Bob: If you're an employer, you know that finding a person who has the right skill set is important when you're trying to fill a position. But it's only part of the equation. Here is Dr. Tim Irwin.

Tim: Arrogance is a major derailer. I've worked with many executives over the years who had brilliant technical capabilities, but they couldn't get along with people. They couldn't get along with their peers, or they couldn't get along with their subordinates. Oddly enough, people who study this have found that very successful leaders have an odd combination of characteristics.[ Read Full Transcript ]

They have fierce determination to accomplish the goals of the organization mixed with humility, and I believe that teaching children about humility is one of the most important things a parent can do.

Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Thursday, September 20th. Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. It's important that our children have the right skills and the right education as they get ready for the workforce. It's also important that they have the right character. Stay tuned.

And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us. I'm real interested to find out more about what our guest today does, because I look at what it says in his bio here – that he's a psychologist for companies, right?

Dennis: A psychologist to business.

Bob: And I'm just trying to think exactly what – you know, I know what a psychologist does – sits down with somebody who is going through problems and counsels them. I guess you can do that with a company or with a business, right?

Dennis: I think his company, called Irwin, Inc., is all about consulting businesses, and we're going to ask him to take off his business hat here for a few moments. We're going to turn him into a consultant to moms and dads and husbands and wives in mid-career, and we're going to get the best he's got at equipping the next generation to not only hold down a job but enjoy what they do.

Bob: I still am trying to think – do you put the business on the sofa and say, "Now, tell me about your childhood." Is that the approach that a …?

Dennis: Well, let's ask him. Dr. Tim Irwin joins us again on FamilyLife Today. Tim, welcome back.

Tim: Thanks, Dennis.

Dennis: How do you do this? Do you put the business on the couch? Bob's kind of concerned about the …

Bob: I've just got this psychologist to business. I've not heard of that as a business discipline before.

Tim: Businesses have increasingly realized that the most important resource they have is people, and people have all kinds of complexities, and there are things that affect their performance.

A CEO is like a sounding board. Sometimes somebody who is not – most of the people who come to the CEO have an agenda. In other words, they are pressing some issue that they are concerned about, and so sometimes I'm just a sounding board. I give a CEO a chance to talk about what's on their mind without having my own agenda to press.

Also, we help companies select people, in other words, finding a good fit between the person and the job is important. And developing leadership – we face, in our country today, in my opinion, a leadership crisis. We've got this crisis facing us that I'm not sure we've done enough to develop the future leaders.

Dennis: Lee Iacocca said we're facing a leadership crisis because it's a character crisis, and you're seeing that in the marketplace, right?

Tim: Absolutely, and we see cataclysmic failures of crisis in the workplace every day, I mean, they're in the headlines. We see people who have committed huge dishonest acts. I mean, the people at Enron, all the employees and many, many stockholders lost billions of dollars due to some dishonest acts of senior leadership. So, yeah, see that, and we are facing a crisis of character.

Dennis: Well, for the past 20-plus years you've put business on the couch, like Bob was talking about, and you've been a consultant to major companies around the United States. You decided to wrap all that between a cover, and you've written a book called "Run With the Bulls Without Getting Trampled."

There's a lot of moms who can identify with …

Bob: With "Run With the Toddlers."

Dennis: "Without Getting Trampled. But we're actually talking about equipping you, as a mom and dad, if you have a career path, or equipping you to help your children as they grow up and are old enough to hold down a job. One of the things you describe, Tim, that I found interesting was that many people describe their career or their job as a penalty box between two weekends. Is that how you said it?

Tim: Exactly. And the statistics say there are a lot of people who are very unhappy at work, and so work is a penalty box between weekends, and a lot of people are like mercenaries. I mean, they're not really emotionally invested in what they're doing. They're just getting a paycheck, they're just paid to do a job.

Bob: Let me go back to this character deficit that you're talking about that exists in the culture and exists in the business culture. You know, if that's endemic as a part of who we are as a culture, there is not really a quick fix for that is there?

