Transcript: Leading Across Borders: How to Manage a Global Workplace Culture // George Greene IV, Water Mission

Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast

“Leading Across Borders: How to Manage a Global Workplace Culture “

March 18, 2024

George Greene IV

Intro: What are some practical steps that you can take to improve the health of your workplace culture? Well, today on the Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast, we'll focus on how to manage the workplace culture of a diversified international organization. Listen in and learn how you can lead a healthy workplace and sustain the vision of your work, with George Green IV, the CEO of Water Mission.

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. And I'm passionate about helping Christian leaders like you create engaged, flourishing workplaces.

I’m delighted to welcome George Greene IV to the podcast today. George is the president and CEO of Water Mission, which supplies sustainable safe-water systems to communities around the world.

Throughout our conversation, you'll hear George talk about how providing systems for clean water is a foundational building block of society and is missing in so many places, his initial experience receiving feedback from our Employee Engagement Survey and how it was a starting point for their road to flourishing, key steps to help improve the culture of their 130 U.S. staff and 700 staff in developing countries, two criteria for recruiting key leaders, and how they instill hope for the future as they engage their staff to make the world a better place.

I think you're going to love this interview with George Greene IV. 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. And now is 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 hello to our new listeners. Thanks for joining us as we honor your investment of time by creating valuable episodes like this.

And let me tell you a little bit more about George Greene IV. George Greene IV, or G4 as he's known, is the CEO and president of Water Mission. He's a licensed professional engineer and joined Water Mission in 2001 as a project engineer. His parents, Molly and George III, known as G3, started Water Mission in 2001, and he was deeply affected by time in Honduras in the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch in 1993. And they saw firsthand the need for sustainable water systems. They were operating an environmental engineering company in South Carolina at the time. From his original role as project engineer, George transitioned to vice president of international programs in 2010, and in this role, he developed and implemented comprehensive and sustainable safe-water projects in Afghanistan, Belize, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, and Indonesia, Kenya, Malawi, Pakistan, Peru, Sri Lanka, and Uganda. He's been all over the place. And he became president and chief operating officer in 2013. George is an active member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers; the American Society of Civil Engineers; Saint Andrew's Anglican Church; and the C12 Group, a network of Christian executives working together to integrate faith and business.

So, I know you'll gain a lot from my conversation with George Greene IV.

George, it’s great to have you on the podcast. I’m looking forward to our conversation today.

George Greene IV: Thank you, Al. Honored to be here and an opportunity to connect with you. And I know there's just some amazing groups that you guys are already connected with, so we're privileged to be part of the conversation.

Al: Well, George, really enjoyed being with you a couple of months ago. And let's start out of our conversation with the foundation of Water Mission, you know, the why. I was grateful to have visited your headquarters recently and learn more about your work, and I was quite impressed. Our listeners are smart people who are aware of the world around them, but they probably haven't spent much time thinking about safe, sustainable water systems, as you have, because it's just become kind of natural for us that, yeah, we have them. We don't need to even think about them. But tell us why it's so important for a community in Honduras or Kenya or Pakistan to have access to safe, sustainable water systems. What difference does access to safe water and sanitation make in the fabric of a local community? You know, can you give me an example, maybe give us an example of how you work and how the work of Water Mission makes a difference?

