Transcript: From Sunday to Monday: Making Your Faith Relevant in the Workplace // Dr. JoAnn Flett, Center for Faithful Business

Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast

“From Sunday to Monday: Making Your Faith Relevant in the Workplace“

November 6, 2023

JoAnn Flett

Intro: How do you integrate your faith and work, especially when you're leading in a marketplace setting? Well, some have asked, “Can business be a holy calling? Is there a Christian way of doing business?” Well, today on episode number 362 of the Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast, we'll consider the essential issues of living out our faith in our daily work. Listen in and be encouraged in your calling.

Welcome: Welcome to the Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast, your home for open, honest, and insightful conversations to help develop your leadership, your team, and build a flourishing workplace culture.

Al Lopus: Hello, I'm Al Lopus, the co-founder of the Best Christian Workplaces and author of the book Road to Flourishing: Eight Keys to Boost Employee Engagement and Well-Being. And I'm passionate about helping Christian leaders like you create engaged, flourishing workplaces.

Well, today I’m delighted to welcome Dr. JoAnn Flett to the Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast. JoAnn is the executive director of the Center for Faithful Business at Seattle Pacific University, here in the Seattle area. Dr. Flett is a frequent speaker, collaborator, and organizational consultant, teasing out the intersection of faith and business that promotes human flourishing.

Well, throughout our conversation, you'll hear JoAnn talk about how shalom and flourishing are connected. You’ll also hear about the B Corp movement. You'll hear about the Center for Faithful Business at Seattle Pacific University and how it works to equip business leaders with free resources to integrate faith and work, and what the next generation of Christian-university graduates are looking for in the workplace.

Well, I think you're going to love this interview with Dr. JoAnn Flett. But before we dive in, this episode is brought to you by the Best Christian Workplaces Employee Engagement Survey. You can sign up today to discover the health of your organization's culture. This fall would be a wonderful time to listen to your employees, with our easy-to-administer online Engagement Survey, by going to workplaces.org. Being a certified best Christian workplace improves your ability to attract more talented employees and keep them longer.

And by BCW’s new leadership and group coaching. We help you transform your leadership effectiveness with our stakeholder-based coaching process. Learn more by going to workplaces.org/coaching. Check it out today.

Well, hello to our new listeners. And thanks for joining us as we honor your investment of time by creating valuable episodes like this.

And as we go forward, let me tell you a little bit more about Dr. JoAnn Flett. She earned her MBA and Ph.D. at Eastman University, and her undergraduate degree is from certified best Christian workplace Prairie College. She's also a Fulbright scholar. The Center for Faithful Business is a leading think tank on the integration of faith and business. They look to be a trusted, compelling, and prophetic voice in society, calling business leaders to integrate their faith with their work and encouraging businesses to embrace their full potential as a force for good in the world. The Center incorporates research, scholarship, and best practices from the academy, business, and the church.

So, here's my conversation with Dr. JoAnn Flett.

JoAnn, it's great to have you on the podcast.

JoAnn Flett: Thanks for having me. It's great to be here, Al. And I really appreciate the work that you've been doing to promote human flourishing in the workplace.

Al: Well, JoAnn, you know, we first met through a mutual friend, and we both cared about human flourishing, and that's what connected us. And at Best Christian Workplaces, we talk about our FLOURISH factors that build a strong workplace culture and engaged employees. And you've been part of the Harvard Human Flourishing Project, which has also gotten my attention over time. And, you know, that brings together interdisciplinary leaders. So as you consider the idea of human flourishing, what has attracted you to this concept of human flourishing? You know, how does human flourishing connect to the mission of the Center for Faithful Business that you lead at Seattle Pacific University?