Tim: Well, I think we could go philosophical at this point, and I think we're seeing some of the consequences of the moral relativism that's been seeping into our culture for the last 30 or 40 years, and we're seeing that played out in all kinds of settings, but certainly business is one of those places where people have to make a lot of character-based decisions. What's the right thing to do?

I remember when we had the Tylenol scare a number of years ago, and Ralph Larsen was approached by his staff, and said, "We'll get the lawyers together and the PR people and figure out how to talk about this." And he said, "I don't need those people. We know what the right thing to do is. Get the Tylenol off the shelves."

That was not only the right character judgment, it was also a good business decision.

Bob: Now, at the time, somebody in the boardroom had to say, "Do you understand how much that's going to cost us to do that?"

Tim: Well, I think Ralph Larsen made the correct call when he said, "Ultimately, we've got to do the right thing regardless of the cost."

Bob: Yeah, I'm thinking of the situation, what was it, last winter, I think, when JetBlue had to cancel a number of flights, and there were customers who had gotten on a plane, and then they were stuck on the plane on the runway for hours, couldn't get off, and JetBlue didn't just have a public relations on their hands, there was a customer satisfaction – what do we do, given the fact that our company has performed poorly today, and, again, they stepped forward and said, "We're going to take care of those customers. We're going to do the right thing," right?

Tim: Absolutely, and, by the way, we should never underestimate how difficult it is to be a CEO of large company. It's an incredibly pressure-filled job, and the men and women that serve in these roles are well paid, but they have very difficult jobs, and they're under a lot of stress. The marketplace places tremendous stress on these people. Analysts expect these quarterly earnings, and if you don't achieve them – I worked in a company, a public company, and we missed our earnings per share by 1 cent, and the next day our stock dropped 20 percent. We were slammed in the marketplace.

And these are conditions that are created by Wall Street and the expectations that's laid on business. CEOs have a tough job.

Dennis: They do. You mentioned earlier that there are really three components of people's jobs they need to pay attention to – number one, their commitment; secondly, their character; and, third, their competency, and we're talking here about character. I'm in need of a working definition of what you mean by the term "character." Is it just a matter of choosing right versus wrong, Tim, or is there a bigger definition we should consider here?

Tim: I think it's bigger. Certainly, it does include right versus wrong. I mean, last year we saw the CEO of a well-known electronics company fired because he lied on his resume. The board discovered this. He had claimed to have graduated from some college, and the board discovered he had only been there a couple of semesters.

Well, he should have been fired, because the board was saying, "If he's going to lie about something this insignificant, perhaps he's going to lie about things that are even more important."

Dennis: You list a number of things that derail us or cause a character collapse as we begin our career paths, and I think this would be especially instructive for moms and dads who are raising the next generation – the workforce for tomorrow. As they develop their kids, and as they develop their character at home, because this is really where all of us get our character. We learn it first at home, don't we?

Tim: Absolutely, and as you were suggesting, character is more than about honestly. I mean, honesty is at the root of character, but there are some other things that have to do with character. And we see these – one of the things I've studied, is what causes senior executives to derail from their jobs. Derailment, by the way, is often defined as a person who was thought to have the potential to go much higher in the organization, but something happened, which derailed their career.

And there are a variety of derailment factors. One of the things is poor interpersonal relationships. I've worked with many executives over the years who had brilliant technical capabilities, but they couldn't get along with people. They couldn't get along with their peers, or they couldn't get along with their subordinates, and poor interpersonal relationships, I believe, is ultimately a failure of character.

Dennis: And what is the family but a great incubator for relationships. I mean, all that sibling rivalry, it's all training grounds for developing your son or daughter in learning how to love irregular people.

Tim: Absolutely, and the workplace today is so relational. The work that we have to do is very often on teams, and helping siblings learn to collaborate to get a task done, I mean, that's difficult. But it's tremendous preparation for what young people are going to face when they get into their jobs.

