Saintly CEO: How to Integrate Subsidiarity into Your Business
Learn how to integrate the Catholic Social Teaching principle of Subsidiarity into how you run your business... you'll be surprised how easy it is.
Hey folks! In case you haven’t had enough about Catholic Social Teaching with the drop of the summer (aka: Magnifica Humanitas) we are back at it with part 3 of 4 in our series covering the key aspects of Catholic Social Teaching, with our takes on how to actually implement them.
Today we are talking about Subsidiarity, and don’t worry it’s a lot shorter than last week’s.
Welcome back to Saintly CEO. Every Monday, while you sip your coffee, get some tactical advice to run your business fully in union with your Catholic faith.
IN TODAY’S ISSUE
News/Events
Feature Content: Subsidiarity; What, Why, and How to Integrate It
Seven Incredible Heavenly Hustlers
Highlights: Wisper Flow
[read time: ~6 min | word count 1,172]
News / Updates
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Implementing Catholic Social Teaching: Part 3, Subsidiarity
Welcome back to our 4-part series on Catholic Social Teachings, and actually implementing them.
Last time we covered The Common Good (the second pillar), and today we are covering Subsidiarity, the third pillar. This might be the most practical pillar for leadership and organizational structure.
Subsidiarity: The Teaching
A lot of you have probably heard the word subsidiarity. But many of you may not know what it means. Likely because it’s one of those Catholic words that sounds totally made up. I get it. But let me explain it in very simple terms.
The idea behind subsidiarity is, that decisions should be made at the most local level possible. The reason being that someone closer to the situation likely has a much better understanding of the situation itself. They likely know the people involved. And they probably know what the consequences will look like for those involved once they make a decision.
What follows is that the higher-level authority should not interfere with the lower-level authority whenever possible.
What’s pretty mind-blowing about this is that it’s actually the key to scaling a business. If everything is centrally planned, you are naturally constrained by one person’s ability to make decisions. But when other people can make decisions, the person at the top can focus on making key decisions rather than all the decisions.
Said another way, subsidiarity is the way to scale any business.
Here is the official line from the Church, in the Catechism.
“In accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, neither the state nor any larger society should substitute itself for the initiative and responsibility of individuals and intermediary bodies.”1
The Why
The why behind this is relatively simple, actually.
The Church worries that excessive state intervention could threaten personal freedom and the ability of people to take initiative. Another takeaway is that this principle opposes collectivism, where it becomes okay to trample the needs of the individual in order to ‘serve’ the needs of society as a whole.
The Church also argues that a society organized in this way is actually more efficient because everyone is doing what they can, rather than sitting around waiting for some bureaucrat to help them or approve what they are trying to do. Something none of us has ever experienced, I’m sure.
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Subsidiarity in Practice
Now that we understand what the Church teaches and why she teaches it, let’s get into some practical examples of implementing it in the workplace (there are no ‘subtopics for Subsidiarity so all of this is just pure play implementation advice, yay!).
Pushing for an Ownership Mentality
In your company, you would push for each employee to understand the desired outcome and empower them to get there. Asking them to exercise their judgement on when they should raise it to their manager for support with the decision-making.
Note, this does involve proper training. You can’t just hand it off and blame them when it goes wrong.
Involving Employees in Policy Making
This one is very important, so please pay attention.
Involve your team when making decisions that affect them. Setting leave policy, bring your kids to work policy, how to lock up the store, etc. The list could go on.
Your employees have lives and families of their own. Your decisions could make living those lives very difficult. Or your decisions about how they should do things on the factory line could be really stupid because it wouldn’t work as well, or would cause danger. Would they know this? Yes.
Today, it’s become the norm that company policies are set by top-down methods. Many of us have personally experienced working in a company that gets acquired, and we see new policies come through that make no sense and hurt how we do our jobs on the front lines.
Those decisions were likely based entirely on ROI projects full of many assumptions. Had they actually delegated those decisions locally, we’d be happier and have a better outcome.
When you’re making decisions that affect your employees, involve them.
Empower Ownership
My favorite example of subsidiarity is when customer success agents are told they can do what they need to to make the customer whole. It may be very obvious how to make an angry customer whole and give them what is owed in justice, but with bureaucratic policies and procedures, they are forced to ask 6 more questions after they already know the problem, so that they are allowed to elevate to their supervisor, who will then ask a bunch of questions as well. Then, finally, after logic has been tossed out the window, and humans have been acting like robots and treated like robots, the right thing to do is done.
