We are grateful for the wonderful content that our friends at Nashville Institute for Faith + Work (NIFW) put out on their blog. This is their article from last month in reflection of Black History Month in the US. We hope it challenges you like it challenged us!

— by Nashville Institute for Faith + Work

Black History Month has been on our communications planning calendar for over a year. How in the world can a white middle-aged lady who grew up in upper-middle-class suburbia have anything relevant, meaningful, or additive to say about black history or diversity?  So, I asked a brilliant and revered African American woman to opine on the topic, but significant illness caused her to have to, understandably, cancel. Too late to contract someone else, I sat with a decision – Let Black History Month slide on by with no mention in our publications?  Publish an article on black history or the importance of diversity in the workplace written from a white perspective? Write a who’s who and laud five great black vocational leaders readers may not know?

Or perhaps confess.  And ask my black brothers and sisters to help me do better.  And ask my white ones to join me.

I grew up in Texas in a white upper-middle-class neighborhood and attended a K-12 school established at the time of “white flight” schools.  In my first week of kindergarten, my grandmother asked me if there were any black children in my class to which I naively replied, “No, but one almost is, because he is already brown.”  Despite having a father who worked long hours in social justice areas, in my 18 years of childhood, I only recall interacting on a regular basis with three African Americans.

The comfort of habits ingrained in my upbringing has been hard to shake, which may be the biggest root of the problem: inertia.  Despite being in jobs over the last 25 years that have increasingly awoken me to my privilege and more importantly, the existence of systemic injustices, I live in an affluent white neighborhood, my youngest child attends a private school that is 80% white, and I have paid or pay dues to organizations/clubs that cultivate exclusion and privilege.  I run a small organization with an all white team. I contract speakers, most of which are white. I teach a curriculum written by nearly all white men. I have worked in a variety of organizations over the past 25 years, some of which have best-in-class “diversity policies,” yet until recent years, I had very few black “friends.” But God is nudging me through the power of relationship.

In the last decade, God has graciously given me some new friends who have been teaching me about systemic racism.  Ten years ago, I thought the goal in racial relations was to be color blind. Oh, please forgive me. That is so dismissive – dismissive of identity, of personal history, of national history, and of God’s design and story.  I learned that we need to understand difference, systemic injustice, and voices at the table. We need to understand racism and celebrate diversity. And I am so woefully insufficient. Talk with no action. Efforts with no risk.  

Even as I type this, I am tempted not to publish, because it might call me to discomfort and publicly expose areas of hypocrisy in my life.  It might grieve my mother to know that the amazing life she provided me created a sheltered blind spot. Yet my friends teach me and beckon me further.  I don’t mean for this to be a judgment upon anyone who shares in my “whiteness”, rather an encouragement in all that God is showing me about the value of difference and relationship and the impact on our systems.  As my world has expanded with black friends and an increasing appreciation of the black narrative, my life has become more. More discomfort, but more importantly, more beauty, more perspective, more depth, more Truth, more meaning.

To my black friends:  
It is increasingly amazing to me that you would befriend me in spite of my blind spots.  Thank you for your efforts, your time, your patience and your friendship, especially when I can be slow, dense, and occasionally defensive.  Please keep pushing me. Thank you for your forgiveness.

To my white friends:
It can be easy to ignore the topic of racism, especially if we have some black friends.  We can co-labor for years with black colleagues, yet be blind to our privilege. It feels more comfortable to convince ourselves that if a black man can be president, then the problem is solved.  We can believe that tutoring at a low performing school is doing our part. Or that “they” are not doing theirs. We can say “I am not racist” and believe it. And we can convince ourselves that the problems are so big that they are insurmountable, and just stay comfortable.  But if we look at our practices, our systems, our institutions, and our choices, are we complicit? Can we at least acknowledge complicity? While certainly not sufficient, can we all commit to moving at least one step forward? Can we confess and see that complicity actually IS racism?  

