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...
Over the last five years, we have been laying out and expanding on a model for moving toward what we call Integriosity®--leading with faithful integrity through business a better way toward Biblical flourishing. It is time to pause, take a breath and look back over the last 250 posts as we did after 100 and 200. We hope this is...
You could call this post the third in a "Safety/Surrender" series. It is about encouraging faithful leaders to trust God enough to answer the call of stewardship, and embrace fully the potential, of the Creation Mandate by crossing the Safety/Surrender Gap. We believe it is a call to lead with faithful integrity through business a better way toward Biblical flourishing,...
A faithful leader seeking to lead an organization with faithful integrity through business a better way toward Biblical flourishing must remember "DDD"--"Don't Do a Demas." You might be asking, "Who is Demas?" The better question is "What's 'doing a Demas'?" The best question is "How do I avoid 'doing a Demas'?" Demas was a Biblical character who didn't finish well. ...
In prior posts, we have talked about three "gaps" a faithful leader must cross in the journey toward leading with faithful integrity through business a better way toward Biblical flourishing. These are "wisdom" or "knowledge" gaps. There is a fourth, and it is arguably the most important of all. We call it the Safety/Surrender Gap, and it is a "heart"...
INTEGRITY IDEA: Strengthen Your Cord "Strengthen Your Cord" is about joining groups or organizations that gather faithful leaders to support each other in pursuit of faith/work integration, in navigating faith/work integration in an increasingly secular culture or in protecting the religious freedom to pursue faithful integrity through business a better way through Biblical flourishing. It provides a source of counsel from...
A life of faith is a life of choices. For a faithful leader, one of those choices is the "O" that drives their leadership. There are two options--obedience or outcome. It is a choice between the kingdom of this world and the Kingdom of God. It is one or the other--business as usual or business a better way. It is...
Giving generously from wealth is a very good thing both for faithful leaders personally and for the businesses they lead, but faithful integrity and business a better way demand more. Many organizations do important and excellent work helping faithful leaders understand the importance of being generous with their wealth. However, by itself, the message of "give generously" can draw a...
Sometimes good-intentioned faithful leaders sprinkle faith "reindeer dust"--overt faith symbols and practices--believing that it is faith/work integration. It isn't bad, and it can be very good, but by itself it is not leading with faithful integrity through business a better way toward Biblical flourishing. By itself, sprinkling "faith" reindeer dust without transforming how the organization actually does business is what...
Over the last four years, we have been laying out and expanding on a model for moving toward what we call Integriosity®--leading with faithful integrity through business a better way and toward Biblical flourishing. It is time to pause, take a breath and look back over the last 200 posts as we did after 100. We hope this is a...
Integrous "helps faithful leaders lead with faithful integrity toward Biblical flourishing". Our belief is that the bigger WHY of an organization aligned with Biblical beliefs, principles and priorities should be to maximize flourishing (rather than profit) by Humanizing People, Beautifying the World and Glorifying God, properly positioning profit as a necessary means to that end. When we talk about flourishing,...
Are you in (still in? always in?) a Thanksgiving mood! Get ready for a silly but hopefully meaningful analogy. If Thanksgiving was your business, what would "profit" represent in the Thanksgiving preparation and meal? Remember, profit is NOT bad, and the creation by business of economic prosperity is good. Profit in a business is necessary for good stewardship of the...
A faithful leader who wants to lead with faithful integrity in alignment with Biblical beliefs, principles and priorities must avoid "doing an Ahaz". You might be asking, "Who was Ahaz?" The better question is "What's 'doing an Ahaz'?" The best question is "How do I avoid 'doing an Ahaz'?" Ahaz was one of those "did not do what was right...
The first step on the ancient path from the "as usuals" of business as usual, work as usual, and faith as usual to "a better way" is RENEW, and the first step of RENEW is reordering disordered priorities to "Keep First Things First". The last of the four first principles embedded in the word Integriosity is Humility, and it is the key to understanding the...
Don’t worry--this is not about the U.S. Southern border, Eastern European borders or Middle Eastern borders. It is about the border between the kingdom of the world and the Kingdom of God. Kingdom border protection is trickier than geographic border protection because a faithful leader resides in both kingdoms and the border exists in the heart of the leader and...
ESSENCE: The first step on the ancient path from the "as usuals" of business as usual, work as usual, and faith as usual to "a better way" is RENEW, and the first step of RENEW is reordering disordered priorities to "Keep First Things First". When "all the Law and the Prophets" depend on the commandments to love God and love your...
