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Frame of Reference - Profiles in Leadership
"Frame of Reference - Profiles in Leadership" and "Frame of Reference - Coming together" are conversational style shows with local, national, and global experts about issues that affect all of us in some way. I’m, at heart, a “theatre person”. I was drawn to theatre in Junior High School and studied it long enough to get a Master of Fine Arts in Stage Direction. It’s the one thing that I’m REALLY passionate about it because as Shakespeare noted, “all the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players”. Think about the universality of that line for just a moment. Think about the types of “theatre” that play out around us every day in today’s world. The dramatic, the comedic, the absurd, the existential, the gorilla theatre (it’s a thing, look it up) that is pumped into our Smart Phones, TV’s, Radios, and PC’s every minute of every day.
Think about the tremendous forces that “play” upon us - trying to first discover, then channel, feed, nurture, and finally harvest our will power and biases in order to move forward the agendas of leaders we will likely never meet. Think of all these forces (behind the scenes of course) and how they use the basic tools of theatre to work their “magic” on the course of humanity. Emotionally charged content matched to carefully measured and controlled presentations.
With that in mind (and to hopefully counter the more insidious agendas), I bring you the Frame of Reference "Family" of podcasts, where the voices of our local and global leadership can share their passion for why and how they are leaders in their community and in many cases, the world. Real players with real roles in a world of real problems. No special effects, no hidden agenda, just the facts and anecdotes that make a leader.
And at the risk of sounding trite, I sincerely thank my wife Ann and my two children Elisabeth and Josiah for continually teaching me what leadership SHOULD look like.
Frame of Reference - Profiles in Leadership
How A “Special Ops” Mindset Transforms Enterprise Tech
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What if your software teams operated like a special operations unit—small, focused, and relentless about the mission? That’s the lens Ben Johnson brings to the table as a serial technical co‑founder and CEO of Particle 41, where he’s helped launch 94 products and build elite, outcome‑driven teams across software, data, and cloud.
We dive into the turning points that shaped his leadership: learning to lead people rather than tasks, aligning cross‑functional teams to a single business outcome, and using radical visibility to dissolve silos. Ben breaks down why maximum capacity beats minimum standards and how to set smart boundaries that prevent burnout while accelerating delivery. He shares a practical framework for managing resistance during automation and AI rollouts, using the seven primal questions to address fear and designing incentives around total output so experts become quality stewards, not casualties of change.
You’ll also hear how open source habits inside the enterprise—transparent architecture, discoverable repos, fast code reviews—unlock autonomy and speed to trust. We talk about decision paralysis in middle management, why “own the outcome” beats “own the function,” and the Be–Do–Have identity shift that turns elite performance into a habit. Along the way, Ben opens up about faith, purpose, and the kind of legacy that lasts: families that thrive, teams that grow, and systems that keep compounding long after handoff.
If you’re navigating AI, RPA, or just need a cleaner path from idea to impact, this conversation is a playbook. Subscribe for more candid, practical episodes, share this with a leader who needs it, and leave a review with your biggest bottleneck—we’ll tackle it on a future show.
Thanks for listening. Please check out our website at www.forsauk.com to hear great conversations on topics that need to be talked about. In these times of intense polarization we all need to find time to expand our Frame of Reference.
Well, welcome everyone. Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome. How many times has that been? So, two frame of reference profiles and leadership. We're we're I I don't know how to explain this, but I just keep having, you know, interesting guest after interesting guest. And after a while you start to think, well, gosh, I hope I'm interesting enough for all of those people to want to be a guest. And thankfully, so far I'm holding up. So I'm I'm feeling good about that. But today's guest is no exception to the the uh uh the what what do you call that when you've got a thing going, right? To the uh Ben, help me out. What's the word I'm trying to think of for this? You know, the the pattern. There you go, the pattern. That works, that works, okay. Uh Ben Jansen is here. Ben is the CEO co-founder or founder of Particle 41, which that's one of my questions is what is Particle 41 to give more of the backstory of that. But he is a serial technical co-founder with a track record of success in hands-on open source programming. And I have to tell you, Ben, I was thinking when I saw that serial technical co-founder thing, I thought, you know, it'd be like when you're walking into your house and you say, What's that in your bushes over there? Oh, and it's nothing, it's just a serial, you know, technical co-founder. That's all don't worry about that. So yeah, when you see the word serial in front of things, you always have to kind of think, okay, are we talking the stuff you eat or the stuffing that usually doesn't turn out so well for the person being tracked? So uh, but he has 20 plus years as a software developer and a leader, and he has gained extensive experience with remotely distributed developmental teams. So we'll talk about some dev stuff as we go along here. And my favorite topic, business hacks. I love hacks in general. That's just uh it's a way to make life more doable, I think, these days is to what's your hack? Do you have enough hacks to handle today's hack needs? So, Ben, thank you so much for joining us.