With the encouragement of some mentors and friends and with God’s grace for my mistakes, I have been journeying to move deeper into issues around race in baby steps at both a systems level and a personal level.  Being aware is not enough. Talking about it is not enough.

HOW DO WE MOVE FORWARD?

Personal lives can be hard to change since relationships often evolve from the institutions in our lives.  Via human nature, often we are drawn to churches and schools where people look most like us, and so the social capital cycle continues around and around.  Through clients in my work, I have been gifted some relationships with people very different from me, and they have become dear friends. Sharing our hearts and struggles, developing trust, and forging through misunderstandings have been life-giving; appreciating each other’s differences is what I am convinced God wants in friendship.

At a systems level, our small organization has created some processes that reduce the tendency to always take the most efficient routes of using social capital to get things done.  For instance, we have instilled “invite collaboration from diverse communities” as a step in the planning of our large events. We have instituted processes in our director hiring protocols to avoid the “similar to me” bias, and we have pushed our curriculum writers to diversify the author list.  We have created team margin for attending events to cultivate diverse relationships, and we have made increasing diversity of our constituents a stated strategic priority. Most important, we have been able to receive counsel from the minority voice alumni of our leadership intensive about ways we can change and evolve.  These steps are not all working perfectly, but we are learning.

Admittedly these personal and work adjustments are a thimble of water in a desert when what is needed is an oasis, but nevertheless, they are movement forward. Would you like to join me as I attempt to keep growing?  I have some suggested next steps below, but in particular, would you join me on April 8 at the Center for NonProfit Management for Introduction to Systemic Racism?  I look forward to all that we will learn.

I do know that with Christ as a mediator, any walls can crumble.

For Christ himself has brought peace to us. He united Jews and Gentiles into one people when, in his own body on the cross, he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us. (Ephesians 2:14)

WANT TO TAKE ONE MORE STEP? CONSIDER THESE OTHER OPPORTUNITIES:

• Read.  Read books about racism in modern-day America.

  • On Waking up White:  Irving’s story of a big “aha” to her blind spots in racism is a riveting call to the many who don’t buy into the “white privilege” thing. I found this book helpful, important, and challenging.

  • The Color of Compromise:  The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism  Currently on my bedside table, this is a new release highlighting the role of the church in racism today.

  • White Picket Fences:  Another new release, Becker analyzes that “The notion that some might have it better than others, for no good reason, offends our sensibilities. Yet, until we talk about privilege, we’ll never fully understand it or find our way forward.”

• Educate. Attend community gatherings that will educate you about issues of diversity.

  • Expand Conversations Series hosted by the Nashville Business Journal.

  • Introduction to Systemic Racism hosted by the Center for Nonprofit Management.

• Cultivate. Seek out relationships with those different from you.  Spend time together. Share your deepest hurts. Ask theirs. Have no agenda but to find commonalities.  Enjoy. Listen.

• Include.  Where can you work harder for inclusion within your sphere of influence?  In your hiring practices at work?  In your social circles? In your schools?

• Call out.  Reject racist practices and stereotypes.  And by all means, ruthlessly suppress racist humor at all costs.  Silence is complicity. Complicity is racism.

• Pray.  Commit to praying about your role in racism.  Ask God to reveal your blind spots to you. Ask for healing. Ask for direction. Pray for marginalized communities. Talk to your pastor.

——

[Photo credit to NIFW]

Often, we find gems in mainstream media that can be of value to you as a faith-driven entrepreneur!
This article was originally published by Forbes and can be found here.

— by Travis Bradberry

Toxic people defy logic. Some are blissfully unaware of the negative impact that they have on those around them, and others seem to derive satisfaction from creating chaos and pushing other people’s buttons. Either way, they create unnecessary complexity, strife, and worst of all stress.

Studies have long shown that stress can have a lasting, negative impact on the brain. Exposure to even a few days of stress compromises the effectiveness of neurons in the hippocampus—an important brain area responsible for reasoning and memory. Weeks of stress cause reversible damage to neuronal dendrites (the small “arms” that brain cells use to communicate with each other), and months of stress can permanently destroy neurons. Stress is a formidable threat to your success—when stress gets out of control, your brain and your performance suffer.

