Transcript: How Flourishing Workplace Culture Fosters a Thriving Mission // Doug Mazza, Al Lopus, BCWI

The Flourishing Culture Podcast Series

“How Flourishing Workplace Culture Fosters a Thriving Mission“

April 18, 2022

Doug Mazza

Intro: Today you'll have an opportunity to listen in on a conversation with one of the leaders highlighted in my new book, Road to Flourishing. I know you'll be encouraged by his wit and wisdom as he describes steps to achieving a thriving mission fueled by their flourishing culture.

Al Lopus: Hi, I'm Al Lopus, and you're listening to the Flourishing Culture Podcast, where we help you create a flourishing workplace. The problem employers are facing today is that more of our employees are quitting than ever before. Some people are calling this the great resignation. And now with millions of open jobs, how can churches, Christian non-profits, and Christian-owned businesses face this tidal wave of resignations while attracting new, outstanding talent? And we know that having a flourishing workplace with fully engaged employees is the solution. I'll be your guide today as we talk with a thought leader about key steps that you can take to create a flourishing workplace culture.

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

Creating a flourishing workplace culture doesn't have to be overtly complicated, but it does take intentionality and effort. In today's episode, we're going to highlight some key factors that will help you as a leader on your road to flourishing. And as you invest in the health of your workplace, you'll be even more effective and fulfilling the mission and vision that God has entrusted you and your organization to.

Today I'm delighted to welcome back Doug Mazza, the president emeritus of Joni and Friends. Doug was with Joni and Friends for 20 years, from 1999 to 2019, overseeing an era of tremendous growth in the ministry. He currently serves on their board, and he also serves on our board at the Best Christian Workplaces Institute. At Joni and Friends, they share the Gospel, the hope of the Gospel, and give practical help to people impacted by disability. Earlier in his career, Doug was a top American executive for Suzuki and then Hyundai.

Doug, it's great to have you again. Welcome back to the Flourishing Culture Podcast.

Doug Mazza: It's always a pleasure. I have such a great heart for the work you do, Al.

Al: Thank you, Doug.

And before we dive into this topic of flourishing workplaces, share with us what this season of life is like for you. I know that it's been a couple of years since you completed your work at Joni and Friends, or at least your work as president, and now you serve on the board. So what does the rhythm of your days look like now?

Doug: Well, that's interesting. I think that I had a reputation in management for being pretty fearless, but I approached, with great trepidation, retirement, and it turned out there really is no such thing, so I'm very happy to report. I went from being a COO to a COD, Chief Operating Officer to a Change of Direction, is what God calls it, I think. So He has been gracious as I pray the Jabez prayer on a regular basis, always have, and God has been continuing to bring me opportunities that I'm thrilled about.

As you mentioned, I'm honored to be on the board of Best Christian Workplace Institute, and that comes from a long time of being a user and a client and a believer. It had such an impact at Joni and Friends. I am so grateful for the professionalism of BCWI, and then to be asked to be on the board is a great honor. So I'm a disciple of the work you do.

I have also taken on some other areas that I feel a passion for. I'm still with Joni and Friends’ disability ministry. We’ll be serving people with disabilities for as long as I am able, until I need their services. And I’m also working with a veteran's group—it’s all veterans—working with veterans that have PTSD and suicide prevention and intervention. And that's called Wild Ops, and I'm very excited about the work they do as well.

So staying with people with disabilities and then an emphasis on people in the military and then a way to make sure that we are the best Christian workplaces that we possibly can be for the Kingdom. That's been taking up my time. And traveling with Lorraine, and life, frankly, is very, very good.

Al: Yeah, that’s great. That's a good encouragement for all of us.

So, you know, Doug, here at the Best Christian Workplace Institute, we've been able to pinpoint some specific factors of flourishing workplaces, based on years of Employee Engagement Survey data. And we found that inspirational leadership is a key factor in flourishing. In fact, the most important of our eight keys to employee engagement and well-being. And sometimes that inspiration is most important when we find ourselves in hard places. And my newly published book, Road to Flourishing, which comes out the same week that this podcast comes out, you share about a time midway through your tenure at Joni and Friends, when the workplace culture was in decline. And I remember a couple of those years and those debriefings, describing that to you, and you were feeling it. You said that to return to a culture of excellence, it would take all of us in senior management to put our pride and fears in absolute check. Well, share with us what you learned about leadership and inspiration as you helped the ministry move past that difficult season. You remember what I'm talking about, I’m sure.

