Transcript: Faith Over Fear: Leading Your Organization Through Challenges // Paul Richardson and Andrew Dorricott, Bible League Canada

The Flourishing Culture Podcast Series

“Faith Over Fear: Leading Your Organization Through Challenges“

June 8, 2020

Paul Richardson and Andrew Dorricott

Intro: Could you use some encouragement and practical ideas to improve your workplace culture, given the recent challenges we face? BCWI’s Canadian director, Barry Slauenwhite, leads a tremendous discussion with two Bible League Canada leaders who offer practical tips that you can implement today.

Al Lopus: Welcome to another episode of the Flourishing Culture Podcast, where our goal is to equip and inspire you to build a flourishing workplace. As we all face today's leadership challenges as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, we believe having a healthy culture is more important now than ever before. We are here to help you eliminate toxicity, improve your employees’ engagement, speed up new innovation, and grow your organization's impact.

And before we meet our guest today, I urge you to subscribe to this podcast. As a result, you’ll receive our action guide. It’s our gift to help you lead your organization’s culture to the next level. To subscribe, simply go to bcwinstitute.org/podcast. Hit the Subscribe button, and receive our free action guide.

If you can share this podcast with others, and rate it, it would mean a lot to me. Thank you.

And now, let's meet today's special guest.

Barry Slauenwhite: Hi, there. I’m Barry Slauenwhite, BCWI’s regional director for Canada, sitting in for Al Lopus today, and I’m glad to welcome in two very special guests from Bible League Canada: CEO/President Paul Richardson, and marketing director Andrew Dorricott. Paul and Andrew, welcome to the Flourishing Culture Podcast.

Paul Richardson: Thank you. It really is our joy to participate.

Andrew Dorricott: Yeah. Thank you. Happy to be here.

Barry: And I'm glad to be speaking to some fellow Canadians. We speak the same language, so together, maybe we should say that one universal word that Canadians are always saying out loud, and it starts with S. It's the word sorry.

Paul: Sorry.

Andrew: Sorry.

Barry: We are known for that. We apologize for everything here.

But first, I need to simply ask you guys, how are you doing in the midst of this new world that’s been turned upside down by this crazy pandemic? What’s it like for you guys at Bible League Canada?

Paul:  Well, if you take a look at circumstances, you can find things that are greatly encouraging, and if you look hard enough, you can find things that aren't so encouraging. And we have a wide variety of both of those things. For one, we have a chain of thrift stores that we've seen a sudden loss of expected revenue from that partnership, as all those stores have had to close, to our owners to help make up that loss of more than 50 percent of our revenue for ministry programs, and Canadians have responded. It's remarkable. So we're encouraged about that.

Our staff have risen to the challenge, from adjusting to their work environments, meetings are being held virtually now, and we're really stepping up our communication with each other. In fact, our team has really adapted quite quickly, and so we're encouraged about that as well.

And our partnerships, in more than 40 nations, are responding to this crisis and to government restrictions with faith and energy, creativity and innovation. So if we look at all of these things, we can have our eye to things are very encouraging. And this is where we're consciously choosing to look.

Andrew: Yeah. And it’s been an adjustment on a lot of levels. As a leadership team, we made the decision right away to touch base and connect daily with each other. And out of that as well, Paul, as leader of the organization, has taken the step to communicate with all staff every day to keep everyone updated as much as possible and to reinforce a calm and steady and faithful spirit to all that we're trying to do through these times, because uncertainty can breed fear, and we've worked hard to get in front of that and choose faith over fear and communicate faith over fear as well.

And we've taken the verse from First Timothy 1 verse 7 to heart, which says God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. We've acknowledged God's power through all of this, that He's in control, and we encourage each other with that regularly. And we've been committed to acting in a way that shows love for Him, first and foremost, and also love for our partners and our donors and for our community as well, trying to be good citizens through all the changes that COVID-19 has brought, as well as making sound decisions rather than simply reactive ones. And I think that we've come through this so far, to date, very strong because of this approach.

Barry: Wow. Sounds like a good book. I like the concept of faith over fear. Wow. That really speaks to me and I'm sure a lot of our listeners today.

As we go back at your recent history, as well as living through this current global pandemic, Bible League Canada has had to face its own critical moments inside your organization, where not too many years ago you only had 50 percent of your employees that were fully engaged. Then came this transformation where today almost 86 percent of your employees are fully engaged at work. That's incredible. And more incredible, you have no disengaged employees, over the last two surveys. Your turnover, as a result of whatever you're doing there, your turnover reduced from 17 percent to zero. And I've got to ask you the question, because everyone listening is wanting to know, what happened? Tell us this amazing story.