JoAnn: Yeah. Those are great questions. The Harvard Human Flourishing Project has for one of its lead researchers, Tyler VanderWeele, and Tyler has noted that flourishing itself might be understood as a state in which all aspects of a person's life are good. According to Tyler, we might refer to such a state as complete human flourishing. Flourishing, as I've done work with this group, is similar in thought to the biblical concept of shalom. Rightness of relationship with God, with self, with others, and with creation is the way that Nicholas Wolterstorff has summarized shalom. I understand shalom to be God's work in the world. Cornelius Plantinga would say what was broken in the garden was shalom, and that our work as Christians in the world is to join God's work of restoring shalom. If we have a relational God who is a trinity of being in God's self—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—and He's created us to be relational beings, and then He's given us a medium of relationships and business, these things are not by coincidence, and I see this as sort of God's invitation to the business person to pay attention to joining that holy work of restoring shalom, rightness of relationship with God, with self, with others. And so these are really underlining the work of the Center for Faithful Business. The work of the Center for Faithful Business is about promoting shalom in the world.

Al: Hm. Wow. Shalom. Well, you know, we hear people greet each other with the word shalom, but you're taking it deeper for us, especially in the workplace, in business.

Well, you know, through the work of the Center for Faithful Business, you're calling business leaders to integrate their faith and their work. Also, you know, we're calling ministry leaders to integrate their faith and their work sometimes, more than they are. And you’re encouraging businesses to actually embrace their full potential as a force for good in the world. And amen to that. So can you share an example of a story of how the work of the Center has impacted a particular business or a business leader and their integration of faith and work?

JoAnn: I am just thrilled to join the Center for Faithful Business two years ago, and we have, as one of our main products in the Center for Faithful Business, the documentary film series entitled Faith & Co. These films have allowed partner organizations like Denver Institute for Faith & Work, C12, C3, KIROS, and many others to have a chance to, like, watch visual case studies to demonstrate how people are integrating faith and work. In so many ways, by looking at these films, we get to have a front-row seat to see how business leaders in a variety of industries incorporate their faith and their work, how they make decisions with active faith lens that affect a variety of stakeholders. Our SPU business faculty and the filmmakers have been faithful to capture these stories in the films. And I'm excited to say that each of the seasons—Business on Purpose, our first season; Serving Customers; Serving Employees; Serving the World, our fourth season; and our fifth season will be on faithful investing—take us through the warp and woof of business and how business leaders are bringing their faith to work and integrating it with every aspect of who they are, throughout a variety of industries.

Al: And just for our listeners, I encourage them to go to your website to actually see these. Where can they go, JoAnn?

JoAnn: They can go to cfb@spu.edu.

Al: Yeah. And I’d encourage our listeners. These are outstanding examples of businesses that are bringing faith into the workplace. I think about the world-famous Canlis restaurant, one that I've been to on a few occasions, and I know the generosity of the Canlis family overall, but that's just an example. They go into great details about how they work with their employees; how their attitude towards their employees; and how they develop them; and how they, then, also, provide absolutely world-class service to their guests and their customers. Absolutely. Well, yeah, that’s just one example. And again, I’d encourage our listeners to look there.

So, you know, JoAnn, you've interacted with many business leaders across industries and around the world. And I'm just amazed at your—the breadth of experience and where you've worked. And when you think about leadership and business, how are Christian leaders different from secular leaders? What are some qualitative differences that you see? Even just a couple of practical differences for Christian business leaders who are integrating their faith and work.

JoAnn: That's such a great question. Leadership is about influence. The influence of the Christian in the marketplace is an influence that flows from love and becoming more loving. When Jesus comes in the New Testament, He collapses all of the laws and the prophets’ work into these two: love God and love neighbor. We are challenged to be more loving. Christian business leaders should embody the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. I mean, what a rich, deep influence for us in our lives as we choose to influence a culture or the workplace.

I think the qualitative difference that I've seen is how business leaders who are Christians navigate the tension between the people they have for employees, customers, suppliers, how they care for the environment through creation care, and how they manage all of these elements so that they can faithfully produce profit—profit seen here as a virtue. These business leaders are innovative in how they're caring for their employees, how they're treating their customers and suppliers, and how they're caring for creation. And they're doing that with a prophetic imagination, an imagination that allows them to see God's in-breaking work in their lives, lived out through themselves, their organizations, and the work that they're doing in society.

