We believe there are five common Placebos of what we call faith as usual that can lead well intentioned leaders down Side Roads in their effort to integrate their faith and their work. The first Placebo we will explain is The "4-Hour Content" Pill, which commonly leads to the Side Roads of Agonizing and Individualizing....
We started Integriosity #001 by saying that many leaders who are guided by the Bible in their personal lives and sincerely want to live an integrated faith life at work are confused or frustrated or even intimidated. Some have given up. Others think they are doing it, but they are actually missing the mark. We call the problem "faith as usual",...
A fourth key aspect (in addition to Idol and Identity, Money and Power and Burden) of toxic "work as usual" that leads to "work" becoming something far from God's design in Genesis is that work as usual is characterized by Unhealthy Relationships, rather than life-giving community and connection....
A third key aspect (in addition to Idol and Identity and Money and Power) of toxic "work as usual" that leads to "work" becoming something far from God's good and live-giving design in Genesis is that it has become a Burden rather than the blessing it is was designed to be. Our cultural obsession with finding "Work/Life Balance" is...
At Integrous, we believe another (in addition to Idol and Identity) of the four key aspects of toxic "work as usual" that leads to "work" becoming something far from God's good and live-giving design in Genesis is that it is all about Money and Power rather than people....
At Integrous, we believe one of the four key aspects of toxic "work as usual" that leads to "work" becoming something far from God's good and live-giving design in Genesis is Idol and Identity--the idea that "work as usual" means our work has come to DEFINE "who" we are, rather than being a place to EXPRESS "who" we are....
We call the blue pill "business as usual", and the last several posts have shown ways in which it is broken. If a business is just an association of human beings working together (which it is), is it any surprise that "work as usual" would be broken as well in related ways? Organizational cultures that are broken through toxic assumptions...
Of the various aspects of blue pill "business as usual" that contribute to workplace and worker brokenness, Profit as Purpose is the most significant, but the Scarcity assumption and the Self Interest assumption exacerbate the problems by ignoring why we were created and whose image we reflect. Together, these factors reinforce manipulative and dehumanizing managerial behavior and work cultures that...
Profit is not a problem, just like money is not the root of all evil. In fact, profit is necessary for a business operating in a market economy--without it you don't have a sustainable organization or access to financial capital. But (and it is a big "but"), Profit as Purpose is a problem of business as usual, just like the...
In addition to Profit as Purpose, Scarcity and Self Interest, the fourth aspect of "business as usual" that we believe leads to workplace and worker brokenness is a "Can We" Culture--an organizational culture in which ends justify means and ethics or the law are seen as the only boundaries (or even obstacles) in the pursuit of the organization's purpose. A goal...
In addition to Profit as Purpose and Scarcity, another aspect of "business as usual" that leads to brokenness is "Self-Interest"--the assumption that people are self-interested and will act in their own self-interest. This is closely tied to the scarcity assumption. In a blue pill organization conducting business as usual, with Profit as Purpose and the self-interest assumption, people's behavior...
In addition to "Profit as Purpose", another aspect of "business as usual" that leads to brokenness is "Scarcity"--the assumption that resources are scarce and everything is a zero-sum situation (my gain is your loss and vice versa). Importantly for Integriosity, a scarcity mindset in an organization can have a profoundly negative impact on how people are treated....
At Integrous, we believe there are four key aspects of "business as usual" that lead to its brokenness, and the most important of these is "Profit as Purpose"--the idea that the primary or sole purpose of "business as usual" is the maximization of financial profit for the benefit of shareholders. This mindset, in turn, flows into several other aspects of...
We call the blue pill "business as usual", and it is broken. At Integrous, we believe there are four key aspects of "business as usual" that lead to brokenness: Profit as Purpose; Scarcity; Self-Interest; and "Can We" Ethics....
With headlines suggesting faith is under unceasing attack by an increasingly secular society, it might be easy to conclude that pursuing Integriosity by aligning an organization's mission, values and culture with Biblical principles would be business suicide--alienating stakeholders such as employees and customers. We at Integrous believe that would wrongly be seeing a half-full glass as half-empty....
We were designed to work--to use our gifts of creativity and productivity--it is part of being fully human. If we are not working and earning an income, we can feel empty and insecure (this is a special post prompted by the Covid-19 crisis tagging 10,000,000 people with the label "unemployed", which often brings with it feelings of emptiness and insecurity). Sadly,...
In England, riders on the "Tube" (aka the Underground or the subway) are famously warned to "mind the gap". People serious about integrity and faith/work integration should heed the same warning. At Integrous, we believe there are THREE gaps to cross, and we want to help you and your organization get across....
The United States is facing an epidemic of loneliness, isolation, confusion, distrust and dissatisfaction (pre-Covid-19). It is clear that the blue pill of "business as usual" has become "dehumanizing" and has moved far from its original design in Genesis as something good. We believe it is time for "business a better way" in alignment with Biblical values and priorities--it...
There is no shortage of statistics showing that most workers feel disengaged and disconnected from the activity that was intended to bring flourishing and fulfillment by unleashing their God-given creativity and productivity. Central to the the red pill of Integriosity® is humanizing people by redeeming work and business-- bringing it closer to God's design in Genesis....
One of the reasons faith/work integration and the the red pill of Integriosity® are needed is because "work" is broken and "business as usual" has led to our relationship to work and our relationships surrounding work bearing little resemblance to God's design for humanity and work in Genesis....
The fruit of Step 4 of Integriosity® - "Restore" - is to see what we believe are the three bigger WHY's of work and business materialize and manifest in the organization: Humanize People, Beautify the World and Glorify God....
There are four stages in the process toward Integriosity®: Renew, Re-Imagine, Re-Align and Restore. The most critical is Renew because it creates the sound foundation. As part of Renewal, we believe four key "mind-shifts" are critical to staying on the path to the Red Pill rather than a Placebo....
The core of Integriosity® is an alignment of purpose, values and culture arising from a commitment to Biblical beliefs, values and priorities that leads a person or organization, instinctively, to do the right things, for the right reasons and in the right ways....
We made up the word “Integriosity®” to capture the goal of living out faithful integrity, including having a “Why” centered on loving and serving others with generosity. ...
In the movie The Matrix, the character Morpheus offers Neo a choice of two pills--blue and red. At Integrous, we believe faith-inspired leaders have a similar choice. Like Neo, we hope you will choose Red--the "ancient path" of Business a Better Way....
We believe there are many leaders who are guided by the Bible in their personal lives and sincerely want to live an integrated faith life at work. Sadly, many are confused or frustrated or even intimidated. Some have given up. Others think they are doing it, but they are actually missing the mark. There is an answer--we call it...