George: Sure, yeah. It’s kind of foundational in need from our perspective as we think about some of the basic building blocks for successful society. It's also something that it's a bit of a head scratcher because it's not something that we think about in this country or other developed countries, because we've had access to safe water, and we've had appropriate sanitation solutions for over 100 years in this country. And so it's an afterthought. And so as we think about when you don't have those things, which is essentially, that's our focus is resolving those issues, when you don't have them, the immediate thing that everyone can understand is if you're drinking contaminated water, you get sick, and there's a health implication. What you don't necessarily think about is, what are the things that are connected to not being healthy? And so, as you think about kids and kids that are growing up, you know, when they have a water-borne illness and they're sick, the things that are impacted are things like their ability to go to school, and so their education becomes impacted. As an adult, if you’re sick—we all know this. We get sick. We get colds. We get the flu from time to time—you can still have some level of productivity in your day-to-day activities, even when you're sick, but you're significantly limited compared to when you're feeling good and when you're feeling healthy. And so if you think about that from the perspective of you don't have safe water and you're always living with some level of disease in your life, you're not as effective. You just don't feel good. And if that goes away, then all of a sudden, yeah, I mean, you can immediately start to connect the dots that, you know, this has huge implications, and when you talk about being able to live a physically healthy life and being able to reclaim your time back for going to school. As an adult, if you're trying to work, you have the ability to work more and provide more for your family in terms of income. And so there's just all kinds of things that you can kind of take back to that comment that I made about it's foundational in terms of a building block for society. And especially, as we think about as a Christian ministry, the opportunity that we have to be able to come in and as we look at Jesus's ministry of ministering to people in both word and deed, the deed aspect of providing access to safe water, addressing the sanitation issue provides a tremendous platform for opening up the door to talk about, what does eternity look like then? Then, it’s all around building real strong relationships where you're coming in and you're showing someone that you care about them.

Al: Yeah. Yeah, love is at the core. I mean, if you're helping them with the basic need, I love what you're saying, the foundational building block of society. I mean, without it, people are sick. They're unable to really move forward. And, you know, just some of the things that you're doing is making a big difference.

Well, you know, let's talk a little bit about Water Mission. And, you know, you've been the president now for 10 years, and you've been working with Best Christian Workplaces, really, almost from the start of you being the president. So why did you start using our Engagement Survey, and what are some of the practical changes that you've made as a result? What areas did you and your team focus on to increase the health of your workplace? And you've made some pretty phenomenal changes and improvements to be as healthy as you are. So give us a little background.

George: So, Al, our story begins, as far as Water Mission goes, 22, 23 years ago, and literally, we started from nothing. And our roots go back to my parents selling their for-profit business because they felt God put a burden on their heart that they needed to do something about the global water crisis. So they sold a very successful business and used the proceeds to start Water Mission. And in 2001, we officially got started. And I say “we,” I was one of two employees, and then my parents were our first two volunteers and full time. I start there because, you know, day one, we didn't start with an HR department or thinking about even things like compensation and benefits, extensively. You know, we were just getting started, and there was very much a “pull yourselves up by your bootstraps and figure this out as you go.”

And so fast forward 10, 12 years, and we had grown significantly. We'd seen quite a bit of success and seeing the ministry grow and being able to meet needs. But at the same time, there were some issues that we knew we had issues, but it was a little bit hard to kind of put a finger on exactly what they were. We also knew that we had some things that were not right that were happening. From a personnel standpoint, there were some attitude-related issues that we knew, but I think we were maybe intentionally trying to look away from some of these things and to not address them.

And at the same time as we were trying to figure out, you know, what are the root causes of some of these things? I think that was at some point somebody actually brought to me the Best Christian Workplaces brochure for what had been developed with the Engagement Survey. And as I was looking through it, it became a fairly obvious answer to say, “Hey, this could be a really good tool for us to have a better understanding of what's going on within the ministry.”

And so we took the first Survey, I think it was back in, like, 2012 or so, or maybe a year or two after that, and it was an eye opener. I have no regrets, and I'm thrilled at where we are today. But like anything, when you first get started, it can be challenging. And I will say that the first Survey revealed in terms of the depth of the issues that we had, and as a Christian ministry, you know, you don't think about Christian ministries having toxic cultures. Or maybe some people do, but it's certainly not something that I was thinking about. And so, you know, coming out of that, the first Survey that just kind of gave a comprehensive review of where we were, and also, it's a touchpoint of everyone within the organization, which is a great engagement tool for people seeing that, you know, their feedback matters and that you're interested in that.

We've now, I think, taken the Survey five or six times as a part of the journey that we've been on, with the understanding that the Survey provides us a benchmark for our current state of health, and also provides insight into the areas where we're weakest and the greatest opportunities to build on. And so over the last 10 years, as we've engaged with you guys, we've been very intentional about circling back and taking the Survey again and then making changes within the ministry to do the best that we can to build a thriving culture.