Bob: You know, you've hit something that I think can be an "Aha!" for workers or for moms and dads as you're raising the next generation, and that is that we can invest all kinds of effort and time and money and resources into making sure our children get good grades, go to the right school, get the right training. If they don't have these fundamental relationship skills all of that is a poor investment.

Tim: It really is.

Bob: At the same time, they can be kids who get C+, maybe C-, barely get out of school, went to a state university, but if they've got good relationship skills, they can run the world.

Tim: They can be very successful. They say take care of your C students, because they may build your next science lab.

Dennis: Yeah, what's another factor that derails people in their careers?

Tim: Another derailer is volatility, people that don't do a good job of regulating their emotions, and we see these sometimes in corporate environments. There are people that don't manage themselves well.

Dennis: Is this EQ? Well, it's certain part of EQ, emotional intelligence – learning to manage what we say, learning to manage stress, and these are very, very important things. But volatility, where people – they hit tripwires, and suddenly they lose their temper and start yelling at people. A lot of people have bosses that are that way.

Bob: Yeah, and there are folks who are listening going, "You're describing my boss," and now they're thinking, "Well, how did my boss get to be my boss if that's a part of his character?"

Tim: Well, it's amazing, but what we also see is that in today's environment, sometimes those bosses are fired because of things like volatility. Another one, oddly enough, is arrogance.

Arrogance is a major derailer, and we had a company in Atlanta, a large public company, where most news reports described the CEO and chairman of the board as arrogant. People who study this have found that very successful leaders have an odd combination of characteristics. They have fierce determination to accomplish the goals of the organization mixed with humility, and I believe that teaching children about humility is one of the most important things a parent can do.

Bob: Help us understand the difference between self-confidence and arrogance. Where is that line or what's the differentiation? Because you do want your kids to have a healthy sense of self-confidence. When does that become arrogance?

Tim: I believe it becomes arrogant when it is reflected in our attitudes toward others. Self-confidence says, "Hey, I've worked hard, I understand what I'm doing, I feel good about myself, and I'm effective at what I'm doing." But arrogance takes over when I start to diminish the efforts of other people, or I start to elevate myself in comparison – "I'm a better person than they are." We see arrogance as a major derailer in an organizational setting.

Dennis: And I would just point parents to the Book of Proverbs, because one of the major elements that Proverbs teaches is that we should listen – we should listen to God, we should listen to our parents, we should listen to the wise man and not listen to the foolish man. And the common denominator of somebody who listens is someone who is teachable; someone who can admit they don't have all the answers; someone who admits they have much to learn; and someone who wants to grow personally. That, really, in my opinion, is all about what humility ultimately is.

Tim: It really is. That is humility, and I find that executives and CEOS, in particular, who don't listen to others, often fail. We've seen examples of this. We had a company in Atlanta that had a problem with their products over in Europe, and the CEO said that, "No, we don't," and this drug on for six or seven – well, it turns out they really did have a problem with their products, and that the products were tainted, and schoolchildren were getting sick.

This person was described by the Wall Street Journal as having a "tin ear." They didn't listen. And I think this is the wisdom of Proverbs. It says that we do listen, we do learn to respect others, and we learn to listen to their wise counsel.

Bob: That really ties to one of the other derailers you talk about in the book, which is the idea of being aloof.

Tim: Exactly. When we're aloof, and we don't pay attention, and we don't listen to wise counsel, Proverbs says there's wisdom in many counselors, and learning to take good advice, learning to sift good advice from bad advice is so important.

Dennis: You also have another one that you speak of – undisciplined. And you had a Labrador, a dog, that illustrated this principle?

Tim: You know, it was one of the most amazing things I've ever personally witnessed, but my sons and I were going up after lunch on Sunday one afternoon to one of our favorite spots up in the mountains that looked out over the city of Atlanta. And we were standing there looking, and another couple came up in a red pickup truck, and they had this wonderful Labrador Retriever, a black Lab, in the back of the truck, and he was probably a young dog, under two, and just like Labs, just really spontaneous and jumping around, and he was our new best friend.

