Originally posted on www.thirdplace.cc (2011)
Chick-fil-A founder and CEO Samuel Truett Cathy is a Christian. It permates all that he does. On his personal web-page he has a link to his “Five–Step recipe for Business Success“. How’s this for #5:
5. CLOSED ON SUNDAY
“I was not so committed to financial success that I was willing to abandon my principles and priorities. One of the most visible examples of this is our decision to close on Sunday. Our decision to close on Sunday was our way of honoring God and of directing our attention to things that mattered more than our business.”
- Chick-fil-A is the only major fast-food restaurant chain to be closed on Sundays, one of the busiest days of the week in the restaurant business. Despite being closed on Sundays, Truett Cathy has led Chick-fil-A on an unparalleled record of 40 consecutive years of sales increases, with its core free-standing restaurants achieving higher sales per unit in six days (with shorter operating hours) than most major chains in the industry.
More than once his Christian belief’s have been the catalyst for controversy. The latest attack against his buisness was fueled by blogs and online petitions from the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community surrounding food donation from two Philadelphia Chick-fil-A locations to a Pennsylvania Family Institute marriage seminar*.
“Tolerance” seems to be one of our cultures central values. I have often found it interesting that the very people that claim to desire tolerance, are the very people least likely to be tolerant of opposing views.
If you were the president of Chick-fil-A, how would you respond to this conroversy?
Have you found in you own life that your sometimes hesitant to share your core beliefs because of a fear of being labeled “intolerant”?
Further reading…
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20110205/so-much-for-tolerance/