Loving Monday

Instead of grinding it out until Friday and living only for weekends, a successful Ohio manufacturing executive has seen how his work can be filled with meaning and purpose. The key is integrating his work and beliefs. As a result, both grow--along with his love for Mondays. Beckett brings all of life together: work, belief, value, character, relationship, truth, worship and joy. The result is employees who feel valued, enjoy their work, work hard and are successful at what they do. Here is a book for everyone who wants to succeed in business without selling out. Includes study guide and a new afterword.

Build a dynamic work culture that inspires employees and promotes organizational growth Evidence shows culture drives fiscal performance. It’s no secret that a toxic work culture can drive away employees and drive down profits. Creating a dynamic work culture that promotes both employee and business growth is key to ensuring an organization’s success. However, culture is a moving target and hard to get right. In Great Mondays, brand strategist Josh Levine introduces a proven formula for building and managing a workplace culture that maximizes employee engagement, performance, and retention for long-term business success. Written in a punchy, outcomes-driven style, Great Mondays reveals the six components for driving culture change in any type of organization: •Purpose: the motivating force—the North Star of an organization that both inspires and guides•Values: the powerful culture guardrails that establish behavioral expectations of employees and leaders•Behaviors: the culturally-aligned symptoms and actions of a work culture•Recognition: the ways in which organizations can more effectively reward employees•Rituals: the regular activities that create and strengthen relationships between individuals •Cues: the physical and behavioral reminders designed to reconnect everyone to the organization’s purpose and goals for the futureWith real-life case studies drawn from Silicon Valley heavy hitters, prominent nonprofits, major corporations, and respected universities, leaders of all levels will find expert guidance and proven strategies they can put to use to create a dynamic culture where employees thrive and business grows.

"Jackson’s characters and their heart-wrenching story linger long after the final page, urging readers to advocate for those who are disenfranchised and forgotten by society and the system." (Publishers Weekly, "An Anti-Racist Children's and YA Reading List") From the critically acclaimed author of Allegedly, Tiffany D. Jackson, comes a gripping novel about the mystery of one teenage girl’s disappearance and the traumatic effects of the truth. Monday Charles is missing, and only Claudia seems to notice. Claudia and Monday have always been inseparable—more sisters than friends. So when Monday doesn’t turn up for the first day of school, Claudia’s worried. When she doesn’t show for the second day, or second week, Claudia knows that something is wrong. Monday wouldn’t just leave her to endure tests and bullies alone. Not after last year’s rumors and not with her grades on the line. Now Claudia needs her best—and only—friend more than ever. But Monday’s mother refuses to give Claudia a straight answer, and Monday’s sister April is even less help. As Claudia digs deeper into her friend’s disappearance, she discovers that no one seems to remember the last time they saw Monday. How can a teenage girl just vanish without anyone noticing that she’s gone?

Workplace Discipleship 101 contains encouragement and practical advice for Christians who are serious about living out their faith in their daily work lives. This book is packed with simple, practical suggestions organized in an intuitive format with straightforward language. Answering questions such as “How can I serve Jesus while I’m at work?” and “What does it look like to follow Jesus in my field of work?”, this book provides Christians with practical insight and biblical inspiration no matter where they work. The book is split into three main sections: “Preparation” (how to get ready), “Presence” (what we do at work), and “Post Workplace” (beyond the workplace). Key points and features: • Biblically and theologically based. • Presents information in an easy, understandable way. • Discusses the importance of work and discipleship. • Offers insightful questions for application. • Fills a hole in the growing “faith at work” genre of literature. “Few people I know have thought more deeply and practically about the integration of the Christian faith in the workplace than David Gill. In Workplace Discipleship 101, David Gill’s keen intellect, ethical clarity, and encouraging heart frame a persuasive and practical guide for all apprentices of Jesus who long to embrace an integral faith. This book is an invaluable resource I have been waiting for. I highly recommend it!” Tom Nelson, Lead Senior Pastor, Christ Church, Kansas City; President, Made to Flourish www.madetoflourish.org; Author, Work Matters: Connecting Sunday Worship to Monday Work

