ESSENCE:  Integrity Ideas are specific actions a faithful leader can consider in leading faithfully through business a better way.

INTEGRITY IDEA: Cancel Cursing

COVERT-OVERT CONTINUUM (six Continuums for action):  Policies

COVERT-OVERT RATING (several levels from Highly Covert to Highly Overt):  Highly Covert

STAKEHOLDERS SERVED: Employees

Most Integrity Ideas are practical actions toward implementing a bigger WHY for the organization.  “Cancel Cursing” is about discouraging employees from engaging in communications and behavior that slander, disrespect, malign, dishonor, humiliate, or disparage other employees (e.g., gossip).  It recognizes that words have power to bless or curse–the power to give “life” or bring “death” to another.  It also recognizes that a house divided against itself cannot stand.  Leading faithfully through business a better way in alignment with Biblical beliefs, principles and priorities requires cultivating an organizational culture built on a recognition of Imago Dei that encourages people to treat each other with dignity and respect.  Cultivating such a culture may require faithful leaders to take practical steps to combat worldly momentum toward the unhealthy relationships that are characteristic of business as usual and work as usual.

Integrity Ideas are specific actions a leader can consider during the Re-Align step of Integriosity^®–actions that will begin to Re-Align the organization with Biblical beliefs, principles and priorities.

Integrity Ideas are practical actions toward implementing a bigger WHY for the organization.  We believe some are critical (and necessary) steps in the RENEW/RE-ALIGN/RE-IMAGINE/RESTORE process.  Others are just ideas to be considered if they feel like a good fit based on what leaders prayerfully discern is best for stewarding the organization toward its WHY.

“Cancel Cursing” is critical to cultivating an organizational culture built on a recognition of Imago Dei in which all people are treated with dignity and respect as having been created in the image of God.  However, the implementation of “Cancel Cursing” can vary widely depending on the nature of the organization.

INTEGRITY IDEA: Cancel Cursing

Although we are not fans of “cancel culture”, we will borrow the “cancel” concept when it comes to workplace “curses”.  “Cancel Cursing” is about discouraging employees from engaging in communications and behavior that slander, disrespect, malign, dishonor, humiliate, or disparage other employees (e.g., gossip).

It recognizes that words have power to bless or curse–the power to give “life” or bring “death” to another.  It also recognizes that a house divided against itself cannot stand.  Leading faithfully through business a better way in alignment with Biblical beliefs, principles and priorities requires cultivating an organizational culture built on a recognition of Imago Dei that encourages people to treat each other with dignity and respect.

The Bible is full of warnings against “cursing”–here are just a few:

Death and life are in the power of the tongue. (Proverbs 18:21)

A dishonest man spreads strife, and a whisperer separates close friends. (Proverbs 16:28)

Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit. (Psalm 34:13)

Whoever utters slander is a fool. (Proverbs 10:18)

With his mouth the godless man would destroy his neighbor. (Proverbs 11:9)

Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit. (Psalm 34:13)

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. (Ephesians 4:29)

We believe the Bible also makes clear the damage to an organization of an employee “cursing” another employee.  The concept of a “house divided against itself” being unable to stand is recorded in the books of Matthew (12:25), Mark (3:25) and Luke (11:17) (it was also the theme of a 1970 pop hit by Brotherhood of Man–see the video link below if you remember it).

It is also a concept invoked by Abraham Lincoln in a famous speech given in 1858.  Lincoln was speaking about America being divided over the issue of slavery:

“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”  I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided.  It will become all one thing or all the other.

Lincoln points to an important reason why a faithful leader seeking to lead faithfully through business a better way must “Cancel Cursing”.  Even if “cursing” doesn’t destroy the organization, it will infect the culture.  Cultural commentator Seth Godin has observed:

The attitudes you put up with will become the attitudes of your entire organization. Over time, every organization becomes what is tolerated. If you reward a cynic merely because he got something done, you’ve made it clear to everyone else that cynicism is okay.

Very early in these posts, we identified that business as usual is characterized by:

(1) Scarcity–based and Self-Interest–based behavior

(2) in a hierarchical pyramid of

(3) people who have all been reduced to tools of production

(4) being motivated/manipulated by those above them and motivating/manipulating those around them

(5) in order to ensure their personal success/survival

(6) in a culture designed around Profit as Purpose (that’s a mouthful!).

When those dynamics are present, people are not really a “team” working together–they are individuals pursuing Self-Interest in a culture that creates internal competition for Scarce resources and rewards winning.  Human relationships do not flourish when those relationships are hierarchical, adversarial and competitive, with management structures creating “WE/THEM” relationships and management techniques pitting people against each other.

How do “curses” show up in a workplace?  In his book Why Business Matters to God, Jeff Van Duzer observes:

Office politics, malicious gossip, behind-the-back criticisms, cliques, truth “spinning,” destructive personal ambitions, free-riding, domineering behavior, sexism, racism, jealousy, self-promotion—these are all common features of today’s corporate environments.

“Cancel Cursing” involves taking steps to communicate “that type of behavior is not consistent with our purpose and our values and will not be tolerated.”  It is taking the steps to embody in the culture the attitude of Benjamin Franklin:

I resolve to speak ill of no man whatever, not even in a matter of truth; but rather by some means excuse the faults I hear charged upon others, and upon proper occasions speak all the good I know of everybody.

