Welcome back to the Christianity and Business Podcast, an initiative of the RTW Dunham College of Business at Houston Baptist University. I'm your host, Darren Shearer, and this is the show that helps Christian business leaders to integrate biblical values into business. On this episode, we're joined by Dr. Michaela O'Donnell. Michaela is the author of the brand new book, Make Work Matter: Your Guide to Meaningful Work in a Changing World. And she's also the executive director of the Max Deprees Center for Leadership, where she oversees the center's vision, strategy, program, and team, all with the goal of helping leaders like you, our listeners, respond faithfully to God in all seasons of your life and leadership. And Michaela is the primary visionary and content creator behind the Deprees Center's. By the way, Depree Center is at Fuller University. She's behind the Depree Center's Blossoming Road Ahead Program, a six-week experience rooted in research that's designed to help folks in transition take a breath, discern next steps, and gain clarity about whatever it is God is calling them to do. Michaela, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_02Darren, that was quite the generous intro. Thanks for having me. It's good to be here.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, excited to have you on. This is um certainly a very current issue that's going on. Um wanted to start out asking you about this concept of the great resignation. And um, it's been all through the news, and certainly employers are are feeling it. Um, what is the great resignation and and why do you think it's happening?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, great question. The great resignation. Uh I think it was actually maybe a professor in Texas. It was a professor who coined the term. I'm probably gonna be wrong about that now, but let's just say it may have been a professor in Texas who coined this term within the last year. And this is really representative of the fact that between 40 and 60 percent of people, depending on what data source you look at, are considering quitting their jobs right now, are considering making a job change. This is not like, you know, maybe a year and a half ago, peak COVID times where people were just exiting the workforce because they were balancing all that was happening in life, especially parents with kids. These are people who are actively thinking about quitting. And then you start to see the statistics. I think July, August, and September have come out now that people are actually doing this. We're seeing record not uh record high resignation rates uh in the last 20 years. So what is it? Why are people doing it? You know, Darren, I'm not sure if this is how unique this is or if this is the latest manifestation of something that's been going on for a long time. Think about it, you could Google how many people don't like their work or are disengaged at any given point over the last decade, and you probably get those numbers that are between 40 and 60 percent, sometimes as high as 80. The difference is that people are actually considering making a move, and in many cases, making a move. So there's all sorts of things behind that. We can get into some of you know what I'm noticing and seeing. But yeah, we're in a we're in a moment where people are reconsidering, where people are stepping back and asking questions. And this is happening actually across a lot of different industries. It's not specific to just one or two.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And you had a stat in one of your articles, I assume it's in the book as well. Um, Gallup estimates that 48% of people are thinking about quitting their jobs. What types of people are most likely to quit right now?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, I mean, that's very contextual in terms of what types of people, but I'll I'll describe a couple of things I'm noticing. So there are certain industries where the rules of how to work in those industries honestly haven't been working for a long time. You think about um restaurant workers, right? Let's use an obvious example that many people have probably experienced. I've been to restaurants in California, in Washington, in Illinois, Nebraska, Maine, um, Texas in the last nine months that have all been uh experiencing labor shortages. They're all like people are running around crazy. I mean, think about it. If you've been out to eat recently, you may have experienced this. And where it's just, it's they're hard, it's hard to get people to come work. And part of me wonders if that's indicative of the fact that in many uh restaurants and in the industry as a whole, it's like access to healthcare, some really basic things. You're working usually minimum wage with tips, late nights, right? And weekends, and just some different things that aren't necessarily on the uh cultural list of most desired things about a workplace. So in some cases, you're seeing people start to quit or resign because now there's there's an opportunity for mobility, and that's happening in industries like restaurant and otherwise. But in other cases, Darren, you're seeing people start to reevaluate. Okay, so I've been doing X, Y, and Z. I was talking to a lawyer just the other week and she said, you know, Mikhail, I make good money. Uh, I, you know, I on paper, this is good work, but I I honestly just don't really like it. It's kind of soul sucking and it's not very much fun. And I feel weird about the fact that I'm even, this is her talking, I feel weird about the fact that I'm even trying to say work should be fun. And so you've got another level of people who are just recalibrating. And I think that's where you start to get questions of meaning and purpose and significance. And then when you start to get questions of meaning and significant and purpose, those to me feel like spiritual conversations, those to me feel like soul-filled conversations. So I think enter the whole faith work, like framework and lens and et cetera, et cetera. So I think a lot of different people for different reasons are thinking about making a move.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So from uh a Christian standpoint, is there is there anything wrong with leaving a job and you know, leaving your employer high and dry, frankly, frankly, and pursuing more pay and more ideal working conditions, you know, just finding more fulfillment. Like, is there is there anything necessarily wrong with that?
