Christian Business Concepts
Christian Business Concepts
The ROI of Encouragement: How It Drives Peak Performance & Revenue Growth
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What if the simplest lever for performance is the one leaders overlook? We dive into encouragement as a strategic practice—rooted in Scripture and confirmed by neuroscience—to show how specific, timely praise unlocks motivation, trust, and better results. From dopamine and oxytocin to the way the prefrontal cortex stays online under affirmation, we unpack why recognition boosts productivity and lowers turnover, and why criticism often shuts people down. Along the way, we name the numbers, the risks of disengagement, and the cultural costs when leaders stay silent.
We share a clear, usable playbook: five pillars of Christ-centered encouragement—be specific, timely, sincere, public, and proportional. Hear practical scripts that name the action and impact, examples of public praise and private correction, and a mix of channels from one-on-ones to handwritten notes. We also explore how to encourage the “invisibles,” offer micro-encouragements that take ten seconds, and use the ARC method (Acknowledge, Restore, Commission) to respond to mistakes without shaming people out of the arena.
This conversation also grounds the practice in the Bible: Jesus saying “take courage,” Ephesians 4:29’s call to build up, and leaders like Moses, David, and Nehemiah who spoke life in moments of risk and rebuilding. We field common leader worries—being introverted, “not seeing” wins, and fear of entitlement—and show how to tie praise to observable behaviors and character to keep standards high and culture healthy. If you want stronger teams, faster collaboration, and a brand people trust, start by making encouragement a daily discipline.
If this resonated, share it with a leader who needs it, subscribe for more faith-driven business insights, and leave a review with one encouragement you’ll try this week.
Welcome to the Christian Business Concepts with your host Harry. Christian Business Concepts is dedicated to the company company's business.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you, Kelly, and uh welcome everyone to this week's Christian Business Concepts Weekly Podcast. And just want to thank you for downloading this week's podcast. And whether this is your first time or you are a longtime listener, I hope you'll be encouraged and enlightened and empowered by what you hear today as we share biblical insights and principles on business subjects that, if you apply them, I believe will bring you true godly success. You know, CBC continues to grow, and much of that is because many of you are helping us by sharing this podcast with four or five other people each week and by sharing the link and putting it on a on a post on on your LinkedIn page or your face uh Facebook pages. And I greatly appreciate that. Thank you so much. But we're so excited that you've decided this week to download this podcast and to make us a part of your regular uh growth plan in your life. So we thank you for that. Now let me give a big shout out to Nottingham, Nottingham, and Great Britain. I want to thank you guys for doing such a great job out there. Thank you for uh being a part of the CBC family and downloading so many episodes this week. We really appreciate you and all of those who listen regularly and have added CBC to that growth plan, as I said before. So today I want to talk about something that I think is it can really help you to be a better leader and to help the people around you as well. Today I want to help equip you with the knowledge and the skills and the tools to harness encouragement as a strategic lever for individual performance, for team cohesion, for organizational success. I want to talk about encouragement. Encouragement is not just something that, oh, you know, well, if I can, sometimes I try to, you know. Encouragement is a powerful tool in business. It's a powerful tool for your life, it's a powerful tool to help others. And uh, if you just want to talk about just the neuroscience alone of encouragement, uh, you know, when you have positive uh reinforcement, it creates dopamine. And dopamine helps with motivation. Uh, it also helps to produce oxytocin. Oxytocin, it helps us to develop trust. And so when you talk about the neuroscience of encouragement alone, dopamine and oxytocin uh are tremendous benefits because, again, it helps to motivate and bring trust. You know, Harvard studies have shown that a 31% productivity boost comes when employees feel recognized. So I think that's really important. And then you look at the opposite, you know, criticism activates the threat response according to psychology. And uh encouragement keeps that uh prefrontal cortex, the problem-solving part of your brain, it keeps it online, keeps it working. So you have to understand that this is the neuroscience behind encouragement. It's more than just doing it. It is, it is, there is a scientifically or scientific reason for doing that. You know, there the cost of not doing it, well, you know, you can look at 61% of employees, according to a recent Gallup poll, 61% of employees say that their manager's lack of encouragement is the number one reason that they just disengage. And disengagement, according to studies, cost United States companies over$550 billion annually. And so it's important. You know, my mentor, John Maxwell, said a word of encouragement from a