Originally published on Medium January 2, 2020
When a company is under fire, from internal or external problems, the person who steps up is the President or Chief Executive Officer. For Scott Long Construction, that is one person, John Scott. During times of trial, some Presidents and CEOs might turn to their mentors, family or spirituality to push them through. But for Scott, he relies on his “lack of faith.”
On a normal work day, the 49-year-old can be found in anywhere from four to eight meetings but sees these as an opportunity to develop and deepen relationships with owners, architects and engineers. These aren’t the only places Scott deepens his relationships with the people he works with.
John Scott
Wanda Beltran, the sales operations manager at Scott Long Construction sees Scott interacting with employees of all levels when doing the simplest thing, getting coffee in the kitchen.
“He asks any employee something, ‘how is your day going’, ‘how about this project, how is that going’?,” She said over the phone. “He starts off a conversation with them in regards to what they are currently working on and how they feel about what they are doing. It’s not like he has to call a meeting with everybody and ask those specific questions — he just asks them on a daily basis.”
To Scott, this simple interaction with his employees is essentially common sense; but admitted he feels like a jerk when he has to walk right by.
“It’s not anything other than the point,” Scott said. “Scott Long Constructions exists for really two main reasons: one to feed the Scott family, two to create an environment where people can experience abundant life. You can’t really have a great environment to work in and not talk to people. The company exists for the people — it doesn’t exist for any other reason.”
Growing up in a Christian household in northern Virginia, Scott knew early on that Jesus would play a strong role in his life. When he was around five years old Scott said what he calls “the magic prayer”, inviting Jesus into his heart with his oldest sister.
“But I think my faith became real,” Scott said in a phone interview, “Became my faith and not my parents faith — when I was in highschool.”
When participating in YoungLife, Scott saw his friends lives be impacted by Jesus and realized that what his parents taught him was real — causing him to fully accept it as his own.
From his parents and through YoungLife, Scott grew up with the model of relational ministry: you become friends with someone and then slowly earn the right to be heard.
By avoiding being “preachy” and instead simply caring for his employees, Scott hopes that Jesus shines through his actions.
“It’s not my job to convert everybody,” He said. “It’s not my goal to convert everybody. But I’m supposed to love people. Love God and love others and there is no struggle there, with anything.”
President and CEO John Scott with his late father, Bruce Scott the founder of Scott Long Construction. Credit: Scott Long Construction
Since taking over the company from his father in 2004, Scott and his coworkers have not experienced any backlash or negative comments about being open with their faith.
Robert Grimes, the Vice President of Scott Long Construction, doesn’t consider himself to be religious but has seen the positive effects of Scott’s faith in partnership with his leadership.
“He’s always very supportive and very positive,” Grimes said. “And encourages people to reach their potential. To me that exemplifies what he believes in…The compassion he shows in a leadership position, at least in my experience, has been a little unusual.”
It is evident that Scott’s compassion does not go unnoticed.
“He really does it [live by his faith],” Beltran said about Scott. “He cares about all the projects that come in here and how everyone is performing on them. He cares about what their likes are, what they appreciate about the job, or anything in the office. He definitely cares about his team. With religion in the office, not everyone is going to have the same faith, but if you live by your religion, and work by that, your faith is going to get you through your day and have a good attitude in life.”
However to Scott, the phrase “living out your faith” is more of a construct of western Christianity.
“It doesn’t make sense,” He said. “You either have faith or you don’t have faith. And faith is the whole point — the word faith means you have doubts, you don’t fully believe. If we have a bad deal, ‘are we going to lose a lot of money?’, ‘are we going to lose a bunch of people?’ or ‘are we going to go out of business?’, all those doubts go through your mind. The real question is, do you have faith that God is going to do what he says he’s gonna do — which is love you and take care of you no matter what?”
Scott sees the western construct of everything will be okay as long as I follow these rules as unbiblical — the only thing biblical being to love God, love other people and God will love you back.
“Living out your faith is an incorrect phrase,” He continued, “Even just a little faith, what Jesus said, is what will move mountains.”
That little faith, the moments where he feels that he is nothing and can do nothing, is where Scott finds his strength.
He described the knowing that your next breath could easily be your last. There is nothing you can do to control it, the only thing giving you the ability to breathe is God’s goodness, mercy, power and grace. If you recognize that, why should you care about anything else?
“It’s nothing I can do but recognize that I am nothing,” Scott said. “When I recognize that he is everything, then I become powerful.”