SPEAKER_02I think this is a really good question, Darren. And I think that that's something that Christians should be thinking pretty seriously about. A couple of things. One, work, like everything else in life, is subject to um the best and worst parts of humanity. What that means is that there are some work systems that are overly greed-driven, that really do put kind of profit way ahead and not even in light of people that are exploiting people, et cetera, et cetera. So it would, and and I think in those moments, I mean, you see, uh now I'm thinking about the book of Exodus and God delivering the Israelites from Pharaoh, who's a ruler who is the very worst version of the things I'm just describing as enslave the Israelites, and God brings them out of that. So I think there's a place that depending on work environment, depending on working conditions, it can be a holy mood to say, okay, not no longer, no more. And you know, we're gonna, I'm I'm I or we are gonna go over here instead. But I also think that there's many a time and many a case that you know God is calling us very specifically to redeeming and restoring work. And sometimes those very systems I just named, or much more uh sort of ordinary expressions of it, are things that we're called to stay and work on. And so it feels contextual. And I wouldn't want to say this is the Christian response or this isn't the Christian response, but I would say that thinking carefully, you know, spending time with others, really letting it be a long and wise decision is part of how um Christians can go about discerning in this moment.
SPEAKER_00So, what does the Bible teach about for those who are experiencing these unsettling feelings concerning their profession, really sensing that they're in a time of transition? What does the Bible um offer to those of us in that situation?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's a great question. I think I might go to a bit of a conversation about calling here, right? Because sometimes we infuse conversation about calling with our work, though I might want to parse those out. I might want to say a theology of work is actually different than a theology of calling. And part of the work of Christians is to consider how they might relate and therefore inform their work. But I'll I'll talk about a theology of calling because I noticed that in times of discernment, right? We do these groups at uh the Depree Center where I work, they're called Road Ahead. And those groups really are discernment groups. People spend six weeks discerning questions of vocation, and they're really asking, what is God calling me to? Like, what does God want me to do next? And as part of my work at Fuller, I teach classes, I teach at the in the graduate level, and I ask students. These are people who are gonna be pastors or um nonprofit workers and or go into business. We have more people coming to do theology degrees that are going into business than you might guess. And I ask them, like, what so what do you think calling is? What is calling? And we'll have this group discussion and I won't really, I won't really comment, I'll just be facilitating it. And eventually something like calling is a job I love, or calling is the work I was meant to do comes up. And I'm like, you know, that's really beautiful. That's a beautiful sentence. And I wish that that was what the Bible said about calling, but it's actually not what the Bible says about calling. And so we go into a larger conversation about what the Bible actually says and doesn't say. And over time it's been helpful for me to think about calling, kind of like a set of nesting dolls, actually, to picture a set of nesting dolls. So in the innermost nesting doll, is it a thing that's the core, the one that opens no further, is just the call to belong to Jesus. Absolutely. Next layer out, you know, and that sort of Matthew 4 stuff, and disciples walking step by step along alongside Jesus and behind Jesus. Next layer out, the call to participate in redemption, right? If we're supposed to be doing things in this world, we are supposed to be joining God in that work. The next call out, the call to create and loving service of one another, going all the way back to Genesis 1. And then finally, when you have those dolls in set, that's when you can start to talk about all the particular callings that are um people, places, moments, roles, sometimes specific jobs or work, but certainly not you know isolated to that. And when you think about calling in that more expansive way, it starts to become liberating, actually, that no matter where we find ourselves, we're people who are expressing all these layers nested within, rather than just trying to find the one particular calling that God has for us. And so in moments of transition, that can start to take the pressure off. It's kind of like, okay, stepping back and realizing that honestly, probably most places that I might be are moments for me to participate in what God's doing, and that the change doesn't feel as urgent in the same way, and the pressure is not on it, which actually starts to enable us to make some to enter into some other decision-making rubrics and discernment processes. So the first thing I like to go to when people are talking about discernment is actually kind of a wider idea of the theology of calling.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And um so if we tie if we go back a little bit to this idea of people figuring out if they're gonna quit their job like like now, like how do you bring that into the imminent scenario of I am I feel like I can get more pay over here, maybe I can I can work from home. And one of the things you and I have in common is we we both went to seminary, and I remember hearing very strong language about calling in terms of you're gonna, you're being a pastor is is hard work, and you better make certain of your calling, and you know, maybe being a little bit fast and loose with that that passage. I think it's in 2 Timothy, if I'm not mistaken, where it says, make certain of your your calling. Um, and because I don't really hear uh business people talking in that in those in that kind of language. Typically, this is like the the conversion stories of um um not just conversion stories, but the the stories of the the great heroes of the Christian faith, you know, where I think it was John Wesley whose heart was strangely warmed, you know, and he he just knew that he was called to the ministry. And um it's almost like a rite of passage for religious Christian religious leaders to have not just Christian, but really I think probably a lot of religious leaders in in any religion to have that kind of a uh that kind of a story. But I mean, do for those of us working in the marketplace, do we need to have that kind of that kind of a story?
