Weltanschauung

As Bonnie Wurzbacher pointed out last week, she was able to bring meaning to her work with Coke only after she understood how it connected with the bigger picture of a biblical worldview.

When it comes to bringing meaning to work, having a handle on what a "biblical worldview" is, makes all the difference. You may have noticed the name of this blog is "Worldview Matters." This is also the name of the educational service organization my wife, Kathy, and I founded back in the year 2000. Your worldview really does matter.

I am convinced that the ability to make connections between the bigger picture of a "biblical worldview" and our everyday work is essential for bringing meaning to whatever we do. A "worldview" provides a larger frame of reference that enables us to make sense of everything around us. Without a biblically informed worldview, the task of bringing real and lasting meaning to everyday work is impossible. That's a strong statement, but let me support it by providing some definition to the word "worldview." 

The word "worldview" was first coined by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, in the eighteenth century. The word he coined was: Weltanschauung. As the Germans often do, Kant combined two German words into one: Welt, which means "world," and Anschauung, which can be translated into English as "conception," "idea," "opinion," or "view."

If two German children are resting on the grass looking up at the clouds, and one child points to a particular cloud and says, "Look at the horse!" and the other child looks at the same cloud and doesn't see a horse, he might reply: "That's your Anschauung!" In other words, that's "your take."

This brings us to a major characteristic of "worldviews." Everyone has a view of reality, but not everyone's "take" on it is the same. Some people see a Designer-Creator behind the existence of all things, while others (who are looking at the very same things, mind you) see nothing but impersonal matter, functioning by pure, blind fate. Some people see a Higher Law Giver behind "right and wrong," while others (who are looking at the very same issues) see only varying degrees of human preference. 

In the next few weeks, we'll take a look at the basic essentials of a biblical worldview, and how these essentials can bring remarkable meaning to all human endeavor.

 

A Pause That Refreshes!

Last week I mentioned an interview I did several years ago with Bonnie Wurzbacher, Vice President of Global Accounts for The Coca-Cola Company, in which this committed follower of Christ told me, "We don't find meaning in our work, we bring meaning to our work.” 

I invite you to hear Bonnie's explanation of this statement in her own words. The videos below are short, the first one being 2 minutes, and the second being 1.5 minutes. If the clips do not play, click here and here.

You'll find Bonnie's perspective a pause that refreshes!
 

 

The Coca-Cola Company? Was She Joking?

Last week I quoted Behnamn Tabriai and Michael Terrell as saying one of the biggest reasons people struggle to find meaning in their work is because they “aren’t aligned.” The way they put it is: “...people don’t build an external reality that is in line with their internal selves and values. When your inside world and your outside world are misaligned, it’s easy to feel frustrated, unhappy, and adrift.”

Tabriai and Terrell are touching on something very fundamental: “aligning” our behavior with our core values. When we don’t do this, we certainly do feel uncomfortable with ourselves. Conversely, when we do this, we have a sense of satisfaction. This is true whether it’s in the context of the workplace or anywhere else. And, as Tabriai and Terrell point out, the feelings of satisfaction that come when our values and our behavior are in alignment “contribute significantly to how well we perform and our sense of meaning.”

So what happens when a person’s a line of work constantly rubs against his or her deeply held values? If the “rub” is big enough, it may require a change of location. That is, a different job. A follower of Christ who is making a living through the propagation of pornography, should be uncomfortable.

But I suspect most of the readers of this blog are not dealing with that degree of misalignment. For most followers of Christ who suffer from a lack of alignment between their everyday work and their inner values, the issues are much more subtle. I am of the opinion that many followers of Christ who lack fulfillment and deep meaning in their everyday work are in this condition not because their job is in need of adjustment, but because their ideas about work itself are in need of adjustment.

I once interviewed a high-level executive in a famous worldwide company who told me, “We don’t find meaning in our work, we bring meaning to our work.” These profound words came from the lips of Bonnie Wurzbacher, then Senior Vice President of Global Accounts for The Coca-Cola Company, who, as a follower of Christ, learned to bring meaning to her work with The Coca-Cola Company by seeing how this work “fulfilled and advanced God’s purposes for the world.”

The Coca-Cola Company? Was she joking?

Not at all. I’ll pick up from here next week.

He Escaped A Life Of Toil?

Last week, a beloved man of God passed from this life to the next at the age of 104: George Beverly Shea, the long-time associate of Billy Graham who always sang an inspiring song just before Billy preached.

Mr. Shea’s obituary in the New York Times caught my attention. The first line declared that George Beverly Shea had “escaped a life of toil in an insurance office to become a Grammy-winning gospel singer.”

What’s this? He escaped a life of toil in an insurance office? If you happen to work in the insurance industry, I hope you’re not saying to yourself, “Congratulations to Mr. Shea. I’d like to find my escape before I turn 104!”

The fact is, many people feel trapped at work. Many don’t want to be doing what they’re supposed to be doing at work, and endure the situation until the weekend. Many are not engaged. How many? Research by The Gallup Organization suggests 55% of the US workforce is “not engaged,” and another 16% are “actively disengaged.”

If Gallup’s findings are correct, then 71% of US workers are not engaged in their work! The “not engaged” folk are described as those who “hang back and don’t commit themselves [to their job],” while the “actively disengaged” employee is described as one who is “not just unhappy at work…[but] acts out that unhappiness.”

The big question is, “Why?”

In response to last week’s post, one reader, Alex Brubaker, sent a link to an article in the Huffington Post, from April 15, titled: “Why Are We So Frustrated at Work and at Home?” written by Behnamn Tabriai and Michael Terrell, who are affiliated with the Stanford Business School. Here is their answer to the “why” question:

"Though our society-wide struggle to find greater meaning is certainly attributable to a variety of nuanced factors, we have found that one of the biggest reasons is that, simply, people aren't aligned. By that we mean that people don't build an external reality that is in line with their internal selves and values. When your inside world and your outside world are misaligned, it's easy to feel frustrated, unhappy, and adrift. However, when they move into alignment, our lives are pervaded with a sense of satisfaction and happiness -- feelings that researchers have shown contribute significantly to how well we perform and our sense of meaning."

Could "alignment" be a key to meaning?