult to run a business by, because it applies most exactly when it is least convenient — when you have leverage, when the other party will not find out, when the expedient thing is available and defensible.
Would I want to be laid off this way? Would I want to receive this invoice? Would I want a partner to handle this disagreement the way I am about to handle it? The questions are simple. The answers are frequently inconvenient.
Where it makes things harder
Ending things. A business relationship that has stopped working still has a person on the other side. Handling that properly costs more, takes longer, and sometimes means accepting a worse outcome to end it cleanly. The expedient version is right there every time.
Pricing. There are moments when you can charge more than the work is worth because the client does not know better or has no alternative. Those moments are legal and normal. Passing them up is a real cost, repeated over years.
Firing. This one surprises people, because they assume faith makes you reluctant. It cuts the other way. Keeping someone in a role they are failing at is not kindness — it is avoidance, and it is unkind to everyone around them and to the person, who is spending their working life failing. Doing right by someone sometimes means telling them clearly that this is not working, and doing it early enough that it is still useful to them.
Where it makes things clearer
Most business decisions are not close calls between good options. They are situations where you already know the right answer and are looking for a reason to do the easier thing.
A fixed standard removes the negotiation. Not because you are more virtuous, but because you have stopped relitigating the same question every time it appears in a new costume. That is a real efficiency, and it compounds — people around you learn what you will and will not do, which removes an enormous amount of ambiguity from working with you.
What it is not
It is not a marketing position. Values that exist to be mentioned are not values. If it does not cost anything it is decoration.
It is not a requirement I place on anyone else. I have worked with people of every belief and none, and I do not run companies that expect anyone to share mine. The standard is one I hold myself to. Imposing it on other people would be a different thing entirely and not one I am interested in.
It is not softness about performance. Standards are part of respecting people. Low expectations are not kindness; they are a way of communicating that you do not think someone is capable.
It is not a claim to have done this well. I have handled things badly. I have been expedient when I should not have been, and I have avoided conversations I should have had. Having a standard means having something to fall short of, and the falling short is clearer, not less frequent.
Why it belongs in a business conversation
The most durable thing in business is the willingness of other people to work with you again.
Not the contract, not the terms, not the leverage. Whether the person on the other side of a transaction wants to be on the other side of the next one. Over twenty years that has determined more outcomes than any strategy I have set.
You can get there without faith. Plenty of people do, and their reasons are their own. But you have to get there somehow, and having a standard that does not move when it becomes inconvenient is the most reliable route I have found.
That is what I mean when I say the companies in the T47 portfolio are built to be held rather than sold. If you plan to own something for a decade, and to still be doing business with the same people, the short-term version of every decision stops making sense on its own terms.