So You Want a Flourishing Organizational Culture? (Part 1)
Consider these nine shifts in how your organization works
It’s no big secret that the world is changing around us. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the areas in which change has been accelerated is the culture of work. Again, it’s not that COVID was responsible for the changes we’re experiencing in Work from Home (WFH), issues with wages, intolerance of dysfunctional leaders and workplace environments, etc. Instead, COVID accelerated the changes.
As a result, many organizations, Christian and not, are struggling to know how to respond to this new norm—and the norms that are coming from this new norm. The idea that people don’t want to work is a myth—American culture is work obsessed. Even despite the fact that COVID shutdowns gave all of us some much needed pause from the grind of life, we are by and large addicted to being busy.
What people don’t want—and hear me on this—is to work for dysfunctional leaders in dysfunctional environments. Competent and innovative organizations aren’t struggling to pick up talent. In fact, in this season, they’re the ones picking up workers from dysfunctional environments that are fed up. As Matthew Stafford’s move from my beloved Detroit Lions to the Los Angeles Rams (and his subsequent Super Bowl win) blatantly shows—sometimes the problem isn’t the worker. Often it’s the organization.
This is especially true for Christian organizations who (should) possess an ethos that extends beyond simply producing sprockets and churning out quarterly profits. Churches and parachurch ministries alike are called to carry a mantle that takes the task of human flourishing seriously. Part of the job of ministry is not simply attracting “next level leaders” who will “get stuff done.” Part of the job is helping those leaders entrusted to us thrive along the way.
So at present, here are nine organizational shifts that will help you cultivate a flourishing organizational culture. I’m going to focus on Christian orgs and churches since most of you who read my Substack are Christians and Christian leaders and…well, that’s my lane. Some of these are trends of the future, but a lot of them are trends now—and even principals we should’ve been observing all this time.
Shift 1: Hire for Trust More than Performance
Millennial thought leader Simon Sinek gave a great lecture (embedded below) on the value of hiring for trust over performance. The Navy Seals, says Sinek, intentionally recruit people who are high on levels of trustworthiness, even when their performance is medium or low (adjusted on a curve, of course). Reason being: low degrees of trust, even when it is accompanied by high performance output, inevitably results in organizational dysfunction.
In Christian organizations in America, we’ve imported our broader culture’s penchant for high output, developing leaders who can preach well, lead and strategize at a high level, but lack the basic development of an inner life. What’s more, when we place leaders into ministry, we are almost always focused on the performance piece, instead of the trustworthiness piece. But trustworthiness produced from a well-formed inner life is what will cause both leaders, as well as the churches and organizations in which they lead, to endure for the long haul rather than the flash-in-the-pan scenarios that have been making never-ending headlines for the last ten years.
Shift 2: Value Fruitfulness over Productivity
In the midst of the COVID lockdowns, the Lord really got ahold of me on the subject of pursuing fruitfulness more than productivity. At the time, like many of you, I was within a church organizational environment that struggled to be still. We—myself included—were all looking for things to keep us busy (or at least looking busy), pretending like a worldwide pandemic was nothing more than a little bump in the workweek. (I wrote more about my “swearing off productivity here).
Years ago, Henri Nouwen preached on the difference between success and productivity:
There’s so much wisdom spoken through Nouwen’s captivating Dutch accent in that video. God calls us toward fruitfulness, not success (or, productivity, as in my use of the term). These sound related or even synonymous, but beginning to separate them is both revealing and unnerving.
Working seven days a week without Sabbath may be productive, but is it fruitful?
Giving my children my undivided attention may not be all that productive (I’ve often said that children are little warriors against productivity!), but most would agree that it is fruitful.
Taking a mental health day may hardly be considered productive. But it bears much, much fruit.
Organizations can do well to emphasize fruitfulness. Even when it means you don’t get as much done, who you are along the way is enriched.
Shift 3: Solicit feedback from the margins
In chapter three of my book, Your Daughters Shall Prophesy, I talk about how being at the center of power has an insulating effect on those who enjoy its privileges. Power, like wealth, has the tendency to blind us from the harsh realities on the ground. The pastor who spends all of his time in the green room and never among the people will lose touch with the people. The leader who is always with the rich, but never the poor, will lose touch with the harsh realities of poverty.
