The Uncommon Leader Podcast

Three Steps to Creating Impactful Organizations: A Masterclass with CEO Gary Harpst

• John Gallagher

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Imagine grappling with the turbulence of chaos in leadership roles — a concept that seems as daunting as it is inevitable. Gary Harpst, with a treasure trove of wisdom from his latest book "Built to Beat Chaos: Biblical Wisdom for Leading Yourself and Others," joins us to shed light on how facing disorder head-on can be the crucible for profound leadership growth. With a lifetime of intertwining faith and business, Gary answers the call to mentor leaders through the storms of corporate life, championing the integration of spiritual values for a truly transformative impact.

In a conversation that navigates the complexities of human nature – heart, mind, imagination, and action – Gary Harpst shares how understanding these facets is essential to creating unshakeable teams and driving impactful change. We explore the nuances of igniting core desires within leaders, a pivotal step toward authentic transformation and the pursuit of a higher calling. This episode isn't just about strategies and theories; it's a revelation of the potential that lies in aligning one's professional journey with their spiritual quest, promising not just success, but profound fulfillment and alignment. Join us for a captivating dialogue that promises to equip you with the compass to lead effectively amidst life's inevitable chaos.

Learn more about Gary Harpst - Personal website

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Speaker 1:

Getting people to change is they're nothing harder, me included and so we have found that the best use of our time, at least early on, is really challenging the leader to decide what is it you want, and if they get that fire lit, then they have the motivation to start doing the things that change. But if you try to do this surface level, force people at the action level into a mold outside-in transformation, it doesn't last.

Speaker 2:

Hey, uncommon Leaders, welcome back. This is the Uncommon Leader Podcast and I'm your host, john Gallagher. Today I've got a great guest, gary Harbst. Gary brings with him a treasure trove of experience. We're talking about five decades of merging faith with business. In today's episode, gary's going to share key insights from his newest book, built to Beat Chaos Biblical Wisdom for Leading Yourself and Others. He'll walk us through his personal journey and discuss the crucial role that chaos plays, not just as a challenge to overcome in leadership, but as a fundamental element to understand and actually harness in our leadership practices. We'll also dive into what kingdom impact really means in the context of business today. So buckle up as Gary unpacks his transformative approach to leadership that promises not just professional success but a profound alignment with your spiritual values. Let's get started. Gary Harbst, welcome to the Uncommon Leader Podcast.

Speaker 1:

It's great to have you on the show today. How are you doing? Doing great, John. Thank you so much. This is going to be an adventure here for the next 30 minutes or so.

Speaker 2:

Excellent, gary. I've been looking forward to our conversation for a while, no doubt about it, and I want to start you off with the same first question, though, that I always start all my first time guests, and that's to tell me a story from your childhood that still impacts who you are today, as a leader or as a person.

Speaker 1:

Well, the story is actually one that didn't really become evident to me, its significance, until much later, somewhere in my career. Somebody suggested that to understand who you are, go through the first 10 years of your life, the next 10 years, the next 10 years and each 10-year period and write down the strongest memories you have. And it was that process that made me realize that when I was under 10, it was that process that made me realize that when I was under 10, I had this compulsion. I grew up on a farm, by the way, and farmed in the 50s where we had a lot of tractors and barns and those sorts of things. So as a youngster you have lots of opportunities to do things and no Internet, nothing like that. So you had to entertain yourself outside.

Speaker 1:

I for some reason always drew to when my father was in the fields or whatever. I would go out and sweep and organize our garage and I was sort of had this compulsion to bring order out of that whole area. And you know, at the time it just seemed totally natural to me. My older brother thought I was nuts. He says, why aren't you out playing or doing this or that and the other thing. But what I realized later on was God wires us in certain ways and he changes who we are, but he amplifies what is in us. And it turns out that precursor in the under 10 years has been a thread through my whole life about organizing things, and even this latest book I wrote is on that same topic. So that was a real aha for me to realize. This imprint was there very early in my life.

Speaker 2:

Using that through line is powerful, and we have so many different stories as children, to your point, that still impact who we are and sometimes we don't even realize it until someone points it out to us and really makes that happen. And I do appreciate you mentioning your book. That's really what we're here to talk about. Is that your latest book? Built to Beat Chaos Biblical Wisdom for Leading Yourself and Others. So let me ask off the bat who did you write this book for and what was the inspiration to write it?