Doug: Yes, it was disheartening to be putting as much effort as we were and not getting the results that we wanted, and we realized that we were having difficulty with our culture. And I believe that getting the culture right is essential to our success. It's even, I think I believe the culture that we create is more important to our success than the vision and mission statements we have. And I'm not saying that the vision and mission is not important. What I'm saying is when we measure our success, it will come from the culture we built. I've never been any place that didn't have a good vision or mission statement. I've never looked up on the wall and said, “That's a really bad idea.” You know, we just don't do that. So how come some places are successful and some aren't? And we identified that the culture and other organizations like ours that were flourishing as well as even secular organization, that it was the culture that they were building that was leading to their success.

And so we took a hard look at our culture, and we came up with four pillars of improvement that would set the stage for the kind of culture we were going to build at Joni and Friends. The first one was lead like Jesus. And that means that we're not leading like Doug or even Joni Eareckson Tada. We are serving the Lord. This is all His. He determines our success. And therefore, we want to lead like Him. If you're going to lead like Doug Mazza, there's going to be a top to that. There's going to be a cap very, very quickly. But if we turn to lead like Jesus and the management principles that Jesus used, there's no ceiling to what our success could possibly be.

It turns out that the perfect man was the perfect manager and CEO. There were times when He said, “This is exactly what I want you to do. This is what I want you to take. This is what I want you to say. This is the reason you would stay or go.” There were other times when He gave a parable and said, “You go figure it out.” And He had, in three years—I love to tell people in the secular world this. If they haven't read the Bible, I said, “You need to read the Bible because this is a man who in the three years built a 2000-year organization. It’s still flourishing. Aren't you interested in what He had to say? He was a great, great leader. And those practices are worth examining.”

There is a book and a course called Lead like Jesus, and we employ that at Joni and Friends and put all of our employees through it. So they all understand from the beginning what's expected of them and who's in charge here. And it's Jesus. We have turned that over to Him.

The second pillar in the culture transformation that we were going through is integration. And I know that integration can be a term that is overused, especially in business. But I can tell you that integration at its highest level produces an extraordinary quantity and builds a great culture in an organization. And by integration, what I'm talking about is inclusion from the bottom up, having everyone understand not only what their department is doing but what the entire organization is doing. And we invented ways, along with our team, of seeing that that communication was brought to a very high level.

Sometimes integration can begin to feel a bit inefficient because there is so much communication going on, and nobody's looking for more emails. But once you get into the swing of allowing people downstream from your project, that months from now are going to be involved, understand where you are throughout the process, the, again, the quantity and the quality of the work as well as the quality of the culture of inclusion and involvement by everyone in the organization is extremely high and very productive.

I call it risky business because it's not natural for us to do that. We want to have as few people involved as possible. We want to be as efficient as possible, and that leads actually to inefficiency in an unintegrated way. And so there can be an awful lot said more about integration. I would say that a phrase that I often use in trying to get the point across is that if you're in an organization where you ever hear the words “We're doing what?” then you're not in an integrator organization. That question should not come up.

So check your integration, and involve everyone from the bottom up and find a way to do that and your productivity and teamwork. It'll exceed teamwork. It’ll go to integration, which I think is a higher level of teamwork.

The third pillar, very quickly, is excellence in your area of expertise. This one is the obvious one. It’s hiring people that are really, really good at what they do. But I think most organizations have this in the wrong place. Nearly every job I ever had, the way I kept the job was through excellence in my area of expertise. We should be able to hire, as an example, a good executive in the accounting department. It should not be that hard to find someone who's great at accounting. We have those people at Joni and Friends, and other organizations probably do as well. And I'm only using this as one example. But that won't keep your job at Joni and Friends because it's the third pillar. And I think that is unique in this culture exercise that shows culture really is the most important thing here, because if you're not good at leading like Jesus and haven't accepted that as the operational plan in the organization, and that's what it is, and you haven't accepted the fact that I'm a good integrator, being a great accountant isn't going to work. It's not going to be enough for you to keep your job.