teacher to a child can change a life. A word of encouragement from a spouse can save a marriage. A word of encouragement from a leader can inspire a person to reach his or her potential. I think that is so true. Uh, you know, when you look at some of the numbers when we when we develop an encouraging environment within our organizations or a culture that recognizes people, encourages people, uh, there's a couple of things that you'll see. Uh, number one, employee retention. According to a Gallup poll in 2023, they they said that that employee retention increased by 37% when they began to have uh an encouragement type of environment within that organization. Uh innovation. Innovation increased 44%. And this is a Google Project um um uh study that they did, and uh it was about uh an increase of 44% in the number of ideas that were submitted. And then a sales quota alone. Uh sales quota, according to Salesforce's internal study, they found that encouragement increases the sales uh sales quota attainment by 19%. And uh so those are just some numbers here. I'm just not making this stuff up. Encouragement is really important. And let me go on because encouragement is a biblical mandate. It is a biblical mandate. Uh, you know, in Matthew chapter 14, verse 27, um you know, Jesus imitated encouragement. You know, he he said uh at that point there in Matthew 14, 27, he said, take courage, take courage. He was trying to, he was trying to encourage them. In fact, seven times in the Gospels, Jesus says, take heart or be of good cheer. Again, he's trying to be encouraging. And so if the Son of God prioritized encouragement in storms, which is where he said, take courage, it is I, in storms and in betrayals, I believe we need to as well. You know, the Bible says in Ephesians 4.29, it says, Let no corrupt talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for the building up as fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear. So again, it's about encouragement. Uh 1 Thessalonians 5 and 11 says, encourage one another and build each other up. I think that's powerful. And uh, you know, I like to take my cues from God. I like to take my cues from the Word of God. That's why this is Christian business concepts. We we take biblical principles and we apply them. But encouragement is, you know, right now it's kind of become a new thing within the corporate world, but it's not new. It's old. It's been around for a long time, and Jesus imitated it. And uh so we we need us to understand, you know, you use encouragement to ignite purpose and you ignite action. You know, Hebrews 10, 24, 25 says, spur one another on towards love and good deeds. Uh Proverbs 12, 25 says, anxiety weighs down the heart, but a kind word cheers it up. So your words have emotional and spiritual weight. They have emotional and spiritual weight. They have an impact. And if you really understand encouragement and you take it seriously, uh, I believe that you're gonna find that it's gonna be a powerful tool and you're gonna to really feel good about yourself and others around you, you're gonna encourage them. You know, Acts 9 and 26 and 27, you know, Barnabas kind of vouched for Paul when other people were afraid of him because Paul had been converted. But it but Barnabas got around Paul. Paul was a little bit discouraged over that, but you know, Barnabas vouched for him and encouraged Paul. Uh, you know, and when you you don't want to overlook the opportunities that you have to encourage people. You want to encourage those people who've been overlooked, or you maybe you want to encourage people that are new, uh, or maybe people that are recovering. Uh, you know, uh uh Philemon says in uh chapter one, verse seven, it says, Your love has given me great joy and encouragement. So encouragement refreshes not just the people that you're talking to and encouraging, but it encourages the leader as well. You know, um in the in the word of God, there's 59 times where it says one another. Uh there's 12 of those 59 times that says encourage or build up. And so it's it's in the word of God, it's so important. You know, when you look at leadership, you look at Moses and how that he publicly honored Joshua before Israel in Deuteronomy 31. You know, uh in 1 Samuel chapter 30, you see David, he strengthens his men uh after Ziglag, after the loss there in Ziglag. So David encouraged his men around him. And and Nehemiah, Nehemiah rallied a lot of the people in Jerusalem at the time to help him rebuild the wall, but he encouraged them. He really, really encouraged them. So I, you know, when you look at the word of God, you'll see a very uh uh uh very specific uh ways that you can encourage people. I will say, I'll call them the five pillars of Christ-centered encouragement. So, first of all, be specific. Be specific. You know, when when Matthew in Matthew 25, we find the parable about the talents, uh, and Jesus says in the talent that the master says, well done, well done. And he begins to tell them what they did and why that was well done. So he was specific. In other words, you might want to say something like, hey, you know, your quarter three forecast accuracy was 98.7%. Hey, great job. The CFO really appreciated it. Very specific, very specific. And then it needs to be timely. It needs to be timely. You know, in Acts chapter 9, the Bible says that Barnabas arrived immediately after Paul's conversion. So you need to do it immediately. You don't want to wait for a week and then