And, you know, so we started out, our first score was a 3.61, and that's not a very good score. But our last go around, you know, five, six Surveys later—and we don't do it every year. We found that we're a little bit slower moving in some of these things, and so where we landed was to do the Survey every two years. And this last July we took it for most recently, and we landed with a 4.19. So, we've seen incremental progress over the years and recognize that it's a journey and we haven't reached the end goal or crossed the finish line, by any means, but still room for improvement. And also, assuming that we're able to continue to boost that score by building and growing a healthy culture, that it also becomes a regular part of our routine and rhythm to make sure that we don't start to slip or that we have issues.

Al: Yeah. Thanks, George. That's great feedback. And, you know, I do think, as you went back to the beginning, we started about the same time. BCW and Water Mission started about the same time. And you're George IV, and he's George III. But your dad and mom starting the mission. And gosh, to see how it's grown since then is just phenomenal. And as you say, you know, culture and improving the health of your culture has been a big help to that.

But, you know, your U.S.-based team has had a deep sense of alignment with your mission, people, you know, I mean, as I've met them and the Survey results say, “Yeah, absolutely. There's a deep sense of alignment.” So are there some practical steps that your leadership team has taken to make sure your vision is shared across all job functions? You know, how does the staff person in Charleston, at your headquarters, feel connected with what's going on around the world, in Africa, in Central and South America? Cary Humphries, our consultant, mentioned that you have a huddle, and that seems to be a positive experience to build community on your team. So give us some of the details, and particularly as you try to communicate across multiple countries, you know, the vision of Water Mission.

George: Well, first, you've got a great team that you've built over the years as well, and all the folks that we've engaged with have been topnotch and through the roof. And Cary's right there up there with everyone else, so we're privileged to have him as our point of contact.

You know, the interesting thing, when we did our first Survey, it's kind of funny. After we got the results back, we kind of sat around. Everyone was looking at each other, “Okay. What are we going to do now?” And we were fortunate to have some doors open with a number of different organizations. There's a ministry that's called Lifeshape that pours into ministries, with leadership-development tools. They brought in another group called Lead Like Jesus that was founded by Ken Blanchard, who is a household name in leadership development, and some of the tools and resources that came as a result of these groups just pouring into us with these tools.

I remember where we started. You know, when you start with a score as low as ours was, one of the things that I was really wanting to see was something that would engage all employees. And so where we started with that was actually taking some of the Lead Like Jesus material, and we took all staff through an exercise that they had developed that’s called The Encounter. And the idea with The Encounter is basically to reground everybody in purpose, and “Why are we here?” and “What's God called us to?” and this ability to kind of step back from, “Why are we bent out of shape about this? And why are we not able to see eye to eye on this?” and being able to reground in the things that we know we all can agree on and can align in. And it was a really powerful piece of just kind of regrounding essentially Water Mission as a Christian ministry in that we are at our foundation a Christian ministry, and as believers, that we all have a purpose that God put us here for and that we're living out that purpose and calling through the work of Water Mission.

With that, we have some best practices that had been established over the years, and specifically the one that you mentioned, we have a daily huddle. This actually predates the Best Christian Workplaces Survey. It goes back even further. It was actually tied to a time when we had a testing of our faith from a ministry standpoint, where we had a partner that wanted to provide funding for us, but, basically, was asking us to distance ourselves from the Christian-ministry side of who we are. And it was really, actually—it was a really challenging time.

I didn't necessarily know this at the time. My parents, when we first got started, were our first volunteers, but I didn't necessarily connect the dots on it in the early days, or maybe I did; I just chose to maybe have my own blinders on as they were also our only donors. And so over the years, as we tried to grow, the early years, we struggled to grow our income streams and to provide and to find additional support to grow the ministry.