SPEAKER_01:My pleasure. My pleasure.
SPEAKER_00:Did I miss anything in that uh 10-minute uh elevator speech there?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no. So um I'll first start out with the serial technical co-founder thing. Um, the serial does mean crazy. Um I'm crazy enough to have found uh entrepreneurs that have a really good idea but don't necessarily know how to do the tech side of it. Uh and I have partnered with them. Um I I've had five, you know, kind of five runs where where I met a founder, an entrepreneur that had an amazing idea. They said, hey, this is what I want to make happen. And then I partnered with them at a really early stage. We went and uh and made it happen. And um, and so it it derives from being a serial entrepreneur, but uh usually it's not necessarily a serial entrepreneur would be somebody really good at identifying a specific idea in a specific market segment in an industry that they're really familiar with. And I tend to be the running back behind that guy. Okay, okay um and so uh and now I own my own services firm, Particle 41. And where that name came from um is uh, you know, I was uh I'll actually tell this as a story. I was reading the Daniel Suarez book, uh Influx. Great, great, just entertaining sci-fi book. And at the beginning of the book, without spoiling it, um, in the very first chapter, this uh the scientist who's ends up being the main character of the story, he in invents anti-gravity. And the lab where he does this is lab 44. So I'm like, I've been thinking about uh my services firm and what I wanted to name it, and um and I knew my run at a at one of my startups was coming to an end. We were about to exit, and so I was like, man, let me look at this idea of science and lab. And and and so I looked at the periodic table and um started investigating different elements, and I came across uh the 41st element in the periodic table, which is niobium. And I didn't really want to call the business that.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, what do you do for a living? Well, I'm a niobian you know, digger, yeah, yeah, miner. Where where are the big deposits of niobian? Are they is that something that was recently discovered? 41 is pretty low on the periodic table, so it has to have been around for quite a while.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no, uh, and I don't think it takes much. Uh I don't think it takes much of that particular type of metal uh to uh to give it the qualities. Um I think you're talking about a very small amount of niobium.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:Uh and so yeah, we we uh we sell uh high functioning out basically we sell teams that are aligned to an outcome. And so inside of enterprise companies, uh enterprise tech companies, we align to an outcome and we manage a team that's gonna go after that that mission. Cool. So we're kind of like special operators in software, data, and cloud and this internet space.
SPEAKER_00:See, it's it's fascinating doing this show for no other reason. You find out about all sorts of niche things that you didn't know about and think, my God, how do we ever get by without that before? And I don't understand. How did I not know about this? So my wife will tell you why I didn't know about it because I'm too busy watching Star Trek reruns. But anyways, so so well we always like to start with the uh the my favorite things, just so people get an idea of where where my guests are coming from. So and this is very Roshaktian and on just whatever it goes, it goes. Uh there's no right or wrong answer unless it's an answer that you think will be offensive to somebody you love dearly. Then you know you can rethink that if you'd like. That's fine. That's fine. I understand those things. So all right, let's start out with something easy. How about a favorite fruit?
SPEAKER_01:So I love pears. Right. I'm a big pear guy. Yeah, love pears. But um, you know, the the the correctness of a pear is a very short window, right? Where it's it's juicy but not overly, you know, overly firm. Yeah. And then uh, you know, within like this short window, then it goes to like grainy and mushy. So I love the perfectly ripe pear. Uh and my my grandmother would make pear preserves where she would slice them long ways, sure, and then put them in some uh, you know, high fructose corn syrup or something with some clove and maracino sherries. And it was just a great thing to have on on toast. Uh totally not diet approved today, but most of the stuff my grandmother made would not be diet approved today.
SPEAKER_00:You know, I I had a grandma the same way. Grandma LeBrush, I'm sure she used to fry bacon, you know, in pans and then she would take the bacon grease and fry other things in the bacon grease. So, you know, and all I can say is she lived to be 96 and she was as small as a bug until the end of her life. So I there couldn't have been all bad with that. So how about favorite words to live by or a motto?
SPEAKER_01:So um, you know, it's so funny. I always have these uh in a in a certain particular context. Um because my family, uh, my wife and I have uh just invested a lot of time and energy into personal development. So we have a ton of things like this, but they usually are anchored into a particular context.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:Um we're we're Christians, so there's you know, the golden rule is a very biblical thing. Um and uh and so you know, we in our personal development journey, we've come up with a purpose statement. She has hers, I have mine.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:And so that's how I'll answer this is my purpose is to glorify God by helping others overcome their greatest challenge and accomplish their life's ambition. And um, that's just what, you know, just that's my purpose. If I'm having a conversation with somebody about a challenge or something they want to achieve, and I'm able to uh lead them through that, coach them through that, that just gets that that's what gets me up in the morning.