Everyone is frustrated. The customer success agent is just used to it. Heck, they are probably dehumanized by this point.
If you empower your people properly, they can do what they know is right. The customer gets helped right away, and depending on how pleasant the experience was, they might become an even bigger customer in the future.
Help Your Employees As Much As You Can
Before the nanny state existed, with all of the benefits it provided to citizens, how did people in need get help?
People helped each other. I know it sounds crazy, but we can just start doing this again. And we can start with our employees. If they had an unexpected medical expense, we could cover it. They are struggling to feed their kids and pay them more.
Heck, they might need help butchering a cow, make it a company weekend, and get all hands on deck to help.
Learn to make this a muscle. Help your employees locally rather than making them struggle and go to the state for help.
Join the Catholic Founders Guild Today
If you’re a Catholic, looking to launch and grow your business, Catholic Founders is made for you.
The Catholic Founders Guild is a place to learn from others, share resources, and build together.
We’re all on a mission to understand how God is calling us to be His hands in the world. We were born to carry out His will.
Join today for $100 a year or $10 a month.
Curious? --> “What is the Catholic Founders Guild”
In Closing
One of the most fascinating things I find about subsidiarity is that, when you really engage people in this way, they are able to become more capable. And in a way, become more themselves. They are able to take the 1, 2, or 5 talents God gave them and multiply them. This multiplication means more people have the opportunity to benefit from that person’s unique gifts.
All of this starts with giving someone that ownership mentality. Then, treating them with respect and autonomy, so that they can become fully alive.
This to me, is one of the great mysteries of being an entrepreneur. That ability to affect the development of the employees under your care in such a positive way, that they can become more fully human.
To any reading this, please don’t take this part of your role as ‘boss’ or CEO for granted. Ever.
Okay, come back next week, as we wrap up our series with the 4th and final pillar of Solidarity!
God Bless & Happy Building
~Silas Mähner
Heavenly Hustlers
These are other Catholic business owners. Nominate one (including yourself).
✈️ Joseph Rodriguez is the Founder of Vocatio Travel. They turn your dream trips into realities, and they have experience supporting several dioceses as well as many other Catholic-owned businesses with their travel plans. If you’re in the Dallas area, reach out to him.
💻 Garren DiPasquale is the Founder & CEO of Artifact. They turn language into living software.
🏛️ Matt Salerno is building DealCompass. A software that helps the real estate industry. Fun fact: he’s a Notre Dame alum. But he’s based here in Nashville.
💸 Peter Scott is building an app called Plena. Think of it like Acorns but for tithing.
✍️ William Van de Planque (don’t you wish you had a name like that… I know I do) is launching Beloved Son, a ghostwriting agency to help people keep active blogs and improve SEO. He’s just getting started, so reach out to him if you’ve got advice or are interested in giving him a project.
⚖️ Teddy Malone founded his own Tax Attorney practice in NYC called Estel Law. I met him a while back at one of Luca’s Fides events. Reach out to him if you need a tax lawyer.
👴 Nathanael Riddle is the co-founder of OmniBand. A wearable for aging parents. Think Whoop, but built for your grandpa, and not for sleeping.
🙋♂️ Nominate a Heavenly Hustler (including yourself) - It takes 1 min.
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Highlights: Don’t Type, Dictate. Use Wisper Flow
If you want to save a lot of time typing, try out Wisper Flow. I’ve been using it for a while, and it saves me a ton of time, especially when writing emails. TLDR, instead of typing, you can dictate (on computer or phone), and it’s VERY accurate + has some wizardly features. It’s crazy good.
I am not sponsored by them, but it’s literally one of the best pieces of software I’ve ever used. While I’m not sponsored, they do give out a referral code, so I’m dropping that here. I believe if you use that link, you’ll get a month free (I’m not entirely sure how these affiliate things work)
Here is a huge list of various resources that we have compiled over time: The Ultimate Catholic Founders Resource Guide.
Feel free to bookmark it as we’ll continue to update it. And if you have suggestions on what to add, ping us (even if you want to promote your own stuff).
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