CONTINUUM: Policies

The Integriosity model organizes “heart change” along six Covert-Overt Continuums.  There is nothing magic about these categories, but we believe they are helpful in thinking about practical execution of a Re-Imagined Purpose, Re-Imagined Values and a Re-Imagined Culture.  The Continuums are Prayer, Proclamation, Policies, Practices, Products, People.

Each Continuum represents an area in which leaders can begin to think about, plan and institute Re-Alignment changes to the heart of the organization.

“Cancel Culture” is on the Policies Continuum. It is a practice the organization can adopt to reflect and reinforce its purpose and values.  Policies are guidelines, whether written or merely understood, that define and shape aspects of an organization’s culture by providing both expectations for behavior as well as procedures and consequences for behavior that undermines the desired culture.

COVERT-OVERT RATING: Highly Covert

The Integriosity model breaks the Covert-Overt Continuums into six gradations–from Highly Covert to Highly Overt–that we believe are helpful in beginning to pray and think about what is most appropriate for an organization at a particular moment in time.

Most Integrity Ideas will have one place on the scale.  Some can vary depending on how they are implemented.  We identify “Cancel Cursing” as Highly Covert (An action that would be taken by a secular company) because every organization could and should strive to create a culture of healthy relationships.  “Cancel Cursing” can also be Overt (An overtly faith-based action known generally within the organization) if the leaders of the organization choose to explain its importance in terms of Imago Dei.

STAKEHOLDERS SERVED: Employees

When we categorize faith-based actions, we also consider the stakeholders principally impacted by the action: Employees, Customers/Clients, Owners, Suppliers/Vendors, Community and Kingdom.

“Cancel Cursing” principally serves employees by discouraging communications and behavior that tear people down and bring “death”.

IMPLEMENTATION

An organization committed to Re-Imagining its culture in alignment with business a better way (prioritizing relationships, community, human dignity and flourishing of all people) MUST examine how it’s culture treats the people it touches (owners, employees, vendors, customers, communities), whether its culture encourages healthy or unhealthy relationships among those people, and whether its culture leads to work being experienced by its people as a blessing of flourishing to be embraced or a burden to be minimized.

Cultivating an organizational culture aligned with Biblical beliefs, principles and priorities requires faithful leaders to take practical steps to combat worldly momentum toward the unhealthy relationships that are characteristic of business as usual and work as usual.  The corrosive assumptions of the business as usual culture, such as Scarcity and Self-Interest, become the assumptions out of which people work and treat others.  “Cursing” is an aspect of that momentum.

Implementing “Cancel Cursing” will vary greatly depending on the nature of the organization.  As a faithful leader thinks through the most effective approach for faithfully leading their organization through business a better way, here are a few options to consider:

• Example.  No matter what other approaches are pursued, it is critical for the leaders of the organization to lead by example, both in how they behave and how they respond to “cursing” by others (including other leaders).  In a small organization, this may be all that is required.  “Cancel Cursing” is about curating culture, and curation must start with the tone set at the top.  Turning to a quote we have used before from Seth Godin:

People are watching you. They’re not listening to your words as much as they’re seeking to understand where the boundaries and the guard rails lie, because they’ve learned from experience that people who do what gets rewarded, get rewarded. Be clear and consistent about how we do things around here.

• Training.  Training on how to recognize and respond to “cursing” is helpful, and may be necessary, because “cursing” is so ingrained in the culture of the kingdom of the world.  Erma Bombeck observed: “Some say our national pastime is baseball. Not me. It’s gossip.”  Training could be formal training sessions or it could be helpful hints in an e-mail, a newsletter or a poster on the wall.

• Principles.  If an organization’s purpose and values embody concepts such as transparency, honesty or treating people with dignity, then “Cancel Cursing” can be worked into the ongoing efforts a faithful leader should be undertaking to remind people of the purpose and values, to recognize behavior that exemplifies the purpose and values, and to address promptly behavior that undermines them.

• Policies. However communicated, “Cancel Culture” should be recognized by employees as an informal or formal policy of an organization pursuing business a better way.

We encountered a very proactive formal policy in a non-profit, Christian organization that was intent on discouraging “cursing” (they did not use the term “curse” but addressed anything negative that an employee said to another employee about someone who was not present).  This organization had a formal policy that required anyone who heard “cursing” about another employee who was not present to tell the “cursing” person they had 24 hours to tell the “cursed” person what was said.  Otherwise, the person who heard the “curse” was obligated to tell the “cursed person”.

Way, way back in post #007 (Work is Broken), we explained that the brokenness of business as usual has led to work relationships–our relationship to work and our relationships surrounding work–bearing little resemblance to God’s design for humanity, creation and work in Genesis.

Relationships matter!  Work is good!  Organizations are people working in relationship!  Pope John Paul II observed in his Laborem Exercens that:

Thus work bears a particular mark of man and humanity, the mark of a person operating within a community of persons.

Faithful leaders have the opportunity to restore work relationships through the way in which they conduct business and lead organizations.  “Cancel Cursing” is one positive step toward restoration.

PERSONAL NOTE (from PM):  I was inspired to write this post after hearing a talk on “blessings” and “curses” by Jon Tyson (pastor of CHURCH OF THE CITY NEW YORK) at the 2023 New Canaan Society National Retreat.  I encourage you to listen to the talk when it becomes available on the New Canaan Society website.

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Photo credit: Original photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash (photo cropped)