Interesting Lessons on Business and the Church from D.C. 124

In D.C. 124 the Saints in Nauvoo are commanded to build a temple and a hotel (house for the entertainment of strangers and visitors). The Lord appoints certain members to be in charge of gathering investors for the house. A few rules are stipulated:

1) Stock isn't given on loan; you get your stock when you pay for it

2) You must pay between $50 and $15,000; no more than $15,000 (probably so no one has too much control over it or too much risk by investing too much) and no less than $50 (a minimum number)

3) Those appointed to control the money invested for the house cannot use the money for any other purpose; if they do they have to pay the investor 4x the amount of money the person originally gave or those appointed will be removed from their place (certainly that position, possibly also from the church; it's unclear)

4) Joseph Smith has the same rules as everyone else; he can invest between $50 and $15K

The rules are interesting and speak to some principles.

Don't do business on credit. Relationships are too easily ruined by putting people in tough situations.

Be prudent with your investments. The Lord wouldn't even allow too much investment in his own ideas. Interesting...

The Lord takes honesty in business dealings very seriously. It is not okay to lie or misuse funds. There's a temple recommend question about that and Bishops are excommunicated immediately for misappropriating tithing funds.

The prophet has the same rules as others in regards to financial matters. I love this. This is certainly in contrast to corporations where the leaders have huge advantages in terms of investment options and stock grants.

I love this book.

Honesty - Gospel principles lesson part 2 - examples of honesty

This is somewhat cheating, but I send out an email when I'm teaching a lesson so that people will know what we're talking about and perhaps think about it.

Here's the email I sent today:

Elders,

Tomorrow our lesson is on honesty. A few thoughts for you to consider and we can discuss tomorrow:

Dishonesty happens when our actions don't align with our words. A lot of times we think of honesty being saying something that isn't true, but it also happens when we say something that ends up not being true. The second scenario is probably more common for many of us.

Concerning honesty in business, a story about Jon Huntsman from a book he wrote:

"One of my favorites in the book was how he agreed to sell 40% of his company for $54 million to Great Lakes Chemical Company. But it took 6 months for the lawyers to get the paper work drafted. Within that timeframe their margin had improved dramatically and their company was worth a lot more. The CEO called him and said that he was willing to pay more. He may have gotten $200 million more!! Mr. Huntsman refused, saying that his word was his bond. The CEO had him speak at his funeral even though the two weren’t very close."

Honesty also is necessary to become like Heavenly Father. Here's how he's described in D.C. 3:2 -

2For God doth not ^awalk in crooked paths, neither doth he ^bturn to the right hand nor to the left, neither doth he vary from that which he hath said, therefore his paths are straight, and his ^ccourse is one eternal round.

A big part of honesty seems to be the need to do things the correct way and never take something you don't have, that includes not taking credit for things you haven't done and also not taking things you shouldn't take.

In a talk given while he was President of BYU, Elder Holland spoke about Jesus always doing the right thing the right way. Here's a line from that talk, titled The Inconvenient Messiah.

Whatever else Satan may do, he will certainly appeal to our appetites. Far better to play on natural, acknowledged needs than struggle to plant in us artificial ones. Here Jesus experiences the real and very understandable hunger for food by which he must sustain his mortal life. We would not deny anyone this relief; certainly we would not deny the Son of Man. Israel had its manna in the wilderness. This is Israel's God. He has fasted for forty days and forty nights. Why not eat? He seems ready to break his fast, or surely must soon. Why not simply turn the stones to bread and eat?

The temptation is not in the eating. He has eaten before, he will soon eat again, and he must eat for the rest of his mortal life. The temptation, at least the part I wish to focus on, is to do it this way, to get his bread--his physical satisfaction, relief for his human appetite--the easy way, by abuse of power and without a willingness to wait for the right time and the right way. It is the temptation to be the convenient Messiah. Why do things the hard way? Why walk to the shop--or bakery? Why travel all the way home? Why deny yourself satisfaction when with ever such a slight compromise you might enjoy this much-needed nourishment? But Christ will not ask selfishly for unearned bread. He will postpone gratification, indefinitely if necessary, rather than appease appetite--even ravenous appetite--with what is not his.

In my mind, dishonesty, cheating, or stealing often occurs simply because one wants to take the easy way out of a tough situation.

A few questions to consider:

1) Did Jon Huntsman make the right decision? Was it the right business decision or just the right moral decision? Does it matter?

2) Who is hurt when we are dishonest?

3) What will help us become a more honest people?

See you tomorrow!

A couple comments on my questions. Jon Huntsman did make the right decision for his business and morally. He would only be honest with people and that gave him more respect and trust over the long term. Being honest and trustworthy is a very good long-term business decision. Sometimes it costs us money in the short term to gain trust (and therefore money) in the long-term.

Morally, no question that it was a good decision. He earned the respect of a man and that man's family. It impacted the world for good.

We hurt a lot of people when we are dishonest. Our spouse and kids are the most obvious. They won't be able to trust so many things about us if we're dishonest. All others that we're around are impacted as well.

Developing honesty - not sure. Need to think more about this one.... Certainly having a longer term perspective helps with honesty. The gospel helps us think about the long-term more than many things, so developing a gospel perspective in life (through prayer and scripture study and helping others) probably helps develop honesty. I'm sure there's more than that. Maybe developing respect for honest people will help also....

Honesty - Gospel Principles Manual Lesson

I'm teaching this Sunday about honesty. I think the main things I hope happens is a good discussion. It seems that these types of lessons can end up going many directions, but I hope it goes in the following direction:

1) D.C. 3:2 - discusses God and some of his defining attributes

2For God doth not ^awalk in crooked paths, neither doth he ^bturnto the right hand nor to the left, neither doth he vary from that which he hath said, therefore his paths are straight, and his ^ccourseis one eternal round.

God does not vary from that which he hath said. Imagine if he did. We would lose all confidence in him. It could never happen. His honesty is critical for him to be respected and be God.

This is similar to a talk given by Elder Holland about the Savior called the Inconvenient Messiah:

Whatever else Satan may do, he will certainly appeal to our appetites. Far better to play on natural, acknowledged needs than struggle to plant in us artificial ones. Here Jesus experiences the real and very understandable hunger for food by which he must sustain his mortal life. We would not deny anyone this relief; certainly we would not deny the Son of Man. Israel had its manna in the wilderness. This is Israel's God. He has fasted for forty days and forty nights. Why not eat? He seems ready to break his fast, or surely must soon. Why not simply turn the stones to bread and eat?

The temptation is not in the eating. He has eaten before, he will soon eat again, and he must eat for the rest of his mortal life. The temptation, at least the part I wish to focus on, is to do it this way, to get his bread--his physical satisfaction, relief for his human appetite--the easy way, by abuse of power and without a willingness to wait for the right time and the right way. It is the temptation to be the convenient Messiah. Why do things the hard way? Why walk to the shop--or bakery? Why travel all the way home? Why deny yourself satisfaction when with ever such a slight compromise you might enjoy this much-needed nourishment? But Christ will not ask selfishly for unearned bread. He will postpone gratification, indefinitely if necessary, rather than appease appetite--even ravenous appetite--with what is not his.

Fundamentally, lying is taking the easy way out of situations. This is not acceptable. Heavenly Father sometimes loses the love of his children rather than giving them a false sense of security or breaking through the veil and talking to them. But he won't lie to them and he won't break the rules of this test.

Being completely honest is something we must strive to be. Without this we cannot become the people we need to be. While honesty is critical in business, it's perhaps more critical with our spouse and children.