Transcript: How Grace at Work Brings Out the Best in People // Dr. Tim Kimmel, Michael Tooker

The Flourishing Culture Podcast Series

How Grace at Work Brings Out the Best in People

December 5, 2022

Dr. Tim Kimmel and Michael Tooker

Intro: Are you looking for a tangible way to improve your workplace culture? Well, today my conversation with the coauthors of a new book, Grace at Work, gives you actionable concepts that will impact your life and workplace.

Al Lopus: Hi, I'm Al Lopus, and you're listening to the Flourishing Culture Podcast, where we help you create and lead a flourishing workplace. We find the problem many employers are facing today is readjusting to our post-COVID, hybrid world. The great resignation is still evident, where employees are quitting at record levels, filling millions of open jobs, even as we face a cooling economy and record-setting wage inflation. We know that having a flourishing workplace with fully engaged employees is the solution. So this week, we're talking about moving forward on the road to flourishing, no matter where you're starting from.

You may have heard teaching that encouraged you to arrange your priorities in a linear order, you know, God, spouse, kids, work, country, everything else. But what if we made God a part of every area of our life, including our work? And if we decompartmentalized our lives, then God would work through us in all areas, including our work, and our workplaces become a setting for living out our faith, and those of us in leadership roles in Christian ministry or business can set the tone for a positive workplace culture. And that's what we're all about. And this week on the Flourishing Culture Podcast, we’ll explore how offering grace in the workplace can meet people's needs and transform their environment.

And I'm delighted to welcome two guests to the Flourishing Culture Podcast, Dr. Tim Kimmel, and he's the founder of Grace Based Families; and Michael Tooker, the former business executive and now pastor. And together, they authored Grace at Work: The Secret to Getting More from Your Job Than a Paycheck. And Tim and Michael, it's great to have you on the Flourishing Culture Podcast.

Tim Kimmel: Well, we’re glad to be here. Thanks for inviting me.

Michael Tooker: Yeah. Thank you so much. We’re looking forward to spending some time with you today.

Al: Yeah, thanks.

Well, Michael, let's start with you. You've lived in different facets of the workplace culture in both corporate and Christian settings. And, you know, you've held corporate roles in financial services and mortgage banking, and then now a Christian nonprofit, and now a church ministry. And in the midst of your career, you went through a heart change, clearly a heart change. Share with us your journey from a more traditional transactional view of work to growing in your understanding of a grace-based work.

Michael: Yeah. Would be happy to share that story, Al, with your listeners. You know, I started from a real, let's say, a worldly view of work. I was a nonbeliever, came out of graduate school, went to a Fortune 50 company, and was doing what I thought you had to do and were supposed to do as a man at the front side of your career, climbing the ladder and acquiring what I guess you'd call the trappings of success. And if you looked at my life from the outside, you know, it appeared as though I had the world by the tail. You know, people would say, “Hey, he’s climbing the corporate ladder. Nice promotions: director, vice president at a young age.” Everything seemed to be—got married, you know, everything was just really on track and in keeping with what the world would say, “Hey, there's a picture of success.”

But behind the scenes, what people couldn't see was things were starting to unravel. And from a very secular worldview, I really viewed people as a means to my desired end, right? because I had this picture of success. And so I was doing what I thought I had to do, and it was on the backs of teams and people around me. And eventually, it all came crashing down, that I realized that there was this facade that I was managing, this dream that I was chasing, and it was bankrupt. I mean, it was just an empty pursuit. And in the process of chasing these things of the world, I nearly lost the things eternal: my wife, my kids, my friends. And what I effectively had done was kind of horse traded these relationships that were most important in my life for the material and empty things of the world that I’d bought into that success myth.

And that was really, the night it really came to a fine point—my wife and I had been in counseling for a long time—and two o’clock in the morning we were just kind of arguing, and she said, “Just leave. You know, I don't love you. I don't even like you anymore. You know, you're never here. When you are, you're just a jerk. And will you just go and, you know, make this easy on me?” And it was then, in that moment, that I realized I lost everything, and for what? And so I literally rolled out of bed and fell on my knees and cried out to Christ. And I view that as the real low point in my life, but that's the point at which God met me, and He showed me what—you know, we talk about this definition of grace is this notion of unmerited favor or, you know, giving somebody something that they desperately need but probably don't deserve. And that's really where God met me in that moment, where I've kind of squandered this great thing that He gave me.

And, you know, months earlier, my wife and I had wandered into this enrichment class, trying to get some help and try to get things back on track. And that's where I met Tim Kimmel, and he started—he was leading this class on how to be a parent, how to be a spouse, and it was all built on this notion of grace, and he had this applied model of grace. And so I started to get this head knowledge of, okay, I can intellectually understand what grace is. At the same time my life's unraveling. I'm experiencing grace from God and where He met me and from my wife and as we put things back together. And so for me, that's how things clicked. And so I think about this head knowledge of grace, this heart knowledge of grace, and this idea, this power of dealing with others the way God deals with us because I was experiencing how He was dealing in my mind and my heart. And that completely shifted how I thought about work.