And we were in a really hard point several years in when we had this offer of funding coming from a secular group that was also asking us to essentially distance ourselves from any kind of spoken-word-ministry aspect of who we were. When it was all said and done, we said no to that, and we said that Water Mission was created as a Christian ministry, and it's going to either succeed or it's going to fail as a Christian ministry, but we're going to be faithful.

And in attempts to make sure that our staff knew that and saw the importance of that, we established this huddle. And the huddle was starting every day with a time of devotion and prayer. And we did. We worked into it a little bit of a business aspect as well. It’s also an opportunity for being able to share some of the victories and exciting things that have happened throughout the ministry. And there's also a chance to share corporately prayer requests with folks. Since COVID—this used to all be done in person. Since COVID hit, it's now virtual. And earlier today I was on a Zoom call with about 110 people, and we passed the leadership of that throughout our staff to lead and to lead that devotion. And there's just an intentional time of making sure that we're pausing and and giving credit where it's due.

One of the other things that we also put in at that same time, as you think about your question around, how do we try to make sure that as a Christian ministry, that stays first and foremost, is an intentionality with our meetings to open and close all of our meetings in prayer.

So those are a couple of daily practices that we've instituted. And as we think about our global footprint, we've got about 130 staff in the United States. And then outside the U.S., we probably have another 700 people that are scattered through eight different countries where we have offices. And as we think about taking those things and having them as a global aspect, as we've grown, that's always been an intentional aspect and part of our growth. But we've also been limited in what we had resources to be able to do. And so even with what we started with Best Christian Workplaces, we started doing that Survey in the United States. And this last year, we're finally at a point where we said, “Hey, we're ready to actually take this international now and take the Survey into our country programs.”

And so I share that from a perspective of, hopefully, it's an encouragement to folks. You might not be able to do everything all at once, and sometimes these things take time. You have to take incremental bites of the elephant in order to eat the whole elephant, but that staying focused on the long-term destination and the things that you need to do, to be encouraged that you'll likely get there eventually.

Al: Yeah. And George, how long is that daily huddle each morning? Do you have a time frame?

George: Thirty minutes.

Al: Thirty minutes. Yeah. Right. So, that’s fantastic.

So, you've brought in some outside resources, in addition to BCWI, around your culture. And Lead Like Jesus, we have numbers of organizations that have worked with them. And yeah, they've been great. I know Ken and the Lead Like Jesus team. And Lifeshape, and learning and development. That's out of near Atlanta, right? That's a Chick-Fil-A resource. And as they say, it's available for Christian ministry. So, leaders, if you don't know about LifeShape, check into it.

You've mentioned how you've grown internationally, 700 people outside the U.S. So, this year you just started Surveying. You mentioned that the international staff, in addition to your U.S.-based team. So how are you integrating that learning into your international team? What are some of the challenges of integrating the ideas of workplace health and employee engagement across the different locations, different continents, different cultures, and different work situations?

George: Well, you know, the first thing when we went international with the Survey, the first thing that I did was I had a round up with our global leaders, and I wanted to try to encourage them for where we were headed, because a lot of times, as you think about what it takes to make things better, sometimes it gets harder before it gets better. But when you look at the overall effort that's required, it's well worth the effort. And it's, I would say, it's less effort to go in the right direction than to resist it, if you add it all up when it's all said and done.

But yeah, so the first go-round with our global leaders was just to encourage them. And you know, in some ways, we were privileged to have already gone down this path and have had multiple Surveys and to see, you know, how do we take this information and put it into practice? How do we see improvement? And over the years, you know, we had years where we improved, and we had a year or maybe two where we backtracked, and understanding what the reasons were behind that. And how do you grow from those kinds of things?

And so, I share all that because it was a lot easier to go international for the first time. As hard as it is to do anything for the first time, it was a lot easier, given that we had this experience already under our belt, to be able to go and do that.

And the first go-round with the results coming out of our programs really surprised me. I was actually expecting that across the board that all of our programs were going to have kind of a similar starting point to where we were, which was not a good spot initially. And I share that, and while our initial score was bad, we still had some amazing projects and amazing work going on, and there was incredible ministry work going on as well. And so I don't want people to, you know, think that there's not productive and important things that are happening as a result. But as we think about the potential for improvement and the upside, there's a lot that can be done on that front.