Speaker 1:

This is your third book. Yes, by the way, I wrote two books earlier, probably 20 years ago, and I concluded I wasn't going to do another one. Don't ever tell God that You're not going to do something. And I was not planning on writing another book and somebody approached me unsolicited and said would you consider writing a book? And I said no. And somebody else approached me and I just thought it was curious and it got me thinking about it and I thought no, I really don't want to. Well, one day I was praying in the morning and saying God, you know I'm not. I don't ever want to say no to you. So if you want me to do this, be clear and unsolicited.

Speaker 1:

An editor from Wiley called me, which doesn't normally happen, and he told me that they were interested in having me write a book. And I said, well, no. And then he kept calling back and finally, finally, I said, well, I'll write one if you'll allow me complete freedom to integrate what I've learned about faith and business. And they said no problem with that. And so that that was the sort of the motivation behind it is. I'm in my fifth decade as a CEO. Hard to believe, and the whole journey, that whole five decades has been a desire to integrate, to run great businesses, but to do it in a way that integrated with what I knew were biblical principles, and so this has beenke is five decade learning laboratory. So the book itself is me sort of organizing what I've learned in these five decades and trying to get it in a consumable form for other leaders, and particularly leaders that have this question about how do I integrate my, how do I live my faith in a work environment, and so that was the motivation behind it.

Speaker 2:

So, outside the story of Wiley then pushing you and to your point, you never tell a guy he's got quite God's got quite a sense of humor when it comes to either trying to say no to something that's probably there or certainly asking for something and how he gives it to us one way or the other. I could spend days talking stories about that. On your LinkedIn profile, right underneath your short bio, says achieve kingdom impact through whole business and whole person health the kingdom impact component. 50 years, five decades, of being a CEO was that always a big part of who you were in your business or was there a point in which that kind of shifted for you became a big part of it?

Speaker 1:

Thank you for asking that question. When we started the business, there were three of us in a Bible study and we were serious about trying to figure out how to live our lives, not as a Sunday experience, but if faith in God was real it should affect everything and that was the genesis for us starting a business. But I think I spent at least three of those decades maybe four with the mindset that being a Christian meant, of course, tell the truth and have integrity and take care of people, and all those things are true and they're biblical. God says the greatest commandment is love your neighbor as yourself. They're all true and we were open about our faith and everybody knew who worked with us. That that was important to us.

Speaker 1:

But I would say in the last few years I began to get this different model that God is sort of laying on my heart and I describe it in three layers. Think of a pyramid, that kingdom impact. I finally had to make some definitions of my own because I talked to a lot of other believers and they would use different phrases, like honoring God with their business and faith driven, and there's just a lot of phrases we use and I had to sort out my own thinking and so I ended up with a pyramid. It was sort of body, soul and spirit ministry to people, and the body side it represented the basics of a good business. People want to work for an organization that's well-managed, that doesn't lie to them, that gives them good job opportunities, the sort of things that it doesn't matter whether you're a person of faith or not. You would agree with that. Excellence in business is basic and the next layer is becoming more popular now. Popular is not the right word, but the phrase soul care. Post-covid there are organizations hiring other organizations like chaplaincy et cetera, to take care of their people, to just call them and build relationships with them, and the secular term for that is soul care.

Speaker 1:

The Bible has a different meaning for soul. But this second layer kind of fits where I live for decades, which is love your neighbor as yourself. So if you see somebody that needs help, you help them and you try to be kind and those sorts of things. And more recently God has been challenging me to move to the third layer and say the story is incomplete. I can love you but I cannot heal what's broken inside of you, I can't quote, forgive sins, I can't give you a new life that God talks about. And so that third layer in my way of thinking and looking at the Bible, you're not really having kingdom impact unless you have explicit strategies to do all three.

Speaker 1:

If you do two of the three, you are doing good work and you're doing good things. Society needs it. But the gospel is about doing something that only Jesus can do, and if I stop short of at least make what I think it's First, peter says be ready always, or James, be ready always to give a reason for your hope. That's what I've shifted to in the last three or four years is coming along business side businesses and saying you can do all three, it's possible. And the more I've studied podcasts like yours and many, many resources, you begin to realize that one of our biggest enemies is we think we can't do it and in fact there are many people doing it and doing it really well.