And so as I kind of dusted myself off and got back in the workplace, that was really the big change, Al, was saying, “I'm not going after this, trying to chase these things of the world. I'm not going after it, trying to use people around me to get those things. I'm here to serve Christ, who gave me and showed me His grace. And I'm going to show that same grace to the people that I work with.” And that was really the shift in my personal life and the motivation to write this book. And that's what Tim and I unpack is what does it look like to take that attitude, that philosophy of bringing God's grace to work to show it to others.

Al: Wow, Michael, that's a compelling story. I know our listeners are just thinking through that and especially that moment. I had one of those moments myself, exactly. Yeah. It was June 15, ‘92. I mean, at nine o’clock at night. Yeah. So, and you know, Kathy said, “I'd like you to move out by Friday.” You know, so, yeah. So, and amazing healing and, again, unmerited favor, no question about that. And now we've worked together for almost 20 years at the Best Christian Workplaces.

Michael: Oh, that’s great.

Al: Yeah.

So anyway, what a great path, Michael. Yeah. And a great realization, and I'm thankful to God for not only that moment, but also the restoration that you've experienced.

And, well, Tim, now over to you. You know, you focused on your calling, on ministry to families, influencing parents and marriages with your Grace Based Families ministry. You know, why have you turned your focus to the workplace? You know, what does it look like to bring grace into the workplace?

Tim: Well, Michael's story played a big role in me even being part of this whole project, because he liked to say, you know, when I first met him, when my wife and I saw them come into this Sunday school class, their marriage was on fire. But the way he likes to say it, it was more like a dumpster fire or a car fire, you know? I mean, they were on life support or barely that.

But when I saw how God got a hold of him and then truly transformed his thinking, because I think the average—I want to say this carefully for our listeners so they don't take offense to this. But I think the average Christian, when it comes to grace, they basically don't get it. They get one dimension of it, and that is that saving part of grace. You know, I once was lost, now I’m found. I’m blind, now I see. They figure out that part, that they can't get to God on their own. But I think we have a real struggle in our Christian life to see how God's grace translates over into our day-to-day life. But the grace that God saved us was He wanted to wash over us and redefine us and become the default mode of how we deal with the people up close to us.

Well, and so I have been spending my life helping people figure out what that looks like in their marriage, in their parenting. But I never felt like I had quite the qualifications to weigh in on the hard-nosed, smash mouth, stab-you-in-the-back, my-way-or-the-highway marketplace because I've been working in ministry all my life. And although you can get some people that really have lost their way and lost their mind in ministry, at least you have a standard you can hold them to—the Bible—and you hold yourself to that.

Well, but then Michael came along, and God just really put an itch in his heart to see, can this model of applied grace that the Kimmels are unpacking here for our families, would this actually work in a hard-nosed, competitive market environment? And then when he threw that question to me, my answer would be, well, okay, if Jesus, you know, before He started His public ministry, if we could go through a time warp, and He was actually starting at, you know, three or four years from now, but He got a job at your company in the meantime, and He worked for three or four years, do you think it would, in any way, make life at your company any better? And of course, the answer is obviously it would, if Jesus worked at our company.

Well, the good news is Jesus doesn't have to come to work at our companies because we do and He's in us. And He says, “Just take Me to work with you.” And so—and plus, I think there was a lot of people longing for a translation of this model, this grace model, for the marketplace. So that's what kind of got us going on that. And it's interesting how if I were to draw, you know, a diagram of what does God's applied grace look like in a marriage or parenting? and then I do it in work, I’d draw the same one. I’d draw the same one for church because, you know, it's God's grace. This isn't Tim or Michael's theory. This is what Jesus does for us.

And what's cool about work, too, is it has a whole lot of parallel to family because other than your wife, you can't choose any of the other people in the family picture. You're stuck with them. They show up, and that's it. And Thanksgiving and Christmas remind us of this all the time. Well, the same thing with work. I don't get to choose the people I work with, most of the time. I just don't. They're there. Whereas all the other areas of my life, I can be picky. And if somebody creeps me out in a hobby I'm doing, I'll take another hobby. If some people go sideways on me to church, I can take my Bible and go elsewhere. I could unfriend you on social media. But I'm stuck with you at work. And this is exactly the place, Al, that God called us to light up with His love and His grace and His mercy. And it's a fabulous outlet for us to live out a Christian life.