SPEAKER_02That's a great question. I I I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I do think that a theology of calling is just sometimes amped up in a way that ultimately leaves people with a lot of baggage. And I say that because I've sat with a lot of people that are like, I don't even want to use that word. I don't even that word has been, you know, like you said, people playing fast and loose with that word. And so I would want to say, and I think that that gets particularly amped up in religious circles, and not every religious circle, and I think there's a long lineage of this. Honestly, this goes all the way back to the Reformation and even before the Reformation, in terms of this core question of what does it mean to be a Christian and what does it mean to have spiritual significance in the eyes of God, which I think in part is related to our own quest for identity and purpose and so on and so forth. So, to have that experience is not bad, but it's also not necessary for God to be in what we're doing and to to be calling us in the work that we're doing. And so I think about like the business that I had for 10 years before I started doing PhD work. It's a branding and creative agency with my husband called Longwinter Media. He still runs it. And would I talk about God's presence in that any differently than I would talk about God's presence in my work as the executive director of a leadership center at a seminary? No, I wouldn't. They they feel exactly the same to me. And so if we're searching for that feeling and that sureedness, I don't think that's an unhealthy quest. And at the same time, I I wonder why we would be searching for that sort of sensation. Now, in terms of calling, and then all the way back to the very practical, one of the things over and over again that is critical to just asking the what do I do right now questions is other people, right? Other people, um, and this is even Wesley, and you quoted quoted John Wesley. The idea that we would come to know what it is that God wants us to do without other people as a sort of chorus around us, is um not isn't something John Wesley would have gotten on board with, isn't something that the heroes of the faith, to use your language, would have gotten on board with. And so this role of other people is critical. And I think in terms of our careers and what do we do, uh, who are the one or two or three other people that you can talk it out with? Because I actually don't think it's crass to necessarily want to make more money. It's different when you say, okay, I'm already making, I'm already in the top 1%, and I just, you know, want to notch up a few levels different. That might be a conversation about, okay, why more money? But it's like, okay, you got a family, you're trying to pay the bills, you're trying to save for retirement, all the different things that we need to do. That's not a crass thing. And I don't think that Christians should say necessarily, oh, we we don't, we aren't interested in more money and we're gonna be, you know, the sacrifice the martyr, always, always in every situation. So I'm not saying that. But other people, other people become really core. So you talk it through. This is what's going on. These are the other opportunities, you know, and the number of people that I I have, I made a job change about six months ago. I'm still at the same place, but the number of people that I invited into that conversation is probably 10 or 12 people, Darren. Because it's like that's how we're starting to make sense of these theologies in our everyday spaces. The last thing I'll say is that sometimes we have the luxury of all those people being Christians and being able to speak this kind of language, but other times there are people's voices that aren't necessarily Christians, we're still very valuable. They get who we are as professionals, they get the kind of value that we add to a company, they even might get what matters to us. You know, to go back to sort of the themes and that I'm writing about in this book, Make Work Matter. They they see that in us, and therefore they're good sounding boards as we're making decisions.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Do you find it helpful to make a distinction between uh a calling or vocation, which I think are synonymous when you think about just the root of the word vocation, voca, vocal, it's a calling, um, and an assignment. Because it I mean, it's it seems like if I if I recognize that my calling is well, one aspect, one core aspect of my calling is to represent the Lord in the in the business world, um, then the the actual assignment of I mean for for an employee, you you're really in effect are in business for yourself. You just have one employer, right? I mean, you have one client, right? Um but if you're uh a business owner, ideally you have are more diversified and you've got you know multiple multiple clients. And I mean, if you if you quit one client and say, I don't like the way they're treating my people, um, I don't think that I mean that they're just not a good fit for our company. It's almost like a badge of honor for an an employer, a Christian employer, but for uh for a Christian employee who only has that one client, it's like, oh, where's your loyalty? Like nobody's got any loyalty. This generation is you know disloyal and they they don't want to do any work for anybody. And uh, I mean, do you think some of that's in play here too?