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.

“Discourage Winning” falls into the “necessary” category because it is part of faithful stewardship in alignment with the Creation Mandate, Imago Dei, the Golden Rule, and the commandments to love God and love your neighbor.

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.  You can find more Integrity Ideas at Integrous | Integrity Ideas (integriosity.com)

INTEGRITY IDEA: Discourage Winning

“Discourage Winning” may be counter-cultural, but it is not about “encouraging losing”.  “Discourage Winning” is about cultivating an organizational culture that “encourages mutuality” in negotiations–looking for “win-win” results that take into account the needs and objectives of all parties involved.

“Discourage Winning” recognizes that pursuing faithful integrity toward Biblical flourishing through the alignment of an organizational culture with Biblical beliefs, principles and priorities requires alignment with the Creation Mandate, which itself requires faithful stewardship of God’s creation, and mutuality is one of the four key principles of faithful stewardship.

Pursuing faithful integrity through business a better way toward Biblical flourishing also requires alignment with Imago Dei, the Golden Rule and the commandments to love God and love your neighbor.

Mutuality is about ensuring that transactions are “fair” to both parties, regardless of bargaining leverage, and in an organizational culture of business a better way that prioritizes excellence, human dignity, relationships and flourishing, it is simply the right thing to do when dealing with other parts of God’s creation, whether humans or other associations of humans.

Refresher: The “Way” of Business as Usual and the Need to “Win”

We devoted post #169 to describing The “Way” of the World and focused on four key attributes of the “way” of business as usual that are at odds with the “way” of God’s Kingdom:

• Profit as Purpose

• A Scarcity Assumption

• A Self-Interest Assumption

• A “Can We” Culture

When these work together, organizations and people operate out of fear and use fear to manage others, which leads to manipulative and dehumanizing “survival” practices in order to “win”. Because an organization manages to its purpose, a key role of the organizational culture of the business will be to drive profit. “Winning” becomes maximizing the bottom line.

The Scarcity Assumption means everything is a zero-sum situation (my gain is your loss and vice versa). Combined with a Can We Culture in which ethics or the law are seen as the only boundaries (or even obstacles) in the pursuit of the organization’s purpose, competition (whether internal or external) to “win” and a fear of “losing” can lead to pushing (or even crossing) boundaries.

These behaviors are certainly not in alignment with the Biblical principles such as faithful stewardship, love, generosity, mutuality, flourishing and Shalom.

Refresher: The Pursuit of Biblical Flourishing

By contrast, we devoted post #200 to the prioritization of Biblical Flourishing.  Our concept of Biblical flourishing has its origins in the Creation Mandate, Imago Dei, and the commandments to love God and love our neighbor.

Humans experience Biblical flourishing more fully–they are more “fully human”–when living in alignment with God’s design, which includes working in alignment with God’s design.  That means they are more “fully human” when working in alignment with the Creation Mandate, Imago Dei, and the commandments to love God and love our neighbor.

That, in turn, means humans experience Biblical flourishing more fully at work when “winning” is discouraged and “mutuality” is encouraged.

Remember, an organization is simply a group of people working together toward a common goal. If people are created and called to live out the Creation Mandate, Imago Dei, and the commandments to love God and love our neighbor, then an organization aligned with Biblical flourishing must exist to do the same, which means it must be managed in a way that encourages, rather than hinders, its people living out that divine calling.

Refresher: Faithful Stewardship

An organization pursuing Biblical flourishing through the alignment of its culture with Biblical beliefs, principles and priorities must recognize that the Creation Mandate requires faithful stewardship of God’s creation.

In several posts, we have described what we believe are four key principles of faithful stewardship–Respect, Sustainability, Mutuality and Generosity.  While all four are relevant to “Discourage Winning”, our focus is mutuality.