But let me qualify something here so we don't get too confused on the front side about what the purpose of this book is. This book is not a Christian book about you going to church and witnessing about Jesus and inviting people to church and trying to win them to Christ. That is not what this book’s about. This book is about you taking Jesus to work and loving the people that God called you to love and treating them the way He treats you. Now, obviously, out of that, God could clearly use this to impact their hearts and give you a platform and a voice to touch their lives and share the gospel with them. But this is mainly about—this is not about modeling Jesus at work; it's about following Jesus at work.

Al: So we can love people at work because He first loved us, right? Yeah. So yeah. “Take Me to work with you,” Jesus is saying. I love it. Yeah. Thanks, Tim.

You know, we're seeing Americans leave their workplaces in record numbers. Even those who aren’t really looking to leave, they look around, and they might find a better job, and somebody else is calling them. And we call this the great resignation. We're also seeing quiet quitting in the workplace. So what do you think is at the heart of this dissatisfaction with work? What are people looking for in the workplace today, from your perspective? And Michael, let's hear your thoughts on what people are searching for in the workplace.

Michael: Yeah. I think you have to kind of put it in perspective, right? The great resignation is, let's say, unintended consequence or result of this pandemic, right? So I think it's hard to separate the two. But I think, like many things, I don't believe there's a silver bullet. I think there's a confluence of things that are happening. And one of the things I think that is happening is there's this wrestling with just the fragility of life, right? We go through this multi-year pandemic. We see people around us that are dying, sometimes it's a friend, a relative. But it just forced us, I think, all to just question our own mortality, right? You start to wonder, “Huh, I wonder, what if that happened to me? What if I was taken earlier than I had planned?” There's never any guarantees, but I think this pandemic has forced us to wrestle with that.

In doing that, I think that the second thing is we wrestle with, then, the next obvious question is, so what's the meaning of my life, right? My workplace is where I'm spending the majority of my time. I'm giving all the first fruits, let's say, of my energy, my mind. I'm pouring the very best of me into this job. And you start to wrestle with this idea of, “Huh, am I getting sufficient meaning? Is this the highest and best use of my life?”

And then I think we start to wrestle, too, with our work relationships, because when—I know I worked at a company where on March 17 of 2020, we sent 800 people home in a day, and all of a sudden that community, you're kind of ripped out of your community, you're placed in your home, and you're there for what? In our case, it was two years. And so I'm a believer that community is a big part of where we derive some sense of contentment. And so all of a sudden that was yanked away.

And then we start to think about our leaders. And historically, people, oftentimes, they leave a company because of their leader. And so now all of a sudden, I'm in this really vulnerable space where I lost my community, I'm feeling more fragile and vulnerable, and I'm questioning the meaning. And then, if I don't have a leader that leads really well through that, then all of a sudden, it just crumbles, and I'm just going to take my life and go elsewhere.

And so I think that's what Tim and I really believe is that what we've addressed in Grace at Work is all of these things because what we do is we talk about, what is the highest purpose of your life? And ultimately, that's to love and serve others. And so that's a big part of this is to say that attitude shift is it's not about loving myself; it's about loving others, and it's about serving them in the workplace.

And, Al, we've talked about this idea of love before we went on air, and Tim mentioned it a minute ago. And I love Tim's definition of love, which, Tim, why don’t you to share that real quick, and then I'll come back and kind of land the plane I want to share.

Tim: Okay. My wife and I really felt we needed to nail down this word early on when we're thinking about it in a relational thing. So we like to define it this way: love is a commitment of my will to your needs and best interests, regardless of the costs. And obviously, those costs are to me. So the commitment of my will to your needs and best interests, regardless of the costs to me, that’s the kind of love God access actually asks us to bring to work, because we work with some people that are very hard to love, very unlovable, and some of them are creepy, and they're in positions of authority, and they can bring the worst out of you. And yet that's the very people God called us to go and care for.

Michael: Yeah, exactly. And so with that definition of love, if I start, if I'm questioning, “What is the purpose of my life? What's the highest and best use of it?” and if I can wrap my mind around that and say, “Hey, if the purpose of my life is to love God and love others, and the workplace is where I'm pouring the majority of my waking hours, if I take that attitude to work,” that's what Tim and I talk about in this book is what does it look like to love and serve others? And it's just allowing God's grace to kind of flow through you onto the people around you. And in the process, that's what we share is there's this kind of blueprint of doing that that ultimately enhances the quality of your work relationships, right?

And if I'm the leader, what we offer are some, this is very tactical and practical as well as philosophical model that says, this is how, if you lead and love people, ultimately what you're doing is you're bringing out the very best in them, and in bringing out the best of them, a couple things are happening. One is you're transforming the culture that you're working in. And so that's why I was so excited for this conversation, Al, about this notion of the best Christian places to work. We should be, because if I'm bringing God's grace to work, I'm elevating everyone around me just like Christ. And when He T-boned my life, and I look at who I am as a human, as a professional, the quality of me as a human is elevated because Christ intersected with my life. And if that’s what I bring to work, we're elevating everybody around us. And so the culture is better. It's a better community.

