Product Description
What makes for a flourishing workplace?
Many organizations find themselves spinning their wheels in work cultures filled with toxicity, dysfunction, conflict, and fear. Unengaged employees drag down productivity, and ineffective management undermines morale. How can we create workplaces where people don't just struggle to get through the day but instead thrive and love what they do and where they work?
Al Lopus, cofounder and CEO of Best Christian Workplaces Institute, has studied hundreds of organizations to discover eight key drivers in companies with healthy culture and engaged employees. He gathers best practices from across a range of companies and ministries to demonstrate how people at all levels can work together to accomplish work that matters. Principles and real-life examples provide concrete ways that organizations can flourish by building fantastic teams, cultivating life-giving work, attracting and retaining outstanding talent, and much more.
With compelling case studies, behind-the-curtain revelations, and enlightening personal anecdotes, Road to Flourishing will motivate leaders, managers, and their teams to reimagine, reassess, and renew their commitment to building healthy work cultures where everyone can flourish.
Hardcover, 216 pages
Publication Date: March 2022
Table of Contents
Foreword by Peter Greer
Preface
1. From Toxic to Flourishing: The Eight Keys to a Transformed Culture
2. Fantastic Teams
3. Life-Giving Work
4. Outstanding Talent
5. Uplifting Growth
6. Rewarding Compensation
7. Inspirational Leadership
8. Sustainable Strategy
9. Healthy Communication
10. Journey Inward, Journey Forward: Your First Steps on the Road to Flourishing
Acknowledgments
Appendix: Workplace Culture Pulse Survey
Notes
Endorsements
"If you regularly ponder and discuss your organization's culture or you have never given it much thought, you will benefit from the principles Al shares in this book. In its pages, you will meet leaders who are actively shaping workplace culture. Whether you work within the nonprofit or for-profit sector, you will gain a greater awareness of your organization's needs and how to build a vibrant culture and an engaged team. Al shares stories from some of the countless organizations the institute has helped on the path to flourishing, and implementing his advice will help yours too."
Peter Greer, president and CEO of HOPE International
"Al Lopus has built a remarkable niche of coming alongside ministries—both large and small—to reshape their cultures. While not promising an overnight cure, he identifies areas of unhealthiness and charts doable pathways to flourishing. I have seen his handiwork up close, and it is transformative. With this book, his sphere of influence is broadened. I believe that the Lord is well pleased with his efforts."
Alec Hill, president emeritus of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA
"If you are a leader who wants your team and mission to thrive, you're holding in your hands an extremely helpful guide. Al Lopus has been researching and reflecting on the principles and practices that make for a flourishing organization for decades, and his voice is wise, gentle, and trustworthy. Apply the contents of this book and the journey ahead will be transformational for all."
Stephen A. Macchia, founder and president of Leadership Transformations and author of Becoming a Healthy Church
"Al Lopus is the culture champion and wise guide who provides Christian leaders with what is needed most to ensure their employees thrive. In The Road to Flourishing you will never have a reason to lose your way. God has entrusted leaders with men and women who have been called to accomplish his plans. This is the book that will enable you to create a culture where everyone passionately gives their best so that God's best is achieved."
Tami Heim, president and CEO of the Christian Leadership Alliance
"When it comes to our jobs and the way we work together, God describes his heart in Psalm 115:14, 'May the Lord cause you to flourish.' It's a glorious goal, but how do we reach it? In this powerful new book, my friend Al Lopus describes the key benchmarks in creating an organizational culture where people thrive. Al Lopus was instrumental in helping Joni and Friends become a flourishing workplace—our ministry is a place where our employees love what they do, respect one another, and enjoy extending Christ's kingdom. I highly recommend this exceptional book to your business, church, or ministry organization."
Joni Eareckson Tada, Joni and Friends International Disability Center
"There is a growing consensus among organizational gurus and leaders that a healthy organizational culture is one of the most powerful tools available for lifting performance and improving competitiveness. But just how do you improve something as intangible as your organization's culture? One answer is to call in the 'culture doctor'! Al Lopus is an experienced real-world culture doctor, who has diagnosed and treated hundreds of ailing and failing organizational cultures. In Road to Flourishing, Al lays out his tried-and-true methodology for understanding, assessing, and addressing the common weaknesses in organizational cultures. Reading this one book could be the most important thing you can do this year for your employees and your bottom line."
Richard Stearns, president emeritus of World Vision US and author of Lead Like It Matters to God: Values-Driven Leadership in a Success-Driven World
"One of the greatest privileges of my life was my twenty-year tenure as president and CEO of MOPS International. I arrived in the role as an inexperienced thirty-four-year-old and learned as I led. Along the way I met Al Lopus and began to benefit from his workplace discoveries. In his book, Road to Flourishing, Al lays out the core principles for leaders of any age and any length of experience to develop flourishing organizations and workplaces. I'm so grateful for his clear and helpful guidance!"
Elisa Morgan, radio and podcast host for Our Daily Bread Ministries and author of You Are Not Alone
"Al Lopus doesn't mince words when writing about the toxic work cultures he's observed. But Road to Flourishing is also upbeat—you can create 'life-giving work' for every team member. You have two options: (1) continue to apply inappropriate Band-Aids to your sick workplace, or (2) go deeper and discover how your organization's culture will flourish with God-honoring and intentional best practices. Reading this book with your team members is a no-brainer. Pick one: life-giving work or life-sapping work."
John Pearson, board governance and management consultant and author of Mastering the Management Buckets
"'When a Christian-led team is working together, it's supposed to flourish while the whole world is watching and thereby lead it to Jesus,' writes Al Lopus, and in this book he gives us a lifetime of experience and insights to accomplish that very task. Filled with stories that instruct and inspire, with insights that both reveal the keys to a healthy workplace and the steps leaders can take, this book is both a trustworthy tool and a great gift."
Tod Bolsinger, De Pree Center Church Leadership Institute and author of Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territory
Author
Al Lopus is the cofounder and CEO of the Best Christian Workplaces Institute (BCWI), which provides research-based measurement tools and strategic advisory services with a single vision: to help Christian-led organizations set the standard as the best, most effective places to work in the world. At BCWI, Al has pioneered the broadest-ever employee engagement survey of Christian workers. To date, the survey has involved more than 1,000 Christian-led organizations with employees completing over 300,000 survey questionnaires.