And so internationally, what was really encouraging was we were kind of all over the board. We did have some scores that showed that there was a need for significant investment and improvement. But then we also had some programs that actually outperformed Charleston and our score here in the U.S. And so, it was an encouraging kind of first step as we think about international. And it also is tied to this idea of we are a global ministry, but we haven't been able to necessarily do all the things that are necessary to really be a global ministry. Going global and into our programs with Best Christian Workplaces Survey for the first time we saw as a really important thing that we needed to continue to build out as we think about, you know, how do we, as a global ministry, be intentional about making sure that we're creating a best Christian workplace for people to grow and thrive and work on a global level?

Al: Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic.

You know, one of the things, George, I was impressed with was your focus as a mission on being an engineering mission. Tell us a little bit about that, because I think it plays into kind of your approach here to international.

George: So, we do describe ourselves as a Christian engineering charity, and our focus is water and sanitation needs in developing countries. We also work in disaster situations. And then, somewhere in between developing-country work and disaster situations, we also do a lot of work with refugees, which can be a hybrid of those two.

And with that opening kind of line as a Christian engineering charity, those three key words took us a number of years to settle on, first and foremost, starting out with Christian because we want to make sure people know that we’re a Christian ministry, first and foremost, that we believe God put us here for a purpose, and we're living out that purpose in the work that's taking place through Water Mission.

Engineering, we joke, is the somewhat, maybe more unnerving word there that makes people nervous to talk about. But as we think about the approach that we've taken with Water Mission, my parents’ for-profit company was an analytical laboratory and an engineering firm, and so it's a world that we kind of came from already. And that business that they sold to start Water Mission is one that I grew up in, working in, and is a part of. And so as we got into looking at water needs in developing countries, it was a bit of an eye opener for us because as you think about how water projects happen in a country like the United States, it's heavily regulated. You've got the Environmental Protection Agency that makes sure that safe water continues to flow. You've got building inspectors that make sure that construction quality is what it should be, and that things are being built according to code to be able to last. You have engineers that are working in a highly regulated environment where if you want to design something and sign off on a design, you have to be licensed. In order to get that license, it’s a very regulated and it's a hard thing to go and do, which is certainly achievable, but it's a result of proving that you know your stuff as an engineer.

And so, as we look at taking that kind of mindset around, ultimately, how do we make sure that the end deliverable with a water project is delivering safe water, that there's a lot of that that gets kind of left by the wayside, in general, when you go into developing countries, which for a large part is a free-for-all with no regulation. And then on top of that, as a charity, charities don't have the same level of accountability as for-profit companies. So people that pay for the work that gets done by charities are not the people that receive it. And so there are all these kind of areas where you could have major issues and things go wrong. And so for us, we saw it was really important that we double down on that engineering aspect of who we are to make sure that we were holding ourselves accountable with kind of an internal regulation of how we do the work and where we're working.

And so as we think about our global staff, starting out in Charleston, I think we have 15 licensed professional engineers that are on staff here in the United States. And our base of operations is Charleston, South Carolina. The interesting thing, we're actually one of the largest engineering firms in Charleston, which is a decent-sized city. All of our focus is outside of the United States with the work that we do. And then with the 700 staff outside of the U.S., there's certainly a number of technical people and engineers that are a part of that as well.

But really, building out this kind of tried-and-true approach that is proven, as we started out this conversation, we've had access to safe water in this country for over 100 years. So we know that this is something that can be solved, and it can be done. Something can be done about it. And we also have a model for it that we can replicate. I like to make sure people realize we're really not innovative with what we're doing at Water Mission. We're taking things that have already been developed, and we're saying we need to stick with these and the work that's taking place. If anything, maybe we're innovatively stubborn in seeing this. We got to stick with what's been proven. It's been a real labor of love, and it's been, also, very rewarding to be a part of it as well over the years. And then, obviously, as we think about, how do we make sure that we have a place where people can grow and thrive? the tool that you guys offer with being able to measure that and then be able to do something about it is really important.