Paul: Well, thank you, Barry. There were a lot of factors in play then and now that can help understand this. At that point, we had just moved facilities from one location to our current location, and that process was actually quite disruptive. However, we consciously chose, with that new location, that we wanted to pursue excellence in every way. So part of that was reflected in simply how we designed our new facilities, and part of it was reflected in our common determination to intentionally increase collaboration amongst our teams, we intentionally increased collaboration with regard to decision making, we increased transparency and communication across all levels, and we intentionally set up the climate to listen to suggestions and evaluating them seriously to make good changes.

Barry: Wow. Andrew, anything you want to add to that?

Andrew: I think that what has really happened here in this level of engagement is that the whole staff has really caught the spirit of what Paul illustrates in his brief explanation of the history. And staff has seen the commitment right from the top to creating the right culture, and they've taken it and just really run with it in their own ways to create something that's comprehensive and pervasive across the organization.

Barry: Yeah, absolutely. I'm intrigued with the physical move and the deliberate strategic nature of the decisions you made. Now, not everybody, obviously, is able to physically move their office to try to improve culture, but I'm sure there's lots to learn from that and the whole concept of intentionality. I really commend you on that.

So, practically speaking, what does a flourishing workplace feel like at Bible League Canada, and why does a healthy culture matter so much?

Andrew: Well, I think that we're actually in the midst of a scenario right now with COVID-19 and the response to it that proves the value of a healthy culture. Our team is responding to the many challenges, big and small, in really great ways. There's a spirit of togetherness and a willingness to help out in any way, even across our own individual roles and those lines that we draw for functional purposes. People are just wanting to help out wherever we can. And beyond even this current scenario, we've seen that whatever the challenge is, we're ready to face it together, because everyone is really centered and committed around the same outcome. We all want the same thing, and that is to see all people everywhere transformed by the living word of God. So there’s a level of trust with each other that comes through, even when it's tested as it is now, even especially when it's tested as it is now. And this means that the work that we're involved in continues at a high level.

Paul: I agree. And while we don't have access to our building right now, we've heard many times from people who come into the building for a variety of reasons that they say they actually have felt uplifted simply by being in the environment. They can tell something is special with the ministry and the group of people who are so committed to it. And so ultimately, we unquestionably and unapologetically believe that if you treat people the right way, then we all are better together. We get more out of each other. Not only will we get the most out of them, but each person will also feel fulfilled, and if we want our organization to flourish, a healthy culture is a must. So this family atmosphere, this feel, this part where we're all willing to chip in because we all deeply and sincerely care for each other and we're committed to each other.

Barry: Wow. Well, you know, you've got me right in the heart, you guys. You got me right in the heart. Treat people the right way. And not because you want to take advantage of them or use them to your ends, but because they're people, right? They deserve to be treated in the way that God would treat them.

Paul: I know at some point in the future, I am going to stand before our heavenly father and give an account for how we treat His children, and so I want to be the most honorable that I can, and our whole team is desiring this as well, to treat each other, knowing that we treat them the way we want to be treated, but also that we’ll give an account at some point to our Heavenly Father that cares deeply about His children.

Barry: Yeah. I want to call out to every leader listening to this podcast to take those words to heart. They are powerful, powerful sentiments. And I am not surprised by the score you're getting on your Best Christian Workplace surveys.

I know you did a podcast with us a few years back, and I think it was after your second survey, about the work you did between the first survey and the second survey. And we were really impressed with the way you intentionally applied the data that you received. Now, I insert there that some people, some groups that do our survey, they take all this data, and it's just like a painting you stick up on the wall and then you leave the room. But you guys took this data, and you actually did something with us. So give us a quick summary of your follow-up process after your first survey.

Paul: After we engaged in the survey that first time, the leadership team was very eager to receive the data and use it as a benchmark for the future. We don’t do this as an exercise to pass time. We truly wanted to aim towards excellence in how we are functioning as a culture. So we received those results, and your team, Barry, walked us through them, helped us understand the outcomes, as well as helped us create the path where we could begin next steps, and we identified the top-three questions and the bottom-three questions. We set up and engaged focus groups who helped us determine our action plans. And there were 22 action items that came out of that initial round. And as a leadership team and as an entire team, we embraced them all. There was this commitment by everyone to improve. And we wanted to make the kind of culture that we all wanted to work in. And then we were very, very diligent in documenting and communicating the action plan and communicating the progress on each of those items in the action plan.

