Blessing the Workplace
"Can we entirely alter what we do, so that here and now we practice the occupations of heaven? Of course not. Can we somewhat alter what we do, so that our occupations come closer to becoming our God-issued vocation? Usually, yes."
Nicholas Wolterstorff[1]
Wolterstorff’s question raises a related one: Can we practice our God-issued vocation in a toxic workplace? Or does it require a flourishing and empowering workplace. This chapter is about the workplace and we are approaching it as we have “work” and “worker” through the tripartite lens we are using to do marketplace theology: head (thinking), heart (prayer) and hands (practice). We have previously explored work and worker but now we are considering the workplace and asking what it means to work “blessedly” in the workplace.
Work-place may well be the home, factory, office, school, hospital, field and stores. Place is important. One of the priestly tasks of the kingdom worker is to turn raw space into a place. I well remember my fourth-grade teacher, not because of anything she taught me, but because she turned raw school space into a place of joy and learning, pasting pictures on the walls, bringing in planted flowers to tend and enhancing the learning environment. Miss Dickson made a place out of raw space. And the place spoke deeply about what she wanted to do and wanted us to do. And to be. She was a priest in the workplace.
For many people during the pandemic all but essential workers have worked at home amidst the clutter of family and domestic realities. And many will never come back to the office, or if they do, they may meet occasionally in a shared office space, or in “phone booth offices” which provide noiseless privacy for meetings. Some massive office buildings may become ghost workplaces and may need to be repurposed for downtown housing. For many millions the workplace is currently their delivery van. Factories are being retooled, many with more robots and AI. Colleges will employ increasingly AI avatars and AI instructors, or use flipped courses with students taking lectures at home through videos and then come to the college to discuss the subject in small groups and possibly even meet the professor. Tenured professors will become more scarce and most post-secondary schools will thrive on sessional or adjunct faculty who come into the building, or go to a recording studio and then go home. But these are workplaces. And influential ones at that. And they can even be virtuous workplaces, holy places where there are hints of God’s presence. Earlier we noted that when Adam and Eve were called by God to “fill the earth” (Gen 1:28) they were called to extend the sanctuary garden, a place of safety, prosperity and beautify, a place where God was especially present where they worked and rested into the whole world. They were to take the culture of the garden into the world. That is perennial calling. So to do this we must understand the organizational culture of the workplace.
Understanding Organizational Culture[2]
Culture is a dimension not only in the life of ethnic groups but also in organizations. Every organization has a corporate “feeling” or environment that communicates to new and old members what is important and what is permitted. This is true equally of businesses and not-for-profit organizations. The minute a person walks into the meeting room, a store, an office or a church sanctuary, they pick up a nonverbal message that is more powerful than such mottoes as “The customer is number one”; “We exist to give extraordinary service”; “This is a friendly, family church.” Culture turns out to be profoundly influential in determining behavior, expressing values and enabling or preventing change.
People are sometimes frustrated, without understanding why, when they try to bring about change in an organization. My wife Gail and I remember, sadly, trying to join a badminton club in a local community centre when we were novices and everyone there were virtually professionals. In the end after a few weeks of trying we gave up. Many people feel the same way about the church. Further, some successful changes in direction in the organization get reversed in a few months because they were not congruent with the culture of the organization; other changes are made easily for reasons that are not apparent unless one understands the invisible but all-pervasive impact of organizational environment. To change the culture itself is possibly the most substantial change that can be made. Culture resists change. It has a multiple impact on everything else. A man in a museum looking at the colossal skeleton of a dinosaur that once triumphantly roamed the earth turned to the woman beside him and asked, “What happened? Why did they die out?” She said, “The climate changed.” Usually if you try to change the culture quickly the culture will change you (i.e. give you your exit visa).
Motivation is related to culture. We draw motivation out of people in a healthy, life-giving organization. It is inspired, not compelled. Motivation is at least partially a result of a process in a group or system and is not just generated exclusively from within the individual. The motivational switch is both inside and outside the person. So motivation is only marginally increased by trying to get people motivated through incentives or threats. It needs to be considered culturally and systemically. What was it about the toxic culture of Potipher’s house in Egypt that caused Joseph to fail and be imprisoned, and what was it about the culture of the prison into which he was thrust, that Joseph thrived and was in charge of everything except the key?