SPEAKER_00:Well, and the litmus test is well done, thy good and faithful servant, right? By the end of the story. That'd be good. I I I think most people would long to hear those words. How about do you have a favorite recording artist?
SPEAKER_01:Um so right now my family and and and also I am into Force Frank really heavy. He's a a Christian pop artist that's gotten really popular. Um and I also uh just found this guy in in Christian music, just because it's Christian music doesn't mean it's good, right? Like we we've we've gotten through all the Amy Grants and the Michael W. Smiths, and finally we're getting something that uh is is interesting and musically interesting as well as vocal. Um and so Cokey, I just learned about this guy, Cokey, that's got a more of an alternative tone to his music. Okay, uh, but we're super into Christian music and and some of this um new independent uh Christian music that's just got a more uh more interesting uh you know musical interest. Um what's how do you spell Cokey? It's uh C O Q U I.
SPEAKER_00:C-O-C-U-I? Okay. It's uh my wife and I are always looking for you artists as well. I've been a big Stephen Curtis Chapman fan forever. So, and uh I've appreciated the fact that his music has kind of always been on a different track. He hasn't stayed with one thing for too long. Um, but I'm not I'm a guitar player too, so I have a soft spot for you know anyone that can play guitar way better than I can. So you certainly can do this. So but uh how about a uh do you have a favorite um place to go when you need to de-stress or when you you know just have a an a hankering to kind of just get your head back together?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, for me it's like this um around my neighborhood and uh the next I have a like a two-mile walk track.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:Um and I always go the same way. It just uh like my my body might can walk it and my mind can kind of dig in. Um so I don't have to think about where I'm going or and it just like I get to walk through the neighborhood. Um and then uh we've invested in a in a pretty uh like a a garage gym that's kind of a Shangri-la. It's as a uh uh kind of a pain cave that's pretty pretty fun. So I I do spend quite a bit of time in there. We have a treadmill and a bike and a squat rack and some holy things. And so yeah, getting in there and and de-stressing is is part of it.
SPEAKER_00:I have not heard the word pain cave before. I you know, I don't know where I've been, but I that speaks volumes about on road pain cave. Are you sure? Yes, I'm sure. No pain, no game. So how about um do you have a a favorite movie?
SPEAKER_01:I do. Uh Goodwill Hunting is my is my favorite movie. That's a favorite movie of all time, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, fascinating movie when you think about the uh I I read somewhere too that that last line um that Robin Williams says, which is you know kind of a neckletive, but that came out of his improv work. And they the minute they tried a bunch of different things when he finally said that last one, you just stole my line or whatever, that was that was totally impromptu. So that's kind of an interesting thing. But uh perfect ending for it too, come to think of it. But um last thing, how about is there a favorite memory that you have that um, you know, the kind of thing I I think of this stuff like bread is one of for me is really uh evokes a lot of good memories because I think of my grandma and my grandma LeBrush was always faking bread, and when he'd go to visit her when I was, you know, quite a bit younger, um, you knew it was a special day when you could wake up and smell the bread going because you, you know, that was just she had this French recipe that was just wonderful. So if I ever smell anything that's even close to Grandma LeBrush's bread, it just right away takes me back there and it's like I want to just sit here for a little bit. Do you have that kind of memory or thing in your life?
SPEAKER_01:I I do, I do, but it's captured in a picture. So, you know, in my teen teenage years, as many teenagers do, my life is horrible because my parents are awful. And uh I think I was uh kind of complaining about my dad, and my mom sent me a picture, uh, and it was I was uh I had my head on my dad's leg, you know, on the couch, and I was kind of I was taking a nap with my head on on his leg and he was reading the Bible. And so my mom was just reminding me, my parents have been married uh, you know, 50 years, and uh she was just reminding me that my dad is faithful, faithful to her, faithful to the family, faithful to um just is a faithful guy. And um it gave me a little bit, it gave me this kind of like wave of gratitude around who my dad is and what his strengths are, and gratitude just erodes criticism. It's like you can't be grateful and hypercritical in that kind of victim mindset way. Gratitude's a is an antidote for that. Yeah, and so yeah, whenever uh so I just think of that as like this awesome memory. We didn't have a lot of money. Uh my dad wasn't necessarily like a business guy uh that turned into like what worldly success would look like, but he was an extremely uh faithful guy. And in our family, we talked about everything. We talked about faith, we talked about just we had um, you know, and and my wife's family wasn't like that. So I've also become to uh to appreciate this open candor and depth of conversation that I grew up with. Um, and so uh yeah, so I just think of that picture of how I was at peace because my dad was faithful.
