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

pruning

Time to Retool

Leaders make hard decisions. We are constantly balancing resources to achieve the strategic goals of the organization. Sometimes it means pruning the good to make room for the great. Rarely are these moves made without some level of associated risk. We rely on the best information available to us at the time. Organizations are living and ever moving organisms. They have a life that can be compared to a garden or vineyard. In this context, the leader is the gardener and there are times and seasons for tilling, planting, water, fertilizing, and harvesting. Year after year you assess the market looking for new opportunities or improved methods and processes to gain efficiencies which in turn generates additional resources for reaching new markets. There is no room for doing the same things and expecting improved results.

Continuing with status quo becomes mundane and the harvest likely mediocre. At some point you measure the yield then determine what needs to change. The farmer and gardener would say its time to prune and graft. The organizational leader must retool, reshape, prune, and otherwise find ways to make needed resources available to move the organization forward. Simply said, this is easier said than done in the context of an organization.

Maybe it’s a new season for you. It may even be time to rebuild from the ground up. Depending on the overall health of your organization, it may be time for a radical shift. Radical can be threatening. Radical is often misunderstood. For the sick, diseased, or dying organization a strategic intervention may be required.

Change is never easy. The pruning process will be messy, but messy with a purpose and a purpose that holds a brighter future. There can be joy in the midst of change. There’s an air of anticipation and hope for the leader and the team. They are dreaming again instead of droning away with mediocrity. In the planning of their ideation session it has been rewarding to see their renewed energy. There is wonder and enthusiasm around defining the pruning that will make room for new growth.

Appointed for Abundance

I have come that they might have life; and that they might have it more abundantly. John 10:10 God has appointed you for abundance as you abide in Him today.

When I feel the weight of the world, burdens of the day and the limits of my abilities, will I believe Jesus’ promise? So many well-meaning believers throughout the years have claimed these verses for their own gain and prosperity that some of us have been left wondering. Life is hard! The reality of loss, pain or opposition often goes right to the heart and leaves us...well...wondering. Why? Because life is hard! Yet, too much wondering will lead to wandering. When you are in those times or seasons, what keeps you going? Do you give up or press on?

No matter what you are facing today, listen to the charge from the writer of Hebrews, let these words sink deep, "But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved" (Hebrews 10:39). Will you believe today the promise that God through His son Jesus Christ has come to give you life, and life to the full?

The enemy’s work is to "steal, kill and destroy" (John 10:10). That’s his aim, and he’s a good adversary. I've heard it said the enemy doesn’t care anything about you, he just wants to destroy the Word in you. You pose no threat to him. The threat is the power of God through the promise and truth written on your life, "hidden in your heart" (Psalm 119:11). Will you believe today? Let us stand together as the Church, united and full of life today!

Let's look a little deeper biblically to the work of the Father.  Let's turn back to Hebrews for insight and instruction. Discipline, it's hard and painful. It might feel like "steal, kill and destroy," but what it is really? "God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness" (Hebrews 12:10). "It produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those have been trained by it" (verse 11).

Now, let us look at Pruning. Once again, we see the handiwork of the Father as the good gardener. Yet, it doesn't feel very good. "He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful" (John 15:2). How many of us want more fruit in our life? I’m the first in line. How many of us want to be disciplined and pruned? Well, not so much...is there another way? Not so much! We are being conformed into the image of Christ, justified and walking in a journey of sanctification that will yield the fruit of righteousness, peace and abundance in our life. Let us be wise with regard to God’s discipline and pruning in our lives. Our greatest pain may be our greatest blessing.

Let us be wise and aware of the enemy's tactics to steal, kill and destroy. Let us stand firm under opposition, threat and lies. Let us also hold on to the truth that the Father loves us even when it hurts. There is a pain that will not destroy but ultimately bring life. "I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last" (John 15:16, NIV). In the King James Version it reads, "Fruit that remains." So today, what do you do? "Remain in me, and I will remain in you" (John 15:4).

God has appointed you for abundance as you abide in Him today.

And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ" (Philippians 1:9-10).