Turkey on Thanksgiving is a tradition because it is a cherished reminder.  Turkey is eaten in many other countries and giving thanks is universal, but the November reminder of what we have grown up believing was likely eaten at the first celebration in November 1621 at Plymouth, MA is what makes Thanksgiving a uniquely American holiday.

We decided to make these Turkey/Profit thoughts from prior seasons a tradition, but with some updates.  Hopefully, you see it as “cherished reminder”.  Just like turkey, it’s one of our favorites.

Unless your turkey has a radical commitment to sacrificial generosity, i suspect it would not say it is “flourishing” on your Thanksgiving table.  What are we talking about?

This may sound odd (okay, it is odd), but we were thinking about all the things that go into a traditional Thanksgiving meal and wondered what your turkey would represent in the Thanksgiving preparation and meal if Thanksgiving was a business.

Our conclusion is that the turkey is usually profit, but it shouldn’t be.  Profit should be the oven (or the smoker or deep fryer) and the gravy.  The turkey should be Biblical flourishing.

Refresher: The Pursuit of Biblical Flourishing

Jonathan Pennington wrote, “Human flourishing alone is the idea that encompasses all human activity and goals . . ..”

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.

Hopefully you recall the Creation Mandate (the commandment about our purpose on earth) that we discussed at length in post #46 (Lessons from Creation-Why We Are Here).  Here it is again from Genesis 1:28:

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Theologians seem pretty confident that the terms “subdue” and “dominion” mean “stewardship“.  We are to care for all God’s creation as its STEWARDS.

We believe faithful stewardship of an organization must take into account four principles–Respect, Sustainability, Mutuality and Generosity:

• Respect. Respect for all humans because God created them, which means treating all stakeholders of an organization (owners, employees, vendors, customers, communities) with dignity and caring about how the organization is impacting their flourishing.

• Sustainability.  Sustainability across all aspects of a business, including its utilization of all forms of capital that drive the business and its relationships with the stakeholders related to those forms of capital.  We have frequently quoted Jeff van Duzer’s book Why Business Matters to God (And What Still Needs To Be Fixed), and its insights on the breadth of sustainability are worth quoting:  “Sustainability, however, can be understood in a much broader sense as well. As a business pursues its purposes, it must do so in a way that is sustainable across all of the dimensions of its interactions with its stakeholders.”  This requires leaders to assess the usage and the availability and health of all the capital it requires to keep operating–natural, human, social and financial.

• 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.

• Generosity.  As explained in post #189 (First Things–Righteousness), faithful integrity requires more than “giving generously”–it requires the “vertical integration” of generosity by “living generously”.  Living generously is about operating the organization (and, in the process, generating wealth) in a way that generously loves others and stewards creation.  Living generously is living sacrificially (like your turkey if it willingly hopped into your oven)–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 is living sacrificially–and it is faithful stewardship.

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.

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: Profit Is Not Bad

Profit is NOT bad, and the creation by business of economic prosperity is good, because it enables families and communities to flourish.  That bears repeating–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, which in turn means it is necessary for business in alignment with Biblical beliefs, principles and priorities, which in turn means it is necessary for the pursuit of Biblical flourishing through faithful integrity.

Profit in a business is necessary for the key elements of faithfully stewarding the business in obedience to the Creation Mandate.

• Respect. Business a better way does not mean ignoring owners.  A business pursuing the maximization of Biblical flourishing through faithful integrity needs to promote and facilitate the flourishing of ALL its stakeholders, and that includes owners.  It needs profit in order to permit its owners to flourish through a fair return on their capital.  Anything less is not respecting them, and that is poor stewardship.

• Sustainability. Without profit, a business will lose access to one of the four types of capital on which a business relies–financial capital.  Without profit or access to financial capital, the business is likely to be unsustainable, and that is poor stewardship.

• Mutuality and Generosity.  It is fair to say that an unprofitable business unable to Respect its owners and struggling with Sustainability because it has difficulty accessing financial capital is unlikely to be focused on treating others more fairly than it can get away with.  In reality, it is more likely to engage in business as usual survival tactics (e.g., paying as little and as late as possible) and be hoping others treat it with Mutuality and Generosity.