Barry: Mm, mm, mm. That's pretty impressive. Andrew, anything from your corner?

Andrew: I think where Paul just finished off there about communicating the action plan and the progress is something that is so critical as well. There's a lot of work that happens by a lot of people in the intentionality. But then when we're able to communicate that and bring everybody into the process, even if their involvement is perhaps less than some others, the communication is what bridges that gap. And the intentionality around that and the regularity and frequency with that communication has really elevated it in everybody's thinking.

Paul: And Andrew has served as our champion, our Best Christian Workplace Institute champion, on our team, and so he’s the one that ensures that it's brought to the forefront every staff meeting and regularly on a frequent basis. He's done really an exceptional job.

Barry: That’s such a key, isn't it, having a champion, because everybody’s busy, the leadership teams are busy, and to do a survey and to follow up on it is a task. It takes a lot of commitment. So having a champion to do that’s fantastic.

So then, you conducted another Best Christian Workplace survey again earlier this year, and you saw continued improvement. In fact, you now have a workplace culture. And listen to this—I am so excited to say this about a Canadian ministry—your workplace culture is in the top 10 percent of all parachurch organizations that we survey, and we survey a lot of them around the world. Tell us a bit about the post-survey process on your second survey cycle.

Andrew: Well, first of all, Barry, the growth in our survey scores is most definitely an encouragement to the whole team, and it actually serves to reinforce what we already kind of feel and know to be true about our culture. And so it's just another proof point for us and an encouragement to us. So it's exciting when we get to receive the score after subsequent surveys. But the score alone never really was the focus and still it isn't the focus.

Barry: Exactly. I commend you for that.

Andrew: And so the biggest result from the survey isn't necessarily the score result, but it's that the survey allows us to zero in on how to make our strengths stronger and how to address areas that are impacting staff and need to be better and need to be shored up or better resourced or better explained, whatever the issue may be. So the survey helps us to highlight those themes, and our process afterwards of our staff focus groups and the tracking document that allows us to see the action items, it allows us to really highlight those themes, to fill out the information, to take action steps to really see these things improve to where we want them to be. And again, not for a score, but because it puts us in a place where we want to be working and serving together. So that really is what makes a difference is taking the time with those results afterwards.

And so our intention after this most-recent survey is still to take that same approach. So we're not taking our foot off the gas pedal, and we're still going to have an internal focus group or a task force of some sort. We're putting it off slightly because of COVID-19 right now, and we have a few pressing priorities, as do many of the listeners, I imagine, right now do. And so we're taking the focus off the focus group right now, but we will have it at a later date. But we're not taking our focus or the intentionality off of the results and digging into the results at a deeper level to try to understand what our team is saying to us through the survey.

Barry: Awesome. That's so encouraging. Wow. I'm finding myself wanting to just take hours here with you guys, but I realize we're on a time slot, so let me move on here. And as we've looked over the data, one of the most significant improvements has been in the FLOURISH driver we call outstanding talent. So two of the areas of dramatic change is your ability to retain highly capable staff and reward top performers. We also noticed in your survey that you've reduced your voluntary turnover from, as I said earlier, 17 percent annually four years ago to zero percent this year. How are you retaining and how are you rewarding differently than you were four years ago?

Paul: We’re always on a journey of understanding of what matters to our team, and we're getting better at it, and yet, it always is changing. And even more so, now in COVID-19, it's a dramatic change actually in the environment. But we believe that rewarding top performers comes in many forms, not just in the form of remuneration or bonuses, but it's as much about recognition for a job well done as it is about the financial side of things. And recognition can be a public comment about the great work someone has done. It can be more intentional and specific feedback between a supervisor and a direct report, so we’re reworking our results management and progress review. It can also be in the form of responsibility and opportunity to take the lead or contribute on different projects, and so we've got a really sharp leadership team now, and more recently, many of the people who advanced to that leadership team are coming from internal. They've really developed in a way that they need to have a greater responsibility and opportunity to take a lead. We have an all-staff huddle every day, and we give opportunity for team members to call out things that have been excellent over the past day, over the past week. We call it our Philippians 4:8 moment, that says, finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about these things. So we give opportunities for people to call this out in our all-staff meetings.

Barry: Well, Andrew.