try to encourage somebody over something they did a week ago. It loses its power, it loses its umph, right? And then he goes on and he says, um, uh, be sincere. So first is be specific, then be timely, and then be sincere. You know, the Bible says in Ephesians 4 15, it says, speak the truth in love. You need to be be uh very, very sincere. You need to make eye contact. And you can say something like, Look, I really mean this. And then give them that encouraging word. It's so important. And then the fourth pillar of the five pillars of a Christ-centered encouragement is public. Public. Do it publicly. Jesus praised the centurion in front of the entire crowd when the centurion said, Master, you don't have to come to my house. I'm a man of authority. I recognize you're a man of authority. All you have to do is say, you know, that my child is healed and she'll be healed. You don't even have to bother coming into my house. And Jesus encouraged him publicly. He encouraged him uh publicly. And then lastly, you want to be proportional. You know, in Luke 12, it says, to whom much is given, you know, much is required. So you need to be proportional. You know, you don't want your encouragement to be outside the realms of what had happened or took place or what it is. You you want that to balance. You want to be proportionate. So, what are some of the benefits of having this culture of encouragement? Well, first of all, uh I think there's this culture of encouragement it it produces for the individual, uh, for an individual person, it really helps to reduce stress, reduce burnout, it gives them greater job satisfaction, it gives them increased confidence, and it helps them to grow as a person. So that's what it does for the individual. Now, for a team, when you have that culture of encouragement, for a team, what it does is it starts to build this high level of trust. It develops collaboration. And also when there's conflict, it resolves itself a lot faster. Uh, there's more initiative, there's more ownership, and there's this inclusiveness that people begin to feel. And then for the organization, well, you get a stronger brand. You know, when people look at your brand, they see that your company, what your company is like, and the encouraging words that your company has and how they treat each other, and it just gives you a stronger brand and a greater reputation. You'll have lower turnover, so you'll have lower HR costs. And then you begin to attract top talent because they hear about how you treat your people. And it gives you good sustainable growth. So I think those are those are important things to remember because listen, people don't leave jobs, they leave culture. Let me say it again so you get it. People don't leave jobs, they leave cultures. And encouragement is the glue of a healthy culture. So if you have a healthy culture, you'll have less tone over turnover. If you have an unhealthy culture, you'll have more turnover. It's that simple. So, what are some best practices? How do I encourage people effectively? Well, we already mentioned one. So that is be specific, be sincere, but be specific, you know. So, like, like what you don't want to do is just go up, hey, good job, team. That's that that's not specific. You know, you could say something like, Hey Sarah, you know, your attention to detail in the quarter three forecast, you know, you caught a$40,000 error. That saved us. Great job. Okay, so that was very specific. So, you know, when you do that, what you want to do is you want to say their name, say their action, what they did, and then include the impact of what they did. In other words, like, John, the way you stayed late to help the new hire on board showed true servant leadership. It strengthened the whole team. Okay, so that again, the name, the action, and the impact that it had. So be specific. The second principle is you need to encourage in public, but you correct people in private. So public praise multiplies motivation. You can see that in Proverbs, you know, chapter 27, verse 2. It says, Let another man praise you. And he goes on to explain how that is so motivating. Uh also, private correction preserves that person's dignity. You know, one of my pet peeves is when I go into a public place and and you know, and a manager is berating one of the employees in front of all the patrons that are standing there in the restaurant or seating, uh sitting in the restaurant. I I hate that. I've actually, you know, um, to my wife's embarrassment, there's been times when I've actually got up and went over and said something because it's just you're you're basically you're destroying that person's dignity and you don't want to do that. So you want to do it in public, but you want to correct in private. A third one is you want to use multiple channels, and this is important. You know, if you really want to have a deep impact, you give somebody a handwritten note. They mean so much today because nobody writes out notes anymore. I just got a note from uh John Maxwell's office. Um he's my mentor, and I'm actually a certified uh uh coach and trainer and speaker for John Maxwell. And I got a handwritten note uh from his office this week. It was very uplifting, very encouraging, because nobody writes handwritten notes. It takes time, it takes effort. It's very personal. So if you want to have a deep impact, you can you can hand write a note. Uh you can do a public shout out. Hey, team, I just wanted to encourage everybody