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

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Al: Welcome back to my conversation with George Greene IV.

Well, I really appreciate, kind of my point in asking you that was because taking an engineering approach, one of the first things you do when you're in a situation is actually measure the quality of the water that you're working with so that you can, then, measure the improvement of it, and then you're using the model that you've got to actually implement and improve that situation. I appreciate that. That's exactly, as you talk about building and growing internationally, you're using that approach with your culture. So that's fantastic.

You know, another thing that I just love to see is that your ministry’s experienced an average annual growth rate of more than 20% over the last seven years. And it's great to see how God is using your faithful stewardship to expand your reach. And as your organization's grown into new countries and communities, what are you looking for as you look to hire country leaders or regional leaders to keep your projects excellent, as you described, and sustainable? So what are the attributes that you look for in a great field leader, you know, and how do you hire and train and keep leaders in the various regions so that you can grow and flourish?

George: That’s a fairly challenging question to answer, you know. Al, I’ll just do the best that I can. I will say, when we started down this path, and it's interesting because when I think about the journey that we've been on to be intentional about building out a healthy culture, it really did start with that first Survey that we took with you guys. And then, as the issues were raised and we had a chance to think about, how do we deal with these things? the partners that have come along the way and poured into us, one of the things that came out of some of these partners pouring into us was a really intentional recruitment process. And that recruitment process is focused on understanding the individual's character that we're potentially talking to about coming on and joining our team, and how important it is for character. You know, that's not something that you can train; that's something that they come with.

And one of the visuals that I've been presented with to help kind of think about how important character is to leadership was presenting the view of an iceberg. And as we think about an iceberg, in general, you only see 10% of it; 90% of it is submerged, and 10% is what you see. And as we think about what's important for leaders and for leaders to be solid leaders, if the iceberg represents leadership, 10% that you see is skills; 90% of what's most important is tied to character. And so, you know, that's an area that we've just gone doubled down on in our recruitment process as we look at skills are certainly important, but skills can be trained.

The other thing, too, in today's age is also, you know, we’re a Christian ministry, and so as we look at getting people or bringing people on board, there's an expectation that there's a faith alignment. And that's not necessarily as straightforward understanding that as people might think. And so we've been very intentional about building out, as a part of our recruiting process, a deep dive into understanding and making sure that there is a solid faith alignment with individuals.

Those kind of two key things are at the top of the list, as we think about who we can bring on board and set up for success within the ministry.

Al: Yeah. That's great, George. Yeah. Fantastic.

You know, one of the things at its core to the foundation of Water Mission is that you collaborate with other organizations that you work with as you work in safe, sustainable water systems. And what have you learned from other organizations to further clean water? And what are some of the challenges in this kind of collaboration? And I ask that only because I believe that more and more Christian ministries should be looking at collaborating with others to accomplish what needs to be accomplished. So what have you learned as you've worked with other organizations?

George: Yeah. It's interesting. Early on, we had intentional initiatives and efforts for trying to generate collaboration with partners. And one of the ways that we did that in the early days and continue to do it is we were fortunate to have established some relationships with corporations that make products that are needed for water projects. So things like pumps or solar panels or generators or pipes and valves and fittings, things like that. And as we formed relationships with these companies, the relationship started around access to their products, and what we asked them for was ideally give us access to their products at cost or something that couldn't be touched by going out into the open market. And we were fortunate to establish a number of relationships where those kinds of things kind of fell into place. And as we started thinking about, there are other groups that are out there doing water projects, why wouldn't we want to offer the ability to pass along some of these discounts so that they can save money and their resources could go further as well? And we saw that was an opportunity to start a conversation where I wouldn't say that there's necessarily an intentional effort to not collaborate with nonprofits; I think it’s just hard. And, you know, people don't have resources to put towards things. People are busy. And as you think about it, it takes effort and it consumes resources to collaborate. And so you really have to be committed to it to actually see it.