Likewise, organizational cultures—even Christian ones (sometimes, especially Christian ones!) have degrees of power differentials. Often those who are in “lower level” positions or in departments that do not regularly make strategic decisions for the church simultaneously possess some of the truest perspectives on organizational life and effectiveness while almost never being asked for their perspective. If you’re redoing your church’s vision or organizational cultural values, then include people from the “margins” of power (which in Christian organizations are often the elderly, the young, women, non-White people—and in churches, oddly enough, the congregation).
Shift 4: Kill the Traditional Work Week
Here’s where my Millennial-ness is showing.
The five day, forty hour work week is outdated. The traditional work week was established during the Industrial Revolution when work productivity was somewhat equalized. You clock in, work from 9 until noon putting sprockets in boxes as they come down the assembly line (my origins in the Rust Belt of America are perhaps showing here, too), clock back in and work until 5, clock out and go home. After you were off the clock you were done with work.
That simply doesn’t happen anymore. Now, an employee wakes up and his or her phone is filled with a barrage of work emails which were delivered overnight, he or she works through their lunch, and continues to answer emails and text messages on the way home. The sharp, distinguished lines between work and home that were once pronounced and fiercely guarded, are further diminished by WFH. Simply put, our lives are much more hybrid than they once were, demanding a need for more creative solutions that not only protect employee mental health, but actually serve to enhance effectiveness.
Studies now show that there are three potential alternatives that show promising win-win scenarios, that allow people a greater return on the life side of their work/life balance, while also serving to enhance effectiveness to organizations:
The Four Day Work Week
Several studies such as this, reported by the Washington Post and conducted among 61 companies in the United Kingdom show that working four days a week contributes to the same amount of productive output as working five days a week (meaning, we may waste on average about a total of a day a week, every week). Yet, the study also showed that because of the reduced hours, employee satisfaction increased and resignations declined (resignations, and their resulting need to backfill, chip away at employee morale and cost organizations money). In fact, of the 61 companies that participated, only three expressed an intent to return to their previous five day pattern.
The Six Hour Work Day
Another study, this one in Australia, showed that reducing the number of hours worked in a day, when coupled with making organizational changes to prioritize effectiveness, contributed to similar outcomes as the four day work week. People focused their time more on things that would make them effective, shortened average meeting times, and blocked out distractions like emails.
The Cycle Sync Work Flow
This one is unorthodox, but another study reported in Forbes demonstrates that the current system of work (which, again, was optimized in a time where only men were in the workforce and were mostly working with their hands) is not conducive to creative flow, especially for women.
One alternative is referred to as the “cycle-sync,” referring to how women function differently in relation to work depending on which of four hormonal phases they are in during a given month:
Follicular Phase (6-14 days): Highest creative output
Ovulatory Phase (15-17 days): Highest collaborative output
Luteal Phase (18-28 days): Highest task output
Menstruation Phase (1-5 days): Highest evaluative output
Men also have both hormonal and creative cycles, though they are different and get less attention. These obviously vary by person to person and between men and women, but at the heart of this is a decentralized emphasis on standardization and an increased emphasis on effectiveness and creativity. Some studies show that when executives are in a state of “flow” (that creative space where there are no distractions and everything just clicks), they can be up to 500% more productive than when they’re out of it. That is the sort of space where you can knock something out in an hour with a dose of creative juice that would otherwise take you three days.
Antonio Sparado in his book Cybertheology refers to this as the pursuit, not of idleness, but of creative imagination. He notes that humanity is not organized through a rigid schedule but instead through flexible rhythms and creativity which become the measure of human work (55).
This obviously is a radical departure from the traditional emphasis on a standardized work week. But I have found among those I have led that releasing trust and giving people the space to work creatively without the constraints of bureaucracy has tremendous benefits. The decentralization of work flow benefits both the organization and the individual.
Concluding Part 1
In the next part of this two part series, I’ll outline the final five shifts that contribute to a flourishing organizational culture. For now, share and subscribe! :)