The classic study on organizational culture is Edgar H. Schein’s Organizational Culture and Leadership. His central thesis is that much of what is mysterious about leadership becomes clearer “if we . . . link leadership specifically to creating and changing culture.”[3] According to Schein, culture includes each of the following but is deeper than any one of them: (1) the observed behavioral regularities in a group (for example, really good employees show up for work fifteen minutes early); (2) the dominant values of the group (for example, church attendance is the ultimate expression of spirituality in a local church); (3) the rules or “ropes” of the group (for example, the usual way to climb the hierarchy is to engage in leisure-time diversions with your superior); and (4) the feeling or climate that is conveyed (for example, while not formally prohibited, it is also not acceptable to bring forward negative comments in staff meetings). Schein says that culture concerns the underlying assumptions and beliefs that are shared by members of the organization and often operate unconsciously.[4]
The factors at work in an organizational culture can be pictured as three concentric circles. On the outside are the symbols, artifacts and visible signs of the culture, which are often incarnated in logos, mottos, the appearance of a building, the way people dress and the titles by which people are addressed. The artifacts include the physical layout you are entering. The middle circle represents the values that underlie the more visible processes. Values are simply what behaviour is cherished by the organization. Often these are unexpressed and unconscious. Sometimes the stated values are incongruent with the real values that inform the culture. For example, a business may claim that it cherishes strong family life for its employees but actually requires the sacrifice of family for the corporation. The smallest circle (and the least visible) represents the beliefs that inform the values. For example, a church may believe that women should be under men in a hierarchical arrangement. That belief will fundamentally affect the values and visible “artifacts” of the congregation. Beliefs are expressed in values, and values are expressed in symbols, cues and visible patterns of behavior. Actually, however, there is often cognitive incongruity between the values and beliefs, or between the values and the symbols. Let’s apply Schein’s insights into our matrix of head, heart and hand, starting with hand, that is the actual practice including the physical layout of the workplace.
Hand—Engaging the Workplace Physically
Earlier I mentioned that the minute a person walks into a store or a workplace they make a judgment about who and what is important here. So, I was ushered through a new research lab in Toronto and I noticed that all the cubicles were exactly the same size, including the one occupied by the general manager. When I go to a furniture and household fittings store in Vancouver I enter a maze of twisted lanes that take me through everything they have for sale, even though I am only looking for one thing. Churches traditionally have pews lined up facing the front (telling us to sit and listen) while a few churches provide seating in the round to exemplify that we are here for mutual edification, not to watch and listen to a performance. My wife ended her days on earth in a hospice beautifully designed like a hotel rather than a hospital. It had a sitting room and was beautifully furnished. The artifacts and symbols communicated rest and welcome. So, the physical layout of the organization speaks. But what it should communicate is the values of the organization.
Values are cherished ways of behaving. These values become rules, operational principles and habits that are both personal and organizational. A great example of this is provided by Stephen Covey in his widely read Principle-Centred Leadership. He says that habits such as #5—“Seek first to understand, then to be understood”—is a principle for behaviour that will lead to success. The problem with rules, is that once you try to regulate behaviour by rules, policies and principles you will not be able to stop because there will always be a situation that you have not adequately covered by your existing rules. The Jewish Mishnah is a classic case of this. An example from the Mishnah illustrates this. Is it sabbath breaking, the Mishnah asks, to carry a wooden tooth in your mouth on the sabbath day because you are carrying a burden which is work? Recently I was walking the streets of Montreal in the evening in an orthodox Jewish area and a young Jewish man, complete with side-locks, caps and a big black hat stopped me and asked if I could help as I was obviously a goim, a Gentile and could work on the sabbath day. He wanted to plug an extension cord into a wall outlet but could not do it on the sabbath. I have been told that in the Australian outback where there are huge ranches, if you want to keep the animals close by you do not build a fence; you drill an artesian well. But there is not only a practical critique of rules or values.
The theological critique goes like this. Before there was divine law such as the Ten Commandments there was the promise of God to Abraham and his descendants. Then God, to keep his promise made a covenant of belonging with this people: “you will be my people and I will be your God” (Jer 31:33). Belonging precedes doing. “You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all the nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exod 19:4-6). Then and only then in the next chapter does God give the Ten Commandments which are really the lifestyle of God’s covenant people (20:1-17), not the means of attaining to the status of being the people of God. How we are to live is predicated not just on who we are but whose we are. Emphasizing law/principled living as a way to righteousness rather than an expression of righteousness was the problem of phariseeism (both Jewish and Christian).