Al: Well, I love that. Leadership is about influence. And as Christian leaders—and I'm thinking, again, of our listeners—you know, the influence of the Christian in the workplace is influence that flows from love and becoming more loving, based on, as you said, the two great commandments. And if we're not thinking about that and realizing that that's the source, then we should rethink that. And the Christian leader should be reflecting the fruit of the Holy Spirit in the workplace, the transforming work of the Holy Spirit working through us, and love, peace, joy, etc. happens to be one of our questions in the Best Christian Workplace Employee Engagement Survey. Are leaders demonstrating the fruit of the Holy Spirit? And that’s really great.

Well, so, as Christians integrate their faith and work, that should make a difference in how others see Christ lived out in the real world, really believe that they should see a difference. And so as we think about flourishing in terms of workplace culture, how can having a healthy workplace impact our Christian witness? How does a flourishing Christian workplace, as opposed to a toxic culture, help attract people to Christ?

JoAnn: Yeah. These are the compelling questions of our day, right? I love the phrase, “Preach the gospel. Use words if you have to.” And the suggestion here is that our lives should be a place where folks who don't know that we belong to God can tell, by how we love God and we've loved our neighbor; our actions, which should allow us to be able to clearly see transcendent desire, a desire for God; perhaps even making people aware about the transcendent questions that they want to ask, and maybe even approaching us to ask us those questions.

One thought that occurs to me is that Christian workplaces can also be toxic. Surprise.

Al: Yeah. Yeah. They can be, JoAnn. We know that, for sure.

JoAnn: According to your book, Al, Christians tend to have higher standards for relationships than other organizations, and indeed they should. We should expect to belong and be loved and joined into a deep relationship because we all belong to the family of God. Unfortunately, these expectations are sometimes not met in Christian organizations. We want employees sometimes to serve for less than market-price pay. And while serving and service is great, it should be rewarded with a recognition that the person needs to grow, whether through stretch assignments or opportunities for career growth or adequate pay or any of the other ways in which we want to innovate to support the growth of the individual. I think you have several suggestions in your book, and invite, actually, organizations to think about how they reward people, how they do compensation, and I think that's really insightful. But often we think that, Christians tend to think that they don't need to put this kind of thought and effort into designing proper, thoughtful, fair organizations, and I think your book actually calls people to do that quite well.

Al: Yeah. Thanks, JoAnn. Well, and, you know, you call out compensation. It's one of our eight factors that create healthy workplaces, flourishing workplaces, as well as engaged employees, having rewarding compensation, as we call it, as it fits into the R in FLOURISH. And you also mentioned uplifting growth, where people are given the opportunity to stretch and grow in their career as well as work on fantastic teams and with great people and so on. But yeah. Yeah. I love what you're saying here.

And yeah, we do come to work, in Christian organizations, with higher expectations relative to relationships and even leadership. I've often said, when I started the Best Christian Workplaces, I looked at the question, “There's high levels of trust between senior leaders and employees in my organization,” and the scores were lower in Christian workplaces than actually secular workplaces. And people say, “Well, that shouldn’t be,” and I agree it shouldn't be. But why is the next question always. And I've come to the conclusion, “Yep, Christians do have higher expectations of a leader's character, particularly, and just overall leadership.” And that's a challenge for all of us as leaders. How is it that others are experiencing our leadership, and are we really fully creating an environment, as Peter expresses in 1 Peter 5:2, you know, shepherd the flock that God has entrusted to you. And think of your staff, I think of as the first flock that we should be working with and making sure is shepherded well. But, well, yeah. Don't get me started, JoAnn.

So, Christian-led businesses need to generate profit to stay in business. And you know, of course, even in Christian ministries, there's the saying, “No margin, no mission.” But, you know, the same is true in businesses. We need a profit to stay in business. So as I mentioned, Christian nonprofits need to be well run financially to help fulfill their ministry goals. So what is your view of how a positive organizational culture—this is oftentimes the bottom-line question that I'm asked, so I'm going to ask you—how can a positive organizational culture impact business effectiveness? Or to put it another way, do Christian principles make for good business outcomes? And why might this be true?