Your Turkey at Thanksgiving

We think the centerpiece of Thanksgiving is the turkey.  Yes, we know some of you are all about the stuffing or the mashed potatoes or the pies, but we are going with the focus of Norman Rockwell’s famous Saturday Evening Post cover from March 6, 1943, “Freedom from Want”–it’s all about the turkey.

Your Turkey as Profit – Business as Usual:  Profit is not bad just like money is not the root of all evil.  It is the love of money that the Bible tells us is the root of all evil.  Like money, profit becomes bad when it moves from being a tool to being an idol.  If anything is the “idol” of the Thanksgiving table, it’s the turkey.  Your turkey should not be profit.

Perhaps the most consistent theme over the last 251 posts is that profit becomes a problem when it becomes the purpose of a business.  We call it Profit as Purpose, and it is a hallmark of business as usual–business according to the world’s beliefs, values and priorities.  If a Thanksgiving table represented business as usual, the turkey would be profit.

Back in post #171 (How the World’s “Way” Wrecks “Work”), we explained the key problems created by Profit as Purpose that contribute to the brokenness of business as usual.

Profit as Purpose is the idea that the primary or sole purpose of a business is the maximization of financial profit for the benefit of shareholders.  As we explained in post #169 (The “Way” of the World), it is often referred to as the “shareholder primacy” model, and it has been predominant for the last several decades in America.

If your turkey is profit–the focus of the painting, the centerpiece of the table and the end toward which a business is managed:

• People and the rest of creation can never be more than tools of production to be managed toward that end (“No one can serve two masters“, Matthew 6:24).

• People will be valued based on their perceived profit contribution, and value is likely to be based on short-term profit or stock value.

• Decisions will be made mainly based on financial metrics, because they measure profit and they are easily measurable.

• Because an organization manages to its purpose, a key role of the organizational culture of the business will be to drive profit.  Business culture can be designed (or will just emerge) to drive or inspire people to perform at higher levels and contribute more to profitability through manipulative mechanisms like bonuses/commissions/promotions and the fear of elimination or demotion.

Profit as the turkey works against faithfully stewarding people and the rest of creation toward Biblical flourishing, which means it works against the Creation Mandate.

In describing the role of profit in an organization, leaders sometimes characterize the role and priority of profit in ways that sound good but are not in line with Biblical principles or reality.  In post #059 (Love-What About Profit?), we explained why profit can’t be one of several “ends” (i.e., “Look, we are not all about the turkey–we have stuffing and mashed potatoes and brussel sprouts“) and why Profit as Purpose can’t be transformed into a bigger WHY.  Like a person, an organization can have only one ultimate ambition–one ultimate identity–one true “heart”. Without intentional leadership, that heart will be business as usual and profit over people and profit as the turkey.

Your Turkey as Flourishing – Business a Better Way:  We realize you may be getting tired of this Thanksgiving analogy, but stick with us through a few leftovers–at least one turkey sandwich and bowl of turkey soup.

Business a better way requires changing the heart of the organization by putting profit in its proper place as a means rather than an ultimate purpose. The Bible offers the ultimate WHY for our work and for business, because it is the ultimate WHY for all we do.

We are called to use our gifts to “serve one another” in a way that glorifies God (1 Peter 4:10-11).  Ken Eldred captured this beautifully:

Profit is like oxygen. You absolutely need it to win the race. But that’s not the objective. The primary objective of business is serving others to the glory of God.

As we explained in post #101 (God Glorified), a business glorifies God principally through lovingly and generously serving people and stewarding all creation:

(1) providing jobs that allow people to experience Biblical flourishing by fulfilling their humanity and purpose in living out Imago Dei, the Creation Mandate and the commandments to love God and love each other through service,

(2) providing economic prosperity, goods and services, and by solving problems and “repairing” the world, in ways that enable families, communities and creation to flourish, and

(3) creating a culture of Shalom built on Biblical principles of relationships, community and human dignity that is conducive to the flourishing of all people it touches.  In other words, Glorifying God by Humanizing people and Beautifying the world.

