Humanize People

Over the last four years, we have been laying out and expanding on a model for moving toward what we call Integriosity®--leading with faithful integrity through business a better way and toward Biblical flourishing.  It is time to pause, take a breath and look back over the last 200 posts as we did after 100. We hope this is a...

Because the key attributes of business in the "way" of the world do not align with a culture of Shalom built on Biblical principles of relationships, community and human dignity, the "way" of the world often brings the inherent “beauty-potential” of business (solutions, prosperity and jobs) with an ugly cost of "wrecking" work as God designed it. What we...

Profit is NOT bad.   In fact, we believe PROFIT IS NECESSARY for an organization (other than a non-profit organization) to be obedient to the Creation Mandate, because it is necessary for sustainability, for the flourishing of owners and to further the bigger "WHY" of the organization.  However, in order to faithfully "do right", an organization must put profit in the proper...

Over the last two years, we have laid out a model for moving toward what we call Integriosity®--faithfully "doing right" through business an better way.  It is time to pause, take a breath and look back over the last 101 posts. We believe these last 100 posts have honored our promise to you from post #001. Integrous is here to help...

One bigger WHY of work and business is the "SO THAT" that gives the biggest WHY to every other WHY. RESTORE is the fourth and final step in the path of Integriosity.®  It is about seeing the bigger WHY's of work and business materialize and manifest in an organization that has been RE-IMAGINED and RE-ALIGNED with Biblical beliefs, values and...

RESTORE is the fourth and final step in the path of Integriosity.®  It is about seeing the bigger WHY's of work and business materialize and manifest in an organization that has been RE-IMAGINED and RE-ALIGNED with Biblical beliefs, values and priorities based upon a RENEWED understanding of God's purpose for work and business.  One of those bigger WHY's is Humanizing...

RESTORE is the fourth and final step in the path of Integriosity.® It is about seeing the bigger WHY's of work and business materialize and manifest in an organization that has been RE-IMAGINED and RE-ALIGNED with Biblical beliefs, values and priorities based upon a RENEWED understanding of God's purpose for work and business. It is the narrow "ancient...

RESTORE is the fourth and final step in the path of Integriosity.® It is about seeing the bigger WHY's of work and business materialize and manifest in an organization that has been RE-IMAGINED and RE-ALIGNED with Biblical beliefs, values and priorities based upon a RENEWED understanding of God's purpose for work and business. It is the narrow "ancient...

RESTORE is the fourth and final step in the path of Integriosity.® It is about seeing the bigger WHY's of work and business materialize and manifest in an organization that has been RE-IMAGINED and RE-ALIGNED with Biblical beliefs, values and priorities based upon a RENEWED understanding of God's purpose for work and business. It is the narrow "ancient...

When a leader, armed with a RENEWED understanding of God's purpose for work and business, begins to RE-IMAGINE the organization they lead, the process must include Re-Imagining Profit--the most difficult and most important element of Re-Imagining Purpose. It is the most difficult because Profit as Purpose is at the core of "business as usual". It is actually...

When a leader, armed with a RENEWED understanding of God's purpose for work and business, begins to RE-IMAGINE the organization they lead, the process must include Re-Imagining People--the role and treatment of the people in the organization.  Re-Imagining People requires leaders prayerfully to discern what the organization could look like if flourishing, dignity and community became priorities.  It flows from,...

When a leader, armed with a RENEWED understanding of God's purpose for work and business, begins to RE-IMAGINE the organization they lead, the process must begin with Re-Imagining Vision--the organization's WHY.  Re-Imagining Vision requires leaders prayerfully to discern a WHY that expresses the heart God desires to implant in the organization and captures the hearts of the organization's people, inspiring...

The core of Integriosity® is ALIGNMENT--aligning the organization's purpose and values with core Biblical purpose and values, then cultivating an organizational culture of Shalom that is aligned with, and reinforces, the organizational purpose and values. The RENEW stage of Integriosity provides the tools for Re-Alignment--a renewed understanding of Biblical purpose, values and priorities for work and business. But...

Profit is NOT bad.   In fact, we believe PROFIT IS NECESSARY for an organization (other than a non-profit organization) to be obedient to the Creation Mandate, because it is necessary for sustainability, for the flourishing of owners and to further the bigger "WHY" of the organization.  However, in order to faithfully "do right", an organization must put profit in the proper...