SPEAKER_00:Well, you think of that song by uh if or by bread, you know, if a a picture's worth a thousand words, then why can't I paint you? Kind of thing. And yeah, that would be yeah, it uh my uh my dad was I have similar memories of him. Uh and it's interesting when you, you know, when you we don't, I don't think we ever do spend enough time thinking about how God has prepared us, how God has, you know, put all these different things and people in our lives. And as an old pastor friend of mine used to say, God doesn't really care too much about your your care, your circumstances. He cares about your character. And I think about all those people that shape our character as our lives go along. And it's really, it just when I stop and think about it long enough, it's just so amazing to contemplate God's awesomeness, that he knew exactly who to put where, when, and how. And then, you know, our our parents are kind of the embodiment of that, right? Your mom knew exactly what you needed to see, you know, how you needed to see it in order to get the message across that you're now carrying with you how many years later, right? It's just uh it's a phenomenal thing. And if you don't know that that's a God thing, then you need to figure something out. So I'm gonna just go through that.
SPEAKER_02:I agree with that.
SPEAKER_00:So, how about let's talk about some of the things behind particle 41? Um, how tell me about the journey to that? How do you you said a little bit about that, but where did you start out in this whole process and what were kind of the the milestones do you think in terms of getting to where you are today? And maybe even where do you think it's gonna take you in the next 10, 20, 30 years?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, uh would love to talk about that. So um as I uh as I came out of college, I got involved in well, while I was in college, I got involved in a little consultancy, a little services shop in the dot com bubble.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:And uh didn't have a whole lot of experience. So I was observing some uh some some missteps and underfooting of projects and just so I got kind of like a don't do that because that doesn't work. And so then I wanted to go get my first, you know, real gig. And so I found an entrepreneur that was trying to build an online travel agency.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:And uh, you know, he had he just happened to be located in Odessa, Texas, which if you know this area, it's like the armpit of the United States. It's where the pump jacks are pulling the oil. Oh and the the dirt just the dirt in the air just gives you allergies immediately, right? It's it's just one of those kind of rougher places to live. Um and uh and they had a they they wanted to build a data center in a in a local building. And so we did that. We built a$70 million travel business and uh learned a ton of stuff. Uh eventually they hired a CTO that was a Harvard undergrad, uh uh MIT undergrad, Harvard MBA. And he just tore me apart and put me back together again, got me to really think about leadership and leading the team and not trying to have everybody make me productive, but how I needed a lead to help everybody be productive. And uh some of the people that I still work with, including my business partner in Particle 41, was my offshore counterpart at that company. Wow. And uh and then as I went to different businesses, I started to notice my role as a leader uh to understand what the business required, what the outcome that the business was trying to accomplish was. And then I started doing this, you know, for five, five businesses over the years. And then as people would experience my uh, you know, experience my style, then they'd go somewhere else and they'd say, Hey, would you build a team for me? So really particle 41 came out of, hey, I've done this uh several times. Why don't I have a business that just does this? So I just started branding what what I was doing is I was figuring out what the the outcome really needed to be to accomplish the business goal. And then I was creating the team that would get them there.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:And uh and so Particle 41 is just really started out a hey, we want to have this really flexible engagement model where people can come to us with a business outcome or a product they're trying to build. And now we've launched 94 products to market. Uh, and we've served uh so served uh a bunch of customers. We run about 25 active engagements. And as far as the future is concerned, I just want to do more of that. I want to do more uh helping businesses accomplish these outcomes. And we do focus on custom software, data, and cloud solutions. So our the services that we offer are really diverse. I mean, I could give you this laundry list of different technologies we work on and it would kind of choke you. My marketing guy hates it. But what we really specialize in are these teams aligned to those outcomes.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:So an enterprise company comes to us and says, Hey, I want to accomplish this. We say, Cool, we'll give you the little SEAL team six. And my mentors, the the mentors that I've gone out to go find generally have come from the special operations community. So my CEO coach, uh former Green Beret, um, all my other brothers, my dad, all served in the military. And so uh we started talking about the difference between a special operator and the regular army because that's how we wanted to uh to differentiate ourselves. We want to be more like a special operator, and um not to uh not to throw shade on regular army servicemen. That's not my intention, but there is a different mindset. Um, my brother is a chief warrant officer in the army, and so I talked to him about this, right? When a regular army guy shows up for the PT test, they know exactly the number of push-ups or sit-ups or running and what the time cutoff is. They know the minimum standard. A special operator knows their maximum capacity, right? And that's the difference here is like what is my what is my maximum capacity? Like, what am I really capable of if I give it everything that I have versus what's that minimum standard? And so we're always talking about are we just functioning according to the minimum standard or are we trying to do whatever it takes to accomplish our client's mission?