Now, having said that, the value in that and what you get out of it is something that we certainly have benefited from. And while we've poured into others, the impact of them pouring into us has been significant as well, that have turned into really strong partnerships that have resulted in the ability to have collaborative efforts where we know people that are—we might have partners that are going into the same disaster zone, and immediately we have a relationship, and we have the ability to hit the ground running, as we talk about coordinated efforts, relief efforts, and responses.

I know that we have benefited from other ministries that have developed church-engagement strategies that instead of starting from scratch and having to recreate the wheel, we have the ability to pull some of these things that are—just pull them off the shelf and say, “Hey, this is a really well-thought-out and well-developed model, and it's something that we can use, and we think it's one of the best practices that's out there.” And so there's no question that we've had an intentional push to try to collaborate and see how we can help others. And then, we also see that come full circle where we benefit from it as well.

As you think about all those other things I said about just the working environment for charities and then on top of that the lack of collaboration, that's not really an intentional thing, but it's just the way that it's structured. It’s not positive, and there's definitely a need for an intentional push towards collaboration. The heart of it, where I would see the ability to see that fast tracked and move forward fastest, it would ultimately be if it was driven by donors. And, you know, specifically the model that comes to mind, looking at something like that is the IllumiNation model, as we think about the collaboration that's taking place within Bible translating. That's a great one that we've referenced and look to replicate as we look at the WASH sector. But there's significant value in that. At the same time, there's certainly a significant hurdle that has to be overcome in order to see that come to fruition.

Al: You know, George, Water Mission is growing, and with system after system, you're having an impact on the quality of life in communities around the world. And the problem of sustainable, clean water just can seem overwhelming. And I remember you sharing with me refugee camp in Africa, where there's, like, 150,000 people that live in this refugee camp, and that I was amazed you were saying that the average amount of time people spend in these refugee camps are 20 years. And then, okay, so how? These camps kind of happen very quickly. They, you know, water, sanitation. I mean, those are just, as you said, foundational things that are hard to create. So you've got both challenges; you've got a lot of victories. How do you remain hopeful, and how do you shepherd your staff to keep them focused on working on solutions, even in challenging situations that you face?

George: You know, at the highest level, our hope is not in this world. And as we look at the brokenness that's all around us, if we didn’t have that eternal perspective and eternal hope, I would say that there isn't a good answer to the question that you're posing. And so it's an interesting dynamic around knowing that we're not in control, but there is an expectation for us to be trying to make this world a better place while we're here. And so, you know, there's a constant balance around making sure that people are growing in their faith with our staff. And some of the staff-development initiatives that we have in place, there's a focus on making sure that there's fellowship as a part of the teamwork that takes place and encouraging each other, and the reminder, ultimately, that we're not the ones that are in control, and where our hope really is. Because yeah, there's some things that are just, that are not possible to understand why they're happening.

At the same time, as we look at the hurt and the brokenness in the world, just reminded of, you know, as we think about crying out to God, “Why is this happening, and why don't You do something about it?” there's a great song. It says, “I did do something about it. I created you.” So as we think about that and take it to heart, those are key things. But everybody needs encouragement, and it's important to remember to encourage each other.

One of the programs that we've gone through that came from Lifeshape was, and it was a question that was posed that was, how do you know if somebody needs encouraging? And the answer is, if they're breathing. So yeah, you know, these are important things. As believers, we're here to lift each other up and carry each other's burdens and to encourage each other.

Al: Yeah. Well. Thanks, George. You know, this has been such a great conversation. We've learned so much.

Let me ask you one, just to give our audience a sense, how many people are you serving, would you say, with clean water and sanitation these days?

George: So it’s a bit of a tough number to pin down. We estimate in the 22 years that we've been around, 23 years we've been around, that we've touched the lives of over 8 million people. Last year, we turned on safe water for the first time to about 140,000 people. Our goal this year is somewhere around 350,000, I believe. Those are community-development projects. We're also responding to pretty much every major disaster. And last year, I think in disaster relief, we touched the lives of about 260,000 people. So they're substantial numbers. And it's humbling for me to think about and rewarding at the same time that we've been able to be a part of this journey and be a part of this ministry that 22, 23 years ago, we started with very feeble and meager beginnings. And to think about what we get to be a part of today, it's pretty wild.

