A recent Wall Street Journal article highlighted the dehumanizing effect of Profit as Purpose. It was titled “CEOs Trumpet Smaller Workforces as a Sign
of Corporate Health“.  It’s caption was, “Bosses aren’t just unapologetic about staff cuts. Many are touting shrinking head counts
as accomplishments in the AI era.”

The article included some revealing statements about what we called the “toolification” of humans in post #211 (Integrity Idea 041: Don’t “Toolify” Humans).

The careful, coded corporate language executives once used in describing staff cuts is giving way
to blunt boasts about ever-shrinking workforces. Gone are the days when trimming head count
signaled retrenchment or trouble. Bosses are showing off to Wall Street that they are embracing
artificial intelligence and serious about becoming lean.

Now there is almost a “moral neutrality” to head-count reductions, said Zack Mukewa, head of
capital markets and strategic advisory at the communications firm Sloane & Co.

Some employers seem almost to take pride in announcing efforts to increase revenue or profits
while cutting staff or keeping head count flat.

Refresher on Toolification

Toolification recognizes the Biblical principle that you can’t serve two masters (“No one can serve two masters“, Matthew 6:24), which means that “Profit as Purpose” necessarily leads to “People as Tools” to be manipulated and managed toward that purpose.

If people are not the “end”, they are a tool toward that end.  It is just like online platforms—the user is either the customer or the product.  If the offering is free and profit is the purpose of the organization, then the user is a product (to be sold to third parties) rather than the customer. If the purpose and end toward which the business is managed is a number, then the tools to achieve that number are ultimately reduced to being numbers.

What Matthew 6:24 teaches us is that, at the end of the day, there can only be one primary WHY for the organization that will win out— other “purposes” get reduced to being “means” or “strategies.”

Of course, until the “end of the day”, the leader of an organization operating in alignment with business as usual can live the illusion that they care about people as much as they care about profit.  What the recent WSJ article reveals is that some leaders are no longer even trying to “live the illusion”–they are “proud” to be eliminating people.

It reminds us of a comment by Jim Goodnight, founder of SAS institute, who recognized that profits matter, but people matter more:

The fact is that if our profits don’t grow and continue to grow every year so what? We have our comfort level of what our profits should be and we try to maintain about a 15% profit level. That is sufficient growth for us so we don’t have to be draconian and say ‘Oh my gosh, better go and lay off a 1000 people’. . . . It makes me really mad when a CEO lays off thousands of workers, and is rewarded with the stock increasing.

When People Become Numbers

We suspect that those leaders are not actually proud of eliminating “people”.  They are proud of eliminating “headcount”.  Terms like “headcount” and “full-time equivalent” turn people into numbers.  Once people are dehumanized into numbers, it is much easier to forget, ignore, or reject the most important Biblical beliefs, principles and priorities informing how we are to work in relationship–to forget, ignore, or reject God’s purpose for work and business.

• All people are created in the image of God and deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.

• The greatest commandments are to love God and love your neighbor, and we are to follow the Golden Rule.

• The purpose of an organization of people working together toward a common purpose must be derived from the purpose of those people, and sole purpose for which we were created is to glorify God.

• God’s first command was the Creation Mandate in Genesis 1:28 that calls humans to pursue the flourishing of his creation, including each other.

• God is glorified when organizations and the people who make them up Humanize People, Beautify the World, and Glorify God.

• Organizations exist to serve people, not the other way around.

These are the Biblical beliefs, principles and priorities at the core of the pursuit of faithful integrity through business a better way toward Biblical flourishing. Reducing people to numbers is dehumanizing and antithetical to operating with faithful integrity in alignment with Biblical beliefs, principles and priorities.

History shows us how reducing humans to numbers is dehumanizing and makes mistreatment by other humans easier:

• Concentration Camps (Nazi Germany): Prisoners were tattooed with numbers on their arms, stripped of their names and identities, treated as units of forced labor until death.

• Prison Systems Today: Inmates often become ID numbers, depersonalized in systems more concerned with efficiency than rehabilitation.

It must have been easier for Nazi soldiers to torture and kill people reduced to numbers.  It must be easier for prison guards to deal harshly with people reduced the numbers.  It must be easier for leaders of organizations to boast about cutting “headcount” and “FTE”s than cutting people with names.

While measurement has its place, it becomes idolatrous when it eclipses God’s purpose of business. Numbers are useful tools, but dangerous masters.