Most sources of stress at work are easy to identify. If your non-profit is working to land a grant that your organization needs to function, you’re bound to feel stress and likely know how to manage it. It’s the unexpected sources of stress that take you by surprise and harm you the most.

Recent research from the Department of Biological and Clinical Psychology at Friedrich Schiller University in Germany found that exposure to stimuli that cause strong negative emotions—the same kind of exposure you get when dealing with toxic people—caused subjects’ brains to have a massive stress response. Whether it’s negativity, cruelty, the victim syndrome, or just plain craziness, toxic people drive your brain into a stressed-out state that should be avoided at all costs.

The ability to manage your emotions and remain calm under pressure has a direct link to your performance. TalentSmart has conducted research with more than a million people, and we’ve found that 90% of top performers are skilled at managing their emotions in times of stress in order to remain calm and in control. One of their greatest gifts is the ability to neutralize toxic people. Top performers have well-honed coping strategies that they employ to keep toxic people at bay.

While I’ve run across numerous effective strategies that successful people employ when dealing with toxic people, what follows are twelve of the best. To deal with toxic people effectively, you need an approach that enables you, across the board, to control what you can and eliminate what you can’t. The important thing to remember is that you are in control of far more than you realize.

They Set Limits (Especially with Complainers)

Complainers and negative people are bad news because they wallow in their problems and fail to focus on solutions. They want people to join their pity party so that they can feel better about themselves. People often feel pressure to listen to complainers because they don’t want to be seen as callous or rude, but there’s a fine line between lending a sympathetic ear and getting sucked into their negative emotional spiral.

You can avoid this only by setting limits and distancing yourself when necessary. Think of it this way: if the complainer were smoking, would you sit there all afternoon inhaling the second-hand smoke? You’d distance yourself, and you should do the same with complainers. A great way to set limits is to ask complainers how they intend to fix the problem. They will either quiet down or redirect the conversation in a productive direction.

They Don’t Die in the Fight

Successful people know how important it is to live to fight another day, especially when your foe is a toxic individual. In conflict, unchecked emotion makes you dig your heels in and fight the kind of battle that can leave you severely damaged. When you read and respond to your emotions, you’re able to choose your battles wisely and only stand your ground when the time is right.

They Rise Above

Toxic people drive you crazy because their behavior is so irrational. Make no mistake about it; their behavior truly goes against reason. Which begs the question, why do you allow yourself to respond to them emotionally and get sucked into the mix?

The more irrational and off-base someone is, the easier it should be for you to remove yourself from their traps. Quit trying to beat them at their own game. Distance yourself from them emotionally and approach your interactions like they’re a science project (or you’re their shrink, if you prefer the analogy). You don’t need to respond to the emotional chaos—only the facts.

They Stay Aware of Their Emotions

Maintaining an emotional distance requires awareness. You can’t stop someone from pushing your buttons if you don’t recognize when it’s happening. Sometimes you’ll find yourself in situations where you’ll need to regroup and choose the best way forward. This is fine and you shouldn’t be afraid to buy yourself some time to do so.

Think of it this way—if a mentally unstable person approaches you on the street and tells you he’s John F. Kennedy, you’re unlikely to set him straight. When you find yourself with a coworker who is engaged in similarly derailed thinking, sometimes it’s best to just smile and nod. If you’re going to have to straighten them out, it’s better to give yourself some time to plan the best way to go about it.

They Establish Boundaries

This is the area where most people tend to sell themselves short. They feel like because they work or live with someone, they have no way to control the chaos. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Once you’ve found your way to Rise Above a person, you’ll begin to find their behavior more predictable and easier to understand. This will equip you to think rationally about when and where you have to put up with them and when you don’t. For example, even if you work with someone closely on a project team, that doesn’t mean that you need to have the same level of one-on-one interaction with them that you have with other team members.