Andrew: Yeah. We want to make this place a place where we want to work, first and foremost, and also where we want our friends to work as well. We want them to come alongside us, and we're even seeing some of that as well, that response from staff, that we're creating a place where we want to be. And it even goes back to what Paul mentioned earlier about treating people right. And it's one of the most contagious things you can do is treat people right, and that starts to trickle down as well, and that creates this environment where we all want to be. And so that goes, obviously, a long, long way in terms of retention and reducing that voluntary turnover. It's just creating that right place where people want to serve together.

Barry: I love it. I love it. We talk now about the driver that's improved the most significantly. As I look at your data, I see sustainable strategy as being your strongest driver of the eight drivers in our FLOURISH model. So obviously, your team feels very strongly that you've got an effective strategy with high-quality programs and a clear consensus on the goals. I'm really curious as to how you've developed and how you've communicated your strategy. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Andrew: Sure. Well, we engage in a strategic-planning process every year, and not that all strategy discussion and everything is confined to this period of time, but this is certainly the most concentrated time. And all staff members are involved in this strategic planning. It's not something that's reserved simply for the leadership team or for a certain set of leaders. It's for everybody. Now, the leadership team starts by setting the parameters for this strategic plan that we're going to embark on. And then all teams, individual teams, and all staff members are involved in shaping that within those parameters. And there's even great collaboration across teams as well.

So, for instance, my role is the marketing director. And when we have our team time to really dig in and we spend a number of days just looking at what do we want our strategic direction to be over the next year or year to two years? We had other people coming in and people who may have a particular role or adjacent role to what we're trying to do and maybe people who just feel like they want to hear even what's going on, and that allows them opportunity to speak into it, what we're thinking and what our conversations are. So there's a real spirit of collaboration through this whole process, from the leadership team all the way down through the whole organization, so that everybody is involved in the shaping of that strategy. And then we're very diligent about keeping that in front of us regularly throughout the year and making sure that we're tracking against it. So the whole staff is involved in the process.

Paul: And then, when you overlay that over top of our model of partnership, which is working with national partners in more than 40 nations, it's exceptionally effective. Our partners in the field, they know the language and they know the culture and they even know the villages they're working in. And as Canadians, we stand with them, almost like we're sowing and they water, but we know that God gives the increase. And so if we sowed and sowed and sowed and no one watered at the field, there would be no harvest. And similarly, if they watered and watered and watered and there was no seed, there'd be no harvest. Our desire as a Canadian team and as an international team is to see God's harvest. And so we know that our part in what we're doing here in Canada is so intricately connected with what's happening in 18 time zones across the world. And the remarkable thing is that our staff believes in this because we see the overwhelming fruit. By God's grace and by His power, He's given the increase, and we're motivated and compelled to engage because of that.

Barry: Ah, that’s incredible.

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

Female: As your employees are returning to work, we’d like to help you get a jumpstart on fully reengaging them and help you leverage your organization’s impact with this special offer. Conduct our Employee Engagement Survey by June 30 and we will provide a pulse survey in six months absolutely free. BCWI’s 16-question pulse survey takes less than five minutes to complete. Do you want the fuel to propel your organization to a rapid recovery? Just take our Employee Engagement Survey by June 30 and a pulse survey is yours at no charge. Act now and let us help you take your workplace culture to the next level. Sign up at bcwinstitute.org.

Al: And now, back to today’s guest.

Barry: I’m getting goosebumps just listening to you guys talk. Wow.

I got to get to this point because this point here is a huge, huge one for many organizations. It's this whole thing about trust. And as you look back over the years that you've been serving with Best Christian Workplace, the most significant increase that you've seen over these years has been the trust level between leaders and employees. If I may be so bold as to say five years ago, this score was pretty bad. It was a 3.0 to neutral. And now in 2020, you're at a 4.32, which is a very high level of trust. And everybody listening me asking the question wants to know, what are some of the things you've done to build this trust? because everybody needs a high level of trust.

Paul: It really comes down to intentionality again. We determined that we wanted to improve and (timestamp 24:36) only one or two people making decisions that impacted the organization to having a very broad and now very deep leadership team that makes most of the decisions now. It’s very engaging, very affirming, and quite honestly, having a group of people that are created differently with different spiritual gifts and different personalities and different backgrounds and experiences and learnings and knowledge, all of these things together, when we come to this point where we have to make a decision, to have that diversity in the room helps us think through in a better way and make some really good decisions that are superior to only one or two people making decisions regularly. So we consciously decided to move that direction.