Values have some worth in the workplace. While being modestly motivating they certainly change perception. But there is a problem: Without a transcendent reference point, values selection becomes a subjective experience, or merely "what succeeds best." Values language has largely replaced "right and wrong," and are much less than justice and righteousness—matters that are at the core of holy living. Or put differently, values have no opposites. You have your values and I have mine. Nevertheless values are influential. Businesses seize on values as rallying cries: “Service is No. 1”; “Zero Defects” (a North American automobile company touted this value while an Asian company promoted their products with the value, “Perfection”); “We exist to provide extraordinary service,” is a motivating value in an automobile dealership chair I know. Largely through the work of humanistic psychologists such as May, Maslow, Perls, Erikson, Rogers and others, values are back "in the picture," even in the school system where it is increasingly recognized that "value-free" education is really impossible. Values continually brood in, over, around, and within life. They are cherished behaviors, principles, and attitudes. Yet, as Gordon Preece notes in his fine book on Changing Work Values, some of the people espousing the so-called Protestant Work Ethic were leaving their Protestantism behind. Benjamin Franklin, being an individualist, was a long way from the thought of the Reformers, even though his maxim "early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise" is still repeated today.[5]
Often, institutions and corporations are unaware of the actual values that shape their behaviour, and values clarification is a revealing and helpful exercise. Values are taught and learned every day in all the interactions and decisions made in a business context; they are embedded in rituals and traditions (the office Christmas party, for example, or the company fishing trip). Values should cover the full range of organizational life: how people are treated, especially when being hired or fired, how mistakes are dealt with, how resources are used, how people relate, how decisions are made, how power is handled, how purposes are clarified, and how work is performed.
Several assumptions in this reflection invite further study and discussion: (1) that Christian values are good for everybody; (2) that Christian values are relevant not only to individual persons but to the structural and cultural contexts in which those persons live and work; (3) that people on a spiritual journey but are not followers of Jesus may embrace and live at least partly by Christian values—to their benefit and the benefit of their neighbors; (4) that God shows grace even to people who do not ask for it; (5) that values may serve as the Law did prior to the coming of Christ—a good gift that may unfortunately become a "trap" through pointing to impossibly high standards, but nevertheless something which points us to Christ (Gal 3:24); (6) that translating Christian values in a secular context means that Christians in the marketplace have a ministry as valuable as pastoral or missionary service; (7) that rediscovering kingdom values in the marketplace may create a learning context for Christians—a theological school in the marketplace. In the end organizational life can become, for believers, one more context for worship, in spite of all the difficulties.
But there is something deeper than values and principles.
Heart—Forming Workplace Character Through Prayer
While values have no opposites, virtues have opposites: vices. Virtues are deeper than values. Virtues are the qualities of a person's character or a corporate cultural character that indicate an appropriate awareness of what is right and commendable behaviour. They can be compared with the seven deadly sins or vices. "Virtue" is a term that is being recovered from Greek philosophy to become part of contemporary discussions on, for example, in "virtue-based ethics." There is good reason for this: both in ancient literature and in its occasional use in the Bible, virtue is a fundamental dimension of ethical living and moral character development. It is a matter of the heart. While the concept of virtue pre-dates Christianity it has been greatly influenced and deepened by the Christian faith. It is also true to say that the thinking of Christians, especially in the Western church, has been influenced by these Greek sources.[6]
Virtues in the Bible
There is no equivalent Hebrew word for the Greek aretē (virtue), even though the so-called cardinal virtues of Greek philosophy are often mentioned as part of the righteous lifestyle of God's covenant people. Not surprisingly, in the Old Testament, the righteous do justice and live by wisdom. In the New Testament, the term arete is used only once in the writings of Paul (Phil 4:8) and four times in Peter's letters (1 Pet 2:9; 2 Pet 1:3,5) though usually not translated in English as "virtue." Nevertheless, it is indisputable that early Christians were aware of the good qualities found outside the family of God and they interpreted the Christian life partly in the categories of Greek thought. The list of commendable virtues Paul gives in Philippians—true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, praiseworthy—seems reminiscent of virtues commended by the Greek philosophers. This is no more surprising than the fact that Paul frequently uses the Greek concept of "conscience" to communicate our moral responsibility and accountability in the Greek world when no such word was given him from his Jewish and biblical heritage.