So yes, it's important, and that's one of the pillars, excellence in your area of expertise, but I believe most organizations place that much too high in the priority of who they're hiring with regard to getting the most out of the culture of the organization and, therefore, productivity.

And then the fourth pillar is, in our case, Best Christian Workplace. And we believe that if you can't measure it, you can't manage it. And the Bible says know the condition of your flock. And Best Christian Workplace helped us to go from, is this a good theory about culture, or is this really a culture-building exercise? Is this something that will genuinely build the culture and, therefore, the productivity, the harmony in the organization, and will it serve more? And especially in ministry, that’s the goal, is to serve more. And in the culture that we built, I believe that you can't serve people outside your organization better than you can serve people inside the organization. A volcano doesn't get hotter the further you get away from it. You've got to start with this core of highly motivated people that are like hot lava and then see how far you can spread the message. So we have found a highly motivated, loyal core interested in the work they're doing, that understands the culture is highly integrated, believes Jesus is the One in charge, and that they have a say in what's happening will build a best Christian workplace.

And it actually, getting to the answer to your original question, Al, it is what turned us around. We began to improve. We began looking at instead of what management thought were the problems, we suddenly knew what the problems were. Our experience at Best Christian Workplace was to take our top 10 scores, and we would have a celebration after we got the results back. But then I would present the bottom 10 scores, and I would present them for the organization as well as by department. And going back to the integration idea, this is an example of integration, those issues, those bottom 10 issues by department were given back to the department to solve, how can we make this better? You tell us how we can make this better. And that was their integration with senior management, where the rank and file, if you will, everyone in the department was involved in these open discussions, and they had a huge say in how to make it better. I think if you're not including people in the answers and you're going to leave it to your senior management to fix what they think the problems are, you're never going to get to the core issues.

And these were very interesting. Things that we would not have expected were a problem were some of the things holding us back. And without those being identified through a Best Christian Workplace questionnaire and analysis, we never would have gotten to some of those. We wouldn't have guessed them. And if you're not doing a Best Christian Workplace analysis, you're guessing. That's what you got. You're guessing. So this becomes, if you can measure it, you can manage it. Everything else is way too objective for you to have to spend a lot of time on and trying to make a decision about.

Al: I think of your 20 years, you had Joni and Friends survey 17 years in a row, every year, same period of time. And did the employees ever get a sense that they were tired of actually completing the Survey, or what was their reaction?

Doug: Well, I think that most of them really looked forward to it because it was their time to tell us confidentially what they thought. As high as our scores were, the responses were extremely frank. I mean, you not only get to put a one through five here, but you also get to type in your comments.

Now, I'm happy to say we didn't have any truly disrespectful comments, but we had some very frank comments, and I don't think we would have gotten those frank comments without giving everyone this opportunity and letting them know that these are confidential, that they will be taken seriously. And, you know, the Bible says the truth will set you free. And if you don't know the truth, first of all, you're not going to be free; and second of all, your organization, pardon the expression, isn’t going to be any good. So it was very, very helpful for us to know the truth.

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

Book Promotion: I want to tell you about an exciting, new opportunity for all of you who want to create and experience a flourishing workplace culture. It’s the release of my new book, Road to Flourishing. It describes the eight keys to boost employee engagement and well-being in your workplace. Let’s break the cycles of toxicity, dysfunction, destructive conflict, fear, and unwanted turnover. Road to Flourishing is designed to help you understand what drives employee engagement and how we can move the needle on the health of your organization’s culture and performance. This book is designed for you, a Christian leader in business, a church, or a nonprofit. It includes real stories of flourishing workplaces as a great tool for your development, a book study with your leadership team, and a developmental resource for your frontline managers. Let’s change the narrative and reality. Join the ranks of leaders who are skillfully leading flourishing workplace cultures. Buy Road to Flourishing today wherever books are sold.

And now, back to today’s special guest.

Al: Doug, well, thanks for that insight. God certainly moved through the ministry over your 20 years in leadership and expanded the reach and impact remarkably. You were able—and I really appreciate, as I've worked with your team and as we continue to work with the team at Joni and Friends—Joni and Friends is able to attract and retain just a great team of strong leaders across the board, the leadership team, each person is really a strong contributor. So how did you go about identifying and equipping leaders?