JoAnn: That's a great question. I’ve thought long and hard about that. I want to take a moment to talk about profit is a reward for business done well, always. You have created something, and then you sell it, and you're able to recoup your cost with the margin that will fund the mission, that will support research and development, employees, other things. We sometimes think of profit in terms of profit maximization, that we eke out as much as we can all the time. And I'm not sure that's the best telos of business. But profit is a reward for business done well. And I often make this conversation one about, if I'm treating my employees well and they're happy to be at work, then productivity goes up. Actually, innovation goes up, problem solving goes up. These are proven elements of research. And that can only contribute positively to the bottom line, right? Or conversely, if you have a horrible culture, where it's a very broken system, people leave, and then you have the cost of replacing employees. And sometimes if good, thoughtful people who've been there for a while give up and leave or exit the organization, not only are you having to replace an employee; they're taking with them institutional knowledge.

So again, over and over and over we see that having positive organizational cultures promote the flourishing of individuals that allow for teams, that allow for people to belong, that allow for them to feel like their work contributes to something beyond themselves. And especially in Christian organizations, they should have a direct line of sight to the fact that their work is contributing to God's work in the world. And when they have that, that promotes all kinds of productivity and happiness and thriving in the workplace.

Al: Can we say, “Flourishing in the workplace”?

JoAnn: Yes, we can say, “Flourishing in the workplace.” And what's great is that, then, absolutely translates into profit, right?

Al: Yeah.

JoAnn: A direct line.

Al: Absolutely. Yeah. There's Harvard Business Review articles that express that directly, no question.

I trust you’re enjoying our podcast today. We’ll be right back after an important word for leaders.

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Al: And welcome back to my conversation with JoAnn Flett.

So, JoAnn, your work and experience are not just U.S. based. You know, you've served as a Fulbright teaching scholar to Trinidad and Tobago, and you're an advisor to the U.S. Embassy’s E-hub in Trinidad and Tobago. You've also consulted with several social, specifically a social enterprise in Australia. So as you work with leaders and as you help leaders and organizations around the world integrate their faith and work, are there some differences that you observe as you see Christian business leaders living out their faith in different cultural settings?

JoAnn: Yeah. I am excited to have been invited to be a Fulbright scholar to Trinidad and Tobago. And while there, the U.S. Embassy chief diplomat asked if I could help with the founding of this entrepreneurship hub, and I still stay advising that hub. When it comes to whether folks are integrating their faith or what's common in integrating the common thread, the common thread is that for quite a few, there's still a sacred and secular divide, try as we might. The challenge remains as to how to integrate one's faith and one's work. And it's hard to remind Christians at times that they're all priests who mediate God's presence in the world. And the priesthood of all believers remains a thing that's challenging for many still to appropriate. I think we've delivered on the Reformation, sola scriptura and justification by faith. But this idea of the priesthood of all believers seems to lag behind. And it's the work of the Center and so many folks like yourself to remind people that when they show up at work, they mediate God's presence as business leaders. They are priests of creation and mediators of God's order in and through their organizations. And so that's a common difficulty that I see.

One positive thing that I see is that folks are trying more and more to bring their faith to work, and they're drawing on resources that allow them to be more faithful in responding to how they understand themselves as Christians, whether that's in Trinidad or through the partners’ worldwide network of 27 countries with 150,000 entrepreneurs, where together we're working on a grit project with them—“grit” understood as passion and perseverance for long-term success. A lot of these folks are folks who are believers and so nurturing that faith element. So yeah, so I do see some commonalities and some differences. They are all under the Lordship of Christ, and it's so delightful to see a global body really pursuing the Lord out in their work, in entrepreneurship, as creativity and a place where they understand that by the products and the services they create, they are working on behalf of God to join God's work and shalom. And that's always exciting for me in whichever country I work and serve.