Biblical revelation offers something substantially different that appears to be “foolishness” from the perspective of Greek philosophy (1 Cor 1:22-25). The gospel declares that God gives what he requires, that the grace of the new creation accomplishes what never can be obtained by reason or moral effort alone. Virtues are not obtained solely by “pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps.” They are gifts of God. But they are gifts that invite and even require human cooperation. That is surely what is behind New Testament exhortations to “think about such things” (Phil 4:8) in the context of a list of commendable character qualities, “get rid of” vices like slandering (Eph 4:31), “make every effort to add to your faith goodness” (2 Pet 1:5) and “live a life of love” (Eph 5:2). The virtuous life engages the whole person in what must be seen as active prayer. But it is not an autonomous activity. Rather than simple human achievements, certainly not ones we might boast about having attained, Christian living is essentially responsive and always God-centered. Faith, hope, and love keep us focused on the source—the God of all true virtue. Peter says that God’s divine power “has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness [aretē]” (2 Pet 1:3). Paul reminds the Colossians that it is as “God’s beloved” that they are to clothe themselves with goodness and patience (Col 3:12). What Athens requires, Christ inspires. All virtue depends upon love and humility as the opposites of selfishness and pride. The virtues may be seen as the working out of love, for no one can be truly loving without being, at the same time, virtuous. So, how do we get the virtues? How do we become a righteous person? And how can we inculcate the virtues into the workplace? The answer is by modelling, through trials (Jas 1:2-4), and through having mentors. In his bestselling book with the title The Road to Character, David Brooks tells the story of the character development of many outstanding persons, some contemporary and some from previous centuries. For example, he cites the development of the novelist George Eliot, who “did not believe in big transformational change” and notes that character development, “like historic progress, best happens imperceptibly, through daily effort.”[7] For the believer, prayer is important to this, simply taking our stumbling and struggling self to God each day. Galatians chapter five says we become virtuous by walking in the Spirit and by putting to death the works of the flesh through prayer. Through prayer we seek for the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:24-5). So there is the hand—in the outworking of values in the physical artifacts of the organizational culture, and the heart—in the values embraced by workers in the culture. Now we must consider workplace beliefs.
Head—Naming Fundamental Workplace Beliefs
The New Testament names the fundamental beliefs as faith, hope and love, often mentioned singly and sometimes as a triad (1 Cor 13:13; 1 Thes 1:2-3; Col 1:5). These are sometimes called the "theological virtues" because they are gifts of God, are ingrained character qualities (as compared with values which are cherished ways of behaving) and because have God as their primary object.[8] Obviously in a church or Christian parachurch organization faith, hope and love, can be applied directly (though they often are not so applied!). But in a secular organization in which a statedly Christian message is not allowed these revealed values must be translated with loss of some of the original meaning. Emilie Griffin, a marketing executive, asks, "Is it possible. . . that for people of the marketplace, conversion would need its own vocabulary?"[9]
Faith in a Workplace Context
Faith is the response of the whole person to the full revelation of God's person (Rom 10:14-17) and God’s intentions for the created order (Heb 11:3). Faith is a revolt against living on the basis of appearances. It is not merely a "belief system" but a total life orientation involving trust and action in all kinds of life situations (11:4-16). Faith is better considered as a verb than a noun. Faith is based on the Word of God, the persuasion of the Spirit, and the paradigm of Jesus. But faith leads to concrete action. But here is a crucial question. How does faith apply in a secular organization? Here are some thoughts.
Personal faith requires "seeing" people and situations the way God does, and acting in relation to them in view of the potential for change, integration, and wholeness which God holds before each person and every human enterprise. While full communion with God in a possibility reserved for those who become children of God through faith (John 1:12), persons of faith working in organizations of various kinds are invited to translate their own communion with God into a form of communion with their neighbors in the workplace. This is not so much "possibility thinking" or a search for "human transcendence" as it is for divine possibility for transcendence that God makes available. In the same way, a person of faith expresses organizational faith when she acts upon structures and organizational culture. Normally, this results in openness to the possibility of substantial, though limited, change and transformation of an organization. Faith will inspire creative action to make the structures (as well as the people in them) reflect divine values and purposes in a way that is attractive to others
Hope in a Workplace Context
Hope is resting in the revealed and certain conclusion of the created order, allowing these to shape our response to the present gains and losses. It involves understanding and living in the present in view of the future. It allows the vision of God's kingdom to inspire our confidence in the future. We are “prisoners of hope,” as the prophet Zechariah says (9:12). Hope equips us with courage to hold essential values in uncertain times and to take appropriate steps to plan for tomorrow. The person who has been "saved by hope" can incorporate hope relationally and structurally in the life of an organization. While there is some meaning-loss in this process, incorporating hope in an organization plants a pregnant hint that there is "something more" and invites people to move towards it.