Mutuality is about an organization extending its culture of Shalom to all people it touches by managing all capital from a Biblical view of relationships, community, human dignity, flourishing and the common good.  Mutuality is about ensuring that transactions are “fair” to both parties, regardless of bargaining leverage.  It embodies the Golden Rule (Luke 6:31) and helps ensure sustainability of the organization, its relationships and its capital.

To touch on how the other three principles are related to mutuality and “Discourage Winning”:

• Respect for all humans as God’s creations (and all organizations as creations of humans) means trying to understand their needs and objectives and caring about how the organization is impacting their flourishing.

• Sustainability requires assessing the health of all the capital an organization requires to keep operating–natural, human, social and financial–which includes the health of employees, customers, vendors and communities.

• Living generously includes choosing to give something up or to forego a benefit because it benefits the common good–because it represents faithful integrity and increases the Biblical flourishing of others.  In this respect, generosity is closely tied to mutuality–treating vendors, employees, customers and communities more fairly than you might need to based on your bargaining leverage.

How “Winning” Can Be “Losing”

“Discourage Winning” recognizes that “winning” can, in the long run, lead to “losing”.  The most important principle in stewarding an organization on God’s behalf is not to destroy it!

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. captured the mutuality that exists, whether or not we try to honor it:

All this is simply to say that all life is interrelated. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality; tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. . . . Strangely enough, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. You can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be.

An organization can die if, for example:

• A focus on “winning” in negotiations with customers (or in addressing unhappy customers) drives them out of business or to competitors.

• A focus on “winning” in compensation and the treatment of employees creates an organizational culture that is unable to attract and retain qualified people.

• A focus on “winning” in negotiations weakens or drives away suppliers of natural resources, parts or distribution channels needed for its operations.

• A focus on “winning” in relations with the communities in which it operates results in a loss of the trust and support of those communities.

An organization’s “success” is impacted by its relations with employees, customers, vendors and communities and by the flourishing of those stakeholders.

In several posts, we have mentioned the book Completing Capitalism.   In it, the authors describe how the Mars Corporation (their employer) did a study to ensure that Mars was not extracting an unfair amount of profit any stage of the value chain, thereby weakening the chain.  Mars undertook this study because its leaders recognized that a weak value chain is not resilient.  This resulted in the development of an entirely new business model–the Economics of Mutuality (a very Biblical principle!)

A secular company might justify mutuality on a purely utilitarian basis as being good for long-term profitability, because it recognizes the complex ecosystems within which the organization operates and helps ensure sustainability and resilience of the ecosystems, which is good for the long-term profitability of the business.

Whether or not you are fan of Amazon, it is at the core of the “Amazon Doctrine” announced by Jeff Bezos:

Above all else, align with customers. Win when they win. Win only when they win.

But for an organization pursuing faithful integrity through business a better way toward Biblical flourishing, mutuality is simply the “right thing” to do.

“To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” (1 Corinthians 12:7)

“But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”  (Jeremiah 29:7)

“So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.”  (Matthew 7:12)

“And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.”  (Luke 6:31)

“I will be a swift witness . . . against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages.”  (Malachi 3:5)

“Masters, treat your slaves justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.”  (Colossians 4:1)

CONTINUUM: Practices

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.

“Discourage Winning” is on the Practices Continuum. It involves practices the organization can adopt to affirm its commitment to cultivating a culture that aligns with Biblical beliefs, principles and priorities by valuing, promoting and prioritizing excellence, human dignity, relationships and flourishing.

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.  Although “Discourage Winning” is counter-cultural, we believe it is Highly Covert (an action that would be taken by a secular company).  As with Amazon, a secular company might justify mutuality on a purely utilitarian basis as being good for long-term profitability, because it recognizes the complex ecosystems within which the organization operates and helps ensure sustainability and resilience of the ecosystems, which is good for the long-term profitability of the business.

“Discourage Winning” can also be Overt (An overtly faith-based action known generally within the organization) if the faithful leader chooses to explain the practice in terms of the organization’s WHY and Biblical beliefs, principles or priorities.