SPEAKER_00:Okay. Do you sound that there's any uh I mean, I think of in I the IT work that I do, that maximum capacity is like a great benchmark to have, but you have to be careful that you don't run at maximum capacity all the time, you know, because you get to a point where you burn things out pretty quickly. Um is there is there a point there where you where you're trying to you know scale to maximum capacity and yet still find nominal capacity or nominal you know workflow kinds of things that will keep that you know burnout from happening?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Um, so where I go with that is no, I I don't want people like working eight hours a week. But our maximum capacity tells us where our boundaries need to be. It informs us what our boundaries need to be. Okay. And so yeah, we want to work smart, not just hard.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_01:Um, and so people think of special operators as being able to, you know, run a hundred miles or whatever. Um, but no, a special operator is also really interested in efficiency towards the mission. So if they didn't have to run 100 miles and accomplish the mission, that would be the solution they would look for, right? Because they know the the boundaries of uh of their team's capabilities. And um, so I really think as we think not just about the minimum standard, but we think about our maximum capacity, then we get this really cool discussion around intelligent boundaries to accomplish the mission efficiently with the right cost structure and within the budget. Okay. And really, special operators are all about operating their mission within constraints, within these real world constraints and taking all that into account.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:Um, and and constructing the mission plan with all those things in mind.
SPEAKER_00:It's interesting. I mean, I keep thinking of a conversation I had a few weeks ago with a gentleman who was a former Canadian sniper that had been trained as a US Ranger. Um, and you know, his perspective. And one of the things he said that fascinated me was that as a sniper, what people don't realize is that it's not about the moment of you know acquisition of, you know, the actual the reason you're there, the person that you're after, or the the operation. You have to be thinking about the entire operation, both the getting in, you know, conserving resources, being aware of your team members and their contribution, things that they need to do, keeping your team members safe, getting to the point of you know of you know the operation occurring and then being able to get back out. And you know, I thought, boy, that is that's gotta be an incredible amount of preparation, both mentally, you know, psychologically, physically. But then that, you know, that that gave me a whole different sense of, you know, it isn't just about firing a bullet. It's about that whole effort that it takes to get to the point where you can do that and then recovering from it in a way that leads to other missions, right? So yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And and to apply that same metaphor to uh digital execution or uh you know, executing these software projects, what we're what we are doing in a way is much like a Green Beret. So a Green Beret will drop behind enemy lines, they will recruit the uh the local militia, and then they will there'll be a force multiplier with the the local folks. So when we are deployed inside of a inside of a company, we're trained in training. So we're trying to help everybody uh accomplish this mission, even the folks that aren't necessarily on our team, but that are adjacent to us, the the the other guys that might be W-2 employees or they might be responsible for the IT or the security. Those might not be air quotes our guys, but those are the people we're influencing to or according to the mission. Sure. And so that's a lot different than uh, you know, deploy a ton of people. This is what the regular army does, right? Deploy a ton of people, worry about how to care and feed for them, how to get them supplies. That's just a different model. Right. And we wanted to model a little more off of this elite, uh, elite technical fighting force.
SPEAKER_00:Sure. Well, yeah, it's the difference between uh, you know, brute force and uh, you know, strategic surgery, essentially surgical maneuver, right? So yeah.
SPEAKER_01:The other day I was sitting around uh uh we had a uh like a lunch at a round table with a bunch of different executives, and we just asked the executives, like, what's your biggest pain point? And uh and we teed it up in a way where you know we weren't leading the answer or anything, but but they said, look, I know what I want to accomplish, I understand the outcome, but I just don't know how to get there. And they weren't just saying they didn't know technically how to get there, they didn't know how to kind of like the the idea of how to get everybody moving and rowing in the same direction. And so when we're executing, there's a big consulting component to it, or a big influence component, a big uh there's the solution, and then there's the actual delivery.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. What do you do about the the human component though, too? You know, that the leadership challenge of me, that it's it's so um, I think in some ways easy, obviously complex, but easy with the the technology, because it's all pretty much you do this, that's gonna happen. This, this, that's gonna happen. Um, the programming makes it more flexible in terms of accomplishing what you want to do. Whereas people, on the other hand, throw you loops all the time. It's like having, you know, where did that random variable come from? Oh, I see a person walked into the room. So um are your systems scaled in a way or are your the developments done to tailor to those unexpecteds and to you know get people to come along with? I know this may be threatening because this is a change. We're gonna be doing some operational things differently, but you know, what's the the the hook, if you will, that that keeps the the people like, ah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and into like, oh wow, that really will make my life easier. So yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, without giving too much of the secret sauce away, there's um there's a couple of different lenses that I look at