Personal hope means never giving up on people (confidence) and helping people deal with the reality of their lives (courage), both in terms of their need for change and the positive fruits that can be appropriated through a realignment of their lives. Organizational hope means never giving up on situations (confidence) and empowering the structures, values, and culture of an organization (courage) to live in harmony with kingdom values and realities, even if in the short haul we appear to be engaging in fruitless activity or experiencing reverses. Hope inspires people in business to see their work as "playing heaven" (as children "play house" as a way of growing up) and "speeding" the Day of the Lord (2 Pet 3:12) by bringing our business and organizational ventures into greater correspondence with what will be characteristic of the new heaven and the new earth.
Love in a Workplace Context
In the Old Testament, covenant love (hesed) is love plus loyalty or affectionate loyalty. It also includes ahabah, the love that reaches out to and incorporates the outsider. Covenant love is more concerned with relationships than commodities. It is not merely a sentiment but involves active caring and creative loyalty. In the New Testament, agape love illuminates and extends this further through the sacrificial ministry of Jesus and the generous pouring out of the Spirit, which encompasses not only people but the creation itself. This means that material realities and ordered structures in this world are the objects of God's love, and should therefore be the object of ours. How does this get translated into organizational life?
Personal love means our love should reflect, albeit in a limited way, the love of God as we show caring loyalty to employees, members, clients, peers, and customers. This involves meeting true needs, going the extra mile in relationships, understanding empathetically the other person's situation, and supporting another's integrity. Love makes us stay with people even when we find them unpleasant, when they "push our buttons," or when they do not meet our expectations for development. Love means we do not jump to conclusions about the motives of our customers. And even when we must deal with negative reality, we will communicate worth and create an opportunity for people to change and have a second chance. Organizational love inspires caring loyalty to the structures and values of the organizational system—loving the company systemically, structurally, and culturally. Emilie Griffin, an advertising executive, says, "But I have loved, perhaps foolishly, if not a corporation, then at least the way that corporation demanded of me my best efforts, my most creative solutions, my possibilities of excellence. I have loved, too, the network of goods and Good bestowed on the larger community by corporations."[10] As the Son of God in love gave his life for others, we are called to lay down our selves not only for people but for organizations and communities so that they will be humanized and transformed. In the process, hopefully, some people will embrace Christ as their Lord. A being-redeemed community can express God's kindness and so lead people to repentance for sin (Rom 2:4). Gratitude is a good enough reason to return to the seeking Father, and a loving organization should evoke gratitude. But these reflections on the outer and inner of the organizational culture invite the question of how to make changes in the organizational culture.
Making Organizational Change
We are not in heaven yet. Indeed, all human organizations are approximations. Human organizations have fallen and have been captivated by the principalities and powers. While these powers have been unmasked and disarmed by Christ (Col 2:15), the best we can hope for in this life is substantial, not complete, redemption. Gaining that—and it is as part of our public discipleship—involves organizational change. And changing the culture is difficult.
A cultural approach to change
When the leader and the culture collide, the culture will probably win! Changing the artifacts—to use Schein’s phrase—might involve moving the Sunday service to the church hall, where the chairs can be arranged in circles to increase participation, or having a staff meeting every Monday to improve communication. But unless the fundamental assumptions of the organization are understood, cultivated and gradually changed, such equipping initiatives may be as effective as rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic when the ship is going down.
Schein’s research shows, however, that culture-change mechanisms are at work in every stage of a group’s history—birth, midlife, and maturity (which he calls “maturity and/or stagnation, decline and/or rebirth”).[11] He also shows that change becomes increasingly more difficult as a group becomes more established. While all change is motivated and does not happen randomly, “many changes do not go in the direction that the motivated persons wanted them to go”[12] because they were unaware of other forces in the culture that were simultaneously acting. So, being the leader of this process is complex indeed.