Love is the first "Generosity Priority" embedded in Integriosity®, and we have seen how the generosity and service aspects of Love lead us to the purpose of work and business (maximize flourishing by Humanizing, Beautifying, Glorifying), but there are also respect and sustainability aspects of Love that are inherent in the Creation Mandate. Biblical sustainability is about faithfully "doing right" by caring for all God's creation as its STEWARDS.  It is motivated by obedience to the Creation Mandate--not by fear...

Putting together the puzzle pieces of the last several posts, we see that the first principle of Love leads us to the same purpose for business as emerged from the first principle of Kingdom--the BIGGER purpose of work and business is to HUMANIZE people, BEAUTIFY the world and GLORIFY God by serving internally and externally in a way that maximizes the...

The nature of work in God's design is that it is how we use our skills to obey His commandments through SERVICE.  People are more fully human when they are working in alignment with God's purpose for work--a vehicle for living out the Creation Mandate and the great commandments to love God and love each other. Embedding the Biblical principle of work as service in the culture and...

Being created in the image of God is not just a great t-shirt slogan--it has important implications for how we live and what we need in order to be fully human. Embedding the Biblical principle of love your neighbor in the culture and heart of an organization is essential to faithfully "doing right", because it is essential in order...

Keep First Things First means going back to Biblical first principles, and one of the four principles embedded in the word Integriosity® is the "Generosity Priority" of LOVE. "All the Law and the Prophets" depend on the commandments to love God and love your neighbor, which makes understanding love your neighbor in an organizational context essential to faithfully "doing...

The book-ends of a BIGGER GOSPEL reveal the purpose and relevance of work and organizations in God's grand plan and an even greater purpose for Redemption through Jesus. Creation and Restoration teach us that humans need work and organizations to be "fully human"; work and organizations have intrinsic Kingdom value; work and organizations can glorify God; and a purpose...

For a leader to lead an organization to faithfully "do right", they must recognize that what they believe about "where we are going someday" profoundly impacts "how we act today". God's restoration plan for His Kingdom means work and business have relevance in God's grand design and eternal significance. A BIGGER GOSPEL reveals that we have the...

For a leader to lead an organization to faithfully "do right", they must recognize that what they believe about "where we are going someday" profoundly impacts "how we act today". A Restoration understanding of heaven means the "very good" creation that left plenty of room for our creative and productive cultivation will finally be perfected as a refined...

For a leader to lead an organization to faithfully "do right", they must look to Creation to understand the necessity of work to God's plan for His creation. The world was actually created to need our creativity and productivity in order to flourish. A BIGGER GOSPEL reveals that creation needs human work to unleash its potential (and...

For a leader to lead an organization to faithfully "do right", they must look to Creation to understand the importance of work to the humanity of those they lead. God created work for humanity as a GOOD THING before the Fall, and people are more “fully human” when engaged in meaningful work that unleashes their God-given productivity and creativity....

A leader can't lead an organization to faithfully "do right" without understanding and embracing a BIGGER GOSPEL, because without going back to Creation, we can't understand Who We Are, and more importantly, we can't understand Who Other People Are.  It is only when we understand the implications of God creating humans in His image that we can begin to understand...

It is impossible to understand God's purpose for work or business without looking at Genesis and understanding the Creation Mandate (a commandment about our purpose on earth), God's love for all creation and our role as its stewards. As stewards, we have global responsibility to use our God-given creativity and productivity to cultivate God’s creation in order to enable...

The effort to faithfully "do right" by integrating faith and work can get DERAILED by six problems that can keep the organization in the deep hole of "business as usual" and may even push it deeper. The more of "business a better way" is much harder, but getting out of the hole is necessary and worth the journey....

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 third Placebo (after The "4-Hour Content" Pill and The "Save or Give" Pill) is The "Add Some Faith" Pill, which commonly leads to the Side Road of Cosmeticizing....

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 second Placebo (after The "4-Hour Content" Pill) is The "Save or Give" Pill, which commonly leads to the Side Roads of Monetizing and Cosmeticizing....

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 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 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...

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,...

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....