You can establish a boundary, but you’ll have to do so consciously and proactively. If you let things happen naturally, you are bound to find yourself constantly embroiled in difficult conversations. If you set boundaries and decide when and where you’ll engage a difficult person, you can control much of the chaos. The only trick is to stick to your guns and keep boundaries in place when the person tries to encroach upon them, which they will.

They Won’t Let Anyone Limit Their Joy

When your sense of pleasure and satisfaction are derived from the opinions of other people, you are no longer the master of your own happiness. When emotionally intelligent people feel good about something that they’ve done, they won’t let anyone’s opinions or snide remarks take that away from them.

While it’s impossible to turn off your reactions to what others think of you, you don’t have to compare yourself to others, and you can always take people’s opinions with a grain of salt. That way, no matter what toxic people are thinking or doing, your self-worth comes from within. Regardless of what people think of you at any particular moment, one thing is certain—you’re never as good or bad as they say you are.

They Don’t Focus on Problems—Only Solutions

Where you focus your attention determines your emotional state. When you fixate on the problems you’re facing, you create and prolong negative emotions and stress. When you focus on actions to better yourself and your circumstances, you create a sense of personal efficacy that produces positive emotions and reduces stress.

When it comes to toxic people, fixating on how crazy and difficult they are gives them power over you. Quit thinking about how troubling your difficult person is, and focus instead on how you’re going to go about handling them. This makes you more effective by putting you in control, and it will reduce the amount of stress you experience when interacting with them.

They Don’t Forget

Emotionally intelligent people are quick to forgive, but that doesn’t mean that they forget. Forgiveness requires letting go of what’s happened so that you can move on. It doesn’t mean you’ll give a wrongdoer another chance. Successful people are unwilling to be bogged down unnecessarily by others’ mistakes, so they let them go quickly and are assertive in protecting themselves from future harm.

They Squash Negative Self-Talk

Sometimes you absorb the negativity of other people. There’s nothing wrong with feeling bad about how someone is treating you, but your self-talk (the thoughts you have about your feelings) can either intensify the negativity or help you move past it. Negative self-talk is unrealistic, unnecessary, and self-defeating. It sends you into a downward emotional spiral that is difficult to pull out of. You should avoid negative self-talk at all costs.

They Limit Their Caffeine Intake

Drinking caffeine triggers the release of adrenaline. Adrenaline is the source of the “fight-or-flight” response, a survival mechanism that forces you to stand up and fight or run for the hills when faced with a threat. The fight-or-flight mechanism sidesteps rational thinking in favor of a faster response. This is great when a bear is chasing you, but not so great when you’re surprised in the hallway by an angry coworker.

They Get Some Sleep

I’ve beaten this one to death over the years and can’t say enough about the importance of sleep to increasing your emotional intelligence and managing your stress levels. When you sleep, your brain literally recharges, shuffling through the day’s memories and storing or discarding them (which causes dreams), so that you wake up alert and clear-headed. Your self-control, attention, and memory are all reduced when you don’t get enough—or the right kind—of sleep. Sleep deprivation raises stress hormone levels on its own, even without a stressor present.

A good night’s sleep makes you more positive, creative, and proactive in your approach to toxic people, giving you the perspective you need to deal effectively with them.

They Use Their Support System

It’s tempting, yet entirely ineffective, to attempt tackling everything by yourself. To deal with toxic people, you need to recognize the weaknesses in your approach to them. This means tapping into your support system to gain perspective on a challenging person. Everyone has someone at work and/or outside work who is on their team, rooting for them, and ready to help them get the best from a difficult situation. Identify these individuals in your life and make an effort to seek their insight and assistance when you need it. Something as simple as explaining the situation can lead to a new perspective. Most of the time, other people can see a solution that you can’t because they are not as emotionally invested in the situation.