Several strategies are useful here. First, understand the culture before you try to change anything. Give the culture its due. It influences everything. Second, recognize that the culture cannot be manipulated. While you can manage and control many parts of the environment of an organization (the president keeps her office door open all the time), the culture itself, with its taken-for-granted underlying assumptions, cannot be manipulated. Third, good leadership articulates and reinforces the culture, especially those parts consistent with the vision of the organization. If this is not done, people are unlikely to accept any serious change. During a time of changing culture, leaders have to bear some of the pain and anxiety felt in the group at the same time that they seek to make the members feel secure. Fourth, sometimes direct change in a culture can be promoted by introducing new people in leadership, by promoting maverick individuals from within, and, more especially, people from outside who hold slightly different assumptions. The appointment of a new assistant, a new board chairperson, a new president is an opportunity for cultural change. Finally, change takes time.[13]
A systemic approach to change
A systems approach treats an organization as a whole that is more than the sum of the parts, in which each member and each subsystem is influenced by and influences the others. It can be easily pictured as a mobile over the bed of a baby: movement in one element requires adjustment in all the others. Edwin Friedman, a family systems therapist, has some additional insights on how a leader can bring change to a system. He uses the concept of homeostasis, that marvelous capacity of human bodies and social systems to regain their balance after a trauma. Every system has a natural tendency to maintain the status quo (homeostasis), just as a keel keeps the sailboat upright. The system does this when new response patterns are required through a threat, tragedy, or positive change. Thus the system returns to the tried and tested rather than shifts to operate on a revised and improved basis (morphogenesis). A negative biblical example of homeostasis is the return of converted Jews in the first few years to a less-than-full expression of Christian unity with Gentile believers, a hypocrisy that Paul fervently challenged (Gal 2:11-21). A positive example of morphogenesis is the extraordinary resolution of the council of Jerusalem (Acts 15:1-29) in which the church changed the terms upon which Jews and Gentiles could have fellowship together.
To bring about systemic change, leaders must first join the system, becoming an integral part of the whole and negotiating their place within it. The director, pastor or president must lead the way in this. In fact this involves many stages of negotiation as the leader finds his or her place in the organization.[14] Then the leader might take an initiative that has a ripple effect throughout the system. Usually a problem will surface without provocation. But if a problem does not surface, something as inconsequential as changing the location of the water cooler or removing it altogether will do. How he or she responds to the ripple is crucial because the response of the system will be a reflection of all the systemic factors that make it stable, including the multigenerational influences. The provoked or unprovoked crisis is an opportunity to explain what is going on and to appeal, as Barnabas, Paul and Peter did in the Jerusalem council (Acts 15:1-35), to systemic values that can be expressed in a more constructive way. The Chinese word for crisis is composed of two characters, one of which means “danger” and the other “opportunity.” The systemic leader welcomes the opportunity of every crisis and sometimes will provoke one.
Using family systems theory, Friedman says we bring greatest change in a system by concentrating not on the dissenting or sick member but on the person or persons in the group who have the greatest capacity to bring change.[15] The equipping leader must always remember that the only person open to definite and immediate change is herself or himself! A systems view encourages us to see that changing ourselves can make a difference to the those with whom we are interdependently connected.
In the context of counseling families, Virginia Satir makes a remarkable statement about systems leadership that applies to all kinds of organizations. She says, “I consider myself the leader of the process in the interview but not the leader of the people.” This, she continues, “is based on the fact that I am the one who knows what the process I am trying to produce is all about. I want to help people to become their own designers of their own choice-making.”[16]
So organizational leadership is not simply leading individual people in an organization. Leaders must work with the whole—culture and systems included. Process leadership asks questions, clarifies goals, orients people to their mission, maintains and explains the culture and helps people and subsystems take responsibility for their own systemic life. In the end leaders are charged with the awesome task of creating an environment in which people change themselves.