Doug: Well, we had a process that began at the front door, quite frankly. Of course, you have a good interview process. Now, when you've got these four pillars and you're leading like Jesus and you're looking for people that can integrate and that is fully understood and led by your H.R. department, that's step one. So they know the kind of applicant they're looking for. Management isn't asking you to just get someone who can do a particular task well. They're asking, interview people that you think are going to fit into this culture, into this culture well.

Then, people have to see the culture from minute one. You don't ever want to go backwards and try to prove a culture. You need to have that culture from minute one. And we began at the front door at Joni and Friends on your first day.

I'll give you a little example. A new employee comes, doesn't make any difference what they're doing, whether they're a director or whether they are the new mailroom clerk, a vice president, and if the vice president's not available, a director at least, is standing at the front door when that employee arrives at the front door. Nobody has to call them. Nobody has to say, “They're coming.” They are waiting for this employee at the front door. They greet them there. They tell them how welcome they are, and they take them to their department, introduce them around. There is a gift on their desk or work table. It includes a book by Joni Eareckson Tada, things about the ministry, and some things that are simply gifts that are fun.

And so they have arrived. They've met everyone in the department. They've been greeted at the front door. They're, then, taken on a tour by a senior leader in the department. And when that tour finished, they are brought to the president's office, who happened to be, at the time, me. And I would then sit down, and I made it a habit to have a Keurig in my office on purpose so that I was making the coffee for this person. I wasn't sending someone for coffee or walking them. I mean, it's the details. It's the little details of making a distinct competitive advantage in everything you do. And that includes building culture.

So they have now had a tour. They've met at the front door. They've received a gift. They've been taken on a tour. They're brought to the president's office. We have a cup of coffee together. I find out about them personally. We have a nice exchange. And then I’m the one that tells them the mission, the vision, and the four pillars.

So if you look at their activities for the morning, when they go home that day, I think they have to go home and say, “You know, I had a really good day.” So your first day is just a great day. I've been to places where they show you where the restroom is and where your desk is, and you get a schedule that you're going to be scheduled to meet with these people over the next two weeks. And these folks have already seen, wow, this culture that you talked about is real. It's really the way the ministry operates. It is the operational plan.

So that's a small thing. But you know what came from those details was a meeting with, how should we get people oriented? And here's a great question for a meeting like that: what else? Once you get it down, say that's a really good idea and everyone's happy, somebody needs to say, “What else?” That's how you get to the Keurig. That's how you get to the little details of that by just asking, what else? That becomes that distinct competitive advantage. It's something that when I was in industry, we would talk about our products that way as well. What else? What else can we make it to? What else can we, how else can we separate it? In human relationships, when we're bringing people into our culture and our organization and making that point, it's a good question to ask each other, “What else can we do?” “Oh, I know we can, how about if we add this? How about if we add this to the gift basket?” Small things that leadership sometimes doesn't want to become involved in, that was that point I was making earlier about sometimes that can feel inefficient. Trust me, it is not. It becomes the best. It becomes better than any experience most people have ever had. And that's what we want people coming to Joni and Friends to have: the greatest first day they've ever had in an organization, so that we don't have to go back and say, “I wish we had done this instead.”

Al: Interesting, Doug. You know, you and I did a workshop together at the Christian Leadership Alliance, and you were describing some of these things. And I think all 50 people in the room wanted to send an application to Joni and Friends.

Doug: I do remember the first person. We had a Q&A, and I asked them, “Are there any questions?” and a guy raised his hand and said, “Have you got any job openings?” So that was just confirmation, not of my speaking skills, but of people understanding that would be a great way to start a new career, you know, with people that care like that.

And so I was talking about the front door. But if you extrapolate that through all of your policies, you can imagine what kind of organization, in kind of an integrated, open, communicative organization can be built. And it can be built. I have found it can be built in a secular organization, when I was in private business. But there's no place that it works better than a Christian ministry. This is tailored for those people that have, as their common denominator, Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Secular organizations do not have that commonality. And here, we get into a Christian ministry looking for our distinct competitive advantage in ministry, and it's Jesus Christ, and we're asking Him, “Excuse me, can You step to the left? I'm looking for my distinct competitive advantage.” and He's standing right there in front of you. This is the one thing that can bring us all together in the organization as our foundation to build those four pillars on.