But it's also, the byproduct is by me serving others and helping them, I'm finding a greater sense of purpose for my own kind of sense of satisfaction and worth. And it makes people around me want to stay. It makes me want to come back because I'm getting a sense of purpose and meaning, and I'm working in a great place. And so, again, while I don't think this book is an antidote to the great resignation—I think that would be arrogant of us to think so—I do think that if people can understand what Grace looks like lived out, it can really be a powerful thing to kind of stem the tide and, hopefully, build a workplace that people, they’re just thriving, and they're loving, and they're highly engaged, and they're motivated, and they stay.

Al: Well, preach it, Michael. That’s all I can say. Absolutely.

Hey, Tim, what about you?

Tim: Well, you know, Michael really nailed that very well. I do want to comment, though, a little bit about some of the more recent articles you're reading in, like, Wall Street Journal and some of the business journals about the quiet quitting. And there’s a new response to that by the leadership, and that is they're firing these people, and rightfully so. I mean, look at Facebook and Twitter, and tens of thousands of people are suddenly unemployed because they say, “Oh, we made it real easy. We tried to make it really nice. But you also didn't bring your game to work.”

As Christians, if we're a follower of Jesus, one of the ways that His presence should show up is we come and we earn our pay. And if we're working from home, and just because nobody's watching us—integrity is doing the right thing, regardless of whether you're being watched or not. And we should work hard. And what's interesting is when we do that, that's noticed by the people that run the place. They know who they can count on. So, yeah, this quiet quitting is a cute little phrase that they've come up with, but for those who want to embrace it, you might be finding it a little tougher on payday because you won't have a check.

Al: Yeah. I love that idea, Tim, very much. I mean, Christians should be the best workers. They're the ones that show up on time. They're people of integrity. They know what they need to do. They work hard. They—yeah, all of that. And, you know, they create a grace-filled workplace that raises all boats. I mean, that's what you were saying earlier, Michael. You know, you're raising all—the tide raises, and all boats benefit when you're acting in that way.

Well, you know, many of our podcast listeners are leaders in Christian-led businesses, nonprofits, and churches, and they influence the workplace culture as the leader. And of course, culture is mostly influenced by leaders. What are some of the essentials for a grace-filled workplace? You know, how does a leader set this tone in their workplace? Tim, why don't you start on this one.

Tim: Yeah. Well, I love your word tone. We use the word atmosphere in our book, or culture. Three words meaning the same thing.

Al: Yeah.

Tim: Here's what's interesting. You can hire some of the best resumes out there. You can put them in the most state-of-the-art office conditions, with the best technology. You can have a great product to sell or a great service to offer. But let’s just say all that's true, but let's say that we're all dressed kind of a normal, casual work, but the temperature in a room is kept at 45 degrees or 104, 105. See, it wouldn't matter how good our product, how good our service, how clever we are, you know, our resumes and all this stuff, we would have a hard time really functioning well and thriving because we're either so cold or so uncomfortably warm.

And that's what it's like when we don't set the right tone inside of a company. And the leadership, business owners and the management and the executive level, we're the ones that are mainly responsible for setting that atmosphere. And what we show is that the best temperature to set us at is grace. When you set that thermostat on grace, it's amazing because it makes everybody more comfortable, and it inclines people to bring the better person out of themselves, and obviously can really impact the relationships within as well as the bottom line.

And so that's what we, you know, what we do in our book is we unpack exactly what God's applied grace looks like in that kind of setting. We come at it from four dimensions that He does with us in our day-to-day life. He's always dialing in on the three, the three driving inner needs of our heart, every word and action God does towards us. He sets our hearts free in very specific ways. He builds character muscles into us that give us a sense of resilience and strength and help us thrive. And then, when God is in the driver's seat of our life, there's a different trajectory that we're on, as far as how we're living our life, because the world’s trajectory is one that is pursuing success. Well, if you're a follower of Jesus and you're drinking the Kool-Aid of the world's view of success, man, you are aiming very low. There's something far better. And so we show what those four dimensions are, and then we unpack them very specifically.

Michael: Well, I think we've alluded to this a couple of times, as Tim talked about this idea of, you know, we're aiming too low. And I think the problem is so many people—I mean, Al, my story sounds like, you know, your story. It's such a common story. I mean, it's almost cliché, like the wake behind the workplace boat, right? I mean, it's just strewn with wrecked marriages and strange kids and, you know, just torn-apart families. And so it's really, I mean, the enemy is doing a great job, right, of taking some pretty familiar bait and getting us all to bite on it.

