ClickCease
Matt Rusten
Why Joy is Vital for Your Leadership and Company

Is joy an underrated asset in your leadership? In our latest article, Matt Rusten explores why joy, much like humor, plays a vital role in building a thriving company culture. From increasing team engagement to fostering resilience, joy can transform workplace dynamics and inspire purpose-driven work. Discover three key ways to cultivate joy in your organization and why it’s essential for leaders who seek both results and fulfillment.

Why Joy is Vital for Your Leadership and Company
Business, Faith, Faith at Work
Convene
Do Not Worry

‘Do not worry.’ We’ve read Matthew 6:25-34 in the Sermon on the Mount, but what does that look like on a day-to-day, minute-by-minute basis? God knows our every worry, fear, and concern – and He can handle it. Many thanks to Darrell Passwater, Convene Forum Team leader, for his encouragement to think about how our lives might be different by truly living out this scriptural principle.

Do Not Worry
Greg Leith
Who Will Lead Your Firm the Day After the ...

Got a quick minute to chat? I’ve been wanting to share something with you as you lead in the midst of the election cycle in the USA or when your political election takes place in your country. When the dust settles on the election and the new country leader is declared, one thing will still be as true as it is right now. You’ll still be the one leading your firm the day after the election. Your team members will still come to work the day after the winner is declared. They’ll still be looking to you for leadership, for a paycheck, for a sense of community at their workplace.

What do they want most that only you can deliver? It’s meaning. That meaning they’re looking for begins with you and your leadership. To be sure, what Washington DC does actually can impact your business significantly, however, the president of the United States or the leader of any country does not lead your firm. You do. It’s an enterprise entrusted to you to lead as a steward. It’s a place where people look to you for answers, where people want to be part of a team that cares about them and where people want to be valued, appreciated, and loved. The next president of the country will not show up this week at your office to encourage your team, fix a broken piece of equipment, hire the next team member, sell a big account, or cast a bold vision about how your team will reach your goals and impact the culture.

Who Will Lead Your Firm the Day After the Election?
Chip Neidigh
A Safe Place To Fall
A Safe Place To Fall
Dave Ulrich
3 Principles of Hope That Enable Transitions

As we find ourselves mid-October and a blink away from a new calendar year, it is an opportunity to prepare for how we view transitions. Transitions allow for reflection and renewal, for letting go and beginning anew, and for learning from the past and creating the future. Instead of laying out trends for the next year, I would like to comment on a fundamental enabler of any transition: hope. Leaders who want to improve, CEO’s who work toward excellence, HR professionals who aspire to deliver more value, and employees who seek well-being all achieve their transitions by realizing hope.

Hope integrates many of the positive traits that shape transitions for others and matter to me personally: learning, patience, service, faith, humility, optimism, gratitude, and so forth. I send hundreds of formal and informal e-mails every month to invite people to programs, to thank people for attending programs, to check in on those I mentor, and to stay connected to those I care about. I begin almost every one of these notes with “Hope you are well.” Hope is one of my personal desires, tag lines, and biases and an enabler of any transition.

If I could implant one trait in my family, friends, and colleagues who are undergoing continual transition, it would be hope. 

3 Principles of Hope That Enable Transitions

commitment

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Sage Innovation: Apple Watches, Tesla Batteries, and Roast Pig

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  I so loved Charles Lamb’s A Dissertation upon Roast Pig (ref. 1) that I once commissioned a never-performed operetta based on it. I still have the lyrics somewhere. The essence of this great tale is that of a pyromanic son of a swineherd in ancient China named Bo-bo who invented pork BBQ by unintentionally burning down his father Ho-ti's hut with a litter of pigs inside. The overwhelming aroma of roasted pork overcame both his fear of being punished as well as his father’s intention to punish him. They feasted on this newfound delicacy and promptly built another hut so they could burn it down and have roast pig again.

The villagers around them observed that every time new pigs were born, Ho-ti’s hut burned down. Watching and catching them in this act of intentional destruction, they arrested and transported them to Peking to stand trial. The judge sampled the still warm pork and promptly pronounced them innocent. He rushed home to burn his house with pigs inside in order to enjoy such delicacy. Soon homes were burning all over China, only to be rebuilt and then torched again so that roasted pork could be enjoyed.

The housing industry boomed until there was little timber to be found. Insurance companies went bankrupt. Pork producers enjoyed great success initially but couldn’t meet demand. An economic crisis loomed over the high societal costs of this BBQ craze. Finally, an innovative sage introduced the disruptive technology of a spit over a much smaller fire. Sanity and stability returned. The cost to participate steeply declined.

With such great affection for this story, I couldn’t help but think of it when reading Tesla’s recent announcement of a deeper move into localized and distributed power (ref. 2). The technology behind their car batteries can interface with solar panels mounted on household rooftops, creating a renewable and storable energy supply—in Tesla batteries, of course.

The idea holds great appeal. However, purchasing and installing the technology does not yet create savings for most consumers. It is just too expensive at the current, experimental and early adopter scale. Without major utilities embracing the distribution of this equipment to the individual consumer instead of building and maintaining large power plants built on fossil fuel consumption, the costs remain too high for the average person to unhook utility wires. A lot of economic wobbliness looms until sagely innovators find a way.

Let’s bring the Apple watch into this muse. With the announcement that approximately $83 (US) in parts is being sold for $349-$10,000, depending on the type one purchases, there will be a lot of room for innovation and disruptive technology to bring down the price, and without long delay. However, the market for wearable technology is finicky and not well-defined. Best Buy and other merchandisers are changing their displays almost daily as new and updated products are being rolled out. A lot of resources will be wasted (invested?) by manufacturers, merchandisers and consumers until this market stabilizes. It wasn’t that long ago that PCs and then Laptops, office suite software and large screen television went through similar convulsions until price stabilized and the product became ubiquitous. Apple might make a lot of money initially in wearable technology, but it is far from certain that they are a lock on being the dominant player forever.

Someone, somewhere is going to innovate, drive the price down and improve the way the world works. Resources will be wasted while figuring it out. Fortunes will be made and lost. The sage innovator does not participate just to make money. They do it to reduce suffering and heighten hope, doing it in such a way as to sustain their enterprise next year too.

If anybody holds a commitment to sage innovation, it is the Christ follower called to a business vocation.

Ref. 1. in The Essays of Elia, New York:  The F.M. Lupton Publishing Co, 1823, pp. 193-202.

Ref. 2. Wall Street Journal, 2-3 May 2015, p. B1

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Mark L. Vincent, PhD, CCNL is a Convene Chair and CEO of Design Group International, an organizational development company providing wise guidance for enterprise, nonprofits, and ministry organizations. Out of a life spent building an enterprise and dealing with a prolonged health battle, Mark and his wife Lorie pared and honed and answered the question, “if there is just one thing to which you could give your life, what would it be?” The answer for Mark is to love leaders as they claim their life vocation as stewards of enterprise.