Speaker 2:

And so that's been very empowering to me and has become kind of. My mission now is to help people get from the second to the third layer and processes which you talk about a good bit in your book, especially having run a business, that lower level you're talking about and even without those three things that foundation, the kingdom impact would be difficult because you need to have all of those as participants in that journey we have to work our way through. So I love how you define that in terms of the pyramid or three levels, and I can understand. Again, was there a moment that you said, man, I'm not at that level yet. What am I going to do differently?

Speaker 1:

Well, now I realize in retrospect that leading me to write the book was God's way of nudging me to reflect and integrate things that I had not put together in my mind, and so it ended up that the book was probably more for me than anyone else. And my history has been one of sort of you know, ceo, you get a vision and then you build. Well, how do I get there? And that's not what happened here. God sort of nudged me do this and he wouldn't tell me the next step, and then do this and then do this. And I'd say it took me a full two years to get to the point, to understand that pyramid and the realization of that third layer.

Speaker 1:

And there was one kind of epiphany moment and I was in a prayer group with some other business people and a guy in there that I did not know made the statement. He said, yeah, 30 years ago I decided that I would make my business a platform for kingdom building. I'd never heard that phrase. I'd never heard that phrase. Um and I. So that was a point where I started to dig and I talked to that guy. I said what did you mean by that? And then he pointed me some other people, and pretty soon I began to realize there's this whole other way of thinking about things. And so here I am in my seventies, uncovering some of the greatest learnings of my life.

Speaker 2:

Gary. So what is kingdom impact from your perspective that you've learned? What is the outcome?

Speaker 1:

Well, jesus, in his prayer teaching us to pray, says Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, and Jesus talks an enormous amount about the kingdom. Well, the kingdom is when people are moved from this realm to the realm that Jesus leads, and it's really a new kind of life. I know it's mysterious. It's actually God entering into us and making us into a new kind of creature, and it sounds mysterious, but that's what it says and I've experienced it and it's true. And I've experienced it and it's true. And so you get moved from this realm where the world shapes you to a realm where God shapes you and God's realm he shapes you from the inside out Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Inside out, the world shapes us from the outside in. It conforms us, it tries to press us into its mold, and so kingdom impact is when you help somebody realize that there is this path to inside out instead of outside in.

Speaker 1:

And what I think a kingdom impact business is is where the owner and I use that term precisely ownership is something God demands. He gives us ownership and then expects us to be accountable for it. Of course, he owns everything, but stewardship and ownership are related. But when I own something, I'm responsible for it. So, whoever owns a business, if they're going to be kingdom impact, they have to have a purpose, an intentional strategy to deal with people body, soul and spirit and that doesn't mean you ramrod it down their throat, but you need to be intentional about those who are ready and are interested. You have a way to respond to that. That's what I think of.

Speaker 2:

I appreciate that Kingdom impact, certainly as you define it as well, and I love your Romans 12.1 and 12.2 analogy as you go forward, as well as the thing that went through my mind as you were saying, that is the Hebrews and the faith chapter inside of Hebrews that it takes the deep faith that we have to your point not being able to necessarily see what that is now, but to believe that there is something better there. Absolutely so if that kingdom impact, then that's the target state. If you were to think about that's the ultimate outcome that exists. You mentioned even in the title of your book and I don't want to make any assumptions or interpret, but the built to beat chaos so is chaos. Are those the barriers? Is that the barriers that keep us from achieving that target state?

Speaker 1:

I couldn't help reflecting but reflect on one of our clients in Chicago lower east side of Chicago, which is an underserved area, health care wise and they, when COVID hit that organization, was absolutely Overwhelmed I mean completely overwhelmed living in a large city with three or four or five times the demand for their services. Literally overnight they were just stretched to exhaustion. And we were working with that client and they just kept using the word chaos and it was a victim term. And one day I was thinking about that and I was reading Genesis, chapter 1. I really like beginnings and endings and I noticed you have a beginning question and an ending question.

Speaker 1:

Book ends and the beginning of the Bible is profound and of course we're familiar most of us are familiar with the idea about 25 verses in that God says we're created in his image and it begs the question well, what does that mean? What is he like and what is his image? And I just thought at that moment I said, okay, what do I know at verse 25 about God? I'm made in his image, what do I know about him? So I went back to verse one and it hit me like I've never seen this before.