Al: Yeah. Well, let's progress a little bit. We're talking about onboarding and creating a great workplace, but then there's this topic of succession, you know, certainly something that's close to my heart. So that's another aspect of leadership. I like what Ken Blanchard says, we're all in interim roles. Or maybe it’s John Maxwell says that. But share with us how you determined that your season was coming to a close and it was time for a new leader of Joni and Friends. You know, what were some of the specific steps that you took for a successful process of transition? And, you know, as we've looked over now, it's rolling on three years, I think, Doug, since you’ve retired from that role. You know, it's really been a successful process of transition, and Joni and Friends continues to thrive and grow. What were some of the steps that you took?

Doug: Well, first of all, we looked at succession planning holistically. A lot of organizations, I've been on boards where they want to know how to replace the president, and that's pretty much as far as the succession plan goes. I want to know what manager is going to be the next director, you know, if the director leaves. The succession planning should extend all the way through the organization, and there should be development programs that are in the organization built into the organization that understand how each department, each part of the body, is going to succeed and go through a succession. The worst reason not to promote somebody is you can't afford to lose them. That is absolutely, should never, ever happen. And so you need to take a holistic view, and I was successful in leading the organization through that process of succession being, how does Joni and Friends move through succession, not just a few executives?

Now, all succession plans are not built equally, of course. Joni and Friends happens to have, for example, one of the most extraordinary founders and one of the most extraordinary human beings that God has ever created in Joni Eareckson Tada. I mean that with all sincerity. I’ve been at Joni’s side for 23 years, 20 years as a senior executive, at the organization, which she founded, at the ministry, which she founded. And I can tell you that in 20 years, Joni Eareckson Tada is someone that never disappointed me. That's extraordinary. I mean, you work 20 years with somebody and never had a disappointing day or a day that was out of character. There's only one Joni Eareckson Tada. It's the one you hear on the radio, it's the one you meet in the hallway, and it's the one that you're friends with when you go to her home.

How do you plan a succession plan for someone like that? There's never going to be another Joni Eareckson Tada. When we get down to the Doug Mazzas of the world, yeah, we can find a lot of people that we can succeed to presidents. But you’re never going to have another founder. And a lot of ministries that we can think of have wonderful founders. Some of them have succeeded beyond the founder, and some have not. It is my belief that, as a general statement, when you have the kind of founder I'm talking about—the Billy Grahams of the world, and I include Joni Eareckson Tada in that. She would probably blush at that and maybe challenge me, but I don't. I include her in that—when you have a Joni Eareckson Tada as your founder, there's only one real succession plan, and that is that the founder needs to be absolutely, the popularity and the impact of the founder needs to be overwhelmed by the effectiveness of the organization in reaching out to achieving its mission and goals. And if an organization exists, a ministry, whether it's secular or a ministry, because the founder is there and that's it, that is going to be an unsuccessful succession plan.

Joni, from the time I came on, began talking to me about succession. Joni is a quadriplegic, from the age of 17, and has extraordinarily been kept in good health into her 70s, having survived cancer twice and COVID.

AL: COVID, yeah.

Doug: And God just has His hand on her. And I have often joked with her. I showed her a picture of us 20 years ago, and only one of us has really aged. I mean, that's me. I mean, I keep getting older, and I tell her, “You keep looking the same. This is very embarrassing.”

But the succession plan, getting back to the seriousness of it, a good founder is a good founder because of their commitment to what God has called them to do, and a good founder wants that to be the reason that the organization succeeds. The best work we can do is to have that organization become the best, most effective organization it possibly can be, more important than the presence of the founder. A good ministry will be planning for succession not only by deciding that they will be looking for people from without, and that can be very healthy, but they should also be grooming people and looking for people from within.

