Work as Usual Tag

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...

INTEGRITY IDEA: Tear Down Those Walls COVERT-OVERT CONTINUUM (six Continuums for action):  Practices 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.  "Tear Down Those Walls" is not about Ronald Reagan, the U.S. border, dismantling offices, or moving to open-plan seating.  It is about...

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...

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...

ESSENCE:  Integrity Ideas are specific actions a faithful leader can consider in leading faithfully through business a better way. INTEGRITY IDEA: Reward Rest 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.  "Reward Rest" is about instituting policies...

ESSENCE:  Integrity Ideas are specific actions a faithful leader can consider in leading faithfully through business a better way. INTEGRITY IDEA: Optimize Compensation 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, Owners, Community, Kingdom Most Integrity Ideas are practical actions toward implementing a bigger WHY for the organization.  "Optimize Compensation"...

Organizational cultures that are broken through the toxic assumptions and motivations of business as usual lead to "work" in those cultures becoming something far from God's good and life-giving design in Genesis. There are four key aspects of toxic work as usual that flow from the attributes of business as usual: Idol and Identity; Money and Power; A Burden; and Unhealthy...

Leading faithfully through business a better way requires getting across three "gaps": Sunday/Monday, Sacred/Secular and Knowing/Doing. The journey across those "gaps" starts with RENEW--renewing the faithful leader's mind about God's purpose for work and business, which reveals the sacred nature of work and business. Moving across the three "gaps" of faith/work integration equips a faithful leader to see...

Business as usual is broken because it reflects a broken world.  It results in brokenness of work, workplaces and workers--its brokenness is breaking us.  It has led to our relationship to work and our relationships surrounding work bearing little resemblance to God's design for humanity and work in Genesis. Sadly, business as usual creates work cultures and environments that, more...

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"...

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...

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: Provide Humanity Resources COVERT-OVERT CONTINUUM (six Continuums for action):  Proclamation and Practices COVERT-OVERT RATING (several levels from Highly Covert to Highly Overt):  Overt STAKEHOLDERS SERVED: Employees Most Integrity Ideas are practical actions...

Understanding Imago Dei is central to changing the heart of an organization to align with Biblical beliefs, values and priorities. Understanding that every human being is created in the image of God has important implications for work and business.  It is through understanding Imago Dei that we recognize every person is more “fully human” when engaged in meaningful work that...

Sadly, "capitalism" has become a four-letter word for many people. Just as there are dozens of ways to define capitalism, there are dozens of terms people have come up with to describe the problems with capitalism that have made it a four-letter word and dozens of terms people have come up with to prescribe ways to move capitalism out...

We believe the mass exodus of workers being called the "Great Resignation" can more appropriately be called the "Great De-Humanization", not only for what caused it but also for what it is causing.  A recent study concluded that "toxic work culture is the single best predictor" of which organizations suffered the most attrition.  It seems people left organizations with busines...

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--words that reinforce work as a burden to be avoided rather than a blessing of God's creation.  Disordered words that embody the world's priorities rather than Kingdom priorities infect our thinking, which ultimately infects our heart.  For...

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--words that reinforce work as a burden to be avoided rather than a blessing of God's creation.  Disordered words that embody the world's priorities rather than Kingdom priorities infect our thinking, which ultimately infects our heart.  For...

We believe investors of Biblical faith wanting to invest in alignment with Biblical beliefs, values and priorities need to think BIGGER in a new way--prioritizing "significance" over "size". If they don’t, they are at risk of undermining not only the faithfulness of their own investing but also the ability of faith-driven entrepreneurs and business leaders to run their businesses...

Once we understand that God's design is "work AS life" (work as a way to be more fully human and not something to be balanced against life), we need to understand how to balance "work WITHIN life". We believe Biblical priorities are pretty clear--faith, family and work, in that order. Unfortunately, business as usual and our culture exert...

We believe many people of Biblical faith pursue their career or do their job without any Biblical understanding of the WHY of work.  Their WHY for work is wrapped up in their needs and the grand plan for their kingdom.  In this post, we will explore three ways to view the WHY of work: live to work, work to live, and...

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...

One bigger WHY of work and business is the "SO THAT" that gives the biggest WHY to every other WHY. RESTORE is the fourth and final step in the path of Integriosity.®  It is about seeing the bigger WHY's of work and business materialize and manifest in an organization that has been RE-IMAGINED and RE-ALIGNED with Biblical beliefs, values and...

We believe beautiful was God's design when He created everything and declared it "very good", but business as usual and work as usual are often accompanied by an ugly cost to God's creation, including people.  RESTORE is the fourth and final step in the path of Integriosity.®  It is about seeing the bigger WHY's of work and business materialize and...

RESTORE is the fourth and final step in the path of Integriosity.®  It is about seeing the bigger WHY's of work and business materialize and manifest in an organization that has been RE-IMAGINED and RE-ALIGNED with Biblical beliefs, values and priorities based upon a RENEWED understanding of God's purpose for work and business.  One of those bigger WHY's is Humanizing...

RESTORE is the fourth and final step in the path of Integriosity.® It is about seeing the bigger WHY's of work and business materialize and manifest in an organization that has been RE-IMAGINED and RE-ALIGNED with Biblical beliefs, values and priorities based upon a RENEWED understanding of God's purpose for work and business. It is the narrow "ancient...

Faithfully "doing right" with integrity needs a WHY, and the WHY of faithfully "doing right" needs to have integrity in the form of "authenticity" (with authenticity having four components: identity, sincerity, consistency and transparency).  In other words, the organization's WHY must be more than a pretty sign on the wall--it's WHY must be at the heart of its culture. ...

A key element of the RENEW step of Integriosity is re-ordering disordered priorities. It is important to go back to first principles by asking what the Bible tells us are the keys to everything else. And then we have to "Keep First Things First" by pursuing those first principles and not the “everything else”! Having an agenda...

"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....

"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....

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 third Placebo (after The "4-Hour Content" Pill and The "Save or Give" Pill) is The "Add Some Faith" Pill, which commonly leads to the Side Road of Cosmeticizing....