ESSENCE: A leader can’t align the purpose and vision of an organization with God’s purpose for work and business until that leader has a sound understanding of work and business from a Biblical perspective, which is the purpose of the RENEW step of Integriosity^®.  Until an organization’s leader(s) is ready to abandon business as usual thinking and adopt business a better way thinking, the second step of Integriosity–RE-IMAGINE–will just be “RE-JUSTIFY” and faithfully “doing right” will be just a pipe dream.  We believe there are five key “mind-shifts” of business a better way that are the gateway to moving into the RE-IMAGINE process. They capture a new way of thinking about the WHAT, WHO, WHY, HOW and WHEN of faith-work integration.

We asserted way back in post #005 that a leader can’t align the purpose and vision of an organization with God’s purpose for work and business until that leader has a sound understanding of work and business from a Biblical perspective.  Posts #038-#065 have been devoted to the first step of Integriosity^®–RENEW.

Frankly, we believe it is a pointless waste of time going through the motions of the remaining steps of Integriosity for an organization–RE-ALIGN, RE-IMAGINE and RESTORE–until the organization’s leader(s) is ready to abandon business as usual thinking and adopt business a better way thinking.

In our last post (#065), we recapped four Biblical principles we believe are “first principles” as well as eight “keys” to help a leader on the path toward business a better way.  But as helpful as this may be, it is the five key “mind-shifts” of business a better way thinking that are the gateway to moving into the RE-IMAGINE process.  Unless a leader has made these mental and heart shifts, RE-IMAGINING will just be “RE-JUSTIFYING”–which is NOT a stage of Integriosity!

RENEW–Five Key “Mind-Shifts”

We believe that these are the five key “mind-shifts” necessary to embrace fully God’s purpose for work and business and get on the ancient path of business a better way.  They capture a new way of thinking about the WHAT, WHO, WHY, HOW and WHEN of faith-work integration.  These will be explained in the next several posts:

• • Mind-Shift #1: Principle-WHAT-“Faith Can’t Fit Into Work“.  You can’t understand faith/work integration until you understand WHAT integration means.
  • Mind-Shift #2: Person-WHO-“You Are Not What You Do“.  You can’t understand the WHY or HOW of faith/work integration until you understand WHO you are.
  • Mind-Shift #3: Purpose-WHY-“Greed Is Not the Creed“.  You can’t understand the HOW of faith/work integration until you understand WHY you are doing what you do.
  • Mind-Shift #4: Practice-HOW-“Symbols Are Secondary“.  The HOW of faith/work integration follows naturally once you understand WHAT, WHO and WHY (and it is not as scary as you might think).
  • Mind-Shift #5: Priority–WHEN-“The Time Is Now”.  Armed with WHAT, WHO, WHY and HOW, it becomes clear that faith/work integration should be a priority.

Unfortunately, many faith-inspired leaders begin the process of re-alignment with the best intentions but without even knowing about the key “mind-shifts” necessary to have a solid foundation for their changes.  In fact, we believe much “faith/work” content, testimonies and rhetoric misses these key shifts and actually directs leaders off the “ancient path” onto one or more of the six Side Roads (Agonizing, Individualizing, Monetizing, Cosmeticizing, Prosperitizing or Interimizing) that “miss the mark”.

Leading an organization to faithfully “do right” through business a better way requires mind-shifts that lead to heart-shifts, both in the leaders and in the organization.  Anything less can bring the missed purpose for organizations, the missed calling for leaders, the missed flourishing for people and the increased misery that was explained in Post #036.

We believe it is time for business a better way in alignment with Biblical values and priorities–it is time to begin faithfully “doing right” through Integriosity.

SPOILER ALERT:  One of the critical ingredients in the third step of Integriosity–RE-ALIGN–is intentional leaders committed to a new way of looking at their WHO and the organization’s WHY.

PERSONAL NOTE (from PM):  In pursuing Integrous and developing the path to Integriosity, several people challenged whether this was the right “business model”.

One suggestion was to drop the “faith” focus and appeal to a much broader business audience that would resonate with integrity.  They rightly pointed out that my potential client-base would be much larger.  They also cautioned that many people would be “turned off” by the faith language.  Both accurate assessments.  But I wondered about the “Why” that would be driving someone to care about integrity.  If it is integrity in the sense of “wholeness and alignment”–the integrity behind Integriosity–then exactly what would they be aligning their business with? There is a legitimate desire to align an organizational culture with its values, but what is the genesis of those values?  To appeal to recruits?  To qualify for ESG investors?  To impress customers?  To define a culture of care for employees to improve retention?  To define a culture that is customer-focused to drive sales?  To drive a culture that is law-abiding to avoid trouble?  All fall victim to the “Why Test”.  Keep asking “Why” and it is likely that the absence of faith-inspiration–a transcendent standard–leads you to Profit as Purpose.  Without a faith-inspired plumb line, the five key “mind-shifts” are not possible.

That is not to suggest that a desire to “do good” can only be motivated by self-interest without a faith-inspired plumb line.  As Tim Keller points out in his book  Every Good Endeavor:

People have innate consciences that are preloaded with senses of honesty, justice, love, the Golden Rule, and so on. . . . This universal knowledge of God and of good—this aspect of natural revelation—has been called “first-order beliefs.” All people hold these beliefs at some level, even if their conscious, intellectual, culturally conditioned “second-order beliefs” deny them utterly.

But I believe it should be far easier to reach the faith-inspired–the “low-hanging fruit”–and they should be the “light of the world”.

Another suggestion was to be less demanding about what God calls us to do.  Surely, practices such as Individualizing, Monetizing, Cosmeticizing, Prosperitizing and Interimizing are better than doing nothing at all.  Calling them Side Roads and examples of the “good” being the enemy of the “best” sounds critical and judgmental.  It may also offend people in the church and faith-work movement advocating and praising those practices.  And pushing an understanding of a BIGGER Gospel may turn away those faithful people who have been taught it is all about sin and salvation.  Again, accurate assessments.

Each time, I went back to the personal mission statement that confirmed to me the path to Integrous–“to redeem work through the impartation of wisdom, spotlighting God’s truth and connecting its meaning to organizational practices“.  The Bible calls us to obedience and trust, leaving the process, timing and outcome in God’s hands.  The Bible call us to love God and love our neighbor.  Genesis is pretty clear about work and the Creation Mandate, and the Bible is pretty clear about who we are, where we came from, why we are here and what God invites us to do.  Integrous and Integriosity are for those who have been convicted by the Holy Spirit to want more–those who understand a more transcendent purpose than power, money and pleasure.  I believe I am meant to be obedient to that mission–leaving the process, the timing and the outcome in God’s hands.

Copyright © 2021 Integrous LLC.  Integriosity is a registered Service Mark of Integrous LLC.

Photo Credit: Original photo by Natasha Connell on Unsplash
(photo cropped)