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

Are you tired of spinning your wheels with unwanted turnover, toxicity, and disengaged employees? Do you want to improve your team's effectiveness and performance? A helpful way to improve is to have you and your leadership team buy our new book, Road to Flourishing: Eight Keys to Boost Employee Engagement and Well-Being. This is the only research-based book that shows you how to engage employees, build fantastic teams, cultivate life-giving work, attract and retain outstanding talent, and much more. To buy a copy for you and your team, go to www.roadtoflourishing.com. And when you buy a book, you'll receive a free copy of our Rewarding Compensation: FLOURISH Guide. Again, go to roadtoflourishing.com and buy a book for you and your team, and receive a free Rewarding Compensation: FLOURISH Guide.

And now back to today's special guest.

Michael: And so what's really maybe one area I want to talk about is was this notion of freedoms because it's really, it's a simple concept, but it's profound, right? And so I love the way Tim has done this, because when I first heard this and I applied it in my marriage and I applied it with my kids, it was some very understandable, intuitive anchors once you hear it, that you can easily live out.

So the way Tim has kind of talked about this notion of the freedoms that our heart longs for, there's four of them. One of them is the freedom to be different, right? And Tim alluded to this before, is when you go to work, you get all kinds of people. I mean, you've got the jerks, but you've got the strange, the weird, the bizarre, the quirky, the, you know, the oddities. And so grace, like, much like if you think about how God deals with us, is there's room for people to be different. He made us different, right? And so that's one of the first notions is when we go to work, if I'm serving other people, one of the ways I can serve them is to give them the freedom to be who they're made to be, to let them come out in their truest form.

Another one that is really a big deal in the workplace is you can grant people the freedom to make mistakes, because mistakes are made every day, and some of those mistakes can be costly. The problem is if you're at a company where you aspire to do something big or noble or audacious, people have to take risks. But if you don’t grant them the freedom to make mistakes as they take those risks, then what you get is you set the stage for mediocrity. And so that's a really important notion. And if you think about, how does God deal with us? I mean, we take risks all the time. And when we fail, that's His grace, that's His mercy, that's His forgiveness, right? And so that washes over us constantly, if you understand. And to Tim's point, most people don't understand that about God's grace.

Al: Yeah. Right.

Tim: Can I intervene here a little bit, though? because this one here, we go at it from two different angles on the freedom to make mistakes. And most mistakes people make, they never meant to make them. That wasn't their intention at all. It wasn't that they were trying to be devious or anything. They just screwed up. This is where grace comes to the rescue.

But then, there are some people who deliberately do things that are absolutely unacceptable at work. And there's nothing about grace that says that we don't necessarily have to stand on—we're not going to stand on their air hose. They might be correction on. They might even get fired. But most of the mistakes that people are so afraid to make at work is just trying anything or just getting it wrong or, you know, whatever. Grace, grace comes to the rescue.

And tell them about the other two, Michael.

Michael: Yes. So the other two, one is the freedom to be candid. And I think this is really important as a leader, because one of the things I've learned to do kind of my second time around—it’s, like, first 13 years in the workplace, that, you know, no, I'm the boss. You know, I'm going to kind of make the rules, and this is how it’s going to go. Second time around being, like, let me create an environment where people can have the freedom to be candid with each other and with me, because I make mistakes. I make a lot of mistakes, and sometimes I do things unwittingly that may hurt someone's feelings. I may be micro-managing somebody. I may have made a bad decision, whatever that may be. But I want to create an environment where people can come to me and say, “Hey, Michael, can I give you some advice? Can I share some feedback with you? You did something that I know you didn't mean it, but, man, you really hurt my feelings,” or “You really demotivated me,” or “Hey, there's a better way we can do this.” Imagine that environment, where people have that ability to be candid and open with each other.

And I like how Tim defines this as it's not just, you know, blunt, raw truth, right? Candor is this notion of it's honesty dipped in grace, right? And so it's I can be honest with you, but I want to, I have to be respectful. I have to be kind. I have to be, you know, honoring in how I give you that feedback and speak candidly with you.

And then, the fourth freedom is the freedom to be vulnerable. And this is a big deal. I mean, in my career, I can't tell you the number of times I've had people come to my office and say, “Hey, Michael, can I talk to you? I got a problem. My wife's leaving me. I've got a sick kid. I'm depressed.” I mean, because people are human, and work is a microcosm of humanity. And so if we can come at this with kind of a pastor's heart to say, you can be vulnerable, you can have an off moment, and do I create a safe place where that can happen? And it doesn't mean I write you off. If I go, “You're a sissy. I'm done with you. You got to be tougher. You got to be… You can't be real. You can't cry. You can't have problems,” but no, people bring all that to work. And so that's a really powerful thing, is if you create that environment where people can be different, be who they're designed to be, they can make mistakes, they can be honest and candid with you, they can be vulnerable. And imagine if you had that environment and you think about that in the context of the great resignation, how many of those people would have stayed if they just had that kind of an environment that they worked in?