because of what John did, and then you encourage John, but you do it in front of those people, and that really lifts that person up. And then you can do it one-on-one. You know, you give that one-on-one affirmation when we talk to them, and that really helps them to grow personally. That helps them to grow personally. And then you can give them some kind of tangible reward. You can give them a gift card. Uh, you can give them a bonus. I'll never forgot or forget when I was working uh for the company I'd worked for for so many years, and uh during COVID, uh, we lost a lot of key people. And so I went out for six months and I would get to the factory at five o'clock in the morning, and I would help the guys in in my department or in the division, I should say, that I was responsible for. I would go out in the factory and help them produce orders so that we could keep the orders flowing. I did that for six months. Uh for about six months later, I had somebody from the office call me into the president's office, and he called me in and he slid an envelope across the desk to me. He said, Harold, we want you to know that you've been noticed and recognized for the massive efforts that you have put in. We know the work you're doing at home. We know the extra work that you come here extra early and stay late, and we know it's been a very trying time the last six months. We just want you to know we recognize it. I opened it up and it was a huge check, big, big check. Uh, we're talking several thousands of dollars. And they just gave that to me because of uh the fact that I had done this extra, put in the extra. Um, but but you don't have to do something that big, you don't have to give thousands and thousands of dollars, but you can give a gift card, you know, give them a gift certificate to a really nice restaurant for that person and their and their partner, you know, their wife or their girlfriend, boyfriend, whatever. And you can do those kinds of things. Those are great channels for encouragement. Uh and then encourage the invisibles. This is I call them the invisibles, encourage them. Whenever I go to a trade show, one of the when when I go to the bathroom, there's normally somebody, at least during that trade show, I'm going to meet the person who's cleaning that bathroom. And I stop, I take time out, and I thank them. I thank them for keeping it clean. I thank them for the work that they're doing. I just try to encourage them. But you encourage those people, encourage the janitors, and encourage the admins, encourage the night shift workers, you know, the people that in their minds they're invisible. You know, that quiet person who contributes and never seeks credit. You know, the the the the employee who's struggling, who's trying, you know, Jesus noticed the widow's might. She didn't have anything. She was of no stature, she was not an important person, but he noticed her. So who are you overlooking? That's the question. Who are you overlooking? Who are you overlooking? Here's another principle. Micro encouragement. Now, what is that? Well, that takes about 10 seconds. You know, it's uh you can call it a walk by praise or a walk by encouragement if you want. Uh, you know, you can just I'll give you an example. Hey, I saw your email to the client, John. I saw your email to the client. Perfect tone. Great job. Keep walking. That's a micro encouragement. Took 10 seconds. Uh, you know, when you you when you get into more like a uh narrative encouragement, which is the next principle, you're talking more of about a 30 or 60 seconds it takes. But again, you talk about their behavior, the impact it had, maybe the future, you know, something like uh, you know, hey, when you volunteered to lead the RFP response behavior, you know, that's the behavior. We won the$2 million deal after that. So there's the impact. And I'm excited to see you run point on the next project. There's the future, right? But now here's another thing. What happens when you have somebody that has a setback? Maybe they made a mistake, maybe something didn't go as well. You need to encourage them too. And and I say that you use the ARC method, ARC, use the ARC method. First of all, acknowledge them. Just acknowledge the situation, acknowledge the setback. You know, Psalms 30 and 5 says, weeping may stay for the night, but joy comes in the morning. So yeah, we we had a bad situation, so you got to acknowledge that. But then you restore them. Hey, look, that that happened, but you know what? I know that you've got greater things in you, and this is gonna be one of those things that you're gonna learn from, but you're gonna move on. You're gonna move on. So don't live in this, move on. And then that's you commission them. So you acknowledge them, you restore them, and you commission them. So ARC, ARC. And you want to do that for those people because you want to encourage those people who make mistakes, encourage those people who experience setbacks. Uh, you know, so you you need to make sure that you do that. You need to do that. So, you know, I think about Chick-fil-A, you know, uh Truett Kathy started Chick-fil-A. Uh, this goes back to the 1990s, you know, when they were starting to do a lot of their training and training um sessions. And Truett Cathy mandated that every store operator write one handwritten note of encouragement per shift to an employee every day. And uh one of the operators said, uh one of the managers, and he said, Dan, he said, um, you