This is Biblical flourishing as the turkey.

Where Does Profit Fit in at Thanksgiving?

Stretching this silly analogy to the breaking point, we believe profit is the oven and it’s the gravy.

The Oven. In the words of David Packard, co-founder of Hewlett Packard, “Profit is not the proper end and aim of management–it is what makes all of the proper ends and aims possible.”

This is profit as the heat source that cooks the turkey–whether you are a roaster, smoker or fryer.  Unless you cook the turkey, Thanksgiving will be a bust.  If you are hosting Thanksgiving, the heat source is critical to being a good steward of that responsibility.

While expressing the proper role of profit, Packard reportedly also made clear that “anyone who cannot accept [profit] as one of the most important [objectives] of this company has no place either now or in the future on the management team of this company.”

The Gravy. If a business serves its employees, customers, vendors and community in a way that glorifies God by maximizing Biblical flourishing, profit is also likely to become the gravy–a by-product of a turkey cooked and served with love.  When a business Humanizes people and Beautifies the world such that its employees, customers, vendors and communities flourish, it is likely that the business bringing about that flourishing will itself flourish.  It flows from the instructions in Matthew 6:33 and Jeremiah 29:7:

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

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)

It is important to note that profit as gravy is not the same as the Side Road of Prosperitizing described in post #034.  Prosperitizing is when a leader integrates faith and business in order to get God’s blessings in the form of increased profits.  In Prosperitizing, cooking the turkey (caring for people) is really all about getting the gravy (profit).

If you have been following our posts, you will recall we spent 26 posts (#039-#064) on the principle of Keeping First Things First.  Profit as gravy must be a second thing.  Glorifying God through the maximization of Biblical flourishing must be a first thing.  It was C.S. Lewis who wrote:

Put first things first and we get second things thrown in: put second things first and we lose both first and second things.

Making the “turkey” of your business Biblical flourishing rather than profit is radical.  Really doing it requires radical trust and radical dependence.  It requires crossing the Safety/Surrender Gap.  Perhaps next year we will tackle the implications of Thanksgiving for a faithful leader who has crossed the Sacred/Secular Gap but is not yet across that one.  Here is a hint–faithful mashed potatoes to go with the profit turkey is still a turkey that represents profit.

PERSONAL NOTE (from PM):   Maybe my Thanksgiving turkey is flourishing.  If I flourish when I move in the direction of God’s design in me, wouldn’t it be the same for a turkey.  Was God declaring a divine design for my turkey when God said in Genesis 9:3, “Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything“?  I have a funny feeling my turkey is unlikely to thank me this Thursday for helping him live out his purpose.

ESSENCE: We are continuing a tradition with a silly but hopefully meaningful analogy. If Thanksgiving was your business, what would represent the turkey–the centerpiece of the table?  In business as usual aligned with the beliefs, principles and priorities of the kingdom of the world, the turkey is usually profit.  In business a better way aligned with the beliefs, principles and priorities of God’s Kingdom, the turkey would be to glorify God through maximizing Biblical flourishing.  Business a better way requires changing the heart of the organization by putting profit in its proper place as a means rather than an ultimate purpose–the star of the show.  We think this re-orients profit as the heat source that cooks the turkey–absolutely necessary but not the focus. Remember, profit is NOT bad, the creation by business of economic prosperity is good, and profit in a business is necessary for good stewardship of the business, which means it is necessary for the pursuit of Biblical flourishing.   If a business prioritizes glorifying God by loving (through service) its employees, customers, vendors and community in a way that allows them to experience Biblical flourishing, profit is also likely to become the gravy–a by-product of a turkey cooked and served (with love).  P.S. We are thankful for you!

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

Photo Credit: Original image by Magda Ehlers: https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-photo-of-a-turkey-9890544/ (photo cropped)