Al: Well, Michael, I'll say, you may not be bold enough to say that your book is the antidote to the great resignation. But I've been bold enough to say I think that having a flourishing culture in the workplace is the antidote to the great resignation and to quiet quitting. And you're really speaking—I mean, this honesty dipped in grace in the workplace is so important. I love these four freedoms. We'll come back to them, I know.

And you know, in your book you talk about grace isn't just about being nice. I mean, this is really at a core here. Let's get into this conversation a little deeper because here at Best Christian Workplaces, one of the areas we train on is how to have healthy conflict in the workplace. You know, Christian workplaces are known as people just feel like they need to be nice, and so all of this unresolved conflict kind of gets pushed under the carpet, and then, it ultimately blows up. So workplaces where people have the freedom to voice differences can be energetic and innovative places. And your four freedoms fall into our driver called healthy communication. But, you know, how does your vision of a grace-based workplace deal with conflict and difficult conversations? Michael, you know, what do you think about grace and conflicts in the workplace?

Michael: Yeah, I'll start with a few thoughts. I know Tim has some really good thoughts to add to this as well. I mean, I think the first thing you have to understand is in the workplace there will be conflict. There needs to be conflict. I mean, there's great books about—you know, Crucial Conversations talks about there has to be those moments where you do hard things. Maybe it's you're dealing with a bully that has to be confronted. It may be that you have to terminate somebody. It may be that you have to just, like, broker a conversation or mediate a dispute between employees. I mean, there's so many things happening in the workplace. And I think oftentimes what happens is we kind of turned a blind eye to that and just let it happen, if I'm a leader, or if I'm a coworker. Or I do the other, is I may go way heavy handed, and I just try to shut it down or get it brushed under the rug. But really, what we talk about in this, whether it's in our book where we talk about dealing with difficult people, having hard conversations, it's this idea that as believers empowered by the Holy Spirit working through us, we should be the best people in the company doing hard things. We should be the ones to step into the gap when there's relational strife. We should be the ones to defend the vulnerable in the workplace. We should be the ones, right, that are basically being Jesus. To Tim's point, we're followers of Jesus in the workplace. And so if we just look at His life and model that, there's hard things that have to be done. The question is not, are you doing them? The question is, how do you do them? And that's really what we address in the book is you got to do hard things at work. But yet there’s a way you need to do those so that you get great outcomes that honors people and deals decisively with things that need to be dealt with.

I don’t know if Tim, if he has some thoughts.

Tim: Well, I'm glad you brought up the word nice, because we talk about this in the book. I think a reason a lot of Christians back away from grace as an active ingredient of their ongoing Christian life is that they think it means being a doormat, being pushed around, that there are no boundaries, that there are no consequences, that you don't stand up to people. But what they're doing is they're confusing grace with human nice, and human nice, when we use the word nice as a human word, it is not a synonym of grace. Now, grace can be nice, but sometimes the most gracious thing you can do for somebody is get in their face graciously, and say, “Enough of this.” Especially if you're in a position of leadership and there's somebody that's being heavy handed with people, you owe it to protect those people from the bully in the company thing and to stand up to that person, especially if you have authority to enforce it. But unfortunately, I think a lot of people think grace is, you know, just letting people get away with murder. And I can prove that's wrong simply by looking at Jesus and just saying, “Okay, is Jesus dealing with all of us in grace?” And the answer is yes. Did He throw the rulebook overboard? No. It's still right where it is. Did He erase any of the boundaries? No. They’re right where they always were. Are there now no longer any consequences for our folly? Of course, there are consequences. The Bible says, whom He loves, He disciplines. And so much like with a parent, we wouldn't be loving parents if we didn't correct our children when they're out of line. So when we talk about taking grace to work, it doesn't mean taking nice to work. It means taking something far more powerful and game changing and transforming, and also, something that I think really solidifies the core of your company and I think has a real impact on the bottom line, the way you treat your customers, the profit levels, all that stuff.

Al: Yeah. Yeah. That's the value chain, no question about it.

But now I want to take the conversation a little more directly here. So how do you balance a grace-filled workplace with the idea of performance-based evaluation? And Tim, you've kind of even kind of talked about this indirectly. But as a leader, you're making decisions about people's advancement. You're measuring their performance against standards. Michael, you know, you've been in the competitive workplace. You know, how does a leader or a frontline manager offer clarity on performance-based evaluations and also in the context of grace, offering grace to the person that they're evaluating? What's your thoughts on that?

Michael: Yeah. That's a great question, Al. And I think a lot of leaders, they mishandle this element of their job, and I think it's one of the most important things as Christians, because when I think about our role, one of the most powerful ways that we can serve and love others at work is to really give of ourselves to help bring out the best in them, right? That we're ultimately asked and entrusted by God to steward these people, and so we should be helping them become the very best version of themselves.