We're all standing there and, all of a sudden, before anybody knows what's happened, the dog runs over and jumps over about a four-foot wall and drops about 10 stories beneath us.

Bob: Oh, my.

Tim: Just a total impulsive act. I mean, it was one of the most shocking things, I mean, the boys and I were just standing there, and we just couldn't believe it, and we couldn't tell if the scream was coming from us or from these other poor people who had been traumatized by this. They've seen their new dog jump over this wall to its death.

And we drove home that afternoon, and we really had to work hard to help these boys make sense of it. But, you know, impulsivity is a characteristic, which often doesn't serve us well, and so we talked about that with the boys.

Dennis: When I first started out in ministry, I took a personality test, and I'll never forget taking this test, because both Barbara and I took it. And I remember on that personality test that my wife scored this near-perfect score in personal discipline. And my score on that same test was in the danger category where that Labrador [inaudible] [laughs].

Tim: [inaudible].

Dennis: And, you know, honestly, Tim, and this was back when I first knew you, that test revealed to me a character flaw that I had as a young man growing up, where I needed to become more disciplined. And I realized that if I was going to accomplish something for Jesus Christ in my vocation, that I had to practice some points of discipline, or I was going to be ineffective.

Tim: I know Barbara, and I think it would be hard for you to ever be as organized and structured and attentive to detail as she is, but you're exactly right, and we have to help our children. Some of our children are going to be naturally more inclined to keep their rooms neat and to stay organized and so on, but some of our children aren't, and we need to help them learn to develop the behavior of being disciplined. Their personality may never be organized but we've got to help them learn to behave in an organized manner.

Dennis: Right. Let's flip the coin over, you know, all the real disciplined people were looking down their noses at me as I was telling that story about myself, and that can certainly be a failure for someone who is not disciplined, which I did learn, but for those who are disciplined, sometimes they can fail to be flexible and fail to adapt, and that's another thing that you say derails people in their careers.

Tim: Absolutely, is being inflexible, not taking advantage of new information. The workplace today is so fluid, we're in this global economy, and things are changing so fast and not being flexible can also derail people because very often we have to change our direction, we have to change our strategy.

Bob: Tim, you know, as we've been talking about this, I've been thinking about times I have been at a FamilyLife Weekend to Remember Marriage Conference, and on Sunday morning we get the guys off to the side, we get the ladies in one ballroom and the men in another ballroom, and we'll talk about what a man's responsibility is as a husband and as a father, and a lot of the speakers will ask people in the audience – "Describe for me a good boss, or a good employee?"

And they'll just throw back phrases – "He's a good listener," or "He's a servant," or "He's got an open-door policy." I mean, they're real quick to tell you what makes a good boss or a good employee. Then we'll say, "Well, what makes somebody a lousy boss or a lousy employee?" And, boy, they can name that quicker than they can a good boss or a good employee. And it's the things you've talked about – "He's arrogant," or "He's aloof," or "He gets angry," or "He's inflexible," or "He doesn't have any self-discipline."

And then we'll turn, and we'll say, "Now, do you know that the same things that make somebody a good leader in the home, a good husband, a good dad," these character qualities are not just important marketplace skills, this is how we do life, isn't it?

Tim: These are critical in running a family, and the things that can derail somebody in the workplace can just the same way derail them as a parent or as a spouse, and so it really is critical.

Dennis: You know, Tim, I agree, and I thought, Bob, as you were turning to Tim to talk about Sunday at our Weekend to Remember, you were talking about the opportunity we give those guests who come to our conference to find out more about FamilyLife and how they can invest their lives here with us vocationally. And we're talking about having a commitment and a passion and a character that fits the job and using your skills, your competencies for making a difference in the workplace.

