Recently, the CEO of BlackRock, Inc., Larry Fink, came out with his 2022 "letter to CEOs". In his 2022 letter, Fink focused on "stakeholder capitalism". We thought it would helpful to compare stakeholder capitalism and what we call business a better way. In many ways, they can look and feel the same, but they are not. You will not be surprised...
In our last post we looked at why Biblically faith-based non-profits can have cultures that stray far from God's design for work--good work on the outside with unhappy people on the inside. In this post, we consider the other end of the spectrum--secular businesses that appear to be faithfully "doing right" through business a better way (i.e., business as...
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...
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"....
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...
In partnership with Stanwich Church in Greenwich, CT and NCS New Canaan (the founding chapter of the New Canaan Society), Integrous is sponsoring simulcast “watch parties” at Stanwich Church for the global Faith-Driven Entrepreneur and Faith-Driven Investor Conferences on September 8 and 9, 2021....
Why Work Is Necessary: The Implications of Genesis 2:5 This article first appeared on April 15, 2021 in CU: The Magazine, published by Christian Union....
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. ...
Faithfully "doing right" requires considering more than just WHAT you do. It requires also considering HOW you do it and WHY you are doing it. Faithfully "doing right" requires doing the right thing, in the right way and for the right reasons....
Faithfully "doing right" is much more than "doing good" or being ethical. The key to understanding faithfully "doing right" is recognizing that "doing right" needs an object--by whom are we to "do right". We believe a faith-driven leader is called to "do right" by God, and that means living generously by loving others and stewarding creation. ...
Faithfully “doing right” is much more than “doing good”. In this post we begin exploring the "Integrity Priority" of Righteousness by considering what “doing good” can mean in business (and it can mean many different things, none of which are the ancient path of "business a better way"). ...
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...
Management matters. WHO leaders of an organization “show up as” and HOW the organization “does what it does” can have intrinsic value in God’s Kingdom before even considering the services it provides or the products it produces. And the WHO and HOW are impacted by the organizations WHY....
"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....
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....
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 second Placebo (after The "4-Hour Content" Pill) is The "Save or Give" Pill, which commonly leads to the Side Roads of Monetizing and Cosmeticizing....
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 first Placebo we will explain is The "4-Hour Content" Pill, which commonly leads to the Side Roads of Agonizing and Individualizing....
We started Integriosity #001 by saying that many leaders who are guided by the Bible in their personal lives and sincerely want to live an integrated faith life at work are confused or frustrated or even intimidated. Some have given up. Others think they are doing it, but they are actually missing the mark. We call the problem "faith as usual",...
A fourth key aspect (in addition to Idol and Identity, Money and Power and Burden) of toxic "work as usual" that leads to "work" becoming something far from God's design in Genesis is that work as usual is characterized by Unhealthy Relationships, rather than life-giving community and connection....
A third key aspect (in addition to Idol and Identity and Money and Power) of toxic "work as usual" that leads to "work" becoming something far from God's good and live-giving design in Genesis is that it has become a Burden rather than the blessing it is was designed to be. Our cultural obsession with finding "Work/Life Balance" is...
At Integrous, we believe another (in addition to Idol and Identity) of the four key aspects of toxic "work as usual" that leads to "work" becoming something far from God's good and live-giving design in Genesis is that it is all about Money and Power rather than people....
At Integrous, we believe one of the four key aspects of toxic "work as usual" that leads to "work" becoming something far from God's good and live-giving design in Genesis is Idol and Identity--the idea that "work as usual" means our work has come to DEFINE "who" we are, rather than being a place to EXPRESS "who" we are....
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,...