As I realized that my time was running short, and by that I mean three years out. I was thinking, “Another two or three years, and we're going to need a succession plan for who the new leader is here.” And I worked with both the board and with Joni Eareckson Tada in accomplishing that. We looked throughout the organization, and we looked outside. But the chairman of our board, who was a very significant executive from a company you would recognize, was doing just an excellent job. He had been a board member, had become the chairman of the board. I worked very closely with the chairman of the board as the president. We developed a close relationship. He understood the four pillars we were talking about. We worked together on integrating a governance board with an operational organization where everyone understood their roles. And John Nugent, who was the president at Joni and Friends, is the person I'm talking about, was the chairman at that time. And after a great bit of prayer, I recommended him to Joni Eareckson Tada, and he eventually was the successful candidate. It was not a fait accompli because I recommended him; we went through a full process. But it is the one that the board chose and Joni chose, and there was a very thorough governance process in order to choose who the next president was. I was thrilled to have somebody who understood what we were all talking about, and that made the transition in the organization much smoother.

I've seen organizations where the former president and the current president don't necessarily see eye to eye. John Nugent and I remain very good friends. We serve alongside one another. I am on the board, which is probably not terribly unusual. Again, it goes back to the umbrella of the culture. The board can't have a culture and the organization have a culture. H.R. department can't have a culture and the evangelism department has a culture. We've got to choose what the culture is, come together, be highly integrated, be excellent in our area of expertise, and measure what we can manage.

Al: You know, another factor in the flourishing workplace is sustainable strategy, and you’ve shared some insight into decision making in our new book, The Road to Flourishing. And there are four questions that you asked to evaluate new ministry initiatives. What were those four questions, Doug? I know that they played a role.

Doug: Yes. And to give it a little context, again, I want to fall back. We had a culture where there were no bad ideas. A lot of people say that, but you could bring forward, people were very, very open about bringing forward ideas, and many of them were very, very good. My first question, when somebody had a significant project of significance, would be, does it directly serve the mission statement? Is there a dotted line that causes it to serve, or does it directly hit the core of the mission statement? And this is an important question to ask, that even I could find myself doing things and expanding the mission by doing things that were close to the mission, that helped the mission, but didn't hit the mission head on. And in growing an organization, you want to drive the mission forward.

If I could give a short example. We have a prison ministry where men in 17 prisons throughout the United States restore wheelchairs for us, and it's very competitive to get into this organization. At the prison, wardens like it because men compete to work in this environment and learn how to restore wheelchairs, and it’s a Christian environment, and it’s voluntary. And so men compete to get into the program. I had the experience of some men getting out of prison at the end of their term. They were so grateful to Joni and Friends, and they'd contacted us and said, “Have you got employment for me? Have you got a program after prison?” And I got together with some of our executives and said, “You know, I feel that we should be doing something for these men as they get out.” We spent about an hour and a half on a white board until finally someone said, “Doug, this is a really wonderful thing to do, but it's not who we are. We're not good at this, and it doesn't strike the center of the mission statement for our donors or for our purpose or for our founder.” And I said, “Thank you very much. You are absolutely right.”

Now, what we did was we went and found a ministry that was better at that and partnered with them so that as men came through the program, we could refer them to a ministry that was very good at that particular process.

And so knowing your limitations, knowing what God has called us to do, without expanding, unwittingly sometimes, the mission statement is very, very important. And I think that's something that needs to be kept in mind at all times.

The second question I have is, this is really a good one, and how does that work? And by that, I mean, take me through how that really works. I would say that 70 percent of projects are stopped with this question. We really don't know how it works yet. It's a good idea. “Well, okay. You've gotten me to the point where it's a good idea, but you really don't know how it works yet.” So we need to ask that question and ask the hard questions about how this works. “Okay. Come back to me. Here's a half a dozen questions I have. Go back and figure out how this works. Come with that detail, and we'll be able to take the next step.”

Once we get past the, how does that work? part, we are on to question three with, is it cost effective? Stewardship is critical in ministry. It's critical in business, but it's super critical, that this is God's money, and we are stewards of every penny of it. Is this cost effective? And that speaks for itself.

And the fourth question is, is it replicable and scalable? Are we solving somebody's problem, or are we solving a mission problem? And yeah, there are some times when you've got to, within the organization, you've got someone that you want to help. But they don't need a program; they need help. So when we're building these programs, we need to know, are we helping a person, are we solving an internal problem, or are we really striking at the mission statement? And if it is scalable and replicable, that will also help the question about is it cost effective. And we'll also know better about how it works.

