People, organizations, and communities relate to the world in one of three ways.
3 Ways to Work
EXPLOITATIVE
The Exploitative way is to take all you can get—to gain any advantage, to prevail, to possess. Exploitative actors most often approach the venture with a zero-sum, “I win, you lose” scarcity mentality. The motivating force behind the Exploitative way is fundamentally self- or tribe-centered—to win and control.
We are surrounded by the Exploitative way; we all fall naturally into it; and are always trying to escape its effects on us.
3 Ways to Work
Ethical
The Ethical way is to do things right—to do no harm, keep the rules, play fair, solve problems, add value. Ethical actors pursue “win-win” whenever they can. The motivating force behind the Ethical way is to be good and do good — which can often also be self- or tribe-centered.
We expect the Ethical of ourselves and of those around us, yet we sometimes fall short; and we’re grateful when we encounter it.
3 Ways to Work
Redemptive
The Redemptive way is creative restoration through sacrifice—to bless others, renew culture, and give of ourselves. Redemptive actors pursue an “I sacrifice, we win” approach with the agency and resources available to them. The motivating force behind the Redemptive way is fundamentally other-centered: to love and serve.
We rarely expect to encounter the Redemptive; though whenever we do, we’re changed.
What does it mean to be Redemptive?
“Redemption” is an economic term that means to buy back something (or someone) to restore it to its rightful place. For Christians it is full of great theological meaning, referring to Jesus’ act of becoming human and sacrificing his life so that we could be restored to a right relationship with God and his creation.
Wherever there is loss, brokenness, unfairness, injustice, waste, or harm—and someone willingly enters into the situation by bearing a cost or taking a risk to help the person, resource, or system to be restored or repaired—that’s redemptive action. Which normally requires the creation of some new product, expression, model, or norm.
And this core redemptive pattern—creative restoration through sacrifice—not only describes Jesus’ work to save the world but also our daily work, especially as people of faith, to serve the world. It gives shape to our mission as those who have been written into the greater redemptive story through no merit of our own.
creative restoration sacrifice
What do we mean by entrepreneurship?
When we hear the term “entrepreneurship” today, many of us think of well-capitalized, tech-forward, high-growth, Silicon Valley-style startups. (And at Praxis, our community includes its fair share of these ventures and leaders.)
But while this model captures our cultural attention, it's just one small part of the varied entrepreneurial landscape—which also includes “Main Street” businesses that find new, sustainable ways to serve their communities. It’s scrappy nonprofits and established NGOs that find new paths to impact, replication, and scale. It’s new teams leading existing organizations, placing bets on new products, services, customers, business models, and channels. It’s intrapreneurial mavericks who are given the freedom to launch new businesses from existing ones. It’s the dorm-room and solopreneur hustles that find a way to sustainability through sheer force of will and inspiration.
And to us, entrepreneurship is far more than just the founders—it's also the funders, builders, creatives, and educators with the imagination and will to help make new things possible. They all play their part in "directing agency and resources toward organizational creation, innovation, and risk."
Every significant part of organizational work falls along one of three dimensions.
3 Dimensions of Work
Strategy
Strategy centers on what we build. It's everything the venture does to express mission, serve customers, and create value—in the form of products, services, programs, brands, and even digital and physical experiences. We define Strategy by its cultural impact: “What does this organization do to the world?”
Redemptive Strategy doesn’t set out to exploit or leverage cultural trends for gain, or even merely to advance culture in the general direction of “progress.” Instead, redemptive strategy is about building products, services, programs, brands, and experiences that renew culture by making their sphere of impact somehow more humanizing, truthful, beautiful, virtuous, lasting, and God-glorifying.
3 Dimensions of Work
Operations
Operations centers on how we build. It's everything the venture does to develop, support, and deliver the Strategy in the form of culture, financial models, value chains, and partnerships. We define Operations by its people impact: “What does this organization do to its people and partners?”
Redemptive Operations refuses to use people merely as resources to achieve organizational goals; and it seeks to go further than merely respecting team members and partners. Instead, redemptive operations are about building culture, financial models, value chains, and partnerships that bless people through grace, generosity, justice, patience, and mutuality.
3 Dimensions of Work
Leadership
Leadership centers on why we build. It's the motives, worldviews, imagination, and practices of the leadership team, whose decisions and actions set the course for the venture’s Strategy and Operations. We define Leadership Intent by its success script: “What definition of success are the leaders of the organization living out?”
Redemptive Leadership is marked not by an ambition to live for ourselves, or even just to improve ourselves. Instead, redemptive leadership is about patiently rewiring our motives, worldview, imagination, and practices around dying to self—becoming more surrendered, humble, accountable, generous, and rested.
Principles of applying the Redemptive Frame
the TRAJECTORy principle
Every organization, like every person, contains a mixture of all three approaches—exploitative blind spots, ethical strengths, points of redemptive light. But every exploitative (or redemptive) decision makes the next exploitative (or redemptive) decision more likely, setting a dominant trajectory or approach for the venture.
the horizon principle
The Leadership dimension defines the horizon of possibility for an organization's Strategy and Operations; and the younger the organization, the more this is true. Organizations can grow bigger, faster, or in different directions than the founders imagined; but we know of no organization that has ever been more redemptive in its actual impact than the founders intended. The scripts we internalize, the practices we nurture, the imagination we cultivate, and the choices we make as leaders are the primary limiting factor on our ventures' impact.
Redemptive entrepreneurship is
creative restoration through sacrifice,
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Redemptive Entrepreneurship is an aspiration—every one of us, and every organization, falls well short of it every day—but it is not an empty dream. We have seen the power of the redemptive approach in the lives and ventures we most admire, and we’re committed to becoming a community of practice of this craft.
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