STAKEHOLDERS SERVED: Employees, Customers/Clients, Suppliers/Vendors, the Community

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.

“Discourage Winning” serves all those with whom the organization does business, including Employees, Customers/Clients, Suppliers/Vendors and the Community.

IMPLEMENTATION

Implementing “Discourage Winning” in an organization involves both communicating the practice and then putting the practice into practice.

Mars Corporation Case Study

The Mars Corporation provides an interesting case study in the implementation of mutuality.  As told in the book Putting Purpose into Practice: The Economics of Mutuality:

[Forrest Mars] moved to England to start his own Mars chocolate business . . . with a dream to build a business based on the objective of promoting “a mutuality of service and benefits’” for all stakeholders.

In a 1947 letter, Forrest Mars described the “Company’s Objective”:

The Company’s objective is the manufacture and distribution of food products in such a manner as to promote a mutuality of service and benefits among: Consumers, Distributors, Competitors, Our Direct Suppliers of Goods and Services, Governmental Bodies, All Employees of the Company, and its Shareholders.  This expresses the total purpose for which the Company exists–nothing less–and it is expected that the Board of Directors, all Management and employees of the Company, will be motivated by this basic objective, and will keep it constantly in mind as the guiding principle in all their work for the Company.

The authors note that:

“Mutuality talk” infuses all manner of staff communications at Mars.  It is . . . referenced continuously in Mars documents and everyday encounters, and is hyper-visible on the walls of hundreds of Mars offices and manufacturing sites.

However, they also explain that:

[W]hile mutuality is a powerful signifier that circulates among associates located in different segments, regions, and sub-cultures of Mars, when asked to define the concept, associates offered varied interpretations. As one associate noted, ‘[m]utuality means so many different things to different people.

We believe the disconnect between communication and application may be the attributable to the absence of a transcendent WHY.  Mutuality was expressed as a value or strategy without a clear purpose.  Mutuality as an end in itself is not enough to align behavior.

Mutuality with a WHY

“Discourage Winning” reflects mutuality, but it is not about mutuality.  It is one aspect of cultivating an organizational culture that aligns with Biblical beliefs, principles and priorities and aims toward the maximization of Biblical flourishing.

Without a transcendent WHY, the WHAT and HOW of a concept like mutuality can be misdirected or become unsustainable.  Its goals and parameters are whatever people with power or influence say they are at any moment in time.

We believe implementing “Discourage Winning” successfully requires tethering it to the Re-Imagined Purpose, Re-Imagined Values and Re-Imagined Culture of the organization.

Finding a Third Way

In some sense, a strategy of “winning” is simpler than a strategy of “mutuality”.  While it may be a painful process as a party with less leverage fights for every morsel they can get from the party that will ultimately “win”, the “winner” will extract as much as they can.  The “dance” is familiar.

On the other hand, “Discourage Winning” is about finding a “third way” that is a “win” for both parties.  Stephen Covey observed:

 Win-win is a belief in the Third Alternative.  It’s not your way or my way; it’s a better way, a higher way.

Finding a third way can require more effort, creativity, courage, prayer and trust.  Because an organization is operating in a fallen world, there may not be “easy answers” to mutuality–leaders are likely to be faced with choices that involve two imperfect alternatives.

“Discourage Winning” requires more effort, because it means listening and probing to understand the objectives, needs, sensitivities and real agenda of the other party.  It requires the types of practices we described in post #185 (Integrity Idea 30: Encourage Biblical EQ).

“Discourage Winning” requires more creativity, because it means finding a solution that meets the objectives and needs of both parties.

“Discourage Winning” requires more courage, because it means taking the risk of offering mutuality to a party that may have a business as usual agenda of “winning”.  James Hunter warns:  “To enact a vision of human flourishing based in the qualities of life that Jesus modeled will invariably challenge the given structures of the social order. In this light, there is no true leadership without putting at risk one’s time, wealth, reputation, and position.”

