Introducing Soul Factor
seeing value
What makes you feel valued? I imagine it’s when you are appreciated by others, when you know you’ve made a difference in a situation, when you can measure the impact you’ve had. Knowing the value of your work helps you multiply the value you add to the world. But to know the value of our daily activities involves going beyond thinking of value in purely economic production terms.
Seeing value moves from measuring a market valuation to including the intrinsic value of our work. It sees value creation in a whole range of activities rather than separating financial from social or environmental value. Value is more than a number we make. Value of lasting worth is generated as useful products are created, staff developed, systems innovated and lives improved across society for generations to come. Generative value is about the value of everything that gives life, growth and flourishing.
Soul Factor talks widen what we mean by value and what we can generate that is valued. Each talks looks at an aspect of value we can create and celebrate in the workplace beyond just profit to see the value we add to people and the impact we can have on wider society both now and in the future. Work with soul factor is valuable work produced by faith, prompted by love and inspired by hope.
Whole value
The value we generate reveals the values we care about with heart and soul. Whole Value is a fresh way of seeing all the value we add to the world that is purposeful and meaning giving. The description of something as being ‘whole’ emphasises completeness ‘as nature intended’, such as whole milk or whole numbers. It also communicates that none of the goodness is missed, such as eating the whole apple or speaking the whole truth. Soul Factor talks look at the value of work in its entirety and the whole range of value that we can believe in and is worth celebrating.
To see the whole value involves taking a step forward to see the detailed value or stepping back to gain a wider view. That switching of focal points is common practice when taking pictures. For the past 100 years photographers have carried three camera lenses in their kit bags, each of which has a distinct and necessary purpose:
• The close-up lens zooms in on specific detail and expands a part of the picture so it can be clearly seen and understood.
• The portrait lens focuses on the people in the picture and blurs out the background so the face pops in the frame.
• The wide-angle lens opens up a wider view so the whole picture can be seen and each part can be viewed in the context of the whole.
room of jewels
Talk at Soul Factor Singapore by
Andrew Baughen
Discussion questions based on talk
Read Genesis 1:1-2
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.’
In the book of Genesis three Hebrew words are used to depict the earth in its raw form before value is generated:
• tohu: which means formlessness, worthless waste, unreality
• bohu: which means emptiness, void, superficially
• choshek: which means darkness, ignorance, obscurity.
Business follows the processes of nature and generates value by forming what is formless and worthless, filling what is empty and void and lighting what is dark and obscure. Business with both substance and purpose adds, extends and intensifies.
Questions:
How does God form what is formless, fill what is empty and light what is dark in the rest of his creation work?
How does God commission us to follow the same pattern of value generation?
How does your work follow these value generating processes that God works with and commissions us for?