Church work: enhanced job performance

Editor's note: A chance conversation about his Mormon faith with a friend in the publishing business led to an offer for Jeff Benedict to write about "The Mormon Way of Doing Business." For his book, Benedict interviewed eight prominent CEOs who are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Deseret Morning News will share six short excerpts from the book on Sundays, concluding Dec. 31. For more information about the book, go online to www.jeffbenedict.com.

Conventional wisdom suggests that (Jim) Quigley's performance at Deloitte and (Kevin) Rollins' performance at Dell would decline while they served as bishops for the Mormon Church. Instead, both men reached the top of the corporate ladder after taking on time-consuming ecclesiastical responsibilities. While Quigley was bishop, he guided Deloitte's Tri-State office through the 9/11 crisis and was subsequently elected by the firm's board of directors to be the new CEO of Deloitte & Touche USA, a position he assumed in June 2003.

Although serving in a lay ecclesiastical position puts added strain on a person's time, it can actually strengthen an individual's ability as a corporate leader. "Being a bishop gives you a deep understanding of the human experience," said Quigley. "It gives you greater empathy for what some of your people face. And it gave me a richer understanding of the requirements and demands I put on people." ...

Here's where dedicating six to 10 hours per week to the Mormon Church translates into a competitive advantage in the workplace. Over a 10-year period as a young employee at Deloitte, Quigley logged over 3,000 additional hours working outside the office with highly successful CEOs like Don Staheli, Rod Hawes, and other business leaders while serving in church capacities.

On more than one Sunday afternoon, while sitting in a church office counting tithing receipts with Don Staheli, Quigley thought about other places he could be and other more leisurely activities he could be doing. But he never regretted his decision. "Think about the people I compete with and what they were doing on Sundays and Tuesday nights," Quigley said. "Think of the enormous advantage I had over them. I gave up sitting in front of the TV with a remote control and watching football on Sunday. But look at how much I learned during that time. It provides an enormous cumulative advantage in business." ...

From a leadership standpoint, serving in a noncompensated ecclesiastical role in the Mormon Church has a direct payoff in the corporate world. In Quigley's case, he went from leading a congregation of 500 Mormons to leading a firm with over 34,000 employees. "In some ways you can look at your congregation as a laboratory to learn management skills and techniques," Quigley said. "Just the fundamental principles of positive reinforcement and saying 'Thank you' will build a team that will become loyal to you. I have Deloitte partners where there's nothing I can ask them to do that they won't do. The reason they are so loyal to me, in part, is due to how I treat them and in part a result of what they think I've done for the firm."

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From the book "THE MORMON WAY OF DOING BUSINESS: Leadership and Success Through Faith and Family" by Jeff Benedict. Copyright 2007 by Jeff Benedict. Reprinted by permission of Warner Business Books Inc., New York. All rights reserved. Cover price: $25.99.