God Uses Names, Not Numbers

The Bible draws a sharp contrast between how God values us and how the enemy seeks to enslave us. Consider these passages (emphasis added):

Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. (Isaiah 43:1)

Rejoice that your names are written in heaven. (Luke 10:20)

If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. (Revelation 20:15)

God does not write our number in the Book of Life—He writes our names. That affirms our individuality, dignity, and relationship with him. But Satan seeks the opposite:

It causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked… so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name… his number is 666. (Revelation 13:16-18)

God names; Satan numbers.
God dignifies; Satan dehumanizes.

When leaders toolify humans through Profit as Purpose or reduce people to “headcount” or “FTEs,” they unknowingly mirror the enemy’s design rather than God’s.

The Tension of Names vs Numbers

God writes names in the Book of Life—never numbers. Satan seeks to brand people with a number. History reminds us that numbering people dehumanizes and destroys. A faithful leaders must choose which pattern to follow.

It is the choice we have highlighted many times–alignment with the Kingdom of God or the kingdom of the world.  Although it seems like an easy choice when stated in those terms, the reality is that it is a challenging choice in a world dominated by business as usual.

How does a “faithful leader” of a business navigate this choice?  Even the phrase “faithful leader of a business” seems to hold the tension of the dilemma.  On one side of the choice is “faithful” and on the other side is “leader of a business”.

A “faithful” person wants to put God first.  They want to follow God’s lead, wherever it may go.  They understand that everything they have belongs to God, and they want to cross the Safety/Surrender Gap, surrendering their goals and desires—their “will”—for God’s “will” to be done.  They want to live their life in alignment with Biblical beliefs, principles and priorities.  The faithful person measures success in terms of obedience.  They know employees are fellow humans, not numbers on a spreadsheet.

On the other hand, a “leader of a business” is a businessperson building a business in the world.  They have analysts, markets, investors, employees, and customers to keep happy. The businessperson has financial metrics to track and hurdles to achieve.  The world of business operates in numbers, measuring success in terms of profit and growth.  They are expected to be ruthlessly “willful” in their effort to achieve increased profits and growth. Treating employees as numbers on a spreadsheet makes this easier.

Analysts and investors have influence and will not allow themselves to be reduced to numbers. The leverage of employees changes with shifts in the employment cycle. During the time of what was called the “Great Resignation”, the job market was hot, and employers went out of their way to implement “humanizing” initiatives.

Sadly, with a shift of leverage back to employers, we now see that many of those initiatives were what we called “hustle” in post #159 (Caring for People–Heart, Hype or Hustle). It was not about caring for employees because they were the organization’s priority and because it was the right thing to do.  It was about caring for employees because the organization’s leaders determined that the actions or words were ultimately good for the bottom line. People were still numbers.

Treating People as Names

Choosing to treat people as names in a world of business as usual is about remembering.

It is remembering a bigger WHY of maximizing Biblical flourishing. It is remembering that profit must be kept in its proper place as a necessary means but not the end toward which the business is managed. It is about remembering Imago Dei, the Golden Rule, the Creation Mandate, and the great commandment. It is remembering God’s priorities by “keeping first things first”.

C.S. Lewis wrote “Put first things first and we get second things thrown in: put second things first and we lose both first and second things.”  The Bible is pretty clear about what is a first thing and what is second thing.

• But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you.   (Matthew 6:33)

• Whoever pursues righteousness and love finds life, prosperity and honor.  (Proverbs 21:21)

• The reward for humility and fear of the Lord is riches and honor and life.  (Proverbs 22:4)

Choosing to treat people like names may require following the example of Jim Goodnight and sacrificing potential profit growth.

Choosing to treat people as names is easier if the faithful leader knows their names and their stories and their hopes.  While this may not be practical in a large organization, in a smaller one it can be helped by practices like the ones we explored in post #149 (Integrity Idea 017: Listen to a Life) and post #184 (Integrity Idea 029: Create a Team “Humanbook”).

Choosing to treat people as names in a broken world of business as usual requires the humility to remember that God is the source of all wisdom and that the Bible tells us God will give wisdom to those who ask (James 1:5). It also requires remembering that God’s wisdom comes through prayer.