Bringing It All Together

Before you get this system to work brilliantly, you’re going to have to pass some tests. Most of the time, you will find yourself tested by touchy interactions with problem people. Thankfully, the plasticity of the brain allows it to mold and change as you practice new behaviors, even when you fail. Implementing these healthy, stress-relieving techniques for dealing with difficult people will train your brain to handle stress more effectively and decrease the likelihood of ill effects.

 ——

[Photo credit to Forbes]

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Toxic people, toxic environments and all other possible permutations of how toxicity can be expressed in an organization is the subject of today’s episode. Rusty rests the responsibility of toxic organizations firmly on the shoulders of the founder and William believes that faith driven leaders can still be guilty of making a mess of culture. Henry helps us understand what kind of petri dish is needed for toxicity to flourish and the team together discusses ways to avoid the pains and pitfalls of toxicity that kills community, productivity and creativity.

Today’s episode was in response to a mailbag question from New York. We love hearing from you and fielding your questions. Tell us how this week’s episode impacted your thinking on toxic work cultures and encourages you to think about how you can contribute to the health of your organization in the comment section below.

We also have a very brief survey we’d love for you to take that will help us shape the direction and future of the FDE podcast. Please help us with your thoughts and opinions here.

Subscribe on iTunes or Other

Toxic people, toxic environments and all other possible permutations of how toxicity can be expressed in an organization is the subject of today’s episode. Rusty rests the responsibility of toxic organizations firmly on the shoulders of the founder and William believes that faith driven leaders can still be guilty of making a mess of culture. Henry helps us understand what kind of petri dish is needed for toxicity to flourish and the team together discusses ways to avoid the pains and pitfalls of toxicity that kills community, productivity and creativity.

Today’s episode was in response to a mailbag question from New York. We love hearing from you and fielding your questions. Tell us how this week’s episode impacted your thinking on toxic work cultures and encourages you to think about how you can contribute to the health of your organization in the comment section below.

We also have a very brief survey we’d love for you to take that will help us shape the direction and future of the FDE podcast. Please help us with your thoughts and opinions here.

This content was originally published here by the RightNow Media (RNM).

— Patrick Lencioni

THE FIVE DYSFUNCTIONS OF A TEAM

Teams come in all shapes and sizes and they are made up of individuals with specific skills and personalities. When brought together, they can result in great dysfunction or create a profitable foundation for an organization’s product and its people. In this updated version of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, best-selling author Patrick Lencioni will provide the keys to understanding where teams struggle most and offer tools for navigating those struggles in a positive manner.

• Learn the five dysfunctions that challenge team unity

• Discover the resources necessary for healthy team practices

• Implement a trustworthy model into your own organization

Using fresh case studies and compelling illustrations from his own career, Patrick will show how functional teams need more than the right people. They require a culture that promotes unity, growth, and vision. The Five Dysfunction of a Team will provide you with the necessary principles for effective management and team practices that will set you up for the prospect of long-term success.

Enjoy the trailer below!
Click here to find the full talk + DOWNLOAD the Free Leader’s Guide and Participant’s Handout!

——

[Special thanks to Kobo for the cover photo.]

We continue to count down the Top 100 Books for Faith Driven Entrepreneurs with…

Workplace Grace

by Bill Peel and Walt Larimore

You can take your faith to work in appropriate, engaging ways. Workplace Grace offers a simple, non-threatening approach to evangelism. Whether your work takes you to a construction site, a cramped cubical or the corner office, every Christian plays a significant role in the Great Commission. Between Sundays, you can be a pipeline for God’s grace in the most strategic mission field in the world: your workplace. Workplace Grace is for Christians who are not gifted evangelists, yet they want to make a spiritual difference at work and see their coworkers and friends come to faith in Jesus Christ. After adopting Workplace Grace strategies, Christians who once felt awkward sharing their faith now say, “A load of guilt has been taken off my shoulders.” “I never knew sharing my faith could be so simple.” “I can do this!”

Click on the book cover to check out the Reviews and Purchase at Amazon