Al: Hm. Those principles work across geographic boundaries. I love what you're saying. We're all priests. I think for our listeners, how are you acting as a priest at work today to help mediate God's presence in that workplace, to bring shalom? And you're the point about people want to bring their whole person to work, and when they do, they're so much more effective. I think of many times, as I read employee open-ended responses to our Employee Engagement Survey, you know, people just talk about how much they enjoy working in a Christian workplace. You know, they can bring their whole person to work. They can pray with their fellow workers. They have the sense of fellowship and community around their Christian ethos, if you will. And many of them will also say—I just smirk at this—“And people don't swear,” which, you know, we don't think about in workplace settings, how for a lot of people that relieves a lot of stress when that happens. Anyway, but, yeah. Really great response. Thanks, JoAnn.

You know, I was really interested in this, and I know we've talked about it even some of your experience with B corporations, but your doctoral dissertation was on the B Corporation movement, and this stigma designation means that a business is meeting high standards of verified performance, accountability, and transparency on factors from employee benefits and charitable giving to supply-chain practices and even input materials. And, you know, some of our listeners might be familiar with the B Corporation movement, but for those who aren't, you know, what does it mean for a company to embrace this idea of a B corp and B corp standards? How does this process reflect, in your mind, a Christian value system?

JoAnn: This is a very important topic for me. It's personal, as I've worked for the B corps and I've gotten to know the leaders quite well. The B Corporation, as you've noted, Al, has 200 metrics and measurements across a variety of things, including measurements for customers, for suppliers, for employees, for compensation. Everything that you can think of, it goes into these standards. And there’s third-party verifiable, like a LEED certification for a building or Fairtrade certification for coffee.

And the idea there is that instead of reporting or self-reporting for your business that you have been responsible, the B Corporation comes in as a third-party entity to certify that your actions in business are indeed transparent and certified. There are 200 metrics and measurements, and to become a B corp, you have to achieve 80 of them. This sounds easy, but it's not. The really interesting companies like UnTour, who's an amazing group of people who did tourism very differently, and they had a real struggle getting to 80. And you would think a company that gives all of its profits over into a charitable arm to do funding would easily pass the test, and they still had to rejig a few things.

B Corps are the certified designation. It's available in 50 states, but the benefit corporation is the legal designation, and at last count it's available in 35 states. So a benefit corporation actually says you can incorporate as a legal entity—that's the benefit corporation—and you could name a public benefit. And so B corps are slightly different than the legal entity. The certification is different than the legal designation.

I find this group of companies really interesting to begin with. They use for their subtitle “Using Business as a Force for Good.” And I've often said to the leaders of this movement that when they said good, they've introduced a moral category, and as a Christian, I'd like to fill that with meaning. I sort of liken it to Paul in Athens, where he's in the streets, and there is this unnamed god, and he comes in, and he tells them the meaning of this god. And pretty much, the whole god experiment blows up because there is only but one God. And so to say that the B Corp movement is using business as a force for good really reflects a number of good Christian principles to begin with and faith principles.

I find it interesting that many of the people in the B Corp movement have strong Christian beliefs and/or faith beliefs from Jewish backgrounds. It's really fascinating to me to hear how these values were already reflected in the way they were doing business. And then they found the B corp and joined the B corp. In my research, of the 20 companies that I surveyed, about ten of them made this note that they were already doing business, pursuing good, and then they found the B Corp and pursued the certification, because it's a pretty onerous process to be certified, and yet it's an incredibly iterative, helpful thing for organizations.

This was another bit of interesting piece that came from the research that when a company got certified as a B Corp, they were not just competing in the future years against to hold an industry standard—certainly, they were doing that—but they also self-competed so that they would want to increase their score. So if they scored 81 in the previous year, their employees teamed around elements of moving them further up so that they would have higher scores. So they were self-competing to be better. I think this is a real opportunity for people who have deep values—and, of course, that's why it reflects the Christian value system so well—to kind of come together in a network that supports this idea of using business as a force for good. And that good is a moral category.