Speaker 1:

It says in the beginning God created the heavens, the earth, and they were void and without form. And it dawned on me for the very first time that the first thing God created was chaos. It wasn't light, it wasn't the other things that happened in those seven transformative stages, it was chaos. And so my belief is that what he's modeling for us is he's telling us something, that he is a God who created chaos as a raw material from which he began to bring order, and we are created in his image to have dominion, which is a form of bringing order of chaos. So that really kind of set me free. It caused me to think chaos is not really our enemy, ordering it is our purpose, and I quit thinking of chaos with a victim mindset.

Speaker 2:

Hey listeners, I want to take a quick moment to share something special with you. Many of the topics and discussions we have on this podcast are areas where I provide coaching and consulting services for individuals and organizations. If you've been inspired by our conversation and are seeking a catalyst for change in your own life or within your team, I invite you to visit coachjohngallaghercom forward slash free call to sign up for a free coaching call with me. It's an opportunity for us to connect, discuss your unique challenges and explore how coaching or consulting can benefit you and your team. Okay, let's get back to the show.

Speaker 2:

Love that, and I saw this in your book too. You encourage leaders to embrace the constraints that are in front of them and not to see it as a victim as you go forward. I love it. Let's dive into maybe the book just a little bit as more of the content, what many of the listeners are looking for as well. You break it down really into three sections. It's a playbook for leaders to execute is what I see and you break it down into knowing, doing and being. You can't possibly cover all those things in the last 10 minutes or so in terms of what we have in the interview but I had a couple of things I thought were interesting. There's a framework that you had that said being an effective leader requires being a student of desire, which moved to reason, to intention, to action. But it requires that first step, being a student of desire. Can you expand on that a little bit for me? Tell me about that.

Speaker 1:

Yes, I'm a person who believes that God reveals himself through everything creation, through the Bible and science. So there's no, to me no conflict that if we discover something that's true in science, it tells us something about God. And it's interesting that we made all this progress. A sociology teacher in my first college class asked the most profound question I've ever been asked and it's shaped my life journey. He says why is it we've advanced so much as a civilization technologically and advanced zero or regressed sociologically? That pursuit of that question ultimately led me to Christ. And but anyway what?

Speaker 1:

We can progress and build things because the laws of science, the way things hook together, are predictable. So electromagnetic energy, one generation to the next, can build on its learning and pass it on. But when it comes to leadership, we're called to get people to work together, and people are not like atoms. They don't bind and hook together in the same way with the same predictable rules. And what that means is that one of the first characteristics of a leader is they have to understand that their leadership is dealing with human architecture, not the chemistry of human architecture, not physics.

Speaker 1:

And the Bible teaches us that there's four main components of the way we're made up A heart, a source of desire someplace, that we wake up in the morning and we want something. We don't do anything if we don't have some desire. And then there's a mind, a reason, something that translates our desire into no, that's not a good idea. Or here's how to pursue that. The mind takes the desire and puts some shape to it and ultimately, we get in our mind what we want to do. Okay, I'm going to the mall today. That's the imagination you get in your mind. This is what I'm going to do, and it can be a house you're imagining. It can be whatever. I think Stephen Covey or somebody called that the first creation. We always get something in our mind before we do it.

Speaker 1:

And then action. So those four components if you're going to be a leader. We often see the actions and don't like them, and we react to the actions and anger and frustration, et cetera, when in fact, the actions fed out of the imagination and the imagination fed out of the reason and the reason fed out of the desire. You will be a much, much better leader if you quit reacting to the actions and diagnose what is the underlying desire behind it, and often, if you're like me, you don't really understand your own desires, you're not quite sure why you just did what you did, and so good leaders help. They have this awareness that they have these four things going on inside of them and everybody they work with has it going on, and they begin to try to help uncover the desire, part of it, in their life and in others and it helps make it, helps us integrate and work together when we become students of desire.

Speaker 2:

Long answer, but no, no, I appreciate that, going all the way through it in terms of how that flows and how that reaches back to understanding our desire right at the start, before we can, to your point, have actions that even mean anything. You know there are others. I mean the Farsight cartoon it talks about. We work really hard, work really hard, climb the ladder, climb the ladder, get to the top and we find out we're in the wrong jungle or had the ladder against the wrong wall. You know, in terms of climbing a tree, I mean it's those things happen. So we got to understand that desire at the start and we keep those things in line. So when you work with other leaders who want to establish, then the habit learning systems that you're talking about, how do you get them started? Where do you get them?