know, I'm just really, really shy and everything, but your note really, really encouraged me because he told her in his in her note, he just said, your smile today reflected Jesus' joy. Keep on shining. And that really, really encouraged her. But here's the story, the end of the story. That teen at that time, she wound up becoming a 20-year veteran and a vice president of Chick-fil-A, one of their vice presidents. So today, Chick-fil-A's turnover is 60% below what the industry average is in the food industry. And uh a lot of the operators will tell you that a big part of that is those notes that they sign and write every single day. So you need to make sure that because personalized encouragement, it really turns employees into really lifelong employees, lifelong ambassadors for your company. You know, and as I read in 1 Thessalonians, again, encourage one another and build each other up. And so you may have some questions. You may say, well, you know, I I'm introverted. You know, public praise for me, when I try to do it, it feels forced. Okay, that's fine. Start with one-on-one notes, you know, because they're gonna have a great impact. And uh, and and and so just start with one-on-one notes. Well, you know, here's another one. You know, what if I don't see anything praiseworthy? Well, then lower the bar a little bit uh and apply it to effort or learning. You know, hey, I saw you ask three clarifying questions in the requirements call. Hey, great diligence. That's an encouragement. Okay. Um, here's another question that I've had. Won't this create entitlement? I don't want to, I don't want to create an entitlement state. I had a CEO one time that was really worried about that. So he's really guarded about giving encouragement. But you want to tie encouragement to specific behaviors. That's why we talked about the actions. You want to encourage, you want to encourage people, but you got to tie it to specific behaviors and not their identity. Entitlement comes from vague and unearned praise. That's where it comes from. So when you tie your encouragement to sp to specific behaviors, then you won't create that sense of entitlement. You know, so that's important. You know, the new the the the the important part of of what we're doing is is so incredible in our organizations. I don't care what your business is, but this whole idea, this principle of encouragement is so powerful. But now you gotta be careful of some things. There's some things that you you you gotta be careful of. There's some pitfalls, right? So the first one is flattery. There's something different between encouragement and flattery. Uh, you know, Psalms chapter 12 talks about they flatter with their lips. Well, we're not talking about flattery, but you got to be careful because that's not what you're looking to do. You want to be very specific and uh you want to make sure you have discernment, but don't flatter. That's not what you're trying to do. Then the next thing you got to watch for, another pitfall is partiality. You can't show favoritism. John chapter 2, verses 1 through 4 talks about that. So you don't want to show favoritism. Now, what you may want to do if you do something really notable for somebody, maybe you you you want to keep track of that. You want to keep track of it and make sure that you're not becoming partial to any one person. And then you have to be weary of the of the pitfall that is performance idolatry. What do I mean by that? Well, I mean that that everybody just worships performance and not the person. And so we you have to you have to tie your the the praise that you're giving to character at least 50% of the time. At least not just performance, but character issues as well. Don't make it all about performance. You know, Joel Olstein said this if we're going to bring out the best in people, we too need to sow seeds of encouragement. Let me say it again. If we're going to bring the best out in people, we too need to sow seeds of encouragement. So when you begin to see the power of encouragement, when you begin encouraging others, you'll encourage yourself. And then you'll begin to see that encouragement is not merely a nice gesture. I say it's jet fuel for the engines that'll help your business soar as God intended. Father, I come to you right now in the name of Jesus. And Lord, I'm asking you to minister to every heart, Lord, who's listened to this podcast. Help them to see the power, Lord, of encouraging others. Help them to apply these godly principles, Lord, these biblical principles, Lord. Help them to apply them to encourage others and make their organization have a culture and a uh, Lord, just a tremendous, uh, tremendous environment, Lord, of encouragement. And Lord, I thank you for that and I praise you for it. In the name of Jesus, amen and amen. Well, thanks again for tuning into this week's uh Christian Business Concepts Podcast. And uh again, be sure to share that with four or five other people. Put the link to this podcast on a post that you put on your LinkedIn or your Facebook page. We just really appreciate you helping us to grow the CBC family. And uh we're so thankful that you're a part of that. So looks like that's all the time we have for this week. So until next time, remember, Jesus is Lord and He wants you blessed.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you for tuning in to this week's Christian Business Concept Podcast. Go to Christian Business Concept.com for more information and resources.