And Christians have a distinctive way of thinking about this. In fact, one of the films that we have in our arsenal of films in Faith & Co, our “GloryBee” film is made with—they’re a B corp here in the Pacific Northwest, and they make honey. So I have been long drawn by this group of people, and as I've gotten to know them closer, I recognize that a lot of them were actually people who were people of faith and pursued that faith in the context of their business.

Al: This is fascinating, JoAnn, this what you're teaching us about B corporations, benefit corporations, 200 metrics. You have to pass 80 to be certified. And it does help give you, then, processes that will improve your businesses by doing this and to put action into your words and values. Wow.

And to learn more about B Corps, do you have a recommendation, JoAnn?

JoAnn: Yeah. If you go to blab or bcorporation.net, you'll be able to see everything that's happening. B Lab is the entity that sits behind the B Corporation. So b/lab, and then bcorporation.net will give you a treasure trove of information. And then there is a quik—Q-U-I-K—the quik impact assessment that will allow you to see how they're measuring things so that you can use it. And so for a long time, B Corp had this moment where they decided that even if you weren't going to go through the onerous certification standards, that you could actually find all of the information you needed to improve how you're doing business in society through this B Quik impact assessment. So they ran a campaign called Be like a B Corp for a number of years.

Al: Oh. Wow. Great. Well, I know that our listeners—and we have a number of Christian-led businesses that listen to our podcast—I know that this idea of business as a force for good is something that resonates.

So, you know, JoAnn, you've been working in a university environment, and along with engaging Christian business leaders, the Center for Faithful Business provides resources for students. And as you are working with the next generation of Christian business leaders, what gives you hope, and what trends do you see as young adults step into the business world and work their way into leadership roles? And also, can you share some insights into communicating with next-generation Christian leaders? I've noticed that the Center for Faithful Business now has this film series. We've already talked about Faith & Co, and that that might be a topic that would be interesting as well.

JoAnn: Yeah. I really appreciate being on a college campus. The younger generation really have so much to teach us. When I taught at a different university, I would say, “I'm going to bring one-third of the conversation from my background in history. And one-third you'll get from the books, and then one-third from conversations with you, because we're going to join into a learning journey.” The undergraduate students tell me here all the time that this generation cares about justice and the environment. I teach a course on spirituality in business. I have often team-taught it here since I've been here at SPU. And the students tend to see that those of us in leadership, what they're wanting is to see us care deeply about these two elements of justice and the environment. I think Christians can have a faithful response to these present issues because our Lord is a God of justice, and right relationship with neighbor, community, and creation care fits within all of those justice elements.

In this great little short book that I use in class, The Little Book of Biblical Justice by Chris Marshall, Chris offers this thought about Biblical hope, “Biblical hope is hope that is confident and expecting a better future. And this hope is rooted in the knowledge of God's justice and faithfulness. Because God is the source and the champion of justice and because God is utterly reliable, there's always hope for positive change. The present may be blighted,” says Chris, “by evil and injustice, but the God of hope, who is forever on the side of the widow, the orphan, the poor, the oppressed, is moving history mysteriously in the direction of final deliverance. We see this in Romans 15:13, in Romans 8:18-30. And so,” says Chris, “we can proclaim with the psalmist, happy are those whose help is in the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord, their God, who executes justice.” When that display of faith is alive and well in the actions and the motivations of Christian leaders, it'll compel our young students to examine it. They become interested, and they become intrigued by a God who calls us to love justice, do mercy, and walk in humility. And over and over again, the conversations in the classroom take on a different tenor when they get to see that you care as God cares about all of these elements, that these things are not divorced from our Christian identity.

Al: Micah 6:8, right?

Well, JoAnn—

JoAnn: Micah 6:8, yeah.