Speaker 1:

started. Well, I appreciate you said earlier you're kind of a scientist where you think about lean and you mentioned lean.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

And you know, getting people to change is there's nothing harder, me included and so we have found that the best use of our time, at least early on, is really challenging the leader to decide what is it that you want? And we have surface level answers for that, but you need to. This is back to being a student of desire. You need to help people understand what do I really want for this business, and if they get that fire lit, if they really understand that, then they have the motivation to start doing the things to change. But if you try to do this surface level, force people at the, at the action level, into a mold outside in transformation, it doesn't last. It just does not last. And, uh, you gotta get back to the, the desire side.

Speaker 2:

So I think you're spot on. I mean people change when the pain of remaining the same is greater than the pain of the change itself. Changes hard.

Speaker 1:

There's no doubt about it.

Speaker 2:

And sometimes it's more comfortable to stay in that space of underperformance than it is the discomfort of moving into your learning zone and trying something different.

Speaker 2:

And again, if we're going to have kingdom impact, then it's required that we become uncomfortable in the work that we're doing. There's no doubt about it. If you are comfortable, you should be uncomfortable because there's something within your business that's not achieving what it could be achieving. Absolutely, gary, I sense that you're a student as well. Look at the back of your book. You've got your resources listed that you have learned from. Is there a specific book or resource that you have found that's had significant impact on your leadership style?

Speaker 1:

Well, I do find I'm stating the obvious here, but I do find that the Bible is truly a blueprint for reality. So that takes first place. Books that have really helped me think more deeply about the purpose side of my life I like Oz Guinness's book, the Call. Guinness's book, the Call. He really digs deeply into the false idea that holy work is church work or missionary work and I think his was the first book. I probably read it now five times but his was the first book that said there really is no distinction. All work is holy. God created us to live in his purpose and that seed has really helped give meaning to everything else I do.

Speaker 2:

Thanks for sharing that, gary. I cannot believe how fast our time has gone. Gary. Folks who'd be interested in learning more about your book or about you where do they find that information?

Speaker 1:

Oh, go to our website leadfirstcom or not com. Take that away, leadfirstai. I make a weekly update there and my books are there and our services. We have business services to help organizations pull this off.

Speaker 2:

Excellent, gary. I've enjoyed our conversation today. I know the listeners are going to find value in it. Gary, I'm going to honor your time and I want to finish you up with the same last question the bookend question, as you refer to it that I always have with my first-time guests, and I'm going to give you a billboard. You can put it wherever you want to. What is the message that you put on that billboard and why do you put that message?

Speaker 1:

on there.

Speaker 1:

Well, I personally think it's a passage from the Bible. It says if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. And I love science fiction movies and one of the themes in science fiction movies is there's this alien invasion. Somehow an alien comes and snatches our bodies or takes control. If you really read the Bible carefully, there's the universe that God created and then there's God outside of the universe, and the gospel says that God brings his life it's called zoe life from outside the universe and puts it in me and in you. And that verse says if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. It doesn't say an improved creature, it says a new creature. And I think it's the most profound truth that is not understood. It took me a while to understand that God doesn't imply a better life. He implies a new life. Yes, we still have our body and all these things that are here, but from an internal point of view it's a different life. So that's what I'd put on a billboard.

Speaker 2:

Thank you very much, gary. I tell you this conversation has been a lot of fun. I hope that we can stay in touch. I wish you the best going forward as well.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for what you do, john. You know you're a form of bringing order out of chaos right. You bring people who have different insights, and thank you for what you do. It's very valuable.

Speaker 2:

Oh, you're welcome. I appreciate the feedback, Gary. Thank you, and that wraps up another episode of the Uncommon Leader Podcast. Thanks for tuning in today. If you found value in this episode, I encourage you to share it with your friends, colleagues or anyone else who could benefit from the insights and inspiration we've shared. Also, if you have a moment, I'd greatly appreciate if you could leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast platform. Your feedback not only helps us to improve, but it also helps others discover the podcast and join our growing community of uncommon leaders. Until next time, go and grow champions.