And the second thing that we consciously decided, too, is that we wanted to make sure that we understood the concept that not one of us can do what all of us together can do. Not one of us. We're so much better together. We're so much stronger together. And the illustration we use very constantly, very frequently, is the picture of mountain-climbing expedition, climbing the summit of a mountain and planting the flag at the summit. So if that's the outcome, one team can head up the one side of the mountain, and we'll plant that flag at the summit. But half the team has fallen into a crevasse or they died from exposure, well, that's a failure. Even though the flag is planted, half the team dying is a failure. Similarly, the other side of the mountain, if the mountain-expedition team climbs up the mountain and finds a plateau there, and there's meadows and a brook, and they camp there, and they sing, and they have a great family experience, but they never plant a flag at the top of the mountain, that also is a failure. So we're really trying to plant a flag at the summit, but do it with the entire team. We want everyone to be up there at the same time. And we think that's God honoring, and we can care deeply about the ministry, but we also must care deeply about the minister, not just the work, but also the ones who are working in the ministry. And this is something that’s been very intentional, and this has built this level of trust that we're pursuing.

Barry: I love that analogy. That is a very, very powerful analogy.

Andrew: I think it's a theme already that's kind of come out that trust is built through communication within an organization. And so, as Paul mentions, the broadening of the leadership team, I think that's helped staff who aren't involved in the leadership team to feel connected to it, at least closer connected to it, rather than if there was a very small and exclusive group of people making those decisions. So there's been connection there, and then there's been very intentional communication and regular communication as well, here’s what we’re talking about as a leadership team, and teams have opportunity to speak into different topics or bring recommendations, and they see more of how the leadership team is operating on a day-to-day basis, and those things are what build trust.

Barry: Wow. I've seen it over the years in my roles, how the communication and trust are probably the two most important ingredients that you can have in an organization. And they go together so much. You guys are to be commended on that. I wish we had more time to unpack that. And again, boy, there's a good book in the making, I think.

To bring all this kind of forward to where we are now. So here we are. We're in the middle of this pandemic. And if you were at Bible League, if you were to look under the hood of the car, so to speak, and you could say, “Aha, there's the problem. That's why the car is making that noise, or that's why it's not working,” in what way is the COVID-19 dilemma affecting your organization? So what is that problem, and how have you been addressing it?

Andrew: Well, I think there’s a few things that this highlights, and I think this goes back to an earlier comment as well that Paul made, where you can see pauses and you can see negatives, and it just depends on how much attention you pay to it and how much you want to learn from it. And so I think there's a few things. One of the biggest, of course, in terms of a dilemma that's facing us right now is the sources of revenue, and with the thrift stores that we are affiliated with and partner with, them being closed right now is a huge loss for us in revenue. And, you know, at other times it could be other reasons where maybe there's something happening in the economy, and maybe we still have yet to see that in the coming months, and we pray that that will be very short lived. But maybe it's something affecting our donors and their ability to give at levels that we've seen them give at before. And so we see this intricate and delicate balance between our revenue sources, and when there's something as large as this, it really throws things out of whack. Our plans that we had planned for are not going to come to fruition in the same way that we imagined them to be. So then we have to rally around that, and we have a team that has certainly done that.

And it comes with, again, communication and being intentional and being calm and bringing everybody together and okay, let's talk about it. What should we do? What should we be focused on? And we've seen a great coming together of the staff. We were very transparent with them. And they've really answered the challenge, and they've risen to the occasion to try to help out, to reach out to donors. We're seeing increased activity. We're connecting with donors at a higher frequency through mail and through email and through social media, through phone calls with donors. And so we're seeing increased activity right now, and that's because everybody's on board.

And we've also been very transparent with our donors as well, to let them know that this is the situation we're facing. Again, Paul mentioned this earlier, but our amazing and faithful donors have just responded in just incredible ways. It's been really encouraging to see. And that encourages even more activity from the staff as well. And it's motivation and a fuel.

And I think over and above that major issue, I think this time actually allows us to do is reflect on the things that we were doing and figure out what are the things that we were doing that we should continue on or even double down on? And what are the things that maybe we were doing because we've always done them, or what are the things that we were doing maybe because we felt that we were doing well in other areas and we started to take on additional tasks and maybe even drift a little bit away in some areas focused on activities that aren't core to the mission that we're trying to do? So this allows us an opportunity, and we're already having conversation about this, about what do we want to really focus on both now and once there's a post now, a post COVID. What's it going to look like?