Al: That's right. So to love justice, do mercy, walk humbly with God. And really all three of those things are great qualities of Christian leaders. And you're absolutely right. As I've worked with the next generation, if you will, this justice issue, I mean, as a boomer, social justice was not on my radar. You know, it just wasn’t, especially in the business world. But this next generation of Christian leaders, particularly, they understand the importance of justice and how they see their role of bringing justice into the world. And I think that's absolutely admirable, no question.

Well, JoAnn, this has been a great conversation. You know, starting from the very beginning of our conversation when you talk about flourishing is like bringing shalom, and all aspects of a person's life was good and that we should join God's work in the world by restoring shalom. And yeah, that just was really very helpful. And also, I loved your Faith & Co movie examples, and I encourage our listeners to go to that. Your quote, “Preach the gospel, and if necessary, use words.” And then again, in Christian-led organizations, there are higher standards. We have higher standards in relationships, and we should think about that as we as we go forward. You know, how profit well done is not profit maximization, but it's actually creating environments where there's greater productivity and the profit that comes out of it. And that we are priests, royal priests, bringing the priesthood of all believers. We’re mediating God's presence in the workplace. I just love that. And also, our conversation about B corps and how that's fascinating. And I know a lot of our listeners have not really thought or heard much about B corps, but how, yes, we’re a lot of us, business as a force for good in the world. And when we're doing that, we're experiencing and helping to bring shalom. And then, again, biblical hope, love justice, do mercy, walk humbly with God, a great conclusion.

You know, this has just been a great conversation. As we conclude, is there anything that brings your passion up to another level or something that you'd like to talk about, JoAnn?

JoAnn: Thanks for that. I am delighted to serve at the Center for Faithful Business. This place is a resource to nurture integration of faith and work, the faithful person in the workplace. And I'd like to encourage listeners to reach out if they want, if they care to. They can reach out to us at CFB@spu.edu.

One resource that we have in addition to the films is we have a PDF of thousands, a couple thousand, books and articles on faith-and-work integration. We inherited Pete Hammond’s library when he passed away—thanks to Al Erisman—and then a former director John Tarrow actually raised up funding to keep buying some of the best books released in the faith-and-work movement. So this PDF is available free, and you can download it off our CFB@spu.edu, and it'll give you a whole bibliography of 2,000 books and articles on the faith-and-work movement.

So again, our work here at the Center is to help folks integrate faith and work. And I'd encourage any conversation you'd like to have with us here. Please feel free to reach out.

Al: Great.

Well, JoAnn, thanks so much for your contributions today. And most of all, I appreciate your commitment to helping Christian business leaders be a force for good in the world. It's been a great conversation. Thanks for taking your time out and speaking into so many of the lives who are listeners. Thank you.

JoAnn: Thanks, Al. It was my deep pleasure to have been invited to participate in this podcast with you. And blessings on the work you and your team do.

Al: I'm looking forward to working together with you in the future. Thanks, JoAnn.

JoAnn: Thank you.

Al: Well, thanks so much for listening to my conversation with JoAnn. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

And you can find ways to connect with her and links to everything we discussed in the show notes and transcript at workplaces.org/podcast.

And if you have any suggestions for me about our podcast or have any questions on a flourishing workplace culture, please email me, al@workplaces.org.

And leaders, if you want to improve your leadership, expand your organization's impact for good, and see greater faithfulness in our broader culture, help us to achieve our goal to see more Christian-led workplaces. To help, please share this podcast with another leader or launch a project with your organization to discover and improve the health of your workplace culture. If you're interested in learning more, please go to workplaces.org and request a sample report.

Outro: The Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast is sponsored by Best Christian Workplaces. If you need support building a flourishing workplace culture, please visit workplaces.org for more information.

We'll see you again next week for more valuable content to help you develop strong leaders and build a flourishing workplace culture.

Al: Well, next week you're going to love my conversation with Dow Smith, the founder and visionary of the Dow Smith Company. Dow Smith Company is a design-build firm that specializes in church, healthcare, and commercial construction. And as a teaser, listen in as Dow talks about the Dow Smith Way, where the most important thing they build is the relationship they have with each client.