people challenges through. Uh, there's a really cool body of work by Mike Foster called uh the primal questions. That's these seven primal questions that all humans are asking. And and most people gravitate to one. Maybe they have a pretty strong one and a and a pretty strong secondary. But to give you some flavor, those are like am I safe? Am I successful? Am I wanted? Am I needed? Uh, am I loved? And and do I have purpose? So these are the seven primal questions. So when we're looking at like organizational behavior change, we want to make sure that our plan, like and and how it's gonna impact the people who need to help us make the change, that we kind of think through each of those primal questions. Okay. The the am I safe folks? They're the ones that are like, uh-oh, am I gonna lose my job? The am I wanted? They just want to know like how they fit in uh to the to the overall plan. The am I successful people are like, hey, this is what you need to do to to win at this, to be to be good at your job. Um, and so you know, that's a lens that we look at and just kind of address uh how those questions tie in. Because those if anybody feels like they're getting a no to any of those questions, then they're gonna go into a scramble. Um and then a lot of times we're doing like these RP robotic process automations where we are really deflecting labor. Like the the technical objective is to create a software that reduces labor. And so there's no hiding that. Like we're going to help a fewer amount of people do more, uh, do more business with less teammates. And so that can be very threatening to uh folks that maybe have been doing data entry for 10 years, five years. something like that. So what we've learned in those projects is that we want to make sure that the incentive program, and this is what we advise our clients to do, is make sure that the incentive program is tied to total output. So that the the staff the the staff is going to still be rewarded by the total outcome of the system. And then we tell those folks like your purpose, what we really need from you is to monitor quality. You're still responsible for quality of the overall system. And so now we turn them into interrogators of the the uh the bots or the you know the the technology and we just maximize the feedback.
SPEAKER_03:Sure, sure.
SPEAKER_01:And then we respond quickly we you know we just okay cool thank you for that um and uh and we just address that because we actually want them to want more out of the tech right exactly not to go around it not to bypass it but and pretty soon it does take a a a little bit of time but pretty soon they realize wow I can do so much more leveraging this technology and still be incentivized and rewarded based on total output. And so we found that that and I think that's very transferable to most organizational shifts where you're automating something and uh folks are feeling a little bit threatened you know in this AI age we're entering into.
SPEAKER_00:Well it's like the classic thing too right that fear gets in the way of really intelligently assessing what this means. So I I see that with AI all the time. I mean I talk with you know numerous people oh it's that's scary stuff like no honestly it's you know yes if there aren't uh safety protocols put in place that keep it from being as corrupt as we are yeah we got big problems if that's the case. But if the AI can be you know taught and structured in a way that it assists you in what you do, boy, I'll take all the help I can get at being a better me and being more productive and accomplishing the things I want to do on a daily basis. I can believe me, I can use a lot of help in that respect. So and that is that's a mind shift right and a heart shift in some ways of being able to instead of seeing a threat, seeing the potential um which is I again I think kind of a godly perspective honestly I mean God sees the potential and so that's why he is so interested in our character you know that just he sees what we could be and we would just get the picture you know and yeah absolutely uh I think that this is this is getting more populated uh because of social media but the idea that things are happening for you not to you yeah yeah yeah why that isn't that a it's the same thing of uh I think about the uh old scripture that says you know um give thanks in all things it says don't it doesn't say give thanks for all things it's to give thanks in all things you know there's those mind shifts that have to happen for you to go oh I can't be thankful for this and this and this no no no no just be thankful in that situation you know please learn how to do that.
SPEAKER_01:What do you think are the biggest challenges for this this arena that you're in in the next in the coming years um so I I one of the shifts is is when we when we go into an enterprise um the the advantage of deploying a team like us is we're going to own the outcome end to end. That's really hard most businesses want to fracture most enterprises want to fracture into specialties the net result of that is the middle management just ends up being completely distracted. They just have the the the management wants to couple multiple things so they're just split in so many different ways and it's shifting the mindset from uh having your directors own um own folks that are capable of this level of ownership and and some trust there. And so really speed to trust is our biggest uh kind of our biggest obstacle uh that's why we invest a lot in case studies and social proof and um and just really you know want to share with people like give us the ball and we'll run with it. And and I think enterprise really uh really need to look at this because their directors are just getting crushed. Those middle managers are just uh you know trying to break up into multiple teams and then um there's a lot of favor asking you know so now you have to ask this person for this favor to get your initiative and there's just a lot of bottlenecks in the typical corporate structure. And so we just want to offer a different way of thinking where uh you can really say okay like I'm gonna give you access and some direction and you're gonna go take care of it.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. And that is probably terrifying to some people and I can see other folks potentially being on a power trip as a result of it. Um you know and I'm seeing I'm purposely kind of to think of the the things that go wrong.
