Every year, right around December 1st, I make a point of sitting down and rereading A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. It’s short. It’s familiar. And yet it never fails to inspire me.
Many people think of this classic as a sentimental Christmas story about generosity and redemption. But Dickens wasn’t simply writing about holiday cheer. He was writing about business. More specifically, he was writing about a small business owner — one who ran his company exactly the way far too many business leaders still do today: profit above all else, efficiency above empathy, and fear above trust. In the end, (spoiler alert) it is an incredible story of transformation!
And that’s what makes it one of the greatest stewardship lessons ever written. Scrooge wasn’t evil. If anything, he was exceedingly efficient! When we first meet Ebenezer Scrooge, he isn’t a cartoon villain. He’s disciplined. He’s focused. He keeps meticulous books and records. He tightly controls costs. He doesn’t waste time or money. In modern terms, Scrooge would probably be praised for his operational efficiency. But he’s also painfully alone in the world.
Dickens doesn’t portray Scrooge as having made many financial mistakes — quite the opposite. Scrooge’s poverty is relational and spiritual. He is rich in gold, but bankrupt in purpose. He has built a profitable enterprise, but one that extracts value without creating much of it for anyone else. And importantly, Dickens doesn’t punish Scrooge for this. He diagnoses him. And this makes the story one to learn from and, perhaps, to adjust our own course. In fact, over 180 years later, this book continues to speak to human nature, business, money, and stewardship.
To begin with, this is a small business that survived its founder. That’s an often-overlooked detail early in the story that matters enormously from a stewardship perspective: Scrooge’s business survives the death of his partner, Jacob Marley. That is no small thing. Marley has been dead for seven years when the story begins, yet “Scrooge & Marley” continues operating without interruption. Clients are served. Books are kept. The firm endures. For any small business owner, this should stand out. It means the business was more than just a one-man operation. There was structure. Continuity. A going concern that outlived one of its two owners. In today’s language, Scrooge and Marley had built something durable — something that could carry on beyond the life of a single individual.
But we also learn that durability alone is not stewardship. A business can survive and still fail most of its stakeholders. And that’s where Scrooge’s reckoning begins. The Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come don’t show Scrooge spreadsheets or profit-and-loss statements to convince him to change his ways. They show him people in his own community. They force him to step outside his balance sheet and confront the full impact of his decisions — past, present, and future. In effect, Scrooge is subjected to the most uncomfortable review any business owner can face: a legacy audit.
Scrooge is given the opportunity to see the relationships he neglected, the trust he broke, the human cost of his relentless cost-cutting, and the emptiness of success measured only in money. When Scrooge wakes up on Christmas morning, he doesn’t abandon his business. He returns to it — a changed man. He starts to work on becoming a good small business steward. He raises Bob Cratchit’s wages, not as an act of charity, but as an act of stewardship. He recognizes that labor is not an expense to be minimized, but a responsibility to be honored. He invests personally in Tiny Tim, mentoring and supporting the next generation — a clear shift from short-term extraction to long-term human development. He reengages with his community, understanding at last that his business does not exist in isolation. A company cannot thrive indefinitely in a society that is breaking down around it.
And by the end of the story, Dickens strongly implies something even more amazing: Bob Cratchit is no longer merely an employee. Scrooge becomes “a second father” to Tiny Tim and treats Bob as a trusted insider — a partner in spirit, if not formally on paper. This is stewardship maturity. Scrooge doesn’t eliminate profit. He integrates profit with purpose. He returns to work as part of a small team, actively taking responsibility for ALL of his stakeholders.
As you consider a legacy audit of your own, look in the mirror and ask yourself these questions:
- Who is my business really for?
- Who is lifted up by it?
- Who might be quietly paying the price for my success?
- What kind of enterprise am I leaving behind?
In the end, Scrooge doesn’t change his business model as much as he changes his heart and his head. And that’s what stewardship is all about.
So as the year winds down, here’s my challenge to you: revisit your own business through Dickens’ eyes. If the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come paid you a visit, what would they show you about your impact, your legacy, and your stewardship?
Because it’s never too late to rewrite the ending of a good story.
Maybe your story, too.
Happy holidays,
David Sr.