Doing business by the Book

Machine shop owner makes a case for using the golden rule to guide commerce

Good Work. How blue-collar business can change lives, communities and

the world by Dave Hataj (Moody Publishers, 2020. 256pp., $15.99US)

Dave Hataj is a workplace prophet with a successful business and a compelling story to share.

Hataj is a second-generation owner of Edgerton Gear, a Wisconsin precision manufacturing business. His life took several unexpected turns.

Early on, he had no interest in being part of the firm, let alone running it.

But his theological studies and missional heart eventually led him back home.

Some of the material in Good Work will be familiar to anyone who has read books about Christian financial stewardship.

What sets this book apart, and makes Hataj’s story so impressive, is how he takes Jesus’ teachings seriously as a guiding light for conducting business.

A machinist with a doctoral degree, he is committed to living out the principle that business is God’s instrument to help the world prosper and thrive. He challenges people to be virtuous in every aspect of life, including their business dealings.

Jesus, he explains, was a small business guy who grew up in a family trade, and “lived with the frustrations of constant broken promises by vendors and suppliers.”

This outlook is not the naïve posture of a starry-eyed optimist. Hataj has seen the good, bad, and ugly of a blue-collar workplace. He has endured conflict, betrayals that might have led others to file lawsuits, and personal burnout

along the way.

The modern workplace, he writes, “is like a set of worn out, misaligned gears. When gears are damaged and not meshing properly, bad things happen.”

At the same time, he believes that the workplace “can be a place of deep significance and lifeaffirming community.”

For Hataj, business is about more than making a profit. He thinks business’s proper role is to provide needed goods and services, and to make opportunities for meaningful work that will help people express their creativity.

He warns people to have a proper attitude towards money, or else “going into business will be like walking into a minefield without a metal detector.”

The book contains a thoughtful discussion on things that are not always openly discussed. These include pricing the products his firm sells, treating customers as neighbors, and the challenges of relating honestly and fairly with staff and clients. Hataj calls product pricing a moral issue that takes “a tremendous amount of spiritual discipline and wisdom.”

Company employees are allotted up to 20 hours a year to chaperone their children’s field trips, assist non-profit organizations or to help others in need.

Philanthropy is an important part of Hataj’s worldview. He has set up several charitable trusts. He’s angry about well-known (but unnamed) charities paying their leaders over $500,000 to as much as $1 million a year, sums he deems excessive.

Hataj’s thoughts on international aid will be familiar to MEDA supporters, and all people who see the value of creating business solutions to poverty. He warns about the need for charities to be careful with their relief efforts to avoid damaging the economies of countries where goods are sent. He hopes such efforts will stop fostering dependence and find “creative ways to help people experience the dignity of providing for themselves.”

“What they really need and want is access to the marketplace, which is often dominated and manipulated to keep the poor dependent on big multinational corporations and government.”

This book is a provocative and important read for entrepreneurs and laypeople alike. .