SPEAKER_01:So this in how do you keep it from going wrong and make it go right is there a and maybe that's a secret sauce that we we can't no no it's uh it it's just about visibility uh so you know visibility and really articulating the and just having an open um like a really open uh so you know I was I I really have worked in open source for a long time.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:What what happens inside of corporations is they tend to have silos. So they'll they'll have this team and this team's kind of keeping their thing a secret and this team. And so the open the opening of that up and showing that and training that is a really cool thing. And so our um our longest enterprise clients have really kind of keyed into this idea of oh wow you're you know everything you're doing is exposed to everybody um I can see exactly how your system works your architecture is documented and so that openness and just having that open-handed posture when that is present in a culture these are high functioning organizations these organizations just crush it um we've we've seen organizations that invite developers from other teams to come make changes in their project of course they review those changes but when they have this open-handed uh view of execution they can actually have this person needs this thing to change they're saying hey I'll come change it so that I can keep my schedule okay cool come change it we'll review your change we'll allow this and so using this open source paradigm inside this like I've seen it work in some organization it's just phenomenal. Are there what are the warning signs for you that you uh you know the the uh red indicator lights that are flashing on the dashboard that tell you uh got to check that oil level or whatever so yeah oh there's tons of those um you know but crisis is always an opportunity um you know crisis is that's an excellent way to think of that yeah thank you you know when when you have a leader uh you know a director or a leader that can't make decisions they're just really paralyzed they don't uh they're undercommunicating they don't make mistakes that this is a really big bottleneck for the organization and oftentimes that's pretty difficult for us to fix so we look at um we we just offer to help how can we how can we help expose uh some of the the the difficulties you're going through but you know of course I've encountered some folks that are hoarding um hoarding tasks hoarding uh ownership of things like it just that will that will really uh stunt an organization and I mean I feel it too like I need to constantly look for ways to get my teammates involved in different parts of the business do I have the right people on my team do I have enough of certain types of people uh and um you know that's just like a constantly evolving thing um but yeah when when you get stuck into like uh uh being a doer and that's been a huge shift for me um and this is biblical this idea of of doing versus being so uh think about just something that you want in your life you want success right so the typical thought pattern is I do uh therefore I have therefore I I have become right I do I have I become the shift is to I am I be I am being so be and then of course then you'll do the things that are aligned to your identity and then you will have the thing that you want right so uh shifting to a be have uh a be do have uh is really really powerful so if if you wake up and you're like I am successful I already am successful and I know I am successful because of these this evidence in my life my identity is success already then you're gonna do the things aligned to that and then you will have success it just it's gonna flow from your identity right but if we're if the identity we want is somewhere out there on the horizon and we're trying to what we're really trying to correct is a belief that we are not successful right we're trying to correct this underlying uh insecurity that we're not successful so we're just trying to prove it to ourselves and um and that is a very dangerous place to be but most people are stuck in a do like a doing mentality and uh this is not a place of freedom. And so you know one of the things I am trying to do is move my team to this new way of thinking that it's not just it's not always about doing it's about it's about being and then and then doing in alignment with your identity and then you're gonna have what you want.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_01:So that that's uh that's a mindset shift um that I think is really really really powerful and that happens inside of organizations as well.
SPEAKER_00:That really resonates with my training as an actor I can tell you we're uh uh years ago being in a play uh I was doing Miss Julie and played uh Jean who's the nasty guy he's he's a nasty guy you know and you have and and in theater you have to learn that no one sees themselves as an antagonist. And uh with my acting professor that I had was boy he was a tough taskmaster but he was honest. He always gave you the real the real deal on what was going on. And there's a scene in that where I'm you know Jean he takes care of the livery so he's you know shining shoes and you know polishing up harnesses and things all the time. And I'm in there and I'm you know shining this pair of boots and uh get done and say, well Chris what'd you think? And he said wrong shine the damn shoes. So and I thought what what that's what you have to say to shine and I what he was saying was profound was be in the scene, you know, be what the scene is calling you to be and don't play at it. You know and I I sometimes I think that is part of the uh existential core of what's going on is we have so many people trying to be something that they're not and they don't even have any clue of who they are and who they you know can be by just being who they are. And it's uh it it's a phenomenally profound and simple thing at the same time. But uh yeah be to be or not to be right there we go. Yeah so yeah how is there um what kind of leadership role or or are there leaders in particular that you really admire that you're trying to kind of use as a character reference to see if you're you're making it or not?
SPEAKER_01:So you know I really so most of my team is international. And so you know I really admire the the faith face leaders uh uh I'm missing his name at the moment but the Chick fil A co-founder uh founder oh yeah yeah okay yeah I know yeah and and just folks that really embodied their their their faith and their corporate mission were really aligned. I really admire that uh and um trying to figure out the right way to do that within my organization with some with foreign nationals that um uh are not necessarily from from a uh a Christian background or Christian culture. Right. And so I want to do that in a in a respectful but uh ref respectful way but also a way that's uh true to to to who I am and what kind of leader I am. So I'm discovering that.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_01:Um and then you know I just admire uh I admire any leader that's gone from rags to riches just the the the person who and what I think folks misunderstand is you know most folks uh did not start their business with uh you know with a silver spoon.
