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Why did you step down as CEO of AES?
It was a matter of whether or not I was going fight. I think there were enough people on the board who wanted me to step down. And to stay I would have had to start a big, nasty internal fight. I was by far the largest individual shareholder and I had tremendous support inside the company and the employees would have rallied around me. But I could have destroyed the company. I could have set it back. It costs a lot of money to make the fight and it would have distracted everybody from trying to really dig out from the hole that mostly Enron had put forth by messing up all the capital markets and everything that made it an extremely difficult time for us.

You picked an unknown publisher. Why? Is he related to you?
My sister married his uncle, but he's not related to me. He had just finished publishing a book, I was thinking about getting an agent, and he spent all night teaching me about publishing. His philosophy is he's going to pick one book every two years and concentrate totally on that. He wants to take books only that had a chance to make the New York Times bestsellers list. And that's what he's doing.

Has he published any bestsellers before your book?
No. He had only published one other book, so that's all.

That was a risky move for you to publish with him, if you ask me.
You're right, it was probably risky. But I'm very happy. I think to The Wall Street Journal it didn't seem to matter.

Congratulations on making the bestseller lists. It's highly unusual what you did.
Well, it isn't as if I've always done the usual thing in life, as you can tell.

Copyright © 2005 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Joy at Work: A Revolutionary Approach to Fun on the Job is available from Christianbook.com and other book retailers.

Dennis Bakke's website has more info about the book, including a video interview with the author, Bible studies, and a way to anonymously send an email to your boss telling him to read the book.

Other business-related articles include:

The Missions of Business | What can happen when entrepreneurs think they are missionaries first. (April 2004)

Compassionate Capitalism | How Christians are using fair trade to help the world's poor, missionaries, and shoppers. (Nov. 12, 2003)

Good to Great's Leadership Model Looks Familiar to Christians | The author of the bestselling business book says his findings on successful leaders led him to the New Testament. (March 14, 2003)

The Profit of God | Finding the Christian path in business. (Jan. 27, 2003)

Bad Company Corrupts | Michael Novak, theological champion of the free market, reflects on what recent business scandals mean for church and state. (Jan. 27, 2003)

The Wages of Secularism | New laws won't prevent another Enron. (June 04, 2002)

When Business Aims for Miracles | Minneapolis-St. Paul business professionals are some of the inner city's most effective "social entrepreneurs." (May 25, 2001)

CT's annual Best Christian Workplaces surveys Christian business employees and ranks them. Our winners list for 2005, 2004, and 2003 is available online.

Our Money & Business page has more articles at the intersection of faith and work.

Our Money & Faith channel includes articles and interviews related to faith and personal finance, while our Faith in the Workplace channel offers articles on living Christianly at work.

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July (Web-only) 2005, Vol. 49