“Discourage Winning” requires more prayer, because it is a battle against “the given structures of the social order”.  In his book Why Business Matters to God, Jeff Van Duzer rightly suggests that the same God who calls leaders to “higher standards” will be present to equip those who are called:

We are not expected to fulfill the creation and redemption mandates in business relying solely on our own wisdom, judgment and perseverance. The same God who calls us to these high standards provides us with access to the discernment and power that will enable us to fulfill them.

Finally, “Discourage Winning” requires more trust.  A faithful leader committed to leading with faithful integrity through business a better way toward Biblical flourishing will face challenges that require the utmost trust in God’s sovereignty and trust in God’s commands.   It is, for example, trust in Matthew 6:33:

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Some Practical Steps

For a faithful leader embarking on implementing “Discourage Winning”, a good place to start is an inventory of all the relationships the organization has with its stakeholders and an honest assessment of whether the organization used its position or leverage to extract more than is fair or is using its position or leverage in a way that is inconsistent with the Golden Rule.

Four prior posts that describe ways to treat stakeholders more in line with the Golden Rule are:

• Post #129–Integrity Idea 003: Pay Today

• Post #174–Integrity Idea 024: Optimize Compensation

• Post #194–Integrity Idea 033: Provide “Plain” Pricing

• Post #215–Integrity Idea 045: Terminate with Gold

It’s a start.

PERSONAL NOTE (from PM):  I practiced corporate transactional law for 23 years.  When I was a law student deciding on the type of practice that I wanted to pursue, a big reason I chose a corporate transactional practice over a litigation practice was what I perceived to be a significant difference in the nature of the relationship with the “other side”.  It is something I told many recruits over those 23 years.

In most cases, a corporate transaction involves two parties voluntarily trying to find a “win-win” solution.  Except where one party is desperate, a transaction will not occur unless each parties believes that their objectives and needs are being met and their sensitivities have been addressed.  What I enjoyed most about the practice was helping two parties find common ground where it appeared they were at an impasse.  That took listening and probing.  It took creativity.  It was helping two parties build something new.

My perception, right or wrong, of a litigation practice was that it most often involved a broken situation involving two parties who didn’t want to be there, but being there, wanted to win it all at the expense of the other party.  There would likely be a winner and a loser or just a settlement in which both would feel like losers (one not getting as much as they thought they should and one giving more than they thought they should).  It was about who would get more of the broken pieces.  “Discourage Winning” must be much more difficult in that type of situation.

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

INTEGRITY IDEA: Discourage Winning

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

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

STAKEHOLDERS SERVED: Employees, Customers/Clients, Suppliers/Vendors

“Discourage Winning” may be counter-cultural, but it is not about “encouraging losing”.  “Discourage Winning” is about cultivating an organizational culture that “encourages mutuality” in negotiations–looking for “win-win” results that take into account the needs and objectives of all parties involved.  It recognizes that pursuing faithful integrity toward Biblical flourishing through the alignment of an organizational culture with Biblical beliefs, principles and priorities requires alignment with the Creation Mandate, which itself requires faithful stewardship of God’s creation, and mutuality is one of the four two key principles of faithful stewardship. Pursuing faithful integrity through business a better way toward Biblical flourishing also requires alignment with Imago Dei, the Golden Rule, and the commandments to love God and love your neighbor.  Mutuality is about ensuring that transactions are “fair” to both parties, regardless of bargaining leverage, and in an organizational culture of business a better way that prioritizes excellence, human dignity, relationships and flourishing, it is finding a “third way” and simply the right thing to do when dealing with other parts of God’s creation, whether humans or other associations of humans.  Finding a third way can require more effort, creativity, courage, prayer, and trust.

Copyright © 2024 Integrous LLC.  Integriosity is a registered Service Mark of Integrous LLC.

Photo credit: Original photo by Marek Piwnicki on Unsplash
(photo cropped)