The first step on the ancient path from the "as usuals" of business as usual, work as usual, and faith as usual to "a better way" is RENEW, and the first step of RENEW is reordering disordered priorities to "Keep First Things First". If a faithful leader or an organization is committed to "seek first the kingdom of God" (Matthew...
The first step on the ancient path from the "as usuals" of business as usual, work as usual, and faith as usual to "a better way" is RENEW, and the first step of RENEW is reordering disordered priorities to "Keep First Things First". The Bible says unequivocally that "Righteousness" is one of the "First Things" we are meant to...
The first step on the ancient path from the "as usuals" of business as usual, work as usual, and faith as usual to "a better way" is RENEW. It is the start of a four-step process called Integriosity® to help a faithful leader navigate the journey on the ancient path toward leading faithfully with faithful integrity through business a better way. Each step...
Side Roads are detours that substitute a lesser "good" for the "best" of transformational heart-change in an organization--transformation of its WHY. They are detours off the ancient path of faithful integrity through business a better way in alignment with Biblical beliefs, principles and priorities. Side Roads are not inherently bad--in fact, they are better than doing nothing at all. Well-intentioned...
Many well-intentioned, faithful leaders never find the right path to faithful integrity through business a better way, or stumble off it, because of good-intentioned "faith" messages or approaches that send them in the wrong direction--"bad theology" or, at least, poor communication of good theology which create stumbling blocks that substitute the "good" for the "best". We have identified five common...
Faithful leaders seeking to lead with faithful integrity can get detoured from the ancient path toward business a better way. The world--and our culture--does not want a faithful leader on the ancient path. But the world and our culture are not the only stumbling blocks that can lead a faithful leader with the best of intentions to "miss...
Leading faithfully through business a better way is a journey. Leading an organization in alignment with Biblical beliefs, principles and priorities requires finding the on-ramp, getting on, and then not stumbling off an ancient road of Jeremiah 6:16. We have developed a four-step process called Integriosity® to help a faithful leader navigate the journey, each of which...
Are you on the path that leads to where you want to go? Every faithful leader is on a path of some sort, but leading faithfully requires getting on, and staying on, the right path. There are really two main paths--business in alignment with the kingdom of the world and the ancient path of business in alignment with the...
Hopefully, Thanksgiving is still recent enough to offer a silly analogy. If Thanksgiving was your business, what would "profit" represent in the Thanksgiving preparation and meal? Remember, profit is NOT bad, and the creation by business of economic prosperity is good. Profit in a business is necessary for good stewardship of the business, which means it is necessary for the...
Integrous Founder Paul Michalski was interviewed by Chad Burmeister on his Living A Better Story podcast. The episode was released on July 9, 2022 and the topic was "Moments of Realization"....
From time to time, we are devoting posts to describing specific actions a faithful leader can consider in leading faithfully through business a better way. We are calling these Integrity Ideas. INTEGRITY IDEA: Hire a chaplain to be available for employees COVERT-OVERT CONTINUUM (six Continuums for action): Prayer COVERT-OVERT RATING (several levels from Highly Covert to Highly Overt): ...
From time to time, we will now begin describing 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. We will call the posts "Integrity Ideas". The Integriosity model organizes "heart change" along six Covert-Overt Continuums, and breaks the Covert-Overt Continuums into six gradations that...
A life of faith is a life of choices. For a faithful leader, one of those choices is the "O" that drives their leadership. There are two options--obedience or outcome. It is a choice between the kingdom of this world and the Kingdom of God. It is one or the other--business as usual or business a better way. It is...
“Faithful vs willful” really is a daily choice that a "faithful business-leader" must accept and wrestle with in order to lead faithfully. Even the phrase “faithful business-leader” seems to hold the tension of the “faithful/willful” dilemma. A “faithful” person wants to put God first. A “business-leader” is expected to be ruthlessly “willful” in their effort to achieve increased profits...
We believe words are important and powerful. Words (and disordered words) can either support or undermine efforts to move an organization's culture toward faithfully "doing right" through business a better way. Disordered words can affect how leaders shape an organization's culture and view its WHY--the heart of the organization. For example, "integrate your faith into your work" is just one...
For a leader seeking to lead an organization to faithfully “do right” through business a better way, or a person seeking to "work" in alignment with Biblical beliefs, values and priorities, WORDS MATTER. We believe words are important and powerful. The culture of the world is filled with words that blind us to God’s purpose for work and business. Even...
