Karl Edwards presents Working Matters

Category: Working Matters

  • The Gift of Work -> Chapter 3: Redefining Success

    thought-leadersMy head spins with all the different definitions of success out there. Even if I can think myself through their various fallacies, the measures of success in this culture still haunt and lure and accuse.

    gift-of-work1What I need, though, is not another critique of the culture’s twists and perversions of the truth. Nor, on the other hand, do I need another vague, conceptual affirmation of the eternal biblical principles by which my work should find its purpose, motivations and methods.

    So I especially enjoyed Heatley using four work-based categories, (success, competition, loyalty and service) to think through the shortcomings in most workplaces and the alternatives a faith-based perspective would contribute.

    While I agree that “love” holds the key to unlocking the creative juices that will eventually result in a plethora of practical alternatives emerging in workplaces around the world, I’m anxious to get on to brainstorming what these practical alternatives might be.

    For example, let’s take a variety of workplace processes: hiring, training, firing, planning, meetings, compensation, performance reviews, approval processes, budgeting, adopting new technologies, etc., and having teams work through what those need to look like if we’re to achieve, “market strength, employee focus and customer value.” In other words, put some feet on love in the context of work.

    How do you find ways to give practical form to your faith-based values at work, in the context of work’s issues, processes and structures, and within a culture where work is a daily reality on which our survival depends?

    Each Friday I post my reflections from one chapter of The Gift of Work by Bill Heatley. If you are just joining the discussion now, welcome! Catch up on the entire series here.

  • What’s Wrong When You’re Always Right?

    insightful-linkHave you ever been in a meeting with a leader who is always right?

    Any new idea is dismissed or destroyed before it’s barely uttered. The logic of these leaders is irrefutable. Their conclusions obvious. The discussion is over before it even started.

    It isn’t long before the group stops generating new ideas altogether.

    Could you be one of these leaders?

    Have you stopped hearing ideas different from your own? Have opposing points of view disappeared from your meetings? Are your initiatives met with silent, listless compliance?

    Check out this article by Ellen Weber, “Hear Voices on the Other Side?” She asserts that, “human brains default back to ruts.” You may be inadvertently cutting yourself off from voices different than your own.

    I think you’ll appreciate her insights on how your brain works… for you or against you.

    On your side,

    – Karl

  • American Idol Savvy: From Zero to Hero

    IdolThere’s something to say for sheer determination.

    Determination to stay in the game. Determination to play at the top of one’s game.

    How close to being eliminated has Anoop Desai come over the last several weeks? He didn’t get the votes to make the top 9 chosen by the viewers. He was the last wild card contestant announced and surprise 13th overall. His first performance was panned by the judges, and the producers chose to him to stand with Jorge as the next most likely to be voted off.

    Enough to shake the confidence of the best of us. Not Anoop.

    He worked even harder. His energy and determination levels grew. He pulled together everything he had to violate one of the judges’ most sacred rules, “Don’t take on a haloed classic.” And he pulled it off to their astonished admiration.

    There’s something to say for sticking with something we love. Something we want. Something we’ve worked hard for. That others are doing better, getting more attention, experiencing more success cannot be the criteria by which we measure our own success.

    Until Anoop is voted off the show, he is very much still on the show and in the running… no matter what the odds… no matter how well the other contestants are singing… no matters what the pundits think. (Who would have believed Taylor Hicks had a chance?)

    Going from zero to hero involves not giving up on yourself. Are you pulling out of the game when you need to be adjusting your strategy and pushing harder? Are you disqualifying yourself by letting discouragement, long odds, or criticism from the sidelines drag you down?

    You know you’re good. You know you have a lot to offer.

    What do you do to up your game, bolster your confidence, or push from a different direction? What do you need to go from zero to hero?

    On your side,

    – Karl

  • The Gift of Work -> Chapter 2: Kingdom Living

    thought-leadersTraining for kings.

    From the outside in… practicing habits of healthy living until proficient. From the inside out… becoming increasingly open to the involvement of God in the training process.

    Such are the spiritual disciplines: twin and simultaneous trajectories toward becoming the kind of person you were meant to be.

    gift-of-work1Reflecting on the workplace, it is my stewardship of the life God has given me that determines the character of my presence and contribution there. Hence the power of Heatley’s now obvious, but usually overlooked, linkage between our stewardship within God’s kingdom with the role of kings.

