When a leader, armed with a RENEWED understanding of God's purpose for work and business, begins to RE-IMAGINE the organization they lead, the process must include Re-Imagining Profit--the most difficult and most important element of Re-Imagining Purpose. It is the most difficult because Profit as Purpose is at the core of "business as usual". It is actually...
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, because it is necessary for sustainability, for the flourishing of owners and to further the bigger "WHY" of the organization. However, in order to faithfully "do right", an organization must put profit in the proper...
Love is the first "Generosity Priority" embedded in Integriosity®, and we have seen how the generosity and service aspects of Love lead us to the purpose of work and business (maximize flourishing by Humanizing, Beautifying, Glorifying), but there are also respect and sustainability aspects of Love that are inherent in the Creation Mandate. Biblical sustainability is about faithfully "doing right" by caring for all God's creation as its STEWARDS. It is motivated by obedience to the Creation Mandate--not by fear...
Putting together the puzzle pieces of the last several posts, we see that the first principle of Love leads us to the same purpose for business as emerged from the first principle of Kingdom--the BIGGER purpose of work and business is to HUMANIZE people, BEAUTIFY the world and GLORIFY God by serving internally and externally in a way that maximizes the...
An organization is a merely a collection of people working together toward a common purpose. As such, it derives its purpose from their purpose. Organizations such as businesses have intrinsic Kingdom value because they are a creation of God's image-bearers that provides the platform and the opportunity for humans to come together in relationship to express and fulfill their...
The nature of work in God's design is that it is how we use our skills to obey His commandments through SERVICE. People are more fully human when they are working in alignment with God's purpose for work--a vehicle for living out the Creation Mandate and the great commandments to love God and love each other. Embedding the Biblical principle of work as service in the culture and...
Being created in the image of God is not just a great t-shirt slogan--it has important implications for how we live and what we need in order to be fully human. Embedding the Biblical principle of love your neighbor in the culture and heart of an organization is essential to faithfully "doing right", because it is essential in order...
Keep First Things First means going back to Biblical first principles, and one of the four principles embedded in the word Integriosity® is the "Generosity Priority" of LOVE. "All the Law and the Prophets" depend on the commandments to love God and love your neighbor, which makes understanding love your neighbor in an organizational context essential to faithfully "doing...
The book-ends of a BIGGER GOSPEL reveal the purpose and relevance of work and organizations in God's grand plan and an even greater purpose for Redemption through Jesus. Creation and Restoration teach us that humans need work and organizations to be "fully human"; work and organizations have intrinsic Kingdom value; work and organizations can glorify God; and a purpose...
For a leader to lead an organization to faithfully "do right", they must recognize that what they believe about "where we are going someday" profoundly impacts "how we act today". God's restoration plan for His Kingdom means work and business have relevance in God's grand design and eternal significance. A BIGGER GOSPEL reveals that we have the...
For a leader to lead an organization to faithfully "do right", they must recognize that what they believe about "where we are going someday" profoundly impacts "how we act today". A Restoration understanding of heaven means the "very good" creation that left plenty of room for our creative and productive cultivation will finally be perfected as a refined...
For a leader to lead an organization to faithfully "do right", they must look to Creation to understand the necessity of work to God's plan for His creation. The world was actually created to need our creativity and productivity in order to flourish. A BIGGER GOSPEL reveals that creation needs human work to unleash its potential (and...
For a leader to lead an organization to faithfully "do right", they must look to Creation to understand the importance of work to the humanity of those they lead. God created work for humanity as a GOOD THING before the Fall, and people are more “fully human” when engaged in meaningful work that unleashes their God-given productivity and creativity....
A leader can't lead an organization to faithfully "do right" without understanding and embracing a BIGGER GOSPEL, because without going back to Creation, we can't understand Who We Are, and more importantly, we can't understand Who Other People Are. It is only when we understand the implications of God creating humans in His image that we can begin to understand...
It is impossible to understand God's purpose for work or business without looking at Genesis and understanding the Creation Mandate (a commandment about our purpose on earth), God's love for all creation and our role as its stewards. As stewards, we have global responsibility to use our God-given creativity and productivity to cultivate God’s creation in order to enable...
Many faith-driven leaders are operating out of a narrow and incomplete vision of God's story--missing the beginning and end of a grand four-part narrative (Creation, Fall, Redemption, Restoration). Because the purpose and relevance of work and business are found in Creation and Restoration, we do not believe a leader can lead an organization to faithfully "do right" without understanding and...
We call the blue pill "business as usual", and the last several posts have shown ways in which it is broken. If a business is just an association of human beings working together (which it is), is it any surprise that "work as usual" would be broken as well in related ways? Organizational cultures that are broken through toxic assumptions...
Of the various aspects of blue pill "business as usual" that contribute to workplace and worker brokenness, Profit as Purpose is the most significant, but the Scarcity assumption and the Self Interest assumption exacerbate the problems by ignoring why we were created and whose image we reflect. Together, these factors reinforce manipulative and dehumanizing managerial behavior and work cultures that...
Profit is not a problem, just like money is not the root of all evil. In fact, profit is necessary for a business operating in a market economy--without it you don't have a sustainable organization or access to financial capital. But (and it is a big "but"), Profit as Purpose is a problem of business as usual, just like the...
In addition to Profit as Purpose, Scarcity and Self Interest, the fourth aspect of "business as usual" that we believe leads to workplace and worker brokenness is a "Can We" Culture--an organizational culture in which ends justify means and ethics or the law are seen as the only boundaries (or even obstacles) in the pursuit of the organization's purpose. A goal...
We call the blue pill "business as usual", and it is broken. At Integrous, we believe there are four key aspects of "business as usual" that lead to brokenness: Profit as Purpose; Scarcity; Self-Interest; and "Can We" Ethics....
We were designed to work--to use our gifts of creativity and productivity--it is part of being fully human. If we are not working and earning an income, we can feel empty and insecure (this is a special post prompted by the Covid-19 crisis tagging 10,000,000 people with the label "unemployed", which often brings with it feelings of emptiness and insecurity). Sadly,...
The fruit of Step 4 of Integriosity® - "Restore" - is to see what we believe are the three bigger WHY's of work and business materialize and manifest in the organization: Humanize People, Beautify the World and Glorify God....