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, to go back to the assignment thing first, this is where I would go back to that kind of nesting dolls. I'm like, yeah, the particular callings, and I'm using the word callings plural, I do think that those can be linked to this idea of assignment. And I think that we should assume that those are dynamic, because even if I'm a even if I'm a person called to the world of business, which I actually believe I am, even though I'm working, I'm called to the world of business and I'm living that out in a specific way right now. This is a good example. Because was I not called when I was 18 and not necessarily in business yet? Am I not gonna be called when I'm on maternity leave and caring for my kids? Am I not called when I'm gonna retire someday? Like, no, like that so that that house can't be too small. But it's like, you know, I'm a Christian person and in the season, in this season, I'm making sense of God's calling as somebody who's called into business and to support business people. That's that that starts to link with your assignment language. Now, on the work ethic or you know, working too much or not enough, this is this is interesting. I I think that you could say, and I I feel some more ambivalence here. I think that the rising generation, you know, is pegged as not wanting to work as hard or work as much or put in a day to sort of get where they want to go. I've heard I've heard this lately. And part of me is like, maybe that's true. And maybe there's some adulting lessons that need to happen. And maybe that's they miss true. And also, what what might they be teaching us? Like maybe we're working too hard and maybe we're sort of spinning wheels, and maybe we become a culture that prioritizes work above all else. And I wonder if if there's something in that kind of push-pull um between it's not just between generations, but certainly between generations. So I'm mixed. I'm mixed on the the work part. I'm a person who my schedule is full and I work hard. And I grew up with an Irish Catholic work ethic in the Midwest, and that's very formative to me. And at the same time, I think there's something to not being always on, not necessarily working that hard. Um, so so I I think I think both both can be true, Darren.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. That's good. So how should uh we've been Focusing mainly on employees, how Christian employers respond to the great resignation?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think there's there's a lot of good stuff out there right now, actually, mostly catering to managers and bosses and employers. You know, I I think a couple of things. One, I think that COVID, if anything, was an invitation to sort of essentialize, right? And to say, I mean, literally, from the fact that we had essential workers. Remember that? Remember when that was a thing? There was this framework of essential. And I I I in my own work, both in my business and in the center that I run, have had to ask questions about do we really need to do that, that, or that? Um, there is a sense of debusing ourselves that I think is important to the mental health and stability of people that is linked to this should I stay or should I go question, right? When people are in environments where it's just pushing, pushing, pushing, and that's on top of collective trauma and you know everything else that's going on in in the world in our country. I think when where we can pull back, we should. And that that's really a choice that says, hey, every single person that works here is made in the image of God. They are precious, their resources are precious. And if we don't need X, Y, and Z, let's not ask for it. Let's not do it. Um, and in that, in that essentialism actually comes some clarity that is good for the organization, too. Because it's like, well, we we cut all that and it didn't really matter. Now we're much more focused, we're much more lean. So there's some essentialism. Um I think there's another uh huge thing that's going on, and that is the what I would call peripheral work of inclusion and justice, diversity, equity, um, depending on how that's looking at different workforces. That that's increasingly important to employees. And so, and that work matters. And so that's one example of centering work that matters to employees as part of organizational culture and morale and therefore retention, right? So centering work that matters that maybe isn't calculated into the bottom line or on the books, but people are saying they want. And um, so being able to empathize with employees and center work that matters, that's risky and vulnerable and scary, I think. And there's lots of sound logical reasons not to wade into all that stuff. Um, but the data shows that diversifying perspectives actually helps the bottom line and helps organizational culture. And then the last thing I would say is as simple and as complex as learning to care for people, like just learning to deeply care. And I wouldn't want to assume that business owners or leaders or managers aren't caring for people, but caring