Weekly Words

Enlisting Insultants

It never feels good to be insulted. However, I recently read a book that championed the need for “insultants” – people who will ask the tough questions that cause critical thinking about fundamental assumptions. In The Breakthrough Company, Keith R. McFarland attempts to highlight the characteristics of those few companies that have moved from the start-up entrepreneurial stage of development to a company that brings in hundreds of millions in revenues. In the end, he found nine breakthrough companies and in the eighth chapter he argues that one characteristic that all these companies share is the ability to create an atmosphere where insultants were welcome. McFarland explains, “They created companies where people are encouraged to question the fundamental assumptions of the business. Breakthrough companies, in other words, want people to buck the system when the system is wrong.”

Like the companies McFarland researched, we need insultants in our lives to achieve breakthrough. Though it may not always feel good, we need people in our lives who will point out those things in us that we do not want to see and will tell us those things that we do not want to hear. The bible says it like this:

A scoffer who is rebuked will only hate you; the wise, when rebuked, will love you. Give instruction to the wise, and they will become wiser still; teach the righteous and they will gain in learning. (Proverbs 9:8-9 NRSV)

We can block our own breakthrough by closing our eyes and plugging our ears to those flaws and faults in our selves that we would never detect if we are left to our own devices.

The interesting thing about insultants is that they are not enemies, they are friends. They are people who love us enough and care about our future and our success enough to point out the naked and sometimes ugly truths about our attitudes and actions. Yet, how many people do we know that can never receive a critical insight or an analytical assessment of themselves? More importantly, how many times are we that person? Though at times it is difficult, we can never reach the heights that God has intended for us without the help of those God puts in our lives. So as you continue to move from your present location to your Divine destination, let me encourage you to enlist some insultants.

Humbly in Christ’s Love,
Pastor B.A. Jackson