SPEAKER_00:I mean uh most heirs don't go on to start something really great they just kind of maintain what they inherited right so when we're thinking of businesses that have really been built within the last 10 15 years to be a household brand most of those uh most of those leaders started with uh you know started with nothing yeah and and then they built built that yeah the eye of the tiger right so is there so kind of wrapping it all up there's so much we could talk about gosh in terms of AI and what's happening in that whole scene and what happens to humanity in the next you know 10 20 years is almost impossible to imagine I think at this point but let's say we are 20 30 40 however many years the Lord gives us overall is there a legacy that you hope somebody's walking by Ben Johnson's grave and says oh yeah Ben Johnson I remember he did that is is there a a a thing you would hope that beyond just what it says on the gravestone but what says on people's hearts no both those of you that are close to you but those that's also just new of you that you would want to be what they remember and what they build upon.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah um you know I don't have some legacy aspiration that um that folks would be like oh man this was the guy that created some fantastic brand because I'm so interested in contributing to you know just my my background my makeup is really finding guys that have those amazing ideas um you know those folks that I admire I want to be the running back behind them.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:So really the legacy is is built in inside the family construct, you know, my children, my children's children, and um you know just honoring the transition that my parents uh made from very broken and uh uh non-Christian homes and then they became Christian, stayed married for 50 years. And then I'm continuing that on my my older kids are doing very well um and I'm very proud of like their progress and just the language we've created around the kitchen table. And so the legacy that you get to build just inside your family there's this guy named Jonathan Edwards and he was a really prolific writer a theologian and writer he he write he wrote this really cool book about all these resolutions that he had committed to and somebody did a study uh about uh Jonathan Edwards and his 11 children and then traced 150 years uh past Jonathan Edwards and there were uh you know some number of doctors you could do this go google this some number of doctors lawyers politicians judges like the impact that that had and then they also had a murderer a famous uh kind of like murderer uh criminal uh right around the same time and then his lineage and it was all the same rapists uh kidnappers thieves uh it was just this legacy of of crime and so I often think you know we think of legacy as this thing of building uh building fantastic wealth what legacy is is the things you put in motion that continue past the you know the end of your life and I just I hope that the the businesses we're impacting are something that are are continuing uh the folks that we're helping build products for are continuing to uh past uh past our lifespan and um I love seeing where my former employees go uh a lot of my employees have gone to work at Google or Microsoft or uh you know just make really great contributions in the in the tech space.
SPEAKER_00:Um and so that's what I think think of in terms of legacy that the family is really uh your family is like your biggest uh biggest focal point of legacy yeah that's your core hey maybe it could be here lies Ben Johnson he made our ideas happen so yeah I'd be I'd be I'd be down for that Ben anything we're missing anything you want to make sure we we touch on or or wrap things up with uh how people can get a hold of you if they they want your services which I gotta believe there's at least a thousand people listening right now that are going to want that so get ready for the phone to ring.
SPEAKER_01:So yeah no uh I'm super easy to contact with uh get in get a hold of um on LinkedIn uh I I just I have a really common name okay uh so Benjamin Johnson on LinkedIn uh and I have a book appointment link easier than that though is particle41.com uh if you schedule a meeting with us I'm I'm that meeting so even just going to uh to our brand Particle 41 and booking a call uh that comes to me and so I'm really easy to get a hold of and connect with uh both on LinkedIn and off of my website.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. And that that people have to end up getting your services is there a long wait point because of the the size and complexity of the projects you're working on or do you try to not at all we're we we jump right in.
SPEAKER_01:We jump right in. We have about 125 teammates okay um all over the globe and uh yeah we're we are ready to rock if you got an idea we'll help you flush it out and get it done.
SPEAKER_00:Excellent. Well folks my guest today has been Ben Johnson not the coach of the Chicago Bears. I want to make sure that's it really clear to everyone because you know it is important. But uh Ben is cheese head that's just a really hard thing to even start to get behind, you know and I'm I'm saying but uh anywho Ben, it's been enjoy talking with you about entrepreneurship, about your your faith, your walk with God and how that's all built together to um build an exciting work. It it sounds to me like there are tons of companies that are benefiting from it now and even more exciting to think about those that'll benefit in 2026 and beyond. So um thank you so much for your time for your insights uh and you know please look us up sometime if you once you get to another milestone you want to share some more success stories. That'd be great.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah thanks for having me really appreciate it. Thanks for letting me be here today with you.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you all. Well tune in next week who knows what we're gonna have for excitement then you just have to tune in to find out thanks all take care.
