The Christian life is a holistic one. While many people in the world define ‘religious’ faith in terms of the divine, the fact of the matter is that our influence as Christians reaches out into the world we live in. In practical terms, because a large portion of our earthly experience occurs within the business or working life, its environment becomes a major field where we can exercise our calling and identities as Christians: to put our faith in action.
For close to six years now, Accomplish Asia has been at the forefront of redeeming businesses as one of the mountains of culture by firmly establishing them on the foundation of a Kingdom mindset. Its core values are encapsulated through the acronym GLORY (God-centered, Loyal to Process, Obedient to Truth, Real Spirit of Excellence, Yielding Rights). In practical terms, this means giving God priority as the center of the company, sticking true to an ethical and Godly process, being faithful to God’s Truth rather than the world’s, striving to a high standard in our work ethics and professionalism, and dying to our self-centered impulses. These core values govern all that they do – from their decision making, the way they lead their teams, build their businesses and even, how they seek to build people through their member companies.
As expressed by Accomplish Asia, at the heart and center of their identity lies the dream of a coming together of workplace leaders who desire to use their skills, experience, and resources to make a meaningful impact within their spheres of influence. Through this coming together workplace leaders connect, build each other up, and learn from one another how to shape their workplace landscape by integrating faith with work.
Recently, I had the privilege of experiencing Accomplish Asia’s True Success Conference (TSC) for myself. As a project, the TSC conference has a mission of guiding and helping the needs of professionals and business owners in these challenging times, and the communities it forms have become known for their safe spaces where like-minded leaders from diverse backgrounds and industries can grow in truth, competence and care.
Even before the conference, I saw the intentionality of this through the thoughtful way Accomplish formed its discussion groups. My group consisted of people around the same age and in the same field of profession, and through the two days, we grew to form lasting friendships that went beyond the conference itself.
I discovered that the focus at the True Success Conference was not on business strategies, which honestly, vary from company to company, depending on the nature of their structure and field of market. Rather, the emphasis was on deeper and more enduring impartations and lifelong principles which will enable ordinary individuals like ourselves to shine for God in our workplaces and be an extraordinary influence on our colleagues, friends, and business partners. Through understanding ourselves as defined by our relationship with God, and the application of our faith, integrity, as well as a heart of servant leadership, exercised in practical ways in our professional endeavours, we develop and grow to make lasting impact.
The Key Highlights of the True Success Conference 2024 were outlined in 4 major areas (Building a Legacy of Impact, Redefining Success, Stories of Transformation, Impactful Networking), and the speakers included prominent business leaders who intersected the business world with personal and deeply rooted Christian faiths. There is so much that we as conference participants received and I can only highlight some of it here on a very general level due to length considerations and constraints.
Pak Julian and Djunaidi hit the ground running in the first session by shifting the participants’ orientation of success via a reflection on what defines “True Success” and on “Making [God’s] Truth the Norm and not Norm the Truth”. They reminded us of the cruciality of letting Jesus be the center of our lives. “True Success means nothing without Jesus Christ,” Djunaidi shared.
Through practical guidelines such as a Life’s Dashboard (Fuel: What we feed into our Life Tank, Speed: How we direct the course of our companies/organisations and whether we are doing it at the right pacing, Engine: What we inculcate regularly to keep our Engine – the things that keep us going in life – well-tuned, Temperature: our Emotional Health), Julian and Djunaid’s sharing shifted the focus of true success from personal achievement to the larger view of collective/organisational well-being.
By helping participants explore innovative approaches to business that prioritize the well-being of employees, customers, and society at large, the organisation – in the context of a community rather than the individual – becomes the focus for success, fostering a sense of belonging. The inaugural session also looked into Work as Worship and 6 Life Assets/Treasures (Spiritual, Soul, Body, Relational, Family, Financial).
From this reorientation in the definition of success, Pak Paulus Bambang (who would go on the next day to speak at SIB KL) shared in the next two sessions on the essence of a company that is Built to Bless and on Leadership that Blesses. Paulus shared that every company is governed by one of three success goals (Financial, Social, Spiritual) and that these success goals have an immense power of permeating everything in the company, from its culture and values, to its focus and characteristics. Christian businesses are called to be Spiritually-Driven Companies.
Paulus shared 5 basic principles that shape the spirit of such a company (some of these include Giving glory to God, Designing our activities according to God’s plan, Carrying out our work as worship and service to God) and 5 other principles that shape its soul (including Being a Good Shepherd, Being an Honest and Fair Financial Steward, and the Principle of Sowing and Reaping). A company that is built to bless is loved by its employees, praised by customers, and becomes the pride of the community and blessing to all.
Paulus also shared on the Aspects of Leadership (Heart:Character, Head:Talents, and Hands of the Leader: Practices or Culture, divided into Competencies and Roles & Responsibilities). These aspects were organised and explicated within 3 parameters and 7 types of leaders for the Heart (Negative-centred: Enslaver, Thief, Taskmaster, Positive-Centred: Farmer, Shepherd, Servant, and Balanced: Parent), and 7 types of Talents (Dreamer, Architect, Builder, Shaper, Harvester, Reinventer, and Operator).
Besides Character and Talents, Paulus also outlined 10 types of Competencies and 10 types of Roles and Responsibilities of leaders, going into quite some detail on them. Together, these aspects of leadership help individuals to recognise their own unique God-given gifts and personalities, and how to utilise these gifts and personalities in the best way in their organisational environment.
The above gives a mere outline of the first half of the two-full-day conference. What is intended is to provide a feel for the integral and missional purpose, as well as the intentional culture, of the True Success Conference, and by extension, it is what the TSC wants to pass on to every conference participant. It goes deep.
While the conference is grounded on Kingdom values, it straddles both practical and spiritual aspects, integrating them into one holistic and complete whole. In one aspect, it brings the values of Godly integrity into businesses and in another it guides participants into putting the values into practical application. Anna Chew, whom we covered previously, and Goh Thian Aun shared from their local perspective of how their businesses were transformed after taking up the call of the GLORY core values and being Kingdom representatives in their sphere of work.
It is Accomplish Asia’s hope that the GLORY core values of being God-centered, Loyal to Process, Obedient to Truth, Real Spirit of Excellence, Yielding Rights will one day be a reality for every Christian business leader in the region, forging meaningful connections and transforming businesses from solely financially-oriented corporations to taking on the highest calling of being good stewards of their influence and resources and in turn impacting the environment in which they are in.
Accomplish Asia is organising the True Success Conference for East Malaysians this August. The event will be hosted at the SkyArena Kota Kinabalu on 2-4 August 2024. Find out more and grab the opportunity to be part of this life-changing conference by visiting https://accomplish.asia/borneo-conference-2024/
The writer would like to thank Accomplish Asia for their generosity and hospitality throughout the conference. All photos in the article kindly contributed by Accomplish Asia. Read more about Accomplish Asia’s vision and goals here:
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