Life Signs of Kingdom Change
I want to end this study on the virtuous workplace with a reflection on life-signs of the kingdom of God in the workplace. There are several noted by Griffin: Gratuitiveness—doing something for its intrinsic rather than extrinsic value. The righteous executive or worker is in the deepest sense a volunteer, not "in it" for "what she can get out of it." Does, I ask, the "Golden Rule" go far enough? Jesus asks, "What are you doing more than the others?" (Matt 5:47). "On the contrary,” says Emilie Griffin, “the job well done, the inward joy of being in service—these are treasures that can never be taken away."[17] Integrity, personal and organizational, inner and outer in sync is another life-sign. Can you forgive an organization? Love an organization? Yes! Persistence or longanimity is a further life-sign. Will people stick at their job, stay with their calling through thick and thin? Again Griffin says it well. “There's something in us that longs for completion, for resolution. Success, in the sense of business achievement, cannot fully satisfy that yearning. As long as success is out there, tantalizing us, we may think it is everything we want. But once it's in our grasp, we come back to reality, sometimes with a deep sense of disenchantment."[18] Still one more life-sign: transcendence or faith and vision. Our need is "to return, by means of what the philosopher Paul Ricoeur calls a second naivete, to the fundamentals of an honorable dream," says Griffin.[19]
And finally, there is sabbath rest and contemplation. Griffin makes an astute observation on why contemplation is largely absent from the workplace.
The believer in the marketplace is buffeted by cultural forces that discourage contemplation in at least these five ways: with a language and philosophy of achievement that appears to be godless; by a mentality of sophistication that sees faith as naive; by those who stereotape prayer as rote performance and lip service; by an 'in crowd' prejudice against faith that makes the failures of institutional religion a satisfactory excuse for infidelity to God; by the failure of 'successful people' to practice the inner life and their scorn of those who do; and by the lack of good and modest teachers and exemplars in the life of prayer. Serious prayer initiatives in worldly settings are often lacking.[20]
In closing, I return to Wolterstorff’s question raised in the first sentence above. Can we practice our God-issued vocation in a toxic workplace? Or does it require a flourishing and empowering workplace? The answer, I believe, is that we are called to contribute to a workplace in any way that enables you and your colleagues to flourish because the workplace is that important.
This article may be copied for research purposes, but may not be published without the written permission of the author.
Note: This is a chapter taken from R. Paul Stevens, Working Blessedly Forever Volume 1: The Shape of Marketplace Theology (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2024), with special thanks to Don Flow who has attempted to embody much of what I have written and is the author of many of the insights contained in the chapter. This comes from the first of three volumes on marketplace theology. Volume 2 on The Practice of Marketplace Theology was published in 2025 and Volume 3 on The Spirituality of Marketplace Theology will be published in 2026.
References:
[1] Nicholas Wolterstorrf, “More on Vocation”, Reformed Journal, Vol 29, No. 5, May 1979, 20-3, quoted in Gordon Preece, Changing Work Values: A Christian Response (Melborne: Acorn Press, 1995), 196-7.
[2] Some of the following is abstracted from R. Paul Stevens, “Organizational Culture and Change” in Robert Banks and R. Paul Stevens, The Complete Book of Everyday Christianity (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1997), 713-18, as well as “Organization,” 707-13, and “Organizational Values,” 718-21.
[3] E. H. Schein, Organizational Culture and Leadership: A Dynamic View (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1991), xi.
[4] Schein, Organizational Culture, 6.
[5] Preece, Changing Work Values, 173.
[6] I refer you to a fine article Iain Benson, “Virtues,” in Banks and Stevens, The Complete Book of Everyday Christianity, 1069-72.
[7] David Brooks, The Road to Character (New York: Random House, 2015), 183.
[8] Much of this section is abstracted from R. Paul Stevens, “Organizational Values,” in Robert Banks and R. Paul Stevens, The Complete Book of Everyday Life, 718-21.
[9] Emilie Griffin The Reflective Executive: A Spirituality of Business and Enterprise (New York: Crossroad, 1993), 135.
[10] Griffin, The Reflective Executive, 95.
[11] Schein, Organizational Culture and Leadership, 270.
[12] Schein, Organizational Culture and Leadership, 300-1.
[13] Schein, Organizational Culture and Leadership, 197-327.
[14] M. E. Pattison, Pastor and People: A Systems Approach (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977.
[15] E. H. Friedman, Generation to Generation: Family Process in Church and Synagogue (New York: Guilford, 1985), 22.
[16] Virginia Satir, Conjoint Family Therapy, revised edition (Palo Alto, CA: Science and Behavior, 1983), 251-2.
[17] Griffin, The Reflective Executive, 133.
[18] Griffin, The Reflective Executive, 136-7.
[19] Griffin, The Reflective Executive, 88-9.
[20] Griffin, The Reflective Executive, 149.