    How I show up matters.

    Whether or not I choose to engage fully—authentically, energetically and creatively—matters.

    The choices I make at work improve, restore, and (more…)

  • Listen In -> Making Peace With Work #5: Replacing Resentment with Engagement

    Are there any options between loving your job and hating it?

    Is there a way to pause and take notice when resentment starts building?

    What’s my alternative if I’m not in a position to quit and move to a different company?

    Engage. To show up and take responsibility for my choices.

    How do I distinguish between the anger I feel for my low pay and the choices I need to make in order to demonstrate value?

    How is resentment a choice that I am making and therefore a choice I can make differently?

    Claudia and I discuss these difficult and real aspects of resenting work in this week’s show.

    Listen in.


  • American Idol Savvy: Cut and Paste Feedback

    IdolIt’s not uncommon for the judges to give what seems like contradictory feedback.

    “Don’t mess with the melody” and “Put your own twist on the melody.” “That song was too big for you” and “You played it safe and didn’t stretch yourself.”

    The contestants get frustrated, “But you told me last week…”

    While I feel some of the judges’ feedback is confusing and contradictory, the contestants’ real problem is their own “cut and paste” response to the feedback.

    It’s as if their only goal for the next performance is responding to the judges’ most recent criticism. I call this approach, “cut and paste,” because it (more…)

  • Non-Denominational Nonsense

    The awkward irony of a non-denominational church is the assumption that we can be more affiliated with all other Christians by affiliating ourselves with no other Christians.

    – Karl Edwards

  • Loving Monday: A Finger to the Wind

    loving_mondayRunning with the wind at one’s back can be as delightful as running into the wind can be tortuous.

    Key to getting where one wants to go then becomes whether one can identify which direction the wind is blowing.

    As the new week begins, can you identify which way the wind is blowing in your department?

    It can be naive to launch back into your workload as if everything was just as you left it on Friday. It might we wise to start the week off by holding a finger to the air.

    Anything from a key player’s bad mood to a deteriorating budget situation can change the context within which you are operating. Failing to notice these issues can cost you serious time, money and energy. Taking a moment to size up the situation before launching back into your routine can be the difference between making a sensitive, nuanced adjustment and suffering a blunt, blind collision.

    Take a moment a hold a finger to the air. Which way is the wind blowing where you work?

  • The Gift of Work -> Chapter 1: Changing Our Minds About Work

    thought-leadersI’m going to jump right into the issues raised by Bill Heatley’s The Gift of Work: Spiritual Disciplines for the Workplace without much content summary. So grab your copy and join the fun!

    gift-of-work1

    Faulty Frames of Reference

    Powerful from the get go is his challenge to our basic frame of reference about work as “a daily humiliation.” (p. 24) Such starting assumptions: work is but a necessary evil to pay the bills, TGIF, and working for “the man”—among others—is where we get our equation backwards. It’s as if we suspend our lives while at work in order to make the money we need to finance the lives we want to live while at home. We have to get ourselves dirty in the workplace (read “the world”) in order to serve God and others everywhere else.

    Instead of investing, engaging, reflecting and improving, we end up keeping work at arm’s length.

    A huge hurdle to becoming open to alternate frames of reference is learning how to identify our own starting assumptions. It can be like asking a blind person why they tripped on the cracked sidewalk. How can I figure out what I’m not seeing if I’m not seeing?

    More Ordinary Than You’d Think

    I love the way Heatley, almost matter-of-factly, asserts that work is (more…)

  • N.T. Wright Offers Insight on “Learning the Language of Life” at Fuller Seminary

    nt-wrightFor whom does making complex choices come more naturally, the person who has been practicing ahead in a somewhat unnatural manner, or the person who lives from moment to moment, trusting God to be present and helpful more spontaneously?

    If you want to hear one of the best cases for practicing virtue before you need it, check out this talk N.T. Wright gave at Fuller Seminary on February 27th.

    He is one of my favorite thinkers, and it was a thrill to be present for this presentation.

    It’s an hour long audio presentation, so grab a cup of coffee, sit back and enjoy! (It’s also a big file, so depending on your connection speed it make take a few moments to begin playing.)