Treating people as names does not mean that a faithful leader will never need to make the difficult decision to reduce a workforce.  But a faithful leader should never be proud of workforce reductions.  David Ulevitch, a professor at George Mason University, offers sound advice on how a leader should handle layoffs:

Your duty as a leader is to do everything in your power to give them as many resources as you can and offer them the most dignified exit possible. You as the CEO need to own the messaging around this. Employees joined your company because of your vision and you. And now you’ve failed them. You now need to be the one to own the communication around layoffs and take responsibility for what is happening. And ultimately, it will be your decisions that determine if employees are treated with dignity and compassion. This is where trust and confidence is built or broken. Do not make this about you. Do not, at any time, tell them how hard it is for you to give them this news, or how agonizing it was to make this plan. You still have a job, they do not. This is not hard for you, it’s just unpleasant. Not having a job is hard.

If layoffs are required for the sustainability of the organization, we encourage faithful leaders to “terminate with gold” as we explained in post #215 (Integrity Idea 045: Terminate with Gold). It is about taking extra care in applying the Golden Rule when deciding whether to terminate, and in terminating, the employment of a human being–a human being with a name.

Treating people as names also means thinking about the impact and additional burden on remaining employees when a workforce is reduced, whether by layoff or attrition. In an article in MIT Sloan Management Review about the Great Resignation (“Toxic Culture Is Driving the Great Resignation”), some of the reasons cited were: workers feeling disrespected; history of layoffs and reorganizations; people overworked and over-stressed with no ability to balance life; and workers feeling like their efforts were not recognized.

These problems can be exacerbated by workforce reductions. These problems work against flourishing. The fact people tolerate these problems in a slow labor market does not mean they are not problems. An employer who allows these problems to continue or worsen because people aren’t leaving has reduced those people to numbers.

A core principle in the pursuit of faithful integrity through business a better way toward Biblical flourishing is Humanizing People, and Humanizing People starts with treating them as fellow humans–with names. It means caring for them from a WHY of heart–not hype or hustle.

PERSONAL NOTE (from PM): This post reminds me of two stories I have shared before.

The first involves the time my eyes were opened to the name/number choice. I was a young lawyer working on an M&A matter. My client was acquiring a company, and we were sitting around a conference room table as a young investment banker presented an analysis of the facilities it made sense keeping open and those it would be better to close.  The analysis was purely financial, and the main concern was ensuring that notices were properly given under the WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification) Act.  All of a sudden, I began to grow a conscience.  I realized that people were literally numbers on a spreadsheet.  I started to imagine the employees who would lose their jobs in some small town.  I imagined them coming home to tell their spouses, and I imagined the impact on their families.  Then I started to think about the small businesses in that small town and how they (and their owners and employees and their families) would be impacted.   I had a sense this young banker had never visited a factory floor.  None of that was on the spreadsheet.  It was headcounts and FTE’s. It all hit home because I grew up in an industrial town, and my father was the plant manager of a factory that made automobile antennas.  More than that, it was an industrial town that had suffered a devastating blow before I was born when two large manufacturers moved their operations to the South for financial reasons–it was devastating to the community (and our family).

The second involves a friend who led faithfully within a very large, secular, publicly-owned institution.  His name was Tom Cole, and he left his earthly life unexpectedly on Christmas Day a few years ago. When he retired, Tom was the Co-Head of Leveraged Finance at Citigroup.  Tom was also a leader in the New Canaan Society (NCS).  After his passing, an NCS member posted the following on LinkedIn (emphasis added):

I remember sitting in the lobby of Citi’s Headquarters in New York with Tom. I realized then how big of a deal he was, as hundreds of people in our time together tried to get his attention and for him to notice them. What impressed me immediately about Tom was that as people tried to engage him, he knew them by name. He knew their families. He knew details about them and deeply cared for them. He made them feel important.

Tom dealt with a lot of spreadsheets, but not when it came to people.

ESSENCE: A recent Wall Street Journal article about workforce reductions highlighted the dehumanizing effect of Profit as Purpose. It highlighted leaders boasting about workforce reductions. We suspect that those leaders are not actually proud of eliminating “people”.  They are proud of eliminating “headcount”.  Terms like “headcount” and “full-time equivalent” turn people into numbers.  Once people are dehumanized into numbers, it is much easier to forget, ignore, or reject the most important Biblical beliefs, principles and priorities that reflect God’s purpose for work and business. God does not write our number in the Book of Life—He writes our names. Choosing to treat people as names in a world of business as usual is about remembering–remembering Imago Dei, the Golden Rule, the Creation Mandate, the great commandment, and God’s “first things”. A core principle in the pursuit of faithful integrity through business a better way toward Biblical flourishing is Humanizing People, and Humanizing People starts with treating them as fellow humans–with names.

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