And so, you know, Tim and I talk in our book about this notion of this model we call WINS, saying everybody has weaknesses, interests, necessities, and strengths. And the way I approach somebody in those four areas is either going to suppress and bring out the worst in them, or in a best case, it actually can set them free and really bring out the best version of themselves. And so some leaders view performance management as a moment in time on the calendar when they have to do the administrative task of doing a review and giving a merit increase or not. And I really think about it as there should be this ongoing relationship with people where we're having constant conversations.

And I think about it as if I'm a coach, if I’m, let's say, Coach K for Duke, sometimes I'm coaching from the sideline. As the players run by, I'm talking to them. Other times, I see something that's a problem and I call a time out. Other times, I'm coaching in practice. And I think that's how we have to think about it as leaders and particularly as Christians, as we are in a relationship with people where we are committed to their needs and best interests. And so we should be having conversations on an ongoing basis, right? We should have an accurate picture or make sure they have an accurate picture of themselves. That's a very gracious and kind thing to do, because if they have blind spots and they don't see them, if they don't know how they're perceived, if they don't know how they're performing or not performing at work, what a horrible place to be, right? I want to know where I actually stand. We should help them see a more evolved picture of themselves. We should bring out the best in them, really create a pathway to their fullest potential.

And when I think about it as Christians, it's kind of like the idea of sanctification and how God deals with us is if I look at just from my relationship with Christ, I'm a mess, right? Sure, there's some good in me, but there's also, you know, this person who consistently stumbles and sins and struggles, but yet Christ deals with me in a very gracious way, convicting me through His Spirit. Much like me as a leader, I can help give people feedback to show them where they stand. But ultimately, the trajectory through my involvement in their life should be favorable. Much like my sanctification, I'm looking more like Christ. I won't look like Him until I go to meet Him in heaven. But that's how we should, as leaders, really think about it.

And so that would be my one big encouragement to your listeners is just know that's a precious and sacred role that you have to lead people. And one of the most important things you do is give them feedback. But there's a way you should do it that brings out the best in them.

Al: I love your point that one of the least gracious things we can do is lie to people about their performance, not being direct. I mean, in a loving way, but still being direct about, “This is not working. This needs to change,” whatever it is.

You know, Tim, I know you're just holding yourself back here.

Tim: No, no. This is great. He did so well. Look, Jesus said to them, whom much is given, much is required. And so I should not—I'm not doing anybody a favor promoting them or giving them an attaboy if they haven't earned it, or if I'm putting them in a position where now they're going to even fail even more, and they're going to let a lot of people down that are dependent on them. It's not good for everybody. It's not good for the company. It's not good for that person.

At the same time, though, we have a way of voicing whatever critique we're voicing in a way that could still build up and encourage and motivate. But, you know, Jesus—none of us have to earn Jesus’s love. It's just given to us. But just because He loves us doesn't mean, well, I'm going to give this responsibility and do this for…No, no. How do we get that? We show obedience. We show faithfulness. You know, all that stuff.

And the parable of the talents is a good example. He gave them so much to work with, but the guy that just buried it, He says, “I'm taking away what you have. I'm giving it to somebody else.” On his evaluation, Jesus was bluntly, graciously honest.

Al: You know, near the end of your book, you talk about the principles of equilibrium and margin, and these principles link grace at work with the grace in your personal life as well. And equilibrium is paying attention to priorities, and if we don’t prioritize important areas of our lives, then our workplace may be setting the priorities for us. You know, again, if we don't take control of our lives, somebody else will, and oftentimes our workplace does. So how can Christian leaders keep from getting tripped up in their priorities and margin? What are some practices that you see helping in this area over time? Tim, let's start with you this time.

Tim: Well, you know, when you opened up the podcast, you talked about how many times people create their priorities in a linear way with God first and then their marriage and their kids and so forth. And we address that in this chapter because that is not how to have equilibrium. The way to have equilibrium is God in my marriage, God in my kids, God in my health, God in my money, God in my work, God in my friend, that kind of thing. In other words, He's not a compartment of our life. And I think that was the word you used. He's our life. And when He is in His rightful position in our life—and that's called the driver's seat—when He's there, then we're more inclined to keep much more equilibrium. And we actually differentiated in the book between equilibrium and balance because balance is two offsetting things. Right? But that's not really what we're dealing with in our life.