Leadership is both an art and a science. We may be tempted to look for a sure-fire formula, but the reality is quite different: effective leaders are exceptional generalists rather than narrow specialists. The best leaders take what the best business experts have to offer, and apply that based on their own abilities, experience and judgment. And these leaders seek real-life mentors and learn from them. Gayle Beebe, who has spent over a decade as a college president, had the opportunity to study with Peter Drucker, the father of modern management and the author of The Effective Executive. Drawing on Drucker's influence as well as his own years of experiences as a pastor, administrator and president, Beebe has developed a pyramid of leadership principles. The combination of these defines a leader of influence and integrity. In these pages you'll also meet some of Beebe's other mentors: Steve Sample of USC, Harold A. "Red" Poling of Ford Motor Company, Richard Foster of Renovaré, David McKenna of Asbury Seminary and Bob Emmons of SmartFinal. In a day of relentless self-direction, strong leaders have a critical role. With this book you can discover what it takes to be effective in your sphere of influence.

Imagine a company where people love coming to work and are highly productive on a daily basis. Imagine a company whose top executives, in a quest to create the most "fun" workplace ever, obliterate labor-management divisions and push decision-making responsibility down to the plant floor. Could such a company compete in today's bottom-line corporate world? Could it even turn a profit? Well, imagine no more. In Joy at Work, Dennis W. Bakke tells the true story of this extraordinary company--and how, as its co-founder and longtime CEO, he challenged the business establishment with revolutionary ideas that could remake America's organizations. It is the story of AES, whose business model and operating ethos -"let's have fun"-were conceived during a 90-minute car ride from Annapolis, Maryland, to Washington, D.C. In the next two decades, it became a worldwide energy giant with 40,000 employees in 31 countries and revenues of $8.6 billion. It's a remarkable tale told by a remarkable man: Bakke, a farm boy who was shaped by his religious faith, his years at Harvard Business School, and his experience working for the Federal Energy Administration. He rejects workplace drudgery as a noxious remnant of the Industrial Revolution. He believes work should be fun, and at AES he set out to prove it could be. Bakke sought not the empty "fun" of the Friday beer blast but the joy of a workplace where every person, from custodian to CEO, has the power to use his or her God-given talents free of needless corporate bureaucracy. In Joy at Work, Bakke tells how he helped create a company where every decision made at the top was lamented as a lost chance to delegate responsibility--and where all employees were encouraged to take the "game-winning shot," even when it wasn't a slam-dunk. Perhaps Bakke's most radical stand was his struggle to break the stranglehold of "creating shareholder value" on the corporate mind-set and replace it with more timeless values: integrity, fairness, social responsibility, and a sense of fun.

Baptizing Business sifts through popular perceptions regarding the relationship between business and religion and the agenda of conservative Christian business leaders, drawing on personal interviews with the most diverse group of evangelical executives yet studied. While stereotypes and previous research both emphasize the perceived incompatibility of religious mandates and business objectives, Bradley C. Smith argues that evangelical executives experience tension not because business and religion are inherently opposed, but because they are made to feel like second-class citizens by members of their own faith communities. Indeed, in cases of apparent conflict between faith and business, evangelical executives insist that it is faith, not business, that must be reconceived. Smith reveals that evangelical business leaders are as inclined to export business concepts into other domains as to import religious objectives into business contexts, prompting us to reconsider the direction of influence between religious and economic life. Baptizing Business is filled with compelling stories that paint a nuanced, unbiased picture of the increasing influence of intensely religious business leaders. The "spirit of capitalism," defined by Max Weber as a positive attitude toward work and wealth, finds ongoing embrace and new expression in evangelical executives and their accounts, with implications for our understanding of the faith at work movement, evangelicalism, and the role of religion among elites.