Barry: Yeah. And that takes me to my next question, is this post COVID timeframe. So many, many leaders in Canada and around the world are looking toward, praying for the day of reentry, reopening their ministry workplaces. So where would you place the importance of workplace culture on the list of reopening or reentry?

Paul: We’re viewing this post-COVID-19 world as an opportunity to improve in our desire to be excellent in how we interact with each other and what we're pursuing. We don’t want to waste this opportunity. And so the priority is we must as leaders, we must be focused on caring for the ministry. That's our mission. But we also must be focused on caring for the minister. That's our workplace culture. We also must focus on being a good public citizen. And so we're heading back into this next chapter, whatever that looks like, not forgetting all the good lessons we've learned over the past eight weeks regarding our mission. Here’s the thing. We have a one-time opportunity to reimagine and reshape and restart our new normal. So we're being very intentional about how we engage in this next chapter.

Barry: Wow. I love it. Thank you. Thank you for that. That’s very inspiring.

And now I’ve got to bring this to an end. And as I said, this is hard. I've really been enjoying what we've been learning during the conversation. And a couple of things jump out at me. That first concept of faith over fear really is powerful, and I'm going to keep that one with me. The concept of new location or redesigned location, whatever that means, of being very intentional about designing for excellence. I love the concept of treat people the right way. And I love your commitment to following up on the survey data, investing in people, and this Philippians 4:8 moment of praising and thanking and encouraging one another. These are all incredible concepts which aren't going to be missed by the people listening to the podcast today.

Is there anything you'd like to add to what we've talked about as we wrap this thing up in a few minutes?

Paul: Circling back to that concept of faith versus fear, there’s very little difference between fear and faith. Both see a version of the future. Both fixate on one aspect of that future. Both are convinced their version of the future will happen. Both take a great deal of energy. It doesn't take any more emotional energy to worry about failing than it does about planning to succeed. And yet one version is authored by the enemy of our soul and the other is authored by the lover of our soul. So we can't choose if we think about the future as leaders. We only get to choose what version. So we are consciously deciding to chase the version of faith by God's grace. And we hope that this can be an encouragement to some of the listeners to follow this model of Jesus Christ as well.

Barry: Ah. Super. To put a bow on our interview, what’s one final thought? I mean, that was an amazing final thought. But is there one more final thought or word of encouragement you’d like to leave with our listeners before we kind of say goodbye to this beautiful podcast?

Andrew: Yeah. I think that it’s really worth noting that while there's a lot of things we can and should do as an organization and as leaders to promote a healthy culture and to generate buy-in, as Paul mentioned earlier, we can't drag people with us. It's never going to be flourishing until and unless all team members are committed to it as well, and that's when culture really takes off. And it really starts with being committed to the mission. And I think that really the predominant theme of a lot of the questions and what we're trying to uncover is the importance of culture. Why does it matter?

And to me and within our organization, we've been focusing a lot over the past couple of years, actually, on Jesus’s prayer in John chapter 17, and what he's praying for in John 17 is He’s praying for, among other things, the unity of his followers, including us today. And He prays this so that the testimony of the gospel will have credibility so that people can’t chip away at it. The unity actually serves as a testimony to the gospel. And the same principle applies to organizations. And culture is important to organizations, unity is important to organizations so that the testimony of your mission may be seen, and it may be seen, and it may be known, and it may be believed. And that's the importance of culture, and that's where the commitment really centers around is if everybody's committed to that outcome and to that mission and that unity is seen as important by all staff, then you'll be in a place to see your culture flourish.

Barry: Mm, yeah. His last prayer, that they might be one, eh. How powerful is that?

Well, CEO and president of Bible League Canada Paul Richardson, and marketing director Andrew Dorricott, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom, your insights, and your stories today, and thank you for investing yourself in everyone who’s been listening and benefitting from all you’ve shared with us on this podcast today. It has been a personal joy of mine to sit with you and be so inspired. So God bless you both. God bless your ministry, your teams, your volunteers, your donors; and thank you for the impact that you are having for the kingdom of God around the world.

Paul: Thank you, Barry. And we also want to thank you and your team. First of all, you're Canadian, so we're happy about talking to a Canadian here and telling the story in Canada. But your team has been very helpful in this journey that we've been on to build the kind of culture that we all want to work in. And I would even say that you and your team share some of the fruit and some of the reward that we're experiencing at Bible League. So thank you very much for this opportunity and for your help over these past several years.

Barry: Thank you, both. And God bless you and be with you.

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 writer is Mark Cutshall. 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.