We use the analogy is more like somebody’s flying a plane because there's, like, seven, eight major factors, laws of physics and weight and lift and speed and altitude, all this stuff that are having to be. And in our lives, if I'm coming to work, and I'm not paying attention to my health; if I'm bringing home a paycheck, and I'm bringing home a good paycheck, but I'm not handling my money wisely; if I'm the guy everybody loves at work but the dad no kid wants to have dinner with at home and no wife wants to go on vacation with, see, we’re out of whack. And I think that's where we come to the rescue, in John 1:14, it says that Jesus was filled with grace and truth. And we like the—we use those words together a lot. We want to be people who are guided by God's truth in everything we do, whether it's money or health or marriage or work or whatever, all the while tempered by His grace.

Michael: I think Tim nailed it. I think maybe just stir the pot a little is what if you don't? What if you don't keep things in equilibrium? What if you don't have things in balance? Well, I can tell you how that ended for me. It's kind of a, you know, a fiery crash. And so I think we all know, like, we hear the story of the person that failed at keeping those things in balance. But there's a really high price to pay if you don't. And so I think you're kind of playing with fire if you don't learn how to keep those things in equilibrium.

Al: Well, you know, Tim and Michael, we've learned so much from this. And, you know, I just go back. I think about your four things that people are looking for at work, you know, and how the pandemic has made things, things people really wrestle with, the fragility of life, the meaning of life, work relationships, quality of leaders. I mean, those were key. And also, the four dimensions: the freedom to be different, to make mistakes, to be vulnerable, to be candid, things that we call part of our healthy communication. And our Survey actually addresses to measure if that's capable or available in the workplace. And you know, I love the conversation that as Christians, we should be the best at work, the best to, you know, to be a witness, to be the best in the workplace. And to be honest as we're talking with others, but honest dipped with grace. And then how equilibrium is not balanced. That was really, really insightful. So thanks so much for your contributions.

How about one last thing that you haven't talked about? Michael, how about you?

Michael: You know, I think Jesus came to Earth to give us something that we flat out didn't deserve. Right? He gave us life eternal. And while we can't bring that, I can't give life eternal to somebody at work, what I can do is I can treat people around us at work the way God treated me. And if I can learn how to do that, we, in the process, draw closer to God. But we also give others around us a hope that they'll find what we found in salvation. And so just my encouragement to your listeners is, boy, just be thankful for that gift of salvation. But as Tim says, don't let it just sit there at the foot of the cross to pick up on your way out the door. Let that grace wash over you and bring that to work every day and treat others the way Christ treated you. And that will be make a radical difference in your workplace, and that's really the punch line. That's what you can get much more than the paycheck from work if you bring that to it.

Tim: Yeah, you know, we're living in a post-Christian era in our history. The values that were embraced by—you know, I grew up in a community where we had a Jewish family across the street, a Catholic family, a Muslim family down the road, but we all shared the same values. Well, those values are gone. And what the work arena is similar to now is what the first- and second-century Christians were living in when the gospel was first ignited. And think about this. When those first-century Christians, that's when the church grew the fastest is those first two centuries. Now, obviously, if it's going from zero to something, that's pretty fast anyway, but it really did grow fast. But think about this. It grew with the—but we had no church addresses back then. There were no seminaries. And get this. The Bible wasn't codified till the third century. They didn't even have the Scriptures like we do. And yet they grew the fastest. Well, what was going on? What had happened is God had got a hold of their heart with His grace, and they couldn't believe that someone would love them like that. And He just absolutely changed everything about how they saw themself, how they saw Him, and how they saw others. And they brought that right into the middle of that Roman Greco type of hedonistic, paganistic world. And they're the ones that, it says in the book of Acts, they turned the world upside down, and we have the chance to do that again. We can. And the work arena is the perfect place for us to go and just bring the love of Christ, the mercy, the grace, the forgiveness of Christ, to work with us, and watch what happens.

Al: Tim and Michael, I want to thank you for your contributions today. And also, I'd like to encourage our listeners to read the book, Grace at Work: The Secret to Getting More from Your Job Than a Paycheck. And the way you can find this book is to go to graceatworkbook.com. That’s graceatworkbook.com. Or go to Amazon or probably any place else books are found.

Michael: Yeah.

Al: So, yeah. But, you know, guys, most of all, I appreciate your commitment to helping people thrive in their faith life and their workplaces and to point others towards the abundant grace of God. And thanks so much for taking out your time and speaking into the lives of so many listeners.

Michael: You’re welcome.

Tim: Thank you, Al.

Outro: Thank you for joining us on the Flourishing Culture Podcast and for investing this time in your workplace culture. If there's a specific insight, story, or action step you've enjoyed, please share it with others so they can benefit, too. Please share this podcast with friends on social media, and show your support by rating, reviewing, and subscribing wherever you listen.

This program is copyrighted by the Best Christian Workplaces Institute. All rights reserved. Our social-media and marketing manager is Solape Osoba.

Remember, a healthy workplace culture drives greater impact and growth for your organization. We'll see you again soon on the Flourishing Culture Podcast.