for people in this peculiar and particular season is probably going to take on new shapes and forms. Um, a super simple example. Um, you know, we have a staff meeting that we do as a team, and it's like, okay, well, the week of Thanksgiving, cancel the staff meeting, and everybody just has that 90 minutes on the clock to do something that's like good for their soul, right? That's 90 minutes that times however many people, it's doable, it fits within the framework, and it's it means a lot to the people who would otherwise sit in that meeting. So there's these small choices to care for people. So get, you know, figure out what's essential and probably forget the rest. Center the work that the people who are working for you and are entrusted to your care are telling you that matter, and then figure out very tangible ways to care for people. Because when people have that stuff going on in their workplace, like there's a whole different level of attachment to use your word loyalty, just buy-in uh that happens, and you know, that that would probably very likely, though obviously can't predict, counter some of those people wanting to leave trends.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah, and it is it is interesting that this great resignation is happening right now. When I mean, you would think that working conditions have improved over certainly where they were back in, you know, like the 1920s, 1930s, and right on through. But it it seems like people are more emboldened now to just go ahead and leave because their coworker left. And they saw this article in the news about the great resignation. It's got it's got its own name now, and and so employers are definitely gonna have to I don't I don't think step up their game in terms of like doing more, but as you're saying, uh maybe doing less. Um, I mean, we we went to a Waffle House that was closed, I think, like around breakfast time. And the sign on the door said, we don't have enough people to to be open right now. And and they said, we might be open in three hours. So it was something something like that. But who knows, maybe Waffle House doesn't need to be open 24 hours a day, like you know. Um, but you know, I know that's uh that's uh heresy for some people.
SPEAKER_02I know don't don't be talking about closing Waffle House there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, for me back in back in college, back in back in high school. I mean, where else where else are you gonna go, right? For sure. Um, so uh Michaela, what do you want people to do as a result of um what they've heard today?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I I mean so I wrote a book about making work matter, and I wrote it before the great resignation. I wrote it before the numbers, uh, just because the way publishing works. I wrote it in a time where I was looking back and looking forward, and I have been surprised just how um palpably interested people are in conversations about meaning right this moment. So if if people are thinking about making a change, I I would think change. It's it's it's probably not. It's they've probably been thinking about it for a while, and this moment is giving them more permission to do that. And if people are, if a lot of people are making changes in your department, if you're leading and or in your business, I think that's an invitation to do some really hard looking at what you're doing and how you know what you're how what you're doing, no matter if you're making waffles or um, you know, anything else, is it is really an invitation for people to do something that matters and for people to feel like their work matters, and that that happens less in the output and more in how people feel and how people are treated and how people get to work alongside one another. And that's in the very daily small stuff. So the invitation is for the employees, uh, people who are thinking about their work to pursue that meaning, but not necessarily in an over-inflated sensational way, but in the ordinary talk-to-each other way, and for the people who are leading to give people that space by cutting out stuff that doesn't need to be there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's really good. And the book is Make Work Matter. Where do you want people uh to go? Uh certainly the book is on Amazon, any other specific place you want people to go?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you can obviously buy it wherever books are sold, but we've got a lot more information about it, including some online courses and just sort of extras at the Depree Center website, which is just D-E-P-R-E-E.org, or you could just Google Depree Center Fuller Seminary.
SPEAKER_00Awesome. Michaela, this has been encouraging um and challenging. I know that our listeners are better for it. So thanks for coming on to help us grow today.
SPEAKER_02Thanks, Darren. It's good to be with you.
SPEAKER_01We hope you've enjoyed this episode. And if so, we would greatly appreciate it if you would leave us a quick rating and review for the Christianity in Business podcast on iTunes. You can get more information about HBU Center for Christianity and Business at Christianityandbusiness.com. Thanks for listening, and remember to keep integrating biblical values into your business.