Integrous Founder Paul Michalski was the guest speaker at the monthly Toolbox Ministries-Galleria lunch held on March 9, 2022 at The Houston Racquet Club in Houston, Texas. Paul's talk was titled The 7 Stages of My Journey To the Why of Work: Understanding the Intersection of Faith and Work....
In this post we look at some special "culture" challenges that can lead Biblically faith-based non-profits down a seemingly business as usual path. These organizations are born with "faith-work integration" but can have cultures that stray far from God's design for work--good work on the outside with unhappy people on the inside. People tolerate unhealthy cultures in faith-based...
Over the last two years, we have laid out a model for moving toward what we call Integriosity®--faithfully "doing right" through business an better way. It is time to pause, take a breath and look back over the last 101 posts. We believe these last 100 posts have honored our promise to you from post #001. Integrous is here to help...
Integrous Founder Paul Michalski was interviewed by Darren Shearer on his Christianity in Business podcast. The episode was released on December 2, 2021 and the topic was "Moving Beyond Faith As Usual in the Marketplace"....
An organization will not faithfully "do right" through business a better way without Intentional Leaders. One of the four important aspects of the Intentional Leadership required to lead an organization to faithfully "do right" through business a better way, while avoiding the pitfalls of faith as usual Side Roads, is commitment to a bigger WHY. As explained in prior...
The second key ingredient (after flexible approach) needed for successful execution of a Re-Imagined Purpose, Re-Imagined Values and a Re-Imagined Culture is Intentional Leaders. An organization will not faithfully "do right" through business a better way without Intentional Leaders. The four important aspects of the Intentional Leadership required to lead an organization to faithfully "do right" through business a...
"Do you want the good news or the bad news first?" Guess what--we are done with the bad news, and it is finally time to dig into the good stuff! We have spent the last 30 posts digging through the rubble of "work". It is now time to begin rebuilding toward "business a better way" through the framework of Integriosity®....
The effort to faithfully "do right" by integrating faith and work can get DERAILED by six problems that can keep the organization in the deep hole of "business as usual" and may even push it deeper. The more of "business a better way" is much harder, but getting out of the hole is necessary and worth the journey....
"Interimizing" is putting off "doing right" until the business is "doing well"--exalting a worldly concept of "success" (profit) over a Biblical concept of "success" (human flourishing). A leader that swallows The "Success First" Pill and adopts an "interim strategy"--Interimizing--may never get around to faith/work integration....
"Prosperitizing" is when leaders pursue faith/work integration because they believe it will lead to God blessing their business with worldly success--measured in terms of profit and growth. It is perhaps the most insidious of the various Side Roads because the organization can look like it actually is conducting "business a better way"--but its NOT....
Some faith-driven leaders have been deceived into believing that the integration of faith and work is principally about sprinkling some "faith" pixie dust over the organization to make it look and feel "Godly"--and that leads down the Side Road of Cosmeticizing. "Cosmeticizing" is when an organization adopts overt faith symbols and practices without transforming how it actually does business....
We have explored the five common Placebos of what we call faith as usual that can lead well intentioned leaders to stumble down faith as usual Side Roads in their effort to integrate their faith and their work. After Agonizing and Individualizing, the third of these Side Roads is Monetizing. Side Roads represent responses to Placebos advertised as the Red Pill that we believe...
We have explored the fivecommon Placebos of what we call faith as usual that can lead well intentioned leaders to stumble down Side Roads in their effort to integrate their faith and their work. We have also hinted at the six common faith as usual Side Roads that represent responses to Placebos advertised as the Red Pill but, we believe, actually miss the ancient path...
We have explored the five common Placebos of what we call faith as usual that can lead well intentioned leaders to stumble down Side Roads in their effort to integrate their faith and their work. We have also hinted at the six common faith as usual Side Roads that represent responses to Placebos advertised as the Red Pill but, we believe, actually miss the ancient...
We believe there are five common Placebos of what we call faith as usual that can lead well intentioned leaders down Side Roads in their effort to integrate their faith and their work. The fifth Placebo is The "Success First" Pill, which commonly leads to the Side Road of Interimizing and tempts leaders to delay taking action for the wrong reasons (misunderstanding of faith/work integration and...
We believe there are five common Placebos of what we call faith as usual that can lead well intentioned leaders down Side Roads in their effort to integrate their faith and their work. The fourth Placebo (after The "4-Hour Content" Pill, The "Save or Give" Pill and The "Add Some Faith" Pill) is The "Bless You" Pill, which commonly leads to the Side Road of Prosperitizing....