So those four questions, if you can answer all four of those questions, you've probably got a pretty good brand-new idea and program. And of course, I'm taking for granted in the audience that's paying attention to this, that's all bathed in prayer.

Al: That’s an excellent point.

Doug, you've got so many layers of rich experience and a strong track record as an effective Christian leader, finishing strong. But above all, you seem to keep your focus on what matters, on following God and serving others. What practices have helped you keep your soul flourishing over the years?

Doug: Well, I can tell you that as a broad statement, I have learned over the years that humility is the father of a thousand successes, and victory is the father of only one. And I have learned so much by the times that have humbled me. Don't be afraid of failure. Find out what God is teaching you in the failures. Get back up again and move forward. And so, again, that's something that I have taken, and especially in my senior years, have found that humility is indeed the father of a thousand successes and victory, the father of only one.

I suppose that, like many people, I now have time to get even deeper in the Bible than I did before, and I continue to be honored to be asked to speak at places where people think I may have something important to say. I have never had a website, I've never asked anybody if I can speak to your organization, and yet I just keep praying the Jabez prayer, and the phone keeps ringing, and I'm honored to do that, and it's always a ministry experience.

At the end of the day, I have three things that I have always shared with everyone in the ministry, that I think is a great leadership tool. Having understood the four pillars, having understood everything that we are talking about in your organization, I think leadership overlooks some of the things that are staring us right in the face that separates the good leader from the great leader. And I think that I've got three things that people can do that will make them a better leader, a better person, and a happier person at the same time.

The first one is when you wake up in the morning, praise God before you put your feet on the floor. Great to have your quiet time, but I have come to the habit of spreading my arms before I put my feet on the floor and praising God for the day, praising God for all that He has given me and all that we're going to be doing that day. God loves praise, and so praise God before your feet hit the floor.

The second one is encourage someone. Find someone that God will bring you someone to encourage. Pray for God to bring you someone to encourage. You will find a, probably in most days, a plethora of people you can encourage. You know, the world is dying for encouragement. The world should be living on encouragement. So find someone to encourage.

And then the third one is make someone laugh. Today make someone laugh and not at their expense or anyone's expense. Just make someone laugh.

But I can tell you, if you get to be known as a person who is a lead-like-Jesus leader, who wakes up in the morning praising God, that you're known as an encourager, and you're going to make somebody laugh during the day, I have found people will follow you off the edge of the Earth. They are looking for that kind of a leader. Be the leader you want to follow. And that's who Jesus was.

Al: Be the leader you want to follow. Boy, that’s great advice.

Doug, you know, we've learned so much from you and this conversation. I really appreciate it. Starting with the four pillars. You know, whenever you're looking at helping somebody or designing something, say, “What else?” That's a great question. We talked about succession. We talked about the four new ministry questions, questions that you can ask. Those are great questions. We've talked about how to have a flourishing soul and to finish strong. And I love the humility, focus on the Bible, learn about the Bible, and serve others. But to be a happy or better person, praise God before you put your feet on the ground. Encourage someone. Make someone laugh. What a great way to reflect on others.

And Doug, how about one last thing that you'd like to add about all that we've talked about?

Doug: I would say as a final thought that of everything we've talked about today, what I took from Paul was, count it all joy. That's where I want to serve. That's where I want to work. And through all of this cultural discussion that we've had today, create an organization in which every employee, every associate, missionary, follower can say, “When I'm there, we count it all joy.” And I believe Jesus was the world's greatest teacher, the world's greatest leader, and I believe that in order to be those things, He had to be an extraordinarily joyful person.

Al: Doug, I want to thank you for your contributions today. And most of all, I appreciate your devotion and excellence in Christian leadership and your commitment to helping others flourish in their work and calling. Your work through Joni and Friends has made such a difference for people impacted by disability. I know thousands, tens of thousands, have been impacted. So thanks for taking your time out of your day today to speak into so many lives and so many listeners. Thanks, Doug.

Doug: Thank you, Al. It’s been a joy.

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.

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