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

preparation

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The Business of Business is Planning

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If you don’t get this right a lot of things will happen and none of it is good! Planning, in my view, must be strategic, deliberate, premeditate, calculated, considered, and intentional. We are admonished to do everything decently and in order.

My question to you is, “How do you know what direction to take unless you plan it out?”

If there was one I believe that these people, among others, would be included in the “Planning Hall Of Fame”; those that planned strategically as they sought to carry out God’s vision for them:

1] Jethro, Moses father-in-law, mentored Moses to appoint officials over the people of Israel and had them serve as rulers to judge over the people. [Exodus 18: 17-27]. I view Jethro as history’s first organization development consultant.

2] King David knew his role in the planning for and staging of the resources needed for the building of the temple and left everything needed for Solomon to complete the building of the temple.

3] Nehemiah made careful preparation and plans for the rebuilding of the Wall around Jerusalem.

4] The apostle Paul developed a strategic missionary strategy of proclaiming the gospel and establishing churches in centers of commerce from which believers could take the gospel to outlying villages.

5] Jesus Himself was a planner. Reading the gospels I get the clear sense that Jesus operated intentionally. He was clear about His identity, His mission, and deliberately went to places like Caesarea Philippi just to ask the disciples, “Who do you say that I am”. He could have had that conversation anywhere but he intentionally traveled a long way to just to ask that question; “Why”, is the subject of another blog.

Additionally as the time approached for Jesus to complete His mission, he moved intentionally toward Jerusalem in order to complete His Father’s mission for Him. He knew His plan and was able to declare, “It is finished”.

Jesus gave the disciples a vision, provision and a plan to reach the world when He told them, “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

Throughout biblical history Godly people have been planners and strategic about it. Prayerful and thoughtful analysis and preparation are the keys in designing for success in the work of God.

Questions that support the need for planning include:

  • “Who are we?”, is about mission and purpose

  • “Where are we?”, is about analysis

  • “Where are we going?”, is about vision

  • “How are we going to get there?”, is about planning

  • “How are we going to pay for it?”, is about cash flow generation and management

  • “How are we doing?”, is about implementation and measurement and Course correction

The purpose of planning, which is the Business of Business, is to ultimately create a set of priorities that enable a CEO to act courageously and responsibly today in order to advance toward a God given future vision and legacy with an ever greater expression of God’s power in the marketplace. It is an intentional systematic effort to seek the inspiration and guidance of the Holy Spirit in order to discern the will of God as we move into the future.

If a designated leader isn’t planning how can that person really be a leader? My experience as a business leader is that there is no substitute for good planning and preparation leading to efficient and effective implementation.

King Solomon wrote, “Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint”. Jesus says, “My people perish for lack of vision”.

Here is a question for you to ask of yourself, “What area of my life and business do I need to be more strategic about?”   God wants to reveal to us not only what we are to do but give us the energy, will and determination to do it strategically, faithfully, and persistently.

“Four steps to achievement: Plan purposefully, prepare prayerfully, proceed positively, pursue persistently.”   William Arthur Ward, inspirational writer

Here I am Lord send me!