And so we're grateful for you guys and helping us be a better ministry, and also look at you guys as a key long-term partner as well. So, grateful for all that you do, and not only what you pour into us, but into the services that you offer in general.

Al: Yeah.

Well, George, we've learned so much from our conversation. We love the, even the beginning that water, safe water, clean water is a foundational building block, and, you know, if people don't have good, clean water, they'll get sick. So they have disease, and they do not have the opportunity to flourish. But then, you talked about your BCW story, and it just warms my heart to hear the progress that you've made. There's no question about that. So I encourage all leaders to just reflect on that and how from an engineering standpoint, how measuring the health of your culture is a good first step, then acting on it. And you described, you know, well, the way you’ve acted on it, the way you've actually looked to other resources to help, from Lifeshape, Lead Like Jesus, how you've built things like a daily huddle; and meetings, opening and closing in prayer; and how you've grown internationally, and the impact of how you've begun to think about culture of your international employees and building even a healthier culture for them, with 700 outside the United States. And then, your wisdom, clear wisdom on the intentional recruitment process for your key leaders, focusing on character first. I love your analogy of the iceberg and how, yeah, 10% is what you see, and that's kind of comparable to skills, and 90% is what you don't see, and that's the character of the person underneath it all. And how you've really built into a deep dive into faith alignment in that interviewing process. And then, of course, the importance of collaboration with other organizations as you've built Water Mission over time. And finally, we all do have hope for the future, and the way you encourage that in your staff by helping your staff grow in their faith, continuing to build in situations for fellowship, and then focusing, again, over and over again in the hope that we have in Jesus And so I think that's great advice for us to go forward.

Let me ask you, George, how about one more thing that you'd like to add that we haven't talked about?

George: You know, there have been a handful of just sayings over the years, things that I've found helpful, and words of wisdom that have been poured into me when we've been faced with challenging situations and decisions that have been made. And a couple of them that come to mind is do the right thing even when no one's looking, because you don't know when someone is looking. And then another one is when in doubt, tell the truth, and the follow up to that is because then you don't have to remember what you said. And, you know, as you think about those things and how important they are, one, for our individual lives, but then, collectively for the body of believers, that those are things that, you know, they're good for our own self-preservation, but they're also the expectation for how we're supposed to live our lives. And we've just been incredibly blessed to have people come around us and pour into us. And all those nice things that you said make us sound like we're a lot better than we actually are. We still make a lot of mistakes, and we still got a lot to learn, but we recognize it's a journey, and we're running hard to pursue our purpose.

Al: Well, what you've just said, those two things kind of define integrity, don't they? So having a focus on integrity and wholeness from a Christian perspective, I think that's great advice.

Well, George, thanks so much for your contribution today. And most of all, I appreciate your commitment to excellence and faithful stewardship as you serve people around the world with the access to clean water. That’s so fantastic. So, thanks for taking your time out today and speaking into the lives of so many listeners.

George: Thank you, Al. It’s an honor to be included. And I hope that some of what I say might be an encouragement to others as they're pursuing their calling and God-given purpose, as far.

Al: Yeah. I know it has been. Thank you.

Thank you so much for listening to my conversation with George Greene IV. And I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

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

If you have any suggestions for me about our podcast or have any questions on flourishing workplace cultures, please email me, al@workplaces.org.

And leaders, if you want to improve your leadership and expand your organization's effect for good, and see greater faithfulness in our broader culture, help us to achieve our goal to see more flourishing Christian-led workplaces. To help, please share this podcast with another leader or launch a project in your own organization to discover and improve the health of your workplace culture. If you're interested in learning more, 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: Join me next week as we talk with Steven Mason, the president of LeTourneau University, as he describes the transition of their workplace culture from one that was on the journey to health to now being healthy.