What would you do if Jesus walked in the door?

Would he be treated like any other customer? Or would you offer profound hospitality?

If Jesus walked in the door to your business today, what would you do? Would you and your team treat him like any other customer? Asking him how you can help him, suggesting products or services to him?

1500 years ago a young monk outside of Rome, who was watching first hand the collapse of the Roman Empire, had the idea to create a community. For that community he wrote a blueprint on how they would live, work and pray together; how they would be governed, how they would make decisions and how they would treat guests. This document, called The Rule of Benedict, would be the blueprint Charlemagne would eventually use to build Western civilization.

This document has lasted for centuries, even to this day all Benedictine monasteries and some offshoots of the Benedictines live by this document.

The Rule of Benedict is not only for the Benedictine monks and sisters though, it is a document used by institutions, universities and businesses throughout the world. The principles of this blueprint include community, stability, humility, harmony, stewardship, excellence, innovation, virtue, character and profound hospitality. These principles, when put to work by business, create the soil for flourishing and positive deviance, thus giving business leaders and entrepreneurs the tools to create fulfilling success, for not only themselves, but for all their stakeholders.

So back to my original question, what would you do if Jesus walked in the door? In Benedictine monasteries when a guest arrives all other things stop and they acknowledge the guest as if he was Jesus. They take a very different approach to guests than just customer service or customer experience.

Before we get into what this profound hospitality is, and what it might look like, we have to have a foundation on which to build, and that foundation is community.

Today’s hot business trend is creating culture. There are hundreds of books about it and probably thousands of consultants being paid to do it. However in order to have a great culture there must be a foundation that allows it to take shape.

One thing we are now seeing is many of the companies that started implementing culture building programs, such as DEI programs, are beginning to move away from them because they are not seeing results. The primary reason for this failing is because they don’t have a foundation, a foundation of community in order to create culture.

They treat this idea of culture like a mechanic fixing your car. Once the mechanic figures out what's wrong with the car then they go about a process of fixing what’s wrong. The mechanic assumes they know the outcome. The problem with treating culture this way is that an organization is an ecosystem with three components; 1)unpredictability, because people are involved and people are unpredictable, 2) limits of control, control is an illusion 3) interdependence, all aspects of the organization are dependent on others.

So rather than “fixing” culture, like a mechanic, we need to create community as a gardener would. The role of the gardener is to prepare the soil, plant the seed, cultivate the crop and then harvest, we need to constantly adjust as the gardener would because knowing that the climate can change, we may find weeds, and market conditions fluctuate. The gardener has to be cognizant of all these things, as must we. This community we create, the garden, is the basis for all we do. The principles are; empathy, listening with the ear of your heart, dignity of all people, communication, transparency, subsidiarity (allowing decisions to be made at the lowest possible level), and making sure all stakeholders matter. This community does not take a program or process to develop like the mechanic fixing a car. Creating community takes a mindset change and it is constantly being cared for like the garden. When we create this community now we have the mindset to deliver profound hospitality

What is profound hospitality? It is the idea that we make space for one another. “To offer warmth, acceptance, and joy in welcoming others. Let all...be received as Christ." R.B. 53 Benedict says that all should be treated like Christ and when the guest enters everything stops and the focus is on the guest.

What does that look like? There are four main components to profound hospitality.

The first is authenticity. How many times have we been greeted by someone or given a gift from someone and it feels impersonal. I see this many times in how businesses give out gifts and trinkets with their logos on them. Did they put thought into what they are giving?

The second is to surprise and delight. One of the best books on this idea of hospitality is by Will Guidara, Unreasonable Hospitality. He tells the story of the $2 hot dog. Where he overhears a table of women on vacation in New York City eating at his award winning restaurant say that they didn’t get to have a New York City hotdog. He sends his sous chef to a hot dog cart down the street to purchase one. His James Beard award winning chef cuts the hot dog into four pieces and creates a work of art on the plate with the simple ingredients of ketchup, mustard and relish. He brings the plate out to the women and the reaction they have is of sheer delight. How do you surprise and delight your customers, employees and vendors?

The third component of profound hospitality is detail. Paying attention to detail is critical and it starts with listening to what the customer is saying and then making sure every little detail is delivered.

The fourth and the most important component is welcoming. How do you welcome your customers and just as importantly your team members? Do you truly take the time to welcome them, do you pay attention to every touch point where you interact with a customer. In my workshops I have teams analyze every possible interaction with a customer and what they can do to improve each of those interactions. As you make changes fractionally that leads to profound hospitality.

The Benedictines have spent centuries creating community and delivering profound hospitality. The same principles used by them can be put to work in your business or organization. By using these principles, you create positive deviance, meaning you significantly outperform your peers. These principles lead to better engagement, loyalty, customer satisfaction and profitability.

Mike Ferrell, is an award winning author, speaker, trainer, business coach and Benedictine Oblate who helps entrepreneurs, business leaders and organizations create flourishing using the Benedictine principles. He is based in Sioux Falls, SD For more information on my coaching and training programs visit themonkguy.com