I just want to challenge our listeners, if you've had a sense of uneasiness about where you are and how you're using your life, and you've found yourself pounding the table with Bob and me and our guests here from time to time on FamilyLife Today, and you've said, "You know, I can picture going to work there. I'd like to be a part of a revolution that rebuilds the family in America," because you know what? It needs to be rebuilt. It needs to be built upon biblical principles and upon Jesus Christ.

And if you'd like to look into a vocational opportunity here at FamilyLife, I'd like to challenge you to call our 800 number or go online and get some more information. It won't commit you in any way, and we'll treat you confidentially as you inquire. But let's talk about how you could perhaps make a difference and use your skills to change the course of generations to come.

Bob: Some of our listeners are surprised when they learn that there are 350 staff who work here at FamilyLife in our offices. They are involved in everything from information technology to human resources to …

Dennis: Marketing.

Bob: Finance and accounting, we've got folks who help with our Weekend to Remember Marriage Conferences, folks who are part of our broadcast team. We've got people who help with our website, FamilyLife.com. So there really are a wide variety of vocational opportunities here at FamilyLife, and one of the things we've been trying to do this week is introduce our listeners to some of the folks who are part of the FamilyLife team, and hear their story of how they came to work here at FamilyLife. One of those couples is Tom and Robin Scott.

Tom: I'm Tom.

Robin: And I'm Robin.

Tom: And I work in the human resource department of FamilyLife.

Robin: I am a stay-at-home mom, but I also work alongside my husband in the human resource department. We have three daughters, Brooklyn is 7; Kylie is 6; and Jaden is 2. We've been here a little over a year.

Tom: We came here from Archibald, Ohio. You know, we left Robin's hometown, so we left Grandma and Grandpa, aunts and uncles and cousins, and that was a big move, but yet it's been a good move. Our girls have adjusted well. They have made some good friends here.

Robin: They have an understanding a little bit of what we do, and that is so we can help other mommies and daddies stay together, and they see the hurt and things at school, and the divorce. So they love it that we do this.

One of the things, for me, that's so amazing is to see how God has called different people here. For a doctor or a lawyer, but they went to school very specifically for those things, and that God has called them here, and they are willing to just drop everything and come. That's amazing to me.

Tom: One of the privileges that we get to meet people all over the country that we would never had the opportunity to and hear their stories. Maybe they had gone to a conference and God had changed their marriage completely, 100, maybe, degrees, and now they are excited about their marriage.

Robin: When I hear that a husband or a wife has given themselves over to Christ, and it's because of something that I am a part of, that excites me more than anything. God calls all different people into ministry and in different ways. Maybe it's not in a full-time position, and maybe it is. God uses you wherever you're at, but I think if you're feeling a restlessness, you need to take a deeper look. God may be calling you to step out, and it might be scary territory, but God will bless you for stepping out.

Tom: We are glad we are here. It has been a change, for sure, but yet we are impacting people's lives through what we do here in Little Rock. It's pretty fun to be a part of it.

Bob: Well, as Robin said, if you are feeling that restlessness and what to find out a little bit more about what it's like to be a part of the FamilyLife team and how you might fit in here, go to our website, FamilyLife.com. There's a red button that you'll see in the middle of the home page that says, "Go," and if you click that button, it will take you to an area of the site where you'll find a link that will get you the information you need on how the process works so that you can look at the possibility of being a part of our staff or simply call 1-800-FLTODAY, and someone can answer any questions you have or get you more information about the staff opportunities we have here at FamilyLife.

So, again, go online at FamilyLife.com or call 1-800-FLTODAY, and, by the way, we also have information about Tim Irwin's book, which is called "Run With the Bulls," the book we've been talking about today. You'll find that on our website at FamilyLife.com, or you can request a copy of that book when you call 1-800-358-6329. That's 1-800-F-as-in-family, L-as-in-life, and then the word TODAY.

Well, tomorrow we want to talk with Dr. Tim Irwin about what really matters to employers when they're looking at prospective employees. I hope you can be back with us for that conversation.

I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, and our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine. We'll see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today.

FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas, a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ.